10 weeks pregnant! Midwife appointment! :)

So exhausted tonight. Will TRY to be brief, but there's so much I want to write!

I am 10 weeks pregnant today, yaaaaaaaaaay! I feel great being in double figures! It's always so wonderful to have the single digits behind me. Also, I am now exactly a quarter of the way through my pregnancy! My little Sausage is no longer an embryo as of today, but a fetus! His/her little tail stump has disappeared, and all the organs are finished and in place, with a little fine tuning left to be done. He/she looks like a real baby now, upright head and everything! It's SO exciting!!! The taste buds are forming, and the intestines are migrating into the torso from where they have formed in the umbilical cord (I love that amazing little bit of trivia!). Sausage measures 2.3cm long from head to bottom, and is making all sorts of spontaneous movement now, and has brain waves and everything! :)

It hit me the other day that sometime probably SOON I might even start to feel Sausage moving about in there! For some crazy reason that particular thing had totally escaped my thinking when I was looking ahead with glee to things around the corner like hearing the heartbeat on the doppler, starting to show, etc. I forgot that I have felt several of my babies move BY 10 weeks, for the first time! The other night, and also at 9w3d, which I brushed off as WAY too early, I wondered if I felt something, but it was sort of a dull "thud" type feeling, and just one, not a series of sensations. So I think probably not. Otherwise nothing felt just yet! Can't WAIT to feel my sweet tiny wiggling! :D

Today also happened to be my first midwife appointment! The letter said to allow 90 MINUTES for the booking appointment! Yikes! When I got there, I saw a midwife called Claire who is new to the team, so I hadn't met her before. She's really nice. I was amazed at how much has changed AGAIN, in the 10 months since I was last pregnant and seeing midwives - this happened in the short gap last time as well! This time the notes are all different. They used to be green notes that I kept after the 20 week scan, and which were held for me in the antenatal clinic until then. Now they're a huge WHITE folder of notes that are all filled in at the booking appointment (MUCH more thorough as well, hence the time I guess!) and I get to take them home with me right away! I like that.

I had blood taken, explained the various things I'm weird about, for the zillionth time (Yes, I'm rhesus negative. No, I will not be having Anti-D. Yes, I'm GBS+. Still planning a homebirth so far. etc.) and my urine sample was all clear. My blood pressure was 85/55!!!!!! Not sure how I was still standing up! My blood pressure is always low, especially when pregnant, but I've never had a blood pressure reading that low before. She took it three times to be sure, and then told me I need to drink 2 litres of fluids a day. I struggle with getting fluids in so much when morning sickness is going on, and I DO try - AND this time I know I need to anyway to prevent further kidney stones. But I still don't get 2 litres a day at the moment. Some days I get a litre or so maybe. Which is a LOT better than any day in the first trimesters of my other pregnancies! I am more able to drink fluids this time than any of the others, but still it's difficult. Ribena goes down better than water, but it's starting to seem icky and sweet to me now and I don't want it! I will NOT drink any fruit squash that does not just have sugar for a sweetener. Aspartame, sucralose, etc, etc, which are annoyingly in ALL other squashes that I've come across, are practically toxic substances that I am not putting in my body for my own health, let alone the body of a developing baby! I feel really strongly about artificial sweeteners. So that leaves me with just Ribena! :S There are some organic squashes out there, but the ones I've tried over the years are VILE. Seriously! Blech.

Anyway, so that's not ideal, a blood pressure that low. I did feel light-headed during my midwife appointment, and have done quiet a bit so far this pregnancy, but I just put it down to normal pregnancy stuff and ignore it as best I can. I didn't think of blood pressure... I also get very faint and totally breathless just lifting my arms above my head to adjust the kitchen blind, or standing up and starting off walking quickly at any time. I put that down to just feeling exhausted. Probably blood pressure though, isn't it? I will try really hard to up my fluids!
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Neil worked from home this morning so I could go to the appointment without the boys, partly because the length of such an appointment would be waaaay inappropriate for five little ones to sit through, and also 4 of them are not well right now. Arthur and Matthew caught a cough from the doctor's waiting room when we went for vaccinations last week. Really yucky and chesty, but otherwise fine. Then after a few days of that, the COLD hit them. So it must have been the start of a nasty cold. Benjamin and Samuel started coughing two days ago, and are both really sad and poorly now - my poor little babies! Nathan is still standing, exactly as he was last time we had a cold that started with a nasty cough! He succumbed in the end last time, and ended up coughing for weeks. I suspect he will probably start coughing tomorrow. I feel a bit chesty and congested, and am praying that I'm just having a mild version, and not just starting to come down with something that will hit me like a ton weight in a day or two! :S Neil hasn't had any symptoms and REALLY does not need a cold, as he has been having to work so hard lately - late nights most of last week and yesterday night too. Anyway, so school has been a bit on hold this week while everyone convalesces (sp?!) and Neil put Mary Poppins on for them (they LOVE this movie!) and worked on his laptop while I was at my appointment and Samuel napped.

I eventually phoned the hospital to see when my scan appointment would be. They said they had sent out the appointment the day before, but the lady was so nice and found my information for me anyway while I was on the phone. She told me my scan is on November 10th. This is the day after Arthur's 7th birthday, and also the day I have already double-booked myself with a kidney scan and physio appointments for Arthur and Samuel's feet! Oops! So I asked to change that appointment. I will be 12 weeks and 1 day on the 10th, so actually I was secretly kind of happy to change it, because the later on I can have a scan in the 12th week, the more accurate the "angle of the dangle" theory will be, haha! At first she offered me a scan in my 11th week! Which I - ahem - "couldn't do" ;) I'm not at ALL obsessed, you understand! Just preferring an accurate assessment of Sausage's dangle! Hehe! So when she asked me, I said I could do later in my 12th week, and she booked me a scan on Monday 14th - 12 weeks and 5 days! I am SO pleased! :D And I can't wait to go to it now!

The scan is now my next antenatal appointment, followed by the inevitable consultant appointment at 16 weeks, which my midwife is going to book for me and let me know about tomorrow. I have to have that appointment because I am a grand multigravida, or grand multip (birthed 5 or more babies) which = increased risk of haemmorhage, but which in reality does not equal anything of the sort. It is NOT backed up by research, or real life experience of midwives of Amish women, for example, who routinely have many more than 6 children. NOT BACKED UP. My doula (who is fabulous) is really incensed about this particular mis-information and has done a lot of research on my behalf. I love her! :) But I have to see the consultant. Also for the Group B Strep thing.

So far I am presuming to do exactly what I have done the last two times - weigh the risks, and have a home birth, if all goes well and there are no other complications to consider. That would definitely be my plan. I do not like giving birth in hospitals. I mean, it's okay, but home is unbelievably wonderful! :)

I have a lot more to say, but I'm too tired! My eyes are feeling like sandpaper and I will have to go to bed! I will try to update again this week so that I can continue to waffle my thoughts out before they're old news and I forget them. Also I am due a belly pic this week!! Exciting! Nothing to show, particularly, I think. But I definitely feel a fullness at my bikini line that was not there before, so something is going to be changing soon! :)