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2004-06-06 - 5.08pm��previous entry��next entry
18 weeks, 2 days - church and blood pressure
Thanks for all the lovely comments on my bump! :)
Tomorrow is my half-week mark AGAIN! Wow, it�s going so fast. But also not fast enough, I am quite impatient to be bigger and then to meet my little one. But I love to savour pregnancy though.
We went to church today!! First time in aaaages. It is very warm and muggy today so I wore my maternity shorts that I won at eBay last week (yay!) and a really nice vest top thingy (maternity). I was so excited to be going to church, I have been missing it lately and I feel like I need to get back into going again. Anyway people were all pleased to see us and that was exciting too, and by the time we found a seat I was exhausted and breathless. I get exhausted and breathless a lot these days, often without actually exerting myself in any way, shape or form! But that�s just pregnancy so never mind. I had a drink and a biscuit (still hungry all the time!).
I love when people see me and comment on my pregnancy! I don�t think many people could tell I�m pregnant though :( But never mind. My bump didn�t look nearly as big under shorts and a big long vesty thing. I could only see it if the vest fell in the right way. I was hoping it would be really clear and obvious to everyone, but oh well, that will come.
One lady who knows I am pregnant (and knows how long it took us and how excited I am about it!) came past me and said, with a twinkle in her eye, �Alice, if I didn�t know better, I�d say you look pregnant!� and I was so excited to be getting comments like that! I just said, �I am, I am, I AM!!!� and stuck my bump out even more! I am just a little girl most of the time :) A very excited little girl.
Anyway so all that excitement knackered me far more than I had expected, and when we all stood up to sing the first song, my blood stayed in my legs and I got quite dizzy and nauseous, so I sat down again. But hmmm, that was the end of things really. I couldn�t shake the feeling and I felt worse and worse and started to sweat more and more. I fanned myself as much as I could but my arms were getting shaky, and I was worried that if I got up to go out to the toilet or something, I�d fall over and make a big scene (!!), so I stayed put. I sat feeling grim but trying to sing for about 15 minutes, and suddenly this very nice lady (Carol) appeared by my side asking if I would like a glass of water. That was the nudge I needed to get up and go out for some air, so I went out into the hallway and sat on the carpet, and Carol brought me some water and asked if I was okay. I said, �Yes I�m fine, I�m just a bit pregnant.� which she seemed to find very funny, and then she was all excited for me because she didn�t know I was pregnant. Ahhh even when my blood pressure plops through the floor because I�m pregnant, it is still SO much fun to be growing a baby!!! :) You can have all sorts of sucky parts and then fun things will still keep happening! Yay!
Anyway Carol asked me all these questions and some of them were kind of weird. I know they are common things to be asked when someone finds out you�re pregnant, but all the same, I don�t think I�d ask anyone, �Was it planned?� I mean, that�s soooo personal!! And when I said, �Yes, and tried for, so we�re very excited�, she said oh that�s good. Now that implies that it�s NOT so good to be growing a cute little baby if it wasn�t planned. Which is stupid! It�s ALL good, especially by the time you�re 18 weeks pregnant! Questions/responses like that bug me. Fortunately I was happy to answer them, but I might have wanted to say, �Mind yer bees� wax!� otherwise. Not that I would have been so rude as to actually say it of course! ;)
Then Carol asked how far along I was, and when I said 18 weeks, she said, �You don�t LOOK 18 weeks!� Um, thanks?? I did say thanks, but I annoy myself so much when someone says something that I don�t find complimentary but then before I can think of a good answer I just blurt out, �Thanks� anyway. Tsk. I wish my brain would churn out appropriate responses!
But anyway, nice Carol, because she brought me water and I really did need some sort of help at that point! I ended up sitting out there on the carpet for the rest of the worship time and then the whole of the sermon and the rest of the service. My giddy/queasy thing didn�t clear up so I stayed put while I felt bad. Neil came out to find me after a little while and insisted on sitting with me for the rest of the service. We could still hear the service but sometimes we whispered to each other instead, and Bean was kicking me the whole time, so Neil spent some time with his hand on my tummy feeling kicks, even sitting on the floor in a hallway at church! :) Neil refilled my water twice, because I read that if you get an �attack� of low blood pressure you should rest and drink plenty of water to increase your fluids and therefore fluid pressure in your body. About 50 minutes later I started to feel more normal and that was soooo nice, because it�s horrid to feel faint and yucky and for it not to go away. It was so much nicer out in the hallway though, much less hot and there seemed to be more air to breathe there too.
While Neil was getting me water one time, a lady who did the camp I helped at for the last 2 years came out, and she asked if I was okay. I said yes, and we chatted for a while. I couldn�t figure out if she had been told I was pregnant by anyone, or if she could see my bump, but I guess it was neither, because she eventually asked me if I was coming to camp this summer, and I said no, because I am pregnant! She was soooo excited for me/us, it was lovely! Neil was back with the water by then and she congratulated us both and was generally very excited. I love love love telling people!
Anyway then I felt okay to stand up so we stood at the window and watched the 5-9 year olds playing a game with their group leaders outside. They were all so cute and happy, running about. We both enjoyed watching them. I listened to the sermon from the hallway and it was good. When the service finished we went back in and I went forward to get prayed for, about various things that came up in the sermon, and also because I don�t like the idea of spending church feeling faint in the hallway every week! So I got prayer for that :) I felt very refreshed afterwards and I just knew I had to keep going to church, no matter if I spend it in the hallway or not. I need the contact with people and I need to focus on God more. I have been forgetting what it is to feel so in love with God that nothing else matters. I want that back, and I plan to work at it, sort of, by making sure I am there each Sunday getting soaked in fellowship with other Christians, and prayer, and worship music, and good sermons. I feel so good about it now, low blood pressure or not.
When we got home I was ravenous so I put a biiiig potato on to bake and took my blood pressure, which was perfectly normal at 120/70. I did feel fine by then though. I�ve half a mind to take my sphyg and stethoscope with me to church next time, so if it happens again I can lock myself in a toilet cubicle and confirm once and for all that it�s definitely a case of my blood pressure having fallen through my shoes! I know that�s most likely what happened, but I�m one of those people who feels a lot better by knowing for sure, with visible evidence, that something specific is causing the symptoms.
Ooooh my baked potato was sooo nice today! I had baked beans (a whole tin!!) and grated organic cheddar cheese. Did you know that organic milk and organic cheese provide you with substantial amounts of the RDA for Omega-3 fatty acids, whereas Omega-3 is almost non-existant in non-organic milk and cheese?! Apparantly it has to do with organic cows being grazed in clover fields, and clover is rich in Omega-3. I found that out in a news article at a parenting site, and we immediately switched to organic dairy products. I need all the Omega-3 I can get since I don�t eat oily fish or take it in supplement form, as it�s good for Bean�s brain developments. A matchbox-sized piece of organic cheese will provide 88% of the RDA of Omega-3. That is so amazing to me, when the same cheese that ISN�T organic will give you pretty much nowt. Milk gives you almost as much too, and I eat both cheese and milk every day, so now we�re on organic stuff I am getting my daily Omega-3. Yay! Plus it�s just nicer tasting. Yum. We have also been buying Columbus eggs, which are rich in Omega-3, but I have not been keen on eggs for a while so Neil is getting plenty of Omega-3 by using them all up! :)
Hmmm, what else is there to say? I am not sleeping so great at night anymore. I am really restless after I get up for a pee. I only get up once in the night to pee now, but it�s usually around 3-5am, and then I�m super restless and unsettled after that. I bought a second-hand body pillow from a lady at UKparents. It�s 190cm long and full of reeeeally fine beads, so it moulds to any shape. I have started to need support in bed this week otherwise all my aches and pains are so much worse and even keep me awake. My bump needs supporting a bit in bed now too. So my body pillow arrived a few days ago, and I�ve been sleeping with it ever since. It�s soooo helpful! I have it the full length of my body and prop my leg on it when I�m lying on my side. On the other side of me I have my foam wedge cushion for under the bump, and so when I roll over I shove that under my tummy and that gives me support so I can sleep. It�s a bit fiddly having so little space in the bed now I�m surrounded by enormous cushions (!!), but it�s okay. Maybe that�s why I�m not sleeping so well? I can�t lie on my back anymore, and the front was out months ago, so it�s one side or the other now.
Bean is using my bladder as a trampoline a LOT, both day and night, but thankfully not with quite such hard kicks as before! It still hurts a lot to pee. I am going to go back for another urine test in a week�s time. I am so tired all the time, but not really like sleep-deprived tired, I just feel physically spent and breathless a lot, and I go for a nap and lie there feeling wiped out, but I can�t necessarily sleep, because I don�t think it�s really sleep that I need.
I think that�s all really. It�s humid and I need a drink. I�m going to have a baby!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeee!!!!
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