Five weeks has arrived all of a sudden! One eighth of the way through my pregnancy already! ;) That's 21 days past ovulation, and my tiny is beginning Carnegie Stage 10 of embryonic development, which goes from 21DPO to 23DPO. Can you believe that at 23DPO (just the day after tomorrow!!!!) a teensy tiny little S-shaped tube inside my new tiny person will fuse and begin to beat - the rudimentary heart!! Amaaaaazing, so early. I can't wait till I'm at that stage to put my hand over where Tiny Pip is (oooh that was spontaneous - even the capitals, I touch-type fast straight from the thoughts forming in my head - but doesn't that look like an official nickname?!?!) and know that there's a little weeny heart beating in there! :)
Five weeks is also supposed to be my first belly picture day! Now THAT feels very surreal and weird, because when I realised it today, I just thought, "What?! But, but... I only just conceived, surely?!" and it really does feel that early! But I always take a 5 week belly pic as a "before" photo. I like to keep it the same stage each pregnancy, so I guess I should get a belly picture in the next couple of days! How surreal! :)
Five weeks also heralds morning sickness, for me. Well, not till later in the week, but before I get to 6 weeks anyway. I start morning sickness at 5 weeks and 6 days. Except hmmm, today is the first day when I really haven't fancied anything to eat at all, and biting my nails (naughty!) has felt a bit yeurghy, just ever so slightly. After mid-afternoon or so, I have been aware of an ever-so-slightly queasy feel just hanging around at all times. A good analogy is motion sickness - did you ever get car sick? At first all is well. Then you start to feel just a tad "off", and suddenly the car doesn't smell so nice, and you feel a little internally restless. Then you progress to mild queasiness, more from the car smell than anything else. And obviously, queasy moves on to plain old nausea, and that just gets more and more horrible. Well the horriblest nausea right before you throw up is my typical morning sickness sensation (Constant. All day. And night, some pregnancies.), and this morning I felt that sort of "the car doesn't smell so nice..." sense that turned into queasiness. So I think I'm on my way to feeling proper morning sick in the next few days maybe? Or can I (naively?!) hope that just maybe it will stay this mild for the long haul?! Hmm, probably not. But here's hoping. I just hope it doesn't get worse than my previous experiences, because the very next level is puking, and I reeeeally don't want to progress to puking. No no no.
I only have 3 meals in the freezer!! I have ingredients today for at least 4 more meals, but still I am not going to stock up the freezer enough in time, urgh. One GREAT thing is that Neil is at home so he will be able to help out with making or assembling dinner a lot of the time. Phew, what a blessing that will be! I'm apprehensive and unexpectedly nervous about impending morning sickness. It really does just feel SO AWFUL, and it seems like there is no end in sight once it starts, because it goes on so long and is so all-consuming.
BUT, it will be wonderful reassurance, especially if I do start bleeding (my usual window begins any time from now :( ), to feel yucky and sick all the time. I will have hope that my Tiny Pip is okay in there despite bleeding and cramping, while I wait for a scan. Now that I am 5 weeks pregnant, I am absentmindedly going to check my underwear much more often throughout the day. I just have a familiarity with needing to at this stage, I guess. I'm nervous about it! I hate seeing blood when pregnant! Hopefully it won't happen, but I guess I am as prepared as I can be if it does.
What other randomness? I haven't really been feeling very pregnant till this queasiness today. No particular symptoms to report. Oh but I am SO exhausted all the time, which is pregnant of me. Neil wondered the other day if my skin was less soft, and that worried us both, but it seems back to it's normal pregnant softness again. I finished charting! My last temp at 18DPO was nice and high (37.0) which was a nice one to finish my 5th pregnant chart on! :) Also I took my last test the same morning which was reassuringly darker than the one from 16DPO :) I took a photo of it and sent it via email to Heather, who was my lovely doula with Benjamin. She didn't get it, hehe! So I emailed back telling her it was a pregnancy test - mine! :) She is excited and so am I because I know she doesn't work in December (boohoo!) but when she found out my news, she asked if I wanted a doula, and if I had anyone in mind. She said that she doesn't normally work in December but she could be persuaded to make an exception!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! :D Of course I responded with, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! OF COURSE I WANT YOU TO BE MY DOULA!! WE LOVE YOU!!!" or something calm and appreciative like that! ;)
Neil still hasn't told his side of the family. He seems a bit nervous about it for some reason. I asked why, and he said maybe he just felt that they didn't have a problem with 4 kids (he's one of 4) but that they might with 5 or more. Hmmm. Also Neil's littlest sister is pregnant, which is recent news as she didn't know herself until near the end of her first trimester. Big shock to the family. She is not in a relationship, is in great debt and is still very young. I had noooo idea she would ever get herself into this kind of situation, and we are currently praying about how we can best support her. She is due in September. So he hasn't told our news yet.
What other randomness can I write before I am forced to go to bed?! I'm just so tired. Things start to look faded and white to my eyes when I am feeling this tired. I really should not be online at all this evening! :S I should get an early night instead. I'm a sucker for wanting to keep my pregnancy record updated!
I got iceburg lettuce and cottage cheese. Those things usually help when I feel yucky.
Oh! I have had two more baby related dreams - really vivid ones again! Though, all my dreams are vivid these days, being pregnant and all. My first baby dream was only a couple of days after this baby was conceived - I think I already wrote about it here - and the baby was a boy. I have had two dreams over the last night or so. I can't remember the content but the baby was a boy both times. I have no idea whether it's just my obvious default, having 4 boys and 0 girls already (ha!) or if that means something! Add that to Nicola's boy dream for me, and well, who knows! ;) I have to admit, if it really ISN'T the twin scenario that I've hung onto and wondered about all this time (over 2 years now) from when God told me clearly that Benjamin would be the next baby (he was! :) ), then I TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY expect to be carrying another baby boy. I just can't fathom a girl baby in there at all! But I can completely see another little boy when I watch my four boys playing together, or see a photo of them sitting in a line. I can totally see a fifth boy in that line, almost as if he's there in the picture, sort of. So I will be 100% expecting that outcome if it's a single baby in there! That will be wonderful, and I already have 3 names that I love, and others that I'd consider. I don't know if Neil goes for them though, so that might make it tricky! Girl names - well, obviously there are zillions out there and we have never used one, but somehow I think we'll have a difficult time agreeing on one all the same! I know what my two favourites are if it's twin girls! :)
Okay, feeling a bit yeurghy and tired out so I must go to bed. I'm sure there's plenty that I missed, but I will try to update again this week.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
4 weeks, 3 days
I haven't updated for a few days so I thought I had better do so! :) Thanks for the lovely congrats to people who are still finding out! I am really eager to blab, uh, REVEAL at Facebook, but it seems a bit early still! I am not sure how to do that when the time comes. I'm wondering about being a bit cryptic...
Anyway! Today I am 17DPO, which means that tomorrow is the last day I will temp and I will also take my last pregnancy test in the morning too. I will actually miss that part! But 18DPO is a well established pregnancy and it's exciting to move on from there! :) My temps are a little bit rocky, but basically still staying between 36.7 and 36.9 - still nice and "up there", which is good! Yesterday at 16DPO I took another pregnancy test. It does look a bit darker than the 14DPO one, but once it faded to the same degree as the older ones, it really doesn't look much darker at all. I should post a photo so it's clear what I'm on about! I'll do that with the whole lot after I've taken my last one tomorrow. I hope tomorrow's is darker. I like to see them getting darker, and they ARE but just not as much as I'd thought they would. The difference with yesterday's is that the line was visible pretty much immediately, instead of within the first minute (or 30 seconds) at 14DPO, and a bit longer before that, etc.
I told my brother that I'm pregnant yesterday! :) It was fun. He's always so neutral and congratulatory, and that's so refreshing to me. He was commenting (on the phone) on how, when we all get together in July for Grandoug's birthday (85th!!), the great-grandchildren will be 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (well, a few days later!) and 0 (5 months)! I then pointed out that we'd be adding another next year since there's one due in December! ;) He said, "What?!... Really?!!" and then said congratulations and so on. He was very sweet and said that if I do have a heavy bleed this pregnancy and need any sort of help - with the boys, a lift to the hospital, etc - then I must call him and he'd help. He is working from home at the moment so would be available. Lovely brother! He was wonderful during Nathan's pregnancy when I bled heavily.
Speaking of which, I am beginning to feel a little bit apprehensive as I approach the 5 week mark. Any time between 5 and 7 weeks is when I tend to have a bleed, and I so so so hate to see blood during pregnancy, especially at the "typical" stage for most miscarriages to occur. For me, it isn't that thing where some women get a sort of light period around the time the usually would if they weren't pregnant. I just tend to get bleeds from the placental site around that kind of stage (and later, apparently, as I found out with Nathan's pregnancy). I am just REALLY hoping that I don't have to go through that this time. Somehow! Because I usually do. And I was thinking yesterday, it IS slightly reassuring to know that I have had healthy pregnancies with lots of bleeding before, but at each new occasion, it's not really all that reassuring. Because yes, I have had 4 healthy pregnancies. Yes, I have had bleeding each time. But that doesn't mean that just because I've had that experience that THIS time is going to be the same, you know? What if I were to have a proper miscarriage? I bet that would start with spotting or bleeding, just the same as the bleeds I'm used to do. So really, even though I'm accustomed to it, it still could be either possibility at the time. I'm nervous. And just praying that I will stop being so.
Yesterday I went to my GP to "book in" with my new pregnancy! Yay! That was fun! :) I love those appointments! I lied about the first day of my last menstrual period, as I finally learnt to after my second pregnancy, since *I* know when I ovulated, and they won't hear it that I ovulated any day but CD14! *sigh* So I just count back 14 days from the day I ovulated, and call THAT the first day of my last menstrual period! ;) Works out much better because then I don't get, "Ohhh, baby is measuring almost a week behind... Are you sure of your dates?" at the nerve-wracking early scans when I'm bleeding, or "We're going to change your (YOUR!) dates because baby is clearly measuring 5 days out (which *I* tried to tell them it would from the start! Tsk!)." etc. I also like it when I go to the doctor to book in, and tell her my LMP was 8th of March (it was the 4th), and she fiddles with the cardboard wheel thingy and says fondly, "You have a due date of December 13th!" - exactly when I KNEW I was due, hehe! ;)
So, that's done! I had to do the usual thing of giving all the dates and details of my other births - where, when, which boy, their birth weight, any complications, etc. She was impressed that I had all four boys' stuff on the tip of my tongue to tell her, but I told her that it's my LIFE! These are my vital stats! ;) Of course I have them right to hand :) I always LOVE recounting those details for this kind of thing. I just realised she didn't weigh me or take a baseline blood pressure, but the midwife will do that I think - not weigh me, but the blood pressure, when I see her. I don't know when that will be. Probably not till after my first trimester, though I think it was around 8 weeks last time, which felt REALLY early! In the past it has been 16 weeks that I first saw the midwife, which felt really late to me!
My recent smear test was fine, which is a relief, because they will not do one on a pregnant woman, at any stage of pregnancy. I was hoping it was okay! The doctor went to fill out a form for maternity exemption (from paying for prescription medicines) but I still have maternity exemption from Benjamin up until July. I have to remember to drop a reminder at the surgery in June-ish and she'll start my new one so that I don't have a gap between Benjamin's and the one from this pregnancy. I haven't had a gap in maternity exemption since February 2004! It's for the duration of pregnancy and a year after the baby is born. I really must get my dental check-up, which is also free with my maternity exemption card.
I mentioned to the doctor that I usually bleed in early pregnancy, and she said that she was sort of expecting to see me again in a couple of weeks for that very reason!! :S She was very reassuring and said that if I get ANY bleeding or bothersome spotting, I should make an appointment with her straight away and she would refer me for a scan for reassurance. Phew. But I do hope I don't. I love having the opportunity to see my tiny one an extra time, nice and early, and I guess this time it would be exciting to find out earlier than 12 weeks if I have more than one in there (or not), but I would still MUCH rather not bleed and wait till 12 weeks!
The last few days have felt much more "back to normal". The excitement is wearing off a little - I mean, there's PERMANENT excitement! :) But you know, that initial high where I absolutely cannot concentrate on another thing for even a few milliseconds! And it's seeming a little more surreal now that it's settling back down to normal life again. I forget that I'm pregnant occasionally (not often, mind you!), or when I have chance to sit down and remember, I feel surprised that I haven't been feeling more pregnant. It's early days for me though. Six weeks will be a whoooooole 'nother ball game, and that's only 11 days away.
I have the distinct feeling that this pregnancy is going to FLASH by. I sense that it's going to be the fastest one yet. They all go by faster with each successive pregnancy. That's just how it works, I think. You're always surprised with the second pregnancy at how FAST it goes compared with your first! Which, looking back, is absolutely snail pace compared with pregnancy #4, even though it felt fast at the time. And I think #5 might go faster still. That's bittersweet, because I love being pregnant and want to cherish each moment of such a blessing! But I WILL be so glad for morning sickness to pass by quickly. How those weeks dragged forever when it was the first pregnancy! It actually felt torturous at the time!
I have started the freezer cooking so that I'll have some good stocks of meals in the freezer for when I feel too green to even look at food, let alone prepare it! So far I have started with a double batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce and a lamb and bean hotpot. I made chicken stock so that I can do a double batch of turkey casserole overnight tonight in the crockpot, and I'll do a double batch of shepherd's pie tomorrow. That's all the meat I bought this week. I will buy more ingredients at the next Tesco order (we order our shopping to be delivered, for obvious reasons, haha!) and continue. More spag bol would be good as we eat that every week, and another lamb hotpot. I have had to make that without garlic though, as I know I won't deal with garlic in a couple of weeks.
My sense of smell is really strong right now. Yucky smells are AWFUL! But not stomach turning. Just awful! I was out on the driveway this afternoon and caught a whiff of fast food from the main road a way off, and oh my goodness how I wanted some!!! It smelt absolutely heavenly! I remember this specific one from at least 2 other pregnancies, hehe! ;)
I am very hungry, and still just want TONS of protein. I am not much interested in sweet food at all, and want lots of healthy food right now. Yesterday I discovered a sandwich filling that tasted INCREDIBLE to me - perhaps it IS incredible, or maybe it's just my pregnant taste buds right now?! Tuna, chopped boiled egg, sweetcorn, and chopped cucumber, mixed together with a dollop of mayonnaise. I could only fit half of it in my sandwich (it was sooooooo good!!!) and ate the rest with a spoon! Mmmm! I am looking for more protein options. I eat eggs every day at the moment because I just want the protein and I like the taste. I can't eat more than a couple of tins of tuna a week while I'm pregnant, so other days I just have eggs and beans on toast and cover the whole lot with cheese, hehe! Yummy, but STILL leaves me hankering for protein. This is a new thing for me which I haven't experienced in my other pregnancies. New things are interesting and fun! :)
Another new thing is a really sore bruisey feeling very low down around my pubic bone. I even feel it underneath, almost like cystitis or something, but it's not. I can't even place where it's sourced. Last night it was really uncomfortable, but tonight it's a lot better. I am also having the usual mini twinges and ligament pulls. I had my first proper (though tiny still!) round ligament pain getting up from my bed this morning with a twist of my body. Ow! But nice and familiar, so it made me smile! :)
I am not really peeing all that frequently for some reason, although I really really need to go first thing when I wake up. I was so glad I wasn't having to save it up a bit longer for a test this morning, and I'm not sure how I'll accomplish that tomorrow! But not actually peeing more frequently really, at the moment. Not much breast discomfort either, though I do have some painful twinges now and then. My milk supply is normal at the moment.
I'm more tired than usual still - definitely pregnant tired rather than just tired tired. I could sooooo take a nap every day. I'm blessed that Neil lets me lie-in till 8.30 or so (the boys are up a couple of hours before that) because I don't know how I'd manage without that otherwise at the moment! I get breathless easily and my muscles tend to feel more tired after nothing much at all.
I know it's taken me five pregnancies to finally come round on this (!), but I really want to be more healthy this pregnancy. I want to exercise (I NEVER do, can't remember when I last did. Years, I think?) daily, and I want to eat more healthily than I usually do when I'm pregnant. I also want to slightly duck when I say this (since I've been such a BIG ranter about the subject all my other pregnancies, haha!) but I think I would like to NOT gain so much weight as I usually do. I am NOT a fan of weight-obsessiveness during pregnancy, which like the WHOLE WORLD is! Tsk! Not healthy, ladies! Pregnancy = weight gain = normal! You're MEANT to lay down LOTS of fat supplies for breastfeeding. You actually need to gain fat, and not a small amount of it either!
The thing is though, I gain 55lbs per pregnancy. That's 4 stone folks. That's a lot of weight! Before my first pregnancy I was 7 stone 10lbs. Too light actually, and I was seeing a dietitian for a while because I could not for the life of me put weight on. But anyway, pregnancy fixed that! ;) And before Matthew was conceived I was back down to 8 stone 5lbs, I think? GOOD weight for me. I did not want to get back down to 8 stone or less again. But then I got pregnant with Nathan and gained a truckload again. I went back down to 9 stone 2lbs, I think? Not sure of the exact lbs, but I think it was 9st 2. Then I gained the usual with Benjamin, ending up above 13 stone!!! Yikers! I am a petite build, so that's a LOT for me, and not natural at all for me to carry that much about. So I am now pregnant again 8 months later and last time I weighed myself I had juuuust tipped under 10 stone for the first time, but only by a lb I think, so let's call it 10 stone exactly. Yeeks. I do NOT want to end up 14 stone this pregnancy. I really think it will make me very uncomfortable and probably struggle more carrying the pregnancy, maybe bother my blood pressure at the very end, and so on.
I reeeeally want to gain less. I think I can do that by exercising, and also by NOT stuffing my face continually with chocolate in the evenings! But that last one will be verrrry hard, and I'm not convinced I can do it. The pull is so strong, especially when I'm hungry and craving chocolate! I love that so far I really want large quantities of savoury healthy foods. Right now when I make myself a meal I usually have half the plate covered with vegetables, because that's what I want - lots of veg! And I have been eating raw veg this evening - cauliflower, carrots and broccoli. I really like those veg raw so will probably eat snacks of them regularly. Thing is, once I start feeling sick, it will all go out of the window, and then anything that I can actually ingest will do, because otherwise it's a nightmare. You have to go with what you can stomach. AFTER the morning sickness the sugary cravings usually kick in. And those are really really really really hard to resist! I am also incredibly useless on the willpower front - always have been - so I'm not sure I'll do so well.... I DO want to exercise though!
A month or so ago I went to the doctor because my abs are still separated and I wanted to know what she thought about it. They were just over THREE fingerwidths apart at the widest part (my belly button area), which is proper abdominal separation. I was worried it would never go back! And the doctor wasn't reassuring - she said that's what comes with many pregnancies very close together, and they probably would never really go back! I asked if there were any exercises I could do, but she didn't really know. I googled and found a YouTube video by a Pilates instructor (there was SO much conflicting advice when I googled generally - and some of it looked authentic and good, but was actually POOR advice which could cause the abs to separate even more!!). It's a bunch of stretches and gentle muscle toning exercises. Good for poor separated abs after childbirth, and also for a complete novice to exercise like me! So I have been doing those faithfully every night before bed for 3 weeks, and guess what?! My abs are now just over 2 fingerwidths apart! :) It's working!!! But I'm not sure how long I can do those safely if I'm pregnant again. I want to add to that kind of exercise, just other parts of the body and not just the abs, and also general fitness. I am utterly utterly unfit, except for mothering-related fitness (weight lifting, etc, hehe!), so today I just did some bicep and tricep exercises (gentle!), the Pilates abs ones, and some stretches, and then decided to march (not jog - would DIE if I jogged, lol!) on the spot for 5 minutes and see how I got on. Sounds a bit daft, I know! ;) And I felt a bit of a sausage, but I marched away at a fast pace and worked up a good heartrate and was breathing hard by the end of it. Then I felt great for the little bit of exercise I'd done, so I jogged on the spot for a minute, and was KNACKERED but felt even better! :) I really need to start slow because of my total lack of fitness though. I think I'll try that simple routine every day for a bit, and meanwhile maybe look out a low impact pregnancy aerobics DVD to start in a few weeks if I feel able.
Okay this is getting really waffly, so I'll stop now! It's getting late as well. Baby tiny has already finished Carnegie Stage 7 of Embryonic Development, and is starting Stage 8. Finally visible to the human eye at 1mm long!! :) This is when I started calling Benjamin, "Babydot" because he was just a little dot of a baby back then :) I still haven't settled on a baby name for this little one, though I use various cutesy nicknames frequently. I'm happy doing that for now, so that's okay. I'm sure one or two will stick soon! My littlest one is now pear-shaped, has blood cells already developed, and is working on the beginnings of the nervous system (the neural groove). Exciting!!! :D This stage only lasts until 19DPO and the next stage starts the same day and will probably pass very quickly. Embryonic development is incredibly speedy and miraculous! I'm so amazed at what's going on inside my body at this very moment. It's almost too brain-boggling to comprehend when you cast your eye down at the zip of your jeans!
Will update again soon! :)
Anyway! Today I am 17DPO, which means that tomorrow is the last day I will temp and I will also take my last pregnancy test in the morning too. I will actually miss that part! But 18DPO is a well established pregnancy and it's exciting to move on from there! :) My temps are a little bit rocky, but basically still staying between 36.7 and 36.9 - still nice and "up there", which is good! Yesterday at 16DPO I took another pregnancy test. It does look a bit darker than the 14DPO one, but once it faded to the same degree as the older ones, it really doesn't look much darker at all. I should post a photo so it's clear what I'm on about! I'll do that with the whole lot after I've taken my last one tomorrow. I hope tomorrow's is darker. I like to see them getting darker, and they ARE but just not as much as I'd thought they would. The difference with yesterday's is that the line was visible pretty much immediately, instead of within the first minute (or 30 seconds) at 14DPO, and a bit longer before that, etc.
I told my brother that I'm pregnant yesterday! :) It was fun. He's always so neutral and congratulatory, and that's so refreshing to me. He was commenting (on the phone) on how, when we all get together in July for Grandoug's birthday (85th!!), the great-grandchildren will be 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (well, a few days later!) and 0 (5 months)! I then pointed out that we'd be adding another next year since there's one due in December! ;) He said, "What?!... Really?!!" and then said congratulations and so on. He was very sweet and said that if I do have a heavy bleed this pregnancy and need any sort of help - with the boys, a lift to the hospital, etc - then I must call him and he'd help. He is working from home at the moment so would be available. Lovely brother! He was wonderful during Nathan's pregnancy when I bled heavily.
Speaking of which, I am beginning to feel a little bit apprehensive as I approach the 5 week mark. Any time between 5 and 7 weeks is when I tend to have a bleed, and I so so so hate to see blood during pregnancy, especially at the "typical" stage for most miscarriages to occur. For me, it isn't that thing where some women get a sort of light period around the time the usually would if they weren't pregnant. I just tend to get bleeds from the placental site around that kind of stage (and later, apparently, as I found out with Nathan's pregnancy). I am just REALLY hoping that I don't have to go through that this time. Somehow! Because I usually do. And I was thinking yesterday, it IS slightly reassuring to know that I have had healthy pregnancies with lots of bleeding before, but at each new occasion, it's not really all that reassuring. Because yes, I have had 4 healthy pregnancies. Yes, I have had bleeding each time. But that doesn't mean that just because I've had that experience that THIS time is going to be the same, you know? What if I were to have a proper miscarriage? I bet that would start with spotting or bleeding, just the same as the bleeds I'm used to do. So really, even though I'm accustomed to it, it still could be either possibility at the time. I'm nervous. And just praying that I will stop being so.
Yesterday I went to my GP to "book in" with my new pregnancy! Yay! That was fun! :) I love those appointments! I lied about the first day of my last menstrual period, as I finally learnt to after my second pregnancy, since *I* know when I ovulated, and they won't hear it that I ovulated any day but CD14! *sigh* So I just count back 14 days from the day I ovulated, and call THAT the first day of my last menstrual period! ;) Works out much better because then I don't get, "Ohhh, baby is measuring almost a week behind... Are you sure of your dates?" at the nerve-wracking early scans when I'm bleeding, or "We're going to change your (YOUR!) dates because baby is clearly measuring 5 days out (which *I* tried to tell them it would from the start! Tsk!)." etc. I also like it when I go to the doctor to book in, and tell her my LMP was 8th of March (it was the 4th), and she fiddles with the cardboard wheel thingy and says fondly, "You have a due date of December 13th!" - exactly when I KNEW I was due, hehe! ;)
So, that's done! I had to do the usual thing of giving all the dates and details of my other births - where, when, which boy, their birth weight, any complications, etc. She was impressed that I had all four boys' stuff on the tip of my tongue to tell her, but I told her that it's my LIFE! These are my vital stats! ;) Of course I have them right to hand :) I always LOVE recounting those details for this kind of thing. I just realised she didn't weigh me or take a baseline blood pressure, but the midwife will do that I think - not weigh me, but the blood pressure, when I see her. I don't know when that will be. Probably not till after my first trimester, though I think it was around 8 weeks last time, which felt REALLY early! In the past it has been 16 weeks that I first saw the midwife, which felt really late to me!
My recent smear test was fine, which is a relief, because they will not do one on a pregnant woman, at any stage of pregnancy. I was hoping it was okay! The doctor went to fill out a form for maternity exemption (from paying for prescription medicines) but I still have maternity exemption from Benjamin up until July. I have to remember to drop a reminder at the surgery in June-ish and she'll start my new one so that I don't have a gap between Benjamin's and the one from this pregnancy. I haven't had a gap in maternity exemption since February 2004! It's for the duration of pregnancy and a year after the baby is born. I really must get my dental check-up, which is also free with my maternity exemption card.
I mentioned to the doctor that I usually bleed in early pregnancy, and she said that she was sort of expecting to see me again in a couple of weeks for that very reason!! :S She was very reassuring and said that if I get ANY bleeding or bothersome spotting, I should make an appointment with her straight away and she would refer me for a scan for reassurance. Phew. But I do hope I don't. I love having the opportunity to see my tiny one an extra time, nice and early, and I guess this time it would be exciting to find out earlier than 12 weeks if I have more than one in there (or not), but I would still MUCH rather not bleed and wait till 12 weeks!
The last few days have felt much more "back to normal". The excitement is wearing off a little - I mean, there's PERMANENT excitement! :) But you know, that initial high where I absolutely cannot concentrate on another thing for even a few milliseconds! And it's seeming a little more surreal now that it's settling back down to normal life again. I forget that I'm pregnant occasionally (not often, mind you!), or when I have chance to sit down and remember, I feel surprised that I haven't been feeling more pregnant. It's early days for me though. Six weeks will be a whoooooole 'nother ball game, and that's only 11 days away.
I have the distinct feeling that this pregnancy is going to FLASH by. I sense that it's going to be the fastest one yet. They all go by faster with each successive pregnancy. That's just how it works, I think. You're always surprised with the second pregnancy at how FAST it goes compared with your first! Which, looking back, is absolutely snail pace compared with pregnancy #4, even though it felt fast at the time. And I think #5 might go faster still. That's bittersweet, because I love being pregnant and want to cherish each moment of such a blessing! But I WILL be so glad for morning sickness to pass by quickly. How those weeks dragged forever when it was the first pregnancy! It actually felt torturous at the time!
I have started the freezer cooking so that I'll have some good stocks of meals in the freezer for when I feel too green to even look at food, let alone prepare it! So far I have started with a double batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce and a lamb and bean hotpot. I made chicken stock so that I can do a double batch of turkey casserole overnight tonight in the crockpot, and I'll do a double batch of shepherd's pie tomorrow. That's all the meat I bought this week. I will buy more ingredients at the next Tesco order (we order our shopping to be delivered, for obvious reasons, haha!) and continue. More spag bol would be good as we eat that every week, and another lamb hotpot. I have had to make that without garlic though, as I know I won't deal with garlic in a couple of weeks.
My sense of smell is really strong right now. Yucky smells are AWFUL! But not stomach turning. Just awful! I was out on the driveway this afternoon and caught a whiff of fast food from the main road a way off, and oh my goodness how I wanted some!!! It smelt absolutely heavenly! I remember this specific one from at least 2 other pregnancies, hehe! ;)
I am very hungry, and still just want TONS of protein. I am not much interested in sweet food at all, and want lots of healthy food right now. Yesterday I discovered a sandwich filling that tasted INCREDIBLE to me - perhaps it IS incredible, or maybe it's just my pregnant taste buds right now?! Tuna, chopped boiled egg, sweetcorn, and chopped cucumber, mixed together with a dollop of mayonnaise. I could only fit half of it in my sandwich (it was sooooooo good!!!) and ate the rest with a spoon! Mmmm! I am looking for more protein options. I eat eggs every day at the moment because I just want the protein and I like the taste. I can't eat more than a couple of tins of tuna a week while I'm pregnant, so other days I just have eggs and beans on toast and cover the whole lot with cheese, hehe! Yummy, but STILL leaves me hankering for protein. This is a new thing for me which I haven't experienced in my other pregnancies. New things are interesting and fun! :)
Another new thing is a really sore bruisey feeling very low down around my pubic bone. I even feel it underneath, almost like cystitis or something, but it's not. I can't even place where it's sourced. Last night it was really uncomfortable, but tonight it's a lot better. I am also having the usual mini twinges and ligament pulls. I had my first proper (though tiny still!) round ligament pain getting up from my bed this morning with a twist of my body. Ow! But nice and familiar, so it made me smile! :)
I am not really peeing all that frequently for some reason, although I really really need to go first thing when I wake up. I was so glad I wasn't having to save it up a bit longer for a test this morning, and I'm not sure how I'll accomplish that tomorrow! But not actually peeing more frequently really, at the moment. Not much breast discomfort either, though I do have some painful twinges now and then. My milk supply is normal at the moment.
I'm more tired than usual still - definitely pregnant tired rather than just tired tired. I could sooooo take a nap every day. I'm blessed that Neil lets me lie-in till 8.30 or so (the boys are up a couple of hours before that) because I don't know how I'd manage without that otherwise at the moment! I get breathless easily and my muscles tend to feel more tired after nothing much at all.
I know it's taken me five pregnancies to finally come round on this (!), but I really want to be more healthy this pregnancy. I want to exercise (I NEVER do, can't remember when I last did. Years, I think?) daily, and I want to eat more healthily than I usually do when I'm pregnant. I also want to slightly duck when I say this (since I've been such a BIG ranter about the subject all my other pregnancies, haha!) but I think I would like to NOT gain so much weight as I usually do. I am NOT a fan of weight-obsessiveness during pregnancy, which like the WHOLE WORLD is! Tsk! Not healthy, ladies! Pregnancy = weight gain = normal! You're MEANT to lay down LOTS of fat supplies for breastfeeding. You actually need to gain fat, and not a small amount of it either!
The thing is though, I gain 55lbs per pregnancy. That's 4 stone folks. That's a lot of weight! Before my first pregnancy I was 7 stone 10lbs. Too light actually, and I was seeing a dietitian for a while because I could not for the life of me put weight on. But anyway, pregnancy fixed that! ;) And before Matthew was conceived I was back down to 8 stone 5lbs, I think? GOOD weight for me. I did not want to get back down to 8 stone or less again. But then I got pregnant with Nathan and gained a truckload again. I went back down to 9 stone 2lbs, I think? Not sure of the exact lbs, but I think it was 9st 2. Then I gained the usual with Benjamin, ending up above 13 stone!!! Yikers! I am a petite build, so that's a LOT for me, and not natural at all for me to carry that much about. So I am now pregnant again 8 months later and last time I weighed myself I had juuuust tipped under 10 stone for the first time, but only by a lb I think, so let's call it 10 stone exactly. Yeeks. I do NOT want to end up 14 stone this pregnancy. I really think it will make me very uncomfortable and probably struggle more carrying the pregnancy, maybe bother my blood pressure at the very end, and so on.
I reeeeally want to gain less. I think I can do that by exercising, and also by NOT stuffing my face continually with chocolate in the evenings! But that last one will be verrrry hard, and I'm not convinced I can do it. The pull is so strong, especially when I'm hungry and craving chocolate! I love that so far I really want large quantities of savoury healthy foods. Right now when I make myself a meal I usually have half the plate covered with vegetables, because that's what I want - lots of veg! And I have been eating raw veg this evening - cauliflower, carrots and broccoli. I really like those veg raw so will probably eat snacks of them regularly. Thing is, once I start feeling sick, it will all go out of the window, and then anything that I can actually ingest will do, because otherwise it's a nightmare. You have to go with what you can stomach. AFTER the morning sickness the sugary cravings usually kick in. And those are really really really really hard to resist! I am also incredibly useless on the willpower front - always have been - so I'm not sure I'll do so well.... I DO want to exercise though!
A month or so ago I went to the doctor because my abs are still separated and I wanted to know what she thought about it. They were just over THREE fingerwidths apart at the widest part (my belly button area), which is proper abdominal separation. I was worried it would never go back! And the doctor wasn't reassuring - she said that's what comes with many pregnancies very close together, and they probably would never really go back! I asked if there were any exercises I could do, but she didn't really know. I googled and found a YouTube video by a Pilates instructor (there was SO much conflicting advice when I googled generally - and some of it looked authentic and good, but was actually POOR advice which could cause the abs to separate even more!!). It's a bunch of stretches and gentle muscle toning exercises. Good for poor separated abs after childbirth, and also for a complete novice to exercise like me! So I have been doing those faithfully every night before bed for 3 weeks, and guess what?! My abs are now just over 2 fingerwidths apart! :) It's working!!! But I'm not sure how long I can do those safely if I'm pregnant again. I want to add to that kind of exercise, just other parts of the body and not just the abs, and also general fitness. I am utterly utterly unfit, except for mothering-related fitness (weight lifting, etc, hehe!), so today I just did some bicep and tricep exercises (gentle!), the Pilates abs ones, and some stretches, and then decided to march (not jog - would DIE if I jogged, lol!) on the spot for 5 minutes and see how I got on. Sounds a bit daft, I know! ;) And I felt a bit of a sausage, but I marched away at a fast pace and worked up a good heartrate and was breathing hard by the end of it. Then I felt great for the little bit of exercise I'd done, so I jogged on the spot for a minute, and was KNACKERED but felt even better! :) I really need to start slow because of my total lack of fitness though. I think I'll try that simple routine every day for a bit, and meanwhile maybe look out a low impact pregnancy aerobics DVD to start in a few weeks if I feel able.
Okay this is getting really waffly, so I'll stop now! It's getting late as well. Baby tiny has already finished Carnegie Stage 7 of Embryonic Development, and is starting Stage 8. Finally visible to the human eye at 1mm long!! :) This is when I started calling Benjamin, "Babydot" because he was just a little dot of a baby back then :) I still haven't settled on a baby name for this little one, though I use various cutesy nicknames frequently. I'm happy doing that for now, so that's okay. I'm sure one or two will stick soon! My littlest one is now pear-shaped, has blood cells already developed, and is working on the beginnings of the nervous system (the neural groove). Exciting!!! :D This stage only lasts until 19DPO and the next stage starts the same day and will probably pass very quickly. Embryonic development is incredibly speedy and miraculous! I'm so amazed at what's going on inside my body at this very moment. It's almost too brain-boggling to comprehend when you cast your eye down at the zip of your jeans!
Will update again soon! :)
Monday, 5 April 2010
4 weeks pregnant!! :)
Wheee, my first weekly milestone! :) I am now 1/10 of the way through my pregnancy, haha! That feels so silly, to say that I'm a certain proportion of the way through my pregnancy when I've only known for a few days and it's still so early on! ;) Four weeks. I like that. It means 14DPO, and my longest luteal phase ever was 13 days, so I know I must really be pregnant, hehe!
My temp went up a touch today - it's now rocking up and down in the 36.8 - 37.0 range, which I like muchly. I peed on yet another stick this morning and it was reassuringly clear. It's the first time I have seen the positive line show up before the window cleared properly - in the first minute I think. It's a touch darker than yesterday's, and I am not going to test tomorrow, but I will do at 16DPO. I think I will also test at 18DPO for the last time. I really like to see those lines getting darker. 18DPO is the official "you're definitely pregnant by now!" mark that the book, "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" talks about - I bought that book years ago when we were TTC our first baby and it wasn't happening, and it was great and very informative! Anyway. I like to temp up to 18DPO, and after that I (reluctantly!) stop. I feel that there has to be a cut-off point otherwise I'd just temp forever and my charts would be annoying to look at as you'd have to scroll miiiiiles sideways to view it all, hehe! Also I wanted to temp to a certain point, the same each pregnancy, just for comparison's sake. So I chose 18DPO. Four more days of temping! :) I like it! I always miss it when I stop.
I feel like there's not really much newsy stuff to say today, and I won't be doing daily updates forever, because though I can waffle about nothing for many MANY paragraphs, I think it wouldn't be the best use of my time (or that of my readers, ha!) if I did! I just hope that this time around I will be better at updating at least weekly so that I don't miss any stages out. Each week is precious, and something I want to look back on or compare with another time when I'm (hopefully!) pregnant.
So the only big things today are:
1) Having the odd achy/crampy sensation in random parts of my pelvic area and low abdomen. It's very on and off, and doesn't always last more than a few seconds. Not usually longer than 5 or 10 minutes at most. It's sometimes like a bothersome dragging pain over some part of my pubic bone, or just to one side or above. I have felt generally a little crampy front and back today at times, but only very mild crampiness now. Right now I have a really bothersome "boring" pain over the far right part of my pubic bone. It's very dull but distractingly uncomfortable. I'm hoping that's just part of what's going on it there with the tiny one getting cosy.
2) Tiiiiiired. Just tired, physically. If I exert myself, I come over a bit "funny" - just lightheaded and breathless, or else weak and queasy, or something like that. Not morning-sickness queasy though. Just as though I had gone for a run and painted the house and been shopping and THEN tried to do the washing up and come over a bit weak and tired! ;) Except that I haven't actually done the stuff before the washing up! My body is busy though, inside, using up my energy on important baby-building and placenta-initiating things! :)
3) Protein. O Protein. How I love thy ways! I know I said it yesterday, but today is even more so - I would almost call it a craving, already! Weird. I just NEED lots of protein, and whatever we've got in the house doesn't seem to be enough. For lunch today after much restless rummaging in the kitchen, I finally ate toast with boiled egg, cheese and cold chicken, and then a yoghurt, and I washed it down with a glass of milk! And then felt like I wished I had some protein with a little more "kick", even after I'd just finished that lunch! It was GOOD but it still didn't quite hit the spot. It's not a meat craving as such, in fact I have so far just wanted eggs or fish or cheese, but I'm not much interested in anything else, such is my overwhelming desire for the PROTEIN part of the meal. I want to just get all those different sources of protein, mix them up in some mayo and tuck in! Blech! But mmm, prooootein...
I do not remember desiring/needing protein this much in my other pregnancies, or at this particular stage (except I do remember wanting EGG quite early on with at least two of my little ones - later than this though, more like 5 weeks or later). I presume it's to do with the needs of my body for what it's giving out in this particular stage of pregnancy. I mean, the beginnings of a little body is forming right now, and the beginnings of circulatory contact between me and said little body. That's got to require some protein, right?! I googled protein cravings in early pregnancy, but the only thing I found was a list of things that mean a certain gender according to old wives - guess which gender protein cravings were under?! I'll give you a clue - it starts with 'b' and ends with 'oy'. ;)
So that is all really. I haven't noticed any spotting yet today, though I haven't been to check for a while. The spotting that I've charted for the past 3 days has only been very light brown spotting, and not much of it. Because it's THERE, I've charted it, that's all.
We moved Benjamin out of the Amby hammock today :( Nathan also moved today, into the toddler bed that Matthew first used, and out of his cot :( My baaabies!!! Nathan loves his new big boy bed! We set the cot right up in the other bedroom for Benjamin to move into, and he's sleeping in it right now (no motion! He has always had motion with the Amby! So far it's going fairly well...). It was good to get that done, but I felt such a pang packing the Amby into its bag to store in the loft! :( And while I was clearing space for the cot (which takes up more space than the Amby in the room) I ended up packing away a bunch of other baby stuff that was lying around, like the soft mats for tummy time and the activity gym/mat thingy. And the huge pile of white terry towels that sit on the bed for months, and I cycle through three dozen in just a couple of days, over and over and over, with all the leaky breasts and milky eruptions and blow-out nappies and little fountains when you take nappies off, etc, that come with a new or very young baby. I felt sad packing it all away, because it's packing my memories and my experience (that I love SO MUCH!!!!) away too. I commented to Neil that I was so glad to have another on the way already when going through a milestone like this with the littlest boys! It must be harder to pack those things away not knowing whether it's the last time or not :( *sniffle* I remember I BAWLED and sobbed when Nathan moved out of my bedroom and in with "the boys" before Benjamin was born, and Matthew moved out of the toddler bed and into a bottom bunk. Even though I was in my 3rd trimester with another baby, it was still so sad to see my babies grow older! But comforting to know I would be able to see it happen all over again soon! :) I'm so glad of that again! How wonderful to be able to look forward AGAIN to the joys of a tiny snuffly newborn, night time nappy craziness, my milk coming in and the delight of feeling that first real ZING of the let-down as the tiny weeny person attached starts gulping and gasping on that first real milk! All the precious little milestones (and big ones!), the first smile, baby coos, photographing my FIVE children together, sooooo much wonderful stuff. I am even excited about the birth, and that's not even mentioning all the exciting wonderful things ahead in the pregnancy! Seeing the little one at the scans, finding out whether we're having another dear sweet little boy or (surely not?!) our very first daughter, feeling the first kicks, hearing that precious heart beating on my doppler, stroking my belly and just ohhh EVERYTHING!! I love being pregnant! I'm so overjoyed and glad and thankful to be here again! I pray that it will be a healthy pregnancy with no complications, and also a healthy baby (or two!). I just can't wait to experience it all, and drink it all up and cherish it!
I MUST get round to writing Benjamin's birth story, or else it will be getting a bit silly (if it isn't already, whoops!)! Also I need to hurry up and find photos of the boys to email to Jennisa for her to change the header at my main blog, because right now it still has 3-year-old Arthur, 2-year-old Matthew, and 10-month-old Nathan, with Benjamin just a scan picture from 12 weeks into my pregnancy!!! Reeeally out of date, especially in light of this new pregnancy! Need to change it.
I'm somehow smelling faint car fumes (someone just parked next door and somehow it has rolled in through a crack or something!) and it seems horribly strong to my nose even though I know it's only a faint whiff of fumes, and surprisingly nausea-inducing. Yuck. Smells have been enhanced all day today, especially in the kitchen. It doesn't make me feel sick as such, but I certainly want to avoid smells that aren't nice, and they seem too strong for me all the time. I don't like these car fumes though, however faint they are. They are making me feel proper sick. I think I will finish up for now and go to bed. I'll update again soon, but probably not tomorrow unless there's something I want to write about.
My temp went up a touch today - it's now rocking up and down in the 36.8 - 37.0 range, which I like muchly. I peed on yet another stick this morning and it was reassuringly clear. It's the first time I have seen the positive line show up before the window cleared properly - in the first minute I think. It's a touch darker than yesterday's, and I am not going to test tomorrow, but I will do at 16DPO. I think I will also test at 18DPO for the last time. I really like to see those lines getting darker. 18DPO is the official "you're definitely pregnant by now!" mark that the book, "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" talks about - I bought that book years ago when we were TTC our first baby and it wasn't happening, and it was great and very informative! Anyway. I like to temp up to 18DPO, and after that I (reluctantly!) stop. I feel that there has to be a cut-off point otherwise I'd just temp forever and my charts would be annoying to look at as you'd have to scroll miiiiiles sideways to view it all, hehe! Also I wanted to temp to a certain point, the same each pregnancy, just for comparison's sake. So I chose 18DPO. Four more days of temping! :) I like it! I always miss it when I stop.
I feel like there's not really much newsy stuff to say today, and I won't be doing daily updates forever, because though I can waffle about nothing for many MANY paragraphs, I think it wouldn't be the best use of my time (or that of my readers, ha!) if I did! I just hope that this time around I will be better at updating at least weekly so that I don't miss any stages out. Each week is precious, and something I want to look back on or compare with another time when I'm (hopefully!) pregnant.
So the only big things today are:
1) Having the odd achy/crampy sensation in random parts of my pelvic area and low abdomen. It's very on and off, and doesn't always last more than a few seconds. Not usually longer than 5 or 10 minutes at most. It's sometimes like a bothersome dragging pain over some part of my pubic bone, or just to one side or above. I have felt generally a little crampy front and back today at times, but only very mild crampiness now. Right now I have a really bothersome "boring" pain over the far right part of my pubic bone. It's very dull but distractingly uncomfortable. I'm hoping that's just part of what's going on it there with the tiny one getting cosy.
2) Tiiiiiired. Just tired, physically. If I exert myself, I come over a bit "funny" - just lightheaded and breathless, or else weak and queasy, or something like that. Not morning-sickness queasy though. Just as though I had gone for a run and painted the house and been shopping and THEN tried to do the washing up and come over a bit weak and tired! ;) Except that I haven't actually done the stuff before the washing up! My body is busy though, inside, using up my energy on important baby-building and placenta-initiating things! :)
3) Protein. O Protein. How I love thy ways! I know I said it yesterday, but today is even more so - I would almost call it a craving, already! Weird. I just NEED lots of protein, and whatever we've got in the house doesn't seem to be enough. For lunch today after much restless rummaging in the kitchen, I finally ate toast with boiled egg, cheese and cold chicken, and then a yoghurt, and I washed it down with a glass of milk! And then felt like I wished I had some protein with a little more "kick", even after I'd just finished that lunch! It was GOOD but it still didn't quite hit the spot. It's not a meat craving as such, in fact I have so far just wanted eggs or fish or cheese, but I'm not much interested in anything else, such is my overwhelming desire for the PROTEIN part of the meal. I want to just get all those different sources of protein, mix them up in some mayo and tuck in! Blech! But mmm, prooootein...
I do not remember desiring/needing protein this much in my other pregnancies, or at this particular stage (except I do remember wanting EGG quite early on with at least two of my little ones - later than this though, more like 5 weeks or later). I presume it's to do with the needs of my body for what it's giving out in this particular stage of pregnancy. I mean, the beginnings of a little body is forming right now, and the beginnings of circulatory contact between me and said little body. That's got to require some protein, right?! I googled protein cravings in early pregnancy, but the only thing I found was a list of things that mean a certain gender according to old wives - guess which gender protein cravings were under?! I'll give you a clue - it starts with 'b' and ends with 'oy'. ;)
So that is all really. I haven't noticed any spotting yet today, though I haven't been to check for a while. The spotting that I've charted for the past 3 days has only been very light brown spotting, and not much of it. Because it's THERE, I've charted it, that's all.
We moved Benjamin out of the Amby hammock today :( Nathan also moved today, into the toddler bed that Matthew first used, and out of his cot :( My baaabies!!! Nathan loves his new big boy bed! We set the cot right up in the other bedroom for Benjamin to move into, and he's sleeping in it right now (no motion! He has always had motion with the Amby! So far it's going fairly well...). It was good to get that done, but I felt such a pang packing the Amby into its bag to store in the loft! :( And while I was clearing space for the cot (which takes up more space than the Amby in the room) I ended up packing away a bunch of other baby stuff that was lying around, like the soft mats for tummy time and the activity gym/mat thingy. And the huge pile of white terry towels that sit on the bed for months, and I cycle through three dozen in just a couple of days, over and over and over, with all the leaky breasts and milky eruptions and blow-out nappies and little fountains when you take nappies off, etc, that come with a new or very young baby. I felt sad packing it all away, because it's packing my memories and my experience (that I love SO MUCH!!!!) away too. I commented to Neil that I was so glad to have another on the way already when going through a milestone like this with the littlest boys! It must be harder to pack those things away not knowing whether it's the last time or not :( *sniffle* I remember I BAWLED and sobbed when Nathan moved out of my bedroom and in with "the boys" before Benjamin was born, and Matthew moved out of the toddler bed and into a bottom bunk. Even though I was in my 3rd trimester with another baby, it was still so sad to see my babies grow older! But comforting to know I would be able to see it happen all over again soon! :) I'm so glad of that again! How wonderful to be able to look forward AGAIN to the joys of a tiny snuffly newborn, night time nappy craziness, my milk coming in and the delight of feeling that first real ZING of the let-down as the tiny weeny person attached starts gulping and gasping on that first real milk! All the precious little milestones (and big ones!), the first smile, baby coos, photographing my FIVE children together, sooooo much wonderful stuff. I am even excited about the birth, and that's not even mentioning all the exciting wonderful things ahead in the pregnancy! Seeing the little one at the scans, finding out whether we're having another dear sweet little boy or (surely not?!) our very first daughter, feeling the first kicks, hearing that precious heart beating on my doppler, stroking my belly and just ohhh EVERYTHING!! I love being pregnant! I'm so overjoyed and glad and thankful to be here again! I pray that it will be a healthy pregnancy with no complications, and also a healthy baby (or two!). I just can't wait to experience it all, and drink it all up and cherish it!
I MUST get round to writing Benjamin's birth story, or else it will be getting a bit silly (if it isn't already, whoops!)! Also I need to hurry up and find photos of the boys to email to Jennisa for her to change the header at my main blog, because right now it still has 3-year-old Arthur, 2-year-old Matthew, and 10-month-old Nathan, with Benjamin just a scan picture from 12 weeks into my pregnancy!!! Reeeally out of date, especially in light of this new pregnancy! Need to change it.
I'm somehow smelling faint car fumes (someone just parked next door and somehow it has rolled in through a crack or something!) and it seems horribly strong to my nose even though I know it's only a faint whiff of fumes, and surprisingly nausea-inducing. Yuck. Smells have been enhanced all day today, especially in the kitchen. It doesn't make me feel sick as such, but I certainly want to avoid smells that aren't nice, and they seem too strong for me all the time. I don't like these car fumes though, however faint they are. They are making me feel proper sick. I think I will finish up for now and go to bed. I'll update again soon, but probably not tomorrow unless there's something I want to write about.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
3 weeks, 6 days
13DPO today! :) My temp went back up a little and that's always reassuring! I also took another pregnancy test this morning and it was quite a bit darker than the others, which made me happy! :)
I found the two tests I took at 8DPO and 9DPO and put them with the others to photograph. They really were negatives, although I do think there is a shadow of a line on the 9DPO one, like the ones I had the last couple of cycles. It's almost impossible to see in a photo though. Anyway, here's the photo - today's is at the top:
Today I am feeling really tired out again. We went to church this morning and if I stood to sing during the worship time then I quickly felt breathless and lightheaded, and had to sit down. Hmmm. That is going to become rather tricky with the amount of energy I need for everyday happenings with all the little ones and keeping any sort of tidiness going in the house! :S
I have no headache today, thankfully. I'm really hoping I don't get those too often this pregnancy. I am also not peeing frequently today for some reason. Just totally not. And yesterday wasn't so much either. Trying not to be overly paranoid about any small thing, and just focusing on the fact that I still feel pregnant and am getting darker tests! Smells are really noticable to me today though. Some are off-putting, but just smells in general - good or bad - are really standing out to me. Pregnant Nose! It was one of my early pregnancy symptoms at about this stage with my first pregnancy and I remember being very excited about it! :) I am pregnant-hungry though! When we got home from church I told Neil that for lunch I wanted lasagne, chicken pie and spaghetti, hehe! I really seem to want a lot of protein all the time. Today we just had a quick sandwich lunch because we got back late from church and the littlest boys needed naps STAT, so I had tuna and egg, which I NEVER have. But yum! :) Proootein... mmmm! Until I go off them (if I ever do), I can see myself needing egg every day at the moment. Just hard boiled to nibble on. Or cheese. We had roast chicken for dinner so there's cold chicken to nibble on tomorrow! :) Although, I'm supposed to make that into chicken pasta bake.... I have eaten three meals so far today and my mouth is WATERING writing all this, hehe!
I have a fridge full of ingredients for freezer cooking. Double batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce, double batch of lamb and bean hotpot, double batch of shepherd's pie, double batch of turkey casserole. The start of my freezer stocks for in case I feel too nauseous to prepare any meals in a few weeks' time! I need to get started on the cooking for all that tomorrow.
Well, I am as useless at Not Telling as I had suspected! ;) I told my parents tonight on the phone. I thought I would just see how the conversation went and if there was an "opening" then maybe I would mention it! And there was. Mummy and I were talking about clothes sizes, and about how I would probably get back down to a certain size eventually (one I have "stopped having children"). I said that it might not be for a while yet considering the next baby is due in December. She said, "What." (very short!) And I repeated my line. I confess I was enjoying myself just a little bit! ;) She was okay about it, it wasn't so bad. She said she supposed she should say congratulations then, and did. She also asked what Neil thought of it. She always thinks he's horrified at the discovery or something! She asked what he said when I told him. I told her that he gave me a big hug and that we're very happy. She warmed up a bit and said that she was happy for us then. *sigh* But it wasn't so bad. She got a bit flappy about the idea of twins and defensively told me all the reasons why I couldn't possibly conceive twins: (M: "It doesn't run in our family at ALL." Me: "Well, I did feel TWO ovulation pains..." M: (silence) Me: "Or identical twins - they don't run in families!" M: "But you felt two ovulation pains, so it CAN'T be identical twins!" etc!). She said let's not think about the possibility of twins at this stage. That way she would be able to sleep at night! :S
I asked to speak to Daddy and told him I was having a baby! :) He seemed slightly less enthusiastic than usual ("I expect you're both very happy!" rather than, "I'm very happy for you!") but generally very neutral and congratulatory, which was lovely. This morning at church a sweet lady who I know well was talking to me about homeschooling, and asking how I juggle the little ones with school time. We got onto talking about the new law which is likely to come into play any time from October, whereby homeschooling families in the UK will have to register and present their plan for the year ahead and be somewhat accountable to it. It makes me nervous! Especially if I end up with newborn twins along with my 6, 4, 2 and 1-year-olds a couple of months after the law comes into play! :S Anyway she asked how I felt about that law for us, and I said it was okay, except that it might get tricky from December since I was newly expecting another baby! :) It was FUN to tell!! :D She said, "Oh Alice, you're wonderful!" *sigh* I am finding that quite a few people think I am wonderful or some sort of supermama simply because I happen to have popped out more than the average number of children, and already have yet another on the way! I would like to tell them (as I did this lady) that I am NOT wonderful, or any more special than a mother of one or two children! I haven't done anything different as a mother, it's just that I have more children, and that really doesn't make me super or serve as an indication that I'm incredibly GOOD at mothering! So please don't be in any sort of awe. I struggle along with every other mother. I probably struggle MORE, rather than excelling more, than other mothers because of the number of children to juggle. STRUGGLE more! The number of children I am blessed with is not an indication of the Level of Motherhood that I have reached! (Oooh I've reached Level 5, lol!) ;) Maybe I should write about this at my main blog too? I just want to dispel the myth that seems to be out there a bit.
Anyway, so now we have told my parents and one sweet lady at church, who knows that nobody else knows and will keep it quiet. It was so nice to tell her because she said, "I MUST pray for you!" and we stood right where we were in the middle of people chatting away after church and she held my hands in hers and prayed over me and my new tiny. Which was wonderful! See, THIS is why I want to TELL THE WORRRRRLD!! :D Not wait. I would have told my brother by now, but they're with Sarah's family for Easter, so when they get back tomorrow I'll phone them. We do not plan on telling the boys till as late as possible - probably when I start to show and Arthur notices (he notices EVERYTHING these days, and wants answers to everything too!). Or maybe by the scan if it hasn't become noticable before then, because no doubt we'll go and someone will need to come and babysit, and they'll wonder why. Anyway, not for a while yet.
I have some pulling and bruisey-feeling twinges above my pubic bone here and there, and also a few inches up inside both hips and under my tummy button today. The higher up areas are mostly little ligament pains and pulling sensations, and the bruisey feelings are lower down. I know my little tiny one is finished implanting now - how exciting! :) Lots is going on, and I can't wait till a few more days down the line when I can look up NEW happenings and see that he/she/they (!) will be growing bigger. I have GOT to find an alternative to "he/she/they"! ;) When I'm not thinking of the whole prayer/twins aspect, I am pretty much completely expecting a baby boy to be growing in my womb. I think when we come to the scans, I will be least surprised if it's a boy, moderately surprised if it's twin girls, and completely flabbergasted if it's a singleton girl! I just can't imagine seeing one baby and looking for the bits at the big scan and NOT seeing an extra appendage, hehehe! I just will not be able to believe it. Seriously. So I think it's a boy! ;) I am not sure if we'll ever produce girls! Unless the thing about twin girls WAS from God. Which time will reveal, I guess! :)
Okay, must go to bed. Tomorrow is Monday, and my first ever change-of-week day! I will be 4 weeks pregnant tomorrow, and will have officially "missed" my period, even with my original length luteal phase! Yay!
I found the two tests I took at 8DPO and 9DPO and put them with the others to photograph. They really were negatives, although I do think there is a shadow of a line on the 9DPO one, like the ones I had the last couple of cycles. It's almost impossible to see in a photo though. Anyway, here's the photo - today's is at the top:
Today I am feeling really tired out again. We went to church this morning and if I stood to sing during the worship time then I quickly felt breathless and lightheaded, and had to sit down. Hmmm. That is going to become rather tricky with the amount of energy I need for everyday happenings with all the little ones and keeping any sort of tidiness going in the house! :S
I have no headache today, thankfully. I'm really hoping I don't get those too often this pregnancy. I am also not peeing frequently today for some reason. Just totally not. And yesterday wasn't so much either. Trying not to be overly paranoid about any small thing, and just focusing on the fact that I still feel pregnant and am getting darker tests! Smells are really noticable to me today though. Some are off-putting, but just smells in general - good or bad - are really standing out to me. Pregnant Nose! It was one of my early pregnancy symptoms at about this stage with my first pregnancy and I remember being very excited about it! :) I am pregnant-hungry though! When we got home from church I told Neil that for lunch I wanted lasagne, chicken pie and spaghetti, hehe! I really seem to want a lot of protein all the time. Today we just had a quick sandwich lunch because we got back late from church and the littlest boys needed naps STAT, so I had tuna and egg, which I NEVER have. But yum! :) Proootein... mmmm! Until I go off them (if I ever do), I can see myself needing egg every day at the moment. Just hard boiled to nibble on. Or cheese. We had roast chicken for dinner so there's cold chicken to nibble on tomorrow! :) Although, I'm supposed to make that into chicken pasta bake.... I have eaten three meals so far today and my mouth is WATERING writing all this, hehe!
I have a fridge full of ingredients for freezer cooking. Double batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce, double batch of lamb and bean hotpot, double batch of shepherd's pie, double batch of turkey casserole. The start of my freezer stocks for in case I feel too nauseous to prepare any meals in a few weeks' time! I need to get started on the cooking for all that tomorrow.
Well, I am as useless at Not Telling as I had suspected! ;) I told my parents tonight on the phone. I thought I would just see how the conversation went and if there was an "opening" then maybe I would mention it! And there was. Mummy and I were talking about clothes sizes, and about how I would probably get back down to a certain size eventually (one I have "stopped having children"). I said that it might not be for a while yet considering the next baby is due in December. She said, "What." (very short!) And I repeated my line. I confess I was enjoying myself just a little bit! ;) She was okay about it, it wasn't so bad. She said she supposed she should say congratulations then, and did. She also asked what Neil thought of it. She always thinks he's horrified at the discovery or something! She asked what he said when I told him. I told her that he gave me a big hug and that we're very happy. She warmed up a bit and said that she was happy for us then. *sigh* But it wasn't so bad. She got a bit flappy about the idea of twins and defensively told me all the reasons why I couldn't possibly conceive twins: (M: "It doesn't run in our family at ALL." Me: "Well, I did feel TWO ovulation pains..." M: (silence) Me: "Or identical twins - they don't run in families!" M: "But you felt two ovulation pains, so it CAN'T be identical twins!" etc!). She said let's not think about the possibility of twins at this stage. That way she would be able to sleep at night! :S
I asked to speak to Daddy and told him I was having a baby! :) He seemed slightly less enthusiastic than usual ("I expect you're both very happy!" rather than, "I'm very happy for you!") but generally very neutral and congratulatory, which was lovely. This morning at church a sweet lady who I know well was talking to me about homeschooling, and asking how I juggle the little ones with school time. We got onto talking about the new law which is likely to come into play any time from October, whereby homeschooling families in the UK will have to register and present their plan for the year ahead and be somewhat accountable to it. It makes me nervous! Especially if I end up with newborn twins along with my 6, 4, 2 and 1-year-olds a couple of months after the law comes into play! :S Anyway she asked how I felt about that law for us, and I said it was okay, except that it might get tricky from December since I was newly expecting another baby! :) It was FUN to tell!! :D She said, "Oh Alice, you're wonderful!" *sigh* I am finding that quite a few people think I am wonderful or some sort of supermama simply because I happen to have popped out more than the average number of children, and already have yet another on the way! I would like to tell them (as I did this lady) that I am NOT wonderful, or any more special than a mother of one or two children! I haven't done anything different as a mother, it's just that I have more children, and that really doesn't make me super or serve as an indication that I'm incredibly GOOD at mothering! So please don't be in any sort of awe. I struggle along with every other mother. I probably struggle MORE, rather than excelling more, than other mothers because of the number of children to juggle. STRUGGLE more! The number of children I am blessed with is not an indication of the Level of Motherhood that I have reached! (Oooh I've reached Level 5, lol!) ;) Maybe I should write about this at my main blog too? I just want to dispel the myth that seems to be out there a bit.
Anyway, so now we have told my parents and one sweet lady at church, who knows that nobody else knows and will keep it quiet. It was so nice to tell her because she said, "I MUST pray for you!" and we stood right where we were in the middle of people chatting away after church and she held my hands in hers and prayed over me and my new tiny. Which was wonderful! See, THIS is why I want to TELL THE WORRRRRLD!! :D Not wait. I would have told my brother by now, but they're with Sarah's family for Easter, so when they get back tomorrow I'll phone them. We do not plan on telling the boys till as late as possible - probably when I start to show and Arthur notices (he notices EVERYTHING these days, and wants answers to everything too!). Or maybe by the scan if it hasn't become noticable before then, because no doubt we'll go and someone will need to come and babysit, and they'll wonder why. Anyway, not for a while yet.
I have some pulling and bruisey-feeling twinges above my pubic bone here and there, and also a few inches up inside both hips and under my tummy button today. The higher up areas are mostly little ligament pains and pulling sensations, and the bruisey feelings are lower down. I know my little tiny one is finished implanting now - how exciting! :) Lots is going on, and I can't wait till a few more days down the line when I can look up NEW happenings and see that he/she/they (!) will be growing bigger. I have GOT to find an alternative to "he/she/they"! ;) When I'm not thinking of the whole prayer/twins aspect, I am pretty much completely expecting a baby boy to be growing in my womb. I think when we come to the scans, I will be least surprised if it's a boy, moderately surprised if it's twin girls, and completely flabbergasted if it's a singleton girl! I just can't imagine seeing one baby and looking for the bits at the big scan and NOT seeing an extra appendage, hehehe! I just will not be able to believe it. Seriously. So I think it's a boy! ;) I am not sure if we'll ever produce girls! Unless the thing about twin girls WAS from God. Which time will reveal, I guess! :)
Okay, must go to bed. Tomorrow is Monday, and my first ever change-of-week day! I will be 4 weeks pregnant tomorrow, and will have officially "missed" my period, even with my original length luteal phase! Yay!
Saturday, 3 April 2010
3 weeks, 5 days pregnant!!! :D
Wheee, I love being able to write a gestation as a title again! :D Thank you so so much for all the lovely congrats and for routing for me! I'm so thrilled and happy and excited! I have less of the disbelief aspect this time, but maybe that will set in later or something?! Or maybe it's just totally believable this time?! Hehe!
I meant to update last night but I was SO tired out. The physical wiped-out-ness has cranked itself up to a new level in the last 24 hours or so. And today I have had an AWFUL headache all day long. It was there when I woke with Benjamin at 6.30am and despite 2 rounds of painkillers and going back to bed for much of the morning (yay for Saturdays and lovely husbands!), and THEN napping with Benjamin in the afternoon for an hour, it's still kicking my butt. I remember these pregnancy headaches started early with some of the others, and Neil wasn't home those times so I am not quite sure how I got by! If I did before though, I can manage again. Neil works from home (in a manner of speaking, not earning as yet, but working fairly constantly from 9-5 at the computer) so I still need to pull myself together during the week and I won't be able to nap when I need to, the same as the other pregnancies (except my first of course!).
Last night before bed I noticed a teensy bit of light brown spotting, and I have had a bit of very light brown spotting today as well. At 11DPO and 12DPO, that is implantation spotting, and I've had it before, so as much as I don't like seeing spotting or bleeding of ANY sort, I am okay with this!
One thing I'm always anxious about as I start a new pregnancy, is the prospect of bleeding. The least "bloody" pregnancy I had was Matthew's, where I only had some light brown spotting - I think around 7 weeks? I can't remember. I think I had some late implantation spotting too, around 4 weeks. With all three of my other pregnancies I have had BLEEDING, not spotting. Well, spotting as well with some of them, but yeah, bleeeeeding. I seem to have some sort of tendency to develop a subchorionic haematoma during pregnancy, in the first trimester especially. All the info out there says they are random and there's no tendency, etc, but I am SURE that's rhubarb, in my case anyway!
The first scan in this country is 12 weeks. I think I will be 12 weeks pregnant on May 31st, so sometime around the end of May or beginning of June I should have a scan! :) Whenever I start to bleed in the first trimester, I go straight to my GP and ask for a referral for an early scan. Those are internal scans, not the usual gel on the tummy ones. I would never just wait an early bleed out. They are all essentially a threatened miscarriage and I simply HAVE to know if everything is okay to put my mind at rest. I can't deal with the anxiety over it otherwise. I hate bleeding during pregnancy! So, with all my pregnancies so far, I have had my "first" scan early, between 5 and 8 weeks. I hope not to need one this time, but if I do have to go through bleeding again, it's wonderful to get a look at my tiny one and be reassured about how the pregnancy is going. With Arthur's pregnancy I started bleeding at 5 weeks and had a scan at 5w6d, which just showed the yolk sac and no heartbeat or baby. So I had a follow-up at 7 weeks exactly which showed my little bean holding his balloon with a flickering heartbeat! :) Phew!
I overly panicked with the brown spotting at around 7 weeks with Matthew and went to my doctor, who actually happily referred me for a scan and said I was not overreacting. Nathan's pregnancy was quite scary for bleeding. I had an early scan at about 8 weeks due to some bleeding/spotting and saw him in there with his tiny little limb buds! Then I was minding my own business one morning at 11 weeks pregnant when suddenly I started bleeding heavily. So scary. It was so heavy that when I ran to the loo and sat there wondering what to do, it was running into the toilet continually and it sounded like I was doing a wee. *shudder* Horrid memory :( I bled like that for a couple of hours and it slowed down a bit in the hospital, but I was very crampy by then and SURE I was having a miscarriage. Three days later I had a scan which found a very happy little baby wiggling about and NO sign of a bleed! The doctor said I must have "bled it all out" at once instead of blood pooling inside and bleeding from the pool gradually. At 13 weeks I started bleeding again, fairly period-like but not as heavy as before, and I happened to have my scan the next morning, so when they did the scan they found a very large haematoma next to Nathan's head. It was almost as big as he was. I had a follow-up scan at 15 weeks which showed it was shrinking, and I continued bleeding from that until 18 weeks or so. Ugh. NOT fun!
Then with Benjamin, I started bleeding at 5 weeks like a period with cramping. I just knew the pregnancy was over. We were staying with my parents in France at the time. I was so surprised a few days later when I started feeling horribly morning sick! :) Nevertheless, when we got home I went straight to my GP and she sent me for an early scan at 6 or 7 weeks, so I was able to see my tiny Benjabean then and know that it was all okay.
Neil and I are really praying that I won't have ANY bleeding this time around. It will feel odd to make it to 12 weeks without having had a peek at my tiny one(s!), but it will be SO much nicer to avoid that stress.
Also praying about the morning sickness. I am praying for NONE! I know God is able to bless me with a morning-sickness-free pregnancy. It's very.... refining to battle through morning sickness with many small children to look after, so for that reason alone, I know He might allow it. But I'm praying NOT! ;) Also a bit anxious that if I do happen to be having twins, the symptoms will all be doubled! :S I'm guessing that if I don't have cause to have an early scan, I will definitely not make it to the 12 week scan without knowing for sure one way or the other whether I'm having twins or not! By 12 weeks with twins I'd be HUGE! ;)
Well, let's see. What else? My temperature dropped a bit today, but it's still high. I took another pregnancy test and saw the line quite quickly, after about 3 minutes I think. Now that it has dried I have put it together with yesterday's and I think it's a touch darker than yesterday's test, which is encouraging! :) It's the top one, in this photo:
So I'm 3 weeks and 5 days pregnant! So early! Otherwise known at 12 days past ovulation. This is the day I had my first positive test with Arthur. It was 10DPO with Matthew, and 11DPO with the other two, I think, same as this time. My "change of week" day this pregnancy is Monday. I am going to go to the doctor on Tuesday (it would be Monday except that it's a Bank Holiday for Easter) and "book in"!! Exciting! There's heavy competition for spaces at my local hospital (even if you're booking a homebirth) so my GP always tells me to go to see her as soon as I get a positive test.
I have told everyone online I think, my FF groups (and joined the Due in December 2010 group, yay!!) and, well, this blog! ;) I should update my other blog because not everyone who follows my blogs reads this one. I am looking forward to revealing at Facebook but my cousin is a friend at Facebook (though he never updates or does anything, only lurks!) and if I post about it there before telling all of my family, he will pass the news on first. When Benjamin was born, I posted at Facebook the evening he was born (after telling my family, of course!), and without leaving me any sort of congrats or comment, he told my auntie (my mum's sister) before she had even had a chance to phone her to tell her! When she phoned, my auntie told her, "Oh yes, Robert's already told me - he saw at Facebook!" >:S
So I have to wait a bit. This is the first time I have ever NOT told my mum within like 30 minutes of getting a positive pregnancy test :( We decided not to, because she is always really clear about the fact that it seems to be BAD news to her, and then makes non-subtle effort to act like it's good news after all. *sigh* I think she does eventually think it's good news, but her initial reaction is always, "Oh no!" rather than anything else. Except for my first pregnancy of course! She was ecstatic about that one. I would love for her to swallow all that negativity down and keep it to herself, and only show me the happy response, even if it's put on for my benefit, until she's feeling more genuinely happy about it. It serves no purpose to let out the "Oh no!" or even, "Oh God!" response, and then go through the, "Oh, er, I mean how wonderful (slightly sarcastic tone) of course!" The next comment is usually about some aspect of neglect for the boys that I will have to overcome when I feel dreadful later in the first trimester. I do love my mummy - in fact she is pretty much my best friend - and she's a loving Nana and very supportive in general, but she does have this reaction to having more than 2 babies, or any number of babies that are spaced less than 2 or 3 years apart. Anything different than her own choices, that is. It frustrates and hurts me, and this time I reluctantly decided (with Neil) that we won't tell her (which means obviously not telling both my parents, even though my dad has always been happy and excited for us every time, never negative in any way) for a while.
I don't know when we WILL tell her. She already knows that we don't prevent pregnancy. I've been telling her over and over since Benjamin was born, but she just either says negative stuff about it, hopes we'll come to our senses, or else just seems to think we aren't serious, because the next time I remind her that we'll likely have another baby if God blesses us that way, she seems shocked and surprised and hopes we'll come to our senses again! :S So anyway. She's vaguely prepared. She also knows I had a chemical pregnancy last cycle, and was freshly shocked that we're actually going to "go that route then" and insanely lay the way open for a 5th baby. So at least she has a heads up! ;)
It might be that we tell my parents quite soon. I'm HOPELESS at keeping this kind of news to myself, and I just plain WANT to tell my family! We don't do any "safety zones" stuff, never have. If I am pregnant, a new life is in me and we want to celebrate it! We don't want to hide it! We want everyone to know about it. If I bleed, I don't want to have to tell people I'm pregnant if I need help or support and am busy bleeding. I want them to know already! I can't tell you how glad I was when I was 11 weeks with Nathan and bleeding, that I had told everyone I knew. I could phone a lady at church and say, "I'm bleeding" (it had to be a rushed conversation) and she knew right away what that meant, and came round to take me to the hospital right away on a Sunday morning (Neil was sick with a stomach bug!!! Ugh!). Then she hopped right off to church leaving me at the hospital with my brother, and once there she spread the word all over the church that I needed prayers because I was bleeding heavily. Now see, I NEEDED that prayer support so badly, and yet it would have meant somebody else randomly telling everyone at church that I was pregnant instead of me. Either that, or NOT doing so, and thus having very little in the way of prayer support.
If I'm pregnant and I bleed, I need prayers! I want everyone to know. Untelling people if we miscarry must be horrible, but I have read too many stories from women who have miscarried before they told anyone, during the 1st trimester, and then how agonising the loneliness of being in it alone without anyone knowing what they were going through. And that's how I feel about it even without hearing those stories to back my thoughts on it up. I know we COULD tell people afterwards that we had lost a baby, and they would pray and be sympathetic, but it's different if they had from the start been celebrating that baby's existance with us. They would really get it. I just really don't get the thing that everyone seems to do where they don't tell anyone until the "safe zone". It doesn't make sense to me, even though I do vaguely understand the reason. It just doesn't hold water, in reality, to me.
So perhaps we'll tell them pretty soon? The main thing we both want at the moment is to have this glorious "just found out" stage to ourselves. We are so overjoyed and excited!!! That bubble is somewhat deflated whenever we tell someone and get a negative response, and we want to enjoy it without that risk this time. It won't be long before it's settling in nicely for us and we will have that experience tucked into our belts, of just the joy and excitement. Then we can tell others (with baited breath, haha!). I'm eager to tell my brother. He has always been happy and excited, and would never let on if he wasn't in any way. I am NOT eager to tell my grandparents. I'm sure they have NO idea that we would ever consider being so crazy as to have a FIFTH baby with an even smaller age gap to boot! ;) They will be fairly horrified at first, and very worried for us. *sigh* Will put off telling them till as late as poss! :S I guess Neil will tell his side of the family when we're ready to tell mine. They're usually okay - always rather stunned, but always offer congratulations.
Anyway. This is why I'm so grateful for everyone's lovely happy congrats here! :) Thank you!!! :D
My bad cramps have completely cleared up! It must have been the little one burrowing in more deeply. I am mildly crampy today, on and off. I'm not peeing quite so frequently today, and I do have an increased appetite, but not hugely so. I have felt queasy with this bad headache. It's a fair bit better this evening, now that it's getting later (perhaps it's the period of time that's building up since the boys have gone to bed?! Lots of noise before that time...). I don't seem to have as much milk as usual, in that I can always tell which breast to feed from next based on how full it feels, but today neither seem full at any time really. Benjamin still gulps and milk still flows, but I'm just noticing that difference. It's familiar from the other pregnancies though, at this stage. And I find that it comes back full force after a while, and then tapers off later in the 1st trimester or early in the 2nd.
I did all that fun stuff online like registering for a Babycentre news email to come each week of my pregnancy, finding out dates and gestations, and making a new ticker! :) I used to display my little ones' tickers at my diaryland version of this diary (which I should link here, given that all the archives are there and NOT transferred here yet! Gulp! Must get round to that or one day I could lose the lot!), but the layout doesn't support that too well here :( Maybe I can fit the short versions down the side there on the right? I'll see. For now, here's my new baby's ticker! :)
My new baby - aaaaahhhhh!!! :) I'm so blessed! :) Thank you Lord for this precious little one!
So my 2nd trimester starts on May 31st, and my 3rd trimester on September 13th. On Matthew's birthday in June (the next family birthday) I will be 14 weeks pregnant exactly - hopefully finished with morning sickness if I have it. When my baby boy has his first birthday I will be 17 weeks and 4 days!! I am always pregnant when one of my little ones has their first birthday, but this time I will be the most pregnant I have ever been at that event! I was 10 weeks at Arthur's first birthday, 6 weeks at Matthew's, and 14 weeks and 5 days at Nathan's. I did not have morning sickness at Nathan's birthday any more, but I was really struggling with awful pregnancy-related headaches (like the one I have had today, hmmm!) which would last a few days at a time and be a bit debilitating, and then go away again for a couple of days, and then back on for a few days, etc. They are a lot better in the second half of pregnancy. Benjamin's pregnancy was definitely the worst for those. I hope it doesn't happen that way again this time!
At Arthur's 6th (SIXTH!!!) birthday in November, I will be 35 weeks and 1 day pregnant. My big scan should be in the last week of July.
So exciting!!!! :D I really hope that nothing goes wrong with this pregnancy and that I'll get to meet my sweet new little one(s!) at the end of it.
I was trying to think of a name for the little one earlier (a pregnancy name, not an actual name for after the birth!), but I have decided to stop trying. Last time the name Babydot came to me out of the blue while I was looking at some info which told me the baby was the size of a . and I just thought "Awww, my little babydot!" and that was it. It felt so nice to find a name that suited him for a warm cosy reason, so I'm hoping for similar inspiration this time! :)
Even though I've just found out about the baby being in there for sure, we have already completed Carnegie Stage 5! The link shows that from 7-12DPO this stage is all about implantation completing. Tomorrow (13DPO) begins Carnegie Stage 6 where, even though my tiny one will only be 0.2mm long (!!), he/she/they (!!) will develop two-sided bodily symmetry and a little stalk to the placenta (aww!)! Amazing.
There is probably a ton more that I could be waffling about, but I think I will call it a night and relax for a bit before heading to bed. Even with a lie-in and a nap today, I'm still so tired! I'm so glad glad glad and happy and thrilled to be pregnant again! Such a gift! I can't get over it, it's so wonderful! :) I will be back very soon with more updates. I will keep taking tests for a while I think, till they are nice and dark :) I usually test till 14 or 16DPO. I'll post photos!
I meant to update last night but I was SO tired out. The physical wiped-out-ness has cranked itself up to a new level in the last 24 hours or so. And today I have had an AWFUL headache all day long. It was there when I woke with Benjamin at 6.30am and despite 2 rounds of painkillers and going back to bed for much of the morning (yay for Saturdays and lovely husbands!), and THEN napping with Benjamin in the afternoon for an hour, it's still kicking my butt. I remember these pregnancy headaches started early with some of the others, and Neil wasn't home those times so I am not quite sure how I got by! If I did before though, I can manage again. Neil works from home (in a manner of speaking, not earning as yet, but working fairly constantly from 9-5 at the computer) so I still need to pull myself together during the week and I won't be able to nap when I need to, the same as the other pregnancies (except my first of course!).
Last night before bed I noticed a teensy bit of light brown spotting, and I have had a bit of very light brown spotting today as well. At 11DPO and 12DPO, that is implantation spotting, and I've had it before, so as much as I don't like seeing spotting or bleeding of ANY sort, I am okay with this!
One thing I'm always anxious about as I start a new pregnancy, is the prospect of bleeding. The least "bloody" pregnancy I had was Matthew's, where I only had some light brown spotting - I think around 7 weeks? I can't remember. I think I had some late implantation spotting too, around 4 weeks. With all three of my other pregnancies I have had BLEEDING, not spotting. Well, spotting as well with some of them, but yeah, bleeeeeding. I seem to have some sort of tendency to develop a subchorionic haematoma during pregnancy, in the first trimester especially. All the info out there says they are random and there's no tendency, etc, but I am SURE that's rhubarb, in my case anyway!
The first scan in this country is 12 weeks. I think I will be 12 weeks pregnant on May 31st, so sometime around the end of May or beginning of June I should have a scan! :) Whenever I start to bleed in the first trimester, I go straight to my GP and ask for a referral for an early scan. Those are internal scans, not the usual gel on the tummy ones. I would never just wait an early bleed out. They are all essentially a threatened miscarriage and I simply HAVE to know if everything is okay to put my mind at rest. I can't deal with the anxiety over it otherwise. I hate bleeding during pregnancy! So, with all my pregnancies so far, I have had my "first" scan early, between 5 and 8 weeks. I hope not to need one this time, but if I do have to go through bleeding again, it's wonderful to get a look at my tiny one and be reassured about how the pregnancy is going. With Arthur's pregnancy I started bleeding at 5 weeks and had a scan at 5w6d, which just showed the yolk sac and no heartbeat or baby. So I had a follow-up at 7 weeks exactly which showed my little bean holding his balloon with a flickering heartbeat! :) Phew!
I overly panicked with the brown spotting at around 7 weeks with Matthew and went to my doctor, who actually happily referred me for a scan and said I was not overreacting. Nathan's pregnancy was quite scary for bleeding. I had an early scan at about 8 weeks due to some bleeding/spotting and saw him in there with his tiny little limb buds! Then I was minding my own business one morning at 11 weeks pregnant when suddenly I started bleeding heavily. So scary. It was so heavy that when I ran to the loo and sat there wondering what to do, it was running into the toilet continually and it sounded like I was doing a wee. *shudder* Horrid memory :( I bled like that for a couple of hours and it slowed down a bit in the hospital, but I was very crampy by then and SURE I was having a miscarriage. Three days later I had a scan which found a very happy little baby wiggling about and NO sign of a bleed! The doctor said I must have "bled it all out" at once instead of blood pooling inside and bleeding from the pool gradually. At 13 weeks I started bleeding again, fairly period-like but not as heavy as before, and I happened to have my scan the next morning, so when they did the scan they found a very large haematoma next to Nathan's head. It was almost as big as he was. I had a follow-up scan at 15 weeks which showed it was shrinking, and I continued bleeding from that until 18 weeks or so. Ugh. NOT fun!
Then with Benjamin, I started bleeding at 5 weeks like a period with cramping. I just knew the pregnancy was over. We were staying with my parents in France at the time. I was so surprised a few days later when I started feeling horribly morning sick! :) Nevertheless, when we got home I went straight to my GP and she sent me for an early scan at 6 or 7 weeks, so I was able to see my tiny Benjabean then and know that it was all okay.
Neil and I are really praying that I won't have ANY bleeding this time around. It will feel odd to make it to 12 weeks without having had a peek at my tiny one(s!), but it will be SO much nicer to avoid that stress.
Also praying about the morning sickness. I am praying for NONE! I know God is able to bless me with a morning-sickness-free pregnancy. It's very.... refining to battle through morning sickness with many small children to look after, so for that reason alone, I know He might allow it. But I'm praying NOT! ;) Also a bit anxious that if I do happen to be having twins, the symptoms will all be doubled! :S I'm guessing that if I don't have cause to have an early scan, I will definitely not make it to the 12 week scan without knowing for sure one way or the other whether I'm having twins or not! By 12 weeks with twins I'd be HUGE! ;)
Well, let's see. What else? My temperature dropped a bit today, but it's still high. I took another pregnancy test and saw the line quite quickly, after about 3 minutes I think. Now that it has dried I have put it together with yesterday's and I think it's a touch darker than yesterday's test, which is encouraging! :) It's the top one, in this photo:
So I'm 3 weeks and 5 days pregnant! So early! Otherwise known at 12 days past ovulation. This is the day I had my first positive test with Arthur. It was 10DPO with Matthew, and 11DPO with the other two, I think, same as this time. My "change of week" day this pregnancy is Monday. I am going to go to the doctor on Tuesday (it would be Monday except that it's a Bank Holiday for Easter) and "book in"!! Exciting! There's heavy competition for spaces at my local hospital (even if you're booking a homebirth) so my GP always tells me to go to see her as soon as I get a positive test.
I have told everyone online I think, my FF groups (and joined the Due in December 2010 group, yay!!) and, well, this blog! ;) I should update my other blog because not everyone who follows my blogs reads this one. I am looking forward to revealing at Facebook but my cousin is a friend at Facebook (though he never updates or does anything, only lurks!) and if I post about it there before telling all of my family, he will pass the news on first. When Benjamin was born, I posted at Facebook the evening he was born (after telling my family, of course!), and without leaving me any sort of congrats or comment, he told my auntie (my mum's sister) before she had even had a chance to phone her to tell her! When she phoned, my auntie told her, "Oh yes, Robert's already told me - he saw at Facebook!" >:S
So I have to wait a bit. This is the first time I have ever NOT told my mum within like 30 minutes of getting a positive pregnancy test :( We decided not to, because she is always really clear about the fact that it seems to be BAD news to her, and then makes non-subtle effort to act like it's good news after all. *sigh* I think she does eventually think it's good news, but her initial reaction is always, "Oh no!" rather than anything else. Except for my first pregnancy of course! She was ecstatic about that one. I would love for her to swallow all that negativity down and keep it to herself, and only show me the happy response, even if it's put on for my benefit, until she's feeling more genuinely happy about it. It serves no purpose to let out the "Oh no!" or even, "Oh God!" response, and then go through the, "Oh, er, I mean how wonderful (slightly sarcastic tone) of course!" The next comment is usually about some aspect of neglect for the boys that I will have to overcome when I feel dreadful later in the first trimester. I do love my mummy - in fact she is pretty much my best friend - and she's a loving Nana and very supportive in general, but she does have this reaction to having more than 2 babies, or any number of babies that are spaced less than 2 or 3 years apart. Anything different than her own choices, that is. It frustrates and hurts me, and this time I reluctantly decided (with Neil) that we won't tell her (which means obviously not telling both my parents, even though my dad has always been happy and excited for us every time, never negative in any way) for a while.
I don't know when we WILL tell her. She already knows that we don't prevent pregnancy. I've been telling her over and over since Benjamin was born, but she just either says negative stuff about it, hopes we'll come to our senses, or else just seems to think we aren't serious, because the next time I remind her that we'll likely have another baby if God blesses us that way, she seems shocked and surprised and hopes we'll come to our senses again! :S So anyway. She's vaguely prepared. She also knows I had a chemical pregnancy last cycle, and was freshly shocked that we're actually going to "go that route then" and insanely lay the way open for a 5th baby. So at least she has a heads up! ;)
It might be that we tell my parents quite soon. I'm HOPELESS at keeping this kind of news to myself, and I just plain WANT to tell my family! We don't do any "safety zones" stuff, never have. If I am pregnant, a new life is in me and we want to celebrate it! We don't want to hide it! We want everyone to know about it. If I bleed, I don't want to have to tell people I'm pregnant if I need help or support and am busy bleeding. I want them to know already! I can't tell you how glad I was when I was 11 weeks with Nathan and bleeding, that I had told everyone I knew. I could phone a lady at church and say, "I'm bleeding" (it had to be a rushed conversation) and she knew right away what that meant, and came round to take me to the hospital right away on a Sunday morning (Neil was sick with a stomach bug!!! Ugh!). Then she hopped right off to church leaving me at the hospital with my brother, and once there she spread the word all over the church that I needed prayers because I was bleeding heavily. Now see, I NEEDED that prayer support so badly, and yet it would have meant somebody else randomly telling everyone at church that I was pregnant instead of me. Either that, or NOT doing so, and thus having very little in the way of prayer support.
If I'm pregnant and I bleed, I need prayers! I want everyone to know. Untelling people if we miscarry must be horrible, but I have read too many stories from women who have miscarried before they told anyone, during the 1st trimester, and then how agonising the loneliness of being in it alone without anyone knowing what they were going through. And that's how I feel about it even without hearing those stories to back my thoughts on it up. I know we COULD tell people afterwards that we had lost a baby, and they would pray and be sympathetic, but it's different if they had from the start been celebrating that baby's existance with us. They would really get it. I just really don't get the thing that everyone seems to do where they don't tell anyone until the "safe zone". It doesn't make sense to me, even though I do vaguely understand the reason. It just doesn't hold water, in reality, to me.
So perhaps we'll tell them pretty soon? The main thing we both want at the moment is to have this glorious "just found out" stage to ourselves. We are so overjoyed and excited!!! That bubble is somewhat deflated whenever we tell someone and get a negative response, and we want to enjoy it without that risk this time. It won't be long before it's settling in nicely for us and we will have that experience tucked into our belts, of just the joy and excitement. Then we can tell others (with baited breath, haha!). I'm eager to tell my brother. He has always been happy and excited, and would never let on if he wasn't in any way. I am NOT eager to tell my grandparents. I'm sure they have NO idea that we would ever consider being so crazy as to have a FIFTH baby with an even smaller age gap to boot! ;) They will be fairly horrified at first, and very worried for us. *sigh* Will put off telling them till as late as poss! :S I guess Neil will tell his side of the family when we're ready to tell mine. They're usually okay - always rather stunned, but always offer congratulations.
Anyway. This is why I'm so grateful for everyone's lovely happy congrats here! :) Thank you!!! :D
My bad cramps have completely cleared up! It must have been the little one burrowing in more deeply. I am mildly crampy today, on and off. I'm not peeing quite so frequently today, and I do have an increased appetite, but not hugely so. I have felt queasy with this bad headache. It's a fair bit better this evening, now that it's getting later (perhaps it's the period of time that's building up since the boys have gone to bed?! Lots of noise before that time...). I don't seem to have as much milk as usual, in that I can always tell which breast to feed from next based on how full it feels, but today neither seem full at any time really. Benjamin still gulps and milk still flows, but I'm just noticing that difference. It's familiar from the other pregnancies though, at this stage. And I find that it comes back full force after a while, and then tapers off later in the 1st trimester or early in the 2nd.
I did all that fun stuff online like registering for a Babycentre news email to come each week of my pregnancy, finding out dates and gestations, and making a new ticker! :) I used to display my little ones' tickers at my diaryland version of this diary (which I should link here, given that all the archives are there and NOT transferred here yet! Gulp! Must get round to that or one day I could lose the lot!), but the layout doesn't support that too well here :( Maybe I can fit the short versions down the side there on the right? I'll see. For now, here's my new baby's ticker! :)
My new baby - aaaaahhhhh!!! :) I'm so blessed! :) Thank you Lord for this precious little one!
So my 2nd trimester starts on May 31st, and my 3rd trimester on September 13th. On Matthew's birthday in June (the next family birthday) I will be 14 weeks pregnant exactly - hopefully finished with morning sickness if I have it. When my baby boy has his first birthday I will be 17 weeks and 4 days!! I am always pregnant when one of my little ones has their first birthday, but this time I will be the most pregnant I have ever been at that event! I was 10 weeks at Arthur's first birthday, 6 weeks at Matthew's, and 14 weeks and 5 days at Nathan's. I did not have morning sickness at Nathan's birthday any more, but I was really struggling with awful pregnancy-related headaches (like the one I have had today, hmmm!) which would last a few days at a time and be a bit debilitating, and then go away again for a couple of days, and then back on for a few days, etc. They are a lot better in the second half of pregnancy. Benjamin's pregnancy was definitely the worst for those. I hope it doesn't happen that way again this time!
At Arthur's 6th (SIXTH!!!) birthday in November, I will be 35 weeks and 1 day pregnant. My big scan should be in the last week of July.
So exciting!!!! :D I really hope that nothing goes wrong with this pregnancy and that I'll get to meet my sweet new little one(s!) at the end of it.
I was trying to think of a name for the little one earlier (a pregnancy name, not an actual name for after the birth!), but I have decided to stop trying. Last time the name Babydot came to me out of the blue while I was looking at some info which told me the baby was the size of a . and I just thought "Awww, my little babydot!" and that was it. It felt so nice to find a name that suited him for a warm cosy reason, so I'm hoping for similar inspiration this time! :)
Even though I've just found out about the baby being in there for sure, we have already completed Carnegie Stage 5! The link shows that from 7-12DPO this stage is all about implantation completing. Tomorrow (13DPO) begins Carnegie Stage 6 where, even though my tiny one will only be 0.2mm long (!!), he/she/they (!!) will develop two-sided bodily symmetry and a little stalk to the placenta (aww!)! Amazing.
There is probably a ton more that I could be waffling about, but I think I will call it a night and relax for a bit before heading to bed. Even with a lie-in and a nap today, I'm still so tired! I'm so glad glad glad and happy and thrilled to be pregnant again! Such a gift! I can't get over it, it's so wonderful! :) I will be back very soon with more updates. I will keep taking tests for a while I think, till they are nice and dark :) I usually test till 14 or 16DPO. I'll post photos!
Friday, 2 April 2010
Vindicated! ;)
Sooo here I am at 11DPO - yes, ELEVEN!!! :D
I woke up this morning from a vivid scary dream about watching the sky turn suddenly into a swirling vortex and tornados touch the ground and chunks of clouds falling off as fire and sparks (who has recently read Revelation, huh?! ;) ), and then I was AWAKE. I touched my skin - WEIRDLY soft. I put the thermometer in my mouth, and lo and behold it was 37.0!!!!!! Not only a humongous jump but also a temp that I pretty much never reach except in my pregnancy cycles! 37.0!!! At 11DPO!!! With a short luteal phase!!!! I was sooooo excited.
I went straight to the bathroom and took a test. THERE'S A LINE, THERE'S A LINE!!!!! People, there's a LIIIIIINE!!!! It's so faint, but nothing at all like the kind of faint that I was talking about with the earlier tests. This is a really visible line, but just faint. I called Neil upstairs (he knew what my temp was and that I was testing) to ask him to check it for me so I could be sure it wasn't just me being crazy, hehe! He took one look at it and said, "Yes, there's a line!" and we had a big hug! :)
Just soooooooooo excited right now!!! So I feel ever so relieved about the confusion I was having and my feelings that I was pregnant, which I was beginning to not trust. Thankfully I was right and I apparently CAN trust myself! ;)
I took a photo, poor light because it's horribly dingy and rainy this morning - not sure if you'll see the line on this one:
And then I fiddled about with it to make it more clear (darker still, sorry!):
Do you see it now? It's definitely there, even if a photo isn't cooperating with me very well to show it!
I'M PREGNANT!!!! :D :D :D
Baby #5 (be still my heart!!) is due December 13th according to FF based on my ovulation date. I will have had a baby in 2008, 2009, and 2010! :)
I will definitely be back later to update again, but I have to get started on my day. We were going to go to the Good Friday walk of witness in town with some people from our church, but it's really raining so I am not sure about it now. I feel a bit shaky! :) I wasn't crampy on waking, but I'm starting to be crampy again now a bit like yesterday - not so bad as yesterday yet though. No other symptoms to report yet. I'll be back later!!!!! :D
[Edited to add: PLEASE DO NOT MENTION AT FACEBOOK!! Thank you! :)]
I woke up this morning from a vivid scary dream about watching the sky turn suddenly into a swirling vortex and tornados touch the ground and chunks of clouds falling off as fire and sparks (who has recently read Revelation, huh?! ;) ), and then I was AWAKE. I touched my skin - WEIRDLY soft. I put the thermometer in my mouth, and lo and behold it was 37.0!!!!!! Not only a humongous jump but also a temp that I pretty much never reach except in my pregnancy cycles! 37.0!!! At 11DPO!!! With a short luteal phase!!!! I was sooooo excited.
I went straight to the bathroom and took a test. THERE'S A LINE, THERE'S A LINE!!!!! People, there's a LIIIIIINE!!!! It's so faint, but nothing at all like the kind of faint that I was talking about with the earlier tests. This is a really visible line, but just faint. I called Neil upstairs (he knew what my temp was and that I was testing) to ask him to check it for me so I could be sure it wasn't just me being crazy, hehe! He took one look at it and said, "Yes, there's a line!" and we had a big hug! :)
Just soooooooooo excited right now!!! So I feel ever so relieved about the confusion I was having and my feelings that I was pregnant, which I was beginning to not trust. Thankfully I was right and I apparently CAN trust myself! ;)
I took a photo, poor light because it's horribly dingy and rainy this morning - not sure if you'll see the line on this one:
And then I fiddled about with it to make it more clear (darker still, sorry!):
Do you see it now? It's definitely there, even if a photo isn't cooperating with me very well to show it!
I'M PREGNANT!!!! :D :D :D
Baby #5 (be still my heart!!) is due December 13th according to FF based on my ovulation date. I will have had a baby in 2008, 2009, and 2010! :)
I will definitely be back later to update again, but I have to get started on my day. We were going to go to the Good Friday walk of witness in town with some people from our church, but it's really raining so I am not sure about it now. I feel a bit shaky! :) I wasn't crampy on waking, but I'm starting to be crampy again now a bit like yesterday - not so bad as yesterday yet though. No other symptoms to report yet. I'll be back later!!!!! :D
[Edited to add: PLEASE DO NOT MENTION AT FACEBOOK!! Thank you! :)]
Thursday, 1 April 2010
10DPO confusion!
Well I'm still here! At the end of the day! At 10DPO! Curiouser and curiouser...
So in a nutshell (well, you know my "nutshells", but I'll give it a go! Ha!):
* Another drop in temp this morning but 0.1 degree (same amount as yesterday's drop) to 36.6. Still high enough. Still triphasic. But definitely dropping away from the higher flatline that I had before. So, obviously I totally expected my period to arrive today and I did not even think of testing this morning.
* Headache from waking pretty much, so I presumed that to be a "pre-period" type of headache. Got bad enough by lunchtime to take painkillers, and then it eased off (surprisingly), but came back a bit later. It's gone this evening.
* Crampy. Oh my goodness, CRAMPY. Since first thing, and almost continuously throughout the day. I'm REALLY confused about the cramps. I charted bad cramps from yesterday evening, and STILL have no period, which has never happened before without me being pregnant. I really do expect to see my period, such is my lack of confidence now, and also with the dropping temps, but it's confusing because it will be the very first time I have ever had bad cramps before a period arriving in my life. Except for each and every time I conceive, that is! ;)
The cramps today have been worse than yesterday's, which I am really surprised about. They have been as bad as if I actually HAD my period at that moment, and I took painkillers for my headache but hoped they would also work on my cramps, as they were ever so uncomfortable and sore, and just constantly bothersome and distracting. My lower back ached with them too. They felt hot and heavy and "full", and sometimes really pressurey. They made me feel a bit queasy at times, and I generally felt a bit lightheaded and completely (COMPLETELY) exhausted. I have never ever had cramps like this before a period! It has been such a weird and confusing day! I have occasionally felt sure I had a leaky feel going on, but never had any bleeding or even spotting, when I went to check. I was utterly convinced all day long that my period was about 2 seconds away, and I have lost count of how many times I went to check (20 or so?!)! Craziness. I was surprised and perplexed every single time, because I was SO SURE I had started my period with cramps like that and a slightly leaky feel. I only had a little CM today, even so.
Then I was putting Benjamin to bed at 7pm and suddenly it struck me that I had NO cramps. None whatsoever. My back even felt okay! About 8pm I started to feel crampy again, and it has been on and off this evening since then (it's only 9.30pm now though, not that much later). Right now I have no cramps. Or maybe if it reeeally focus on it and squirm a bit (!) then I might be mildly crampy like I was from ovulation. Hmmm... This is all a typical pattern of the type of cramps I am usually experiencing by this kind of stage of my luteal phase when I am pregnant, every single time.
* Tired. Ridiculously exhausted, and mostly physical too, not just sleepy. My shoulders want to curve over all the time and my chest wants to cave in, and I feel breathless most of the time with how tired I feel. My skin feels like it's hanging heavily off my bones. Just so tired out today, for no particular reason. Could be pre-period-ish of me though.
* Neil was giving me a cuddle when I was making the dinner in the kitchen this afternoon, and he put his hands under my shirt up my back and stopped suddenly and said how my skin was really softer than usual. He touched my cheeks and said definitely as soft as when I'm pregnant. So I have charted "weirdly soft skin" - another thing I only experience when I'm pregnant. Maybe I was just warm from leaning over the oven or something and that made my skin feel softer though? I asked him again this evening and he said, "Hmmm.... not sure.... to be confirmed!" Which is no help at all, lol! So I don't know. But I charted it because of what he said earlier. Very odd if I am getting my period.
* Forgot to say yesterday about the sore throat that I mentioned the day before. It has hung around, but on and off and very mild. It can't make up its mind. I am just now aware of it again so it reminded me to write about it here. It's definitely not anything illness-related, so it could be the same kind of thing that I had at this stage in my LP with Matthew and Nathan's pregnancies. I am also a bit gunky at the back of my nose, but don't particularly need to blow my nose, nor am I congested. That is something I am familiar with from all my pregnancies too, but I suppose it could happen at other times? I don't know.
* Tonight I am noticing something that I sort of noticed last night but brushed it off. This is a new symptom and one which isn't very familiar to me as a pregnancy symptom. I have a constantly watering mouth tonight, and a distractingly metallic taste in my mouth. Yesterday evening I had the same thing all evening, but after wondering about it a few times, I finally put it down to the possibility that I just had a little bit of Benjamin's moisturising cream left on a finger and perhaps I'd chewed that finger and the effect was a metallic taste in my mouth? That seemed plausible to me so I left it at that and thought nothing more of it. Tonight it's exactly the same. I have noticed a bit of mouth-watering earlier in the day but no particular weird taste. But this evening it's constant and really distracting. It's not horribly unpleasant but imagine it would be if I felt sick at the same time. My mouth is really watering all the time. Yuck! I feel fine though. I have felt queasy a few times today but I think that's tied to the crampiness more than anything else. I've eaten fine, but not had an increased appetite today.
* Gassy as usual. Much more bloated today than previous days, and it's all water-retention on my tummy from the look/feel of it, so that would be a typical about-to-get-my-period sign for me from what I remember - but I usually get that AS I get my period, rather than the day(s) before. I can't remember if I have ever had that in my luteal phase when I've been pregnant, so I can't compare.
* Still peeing more frequently than usual.
I'm really confused as to how I am getting persistant or even new symptoms that point more to pregnancy than my period coming, when my temps are actually dropping down towards getting my period. I would have thought my symptoms would disappear or reduce greatly as my temp went down, because the thing causing my temp to go down would also be the thing causing symptoms to disappear?
Well, once again I have NO idea what to expect in the morning! My strong leaning is that because of my temp pattern, I will get a further drop (possibly a big one, though that's what I thought would happen THIS morning) and then my period tomorrow at some point, which would give me another 10 day luteal phase. If I wasn't temping, and only had symptoms to go by, then because my symptoms and signs are SO strong and SO obvious (apart from the temps confusing things!), I would not have a shadow of a doubt that I am pregnant right now. Because I really do feel pregnant still, but I look at my temps and think that I must just be imagining things because surely they mean I will get my period? I don't know! Well, I guess I will just have to wait till the morning and see what the thermometer says. That should finally confirm it for me, and then I'll know. I will update my chart first thing as usual so that I don't keep anyone hanging (in case anyone is, lol!). I'm glad I will have a 10 day luteal phase again, but a little deflated to feel so confused and like I don't know what I'm talking about any more, regarding my body and the signs it's putting out! Oh well. If I hadn't just had a couple of chemical pregnancies in a row, I wouldn't be hesitating to call this a chemical pregnancy, because as far as signs and my chart go, EVERYTHING points to it. But it feels awkward labelling it that AGAIN after the two previous times really, in case it really ISN'T. Or something. Although, the cramps alone are an absolute assurance, for me, of pregnancy, whether I get my period or not. Until I get this doubting thing going on and start to think, well maybe they are just the "new me" as far as a normal non-pregnant luteal phase in the day or two before a period starts? I guess that is possible, though it still seems unlikely, given my history right from when I first started periods, and of course all my pregnant luteal phases.
Nicola, I had to check my chart history to answer your question! If I am not pregnant this cycle then yes, it will be the longest number of cycles after having a baby without being pregnant yet. After Arthur was born, I got pregnant with Matthew on my 5th cycle. After Matthew was born, I got pregnant with Nathan on my 5th cycle. After Nathan was born, I got pregnant with Benjamin on my 4th cycle. And I started my cycles again several months earlier after Benjamin was born, than I have ever done before. So I am now at the end of my 5th cycle since he was born. I have never had a 6th cycle in a row after having a baby before, so that will be a first for me if I get my period! :)
So, that nutshell: I think I am pregnant. But I think I am getting my period. And I think I am not sure about either of those things.
I am going to go to bed EARLY tonight, now that I've written this post, because I'm really tired, I have no Bible to catch up on (kind of sad really), and it will mean the morning comes quicker to put an end to my confuzzled state! ;) I'll update tomorrow.
So in a nutshell (well, you know my "nutshells", but I'll give it a go! Ha!):
* Another drop in temp this morning but 0.1 degree (same amount as yesterday's drop) to 36.6. Still high enough. Still triphasic. But definitely dropping away from the higher flatline that I had before. So, obviously I totally expected my period to arrive today and I did not even think of testing this morning.
* Headache from waking pretty much, so I presumed that to be a "pre-period" type of headache. Got bad enough by lunchtime to take painkillers, and then it eased off (surprisingly), but came back a bit later. It's gone this evening.
* Crampy. Oh my goodness, CRAMPY. Since first thing, and almost continuously throughout the day. I'm REALLY confused about the cramps. I charted bad cramps from yesterday evening, and STILL have no period, which has never happened before without me being pregnant. I really do expect to see my period, such is my lack of confidence now, and also with the dropping temps, but it's confusing because it will be the very first time I have ever had bad cramps before a period arriving in my life. Except for each and every time I conceive, that is! ;)
The cramps today have been worse than yesterday's, which I am really surprised about. They have been as bad as if I actually HAD my period at that moment, and I took painkillers for my headache but hoped they would also work on my cramps, as they were ever so uncomfortable and sore, and just constantly bothersome and distracting. My lower back ached with them too. They felt hot and heavy and "full", and sometimes really pressurey. They made me feel a bit queasy at times, and I generally felt a bit lightheaded and completely (COMPLETELY) exhausted. I have never ever had cramps like this before a period! It has been such a weird and confusing day! I have occasionally felt sure I had a leaky feel going on, but never had any bleeding or even spotting, when I went to check. I was utterly convinced all day long that my period was about 2 seconds away, and I have lost count of how many times I went to check (20 or so?!)! Craziness. I was surprised and perplexed every single time, because I was SO SURE I had started my period with cramps like that and a slightly leaky feel. I only had a little CM today, even so.
Then I was putting Benjamin to bed at 7pm and suddenly it struck me that I had NO cramps. None whatsoever. My back even felt okay! About 8pm I started to feel crampy again, and it has been on and off this evening since then (it's only 9.30pm now though, not that much later). Right now I have no cramps. Or maybe if it reeeally focus on it and squirm a bit (!) then I might be mildly crampy like I was from ovulation. Hmmm... This is all a typical pattern of the type of cramps I am usually experiencing by this kind of stage of my luteal phase when I am pregnant, every single time.
* Tired. Ridiculously exhausted, and mostly physical too, not just sleepy. My shoulders want to curve over all the time and my chest wants to cave in, and I feel breathless most of the time with how tired I feel. My skin feels like it's hanging heavily off my bones. Just so tired out today, for no particular reason. Could be pre-period-ish of me though.
* Neil was giving me a cuddle when I was making the dinner in the kitchen this afternoon, and he put his hands under my shirt up my back and stopped suddenly and said how my skin was really softer than usual. He touched my cheeks and said definitely as soft as when I'm pregnant. So I have charted "weirdly soft skin" - another thing I only experience when I'm pregnant. Maybe I was just warm from leaning over the oven or something and that made my skin feel softer though? I asked him again this evening and he said, "Hmmm.... not sure.... to be confirmed!" Which is no help at all, lol! So I don't know. But I charted it because of what he said earlier. Very odd if I am getting my period.
* Forgot to say yesterday about the sore throat that I mentioned the day before. It has hung around, but on and off and very mild. It can't make up its mind. I am just now aware of it again so it reminded me to write about it here. It's definitely not anything illness-related, so it could be the same kind of thing that I had at this stage in my LP with Matthew and Nathan's pregnancies. I am also a bit gunky at the back of my nose, but don't particularly need to blow my nose, nor am I congested. That is something I am familiar with from all my pregnancies too, but I suppose it could happen at other times? I don't know.
* Tonight I am noticing something that I sort of noticed last night but brushed it off. This is a new symptom and one which isn't very familiar to me as a pregnancy symptom. I have a constantly watering mouth tonight, and a distractingly metallic taste in my mouth. Yesterday evening I had the same thing all evening, but after wondering about it a few times, I finally put it down to the possibility that I just had a little bit of Benjamin's moisturising cream left on a finger and perhaps I'd chewed that finger and the effect was a metallic taste in my mouth? That seemed plausible to me so I left it at that and thought nothing more of it. Tonight it's exactly the same. I have noticed a bit of mouth-watering earlier in the day but no particular weird taste. But this evening it's constant and really distracting. It's not horribly unpleasant but imagine it would be if I felt sick at the same time. My mouth is really watering all the time. Yuck! I feel fine though. I have felt queasy a few times today but I think that's tied to the crampiness more than anything else. I've eaten fine, but not had an increased appetite today.
* Gassy as usual. Much more bloated today than previous days, and it's all water-retention on my tummy from the look/feel of it, so that would be a typical about-to-get-my-period sign for me from what I remember - but I usually get that AS I get my period, rather than the day(s) before. I can't remember if I have ever had that in my luteal phase when I've been pregnant, so I can't compare.
* Still peeing more frequently than usual.
I'm really confused as to how I am getting persistant or even new symptoms that point more to pregnancy than my period coming, when my temps are actually dropping down towards getting my period. I would have thought my symptoms would disappear or reduce greatly as my temp went down, because the thing causing my temp to go down would also be the thing causing symptoms to disappear?
Well, once again I have NO idea what to expect in the morning! My strong leaning is that because of my temp pattern, I will get a further drop (possibly a big one, though that's what I thought would happen THIS morning) and then my period tomorrow at some point, which would give me another 10 day luteal phase. If I wasn't temping, and only had symptoms to go by, then because my symptoms and signs are SO strong and SO obvious (apart from the temps confusing things!), I would not have a shadow of a doubt that I am pregnant right now. Because I really do feel pregnant still, but I look at my temps and think that I must just be imagining things because surely they mean I will get my period? I don't know! Well, I guess I will just have to wait till the morning and see what the thermometer says. That should finally confirm it for me, and then I'll know. I will update my chart first thing as usual so that I don't keep anyone hanging (in case anyone is, lol!). I'm glad I will have a 10 day luteal phase again, but a little deflated to feel so confused and like I don't know what I'm talking about any more, regarding my body and the signs it's putting out! Oh well. If I hadn't just had a couple of chemical pregnancies in a row, I wouldn't be hesitating to call this a chemical pregnancy, because as far as signs and my chart go, EVERYTHING points to it. But it feels awkward labelling it that AGAIN after the two previous times really, in case it really ISN'T. Or something. Although, the cramps alone are an absolute assurance, for me, of pregnancy, whether I get my period or not. Until I get this doubting thing going on and start to think, well maybe they are just the "new me" as far as a normal non-pregnant luteal phase in the day or two before a period starts? I guess that is possible, though it still seems unlikely, given my history right from when I first started periods, and of course all my pregnant luteal phases.
Nicola, I had to check my chart history to answer your question! If I am not pregnant this cycle then yes, it will be the longest number of cycles after having a baby without being pregnant yet. After Arthur was born, I got pregnant with Matthew on my 5th cycle. After Matthew was born, I got pregnant with Nathan on my 5th cycle. After Nathan was born, I got pregnant with Benjamin on my 4th cycle. And I started my cycles again several months earlier after Benjamin was born, than I have ever done before. So I am now at the end of my 5th cycle since he was born. I have never had a 6th cycle in a row after having a baby before, so that will be a first for me if I get my period! :)
So, that nutshell: I think I am pregnant. But I think I am getting my period. And I think I am not sure about either of those things.
I am going to go to bed EARLY tonight, now that I've written this post, because I'm really tired, I have no Bible to catch up on (kind of sad really), and it will mean the morning comes quicker to put an end to my confuzzled state! ;) I'll update tomorrow.
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