18 Week update & life with a 2 year old

So this week i’ve hit a bit of a low. Total confusion, total worthlessness and just not knowing what to do! Pregnancy wise though, everything is AMAZING and i’m so happy!

Baby is absolutely fine, I haven’t felt any proper movements just yet but I know they won’t be long. I’m officially 18 weeks today and i’m hoping this pregnancy carries on as quick as what it has been. I do have a bump, It’s still a very jiggly, wiggly bump but there’s definitely one there.
I’m currently rotating the same 3 outfits for work & casual so I really think we need to go shopping this weekend. I feel like a right mum haha!
I’m getting more heartburn/ acid this week. Which is absolutely fine! Not enough to warrant getting prescribed Gaviscon, which tastes alright but that texture…. ugh! That’s something else!

Evie has been strange the last few weeks. When we were weaning her she was like a gannet, she’d eat everything. And nowadays she just hardly eats a thing. She’s on Movicol for her tummy issues, and for the past month or 2 she’s complained her tummty hurts. Coincidentally she’s started potty training herself too! And when she says her tummy hurts, 9 times out of 10 if I ask if she needs a number 2 she’ll say yes. Which is good, she’s noticing she needs the loo.
However, the past couple of weeks we’ve also had “I don’t feel well”. I have no idea where it’s come from but she says it a LOT. Randomly. And afterwards she’ll say she needs a cuddle. I’m struggling to know if there’s genuinely something wrong or if she’s just doing it for a cuddle. I’ll ask her whats wrong, she’ll say “I don’t know” and i’ll ask if her head hurts, her bum, her legs, her teeth, her eyes, etc. She’ll say no!
She’s also gone from sleeping in her bed overnight, to the last couple of months being inconsolable and coming into our bed.
Last night was horrendous. She woke up when we were downstairs crying, so I went up and she’s sat upright, still asleep, arms waving in front of her shouting no. I saw she was sweating so took her top off, and put her fan on. I calmed her down, gave her a cuddle and put her back down.
A few hours later when we’d gone to bed she woke up crying again. This is quite normal the past few months and so I knew she’d end up in our bed. But I put her down, covered her up, turned the fan off and she went back.
Then a few hours later hell broke loose! She was hysterical. At first I thought another night terror, great, but she was totally coherent to what we were saying. Although she was hysterical she answered in response to us. I tried to put her back in her bed and it made her worse. She climbed into our bed, grabbed my pillow and started hugging it. She wouldn’t let go and i’m sure neighbours thought I was really doing something to her because she was horrendous. Everytime I tried to take it from her she’d get louder. I finally calmed her down after her thashing around and she ended up saying she wanted a cuddle.

This all sounds very tame but honestly it’s actually really got me down. I feel it was a pretty traumatic night last night for all of us, Jon included and I honestly don’t know what else to do.

I’m at a total loss. Is all this because she senses a new baby? Is the not feeling well genuine, is it new baby, or is it just attention? Is the not sleeping because of baby, or illness? Is it a weird growth spurt lasting months, which coincides with suddenly potty training? She’s been nibbling her fingers a bit too. Is she doing it out of teething or out of anxiousness?

I honestly have no idea. I can’t even think about it too much because I just feel useless!
I think i’m going to trial her without dairy for a week or so, to see if there’s any improvement. She had her milk allergy when she was a baby and i’m wondering if maybe shes just slightly intolerant still or something similar. Anything is worth a go I guess. If not then I’ll have to go to the doctors to see what they say!

15 Week update!

So tomorrow i’m 16 weeks! And we may or may not have booked a gender scan at our local Babybond for this Saturday. It was all very last minute (because guess who forgot it’s 16 weeks you can find out from!) and it may have gone on the credit card WHOOPS!
But in our heads we’d really like to know. We have a HOARD of Evie’s clothes in the attic, I mean a hoard, I hardly chucked anything out! And if we’re having a boy, we’ll have to buy so much new clothes I just want to be as prepared as possible. We’d be able to sell a few bits to fund boys clothes. If it’s a girl then HOORAY! I can get all the bits out of the attic and start sorting.

Pregnancy wise not much to report on.

We had our 12 week scan & consultant appointment which was all a bit overwhelming.
We decided to go to a different local hospital this time, only because this one is easier to get to.
Scan went fine, baby is just like their big sister and made me do star jumps and dance around the room to see different parts! The consultant went through my whole history, weak heart, chemotherapy, IVF pregnancy, early menopause etc and decided that it was best for me to have an up to date ECG in case anything was to get worse in later pregnancy. I’ve been prescribed aspirin daily, and i’ll need more regular BP monitoring, and growth scans during the 3rd trimester too. I had none of this with my last pregnancy so it seems a little OTT and a bit of a shock. I know they’re being cautious but it all feels a bit much! Im obviously going through with it all, if it means baby is safe then thats great, it’s just hard to get my head around when at the other hospital there was no precautionary measures, just to go in on an open appointment if I felt my weak heart was causing issues. I even ended up getting discharged! But hey ho, it means i’ll see baby more before we meet them 🙂 and i’ll get a bit more time out of work baha!

Sickness has eased off almost completely. If i’ve missed a meal it’ll come back, but it feels so good not having to eat every 30 mins! I’m not AS tired, but boy am I moody. I think it’s the stresses of having a little one already. Evie isn’t sleeping great at all and I think it’s really getting to me. Fingers crossed it’s a phase!

Gender scan on Saturday and I can’t wait! Will pop up a little post once we’ve been and Evie is in bed 🙂 x

 

 

Pregnancy update – 9+5 15.05.2018

I’m nearly in double digits WHOOP!! Okay so I still can’t quite believe that there is a baby in my tummy. Despite the little bloat/bump that has appeared. I say bloat because baby is 2cm and quite clearly isn’t large enough to make as big of a bump as I currently have!

I’m praying that everything is still okay. I have had no bleeding, slight twinges here and there and feel exhausted every single moment of the day, but i’m really just hoping and praying that baby is still nestling in well and when I have my scan all will be fine.

Scan date still hasn’t arrived! It is driving me a little crazy as I need to book it off work. Have a feeling they’ll tell me with 2 days notice eek.

Symptom-wise, i’ve felt lots of pulling, sharp pains, my nausea isn’t as bad a sit was, but boobage wise OUCH!! I’ve also had weird fluttering feelings. Almost like the very early stages of feeling Evie move in my tummy last time. I know it’s almost impossible, but it honestly does feel like that “whoosh” against your insides. So weird! I felt Evie move at 19 weeks with an anterior placenta, so I have no idea.

Nothing to update otherwise really! Trying to keep my bigger belly as hidden as I can but honestly, I have no loose clothing to cover it.

All I fancy is curry! And proper chippy chips. I feel so sorry for Evie because she has lived off rubbish food recently. However, she seems under the weather and only wants bottles so I thnk she’s teething again bless her. So i’m just letting her eat whatever she will! Anything is a plus I guess.

I’m desperate to book a private gender scan. I think we’ll be going to babybond again. If you saw my last experience of a gender scan feel free to nosy through my previous posts, it wasn’t the best i’ll say that! Just got to get paid an book in in now.
I want to have the 4d bonding scan too, but no appointments are currently coming up online. I’m hoping it’s because it’s quite early because I really don’t want to go to the last place again.

Another week gone!

7+5 Weeks. 01.05.2018

The sickness….oh the sickness! Ok, not sickness, nausea. I definitely remember this from last time and it was horrendous.

I have it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and never get any relief! I have to eat every half an hour to keep it away for a few minutes.
I already have baby brain. And yes, it’s 100% a ‘thing’. I don’t think the Progynova or the Cyclogest are helping so I’ll be so relieved when I can finally stop taking them.
Yesterday I was SO bloated, to the point where I looked 6 months pregnant! I was wearing a dress at work and it was so obvious. Eeekkk! But I’ve woken up this morning a tiny bit less bloated, so fingers crossed it’s starting to go down.
Apart from the nausea, the bloat and the crazy tiredness, I’m so so excited! Still can’t believe I have a little baby growing in my tummy again.
Evie now says “YEAAAAAHHH” when we ask if she’s going to be a big sister, we’ve asked if she wants a girl or boy and she said girl. So I’ve prepared her saying that if it’s a girl she’ll be stealing all of Evie’s clothes.

I have my booking in appointment with the midwife on Tuesday, then it’s Evie’s birthday on the 10^th woooo!! We’re hoping to go to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park so will take lots of pics if we do. Just hope it isn’t miserable or raining because it’s a bit rubbish then.

Scan day! 24.04.2018

You have no idea how nervous I was this morning!

I think one thing to remember is that 6 weeks is so early, symptoms can come and go and it leaves you feeling very unpregnant. So the thought of a confirmation scan at the IVF clinic is terrifying.

Got there at 11am, danced in the car a little beforehand to try and get ride of some nerves haha. And when I heard my name get called by the Dr I froze!

She was so lovely, she scanned me and said she could see one baby on the screen. We got to see the heartbeat and it was so so magical!
We obviously had 2 embryos transferred, and although we were only looking to have 1 child out of this cycle, i’m so upset that one hasn’t made it. One just floated away somewhere inside me never to be seen again 😦
And of course the little one that didn’t survive being desfrosted too, my heart just breaks a little bit thinking of them 😦

But we’re overjoyed that we have our 2nd little ‘miracle’ on the way! I have my booking in Midwife appointment on the 8th May and I just can’t wait for our next scan to see how much our beany has grown!

I posted our reveal video to the May Babies group last night. Almost blew my cover as it features the song ‘Haven’t met you yet’ and of course facebook is too hot on copyright and decided to say “something went wrong” instead of “we cannot post your post due to copyright” so I genuinely thought something was wrong and there wasn’t…. so I posted it about 5 times before I managed to see it hahaha! They’ve all been absolutely amazing.
There are a few ladies who have lost their babies recently and had miscarriages, and coming from a situation where I know the desperation and frustration, I was so so dubious about even telling the girls. I genuinely ummed and arred about it for weeks. But I felt it was the best thing to do, as they’ve all given us the gift we wouldn’t have even had a chance of having otherwise.

Evie is going to be such an amazing big sister, she’s already so so good helping me and asking if i’m okay CONSTANTLY!! She’s going to make me one proud mummy.

Birth Announcement! Our IVF baby is HERE!!

Before I start off, I apologise for the total lateness of this announcement! I’ll explain why it’s late in a mo.

Our little girl Evie was born on the 10th May weighing 7lb 11oz. We are completely and utterly in love! She is gorgeous and dinky and the most amazing thing I have ever seen. 

I went in on Saturday 7th to be induced due to reduced movements. I had the pessary at 2pm and made it my mission to try to have a walk around to get things going. I had minor cramping but nothing major. At 2pm Sunday, as labour hasn’t progressed I needed to go back down to the labour suite to go onto the next step of induction-the gel or breaking my waters. However there were no beds! I was left waiting around until about 3.30  on Monday when there was finally room for me. I hadn’t dilated much (I was JUST 1cm by then) but they ‘could try to break my waters’ so they did. I was put on the drip too. Contractions started an hour or so after and as they increased the dosage they got much stronger. By early Tuesday morning about I was having to have gas and air with each contraction which was around every 2-3 minutes. I got examined  4 hours later and still hadn’t dilated any more. I was given the option of carrying on or having a Csection (anyone who knows me knows it has been my worst nightmare all throughout pregnancy!) and after a mental breakdown in front of Drs & midwives I agreed that’s the only option. 

As Evie was being born I heard them say ‘that’s the waters’ so I know that they hadn’t got one of my waters previously, which annoyed me as that would have been one reason why I hadn’t progressed on the drip very well. I ended up feeling really faint and I lost 1.5l blood. They whisked Jon off but we were both oblivious really to what was happening! We thought everything had gone okay! 

By weds I was allowed home (yes I know, very early for a c section!) and I came home with iron tablets and some Clexane. Since weds Evie has screamed all night & day, we have literally not slept. I knew something wasn’t right but was being told it was normal. Then she refused food during the day and screamed as she had no energy to feed. Our midwife visit on thurs noted the developed jaundice but she just said to keep up with feeds. This didn’t work so on Friday I was called by a community midwife and asked how things were. I explained that I was still worried and that I thought her jaundice had got worse. I was told that it was normal and it was nothing to worry about and to basically stop being silly. On our 5 day check up on Sunday the midwife noted how yellow she was and that she had lost 15% of her original weight. I’m now in hospital watching her in a little box and hoping she gets better soon, so that me and Jon can finally feel like our family is complete. I can’t wait until we have our first trip out together. I wish some people would take mothers worries a little more seriously, because this could potentially have been sorted 4 days ago and I wouldn’t feel like such a failure for putting her in distress for so long. I was dismissed as a first time mum. She even said ‘this is your first baby isn’t it so it’s a worrying time’! how patronising. 

Enough of my blabbering away- here’s a picture of our little lady! 

37 Weeks Pregnant – IVF

So I’m currently 37+4 today and I am so ready for our little munchkin! 

I woke up physically sick out of nowhere on Friday night. I’ve had stomach cramps on and off for a week or so, nothing major just along with my nausea. We went out on Saturday and it seems as though I kept getting massive stomach cramps that lasted around 30-60 secs. No idea if these are the type of contractions I’ll have at first or not but they’re different than just going ‘I have an upset tummy’. 

Since then I’ve heard a big pop with no waters (bizarre?!), had nausea still, been really hot & the last day has seen me get really bad pain in my ribs. Feels like I have fallen on something hard and bruised them. I can’t cough, sneeze or move without pain and overnight it’s got even worse 😢. 

I saw my midwife last week who just said that she was leaving for another job, forgot to take my blood for iron levels until I mentioned it, told me head was down but not how engaged she is (I forgot to ask but she usually writes it down) and that was it really. I’m hoping at my next appointment the midwife will let me know. 

So little one, if you’d like to make an appearance now, I’m terrified of labour but I’d absolutely love to hold you now and feel like myself again and not moan all the time! 

Fetal Monitoring again!

Since Wednesday bubs hadn’t moved much at all. I’d felt a couple kicks here and there but she hadn’t moved half as much as normal and she hadn’t had hiccups either, which worried me as she usually gets them 3+ times a day. 

I didn’t feel anything at all yesterday morning so I decided to phone our MAU, who said I had to go in at 3pm and she was really concerned.

Because it’s my second episode (first was at 28weeks) she also advised that I have a scan too. I got hooked up to the machine to monitor her for about 15 mins until it said criteria met, and it didn’t show I had any Brixton hicks either! I was hoping that I’ve been having them and not noticing but apparently not 😦 

Anyway, had the scan and she ended up kicking the sonographer a hand so hard that she lifted her hand up haha! After her tantrums, we saw that everything was still perfect, and she still likes having a hand/arm over her face. 

These past couple of weeks have been really stressful. I won’t go into detail but there have been numerous things go off, nothing ‘upsetting’ but just stressful/really frustrating things….nothing with Jon though! On top of these things, being in the uncomfortable end of pregnancy and my hormones being everywhere & informal worries of labour etc, I just feel things are amplified tenfold. 

We had our health visitor come round the other day and I haven’t ever mentioned anything on here, but I’ve previously suffered with low mood out of pregnancy and I’ve mentioned how worried I am re PND, as that’s been a big worry I’ve had for a couple months now. It seems silly that someone who has wished to be pregnant and have a baby for so long could have PND, but it really has nothing to do with wanting/not wanting a child. It really does just happen, and from how I’ve been recently i would prefer to prewarn others than suffer in silence once our little cherub is here IF it happens. She’s prepped me for any different forms I may need to fill in if they suspect PND once baby is here and I’m happy to have finally let someone know, so that she can monitor me and help if needed. 

I’m 36 weeks now now and due in 4 weeks. That means I can pretty much say she’ll be here any time now, because I’m considered term next week! I just cannot imagine waters breaking (if they do!) or actually being in labour. I’m sure in a few weeks time when I’m actually doing it it’ll all be different.

Not long until we meet our little lady! 

Mummy cat

I have come to the conclusion that my cat has turned into my mum. It started when Jon began working away all week in Nov/Dec. Thankfully he has recently started commuting each morning & night,  but Bella still seems to be acting the same way!

She watches me like a hawke. If I lie down and try to get up but I’m in excruciating pain and cry out, she’ll look at me like I’m dying and she really cares. If I start cleaning, whether it’s just sweeping, wiping the counters, hoovering, putting laundry away, anything that involves me being on my feet, she’ll meow and meow until I sit down. She’ll sit on my chest and pur (something she’s always done in bed at nighttime, she knows it sends me to sleep!) and wait there until I begin to drift off to sleep. This can be at 9am, 12noon, 3pm or 7pm. Anytime of day! I’m exhausted now. I struggle to get dressed. I know I may be anaemic, my consultant said I looked really pale but I assured him that I’m always pale & that my MW would be doing bloods next week so I’ll see what the results say, but having Bella then ordering me to sit down mid-task makes it so much harder to do anything! 

She’ll tell me it’s time for bed. Now I know a lot of pets do this, and Bella sometimes did it before, but since becoming pregnant it’s every night at 8pm. She’ll literally sit inches away from me and stare at me with an occasional meow. If I ignore her she will go upstairs for 5 minutes, come back down and sit on the floor staring at me until I go to bed. It’s like she knows I’m tired. Sometimes it’ll be at 7.30pm and I’ll be thinking about how tired I am and suddenly *puff* Bella appears telling me to go bed! 

She literally sits almost on my shoulder in the bath. She’s NEVER done that. She is fascinated by water but never gets very close and now suddenly she’s there almost making sure that I don’t bloomin’ drown. 

Few examples of the times I’ve managed to catch her in the act!    

   
Now if anyone goes back on my blog posts, or my Instagram, it’s easy to see that Bella is an attached kitty. She appeared on our doorstep and she’s so close to me it’s unreal, but since being pregnant it’s increased x100! 

Any other pregnant ladies have pets that seem to have taken on more of a carer role?! I’ll have to admit it’s cute, but fest rating when I’m already tired and really having to push myself to clean or do bits around the house!

35 weeks Pregnant

Another week down means that we’ve made it to 35 weeks 🙂

Since I finished work on weds I feel like I haven’t stopped! I had various things last week, Monday I spent the day cleaning, doing laundry & cooking. Didn’t realise that I’d been on my feet all day until Jon came home and I couldn’t actually get up the stairs! Tuesday I was cleaning and also had MW appt, then yesterday I was out all day as I had my last consultant appt before baby is here and it takes 3 buses to get to hospital….so I was wiped by the time I got home haha.

Consultant went fine! He still has no worries about my heart problem as I’ve not showed any additional symptoms to the usual pregnancy ones. I also asked about water births and if I’d still be OK to have one and he said absolutely! He has no issues with me labouring/giving birth how I wish and he made sure he wrote it in my notes too so there’d be no issues when I go in.  I have however gained 2 stone from my transfer day! 2STONE!! I did think that was a lot, but others have said it isn’t. To say I was classed as ‘obese’ before becoming pregnant (yes, really! Although nothing has been said about my weight AT ALL throughout my pregnancy) I’m shocked that I’ve put on that much weight. Maybe that’s normal, I don’t know, but hopefully breastfeeding will help get rid of it once little miss arrives.

I woke up twice this morning with numbness and tingling down my right arm, hand and fingers. Weird thing is that I was lying on my left side, with my right arm either on my pillow or on my side, so I’m not sure what’s caused it. It still feels a little weird now and if I hold my arm down it feels like my arm is going dead. I’d say trapped nerve , but I have no pain or any trapped nerve feeling…. So I’m just going to see how I get on today and if it gets worse or is still there tomorrow I’ll phone the GP. I’m going to the Dire Straits experience tonight with my mum, so could do with it not being a pain while I’m there! I can’t believe I bought concert tickets, for somewhere in Chesterfield at 7.30 at night when I’m 35 weeks pregnant! What was I thinking?!

So in a couple of weeks we can officially say that our little girl will be arriving anytime now. That’s both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I’m terrified of having a c section or tears (not even bothered about the pain just those 2 things lol!) but I can’t wait to feel like me again, to not be so exhausted when I wake up in the morning then having to be uncomfortable all day with our munchkin cooking away, to have no heartburn anymore, to feel 3 stone lighter and to be able to settle down and breathe again.