During the 18th week of pregnancy, a lot of my thoughts turned to: OH HOLY SHIT. I AM ALMOST HALF WAY THROUGH THIS PREGNANCY ALREADY. I’VE DONE SHIT ALL TO GET READY FOR THIS BABY.
Very helpful thoughts, obviously.
Then I’d calm down and remind myself that I wanted to find out the sex of my baby first, before buying too much stuff or planning on how to decorate. Not that I am too fussed about the whole pink vs blue thing or the full on gender stereotypes (in fact I think that I can be a bit of a rebel), but it was a good way to procrastinate guilt free for a bit longer haha.
This week it really felt like my belly was streeeeetching and with that stretching came some itchiness in my stretchy areas. I also had some itching in the areas that can get a bit hot/humid. Arm pits, backs of my knees (weirdly), other less dignified creases. I’d happily not bring this up, because it can be embarrassing (and not very glam) but I didn’t talk about similar symptoms when I was pregnant with the Little Mister right away and I think it gave the itchiness too much power. Maybe I’m weird but I am a person who finds itchiness to be the worst psychological torture you can imagine (from a privileged first world point of view of course).
Gotta keep it real.
I’m probably not overreacting (much), because during my first pregnancy, I suffered from the PUPPP rash – most women get it from about 35 weeks pregnant and it lasts until they give birth. For me, it came at 20 weeks!! It’s a severe rash and it involved a panicked trip to a dermatologist (after suffering way too long because I had no idea what to do and neither did a lot of GPs I saw while my doc was on leave) who had to prescribe me a strong steroid cream because it was the only thing that would help. It was hell on earth.
Anyway, this severe rash had seemingly started with the itching symptoms I have described above, so I was paranoid for most of the week. I had to keep reminding myself that lots of women feel overheated or get dry, sensitive or stretchy skin when pregnant. It doesn’t have to eventuate into a big fuck off rash situation. It might, but it doesn’t automatically mean it will.
So I’m avoiding soap in the shower (no I do not stink – I use soap free lotions to clean myself) and using a light moisturiser on my problem areas. I’m also avoiding tight pants or jeans. Luckily, spring weather is arriving so this isn’t too hard to do. Wish me luck!
This week, Mr Unprepared felt his first kick from the outside of my belly. I find when the baby moves much lower down in my uterus, you can feel it more. It was a fleeting moment but a special one. I am sure there will be many more where that came from over the coming weeks!
One day shy of 19 weeks along, I had my anatomy scan. We had been very excited about this because we hoped to find out the sex of the baby (and I would have no choice but to face the fact that my procrastination period would be over haha). We went in and it was so awesome to see how the baby had grown so much since my 12 week scan. Seeing it move, hearing the heart beat, having the sonographer tell us everything was measuring beautifully and everything was looking healthy was fantastic. The baby was not very cooperative at times and really didn’t want to pose for photos or be easily nailed down (that’s a terrible use of words) for measurements of certain things and it freaked me out about future personality issues hahaha.
Eventually, we heard the words…
“I can tell you that you are definitely having a little girl.”
Neither Mr Unprepared or I could hide our shock or our excitement. I had secretly hoped that one day we’d have one of each, but it just didn’t seem like it could happen (I mean I know scientifically it can but I just didn’t think it could happen to us). I’d been ready to love and embrace another boy because we had been through so much that any healthy baby would be more than enough – preferring a gender just seemed greedy. Not that a baby won’t be whoever they are as they grow up (regardless of their body parts), but I guess I did appreciate my brother and I being ‘one of each’ and I was happily a breaker of stereotypes anyhow – still am. The Little Mister had expressed this desire quite openly. He wanted our family to have a boy and a girl. A brother and a sister. I was overjoyed for him (and relieved we weren’t going to have to work through any disappointments with him).
We whooped a bit and looked at each other like, WOW. THIS IS AMAZING. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT.
We told our loved ones right away and everyone was so excited. There are so many males in both our families that everyone is excited each time a girl gets added to the mix (things are slowly evening up)!
We are over the moon and I still can’t believe I will have a girl! I can’t believe my husband will have a girl! This will be so good for him haha. I think he will be smitten. I think he already is!
We went to lunch to celebrate (I had a fancy mocktail) and before we knew it we were talking names and giggling over the bad ideas we found in our new baby names book!
We told the Little Mister on the way home from school and his face lit up. He exclaimed, “YAY!” and told us that he was more excited than when we told him I’m pregnant. It was very sweet.
What have you been up to this week? Would you want to find out the gender ahead of your baby’s birth?
