Week 18 & 19 Update

Hello my lovelies

I’ve combined my weeks 18 &19 updates, because there wasn’t a lot new to say for each separate week.

Touch wood I’ve still been healthy so far, apart from a couple of evenings of mild physical discomfort due to aches and growing pains, but nothing bad. 

My extreme tiredness has let up and other than still feeling a bit more emotional than usual, and getting used to a visible bump, I could almost forget that I’m pregnant most of the time!

I’ve started to feel movement at certain times, which is amazing. The first thing I felt were some dull kicks. But the second thing I felt really emotionally affected me….

As mentioned, Seb went away to Berlin over Easter Weekend, for our brother-in-law-to-be’s stag do. 

He was really dreading going to begin with and kept saying he wouldn’t have gone if he’d known I was going to be pregnant. 

I was quite relaxed about it as I normally really enjoy a bit of time to myself, and kept telling him to relax and enjoy it (especially as I don’t think he’ll be going out for quite a while once the baby arrives!). 

When the itinerary for the trip came through and it was something like ‘Drinking, drinking, Berlin wall, drinking, Reichstag, drinking, dinner, drinking, drinking, drinking’, he went pale, bless him. 

My Mr is not a massive drinker at the best of times, and the thought of drinking three days in a row turned him cold.

So I was most surprised, as soon as they got to the airport, to see Facebook statuses that they were all on their fourth pint already, and a picture of him shotting rum out of a hip flask in the airport taxi
queue! 

So much for good behaviour! He also managed to leave his phone in a taxi on the first night, so I didn’t hear from him all weekend, which felt very odd.

Never mind. I was looking forward to my ‘me time’ weekend. 

On Friday night, two of my oldest friends from school, Holly and Claire, came for a visit. 

Claire lives in Basingstoke and Holly in Manchester now,so we don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like, but its one of those brilliant friendships where you can pick up exactly where you left off, even after a long time. 

It was just so good to see them both – I never laugh so much as when I’m with those two.

Claire recently got engaged to her long-term boyfriend, so there was lots of celebrating to be done. 

Its funny because she’s always said she didn’t want to get married, but she said when he asked her it came from the heart to say yes, which is so lovely. 

I think her wedding will be far from traditional and amazing – her initial ideas are for a secret garden party type of wedding, which would be beautiful. 

She asked Holly and I to be her bridesmaids, which is so lovely (and made this hormonal pregnant lady shed a tear). The wedding will probably be next summer so it gives me a goal to shed my baby weight for as well!

The original plan had been for us to go out for dinner and drinks, but by the time we stopped nattering and looked at the clock, it was almost 9 oclock. 

I could have driven us into town, but do you know what we decided to do instead? 

Make a junk food raid on the all night supermarket, get into our PJs and have a sleepover, just like when we were little! We even watched ‘Clueless’, which was a complete throwback to our youths (and also much funnier than I remembered!). 

We had an absolute blast, even if our nibbles are now more ‘cheeseboard and prosecco’ than what we used to have!

In the morning, I made us all waffles and there was more gossip and fun. But after they both left, to my own surprise, I started to feel really lonely. 

Seb’s mum had invited me over for dinner, but the girls had only just left, so I didn’t go. 

Like I said, I normally love some me time and am great at entertaining myself, but I got all blue that evening and ended up just lying on the dining room floor with the cat feeling despondent! 

In the end, I decided to run myself a bubble bath and take the iPad in to watch movies. Then bed!

Not wanting to be by myself on Sunday, I drove up the A1 to visit my dad and his partner the next day. 

We had a lovely day out in their local park walking the dog and having lunch. 

They’ve just done the classic retirement thing and bought a motorhome, but I was surprised how modern and sleek it was. I think they’re already planning to take their future grandkids away in it! They go away a lot so it’s a really good choice for them.

In the afternoon, I went to my elder sister-in-laws to see everyone.
Everyone was asking my little niece Annabel “What’s in Auntie Sarah’s tummy?”, but when I suggested it was lots of food, she happily nodded along! They’ve all been telling her she’ll have a little cousin soon.

I then went to pick Seb and our brother in law Nick up from the stag’s house, they looked very tired and a little worse for wear, although they both said they didn’t drink much at all the final night.

I didn’t realise how much I’d miss Seb! It really doesn’t feel right being away from him at the moment.

Aaaanyway, back to the kicks and movement… so the baby is meant to be able to hear things from about now.

Seb was resting his head on my tummy that night in bed and calling ‘Hello Olive, can you hear me? Are you in there? Let me know if you can hear me!’ and suddenly he jumped and said “It jabbed me!”.

Of course I thought he was messing about (timing a little convenient!), but when I rested my hand on there I felt it too!

It was very different to the dull kicks before – this was a short, sharp, jabbing motion – must have been a little hand or a little elbow, and it was so definite!

I can still feel my fingertip tingling where I felt the contact. It was incredible. A little freaky because I’ve never felt anything so purposeful before, so I jumped and screamed too.

But then I began to cry happy tears! 

I genuinely felt like I’d ‘touched’ my baby for the first time, and that was overwhelming. So the stone heart is finally melting! 

It gave me an idea of what the joy will be like holding the baby for the first time, and blew me away.

Now, I’m so excited for my next scan, on Tuesday. I literally cannot wait to see the baby again and to find out if it’s a girl or a boy. Its like waiting for Christmas to come.

And its only 3 weeks until our babymoon holiday to Italy. 

I need to work out which of my holiday clothes will fit and what I can take! 

I still only have one proper maternity dress, everything else is just stretchy stuff I already own. I think I’ll be packing very light for this break!