Definitely my worst morning sickness yet. Not being sick, but have a bowl upstairs and a bowl downstairs, and very nervous about the prospect of needing them. Can not possibly feel more like being sick without actually being sick, and yet it's ALL. THE. TIME. from opening my eyes in the morning to losing consciousness late at night. Have been panicking about it a bit the last couple of mornings, but I have still made it through the day "intact". It's desperate though, getting through the day. Each day feels like several - three or four at least, because every morning I genuinely can't get my head around the fact that I am still only one more day pregnant than I was 3 days ago when I last checked. It actually feels like that! I can't BELIEVE I am only 6 weeks and ONE day pregnant, and it's so discouraging because the last 3 days have been, "I can't do this, I just CAN'T, I'll never make it through the day!" To get through it and have the reassurance that a week has passed would have made it bearable, but it's just the day of turning 6 weeks, the day before it, and the day after. Urrrggghhh...
I absolutely do not know how vomiting mamas ever make it through a day, let alone hundreds of them! :S
On a more positive note (I am still overjoyed to actually be pregnant!), I am having a little bit of fun with announcing my pregnancy at Facebook. I am not sure exactly how yet, but I am enjoying figuring out little clues to drop! If you are friends with me there, please don't comment on them - well, in such a way as to attract attention to them. I'm sure they'll be too obvious to last long, but I'm having fun anyway. Yesterday I posted a funny picture of a mummy dog with 7 little puppies all standing to attention around her. Deborah pointed out (in a private message) that there's an 8th one in there, which made me slightly nervous, lol! Heather still thinks the morning sickness might point to twins, even though it's not as bad as all that. It's worse than my norm, is all.
Today I randomly mentioned something about wanting the boys to be in bed at 7. ;) Everything relates to 7, well, most of them. I know, subtle as a sledgehammer, but like I say, I'm having fun! :) I am wondering about doing 7 days of clues (by which time we plan to have told the boys - I am struggling to hide my symptoms from them, and so far am riding it on the coldy virus I'm recovering from - not letting them know it's nausea I'm dealing with, just the fact that I don't feel well), and then a photographic announcement of some sort (I'm wondering about photos of the boys in some way... I'll post here too, when I have it sorted!) and then a video of the boys' reactions when we tell them. I'm so desperate to avoid the lovely moment of telling them having to be in the form of reassurance because Mummy has just thrown up. :S The sooner we can tell them, the better, but today I had the Health Visitor round for Samuel's 2-year check (went great!) and tomorrow we have a final visit from a social worker so they can write up their report, which apparently WILL confirm that we are great parents to lovely children who they have no concerns over. Phew. Still can't breathe easy yet, and I absolutely do not want them to know about the pregnancy at this stage, so we can't risk one of the children spilling the beans by accident. Today was fine, but I was very nervous about staying well enough through the appointment to not raise suspicion. I am really nervous about that tomorrow as well. We have 4 children to take for vaccinations, 2 hours before the SW visits us. Bleurgh. No idea how I'll get through that. Neil is home in the afternoon for that visit, so he is going to help with the vaccination appointments as well.
Okay, feeling too sick to write any more, and am going to try to eat something to take the edge off it (hopefully) so that I am able to brush my teeth, and then go to bed. Elijah has been very unsettled during the evenings this week so far, and awake and crying in arms until 10 or 11pm. Very tiring. He looks like he might get his 5th tooth soonish, so maybe it's that?
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
5 weeks, 6 days - bleurgh!
Really just a quick post to say, ugggggghhhhhhh I feel soooooo sick!!! :S I guess it did start mild because it was early, or something, like Samuel's pregnancy exactly (except a bit earlier this time). I seem to be prone to having a ton of air in my stomach which I can actually hear squelching about when I move or breathe in and out (!!). If I ever get that at other times, it makes me feel somewhere between queasy and really nauseous, until I can shift the air and burp. How nice! ;) Anyway, for some reason, I seem to be having this problem pretty much 24/7 at the moment, and so I feel like being sick most of the time. I haven't been (oh please Lord, may I NOT) but the nausea is just so overwhelming. Eating is hard because I feel like I'm putting food down past an urge in the opposite direction, uggghhh.
BUT! On the rare occasions when the wind problem seems to inexplicably be gone for a few hours, my nausea is more normal-morning-sickness-esque. It doesn't have that same hollow, about-to-vomit feeling, and it is actually moderate at the worst it gets - really quite manageable as far as morning sickness goes. I wish I could just sort out the cause for this trapped air thing, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad right now. This is day 3 or 4 like it, I think. Neil was off work Thursday and Friday because of my birthday, and then I was too ill to be out of bed much on Friday so he stayed home that day too. I've had the weekend to try to recover further from the viral thingy, and I'm on the mend. I am having weirdly strong post-viral fatigue though, and to say it is terrifying is a major understatement. It's like physical flash-backs to the 2 years I spent housebound with M.E. and I just never, ever (ever) want to revisit that feeling. Ever again. Ever. I hope it passes soon. I think I am a bit stronger today than yesterday, but Neil is back at work today.
Today has been okay, mostly. Just the constant nausea. I have wiped poo off bottoms x2, changed pooey nappies x2, and made lunch. Those have been the hardest parts. Breakfast was okay because the nausea wasn't quite so bad yet, but urrrghh, lunch... Now I am sitting in the kitchen, trying to cope with the smell of a pooey nappy deep in the bin, which I can't stomach emptying right now, sitting with a classpack of Crayola crayons under my nose, because somehow that seems a neutralising fresh fragrance to me right now. Weird! NOT a craving of any sort, just a pleasing smell when there's a horrid one around. I need to make the boys some dinner, but I can't face it. My mouth is just watering like crazy and I can't bear to even think about what food to make them, let alone actually go and look at it.
Of course, this is a marvellously good sign! :) My little baby must be growing well in there! I'm delighted about that, and it is a happy consolation while I feel like this. It's a bit daunting to think that I'm not even 6 weeks pregnant yet, and it could last 6, 8, 10, 12, or even 14 more weeks. Bleurgh! I'm trying to think about happy or exciting milestones - only a couple of weeks until I can start thinking about getting my doppler out in the next few days to listen for the baby's heart beating! I LOVE that moment! 8 weeks is a pretty grim time for nausea, but there's that lovely highlight for me, in there.
I told Neil about the name Toby, and how I feel about it. I told him even if we don't use it, I would love to keep the pattern we've got going - a different letter of the alphabet for each child. It wasn't intentional to start with, but I like it! He likes that idea too.
Heather keeps wondering about twins again, because my morning sickness started earlier than usual this time. The thought is VERY scary to me this time around! :S But who knows! I know my chance goes up the older I get.
I had a bit of brown spotting - I think I mentioned it last entry - on my birthday, and again the next day, but nothing since. I'm keeping a close eye all the time though.
I can't remember if I said a couple of weeks ago, but when I weighed myself then, I was 9st 7.5lbs, so that is my starting weight this time. So-so, for me! ;) I took my blood pressure yesterday because I felt so faint and dizzy (things kept starting to "white-out") and it was scaring me so I wanted to see if it was blood pressure related, or maybe it was just part of the post-viral thing. Anyway, 110/60 - very normal for me.
Okay I am feeling too sick and mouth-watery to type any longer. Neil will be home in 45 minutes, but it should be bedtime for the boys right after that, so it would not be good if I haven't even fed them yet! I have done school today. Absolutely determined to try to keep that going no matter what. With Samuel I couldn't - I stopped for 3 months, and I don't want to do that this time, with the boys that bit older and needing to keep up with school more. Also certain people watching us all the time, ugh. I am desperate to maintain their schooling. Today school has been on-and-off lessons from about 10.15am to 5ish in the afternoon. Plenty of stops for snuggles, putting Elijah to bed and getting him up, snacks, lunch, playing, too much TV, etc. Arthur was done with his school work by 11.30am! Early for him - he was very pleased! :) I am only teaching "core" subjects. The rest is autonomous (unschooled learning) - or "child-led". They learn tons from the child-led part! Today I taught Arthur maths and then spelling and handwriting. I managed to do a craft activity with Benjamin and Samuel (rarely manage to fit that in, but I am so desperate to, more often) and then Nathan joined in at the end, and went on to do his pre-writing and numeracy workbooks. I taught Matthew maths after lunch, and then a reading lesson. Nathan still needs his maths lesson, but I am not sure I can manage it now. Elijah is so clingy right now, and screams and cries clinging to the bars of the safety gate at the kitchen while I'm trying to teach lessons at the kitchen table! Makes it kind of difficult for the boys to concentrate, so then I pick him up and hold him while I teach, but lately I'm physically tired out when holding him, and also he is quite the lungey, squirmy wriggler when being held, and gets into mischief if I put him on the floor near me! We rush to get lessons done when he's napping!
Anyway, I will update again soon. I am excited that I'm 6 weeks pregnant tomorrow - another week down! But slightly dreading each day ahead as I know it will be hard to face with all the nausea. Sometimes it improves a lot just for lying down and resting for a couple of hours, but PROPER rest, not just being horizontal in parenting mode! That doesn't seem to have the same effect. And I can never, ever, expect to have the slightest rest at this stage of my life! At the weekend it helped, so hopefully Neil will let me rest to tackle the nausea at the weekends, maybe. I try to make the most of the times (twice) when I go upstairs and lay down to breastfeed Elijah to sleep for his nap. If I pretend I'm going to bed and ignore the screaming and bashing about downstairs (!!) then I sometimes trick my body into resting enough to take the edge off the nausea by the time I get up again when Elijah has fallen asleep (about 5-10 mins later).
Of course, I am also chanting regularly, "It's soooo worth it, it's soooo worth it!" :) Because it totally IS!! And it will pass. Faster with each pregnancy, as time seems to go faster each time, so that is in my favour too. :)
[ETA: 30 mins later: Praise the Lord for Tropicana tropical juice! Half a glass later and I'm simultaneously holding wiggly 'Lijah on my hip, stirring porridge (breakfast for dinner tonight), and even able to jokingly answer the slightly whiney question: "What's for food?!" with a cheery, "Poo on sticks!" - just as my own mother used to, bless her! ;) Still feel very sick but at least a bit more able.]
BUT! On the rare occasions when the wind problem seems to inexplicably be gone for a few hours, my nausea is more normal-morning-sickness-esque. It doesn't have that same hollow, about-to-vomit feeling, and it is actually moderate at the worst it gets - really quite manageable as far as morning sickness goes. I wish I could just sort out the cause for this trapped air thing, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad right now. This is day 3 or 4 like it, I think. Neil was off work Thursday and Friday because of my birthday, and then I was too ill to be out of bed much on Friday so he stayed home that day too. I've had the weekend to try to recover further from the viral thingy, and I'm on the mend. I am having weirdly strong post-viral fatigue though, and to say it is terrifying is a major understatement. It's like physical flash-backs to the 2 years I spent housebound with M.E. and I just never, ever (ever) want to revisit that feeling. Ever again. Ever. I hope it passes soon. I think I am a bit stronger today than yesterday, but Neil is back at work today.
Today has been okay, mostly. Just the constant nausea. I have wiped poo off bottoms x2, changed pooey nappies x2, and made lunch. Those have been the hardest parts. Breakfast was okay because the nausea wasn't quite so bad yet, but urrrghh, lunch... Now I am sitting in the kitchen, trying to cope with the smell of a pooey nappy deep in the bin, which I can't stomach emptying right now, sitting with a classpack of Crayola crayons under my nose, because somehow that seems a neutralising fresh fragrance to me right now. Weird! NOT a craving of any sort, just a pleasing smell when there's a horrid one around. I need to make the boys some dinner, but I can't face it. My mouth is just watering like crazy and I can't bear to even think about what food to make them, let alone actually go and look at it.
Of course, this is a marvellously good sign! :) My little baby must be growing well in there! I'm delighted about that, and it is a happy consolation while I feel like this. It's a bit daunting to think that I'm not even 6 weeks pregnant yet, and it could last 6, 8, 10, 12, or even 14 more weeks. Bleurgh! I'm trying to think about happy or exciting milestones - only a couple of weeks until I can start thinking about getting my doppler out in the next few days to listen for the baby's heart beating! I LOVE that moment! 8 weeks is a pretty grim time for nausea, but there's that lovely highlight for me, in there.
I told Neil about the name Toby, and how I feel about it. I told him even if we don't use it, I would love to keep the pattern we've got going - a different letter of the alphabet for each child. It wasn't intentional to start with, but I like it! He likes that idea too.
Heather keeps wondering about twins again, because my morning sickness started earlier than usual this time. The thought is VERY scary to me this time around! :S But who knows! I know my chance goes up the older I get.
I had a bit of brown spotting - I think I mentioned it last entry - on my birthday, and again the next day, but nothing since. I'm keeping a close eye all the time though.
I can't remember if I said a couple of weeks ago, but when I weighed myself then, I was 9st 7.5lbs, so that is my starting weight this time. So-so, for me! ;) I took my blood pressure yesterday because I felt so faint and dizzy (things kept starting to "white-out") and it was scaring me so I wanted to see if it was blood pressure related, or maybe it was just part of the post-viral thing. Anyway, 110/60 - very normal for me.
Okay I am feeling too sick and mouth-watery to type any longer. Neil will be home in 45 minutes, but it should be bedtime for the boys right after that, so it would not be good if I haven't even fed them yet! I have done school today. Absolutely determined to try to keep that going no matter what. With Samuel I couldn't - I stopped for 3 months, and I don't want to do that this time, with the boys that bit older and needing to keep up with school more. Also certain people watching us all the time, ugh. I am desperate to maintain their schooling. Today school has been on-and-off lessons from about 10.15am to 5ish in the afternoon. Plenty of stops for snuggles, putting Elijah to bed and getting him up, snacks, lunch, playing, too much TV, etc. Arthur was done with his school work by 11.30am! Early for him - he was very pleased! :) I am only teaching "core" subjects. The rest is autonomous (unschooled learning) - or "child-led". They learn tons from the child-led part! Today I taught Arthur maths and then spelling and handwriting. I managed to do a craft activity with Benjamin and Samuel (rarely manage to fit that in, but I am so desperate to, more often) and then Nathan joined in at the end, and went on to do his pre-writing and numeracy workbooks. I taught Matthew maths after lunch, and then a reading lesson. Nathan still needs his maths lesson, but I am not sure I can manage it now. Elijah is so clingy right now, and screams and cries clinging to the bars of the safety gate at the kitchen while I'm trying to teach lessons at the kitchen table! Makes it kind of difficult for the boys to concentrate, so then I pick him up and hold him while I teach, but lately I'm physically tired out when holding him, and also he is quite the lungey, squirmy wriggler when being held, and gets into mischief if I put him on the floor near me! We rush to get lessons done when he's napping!
Anyway, I will update again soon. I am excited that I'm 6 weeks pregnant tomorrow - another week down! But slightly dreading each day ahead as I know it will be hard to face with all the nausea. Sometimes it improves a lot just for lying down and resting for a couple of hours, but PROPER rest, not just being horizontal in parenting mode! That doesn't seem to have the same effect. And I can never, ever, expect to have the slightest rest at this stage of my life! At the weekend it helped, so hopefully Neil will let me rest to tackle the nausea at the weekends, maybe. I try to make the most of the times (twice) when I go upstairs and lay down to breastfeed Elijah to sleep for his nap. If I pretend I'm going to bed and ignore the screaming and bashing about downstairs (!!) then I sometimes trick my body into resting enough to take the edge off the nausea by the time I get up again when Elijah has fallen asleep (about 5-10 mins later).
Of course, I am also chanting regularly, "It's soooo worth it, it's soooo worth it!" :) Because it totally IS!! And it will pass. Faster with each pregnancy, as time seems to go faster each time, so that is in my favour too. :)
[ETA: 30 mins later: Praise the Lord for Tropicana tropical juice! Half a glass later and I'm simultaneously holding wiggly 'Lijah on my hip, stirring porridge (breakfast for dinner tonight), and even able to jokingly answer the slightly whiney question: "What's for food?!" with a cheery, "Poo on sticks!" - just as my own mother used to, bless her! ;) Still feel very sick but at least a bit more able.]
Thursday, February 21, 2013
5 weeks, 2 days pregnant - wonderful milestone!
It is my birthday today! :) I am 37 - phewee! Can't believe I am that "old", lol!
Today, Neil is off work because it's my birthday. :) I am having a nice day to some degree, but mainly I am not well today. I feel dreadful with some fluey-coldy thing which Neil had reeeally mildly earlier in the week, but it has whacked me over the head like nothing else! That is quite normal in pregnancy, to get things badly even if you normally don't, because of a lowered immune system - one of the body's mechanisms to ensure that the little one doesn't get rejected. Anyway, I don't even like to take paracetamol in my first trimester, so I feel really rotten. I think I would feel a lot better if I could just take something for the aches and so on, but it will pass. I have had to keep going back to bed today as being up and dealing with the little ones makes me feel breathless and unwell after about 20 minutes. I am going to have another go at having a birthday when I feel better! :) I did get some lovely presents and cards, and my little ones drew me pictures and wrapped me things we already have around the house, and cute things like that! :)
My absolutely hands-down FAVOURITE present today is from God. I am 5 weeks and 2 days pregnant. That is precisely the day that the cardial tubes fuse together to form an S-shaped bend, and instantaneously, the rudimentary heart begins to beat for the first time. Today my baby has a heartbeat. There is nothing more awesome that I could possibly want for my birthday! :) When I realised earlier in the week that it would happen on my birthday, it made me so happy, and I really looked forward to today because of it! :)
The other thing I have today, for the first time, is a slight bit of brown spotting, but I am hoping that's fine. I am keeping an eye on it, but it really is hardly anything at all. I have some slightly crampy discomfort but nothing more than I have been getting from time to time, most days, anyway. I will see how that goes.
I self-referred myself (thanks to having the personal contact details of the head of community midwives at the hospital, from last time around!) to the midwives via a form I filled in online, at the weekend. They are obliged to send a copy to my GP, but hopefully they won't even read it, just put it in my file. I had to fill in a lot of details about my past obstetric history and so on. Glad I know the various abbreviations and such, that make it easier to fill in these forms without a midwife being there to do it for me! I should hear back from the team of midwives within 10 days with a first appointment date and also a date for my nuchal scan (at 12 weeks) - exciting! :) If my spotting continues for a while or gets any heavier, I will self-refer for an early scan, for reassurance.
I am still feeling morning sick, so that is a great sign. It is not at all bad - it seems pretty mild as far as my personal experience with morning sickness goes. It did start earlier than ever before, and I wondered if it might get worse as I approach the usual time for morning sickness starting. It started earlier than usual (5 weeks exactly) with Samuel, seemed mild-ish, and got a lot worse after the first week, so I'm still holding my breath and waiting to see! Nervous about that prospect. With Samuel I had to stop homeschooling for months, it was that bad. With Elijah it started a bit later than usual but was milder, and so school continued without any problems. It was so manageable, even though I felt sick and yucky most of the day, and I am reeeeally hoping for that kind of experience this time. I just really wish it could be mild enough so that I can carry on unhindered, with school and mothering and meal-preparation, and so on. It would be so nice! :) It started a week ago tomorrow, but normally wouldn't start until a few days from now, so we'll see.
We still haven't told the boys, and I am still thinking about how to tell. I think I would love to take a photo of them as well as the announcement, in some way that announces our new baby on the way. I am enjoying thinking about the various possibilities there too! :)
One of my presents today was a Willow Tree pregnancy figurine! I have loved that one for years, and I'm so happy to have one! It makes my heart happy every time I look at it!
Well, there is probably more I could write about, but I think I will just update again another time. I am not feeling good and I should probably rest a bit before helping with the boys' bedtime. I'm so thankful for Neil being at home today. He is back to work tomorrow, and I'm quite nervous about how I will manage the boys while I am like this. Hopefully I will somehow be over the worst by the morning!
Today, Neil is off work because it's my birthday. :) I am having a nice day to some degree, but mainly I am not well today. I feel dreadful with some fluey-coldy thing which Neil had reeeally mildly earlier in the week, but it has whacked me over the head like nothing else! That is quite normal in pregnancy, to get things badly even if you normally don't, because of a lowered immune system - one of the body's mechanisms to ensure that the little one doesn't get rejected. Anyway, I don't even like to take paracetamol in my first trimester, so I feel really rotten. I think I would feel a lot better if I could just take something for the aches and so on, but it will pass. I have had to keep going back to bed today as being up and dealing with the little ones makes me feel breathless and unwell after about 20 minutes. I am going to have another go at having a birthday when I feel better! :) I did get some lovely presents and cards, and my little ones drew me pictures and wrapped me things we already have around the house, and cute things like that! :)
My absolutely hands-down FAVOURITE present today is from God. I am 5 weeks and 2 days pregnant. That is precisely the day that the cardial tubes fuse together to form an S-shaped bend, and instantaneously, the rudimentary heart begins to beat for the first time. Today my baby has a heartbeat. There is nothing more awesome that I could possibly want for my birthday! :) When I realised earlier in the week that it would happen on my birthday, it made me so happy, and I really looked forward to today because of it! :)
The other thing I have today, for the first time, is a slight bit of brown spotting, but I am hoping that's fine. I am keeping an eye on it, but it really is hardly anything at all. I have some slightly crampy discomfort but nothing more than I have been getting from time to time, most days, anyway. I will see how that goes.
I self-referred myself (thanks to having the personal contact details of the head of community midwives at the hospital, from last time around!) to the midwives via a form I filled in online, at the weekend. They are obliged to send a copy to my GP, but hopefully they won't even read it, just put it in my file. I had to fill in a lot of details about my past obstetric history and so on. Glad I know the various abbreviations and such, that make it easier to fill in these forms without a midwife being there to do it for me! I should hear back from the team of midwives within 10 days with a first appointment date and also a date for my nuchal scan (at 12 weeks) - exciting! :) If my spotting continues for a while or gets any heavier, I will self-refer for an early scan, for reassurance.
I am still feeling morning sick, so that is a great sign. It is not at all bad - it seems pretty mild as far as my personal experience with morning sickness goes. It did start earlier than ever before, and I wondered if it might get worse as I approach the usual time for morning sickness starting. It started earlier than usual (5 weeks exactly) with Samuel, seemed mild-ish, and got a lot worse after the first week, so I'm still holding my breath and waiting to see! Nervous about that prospect. With Samuel I had to stop homeschooling for months, it was that bad. With Elijah it started a bit later than usual but was milder, and so school continued without any problems. It was so manageable, even though I felt sick and yucky most of the day, and I am reeeeally hoping for that kind of experience this time. I just really wish it could be mild enough so that I can carry on unhindered, with school and mothering and meal-preparation, and so on. It would be so nice! :) It started a week ago tomorrow, but normally wouldn't start until a few days from now, so we'll see.
We still haven't told the boys, and I am still thinking about how to tell. I think I would love to take a photo of them as well as the announcement, in some way that announces our new baby on the way. I am enjoying thinking about the various possibilities there too! :)
One of my presents today was a Willow Tree pregnancy figurine! I have loved that one for years, and I'm so happy to have one! It makes my heart happy every time I look at it!
Well, there is probably more I could write about, but I think I will just update again another time. I am not feeling good and I should probably rest a bit before helping with the boys' bedtime. I'm so thankful for Neil being at home today. He is back to work tomorrow, and I'm quite nervous about how I will manage the boys while I am like this. Hopefully I will somehow be over the worst by the morning!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
4 weeks, 4 days - test pic
I have arrived at 18DPO! That is an established pregnancy, and my final day of temping and testing, as I always do (unless I bleed just before, in which case I might temp a bit longer, but so far this pregnancy, no spotting or bleeding!).
My temp went up a lot at 16DPO the day after my last blog post, so even though I planned to test at 16DPO, because I did so the day before and had a darker positive line, and then got a great rise in temperature in the morning, I decided not to test that day. My temp has gone up a touch each day since then - I had my highest temp yet this morning! :) I did my last pregnancy test today and was really thrilled and relieved to see a line that, at first, looked almost as dark as the control line! It faded a bit but it's still good and dark. I took a photo of all my test sticks for prosperity (!) - the top 3 are the more sensitive tests (10 mIU) at 8, 9 and 10DPO, and the bottom set of 5 are the less sensitive (25 mIU - standard pregnancy test strength) test sticks. I tried to write the DPO on them but I only have a thick sharpie marker, lol! The numbers haven't come out too clearly therefore! Oh well! ;)
Top one is 10DPO, the evening test after saving my wee a LOT longer than I had for the morning test on the more more sensitive stick. Then 12DPO, 14DPO, 15DPO (see the difference in one day, compared with the minimal difference from 12 to 14DPO?!), and today's is at the bottom - 18DPO.
So excited and thrilled to relax a little bit more (I know, I know, there are no guarantees, but I will enjoy it for all I'm worth for as long as I have it!) and just BE pregnant!! I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant!!! Wheeeeeee! :D It just feels SO surreal, and I feel incredibly blessed to be allowed to sit here, pregnant at the age of almost 37 (it's my birthday on Thursday - hello Advanced Maternal Age!), for the seventh time! Praise the Lord, oh my soul, and let all that is within me praise His name!!! :)
Well, some newsy pregnant (eeeep!!) things:
Yesterday evening we ate late - after the boys went to bed. It was supposed to be "date night" but Neil has come down with a cold that he's picked up at work, and we were both sooooo tired. We did eat and chat, but let the more romantic side of the date night go this time! ;) Anyway, it was later than we usually eat. While I was waiting for the food to be ready, I realised I was feeling a tad queasy. I get queasy quite a lot, because I'm prone to it as an expression of anxiety, and also it's a really common symptom of IBS for me - full on nausea is more like it, often. Anyway, THIS wasn't the same type of queasy. This was suspiciously travel-sick queasy, and that can only mean morning sickness, for me. I recognised it straight away. But I was only 4 weeks and 3 days - aaaaargh!! With my first 4 babies, I could time the start of my morning sickness to the day - it ALWAYS started on the dot of 5w6d. Bizarre, but there we go! With Samuel it started a few days earlier, which threw me off! And then Elijah's started on the dot of 5 weeks, exactly. Which was "different", so I wondered if he would be a girl. But no! ;) His started earlier and ended later, but was milder, as though it was "diluted" somewhat by being spread out a bit more - funny analogy, but that's how it felt!
So I thought, SURELY not?! Surely not earlier than 5 weeks?! And what does it mean for the level of intensity that it might reach when I'm between 5 and 6 weeks (when it really starts to kick in normally)? Nervous. I felt better for eating dinner. Evenings are my worst time for morning sickness - they always have been. And morning sickness is always worse when my stomach is empty. So a touch of queasiness one evening when I hadn't eaten isn't too surprising, it just slightly unnerves me that I was barely 4 and a half weeks pregnant! I am not sure if I have had any sort of quease that early before, but I will have to double check my blogs and my chart notes to be sure.
I am trying to eat protein-rich meals and snacks this pregnancy, to hopefully see if there's any improvement on how much morning sickness I experience, and also to try and sort out these frequent spells of dizziness and lightheadedness that I've been getting since before my tests showed lines properly. I think the dizziness is a bit better, but maybe that will just clear up on its own anyway, and that's why? Anyway, I bought some trail mix, some salted cashews, and some brazil nuts. I love brazil nuts, but eating them yesterday afternoon left me feeling a bit... yacky. Not quite as far as queasy, but not far off. It seemed to stay with me into the evening and then not eating until late pushed that sensation juuuust into the realms of nausea. Hmmm...
Today I do NOT want to eat brazil nuts! I was chewing my fingers (gross habit, but yeah) just a little while ago while I was setting the laptop up to update my blog, and noticed that it was quickly making me feel a bit sick. TOTAL confirmation for me, that this is morning sickness starting. The only time ever in my life when biting my nails/fingers makes me feel sick to my stomach is when I am pregnant. Even if I am desperately needing to bite them, and I do, the nausea is right there to make me stop, as soon as I start. First trimesters are the only times I ever have nice long nails and smooth fingers, lol! I really like it (I hate being a nail-biter, but it's almost impossible to stop), and try to continue it, and I usually make it to my 3rd trimester before I cave. So anyway, yay for my nails about to get nice. Boo for nausea! ;)
On the other hand, I'm excited to be starting morning sickness because I know that it means things are going well in there with my little beany person! In fact, I announce to the general world at large much earlier than many people do, because I can't keep it to myself any longer (mainly), and also because I want the world to celebrate with me, even if I lose my treasure. Even more reason to celebrate with joy while the little one is with me! I have a bit of trepidation early on, usually because I am bleeding in some way, but also because you never know how things are going with the pregnancy, if there are no particular encouraging symptoms yet. So, I tend to announce on Facebook and to friends and family everywhere (except my grandparents...) when either I have an early scan for bleeding and get visual evidence of my dear little person, OR when I start morning sickness, which is good evidence that the baby is growing well.
But I'm not quite ready to announce yet. My idea for announcing my pregnancy is to tell the boys in some way, video them finding out, and make the video my announcement! :) I can count on my kids to be absolutely ecstatic about us having a new baby, so their excitement makes for a good announcement when it's your Nth baby in a row, close together, and many frown on that. I am trying to think of ideas for cute ways to tell them. So far my favourite idea that I've had is to make gingerbread men for us all - a large (adult) one for Neil and I, and then small ones (I have a cutter set) for all the boys, including this little baby (who needs a nickname, now I think of it! I'm sure the boys will be eager to oblige - they've been suggesting nicknames for "the next baby" for months!). I could pipe smiley faces on them all, and then each boy's initial on the tummy of each one. I want to write "October" on the baby's one, but I am not sure if I can fit that in with icing on a small gingerbread man, lol! Another idea I had was to send them a letter with clues inside, to send them on a treasure hunt round the house for more clues, until it reveals the news. Not sure how easy it would be to take a video of that though...
Anyway. I am open to ideas! :) It's so much fun that some of them are old enough now to really get creative with ways to announce to them that they will be having a new baby brother or sister in October! :)
Okay, I saved the above in draft because I was writing it mid-morning today while Elijah was napping and Neil was out at the park with the boys. Elijah woke up and so I put the laptop away, and here I am now (mid-evening) with my next opportunity to continue.
Since this morning, I have most definitely started morning sickness! Noooo mistaking it. I feel sick all the time, it's so very familiar to me. My protein snack and meal ideas are either not appealing at all, or else not helping in the least! :S Oh well! Unless they actively make me feel worse, I will persevere, because I am sure I need protein. I did have fish fingers, mashed potatoes and veg for dinner, because my children won't eat them and there were lots left over! Anyway, I felt gross starting to eat, but I felt about 90% better immediately after eating, which was wonderful! It lasted maybe 5 minutes, if that, and then the nausea came right back. It's not too horrible, it isn't nice, but I just hope it doesn't get much much worse as the next couple of weeks go by.
Today is such a huge change to yesterday! Yesterday evening I was digging into a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream happily, and today just looking at the tub makes my stomach churn! Yesterday I was dutifully drinking water to get my fluids in, and today I have sipped at two glasses of water and only managed to actually finish one of them, because water makes me feel sick. This is exactly my experience with my other pregnancies, so it's not a surprise or anything. A cup of tea went down fine this afternoon though. And milk is fine. Tropicana tropical fruit juice is AWESOME. Like nectar. Mmmm.... :)
My little bean is visible to the naked eye! :) 1mm to 1.5mm in length, and has a neural groove and blood cells! Everything changes so fast at this stage. There are only 5 days until a tiny heart starts beating. Incredible.
I weighed myself today and I'm 9 stone and 7.5lbs. So that's my starting weight. Not my best starting weight ever, but never mind. Last time I'd had the "benefit" of a kidney stone and a tummy bug, so I was a whole stone (14lbs) lighter when I started my pregnancy with Elijah. Otherwise this is a pretty normal weight for me to be at 8 months postpartum, as it's still coming off at a steady rate, and hasn't finished yet! ;)
I forgot to post a conversation I had with Arthur last week, which I'd posted on Facebook - I must post things in my blogs as well that I post on Facebook. It's hard (if not impossible) to find really old updates on Facebook, whereas they're easily accessible here and saved properly for prosperity. Anyway, I'll copy and paste. Elijah is awake and crying in Neil's arms, and he's pretty clingy to me at the moment (just age 'n' stage, not so much to do with me being pregnant, I think) so I think he would prefer me to hold him if I can for a while. I have breastfed him already but he's still cross! Here's the conversation with Arthur:
"Arthur was sighing in a sad way a few minutes ago, so I asked what was wrong. This is our conversation (word for word):
A: "Mummy, Elijah is 8 months old, and it feels like I've been waiting for 8 or 9 months forEVER!"
Me: "Why?"
Arthur: "Because then a new tiny baby (flaps his arms in excitement on the word 'baby') might be growing in your tummy!"
Me: "Oh? You're looking forward to that?"
Arthur: "Oh YES! I love seeing you be pregnant! It's so exciting for us, and we love catching the updates (?!) with the scans and (flaps arms again) hearing the heartbeat and things like that. And Heather comes to visit a lot. And (strokes Elijah's little head - he's standing next to Arthur at the sofa), I love seeing the babies grow along their line - you know, see them develop and learn new things."
Isn't that lovely?! I'm so pleased and relieved and happy when he says things like that (Matthew and Nathan do too, regularly, but Arthur has been the most pestering child of the lot of them, about WHEN oh when can we have a new baby, lol!). I love it as well because he's the eldest of 6 already at the tender age of 8, and many would think he's a poor boy because of it, but here we have some nice evidence that he isn't poor at all! :)
Elijah is very cross now! Must go! Back soon! :)
My temp went up a lot at 16DPO the day after my last blog post, so even though I planned to test at 16DPO, because I did so the day before and had a darker positive line, and then got a great rise in temperature in the morning, I decided not to test that day. My temp has gone up a touch each day since then - I had my highest temp yet this morning! :) I did my last pregnancy test today and was really thrilled and relieved to see a line that, at first, looked almost as dark as the control line! It faded a bit but it's still good and dark. I took a photo of all my test sticks for prosperity (!) - the top 3 are the more sensitive tests (10 mIU) at 8, 9 and 10DPO, and the bottom set of 5 are the less sensitive (25 mIU - standard pregnancy test strength) test sticks. I tried to write the DPO on them but I only have a thick sharpie marker, lol! The numbers haven't come out too clearly therefore! Oh well! ;)
Top one is 10DPO, the evening test after saving my wee a LOT longer than I had for the morning test on the more more sensitive stick. Then 12DPO, 14DPO, 15DPO (see the difference in one day, compared with the minimal difference from 12 to 14DPO?!), and today's is at the bottom - 18DPO.
So excited and thrilled to relax a little bit more (I know, I know, there are no guarantees, but I will enjoy it for all I'm worth for as long as I have it!) and just BE pregnant!! I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant!!! Wheeeeeee! :D It just feels SO surreal, and I feel incredibly blessed to be allowed to sit here, pregnant at the age of almost 37 (it's my birthday on Thursday - hello Advanced Maternal Age!), for the seventh time! Praise the Lord, oh my soul, and let all that is within me praise His name!!! :)
Well, some newsy pregnant (eeeep!!) things:
Yesterday evening we ate late - after the boys went to bed. It was supposed to be "date night" but Neil has come down with a cold that he's picked up at work, and we were both sooooo tired. We did eat and chat, but let the more romantic side of the date night go this time! ;) Anyway, it was later than we usually eat. While I was waiting for the food to be ready, I realised I was feeling a tad queasy. I get queasy quite a lot, because I'm prone to it as an expression of anxiety, and also it's a really common symptom of IBS for me - full on nausea is more like it, often. Anyway, THIS wasn't the same type of queasy. This was suspiciously travel-sick queasy, and that can only mean morning sickness, for me. I recognised it straight away. But I was only 4 weeks and 3 days - aaaaargh!! With my first 4 babies, I could time the start of my morning sickness to the day - it ALWAYS started on the dot of 5w6d. Bizarre, but there we go! With Samuel it started a few days earlier, which threw me off! And then Elijah's started on the dot of 5 weeks, exactly. Which was "different", so I wondered if he would be a girl. But no! ;) His started earlier and ended later, but was milder, as though it was "diluted" somewhat by being spread out a bit more - funny analogy, but that's how it felt!
So I thought, SURELY not?! Surely not earlier than 5 weeks?! And what does it mean for the level of intensity that it might reach when I'm between 5 and 6 weeks (when it really starts to kick in normally)? Nervous. I felt better for eating dinner. Evenings are my worst time for morning sickness - they always have been. And morning sickness is always worse when my stomach is empty. So a touch of queasiness one evening when I hadn't eaten isn't too surprising, it just slightly unnerves me that I was barely 4 and a half weeks pregnant! I am not sure if I have had any sort of quease that early before, but I will have to double check my blogs and my chart notes to be sure.
I am trying to eat protein-rich meals and snacks this pregnancy, to hopefully see if there's any improvement on how much morning sickness I experience, and also to try and sort out these frequent spells of dizziness and lightheadedness that I've been getting since before my tests showed lines properly. I think the dizziness is a bit better, but maybe that will just clear up on its own anyway, and that's why? Anyway, I bought some trail mix, some salted cashews, and some brazil nuts. I love brazil nuts, but eating them yesterday afternoon left me feeling a bit... yacky. Not quite as far as queasy, but not far off. It seemed to stay with me into the evening and then not eating until late pushed that sensation juuuust into the realms of nausea. Hmmm...
Today I do NOT want to eat brazil nuts! I was chewing my fingers (gross habit, but yeah) just a little while ago while I was setting the laptop up to update my blog, and noticed that it was quickly making me feel a bit sick. TOTAL confirmation for me, that this is morning sickness starting. The only time ever in my life when biting my nails/fingers makes me feel sick to my stomach is when I am pregnant. Even if I am desperately needing to bite them, and I do, the nausea is right there to make me stop, as soon as I start. First trimesters are the only times I ever have nice long nails and smooth fingers, lol! I really like it (I hate being a nail-biter, but it's almost impossible to stop), and try to continue it, and I usually make it to my 3rd trimester before I cave. So anyway, yay for my nails about to get nice. Boo for nausea! ;)
On the other hand, I'm excited to be starting morning sickness because I know that it means things are going well in there with my little beany person! In fact, I announce to the general world at large much earlier than many people do, because I can't keep it to myself any longer (mainly), and also because I want the world to celebrate with me, even if I lose my treasure. Even more reason to celebrate with joy while the little one is with me! I have a bit of trepidation early on, usually because I am bleeding in some way, but also because you never know how things are going with the pregnancy, if there are no particular encouraging symptoms yet. So, I tend to announce on Facebook and to friends and family everywhere (except my grandparents...) when either I have an early scan for bleeding and get visual evidence of my dear little person, OR when I start morning sickness, which is good evidence that the baby is growing well.
But I'm not quite ready to announce yet. My idea for announcing my pregnancy is to tell the boys in some way, video them finding out, and make the video my announcement! :) I can count on my kids to be absolutely ecstatic about us having a new baby, so their excitement makes for a good announcement when it's your Nth baby in a row, close together, and many frown on that. I am trying to think of ideas for cute ways to tell them. So far my favourite idea that I've had is to make gingerbread men for us all - a large (adult) one for Neil and I, and then small ones (I have a cutter set) for all the boys, including this little baby (who needs a nickname, now I think of it! I'm sure the boys will be eager to oblige - they've been suggesting nicknames for "the next baby" for months!). I could pipe smiley faces on them all, and then each boy's initial on the tummy of each one. I want to write "October" on the baby's one, but I am not sure if I can fit that in with icing on a small gingerbread man, lol! Another idea I had was to send them a letter with clues inside, to send them on a treasure hunt round the house for more clues, until it reveals the news. Not sure how easy it would be to take a video of that though...
Anyway. I am open to ideas! :) It's so much fun that some of them are old enough now to really get creative with ways to announce to them that they will be having a new baby brother or sister in October! :)
Okay, I saved the above in draft because I was writing it mid-morning today while Elijah was napping and Neil was out at the park with the boys. Elijah woke up and so I put the laptop away, and here I am now (mid-evening) with my next opportunity to continue.
Since this morning, I have most definitely started morning sickness! Noooo mistaking it. I feel sick all the time, it's so very familiar to me. My protein snack and meal ideas are either not appealing at all, or else not helping in the least! :S Oh well! Unless they actively make me feel worse, I will persevere, because I am sure I need protein. I did have fish fingers, mashed potatoes and veg for dinner, because my children won't eat them and there were lots left over! Anyway, I felt gross starting to eat, but I felt about 90% better immediately after eating, which was wonderful! It lasted maybe 5 minutes, if that, and then the nausea came right back. It's not too horrible, it isn't nice, but I just hope it doesn't get much much worse as the next couple of weeks go by.
Today is such a huge change to yesterday! Yesterday evening I was digging into a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream happily, and today just looking at the tub makes my stomach churn! Yesterday I was dutifully drinking water to get my fluids in, and today I have sipped at two glasses of water and only managed to actually finish one of them, because water makes me feel sick. This is exactly my experience with my other pregnancies, so it's not a surprise or anything. A cup of tea went down fine this afternoon though. And milk is fine. Tropicana tropical fruit juice is AWESOME. Like nectar. Mmmm.... :)
My little bean is visible to the naked eye! :) 1mm to 1.5mm in length, and has a neural groove and blood cells! Everything changes so fast at this stage. There are only 5 days until a tiny heart starts beating. Incredible.
I weighed myself today and I'm 9 stone and 7.5lbs. So that's my starting weight. Not my best starting weight ever, but never mind. Last time I'd had the "benefit" of a kidney stone and a tummy bug, so I was a whole stone (14lbs) lighter when I started my pregnancy with Elijah. Otherwise this is a pretty normal weight for me to be at 8 months postpartum, as it's still coming off at a steady rate, and hasn't finished yet! ;)
I forgot to post a conversation I had with Arthur last week, which I'd posted on Facebook - I must post things in my blogs as well that I post on Facebook. It's hard (if not impossible) to find really old updates on Facebook, whereas they're easily accessible here and saved properly for prosperity. Anyway, I'll copy and paste. Elijah is awake and crying in Neil's arms, and he's pretty clingy to me at the moment (just age 'n' stage, not so much to do with me being pregnant, I think) so I think he would prefer me to hold him if I can for a while. I have breastfed him already but he's still cross! Here's the conversation with Arthur:
"Arthur was sighing in a sad way a few minutes ago, so I asked what was wrong. This is our conversation (word for word):
A: "Mummy, Elijah is 8 months old, and it feels like I've been waiting for 8 or 9 months forEVER!"
Me: "Why?"
Arthur: "Because then a new tiny baby (flaps his arms in excitement on the word 'baby') might be growing in your tummy!"
Me: "Oh? You're looking forward to that?"
Arthur: "Oh YES! I love seeing you be pregnant! It's so exciting for us, and we love catching the updates (?!) with the scans and (flaps arms again) hearing the heartbeat and things like that. And Heather comes to visit a lot. And (strokes Elijah's little head - he's standing next to Arthur at the sofa), I love seeing the babies grow along their line - you know, see them develop and learn new things."
Isn't that lovely?! I'm so pleased and relieved and happy when he says things like that (Matthew and Nathan do too, regularly, but Arthur has been the most pestering child of the lot of them, about WHEN oh when can we have a new baby, lol!). I love it as well because he's the eldest of 6 already at the tender age of 8, and many would think he's a poor boy because of it, but here we have some nice evidence that he isn't poor at all! :)
Elijah is very cross now! Must go! Back soon! :)
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
4 weeks, 1 day
Just a quick post to note that my temp is hanging around lower than I'd like it (went up a tiny touch today) and even though I'm 15DPO today and not "due" to test again until tomorrow, I decided in the end to pee on a stick this morning anyway. I was SO relieved because the line (haven't had time to take a pic today) is much darker than yesterday's! How funny that it didn't change much at all from 12DPO to 14DPO, and then suddenly about twice as dark at 15DPO! In any case, it has reassured me greatly. Still hoping to see my temp go up tomorrow.
I am so exhausted today again, and I have had a really yucky headache from late afternoon onwards. I should have been in bed hours ago, but Neil and I had to discuss loads of stressy stuff about moving house and family things, and then I needed to make a Tesco order online for tomorrow, otherwise we won't have much for dinner and will have run out of milk for the next day! So I've done that now. Totally done in. Going to bed. Feeling kind of depressed tonight, but so happy to have my little tiny person growing inside me! :)
I am so exhausted today again, and I have had a really yucky headache from late afternoon onwards. I should have been in bed hours ago, but Neil and I had to discuss loads of stressy stuff about moving house and family things, and then I needed to make a Tesco order online for tomorrow, otherwise we won't have much for dinner and will have run out of milk for the next day! So I've done that now. Totally done in. Going to bed. Feeling kind of depressed tonight, but so happy to have my little tiny person growing inside me! :)
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
4 weeks pregnant! :D
Thank you for all the lovely congrats! :)
I so wanted to update the last few evenings, but just haven't had the chance. Yesterday was my Granny's 87th birthday, and a few days before her birthday I ordered a card with all my little boys' smiling faces printed on it, in a large size. When it arrived I knew it was too big to fit through their letterbox, and it was too late to rely on the postal service to get it there for her birthday. Suddenly I wanted to bake her a birthday cake and drive over there (they are about 30 mins drive away) with cake and card on Sunday evening. So I did! I was exhausted, and it was sleeting after pouring with rain all day, but I went anyway. I drove carefully, suddenly really nervous about keeping safe because of all the little loves needing their mama to stay alive and well, not to mention the one I'm carrying with me... But it was so worth it. They were so thrilled to see me, sans kiddies (never happens, ever!) and loved the card and the cake so much. I stayed a while and chatted. They told me they had been feeling a bit isolated and lonely, and Granny was feeling down about her birthday the next day, so then I KNEW why I had such an urge to do that. Thanks Lord! :) I called her tonight and she said it turned her birthday around and made her day. :) Elijah woke right after I went out though, and he cried without stopping until I got home (about an hour and a half), despite Neil holding him and talking to him and rocking him the whole time! He is having major separation anxiety at the moment, and I am pretty sure he is aware of my pregnancy in some way, which probably adds to it. When I got home it was 10.15pm and he wouldn't go to sleep for another hour, even though I was either holding him or breastfeeding him the entire time. He was tired out, and kept rubbing his eyes, but he spent the whole time gazing at my face from about 6 inches away in my arms, and sort of "holding" my face with both hands on my cheeks for long silent periods of time. Sometimes he just leaned his forehead on my chest, and after a minute he would lift it back up, tired as he was, and do the gaze/face-hold thing again. Dear little treasure! My heart just melts for that little boy! He needs his mummy right now, and I'm SO privileged to be HER! :) What an honour!
Anyway, so I have not had time to update lately. I have been really tired.
I am planning to test with the normal cheapy test sticks every other day. I got my positive with the digital test and the less sensitive cheapy test at 10DPO, so I planned to test at 12DPO, 14DPO, 16DPO and 18DPO. I will finish temping and testing at 18DPO. It's just what I like to do! :)
Today I am 14DPO - exactly 4 weeks pregnant. I am still temping. I got my highest temp yet at 12DPO and a darker line on my pregnancy test. :) Then yesterday morning (13DPO) my temp dropped a bit. A fair bit, although still within the high range. I didn't pay it any attention, but today it dropped again. I know it's normal for temperatures to fluctuate in early pregnancy, I do. But I am not allll that thrilled to see it drop twice in a row. It hasn't dropped below the coverline or anything like that, but I am a little anxious to see what tomorrow's temp will be now. I know there's the whole bit of advice that says to just stop temping and not worry about it, but I like a heads up, to be honest. I know it is a bit of extra anxiety, but I would prefer to have a little advanced warning if something is going wrong, than to be hit with it suddenly in an unpleasant way. At least then I am prepared.
I did test this morning for 14DPO, and it's still a good positive, but it doesn't look much darker than the one at 12DPO. The hormone responsible for the line is supposed to double every 48 hours (roughly) if all is going well, so I'm slightly nervous about the fact that it isn't noticably darker.
Here is a rather poor photo of the three cheapy test sticks, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. Top stick is 10DPO, then 12DPO below it and 14DPO at the bottom. See how the 10DPO one is faint, and although the others are faint too, they're stronger than the first one, but basically identical to each other... :S
The difference between my lines at 12DPO and 14DPO in previous pregnancies has been more obvious, sometimes reeeally obvious. I know it's still a nice positive test, and I'm focusing on that as much as possible! I am eager to see my temp tomorrow, and hoping for a nice reassuring rise! I am not planning to test tomorrow.
I am still feeling pregnant, which is another good sign, but I know that even if I miscarry I will continue to have pregnancy symptoms for a bit as my body adjusts. I am going to stop talking about that now. Right now there is no point even thinking about it! :)
I am still mildly crampy here and there, but it has definitely eased off a lot over the past few days. I love the idea that my little one is burrowing in snugly every time I feel those cramps! I will have to start looking up the developmental information that I always follow when I am pregnant - it starts SO early on, and it's amazing to think about what's actually taking place in there as it happens, even as early as this!
My main symptom for the past week has been dizziness. Not a tired out exhausted swing-y-ness, but just vertigo, sort of. I don't like it! It doesn't feel nice, but it's not there all the time. It comes and goes. I definitely feel it's a pregnancy symptom - I did before I even had confirmation that I was pregnant. This week I am trying to combat it with a good diet/fluid intake, and in particular I am trying to eat a lot of protein. I keep hearing people saying that their morning sickness is more bearable if they whack it with lots of protein, and those "crashes" which for all the world seem like low blood sugar (but aren't - sugar doesn't help them. I haven't had any yet though, bit early yet) are actually most easily fixed with protein rather than sugar. Interesting! I am going to really try to keep my protein topped up throughout the day, and hope for a mercifully mild time of morning sickness this time around. I am nervous that on the very slim chance that the baby is a girl, I might have different morning sickness (worse, that is), because it is bad enough with the boys!
I started a food log (just a bit of paper really!) yesterday where I write everything I eat and drink, so I can see what I'm taking in, be held accountable so that I actually make the effort to eat better (because I know I'll be writing it down later!), and to help me pinpoint things that make me feel better or worse later on. So far I am trying to eat a good amount of protein in all 3 meals, and a protein-ish snack at least once a day. I had a hard boiled egg with a glass of milk for my snack today, and didn't feel so dizzy for a while after that, although that could have been a coincidence.
I am hungry, but not insanely so. Definitely need to eat though! Also thirsty, so I am drinking more water than I have been, which is good. Trying to keep to a cup of tea per day (max) as I also eat chocolate and too much caffiene isn't safe in early pregnancy. Finally taking my prenatal vitamins regularly - I didn't even START them until I was testing! Feel a bit bad about that, but it just didn't occur to me... I am getting enough folic acid in my supplement, but also Marmite and fortified cereals are probably giving me another half of my RDA again.
I am not enjoying breastfeeding Benjamin and Samuel much at ALL at the moment. I know that's very very pregnant of me, so in a way it's good! ;) But I feel completely touched out and irritated when breastfeeding them. Benjamin currently asks once or twice in the day and also at bedtime. Samuel asks a LOT, and until I got pregnant it was no trouble to nurse him. I loved it! At the moment it's really irritating, and it's also a bit sore to nurse in general at the moment (normal), so that doesn't help. He's always been a bit of a fiddler while nursing, and I knew a day would come when I would need to nip that in the bud, but I never minded it before really. Well, a bit, but not enough to motivate me to stop him. He has wandering palms and also likes to tweak a bit of my skin (usually my tummy, there's more skin there than I need, lol! Still not gone back to pre-pregnant yet!) between thumb and forefinger and twist it this way and that. Right now it drives me CRAZY. Crrraaaaazzzzzzyyyyy. If he wants a cuddle, is sad or hurt, or sleepy, and isn't breastfeeding at that moment, Samuel will suck his thumb, and put his other hand under my top and fiddle with my tummy. Sometimes he goes to sleep doing this. It's very absent-minded and he probably doesn't realise he's doing it for the most part, and I really haven't minded it at all, but now it's very irritating. Poor Samuel! I so don't want to suddenly get all snappy and irritable, and push his hand away all the time, just when subconsciously he might know something is different about me. But the urge is overwhelming sometimes, it's like I want to pull my own skin off! I have read about this, of course, and know it's very normal and entirely to do with pregnancy hormones.
I don't have such strong feelings when nursing Elijah, but he's starting to do the sitting-up-next-to-me nursing, where he'll do some acrobatics (stand, bob, sit, try and turn his head upside-down, etc) while nursing, and also grabs my breast none-too-gently with a scrunch of his fingers and tries to shove it in his mouth via his grip - those things physically irritate me no end! Gentle sleepy nursing? No problem. Toddler-style nursing? Super irritating. Hey ho! Such is life! I'm so blessed to be nursing my littles, still, while expecting another, and I know the feelings will pass!
This evening when Neil was arriving home from work, I suddenly felt SURE I was bleeding, and waited until he got in and waded through the crowd of small boys, until I had chance to go and check. I was actually surprised that it was just normal CM, and no spotting or bleeding.
This morning I went crazy cleaning and decluttering the dresser in the kitchen. I mean, I cannot even get across to you how BIG a deal this is! That dresser has been cluttered for years. Yeeeeaaaars. So badly that we can't use it for anything, and for the past 6 months or more, it has been too cluttered to even access anything on the shelves properly. I shove a space on it now and then because it's where I store the school stuff for the lessons we'll do over the week ahead, at the weekends. I usually just pile it in a space, and then have to hold the pile steady while I ease out a workbook or some papers, day by day over the week as we need them. It's the best place to store school stuff that we need regularly, because we homeschool at the kitchen table. Anyway, I threw a ton of stuff away, packed up and labelled various bags and put them away, organised craft stuff, and then cleaned the shelves! I cleared the top of the dresser, and climbed up there to clean it (the dust was several mm thick!). I even cleaned the wall up to the ceiling behind the dresser - no more cobwebs! :) I restocked the shelves with school stuff ONLY! Pencils and supplies in glass jars, and I made a cereal box into a magazine holder with some pretty wrapping paper, and put all the worksheets and exercise books in there (with a label!). It looks sooooooo much better, and I'm so proud of my efforts! Heather wanted a photo (she was that amazed at my news of having cleared it, having herself wanted to do *something* with it over the months but never getting chance!) and when I sent it to her she asked what on earth had caused me to be able to do it at last?! I told her pregnancy hormones! Because that HAS to be it, doesn't it? I only do these things when I'm pregnant, it seems, and I tend to really get stuff done when I have those good old hormones working for me! :)
In the afternoon, I was nursing Samuel on the sofa, and he started to fall asleep. I was suddenly overcome with sleepiness. I NEVER get this way, and I am well aquainted with sleep-deprivation and the need to lie down and fall asleep at any (or all) parts of the day, believe me. I often WANT to lie down and fall asleep, but I really don't ever get so that I physically can't keep my eyes open, even trying hard to fight against it, unless I am pregnant. That's what happened today. Samuel leaned against me, and I leaned, and there we leaned, together. He went to sleep, and despite lots of rowdy play around me, and every now and then having to mumble, "Boyshkeepitdownbit" or "Careflov'Lijah" (they were all around me, even 'Lijah), I pretty much dozed and came to, and dozed and came to (repeatedly) for the best part of an hour! I can't remember the last time I did that, even when unwell, or having had hardly any sleep the night before. The boys still came to my side frequently saying, "Look what I built!", "Matthew isn't listening!", "Benji's being horrid!" etc, and I believe I answered them appropriately, but it was a weird time of semi-consciousness where I just. could. not. keep awake properly. I felt like I had taken a sleeping pill or something (not that I ever have, so I can't really say, but yeah!). Finally I pulled myself together, realising the time, and woke Samuel (I only let him nap 30-60 mins max if he falls asleep, to help him keep his night sleep consistent. A short nap seems to suffice even though I'm sure he'd prefer longer!). I went to make a cup of tea in a desperate attempt to WAKE. UP! And while I was making it, it suddenly occurred to me that the sleepy thing was entirely familiar to me ONLY from pregnancies past. Specifically, I seem to do that quite a lot during my first trimester, no matter how well I sleep the night before. I just get "pregnant" exhausted by the afternoon, and often - later in the first trimester - in the mornings as well. So in a way that was really encouraging! :)
The tea did help a LOT, and then at 4.30pm we started school, haha! Very topsy-turvy day. Tuesdays and Thursdays are always our "light" school days (just spelling, reading and handwriting) so I knew I had a bit of leeway, but we got down to it quickly and were finished an hour later! :)
Well it's late and I need to get some good sleep if I can. Elijah has woken a couple of times this evening already. He has cut another new tooth today - that makes four now! Two at the top and two at the bottom. He is also trying to let go of me and stand alone, but hasn't quite managed it yet! My big clever boy at just 8 months old! He is the earliest of all my boys to have four teeth (Matthew was close behind though, by a couple of weeks, I think), and he has suddenly started eating food today too! We are getting over a cold, which is always nice - to be on the other side of it with nobody left to come down with it! :)
I will update my chart with my temp tomorrow. I really hope it has gone back up. I was cold when I temped on the first morning so I wondered if it was just that, but then it dropped again today... I hope everything is okay with my tiny little person in there. I am looking forward to SO many things with this baby, and I really want everything to be well.
I so wanted to update the last few evenings, but just haven't had the chance. Yesterday was my Granny's 87th birthday, and a few days before her birthday I ordered a card with all my little boys' smiling faces printed on it, in a large size. When it arrived I knew it was too big to fit through their letterbox, and it was too late to rely on the postal service to get it there for her birthday. Suddenly I wanted to bake her a birthday cake and drive over there (they are about 30 mins drive away) with cake and card on Sunday evening. So I did! I was exhausted, and it was sleeting after pouring with rain all day, but I went anyway. I drove carefully, suddenly really nervous about keeping safe because of all the little loves needing their mama to stay alive and well, not to mention the one I'm carrying with me... But it was so worth it. They were so thrilled to see me, sans kiddies (never happens, ever!) and loved the card and the cake so much. I stayed a while and chatted. They told me they had been feeling a bit isolated and lonely, and Granny was feeling down about her birthday the next day, so then I KNEW why I had such an urge to do that. Thanks Lord! :) I called her tonight and she said it turned her birthday around and made her day. :) Elijah woke right after I went out though, and he cried without stopping until I got home (about an hour and a half), despite Neil holding him and talking to him and rocking him the whole time! He is having major separation anxiety at the moment, and I am pretty sure he is aware of my pregnancy in some way, which probably adds to it. When I got home it was 10.15pm and he wouldn't go to sleep for another hour, even though I was either holding him or breastfeeding him the entire time. He was tired out, and kept rubbing his eyes, but he spent the whole time gazing at my face from about 6 inches away in my arms, and sort of "holding" my face with both hands on my cheeks for long silent periods of time. Sometimes he just leaned his forehead on my chest, and after a minute he would lift it back up, tired as he was, and do the gaze/face-hold thing again. Dear little treasure! My heart just melts for that little boy! He needs his mummy right now, and I'm SO privileged to be HER! :) What an honour!
Anyway, so I have not had time to update lately. I have been really tired.
I am planning to test with the normal cheapy test sticks every other day. I got my positive with the digital test and the less sensitive cheapy test at 10DPO, so I planned to test at 12DPO, 14DPO, 16DPO and 18DPO. I will finish temping and testing at 18DPO. It's just what I like to do! :)
Today I am 14DPO - exactly 4 weeks pregnant. I am still temping. I got my highest temp yet at 12DPO and a darker line on my pregnancy test. :) Then yesterday morning (13DPO) my temp dropped a bit. A fair bit, although still within the high range. I didn't pay it any attention, but today it dropped again. I know it's normal for temperatures to fluctuate in early pregnancy, I do. But I am not allll that thrilled to see it drop twice in a row. It hasn't dropped below the coverline or anything like that, but I am a little anxious to see what tomorrow's temp will be now. I know there's the whole bit of advice that says to just stop temping and not worry about it, but I like a heads up, to be honest. I know it is a bit of extra anxiety, but I would prefer to have a little advanced warning if something is going wrong, than to be hit with it suddenly in an unpleasant way. At least then I am prepared.
I did test this morning for 14DPO, and it's still a good positive, but it doesn't look much darker than the one at 12DPO. The hormone responsible for the line is supposed to double every 48 hours (roughly) if all is going well, so I'm slightly nervous about the fact that it isn't noticably darker.
Here is a rather poor photo of the three cheapy test sticks, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. Top stick is 10DPO, then 12DPO below it and 14DPO at the bottom. See how the 10DPO one is faint, and although the others are faint too, they're stronger than the first one, but basically identical to each other... :S
The difference between my lines at 12DPO and 14DPO in previous pregnancies has been more obvious, sometimes reeeally obvious. I know it's still a nice positive test, and I'm focusing on that as much as possible! I am eager to see my temp tomorrow, and hoping for a nice reassuring rise! I am not planning to test tomorrow.
I am still feeling pregnant, which is another good sign, but I know that even if I miscarry I will continue to have pregnancy symptoms for a bit as my body adjusts. I am going to stop talking about that now. Right now there is no point even thinking about it! :)
I am still mildly crampy here and there, but it has definitely eased off a lot over the past few days. I love the idea that my little one is burrowing in snugly every time I feel those cramps! I will have to start looking up the developmental information that I always follow when I am pregnant - it starts SO early on, and it's amazing to think about what's actually taking place in there as it happens, even as early as this!
My main symptom for the past week has been dizziness. Not a tired out exhausted swing-y-ness, but just vertigo, sort of. I don't like it! It doesn't feel nice, but it's not there all the time. It comes and goes. I definitely feel it's a pregnancy symptom - I did before I even had confirmation that I was pregnant. This week I am trying to combat it with a good diet/fluid intake, and in particular I am trying to eat a lot of protein. I keep hearing people saying that their morning sickness is more bearable if they whack it with lots of protein, and those "crashes" which for all the world seem like low blood sugar (but aren't - sugar doesn't help them. I haven't had any yet though, bit early yet) are actually most easily fixed with protein rather than sugar. Interesting! I am going to really try to keep my protein topped up throughout the day, and hope for a mercifully mild time of morning sickness this time around. I am nervous that on the very slim chance that the baby is a girl, I might have different morning sickness (worse, that is), because it is bad enough with the boys!
I started a food log (just a bit of paper really!) yesterday where I write everything I eat and drink, so I can see what I'm taking in, be held accountable so that I actually make the effort to eat better (because I know I'll be writing it down later!), and to help me pinpoint things that make me feel better or worse later on. So far I am trying to eat a good amount of protein in all 3 meals, and a protein-ish snack at least once a day. I had a hard boiled egg with a glass of milk for my snack today, and didn't feel so dizzy for a while after that, although that could have been a coincidence.
I am hungry, but not insanely so. Definitely need to eat though! Also thirsty, so I am drinking more water than I have been, which is good. Trying to keep to a cup of tea per day (max) as I also eat chocolate and too much caffiene isn't safe in early pregnancy. Finally taking my prenatal vitamins regularly - I didn't even START them until I was testing! Feel a bit bad about that, but it just didn't occur to me... I am getting enough folic acid in my supplement, but also Marmite and fortified cereals are probably giving me another half of my RDA again.
I am not enjoying breastfeeding Benjamin and Samuel much at ALL at the moment. I know that's very very pregnant of me, so in a way it's good! ;) But I feel completely touched out and irritated when breastfeeding them. Benjamin currently asks once or twice in the day and also at bedtime. Samuel asks a LOT, and until I got pregnant it was no trouble to nurse him. I loved it! At the moment it's really irritating, and it's also a bit sore to nurse in general at the moment (normal), so that doesn't help. He's always been a bit of a fiddler while nursing, and I knew a day would come when I would need to nip that in the bud, but I never minded it before really. Well, a bit, but not enough to motivate me to stop him. He has wandering palms and also likes to tweak a bit of my skin (usually my tummy, there's more skin there than I need, lol! Still not gone back to pre-pregnant yet!) between thumb and forefinger and twist it this way and that. Right now it drives me CRAZY. Crrraaaaazzzzzzyyyyy. If he wants a cuddle, is sad or hurt, or sleepy, and isn't breastfeeding at that moment, Samuel will suck his thumb, and put his other hand under my top and fiddle with my tummy. Sometimes he goes to sleep doing this. It's very absent-minded and he probably doesn't realise he's doing it for the most part, and I really haven't minded it at all, but now it's very irritating. Poor Samuel! I so don't want to suddenly get all snappy and irritable, and push his hand away all the time, just when subconsciously he might know something is different about me. But the urge is overwhelming sometimes, it's like I want to pull my own skin off! I have read about this, of course, and know it's very normal and entirely to do with pregnancy hormones.
I don't have such strong feelings when nursing Elijah, but he's starting to do the sitting-up-next-to-me nursing, where he'll do some acrobatics (stand, bob, sit, try and turn his head upside-down, etc) while nursing, and also grabs my breast none-too-gently with a scrunch of his fingers and tries to shove it in his mouth via his grip - those things physically irritate me no end! Gentle sleepy nursing? No problem. Toddler-style nursing? Super irritating. Hey ho! Such is life! I'm so blessed to be nursing my littles, still, while expecting another, and I know the feelings will pass!
This evening when Neil was arriving home from work, I suddenly felt SURE I was bleeding, and waited until he got in and waded through the crowd of small boys, until I had chance to go and check. I was actually surprised that it was just normal CM, and no spotting or bleeding.
This morning I went crazy cleaning and decluttering the dresser in the kitchen. I mean, I cannot even get across to you how BIG a deal this is! That dresser has been cluttered for years. Yeeeeaaaars. So badly that we can't use it for anything, and for the past 6 months or more, it has been too cluttered to even access anything on the shelves properly. I shove a space on it now and then because it's where I store the school stuff for the lessons we'll do over the week ahead, at the weekends. I usually just pile it in a space, and then have to hold the pile steady while I ease out a workbook or some papers, day by day over the week as we need them. It's the best place to store school stuff that we need regularly, because we homeschool at the kitchen table. Anyway, I threw a ton of stuff away, packed up and labelled various bags and put them away, organised craft stuff, and then cleaned the shelves! I cleared the top of the dresser, and climbed up there to clean it (the dust was several mm thick!). I even cleaned the wall up to the ceiling behind the dresser - no more cobwebs! :) I restocked the shelves with school stuff ONLY! Pencils and supplies in glass jars, and I made a cereal box into a magazine holder with some pretty wrapping paper, and put all the worksheets and exercise books in there (with a label!). It looks sooooooo much better, and I'm so proud of my efforts! Heather wanted a photo (she was that amazed at my news of having cleared it, having herself wanted to do *something* with it over the months but never getting chance!) and when I sent it to her she asked what on earth had caused me to be able to do it at last?! I told her pregnancy hormones! Because that HAS to be it, doesn't it? I only do these things when I'm pregnant, it seems, and I tend to really get stuff done when I have those good old hormones working for me! :)
In the afternoon, I was nursing Samuel on the sofa, and he started to fall asleep. I was suddenly overcome with sleepiness. I NEVER get this way, and I am well aquainted with sleep-deprivation and the need to lie down and fall asleep at any (or all) parts of the day, believe me. I often WANT to lie down and fall asleep, but I really don't ever get so that I physically can't keep my eyes open, even trying hard to fight against it, unless I am pregnant. That's what happened today. Samuel leaned against me, and I leaned, and there we leaned, together. He went to sleep, and despite lots of rowdy play around me, and every now and then having to mumble, "Boyshkeepitdownbit" or "Careflov'Lijah" (they were all around me, even 'Lijah), I pretty much dozed and came to, and dozed and came to (repeatedly) for the best part of an hour! I can't remember the last time I did that, even when unwell, or having had hardly any sleep the night before. The boys still came to my side frequently saying, "Look what I built!", "Matthew isn't listening!", "Benji's being horrid!" etc, and I believe I answered them appropriately, but it was a weird time of semi-consciousness where I just. could. not. keep awake properly. I felt like I had taken a sleeping pill or something (not that I ever have, so I can't really say, but yeah!). Finally I pulled myself together, realising the time, and woke Samuel (I only let him nap 30-60 mins max if he falls asleep, to help him keep his night sleep consistent. A short nap seems to suffice even though I'm sure he'd prefer longer!). I went to make a cup of tea in a desperate attempt to WAKE. UP! And while I was making it, it suddenly occurred to me that the sleepy thing was entirely familiar to me ONLY from pregnancies past. Specifically, I seem to do that quite a lot during my first trimester, no matter how well I sleep the night before. I just get "pregnant" exhausted by the afternoon, and often - later in the first trimester - in the mornings as well. So in a way that was really encouraging! :)
The tea did help a LOT, and then at 4.30pm we started school, haha! Very topsy-turvy day. Tuesdays and Thursdays are always our "light" school days (just spelling, reading and handwriting) so I knew I had a bit of leeway, but we got down to it quickly and were finished an hour later! :)
Well it's late and I need to get some good sleep if I can. Elijah has woken a couple of times this evening already. He has cut another new tooth today - that makes four now! Two at the top and two at the bottom. He is also trying to let go of me and stand alone, but hasn't quite managed it yet! My big clever boy at just 8 months old! He is the earliest of all my boys to have four teeth (Matthew was close behind though, by a couple of weeks, I think), and he has suddenly started eating food today too! We are getting over a cold, which is always nice - to be on the other side of it with nobody left to come down with it! :)
I will update my chart with my temp tomorrow. I really hope it has gone back up. I was cold when I temped on the first morning so I wondered if it was just that, but then it dropped again today... I hope everything is okay with my tiny little person in there. I am looking forward to SO many things with this baby, and I really want everything to be well.
Friday, February 8, 2013
A most definite confirmation! :)
I was really second-guessing myself after yesterday's positive test, because even though it looked good and positive, by the afternoon it had faded quite a lot. By the evening I was REALLY getting doubtful about it. It looked almost like the negative test from the day before at 8DPO. I began to get that feeling that I would never see a positive test, after all the many tests I'd peed on over the past week or so, lol! Same kind of feeling as the one at the other end of pregnancy when you genuinely feel like you will NEVER give birth, lol! ;)
I did have continuing pregnancy symptoms last night but nothing new to report as such, except for a few odd sensations in the nether regions (!! - that sounds so daft, but I don't want to attract perverts via google!) which I have only ever had in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy (not all my pregnancies though, but only ever in that early stage of pregnancy). So that made me think, "Well, I obviously AM pregnant, but who knows if I will be in the morning..." and other rational things like that, haha! ;)
So this morning I temped, not having any idea what to expect - I didn't feel particularly "warm" or "cool" like I sometimes do in terms of my core body temperature. Sometimes I have a vibe of what to expect. So I was excited when I got 36.87 - almost the highest temp so far this cycle, and another tiny rise on yesterday's! :) I still wasn't sure whether to test or not, because I still had a sense of doubt over whether I'd get a line at all, and if I did, I felt like it would be likely the same as yesterday's, and then fade off. I knew if I was pregnant it needed to be darker each day, but I expected it wouldn't be, so I was nervous to get that kind of confirmation.
I tested anyway - probably about 7 hours worth of urine. I used a super sensitive test, like the previous two days. Being 10DPO, I knew I "should" be seeing a positive test with a sensitive one, by today. I was so nervous nothing would show! But I did see a line! I was cautiously excited, but it didn't look all that clear to me. It came up within 3 minutes, and it was pink. I compared it to the previous two days' tests, and figured it was pretty much the same as yesterday's, and would be likely to fade to nothing much by the end of the day. I showed Neil the three tests together, while he was trying to get ready for work - poor man! He had already said before, "Oh, just wait a couple more days and test then. Then you won't have the worry of whether or not it will be positive today."
Men seeeeriously don't understand the workings of a crazy obsesso-woman's brain when it comes to reproductive things!
So I had tested, and was flapping about whether the line was clearer than yesterday's. He said yes, it was. I said that yesterday's HAD looked like today's, but now it was like the first one at 8DPO. He said, no, it didn't look like 8DPO. That one was negative. There was a line on the 9DPO test, and a stronger line on the 10DPO test. End of. ;) So I was reassured somewhat! :)
I took a photo of the 3 tests together - the one at the bottom (3 dots) is today's test:
See, it's hard to even see the line, isn't it? It IS there, but it's really faint, and because I'm 10DPO, it's a super sensitive test, and I had a faint line already yesterday (so today's should be stronger), I was not sure about it. And see how yesterday's positive line, which was so clear on the photo yesterday, has faded away?
Today has been quite hard work. The night was awful - Nathan and Matthew went to bed with a sore throat, and we wondered if they were coming down with something. Matthew hates Calpol, but his throat was sore enough so that he wanted some pain relief at bedtime, so he let me give him some but washed every tiny sip of it down with a TON of water because he can't stand the taste. Of course he wet the bed a few hours later, so we needed to change that. Neil was out until almost midnight so I had to do the day plus bedtime (this is a bigger deal than it sounds! Bedtime is a bit of a nightmare in our house!), and evening wakings, of which there were plenty. Elijah woke 5 times during the evening, and 3 more overnight, including waking up at 2.50am and staying awake screaming for an hour and 20 minutes, no matter that we were taking it in turns to walk him, rock him, I breastfed him, etc. He was just miserable! This morning he woke up with a cold and a new tooth! Poor baby! :(
Benjamin and Samuel woke several times each, Nathan woke twice, and oh I just can't count the number of disturbances. Such a bad night's sleep! Over the course of the day, I now have five small boys running with snot and sneezing. Arthur is still standing, for now! ;) My throat isn't feeling 100% and my neck feels achy, so maybe I will be down with it next? It seems relatively mild though, so that's something at least. Anyway, so I have been really tired out today. I noticed a new thing which I put down to tiredness at first (along with the mild dizziness that I've had for the last 4 or 5 days now - pregnancy symptom, if you ask me!) - if I dash upstairs, or shout at someone (embarrassed to admit that I have been doing that), I run out of breath and have to breathe heavy for a moment. It was on the third occasion of that happening today when I finally thought, "Ohhhhhhh....!!" as I remembered the reason it felt familiar! ;) That happens to me right through pregnancy, but from as early as my luteal phase onwards. Also I had a really sore shooting pain inside my hip, about an inch or so above my pubic bone on the left side. It was like a knitting needle poking me there for 10 seconds or so. I was suspicious about it being pregnancy related, but at the start of the evening I had some tiny flashy mini ligament pains on both sides, just above my pubic bone! I KNOW what that means! :) Ooh, I have one right this second! :)
We got on with the day anyway, did school, etc. Heather's daughter came over in the afternoon, ate dinner with us, and stayed until Neil took her home after the boys were in bed, because Heather had surgery on her shoulder today and so it was a way for us to bless them by giving their daughter dinner (and she was a blessing to us in return!) and taking her home safely, as her parents weren't home at all until her dad came back late in the evening. So that was a great help to me, while poor Elijah was so unhappy, and the boys were difficult to handle as usual, etc. I was able to get maths and spelling lessons done with Arthur, as those are the most difficult to fit in when there are demands from other kiddies. If someone is here to occupy the others for a bit, I can get those lessons done easily. So I'm glad of her help today! She was not put off by our cold germs, either! :)
I had been chatting on Facebook to my friend Rebecca, who understands me very well in the ways of obsessing over early pregnancy symptoms, temps, and test sticks, lol! ;) She had suggested the super sensitive tests, and also suggested that I try a Clearblue digital test. I have had one in the house for a few days, but have been too nervous to take it, because I didn't want it to say "not pregnant" because it was too early or something. They're expensive! And I thought it would be the more likely result, and it would be kind of depressing to see. So I didn't take it.
But this evening I lay in bed breastfeeding Elijah to sleep (which didn't work), and having these mild Braxton Hicks type pressurey cramps as I did so, and the odd flashy teeny ligament pain, and I became more confident because of those sensations, that I must be pregnant. I can't be earlier than 10DPO, and my temp is still high. I MUST be pregnant. I just must. So I formulated a plan! ;) Very very naughtily, I had not been for a wee in an awful long time. I just hadn't had the opportunity, even though I had reeeally needed to go for a while. I know that's naughty of me! ;) But anyway. I had not been since I peed on a stick in the morning, so that was over 13 hours (!!!!) worth of urine! I began to get excited about the fact that it was a really good opportunity to get the best test result I could, if I tested NOW, this evening!
I went to get my tests so that I could squint at them again (haha!), and discovered to my happy surprise, that my test from this morning had NOT faded! It had a really obvious but faint line, still! That gave me even more hope that I might just get a positive result this evening.
I wanted to use the Clearblue digital, so that I could have an answer once and for all - not try to analyse the lines, but have something else do it for me and TELL me whether or not I was pregnant. Because the Clearblue digital test was sensitive to 25 mIU/ml of the pregnancy hormone, like the normal cheapy internet tests that I've always taken (not the 10 mIU tests I've been taking these past 3 days), I wanted to use a cheapy 25 mIU test as a "control". I thought that if I saw a line, however faint, I would dip the Clearblue digital in the same urine, and see what happened. Elijah took ages to settle, with Neil and I taking turns again, but part way through that, I dipped the cheapy stick and left it to sit while I held Elijah for a few minutes. Then Neil took over and I went back to look at the test stick. There was a line!!!! :) At least as strong as the line on this morning's test which was an even more sensitive test! A pink, fat, faint line! I was so excited!!! Neil took Elijah upstairs and walked him in the bedroom until he fell asleep, which wasn't too long because I had just breastfed him again.
Meanwhile I sat in the kitchen downstairs with my cup 'o' urine, and a wrapped digital test, and I was suddenly sooooo nervous and shakey with excitement! Much more so than when I do the cheapy tests, maybe because it would be so final - "pregnant" or "not pregnant". A real decision maker. I dipped the test exactly as the instructions said, put the cap back on and set in on the table. I couldn't look away! It had that hourglass figure flashing on the screen that means "waiting", and I was just practically twisting my own hands off watching it, lol! I couldn't bear the suspense, and I half didn't want to look, but couldn't look away. I couldn't sit in the end, either, so I got up and paced while I watched it. Then suddenly, up popped the result! Look what it said!!!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! I'm prrrreggggnaaaaaaannnnntttt!!!! So excited!!!!! :D
It says, "pregnant 1-2" which means the test can tell that it has been 1-2 weeks since I ovulated. So 10DPO is spot on, I think. The test stick below it is the cheapy 25 mIU test that I took right before it. I don't know if you can see the line on it (it's there!) but I don't care!!! ;) There's a whacking great stick right above it that says PREGNANT!!!! :D
I showed Neil the test as he came downstairs from Elijah - I didn't want to give it away, but the ear-to-ear smile unfortunately was too powerful to override with my cheek muscles! ;) I just couldn't stop smiling, I was so excited and happy (still am!)!! He gave me a big hug and seems really happy. After a while he said, now he REALLY has to get the new role at work that he's been trying for! ;)
What a lovely way to end the day! I am wiped out but I don't even want to go to bed, I'm on a happy high after such lovely news! :) I'll still temp and test for a while, as I usually do until about 18DPO for confirmation. I like to do that.
My due date is October 22nd! My seventh baby (breathe. breeeeaaathe Alice.) is due just over 2 weeks before my eldest child's 9th birthday. Heather is unavailable for a full week from October 28th. She has arranged back up with the doula she used to work with, who is a Christian, and very lovely, but I want my Heather!! I hope the timing goes well, and I'm already considering a sweep on my due date, lol! ;) I have gone 8 days over my due date before, which wouldn't be ideal this time. I am so excited to be having an October baby! :) I love the fact that out of 7 children, they ALL have a different birth month! :) I was hoping to keep that up!
I am, of course, presuming to have a boy, especially with the parsnips being the only incidence, 4 days before ovulation. This used to be said to result in a girl, but some research found that it was actually more likely to produce a boy than a girl. Parsnips all the way through the cycle from beginning to past ovulation most likely results in a girl, apparently, and nope - we did not do that! ;) Besides, I have two babies already who have resulted from parsnips 4 days before ovulation (single occurrance) just like this time, and their names are Matthew and Nathan, so yeah - not girls! ;)
Without particularly planning it, we've ended up choosing names for the boys that all start with a different letter, and now I want to make sure we carry on that pattern! I like it. I also like that when they're in their teens and start getting more official mail, you know the type that is addressed to Mr. N. So-and-so - they will all have their own unique first initial so we will avoid having a letter addressed to Mr. N. So-and-so and having to open it and read it to see WHICH Mr. N. So-and-so it's for in our house! So, we've used A, M, N, B, S, and E. I used T for Toby - Elijah's tiny twin. Since just before I ovulated, I cannot shake the name from my head. I used it already. It would be odd to use it again. But I somehow SO want to use Toby for a child to whom I can actually say, "Toby, do you want some milky?" or even, "Toby! No hitting!" ;) I still just completely LOVE the way it sounds when I say, "Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin, Samuel, Elijah, and Toby." Love it so much. But it feels wrong, and weird even, after using the name for a special tiny person who will always be in my heart. I can't sort out my feelings on that one. But the name won't leave my head at the moment.
Okay, I could ramble for hours more, but I feel crampy and my back aches, and I'm tired. I have lost all track of time but I think it must be late, so I am going to put the laptop away and go to bed.
I'm just so excited to share my news!!!! Baby #7 - praise you Lord!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so blessed and happy and thrilled! Scared will come later, lol! ;) But so happy!
I did have continuing pregnancy symptoms last night but nothing new to report as such, except for a few odd sensations in the nether regions (!! - that sounds so daft, but I don't want to attract perverts via google!) which I have only ever had in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy (not all my pregnancies though, but only ever in that early stage of pregnancy). So that made me think, "Well, I obviously AM pregnant, but who knows if I will be in the morning..." and other rational things like that, haha! ;)
So this morning I temped, not having any idea what to expect - I didn't feel particularly "warm" or "cool" like I sometimes do in terms of my core body temperature. Sometimes I have a vibe of what to expect. So I was excited when I got 36.87 - almost the highest temp so far this cycle, and another tiny rise on yesterday's! :) I still wasn't sure whether to test or not, because I still had a sense of doubt over whether I'd get a line at all, and if I did, I felt like it would be likely the same as yesterday's, and then fade off. I knew if I was pregnant it needed to be darker each day, but I expected it wouldn't be, so I was nervous to get that kind of confirmation.
I tested anyway - probably about 7 hours worth of urine. I used a super sensitive test, like the previous two days. Being 10DPO, I knew I "should" be seeing a positive test with a sensitive one, by today. I was so nervous nothing would show! But I did see a line! I was cautiously excited, but it didn't look all that clear to me. It came up within 3 minutes, and it was pink. I compared it to the previous two days' tests, and figured it was pretty much the same as yesterday's, and would be likely to fade to nothing much by the end of the day. I showed Neil the three tests together, while he was trying to get ready for work - poor man! He had already said before, "Oh, just wait a couple more days and test then. Then you won't have the worry of whether or not it will be positive today."
Men seeeeriously don't understand the workings of a crazy obsesso-woman's brain when it comes to reproductive things!
So I had tested, and was flapping about whether the line was clearer than yesterday's. He said yes, it was. I said that yesterday's HAD looked like today's, but now it was like the first one at 8DPO. He said, no, it didn't look like 8DPO. That one was negative. There was a line on the 9DPO test, and a stronger line on the 10DPO test. End of. ;) So I was reassured somewhat! :)
I took a photo of the 3 tests together - the one at the bottom (3 dots) is today's test:
See, it's hard to even see the line, isn't it? It IS there, but it's really faint, and because I'm 10DPO, it's a super sensitive test, and I had a faint line already yesterday (so today's should be stronger), I was not sure about it. And see how yesterday's positive line, which was so clear on the photo yesterday, has faded away?
Today has been quite hard work. The night was awful - Nathan and Matthew went to bed with a sore throat, and we wondered if they were coming down with something. Matthew hates Calpol, but his throat was sore enough so that he wanted some pain relief at bedtime, so he let me give him some but washed every tiny sip of it down with a TON of water because he can't stand the taste. Of course he wet the bed a few hours later, so we needed to change that. Neil was out until almost midnight so I had to do the day plus bedtime (this is a bigger deal than it sounds! Bedtime is a bit of a nightmare in our house!), and evening wakings, of which there were plenty. Elijah woke 5 times during the evening, and 3 more overnight, including waking up at 2.50am and staying awake screaming for an hour and 20 minutes, no matter that we were taking it in turns to walk him, rock him, I breastfed him, etc. He was just miserable! This morning he woke up with a cold and a new tooth! Poor baby! :(
Benjamin and Samuel woke several times each, Nathan woke twice, and oh I just can't count the number of disturbances. Such a bad night's sleep! Over the course of the day, I now have five small boys running with snot and sneezing. Arthur is still standing, for now! ;) My throat isn't feeling 100% and my neck feels achy, so maybe I will be down with it next? It seems relatively mild though, so that's something at least. Anyway, so I have been really tired out today. I noticed a new thing which I put down to tiredness at first (along with the mild dizziness that I've had for the last 4 or 5 days now - pregnancy symptom, if you ask me!) - if I dash upstairs, or shout at someone (embarrassed to admit that I have been doing that), I run out of breath and have to breathe heavy for a moment. It was on the third occasion of that happening today when I finally thought, "Ohhhhhhh....!!" as I remembered the reason it felt familiar! ;) That happens to me right through pregnancy, but from as early as my luteal phase onwards. Also I had a really sore shooting pain inside my hip, about an inch or so above my pubic bone on the left side. It was like a knitting needle poking me there for 10 seconds or so. I was suspicious about it being pregnancy related, but at the start of the evening I had some tiny flashy mini ligament pains on both sides, just above my pubic bone! I KNOW what that means! :) Ooh, I have one right this second! :)
We got on with the day anyway, did school, etc. Heather's daughter came over in the afternoon, ate dinner with us, and stayed until Neil took her home after the boys were in bed, because Heather had surgery on her shoulder today and so it was a way for us to bless them by giving their daughter dinner (and she was a blessing to us in return!) and taking her home safely, as her parents weren't home at all until her dad came back late in the evening. So that was a great help to me, while poor Elijah was so unhappy, and the boys were difficult to handle as usual, etc. I was able to get maths and spelling lessons done with Arthur, as those are the most difficult to fit in when there are demands from other kiddies. If someone is here to occupy the others for a bit, I can get those lessons done easily. So I'm glad of her help today! She was not put off by our cold germs, either! :)
I had been chatting on Facebook to my friend Rebecca, who understands me very well in the ways of obsessing over early pregnancy symptoms, temps, and test sticks, lol! ;) She had suggested the super sensitive tests, and also suggested that I try a Clearblue digital test. I have had one in the house for a few days, but have been too nervous to take it, because I didn't want it to say "not pregnant" because it was too early or something. They're expensive! And I thought it would be the more likely result, and it would be kind of depressing to see. So I didn't take it.
But this evening I lay in bed breastfeeding Elijah to sleep (which didn't work), and having these mild Braxton Hicks type pressurey cramps as I did so, and the odd flashy teeny ligament pain, and I became more confident because of those sensations, that I must be pregnant. I can't be earlier than 10DPO, and my temp is still high. I MUST be pregnant. I just must. So I formulated a plan! ;) Very very naughtily, I had not been for a wee in an awful long time. I just hadn't had the opportunity, even though I had reeeally needed to go for a while. I know that's naughty of me! ;) But anyway. I had not been since I peed on a stick in the morning, so that was over 13 hours (!!!!) worth of urine! I began to get excited about the fact that it was a really good opportunity to get the best test result I could, if I tested NOW, this evening!
I went to get my tests so that I could squint at them again (haha!), and discovered to my happy surprise, that my test from this morning had NOT faded! It had a really obvious but faint line, still! That gave me even more hope that I might just get a positive result this evening.
I wanted to use the Clearblue digital, so that I could have an answer once and for all - not try to analyse the lines, but have something else do it for me and TELL me whether or not I was pregnant. Because the Clearblue digital test was sensitive to 25 mIU/ml of the pregnancy hormone, like the normal cheapy internet tests that I've always taken (not the 10 mIU tests I've been taking these past 3 days), I wanted to use a cheapy 25 mIU test as a "control". I thought that if I saw a line, however faint, I would dip the Clearblue digital in the same urine, and see what happened. Elijah took ages to settle, with Neil and I taking turns again, but part way through that, I dipped the cheapy stick and left it to sit while I held Elijah for a few minutes. Then Neil took over and I went back to look at the test stick. There was a line!!!! :) At least as strong as the line on this morning's test which was an even more sensitive test! A pink, fat, faint line! I was so excited!!! Neil took Elijah upstairs and walked him in the bedroom until he fell asleep, which wasn't too long because I had just breastfed him again.
Meanwhile I sat in the kitchen downstairs with my cup 'o' urine, and a wrapped digital test, and I was suddenly sooooo nervous and shakey with excitement! Much more so than when I do the cheapy tests, maybe because it would be so final - "pregnant" or "not pregnant". A real decision maker. I dipped the test exactly as the instructions said, put the cap back on and set in on the table. I couldn't look away! It had that hourglass figure flashing on the screen that means "waiting", and I was just practically twisting my own hands off watching it, lol! I couldn't bear the suspense, and I half didn't want to look, but couldn't look away. I couldn't sit in the end, either, so I got up and paced while I watched it. Then suddenly, up popped the result! Look what it said!!!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! I'm prrrreggggnaaaaaaannnnntttt!!!! So excited!!!!! :D
It says, "pregnant 1-2" which means the test can tell that it has been 1-2 weeks since I ovulated. So 10DPO is spot on, I think. The test stick below it is the cheapy 25 mIU test that I took right before it. I don't know if you can see the line on it (it's there!) but I don't care!!! ;) There's a whacking great stick right above it that says PREGNANT!!!! :D
I showed Neil the test as he came downstairs from Elijah - I didn't want to give it away, but the ear-to-ear smile unfortunately was too powerful to override with my cheek muscles! ;) I just couldn't stop smiling, I was so excited and happy (still am!)!! He gave me a big hug and seems really happy. After a while he said, now he REALLY has to get the new role at work that he's been trying for! ;)
What a lovely way to end the day! I am wiped out but I don't even want to go to bed, I'm on a happy high after such lovely news! :) I'll still temp and test for a while, as I usually do until about 18DPO for confirmation. I like to do that.
My due date is October 22nd! My seventh baby (breathe. breeeeaaathe Alice.) is due just over 2 weeks before my eldest child's 9th birthday. Heather is unavailable for a full week from October 28th. She has arranged back up with the doula she used to work with, who is a Christian, and very lovely, but I want my Heather!! I hope the timing goes well, and I'm already considering a sweep on my due date, lol! ;) I have gone 8 days over my due date before, which wouldn't be ideal this time. I am so excited to be having an October baby! :) I love the fact that out of 7 children, they ALL have a different birth month! :) I was hoping to keep that up!
I am, of course, presuming to have a boy, especially with the parsnips being the only incidence, 4 days before ovulation. This used to be said to result in a girl, but some research found that it was actually more likely to produce a boy than a girl. Parsnips all the way through the cycle from beginning to past ovulation most likely results in a girl, apparently, and nope - we did not do that! ;) Besides, I have two babies already who have resulted from parsnips 4 days before ovulation (single occurrance) just like this time, and their names are Matthew and Nathan, so yeah - not girls! ;)
Without particularly planning it, we've ended up choosing names for the boys that all start with a different letter, and now I want to make sure we carry on that pattern! I like it. I also like that when they're in their teens and start getting more official mail, you know the type that is addressed to Mr. N. So-and-so - they will all have their own unique first initial so we will avoid having a letter addressed to Mr. N. So-and-so and having to open it and read it to see WHICH Mr. N. So-and-so it's for in our house! So, we've used A, M, N, B, S, and E. I used T for Toby - Elijah's tiny twin. Since just before I ovulated, I cannot shake the name from my head. I used it already. It would be odd to use it again. But I somehow SO want to use Toby for a child to whom I can actually say, "Toby, do you want some milky?" or even, "Toby! No hitting!" ;) I still just completely LOVE the way it sounds when I say, "Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin, Samuel, Elijah, and Toby." Love it so much. But it feels wrong, and weird even, after using the name for a special tiny person who will always be in my heart. I can't sort out my feelings on that one. But the name won't leave my head at the moment.
Okay, I could ramble for hours more, but I feel crampy and my back aches, and I'm tired. I have lost all track of time but I think it must be late, so I am going to put the laptop away and go to bed.
I'm just so excited to share my news!!!! Baby #7 - praise you Lord!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so blessed and happy and thrilled! Scared will come later, lol! ;) But so happy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)