I had a really bad night's sleep last night. Elijah is STILL dealing with a cold (2 weeks later - most of the other boys are over theirs, except Samuel who has a horrible cough and wakes a lot at night coughing still), and last night he was really congested, but not the goopy kind that I can suck out with one of those magical devices (!). It meant that he woke a lot (8 times, I think!) and was miserable but I couldn't breastfeed him back to sleep because he couldn't breathe through his nose - so he was more miserable still. Poor baby! :( He does settle off in the end by himself if he's snuggled into the crook of my arm (HOW I am going to miss this tiny treasure in my bed in a mere matter of days from now! *sniffle*), but it was a bit hit and miss because he usually closed his mouth as he went to sleep and then woke up unable to breathe pretty quick. Apart from that, I woke three times with awful ligament pains in my side(s), and changing positions didn't shift the pain - it's so sharp and searing that it wakes me out of sleep pretty easily. I also woke once to go to the loo. All in all, I had a pretty bad night and was exhausted when Elijah woke for the day at 6.45am. Neil usually takes him and starts breakfast and I take my GERD medication (which I have to take 30 minutes before eating), and go back to bed, and then Neil wakes me again about that much time later to say he's going to work. That's currently how I get as much sleep as I possibly can squeeeeeze! Neil usually leaves around 7.30am but today he had to leave at 7am, so I didn't get to go back to bed. He had a training day with work, including an evening dinner thingy, and had to drive 2 hours into Kent for it. He still isn't home and it's 10.50pm - I don't expect him home until nearer midnight really. The weather is awful - windy and rainy, so I will breathe easy again once he's home. I don't like him driving in that kind of weather at night! :/
Anyway, I was trying (semi-successfully) to get the boys to do their chores at around 9.30am, and joining in tidying the living room, when I noticed something looked a bit weird. I looked up at Arthur (sitting on the sofa instead of doing his chores) and it looked like one of his nostrils was squashed shut while the other one was open. I turned my head to look more clearly and saw that both of them were open - weird. I noticed a couple of odd things like that before I went into the kitchen (where Matthew was mixing baking powder and orange juice for fun instead of sweeping the floor like he was supposed to be doing!) and my eye fell on a milk container which said, "Whole milk" (we only drink whole milk - why would you mess with something that's a) natural, b) yummy, and c) already 96% fat-free?!?!) and I could only see the letters "ole" in "Whole". The "wh" were just blanked out, like a little piece of my vision was missing. I noticed it much more after that, and realised over about 15 minutes that it was gradually getting worse. Within another 15 minutes I noticed that I didn't have any peripheral vision with my left eye - I couldn't see anything to the side of me when I looked ahead. It was like a blank over that way. Another 15 minutes later, I went to the loo, and that's when I noticed that left eye had a shimmery haze around the peripheral area. It was getting worse pretty quickly, every few minutes I noticed something that was worse than before, and it was making me anxious. I have never had any sort of visual disturbance that I can recall, pregnant or not.
By the time I decided to phone Heather about it (maybe 5-10 minutes later), almost the whole of my left eye was covered in a shimmering silvery haze and I really couldn't see very well to walk downstairs even. Scary. I wasn't panicking, but I didn't like it one bit. I went and told the boys that I didn't feel very well and that for some reason I couldn't see too well, and I was going to phone Heather to see what she thought I should do. They didn't seem that concerned (which has remained the theme of the day, sadly!) but Arthur said, "Oh yes, Heather knows about EVERYTHING!" :) They think the world of Heather! :)
So I went upstairs and lay on my bed for a few minutes while the boys played in the living room - I can trust Arthur and Matthew to watch Elijah for me for short periods of time like that, and I kept my door open to hear everything that was going on. There was slight improvement in my vision from lying down, and I decided to take my blood pressure (because I knew that would be the thing they'd be concerned about - pre-eclampsia - with visual disturbances). My sphygmomanometer is kind of old now, and I never get it serviced, so when I got a reading of 145/60 (!!) I thought it was too weird to be accurate - the high top number wasn't great news but it didn't make sense to me to have such a low bottom number with it. I tried the other arm and got 135/70. Hmmm. So I figured I couldn't trust my equipment and phoned Heather. She, of course, said I needed to be checked straight away. I told her Neil was away so I wouldn't be able to go into hospital to be assessed, as I was sure they'd want me to. She said I should tell them I have six children at home and my husband is away today, and I need a community midwife to come and check me at home. She's so assertive like that, and I'm completely the opposite, but if I don't follow her instructions then I have her to answer to, which is almost as bad, haha! ;) So I phoned the hospital, and finally managed to get a community midwife to come out to see me after an hour or so of trying various ways! I haven't met her before (she's not on my local midwifery team) but she's LOVELY and I wish she could be my midwife for Lydia's birth! She came in and saw Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin and Samuel watching 'Robin Hood' on my laptop, and said, "Wow, I have two boys, and I really respect you for managing four!" ;) She just stood open-mouthed when I said, "Actually, I have six - there are two more upstairs." hehe! She has twin 3-year-old boys, so I have a lot of respect for her too!
She took my blood pressure and it was 110/80 - "perfectly normal", she said. I asked if that ruled out pre-eclampsia, and she said maybe. She had been on a morning-full of postnatal visits so she wasn't carrying a doppler or urine test sticks. But she had me do a urine sample so she could take it to the hospital and check it for protein. I have no swelling at all - my rings are actually comfortably "loose" still, as they were at the start of my pregnancy. It's the best they've ever fit me at 39 weeks before! Most of my pregnancies I have had to take them off by now, but I didn't have to last time. Anyway, she asked about the baby's movements and since Lydia is usually really quiet in the mornings, she hadn't moved much at all yet. The midwife was a bit concerned about that, and said I should keep a close eye on her movements. I told her she usually moves more in the afternoons and then is REALLY active in the evenings, so she was okay with it. She said that she'd need to take some blood to check for markers for pre-eclampsia, and also a full blood count. Arthur ran upstairs for that, because he's ever so squeamish, but the others stayed to watch.
By the time she got here, my vision was improving quite a bit. I had tried to lie down and rest as much as possible, and put a movie on for the boys to watch once I got Elijah down for his morning nap, and Arthur was happy playing a board game thingy in their bedroom, so I was able to rest a bit. Maybe that helped? I started to think I had been daft and that it was just a case of being over-tired, but Heather assured me that it was really important to get everything checked out with something like this. I had a headache by then. I have never had a migraine before, even though it did occur to me that visual disturbances can be the start of migraines. I just figured if I don't get them, then surely it couldn't be that? Heather said it COULD be, because sometimes pregnancy can trigger a random migraine which you might never have again, just because. So I was a bit worried about being hit by an AWFUL headache after the vision issues settled down. My headache was (and still is) in my eyes and temples, and felt hot and pressurey. Weird, for me anyway.
The midwife marked my blood test as urgent, so that the results would be back within 2 hours (so quick!!! I was really pleased at how well they were taking care of me!), and then she phoned before that time to say that my urine was fine - there was a trace of protein in it, but they don't act on a trace, only if there's a + or more. She had discussed me with one of the doctors and the doctor thought that it didn't sound obstetric in nature, and that it was likely some form of migraine, but that to be on the safe side, he wanted her to come back and take more blood from me to run a more detailed panel on liver and kidney function and a few other things. So she came back, did another blood test (this was after lunch, by which time my headache was pretty horrid), and since Lydia still hadn't moved much, she concurred with Heather, who had just told me over the phone to drink a tall glass of COLD Ribena and lie on my left side to see if the baby would move. She said that if the baby didn't move much during the afternoon I should call Day Assessment and go in for monitoring.
I finally ate lunch (later than the boys) and had a cup of tea, and a bit of Ribena (didn't feel like sweet yucky cold stuff at all!), and Lydia was kicking about while I was still eating, so that was reassuring, but it didn't surprise me because I knew she'd get going eventually! ;) Maybe she's not going to be a morning person, just like her mummy?!
I phoned Neil twice at his training day, once in the morning because Heather suggested I give him a heads-up in case he needed to come home if they wanted me to go into hospital. And then again in the afternoon to update him. I had to phone the Day Assessment Unit for my blood results at 5pm, and when I did, they told me that my liver and kidney function was normal, and all the levels were healthy and fine - phew! No markers for early pre-eclampsia at all, and for an added bonus, my iron levels were up from 10.9 at 36 weeks, to 11.3 - yay! :) So pleasing to hear!
So I guess it's a migraine of sorts. The headache has hung around and it's still here, fairly bothersome but nothing debilitating. I haven't managed the end of the day with the boys too well, as I've had a headache and felt weird in my eyes again - just fuzzy and pressurey, and a little bit "whited-out" but not particularly a loss of vision or shimmery effects. They've watched too much TV (videos on YouTube - we don't have a TV right now), and have been a bit wild as a result, but I couldn't think of another way to occupy them today. They've done jigsaw puzzles and board games, and tidied a bit, but the noise level has been unbearable, and I've done too much shouting which hasn't helped my own synptoms, just to be heard over the constant din. *sigh*
Anyway, I'm glad that it's nothing to worry about, and that my little one is fine.
Neil is home now - nearly midnight - yay! So relieved to have arrived at the other side of Friday - a day on the calendar that I'd been dreading for a long time, knowing how pregnant I'd be when he was required to be away from 7am to midnight, and not locally either! Now the boys just need to stay healthy (and not come down with anything viral from the various things we've done during the week) for the next 24 hours! It's WEEKEND!!! I'm so relieved. I know Neil will let me rest plenty tomorrow, even though I'm slightly frustrated that I'll need to, because there's still stuff to be done and literally no time left after this weekend, if we don't. On Sunday we are meeting up with my family (sans parents who are in France) to visit a miniature railway - the boys don't know where we're going, or who we're meeting up with! :) That's why I'm sooooo hoping we're all still well by Sunday morning, for that event. My 88-year-old grandparents will be there, and even if we come down with just a cold, we can't go because a cold can be serious for them at their age. And I so don't want to miss it! Once we're on the other side of Sunday, I will be 39 weeks pregnant and counting the days (who am I kidding?! I'm counting now!! ELEVEN to go!!!!) until my due date, and HOPING that I will go into labour BY or ON or even BEFORE that date, so that I don't have to stress about Heather's time running out... I am fairly sure I'll want to have a sweep at my due date appointment (probably 39 weeks and 6 days, on the Monday), even though I would never usually want to do that at my due date. If my body is ready to respond to a sweep, then it would be good to get it over and down with so that I won't have the stress of Heather not being with me if I wait and wait and wonder when on earth, and then her time is up and she's unavailable.
Anyway. I may still change my mind. I am not keen on intervention of any sort at (or fractionally before) 40 weeks...
Of course, this evening, Lydia has done her usual thing of being very active. It's like she gets her exercise in the evenings! Yesterday she was hurting me with her legs, doing some hard shoves like karate kicks or something - stretching her legs full length but very suddenly, and my whole tummy was morphing into different shapes in quick succession. I wanted to take a video but our camera with the video capabilities had a "wash" (thanks to Matthew) a while ago and takes only very blurry images now. We have the smartphone but Neil had it with him. So I finally managed to use the webcam (which I'd never used before!) on the laptop to take a little clip of my tummy lurching about to some music I had on. Lydia seems to really like music, and Elijah has always preferred country music (a radio station with no commentary or adverts) to help him get to sleep if he is being walked by Neil. It works MUCH faster than no music. Anyway so we often have that on in the background by the time the boys have gone to bed, and after a year of it, I've come to LOVE country music, so sometimes I put it on just for me! :) This evening I had Keith Urban playing, and Lydia was getting her exercise in, so I used the webcam to capture a little bit of it! It's really poor quality - the lighting is awful, but at least it's recorded for prosperity, and I love that I'll have it to look back on after she's born (and after she's turned 1, or lost her first tooth, or left home, or got married - sniffle!). I put it on Facebook but I don't think anyone can see it, and I wanted it here anyway in my pregnancy blog, so here it is:
I'll post again soon. I always enjoy reading back the last few weeks and days of my pregnancies in particular, especially when I'm nearing the end of another one! So I'm happy to be getting some updates done at last. Lydia has hiccups! She has had several bouts of those today. I can't wait to meet her, I am just so excited and it feels so wonderfully surreal that it will really happen soon! I can't imagine how I will feel, holding my first baby girl after the hard work is all done. I don't think there will be words to describe it. :)