Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2007-04-02 - 12.48am��previous entry��next entry
Feeling very discombobulated (honestly!)...
That weird long word that rolls ticklishly off the tongue is the PERFECT word to describe how I'm feeling today. The definition is "thrown into a state of confusion".
I am no longer as confused by the physical stuff as I have been, but I'm surprised by how confusing my feelings have suddenly become.
I'm 8DPO today. Yes, I did have a slight temp drop today, but not one that made me think my period would arrive after all. Arthur's chart chopped about like that after implantation and even after my BFP a bit too. The general trend was still UP, over the course of a couple of weeks. Last night, I figured if my temp dropped to 36.4 or lower (sorry, I chart in celsius and then display to FF users in farenheit! 36.4 would be 97.5), then I would be SURE to get my period. Any higher and I'd just wait and see, as it could go either way really. If I got the same temp as yesterday or higher, I'd test. Well this morning my temp was 36.6. That's a GOOD post-ovulatory temp for me usually, but 0.2 degrees C lower than the previous day, so I did the "wait and see" thing.
My emotions have been soooooooo swingy between poles today, and so many times, that I don't recall the process of it all well enough to write about it properly here now. I did jot down notes (mainly physical stuff) at my chart 3 times over the day though, so I'll look and see if I wrote anything that will help me remember...
Okay, first thing this morning, I was so excited and relieved to see another high temp, even though it had dropped a little. I hardly breathed waiting for the thermometer to peep!
I wondered whether the little drop might be the start of a bigger drop that would lead to my period, and so maybe it could still arrive later in the day? I was still mildly crampy, but far more bothered by the IBS-y windy crampy bloaty yuck that has been bothering me for days now. I have been seeing that as a highly potential pregnancy symptom, since it has got so bad and it was like this with my other pregnancies (especially Matthew's, I remember).
When I got up this morning, my skin still felt soft (pregnantly soft, that is) to me, so I figured at least I didn't need to expect my period right away or anything. I have had quite a few physical symptoms today.
This morning when I was eating my cereal, I tasted liquorice again, but I still can't fathom why. Anyway, I munched on, and then after a while, SUDDENLY a mouthful tasted exactly like a mushroom omelette! More the flavour of the egg, but not any old egg, not scrambled or boiled, specifically the exact taste of egg cooked into an omelette. With mushrooms! ;) I wanted one immediately. This SMACKS of pregnancy to me. I ate one later, for lunch - a yummy mushroom omelette, and it was deeeelicious!! :) Neil said he was surprised that I have cravings this early, but I told him it wasn't a craving as such. He said it sounded like one to him! But it's not. It was just a one-off taste thing. I did have those in my pregnancies with the boys this early though. It was a raw mushroom (I was driving and not eating anything at the time) in the days leading up to testing positive with Matthew.
I was also still finding it sore to nurse the boys this morning (especially Matthew with that toothie/latch issue!).
The day has been busy. A glass measuring jug got smashed in the kitchen (shattered slivers over the entire width and breadth of the room!) and the floor was littered with laundry already and needed a serious clean as well, so it took AGES to clean that up with all the possible places that glass could have got into. Then after that, the living room was just a wreck, toys covering every part of the carpet (!) and two little boys' snacks (cereal bars and the like) crumbled into verrrry tiny pieces, scattered amongst the lot - somehow wall-to-wall! This had happened while I sorted the glass in the kitchen. So I tidied and hoovered (and did that with Matthew on my hip as he was scared of the hoover noise). Boy was I KNACKERED after all that! I am extra tired lately. Either way it's something I'm expecting. I get physically exhausted right before a period, and the same and THEN some if I'm newly pregnant. I felt quite shaky and giddy with exhaustion for a bit, but I perked up. There was lunch to get for the boys and nappies to change, and naps to settle them down for. And the family meal to make, and laundry loads, and dishwasher loads, etc. Meg didn't come today because I cancelled due to Arthur's cold. She'll come next week - yay!
So anyway, it has been a busy day, and for lots of it, I haven't had much time to focus on how I feel physically, or even on the idea that I might be pregnant. I don't know if that's all it is, but I seem to feel very "normal" today, physically. For much of the day anyway. I mean, not premenstrual, not pregnant, nothing. I started to notice that I was feeling very neutral about the whole idea of it too. I mean, like it was not that big a deal (when HELLO?! It sooo is!), or sometimes I'd just think, "Well, I'm sure I'll get my period later then. I'll just put it out of my mind till then" which is very unlike me. It felt weird. No feelings went with such thoughts, and I feel uneasy feeling so disconnected about such big things.
Then I noticed more symptoms here and there, some new ones too.
Looksie, from Arthur's pregnancy, the day I tested positive at 12DPO:
"I have this bubbly feel, sort of, it's hard to describe, and kind of personal since it's in the v@ginal area, but I wanted to write any possible pregnancy-related symptom. I had it yesterday morning too, and now it's here again. Weird."
Okay, that @ wasn't in the original entry, but I am more google-aware these days so it's there now! That did turn out to be a pregnancy symptom for me, early on. I noted the same thing at 14DPO with Matthew's pregnancy. Anyway, I have that today :)
Around noon I started to feel more crampy in my lower back and abdomen, even radiating down into my groin a bit, and those cramps did start to feel WAY more like premenstrual cramps than the others I've been having recently. So I was confused about the complete clash of symptoms!
I have been to check to see if my period is here a few times today, as I keep feeling like it has. But it still hasn't! I am noticing a few changes in my CM that happened in the 2WW with my other pregnancies too. I haven't been so often to check today, partly because for some of the day I figured it would just turn up so I would get on with my day and try not to think about it. But also I have been feeling strangely detached from the whole situation. Like I don't want to think about it, like I'd rather not have feelings about it right now. I'll talk more about that in a minute.
My cervix confused me all the more, as I've checked it twice today and it's still being completely "pregnant" and not remotely as though it's about to let anything out. One thing I don't have yet is that "sewn up inside" feeling that I had with Arthur at 15DPO and with Matthew much earlier, at 9DPO I think. I'm waiting for that, if I am really pregnant. For me, it's the physical sensation from the outside, referring from a cervix that has officially 100% sealed up for the long haul, after completing the implantation process. I'm pretty sure it is, anyway. I don't have it yet, but I'm waiting to see if I do soon. If I don't get that feeling, I will seriously wonder about the outcome of this pregnancy (maybe-pregnancy?). I don't know if it REALLY has any bearing, but it's a big sense of security for me when I do feel it. It feels like nothing can EVER drop out of there, no way, no how. No matter what I do physically, even. Until I get that feeling, I just never know what might happen.
So I've felt up and down, and then the most unpleasant feeling was just neutral. Yuck. Then this afternoon I had put the boys down for their naps, and I was walking past the big mirror into the kitchen, and happened to glance at my reflection as I walked. I mean, a single-second glance while in motion, the kind you might give to people as you pass them in the street or something. But I stopped dead with surprise and took 2 steps backwards to take a closer look at my face. I saw small patches of brown pigment along my cheekbones, and particularly at the edges of the dark circles under my eyes. It's chloasma, a pigmentation thing that is common during pregnancy. I had it in both my other pregnancies, but ever so much later than this. I did have it in the same location too. Not blaringly obvious, just faint patches, but they went away after Matthew was born. There's absolutely no other cause for those except pregnancy, for me, I'm sure of it. I phoned Neil at work (had other things to ask him about stuff) and told him about the chloasma. He said he had noticed it for the first time yesterday evening when I was going upstairs. He could see it from across the room where he was sitting on the sofa, and was going to ask me if I'd banged my face, but didn't for some reason. I wasn't sure if I was just being daft and they've been there all along, but I'm pretty sure they are new. Neil said he is sure they were a new sight to him yesterday.
After that I felt HIGHLY excited again, like - woohoooooooo I really MUST be pregnant then! :) Neil asked, "So, it looks like stuff is really going to happen for us then?" (he was surrounded by colleages at work and didn't want to spell it out for them!), and I said yes, I thought so. It looks pretty likely.
I took photos of the chloasma. Here's a patch (not very visible in the light from the window) to the right of my eye and down a bit:
Better view:
Yes, I'm tired, haven't brushed my hair yet, can't see diddly without my glasses, and smiling weirdly at the awkwardness of it all! ;)
But there we go. So that, for me, is an indisputable sign.
After the excitement died down a bit, it became much more of a reality check, that I seriously honestly REALLY might actually be pregnant, for real. As in, go the whole 9 months and have another baby, pregnant! I know I've known this all along, but it was like this was the first time I REALLY realised that it was a possibility. I mean, until now the odds have looked so so SO slim. And they really ARE slim. We had parsnips once. I have such a short luteal phase that every fertility specialist you can ask will tell you it's impossible to sustain a pregnancy with that few days in your luteal phase. I mean, I know it's lengthening a little each cycle, and also most fertility specialists will deny the possibility of implantation taking place as early as 4 days so that does rule out the success rate with a short luteal phase really, if you go by that. But there it is. Sooooo unlikely. I wasn't taking any supplements to lengthen my luteal phase this time, so it's just.... well, I don't want to sound seriously over-the-top about it, but I am honestly thinking that it is actually bordering on miraculous if I establish a normal pregnancy with a previous 4-6 day luteal phase and one random parsnip (okay so that happened to land on ovulation day, thus increasing our chances rather a lot!). It boggles my brain.
This evening I have been mainly completely, 100% white-as-a-sheet TERRIFIED. I haven't enjoyed the feeling. I have felt so scared of the reality of it. Alllllll those feelings that I knew would come if we did get pregnant, have come. The worries and the anxieties about whether my other kids will miss out, whether we've done something AWFUL to them, etc. Matthew's young age (a month younger than Arthur was, even), and the TEN more weeks I have to get to before his first birthday, breastfeeding him, without my milk drying up. I do not want to supplement him with formula. Really not. I so want to breastfeed him to at least a year, well, 2 years actually. And in general I'm aiming at him self-weaning, like Arthur will (I hope!). I am anxious that he'll self-wean as a result of my pregnancy. I had the same anxiety when I was newly pregnant with Matthew, about Arthur. But he was a real breast man (!) and didn't bat an eyelid at any of the pregnancy-induced changes to my milk, or the return of it after Matthew was born. But I've worried all along that Matthew might be another story. He's VERY into his food, and not so much of a breast man as Arthur, just by his nature. I will be heartbroken if he self-weans for good during my pregnancy. I am more relaxed about Arthur nursing right through.
People are going to think I am CRAZY-INSANE to be tandem nursing two already AND pregnant at the same time. I can do it. And I want to do it, more than anything. I hope I can do it.... It's hard, nursing through pregnancy. I found it hard. But piffle compared to the wonderful joyful reward of having done so and got to the other side, still nursing my older sweetie-pie and letting him continue that comfort and close bond with me until he is ready to stop. So I am desperate to provide that again.
I'm talking like I am 100% sure I'm pregnant! I still haven't tested positive yet! I still may see that temp drop tomorrow. It's still a real possibility. But I can't explain it - I just feel an emotion of sorts that is like an unmovable ROCK in my heart. A know-it-in-my-knower feeling that says, "My period is not coming." I just feel like I KNOW, now, that it's not coming. I just know I am pregnant. I DO feel 100% sure. I didn't earlier, but by this evening I really really do. I will feel sillier than silly now that I've shared this here, if tomorrow I get a nice plopping temp and a period!! ;) But I shared it because I feel so sure. I will be amazed if I get a normal temp drop and period tomorrow, or any other day for that matter. I know the odds point to that, but something inside me - physically - says it's not going to happen this time.
With the scared feelings has come this huge blanket of insecurity and general uncertainty about the whole world around me. The sounds outside seem worrying, and the ambient light makes me anxious. Thinking of the various things I could do to relax in the evening fills me with an uncomfortable restlessness, like nothing will do - I can't think of anything to blot out this overwhelming lot of feelings.
The baby would be due THIS year, in 2007. It's horrible and petty and selfish of me, in light of other people's struggles with wanting a baby and not being able to have one, but I've struggled today with feelings of sadness about my dreamed-for April 2008 baby. I never in my wildest dreams envisioned having a baby in the year 2007! I felt comfy with my long-term dreamy dream about having my babies in the even-numbered years. I feel so stupid even writing this totally petty and trivial stuff! I can't believe I'm making an issue of it in my head! But just silly SILLY things like that have been making me feel sad and sort of out-of-control, like something has suddenly happened to change the line of events that I always saw happening, and it's thrown me a bit. There it is, an example in context of how I feel completely discombobulated by my feelings this evening. They're weird and unexpected. I LOVE having babies! I am ready to rejoice over any pregnancy that I'm blessed with! I don't really understand my own feelings tonight.
The baby would also be due the week before Christmas. Knowing me and my tendency to go over my due date, I feel sure I'll have me a Christmas baby and for some reason that makes me feel down and insecure. Christmas, for me, is already a time that is stressful and needy of family members all around me, in order for it to feel like Christmas. I've been adjusting to the fact that I probably won't BE surrounded by my family much for Christmas, since we're all scattered a bit now, and it's hard to get together with family with the little ones to bring with us. Nobody comes to us, so that leaves us feeling kind of alone for Christmas. But to be having a baby as well. That REALLY wouldn't feel like Christmas! Isn't that horribly selfish of me?! The baby should make Christmas into a bigger blessing and more of a GIFT at Christmas time than ever before. Family would come to see the new baby (I would hope!) so they'd be around at some point in the holiday season. So I don't know what I'm worrying about. But still, what if they don't? It already makes me feel so sad to think about it. Also, lots of kids are not thrilled with a birthday right near Christmas (Laura-Ann, are you reading me these days? I know you're a Dec 24th (or is it 26th?) baby. What's your experience?), so how do we handle that for the little one's sake, for when he/she is older?
These are such tiny little details that really aren't relevant for now! But that's the kind of way my feelings have been tonight. It all feels so overwhelming. My mother was a great help today (sarcasm intended) on the phone, saying she wasn't sure HOW we would manage things with three kids in our little house. I said that we were already in the process of trying to arrange to move (by Neil getting a job first), and she said that we don't know how fast things will move, or how slow, and we could easily still be here when the baby is born. Obviously, we have considered this kind of thing, but it wasn't helpful to be reminded at this stage! She's still saying, "Oh NO!" when I say, "I think I might be pregnant..." :( She corrects herself, but what's the use of that? I'm getting tired of it. Sad too. Tonight I sooooo needed to talk to someone when I felt alone and scared and what-have-I-done ish about everything, and what made it even worse was that I didn't have ANYONE I could turn to. Nobody who really would be the perfect ear for me at that time. Neil went to bed early. We had a brief whispered chat at the top of the stairs before he went in to bed and I told him I'm scared about it now! He said he was too. We skirted around the subject and he talked more about jobs and stuff and then went to bed.
I needed to talk a bit about how I was feeling, but mostly I needed to get the emotional (mental?) equivalent of a huge gentle bear hug, with someone soothing me and telling me everything is going to be okay, and that no matter what happens, we'll get through it and manage somehow. Neil was candidate #1 for that, of course! :) But he went to bed. And then I thought, who else?! Katie at church thinks I'm crazy and can't fathom how she'd cope in my situation (not helpful!). Sue at church (who has prayed with me before about soooo many things and is so wonderful at this stuff) has a tendency to be a bit negative in the way she talks, well, her tone and stuff, and definitely would think me crazy for having 3 kids in 3 years (OH. MY. GOSH. That's what I'm doing! What in the wide world am I DOING?!) - well, 3 years and 1 month. I am scared, scared, scared, suddenly.
So I don't know anyone else closely enough to phone them up and splosh out all my feelings and have them be understanding and comforting to me. Everyone would either be a) too busy being shocked about my news to help much, b) think I'm crazy and thus their response would be tinged with "you should have thought about this BEFORE getting jiggy with your husband", c) not have the kind of understanding that I need, to be able to offer me, as they have no kids themselves, or d) I can't think of a d. But I'm sure there is one somewhere.
I need an instant close friend who has like TEN children, who knows me and who loves me, and who is happy to listen to me waffle endlessly and still have time to offer me reassuring words and experience-based advice after I've finished! There is no such person! Waaaah!
My mum is the person I always go to with my feelings about stuff. She is wise in the ways of the world, in general, and there's nobody more invested in my happiness and security. She loves me more than anybody on earth can, I think. But I'm feeling so so sad right now that for the first time, even when I really need someone, I can't consider her an option, because I think she will fall into category b above. And c, for that matter - well, in terms of not having more than 2 kids so not really knowing what I'm about to get into (!), and spacing her kids out waaaay more than I am. Right now she seems too full of feelings about the idea herself - her own - to put them aside enough to hear mine without being affected by her own as she listens/responds. And I'm so sad about that. So sad.
So I floundered about in hand-wringing status for a good while, and then FINALLY (*sigh*) I remembered I have God to "fall back on". Tsk. He should NOT be a fall-back in my life. He should be the one I go to FIRST. I can't believe this evening, the way I haven't thought to pray and to throw myself on God over all my feelings. He's better than anyone else, as he knows me, and HE is in control, nobody else.
I prayed for a short while, just sort of like, "OhGodhelpme, Idon'tknowwhatI'mgoingtodoifI'mpregnantandohGodpleaseforgivemeforhaving
thesefeelingsaboutbeingpregnantbecauseIknowifIamthenyou'veblessedmewithitand
whoamItoturnawayfromsuchablessinginanycase - BREATHE - ButohGod, MatthewissosmallandI'mscaredhisneedswon'tbemetandohGodhowIwantnevertolet
himdown-Ilovehimsomuch,Lord-thankyousomuchformypreciousbabyMatthewBoo - BREATHE -" and on in the same way!
I just laid it all out before God. I feel inadequate to the task of being a mama to three such little people - a mama who meets enough of her children's needs to keep them happy and secure and well-adjusted. I mean, three little ones in as many years. Is it even possible to mother them "well" enough? I know that's a crazy question. Of course it must be. But I don't think I am up to the task. I KNOW God can make me so, though. So I prayed for that. I prayed because I am totally lacking, I don't have enough of me to go around. I know I need God to equip me to do it. I just know I do.
Praying for those things helped a lot. And then suddenly I thought of the odds of this pregnancy happening. And I remembered Matthew's pregnancy. We weren't trying that month, and had parsnips once, four days before I ended up ovulating. My luteal phase was still short, but longer than this time, and I was on supplements to improve it. We had taken 9 cycles to conceive Arthur with our very best efforts every month, and no diagnosable problems. Any fertilised egg that DID manage to happen with those odds would still have to implant early in order to avoid being flushed out due to the short luteal phase. And Matthew is here. God totally organised that one! :) I fully believe that he is here because God intended him to be here, not because of our doing at all. I mean, we DID what we did, obviously! But it wouldn't have come to anything without God's hand in it.
So, this time. The odds are even slimmer. We had no intention of trying at all yet. We had only had parsnips ONCE since Matthew was conceived!! Yep, that's right. I'm squeamish about the details for the world to know, but basically I had the old gonna-ovulate-soon hormones going, and literally suggested a "quickie" (!!) to Neil one evening (how romantic, hehe!), and instantly ovulated, though it was nearly two WEEKS earlier than I'd ovulated in my previous cycle (which doesn't tend to change by much cycle-by-cycle while I'm breastfeeding, normally). And with previous luteal phases of FOUR days and six days, there was noooo chance at all. This cycle could have had an 8-day luteal phase at the very best, but I wasn't even expecting that much. But if I really do turn out to be officially pregnant, that bean will have implanted super early, God will have sorted the timing out in the first place, and somehow kept my body from flushing the bean out till it had finished implanting. HOW unlikely is that?! It's God. That means, it is happening again. Just like with Matthew, only MORE miraculously still! God totally MEANS this bean to exist, even if we didn't have the same view as him on the timing! So with that in mind, there is NO need to fear. None whatsoever.
I DO need prayer though. Muchly appreciated!
Again, I will of course feel puny if tomorrow I get my period, haha! Now that I've said all this! ;)
But now that I've prayed, I feel better. More relaxed about the outcome than any other time yet. I feel like, if I see my temperature drop tomorrow and a period shows up, I will feel a big sense of relief, because then all this pressing stuff won't be pressing on me any more, and I will know that I can give my little boys a bit more time before adding a new baby to the family - especially for Matthew and his milk! We'd aim at TTC in July for that April baby, unless Neil has been thoroughly scared off the idea!! The relief would be tinged with some sadness over the pregnancy that I'm SURE has started not panning out.
If I do not see a significant enough temp drop I will test tomorrow morning with first-morning-urine. I have a Clearblue sitting staring at me from the top of the chest of drawers. It's got beady eyes and everything, the type that you can FEEL watching you as you move about the room, hehe! Also I expect my cheapy internet tests to arrive in the post in the morning - I hope. So I'll be armed and ready to go once they're here! ;)
If the test is positive, I will be excited and scared again, and I'll know that we have some big changes to make over the coming months, and that I will (hopefully Neil too) be absolutely THROWING myself none-too-gently on God throughout it all. I think that is a wonderful thing though. I always hate that it takes a BIG crisis or event in my life to make me really get close to God and surrender my all to him again :( I'm sad about that.
Anyway. I need to go to bed, I'm so tired! This is so long! But necessary. I'll update tomorrow. If I test, I'll update here FIRST, before I put the test result on my chart, just because I'd rather break the news of the result to all you chart-watchers (!!) than have you peek at my chart and find out before I've "told" you myself! ;) So you might have to wait till later on for an entry. I'd update earlier if I could but it might be impossible with the boys.
I am hungry. I want a roast dinner. Ohhh I am so off sweet foods! I can't seem to face making a dessert with the family meal lately, and we end up with fruit and maybe ice-cream. I can't stomach that either. I just serve it for the others and watch them eat it, feeling queasy, bleurgh. Even strawberries, which I was GOBBLING down a few nights ago. They're too sweet in flavour now. I don't know what I DO want instead though. I went down for my usual "comfort food" earlier, which is chocolate, or anything really sugary. I got as far as opening the cupboards and then realised that I can't eat ANYTHING that I used to eat for comfort, as sweet stuff makes me feel so grim and queasy.
I am so sure I'm pregnant. I'll be jiggered if I get my period with no positive test after all this!
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25