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2005-11-19 - 1.58pm��previous entry��next entry
11 weeks, 3 days pregnant!! Squirms and scan date...
Urrrrrgh, I can't believe it's been so long since I updated my diaries! Busy week with lots of nausea. But I have so much to write about! I wish I had updated sooner. Thanks for the messages since my last entry, and Megan for your comment on my latest belly photo!!! I'm excited about belly photos! I have another 3 weeks before I take another one though, then they should start to get more interesting!
Well, big news is that I finally phoned the maternity unit at the hospital to find out what was taking so long on my scan dates. I had to do that last time too, tsk. When I asked for my scan date, the lady asked if I had been accepted! Yikes! I said I didn't know, and she asked when I was due. I said June, and she said, "Oh, we're fully booked for June. I'll have to find out if you've been accepted." Yeep! I had no idea they would turn people away. Naive of me, I know, as it's one of the busiest hospitals around, with toooo many patients for their resources. While I was on hold, I started thinking whether the fact that I'll be having a homebirth would make a difference to whether I "fit in" there, since I wouldn't be taking up a hospital bed. Or what on earth I'd do if I WASN'T accepted, because I live like 2 minutes from the hospital - where else am I meant to go?!! I think the next nearest one is Big London Hospital where I had my noggin (stupid pregnancy polyp blocking my entire right nostril) removed last pregnancy - but that is AGES away, and much worse in heavy traffic. It seems crazy to send me there when I live soooo close to this hospital!
Anyway she came back and announced that I have been accepted - thank goodness I booked in with the GP as early as 5 weeks pregnant! And perhaps also that I am due at the beginning of June and not the end.
So, phew, that's fine. I'll wait till my first midwife appt to tell them that I'm having a homebirth. I got that appt on the phone, and it's December 20th. I'll be 1 day short of 16 weeks pregnant then, about the same as my last pregnancy. I have to go to the clinic where I take Arthur to be weighed, as we're with a different doctor's surgery now to when I was pregnant with Arthur, so I'll see a different midwife. I don't mind a BIT though, because I wasn't best thrilled with the last one, and I think I met the two midwives who work from my new GP practice (during my labour and in the first two weeks after Arthur was born) and they are SO lovely!! I really hope they will be with me throughout this pregnancy! Yay!
Soooo my nuchal scan date is November 25th!! That's FRIDAY!!!! Less than a week to go!! I'm SOOOOO excited!!! I get to see Sprout looking like a real, fully-developed little kicking baby person in less than a week! I can't wait. I also can't fathom it. But that will pass, I think, once I actually see Sprout for real. At Arthur's nuchal scan, I was 13 weeks exactly, and I'll be 12w2d this time, so a bit earlier. That's mainly because they are going by my LMP (last menstrual period) due date, which is June 3rd. So as far as they're concerned I will be 12w6d pregnant at the scan. I reeeally hope the baby measures accurate to MY dates and not theirs, so that they alter the due date to the one I already KNOW it is, by ovulation! Otherwise they'll call me "overdue" before I really am. Which is annoying, to say the least!
I wonder what Sprout will be doing when we see him/her at the scan?! Arthur wasn't very active at the nuchal scan and I wondered if he was asleep, but when the sonographer zoomed in on his face, we could see him swallowing and yawning, bless him! He spent the entire scan swallowing the amniotic fluid! It even interfered with getting the measurement at the back of his neck because he would lift his chin every time he took a swallow so that part of his neck never stayed still! He was as laid back at the scans as he is now. It's incredible how their personalities show through even when they are tiny little fetuses! It's so amazing how detailed and normal their activity is at such an early stage. I can't wait to see my second child in that way. It feels weeeeird to think that I will though.
We also saw that Arthur was a boy at his nuchal scan. The sonographer wouldn't comment but she zoomed in for us for a few seconds, and the bits were pretty obvious to both Neil and I. We both thought we couldn't possibly know for sure at that early stage though, so we waited for confirmation at the big 22 week scan. I stopped with my girl vibe at that point though, haha!
This time, since it's a little earlier than the last one, I am not expecting us to see any particular "bits". By 12 weeks the genitals will be clearly discernable as male or female, so it's entirely possible. It depends on the scan equipment and Sprout's position though. We are going to ask the sonographer to zoom in again for us, but if we don't see any bits then it won't mean anything either way. It could still be a girl or a boy. It's only if we see definite bits and know that the umbilical cord is up and out of the way (!!) that we'll have a good hunch! Anyway, I'm just looking forward to seeing Sprout in ACTION, and hoping that the nuchal fold measurement will be normal, and all the organs and other things they check. The appt is 2pm, and Neil has taken that afternoon off work. Arthur will be coming with us to see his new brother or sister, of course!! I'm so excited about that idea!! :) (but how weird....)
Okay, so that's the big scan news. Other BIG news is that I have been feeling Sprout move now for almost a week! I think I was feeling Sprout shift and stuff from just before 10 weeks, but I am feeling little squirmy feelings and the odd little tickly tap or flick - sooooo tiny!!!! I usually only feel them like once a day, when I am lying in bed in the morning before I get up. If I have a busy day then I don't notice movements at all. I also sometimes notice movement when I am in a certain position to breastfeed Arthur. I lean my back against the sofa (sitting on the floor) and sort of slouch a bit, and Arthur crawls up my tummy and latches on - sounds a bit odd but it's hard to explain! Anyway, on a couple of occasions I have felt Sprout squirm or tap me while I am breastfeeding like that. I can't wait for bigger or more obvious movement because there is just NOTHING like having your first little precious snuggled against you, breastfeeding, and feeling your second little precious move inside you. It's the most amazing feeling EVER. I felt like.... Earth Mother, hehehe! It's strange but when I am truly aware of BOTH my children, and so physically and intimately connected with them both at the same time, I feel more "complete" somehow, in terms of motherhood. I know that's stupid, because being a mother to one child is just as complete as a mother, as having more than one. But for me it seems to feel like the circle is more complete. Like I have two hands, two breasts, etc. Having, or being aware of two children makes me feel like my children "fit" my body, and my sense of motherhood feels fuller somehow.
This week we have been so busy with Arthur's party, and my parents visiting from France, and rather urgent money matters, and so on, that I just haven't had time to be online much at all. I only seem to have the odd few minutes online so never enough time to write my diaries. But oh well. It's the weekend again now, and I am determined to update about everything this weekend!!
I have been super ultra nauseous this week, ugh. My normal foods and stuff don't work to ease it, and recently I have noticed it doesn't clear up during the night like usual. Arthur still wakes a LOT during the night. I soooooo want to night wean him but the current situation with my milk supply is that it's "there" but not gushing in the day. He nurses frequently in the day, and switches sides like crazy. Sometimes every few sucks! So I can tell my milk supply is low. But I often see milk in his mouth or on my breast when he comes away, so it's definitely still there to some degree. At bedtime the same applies, but from about 10pm to 6am, I have plenty of milk. Perlenty. Arthur gulps and gasps just like he used to, so I know it's flowing beautifully at night. Therefore I am reluctant to night wean at the moment. It's important to me that he is still getting lots of mama milk. I KNOW he doesn't need it at night, but he doesn't get a lot of it during the day, so I will gladly take disturbed sleep over taking away Arthur's only decent amount of milk! By 20 weeks I will only have colostrum, day or night, and that will probably force him to night wean (although not necessarily) so I think I will wait it out till then. It makes me feel tired to think of waiting till then, but never mind! It will be worth it, I think. I just HOPE he doesn't choose to wean completely when my milk changes to colostrum.
So anyway, I am really nauseous. I do get windows in the day where I only feel mildly queasy though, and eating does still help some. Evenings are my worst time by far. But, as ever, I seem to remember it was pretty much exactly the same with Arthur at this stage.
This pregnancy is soooooooo much the same as the last one!!! I am beginning to wonder if I am having another boy.... The idea of a boy is probably more on my mind than a girl now, because it just feels so much like last time. But the parsnips timing before ovulation is MUCH more indicative of having a girl. But still.... I do wonder if I'm having a boy. Good thing I don't mind either way! :)
I am really tired these days - obviously the nights don't help! I come over weak and breathless a lot and have to sit down. I don't particularly think I'm anaemic. There is 60mg of iron in my prenatal vitamins (what they would probably prescribe me if I took iron supplements I think), and my iron levels during my last pregnancy were stonking the whole time! I also felt like this a lot last pregnancy, but it was never due to my iron levels, so I'm not too worried about that this time. I was anaemic after the birth, but I think that was more to do with blood loss. I think it's mostly due to actual tiredness. Sometimes I get like it when I'm NOT pregnant, if I am really exhausted or sleep-deprived. It happens a lot though. I can be spreading a piece of toast and suddenly come over crushingly exhausted so that I can't even stand up straight. I have to sit down and flop while Neil finishes spreading my toast.
But other than that things are going fine! Let's see, what other things can I mention. I am a little bit nervous because when I blow my nose (it's permanently snotty now that I'm pregnant, like last time), it's always a little bloody on one side. The side where the noggin was. I know they said it was all gone and healed well, but I just don't trust them! That thing grew like a nasty weed, no matter what treatment they did to it! They were always surprised that it had grown back at the next appt. Tsk. Anyway, one-sided bleeds were the first symptoms of the stupid noggin, so I'm nervous. That was by far the most annoying and difficult thing to deal with last pregnancy. It's really quite rare, and even more so in the nostril! They told me that once it was removed and I wasn't pregnant anymore, there would be no hormones to fuel its growth and next pregnancy I would have the same chances as anyone else of developing it again (ie. remote). I didn't believe them though. I desperately hope I am just bleeding a little there because of the scar tissue or something. Urrrrrgh.
I haven't listened to Sprout's heartbeat as much this week, sometimes not for days! I never went 24 hours without listening to Arthur, so it seems odd of me to be so casual about listening to Sprout. We have been so preoccupied with different things though. When I do listen in now, I hear little "doofs" and pops that tell me Sprout is kicking or thumping about in there! It's so cute! :) Also he/she NEVER stays still. The sound of his/her heart beating can completely disappear within seconds even though I keep the wand perfectly still, and I have to go searching for the little wiggler again! The heartrate is currently about 175. Oh oh!! I almost forgot, I found Sprout's umbilical cord pulse for the first time a few days ago!!! That's weeks earlier than with Arthur I think. Anyway I was excited about that :)
Sprout currently measures 4.7cm from crown to rump!!! That's just so amazing. Every day Sprout grows another 2mm at the moment - soooo fast! Sprout's intestines have finished migrating back into his/her tummy from the umbilical cord. Peristalsis is now happening in the digestive tract, and urine is being formed AND excreted through Sprout's new pee-pee organ, hehe! The liver is producing bile, the pancreas is producing insulin, the brain structure is complete, though still developing in mass and complexity. Fingernails are growing from the nail beds and Sprout has developed muscle reflexes and sensitive skin! Sprout is "sprouting" (haha) new hair follicles at the moment.
It's just so amazing to me, that all this incredible development has already taken place, though I don't even look pregnant and it still feels soooo early on in pregnancy!
Oh my gosh, I've just realised that I only have FOUR days to go till the end of my first trimester!!!!!!!!! Woohoooooooo!!! Second trimester, here I come!! :) How weird that feels. This whole pregnancy feels so surreal, like I haven't had time to even get used to the idea, and time is passing soooo fast when I totally didn't expect it to! To think that my first trimester is behind me already! How strange. But wonderful! I know I may well have a good month or two of first trimester symptoms yet, as I did last pregnancy, but still, it feels nice to think that the actual first trimester is behind me!
My food tastes are changing. I don't want Dairylea any more. I am noticing that I am often absentmindedly thinking about mouth-watering meals! I find myself thinking about stews or casseroles or roast dinners... mmmmm!!! Sometimes I get a flashback of the specific taste or smell of a specific meal I had, say at a restaurant 15 years ago, or something!! It's so weird! I really wanted sausages yesterday, with LOTS of tomato sauce!! But alas, we didn't have any. I am starting to feel like food with more substance and flavour and yumminess than potato or bread with cheese of some sort! I'm glad. I didn't want to exist on cheese and starchy carbs forever! I did know it would pass eventually though, so hopefully I will be onto more varied and nutritious meals soon! Salt and vinegar crisps are currently going down wonderfully, as are strawberries, grapes and iceburg lettuce (by the handful!). This is basically exactly the same as last pregnancy.
Feeling sick is bothering me a lot, but I am still eating. I have noticed this week that I am needing to eat even more frequently. I decided to try pasta with tomatoes and a sort of garlicky tomatoey pasta sauce for lunch one day this week, to see if my queasiness would permit it. It did! I still hate the smell and taste of garlic in general, but I managed to ignore the garlicky part of this meal somehow, and it was fine. I ate it all up, with grated cheese on top, but the weird thing was I felt scrunchingly hungry again literally TEN minutes after I finished it. My tummy was still full so I knew it couldn't really be true. It was so weird. I ended up having to cook the same thing again 2 hours later. I am also waking up painfully hungry at least twice in the night. Last pregnancy I would go right downstairs and eat something, but this time I just don't want any more sleep disturbance at night than I'm already getting, so I try to go back to sleep. I always manage to so far, but I have started eating a bowl of cereal before I brush my teeth and go to bed, and that is helping a little.
I don't know what I weigh but I'm not really bothered to find out. I have a big pet-peeve about weight obsessions during pregnancy, it's soooooo unhealthy and irritating to be so obsessive!!! Everyone on my American pregnancy boards are driving themselves half demented with guilt/worry/fear over their weight gain or lack of it, it's so ridiculous. We don't even get weighed in this country, during pregnancy. I got weighed when I booked in with the doctor, but I know that will be it. Last pregnancy I didn't even get weighed at the start. They just asked me what I weighed and I told them and they wrote it on the booking in form. For goodness sakes, when pregnant you will gain weight. Who cares how much?!!! It will be highly obvious to anyone and yourself if you gain an unhealthily large or small amount - it will be visibly obvious! Otherwise, there is absolutely ZERO cause to worry about whether you put on an ounce or 50lbs! It just bugs me so much. I think it matters a GREAT deal when you have a condition to worry about, like gestational diabetes or something. But a normal healthy pregnant woman? Nope. Just relax, eat as your appetite guides you, and for goodness sakes, throw your scales away!!!
Tsk! Of course I'm going to be all contradictory by keeping my scales and occasionally checking to see how much I weigh. I am always curious about it. But I will NOT stress over it! Last pregnancy I gained over 50lbs. WAY too much, according to the usual sources of "worry about your pregnant weight" waffle. So what if I gain the same again? I would PREFER not to gain quite as much because I felt so heavy for my frame at the end of pregnancy and it was uncomfortable. Also my blood pressure began to go up a little in the last couple of weeks, and although the midwife said it often just happens, I did wonder if it was because my body was just too heavy for it to cope normally. But that would not make me want to watch my intake or anything crazy like that, this time. If I gain the same, I gain the same. You are MEANT to gain weight!
The marvellous thing about lots of weight gain in pregnancy is that it helps to lay down good fat stores for breastfeeding (so I've read). I don't know if that was true for me, but I did gain a LOT of weight and then had very good milk supply. But I also read about the number of alveoli in the breasts being a major factor in milk supply, so maybe it was just that. I know that with my oversupply I must have alveoli in the high range of normal, so that was probably it for me, rather than the weight. But I know my good old fat stores helped as well! :)
Also, I am not worried about weight gain because not only is it MEANT to be there, it is also meant to STAY there for a while for breastfeeding, and then it goes again. I know some women have more trouble than others losing their pregnancy weight, but with effort and exercise it seems that most of them can lose it again. I have been lucky in that even with my lazy, non-exercising butt, my weight just came off. Not all 50lbs, but then I wanted to keep a few! I feel I was too light to start with before my pregnancy with Arthur. I currently weigh roughly 7 or 8lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight with Arthur, so that suits me fine. It's less than when I started THIS pregnancy, but that's probably just morning sickness. On the other hand, if I DIDN'T gain weight very well, perhaps I'd worry more? But I know that unless it was really obvious, I wouldn't actually need to worry. I guess I have a little more to worry about if I DON'T gain weight, since I am breastfeeding, but I honestly think I'm going to gain fine once I am eating like my body likes me to eat when I am well into my pregnancies!
Anyway, gosh that was long and ranty. Whoops.
I told some of the other mums at the church ladies' fellowship group that I am pregnant this week (which is really a mother-and-baby group since everyone there has babies or toddlers!). That was so fun! They were all excited for me and I was PROUD to breastfeed Arthur right there on the sofa with everybody around, during the morning when he asked me for milk :) There is a new baby at church! The lady was due on Arthur's birthday, and she had her baby girl on Nov 1st. The baby weighed 6lbs 3oz and is called Emma Grace. I can now tell you that Emma was one of our shortlisted girls names! We had a couple of reasons to be unsure whether to go for it, and now we have decided not to, since there is a brand new Emma at church! We would just prefer to be a little different. We loved the name Emma though. It's very popular, that's the only thing. Anyway, we're not using it now, so I can tell you about it :) Anyway, Emma was at the fellowship group (with her mummy of course!) and she is soooooooooooooooo tiny - I can NOT believe newborns are really so tiny! It's crazy how it just happens to you as your own newborn grows into a toddler - suddenly a newborn baby seems incredibly tiny and you can't believe your toddler was ever so small! Emma got breastfed too, during the morning, but that's much more acceptable I suppose, for a newborn! ;) I love watching newborns nurse.
Anyway I also discovered that another lady at church (at the fellowship group) is pregnant, just 3 weeks ahead of me! She has two boys already, and they will be 6 and 3 when the new baby is born in May. We have known this family since they were newly weds and we were unattached students when we first started at our church! I am so excited to have someone I know so close in gestation to me! Yay! Catherine is starting to show already.
Babies, babies... How much FUN it is!!! :) I love being pregnant! I really do.
Okay I can't think of what else I meant to write, so that will do for now. I'll have to write again if I remember anything, and TRY not to leave it so long next time! I can't believe I'm 11.5 weeks pregnant already! Nearly in my second trimester, and nearly nearly time for the SCAN!!!! I will be sure to update before the scan! I know for sure I will get two scan pictures, as my letter says the hospital has introduced a new charge for scan pictures (they were free last time), so everyone gets two pictures (no more) for the price they pay. Which of course we will pay!! I can't WAIT!!! :)
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