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2007-08-26 - 10.57pm��previous entry��next entry
16 weeks pregnant!!
16 weeeeeeeeks! I can't believe I'm 16 weeks pregnant! :)
The new belly photo from today is in Beanlet's belly gallery, but it's the first one where I'm not wearing the usual pyjama bottoms. I'm wearing maternity jeans, and for some CRAZY reason I look exactly the same as last week, if not a little smaller! When actually, I was about to say how markedly I am noticing a big change in size/shape this last week! I did not fit these maternity jeans at 15 weeks even, let alone when the last photo was taken at 14 weeks! They are soooooo comfy. But I fear my legs/bottom will not fit in them much longer.
I finally look noticably pregnant, and people are starting to look at my little bump, especially when I am out and about with both my little boys in the tandem pushchair! I got a look from a lady in a car park yesterday, that I couldn't decide about whether it was sympathetic or wistful. She looked at the boys (in their pushchair) and then at my tummy, and gave me this odd look/smile, which conveyed one of the above emotions. She had three teenage/pre-teen looking boys climbing out of her car, so I wondered about the wistful thing! It's such hard work, this early stage, but I KNOW I'll miss it when they're so much bigger like those boys. I love this stage, though it's hard!
People at church have also noted that I'm showing now, which is nice! Somebody said that I am carrying low, but then I always do. Either it's because that's how I carry when I'm pregnant, or it's because I always have boys. Hmmm.... My strong girl vibe has inexplicably weakened this week, it's weird. But I'm not suddenly thinking it's a boy. I just feel all clueless, all of a sudden. Unconfident about guessing either way. It's only 5 weeks till my BIG SCAN, so we'll find out then! I can't wait :)
I just realised that there's only 8 weeks till viability. Neil couldn't believe it when I told him that! He is acting like it's suddenly a lot more real to him this week, because every time he looks over at me, there I am with a lil tiny baby bean on my front, visibly showing! He keeps commenting on it like he can't believe it!
I'm feeling quite different in the bumpy region this week. Especially these last few days. Neil says my bump seems to have had a growth spurt just these last few days, and I agree with him. You totally can't see what we're talking about from the photo in the belly gallery, but oh well. It's weird how that is! I really have changed such a lot since the last photo!
My tummy is starting to itch a little ABOVE my tummy button now, so I know things are beginning to stretch out the tissues a little further up. Also, the main thing these last few days is how much my whole bump ACHES. It aches allll the time, and can be really uncomfortable. It just feels like it's suddenly grown out or something, so that the muscles and tissues around it aren't used to supporting it in that way, and are aching. My actual womb aches too. I am not sure why, but it does. Not crampiness, although I have been feeling kind of crampy there lately too. I don't know...
Two nights ago, I slept all night on my stomach (as I did pretty much most of every night before it). The night before last, I didn't actually end up sleeping on my tummy for some reason. I slept mainly on my side. Then last night I rolled onto my stomach to go to sleep, and absolutely could not stay there more than a few seconds! I suddenly had a huge lump of uncomfortableness in the way! I can't even roll onto my tummy any more. It's strange how it literally changed from one night to the next. I don't think I have "popped" in that same timeframe, as my bump doesn't seem to LOOK any different since the night before last, but anyway. Something about it is different.
Baby Beanlet is presenting him/herself in all manner of ways against my abdomen these days! Little hard parts and rounded shapes press out on one side or another, or across the top like the full length of his/her back pressing up against my front. Sometimes I just feel a HARD lump poking out, and if I lie on my back I can see it too. I am presuming that is Beanlet's little head-end! The other day I felt a strange wedge shape like a triangle with funny dips and hard parts. It was bigger than my palm, and after a while of poking and feeling it, I figured it had to be Beanlet's whole side, lying curled up - so that hard bit was the hip maybe, and the leg one side of the "triangle", with the back the other side. If that makes sense?! Anyway. I am feeling Beanlet a LOT through my actual abdomen with my hand, just like I did with the boys, but not feeling many movements as such. I only really notice a good amount of movements when I am lying really still on my back and thinking about Beanlet. It also has to be quiet, like if Neil takes the boys out to the park and I'm lying down while they're out. I seem to need to really relax and tune in, to feel the little one. When I do, I feel little sweeping sensations across the front of my uterus, like a limb stroking across. And the odd blip and wriggle. I also feel the occasional position-change - my babies seem to change position a lot, not little wriggles or movements, but huge upheavals and complete relocations! ;) Those are easy to feel, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable for me, but I like to feel them all the same!
My morning sickness is all but gone!!! I am queasy at my usual peak times, but that's it. Also I have noticed that nothing tastes bitter any more!! Yay! I'm glad to finally note that, because I never did follow up on it with Matthew (and don't remember bitter tastes with Arthur at all) in my diary so I had nothing to tell me when I could expect it to go! So, for future reference, food and drink giving me a horribly bitter aftertaste is literally leaving with the nausea. I have had a few days this week where I've felt really quite queasy at times, more so than the previous few days. Today I have felt quite nauseous at times, but I've also felt crampy and generally achy low down, so maybe it's just my poor increasingly-squashed bowel giving me trouble?! I did not fancy eating my dinner at ALL tonight though, which is unusual for me now. My appetite is pretty big at the moment - not for the size of my meals, but for frequency. I eat with the boys and they eat an early lunch (for me, anyway) between 11.45 and 12.30 usually. I'm always RAVENOUS by the time they are eating, so I always eat with them. And I'm just as hungry by 5.30/6pm when I make their dinner. I also can't get from meal to meal without a snack of some sort, like the boys.
I still haven't scanned that picture from my 15 week scan - must do that soon! I think I'll just upload it to Beanlet's ultrasound gallery and make mention of it in my usual entry when I have done so.
Oh! I almost forgot! I had my booking appointment with the midwife this week! I meant to update about it MUCH earlier than this, oh dear! I have been tired tired tired this week.
The appt went great. I didn't need the usual blood tests because the midwife took them for me at the hospital after my nuchal scan. I did find out that the results were all fine though, and my haemoglobin was 12.6, so pretty good considering the two bleeds! :) I think that's even UP 0.1 from my blood test after the first bleed, so that makes me even more convinced that my haemoglobin BEFORE either of the bleeds was somewhere around my usual 13.5, and dropped down with my big bleed at 11 weeks. Then it must already have climbed some to drop again to 12.6 after the second bleed, so that's good.
I am only spotting now, at LAST!!! This week I was sooooooo excited and thrilled to be able to stop using the hideous bulky uncomfortable NAPPY things, and go back to flushable pantyliners! Yeah baby! I feel like a new woman! ;) I'm so happy to only be spotting. Today I barely had any of that, even, but I have some more this evening. I was expecting much more for longer than this, so I'm happy. I hope the rest of that haematoma, what's left, will simply reabsorb. And no more fresh bleeding please!
The boys were pretty good during my midwife appt, but it was still kind of difficult to have them there. We took toys in with us, and Arthur played with those most of the time, but he was noisy a lot of the time and wanted to park cars in places he wasn't allowed to go sometimes! I had to keep asking him to play more quietly, as it was hard for the midwife and I to chat sometimes. And Matthew would not stay in the pushchair. It was a long appt, and he just walked around the little room, getting to all the things that were the most inconvenient for him to get to! Like phone cords and open padlocks (I prised one out of his mouth at one point!) and picking little things up off the floor to put in his mouth. And so on. He wasn't naughty but it made things a bit difficult. He screeched like crazy if I sat him on my lap. I had to leave the boys with the midwife at one point to do my urine sample, but they were fine (and so was she!). My urine was fine too!
My blood pressure was much more like my normal - 100/65. I thought it would be higher because I had just been wrangling Matthew, and neither of them were particularly happy about watching me have my blood pressure taken. Matthew was crying and wanting me to pick him up, and I felt a bit frazzled! So I'm glad it was still nice and low!
I got to answer all the bazillion questions about my medical and obstetric history, and family history, etc. The medical stuff is BORING to go through, especially when I've done it twice before so recently (!) and the kids are not thrilled about the wait. But I love love love talking about my previous pregnancies and births! :) I love going over those all over again, including birth weights and all that stuff! The midwife had my notes on the table from my previous two pregnancies, and I did gaze at them wistfully for a while, because the last time I saw them, I was pregnant (or very recently so!) with each of them. They are like little booklets of memories from two very special times in my life, and seeing them (I used to clutch them joyfully on my way to appts during those pregnancies, and study the notes written in them for hours at home!) just makes me feel all soppy and nostalgic for those pregnancies again! Now they will be put away again until I have another baby, when there will be THREE sets of notes on the table to help the midwife fill in the next set :) I can't believe one of them will be Beanlet's, and Beanlet will be the one who screeches if I try to restrain him/her from pulling stethoscopes and other not-for-little-ones things off the table!
I mentioned to the midwife that I had tested positive for Group B Strep. She had already presumed I wanted another homebirth, and I said YES, so then I mentioned the Group B Strep and asked what effect that would have on my having a homebirth this time. She said she would ask her manager about it and get back to me on the phone. The next day she phoned and said that her manager (who was my midwife with Arthur!) says they have to advise women with Group B Strep to come into hospital when they go into labour, for IV antibiotics. BUT, that it was up to me, so long as I had read the information she gave me (I didn't yet, but I will, and there is a LOT more info that I have already read online), I could decide not to go in for IV antibiotics, and just stay at home to give birth anyway. She said that I should keep in mind the risk factors - premature labour, waters breaking hours before anything really happens, fever during labour, etc. I have read about those already online.
Did I say this already? I can't remember. Anyway, the research I have done makes me wonder if the boys were blessed to be at minimal risk for Group B Strep, considering I very probably carried it during those pregnancies too but there is no routine screening for it here (as is the case for most of the UK, I discovered online). With Arthur, I ended up transferring to hospital after labour stalled and became tooooo painful. I went in for an epidural, but everything seemed to grind to a halt, and I was 8cm with my waters having broken a few hours before. I laboured all night like that and during that time I developed a fever, so they gave me IV antibiotics as a precaution, in case of infection. So, Arthur would have been protected after all, from the Group B Strep I was likely carrying.
With Matthew's birth, my waters didn't break till his head was almost out! If you carry Group B Strep, the later your waters break, the lower the risk to the baby. He would have had barely ANY contact with the dodgy stuff, given how late my waters broke. So I need to keep that in mind for this time. I asked to be re-screened for Group B Strep at the end of my pregnancy, and they are going to book me in for re-testing at 36 weeks. They also want me to get back to them about whether I want to be officially booked for a homebirth or not (after I read everything and make an informed decision), and also whether I want them to book me the consultant appt that they have advised me to have nearer the end of my pregnancy. I said I didn't think I wanted to see the consultant because if I had chosen to ignore the usual advice and have a homebirth anyway, the consultant would be highly unlikely to support that, so I would NOT want to see them if that was the case! The midwife agreed, but said that if I was interested, the consultant would be able to tell me more about the administration of the IV antibiotics and so on, if I should end up with a reason to go in for them after all. So I have to make a decision on that too, and get back to them soon. I haven't decided yet. I want to ask about the possibility of getting IV antibiotics at the end of my pregnancy, after my re-screen, if I am still positive for Group B Strep. And also, some places in the UK will administer IV antibiotics at home during labour. I doubt this area will (if we're even here then, which we shouldn't be!), but it's worth asking about the possibility. Otherwise I think I am going to decide to give birth at home, and be ready and willing to transfer to hospital if my waters break and I'm not very far into labour, or I get a fever or something. And I'll pray pray pray about it too, obviously. I also don't think I want to see that consultant. But I want to at least talk to Neil about it and make sure I've read everything there is to read, before I phone the midwife back.
I can't remember what else I wanted to write tonight.... It's getting late so I should go to bed. I LOVE this long weekend! An extra day to get a bit more rest than usual! I am so tired on the days that Neil is at work at the moment. Today I lay in till 9am, and then this afternoon I slept from 3 till SIX pm!!! I usually feel horrible if I nap in the late afternoon, but I felt so relieved and relaxed when I woke up. Also, we went to the beach yesterday (photos and more about that to come soon at my arthursmummy diary - it was the boys' first EVER trip to the seaside!) and Matthew only had one nap on the drive there, and then walked and walked and WALKED in the fresh sea air and sunshine all afternoon. And he woke for his first night-waking at 5.10am!!!!! I couldn't believe it! I felt so strange when he woke me, like something was WRONG even, hehe! It felt like I was waaaay too refreshed and rested for things to be normal or okay! He woke again only 30 minutes later and nursed both times, but then he slept till 7am (an hour later than normal). So that was probably my best night's sleep in well over a year! I haven't felt like the night-wakings with Matthew (there are still 3 of them usually) have been dreadful or anything. I'm tired, but I don't really put it down to the night-wakings like I did with Arthur when I was pregnant with Matthew. Arthur's night-wakings were long and frequent and hard to relax between, as he woke so easily and we co-slept. Matthew's are predictable (generally), and rarely more than 3 per night, well spaced, and quick. He barely wakes, nurses and then I put him back in his cot almost completely asleep. I do have to wake fully, but it's SO easy compared with Arthur at the same age. I am in my own space with Matthew in his cot. It's so much easier. So I haven't really blamed Matthew's night wakings much. But what a difference it made to have such a long stretch of uninterrupted sleep!!! Maybe it's having a much bigger impact on me than I thought? I am still reluctant to night-wean him yet though. My milk seems nearly all gone, and the best of it is to be found at night time. When it's all gone, then we'll see. I like Matthew to still get what breastmilk he can!
Having written the above, BOTH the boys have just woken! I nursed Matthew, and Arthur woke with a tummy ache (he ate a lot of baked beans with his dinner!), and I ended up nursing him too - something I never do at night unless he has a really scary bad dream or he's unwell or in pain. I don't think Arthur gets much of my milk any more because he only ever nurses in the day, and often it's after Matthew has nursed for his nap or something. And also, his sessions are way shorter than they used to be. This is because *I* have cut them shorter. It sometimes makes my skin crawl to nurse Arthur at the moment. I read about that being a normal occurrance when nursing during pregnancy, in my Tandem Nursing book. I didn't experience it at ALL during my last pregnancy, but maybe it's more common with an older nursling, than one who is still basically a baby themselves. Anyway. At least I know it's normal of me, and I don't hate my child or anything! And it's not how I feel all the time. I have no issues nursing Matthew though :) He's still such a lil baby himself!
I am starting to find it really quite sore to breastfeed sometimes now. I'm thankful that it hasn't been anything like last time yet - I had the very common excruciating nipple pain last time, from quite early on. This time I really haven't had any till very recently, and it's not excruciating yet, just painful. Last time I would have to count to 10 and that's as long as I could bear to let Arthur nurse for. Thankfully it came in bouts and didn't last all pregnancy!
Arthur asks me now and then, "How is your baby growing, Mummy?" And I tell him, "The baby is growing just fine, thank you Arthur!" Sometimes when I lift my top to nurse him on the sofa, he smiles lovingly at my belly and strokes it, saying, "Aww, look at that big round tummy!" He's so sweet!
Okay, the laptop battery is about to die and it's getting way too late. I will update asap with anything I've missed out, and hopefully before I reach 17 weeks! Thanks again for the lovely messages and notes!
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