On Thursday I turned 31 weeks pregnant. To celebrate, baby was doing some serious aerobics that night (could potentially be because we had a seriously spicy mango salsa to go with our fish tacos – yum). Now that I’m over the fact that you SEE the kicking from the outside, which makes you feel a bit like something from Alien, I spent the evening trying to capture the kicks on camera. Turns out Mini-Mike is not like its dad and is camera shy. I now have a dozen little videos of me baby bothering trying to get the baby bean (who has definitely sprouted arms and legs) to move on camera. Thus:

Subsequently, I did manage to film a bit on camera but really, I can’t say this has properly captured the weirdness of seeing something inside you move (squint a bit and you should be able to see it!):

I won’t be winning any film awards just yet.

Anyway, weirdly, I happened across an article in FitPregnancy about counting kicks on Friday. I’d sort of heard of it and had kind of ignored it but I thought it was quite apt that I found the article the day after trying to film my karate kid. The idea is to get yourself comfy lying on your side when your baby is at its most active and see how long it takes you to count 10 kicks (or flips/swishes/turns etc. Hiccups don’t count but I’m not sure what they feel like). The average is about 12 minutes and if it takes longer than 2 hours, they advise that you should contact your midwife. Hurray! Something else to worry about…Hmmmm.

According to a Q&A on Fit pregnancy about counting kicks, carrying out a daily kicks count can reduce the risk of still birth by 70%, so I’m automatically going to be keeping an eye just to be sure everything’s still OK. You can download a Kicks Count Chart from First Candle to keep track from 28 weeks pregnant.

I’m now slightly concerned by the fact that junior here seems to take about 1 to 5 minutes to kick 10 times – is my baby going to be hyperactive? Will we have no sleep for 10 years? Or more?! I’m also hoping that it isn’t hiccup related – I remember hearing a story of an uncle (or was it an aunt) of mine who had the hiccups for 2 years. TWO YEARS!!

Whattoexpect.com say, firstly, that just because your baby is moving a lot doesn’t mean it’ll be hyperactive. Phew (for now). And, secondly, a hiccup is “an occasional flutter of faint but rhythmic tics”. So there you have it.