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2008-04-15 - 11.45pm��previous entry��next entry
Pregnancy thoughts, and Nathan's jabs tomorrow
Thanks for all the messages! :) I'll look so daft in a few days, probably, hehe!
Well, my temp this morning was 36.3, pretty low really - not my lowest pre-ovulatory temps, but somewhere in the middle. Once I'm getting a ton of pregnancy symptoms, my temps are usually high by then, so I think it's evidence that I'm NOT pregnant.
I do still feel the same today, symptom-wise. And this morning I had EWCM! What is up with that?! None since though, and no spotting today. I do not know what is going on with my body!
There was another weird thing that Arthur said today. A routine we have after lunch is - Nathan down for a nap, followed by Matthew down for a nap. I take Matthew up and breastfeed him in bed, and then if he isn't asleep on the breast I lay him down and wait till he falls asleep. Then I come downstairs and Arthur always asks for "milky" straight away. So that's when we snuggle up on the armchair together and he nurses for a little while. Not very long though - I don't let him have long sessions now after all the puking he was doing a while back at bedtime. I always offer him the same breast that Matthew just had, because there's always milk in it, and I like to save a whole breastful for Nathan, for when he wakes up.
So today, this exact routine happened, and I settled down to nurse Arthur. He nursed for a while and then asked for the other side. I said no, and he said, "But there's no milky in this side at ALL!" I said, "What?!" because that NEVER happens, in fact the last time he complained about no milky left in one of my breasts, I was pregnant. And he nodded and said, "None at ALL." I offered him the other side for a moment and asked if there was milky in that side, and he nodded. So that was WEIRD. Pregnant weird. But I can't really be pregnant, so I repeat - what. is. up. with that?!
I had chance to speak to my mum on the phone today (they've had visitors so I haven't had my usual frequent long-winded phone calls with my mummy!), and told her I was feeling pregnant. She did her traditional thing and said, "Oh no!!" *sigh* It ALWAYS bugs the heck out of me when she does that. She loves her grandchildren, and she's a fantastic Nana, and is quick to get happy and excited for us when we ARE expecting again. But I'm just sooooo not of the same mindset. She seems to be one of the MANY women out there who don't mind a couple of kids, but "you don't want all those kids around the place!" and you're crazy if you want more than two. I know it's practically the universal opinion, or something, but I just don't get that at all. I understand the viewpoint, because yes, it is SO HARD having kids, and adding more is, well, harder. BUT, I am told by basically every large family I have come across, that adding the fourth and - even more so - any subsequent babies beyond that is a piece of cake compared to adding #2 or #3. So, most of the women who hold the "I don't know how you do it!" attitude to having more than two, would never actually get to the stage where it gets easier! Ironic, huh?! ;)
Anyway. There DOES seem to be something just slightly nuts about having two babies within a year though, let's face it! I keep thinking I should be gasping in horror or something, at the prospect. I think I said here a few days ago that I had moments where I thought maybe I really AM pregnant, where it gave me a cold sweat and a lot of anxiety, hehe! But I don't know. Since I really started to FEEL pregnant, I have been believing that I am. And I have surprised myself with how happy and excited I feel at the prospect, even with the scary close age gap!
I have been thinking some things through, not obsessively, just in case. I've ENJOYED thinking these things through! :) My first concern would be Nathan's breastmilk. The very very first thing I would do if I found out I was pregnant, would be to start praying that God would please bless me to be one of those rare women who has plentiful milk throughout pregnancy, or at least plenty for LONGER than I usually do. Then I think I would need to wean Arthur completely from the breast :( And I think I would probably need to wean Matthew too :( :( I would probably still want to allow him a mini breastfeed at bedtime, just for a moment. I don't know how I'd bring myself to cut that off all together. He's not even two yet, and two is definitely my minimum goal. BUT, Nathan is the priority for breastmilk, obviously. So I would make sure all of what I have is going to Nathan, and any that's left over I will need to pump, to start what will probably be a fairly meagre freezer stash. That way, when I run out of milk, I can still give him some, however little, for a time after there's none left in my breasts. Obviously he would have to be hugely supplemented with formula. I am already working on my feelings about that (in case!). Formula is not poison! He will thrive and be well-fed and happy and loved, and so on, just as he is when exclusively breastfed. I need to let go of my high standards if I find myself pregnant way earlier than expected. Because it's okay if he has to have formula while my breasts won't make him milk any more. But it does break my heart a little to think of that last sentence in action :( The idea would be that I really really work at continuing nursing him for comfort, and as part of a bedtime routine, for what little bits of milk he can squeeze out, and to keep up the habit! Because if I am pregnant (which, you know, I am probably not) then he wouldn't even quite be one before my milk would be back in full flow, and hopefully he'd just pick up where he left off and still be nursing at age two with a whole year of lovely breastmilk behind him! So hopefully it wouldn't be The End once my milk dries up, just a temporary shortage :)
I also started thinking about how I would cope, and changes I could start making right away if I found out I was pregnant. The first thing would be to get Nathan sleeping independently (he's young enough to really have a good chance of good sleep if I work with him on it!) in his cot, and sleeping through the night as soon as he's able. Also a good, regular nap schedule. He needs to be able to take himself off to sleep, which neither of my other boys have ever been able to do (they're able now, at 3.5 and 22 months!). Matthew is very recently able to take part in crafts and playdough and stuff, without just eating the whole lot and losing interest in 2 seconds. So I think I would have to be able to put Nathan down for his predictable and decent-length naps (in the ideal world!!), and then for morning naps, set the boys up at the kitchen table with a craft or playdough. And then free play for a while after that. And then if Nathan's nap gave us time for a quick outing before lunch, we'd all go out for the boys to burn off some energy running about. Then lunch. Then naps for the two littlest boys, and school for Arthur. Then I guess free play and, let's face it, DVDs or CBeebies since my morning sickness is always unbearable from about 4pm (which, coincidentally, is about the time when the boys become absolutely maddening in their behaviour!). Then clock-watch till Neil gets home, and final nap for Nathan. Somewhere in there I will need to prepare dinner. And then bedtime. I think if I can make a real structured schedule for the day, I can make it through by just focusing on the next thing and the next thing, throughout the day. Nathan's ability to sleep well and without my help once I lay him down in his cot, is VITAL to everything else being possible. So that's the main thing to work on.
Also, I need to clean and tidy the house. It will make the difference between managing the day and not managing the day, seriously. It's such a total PIT right now (as always). I simply HAVE to get a handle on this. I am doing FlyLady but very part-time at the moment! ;)
I really have been doing a lot of thinking about everything. The biggest hurdle for me is the prospect of morning sickness. I can't seem to function or meet most of my children's needs when I have morning sickness. And it just seems to go on FOR EVER, when I think of how much of THEIR lives it's covering. But oh how worth it, when it's gone and the great part of pregnancy is there, to share with the boys. And even more wonderful, adding another little person to our household, another little one for our existing lovelies to play with and love on! Which they do. They both love Nathan so much and show no issues with him whatsoever, just as they are with each other.
I will need to get more focused on making sure I spend quality time with each individual boy, even making a written note of it maybe, to make sure nobody is missing out. I have thought and thought about things from Nathan's point of view, and I can't see that he would miss out on his own babyhood in any way really. I know that's a popular opinion, that children who have closely spaced siblings miss out on their babyhoods or something. But I am thinking that's a myth. For us anyway. My babies still breastfeed, snuggle, and get lots of personal attention from Mummy and Daddy, even when they have younger siblings! :) They are asked to help more, and be aware of others in the household more, but nothing that will stifle their babyhood. They do get to deal with tired and snappy parents sometimes :( Which IS a by-product of having a sibling or two close in age, since Mummy and Daddy are frazzled as a result! But we try not to be awful too often, and I think many kids have tired and irritable parents at times without siblings close to their own age. We keep them close to us - they do not attend nursery or groups where we are not with them. We stay with them in church creche. We're not trying to keep them under close surveillance. We just love being near them and can't bear to be apart while they're so little! We want to see every tiny thing they do at this young age, and be a part of it with them. I hope to homeschool, so that will continue I guess, except they'll obviously socialise without us present, increasingly, as they get older.
Anyway. I can't think how Nathan will miss out even if he spends most of his first year of life with a pregnant mother, and then a new baby before he turns one! I'm hoping and praying that it would mean he has a great buddy in the new baby, like Arthur and Matthew are real buddies. I want to take special care to focus on Nathan as much as I can (as well as the older two, of course), so as to make sure he doesn't miss what he would have got from me if I WASN'T pregnant.
Lots of serious thinking. I have enjoyed thinking it all out and making some plans. It has not scared me, but made me all the more excited and eager about the prospect of another baby so soon. Also, I know it would be God's decision if I'm pregnant. There is NO WAY we would have consciously decided to try and get pregnant this soon, so it HAS to be God! That said, now that I have believed I'm pregnant and thought things through, and realised that I'm excited and happy, I am not sure I would say NO WAY to such an idea again. Not that we WOULD try for another baby so soon, but that I would never think, "No WAY!" about it again.
So if it's God, I'm excited to see how he will bless us! WHO he will bless us with! Somebody we had noooo idea about, but who he has predestined from the beginning of time. How awesome!!! He also gives us all that we need to deal with the blessings he brings us, even if it's hard. He equips us, and I can turn to him and lean on him, and draw strength for each new day in him. So what's to fear?! :)
Last night before I went to sleep, I lay my hand on Nathan who was sleeping in his cot, and I prayed that if I AM pregnant, that God would bless Nathan and let him thrive in this unexpected situation. And from that I just found myself praying for any potential baby on the way, that all would be well with him or her, and that God would enable me to be all that each of my children needed of me during an unexpected pregnancy so soon after the last one. THEN after I finished, I felt kind of sheepish and silly for having even prayed about it! Because what if I'm not pregnant now! And then the low temp this morning, I felt sillier still, hehe!
I FEEL pregnant still, but I really don't think I am now, with that low temp. I can't figure out another source for allll the symptoms, but I think it will just end up being a confusing unknown, not a pregnancy. I SHOULD be relieved, as it gives my baby more time as my only tiny baby, and as much breastmilk as he can stomach for his first year! Yay! And there's plenty of time to have babies yet :) There is definitely no rush! But a little hidey-away part of me feels disappointed, which surprises me!
I guess I just love having babies! I love being pregnant soooooooo much. I love the new little persons and getting to know them, and all the sweet sweet stuff that I'm doing now with Nathan - first smiles and laughs, and cooing together, millions of photos, watching his brothers fall in love with him and interact with him, seeing him grow and thrive on my milk, breastfeeding him - oh how I love it!! I love the sensation of his little suckle and the sting of the milk as it rushes to nourish and satisfy him. I love the closeness to him as I feed him like that. I love nursing tummy-to-tummy in bed. I love watching his eyes roll almost closed and dart about blissfully as he fills up and dozes off at the same time :)
*sigh*
I just love having babies.
Well, that's enough waffling for now. I was supposed to do some laundry before bed but I have waffled too long! Nathan has slept all evening in the cot again - well, I tried swaddling him and laying him on his back at 6.15pm (he was tired out, having been up for 90 minutes already), and he HATED it so much!!! He cried and fussed. Sometimes he lay quietly sucking on his dummy, and if I peeped in at him, I felt so bad because it looked so WRONG somehow! His little mouth was stopped up with a dummy, and he was trussed up like a turkey, completely restrained all over his body! He just had his eyes wide open, staring at the last of the daylight coming through the curtains for AGES. But, another way of looking at it is that he was sucking for comfort (he needs this), and was wrapped securely (also for his comfort) and snugly, in a comfy place. Lying on his tummy all the time, he doesn't ever get to see the light through the curtains, and he was really interested in them! I remember Arthur used to talk to the curtains at MAXIMUM volume at 5am, hehe! He loved them when the light came through them in the morning :)
Anyway. He cried and fussed and got too hot, and got changed into cooler things and a different swaddle sheet, and cried and fussed and so on, until 7.30pm! At which point, I went to breastfeed the boys for their bedtime routine, and Neil went to Nathan, unswaddled him and flipped him onto his tummy, whereupon he zonked right out!! Oh well. He did fuss for a while and only really went to sleep properly around 8pm. He hasn't made a peep since then (it's midnight now) and I have been twice to check he's still breathing! He is. :)
He has a busy and rather unpleasant day tomorrow, so I should go to bed and snuggle him and pretend tomorrow isn't coming. I always feel so bad for my little babies when they have to have their injections - especially the very first round, since they're SO little and are so innocent about it all! They have never had anything so rude done to them before, and have no clue it's about to happen. I always feel so sad for them! And then it hurts and hurts, and they feel crummy later in the evening. BUT, it will be worth it overall, to be protected against some nasty things. So I'll do it. But I'm NOT looking forward to it! Tomorrow I'll keep Nathan close to me after bedtime, not leave him on his tummy in his cot all evening. I want to keep close to him and make sure he's okay at every moment, and check he isn't getting a bit feverish, etc. I think we'll give him Calpol anyway tomorrow evening, the tiny dose that they recommend.
He also has his 6-8 week check at last, which I'm soooo looking forward to! I don't think he'll like it, as he'll have to be undressed and dressed and poked and laid on cold scales, etc. But I'm so excited to find out what he weighs and measures!!! I'll update about it tomorrow if I can! :)
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