Thanks Meegs for the comment asking if everything is okay! :S So badly behind on my blogs, and somewhat fed up that I've let this one go when I like to keep everything recorded during my pregnancies! Also I haven't been taking belly pics :( I will try to get one for 24 weeks, but who knows. I am just utterly foggy of brain lately, this pregnancy more than any other (though they seem incrementally worse each time!) and also starting out with a new academic year of homeschooling THIS WEEK. So I'm completely consumed with that for now, and will be for a while.
So this is just quick! :)
I had my 20 week scan and confirmed that Elijah is definitely a boy! :) Also my placenta has moved RIGHT out of the way, praise God!!! The sonographer was surprised they'd even considered it low a few weeks before, as it was almost fundal (up over the top!). This is exactly what happened with Nathan's placenta - they could not believe it had been low to start with (it was completely covering my cervix 4 weeks before this scan with Elijah!). So much prayer has gone into this (both pregnancies) and all I can say is, God is good to me! :) So so relieved because now I don't have to worry about bleeding and delivery options, etc.
I'm also VERY relieved to be 24 weeks pregnant tomorrow - I always like this "viability" milestone! It means that if Elijah was born, he would have a chance of survival outside my womb, whereas before tomorrow they would not even try to save him.
My womb is still on the small side for me, height-wise. It's a continous growth pattern, but always the same amount "behind". Maybe it will measure normally, but as far as fingerwidths to my tummy button, it's always about 3 weeks behind where it normally is for any given week. But at least it's consistent throughout the pregnancy, and thus IS growing, and Elijah has measured right on track every time I've had a scan. At the 20 (almost 21) week scan, he measured spot on for his legs (not an Arthur or Benjamin then, who have my short leggies!), a week under for his abdomen (don't know who has done that yet!) and a week ahead for his head circumference (Arthur and Benjamin after all then, lol!). It's so much fun to see new combinations of our genes every time - they are ALL different, no matter how many we have! I don't think we've yet had a combination of Arthur and Benjamin's little round heads and Matthew and Nathan's more proportionate legs!
I just. can't. WAIT. to meet him!!!! Seriously! I am so excited, and just want to squeal with glee every time I feel him move and lay my hand on my bump and remember he's COMING and I'll get to hold a new snuffly baby in my arms soooooon!!! I can not get over how blessed I am. I get to do it again, I get to do it again!! I keep saying this (in high-pitched child tones, lol!) to Neil and Heather, just randomly as it occurs to me! :) I think this feeling is stronger this time than the last, and that it is getting stronger each pregnancy, each time I have a baby. I feel more excited, and more blessed, and more wonderful about having a new baby every pregnancy. I didn't think that was possible since I already felt SO over the moon about the first and second, and so on, but it's WAY more now, which is such a precious feeling to have!
I wonder if he'll have dark hair like most of his brothers, or fairer hair like Matthew, or even be blonde like Samuel has managed to be! I feel like we're due a red-head though! :) Neil and I both have red hair in our families, and copper tones to our own hair (well, Neil's beard more than anything else). I would love a red-haired boy! :) But anything is exciting to me. Will he have blue eyes, and will they be soft blue like Samuel's, or dark blue like Nathan's? Will he have grey eyes with some hazel like mine and Benjamin's. Or greenish eyes like Matthew's? Or BROWN eyes like Arthur?! We have a proper mixed bag to choose from, as far as the gene pool goes, lol! SO MUCH FUN every time to find out! :)
He kicks and wiggles much more strongly now, and quite often. He is gentler than some of my other babies, not very vigorous, although he's kicking strongly. I love feeling him move about in there! I can now feel his kicks very clearly with my hands, and can also see my tummy blip when he kicks. Matthew is (so far) the only other person to feel Elijah kick, as he laid his hand on my tummy when he was active (he isn't often active for very long at a time, and prefers late at night or even the small hours of the morning to really thump about in there), and felt some little blips to his hand. He seemed awed, but not as excited as I'd expected! ;) I can't wait until the movements are bigger and more predictable, and all the boys can feel him kick as the opportunity arises.
I haven't had an appointment since the scan, although I've had a urology follow up for my kidney stone (that I had in July) this past week. I am having side pain quite a lot, but they scanned my kidney and there aren't any particular changes, still just this small pocket of accumulated fluid which isn't concerning them, so they are putting it down to pregnancy. I AM getting a lot more ligament pain on that side than usual this pregnancy, and now that my womb is bigger and the ligament pain is higher therefore, I REALLY know about it when I tweak that ligament getting up too suddenly at the same time as twisting, for example. And that's when I realise that the ligament pain is a sharp nasty version of the dull pain I have fairly constantly. So maybe my ligament on that side is just kind of tired and stretched and unhappy this time around? Or being pressured by this pregnancy in a different way? I don't know.
The other thing that's different this pregnancy is that I STILL have morning sickness! Never had anything like it before! My other pregnancies have had morning sickness up until varying stages, but the very latest (by a couple of weeks) was Samuel's at 20 weeks. It was gone by then and didn't return. This time it hung around until 18/19 weeks ish, and then seemed to clear up, but I noticed it again by 20 weeks, though I presumed it was just tired/queasy feeling - it was sooooo mild, barely noticable. It has gradually got worse though, and this week has been quite yucky. I did wonder if it was just tiredness exacerbating something I otherwise wouldn't notice (I'm really tired and sleep deprived just now), but it's definitely proper morning sickness. After I eat, I get the usual few minutes (up to 5, no more) and then my mouth starts to taste a bit yucky and metallic and I start to feel nauseous. Then it stays. Always after lunch and dinner, not always after breakfast, but sometimes it is. The nausea isn't dreadful, like earlier in pregnancy, but it's bothersome now, and the yucky queasiness is dragging me down a bit in the evenings. Bleurgh! Oh well. I'm just glad it's totally manageable, and that I'm only 4 weeks away from my THIRD trimester (gasp!), so the end of the pregnancy seems pretty close all of a sudden, if it ends up continuing to the very end.
I have a nice little baby bump now, which I am extremely proud and fond of! :) I am really enjoying my maternity clothes, and looking pregnant! My bump has had a growth spurt two weeks running now (with a brief breather in the middle), and in that time I have really started to FEEL pregnant. I'm hurting in my pelvis and getting shooting pains to one side of my pubic bone now and again. My hips basically hurt most of the time, but it's not bad yet. I have had some sharp pain when putting weight on my right leg, in the back of my pelvis somewhere, but not all the time. Things are definitely loosening and under more pressure these days! I am also having to shift my balance now, and getting up from the floor is juuust beginning to become more difficult than before. I can't bend tightly over my bump without it being in the way (and hurting from the pressure!), but I'm otherwise able to do all the usual non-pregnant things still.
I am getting spots more often these past couple of weeks, and have had some crazy emotional moments recently! I can go from nothing to majorly over-reacting and tearfulness in a matter of seconds, lol! Absolutely anything slightly sweet or sappy can make me cry, and I want to watch my Anne of Green Gables DVD that I got for Christmas, but NO WAY am I opening that can of worms, lol! I don't think I can deal with the emotional onslaught! It will have to wait until my postnatal hormones have calmed down! ;)
I have scan pics to post from both the 17 week and 20 week scans, which I must/will get around to posting! But I just wanted to get an entry posted for now, otherwise it just won't happen. And now I need to change a few nappies, put Samuel to bed for his nap, and start school for the morning. I NEVER update my blogs in the mornings, but they're playing nicely and I was just sitting down with my necessary cup of tea (didn't sleep until nearly 2am AGAIN - having trouble with insomnia on and off this pregnancy - and then Samuel was up for the day AGAIN at 5am!!!) and thought I might just type a short entry to keep up, while it was all going well in the other room! ;) Now I've managed a pretty solid entry, so that's good! And right on cue, the boys are beginning to bicker about a combine harvester, so I must go! Back asap though, and thanks for being patient! :)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
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!
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!
Friday, December 16, 2011
17 weeks - it's a....!! And quick scan update!
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!
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!
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! :)
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