Oh I'm so sorry not to update all these days since my scan! I forgot that some readers are not Facebook friends so will not have known what went on! We have been poorly with Neil's lurgy since then. I have basically been in bed with it for the most part, and was really not well on the day of the scan. Neil finally went back to work for a half day as he's still so exhausted from the virus, and I'm still not there yet. All the boys have it - Arthur started the same day as me (Monday), and all the others started Monday night, except Benjamin who was more like Tuesday night. Anyway, they're all okay, just coughing and snotty and tired out. Ugh! At least it seems to be moving quickly enough, so hopefully we'll be 100% fine before Christmas.
I can't stay to update properly, but I just wanted to say that everything is FINE with my little one. All the measurements were spot on 16w5d for head and leg measurements, and 17w0d for abdomen (I was 16 weeks and 6 days at the scan, so pretty much perfect measurements) - SUCH a huge relief! The sonographer could not tell why I was measuring small but she just said maybe I'm hiding it well?! ;) The baby had a healthy amount of amniotic fluid in there, etc, so all looked fine.
We did find out that the baby is a BOY!!! :D I had zero bad feelings, and just felt so happy and excited. I have much more to write about the details of the scan and I have a few photos of measurements (not particularly exciting ones of his face or anything) that I want to include here, but I haven't been well enough to sort out scanning and uploading and so on, yet. So I will come back and do a proper catch up another time.
So our baby boy is Elijah Douglas! The boys are really thrilled to be getting another brother, and seemed quite relieved, lol! We are not telling them his name for a while because we like to keep the name a secret until the birth announcement, and I think they'll tell friends of ours in the meantime, when we see them. I am beyond excited to be using this lovely name, and delighted to honour Grandoug at last! :) I can't believe I have SIX sons, and my Elijah after alllll these years loving the name! :)
He is kicking a lot more now, and I'm feeling the kicks and movements more clearly.
The one thing is that I have currently got complete placenta previa, where the placenta completely covers the cervix (and thus the baby's way out). I'm only 17 weeks though, so it has plenty of time to move up out of the way. I am hoping and praying that it will even have done so by 21 weeks (my next scan) because otherwise they'll book me a scan at 32 weeks to check on it, and that's a LONG wait to worry about it (and the risk of heavy bleeding) and have the various restrictions imposed, etc. It may well resolve long before 32 weeks so I don't want to have to wait that long to find out it has, if you see what I mean?! Anyway, for now I am being careful. And hoping it's moving up!
Will update again soon!
Friday, December 16, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
I love my doula!
Deja-vu, anyone?! ;)
Thank you so very much for the sweet messages after my last post. They were so uplifting, and Shannon, I just read yours a minute ago and it was basically what I have needed to hear all day long, which God has put on my heart earlier this evening, so it was a blessing to have that confirmation in your message! Thank you all for taking the time to encourage and love me!
Today has been superbly sucky. I just. can't. shift. this weight about the baby. It's pulling at me like an achy weight that I'm dragging along. I have had ample opportunity for distraction today, so it has been nagging at me subconsciously instead of being right in my face.
Neil is so poorly right now. His heavy cold thing has really messed with his asthma and he is using his inhaler like never before and struggling to be out of bed at all. I do not exaggerate when I say I have probably been the worst at wifeyness that I have ever been before. I have not coped with the slightest thing, and I do mean SLIGHTEST. I have never known hormones like this before in my other pregnancies, unless they're not really hormones so much as anxiety about the baby plus some sort of hormone surge maybe.... Anyway, I have been angry and shouty and blamey and plain MEAN and nasty, and have not just saved it for my poor sick husband, but my children as well (bonus points for the Sucko-Woman 2011 contest). They have been so bloomin' difficult today, just rude and shouty to us (wonder where they picked that up from??), out to cause as much noisy trouble as possible, and picking fights with each other. Samuel didn't get his afternoon nap and cried and screeched a lot late afternoon, and Benjamin doesn't usually nap but acted like he was missing one anyway. I hope nobody is coming down with Neil's lurgy...
Anyway. Ugh. All day I have been having to physically squash down that "ugly" sort of crying that got to my throat and eyeballs often enough to make me just ache there for the afternoon. I am not good at losing it in front of my kids. I am not good at losing it at all. I'm more of a squasher. It hurts, but not as much as letting the lid off the thing and exploding everywhere.
I just feel so tired somewhere in a weird place, and just burnt out emotionally and physically. For some reason I have been shaky a lot today, and breathless easily. Every time I was moody I KNEW I was doing the wrong thing, but if I could squash it, it just came back like 5 seconds later. I am not really one to lose my temper, but you know that sort of "seeing red" feeling that you get (rarely for me) when you REALLY lose it, and then you feel all out of control with what you say? My trigger button seemed to be broken today, and I was flicking onto "seeing red" all OVER the place, even from nowhere, or over nothing at all. I've never known anything quite like it (thankfully!)!
I just made sooooo many screw-ups today. I know that tomorrow is a new day, and God is gracious, and I can do all things in His strength. He also extends grace to my husband and children when I mess up. But today just went so horribly, and I could not see clearly about it at all. After I put the boys to bed, Neil started a migraine - he is bed bound for 24 hours once those start, plus he is really poorly otherwise too. I needed so very badly to just get some time to myself so that I could sort all my feelings out with God and ask Him to equip me for tomorrow (and forgive me for today). I needed head space. They went to bed a bit late, but once they were down, I drove to a late night chemist (it's Sunday so no local ones are open) to get Neil's prescription. It was a long wait, and the weather was rotten, but it was helpful to get some quiet around me. When I got home, Neil felt too sick to take the medication, and since the two bedrooms have little ones in, he was downstairs in the living room with a bowl in case he threw up. Being scared silly of vomiting in any context, that left me the kitchen (right off the living room, and covered with food and dirty dishes at the mo) to decompress in, silently, since I couldn't disturb Neil. Or go to bed.
I am sure it's hormones but I felt so weird and unhappy. I got Neil a drink and sat in the dark living room crying without any noise while he dozed for a bit. After a while he decided to go up to bed, and once he did and I closed the door behind him, I completely lost it. The amount of crying and not being able to stop after a while made me scared, and I didn't know what to do so I ended up picking the phone up and calling Heather at 9.45pm. I think I just wanted to tell her that I was feeling hormonal and overwhelmed, and to know that she would be praying for me would make me feel better. That and to hear someone's voice, listening to me.
Such a surreal thing, emotions are. To me, anyway. I am not used to them, or how I feel and sound when I give in to them. I told Heather briefly about the day, and that I was feeling just burnt-out and she listened so sympathetically, which was balm to my soul. She suggested coming round tomorrow to help in some way with the boys, and I said that there's illness here and I didn't want her to get it. She said that she wouldn't be kissing Neil, and my laugh turned into a whole bunch of sobbing, and I told her that I just felt so miserable and I didn't know what was going wrong with my head. She said, "I'm coming. I won't be long. Hang on." and was on my doorstep 5 minutes later.
She spent two hours listening, saying soothing things, making sure I was hydrated (lol, a true doula in any situation!), just letting me cry and talk. After a little bit she asked to pray for me, and OH how I needed that! We must have prayed together for an hour or more. So much that God is doing in me. There's some hurt and stuff inside - waaaay deep where I must have hidden it a long time ago - that I am too scared to hand over to God. We prayed into that for a good while but I just can't bring myself to release that yet. I know I need to, and it's doing me no good hanging on. And I'm believing a lie that it will be more painful to release it than to keep it stuffed. But still I hang on, for now. So much peace though, from the prayer time. Every time I said, "But God, THIS!" instantly a Bible verse contradicting it came to mind. Eventually I said, "But God, I'm worried about my baby!" and instantly the baby kicked my hand, which was lying over my tiny bump, for the first time. It was no longer than one second after I said the word baby, seriously. I love God! :) I haven't felt any really good little kicks yet, and none have ever been strong enough to reach my hand through my "layers". Immediately I felt such peace, and even felt like laughing for joy! :) After that I felt less achy inside and unhappy, and we spent some time praying LIFE over this baby I'm carrying. Which was really special to me.
Eventually Samuel woke for a feed, and after I came back down, Heather suggested that she (and maybe her daughter if she wants to) come round tomorrow morning to help me take the boys to the park. One of the main things upsetting me about the boys is that it seems like they are not getting out of the house much right now, what with one thing and another, and I feel so bad about it. It's such hard work taking them all out, physically, and can be rather difficult emotionally when they have a mind to be mischievous and I am kind of fragile in that department. So I was just amazed at Heather suggesting that she come and help! Bless her heart, she is so wonderful! She is also helping me the day after by going to the scan with me. I can't get over how much God is blessing us right now through Heather and her family. I'm honestly in AWE of it. And I just love her so much. She's a wonderful friend, and I praise God for bringing her into my life!
She had me tell her about my favourite place in the world, and also how I met God - both things which make me feel happy and glowy inside. And then she went home, and I realised I had not finished my Tesco order in time and it can't be cancelled now, so tomorrow they'll be delivering a pack of bendy straws instead of a whole big bunch of groceries, for a delivery price of £4.50!!! Oh well! You've got to laugh, I suppose! ;)
Samuel has been wakeful since then, and now I've come down it's really late, but I feel like I want to "download" all this stuff to help me feel lighter about it. And I do, so I'm glad, even though I'll be tired from it tomorrow. I am so encouraged by my little baby's kick this evening! :) And I am going to bed now. I'll update very soon, as the scan is only 2 days away. Hopefully everything will be okay.
Thank you so very much for the sweet messages after my last post. They were so uplifting, and Shannon, I just read yours a minute ago and it was basically what I have needed to hear all day long, which God has put on my heart earlier this evening, so it was a blessing to have that confirmation in your message! Thank you all for taking the time to encourage and love me!
Today has been superbly sucky. I just. can't. shift. this weight about the baby. It's pulling at me like an achy weight that I'm dragging along. I have had ample opportunity for distraction today, so it has been nagging at me subconsciously instead of being right in my face.
Neil is so poorly right now. His heavy cold thing has really messed with his asthma and he is using his inhaler like never before and struggling to be out of bed at all. I do not exaggerate when I say I have probably been the worst at wifeyness that I have ever been before. I have not coped with the slightest thing, and I do mean SLIGHTEST. I have never known hormones like this before in my other pregnancies, unless they're not really hormones so much as anxiety about the baby plus some sort of hormone surge maybe.... Anyway, I have been angry and shouty and blamey and plain MEAN and nasty, and have not just saved it for my poor sick husband, but my children as well (bonus points for the Sucko-Woman 2011 contest). They have been so bloomin' difficult today, just rude and shouty to us (wonder where they picked that up from??), out to cause as much noisy trouble as possible, and picking fights with each other. Samuel didn't get his afternoon nap and cried and screeched a lot late afternoon, and Benjamin doesn't usually nap but acted like he was missing one anyway. I hope nobody is coming down with Neil's lurgy...
Anyway. Ugh. All day I have been having to physically squash down that "ugly" sort of crying that got to my throat and eyeballs often enough to make me just ache there for the afternoon. I am not good at losing it in front of my kids. I am not good at losing it at all. I'm more of a squasher. It hurts, but not as much as letting the lid off the thing and exploding everywhere.
I just feel so tired somewhere in a weird place, and just burnt out emotionally and physically. For some reason I have been shaky a lot today, and breathless easily. Every time I was moody I KNEW I was doing the wrong thing, but if I could squash it, it just came back like 5 seconds later. I am not really one to lose my temper, but you know that sort of "seeing red" feeling that you get (rarely for me) when you REALLY lose it, and then you feel all out of control with what you say? My trigger button seemed to be broken today, and I was flicking onto "seeing red" all OVER the place, even from nowhere, or over nothing at all. I've never known anything quite like it (thankfully!)!
I just made sooooo many screw-ups today. I know that tomorrow is a new day, and God is gracious, and I can do all things in His strength. He also extends grace to my husband and children when I mess up. But today just went so horribly, and I could not see clearly about it at all. After I put the boys to bed, Neil started a migraine - he is bed bound for 24 hours once those start, plus he is really poorly otherwise too. I needed so very badly to just get some time to myself so that I could sort all my feelings out with God and ask Him to equip me for tomorrow (and forgive me for today). I needed head space. They went to bed a bit late, but once they were down, I drove to a late night chemist (it's Sunday so no local ones are open) to get Neil's prescription. It was a long wait, and the weather was rotten, but it was helpful to get some quiet around me. When I got home, Neil felt too sick to take the medication, and since the two bedrooms have little ones in, he was downstairs in the living room with a bowl in case he threw up. Being scared silly of vomiting in any context, that left me the kitchen (right off the living room, and covered with food and dirty dishes at the mo) to decompress in, silently, since I couldn't disturb Neil. Or go to bed.
I am sure it's hormones but I felt so weird and unhappy. I got Neil a drink and sat in the dark living room crying without any noise while he dozed for a bit. After a while he decided to go up to bed, and once he did and I closed the door behind him, I completely lost it. The amount of crying and not being able to stop after a while made me scared, and I didn't know what to do so I ended up picking the phone up and calling Heather at 9.45pm. I think I just wanted to tell her that I was feeling hormonal and overwhelmed, and to know that she would be praying for me would make me feel better. That and to hear someone's voice, listening to me.
Such a surreal thing, emotions are. To me, anyway. I am not used to them, or how I feel and sound when I give in to them. I told Heather briefly about the day, and that I was feeling just burnt-out and she listened so sympathetically, which was balm to my soul. She suggested coming round tomorrow to help in some way with the boys, and I said that there's illness here and I didn't want her to get it. She said that she wouldn't be kissing Neil, and my laugh turned into a whole bunch of sobbing, and I told her that I just felt so miserable and I didn't know what was going wrong with my head. She said, "I'm coming. I won't be long. Hang on." and was on my doorstep 5 minutes later.
She spent two hours listening, saying soothing things, making sure I was hydrated (lol, a true doula in any situation!), just letting me cry and talk. After a little bit she asked to pray for me, and OH how I needed that! We must have prayed together for an hour or more. So much that God is doing in me. There's some hurt and stuff inside - waaaay deep where I must have hidden it a long time ago - that I am too scared to hand over to God. We prayed into that for a good while but I just can't bring myself to release that yet. I know I need to, and it's doing me no good hanging on. And I'm believing a lie that it will be more painful to release it than to keep it stuffed. But still I hang on, for now. So much peace though, from the prayer time. Every time I said, "But God, THIS!" instantly a Bible verse contradicting it came to mind. Eventually I said, "But God, I'm worried about my baby!" and instantly the baby kicked my hand, which was lying over my tiny bump, for the first time. It was no longer than one second after I said the word baby, seriously. I love God! :) I haven't felt any really good little kicks yet, and none have ever been strong enough to reach my hand through my "layers". Immediately I felt such peace, and even felt like laughing for joy! :) After that I felt less achy inside and unhappy, and we spent some time praying LIFE over this baby I'm carrying. Which was really special to me.
Eventually Samuel woke for a feed, and after I came back down, Heather suggested that she (and maybe her daughter if she wants to) come round tomorrow morning to help me take the boys to the park. One of the main things upsetting me about the boys is that it seems like they are not getting out of the house much right now, what with one thing and another, and I feel so bad about it. It's such hard work taking them all out, physically, and can be rather difficult emotionally when they have a mind to be mischievous and I am kind of fragile in that department. So I was just amazed at Heather suggesting that she come and help! Bless her heart, she is so wonderful! She is also helping me the day after by going to the scan with me. I can't get over how much God is blessing us right now through Heather and her family. I'm honestly in AWE of it. And I just love her so much. She's a wonderful friend, and I praise God for bringing her into my life!
She had me tell her about my favourite place in the world, and also how I met God - both things which make me feel happy and glowy inside. And then she went home, and I realised I had not finished my Tesco order in time and it can't be cancelled now, so tomorrow they'll be delivering a pack of bendy straws instead of a whole big bunch of groceries, for a delivery price of £4.50!!! Oh well! You've got to laugh, I suppose! ;)
Samuel has been wakeful since then, and now I've come down it's really late, but I feel like I want to "download" all this stuff to help me feel lighter about it. And I do, so I'm glad, even though I'll be tired from it tomorrow. I am so encouraged by my little baby's kick this evening! :) And I am going to bed now. I'll update very soon, as the scan is only 2 days away. Hopefully everything will be okay.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
16 weeks, 3 days - new belly pic
Back again. I guess I need to write here more at the moment.
I just put my belly pic in Sausage's belly gallery. The link is to the whole list of allll my babies' belly galleries (except Arthur's which is at the old pregnancy diary - must transfer a ton of posts over here sometime!), and Sausage's stuff is at the top. I'm really kind of concerned now, seeing the picture - it does show what I've been feeling, that I'm really not showing much for 16 weeks. I think I actually look smaller than I did at 11 weeks, but Neil pointed out that could be due to bloating at 11 weeks. But, that's typical for me in ALL my pregnancies and there's always a definite progression of growth from the 10/11 week belly pic, through the 14 week one, to the 16 week one. Each one is always bigger than the previous one. All my 16 week belly pics from my other pregnancies are bigger than I currently am - especially Benjamin's! I missed a photo that week with Samuel... And Nathan's 16 week picture is probably the smallest of the bunch, but still there is growth through from 10 weeks that I am not showing this time.
I am probably (maybe) blowing everything out of proportion, but I am just SO. WORRIED. :( I am trying not to dwell on it, but failing miserably. It really isn't helping that I am having the weirdest hormones these past two weeks - more so the past week maybe. I just feel adolescent and weird and unhappy. Very HORMONAL though, not unhappy in another sense. It's hard to shake off, and I am very sensitive to everything, and much more so since Thursday.
I feel like I have had bad news about the baby, that's sort of how I seem to have internalised it, even though that's stupid because I HAVEN'T, and I'm jumping the gun.... But I do. I feel anxious and unhappy, and completely unmotivated to do anything at all. I am wearing some nice cosy PJs in the belly pic, which I put on to go to bed on Thursday evening and am still wearing. I just feel in such a slump, and the big boys are being so horrid and difficult, and I'm being all weird and feeling like they're picking on me instead of being a grown-up and dealing with it. They make me want to run upstairs and cry, and I just have zero motivation to do anything with the boys at all these last couple of days. I feel such a horrible mother :( I know I'm not REALLY, but that kind of head knowledge isn't really sinking in at the moment. Right at this moment I am not particularly being a GOOD mother, which is sad. The boys are watching DVDs and playing happily for the most part. And otherwise giving me a lot of trouble (attitudes and disobeying and acting deaf and the usual kid stuff) - I am just dealing with it soooo badly, emotionally.
Ugh.
Anyway. I have had some advice here and there from people who have BTDT, and some have been wrong about their dates (I know I'm not), and others have ended up with 2nd trimester miscarriages. Yep. Often the first sign of a chromosomal abnormality that hasn't already ended in an early miscarriage, is restricted growth in the 2nd trimester or beyond. Those are the types of abnormalities that aren't compatible with life. OR maybe everything is fine and I have a little baby in there? Or some other reason that I can't actually find at the moment? One lady is currently pregnant (33 weeks I think) and her baby has been diagnosed with Intra Uterine Growth Restriction since 18 weeks, and they've found no reason so far. They are continuing to monitor the baby until birth, so I don't know the outcome on that one. Another lady's uterus was retro-flexed at this kind of stage and as it got bigger it caught up FAST in the "showing" department!
I don't know about those things for me, because it's my 6th pregnancy and I find it hard to believe my uterus could go flexing differently than it ever has before after all this time, to the point where I look less pregnant than I should (when I NEVER do at any stage of any of my pregnancies). Some folks are saying (sweetly, to reassure!), maybe it's a girl this time?! And maybe it is! But I should still measure 16 weeks when I'm 16 weeks, surely? I just can't think of a good explanation. None of them seem to hold water for me.
Soooo Neil and I have had some discussions. He feels sure the baby is fine, well, he did until he saw my belly gallery with the new picture up, and now he is praying with me that all is well. He saw Benjamin's 16 week picture and said, "THAT'S 16 weeks?!.... Oh."
We have decided that Heather will accompany me to the scan on Tuesday, and he will be off work that day (he has finished some work ahead of time, and they are really good about him taking off for appointments and such) and stay home with all 5 boys. I actually really WANT Heather with me, although I would ideally have both of them if I could. I feel scared. I hope I am wrong, and everything turns out to be fine and dandy (and it COULD!). But I am scared until I know.
If something is wrong with the baby, I know what I would choose, when they start discussing options with me, and Neil says it's my body and I'm the one carrying the baby, and he would want me to make the decisions at the time if I am happy to. I told him they might offer me an amniocentesis to diagnose a chromosomal problem if it's a possibility, and that I would decline. I don't want the small risk of miscarriage. I don't want anything invasive, even if it would give us answers. It would be helpful to KNOW but it wouldn't change anything other than that. If our baby has a problem that means it may die at any point during the pregnancy, be stillborn, or die shortly after birth, I would not, and will never terminate a pregnancy. I just can't play God. As unbearable as it must be to carry it out, I would choose to continue the pregnancy until God decided to take the baby home. If I was blessed with a few minutes or hours with my baby in my arms before that point, I would be forever grateful and so very glad not to have chosen an alternative earlier on. I don't know how anyone bears that though...
So Neil is happy with those choices - they would be his too. I think that's all I need to have covered with him before going to the scan. He doesn't like the name Rachel, but if it's a girl and she will not live, I NEED to call her Rachel. I haven't asked him yet because I will cry if I do, and I can't be on with that right now. But if it does all come to that, I hope he will be happy to let me.
Now that we're all prepared, I should put it out of my head and just wait for Tuesday, where hopefully all will be well! :) It's harder than I thought, though.
I phoned Heather today to tell her I would like her to come with me to the scan instead of babysitting some of the boys, and she is happy to do whatever we want her to. She asked how I was doing, and I said I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other mentally and emotionally, but physically I am fine. I think it is mainly hormones - bad timing for those at this particular time, hey?! :) I told her the same as I wrote here, that it just feels like I have received bad news about the baby, when I haven't yet, and it's hard to see straight about Tuesday. She reminded me to focus on the Lord, and that is the best advice really.
I was calling her upstairs because we are saying nothing to the boys, obviously, except that I am having a scan on Tuesday (they knew I wasn't due one until January) just to check the baby and see how big he or she is. They know Heather is going with me and that Daddy is home with them that day, and that I might get to see whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Maybe! As soon as I put the phone down, I sat in the quiet and wondered what to say to God. I told him that I hope my baby is okay. And that I was scared to ask Him to make the baby be okay if he/she wasn't going to be. But that I trusted Him. Then I remembered something from a song we sing at church called "Blessed be the name of the Lord":
He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your name!" Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name!
So I found myself praising Him for GIVING, for giving me this child. And accepting if He takes this child away. And crying and crying my heart out. And telling Him that I will praise His name all the same because He is just WORTHY of it, no matter what happens, or what He in his perfect wisdom decides is part of our journey. I am pretty sure that if He "takes away" this time, it is not going to be easy at ALL to CHOOSE to bless His name all the time, but I sure as heck am going to put my best foot forward. I love Him. I trust Him. I cling to Him because apart from Him there is no other, and (oh this is from another wonderful song!) why would I turn my back on the only shelter I have from the storm? And anyway, He is always worthy of my praise.
So now I think I should be "done" with the what-ifs and the emotional rollercoaster, and hopefully will just rest more peacefully about it until Tuesday. I hope, I hope, I hope. I don't like uncertainty! I hope my hormones will come about and I will feel lighter and cope generally better than I have been for a while. That will help TONS.
I am sure I will post again soon. Neil has a heavy cold this weekend which I guess he picked up at work. I'm desperately hoping the boys and I don't get it. I could do without the addition of a cold that hits me like a truck (as they tend to when I'm pregnant), and I think alllll our kiddies would not be clear of coldiness by Christmas which might mean we have to miss spending Christmas Day with my family (due to grandparents of somewhat frail health in their mid-80s!), and I would feel so so so distraught about that if it happened! I hope everything turns out okay this week...
I just put my belly pic in Sausage's belly gallery. The link is to the whole list of allll my babies' belly galleries (except Arthur's which is at the old pregnancy diary - must transfer a ton of posts over here sometime!), and Sausage's stuff is at the top. I'm really kind of concerned now, seeing the picture - it does show what I've been feeling, that I'm really not showing much for 16 weeks. I think I actually look smaller than I did at 11 weeks, but Neil pointed out that could be due to bloating at 11 weeks. But, that's typical for me in ALL my pregnancies and there's always a definite progression of growth from the 10/11 week belly pic, through the 14 week one, to the 16 week one. Each one is always bigger than the previous one. All my 16 week belly pics from my other pregnancies are bigger than I currently am - especially Benjamin's! I missed a photo that week with Samuel... And Nathan's 16 week picture is probably the smallest of the bunch, but still there is growth through from 10 weeks that I am not showing this time.
I am probably (maybe) blowing everything out of proportion, but I am just SO. WORRIED. :( I am trying not to dwell on it, but failing miserably. It really isn't helping that I am having the weirdest hormones these past two weeks - more so the past week maybe. I just feel adolescent and weird and unhappy. Very HORMONAL though, not unhappy in another sense. It's hard to shake off, and I am very sensitive to everything, and much more so since Thursday.
I feel like I have had bad news about the baby, that's sort of how I seem to have internalised it, even though that's stupid because I HAVEN'T, and I'm jumping the gun.... But I do. I feel anxious and unhappy, and completely unmotivated to do anything at all. I am wearing some nice cosy PJs in the belly pic, which I put on to go to bed on Thursday evening and am still wearing. I just feel in such a slump, and the big boys are being so horrid and difficult, and I'm being all weird and feeling like they're picking on me instead of being a grown-up and dealing with it. They make me want to run upstairs and cry, and I just have zero motivation to do anything with the boys at all these last couple of days. I feel such a horrible mother :( I know I'm not REALLY, but that kind of head knowledge isn't really sinking in at the moment. Right at this moment I am not particularly being a GOOD mother, which is sad. The boys are watching DVDs and playing happily for the most part. And otherwise giving me a lot of trouble (attitudes and disobeying and acting deaf and the usual kid stuff) - I am just dealing with it soooo badly, emotionally.
Ugh.
Anyway. I have had some advice here and there from people who have BTDT, and some have been wrong about their dates (I know I'm not), and others have ended up with 2nd trimester miscarriages. Yep. Often the first sign of a chromosomal abnormality that hasn't already ended in an early miscarriage, is restricted growth in the 2nd trimester or beyond. Those are the types of abnormalities that aren't compatible with life. OR maybe everything is fine and I have a little baby in there? Or some other reason that I can't actually find at the moment? One lady is currently pregnant (33 weeks I think) and her baby has been diagnosed with Intra Uterine Growth Restriction since 18 weeks, and they've found no reason so far. They are continuing to monitor the baby until birth, so I don't know the outcome on that one. Another lady's uterus was retro-flexed at this kind of stage and as it got bigger it caught up FAST in the "showing" department!
I don't know about those things for me, because it's my 6th pregnancy and I find it hard to believe my uterus could go flexing differently than it ever has before after all this time, to the point where I look less pregnant than I should (when I NEVER do at any stage of any of my pregnancies). Some folks are saying (sweetly, to reassure!), maybe it's a girl this time?! And maybe it is! But I should still measure 16 weeks when I'm 16 weeks, surely? I just can't think of a good explanation. None of them seem to hold water for me.
Soooo Neil and I have had some discussions. He feels sure the baby is fine, well, he did until he saw my belly gallery with the new picture up, and now he is praying with me that all is well. He saw Benjamin's 16 week picture and said, "THAT'S 16 weeks?!.... Oh."
We have decided that Heather will accompany me to the scan on Tuesday, and he will be off work that day (he has finished some work ahead of time, and they are really good about him taking off for appointments and such) and stay home with all 5 boys. I actually really WANT Heather with me, although I would ideally have both of them if I could. I feel scared. I hope I am wrong, and everything turns out to be fine and dandy (and it COULD!). But I am scared until I know.
If something is wrong with the baby, I know what I would choose, when they start discussing options with me, and Neil says it's my body and I'm the one carrying the baby, and he would want me to make the decisions at the time if I am happy to. I told him they might offer me an amniocentesis to diagnose a chromosomal problem if it's a possibility, and that I would decline. I don't want the small risk of miscarriage. I don't want anything invasive, even if it would give us answers. It would be helpful to KNOW but it wouldn't change anything other than that. If our baby has a problem that means it may die at any point during the pregnancy, be stillborn, or die shortly after birth, I would not, and will never terminate a pregnancy. I just can't play God. As unbearable as it must be to carry it out, I would choose to continue the pregnancy until God decided to take the baby home. If I was blessed with a few minutes or hours with my baby in my arms before that point, I would be forever grateful and so very glad not to have chosen an alternative earlier on. I don't know how anyone bears that though...
So Neil is happy with those choices - they would be his too. I think that's all I need to have covered with him before going to the scan. He doesn't like the name Rachel, but if it's a girl and she will not live, I NEED to call her Rachel. I haven't asked him yet because I will cry if I do, and I can't be on with that right now. But if it does all come to that, I hope he will be happy to let me.
Now that we're all prepared, I should put it out of my head and just wait for Tuesday, where hopefully all will be well! :) It's harder than I thought, though.
I phoned Heather today to tell her I would like her to come with me to the scan instead of babysitting some of the boys, and she is happy to do whatever we want her to. She asked how I was doing, and I said I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other mentally and emotionally, but physically I am fine. I think it is mainly hormones - bad timing for those at this particular time, hey?! :) I told her the same as I wrote here, that it just feels like I have received bad news about the baby, when I haven't yet, and it's hard to see straight about Tuesday. She reminded me to focus on the Lord, and that is the best advice really.
I was calling her upstairs because we are saying nothing to the boys, obviously, except that I am having a scan on Tuesday (they knew I wasn't due one until January) just to check the baby and see how big he or she is. They know Heather is going with me and that Daddy is home with them that day, and that I might get to see whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Maybe! As soon as I put the phone down, I sat in the quiet and wondered what to say to God. I told him that I hope my baby is okay. And that I was scared to ask Him to make the baby be okay if he/she wasn't going to be. But that I trusted Him. Then I remembered something from a song we sing at church called "Blessed be the name of the Lord":
He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your name!" Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name!
So I found myself praising Him for GIVING, for giving me this child. And accepting if He takes this child away. And crying and crying my heart out. And telling Him that I will praise His name all the same because He is just WORTHY of it, no matter what happens, or what He in his perfect wisdom decides is part of our journey. I am pretty sure that if He "takes away" this time, it is not going to be easy at ALL to CHOOSE to bless His name all the time, but I sure as heck am going to put my best foot forward. I love Him. I trust Him. I cling to Him because apart from Him there is no other, and (oh this is from another wonderful song!) why would I turn my back on the only shelter I have from the storm? And anyway, He is always worthy of my praise.
So now I think I should be "done" with the what-ifs and the emotional rollercoaster, and hopefully will just rest more peacefully about it until Tuesday. I hope, I hope, I hope. I don't like uncertainty! I hope my hormones will come about and I will feel lighter and cope generally better than I have been for a while. That will help TONS.
I am sure I will post again soon. Neil has a heavy cold this weekend which I guess he picked up at work. I'm desperately hoping the boys and I don't get it. I could do without the addition of a cold that hits me like a truck (as they tend to when I'm pregnant), and I think alllll our kiddies would not be clear of coldiness by Christmas which might mean we have to miss spending Christmas Day with my family (due to grandparents of somewhat frail health in their mid-80s!), and I would feel so so so distraught about that if it happened! I hope everything turns out okay this week...
Friday, December 9, 2011
16 weeks, 2 days - consultant update
I went for my consultant appointment yesterday with Heather. It went fine - we had to wait aaaages as always, but we chatted and it was nice. :) After a while I didn't feel so well, just tired I think. And morning sick. I felt increasingly nauseous and the light looked too bright and swimmy. I already had a headache before going out so that was getting worse which didn't help. Anyway, by the time we got called, I felt rubbish!
We saw a midwife who did my obs and stuff before the consultant came in, and she was very chatty and asked how I was feeling. I lied and said I felt fine, because I didn't want ANOTHER thing to add to the list of concerns by saying I felt unwell! I was pretty sure it wasn't relevant to my pregnancy anyway, just tiiiiired and still queasy.
So she filled in notes and asked questions, like, "Is this your second baby?" I said, "No..." and looked at Heather, and she said, "Third, fourth?" I said, "Keep going." haha! ;) She actually didn't bat an eyelid at sixth, just said I must be busy. I'm sure other people DO have six babies! After she filled in my notes, we went through to the examination room where she tested my urine, which was completely negative of anything (hooray!), and took my blood pressure. I expected it to be really low again, thinking maybe that was why I was feeling so yucky and lightheaded, but it was 110/80 which is very good for me!
Then she got the doppler out and I lay on the bed. She wasn't too gentle feeling around for my uterus, and put the doppler above it for some reason once she found it! She did angle it down though. She listened for the heartbeat all over the place, various parts of my tummy and all sorts of angles, but all we heard was a white noise silence and occasionally my own pulse. After the first couple of minutes I started to seriously NOT enjoy it. By 5 minutes I was actually feeling pretty anxious for my little one. She was being chatty and cheerful and way too brisk, saying how the consultant would probably be better at it than her, and how it's sometimes hard to hear a baby's heartbeat at 16 weeks - which did NOT reassure me since I know that's rhubarb. I have been hearing the baby's heartbeat since 8 weeks, and by 12 it's EASY to find. Way more so four weeks later! Although having said that, a week or so ago when the boys wanted to hear Sausage's heart beating, it wasn't immediately evident, and I think I searched around for a minute maybe, before finding it. That's odd for me at this stage though...
Anyway, she started asking if I was feeling the baby move yet, and I said yes, but just faintly. She occasionally asked while looking for the heartbeat, if I could feel movement right now. I felt so put on the spot! I really can't feel movement too clearly at all, and it's few and far in between anyway. I automatically started straining to feel any sort of pop or wiggle as she waited for my answer :( I wondered at the start if I had felt a single tiny pop to my cervix when she first started non-gently prodding the top of my uterus about, but I wasn't sure enough to say, so I said, "Maybe..." I didn't feel anything at the time she asked me. After 5 minutes, trying not to make eye contact with Heather or the midwife (I just didn't want to), she cheerfully suggested that I hop up and walk around a bit, because sometimes that helps the baby change position. Again, noooo reassurance for me because that's surely rubbish at 16 weeks! Position my foot, the baby is RIGHT THERE for a doppler. Anyway I got up and paced about the room feeling sort of embarrassed because they were both being cheery and jokey, but it sounded forced to me and I felt like I was being treated like a child a bit. Not by Heather so much, she was just going along with the midwife. Anyway. I said I needed a wee (which I did) and the midwife said that would probably help. I went to the loo and PRAYED my heart out that we'd find the baby's heartbeat and everything would be okay. It was such a horrid moment!
When I got back, the consultant had arrived and shook my hand as I walked through the door. He is so nice, and has a great sense of humour. I really like him! He sat straight down at the desk and we started the "discussion" part of the appointment. He talked briefly about the "risk" of having more than 5 babies, that of haemmorrhage, which is uhhhh basically UNTRUE but which the medical community believes anyway (despite complete and utter lack of anything to support it - Heather has researched throughly, AND questioned them as to where they get their evidence from, and they can not give her an answer, they fob her off with the fact that they learn it as part of their training!!!). And that he would prefer for me to deliver in the hospital due to that risk. And the Group B Strep status, how there's a risk to the baby, though slight. Etc. He recommended a managed 3rd stage (syntometrine injection to deliver the placenta) because of the "increased risk of haemmorrhage". He then asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted a homebirth, and he asked if I planned to have a managed 3rd stage and I said, "No." We talked a bit about the usual observations I need to make of my newborn, which I am now very familiar with doing, and he didn't make any objections. He finished by saying he had no problem with me planning a homebirth, but he would like to see me at 36 weeks just to review the pregnancy and make sure there were not any additional risk factors along the way. So, a good result, and one I expected, since he's a really good consultant who isn't anti-homebirth! :)
A non-managed 3rd stage is important to me because a) managing it isn't natural, and b) I want my baby to get ALL the blood that belongs to him/her, which continues to be pumped from the placenta for some time after the baby is born! It amounts to about a THIRD of the baby's total blood volume, seriously folks. I do not want to cut that supply off prematurely, which is exactly what "managing" the 3rd stage is about.
So then Heather pointed out that the midwife hadn't found the baby's heartbeat, and he said, "Oh, then let's go through and take a look!" We went through and I felt soooo nervous climbing on the bed and lying down. He felt my tummy first (expertly and gently, I might add), and kept doing so for quite a while, with a thoughtful expression. He said, "How many weeks are you?" although he knew, I think, from my notes. I told him 16, and he said, "Hmmm... you're not as big as I would expect for 16 weeks." This made me SO NERVOUS, having not yet found the baby's heartbeat, but especially coming from a very experienced consultant who wasn't likely to be making a mistake with his findings. I could not think why my womb was measuring behind at such an early stage, especially with everything measuring right on track at nearly 13 weeks - only 3 weeks ago. My mind did go to the thought that things might have deteriorated between then and now :( This was not helped by the next question he asked - "Have you noticed diminishing pregnancy symptoms?" To which I answered, "I don't think so..." He asked if I had had any pregnancy symptoms to start with, and I said I had morning sickness. He asked if it was still there, and I said yes, but it's milder now. At 16 weeks MOST people's morning sickness has cleared up for perfectly normal reasons, so that was a bit annoying that he made a bit of a thing of it when it could have cleared right up without it being a sign of a problem!
*sigh*
Anyway, he stopped feeling my tummy and got out the doppler. To my immense relief he found the heartbeat almost straight away. I just let out a huuuuuge breath, like I had been holding it for the past 15 minutes or something! But I was still worried about the size thing. After we went back to the desk, he updated my notes to say he was happy with my homebirth plans, and told me I should make sure I go to my 20 week scan to check on the baby (nerves!!!!). He asked if I had any questions, and I had a typical blank-brain moment, so thankfully Heather prompted me that I might be nervous about the size issue and could do with some reassurance?! Why won't my brain work when I am asked a question of any sort?!! Tsk!
So I said that it did make me nervous. He said he was not concerned at this point because he had heard the fetal heart and I had had a previous healthy scan. But he said again that I should be sure to attend my 20 week scan. I said that it was 4 weeks of nervousness away (actually nearer 5 - I'll be 1 day shy of 21 weeks at my scan), and he immediately said, "Then we'll scan you sooner for reassurance." He told me to go to reception and book a scan to check on the fetal size for as soon as possible. When I did that, they said the earliest they could do was next Tuesday. So I'm going in for a scan at 16 weeks and 6 days, on Tuesday 13th - a year to the day after my due date with Samuel. The appointment is at 12.40pm, and Neil says it will be no problem to take the day off work as he's ahead in his work right now, and they are always sympathetic about appointments and so on. Heather said she is available and very willing to either come with me or babysit the boys. Neil says I should go to the scan with Heather while he stays home with the boys, because then he can keep Samuel with him too (we wouldn't leave Samuel with Heather yet), and he thinks Heather would be the perfect person to have with me if something was wrong with the baby. I am in two minds over it. It's his baby too, and if everything IS fine, it's possible we could find out the gender on Tuesday! I asked him about it but he said he doesn't mind waiting until the 20 week scan to see the baby, and if we find out the baby's gender then he will be happy to hear it from me and see for himself in a few weeks. So I think that's what we'll do - I think I will ask Heather to go with me. I actually would love Heather to be with me at a scan, because she is so involved with my babies and it's lovely to have her able to SEE the baby before it's even born! :) I would like Neil with me, but we'd have Samuel too, and I think if something was wrong, he would probably focus on Samuel as a way of coping, and I know that Heather is an expert at being "there" for mummies over any issue with their babies. I would need that level of support.
So, Tuesday! I am nervous, reeeeeally nervous, even though Neil feels sure that everything is fine, and Heather reassured me that if the consultant had been concerned, she is sure he would have cracked out the portable u/s machine to check right then and there. I am desperately watching for movements, and planning to listen in with my doppler more than I have been over the next few days. I just want to hear that the little one is the same wiggly active baby he/she has always been. It will be very reassuring for me, and if it's not the case then I think I would benefit from a heads-up. I will be terribly nervous on Tuesday probably, but Heather has told me to go home and PRAY, especially my prayer about fear that's taped to my chest of drawers. So I will. I feel so insecure and weird and hormonal inside, which doesn't help. It's like the same sort of hormones that I remember from adolescence (BOY am I glad those years are behind me!), and I don't know if I have ever had this much trouble with those sort of hormones in any of my other pregnancies. Maybe a girl?
The other part of me is so happy to be having an opportunity to see my little love again at the scan SO SOON!!! :D And a good opportunity for an early look at whether the baby is a boy or a girl! How exciting! :) It will not be a long scan, just a quick measure for reassurance, they said. So it might not be appropriate to ask to see if the baby is a boy or a girl, but I'm hoping they'll be looking at the baby from various angles long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the gender myself. If I feel confident enough I will ask if there's anything between the baby's legs! ;) If there is something wrong with the baby I will flat out ask them the baby's gender, because it will be SO helpful to me to know that as I cope with what's ahead.
Neil feels sure it's a girl, because he said there was NOTHING between the baby's legs at the 12w5d scan, and we saw 3 lines. I reminded him that there must have been SOMETHING there at that early stage, but the angle could have been such that it didn't come into view - AND there are folks who have seen 3 lines at their scans with boys at that stage, showing the curvature of the scrotum. He still says it's a girl because we've never seen anything like that at the other boys' scans.
Okay, Samuel is crying so I have to go. I just wanted to update about the appointment. I am definitely looking smaller than usual at 16 weeks, and I will get Neil to take a pic tonight if I remember, so that I can post it and compare more easily. I will also get round to posting the letter to my grandparents soon - they did call me the other night with slightly tense if very positive words! :) Hooray!
We saw a midwife who did my obs and stuff before the consultant came in, and she was very chatty and asked how I was feeling. I lied and said I felt fine, because I didn't want ANOTHER thing to add to the list of concerns by saying I felt unwell! I was pretty sure it wasn't relevant to my pregnancy anyway, just tiiiiired and still queasy.
So she filled in notes and asked questions, like, "Is this your second baby?" I said, "No..." and looked at Heather, and she said, "Third, fourth?" I said, "Keep going." haha! ;) She actually didn't bat an eyelid at sixth, just said I must be busy. I'm sure other people DO have six babies! After she filled in my notes, we went through to the examination room where she tested my urine, which was completely negative of anything (hooray!), and took my blood pressure. I expected it to be really low again, thinking maybe that was why I was feeling so yucky and lightheaded, but it was 110/80 which is very good for me!
Then she got the doppler out and I lay on the bed. She wasn't too gentle feeling around for my uterus, and put the doppler above it for some reason once she found it! She did angle it down though. She listened for the heartbeat all over the place, various parts of my tummy and all sorts of angles, but all we heard was a white noise silence and occasionally my own pulse. After the first couple of minutes I started to seriously NOT enjoy it. By 5 minutes I was actually feeling pretty anxious for my little one. She was being chatty and cheerful and way too brisk, saying how the consultant would probably be better at it than her, and how it's sometimes hard to hear a baby's heartbeat at 16 weeks - which did NOT reassure me since I know that's rhubarb. I have been hearing the baby's heartbeat since 8 weeks, and by 12 it's EASY to find. Way more so four weeks later! Although having said that, a week or so ago when the boys wanted to hear Sausage's heart beating, it wasn't immediately evident, and I think I searched around for a minute maybe, before finding it. That's odd for me at this stage though...
Anyway, she started asking if I was feeling the baby move yet, and I said yes, but just faintly. She occasionally asked while looking for the heartbeat, if I could feel movement right now. I felt so put on the spot! I really can't feel movement too clearly at all, and it's few and far in between anyway. I automatically started straining to feel any sort of pop or wiggle as she waited for my answer :( I wondered at the start if I had felt a single tiny pop to my cervix when she first started non-gently prodding the top of my uterus about, but I wasn't sure enough to say, so I said, "Maybe..." I didn't feel anything at the time she asked me. After 5 minutes, trying not to make eye contact with Heather or the midwife (I just didn't want to), she cheerfully suggested that I hop up and walk around a bit, because sometimes that helps the baby change position. Again, noooo reassurance for me because that's surely rubbish at 16 weeks! Position my foot, the baby is RIGHT THERE for a doppler. Anyway I got up and paced about the room feeling sort of embarrassed because they were both being cheery and jokey, but it sounded forced to me and I felt like I was being treated like a child a bit. Not by Heather so much, she was just going along with the midwife. Anyway. I said I needed a wee (which I did) and the midwife said that would probably help. I went to the loo and PRAYED my heart out that we'd find the baby's heartbeat and everything would be okay. It was such a horrid moment!
When I got back, the consultant had arrived and shook my hand as I walked through the door. He is so nice, and has a great sense of humour. I really like him! He sat straight down at the desk and we started the "discussion" part of the appointment. He talked briefly about the "risk" of having more than 5 babies, that of haemmorrhage, which is uhhhh basically UNTRUE but which the medical community believes anyway (despite complete and utter lack of anything to support it - Heather has researched throughly, AND questioned them as to where they get their evidence from, and they can not give her an answer, they fob her off with the fact that they learn it as part of their training!!!). And that he would prefer for me to deliver in the hospital due to that risk. And the Group B Strep status, how there's a risk to the baby, though slight. Etc. He recommended a managed 3rd stage (syntometrine injection to deliver the placenta) because of the "increased risk of haemmorrhage". He then asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted a homebirth, and he asked if I planned to have a managed 3rd stage and I said, "No." We talked a bit about the usual observations I need to make of my newborn, which I am now very familiar with doing, and he didn't make any objections. He finished by saying he had no problem with me planning a homebirth, but he would like to see me at 36 weeks just to review the pregnancy and make sure there were not any additional risk factors along the way. So, a good result, and one I expected, since he's a really good consultant who isn't anti-homebirth! :)
A non-managed 3rd stage is important to me because a) managing it isn't natural, and b) I want my baby to get ALL the blood that belongs to him/her, which continues to be pumped from the placenta for some time after the baby is born! It amounts to about a THIRD of the baby's total blood volume, seriously folks. I do not want to cut that supply off prematurely, which is exactly what "managing" the 3rd stage is about.
So then Heather pointed out that the midwife hadn't found the baby's heartbeat, and he said, "Oh, then let's go through and take a look!" We went through and I felt soooo nervous climbing on the bed and lying down. He felt my tummy first (expertly and gently, I might add), and kept doing so for quite a while, with a thoughtful expression. He said, "How many weeks are you?" although he knew, I think, from my notes. I told him 16, and he said, "Hmmm... you're not as big as I would expect for 16 weeks." This made me SO NERVOUS, having not yet found the baby's heartbeat, but especially coming from a very experienced consultant who wasn't likely to be making a mistake with his findings. I could not think why my womb was measuring behind at such an early stage, especially with everything measuring right on track at nearly 13 weeks - only 3 weeks ago. My mind did go to the thought that things might have deteriorated between then and now :( This was not helped by the next question he asked - "Have you noticed diminishing pregnancy symptoms?" To which I answered, "I don't think so..." He asked if I had had any pregnancy symptoms to start with, and I said I had morning sickness. He asked if it was still there, and I said yes, but it's milder now. At 16 weeks MOST people's morning sickness has cleared up for perfectly normal reasons, so that was a bit annoying that he made a bit of a thing of it when it could have cleared right up without it being a sign of a problem!
*sigh*
Anyway, he stopped feeling my tummy and got out the doppler. To my immense relief he found the heartbeat almost straight away. I just let out a huuuuuge breath, like I had been holding it for the past 15 minutes or something! But I was still worried about the size thing. After we went back to the desk, he updated my notes to say he was happy with my homebirth plans, and told me I should make sure I go to my 20 week scan to check on the baby (nerves!!!!). He asked if I had any questions, and I had a typical blank-brain moment, so thankfully Heather prompted me that I might be nervous about the size issue and could do with some reassurance?! Why won't my brain work when I am asked a question of any sort?!! Tsk!
So I said that it did make me nervous. He said he was not concerned at this point because he had heard the fetal heart and I had had a previous healthy scan. But he said again that I should be sure to attend my 20 week scan. I said that it was 4 weeks of nervousness away (actually nearer 5 - I'll be 1 day shy of 21 weeks at my scan), and he immediately said, "Then we'll scan you sooner for reassurance." He told me to go to reception and book a scan to check on the fetal size for as soon as possible. When I did that, they said the earliest they could do was next Tuesday. So I'm going in for a scan at 16 weeks and 6 days, on Tuesday 13th - a year to the day after my due date with Samuel. The appointment is at 12.40pm, and Neil says it will be no problem to take the day off work as he's ahead in his work right now, and they are always sympathetic about appointments and so on. Heather said she is available and very willing to either come with me or babysit the boys. Neil says I should go to the scan with Heather while he stays home with the boys, because then he can keep Samuel with him too (we wouldn't leave Samuel with Heather yet), and he thinks Heather would be the perfect person to have with me if something was wrong with the baby. I am in two minds over it. It's his baby too, and if everything IS fine, it's possible we could find out the gender on Tuesday! I asked him about it but he said he doesn't mind waiting until the 20 week scan to see the baby, and if we find out the baby's gender then he will be happy to hear it from me and see for himself in a few weeks. So I think that's what we'll do - I think I will ask Heather to go with me. I actually would love Heather to be with me at a scan, because she is so involved with my babies and it's lovely to have her able to SEE the baby before it's even born! :) I would like Neil with me, but we'd have Samuel too, and I think if something was wrong, he would probably focus on Samuel as a way of coping, and I know that Heather is an expert at being "there" for mummies over any issue with their babies. I would need that level of support.
So, Tuesday! I am nervous, reeeeeally nervous, even though Neil feels sure that everything is fine, and Heather reassured me that if the consultant had been concerned, she is sure he would have cracked out the portable u/s machine to check right then and there. I am desperately watching for movements, and planning to listen in with my doppler more than I have been over the next few days. I just want to hear that the little one is the same wiggly active baby he/she has always been. It will be very reassuring for me, and if it's not the case then I think I would benefit from a heads-up. I will be terribly nervous on Tuesday probably, but Heather has told me to go home and PRAY, especially my prayer about fear that's taped to my chest of drawers. So I will. I feel so insecure and weird and hormonal inside, which doesn't help. It's like the same sort of hormones that I remember from adolescence (BOY am I glad those years are behind me!), and I don't know if I have ever had this much trouble with those sort of hormones in any of my other pregnancies. Maybe a girl?
The other part of me is so happy to be having an opportunity to see my little love again at the scan SO SOON!!! :D And a good opportunity for an early look at whether the baby is a boy or a girl! How exciting! :) It will not be a long scan, just a quick measure for reassurance, they said. So it might not be appropriate to ask to see if the baby is a boy or a girl, but I'm hoping they'll be looking at the baby from various angles long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the gender myself. If I feel confident enough I will ask if there's anything between the baby's legs! ;) If there is something wrong with the baby I will flat out ask them the baby's gender, because it will be SO helpful to me to know that as I cope with what's ahead.
Neil feels sure it's a girl, because he said there was NOTHING between the baby's legs at the 12w5d scan, and we saw 3 lines. I reminded him that there must have been SOMETHING there at that early stage, but the angle could have been such that it didn't come into view - AND there are folks who have seen 3 lines at their scans with boys at that stage, showing the curvature of the scrotum. He still says it's a girl because we've never seen anything like that at the other boys' scans.
Okay, Samuel is crying so I have to go. I just wanted to update about the appointment. I am definitely looking smaller than usual at 16 weeks, and I will get Neil to take a pic tonight if I remember, so that I can post it and compare more easily. I will also get round to posting the letter to my grandparents soon - they did call me the other night with slightly tense if very positive words! :) Hooray!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
15 weeks, 6 days - kinda sorta Samuel's birth story...
I just had a quick look at my blog to see when I last updated, and it was TWO WEEKS AGO!!! That's so bad! So here I am to do something about it, lol!
Well let's see.... I will be 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow - how on earth did that happen?! I looked up Sausage's length tonight because this morning when I woke up and put my hand to my little bump where the baby is, it felt a bit tender, and there was a shape pressing out against my tummy. When I felt it carefully, I wondered if it might be Sausage's back. It was about 4-5 inches long, absolutely horizontal across my uterus (which was a bit tender at either "end"!), and maybe 1.5 to 2 inches across. I didn't really know how big Sausage might be at this stage, having not looked it up for a few weeks, so I thought I'd do so tonight. Well, at 16 weeks, Sausage should be 4.5 inches long from head to bottom! So I am pretty sure I was feeling my little baby's back pressing out for the first time! :) It felt pretty BIG to me, considering how not-that-pregnant I still feel, and look. And I'm barely feeling movements, so it's strange to feel such a large object there and know it's the baby, while not really being that "aware" of it yet!
This past week I am feeling movements more consistently, definitely every day now, and usually more than once or twice, but always sooooo faint and tiny and gentle. Sometimes I can barely tell that it was a baby wiggle. I feel squirmy movements sometimes, like a strange swirling pressing motion somewhere around my bikini line, which are a little bit uncomfortable. These last few days I have felt the first proper little pops and taps of actual kicks, but they're sooooo adorably tiny! How I LOVE this part! :D
The boys asked to hear Sausage's heart beating last week, so amidst great excitement, I used the doppler to let them hear. They LOVE hearing the boinks and splatches that show Sausage's (MANY!) vigorous movements, but this particular time it seemed very much like Sausage was asleep! :) The heart rate was steady, never changed at all over a few minutes, and it was so much slower than we've heard it before - 145bpm. Usually it's way up around 170 or something. Well, I say usually, but we haven't really listened in many times, or for a while lately. Anyway, there were two faint sounds of a foot or hand, but they were so gentle and it could easily have been a sleep movement. I am pretty sure Sausage was sleeping - so sweet! :)
On Thursday this week (16w1d) I am going for my consultant appointment at the hospital (re. the many babies and Group B Strep, etc.) like last time. I am seeing the same consultant that I saw last time so hopefully that is a GOOD thing and he won't hang heavy on anything, since we've been there and done that. I'm so thankful I'll have Heather, my doula, with me all the same!
My doula has been AMAZING these last two weeks. She is now homeschooling her 13-year-old daughter, and she phoned a week or two ago to ask if they could come round the next morning. The boys LOVE her and were so excited, and we'd never met her daughter before so that was exciting too! She turned out to love the boys so much that she wants to come and play with them regularly in the New Year - she actually suggested to her mum that they make it a weekly or fortnightly thing to give me a break!!! Amazing girl! Anyway, they came with some lovely gifts for no particular reason. They'd baked chocolate cake, and bought an advent calendar with wooden boxes, and filled each box with 5 small things (one for each boy) like stickers, sweeties, etc. Soooooo lovely! The boys are having so much fun opening the boxes now that it's December. They brought a chocolate advent calendar for ME! :) They had just finished making their own Christmas Puddings, and had one spare to give to us! I am the only person in this house who eats them, and I LOVE them. At home (growing up) we always always made them ourselves, NEVER ate shop-bought ones (they SUCK in comparison, trust me!). I have had the odd shop-bought one since, but they're really so rubbish compared to homemade that I mostly go without Christmas Pud at Christmas now :( This year I get to have some because we're having a family gathering on Christmas Day at my brother's house, and my parents are bringing the homemade Christmas Pudding!!! Yay! But Heather has brought me a real homemade one too! I'm so touched by that, and happy to get to eat my way through one over the festive period, haha!
Anyway. Heather also gave me a Christmas card and told me to open it when they had left, and not to lose it. They stayed 4 hours and built railway tracks with the boys, and read a million stories, and generally entertained the little ones so well. After the left I went in the kitchen and opened the card, and there was a cheque inside for £700!!!! I was moved to tears when I saw it, and the note with it. There was a detailed explanation but basically God had told them to give it to us, so they did. God is SO GOOD to us, providing for our needs so wonderfully. We always seem to be at the end of what we can manage with, money wise, but it doesn't mean God ISN'T providing for our needs. He sees us and He does provide, in all sorts of ways, and I'm so grateful! The timing was amazing for me because in the two days beforehand, I had just taken quite some time to think about and draft a letter to my grandparents, to announce my pregnancy. It was fairly lengthy in the end, and I explained our thoughts and reasons, etc. I emailed it to my parents to give them a heads-up (they often get phoned first when there's big news that my grandparents want to rant about!) and also because they'd give me good feedback if it needed changing. I'm happy to have sent it to them in any case because, although they know our reasons for having lots of babies, they don't agree with them and it's nice to really lay it out and remind them that we are trusting God (and that's He is faithful!). None of my family are Christians. In the letter I wrote about God providing for us financially, even though it might not seem like it, so to receive a lot of money in the next couple of days was a real encouragement to me and I know that God timed it for a reason. I love God! :)
I will copy and paste my letter here in a separate entry, I think. It will be good to have it recorded here, because my dad said that when I have my next baby after this one (Yes! He said that!!! Totally normal and casual conversation too! :D ), it will be good to plan to announce to my grandparents this way again if it proves to work well.
Anyway, so my doula rocketh! :D I love her so much. When I phoned to thank her (profusely) the next morning, she told me about her daughter's request to come over regularly to help with the boys from January (she has other commitments until then) with Heather, and ohhhh it was so lovely. To top it all off, Heather told me she has absolutely no intention of letting me pay her this time around, and that she plans to "doula" me for free! I just had no words at all. She said that she DOES do a couple of freebies a year, and this time it's me :) But she said that I'm one of her very top favourite women to doula for, because I just do birth so well (she's so encouraging, really made me beam as she told me all this!) and it's absolutely no work for her at all. She said it's quick, straightforward, and silent, haha! She turns up with no need to work with me about what to do in this or that circumstance, or to help me make decisions, etc.
I MUST write my birth story for Samuel properly, but in a nutshell, I had a membrane sweep at 41 weeks exactly, had a night of cramps, diarrhoea and nausea, and not much sleep, all along losing bloody show. I phoned her EARLY, maybe 6-something am, to ask her if she could come over, and was sort of maybe having contractions, but just generally didn't feel great and was a bit nervous, and felt sure that this would lead to something pretty soon. She came over incredibly quickly, and prayed with me and sat with me. I lay on my bed and rested. Definitely started contractions, but I can't remember when that was a sure regular labour-ish thing. Midwife came and stayed, also in my room, on a chair at the end of my bed. I lay on my side and rested. Heather brought out some peppermint oil because I felt sick (never felt sick with labour before) and within 30 mins all nausea had utterly completely vanished and never returned (so thankful!).
I really don't remember the details enough off the top of my head, but I have Heather's notes somewhere, so I'll be able to do a proper more detailed birth story soon, hopefully!
Anyway, basically they decided labour started around 9am in the end, but since I am silent and restful the midwife commented that it's hard to tell what's going on in my labours (she was at Benjamin's birth too). I just breathe, and don't talk. Heather is silent too, and when a midwife arrives she intercepts them and tells them I need silence to labour, where possible. So I do! :) My own bed, silence, rest. Dealing with contractions as they come, with breathing. Heather sits by my side, either by the bed, or on the bed on the side I'm not lying on, writing her notes as I do things that she is tuned into and which the midwives don't notice (she gave them thumbs-up signs a lot apparently, as I did things which to her meant progress, but which they might not have noticed, lol!). After a while I want to take my glasses off (this gets a thumbs-up from Heather to the midwife) and shortly after that I want to cover my eyes when I am dealing with a contraction, and need to really work on focus and breathing to manage the pain. Covering my eyes apparently gets a madly excited thumbs up from Heather, haha, it made me laugh when she was telling me afterwards, because I had no idea at the time! ;)
Pretty soon (maybe this was 2 or 3 hours in?) I needed to hold Heather's hand during contractions and was making more "in pain" sounds like I wasn't dealing so well with the pain. She kept me focused, reminded me of the Bible verses I had on the walls, etc. But very quiet and very little speech all the while. Transition gets me more vocal, starting to say things at last, like I can't manage much more of the pain and I don't want to do any more contractions, because I truly feel like I can't TAKE IT ANY MORE! ;) Peak of transition for me = anxiety, panic sometimes. I actually had to push this time (gasp, haha!) for a few minutes, and before that set in I was really quite petrified for a while. Heather reminded me that it's normal, it's due to hormonal changes, it means the 2nd stage is starting, etc, it's going to be okay. She gets more involved at this point, and is more physically there fore me, holding my hand, giving me sips of water, using a cool facecloth on my face between contractions (I'm always so HOT!). I really NEED her at this point onwards, but until then I have been okay sort of on my own, in my own head.
With Samuel, for the first time since Arthur I got myself ready to push! I got propped up in bed like I wanted to be, and bent my knees up ready. And then I waited for a contraction, and PANICKED! I was terrified to go through the next part, and I suddenly became tearful and high pitched and shook my head saying I didn't want to doooo it, and didn't they know that I CAN'T do it, I just caaaan't?!! Heather was so supportive and strong for me when I needed that. And of course a contraction came and I pushed. For the first time we decided that I would like to try to control the birth itself, to minimise the risk of tearing (I always have a 2nd degree tear and did not fancy the stitches again - hate that part so much!). So it was the first time since Arthur that I have had some sort of coaching from a midwife whilst pushing. It was exactly what I needed, which I didn't expect! It put the control back in the scary uncontrollable descent of the baby's head, for me. I pushed a little bit and then the midwife would say, "Stop pushing." and I would blow blow blow like a crazy woman, and then she would ask me to push a little bit again, and so on until the contraction stopped. I had no idea of the bonus it would carry - the pushing was never overwhelming, and the sensations weren't either. If they got a bit much, I was blowing like crazy at that point, and therefore in control. I never once had the urge (or air, lol!) to do my usual noisy wailing as the head came down. I can't tell you how relieved I was about that, and proud/pleased too! :) I really really dislike making all that noise and feeling so out of control.
Anyway, yay, pushing went fine, and his head was out in no time. The worst part BY FAR (and it will sound crazy but I promise I am not kidding!) was the cramp in the back of my thighs after the first couple of minutes. UN.BELIEVABLY PAINFUL, lol! I was giving birth with no pain relief, and practically screaming, "Aaaaaargh, my THIGHS!!! Help, help!" during contractions, hahaha! It was very hard cramp though, and in such big muscles, ow ow ow ow. The midwife was trying to massage my hamstrings best she could, bless her! ;) This time I need to be FITTER. Or find a sure way of fully supporting both legs if I want to give birth in that position again! Anyway, so his head came out, and there it sat while I waited for another contraction, and that was about the hardest part of the birth. His torso seemed much bigger to me than his head and the sensation of him sitting in there was actually completely unbearable. I believe I raised my voice somewhat and semi-yelled, "Get him out! GET HIM OUT!!!" lol! It was just sooooo beyond uncomfortable and I needed to be relieved of the sensation IMMEDIATELY, I can't explain it. They soothingly said, "He's coming, don't worry!" I can't remember now if I decided I was waiting no longer and pushed for all I was worth (hello 5th 2nd degree tear. *sigh*), or if a contraction finally arrived and helped me. But anyway, out he came, and OH the instant relief, and the delight seeing my tiny love lifted up over me to my very eagerly outstretched arms. I remember saying, "Oh he's so TINY!!" because he was! And Heather snorting over to the side there, which kind of brought me back to earth with a bump! I said, "Isn't he?!" because he seemed sooooo weeny. Heather is seasoned at seeing newborn babies lifted over their mummies' tummies, and knew he wasn't a little baby! I was pretty much speechless a while later when they weighed him in at 9lbs 9oz, haha! I seriously would have had anxiety about that if I'd have known before the birth! ;) He was born at 1.41pm, about 4.5 hours or so after they think labour started.
Anyway. Heather says she loves my births, and would never want to miss one! I'm so grateful that she's not letting me pay this time. What a blessing she is! :) Today she phoned out of the blue to say her daughter had been wanting to see us again, and could they come over this afternoon. I have been having a bit of a frazzled hormonal NIGHTMARE day with the boys today, and not managing too well with their behaviour and so on. Anyway, they came over just as I was pretty much about to sit in the corner and cry, and I was rattling around in the kitchen trying to clean up the lunch things too fast, etc, and Heather came and put the kettle on and asked how I was feeling. I just told her I felt a bit frazzled. The little ones were everywhere underfoot and making so much noise, and for a rare moment I honestly felt like bursting into tears, and just washed out tired with it all. I know it's hormones though! She suggested I go out somewhere, and they'd watch the boys, but I didn't want to. So she said I should go up to bed and rest! I faffed about not really deciding to do it, so in the end she told me she had made the decision for me and I was to go up to bed NOW, lol! She said she would come and get me if I was needed, or bring Samuel up if he cried. I expected he would cry pretty much as soon as I was out of sight, but he didn't. They kept him really well entertained with peekaboo games and toys and so on.
It felt so odd to be closing the door on the noise downstairs and just lie on my bed. I felt weird inside and tearful, you know that "I don't know who I am!!!" horrid hormonal feeling that comes over you at times? I don't like it, and prefer to be heavily distracted at times like that, but there I was just lying there with no distraction. I lay and rested for maybe 10 minutes, and then saw a prayer that Heather typed out for me and laminated during Benjamin's pregnancy - I put it on the side of my chest of drawers so I can see it from my bed, and have just left it there. So I read it out loud, and that was comforting. And then I prayed that God would be close to me. And after a minute a worship song popped in my head that I haven't sung for years. So I quietly started to sing it, and somewhere around the 3rd line, God absolutely flooded my heart with joy and love and praise, so much that I couldn't contain it! It brought me to tears and physically revitalised me like no rest can. It was AWESOME!! :D I needed to get my Bible after a bit because Psalm 103 came to mind and I wanted to read it. I spent the next 20 minutes praying and worshipping and reading my Bible and then I felt wonderful and like I wanted to go back downstairs.
Heather was reading stories to little ones, and said, "That was quick!" She wanted to know if I had got any sleep, and looked doubtful when I said no, but I told her I prayed and then God showed up, so I'd spent my time with Him! She said, "Fantastic!!" Totally all I needed - thank you Lord! They stayed until dinner time, several hours. It was so so so nice, and I feel so grateful for Heather and her family.
Well, this entry has turned LONG! I'm tired out and Samuel is stirring, so I should go to bed now. I am not sure what stuff I've missed saying.... Oh I am still morning sick, but this past week has been much milder than usual, so I do (finally!) think it's going. It's just queasiness most of the time, and I'm doing and eating everything normally. It's mainly just an annoyance in the background, which I can totally live with! But I'll be happy when it's all completely gone.
I am not really showing much at all, just a little bumpiness. I can't remember if I took a 14 week belly pic!! Suddenly thinking about it, I don't think I did! And I'm due another picture for 16 weeks, so I MUSTN'T forget to do that! I had so many gaps with photos during Samuel's pregnancy and it makes me sad to look back at his belly gallery and see how sparse it is compared with all the others :( So I definitely don't want to do that again. I really don't think I am showing much for 16 weeks, but I will see when I get a photo in the next few days (hopefully!). I am getting some heartburn now, and especially this weird and reeeeally horrible sort of reflux when I eat something cold like ice-cream, or a lot of ice cold water in one go. It's a cold PRESSURE low down in my throat, that doesn't go away, and it makes me feel like I'm being sick in the end, but that the action is "on pause" - yuck! I am being careful not to eat or drink too much cold stuff in one go. I grabbed a Rennie quickly when it happened the first time after ice-cream, and it helped a lot.
I can't think what else, and I need to go to bed! I will be back soon with a belly pic and that letter to my grandparents. And whatever news there is from the consultant appointment. Thank you for following along with me! I'm having a lovely time being pregnant again! :)
Well let's see.... I will be 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow - how on earth did that happen?! I looked up Sausage's length tonight because this morning when I woke up and put my hand to my little bump where the baby is, it felt a bit tender, and there was a shape pressing out against my tummy. When I felt it carefully, I wondered if it might be Sausage's back. It was about 4-5 inches long, absolutely horizontal across my uterus (which was a bit tender at either "end"!), and maybe 1.5 to 2 inches across. I didn't really know how big Sausage might be at this stage, having not looked it up for a few weeks, so I thought I'd do so tonight. Well, at 16 weeks, Sausage should be 4.5 inches long from head to bottom! So I am pretty sure I was feeling my little baby's back pressing out for the first time! :) It felt pretty BIG to me, considering how not-that-pregnant I still feel, and look. And I'm barely feeling movements, so it's strange to feel such a large object there and know it's the baby, while not really being that "aware" of it yet!
This past week I am feeling movements more consistently, definitely every day now, and usually more than once or twice, but always sooooo faint and tiny and gentle. Sometimes I can barely tell that it was a baby wiggle. I feel squirmy movements sometimes, like a strange swirling pressing motion somewhere around my bikini line, which are a little bit uncomfortable. These last few days I have felt the first proper little pops and taps of actual kicks, but they're sooooo adorably tiny! How I LOVE this part! :D
The boys asked to hear Sausage's heart beating last week, so amidst great excitement, I used the doppler to let them hear. They LOVE hearing the boinks and splatches that show Sausage's (MANY!) vigorous movements, but this particular time it seemed very much like Sausage was asleep! :) The heart rate was steady, never changed at all over a few minutes, and it was so much slower than we've heard it before - 145bpm. Usually it's way up around 170 or something. Well, I say usually, but we haven't really listened in many times, or for a while lately. Anyway, there were two faint sounds of a foot or hand, but they were so gentle and it could easily have been a sleep movement. I am pretty sure Sausage was sleeping - so sweet! :)
On Thursday this week (16w1d) I am going for my consultant appointment at the hospital (re. the many babies and Group B Strep, etc.) like last time. I am seeing the same consultant that I saw last time so hopefully that is a GOOD thing and he won't hang heavy on anything, since we've been there and done that. I'm so thankful I'll have Heather, my doula, with me all the same!
My doula has been AMAZING these last two weeks. She is now homeschooling her 13-year-old daughter, and she phoned a week or two ago to ask if they could come round the next morning. The boys LOVE her and were so excited, and we'd never met her daughter before so that was exciting too! She turned out to love the boys so much that she wants to come and play with them regularly in the New Year - she actually suggested to her mum that they make it a weekly or fortnightly thing to give me a break!!! Amazing girl! Anyway, they came with some lovely gifts for no particular reason. They'd baked chocolate cake, and bought an advent calendar with wooden boxes, and filled each box with 5 small things (one for each boy) like stickers, sweeties, etc. Soooooo lovely! The boys are having so much fun opening the boxes now that it's December. They brought a chocolate advent calendar for ME! :) They had just finished making their own Christmas Puddings, and had one spare to give to us! I am the only person in this house who eats them, and I LOVE them. At home (growing up) we always always made them ourselves, NEVER ate shop-bought ones (they SUCK in comparison, trust me!). I have had the odd shop-bought one since, but they're really so rubbish compared to homemade that I mostly go without Christmas Pud at Christmas now :( This year I get to have some because we're having a family gathering on Christmas Day at my brother's house, and my parents are bringing the homemade Christmas Pudding!!! Yay! But Heather has brought me a real homemade one too! I'm so touched by that, and happy to get to eat my way through one over the festive period, haha!
Anyway. Heather also gave me a Christmas card and told me to open it when they had left, and not to lose it. They stayed 4 hours and built railway tracks with the boys, and read a million stories, and generally entertained the little ones so well. After the left I went in the kitchen and opened the card, and there was a cheque inside for £700!!!! I was moved to tears when I saw it, and the note with it. There was a detailed explanation but basically God had told them to give it to us, so they did. God is SO GOOD to us, providing for our needs so wonderfully. We always seem to be at the end of what we can manage with, money wise, but it doesn't mean God ISN'T providing for our needs. He sees us and He does provide, in all sorts of ways, and I'm so grateful! The timing was amazing for me because in the two days beforehand, I had just taken quite some time to think about and draft a letter to my grandparents, to announce my pregnancy. It was fairly lengthy in the end, and I explained our thoughts and reasons, etc. I emailed it to my parents to give them a heads-up (they often get phoned first when there's big news that my grandparents want to rant about!) and also because they'd give me good feedback if it needed changing. I'm happy to have sent it to them in any case because, although they know our reasons for having lots of babies, they don't agree with them and it's nice to really lay it out and remind them that we are trusting God (and that's He is faithful!). None of my family are Christians. In the letter I wrote about God providing for us financially, even though it might not seem like it, so to receive a lot of money in the next couple of days was a real encouragement to me and I know that God timed it for a reason. I love God! :)
I will copy and paste my letter here in a separate entry, I think. It will be good to have it recorded here, because my dad said that when I have my next baby after this one (Yes! He said that!!! Totally normal and casual conversation too! :D ), it will be good to plan to announce to my grandparents this way again if it proves to work well.
Anyway, so my doula rocketh! :D I love her so much. When I phoned to thank her (profusely) the next morning, she told me about her daughter's request to come over regularly to help with the boys from January (she has other commitments until then) with Heather, and ohhhh it was so lovely. To top it all off, Heather told me she has absolutely no intention of letting me pay her this time around, and that she plans to "doula" me for free! I just had no words at all. She said that she DOES do a couple of freebies a year, and this time it's me :) But she said that I'm one of her very top favourite women to doula for, because I just do birth so well (she's so encouraging, really made me beam as she told me all this!) and it's absolutely no work for her at all. She said it's quick, straightforward, and silent, haha! She turns up with no need to work with me about what to do in this or that circumstance, or to help me make decisions, etc.
I MUST write my birth story for Samuel properly, but in a nutshell, I had a membrane sweep at 41 weeks exactly, had a night of cramps, diarrhoea and nausea, and not much sleep, all along losing bloody show. I phoned her EARLY, maybe 6-something am, to ask her if she could come over, and was sort of maybe having contractions, but just generally didn't feel great and was a bit nervous, and felt sure that this would lead to something pretty soon. She came over incredibly quickly, and prayed with me and sat with me. I lay on my bed and rested. Definitely started contractions, but I can't remember when that was a sure regular labour-ish thing. Midwife came and stayed, also in my room, on a chair at the end of my bed. I lay on my side and rested. Heather brought out some peppermint oil because I felt sick (never felt sick with labour before) and within 30 mins all nausea had utterly completely vanished and never returned (so thankful!).
I really don't remember the details enough off the top of my head, but I have Heather's notes somewhere, so I'll be able to do a proper more detailed birth story soon, hopefully!
Anyway, basically they decided labour started around 9am in the end, but since I am silent and restful the midwife commented that it's hard to tell what's going on in my labours (she was at Benjamin's birth too). I just breathe, and don't talk. Heather is silent too, and when a midwife arrives she intercepts them and tells them I need silence to labour, where possible. So I do! :) My own bed, silence, rest. Dealing with contractions as they come, with breathing. Heather sits by my side, either by the bed, or on the bed on the side I'm not lying on, writing her notes as I do things that she is tuned into and which the midwives don't notice (she gave them thumbs-up signs a lot apparently, as I did things which to her meant progress, but which they might not have noticed, lol!). After a while I want to take my glasses off (this gets a thumbs-up from Heather to the midwife) and shortly after that I want to cover my eyes when I am dealing with a contraction, and need to really work on focus and breathing to manage the pain. Covering my eyes apparently gets a madly excited thumbs up from Heather, haha, it made me laugh when she was telling me afterwards, because I had no idea at the time! ;)
Pretty soon (maybe this was 2 or 3 hours in?) I needed to hold Heather's hand during contractions and was making more "in pain" sounds like I wasn't dealing so well with the pain. She kept me focused, reminded me of the Bible verses I had on the walls, etc. But very quiet and very little speech all the while. Transition gets me more vocal, starting to say things at last, like I can't manage much more of the pain and I don't want to do any more contractions, because I truly feel like I can't TAKE IT ANY MORE! ;) Peak of transition for me = anxiety, panic sometimes. I actually had to push this time (gasp, haha!) for a few minutes, and before that set in I was really quite petrified for a while. Heather reminded me that it's normal, it's due to hormonal changes, it means the 2nd stage is starting, etc, it's going to be okay. She gets more involved at this point, and is more physically there fore me, holding my hand, giving me sips of water, using a cool facecloth on my face between contractions (I'm always so HOT!). I really NEED her at this point onwards, but until then I have been okay sort of on my own, in my own head.
With Samuel, for the first time since Arthur I got myself ready to push! I got propped up in bed like I wanted to be, and bent my knees up ready. And then I waited for a contraction, and PANICKED! I was terrified to go through the next part, and I suddenly became tearful and high pitched and shook my head saying I didn't want to doooo it, and didn't they know that I CAN'T do it, I just caaaan't?!! Heather was so supportive and strong for me when I needed that. And of course a contraction came and I pushed. For the first time we decided that I would like to try to control the birth itself, to minimise the risk of tearing (I always have a 2nd degree tear and did not fancy the stitches again - hate that part so much!). So it was the first time since Arthur that I have had some sort of coaching from a midwife whilst pushing. It was exactly what I needed, which I didn't expect! It put the control back in the scary uncontrollable descent of the baby's head, for me. I pushed a little bit and then the midwife would say, "Stop pushing." and I would blow blow blow like a crazy woman, and then she would ask me to push a little bit again, and so on until the contraction stopped. I had no idea of the bonus it would carry - the pushing was never overwhelming, and the sensations weren't either. If they got a bit much, I was blowing like crazy at that point, and therefore in control. I never once had the urge (or air, lol!) to do my usual noisy wailing as the head came down. I can't tell you how relieved I was about that, and proud/pleased too! :) I really really dislike making all that noise and feeling so out of control.
Anyway, yay, pushing went fine, and his head was out in no time. The worst part BY FAR (and it will sound crazy but I promise I am not kidding!) was the cramp in the back of my thighs after the first couple of minutes. UN.BELIEVABLY PAINFUL, lol! I was giving birth with no pain relief, and practically screaming, "Aaaaaargh, my THIGHS!!! Help, help!" during contractions, hahaha! It was very hard cramp though, and in such big muscles, ow ow ow ow. The midwife was trying to massage my hamstrings best she could, bless her! ;) This time I need to be FITTER. Or find a sure way of fully supporting both legs if I want to give birth in that position again! Anyway, so his head came out, and there it sat while I waited for another contraction, and that was about the hardest part of the birth. His torso seemed much bigger to me than his head and the sensation of him sitting in there was actually completely unbearable. I believe I raised my voice somewhat and semi-yelled, "Get him out! GET HIM OUT!!!" lol! It was just sooooo beyond uncomfortable and I needed to be relieved of the sensation IMMEDIATELY, I can't explain it. They soothingly said, "He's coming, don't worry!" I can't remember now if I decided I was waiting no longer and pushed for all I was worth (hello 5th 2nd degree tear. *sigh*), or if a contraction finally arrived and helped me. But anyway, out he came, and OH the instant relief, and the delight seeing my tiny love lifted up over me to my very eagerly outstretched arms. I remember saying, "Oh he's so TINY!!" because he was! And Heather snorting over to the side there, which kind of brought me back to earth with a bump! I said, "Isn't he?!" because he seemed sooooo weeny. Heather is seasoned at seeing newborn babies lifted over their mummies' tummies, and knew he wasn't a little baby! I was pretty much speechless a while later when they weighed him in at 9lbs 9oz, haha! I seriously would have had anxiety about that if I'd have known before the birth! ;) He was born at 1.41pm, about 4.5 hours or so after they think labour started.
Anyway. Heather says she loves my births, and would never want to miss one! I'm so grateful that she's not letting me pay this time. What a blessing she is! :) Today she phoned out of the blue to say her daughter had been wanting to see us again, and could they come over this afternoon. I have been having a bit of a frazzled hormonal NIGHTMARE day with the boys today, and not managing too well with their behaviour and so on. Anyway, they came over just as I was pretty much about to sit in the corner and cry, and I was rattling around in the kitchen trying to clean up the lunch things too fast, etc, and Heather came and put the kettle on and asked how I was feeling. I just told her I felt a bit frazzled. The little ones were everywhere underfoot and making so much noise, and for a rare moment I honestly felt like bursting into tears, and just washed out tired with it all. I know it's hormones though! She suggested I go out somewhere, and they'd watch the boys, but I didn't want to. So she said I should go up to bed and rest! I faffed about not really deciding to do it, so in the end she told me she had made the decision for me and I was to go up to bed NOW, lol! She said she would come and get me if I was needed, or bring Samuel up if he cried. I expected he would cry pretty much as soon as I was out of sight, but he didn't. They kept him really well entertained with peekaboo games and toys and so on.
It felt so odd to be closing the door on the noise downstairs and just lie on my bed. I felt weird inside and tearful, you know that "I don't know who I am!!!" horrid hormonal feeling that comes over you at times? I don't like it, and prefer to be heavily distracted at times like that, but there I was just lying there with no distraction. I lay and rested for maybe 10 minutes, and then saw a prayer that Heather typed out for me and laminated during Benjamin's pregnancy - I put it on the side of my chest of drawers so I can see it from my bed, and have just left it there. So I read it out loud, and that was comforting. And then I prayed that God would be close to me. And after a minute a worship song popped in my head that I haven't sung for years. So I quietly started to sing it, and somewhere around the 3rd line, God absolutely flooded my heart with joy and love and praise, so much that I couldn't contain it! It brought me to tears and physically revitalised me like no rest can. It was AWESOME!! :D I needed to get my Bible after a bit because Psalm 103 came to mind and I wanted to read it. I spent the next 20 minutes praying and worshipping and reading my Bible and then I felt wonderful and like I wanted to go back downstairs.
Heather was reading stories to little ones, and said, "That was quick!" She wanted to know if I had got any sleep, and looked doubtful when I said no, but I told her I prayed and then God showed up, so I'd spent my time with Him! She said, "Fantastic!!" Totally all I needed - thank you Lord! They stayed until dinner time, several hours. It was so so so nice, and I feel so grateful for Heather and her family.
Well, this entry has turned LONG! I'm tired out and Samuel is stirring, so I should go to bed now. I am not sure what stuff I've missed saying.... Oh I am still morning sick, but this past week has been much milder than usual, so I do (finally!) think it's going. It's just queasiness most of the time, and I'm doing and eating everything normally. It's mainly just an annoyance in the background, which I can totally live with! But I'll be happy when it's all completely gone.
I am not really showing much at all, just a little bumpiness. I can't remember if I took a 14 week belly pic!! Suddenly thinking about it, I don't think I did! And I'm due another picture for 16 weeks, so I MUSTN'T forget to do that! I had so many gaps with photos during Samuel's pregnancy and it makes me sad to look back at his belly gallery and see how sparse it is compared with all the others :( So I definitely don't want to do that again. I really don't think I am showing much for 16 weeks, but I will see when I get a photo in the next few days (hopefully!). I am getting some heartburn now, and especially this weird and reeeeally horrible sort of reflux when I eat something cold like ice-cream, or a lot of ice cold water in one go. It's a cold PRESSURE low down in my throat, that doesn't go away, and it makes me feel like I'm being sick in the end, but that the action is "on pause" - yuck! I am being careful not to eat or drink too much cold stuff in one go. I grabbed a Rennie quickly when it happened the first time after ice-cream, and it helped a lot.
I can't think what else, and I need to go to bed! I will be back soon with a belly pic and that letter to my grandparents. And whatever news there is from the consultant appointment. Thank you for following along with me! I'm having a lovely time being pregnant again! :)
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
13 weeks, 6 days - ultrasound obsessing... ;)
Has it really been over a week since I updated last?! Oh dear!
Well, I should be in bed right now, though it's still "early" for me yet. Last week I was just so tired and hormonal, I took myself to bed three nights running at 9.30 or 10pm. I wanted to get a grip on things, as the days are just nauseated and basically full of SLUMP, getting nothing achieved except snapping at my children way too much. So I decided to go to bed early, set my alarm to get me up earlier than the boys (5.30am, ouch!) - something I've wanted to do for a LONG time now, but it's against my very nature, being a night owl and all! I really feel like this is about the only way I'm going to ever get a grip on my days, to be up BEFORE they start, you know? I need time to focus on God FIRST, before anyone else, and before anything else happens in the day. Then I start it on the right foot. And I get a head-start on the day physically and mentally. AND I get to finally bless my husband back - he's a total morning person and gets up with the boys at crazy o'clock every. single. morning, including weekends and holidays. I know. He is amaaaazing! :) I have too much of a tendency to be lazy and it's time I denied my flesh it's craving and got TO IT with the task I've been called to. *sigh* Anyway, that was my goal.
So I set my alarm and went to bed at 9.30pm the first night. Sleep finally occurred somewhere shortly before ONE AM. Ugh. Abandoned the alarm clock once it got later than 11pm (it would be bad baaaad news for the whole household if I went trying to get up at 5.30 when I just had not had nearly enough sleep. Baaaaad.) and tried again the following night (9.45pm). Sleep occurred a while after midnight. Boo! So frustrating lying there awake and getting nothing out of it! But I guess I was resting, although I could have been doing similar downstairs on the sofa as I usually do! Oh well. I tried again the following night at 10pm, and didn't get to sleep until midnight or just after. Midnight to 1am is the usual time for me to go to bed/sleep, so maybe it's just ingrained and I need to give it a while to adjust to the new bedtime? Or maybe not make a huge jump of several hours all at once? I don't know. I ended up not doing the early night thing again since then (4 nights now) because I was fed up lying awake all those "wasted" hours with so much to get done. My brain isn't particularly whirring in bed, I just lie there tired but not asleep!
One thing I did notice, which may be a big coincidence, since it's never made a difference in the past, was that my morning sickness was waaaaaaaaay better the days I was having early nights, even though I wasn't sleeping till late. As in, I thought it was all but gone, eventually! I had no nausea at all one day, just a vague bleurghy feeling by the evening which I couldn't even describe as queasiness. I cooked spaghetti bolognese from scratch that day, such was my optimism, with onions! Not been able to do that in a long while! :) I felt yucky while I was chopping the onions and thought it was a BIG mistake, but then it was fine, and I didn't mind the cooking smell OR eating it for dinner! :) I ate a huge portion and really enjoyed it!
I have since become gradually more nauseated again (so I do wonder about it being a coincidence with the early nights - I have had times in my pregnancies where things have improved for a few days and then come back), and feel REALLY sick today and yesterday. Yesterday we had the frozen portion of the spaghetti bolognese (same batch of sauce) and the smell even when it was frozen was awful to me, onion-wise. I could eat it and enjoy it though, but the plates made me feel horrible to clean up later. Nothing is really helping the nausea much at the moment, back to where it was before really. I am more interested in sweet foods, but they are making my IBS flare up horribly if I eat too much of them, and then I feel doubly nauseated the next day. I think part (maybe even a LARGE part) of my bad nausea lately is actually IBS. My whole abdomen is soooo bloated and yucky. I usually find it nauseating when this happens (not pregnant), and there's even more pressure in there with my womb popping up recently. Maybe that bothers my IBS as things adjust, come to think of it? Suddenly it seems a bit familiar from other pregnancies at about womb-popping-up time....
Anyway, so bleurgh. And zzzz, I'm so tired this week! And so USELESS during the day times. We are not getting school done this week at all, and the house is in a horrible state :( Yesterday I got the boys dressed but I didn't manage the same feat. Today I didn't even get that far - I am still in the pyjamas I put on LAST night after my bath! The boys also stayed in PJs and at bedtime I just put them in fresh ones. I find it so hard to feel good about myself when I am being so very slack, reason or not. They watched too many DVDs today, and otherwise played and read and built a ton of Duplo and jigsaws, and that's it really. I pottered around trying to get something DONE but somehow never actually achieving it (although I did clean out the veg compartment in the fridge and scrubbed it out in the sink! Big achievement lately, lol!), and otherwise got Samuel's naps done, nappies changed, and meals made. And lay on the floor mainly tandem nursing, all the other parts of the day (they see me lying on the floor, they toddle/crawl over and smile at me hopefully, and who am I to resist such charm?! Hehe! Happens every single time I lay down!). So I am going to bed after I post this.
All foods taste somewhat bitter a few minutes after I eat them, especially carbs, and especially bread and crackers and such like. Sweet starchy carbs too. I adore Jelly Babies right now, the taste is sublime, like I have never tasted anything so wonderful in all my life, lol! They mess with my stomach though, unfortunately, and make me feel gassy and yucky the next day (hmmm, do I see a pattern emerging?! ;) ). I am having to avoid toast and sandwiches where possible, though I do still eat them. I just know to expect the inevitable bitter taste and watery mouth afterwards, and thus nausea setting in sooner than it would otherwise after eating something.
I am definitely showing now. Starting to TRY to wear maternity jeans but it isn't really working yet! ;) I have a loose pair of normal jeans in size 14 that I had grown out of when I lost weight before this little one, and they're kind of loose still but my tummy fills them out better than maternity jeans. I also wear one pair of my smaller size jeans that fit me well on legs and bum, but which gape ridiculously at the fly - I can't even do the bottom of it up! I only wear those under a LONG top on a day when I'm sure to be at home all day and not expecting any visitors! ;) I used a hairband to loop through the button hole and around the button on the other side of the fly, and that holds them together a bit to be the right fit across my tummy, without them digging in or falling down. Can't wait until I have a bit more bump so I can fit some clothes properly! I love my new little bumpy bit and, as always, keep finding myself smiling down at it fondly and laying my hand on it :) I'm so excited to be having a BABY!!!
I have (of course, who was I kidding?!) been slightly obsessing over the scan pictures, as apparently I can't help myself, lol! I have to say, I felt no need to at all for the first 5 days after the scan, and then started to wonder about juuuust looking about at other baby nubs out there on people's scan pictures, and of course it became rather addictive! I thought there was no nub visible whatsoever on my scan pictures of Sausage, but after obsessing for a couple of days I now think I DO see a nub on two of the three, just verrrry possibly. Even when I point out what I'm seeing, nobody sees it (so I'm probably being craaaazy), but I've red-ringed the thing I'm seeing in two of Sausage's scan pics. I am seeing a line that is forked at the end, which I have seen a lot on nub shots, so I'm thinking that could be the nub. Hard to tell, but I still think it might be:
And the other one:
I think it's flatter and lower than I remember it being in the scan, although not completely flat. It looks more girly to me here, if it's the nub I'm looking at, although not DEFINITELY girly, since there is still a little angling. I'm sure there was some angling as the baby moved about during the scan though, so I am still going with boy.
While I was reading forums and so on about ultrasound gender prediction, I learned about a theory I hadn't heard before - anyone heard of the Ramzi method, EARLY in pregnancy? Here's what someone described it as, at a forum where somebody asked:
"Basically this MD noticed that if the baby's placenta was on the right side, it was 97% a male. If it was on the left, it was 97.5% a girl. All these ultrasound's were done at 6 weeks. The MD said this theory doesnt hold true if it is done later in the pregnancy as the placenta can move."
I was intrigued, so I checked out my scan pictures that I have for my little ones who had early scans between 6 and 8 weeks. Arthur's placenta was on the RIGHT side of him (he was on the left of it, though it was mainly across the bottom) at 7 weeks (boy). I didn't get a scan pic for Matthew at 8 weeks, unfortunately, and I don't remember what I saw on the screen. Nathey was also on the left and the placenta on the right (boy), at his scan at 8 weeks. Benjamin's 6 week placenta is hard to make out, BUT he's squished right up against the LEFT side with his yolk sac, and the border of the right side of the gestational sac looks placenta-ish to me (boy, again!). Samuel is the only baby I didn't get an early scan with, due to no bleeding.
I did not get a picture of Sausage at the 6 week scan, but I remember the baby was squashed up between the yolk sac and the placenta, clear as day, because we took AGES looking at that image zoomed in and out and from all angles, in case there was a baby behind Sausage! And the placenta was completely on the LEFT side, with Sausage to the right, and the yolk sac to the right of Sausage. That's different to the others, and also girly according to the Ramzi method. I did get a picture of Sausage at the 8 week scan. Placenta is mostly over the top of the baby, but slightly to the left. Sausage looks pretty much smack dab in the middle of the gestational sac, but still slightly to the right of the placenta since it's slightly to the left.
Oh the obsessing, haha! ;)
Anyway, so Ramzi would say I'm having a girl this time, and as far as I can tell, proves accurate for the 4 boys I had early scans with as well. Hmmm...
Must stop obsessing, it's a crazy crazy thing to do! Especially as it doesn't matter a JOT whether it's a boy or a girl, lol! I'm just too impatient for my own good. January will roll around soon enough, especially with all the busy-ness in between with Christmas and birthdays, etc.
Okay I really must go to bed now. I am going to try drinking some milk first because I feel sick and am starting to feel heartburny. Hopefully it's mild enough to fix with a glass of milk!
Thank you for all the lovely comments on my scan update post, and the ones on the belly gallery too! I am already due to take another belly pic for 14 weeks, TOMORROW! :D Hopefully not long before the morning sickness is history, and I'll start blooming soon and feel marvellous, haha!
Well, I should be in bed right now, though it's still "early" for me yet. Last week I was just so tired and hormonal, I took myself to bed three nights running at 9.30 or 10pm. I wanted to get a grip on things, as the days are just nauseated and basically full of SLUMP, getting nothing achieved except snapping at my children way too much. So I decided to go to bed early, set my alarm to get me up earlier than the boys (5.30am, ouch!) - something I've wanted to do for a LONG time now, but it's against my very nature, being a night owl and all! I really feel like this is about the only way I'm going to ever get a grip on my days, to be up BEFORE they start, you know? I need time to focus on God FIRST, before anyone else, and before anything else happens in the day. Then I start it on the right foot. And I get a head-start on the day physically and mentally. AND I get to finally bless my husband back - he's a total morning person and gets up with the boys at crazy o'clock every. single. morning, including weekends and holidays. I know. He is amaaaazing! :) I have too much of a tendency to be lazy and it's time I denied my flesh it's craving and got TO IT with the task I've been called to. *sigh* Anyway, that was my goal.
So I set my alarm and went to bed at 9.30pm the first night. Sleep finally occurred somewhere shortly before ONE AM. Ugh. Abandoned the alarm clock once it got later than 11pm (it would be bad baaaad news for the whole household if I went trying to get up at 5.30 when I just had not had nearly enough sleep. Baaaaad.) and tried again the following night (9.45pm). Sleep occurred a while after midnight. Boo! So frustrating lying there awake and getting nothing out of it! But I guess I was resting, although I could have been doing similar downstairs on the sofa as I usually do! Oh well. I tried again the following night at 10pm, and didn't get to sleep until midnight or just after. Midnight to 1am is the usual time for me to go to bed/sleep, so maybe it's just ingrained and I need to give it a while to adjust to the new bedtime? Or maybe not make a huge jump of several hours all at once? I don't know. I ended up not doing the early night thing again since then (4 nights now) because I was fed up lying awake all those "wasted" hours with so much to get done. My brain isn't particularly whirring in bed, I just lie there tired but not asleep!
One thing I did notice, which may be a big coincidence, since it's never made a difference in the past, was that my morning sickness was waaaaaaaaay better the days I was having early nights, even though I wasn't sleeping till late. As in, I thought it was all but gone, eventually! I had no nausea at all one day, just a vague bleurghy feeling by the evening which I couldn't even describe as queasiness. I cooked spaghetti bolognese from scratch that day, such was my optimism, with onions! Not been able to do that in a long while! :) I felt yucky while I was chopping the onions and thought it was a BIG mistake, but then it was fine, and I didn't mind the cooking smell OR eating it for dinner! :) I ate a huge portion and really enjoyed it!
I have since become gradually more nauseated again (so I do wonder about it being a coincidence with the early nights - I have had times in my pregnancies where things have improved for a few days and then come back), and feel REALLY sick today and yesterday. Yesterday we had the frozen portion of the spaghetti bolognese (same batch of sauce) and the smell even when it was frozen was awful to me, onion-wise. I could eat it and enjoy it though, but the plates made me feel horrible to clean up later. Nothing is really helping the nausea much at the moment, back to where it was before really. I am more interested in sweet foods, but they are making my IBS flare up horribly if I eat too much of them, and then I feel doubly nauseated the next day. I think part (maybe even a LARGE part) of my bad nausea lately is actually IBS. My whole abdomen is soooo bloated and yucky. I usually find it nauseating when this happens (not pregnant), and there's even more pressure in there with my womb popping up recently. Maybe that bothers my IBS as things adjust, come to think of it? Suddenly it seems a bit familiar from other pregnancies at about womb-popping-up time....
Anyway, so bleurgh. And zzzz, I'm so tired this week! And so USELESS during the day times. We are not getting school done this week at all, and the house is in a horrible state :( Yesterday I got the boys dressed but I didn't manage the same feat. Today I didn't even get that far - I am still in the pyjamas I put on LAST night after my bath! The boys also stayed in PJs and at bedtime I just put them in fresh ones. I find it so hard to feel good about myself when I am being so very slack, reason or not. They watched too many DVDs today, and otherwise played and read and built a ton of Duplo and jigsaws, and that's it really. I pottered around trying to get something DONE but somehow never actually achieving it (although I did clean out the veg compartment in the fridge and scrubbed it out in the sink! Big achievement lately, lol!), and otherwise got Samuel's naps done, nappies changed, and meals made. And lay on the floor mainly tandem nursing, all the other parts of the day (they see me lying on the floor, they toddle/crawl over and smile at me hopefully, and who am I to resist such charm?! Hehe! Happens every single time I lay down!). So I am going to bed after I post this.
All foods taste somewhat bitter a few minutes after I eat them, especially carbs, and especially bread and crackers and such like. Sweet starchy carbs too. I adore Jelly Babies right now, the taste is sublime, like I have never tasted anything so wonderful in all my life, lol! They mess with my stomach though, unfortunately, and make me feel gassy and yucky the next day (hmmm, do I see a pattern emerging?! ;) ). I am having to avoid toast and sandwiches where possible, though I do still eat them. I just know to expect the inevitable bitter taste and watery mouth afterwards, and thus nausea setting in sooner than it would otherwise after eating something.
I am definitely showing now. Starting to TRY to wear maternity jeans but it isn't really working yet! ;) I have a loose pair of normal jeans in size 14 that I had grown out of when I lost weight before this little one, and they're kind of loose still but my tummy fills them out better than maternity jeans. I also wear one pair of my smaller size jeans that fit me well on legs and bum, but which gape ridiculously at the fly - I can't even do the bottom of it up! I only wear those under a LONG top on a day when I'm sure to be at home all day and not expecting any visitors! ;) I used a hairband to loop through the button hole and around the button on the other side of the fly, and that holds them together a bit to be the right fit across my tummy, without them digging in or falling down. Can't wait until I have a bit more bump so I can fit some clothes properly! I love my new little bumpy bit and, as always, keep finding myself smiling down at it fondly and laying my hand on it :) I'm so excited to be having a BABY!!!
I have (of course, who was I kidding?!) been slightly obsessing over the scan pictures, as apparently I can't help myself, lol! I have to say, I felt no need to at all for the first 5 days after the scan, and then started to wonder about juuuust looking about at other baby nubs out there on people's scan pictures, and of course it became rather addictive! I thought there was no nub visible whatsoever on my scan pictures of Sausage, but after obsessing for a couple of days I now think I DO see a nub on two of the three, just verrrry possibly. Even when I point out what I'm seeing, nobody sees it (so I'm probably being craaaazy), but I've red-ringed the thing I'm seeing in two of Sausage's scan pics. I am seeing a line that is forked at the end, which I have seen a lot on nub shots, so I'm thinking that could be the nub. Hard to tell, but I still think it might be:
And the other one:
I think it's flatter and lower than I remember it being in the scan, although not completely flat. It looks more girly to me here, if it's the nub I'm looking at, although not DEFINITELY girly, since there is still a little angling. I'm sure there was some angling as the baby moved about during the scan though, so I am still going with boy.
While I was reading forums and so on about ultrasound gender prediction, I learned about a theory I hadn't heard before - anyone heard of the Ramzi method, EARLY in pregnancy? Here's what someone described it as, at a forum where somebody asked:
"Basically this MD noticed that if the baby's placenta was on the right side, it was 97% a male. If it was on the left, it was 97.5% a girl. All these ultrasound's were done at 6 weeks. The MD said this theory doesnt hold true if it is done later in the pregnancy as the placenta can move."
I was intrigued, so I checked out my scan pictures that I have for my little ones who had early scans between 6 and 8 weeks. Arthur's placenta was on the RIGHT side of him (he was on the left of it, though it was mainly across the bottom) at 7 weeks (boy). I didn't get a scan pic for Matthew at 8 weeks, unfortunately, and I don't remember what I saw on the screen. Nathey was also on the left and the placenta on the right (boy), at his scan at 8 weeks. Benjamin's 6 week placenta is hard to make out, BUT he's squished right up against the LEFT side with his yolk sac, and the border of the right side of the gestational sac looks placenta-ish to me (boy, again!). Samuel is the only baby I didn't get an early scan with, due to no bleeding.
I did not get a picture of Sausage at the 6 week scan, but I remember the baby was squashed up between the yolk sac and the placenta, clear as day, because we took AGES looking at that image zoomed in and out and from all angles, in case there was a baby behind Sausage! And the placenta was completely on the LEFT side, with Sausage to the right, and the yolk sac to the right of Sausage. That's different to the others, and also girly according to the Ramzi method. I did get a picture of Sausage at the 8 week scan. Placenta is mostly over the top of the baby, but slightly to the left. Sausage looks pretty much smack dab in the middle of the gestational sac, but still slightly to the right of the placenta since it's slightly to the left.
Oh the obsessing, haha! ;)
Anyway, so Ramzi would say I'm having a girl this time, and as far as I can tell, proves accurate for the 4 boys I had early scans with as well. Hmmm...
Must stop obsessing, it's a crazy crazy thing to do! Especially as it doesn't matter a JOT whether it's a boy or a girl, lol! I'm just too impatient for my own good. January will roll around soon enough, especially with all the busy-ness in between with Christmas and birthdays, etc.
Okay I really must go to bed now. I am going to try drinking some milk first because I feel sick and am starting to feel heartburny. Hopefully it's mild enough to fix with a glass of milk!
Thank you for all the lovely comments on my scan update post, and the ones on the belly gallery too! I am already due to take another belly pic for 14 weeks, TOMORROW! :D Hopefully not long before the morning sickness is history, and I'll start blooming soon and feel marvellous, haha!
Monday, November 14, 2011
12 weeks, 5 days - SCAN update! :)
Back from my scan, and all is wonderful, hooray! :) It was so lovely to see my sweet little person in there!
Here are the three pictures I got:
The sonographer had a really hard time getting the pictures for us because OH MY GOODNESS I have honestly never carried such a wiggly baby! I love that it's definitely a character trait of this baby, because at only 12 weeks pregnant, this is the THIRD time I've seen (or been told of) excessive wiggling at a scan - even at 6 weeks and 5 days when I didn't even know the embryo (still an EMBRYO!!) had the ability to wiggle, hehe! Sausage has been hard to measure at all three scans (6w5d, 8w1d, and 12w5d - not to mention that kidney scan I had when I saw him/her spread out like a lil starfish, lol!), mainly because of wiggling! ;) I have had me some real wigglers (read: Matthew) in my time, but this baby is more so, I think. So far, anyway!
Sausage was twisting (torso and head), rolling, squirming, and mainly just doing a lot of kicking and generally flinging his/her limbs about all over the place. In these pictures, he/she was relatively still compared with the rest of the scan, but was still kicking and punching about vigorously, and grabbing wildly at his/her feet! You can see two feet in a couple of the pictures, both in odd positions higher up and facing the "camera". In some ways I wish Sausage had been a little less energetic just so that I could get a good clear look at those miraculous little fingers and toes, and so on - I never did get to see those very clearly because they NEVER stopped moving! ;)
It was also hard to see the genital tubercle (nub), although I did see it fairly clearly several times. It kept flashing in and out of view with the wiggling, and it wasn't "straight on" wiggling either, Sausage kept doing some sort of pelvic thrust which effectively flung his/her legs up at the same time, and so the angle of the nub changed dramatically during all of that. It was hard to keep track of it, lol! NONE of the pictures have the nub in them! That's a first for our babies - except with Nathan I think? Or was it Arthur? I can't remember. Anyway, certainly the last two babies I had a very clear view of an obviously angled nub (boy), and it was just as clearly seen on the ultrasound pictures. This time, not so much.
I think the baby is a boy, because once when I saw the nub, it seemed angled quite strongly UP which is a definite boy angle, but then he/she was trying to touch his/her nose with his/her toes for some reason (!!) so the angle would have been compromised a lot by that kind of maneuvre (manouvre? I can't be bothered to spell check, pfthth!). Another time I spotted it, it was pointing much lower but probably still angled somewhat, though it was less than a second and flashing in and out of sight all the time during lots of movement, so I can't be as sure as I was the last two times. We got a good view of the "toilet shot" as they call it, which is not reliable at all at this stage (although we were sure as sure from Arthur's one at 13 weeks that he was DEF a boy). This time I saw three lines and no obvious sticky-outy part, but a) there MUST have been a sticky outy part that I just didn't get the right angle to see because that's what the nub is in both boys and girls at this stage, and b) 3 lines is a girl thing, but not till later.
So I would say it's fairly inconclusive at the moment with a definite leaning towards BOY! :) If so... SIX boys?!?!! :D I did not feel the least bit disappointed, which I am EVER SO glad about, phew! :)
Oh, other things to report - Benjamin stayed at home with Sarah (our friend from church) and the big boys! He was FINE, and I feel so proud of him! :) They build train tracks around the room, had a snack, and started watching Mary Poppins just before we got home - we were only gone just over an hour. So we only had Samuel with us, and he was a perfect angel - I do not boast or kid! ;) He sat in silence without even shifting his position, on Neil's lap leaning against Neil's chest, either with his thumb in his mouth or just watching open-mouthed, bless his sweet tiny heart! :) At the very end, he got so much high-pitched adoring attention from the sonographer that he suddenly leaned towards me with his arms clutching at my arm as I was lying on the bed next to him and Neil, but that was it! He was SOOOOOO good, and I am so proud of my tiny manny! Neil was able to watch and enjoy the whole scan, and listen to the lady. Also it was ever so lovely to be out with my biggest boy, er, MAN (hehe!) and my tiniest. Lovely to walk along not needing a pushchair, just chatting to my hubby while he carried my teeny Samuel in his arms (swoon, by the way - hot man carrying angelic baby, lol!). I'm sure everyone in the waiting area thought this was our complete family unit. The sonographer, when she'd finished the scan, leaned in to talk to him and said, "Are you going to have a little playmate, hey?!" and I said, "Oh he's got a few already - he's our fifth!" hehe! She was more than a little taken-aback ;) And more so at the "all boys" thing - I love that though! :) We got the football team comment again. That is a very familiar one now!
On the way home we were stuck in a bit of traffic for a few minutes, and I said to Neil, "What shall we call him, if he's really a boy?!" because I had no idea really. I had a few names in mind, and my FAVOURITE one, which I absolutely KNEW I would want to use if we ever had a sixth boy, when Samuel was new, was one that Neil had strongly vetoed in previous pregnancies and I could never see him considering it. I still held it in my heart, but have put it to the back burner and considered a few others (Toby, Noah, Josiah, etc) in more recent months. In the car Neil told me a name had come to mind recently but he couldn't remember it. And then suddenly he did - and said, "Elijah" Well, thank goodness I had my seatbelt on because that's the very name he's vetoed and which I longed to name a 6th boy!! :D I couldn't believe it. I kept saying, "Really?! REALLY?!" hehe! He said he just thought of it one day and liked it. I love it because it goes - Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin, Samuel and Elijah. And it's a different letter - I think I like the idea of none of the boys sharing a first initial, makes the post easier when they get to be older and get their own letters and packages! I guess I'm the opposite of the Duggars in that respect! ;) I also love love LOVE the meaning: "The LORD is my God" How much more awesome could the meaning of a name possibly get?! :)
The last male person in our families that we have left to honour by using their name for a middle name for one of our boys, is my grandfather. He gave his name to his only son as a middle name, and then apparently seemed a bit upset that my parents didn't pass it on to my brother (who got Robert Edward - my other grandfather who had died, and Edward because my parents just liked it!). There's never been a vibe or anything said about our boys' middle names as far as his name is concerned, but now he has SIX great grandsons (my five and my nephew) with no sign of his name yet! His name is Douglas, which I had thought of potentially using one day but decided against, mainly because it means black river (or dark water at some sources) and I feel strongly about the meanings of names, spiritually. But when paired with Elijah (we talked about this in the car), I like it. "The LORD is my God" trumps "black/dark river/water" any day! ;) The Lord is God over the realms of darkness, and maybe the whole name will stand for that, which I like. I REALLY like the flow, and the way the names go well together - Elijah Douglas, and it sounds fine with our surname tagged on the end. And more than anything else, I LOVE being able to bless my grandfather by using his name (at last!) - I know he will be so moved and touched by it.
So by the time we got home, we were 100% certain on a boy's name for our baby - Elijah Douglas! :) So happy! And I think he IS a boy, so that's his name! I won't refer to it until the next scan when the gender is confirmed, and I'll keep on with Sausage for now - and obviously there's a chance the baby might be a girl still, so I will wait! But I feel so excited to KNOW if it's a boy, he'll be Elijah - can't describe how excited and happy I am to meet him already, knowing his name! :)
I did then tell Neil about the name Rachel for the first time, and he immediately did not want to use that name if we have a girl. He has already chosen a girl's name that he likes (which is actually the same name we had chosen for Matthew if he had been a girl!) - Emma Jane. Jane is my mummy, Emma is a name we have both liked for years, AND my great-grandmother's name - she was my grandfather, Douglas's mother, and died when I was 16. So either way we'd honour Grandoug with names, and we are both happy about that. I am not 100% convinced about Emma Jane for our baby even though I still really like it, but then I have really had Rachel on my heart, so perhaps that's all it is... Either that or it's because the baby is a BOY and I know it in my knower somewhere, lol! ;)
[Edited to add the obvious: NAME A TOTAL SECRET UNTIL BIRTH!!! Thank you! :) ]
My next scan is now booked for January 10th at 2.40pm, so I will find out then! Yay!
I absolutely need to go and eat something now as I'm feeling really sick, bleurgh! WORTH IT though! :) I put the pictures on Sausage's ultrasound gallery which I made yesterday - it seems to have come up as the most recent post even though I made a big long waffly updatey one right afterwards... Anyway, must go! Back soon :)
Here are the three pictures I got:
The sonographer had a really hard time getting the pictures for us because OH MY GOODNESS I have honestly never carried such a wiggly baby! I love that it's definitely a character trait of this baby, because at only 12 weeks pregnant, this is the THIRD time I've seen (or been told of) excessive wiggling at a scan - even at 6 weeks and 5 days when I didn't even know the embryo (still an EMBRYO!!) had the ability to wiggle, hehe! Sausage has been hard to measure at all three scans (6w5d, 8w1d, and 12w5d - not to mention that kidney scan I had when I saw him/her spread out like a lil starfish, lol!), mainly because of wiggling! ;) I have had me some real wigglers (read: Matthew) in my time, but this baby is more so, I think. So far, anyway!
Sausage was twisting (torso and head), rolling, squirming, and mainly just doing a lot of kicking and generally flinging his/her limbs about all over the place. In these pictures, he/she was relatively still compared with the rest of the scan, but was still kicking and punching about vigorously, and grabbing wildly at his/her feet! You can see two feet in a couple of the pictures, both in odd positions higher up and facing the "camera". In some ways I wish Sausage had been a little less energetic just so that I could get a good clear look at those miraculous little fingers and toes, and so on - I never did get to see those very clearly because they NEVER stopped moving! ;)
It was also hard to see the genital tubercle (nub), although I did see it fairly clearly several times. It kept flashing in and out of view with the wiggling, and it wasn't "straight on" wiggling either, Sausage kept doing some sort of pelvic thrust which effectively flung his/her legs up at the same time, and so the angle of the nub changed dramatically during all of that. It was hard to keep track of it, lol! NONE of the pictures have the nub in them! That's a first for our babies - except with Nathan I think? Or was it Arthur? I can't remember. Anyway, certainly the last two babies I had a very clear view of an obviously angled nub (boy), and it was just as clearly seen on the ultrasound pictures. This time, not so much.
I think the baby is a boy, because once when I saw the nub, it seemed angled quite strongly UP which is a definite boy angle, but then he/she was trying to touch his/her nose with his/her toes for some reason (!!) so the angle would have been compromised a lot by that kind of maneuvre (manouvre? I can't be bothered to spell check, pfthth!). Another time I spotted it, it was pointing much lower but probably still angled somewhat, though it was less than a second and flashing in and out of sight all the time during lots of movement, so I can't be as sure as I was the last two times. We got a good view of the "toilet shot" as they call it, which is not reliable at all at this stage (although we were sure as sure from Arthur's one at 13 weeks that he was DEF a boy). This time I saw three lines and no obvious sticky-outy part, but a) there MUST have been a sticky outy part that I just didn't get the right angle to see because that's what the nub is in both boys and girls at this stage, and b) 3 lines is a girl thing, but not till later.
So I would say it's fairly inconclusive at the moment with a definite leaning towards BOY! :) If so... SIX boys?!?!! :D I did not feel the least bit disappointed, which I am EVER SO glad about, phew! :)
Oh, other things to report - Benjamin stayed at home with Sarah (our friend from church) and the big boys! He was FINE, and I feel so proud of him! :) They build train tracks around the room, had a snack, and started watching Mary Poppins just before we got home - we were only gone just over an hour. So we only had Samuel with us, and he was a perfect angel - I do not boast or kid! ;) He sat in silence without even shifting his position, on Neil's lap leaning against Neil's chest, either with his thumb in his mouth or just watching open-mouthed, bless his sweet tiny heart! :) At the very end, he got so much high-pitched adoring attention from the sonographer that he suddenly leaned towards me with his arms clutching at my arm as I was lying on the bed next to him and Neil, but that was it! He was SOOOOOO good, and I am so proud of my tiny manny! Neil was able to watch and enjoy the whole scan, and listen to the lady. Also it was ever so lovely to be out with my biggest boy, er, MAN (hehe!) and my tiniest. Lovely to walk along not needing a pushchair, just chatting to my hubby while he carried my teeny Samuel in his arms (swoon, by the way - hot man carrying angelic baby, lol!). I'm sure everyone in the waiting area thought this was our complete family unit. The sonographer, when she'd finished the scan, leaned in to talk to him and said, "Are you going to have a little playmate, hey?!" and I said, "Oh he's got a few already - he's our fifth!" hehe! She was more than a little taken-aback ;) And more so at the "all boys" thing - I love that though! :) We got the football team comment again. That is a very familiar one now!
On the way home we were stuck in a bit of traffic for a few minutes, and I said to Neil, "What shall we call him, if he's really a boy?!" because I had no idea really. I had a few names in mind, and my FAVOURITE one, which I absolutely KNEW I would want to use if we ever had a sixth boy, when Samuel was new, was one that Neil had strongly vetoed in previous pregnancies and I could never see him considering it. I still held it in my heart, but have put it to the back burner and considered a few others (Toby, Noah, Josiah, etc) in more recent months. In the car Neil told me a name had come to mind recently but he couldn't remember it. And then suddenly he did - and said, "Elijah" Well, thank goodness I had my seatbelt on because that's the very name he's vetoed and which I longed to name a 6th boy!! :D I couldn't believe it. I kept saying, "Really?! REALLY?!" hehe! He said he just thought of it one day and liked it. I love it because it goes - Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin, Samuel and Elijah. And it's a different letter - I think I like the idea of none of the boys sharing a first initial, makes the post easier when they get to be older and get their own letters and packages! I guess I'm the opposite of the Duggars in that respect! ;) I also love love LOVE the meaning: "The LORD is my God" How much more awesome could the meaning of a name possibly get?! :)
The last male person in our families that we have left to honour by using their name for a middle name for one of our boys, is my grandfather. He gave his name to his only son as a middle name, and then apparently seemed a bit upset that my parents didn't pass it on to my brother (who got Robert Edward - my other grandfather who had died, and Edward because my parents just liked it!). There's never been a vibe or anything said about our boys' middle names as far as his name is concerned, but now he has SIX great grandsons (my five and my nephew) with no sign of his name yet! His name is Douglas, which I had thought of potentially using one day but decided against, mainly because it means black river (or dark water at some sources) and I feel strongly about the meanings of names, spiritually. But when paired with Elijah (we talked about this in the car), I like it. "The LORD is my God" trumps "black/dark river/water" any day! ;) The Lord is God over the realms of darkness, and maybe the whole name will stand for that, which I like. I REALLY like the flow, and the way the names go well together - Elijah Douglas, and it sounds fine with our surname tagged on the end. And more than anything else, I LOVE being able to bless my grandfather by using his name (at last!) - I know he will be so moved and touched by it.
So by the time we got home, we were 100% certain on a boy's name for our baby - Elijah Douglas! :) So happy! And I think he IS a boy, so that's his name! I won't refer to it until the next scan when the gender is confirmed, and I'll keep on with Sausage for now - and obviously there's a chance the baby might be a girl still, so I will wait! But I feel so excited to KNOW if it's a boy, he'll be Elijah - can't describe how excited and happy I am to meet him already, knowing his name! :)
I did then tell Neil about the name Rachel for the first time, and he immediately did not want to use that name if we have a girl. He has already chosen a girl's name that he likes (which is actually the same name we had chosen for Matthew if he had been a girl!) - Emma Jane. Jane is my mummy, Emma is a name we have both liked for years, AND my great-grandmother's name - she was my grandfather, Douglas's mother, and died when I was 16. So either way we'd honour Grandoug with names, and we are both happy about that. I am not 100% convinced about Emma Jane for our baby even though I still really like it, but then I have really had Rachel on my heart, so perhaps that's all it is... Either that or it's because the baby is a BOY and I know it in my knower somewhere, lol! ;)
[Edited to add the obvious: NAME A TOTAL SECRET UNTIL BIRTH!!! Thank you! :) ]
My next scan is now booked for January 10th at 2.40pm, so I will find out then! Yay!
I absolutely need to go and eat something now as I'm feeling really sick, bleurgh! WORTH IT though! :) I put the pictures on Sausage's ultrasound gallery which I made yesterday - it seems to have come up as the most recent post even though I made a big long waffly updatey one right afterwards... Anyway, must go! Back soon :)
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Ultrasound Gallery for Baby #6!
This is the ultrasound gallery for all of the scan pictures I get for my 6th baby, currently known as 'Sausage' (until we know the gender and the name!) :)
Due to a lot of bleeding from 3 weeks pregnant onwards, I had an early scan at 6 weeks and 5 days, where we saw a sweet little blob with a tiny flickering heartbeat. The baby was squished up against the wall of my uterus, and against the yolk sac on the other side, and we could not 100% clearly see whether there was another baby behind the first one! Sometimes it looked like a mirrored heartbeat next to it as well. So I was booked for a second scan 10 days later. I didn't get a picture at the first one, but here's the picture from the second scan:
The picture above is from my second ultrasound, at 8 weeks and 1 day pregnant. This was mainly to confirm whether there was ONE baby, or another one hiding behind Sausage! ;) Also to check on the subchorionic haematoma. Sausage (only one!) was measuring accurately for dates, and was wiggly, apparently! He/she was standing on his/her head in this photo, with the yolk sac behind the little bottom. Such a sweet little person! :)
Sausage's ultrasound pictures from the scan at 12 weeks and 5 days - measuring spot on for dates (well, a day behind but hardly worth mentioning!). SUCH a wiggly baby that I had a hard time really getting a good look at the genital tubercle. What I did see of it seemed kind of angled to me (sometimes really quite an angle) but he/she was flinging his/her pelvis around, lol! So it was hard to say. Probably a boy though! ;) Sweet little baby! In all the pictures (which the sonographer found hard to take as the little one wouldn't keep still enough!), Sausage was playing with his/her feet and kicking and punching about! Here are the pictures from Elijah's 20 week scan, where we got good confirmation that he is definitely a boy! ;) 
Little knee-to-face! 
Profile - not the best picture, but still happy to have it! :) 
My favourite! So darling - his little face straight on! I love the tiny features, his heart-shaped face and tiny chinny!
Due to a lot of bleeding from 3 weeks pregnant onwards, I had an early scan at 6 weeks and 5 days, where we saw a sweet little blob with a tiny flickering heartbeat. The baby was squished up against the wall of my uterus, and against the yolk sac on the other side, and we could not 100% clearly see whether there was another baby behind the first one! Sometimes it looked like a mirrored heartbeat next to it as well. So I was booked for a second scan 10 days later. I didn't get a picture at the first one, but here's the picture from the second scan:
The picture above is from my second ultrasound, at 8 weeks and 1 day pregnant. This was mainly to confirm whether there was ONE baby, or another one hiding behind Sausage! ;) Also to check on the subchorionic haematoma. Sausage (only one!) was measuring accurately for dates, and was wiggly, apparently! He/she was standing on his/her head in this photo, with the yolk sac behind the little bottom. Such a sweet little person! :)
Sausage's ultrasound pictures from the scan at 12 weeks and 5 days - measuring spot on for dates (well, a day behind but hardly worth mentioning!). SUCH a wiggly baby that I had a hard time really getting a good look at the genital tubercle. What I did see of it seemed kind of angled to me (sometimes really quite an angle) but he/she was flinging his/her pelvis around, lol! So it was hard to say. Probably a boy though! ;) Sweet little baby! In all the pictures (which the sonographer found hard to take as the little one wouldn't keep still enough!), Sausage was playing with his/her feet and kicking and punching about!
Little knee-to-face!
12 weeks, 4 days - scan tomorrow!! :D
Another week since I updated last, tsk tsk! It wasn't intentional, but never mind.
So I am in my second trimester, yaaaaaay! I love having the first trimester behind me! :) My baby is out of the most risky zone, which is always a relief to know! And my scan is TOMORROOOOOWWW!!! I'm so excited! We found someone to watch the boys - the same friend from church (Sarah) who watched them for the last couple of pregnancies when we had scans. Before that we used to ask my grandparents, when there were fewer children to watch, and they were less frail than they are now. We haven't told them yet (still procrastinating and not sure what to do about it!). Anyway, so happy that Sarah could come round tomorrow and stay with the boys (definitely Arthur, Matthew, and Nathan, and I would LOVE Benjamin to happily stay too, but I doubt he will), while we go to the hospital for the scan. We'll be taking Samuel, of course, and likely Benjamin, though I'm feeling slightly exasperated about that already because he is not keen on dark rooms and whines to go out straight away, and well, the lighting is very low in the u/s rooms - pretty much just the screen are light and that's it. I think he'll whine and fuss and Neil will have to take the little ones out, and then it'll just be me. I don't mind being on my own to see my baby, but I wish Neil could see the baby too without having to wrangle little ones! He doesn't mind a bit though. I hope they're fine, otherwise the staff get fidgetty and ask him to take them out (we're not really supposed to take noisy children there at all apparently, but there's nothing else for it!).
Arthur's birthday was on Wednesday - I have a 7 year old! Can you believe it?! Going back in my pregnancy blog (which you'd have to do by going to my original pregnancy blog at Diaryland, before Samuel's pregnancy, and probably the end of Benjamin's), I started writing about pregnancy and growing our family in 2003, when we were planning to start trying to conceive our first baby! And now our first baby is SEVEN - wowsers! And we're expecting our sixth :) Wonderful!
I am now going to eat birthday cake, as I'm feeling sick and need to fix it. Back in a minute! ;)
Back, and a bit better.
I just uploaded my 11 week belly picture to Sausage's belly gallery - definitely bigger than 6 weeks, lol! I am showing MUCH more this week, at 12 weeks, than even last week. I know I was showing at 11 weeks, but this week it seems my womb has "popped" up and I'm alllmost able to wear maternity clothes, just not quite! It's that frustrating in between stage where I'm uncomfy in normal clothes (and nothing fits me properly!) and my jeans are not hanging onto my hips too well, as my waist has disappeared completely, lol! But maternity bottoms are really baggy on my tummy still, whether they're the "panel" style or not. Tsk! I did find a pair today that almost did the trick, but they were just a little bit too loose to wear still. Soon though! :) I'm excited, and I have sooooo many more clothes to wear in my maternity wardrobe than my non-maternity, which is fun - it's as if I spend more time pregnant than not, by the clothing situation! ;) (which I currently DO, as of February 2004! :D )
I also made an Ultrasound Gallery for Sausage, which I'll post right before this one in a minute. Then it's there ready to add Sausage's pictures from tomorrow! :) I can't WAIT to see Sausage!!!! I hope everything is going okay in there. I did get a teeensy glimpse of my tiny one on Thursday, because I had a kidney scan again to check on the little bit of extra fluid still sitting in the kidney on my right side, where I had a kidney stone block the way in the summer and looooads of fluid backed up in my kidney. I had one of those silent consultants this time! He didn't say a word to me the whole time (except "breathe in...(wait 98 minutes)... aaand out... (pause of 2 seconds)... breathe in... (hold for 134 minutes)... and out again." I was soooo out of breath after a very short while of this!), nor indicate what he was seeing - which I found frustrating! I really want to KNOW what's going on with my kidney and not have to wait until JANUARY 26TH when my follow-up appointment with the urologist finally comes around on the waiting list!!! :/ He asked at one point if I'd ever passed a kidney stone, like he had reason to wonder (he didn't know my history as he was a locum), and I said yes. He asked when, and I said, in July. He paused and then said, "A small one?" I said no, not particularly. And that's all he said. Which leaves me wondering WHY he asked?! :S Anyway, I might ask my GP in a couple of weeks, as she should have some sort of report by then.
Anyway. He scanned my right kidney for a while, and then my left one, and then he had me lie on my back and started to scan my bladder. As he went to do so, I said, "Oh, there's a baby down there!" because he didn't seem to know - thought I'd give him the heads up, haha! I also tried my best to squirm my head around to see the screen, but it was turned to the consultant - I could just about see a sliver of the screen, and I was aware of seeing a baby and some movement briefly, but just as a grainy blurry movement, not actually being able to see body parts. Anyway the slight glimpse of an alive baby was precious all the same! :) Dr. Silent said nothing at all! At the end he stopped the scan and said he was finished with me and I could go. I sat up and turned to get off the bed, and then I saw the screen with the last image frozen on it. It was a tiny little person in a starfish pose, hehe! Looking from behind the baby's back, all the limbs were stretched out like a dear little starfish, with the head at the top, aaaahhhh so precious! :) What a busy wiggly little person he/she must be (as already demonstrated at the last two scans!)! He turned and saw me sitting there smiling at the screen, and said unfeelingly, "There's your child. Viable." lol! He was so blunt and non-chatty it was funny - the way he said that! But it was still music to my ears: viable! Yay! That means ALIVE and kicking! :) I can't wait to see more of my sweetie pea tomorrow!
I've been having some Braxton Hicks contractions here and there - I am reminded to write it because one has just started now! :) They do start earlier with subsequent pregnancies. I am now able to verify the feeling I get because I can press my hand into my tummy a few inches below my tummy button and feel that my womb is a little hard ball at those times. I have also started to feel Sausage move and wiggle a little bit here and there, and sometimes a Braxton Hicks will be followed by a wiggle :) I feel like this baby is already showing personality, definitely different from some of my others even now. I love that! I mostly feel Sausage move when I am lying on my side, slightly turned onto my back as I'm feeding Samuel (or Benjamin, once) at bedtime or nap time.
My milk is still there and seems fairly normal in quantity to me, except that Samuel has pretty much doubled his appetite this past week. He seems extra hungry for food at meal times and snack times, and will feed from both sides when I nurse him. He isn't usually disinterested whenever I offer him the breast, even if it isn't really time for him to feed yet. So I wonder if my milk is less plentiful this week? Benjamin is still breastfeeding and seems just as before, though he's 2 and I don't think he's fussed about quantity or anything like that! He likes the taste of milky, but mostly I think it's a comfort thing. He nurses several times a day and at bedtime, on demand usually, though he does demand and I say no, probably two or three times in the day as well. I am tending more towards making sure Samuel has all he needs before offering Benjamin some, now that Samuel seems extra hungry. He may just be having a growth spurt I guess, but I have to consider that it might be the milk supply, given that I'm now 12 weeks pregnant. They both still gulp and swallow heftily for quite some minutes, so it doesn't seem to me like there's a shortage - and they'll do the same a couple of hours later if offered... Anyway, maybe it's starting to slow up a bit. Samuel isn't waking more than usual at night to feed though, so it's not desperate! :)
I've felt really sick this week with the morning sickness. Some parts of the day on one or two days I wondered if it was starting to ease up. But some evenings I have felt like it's the worst it has ever been! So I don't think it's going anywhere just yet! I feel sick as soon as I start eating for the day. Some mornings I really dread having to eat breakfast! Although it will start anyway if I let myself get hungry, so there's not much difference. And NOW after all this time ALL foods are giving me a horrid bitter aftertaste (that's usually something that starts early on but didn't this time) which makes my mouth water, which REALLY aggravates my nausea. I also have much more post-nasal goop when I am nauseated - vicious cycle. I can always tell when my nausea seems to be getting better when I am not having to blow my nose so often! Weird but true, with all my pregnancies. Swallowing goop really makes me feel sick, and yet the goop comes WITH the nausea as part of my morning sickness, for some reason. Anyway I have all the above at the moment. Bleurgh.
I am not particularly expecting my morning sickness to disappear soon, because only Matthew's pregnancy was nausea-free at 12 weeks. Arthur was 16 weeks, Nathan was 18 weeks, Benjamin was 14 weeks, and Samuel TWENTY weeks, urgh! So I'm only 12 weeks pregnant and continuing to HOPE that soon it'll go away, but statistically speaking, it might not for another month or two. We'll see! I'm just grateful it's manageable. I am feeling sick but able to eat food fine. I can also enjoy my food so long as I don't let myself get too hungry to start with. I am loving three slices of toast and marmite for breakfast these days, and a yummy meal in the evening is really enjoyable. I am avoiding garlic and anything very oniony (including leeks) and so long as I'm doing that, eating is fine and doesn't make me feel worse for it, usually. It's 2 minutes AFTER finishing eating that I start to feel horrid, because that's when the bitter taste and watering mouth begins. Then I need to nibble when the nausea sets in and keep on nibbling with short breaks until I can escape from it by going to bed and falling asleep for the night! Often I get in bed feeling SO nauseated and hoping I won't be sick, but I feel fairly confident that I just need to fall asleep and then I'll feel better.
I think my nausea has been aggravated this week by my womb popping up. My whole intestines are REALLY annoyed about the shift in location, haha! I am having some IBS and just feeling horrid and bloated with it, and that makes me nauseated when NOT pregnant, so it's not really surprising that I feel yucky with it now. It might even be the only reason that my nausea is worse this week. Neil says it rings a bell from previous pregnancies at the time my womb popped up, like there was an adjustment period and my IBS did not appreciate it for a week or so! ;) I hope it calms down soon.
I'm still feeling very tired, but not too bad if I rest/sleep enough. Neil is always wonderful about letting me lie in, and I feel quite well rested this weekend, despite night wakings and TWO days out - to Hampton Court Palace on Thursday with Neil and the boys, and to the zoo yesterday, both for Arthur's birthday. Hampton Court Palace WORE ME OUT, and I felt really unwell after about an hour or so of walking. I got that sudden "warning" thing where my body yells at me to sit down, and I MUST immediately or else I very quickly progress to nausea, shakes, breathlessness, etc. I had no choice but to keep walking, as Benjamin was trailing behind and the others went on ahead too far for me to signal for help! I got slower than Benjamin in the end, and had no breath to answer him when he chatted to me. Once we got to the others, and I explained, I was able to sit on a bench for a while and eat some chocolate (found some in my pocket). I don't think it's a blood sugar thing with me - I think it's either just plain unfitness (though I'm not convinced about that) or a need for protein - or fluids, with my low blood pressure. Anyway I was really nervous about going to the zoo for more hours, only 2 days later! But it was fine. I did get that feeling after a couple of hours but sat down straight away. Eventually it wasn't really going even when I was sitting, so Neil sat with the boys while I went slooowwwly to a nearby gift shop and bought a Toffee Crisp and a fruit drink. I sat down and had those and felt LOADS better after that. I was fine for the rest of the time, but I did take it more gently from then on.
I really need to start making sure I get plenty of sleep at night, so I will have less and less time to update online as I try to put that in place. The boys often aren't asleep until 8 or 8.30 - well, the last boy anyway! We stay with them until they're asleep, all but Arthur and Matthew. And Matthew is one of the first to fall asleep usually, anyway. By then, it's 8 - 8.30pm. I know I'm not going to fit much in online if I'm trying to get to bed by 10pm which I really MUST start doing, pregnant or not. I want to start getting up much earlier in the mornings (before the boys are awake!) to get my priorities straight and pray and be ready for the day. Never tried such a feat before, and rather nervous that I will fall flat trying, but I really want to start doing it. So I think my online time will have to be squeezed out to a large degree. I am not sure what else can possibly give!
Anyway, I will update tomorrow hopefully, with the scan pics and details - yay! Hope to get a glimpse of that little genital tubercle! :) Lately I have noticed I'm enjoying tomato ketchup on my food more, and marmite on my toast (both salty). AND after my last entry here, I seem to be more interested in protein. Still not craving it as such, but definitely wanting to add cheese to my pasta sauce, or baked beans with breaded fish, when I don't normally. And chicken - enjoying chicken this week! :) So, it's probably a boy after all! ;)
So I am in my second trimester, yaaaaaay! I love having the first trimester behind me! :) My baby is out of the most risky zone, which is always a relief to know! And my scan is TOMORROOOOOWWW!!! I'm so excited! We found someone to watch the boys - the same friend from church (Sarah) who watched them for the last couple of pregnancies when we had scans. Before that we used to ask my grandparents, when there were fewer children to watch, and they were less frail than they are now. We haven't told them yet (still procrastinating and not sure what to do about it!). Anyway, so happy that Sarah could come round tomorrow and stay with the boys (definitely Arthur, Matthew, and Nathan, and I would LOVE Benjamin to happily stay too, but I doubt he will), while we go to the hospital for the scan. We'll be taking Samuel, of course, and likely Benjamin, though I'm feeling slightly exasperated about that already because he is not keen on dark rooms and whines to go out straight away, and well, the lighting is very low in the u/s rooms - pretty much just the screen are light and that's it. I think he'll whine and fuss and Neil will have to take the little ones out, and then it'll just be me. I don't mind being on my own to see my baby, but I wish Neil could see the baby too without having to wrangle little ones! He doesn't mind a bit though. I hope they're fine, otherwise the staff get fidgetty and ask him to take them out (we're not really supposed to take noisy children there at all apparently, but there's nothing else for it!).
Arthur's birthday was on Wednesday - I have a 7 year old! Can you believe it?! Going back in my pregnancy blog (which you'd have to do by going to my original pregnancy blog at Diaryland, before Samuel's pregnancy, and probably the end of Benjamin's), I started writing about pregnancy and growing our family in 2003, when we were planning to start trying to conceive our first baby! And now our first baby is SEVEN - wowsers! And we're expecting our sixth :) Wonderful!
I am now going to eat birthday cake, as I'm feeling sick and need to fix it. Back in a minute! ;)
Back, and a bit better.
I just uploaded my 11 week belly picture to Sausage's belly gallery - definitely bigger than 6 weeks, lol! I am showing MUCH more this week, at 12 weeks, than even last week. I know I was showing at 11 weeks, but this week it seems my womb has "popped" up and I'm alllmost able to wear maternity clothes, just not quite! It's that frustrating in between stage where I'm uncomfy in normal clothes (and nothing fits me properly!) and my jeans are not hanging onto my hips too well, as my waist has disappeared completely, lol! But maternity bottoms are really baggy on my tummy still, whether they're the "panel" style or not. Tsk! I did find a pair today that almost did the trick, but they were just a little bit too loose to wear still. Soon though! :) I'm excited, and I have sooooo many more clothes to wear in my maternity wardrobe than my non-maternity, which is fun - it's as if I spend more time pregnant than not, by the clothing situation! ;) (which I currently DO, as of February 2004! :D )
I also made an Ultrasound Gallery for Sausage, which I'll post right before this one in a minute. Then it's there ready to add Sausage's pictures from tomorrow! :) I can't WAIT to see Sausage!!!! I hope everything is going okay in there. I did get a teeensy glimpse of my tiny one on Thursday, because I had a kidney scan again to check on the little bit of extra fluid still sitting in the kidney on my right side, where I had a kidney stone block the way in the summer and looooads of fluid backed up in my kidney. I had one of those silent consultants this time! He didn't say a word to me the whole time (except "breathe in...(wait 98 minutes)... aaand out... (pause of 2 seconds)... breathe in... (hold for 134 minutes)... and out again." I was soooo out of breath after a very short while of this!), nor indicate what he was seeing - which I found frustrating! I really want to KNOW what's going on with my kidney and not have to wait until JANUARY 26TH when my follow-up appointment with the urologist finally comes around on the waiting list!!! :/ He asked at one point if I'd ever passed a kidney stone, like he had reason to wonder (he didn't know my history as he was a locum), and I said yes. He asked when, and I said, in July. He paused and then said, "A small one?" I said no, not particularly. And that's all he said. Which leaves me wondering WHY he asked?! :S Anyway, I might ask my GP in a couple of weeks, as she should have some sort of report by then.
Anyway. He scanned my right kidney for a while, and then my left one, and then he had me lie on my back and started to scan my bladder. As he went to do so, I said, "Oh, there's a baby down there!" because he didn't seem to know - thought I'd give him the heads up, haha! I also tried my best to squirm my head around to see the screen, but it was turned to the consultant - I could just about see a sliver of the screen, and I was aware of seeing a baby and some movement briefly, but just as a grainy blurry movement, not actually being able to see body parts. Anyway the slight glimpse of an alive baby was precious all the same! :) Dr. Silent said nothing at all! At the end he stopped the scan and said he was finished with me and I could go. I sat up and turned to get off the bed, and then I saw the screen with the last image frozen on it. It was a tiny little person in a starfish pose, hehe! Looking from behind the baby's back, all the limbs were stretched out like a dear little starfish, with the head at the top, aaaahhhh so precious! :) What a busy wiggly little person he/she must be (as already demonstrated at the last two scans!)! He turned and saw me sitting there smiling at the screen, and said unfeelingly, "There's your child. Viable." lol! He was so blunt and non-chatty it was funny - the way he said that! But it was still music to my ears: viable! Yay! That means ALIVE and kicking! :) I can't wait to see more of my sweetie pea tomorrow!
I've been having some Braxton Hicks contractions here and there - I am reminded to write it because one has just started now! :) They do start earlier with subsequent pregnancies. I am now able to verify the feeling I get because I can press my hand into my tummy a few inches below my tummy button and feel that my womb is a little hard ball at those times. I have also started to feel Sausage move and wiggle a little bit here and there, and sometimes a Braxton Hicks will be followed by a wiggle :) I feel like this baby is already showing personality, definitely different from some of my others even now. I love that! I mostly feel Sausage move when I am lying on my side, slightly turned onto my back as I'm feeding Samuel (or Benjamin, once) at bedtime or nap time.
My milk is still there and seems fairly normal in quantity to me, except that Samuel has pretty much doubled his appetite this past week. He seems extra hungry for food at meal times and snack times, and will feed from both sides when I nurse him. He isn't usually disinterested whenever I offer him the breast, even if it isn't really time for him to feed yet. So I wonder if my milk is less plentiful this week? Benjamin is still breastfeeding and seems just as before, though he's 2 and I don't think he's fussed about quantity or anything like that! He likes the taste of milky, but mostly I think it's a comfort thing. He nurses several times a day and at bedtime, on demand usually, though he does demand and I say no, probably two or three times in the day as well. I am tending more towards making sure Samuel has all he needs before offering Benjamin some, now that Samuel seems extra hungry. He may just be having a growth spurt I guess, but I have to consider that it might be the milk supply, given that I'm now 12 weeks pregnant. They both still gulp and swallow heftily for quite some minutes, so it doesn't seem to me like there's a shortage - and they'll do the same a couple of hours later if offered... Anyway, maybe it's starting to slow up a bit. Samuel isn't waking more than usual at night to feed though, so it's not desperate! :)
I've felt really sick this week with the morning sickness. Some parts of the day on one or two days I wondered if it was starting to ease up. But some evenings I have felt like it's the worst it has ever been! So I don't think it's going anywhere just yet! I feel sick as soon as I start eating for the day. Some mornings I really dread having to eat breakfast! Although it will start anyway if I let myself get hungry, so there's not much difference. And NOW after all this time ALL foods are giving me a horrid bitter aftertaste (that's usually something that starts early on but didn't this time) which makes my mouth water, which REALLY aggravates my nausea. I also have much more post-nasal goop when I am nauseated - vicious cycle. I can always tell when my nausea seems to be getting better when I am not having to blow my nose so often! Weird but true, with all my pregnancies. Swallowing goop really makes me feel sick, and yet the goop comes WITH the nausea as part of my morning sickness, for some reason. Anyway I have all the above at the moment. Bleurgh.
I am not particularly expecting my morning sickness to disappear soon, because only Matthew's pregnancy was nausea-free at 12 weeks. Arthur was 16 weeks, Nathan was 18 weeks, Benjamin was 14 weeks, and Samuel TWENTY weeks, urgh! So I'm only 12 weeks pregnant and continuing to HOPE that soon it'll go away, but statistically speaking, it might not for another month or two. We'll see! I'm just grateful it's manageable. I am feeling sick but able to eat food fine. I can also enjoy my food so long as I don't let myself get too hungry to start with. I am loving three slices of toast and marmite for breakfast these days, and a yummy meal in the evening is really enjoyable. I am avoiding garlic and anything very oniony (including leeks) and so long as I'm doing that, eating is fine and doesn't make me feel worse for it, usually. It's 2 minutes AFTER finishing eating that I start to feel horrid, because that's when the bitter taste and watering mouth begins. Then I need to nibble when the nausea sets in and keep on nibbling with short breaks until I can escape from it by going to bed and falling asleep for the night! Often I get in bed feeling SO nauseated and hoping I won't be sick, but I feel fairly confident that I just need to fall asleep and then I'll feel better.
I think my nausea has been aggravated this week by my womb popping up. My whole intestines are REALLY annoyed about the shift in location, haha! I am having some IBS and just feeling horrid and bloated with it, and that makes me nauseated when NOT pregnant, so it's not really surprising that I feel yucky with it now. It might even be the only reason that my nausea is worse this week. Neil says it rings a bell from previous pregnancies at the time my womb popped up, like there was an adjustment period and my IBS did not appreciate it for a week or so! ;) I hope it calms down soon.
I'm still feeling very tired, but not too bad if I rest/sleep enough. Neil is always wonderful about letting me lie in, and I feel quite well rested this weekend, despite night wakings and TWO days out - to Hampton Court Palace on Thursday with Neil and the boys, and to the zoo yesterday, both for Arthur's birthday. Hampton Court Palace WORE ME OUT, and I felt really unwell after about an hour or so of walking. I got that sudden "warning" thing where my body yells at me to sit down, and I MUST immediately or else I very quickly progress to nausea, shakes, breathlessness, etc. I had no choice but to keep walking, as Benjamin was trailing behind and the others went on ahead too far for me to signal for help! I got slower than Benjamin in the end, and had no breath to answer him when he chatted to me. Once we got to the others, and I explained, I was able to sit on a bench for a while and eat some chocolate (found some in my pocket). I don't think it's a blood sugar thing with me - I think it's either just plain unfitness (though I'm not convinced about that) or a need for protein - or fluids, with my low blood pressure. Anyway I was really nervous about going to the zoo for more hours, only 2 days later! But it was fine. I did get that feeling after a couple of hours but sat down straight away. Eventually it wasn't really going even when I was sitting, so Neil sat with the boys while I went slooowwwly to a nearby gift shop and bought a Toffee Crisp and a fruit drink. I sat down and had those and felt LOADS better after that. I was fine for the rest of the time, but I did take it more gently from then on.
I really need to start making sure I get plenty of sleep at night, so I will have less and less time to update online as I try to put that in place. The boys often aren't asleep until 8 or 8.30 - well, the last boy anyway! We stay with them until they're asleep, all but Arthur and Matthew. And Matthew is one of the first to fall asleep usually, anyway. By then, it's 8 - 8.30pm. I know I'm not going to fit much in online if I'm trying to get to bed by 10pm which I really MUST start doing, pregnant or not. I want to start getting up much earlier in the mornings (before the boys are awake!) to get my priorities straight and pray and be ready for the day. Never tried such a feat before, and rather nervous that I will fall flat trying, but I really want to start doing it. So I think my online time will have to be squeezed out to a large degree. I am not sure what else can possibly give!
Anyway, I will update tomorrow hopefully, with the scan pics and details - yay! Hope to get a glimpse of that little genital tubercle! :) Lately I have noticed I'm enjoying tomato ketchup on my food more, and marmite on my toast (both salty). AND after my last entry here, I seem to be more interested in protein. Still not craving it as such, but definitely wanting to add cheese to my pasta sauce, or baked beans with breaded fish, when I don't normally. And chicken - enjoying chicken this week! :) So, it's probably a boy after all! ;)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
11 weeks, 4 days - catching up!
Aaaargh, the days have flown by lately! It's late and I'm really too tired to update my blog but I know I'll blink and reach 12 weeks without updating otherwise, and then STILL not be able to update because Arthur's birthday (Wednesday) is the day I turn 12 weeks (yay, second trimester!!!) and I will be too busy! So here I am! :)
I feel like there's not really much to report this week. Still nauseous, the same as before. It IS manageable though. I am able to eat whatever is on hand. When I'm feeling sick, all food is unthinkable, but I eat it anyway knowing that I'll feel better, and I do. Generally. On a bad day (not often) nothing makes me feel better once I'm really feeling grim, but it's still manageable. My morning sickness is a lot worse when I am really bloated and IBS-y. A LOT worse. Then my nausea doesn't feel so manageable, but then I am often nauseous to an unmanageable level with my IBS when NOT pregnant, so that reassures me! ;)
Sometimes I feel lightheaded or breathless, and I presume that's my low blood pressure or something. I am really not drinking enough fluids - they are still the hardest thing to manage, though it continues to be easier this pregnancy than any of the others.
Today we made the Christmas cakes and allll the boys helped, and it completely exhausted me! I mean, I was shaking and breathless by the time we finished, lol! I didn't really recover with lying down, so since it was around lunchtime, I ate 2 boiled eggs and half a tin of baked beans on toast with a glass of milk. I figured protein would be the way to go, and it did make me feel a lot better for an hour or so. It's been a very physically tired-out day today. I think the little one is really growing lately. One day this past week, I was SO hungry! I didn't get to eat breakfast until 8.45am and then I HAD to eat two slices of toast and marmite and a cup of tea at 10.30 (scrunchingly hungry!), and then I ate a big lunch at 1.30! I couldn't believe I'd eaten 3 meals in less than 5 hours, lol! I think I ate 3 more meals before bedtime, but two of them were smaller - bigger than snacks though. I'm sure Sausage has been having a growth spurt! :)
The boys ask me most days how big Sausage is now (especially Nathey, and sometimes Matthew), and I am actually not sure - I haven't looked it up for a week or two! I will probably be surprised at how big he/she is getting in there!
I am finally starting to show this week, and I missed taking a photo at 10 weeks, but Neil took one for me for 11 weeks a couple of days ago. I was surprised how much I am showing, because I don't FEEL like I do just yet. I do think most of it is bloat though, although Sausage is definitely part of it, because he/she is now filling my pelvis, so what used to reside there is now filling out my waist line! ;) I will put the photo on the belly gallery (have I made one??!) tomorrow hopefully - it's still on the camera and I am too tired to get that done tonight.
We went out as a family to a fireworks display for Bonfire Night last night, and just as the fireworks were starting, I was trying to take a photo of the boys watching them. I was slouching slightly to get the right angle, but still I was wearing my thick winter coat, done up! And Arthur stopped gasping at the fireworks and suddenly yelled, "MUMMY! YOUR TUMMY'S GETTING BIG!!!!" with such excitement, lol! So sweet, my boys! They're all so thrilled about the new baby! :)
What else? Still haven't told my grandparents... had a discussion with my parents where they sweetly offered to tell them for us, and that is seriously tempting. But I am not sure. I must tell them in plenty of time for Christmas, because for the first time in YEEEARS my family is getting together at Christmas (my baby brother is hosting Christmas at his house - how can he possibly be this grown-up?!?! Never mind that he's in his 30s, haha!) and it will be a really special day. I don't want them to be all grouchy about the pregnancy on that day. I would LOVE to not tell them until next year, lol! But I'll be 18 and a half weeks on Christmas Day, and definitely not able to hide my pregnancy, going by my previous belly pictures at that stage! ;) I don't want to tell them on the day in case they aren't nice about it. Ugh. So I need to tell them much earlier so that they have time to "get over it" and be happy - which they WILL get around to. It takes them some weeks though. Which means I am running out of time! I just do not fancy telling them yet. I am going to wait until after my scan.
Talking of the scan, it's only a week TOMORROW!!! 8 days to go, yay! I can't wait to see my little one all baby-looking on the screen! :) I know I will get a glimpse of whether Sausage is a he or a she too, and I'm excited about that! We still don't have anyone to watch the boys, but I am really hoping we'll find someone. Neil said this evening that he'll just stay home with them for the scans. Whaaaaat?!?! I was really sad that he said that so easily. I don't know. It means a lot to me that he's there for special things like scans, and these days I have to go to my early "is the baby alive or not?" scans by myself, which I do NOT prefer to do, but which we really have no choice over. The main thing is how, what's the word?... urgh, my pregnant brain can't think of a thing! It's the opposite to a thesaurus, lol! BLANK. Give me another word for 'fun'! Brain: "Uhhhhh..." Okay, how about another word for 'sad'? C'mon, what's the word I'm looking for?! Brain: "Uhhhhh..." Seriously. That is my brain these days. It's not flattering, folks.
Anyway! It's more that Neil doesn't seem to mind one bit having not-too-much to do with the things about my pregnancies that I find exciting or "essential". It's not a reflection on how much he loves the babies, or wants them. Just how he is with all of them really, when I'm pregnant. Not too connected. I know that's normal, and also I know already that it's just how Neil IS. It's okay. But sometimes I feel it, like when I'm excited about US getting to see our baby together for the first time, and maybe even a glimpse of boy or girl baby, and the possibility of being told there is something wrong... and he casually suggests that he stays home to watch the boys instead. He's thinking of them, which I LOVE, and feel selfish for thinking this way, but I do wish at special times he would think more of me than the boys. Probably wrong! But anyway, just my feelings for the moment. They'll change, I'm sure! :) I did tell him most of what I just wrote, that the two big scans are special and I really REALLY want him to be there - what if something is wrong? I do not want to be on my own, and just show him a picture when I get home, that seems so sad to me! :( He said okay, and we'll look some more for somebody to watch the boys. He's a sweet hubby and such a lovely daddy. :)
My milk seems to be okay still... I think in other pregnancies it has really started to dry up from about 14 weeks, quite quickly. Last time it lasted longer, and there was even some actual "gulpy" milk there when Samuel was born!! I was so surprised! All the other times it had been all gone by 20 weeks and only the new colostrum was there afterwards. I did pray last pregnancy that my milk would continue long enough to sustain my current baby (Benjamin) until he turned one, without the need to supplement with formula. The age gap was slightly smaller than previous times, and I knew I would have to get to about 18 weeks before he turned one, with enough milk for him to be having full feeds as needed alongside solid food. Amazingly, God provided, and my milk was plentiful enough until he turned one, and then dried up a lot, RIGHT after. He went onto cows milk on his first birthday. The age gap is the same with Samuel and the new baby, so I will be 18 weeks pregnant when he turns one. I hope my milk lasts! So far so good :) I think I am noticing subtle changes, like just now I went to feed Samuel when he woke (he is nursing on demand, day and night still) and felt my milk let down with quite a sting, and realised that's the first time I've felt a stinging let-down in a few weeks maybe. So I think the quantity isn't what it was, or something. Benjamin still nurses APLENTY, on demand pretty much, during the day. I will nurse him during the evening if he wakes from a bad dream or really wants me and can't settle down (Neil usually goes to him in the evening if he wakes), but never at night now (he's 2 and a quarter, so that's probably okay, lol!). I often have times during the day when I need to lie down on the living room floor, and Benjamin takes this as a cue to curl into my side and breastfeed :) Samuel sometimes joins in, but not always. Benjamin is far more eager to nurse than Samuel - very much like Arthur was, and Matthew less enthusiastic just like Samuel. Anyway, when they are tandem nursing, they always both gulp and gulp, so I know there is plenty of milk. A couple of hours later (or less) when it's time to do it again, or put Samuel down for a nap, gulping still occurs, so hopefully I'm making plenty, for now. There are 7 more weeks until Samuel can have cows milk, and I'm kind of aware of it! Nervous that I'll have enough for him to make it there, and hopeful now, with only a few weeks to go!
What else? Some foods are tasting bitter to me - white bread, cheese, and crackers, and sometimes crisps. I don't really like starchy carbs this pregnancy. They're okay, and will still do the job to relieve nausea a little if I need to eat something, but they give me a bit of a rubbish aftertaste. Wholemeal bread doesn't have the same aftertaste, so I eat that instead. I usually eat that anyway.
I am really not needing protein like I have done in my other pregnancies, and I'm interested in this fact because at MOMYS I found a post written by a friend who was in our due date group for July '09 when I was pregnant with Benjamin. We both had 3 boys and were expecting our fourth boys together. After I had Samuel she became pregnant again, and I found a post from her that was about gender and food. She had NEEDED lots of protein in her first 4 pregnancies and didn't seem to need it so much this time around, and wondered if she could make anything of that. Lots of people replied saying they were sure she would have a girl, because that's how they found it when they finally got pregnant with a girl - you have to understand that these ladies have had 4 or 5 or SIX boys in a row and then a girl, so they know what they're talking about, lol! ;) Last I read, she had an ultrasound right near the end of her pregnancy which said 'boy'. I checked up on her recently and she was VERY surprised at her home birth to have a baby girl! :) So happy for her! And now very very intrigued about the protein....
I know I craved, or maybe just NEEDED, eggs, during my other pregnancies at some point. I can't remember if it was this early, or later. But I loved my eggs and meat. And I coped with morning sickness with a lot of bland white carbs, and CHEESE - lots of cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, etc. I remember someone commenting on my diary when I was pregnant with Arthur or Matthew, saying I was soooo having a boy because I wanted eggs every day, and she had had 4 boys and could relate to WANTING protein like that. This pregnancy I really haven't wanted protein much. I eat it, and enjoy it, but don't feel like I really need it. I even set out this pregnancy, for the first time, to tackle morning sickness with protein. But I haven't stuck with it, and I don't know if it really made any difference for me when I was doing it, over non-protein foods that is. I ate egg today and it was yummy, but I haven't been eating eggs at all really, just because I haven't wanted to. I am eating cheese, and it's okay. I have not eaten cottage cheese more than once this entire pregnancy! I bought some, because it was the thing to do, since I was pregnant and all, haha! It was nice. It did not call my name though, and actually I let a pot of cottage cheese go past its date in the fridge by mistake, because I really didn't want or need it. I am not eating much meat really this trimester, but only because making it is nauseating because it usually involves onions (which are my only BIG enemy, along with garlic, this pregnancy). This week I have wanted to have something "chicken", which is the first inkling of wanting anything protein-y. This evening we had a chicken stir fry, and it was nice, but not "gghhaaaaaagggghah" Homer Simpson style "nice", if you know what I mean! My body didn't go, "Ahhhhh, thank you SO much for this amazing foooood!" It was just nice, and I would eat it again soon if I had some more. So that is unusual for me I think. Normally I am all about my meat and eggs and cheese. I have weird cravings for fast food burgers or hotdogs (NEVER eat those or even like them, any other time!). None at all this time.
So after the post I read, I wonder... Could I really be having a girl?! I will not let my brain even think about that until the scan, because I know I will get a good idea one way or the other, and it's only 8 days away. I'm not thinking further about names until then either, for the same reason.
Aaaargh, it's so late!!! I must go to bed! Will write more another time. Only 3 days until my first trimester is behind me and I'm into the excitement of the 2nd trimester! Yaaay! :D
[ETA: Oh my goodness, Sausage is now FIVE cms from head to bottom!!!!! I didn't think he/she was so big already! The palm of my hand would be a perfect cradle for that tiny sweetheart right now :) I have not felt the baby move yet. Once or twice I wondered, and went still as a mouse, but nothing. What I might have felt was not convincing enough for me to be sure it wasn't my not-too-happy-with-life bowel or something, hehe! So, nothing yet. But soon!! :D ]
I feel like there's not really much to report this week. Still nauseous, the same as before. It IS manageable though. I am able to eat whatever is on hand. When I'm feeling sick, all food is unthinkable, but I eat it anyway knowing that I'll feel better, and I do. Generally. On a bad day (not often) nothing makes me feel better once I'm really feeling grim, but it's still manageable. My morning sickness is a lot worse when I am really bloated and IBS-y. A LOT worse. Then my nausea doesn't feel so manageable, but then I am often nauseous to an unmanageable level with my IBS when NOT pregnant, so that reassures me! ;)
Sometimes I feel lightheaded or breathless, and I presume that's my low blood pressure or something. I am really not drinking enough fluids - they are still the hardest thing to manage, though it continues to be easier this pregnancy than any of the others.
Today we made the Christmas cakes and allll the boys helped, and it completely exhausted me! I mean, I was shaking and breathless by the time we finished, lol! I didn't really recover with lying down, so since it was around lunchtime, I ate 2 boiled eggs and half a tin of baked beans on toast with a glass of milk. I figured protein would be the way to go, and it did make me feel a lot better for an hour or so. It's been a very physically tired-out day today. I think the little one is really growing lately. One day this past week, I was SO hungry! I didn't get to eat breakfast until 8.45am and then I HAD to eat two slices of toast and marmite and a cup of tea at 10.30 (scrunchingly hungry!), and then I ate a big lunch at 1.30! I couldn't believe I'd eaten 3 meals in less than 5 hours, lol! I think I ate 3 more meals before bedtime, but two of them were smaller - bigger than snacks though. I'm sure Sausage has been having a growth spurt! :)
The boys ask me most days how big Sausage is now (especially Nathey, and sometimes Matthew), and I am actually not sure - I haven't looked it up for a week or two! I will probably be surprised at how big he/she is getting in there!
I am finally starting to show this week, and I missed taking a photo at 10 weeks, but Neil took one for me for 11 weeks a couple of days ago. I was surprised how much I am showing, because I don't FEEL like I do just yet. I do think most of it is bloat though, although Sausage is definitely part of it, because he/she is now filling my pelvis, so what used to reside there is now filling out my waist line! ;) I will put the photo on the belly gallery (have I made one??!) tomorrow hopefully - it's still on the camera and I am too tired to get that done tonight.
We went out as a family to a fireworks display for Bonfire Night last night, and just as the fireworks were starting, I was trying to take a photo of the boys watching them. I was slouching slightly to get the right angle, but still I was wearing my thick winter coat, done up! And Arthur stopped gasping at the fireworks and suddenly yelled, "MUMMY! YOUR TUMMY'S GETTING BIG!!!!" with such excitement, lol! So sweet, my boys! They're all so thrilled about the new baby! :)
What else? Still haven't told my grandparents... had a discussion with my parents where they sweetly offered to tell them for us, and that is seriously tempting. But I am not sure. I must tell them in plenty of time for Christmas, because for the first time in YEEEARS my family is getting together at Christmas (my baby brother is hosting Christmas at his house - how can he possibly be this grown-up?!?! Never mind that he's in his 30s, haha!) and it will be a really special day. I don't want them to be all grouchy about the pregnancy on that day. I would LOVE to not tell them until next year, lol! But I'll be 18 and a half weeks on Christmas Day, and definitely not able to hide my pregnancy, going by my previous belly pictures at that stage! ;) I don't want to tell them on the day in case they aren't nice about it. Ugh. So I need to tell them much earlier so that they have time to "get over it" and be happy - which they WILL get around to. It takes them some weeks though. Which means I am running out of time! I just do not fancy telling them yet. I am going to wait until after my scan.
Talking of the scan, it's only a week TOMORROW!!! 8 days to go, yay! I can't wait to see my little one all baby-looking on the screen! :) I know I will get a glimpse of whether Sausage is a he or a she too, and I'm excited about that! We still don't have anyone to watch the boys, but I am really hoping we'll find someone. Neil said this evening that he'll just stay home with them for the scans. Whaaaaat?!?! I was really sad that he said that so easily. I don't know. It means a lot to me that he's there for special things like scans, and these days I have to go to my early "is the baby alive or not?" scans by myself, which I do NOT prefer to do, but which we really have no choice over. The main thing is how, what's the word?... urgh, my pregnant brain can't think of a thing! It's the opposite to a thesaurus, lol! BLANK. Give me another word for 'fun'! Brain: "Uhhhhh..." Okay, how about another word for 'sad'? C'mon, what's the word I'm looking for?! Brain: "Uhhhhh..." Seriously. That is my brain these days. It's not flattering, folks.
Anyway! It's more that Neil doesn't seem to mind one bit having not-too-much to do with the things about my pregnancies that I find exciting or "essential". It's not a reflection on how much he loves the babies, or wants them. Just how he is with all of them really, when I'm pregnant. Not too connected. I know that's normal, and also I know already that it's just how Neil IS. It's okay. But sometimes I feel it, like when I'm excited about US getting to see our baby together for the first time, and maybe even a glimpse of boy or girl baby, and the possibility of being told there is something wrong... and he casually suggests that he stays home to watch the boys instead. He's thinking of them, which I LOVE, and feel selfish for thinking this way, but I do wish at special times he would think more of me than the boys. Probably wrong! But anyway, just my feelings for the moment. They'll change, I'm sure! :) I did tell him most of what I just wrote, that the two big scans are special and I really REALLY want him to be there - what if something is wrong? I do not want to be on my own, and just show him a picture when I get home, that seems so sad to me! :( He said okay, and we'll look some more for somebody to watch the boys. He's a sweet hubby and such a lovely daddy. :)
My milk seems to be okay still... I think in other pregnancies it has really started to dry up from about 14 weeks, quite quickly. Last time it lasted longer, and there was even some actual "gulpy" milk there when Samuel was born!! I was so surprised! All the other times it had been all gone by 20 weeks and only the new colostrum was there afterwards. I did pray last pregnancy that my milk would continue long enough to sustain my current baby (Benjamin) until he turned one, without the need to supplement with formula. The age gap was slightly smaller than previous times, and I knew I would have to get to about 18 weeks before he turned one, with enough milk for him to be having full feeds as needed alongside solid food. Amazingly, God provided, and my milk was plentiful enough until he turned one, and then dried up a lot, RIGHT after. He went onto cows milk on his first birthday. The age gap is the same with Samuel and the new baby, so I will be 18 weeks pregnant when he turns one. I hope my milk lasts! So far so good :) I think I am noticing subtle changes, like just now I went to feed Samuel when he woke (he is nursing on demand, day and night still) and felt my milk let down with quite a sting, and realised that's the first time I've felt a stinging let-down in a few weeks maybe. So I think the quantity isn't what it was, or something. Benjamin still nurses APLENTY, on demand pretty much, during the day. I will nurse him during the evening if he wakes from a bad dream or really wants me and can't settle down (Neil usually goes to him in the evening if he wakes), but never at night now (he's 2 and a quarter, so that's probably okay, lol!). I often have times during the day when I need to lie down on the living room floor, and Benjamin takes this as a cue to curl into my side and breastfeed :) Samuel sometimes joins in, but not always. Benjamin is far more eager to nurse than Samuel - very much like Arthur was, and Matthew less enthusiastic just like Samuel. Anyway, when they are tandem nursing, they always both gulp and gulp, so I know there is plenty of milk. A couple of hours later (or less) when it's time to do it again, or put Samuel down for a nap, gulping still occurs, so hopefully I'm making plenty, for now. There are 7 more weeks until Samuel can have cows milk, and I'm kind of aware of it! Nervous that I'll have enough for him to make it there, and hopeful now, with only a few weeks to go!
What else? Some foods are tasting bitter to me - white bread, cheese, and crackers, and sometimes crisps. I don't really like starchy carbs this pregnancy. They're okay, and will still do the job to relieve nausea a little if I need to eat something, but they give me a bit of a rubbish aftertaste. Wholemeal bread doesn't have the same aftertaste, so I eat that instead. I usually eat that anyway.
I am really not needing protein like I have done in my other pregnancies, and I'm interested in this fact because at MOMYS I found a post written by a friend who was in our due date group for July '09 when I was pregnant with Benjamin. We both had 3 boys and were expecting our fourth boys together. After I had Samuel she became pregnant again, and I found a post from her that was about gender and food. She had NEEDED lots of protein in her first 4 pregnancies and didn't seem to need it so much this time around, and wondered if she could make anything of that. Lots of people replied saying they were sure she would have a girl, because that's how they found it when they finally got pregnant with a girl - you have to understand that these ladies have had 4 or 5 or SIX boys in a row and then a girl, so they know what they're talking about, lol! ;) Last I read, she had an ultrasound right near the end of her pregnancy which said 'boy'. I checked up on her recently and she was VERY surprised at her home birth to have a baby girl! :) So happy for her! And now very very intrigued about the protein....
I know I craved, or maybe just NEEDED, eggs, during my other pregnancies at some point. I can't remember if it was this early, or later. But I loved my eggs and meat. And I coped with morning sickness with a lot of bland white carbs, and CHEESE - lots of cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, etc. I remember someone commenting on my diary when I was pregnant with Arthur or Matthew, saying I was soooo having a boy because I wanted eggs every day, and she had had 4 boys and could relate to WANTING protein like that. This pregnancy I really haven't wanted protein much. I eat it, and enjoy it, but don't feel like I really need it. I even set out this pregnancy, for the first time, to tackle morning sickness with protein. But I haven't stuck with it, and I don't know if it really made any difference for me when I was doing it, over non-protein foods that is. I ate egg today and it was yummy, but I haven't been eating eggs at all really, just because I haven't wanted to. I am eating cheese, and it's okay. I have not eaten cottage cheese more than once this entire pregnancy! I bought some, because it was the thing to do, since I was pregnant and all, haha! It was nice. It did not call my name though, and actually I let a pot of cottage cheese go past its date in the fridge by mistake, because I really didn't want or need it. I am not eating much meat really this trimester, but only because making it is nauseating because it usually involves onions (which are my only BIG enemy, along with garlic, this pregnancy). This week I have wanted to have something "chicken", which is the first inkling of wanting anything protein-y. This evening we had a chicken stir fry, and it was nice, but not "gghhaaaaaagggghah" Homer Simpson style "nice", if you know what I mean! My body didn't go, "Ahhhhh, thank you SO much for this amazing foooood!" It was just nice, and I would eat it again soon if I had some more. So that is unusual for me I think. Normally I am all about my meat and eggs and cheese. I have weird cravings for fast food burgers or hotdogs (NEVER eat those or even like them, any other time!). None at all this time.
So after the post I read, I wonder... Could I really be having a girl?! I will not let my brain even think about that until the scan, because I know I will get a good idea one way or the other, and it's only 8 days away. I'm not thinking further about names until then either, for the same reason.
Aaaargh, it's so late!!! I must go to bed! Will write more another time. Only 3 days until my first trimester is behind me and I'm into the excitement of the 2nd trimester! Yaaay! :D
[ETA: Oh my goodness, Sausage is now FIVE cms from head to bottom!!!!! I didn't think he/she was so big already! The palm of my hand would be a perfect cradle for that tiny sweetheart right now :) I have not felt the baby move yet. Once or twice I wondered, and went still as a mouse, but nothing. What I might have felt was not convincing enough for me to be sure it wasn't my not-too-happy-with-life bowel or something, hehe! So, nothing yet. But soon!! :D ]
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