Week 27Week: 27

Waist: 37.5 inches (+0.5 inches but 0.5 inches less than week 25)

Feeling: Like I’ve swallowed a stick sideways

It looks like we might have made it: against all the odds (it seems to me) this weekend marks the final days of the second trimester. There’s no doubt the baby is getting bigger. According to the midwife he or she is transverse, meaning they’re lying across my tummy sideways.

And don’t I know it. With the placenta at the front acting as a kind of ‘shield’ I’m feeling all the baby’s movements to the extreme left and right, and sometimes behind, which feels very odd as this never happened with BB who was most definitely at the front.

I also feel like I’ve swallowed a stick horizontally with the skin straining to accommodate it, so am slapping on the cocoa butter with even more zeal than usual.

I’m also starting to realise how soon the impending birth is in pay day terms, and debating when it’s best to stop work. Being self-employed makes it harder – if the baby is two weeks late like BB the waiting time will eat into my small window of precious maternity leave.

But I’m not complaining: these are decisions that this time last year I feared I may never have the opportunity to make.