20 weeks - halfway there! :)

I can't BELIEVE I am 20 weeks pregnant today! :)

I also didn't realise it had been quite so long since I updated last! Oops! I meant to come back with a belly picture for 18 weeks and the pictures from the scan of Elijah's measurements, BUT I still haven't scanned the pics onto the computer, and I never did get around to an 18 week belly pic :( MUST take one for 20 weeks. I usually do one dressed in the same clothes each time I'm pregnant at 20 weeks, but I didn't get one done for Samuel :(

Anyway, it's day time so the boys are about, therefore I really shouldn't spend long on a blog post (they're busily occupied at the moment, but that's not the point!). I just realised how long it has been and wanted to get started so at least I'd have done SOMETHING by the time I get a chance to finish it off in the evening sometime.

My bump is really (reeeeally) growing now! The top of my uterus is still small, to me. It's still 2 or 3 fingerwidths below my tummy button, and at 20 weeks it should be right at my tummy button. A fingerwidth is roughly a week. So at 21 weeks it should ideally be a fingerwidth (a centimetre) above my tummy button, and so on. But it is really filling out forwards and sideways. Sometimes I can feel that Elijah is lying across me - his head as a little hard round ball in my side. And then a few minutes later the little hard round ball will be up at the top, right under my tummy button! :) Having no placenta over the top of my uterus (which it usually is, for me), I can feel soooo much more, baby-shape wise, at the top.

I am wearing maternity clothes all the time now - I think I started that at 18 weeks, though I didn't show much in them yet, at least they just about fit me. They were kind of loose at the waist though, and now they're not. Elijah kicks and moves and wiggles a LOT, and his kicks are a lot stronger just these last few days. I LOVE feeling them! :) I can feel them easily with my hand, even his smaller wiggles, as it's really clear through my tummy now. I can just about see my tummy move if he does a big movement or clear kick to the front - it blips a bit :) LOVE this stage!!

I haven't been feeling too well lately. It took ages to get over that coldy/cough virus that we had before Christmas, and we're still coughing just a little bit now. I gave it to my sweet doula! :( I feel sooooooo bad. She must have caught it from me the day she went to the scan with me. Thankfully she didn't give it to any of her family, and was well in time for Christmas, but still I feel awful because she was so lovely to be with me, and it was SUCH a horrid bug!

Anyway over New Year's weekend I felt really unwell. I had no energy whatsoever and my arms felt heavy like lead, I couldn't even hold a book or they ached and ached, and my hands shook with the effort. I felt just wiped out physically, but not particularly the type of tired that comes from being sleep deprived. Just physical. I didn't have much of an appetite at all, and as the day when on I got exhausted enough even lying down to start to feel nauseated. Yuck. It reminded me so much of M.E. and I really hate reminders of that horrible time! The weird thing was that it could not have been anything viral at all. We had had literally no exposure to people or places since Christmas Day, and my family were all healthy. I had a bit of a tummy ache to one side, but that was it really. I was somewhat encouraged later in the day on the Sunday when I read an entry in my pregnancy blog from Samuel's pregnancy at 19 weeks and 3 days, where I said that I had been feeling utterly physically wiped out for the past few days, although I didn't feel unwell with it at all. I put it down to a growth spurt on Samuel's part at the time, because I'd read that the baby more than doubles its weight and addes 3cm to its length between 17 and 20 weeks. I was 19 weeks and 4 days pregnant on Sunday when I read that, so it was very reassuring at the time!

The only thing that really bothered me that I couldn't explain was the tummy ache. It was "boring" and continually bothersome, and it felt to me like it was in my kidney area (the same one which had trouble with a kidney stone in July), but if I lay down and actually palpated my kidney then there was no tenderness. Weird. I wondered if it was IBS, because I get that a LOT and it can cause my whole bowel to feel "punched" and bloated, so maybe it's that? I didn't like how it was so one-sided though. As the days went by it became more bothersome and more defined, although I do have some of the same discomfort on the other side as well, and another patch of it lower down on the other side. It's weird. IBS? I don't know. Maybe (hopefully!) just my womb growing and putting pressure on stuff that gets annoyed easily and is trying to adjust? I would have thought it would be familiar from other pregnancies though, if that's the case?

Well on Bank Holiday Monday, Neil took the boys out for the day to his brother's, and they all went out for a walk and stayed for tea, and came home at bedtime. They were gone about 6 hours and it was REALLY weird after 4 hours without them. I really did not like it! It was so quiet, nice at first. And then after about the 4 hour mark, the house was too quiet, and it wasn't nice. Just appliances humming, and I couldn't help but think of life before the boys were born, and how BLAND it is without children. I had no idea, even since they've arrived, because I guess I haven't stopped to compare. I'm so thankful that they're here, making our house noisy and causing me strife, lol! I would not ever rather be without them, or EVER look forward to the days when we "get our lives back" (what sort of selfish phrase is that to say anyway?! I have my life in all its fullness, right here and now!) This is life, and life to the full. How bland and lonely it would be without children in the house! I was so glad to have them home again!

I expected to feel unwell and need to lie down most of the day, because that's how the previous day had been. I was not happy about it, because a combination of New Year and nesting kicking in means that I am DESPERATE to organise, clean, declutter, etc! So maddening when I can't do a thing, even hold a book!!!

I rested for a bit and then started to feel a bit better. I was drinking TONS of water, because I started to worry that the one-sided discomfort might mean a UTI of some sort, and I wanted to flush it out. I have urinalysis test sticks at home, and I had a little protein and some leukocytes in my urine - although that can be normal for me. So just in case, I drank a LOT of water. I did a few sitting-down organising activities and then felt well enough to get up and do some gentle sorting and organising, yay! I felt better that evening than I'd felt for days, so I was encouraged, but at the same time the pain in my side/tummy/back was getting gradually worse. I did notice similar pain on the other side again, but only if I pressed gently. The one-sided pain is there all the time now, no matter what I'm doing. It makes me anxious :(

Tuesday morning Neil went back to work and thankfully my energy was completely back to normal and I felt fine in myself, hooray! Just the pain remained, which was nagging and uncomfortable. I tested my urine through the day and it seemed okay actually - less protein, just a trace or maybe one + of leukocytes at most. So I felt better about it (and in all honestly, probably drank less fluids therefore!).

Today is Wednesday and the pain is STILL bothersome. I don't know what to make of it, but one thing that really disturbs me is the fact that it's right in my side and sometimes feels awfully similar to the pain I was having before the terrible pain of the kidney stone I had in the summer :S I'm so anxious about it today, having realised it could be a possibility. It's so excruciatingly painful (worse than labour, or probably on a level with the worst transition contractions, for me) and utterly unmanageable. I would HAVE to have pain-relief, and anti-nausea medication, and I am not sure I can have anything other than paracetamol because I am pregnant.

I am praying and praying that it's NOT a kidney stone. The one thing that encourages me is that even with a test stick I haven't got a trace of blood in my urine - I know that doesn't rule it out, but it's very common to have blood in the urine, even if it's just a trace amount. Last time I had a lot. At one point I had FRANK blood (just blood, no discernable urine). That was SCARY. Anyway. I also can't have an X-ray at any point to diagnose a kidney stone, even if my symptoms become severe (which I think is the only way to really diagnose a kidney stone?), because I am pregnant.

I phoned Heather and she said I should go to see the doctor. I didn't want to bother with that because it's such a huge faff and honestly there's hardly any point. They can't know one way or the other if it's a kidney stone (even when it WAS one last time, I had several doctors appointments in the run-up to the acute pain over a couple of weeks and they could only guess based on symptoms). And last time when it DID look like it could be a kidney stone, they basically just said to wait it out and hopefully it would pass. They said if the pain gets too bad I would have to go to A&E. Which is what happened. So I can't imagine they'll have anything particularly useful to say, and I don't want to waste a morning or worry about the boys (no way am I taking them with me, with the viruses we've suffered from, courtesy of the doctor's waiting room this past year!). But Heather says I should go, because the difference this time is that I'm pregnant and they may have something different to say or do. Also she is happy to watch the boys at home for me while I go to an appointment tomorrow morning, so I will phone as soon as the lines open in the morning and hopefully get an appointment with the one REALLY good doctor there. Heather also said to take some paracetamol to try and minimise the pain/discomfort so that I'm not dwelling on it and getting anxious so much, and drink plenty still. If it's a kidney stone, drinking plenty to flush it is a good idea anyway. Oh how desperately I'm hoping it's NOT one! It's a horrible prospect, to me, but worse than last time because the pain may not be able to be fixed with drugs. I can't fathom managing that, and being away from my boys again - and what if it somehow affects the pregnancy, in that being in tons of pain for a prolonged time can't be good for the baby, never mind me. And I know the uterus can get irritable and contract-y if there are nearby systems in turmoil. And I have full placenta previa! :S So much to worry about. But now that I've written it all down, I am going to TRY not to. It's not my natural way! But I'll try.

I had better post this for now, and hopefully get chance very soon to post the scan pictures from 17 weeks and get a belly pic for 20 weeks for the gallery. Next week (already!!!) is my big scan, though we already know that he's an Elijah! :) But it'll be exciting to see him and check him out thoroughly all the same, and get a better idea on what's what with my placenta.

Oh, I THINK I am finished with morning sickness, although I have had some very familiar nausea and queasiness this past 5-ish days, with the other symptoms. Sometimes it really felt soooo like morning sickness, so I wondered if it was just re-surfacing a bit. It was gone before 18 weeks, I think - I would say it cleared up officially at 17 weeks this pregnancy, but at 19 weeks I was queasy/nauseous again every day to some degree. It could be whatever is going on with my body though. Today I feel fine so far, nausea-wise, so I'm not going to say it's morning sickness unless the other symptoms go and queasiness is still there. I'm eating fine and my appetite is now good again, so that's good! :)

Back soon!