Spirited baby

This new baby is a mover. It is active. An hour will not pass without some kind of movement. And the turns and stretches it performs are by no means gentle. Months ago, before the movements even became that pronounced (at present you can easily see them from across the room, something that never happened with my first pregnancy), I had gone to bed early, and was only half aware of HID coming upstairs much later to get ready for bed. He spends ages in the bathroom, so by the time he entered the bedroom, I was fast asleep again. The baby suddenly gave an almighty kick! My entire body jumped as it tugged me out of sleep, and my eyes sprang open to find HID, leaning over the bed, face inches from mine, about to give me a tender goodnight kiss. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump!”. He was mortified. I explained that it hadn't been him that woke me at all, but the baby! We concluded that the baby must have been wide awake, and heard/sensed Daddy's approach, and wanted to get noticed. Oh my goodness, this baby will not be ignored!

Every single time HID and I hug now, he always gets kicked by the baby. I don't always register these kicks, as they are quite gentle compared to what I'm used to, but HID always tells me!

In my first pregnancy, I never really saw baby move under my skin. But I'm a little slimmer now, and the movements have been quite obvious, even under two layers of clothing, for sometime! My bump is also much bigger (but still tiny by everyone else's standards), and I think my belly button may pop out this time! And with six weeks to go, I'm already a little breathless and uncomfortable, having to sit up very straight to give the baby enough room.

I often get a persistent prod from the baby, (usually my right side, where it often gets stuck, and seems to favour) over and over again, but quite gentle. It feels almost like a pulse or heartbeat. Sometimes I can barely feel it. It happened while with my mum a few weeks ago, and she came over to feel it. She remarked on how big a kick it was! I disagreed, informing her how tiny it was in comparison to most.

Now regular readers may be aware that my first born was what some may call a “high-need” baby, and well, he's now a high-need toddler too (I'm guessing he may well be a spirited teenager as well...). This is one of the reasons (along with the general practicalities of already having any child, let alone having one that needs full damage-control to stop him ending up in casualty 24/7) that this pregnancy hasn't been dwelt on very much. Not just by me, but the whole family has been so busy enjoying Boy that we just sort of forgot to marvel at the bump, or sit around for an age discussing names, trawling round the shops for babygear, my Dad has even said he keeps forgetting I'm pregnant! But, with it's super-human kicks and somersaults, this little babe is not one that will be willingly ignored. It is constantly reminding me that it's here.

Something worrying though; I was chatting about baby's movements with my physiotherapist, who had two children, firstborn, a very active and boisterous boy, second, a contentedly quiet girl. She told a tale of how, in her second pregnancy her baby seemed to hardly move at all in comparison to her first. The midwife gave her a sort of tick chart, to monitor the movements of baby over 24hrs, which she did. When she handed it in the next day the midwife assured her that the kicks and movements she was feeling this time were entirely normal, and for interest, could she remember enough to fill out another chart for her first pregnancy, to compare? This she did, and the midwife remarked how very far from normal it was to have a baby that moved so much! The worrying thing in this story, is that my physiotherapist believes that her children's personalities were already shaped in the womb: the boy, even at nine years old, cannot sit still, and as a toddler was very hard work, just to keep up with him! The little girl, she says, is happy to sit doing jigsaws quietly, even from being very tiny, both exactly how they were in the womb.

This information does not bode well for me. In comparison to this pregnancy, my Boy hardly kicked or moved at all in utero, yet now, every moment that he is awake is spent moving (and quite a few moments in his sleep, judging my the positions he gets himself into in his cot). He does not walk, he only runs. Toys are interesting for a matter of seconds before being discarded for the next adventure. By 8.30am most mornings, he is crying at the front door to go out (anywhere) having exhausted all he can do within the confines of a house. So I am slightly worried that movements in the womb may reflect later tendencies for movement in general.....I am really not sure there even is such a child that is more active than the one I already have, and is there is, how will I cope with two, and even more action with the second??

Friends have comfortingly pointed out that there may be no link, or that this child is “getting it all out of its system” before being born. I thought, after last time, I might be due a placid, dare I think it, sleepy child. They say you usually get one of each...but they also say that the second born is usually the worst of the two....argh! (Otherwise, you'd have to be mad, like me, to have more...) I was also informed in my difficult last pregnancy, that if you have a bad pregnancy, usually you have a nice birth, or an “easy” baby.....zero out of three is not a good score. Then add on the terrible post-partum....ho hum. Am I in for another rough ride? Am I bothered? Ha ha, I laugh at the prospect of difficult children. You can't scare me, I already have one!