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2007-07-09 - 5.50pm��previous entry��next entry
9 weeks pregnant!! Braxton Hicks and amazing things!
Woohoo, 9 weeks pregnant already!! :)
I can�t believe there is only ONE week to go until I am quarter of the way through my pregnancy, and into double digits!! Also only 1 week till my next belly picture (it feels like ages since the last one!) and Beanlet only has a week to go until he/she is no longer and embryo, but a fetus! It�s going soooo fast. I�m so excited!!!
I haven�t updated since 8w1d, which is too long, especially considering I have loads of stuff worth writing about this week. But I have mainly been too tired or nauseous to write. I have actually had TWO early nights this week! Gasp! ;) This is a huge deal for me, as I always stay up crazy late, but I haven�t been able to do anything about how tired out I have been feeling. I am pretty sure it�s largely pregnancy tiredness, because it�s not making any difference to go to bed early or get more rest during the day. And there�s nothing I can do about pregnancy tiredness, at this stage. I just need to ride it out and hope it lifts at the end of my first trimester! Though in my experience, it�s usually more like 20 weeks before I start to feel less exhausted. I can�t wait to feel less sick! I am hoping there are only about 4 weeks now before I feel better, yay!
I am still eating my meals well � breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day. I never miss a meal. I think I have finally learnt my lesson from previous pregnancies, haha! I also snack in between whenever I notice my nausea increasing. The only thing I can�t really tolerate is staying at the table when it�s time for pudding � whatever that might be, even if it�s just fruit or yoghurt. I CAN eat fruit without any trouble, but for some reason I get so nauseated thinking of a sweet course after the meal. I can�t even stay in the room. BUT, I can snack on biscuits and chocolate when I�m super nauseous, and it helps a lot. I am less able to eat chocolate at the end of this week for whatever reason. It�s just starting to turn my stomach a little when I am eating it. But a digestive biscuit or two is usually the only thing I can tolerate (and it helps FAST) if I ever let myself get to the stage where I feel too sick to look at anything to eat, let alone put it in my mouth. It�s just awful, the first few nibbles, but once I am past the �half-biscuit� stage (!!), I start to feel better.
I don�t know what difference this all might make to my weight gain this pregnancy. In my first pregnancy I lost a LOT of weight with morning sickness. I think it was like 12lbs or something, and I was too lightweight to start with. It was not good. But then I gained 54lbs, AFTER I regained my morning sickness weight-loss! With Matthew, I lost 5lbs during the morning sickness patch, and then regained it and gained a further 54lbs (how uncanny!). This time I don�t know if I�ll even lose any weight, since I�m eating all my meals and snacking on not-so-low calorie things! I was 8st 5lbs when I weighed myself somewhere before I tested positive (or was it just after?). Yesterday I weighed myself out of curiosity and I was 8st 4lbs. I have a few weeks of morning sickness left at least, so I will wait till then to see how much I have lost (if any) by the end of it. I am guessing I will gain somewhere in the region of 54lbs over the rest of my pregnancy though! ;) This is the first time I am really not looking forward to it. I get SO HUGE, and get more stretch marks each time (not just on my bump). I am starting to feel self-conscious about how I look after I have gained alllll that weight. I always start to dislike how weighty my face looks from the 34 weeks mark. I seem to just look really different at 34 weeks each time, in the face, and I don�t like it. I don�t think it looks nice. I can�t believe I�m getting like this, after saying in my first pregnancy that I was not going to do any stressing over my weight gain because that was just silly. It IS silly! I don�t know whether I�ve succumbed to the influence of all the somehow extremely weight-obsessed pregnant women on US sites like FF, over the years, or whether something in me is just changing as I get older, about how I see myself. Or, maybe it has something to do with the fact that my mum can�t seem to let it go about how much weight I gain when I�m pregnant. *sigh* It might not have anything to do with that, and she is never unpleasant about it, but she WILL keep on saying the same thing every time it comes up, that I turned into a little Buddha when I was pregnant with Arthur, and she couldn�t believe how big I got (weight gain wise, not bump wise), and so on. But she always says how it comes off fast and I have no trouble losing it. And that�s true. I am GLAD of all my weight that I gain because I personally feel I need it for breastfeeding. All the more since I have had more than one child to breastfeed. I think I will certainly need the usual 54lbs weight gain this time as well, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about the fact that I will gain it, and look huge and not-nice in my face again. It�s SO SILLY of me. I really dislike obsessiveness or negativity about weight. It�s a modern-day trend that I hate and go out of my way to stand against, especially in myself or people I love. So it annoys me that I am suddenly all funny about gaining lots of weight. I feel like people are going to be looking at me when I�m really pregnant and whispering that I�ve gained SO much weight (in negative tones), and the idea really bothers me. I hate that it does!!! And I don�t know why I even feel this way. But I do. Poo.
Anyway. Other than the above, I will TRY not to make anything of weight gain this pregnancy, as before! I will only weigh myself out of interest, and more later on in my pregnancy than any other time, as I gain more quickly then and will be interested to see how it compares to my other pregnancies. I am thankful that midwives/doctors don�t bother with weight gain during pregnancy at all in the UK � that is one less stress on the subject! :)
I have been so exhausted this week. I have not been managing well with the boys, and I sometimes just have to lie on the sofa or the floor and then I feel like I can�t EVER get up again! I get breathless even when I have been lying down for 10 minutes, and lose my breath completely just walking across the room or talking, sometimes. I am also getting some unpleasant heart palpitations � my heart will suddenly (from nowhere) start racing and beating so hard that I feel like it�s going to come through my ribcage, and then just as suddenly, it goes right back to normal and just leaves me with the adrenaline rush that comes from a racing heart! It happens when I�m resting on the sofa sometimes which isn�t a nice feeling. It makes me feel uneasy. But I did have this with my other pregnancies at times, and also before I had kids, when I was really underweight, any time I got really overtired. So I guess it�s just part of the exhaustion, and evidence that my body is under a lot of strain right now. I had it with Arthur too, so I guess it�s just a very exhausting thing � growing a baby! Much more so when you have other little ones to run around after, but even if you don�t, it�s still very physically demanding. I know I will just have to wait till I feel better, and try to rest when I can.
It�s hard because sometimes I feel like I absolutely don�t know what to DO when Neil is at work in the day. I get so exhausted that I don�t know how I�ll carry Matthew upstairs for his nap, or lift Arthur over the fixed gate in the kitchen doorway. And I have no idea how I�ll get through 2 hours before Neil gets home in the evening. I have had a lot of times this week when I have not known how to deal with the kids. I would not manage without their nap time at the moment. I really seem to need it for some quiet time in the house, and so that I am able to just be in my own head for a while, and not demanded-of all the time. I can just rest my body on the sofa, and rest my mind with the quiet. I don�t nap with them, because that doesn�t seem to be something I can do any more. I have to stagger their naps because they both need me to get them to sleep (how I WISH I had arranged that differently many months ago!), and then it�s completely unpredictable how they�ll sleep. One or both might wake at the 30-minute mark, and need resettling. Or else get up � if it�s Arthur. So I have no chance of sleep for myself. It�s far worse to have just dropped off, totally wiped out, and then one of the boys wakes. I usually can�t even make my muscles hold Matthew so that I can resettle him if that happens, so I stay awake now, but just lie on the sofa or watch some quiet TV (Wimbledon tennis has been GREAT for this over the past week or so!).
Okay, I just went on to write a huuuuge load of waffle related to the above stuff about tiredness and not managing, because Neil and I had an argument about him having time off over this weekend (Friday and Monday � today). And then I realised that it really didn�t belong here in this diary, so I am just going to cut it out of this entry and put it at my arthursmummy diary instead. But it�s a sort of continuation of this entry, just less and less to do with writing about my pregnancy! I will reference this entry in my other diary too, because I�m not going to go on and on about the exhaustion issue there, but I guess it�s relevant as an explanation for the argument. Or something. Anyway, just wanted to say that. And now I will write more happy pregnant stuff! :)
So the last time I updated was about my scan and then about hearing Beanlet�s little heart beating on my Doppler!! Yay! Thank you so much for the messages after those entries, they were ever so sweet and really made me smile! :)
I am SO glad I had the scan, because the very next day, I found a quite a lot of brown blood when I went to the loo that afternoon. I was surprised about it, but I wasn�t scared because I had just seen the little one and heard the heartbeat. I was immediately thankful that I had been to the scan though. I would have been pretty scared otherwise. Anyway it was gone later that day and hasn�t reoccurred since. I am pretty sure it must be my cervix bleeding. I know in Arthur�s pregnancy I had some condition (for want of a better word) where I have cells that normally line the uterus, outside on my cervix. The doctor said they would be very prone to shedding and bleeding, just like the lining of the womb does. That�s what those cells are made to do, and the slightest irritation could cause spotting. I don�t know if it would be permanent from that point on, but if it is, then that could account for the spotting. I still have horrible constipation and I think sometimes that is responsible for some of my spotting.
Anyway. I have been listening with the Doppler every evening (except the last two � I haven�t felt the need to on those evenings), and finding Beanlet every time! The heartrates have been 177 (after the first one of 174), 171, 174, 177. Just right for this gestation, so I�m happy! It will slow down soon enough.
Beanlet�s development in the time I haven�t updated has just been amazing!! The arms and legs are now proper little limbs with joints, upper and lower arms/legs, ankles and wrists, and rapidly developing hands and feet! All the fingers are individually �notched� and becoming separate, more like webbed fingers now. And the toes are notched now, too. The critical time for arm development is finished already! And the same is about to occur for leg development. The arms are in their final position in proportion to the baby now. The eyes are pigmented and eyelids are now appearing, even folding at this stage! There�s loads more at this link about Carnegie Stage 19 - can you believe Beanlet has been through this many development stages already?! Beanlet�s kidneys have already begun to produce urine for the first time, and over the next week, the first brain waves can be detected! How amazing is that?! The skeleton is beginning to ossify, and the genital tubercle is now being worked on! :) That�s the bit I�ll be interested to see in about 11 weeks time! ;) The gonads are also developing from this stage onwards. I am pretty sure they're going to be testes. ;)
And that�s not all! Beanlet is moving! :) I noticed the other night that I would find the heartbeat and hold the Doppler really still, and gradually (or suddenly, once or twice!), the sound of the heartbeat would move away and get more and more distant till I couldn�t hear it any more. Then I�d move maybe a cm or two across and find it again. :) So Beanlet is definitely moving around in there. I saw a 3D scan online of an 8 week embryo that was moving ALL over! It was arching its back and jerking its little arm and leg paddles. So cute!
I CAN feel the top of my uterus. More so than I realised at first actually! It�s always a sort of shapeless lump at first, before it actually pops out of my pelvis. The top of it is higher than my pubic bone, but the bulk of it hasn�t come out from behind my pubic bone, so there�s nothing protruding. But my stomach is flat and soft, so when I lie on my back I can really feel the top of it when I gently poke and press there. It�s actually 3 inches above my pubic bone already, but still 5 inches below my tummy button. I don�t think it will get much higher for a while, just move forwards as I start to show a bit (not happening this early yet!). The other thing I have noticed is that I can feel Braxton Hicks contractions ALREADY! Last time I felt them around 10 weeks (or 11, I can�t remember which) and got all anxious about it, wondering if it was okay. People said that you feel them earlier with subsequent pregnancies (I had felt them at maybe 20 weeks with Arthur). I really don�t think I would be noticing them at all yet if it wasn�t for the fact that they are such a familiar sensation to me by now! I have been noticing the sensation for most of the week, but only a few times a day. Especially when lying down. I feel an odd sort of pressure inside, and it sort of feels like an uncomfy pressure in my groin, like a hard ball bearing down slightly. It also has a slightly.... I don�t know how to describe this bit very well.... a slightly hot/cold sensation that I recognised from my past pregnancies with Braxton Hicks. So after I wondered that, the next time I felt it while I was lying down, I quickly pressed my fingers into the area above my bikini line where I knew the top of my uterus was, and sure enough it was hard as a rock! It eased off just like Braxton Hicks always did when my womb was all huge. So I am feeling BH contractions at 8 weeks! At least I am not nervous about them this time though :)
Yesterday evening I was lying on the sofa watching TV, and I was at a really awkward angle. It wasn�t very comfy but I couldn�t be bothered to straighten out. There was a cushion under my bottom so it was raised up on one side, and one leg had fallen open onto the sofa (that doesn�t make much sense, but anyhoo!). Anyway all of a sudden I SWEAR I felt something knock (like the lightest of taps, but firm enough still) on the inside of my cervix. I would really like to know what that was, because I am thinking at 8 weeks and 6 days, that is too early for a baby to even be making strong enough movements to knock itself, however gently, on the womb or cervix. But, darn heck it, I KNOW what a bump on my cervix feels like from the inside, and this was exactly that. I would instantly dismiss any sort of flutter or tap to my abdominal side, because it could too easily be wind (goodness knows I have enough of it to feel �baby kicks� all day long, haha!). But I don�t know what else could feel like a little tap on my cervix. It wasn�t a comfy sensation � I�ve never found it all that nice to be tapped on the cervix from the inside! It�s a bit sensitive. But that�s how I know it was definitely a tap to my cervix. I will keep that in mind while I wait for definite baby bumps and rolls! It might be something that I can only really be sure about in hindsight, one way or another. I did feel Matthew moving from 10 weeks, so I know it won�t be long now! How EXCITING!!!! :)
Hmmm, I�m trying to think what else. I know there was plenty of stuff I wanted to write � those are the main things written about now.... I have had several interruptions to this entry and now it�s many hours after I started it, so I have lost my train of thought somewhat. Maybe I will post this for now and try to update more often with smaller entries, when I think of things? It�s nearly dinner time so I should go now anyway. I will try to update soon!
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