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2008-04-19 - 10.45pm��previous entry��next entry
Temps, Nathan's (non!) appointments, etc.
Thank you for all the messages! :)
Welll, I really do not think I am pregnant. I still FEEL somewhat pregnant though, genuinely. I am less crampy just today and yesterday, but still some mild cramping. It got SO bad before that! I don't feel internally hot any more. I DO feel weirdly weepy today and yesterday though, at things that really only bother me when pregnant or periody (children's TV and nauseating baby doll adverts, etc!). I also read "Hello Baby!" to Arthur today as he chose it for story time - it's about homebirths, for little ones. Oh my gosh, I had soooo much trouble keeping my voice steady as I read that to him! I had to keep taking deep breaths! I felt so emotional. The bit on "Mist" (the long-length children's special about a sheepdog that was on at Christmas) where two of the sheepdog's puppies were rehomed when they came of age to be separated from her? My heart was thoroughly RENDED, and ohhh the tears and lumpsome throats. The weepy/emotional thing these last few days is really unusual for me, and more often than not, hormonal.
Arthur continues to say weird stuff - example yesterday, when Neil put aside a pair of age 2 trousers that are still a bit too big for Matthew:
Arthur: "Are those Mashew's trousers?"
Neil: "Well, they're too big for Matthew and too small for Arthur right now, so I'm putting them aside."
Arthur: "Do they fit Nathan?"
Neil: "Not yet..."
Arthur: "They must be for our new baby then..."
Neil: (slightly freaking out, hehe!) "What new baby?!"
Arthur: "Well, we'll just have to see how many babies God will give us..."
That's all he would say! :)
Neil continues to give me the occasional funny look and has said, "When can you test, again?" like 5 times over the last few days! He still says my face looks "different". Today my skin is really soft but I feel daft charting it, so I've just made a note of it instead.
Today I am weeing more, without drinking more (and the baby boy bean is on a growth spurt so nursing way more). But only today. Again, I feel daft charting it so I'm making a note! I didn't have any of that light spotting for a couple of days, but I had some more this morning - again just a little bit, and none at all this afternoon. Same as before. My apple tasted weird last night. I did not deal too well with the smell of the weird bath stuff Neil used tonight.
My milk supply is down. Still leaky and quite plentiful, but noticably less than last week, say. Arthur has twice told me there is NO milky left in the side that Matthew just nursed from, which hasn't happened before. Also, one time when I felt particularly empty, I noticed that I nursed Nathan and didn't feel a letdown. That has only happened in pregnancy before, but not till way later into the pregnancy. I wonder if I have just been over-enthusiastic with the one-breast-for-several-feeds thing, and it has reduced my supply too effectively. And thus, Nathan is behaving as though he's having a growth spurt, in order to rebuild my supply? Maybe. Or maybe he really IS having a growth spurt?! He's due one, being 3 months old, I suppose, and it doesn't seem like he has had one for ages.
Anyway. So something is definitely UP with my hormones, still. But - check out my temps! I have temped for the last 5 mornings, and they are all very low temps, which is a pretty clear NON-pregnant sign. As well as that, they are crazy plummeting! What is up with that?! Every day my temp is lower! The line on my chart is like the drop on those log-on-water rollercoaster rides! So I can't possibly be pregnant with temps like that, I feel pretty sure. Which is why I haven't tested. I don't want to waste my last remaining test! It has an expiry date of Sept 08. I feel SURE I will be using it before then, hehe! Not that we're necessarily planning to TTC by then, but because we are not really planning to prevent pregnancy at all this time (exciting!!!!!).
Anyway, I can't fathom my temps. Or my symptoms. I think I will continue to temp, because - I know it's sad! - I have really enjoyed these last 5 mornings, waking up and temping again! :) I always did LOVE charting, whether TTC or not! At the same time, there's no pressure to temp, so if I get bored of it I'll just have a break from temping for a while. I like seeing what my temps are doing, even if they're just bobbing about waiting to get under some hormonal influence, hehe! I am not expecting that till at least 5 or 6 months along, so that would be.... June or July maybe? Mid-July, I'm guessing. Also, if I continue temping for a while, I can keep an eye on what my temps are doing at the moment. Maybe I'll test, even though it's going to be negative. If I use my last one up, I'll just end up buying another pack of cheapy internet tests anyway, if we're not going to be preventing. You know I'll have more dramatic times like this one over the coming months, haha! ;)
So that is the update on that! I confessed to Neil that I felt kind of disappointed that I'm not pregnant, even though I really should be 100% relieved and glad that my baby will have my milk and his babyhood for longer, and we won't be so overwhelmed! And my body gets to recover more in preparation for the next pregnancy. It's all good. God knows who are children are and when they'll be given to us anyway :)
Jemma, I didn�t mean to be insensitive to anyone who DOES want more children than two but feels that they can�t do that, with what I said in my last entry about my mum. Sorry, I didn�t stop to think that it might offend somebody! I guess I am naive or my experience has been somewhat narrow and I went by what I have experienced and presumed it to be universal (which IS naive! Sorry!). I didn�t think I was doing anybody a disservice � certainly not my mum or many others that I know personally! In my mum�s case, it IS true that she did not want more than 2 kids because more than two is just too many to have! Not because of health or financial reasons. There is noooo way she wanted more than two to deal with! I remember begging for another sibling regularly and she just told me they didn�t want any more children than the two they had, and I would have to wait till I grew up and then I could have all the children around the place that I wanted! ;) She always told me that a wise friend-of-the-family who had 3 kids once told my parents � �Never let the children outnumber the parents!� And they have stuck to that carefully! It is definitely about the number of kids to deal with, rather than things preventing them having the larger family that they�d hoped for. We must have quite different circles of friends (or my friends are odd and do not really represent society as a whole!), because I literally only know you and Arthur�s physiotherapist (!!) as the TWO women who have had two kids and wish they could have more if only the finances/health, etc, were right. Literally all the other women with 2 kids that I know (and there are quite a lot!) are constantly talking with each other about �thank goodness my husband is going for a vasectomy � I would just DIE if I got pregnant again!�, �Oh my gosh, why would you want more � I can only just manage the two I�ve got!� etc. Definitely stopping at two for the reasons I mentioned last entry � because they really do not want to have a large number of kids around the place!! ;) That�s the only reason I said what I did, because in my personal experience, the majority of mums-who-stop-at-two, DO seem to do so because �who would want more?!� It�s sad though (disclaimer! - *I* feel it�s sad! Not that it IS � matter of fact � sad).
We are also of different mindsets re. the reasons behind stopping (or continuing!)! If I went by the same guidelines as the many women you know, who wouldn�t have more children if they don�t feel they can financially manage it, I would also be one of those who had no more than two children, I think. As you know, we are in no position to comfortably feed, clothe and house a large family, probably far less so than most people! We are not even financially able to support the kids we DO have, with no income right now! But our feelings on that are different to yours. Neil gets nervous, naturally, and we both would prefer to have a large house and plenty of money to fall back on if we�re going to have a large number of children. But if we don�t, that will not be enough reason for us to restrict the number of children we have. I don�t feel that our children would suffer terribly for it! A lot of large families are poor as anything, but happy, and their homes full of love and laughter. For me, finances will not play a large part in our decision. We�ll always have food, surely! We�re blessed to live in a country where it�s likely that we�ll always have access to enough food for as many mouths as we end up having to feed. Several kids can share a room if they have to and not be hard-done-by as a result of that. Living space though, that is something that matters to me. Especially with little boys! It wouldn�t be quite so difficult to resign myself to having a small house to live in, if we only had a decent sized garden for them to roam in every day. I know kids need space. Ours will only use their bedrooms for sleeping in (and possibly quiet time... hmmm, something I need to think on!), but living space is another matter. Right now we have to get them their space at local parks and outings. We DEFINITELY feel we need to move to a bigger house if we have any more children (preferably BEFORE that point!), and my family is constantly telling me that I really �can�t!� have any more babies until we�ve moved to a bigger house, surely! But if we found ourselves stuck here for a few more years (NOT the plan! ;) ), I would not like to think we�d restrict the growth of our family and the time-gaps between our children because of the size of our house or the amount of money we have. There�s a roof over our heads and food in the house, and I really feel that all they�d need other than those things is LOVE! And we have plenty of that to give :) We also trust God to provide for our needs, and that he will bless us with children according to his own plan and not ours, so he will provide for us as we walk in faith over that issue. I don�t think God would give us more than we can manage � financially, physically, emotionally, etc. So I feel happy to keep having babies, because if God blesses me to be able to conceive them, then I can trust that he�ll provide a way to afford them financially, and cope with raising them (I am hugely praying about this part at the moment, as I haven�t �arrived� yet!). I�m not trying to debate � I am really just stating my reasons and my thoughts on it all. Everybody�s different. I didn�t mean to be insensitive.
Oh! I should update about Nathan�s appointment! It didn�t happen! He was meant to have his baby check (the delayed 6-8 week one) and his first round of immunisations on Wednesday afternoon. It�s a long story why it didn�t happen, but basically we ended up running so late for the appointment that I had to phone and cancel it. I had two phone calls to them to discuss what to do next, and then finally just cancelled and the lovely surgery manager phoned back to give me two appointments she�d made for Nathan NEXT week, as he would otherwise have to wait ages (the baby and immunisation clinics are booked up many weeks in advance, and he�s �late� already).
An hour or so before we were due to go to the appointment, Neil brought the boys back from their usual outing to the park. Arthur was in hysterics, sobbing and whimpering and behaving like I had never seen him behave before. This should be in my other diary, but oh well. It relates to the appt being cancelled, so I�ll just write it here anyway! Neil came running in from the car to tell me that Arthur was bleeding and he couldn�t find out where from or what had happened to him! He was cowering in his car seat, sobbing, like a frightened little animal, poor love. He was trying to hide his right hand, which was absolutely COVERED in blood, back and front. His jeans were all bloodstained. Neil said he was putting Matthew�s shoe back on at the park, and Arthur climbed over a big log. Once on the other side, he started to run away from Neil, and when he caught up with him, he saw that Arthur was bleeding. He was running away from Neil because he didn�t want him to see (he does this a lot with emotions and injuries, which worries us lots), and when Neil tried to find out what had happened, or to look at his hand, Arthur broke down in hysterical crying and sobbing, and wouldn�t stop. He couldn�t talk at all. Neil just grabbed both the boys � one in each arm! � and RAN to the car park (up a hill!!! My wonder man!). He strapped them both in their car seats, tried in vain to check Arthur�s hand, and drove home as quickly as he could.
So, Arthur was too beside himself to talk at all, and he was just waaaaay too distraught to make any sense or know what to do with himself. I knew it would be pointless trying to force him to show us his hand, or to try and look at it, or to keep on asking him questions about it. He would just get more upset and worked up. So I carried him inside, and sat straight on the armchair with him curled up on my front like a little baby. I covered his poor hand with a blanket so he wouldn�t worry about having to hide it from me, and just shhed and soothed and stroked for AGES. After a bit I let him breastfeed. Occasionally I asked about his hand or tried to peep under the blanket, but he instantly got really upset again after having taken forever to calm down a bit, so I gave it up. It wasn�t bleeding any more � all the blood I could see was old. Neil was worried that it was an animal or snake bite or something, but that seemed very unlikely, and he had apparently said �No� when asked if it was an animal or a snake.
Anyway, FINALLY he started to behave a bit more like himself, watching Matthew play more, and smiling at some of the things he was doing. He stayed on me till lunch was ready for the boys, and then Matthew went to eat his lunch. I used the opportunity to persuade him that he MUST let me see and clean his hand before he could eat lunch. That did not go well, he eventually got at least as hysterical as he had been originally, but I did get to see that he had two slice-like cuts to his hand and finger, which had swollen up. They were angled, not deep, and not big enough to require stitches, thankfully. I cleaned his hand but that was difficult! Then he had lunch and perked right up. After lunch I chatted to him as casually as I could, and he was willing to answer questions. It took about 50 questions, one after the other, before I could piece together what had happened! He told me he hurt his hand on a twig! I knew a twig could not cut him so cleanly. I asked a million questions about the �twig�. From his answers, I am pretty sure that he climbed over the log, and spotted a funny-looking twig, which he then picked up � �and that�s when it hurt me�. The �twig� was almost definitely a broken bottle-neck, ugh. Then he ran away so that Daddy wouldn�t be scared of the bleeding (the boy seems to be terrified of bleeding as well as being sick now), �but then, Daddy came and grabbed both the boys, and RAN us away from the ferny woods (bless!) as fast as he could go!� Daddy is clearly Arthur�s hero too! :)
Well, obviously this took HOURS to resolve, and needed doing. And by the time it was sorted, it was almost time for Nathan�s appointment. I hadn�t eaten lunch with all that was going on, Nathan was napping in his cot, and neither of us were dressed ready to go out. The appt was to be followed by a long wait at the surgery (never did cancel that part!) for the immunisations, so I would not have been able to eat anything for a while. So I cancelled. Nathan now has a special appointment with the doctor who does baby clinic (since that clinic is full for the next few weeks) on Monday, to have his late baby check and weigh-in. Then on Wednesday he has a double appt with the nurse who normally does the baby immunisations (not in the immunisation clinic though, because that�s booked up for weeks too!), to have his first round of jabs. Phew! So not much longer to wait for those.
It�s getting late so I had better finish the things I wanted to write about!
Nathan has had a bad few days. He has been so unsettled, and fussy, and not sleeping for very long at all in the daytime. He has one long nap, but is fussy around it, and difficult to settle down. He seems tired all the time, and can�t stay awake much longer than an hour in the day. His day naps (other than that long one) are sometimes only 20 minutes long, and he wakes crying and fussy and hard to console :S So I haven�t had a clue what�s been the matter! It never ceases to amaze me that I had three babies in three years, and yet still don�t know what on earth is going on or what to do about it, hehe! Surely I should know by now?!
Today I think I might have sussed it. Teething. Yep, sucky teething has begun in earnest. I�m SURE he will not get any teeth for at least another 5 months (poor love!) but he is definitely teething. He has been drooling more for a couple of weeks, and since he found his fist and became able to coordinate it to his mouth (about a week ago), he has been chewing on it such a lot. We started giving him teething powder recently. He has a little grainy red rash on his chin from the drool, and I�m trying to keep his chin dry by wiping it whenever I see it drooly (which is constantly at the moment). Today he has been chewing his fist without stopping, literally. He has been bending his chin almost to his chest with the effort of biting down on his fist. He also found some individual fingers to bite on, and his right forefinger is red and puffy just above the knuckle, where he has been biting it so hard. He has also bitten my nipple a few times today � thankfully NO teeth to add injury, and he�s not biting HARD to hurt me. I put the knuckle of my bent forefinger to his mouth this afternoon to see what he wanted to do with it, and he instantly accepted it and BIT as hard as he could on it. I gave him teething powder several times today, and also Bonjela for the first time. He LOVED that! I don�t think my other babies enjoyed Bonjela like this boy does! He smiled and was perfectly accepting of me putting my finger in his mouth and rubbing his gums. He didn�t even seem bothered by the taste! For the record, his gums felt normal except for the middle bottom at the front (where his first toothies will come in eventually). That area of his gum felt hot and sort of soft and puffy (swollen?). So I presume those first teeth are moving in preparation, and it�s hurting the poor little baby beanlet :(
He is also having some sort of growth spurt, like I said earlier. He is nursing very frequently for him. I am totally demand-feeding, which helps me see what his needs are as they change in times like this. All day I�ve been saying, �But... surely he can�t be hungry again yet?!� I think he has nursed about 10 times so far today (it�s midnight now), including waking to nurse twice since bedtime 5 hours ago. He usually sleeps through the evening, so that�s really unusual for him. He is hungry every time I offer him the breast and takes a full side. Still, a full side is all he wants, and he grimaces at side 2 if I offer it! So I am guessing it�s a growth spurt. It has been a while since he has had one though! I�m expecting a rather wakeful night � thankfully I love breastfeeding him, even frequently! And cherish the night sessions, lying tummy-to-tummy with my little snugly, hungry, snuffly love. I get to kiss him as much as I want to when he�s not sleeping, so BOY do I kiss him aplenty during the night at the moment, hehe! I just love him so. It would be way harder with Neil at work, of course. I�m glad (again!) of the blessing of him being here at home right now. Money is another matter! But I�m glad of his wonderful help! He doesn�t do anything in the night with us. Nathan and I share a room/bed, and I shut the door behind us when I go to bed, so as not to disturb the little boys too much. Neil is still sleeping in their room for now, and he attends to them when they wake or stir in the night � which they do most nights, so neither of us gets a full night of sleep yet! The boys are pretty easy to resettle, and quick too. He gets up with them when they wake in the morning and starts their day (6am usually, urgh!). Nathan is also often up around 6am, but I always encourage him to go back to sleep till somewhere like 8am. When Neil is back at work I will have to get up with the boys and figure a routine to juggle it all. Somehow! And get more sleep! Otherwise I�ll crash and burrrrrn, baby. So I am doing everything with Nathan at night, just as I did with Matthew. It works best that way, because then Neil does everything for the older child(ren) and I don�t have to worry about going back and forth between kiddos at night. I love doing the night stuff with the little babies anyway! I am WELL conditioned from Arthur�s babyhood! I think I would be resenting it and struggling to cope with it a lot more if I hadn�t been! ;)
Let�s see, what else? Nathan is now propping himself up on his elbows (fairly low-hunched though) when on his tummy! He looks around quite comfortably. I�ve noticed from looking at Arthur and Matthew�s baby photos, that his newborn hair ISN�T the same as the other boys�. I forgot that the other boys had quite long hair at this stage, and both had little Mohawks, hehe! Especially Matthew :) Nathan has NO Mohawk whatsoever, and in fact his hair is considerably shorter all over than the other boys� hair was. He has a good head of hair though, so I had presumed he had the same �baby wig� that they�ve all had! I didn�t realise that the other boys had even MORE hair than this! Also, Matthew�s hair was mucho falling out by 2 months of age. The other day (2 days ago, I think), I found two little downy loose hairs behind Nathan�s ear when I was washing him, and I instantly had that mama pang � you know the one you get when you first see a sign that your baby is outgrowing something cute that characterised his precious stage of babyhood thus far. Like when Arthur first said, �Arsur� instead of �Ah-yah�. You know that�s the end of �Ah-yah� and the way your heart swelled with mushy love every time you heard him say it :( Anyway. I knew when I saw loose hairs that he was about to begin The Great Hair Shed that all newborns eventually go through! Waaaah! I�m excited about seeing his REAL hair and what it will be like! But I�m sad that his newbornness is disappearing before my very eyes. Wasn�t it just last week that I was yelling my head off in the delivery room as he made his speedy way into the world?! And how TINY he was! I can�t believe so much time has passed and he has changed so much already!
Now I am finding those tiny dark downy hairs quite a bit. He hasn�t really gone bald at the back like most babies, but that�s probably because I�m a bad mummy and sleep him on his tummy. *sigh* I love his receding hairline though! :) All babies with hair get that. I really find it fascinating to watch their hairline change, because it�s like a visible marker to see how fast their frontal lobe is growing, and in which direction their brain growth is going, changing the shape of their little faces. The frontal lobe has a huge growth spurt between 1 and 3 months of age. They start cooing and socialising and smiling and all that, during that window, and learn so many new things. You can really see that brain growing and stretching out that hairline, it�s amazing!
His cradle cap is so-so. I have used the Dentinox shampoo a few times. Question for experienced shampoo-ers (!!), how long (or how many washes) does it take to clear up?! I think it is definitely improving, but it�s still pretty obvious cradle cap when you look at him. I LOVE the smell though, like you said Shelley! He doesn�t mind baths nearly so much now, so I�m starting to do them a bit more often for him. I bath him in one of the big tubs that hold toys on the toy unit I made!! It�s a great size and depth, and I find it the easiest option, rather than bending over the big bathtub, or protecting him from the taps in the sink! I just put the waterproof crafts mat on the living room floor, cover it with towels, get everything I need around me, and bath him right there in a toy-tub full of water! It works for me, anyway. I did the same with Matthew when he was tiny.
Nathan has discovered that there�s a REALLY adorable little boy in the living room mirror! ;) If I hold him there, he coos and smiles at my reflection for a while, and then � hang on! � suddenly spots this cute little person looking very cheerful and approachable! His eyes go wide and then he tries a little half-smile at the cute baby person. The baby person smiles back! So he launches into beams, coy glances, coos and squawks, the whole enchilada! It�s SO very cute :) He LOVES to �talk�, possibly more so than Arthur or Matthew did at this age, which is... disconcerting?! Arthur is so incredibly talkative, that I even sometimes feel I can�t. Take it. Any longer! To think that we might have another who talks MORE than Arthur is hard to contemplate right now! ;) The first thing Nathan wants to do when he wakes (other than breastfeed!) is talk. He searches out faces as I walk past people, holding him, eyes bugging and eager. The moment his gaze is returned, he beams and scrunches his shoulders into his neck with glee at the same time. Then he gets busy cooing and squawking and just being SO incredibly charming and adorable! I love him!!!!
He nearly laughed today!!!! I was wiggling his arms and legs to a silly song I was making up as I went along (NOT an unusual event for my poor children, hehe!), and suddenly his eyes had a sort of clear shiny �snap� to them, and his smile got even bigger and more open-mouthed, and he lifted his chin and did this �eh� sound like the first tilt of a chuckle. I was so excited!!! Because I have been here before and I KNOW that this little sound and chin action is the first note of a laugh, so the real thing is JUST around the corner!!!! Yay! I�m so excited to hear Nathan giggle and laugh! I don�t think it was long after that first �note� with the boys, before they were doing their first real laugh. Wheeee! :)
Well, I can�t remember any more to write. I�m sure there was more, but this entry is so long now, and I need to go to bed. I�ll definitely update after Nathan�s appt on Monday, though. I still plan to close down here after that, because it will definitely be time to close the book on Nathan�s pregnancy, birth and newborn days, which is what this diary is for. I have my normal diary for writing about my little ones after their beginnings here. I guess I will keep it going occasionally, more so than the other times I�ve closed it, because this time we are not planning to prevent (or try). I am thinking we�d like to get more active about trying (maybe?) at the very end of the year if I�m not pregnant by then. And maybe when my periods return we�ll re-evaluate the whole �not preventing� plan?! But I hope not. I LIKE taking the control away from us, and giving it to God. It�s so exciting to see what he will do, and how he will choose to bless us!!! :D
Okay, I�m going to bed! Oh but I have a couple of random pictures of Nathan before I go. One of him focusing on something-or-other on my shoulder (horrible mess inthe background, urgh):
And two of him during a nappy change on a bath towel, just being edible :)
Lovely big brother!
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