Week 23 update

I've kind of gone off on a factual sharing thing of late. I'm not sure why, I guess I'm harbouring a desire to write a pregnancy book.  Harbouring? Yeah, right. It has a name and a contents page.

Anyway.

Tomorrow I shall be 23 weeks pregnant and onto week 24. According to my adjusted dates the following timeline applies:

Weeks till due date
Weeks till intended delivery: 15
Weeks since discovery of pregnancy: 18
Weeks since first scan: 11
Weeks since anomaly scan: 2
Weeks till third trimester: 4
Weeks till I finish: 5 (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Weeks till maternity leave starts as opposed to regular leave: 7
Weeks till return to work: 56

We also have to add in a couple of less inspiring target dates - there are 4 weeks until the summer holidays, and worse, there are 10 weeks until they go back to school and need waddled up and down each day. There are also 10 weeks left until I hand in the so far unwritten dissertation. Oh yikes.




And onto symptoms. There aren't that many at the moment.


Fatigue. 
This is not the all consuming must-sleep-now fatigue of the first trimester, it is more a feeling of being worn out. Yesterday I walked the children to school and then onto work, walked home from work and lay down for two hours. I then ate some lunch and walked back to the school, home again and then did some homely things, dishwasher, washing machine, dinner for everyone. And then I was done in. Absolutely.


Digestive icks
Nausea has mostly gone. Sense of smell is still hyper and there's a queasiness on encountering a smelly person - smoker, overperfumed person or unwashed person, consumer of too spicy food - or icky smells. Not nausea though, that has been replaced by indigestion. Stomach capacity is much reduced and I get full easily. Hunger is still immense and I'm still off a lot of foods and into hugely fattening sweet things. Bloatedness has gone and the whole system is sluggish rather than stopped.


Physical signs 
The huge belly that wriggles and changes shape on occasion
The breasts that don't look like breasts any more but that thankfully are less sensitive.
Other than this, the rest of me hasn't expanded. I'm much the same shape as before, ankles and what not remain their usual size, bum hasn't taken over any countries.

of course, not forgetting...

Pain

For me, the PGP is the worst. At best it is niggly, at worst it is seriously agony. Walking is difficult bending over is impossible. I have pain in my lower back and where my pelvis meets at the front. The front pain was almost too much walking to work this morning, it seems to be getting worse.  Not being able to take painkillers is hard.

Headaches are common

Abdomen generally aches

Emotional signs
Supergrumpiness. 
Total intolerance
Short temper
Tendency to burst into tears

Fears
Premature delivery
Stillbirth
Own death during childbirth
Childbirth complications

And that, I think pretty much sums up me at nearly 24 weeks.

Decisions

There's a lot of decisions to be made.

The biggie: how to give birth. An elective section is my current mode of thinking after further research. TMI to explain why, just nod.

Another fairly large one: where to live. The 2 bed flat is obviously not going to do in the long run, once baby needs her own room, we need a room to put her in. Theoretically we can manage with baby in our room for a year, but... I think not. So when to try and move. Current thinking is to declutter/redecorate/pray and put this on the market and just wait till it sells. Hopefully soon, then we can rent in the shortish term. If that elusive sale isn't in time, we have to rent first and sell this empty. That's expensive obviously so not exactly ideal.

A small decision: what does baby sleep in?
Option one: into the cot straight away. This worked for the boys but there were two of them (early days they shared) and they had their own room.
Option two: the very nice crib that was mine and which has been lingering in our loft forever. No good for twins so we never used it. Smaller than a cot, cute and it rocks. As in, it has a rocking motion, it's not particularly awesome.
Option three: a Moses basket. Handy on account of its portability. Possibly too frou frou.
Option four: all of the above, except I'm not mental.

The ongoing decision is names. Obviously the scan will reveal which type of name we need (5 sleeps!!) as I don't like unisex names, but big decision time if it's a Hubert.

Final decision is when to take maternity leave. Actually, I think the answer is ASAP as I'm struggling a bit.

20 weeks now, that's halfway! If we ignore the two weeks prior to conception. Next week is really halfway between supposed conception and supposed due date but hey ho. It's all rather imprecise.

Much the same as 19 weeks symptomwise. Movements are more recognisable, and very frequent. Back pain is getting rubbish, lying down is v difficult and so sleep is a problem. I have a physio appointment next Monday though so hopefully I'll get advice/props to aid me. I also have pain walking and what not, it's not great. I am a teeny concerned as to how difficult getting to the school and back is going to be when they go back after the summers hols. I'll be 35 weeks or so then. Urgh. I'll need to allow 40 mins each way instead of 5-10.