Week 5 – Battle of the boobies

I apologise for the late posting of this. It was one of those crazy weeks! I am endeavouring to post every Friday as that's the start of the new "week" - in baby terms that is!

Weight – 71.2kg

So despite eating like a Trojan I haven’t put any weight on this week. I’m trying to focus on doing some exercise which includes getting off the train at the station before mine and walking home for 30 minutes, yoga once a week and at least one walk on the weekend. I’m happy to see that even though my food intake has increased, I’m striking a good balance.

I found a pregnancy calculator that predicts how much weight you’ll put on during your pregnancy based on your pre-pregnancy body mass index (http://www.babycenter.com.au/tools/weightgain/). It tells me I can expect to put on between 11.3 and 15.8 kilos. That’s quite a gap but it’s within the normal range for the amount of weight you should put on. Given you pretty much loose between 5 and 8 kilos the minute the baby is born, I can cope with that!

The nausea has kicked up a gear this week so the crystallised ginger has become my best friend. It’s terrible stuff but it seems to help. For some reason “morning sickness” is my greatest fear. Not the actual act of being sick, but the fear of never knowing when the onslaught may hit.

A friend once told me her morning sickness was so bad she had to vomit into her handbag on the way to work! I don’t fancy that so have a plastic bag stashed in my handbag for any emergency. I am keeping my fingers crossed I won’t succumb to anything that bad.

My breasts have become the star attraction this week. I’m suffering a dull ache that throws a few stabbing pains in there just for fun. It’s a little embarrassing to be in company, feel a stabbing pain, and want to grab your boob! All I can do is take paracetamol for the pain and hope it doesn’t last too long.  I’m still suffering my stomach cramps so between that, and pulsating breasts, my poor husband is too afraid to touch me.

But, the best news of the week is finding out a girlfriend is also pregnant and due at the same time as me. I am so happy to have someone close by to share this with and, given this is her second, she has past experience to guide me. We’re already planning our maternity shopping and play group dates so suddenly, the whole process doesn’t seem anywhere near as daunting as it did.

I’ve been very lucky that I have great friends around me that have offered fabulous advice thus far. And I will continue to rely on them to share their experiences. But I note they share their stories with hindsight and, for some, there has been an impact of time so some of the details aren’t as sharp as they use to be. For the majority of things, it doesn’t matter. I just appreciate their comforting words. However, what I really appreciate is being able to tell someone I had cramps and had to go to hospital and for them to tell me they had to be sent for extra blood tests. We are both anxious, scared and non-judgemental. We empathise that we would have done the same thing if that was our situation, and in fact, we did do the same thing! We understand where each other is coming from and I feel blessed by the baby gods to be given such a gift.