Tis the season to be pregnant!

So this will be my last blog entry for 2012, wow can't believe I am saying that 2013 is only around the corner! This year has been full of many new experiences, well unique experiences to say the least and full of plenty of blessings and a whole lot of babyness! I have spent half the year in total getting pregnant and being pregnant, watched my belly grow...and move! And I have met so many new friends and also strengthened existing friendships and also learnt who my true friends are, I wouldn't have made so many new friendships if it wasn't for Squirt and I am very grateful for all of the opportunities that have opened up for me and all the life long memories I will have from being a surrogate.

I was lying in bed yesterday morning waiting for my little monster to wake up and was thinking yay it's Monday (I know not many people are happy to see Monday appear) but this was different, it's hubby's last working week for the year and as soon as Friday hits then it's family time, I get to spend close to 3 weeks just hanging out with my boys and then I thought not only do I get to spend time with my son and husband as a mum and wife but I also get to spend the time being an Aunty with my nephew tagging along in my belly, what a lucky woman I am to be surrounded by all of these special guys....

So I'm now 23 weeks 4 days along, only 15 weeks and 3 days to go before we meet this special little dude, gosh that really isn't a very long wait at all!
I'm still feeling great besides the hayfever and a recent bout of a cold which has made me a little more run down than usual but I'll keep soldiering on and the positive side to being sick now means (hopefully) that I won't have any annoying bugs attacking my immune system on Christmas!

Sara ^ and Me! ^
23 weeks along!

I had an obstetrician appointment this morning, was very exciting seeing Squirt again, it's amazing how much he has grown in a month since we last "saw" him, he's beginning to become very squished up now with his legs tucked up and his hands cuddling into his face. I'm still measuring ahead, now averaging over a week ahead in his growth and has been estimated to be about 761 grams (about 1 pound 7 oz) not long before he hits the 2 pounder mark and the fat will really start piling on and only about 4 more weeks till I enter my third trimester!! It's all on now!!

So what's in store for January? Well January is going to be a very full on month full of lots of appointments, I'll be having my glucose/diabetes test; not looking forward to that as I nearly fainted doing my one with Hunter and spent the entire hour with my head hanging out a window half lying on a bed, was a sight to see that's for sure lol
And as I mentioned before I'll be entering into my third trimester which will be accompanied by a 28 week 4D scan, exciting!

So I'll be back in the blogging world on January 7th, so stay tuned for that and I hope all my readers have a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year, stay safe over the holiday season and enjoy all the time with friends and family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A whale basking in the sun...

Oh my! has Summer hit our kiwi shores or what! Apparently it's predicted to be our hottest summer in a number of years...and I just happen to be pregnant...heavily pregnant all through these summer months!
I was heavily pregnant during Winter with my pregnancy with Hunter so never knew what all the sweaty uncomfortable heat moans were about from other women but now I feel their pain....it's a form of torture! Yes, a good form of torture that's so worth it but man is it hard! or should I say woman is it hard! (since males will never truly get what I'm moaning about).
Pre pregnancy I hover around the 55-60kg mark, I'm a petite little package standing short at 5'2", but now that I'm nearly 23 weeks pregnant and have a slight waddle starting, I feel like a whale basking in the sun! Someone please come hose me down! .....16 weeks to go, I can do this...with a lot of sunscreen and a lot of fan power!

So yes, I'm now nearly 23 weeks along, besides the heat I am feeling great about 50% of the time, the other 50% of the time I am battling hayfever, terrible hayfever! My eyes are puffed up, my nose is running like Huka Falls, my throat is itching, my sneeze dial has been switched on high, my head throbs and I'm constantly tired from this pollen attack! So thank the heavens for my husband who has been taking the brunt of my moodiness and picking up a lot of my slack from my self pity days, he washes the clothes, hangs them, folds them, cooks dinner, mostly on the BBQ (funny how Summer appears and men can suddenly cook), he makes me cuppa's and takes care of Hunter when he gets home from work....as much as he pisses me off I really couldn't do this without him, sure he snores like a buffalo on heat and wakes me 50 times through the night and constantly sooks over my mood swings but he truly is amazing and I appreciate it all, he does deserve a medal.

So Squirt has been grooving up a disco! moving around like boogie nights, all that moving and all of those kicks has me running to the toilet about 20 times a day and sleeping is getting....hang on...what's that strange word sleep? *mental note to check dictionary*
What's even more exciting is Sara and Lance have both felt Squirt kicking, it was very cool seeing the excitement on their faces, feeling baby kick under your hand is a very special bonding experience and it's even more special for them because they don't have instant access to feeling Squirt move around like my husband does. We can even see Squirt moving now which is always creepy (lol) but always makes you smile, being pregnant is so amazing and even though I've experienced this all before it's still full of wonders as baby grows bigger and bigger.

Squirt seems to be a much bigger baby than what Hunter was, he's always measuring ahead, about a week ahead now, whereas Hunter was always days behind and yet I've gained minimal weight; at about this stage I had already gained about 10kg+ with Hunter but with Squirt I've only gained about 2kg's BUT I also have to admit I pigged out like a wobbly hog living his last day with Hunter, I used pregnancy as an excuse to eat because I always craved sweet things and ate way more in one sitting than I should have....I'm no saint now though...I'm still eating naughty things, but I'm also eating properly with portions that are sensibly sized and eating the naughty things more for a treat after dinner etc.... my new motto with this pregnancy is eat for two not like you're two! .... tip top health for yourself is the best start you can give that little life!

Sooooo....do you want me to let you in on a little secret? of course you do!
Well Sara and Lance have decided on a name for Squirt! and I know what it is! Its.................................

a secret!!!!!!
Sorry this is a secret I cannot tell, you will all find out once Squirt enters this world! *pokes tongue out and runs away giggling*

So in other news me and Terry met with our lawyer, I must say she wasn't too bad, she had a great sense of humour and looked like a remake of Annie Lennox, she was rocking the bleached spikey hair and the shoulder pads tucked into her jacket....honestly she actually pulled the 80's look off quite well, in fact she pulled the look off better than today's teenage generation who try (and fail I might add) to rock my birth decade but that's probably because she actually lived through the 80's! Anyways enough of the 80's rambling... There's actually not too much to report on this front though, it was just boring talk about the adoption process and when we need to sign consent papers etc...and of course all the evil things I could potentially do as the birth mother and be fully within my legal rights to do so blah blah blah, an hour later and $300 plus GST to add to the growing list of costs.....

Christmas is only two weeks away! Next week will be my last blog entry until January 7th, I know I will be missed, shucks! feeling so flattered right now! but it will be my time away from the computer during the Christmas and New Year break, we all deserve a wind down from computers and cell phones every now and then and Christmas is the best time for this I say!
So I hope you enjoyed another glimpse into my world and will catch up with you all next week which will include the latest belly shot! yay!

Bella's Birthday.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Bella's passing. The year sure felt like it had zoomed on by and it's hard to imagine my little niece would have been turning one yesterday.

To mark her special day we had a big family picnic, and we hoped the weather would cooperate being that Summer is here, well the weather wasn't exactly perfect, it was very cloudy and very windy but it didn't rain and that's the best outcome!
The day was filled with happiness, after all Bella is still apart of our family and deserved to have a first birthday like every other child in the family but it was also filled with sadness and longing....if this tragedy never happened then we would have had a little birthday girl running around with her sister and cousins, she would have had a table full of presents and she would be blowing out her candle after we sung her happy birthday....
Well she actually still blew out her birthday candle, the flame blew out just after we sung happy birthday and that brought a smile to everyone's faces knowing she was still there with us even though we couldn't see her.

Sara also planned a balloon release and we all wrote messages on the balloons before sending them up into heaven, there were a few wayward balloons sneaking off before the release and a few pops but other than that it went without a hitch and surprisingly none got caught in any tree's or brought down the town's power supply by getting caught in lines lol. I'm sure Bella had fun reading all the special messages written out just for her.

Bella's balloon release

As always it was lovely seeing the majority of the family and Squirt got lots of belly rubs, of course as soon as someone touched my belly he went all shy and wouldn't move but as soon as they stopped he would kick like crazy!
The day brought a lot of mixed feelings for myself, it was a lot harder than I anticipated and I had a big cry in the morning, Dec 2nd 2011 was a day that should have been filled with happiness but instead a year later I was sitting there thinking of all the horrible things that happened that day and I still can't quite believe that this all happened. But I still wanted my niece to have the birthday she so deserved and my contribution was making the cake; Sara is a "packet mix" mum (hehehe) so I always make the birthday cakes, it was only fitting that Bella have a pink cake with flowers and butterflies as these things have been significant to the family since her passing.

 

This past year has been hard, 3 year old Holly made the blow of Bella's passing a little more "easier" to absorb but the family couldn't have stayed as strong as it has if it wasn't for the help of supportive organisations such as SANDS Manukau and Features Forever who helped create some lasting memories of our little Bella. A huge thank you to Sarah and Lisa who run these places.

I would also like to take a moment to reach out to all those expectant mumma's who have had previous c-sections and are wanting to attempt a VBAC - please make sure you are 110% confident in this decision, get two or three different opinions, talk to specialists about why you had a c-section in the first place and if a VBAC may be an unattainable goal, really think about that percentage that ends in a ruptured uterus and is often fatal to the unborn baby and also puts your life at risk, yes it is a small percentage but it's still a percentage which means you are not bullet proof, don't fall for that line "it's a small percentage so it will never happen to you"....trust me, I saw it with my own eyes, it can happen. What you need to decide is if it is worth that risk. If the healthcare professionals gave Sara this advice in the first place and did their job while Sara was in labour then we would have a one year old little girl running around playing with all her new birthday toys....

Happy 1st Birthday Bella, we wish you were here with us, we wish we could have watched your first crawl and those wobbly first steps, gushed over your first smile and those first teeth that would eventually fill it, watch you take in the world and learn all about it and watch your personality develop, but instead we were robbed of your precious life in circumstances that were fully avoidable, we miss you and will miss you every day until we meet again in heaven.
Bella's memoriam notice - click here to view.

Bella Grace Smith 02.12.11