Week 18
Just like clockwork the overwhelming tiredness has died
down and I’m able to work for much longer and get more things done without feeling
like I want to crawl under my desk for a nap. At least I can now at least try to keep up
with my colleagues. Except now the symptoms have progressed to bloatedness and leg cramps: I’ve been
waking up at all hours of the night with these horrific cramps running up and
down my legs. After reading that this is a common symptom, due to the lack of
blood flow when laying down straight I have tried a variety of simple remedies,
such as putting my feet up on a cushion, having a cushion wedged between my
knees and taking a great number of night time walks around the house. With droopy eyes, I return
to bed, only to wake up with the same problem a couple of hours later!
On the plus side of all this, I’m pretty sure I felt the baby move for
the first time this week. However, rather than the tummy butterflies feeling
that everyone talks about…it was more like Freddy Kreuger's hand running his fingers lightly and quickly across my stomach! Not
exactly the lovely, exciting sensation I was hoping for, but thinking that it
was probably the baby was great. I mean, it wasn’t like the grumbling you get
when you’re hungry, and neither was it like gas or like pulling a muscle! And,
while we’re on the subject of gas and pulling muscles, those sensations have
hit me more in the last couple of months than they have in the last couple of years. You never think of a pregnant woman experiencing half of these symptoms when you see them from the outside, and I’m sure women keep all this quiet when they get the big P. Then again, they’re
not exactly the kind of symptoms a woman wants to admit she’s going through and
you would only really know about the true ins and outs of pregnancy symptoms if
you have been pregnant yourself. Or someone very close to you has. When I told my sister, she pretty much told me
I had a lot more to come, which, while not mildly reassuring, will all be worth
it for what I will get at the end.
