Dear Baby

So, here was are at 23 weeks.  Your Pops Burt said to me on Sunday that he liked the counting by weeks thing, rather than by months.  But if someone prefers it, I am nearly 6 months.  5.75 months to be exact.  The third trimester is in sight.

This week mummy’s boss agreed to let her 4 days a week starting this week.  And even just the idea of it has taken a huge weight off mummy’s shoulders.  5 days a week is just making mummy tired and cranky.  Those Fridays off will be a blessing for all concerned.

And so my years leave is in sight as well.  I am so looking forward to having a whole year to spend with you, just me and you and daddy.  We’re going have such fun!

Since you are a summer baby, we’ll be going to the Botanical Gardens which are just a bit of a walk away.  And we’ll go sit on the lawn at City Hall, if we don’t feel like going all the way to the Gardens.  I imagine we’ll stroll down by the river as well.  It will be very nice.

You now have skin (who knew you didn’t have skin before?!?!) and some people say you are beginning to think.  I can’t imagine what you have to think about in there. Stocks and Bonds? The current economic crisis?  Anyway, in another week you are fairly viable outside of mummy, but please stay in there until you’re completely done.  Thanks!

Overall mummy doesn’t feel too awful!  She’s tired.  And has to go to the loo every 2 minutes.  But other than that she feels pretty good.  Ready to meet you for sure!

Mummy and Daddy made the first major purchasing decision this weekend, when we pick out your Pram.  Since we don’t have a car, you’ll be in that pram quite a bit, I think.  Unless I do follow through with the whole sling idea.  Anyway, its pretty high tech and wicked cool looking, so I think you’ll like it!

23 weeks down, 17 to go.

Love

Mummy

Dear Baby

This week has not been easy for Mummy.  She’s been feeling very poorly and kind of ‘off’.  Sniffles and total exhaustion.  And she is still waiting for her 2nd trimester burst of energy.  Since she is 2 weeks from being in the third trimester, I don’t think she’s going to get it.

This week you are about 19 cm long and weigh about 460g.  A whole pound!!!  You now have eyebrows and you are certainly moving around a lot in there!

You are most active over Mummy’s lunchtime, so around 11:30 – 1:30.  Mummy is hoping this means you will sleep well at night once you are born, but she can find nothing to support this theory!  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.  Although she rarely, if ever, feels you move after dinner or during the night.  Unlike your Aunt A’s baby, who is due around the same time you are.  Aunt A’s been getting woken up at night.  I appreciate you not doing that!

Daddy is waiting very anxiously to feel you move.  So if you could kick Mummy harder, he’d appreciate that!

22 weeks gone…18 weeks to go.

Love

Mummy

Dear Baby

What a week we had!  The big scan, mummy’s 40th birthday, and snow in Belfast!  I hope the snow bit happens again sometime once you are in school, because there isn’t anything as magical as a snow day!

And we’re past the 1/2 way mark now.  Mummy is still waiting, very impatiently, for the 2nd trimester burst of energy everyone is promising her.  She doesn’t think she’s going to get it.

At 21 weeks you are about 18 cms long.  You have eyelids, but they are still fused closed, so your eyes aren’t open yet. This is probably a good thing.  Its not like you have a TV in there!!

This week you have also, apparently, learned to stand on mummy’s bladder.  Cuz she’s heading to the loo every hour or so.  Stop that, okay?

Mummy has been thinking a lot this week about what it means to be your mummy.  She keeps remembering this scene from the old TV show, Mad About You.  Paul and Jamie are expecting their first baby and Jamie suddenly realizes she’s the mummy and she has a total freak out over it.

I’m not freaking out at all.  I want to be your mummy.  I can’t wait to be your mummy.  I will always be your mummy.  Even when I’m 80 and you’re 40? I’ll still be your mummy.

Which brings me to the next thing I’ve been thinking about this week.

I’ve said in a previous post that you being born in a year that ends with 9 will test my maths skills.  Only, it won’t.  Because I will always be exactly 40 years older than you! Easy peasy to remember your age now! 🙂

So 19 weeks to go.  And I’m still counting every day until then.

Love

Mummy

Dear Baby

Well, here we are, 1/2 way through.  Only 20 weeks to go!

At this point you are about 320 grams and 16cm long.  From what I understand, you are about 1/2 the length that you will be once you are born.

Today was our ‘big scan’.  We saw your profile and your arms and legs.  There is one great scan pic, which I will put up tomorrow, that shows you with your hand on your forehead, like you are totally verklempt!  All of your bits and pieces are exactly where they need to be.  Your heart has four chambers, your brain has all its lobes.  Now if you would only kick hard enough for your daddy to feel!

And right on schedule, mummy’s insulin needs increased.  They say insulin resistance starts at 20 weeks as your placenta gets stronger and what do you know?  Last Friday I woke up to crazy numbers that never went away so I called and spoke to the Diabetic Education centre (who have been treating mummy very well all through her pregnancy with you) and they suggested an insulin increase.  And that it was because you were having a growth spurt!

This week is mummy’s 40th birthday.  Try to go easy on your old mum, huh?  She’ll be a bit older than a lot of your friend’s mums.  Hopefully that won’t bother you too much!

Daddy thinks I should write these down on paper, as well as store them here, because he is worried the technology will have changed too much for you to read this when you’re old enough to understand it.  I figure if we get to that point, I’ll just print these pages out!

So you keep on growing in there, okay?  And remember…

I love you.

Mummy

Dear Baby

I’ve been wanting to write to you for awhile, so we can look back together when you’re older and you’ll know how it felt to have you inside of me.  But I was afraid to until I got that glorious number last week, that 1:1002 of low risk for genetic disorders.

If the odds hadn’t been that good your daddy and I would have had to make the hardest decision we’ve ever had to make.  Do we risk an amnio and possible miscarriage or do we just see what happens? I, and your daddy, are so relieved that we never have to make that decision.

The 19 weeks gestational is an estimate as well.  You see, I use Tuesday as your weekly age day as when I had my second scan, the one where you had a good strong heartbeat for sure, you were exactly 7 weeks.  Since then the dates have moved around a bit, but only by a few days here and there.  So I decided, rather than recalculating all the time, to call Tuesdays as your day.  And so every Tuesday your daddy and I look in the pregnancy week by week book to see how big you are and what bits of you have developed.

This week, week 19, you are starting to develop muscle, which I knew because you are poking me a lot!  And you’re getting some fat deposits, to make you look more like a baby and less like a skeleton!!  You weigh about 260 grams and are about 15 cm long.

As I mentioned, in the past week you’ve been poking the heck out of me! I love it!  Well, I must admit I didn’t so much love it at 3am the other day, but I think that was because my bladder was full and you didn’t have any room!!!

I, of course, think about you every day.  And talk to you, even though you can’t quite hear me yet.  I think about how many people, besides me and your daddy, already love you.  6 grandparents, 16 aunts and uncles, and 13 cousins!  Including one cousin who will be born either right after or right before you!  How lucky are you?

I am counting the weeks and days until June, my little one.  And then I get to meet you.

Love

Mummy