The Pregnant Pause | Week 28 Update

Even though I meant to do regular pregnancy update posts, like I did when I was expecting my son Theo, here we are at week 28 and this is only my second post about my pregnancy journey with my little girl!

Time really is shooting by, and I’m now in the third trimester, which means we’re on the home straight. It’s less than three months until my daughter will be here..
We’re so much more laid back this time that we haven’t really done a huge amount to really prepare. I’ve finally figured out which room will be her nursery, but I’m yet to redecorate it. I’m going to be using some leave from work to go part time during June, so I guess I’m thinking I’ll do it then.

I’ve had a few complications since my last update, all to do with my back. Back pain has been a feature, on and off, throughout this pregnancy, but on Easter Weekend, it really got bad. 

It was so severe I couldn’t get out of bed when I woke up on the Sunday. Sebastian had to literally pull me out of bed, and when he did the pain was so bad I thought I was going to throw up. I couldn’t even get dressed myself. I had been to a few pharmacies to try and get help as paracetamol wasn’t touching the pain, but none of them would give me anything - no gels, no heat packs, no mini tens machines. Nothing. 

I ended up having to go to the emergency doctors, and I was hurting so much and so frustrated with it all that I burst into tears as soon as I sat down in the surgery.

Luckily, the GP I saw was really helpful (if he was phased by the bawling pregnant woman sat in his office, he didn’t show it!). It turned out the problem is to do with my sacral nerve. There’s a joint between your pelvis and your spine that is normally fused and largely immobile, but with all the weird pregnancy hormones that make your bones more bendy to help with giving birth, this can come loose and compress the nerve. 

He prescribed me codeine, which freaked me out a bit because it’s pretty heavy duty and when the pharmacy won’t even give you some Voltarol gel it seemed quite extreme. However, it did do the trick in terms of dulling the pain and giving me some relief. I’ve also been booked in for some obstetric physiotherapy at the hospital, although my appointment isn’t for ages. 

Thankfully, in the meantime the pain subsided. I took myself off the codeine, because it doesn’t seem like a particularly great thing to be constantly on when you’re pregnant and it was making me very drowsy, which isn’t really manageable if you work full time and have an active toddler! 

If you’re still on it when you give birth, your baby can be born addicted to it which I hate the sound of. I must confess I also wanted to save a few tablets in case I woke up and couldn’t move again. 

Having a bad back is really debilitating and has made me feel so old! So little miss hasn’t been quite as easy to carry as her brother. We’ll see how the labour compares!

On top of that, my old friend the acid reflux has returned and I’m waking up at 3.30 or 4am most mornings, so I’m really tired at the end of the day and getting quite uncomfortable now. From that perspective it seems like the final three months might be a bit of a battle! 

We’ve pretty much chosen a name- it was the plan to make a short list and decide when she was born, like we did with Theodore. However, there’s one name in particular that we both like and I’ve found that we are both referring to the baby by that name, so it would feel a little odd to suddenly change it now! It also makes it more real to Theo if the baby is called something. But we’re still going to keep quiet until she’s here, just in case we change our minds! 

We have been buying a few clothes and bits and pieces, but with twin baby cousins a few months older, there’s going to be no shortage of hand me downs so we haven’t gone too crazy so far. I’m sure this baby will also wear quite a few of Theo’s old things as well. 

He definitely knows his little sister is on her way, and he’ll often give my tummy a quick cuddle. With having babies in the family, I think he sort of understands what it will all mean (although he may not understand that baby is here to stay at first!). 

The other day, we were actually talking about Santa while he was in the bath (he has a favourite bath toy that he was given when he went to meet Santa last Christmas). I asked him who would be going with him next year to meet Father Christmas and he said ‘baby sister’ without any kind of hint from me! So he really does understand, but we’re very conscious of making it easy for him too at a time of a bit of change and uncertainty. 

The baby will definitely be bringing him some kind of present - I’m thinking either a micro-scooter or possibly one of those floor mats printed with roads that he can play with his cars on. Theo is so cute and funny right now, and it’s making us really excited to have our daughter too and be even more of a family unit. 

Not long to go now!