21 weeks - sleepless nights

Lying on my back is certainly the thing I missed the most. I don't sleep well on my side, with my rapidly expanding stomach all propped up on pillows. Rolling over pulls on my stretched tummy ligaments and I have the craziest dreams. I wake up to pee and then the baby starts kicking so I can't go back to sleep. It usually doesn't hurt me, it's more that is so exciting that I want to lie awake feeling my little baby rolling around for ages.

But seriously, this is easily the most enjoyable part of my pregnancy so far. The living-on-a-boat feeling of the first few months has passed, the baby's making itself known and I'm still not too huge to enjoy most things. And I just got the full tick of health from Dr George, my trusted Ayurvedic Doctor.

And another milsetone, my baby is now regarded as a human under Australian law!

I'm just getting to work on my home birth plan, post-natal plan and what to pack in case of a hospital transfer list. I'll publish them all here eventually.

Listeria hysteria

I love my soft cheeses and I'm not the kind of girl to do what I'm told without knowing why. For the first few weeks of my pregnancy I had to delve into the issue of soft cheeses to find out what we really should avoid when pregnant.

Listeria is a foodborne bacteria which can cause a disease is called listeriosis. If you eat contaminated food the bacteria may penetrate your intestines and travel throughout the blood stream. Listeriosis is a dangerous disease for pregnant women as is may infect the baby and cause misscarriage, stillbirth or blood infections.

But listeriosis is extremely rare, read this if you are interested in details.

What you need to know is that listeria can't survive high heats, so if you re heat left overs make sure they are really hot and generally fresh deep fried foods will be alright too.

Which brings me back to soft cheeses. In Australia all dairy products are pasturised, it is actually illegal to sell anything unpasturised labelled as a food product. Pasturisation involves extremely high heat, which kills listeria. Just make sure you store your soft cheeses in the fridge and buy them in a sealed packet.

There is a minor chance of cross contamination, which means the listeria bacteria contaminates a dairy product after it has been pasturised, but boiling milk or cooking soft cheese (like in canneloni) will fix that up anyway in case you are really worried.

I don't eat fish or meat anyway, which from what I can tell have a higher risk of carrying the bacteria, but I haven't looked into it much.

In the meantime, I'm going to sit back and enjoy my pasturised soft cheeses. I'm probably more likely to get hit by a car than catch listeriosis anyway. It just means I'm likely to get some dirty looks from people who think I'm a bad mum whilst I eat my cottage cheese on crackers.

Week 20- now that's kicking!

I just spent a week on a tropical island for a wedding, very nice! And gave me plenty of time to loll around and feel the baby kick. I think most of the time when pregnant women don't feel their baby kick it's because they are just busy. D can feel it kicking too, it's a strong little thing

What's in a name?

So much!

My husband and I have the difficult decision on choosing a surname for our babies, as well as the usual task of a first name. This is because I chose to keep my name when we married, partly because I like my name, partly for the feminist in me and partly because it's my name-I can't imagine just waking up one day with another one.

So what to do about our babies? I'm not into hyphenating, because what happens to the next generation, quadruple barreled names? I want a more sustainable option. I'm not keen on the idea that girls take the mother's name and boys take the father's name, simply because I want them all the have the same name.

So here is the idea I am currently working on. It's a bit complicated so bear with me:

• Ms Jones marries Mr Smith and they both take each others name to become Jones Smith (no hyphen!)
  
• Their children Bob and Sally take both names, Jack Jones Smith and Sally Jones Smith
  
• When Bob gets married he keeps the patriarchal line, his dads name Smith and his wife keeps the matriarchal line, her mothers name Brown and they become Brown Smith
• Their children become Brown Smith's too
  
• Sally gets married and keeps her mother's name Jones and her husband adds his fathers name Green and they become Jones Green

...and so on...

But I'm not sure if I am willing or able to try this out without it becoming the norm in our society. It takes too much explaining.

First names are much more fun. Rosalie or Harriet are front runners if it's a girl but we need more boys names, Rupert currently tops the list.

Any suggestions for surnames or first names?

18 weeks - Ultrasound

We went for our first scan, first photo's of baby, though it still looks an awful lot like an alien to me. I dutifully drank the full 1.5 litres of water in an hour despite every bone in my body telling me not too. I managed to hold it down (vomiting was a much greater threat than peeing!) until the scan an hour later.

It was pretty cool. Our bub was really sleepy though, not very active and yawning an awful lot. hey got the first all the pictures they needed in twenty minutes except for one, a profile of the baby's face. It was pretty camera shy. I peed and got back on the table for more goo but the baby still wouldn't show it's face. I went for a walk and we prodded my tummy a bit, I did some squats, but forty minutes later and the little one was still just yawning and ignoring our attempts to turn it around.

We had to go back the next morning and fortunatly the baby was just facing the right direction. We got the picture we needed in about 5 minutes.

The news is all good. The baby is healthy and big for dates, even though I've still only put on three kilo's. I think this little baby's a tease!!

15 weeks - kicking?

I'm 15 weeks and 6 days and I'm sure I felt that little alien in my tummy wriggling around this morning. It's early, but I am thin and pretty sensitive so it's certainly possible.

I was sitting at my desk at work tapping away on the keyboard when I felt butterflies in my tummy, real low down. I stopped typing for a second, but then thought, no it can't be, it's too early. I kept typing but this little butterfly was insistent, the gentle tapping continued for a full minute or two so there was no mistaking it. I started giggling and emailed D straight away. I didn't tell the other girls at work, it felt like a lovely little secret between me and my baby.

Pre-natal care

As usual my approach to pregnancy is very old fashioned. I'm reading a wonderful, wonderful book called Mothering the New Mother by Sally Placksin. It is one of the few books that I highly recomend you read if you or your partner/relative/friend is pregnant. Sally Placksin discusses a woman's specific needs after childbirth and how we can have them met in modern culture (which so commonly ignores them).

Sally Placksin interviews women from various trditional cultures and find rich traditions around the world that nourish pregnant women and new mothers. One of the most beautiful stories she shares is from Luz Garcia, a Colombian who is the daughter of a physician and a midwife. Here is a brief exert:

"Birth was not ever seen as an illness, but as a sign of health and a sign of beauty and life coming through...If you could bear a child you were healthy, you were alive, every good thing was coming your way...Regardless of what the family was, that infant was cared for from the moment the mother was fund to be in estado [pregnant]. The mother got fed better, first portion came to her...[there was no prenantal care.] The mother was recomended to have long walks, to see flowers, to see baby animals at play, and to hold other babies and have good thoughts..."