The pregnancy diaries mk II :-D.

Well, where there is the first version for the first child, there has to be a second one for the second right? Its only fair methinks :-D. Plus today is the day I complete 36 weeks, so the bun in the oven is officially full-term and ready to pop :-D. But I'm hoping it'll stay snug and tight in there for 3 more weeks atleast mainly because my dad and Darsh are heading over here in 2 weeks (I can't wait!! After a long time we'll all be together as a family for a solid 2.5 months!). But on the other side, there's the fact that I suffer from heartburn and swollen legs everyday without fail (my legs are swollen but my BP is completely normal, go figure!) and I'm literally tired of being so tired ;-). The doc asks me to sleep with my legs up to help with the swollen leg syndrome and asks me to raise my upper body for the heartburn. I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep with only my stomach lowered and upper and lower body raised :-p. I keep muttering to myself "just one more month to go", but am well aware of the reality that the only thing thats going to change is that one kind of trouble is going to be transformed into another kind ;-) :-p.

Anyways lets get on with what we are here for the pregnancy this time around :).

• The day I took my pregnancy test and it turned out to be positive. Even though it was for the second time, there was lot of happiness because we had been trying for sometime before striking the lottery :-D. Since I wanted to announce it to both families as soon as possible, I took a doctor's appointment immediately. When the doctors confirmed the news, there was excitement, maybe not as much as the first time, but lots nevertheless. The worry about how we are going to manage has not been as bad as I had last time, basically because we have been through so much with Snugli and are sure of our abilities. But there have been times when I have wondered whether 2 kids are going to be a bit too much to handle :).



• The day I had my first ultrasound. This time around the first ultrasound was done at about 7 weeks to make sure the baby was ok and its heart was beating properly. The experience was emotional, because after 3 years it felt good to be back seeing the baby in its earliest form. Yeah it wasn't as overwhelming as the first time (yeah yeah I know I'm comparing everything, but I wanted to record the changes in me ;-) :-D). In some ways it was different, but in others we were back to being first time parents - We could see just a finger-sized clump on the monitor with a heart beating, literally jumping out of the tiny body. Again we were relieved that there was only one ;-). Just 4 weeks later, when 3 nurses weren't able to find the heartbeat using the Doppler (which got me totally tense, as you can imagine), I had a second ultrasound, just to make sure the baby was doing fine. And it was :).



• The day I completed 3 months. As I have said in earlier posts, this time I had morning sickness every day in mornings and evenings. Thankfully I wasn't vomiting anything. So I was really looking forward to the completion of 3 months not only for the end of first trimester safety issue, but mainly because people generally say the 2nd trimester is the time when a pregnant woman feels her best. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The nausea continued and so did the tiredness. Despite these, I was subjected to the usual blood tests (taking out 3 test tubes of blood from me and checking it for everything from the Rh-factor to HIV) :-p. Everything was normal this time too :).



• The day of my third detailed ultrasound. This time the detailed ultrasound took place in my 19th week (it became the third one since I had the unexpected 2nd one). They checked whether the major organs/systems of the baby are developing/working properly and like the previous time, this was a major highlight of the pregnancy. The scan encompassed the brain and heart measurements (which we were able to make out), the spinal cord check and then the kidneys (which I wasn't able to recognize at all :-p). The best part was when the little rascal decided to yawn and opened its mouth wide - the technician even managed to snap a shot of the same :-D. Moreover the baby even put its thumb into the mouth and started sucking just like its elder sister :-D. We did find out the baby's gender this time too, but lets leave the story until after delivery ;-) :).



• The day I felt the baby's first big movement. It is said that after the first pregnancy, in any subsequent pregnancy, everything will be exaggerated. As in the woman will feel movements sooner, expand more and is basically sensitive to changes. So I was expecting the movements to be much much sooner, but that wasn't really the case. The first time I had felt the movements first time at around 22 weeks, whereas this time it was around the 20th week. It was as exciting as the first time. I feel that for women, the baby becomes real to us when the first big movement happens. Thats when it strikes us that oh wow, I really am carrying another human being inside me and the love for the baby starts there and then. Whereas for men, its usually only after the baby is born. Anyways, the major difference between the first time and now has been that this baby feels more active than Snugli. With Snugli, there were days when she used to be totally silent and I literally would be scared and these days, this little one moves so much that I literally feel like a washer/drier (the rumbles and tumbles in my stomach feel like that :-D).



• The day I had my gestational diabetes test and it turned out to be normal. As I said in my last post, the gestational diabetes test happened in the first week of March and thankfully it was normal this time too (I had a tiny nagging worry about it). But as I said unlike last time, this time the hemoglobin levels were a bit low and I was prescribed iron tablets. They checked it again after a month, the levels had raised a bit, but still low, so I was asked to continue the tablets. I am sick and tired of the damn things, since I'm supposed to take them on an empty stomach and not mix them with milk. Plus have the prenatal vitamins as usual :( and the iron tablets don't go with them either (have to take them with a gap). Hopefully the next time they check, the levels will be up and I'll be rid of those damn tablets :-p.

What else? Yeah I have had the leg spasms like last time where I get up crying and Sri ends up rubbing my calf muscles like crazy until the pain subsides. I have been feeling painless contractions (Braxton-Hicks) a lot earlier as well - have been feeling these for more than 2 months now and I have atleast one each day. Its not very painful, but damn uncomfortable. But one of the worse things has been the stretch of the stomach ligaments. This time I did expand more as the doctors had mentioned. By the end of 6th month I was feeling like I was in my 9th! I felt heavy and huggggggggge. But the stomach didn't show any signs of slowing down at all :-p. When I had the flu, it got worse, whenever I coughed, it was literally as if somebody was tearing out my stomach ligaments and the pain was horrible. But this pain has been popping in now and then other times too. Whenever I sit, stand, or do anything for that matter, my stomach stretches and the pain is literally like pulling the skin. Sometimes oil helps, other times calamine did and yet other times nothing does, but it has been a big experience this time.

Well, just one more month to go, just one more month to go, just one more month to go, take a deep breath and repeat 100 times :-D.