Wow, second entry in one day!! Things must be hotting up around here, haha! ;) I think few people are expecting me to write here this early postpartum and I haven't wanted to draw attention to this blog at my main one at this stage, so I know only one or two people are reading these posts right now. But the posts are mostly for me really, to offload all the stuff in my head as I wonder this and get confused about that, and also to serve as a record for me to look back on and be less confused if it happens the same way another cycle! ;)
So I'm at the end of the day at 6DPO. I just wanted to update to write about today's observations. I'm so so tired out today. I feel really washed out and exhausted and should go straight to bed after this. This is a typical symptom for me the day before my period arrives. I'm crampy exactly as yesterday. Mildly for the most part, but then worse in the evening and bad cramps for a time, especially when lying down. So I'm curious about tomorrow's temp to see if it drops and heralds my period's arrival later in the day.
I have had twinges inside my hips on both sides today. Sort of like a flash/pull feeling, and not both sides together at the same time. Just randomly here and there throughout the day. I am STILL horribly windy and the queasiness stayed barely bothersome all morning (maybe even disappeared at times, I was busy with the boys a lot so can't remember! It was very mild though, obviously, since I can't remember, lol!), and then in the afternoon I suddenly became aware of feeling yuckier than before, and looked up at the clock. It was just after 2pm. It got pretty much steadily worse through the afternoon and has affected my appetite this evening. We ate late, not with the boys like we usually do, and by the time it was ready, I just didn't feel like eating. I ate, but still feel yucky. I also have tender breasts today. Don't know whether that is particularly more of an indication of period or pregnancy. I can't remember!! I have had just a few patches of periods between long pregnant patches for 6 years now! ;) It's hard to remember what normal is as far as pre-menstrual-ness goes.
To be honest, I actually completely and utterly feel pregnant. No point in censoring that here! :) I am much more experienced each time with how it feels to be verrry newly pregnant, and all my experience has been back to back to back to back (to back!) over just a few short years, so it's pretty familiar and I am starting to be really accurate in just knowing I am pregnant. The thing I don't know about it whether it will "stick" or not. Not, is actually the most likely scenario, so I am waiting cautiously and not all that optimistically, to see how the days pan out.
I have been pregnant four times and had five chemical pregnancies, so that's 9 pregnant luteal phases! ;) So things are pretty familiar to me at the moment. I have never had a pregnancy without a chemical pregnancy right before it (usually the cycle before it), so that does give me a sinking feeling about this cycle.
I realise I'm only 6DPO though! :) Very early! I do feel confident that I have had clear implantation symptoms at 5DPO together with a temp dip that day followed by the typical rise to a higher temp than the previous ones. Who knows what tomorrow's temp will be - it could still drop right down. But I feel certain that there's a tiny bean attaching itself to me at the moment. Unfortunately five other times that I've felt this, things did not go any further.
Feeling confused this evening when the boys were in bed, I went back to my old Diaryland pregnancy journal, which by the way is where all the archives are. I haven't transferred many over here at all yet, so that's still the place to go if you have curiosities! ;) Anyway, I searched out all the posts from luteal phases where implantation has occurred and started to read them. I'm so glad I am so LONG-winded, hehe! It helps at times like this to look back and read such detail.
I haven't read them all (only a few actually!) but pretty quickly I was reassured that my symptoms so far this luteal phase are pregnancy symptoms. There are too many posts and individual quotes for me to even link here, of exactly (EXACTLY) the same feelings and symptoms, and even thoughts ("Oh that queasiness/poking sensation/twinge is probably just because of this strange awful wind I've been having since I ovulated!" etc!) to this cycle. It's very reassuring, because I have been wondering if I'm going crazy! ;) Two cycles before Benjamin was conceived was a chemical pregnancy (I had two in a row before Benji (and even the cycle before those two was suspicious of another, just a too-short LP) which was a first), and it was almost exactly the same as this luteal phase so far, symptom-wise. I had the same exact CM (the EWCM-but-not-really-EWCM I mentioned this morning), the same queasiness, the same awful bloating and windiness, and so on. I forgot some things, like I only ever chart "bad cramps" during my luteal phase when I am pregnant, in years and years and years (since 2003!) of charting, and I have had to chart bad cramps today and yesterday. The old diary entries were good reminders of things like that! :) My skin is still breaking out somewhat on my face, and I have been saying about how it's unusual for me before a period (I have actually noticed some on my BACK tonight, which I never get!) and lo and behold there it is in my older entries (chemical pregnancy, same stage past ovulation as now) - about having spots on my face which I "never get before a period - they're always on my neck if I have any", and how I was writing exactly the same thing during my LP with Nathan's pregnancy.
I think the reason I have chemical pregnancies is because my luteal phase (and associated hormones) are not adequate to support a pregnancy yet, even though conception and implantation occur normally. The hormones just drop away too soon after to allow the implantation process to complete, I think, and then I get a period. Always a weird one, so I know it was different. Sometimes I get a super-duper faint positive pregnancy test that I don't feel comfortable charting as positive, or a weird test line where something is there but it's not a positive result. That is the only real difference for me during my luteal phase, between the chemical pregnancies and the healthy ones - with my chemical pregnancies I never get a good healthy fat positive line on a pregnancy test. I get faint faint lines and "what's that stripe down the middle of the blank test line?!" lines and so on, but not good solid BFPs (Big Fat Positives). Even when I test as late as 10 or 11DPO (yes I know that's actually early, hehe!). With my healthy pregnancies I get a faint but much more definite line as early as 9DPO, and always by 10 or 11DPO. If I am testing negative or unsure at that stage then it does not look good, despite really really obvious signs left, right and centre. So I will have to wait for a vaguely reasonable time to test, and I'm not even sure if I will get to it if my luteal phase doesn't hold out that long.
I do 100% feel that so far my luteal phase is a normal one, and that I am as pregnant as can be so far, but I think the chances are really high that I will end up with my period anyway. I found some tests in my drawer from when I was testing with Benjamin's pregnancy and they expired in November! So I guess I will use them anyway, I mean they are only 2 or 3 months past their date, and they're THERE, hehe! I think there are 4 or 5 in the pack, so I will not be careful about waiting or anything sensible like that, haha! If I get to 8DPO with a good temp, idiotically early though that is for a positive result even if I AM pregnant with a sticky bean, I will likely start testing on that day. I don't really mind if it's negative, I just feel excited to get to that stage! :) I doubt my LP will last to 8DPO unless perhaps I get to that day but with a dropped temp. We'll see.
Anyway! I think people may well think that I'm mistaking pregnancy symptoms for pre-menstrual ones, and that I've just forgotten what being pre-menstrual is like, and that I'm probably just so eager to be pregnant that I'm convincing myself that I'm having chemical pregnancies instead. But that isn't true :) I know my non-pregnant luteal phases well. My memory is rusty on them right now, but it's instantly refreshed when I read back the detailed diary entries and private notes at my chart. There are certain traits that are only found in pregnant cycles for me (not one or two differences, but a whole swathe of stuff all together, and consistent with my other pregnant cycles, but never with non-pregnant ones) and I think I am a pretty good judge of whether a pregnancy has begun in my own body after all this experience these last few years! ;)
So now I will go to bed and see what my temperature is tomorrow. I am eager to take it, because it's exciting to stand back from this a bit and watch it unfold! If I get my period tomorrow I will have had a 6-day luteal phase this cycle, which is probably about right for me at this stage postpartum - that or 7 days would be what I might expect. My chart looks GOOD so far, temperature-wise, but in my chemical pregnancies my charts have looked very obviously "pregnant" until suddenly it has all fallen away and many of the symptoms have disappeared in the 12 hours before that. Sometimes I haven't noticed that till afterwards, in hindsight.
It's still only 6DPO, but I don't yet need to pee more often, and I did not have my traditional "weirdly soft skin" this morning, but it feels softer to me this evening. Not sure if it's "weirdly soft" yet though. And it's ONLY 6DPO! I have to remember that, it's craaaazy early to be saying all this stuff! ;) I sometimes did not get weirdly soft skin till 10DPO with one or two of my pregnant cycles. Maybe I'll ask Neil in a minute. He's right next to me :) Out of the blue when he got home from work, Neil says he will not be disappointed at all if I'm pregnant, which is nice to hear! He said he will be worried about some aspects, but we need to just PRAY about those and trust God to provide for our family's needs in all ways, and he agreed with that.
We've decided once I am definitely pregnant we will not be telling my parents this time :( I feel so sad about that decision, because my mum is my best friend (like Neil, just longer-term!) and we talk pretty much every other day or more on the phone for a long time. I tell her everything. It will be weird to keep this from her. But I don't want to hear negative things in response to "I'm pregnant!" again. I wish I could tell my Daddy because he's always so happy and excited for us, and never has anything even remotely negative to say when I tell him. Last time, he even "knew" I would be phoning to tell him I was pregnant that very morning and was excited that I did! ;) But I can't tell one parent and not the other. We would wait till later on in the pregnancy - not AGES but a while, like normal people do, haha! ;) I don't know how to answer questions when talking to her about how I am, and how my day has gone, and how school went with the boys, etc, on days when I'm too miserable with morning sickness to say many words together, let alone have managed school with the boys that day! I don't know how to answer those kinds of questions if I have to hide the pregnancy thing. So maybe I'll just end up telling her anyway. It's just so sad to me that I can't think of anyone to phone and enjoy telling when we find out we're expecting again, in my family, because nobody will be happy for us. They do say, "Oh, don't get me wrong, I *am* happy for you..." but you know, that doesn't fix it! We won't tell the boys for a good while either, like last time, till after the first trimester probably.
Now, I know I should NOT look at or think of these things, given that pregnant-or-not, I am likely to get a period, but I realised some "stats" today that I hadn't given thought to before and some of them surprised me!
If I am pregnant, the baby (babies?!?!) would be due on October 20th this year. We'd have a 15 month age gap. Can you imagine if it really WAS twins?!?! How wild that would be, haha! We'd have three under 18 months, four under the age of 3, and six children (SIX!) under the age of 6, given that Arthur's birthday would be nearly 3 weeks after the due date! Hehe! :) Nathan would only be 2 years and 9 months old when he became a big brother for the second time. Amazing!
Okay Benjamin is stirring so I have to go. I will update tomorrow. I feel a bit daft now posting all this crazy rambly daft stuff! ;) Please forgive my natural obsessiveness and allow me the indignity of venting it for all to see at my blog. This is why I am not drawing attention to it where I have readers at my main blog! ;)
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