21 Weeks Pregnant

Another week down!

It's been a bit of a slow one really. Knowing the gender has now sent me into overdrive with wanting to buy things but I'm skint. It's an unusual occurrence for me to have spent up especially when I'm still a couple of weeks away from pay day but with the gender party and the doula deposit and the babymoon I've booked and desperately clinging on to spending money for - I'm broke.

Plus, I realised that I'm completely clueless as to what I should be buying in terms of baby clothes, or anything really, and I've found it all quite overwhelming.

I hate buying clothes at the best of times but when indecisiveness kicks in, I really hate it.

I reckon that a newborn winter baby just needs long sleeve and long leg sleepers. Assuming they don't get covered in crap, she can wear them all day and night. Maybe even two days and night? Her bum will be clean and she'll get wiped down as required, so no need for a new outfit every day... We'll see.

In terms of the pregnancy there do seem to have been a few changes.

My boobs suddenly look very veiny. I've always had visible veins in my boobs anyway thanks to me being busty and pale skinned, but now it's like several lightening bolts shooting down the top half my boobs - thick and blue. Luckily they mostly disappear after I heave myself up into a bra.

Earlier in the week I also suffered from the worst stomach stretching pains. I get the feeling I've said that before but these were much worse! They were sharp and intense and they covered every inch right from my groin all the way up to my ribs. It was really sore and they lingered for two to three days.

Then, after they had finally dwindled, instead of the usual affect of my belly getting bigger and my little lady having more space which I always thought resulted me feeling her movements less - my belly looks the same size and her movements are out of this world.

For the last two days she is moving at unusual times. Never before in the car, but now she'll wiggle away for most of the journeys. I can feel her so frequently that it seems that she is active for most of the day.

Also, she packs a wallop! I've been able to feel her with my hand for a few weeks but now I can see my hand being hit away from my belly. I got James to feel and he couldn't believe it. There was no doubt at all that she had just given him a massive whack!

Her strength has increased so much that I have even started to wonder if she might not have enough fluid or something but there is nothing really to indicate that and when I saw that one of my apps said that she was now 27cm from head to toe (omfg) which is bigger than my forearm!!!! then I guess it's not that surprising.

Shit, that is half of her term length! I thought that they grew a bit more exponentially, as in the amount she grew each additional week was greater than the amount she grew the week before. I thought maybe she reached half of her size about week 30.

Anyway, another symptom has been an increase in discharge. It's really creamy and smells that way too (sorry tmi). I haven't really had any at all throughout the pregnancy but I had quite a large smear of it the other day and a consistent amount since. I actually wondered if I had thrush but I don't think it is. I was a bit raw down there, but I wipe so fastidiously to minimise infection risk that it does tend to be. I went a bit easier and the rawness went so I'm assuming the discharge is pregnancy related.

The only other things are that my coccyx is still aching constantly if I'm sitting and feeling a bit sick if I'm stuck standing around in a shop.

Weight wise I didn't put on anything this week. So 0.2 lb gain last week and 0 lb this week will hopefully mean that I'm evening out a little more against my recommended pregnancy weight gain.

At 19 weeks I was about 2 lbs over the maximum recommended and now I'm about 0.5 lb over.