Can someone please press fast forward to November (post birth) for me.

[Thandeka]

Got my BFP last thursday and since then time has slowed down to a standstill! I will be 5 weeks on sat and every day is CRAWLING by.

I am desperate to tell people and obviously can't (though have told some people). I really want to tell my mum but my period isn't even officially a week late yet so it is just so early.

So yeah at the minimum I want life fast forwarded to 12 weeks but best of all fast forward to Nov post birth (oh and no complications ta!)

Oh yeah and this is my first ever pregnancy (can you tell!)

I was exactly the same as you ... but you really need to pace yourself - 40 weeks is a long time and if you are a naturally impatient person (like me!) you have to just accept that this is a slow process and learn to go with the flow a bit (otherwise you will go mad!) After all you are creating a whole new human being - it's bound to take a while!

Just aim for each little milestone and try not to think too far ahead. 9 months is a long time but it has the benefit of giving you plenty of time to adjust to becoming a mother and get your head around it all.

This will be esp important if you get some of the downsides of pregnancy (e.g. morning sickness, and then towards the end the heartburn, the sleepless nights, the squashed organs, the aches and pains). You just have to try and be a bit zen about it all as there's nothing you can do about it and you can't speed up time! You just have to put up with all the discomforts and ailments and think "this time will pass soon enough". It's an exercise in patience and stoicism!

Time does start to go faster once you start feeling movements (maybe about 18 weeks?), once you have the 20 week scan and find out the sex (if you choose to do this) and then in the last trimester when the baby seems to grow by the day and there's the impending excitement of the birth to look forward to!

Seriously, take a deep breath and try and chill - you've got a long marathon to run and you don't want to use up all your emotional energy at the start! Enough of that will be needed to supply Pregnant Woman Anxiety Syndrome (e.g. you go for your 29 week scan as I did today, the baby has been walloping you all morning, but you still manage to convince yourself that something terrible could have gone wrong and perhaps she's stopped breathing ... ridiculous in retrospect!)

Best of luck!

Oh I remember feeling like this!

come november you'll be wishing you'd made the most of these last few months of sleep

I remember feeling like that Thandeka and then during one of the night feeds in my first week of being a new mother just wishing I could pop the baby back in so I could get some sleep

Make the most of these last months of freedom is my advice.

Congratulations and good luck!

I'd like a fast-forward button too. 16 weeks and miserable, just want it over with!!

I feel exactly the same but I'm due in July and I feel like a lot of the inital excitement has died down and most things are bought so now I just want baby to turn up, I'm just so impatient!
I'd tell your mum asap tho, I told my mum before I told dp (desite it being planned!), Mum's are fab with these things (or at least mine was).
Congratulations!!!

Yup terribly impatient and also crap at deferring gratification!

I guess mainly I want to enter the "edge of the woods" ie. 12 weeks- not quite out of the woods but in a much better position than 4.5 weeks!

Your post really helped bumpsadaisie- cheers.

Off to become a buddhist and enter a relaxed zen trance for next nine months!

Get a good pregnancy guide with loads of pictures and details of how big the embryo / foetus / baby is and what's gong on developmentally. It makes it all more interesting even when there's not a lot of change on the outside!

Hope you have a great pregnancy

Thandeka,

Glad my post helped!

How about aiming for 8/9 weeks initially - if you get to this stage and its all OK, then the chances of having a miscarriage reduce a lot, I think.

Then aim for 12 weeks and your first scan.

Then for 16 weeks and your first midwife appointment where you'll hear the heart beat through the doppler (and you'll try and guess the sex depending on the heart rate!)

Then for your first little flutter/bubble movements.

Then for "the biggie" - your 20 week scan.

Then for your first real proper kicks and squirmings and actually seeing your bump move and ripple!

After that I think you'll find the pregnancy takes on a life of its own and time speeds up - you start to bond with the baby as a real person and buy all the stuff for him/her, and do your ante-natal classes.

In the meantime conserve your energy and eat well while you can - there could well be two months of vomiting and bone-liquidating tiredness literally just around the corner for you!!! (sorry!)

Bumps x

I've found that my pregnancy has really dragged. I actually thought the worst time was between 20-25 weeks because I felt like I had been pregnant forever and was going to be pregnant for ever (although I had really bad sciatica and could hardly walk so this probably didn't help). I think that the problem is that when it's someone else who is pregnant it seems to go really fast, because you don't see them as often so you forget about it!

Ultimately though you just need to be patient because unlike a washing machine you can't put it forward by pushing the wheel forward a bit!

Brettgirl

It's particularly bad when you're suffering from something horrid like sciatica/morning sickness/SPD, isn't it?

I had hyperemesis and was off work and on drugs from week 7 to week 13. Time dragged so slowly not least because I was just stuck at home with no distractions. Once I got back to work, even though I still felt quite crap to 16 weeks or so, it was better psychologically as I felt I had a life beyond feeling sick and then being sick!

I think if you feel very rough in the early days of pregnancy it also has the effect of spinning the months out even more. If you are one of the lucky ones who can carry on with life pretty much as normal in the first few months, then before you know where you are you're in the second trimester!

On the plus side, whenever I have heartburn, am knackered, have aches and pains, have insomnia nowadays, I can always look back and think - well, no matter how uncomfortable I might be now it is nothing like as miserable as the first trimester!!

This pregnancy has really taught me some lessons in putting up with things and just getting on with it. In the first weeks I spent a lot of energy being really angry that I was so sick and railing against Mother Nature for making pregnancy so grim. Now I don't bother getting angry about all the discomforts as it just takes up too much energy!! Ho ho.

Bumps x