32 weeks, 5 days/30 weeks, 3 days*

Tuesday was a quiet day for the lump.  We get them sometimes.  His kicks will be few and far between but he usually picks up by the evening.  There’s nothing like kicking your father’s hand whilst he tries to watch TV. 

But he didn’t get moving that evening, and the next morning the husband admitted that he’d not really felt Lumpy kicking throughout the night.  He normally does, because there’s nothing like kicking your father in the back while he’s trying to sleep.  See, these two are going to get along like a house on fire.

As the few kicks I’d felt lacked their usual intensity (try comparing a tap on the shoulder with a mean left hook) and Lumpy’s normally so active, I decided to call the midwife.  There was probably nothing wrong, but I spend too much time on the babycentre forumsand they’re the perfect thing for inspiring panic in a girl.  I was hoping that I’d get a call back (you have to leave a message 90% of the time) and be reassured that there was nothing wrong.  By lunch time I hadn’t heard anything but I managed to get hold of the phone number of the assessment unit at the hospital and they advised me to come in straight away.  There’s nothing like the words ‘straight away’ to make you panic. 

The plan was that once I’d arrived I would have the usual blood pressure and pee checks, be monitored for a time and then go for a scan.  As it was, the unit was a little too full when I arrived and they sent me straight to wait for the scan.  Only moments after I’d sat down I was given a rather large kick.  The sort you don’t believe the strength of until you realised you’ve seen your belly pop out from the corner of your eye.  Yeah, that’d be about right.  The lump only wakes up at the moment I’m at the height of my worry.

I got called through for the scan and as I laid down on the bed he started off again.  Still, I was there and covered in gel already so we carried on.  Everything was fine, the placenta’s in the right place, Lumpy’s got his head the right way up (or down if you want to be specific about it) and he’s still got abnormally long legs.  The bit that makes me laugh is the way they seem to be able to estimate the baby’s current weight; it seems an impossible thing to be right about when there’s no scales involved.  Still, they’re saying he’s only a few ounces under 4lbs at the moment. 

So all that worry for nothing.  Part of me thinks that I was overly paranoid; another part realises that although I should expect a decrease in movement from any time now on, if that decrease had been gradual instead of sudden I wouldn’t have been worried at all.  I guess I’m just slipping in to the role of mother to a baby a little sooner than expected.