I can’t believe that I am half way through this pregnancy already! It has both dragged and flown by! I can’t believe that I haven’t done a proper update in almost a month either. I apologise to my avid followers. I don’t really have any real excuse except that I was being super lazy. In South Africa the 16th of December is a public holiday, so the whole festive season kinda starts then. It didn’t help that it was a Monday and gave everyone a long weekend, which made for a real start to the laziness. I worked right through until the 24th and also kinda worked on the 27th, but it was all such random work, that it didn’t really feel all that much like work.
Christmas Eve was very low key, with my sister and her friend coming over for dinner. I did a really good ham recipe that I found online, with salads and roast potatoes. We had a really yummy Panettone trifle for dessert. After they left we started our new Christmas Eve tradition of watching a Christmas movie together. This year we watched Nightmare Before Christmas. On Christmas Day it was just B and I. We spent the morning slowly getting up (and staying in the aircon), we then had a lovely breakfast of leftover ham and fried eggs, and then opened our presents. I got another angel for my collection (it’s kinda become a tradition with him that I get some sort of angel decoration every year), Matt Preston’s (a judge on MasterChef Australia) latest cookbook, and some lovely lingerie that I had kinda picked out and sent the details to him a couple of months ago. I got him a case of craft beer that he was very excited about, and other bits and pieces. We then spent most of the day in the pool while we cooked a turkey on the Weber (kettle BBQ). It was delicious! The 26th is a holiday here as well, and it was also spent lazing around the pool and doing very little. We both had to work on the 27th, but then we were off for the rest of the year LOL
It was lovely having B home for 10 days. We had great plans of cooking and baking and getting things ready around the house, but we accomplished none of that. We slept in, we swam, we caught up on the whole season of MasterChef Australia Season 5 and just enjoyed being lazy together. We also ate a lot of leftovers and a lot of cookies! New Years Eve I was treated to dinner at one of the top restaurants in Durban, and we had a fabulous meal, with fantastic service. Knowing it will probably be a few years before we can do that sort of thing on NYE again, made it extra special. I really loved not starting the new year with a dirty kitchen too! I tried really hard to stay up, but only made it to 11:15pm LOL. I got a kiss at midnight from B.
Our family has a tradition of always going to a movie together on New Year’s Day. This year the movie was supposed to be The Hobbit part 2. My parents saw it a little early in Canada, and my sister and I made all the plans to see it on New Year’s Day as usual. Well the movie house managed to mess it up so badly they restarted 3 times but couldn’t get the sound right so we ended up getting a refund. B hates going to the movies, so he is now insisting that we will watch it when it comes on Netflix and invite everyone over for a movie night. So the traditional movie this year didn’t happen. It’s a tradition I want to try really hard to hang on to, as it came from my Dad’s side of the family. Hopefully we can make it work.
I started feeling confirmed flutter from BSquirt about a week or so before Christmas, but by Christmas I was very sure that that was what I was feeling. It is now becoming quite distinct which I am really loving. So here is the update:
Baby is the size of a banana, or a carrot, or a coconut, depending on which app I’m looking at. It’s a bit confusing. as they seem like very different sized fruit.
For this in metric that’s about 25cm and about 300 grams
How far along are you? Today I am 20W3d.
What’s happening with the baby? Baby is swallowing amniotic fluid and is gaining weight all the time. Eyelashes, eyebrows and hair are getting thicker. Foetal kicks are more prominent now. Baby has functional taste buds and can hear noises from outside the womb.
What’s happening with my body? I am showing quite a bit now. Strangers still aren’t sure, but people who know can definitely see that I am pregnant. I actually got some really restful nights’ sleep while we were on leave which was lovely, but since this past weekend I’ve had vivid dreams and nightmares every night. My nipples are still itching a lot, but I’m a little disappointed that my boobs haven’t grown as much as I hoped they would by now. My whole life all I wanted was decent boobs LOL. Otherwise I have had very few other symptoms. I am struggling with the heat, but that happens normally, although I am feeling it more than usual I think.
Moments since the last post? I posted above about Christmas and New Years. These were the really good moments. B also got to feel the faintest of kicks the other night when baby was being particularly active. Just enjoying the time together has been the highlight. We also started shopping for nursery items – we have bought our cot and we bought the paint to redo the room. My in-laws are coming down next week for my scan so Mum in Law will be working on the curtains which will be very exciting.
Miss anything? I had a small glass of bubbly on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve and enjoyed them, but other than that haven’t had anything much to drink. We have discovered that Sodastream makes cocktail flavoured syrups, so I have been having lots of mocktails. I have been missing sushi a bit as it’s so hot, and it’s such a nice lunch time food in this heat. But other than that I’ve been pretty good and not really missing anything much.
Movement? YES! 🙂 I’m loving feeling baby inside me and like all the books say baby is definitely active when I settle down. This is usually in the evenings when we settle on the couch to watch our shows for the night.
Any weird Food issues? Still mostly fruit and not so much of the chips anymore.
Gender? We aren’t going to find out, but the votes are coming in and are going about half and half right now. B still is sure it’s a boy, I’m tending to lean towards girl now, although I was sure it was a boy early on. I guess only time will tell 🙂
Looking forward to? Our big scan on the 15th. I’m also looking forward to having my in-laws here as Mum and I will go shopping for fabrics and stuff for the baby’s room. I’m also really looking forward to getting bigger, even in this heat! We are spending lots of time in the pool and it has been lovely, very nice on my body, so I’m looking forward to lots of afternoon swims. For those in the frozen north, to give you an idea of our heat our high temp today is allegedly 29C (85F), but when we left for work this morning at 8am the car registered 33C (92F). So I think it’s well above what the app says. And next month is only the height of summer here.
