I’ve reached the halfway point of the pregnancy, 20 weeks. Of course our last three babies were born about 2 weeks early which means that if this one follows suit I’ve already past the halfway point! CRAZY! Of course the first part of the pregnancy always seems to go by faster than the last half. I had an appointment last week, at 19 weeks. My check-ups are every 4 weeks at this point and in the four weeks between my last visit and this most recent one, I have only gained two pounds. Valerie (my midwife) says she wishes that I would eat. But I DO eat. She wants me eating 6 small meals a day, which I try very hard to remember to get them all in and it makes me feel like I’m eating nonstop. But having five little ones means that I am very active, and so I just haven’t gained very much weight, but there’s still plenty of time for that.
In taking my blood pressure (which was really low) she looked at me like how could I possibly be alive? Then she asked me if I get dizzy. Uh actually I do. It’s always been something that happens to me while I’m pregnant. When I stand up too fast I will get dizzy, and the room with start spinning and my vision will become dark and then I feel my body shaking and I just have to sit down. I remember the first time that happened to me when I was pregnant with Ethan I sat down so fast to keep from falling over that when Kyle saw me he thought I did fall. I remember being conscious enough to have seen Kyle come into the hallway right as I was rounding the corner right before my eyes went dark and I was shaking so bad that I purposely sat down on the hallway floor as fast as I could. The dizzy spells must have stopped after my pregnancy though because I remember the next time I had one it was the first indication that I was pregnant again, and sure enough I was. I have talked with my midwives over the years about my dizzy spells and I have never been given an explanation for them, until my last check-up when she just saw my blood pressure and asked if I get dizzy. So now we know why I get dizzy spells, and Valerie wanted to know if there are any stairs in our house because, obviously she is concerned about me getting dizzy and falling down them. I told her that we do have a basement, but we don’t go down there much since it’s not finished. But I do go down there to do the laundry, so her fears of me falling were heightened. So I’ll just have to be super careful about carrying laundry up and down the stairs from now on. 🙂
When people ask how far along I am and I tell them that I’m halfway they just look at my tummy and say that I don’t even look pregnant. Kyle likes to say that I start out concave and need to fill in before I can pop out! So here’s a picture of my belly at 20 weeks:
Yes I know, really not much there! But at this point in the pregnancy the baby is supposed to only be about 10 inches long and 10 or 11 ounces, so baby is still really tiny and it’s ok for my belly to be tiny too. 🙂 Actually Valerie says that I have a really large pelvis and most of the uterus is down inside it so the belly that we see is what has grown up beyond the pelvis. 😉 I’m still wearing my regular clothes but I’ve filled out the waistline of my jeans so it won’t be long before I’m going to need to break out the maternity pants. I tend to always need the maternity pants first and LONG before I need the maternity shirts.