23 weeks! And oops, long time since update!

All is progressing well with the pregnancy. I had a bad fall at the beginning of October which saw me go to A&E instead of a wedding reception, as I badly hurt my right foot/ankle and had nasty cuts to my left knee and big toe. I was in agony with my foot and could barely walk, but as I'm pregnant they didn't want to X-ray me, especially as my foot didn't hurt in the right places that would indicate a fracture. Luckily it has healed up ok with just a bandage, although the first night I was crying with the pain and I couldn't even walk 2 metres to the toilet! Changing the pressure on the bandage and back to back paracetamol helped, then the next day it was much better.

Baby has been by far the most active little bean I remember having. I had my anomaly scan at almost 21 weeks, and I was curious to find out if the placenta was at the front of my uterus, or, as I suspected, at the back. Sure enough, it was at the back, so I'm feeling every little kick and wriggle!

The sonographer checked everything out, and could see everything present and correct as far as she could tell which was a relief, and as she did the measurements, I stared to see if I could see a telltale sign as to whether Pipkin was a boy or a girl. As she got the thigh measurement, I was pretty sure I could see what gender our sweet baby was... But wanted confirmation, so at the end when she asked if we had any questions, I begged her to find out if we were expecting a boy or a girl. I held my breath the entire time, as she positioned the device to look, and she said to us "well... It looks like you're having a baby girl!" Which was what I thought I had seen earlier but didn't dare to believe until she said it too. As I got down from the table/bench afterwards, having wiped all the jelly off my abdomen, I must have looked like the Cheshire Cat! Yes, I cried a little in the room. A baby girl!!! 2 weeks on now, and another scan later (to confirm the kidneys) at which she also double checked the gender again, and I think I might be starting to actually believe that after 3 lovely cheeky boys, I get to raise a DAUGHTER.

She is such (SUCH) an active baby. I'm feeling at LEAST 6 bouts of strong kicks a day, even though I am sometimes very busy, and she's still so little, only about 1lb in weight (although that seems very big too, as it doesn't seem that long ago she was the size of a poppyseed and weighed less than a gram in weight!). Time seems to be flying so so fast, and the older two boys are absolutely over the moon that they're getting a sister! D, is only 3.5 years old so he's not all that aware of what it means, although he had been maintaining for a while before we found out that "it not a baby boy, it a baby GIRL". Whereas R and C were hugging themselves in anticipation saying "ooooooh I hope it's a girl, I really REALLY hope it's a girl!" So when we brought home a box with multicolour stripes in, hiding a "it's a girl!" balloon, and opened it up to show the boys (and grandma and grandad) what was inside, there was lots of whooping and joyful leaping around! :) and Christopher coming up to me, giving me a hug and saying "I'm so HAPPY it's a girl!" It really really made my heart sing!

Other news, is that we have just bought some triple bunks for the boys, which will be set up tomorrow and they (and I) am very excited to get them up and built :) a nice Saturday morning job. :)