So today marks the big 24+0 or as some pregnant woman dub it 'viability day'. Yet I loath the term 'viable' in reference to babies, especially one of mine. It's so dreadfully clinical and impersonal. It objectifies the baby into something rather than someone.

Yet it is a big milestone so it would be churlish to ignore it.

I rather hoped I'd be updating more frequently throughout this my last pregnancy yet to be frightfully Frank there's really not that much to say.

My last contact with the medical people was our scan at 19+5 and we aren't due to see a mw until around 28-29 weeks, kind of abandoned into free ranging it.. Although clothed I look a tad pregnant it's really just trickery as unclothed is still the flabby tummy of overweight doom.

Although on here she'll be remain as Moomin our baby girl has in fact been fully named since shortly after the scan which makes it all seem rather real. It's especially adorable hearing The Spawn refer to her by name and helps them connect to her as a person rather than merely a notion.

Other than two vests we've yet to buy anything for her.

I feel her randomly move, nothing too regular yet though. Just like Thing One she will kick the doppler and squirm away from it.

They say every pregnancy is different yet my previous pregnancies, symptom wise, were incredibly similar so I was a trifle surprised to be presented with two new symptoms this time. The first is mild acid reflux. It only deems to bother me at night and even then it's not every night. The other is much more annoying, jaw pain. Every few weeks I'll experience a week of the most awful jaw pain which had even effected how my jaw aligns and bites. A quick Google-Fu reveals it's often reported yet other than a pondered hypothesis of it related to relaxin there is no actual explanation. To say it's bothersome would be an understatement.

The old familiar SPD, back pain and sciatica are all having a party yet thankfully the pain is nothing compared to the crippling pain when pregnant with The Preschooler. Then again I am only 24 weeks.

On the one hand pregnancy is flying by yet with no markers to punctuate it or to slow it down. It's a tad monotonous at this stage you're still waiting for the large movements, a huge bump you can watch move on its own and the frequent appointments. On the other hand, her due date still seems to be at some distant point in the future far away from now with so many uncountable tomorrow's in between then and now.

I do love this time though, when we're part of each other, physically connected. There's a magical intensity to it.

I'm so in love with her and fall harder every day. The baby I thought we'd never have.

I'll leave you with a bump picture. I don't often post them here, mainly because I'm that overweight you can't tell flab from baby but the lighting was kind on this one. First rule of posting selfies, only post the ones that don't look like you ;-)

BOGOF! Plan three get one free!

In case the previous post was a tad too cryptic for you (i.e you're far too young to possibly remember Ice Ice Baby....)

So, here's the deal  After begrudgingly coming to term with the fact that The Husband descreed we'd be having no more babies, ever........Just before Christmas, we had shall we say a very unexpected surprise.  I'm pregnant.  Together 13.5 years, married for 9.5yrs, both in our 30's with three planned spawn together and we get a surprise baby.  We weren't even drunk. Who knew The Toddler was part of a BOGOF offer?

Very early days.  Very.  After our early loss before The Toddler, we're all to aware that so much can go wrong yet right now, right here, I'm pregnant.  It deserves to be said, to be acknowledged because no matter what happens, at this moment there is a wee little womb dweller within me.  I'm terrified yet hopeful.  Among the fear, I have a good feeling about this wee one.  The force is strong in this one.

We were going to keep quiet until 12 weeks yet people deserve to know why we're nervous.  I'm terrifically shit at keeping things like this quiet anyway. I first started drafting this post around three weeks ago.   I fully understand and indeed respect those that do keep shtum for 12 weeks but ... I want to celebrate.  Whether you tell or not, shit happens.  It just means that should the worse happen your grief becomes alien and none tangible to others because to them, what you lost never existed. Thus your grief spirals to yet another level of pain, that is a lonely pain.

The terrible anxious first trimester is a roller-coaster, it's never fun to white-knuckle life alone.  It has it's highs and lows and as we all know, it's good to talk.  It's an intense period or time in life that should be documented.

I want this little uteruswomble to know that from the moment we knew they were there, we celebrated.  This is our way of acknowledging them, their existence, right from the start. I will not let fear of past events deny them of this or indeed deny me of this frightfully exciting (yet nail-biting) time.

So, going by the wheel of 'you will conform' doom, I'm 9+6 today (my calculations however, have me closer to 9+2)

Scared? Try terrified.  Excited? Beyond belief!  How absolutely delightful, I get one last baby!

So, baby number four!

The Party of Five is to become The Party of Six!  Oh shit.

But shhhh, we haven't told the spawn yet.