This will be a short one. I have been feeling so sick. Very much like Samuel's and Lydia's pregnancies. I have had a bowl upstairs and a bowl downstairs, and often have had to pace about holding one, but THANKFULLY haven't used one yet. I can't fathom how I've managed to feel that sick without actually vomiting, but there we go!
The days have been hard to get through, as it starts when I wake, and is only gone if I'm not conscious. If I wake at night, it isn't usually there at the moment of waking, but within a minute or two it starts up. I devised a little chart which I stuck to the cabinet in the living room, so that I can count off the days. Each day feeling like this, feels like at least 3 whole days (actually serious), and before I had the chart I was losing track of what day I was on, by several days. I would think I was X weeks and 5 days along, when really I was X weeks and 2 days, and that was hard to come back down from when I realised I still have 5 days left until a new week milestone, not two! I found it upsetting in the end, because I felt so awful, so I made a quick chart to keep me on track and give me something to "achieve" each day in progress.
In the mornings, I draw a square around the day I'm on - that gives me a sense of "I've arrived at THIS day!" and also something I can DO to check it off, sort of. Then in the evening before I go to bed, I can colour in the square (I chose rainbow colours because it makes me happy!) which gives me a sense of achievement for the day, and helps me see exactly where I'm at. Even if it feels like 3 days have passed since I drew the square, I glance at the chart all day long and if it's not coloured in yet, I know I'm still on that same day, but there are only a couple of hours to go before I get to colour it in and achieve my "day"! It works for me anyway. :) Makes it more bearable and keeps me sane! ;) I'm nearly at the end of that top line now! Yay!
I started at 7 weeks because it was by the end of week 6 that I became desperate enough, lol! Week 7 was painful to get through, and I couldn't do much at all with the kiddies. One day I could not face making lunch no matter how I tried to approach it, and Nathan (7) sweetly made sandwiches for himself and his brothers. Arthur did it the next day. It was Elijah's birthday this week (he's THREE!!!!! Cannot believe.) so Neil was home that day - he takes the day off work for all his children's birthdays. :) He also worked from home one day last week because of car issues, so he made lunch for the boys that day too. He makes all the evening meals at the moment, because my worst time of day is mid afternoon to bedtime, as usual. In that time, it seems to peak from dinner time to the boys' bedtime, and sometimes is absolutely unbearable. I can't even be in anyone else's company as I try to keep from being sick. Like last time, it seems to be made a TON worse by a load of air squelching around in my upper abdomen, which I can't shift for anything. The only thing I found to help (in desperation) last week, was to crawl on the floor with my bowl, ha! What a picture! ;) I only do this when I'm on my own, and desperate enough! If I crawl and pick things up to put away, leaning and twisting as I do so, sometimes the air inside me shifts a little and the intensity of the nausea eases a little bit, which is sometimes enough to actually enable me to put the children to bed. Otherwise Neil has had to do it by himself some nights while my baby girl cries for me, and I crawl about deep breathing in the living room and praying so hard that I don't throw up! :( I hate leaving Neil to do it, and I hate hearing Lydia cry for me, but I don't want to be sick on her while I'm nursing her to sleep, and I genuinely feel like I might, so I have to try to ease the feeling before I can go up. Sometimes it shifts quickly enough for me to go to her before she is asleep, but other times it's half an hour or more before there is any improvement, and I could cry when I get up there and she's sleep-sobbing and out for the count already. :(
BUT! It's only for a little while.... This week, dare I say it (and I really daren't, actually!), I am feeling a touch better. ONLY because the load of air issue isn't going on. I know that comes and goes, so I'm dreading it coming back! I am so grateful for the easing of the nausea right now. I still feel really really sick all the time, and worse in the afternoon and evening, and eating isn't easy, and drinking anything is almost impossible, but the hollow about-to-vomit feeling isn't there every second, for which I'm eternally grateful! Such a horrid feeling!
I can't drink water, and have gone through various carbonated water brands - and diluted apple juice with them sometimes, and elderflower cordial. But it seems that I can only tolerate one type of drink for 3 days or so, before that too makes me feel sick, and I have to find a different one. The same is true of snacks and food, but not so intensely like the drinks. I can sip milk, but nothing else, except bottled fizzy water. I'm on Volvic water now, having become "immune" (!!) to 3 other brands over the past couple of weeks. It won't last long, and then I'll have to find something else - ice in it helps too - but hopefully by chopping and changing like this I'll make it through the worst of it and come out the other side.
So this is turning out to be longer than I thought, hehe! Surprise surprise! ;)
What else? My Doppler is still packed in the garage from when we moved here, so I haven't dug it out yet! I keep asking Neil if he would mind looking, but he's so busy, and he hasn't had time yet. Neil "arranged" stuff in the garage perilously piled up, so I can't attempt to search for it myself. Normally by now, I have been listening to the sound of my sweet baby's heart beating for a few days already! :) I can't wait to hear it!
My waistband is getting tight and I am using a hairband over the button of my jeans, looping it through the buttonhole and back round the button, to give myself a bit more space there. I can feel my uterus an inch over my pubic bone! :) I first felt it at 7 weeks and 3 days, lying in bed that morning. I was checking every night and every morning until then, so I know that was the very FIRST time it was palpable. :) I am happy to feel it there again! Sweet little tiny inside, growing vigorously!
I called the GP and arranged a booking appointment with the midwife, finally. It's my first baby in this area, and I rather miss my old midwives! :( I hope they'll be nice here too - I'm sure they must be... I hope so. My first appointment is on the 18th of June - I will be 11 weeks and 3 days. They'll do my history (hope they've cleared their calendar, haha!) and my booking bloods.
I also received a letter in the post this morning with my nuchal scan date!! Exciting!! It's later than I expected though - July 2nd! Where I used to live, nuchal scans had to be done between 11w6d and 13w0d to be accurate, and I will be 13 weeks and 3 days at this scan, so I'm not sure if they've worked it out correctly, or what... It is also a basic dating scan, which is the only aspect I'm going for. I decline the nuchal testing, because I don't want to know the risk of Down's Syndrome. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference whether our baby has Down's Syndrome or not, so there's not much point finding out the risk factor. So I guess it's fine to go as late as 13w3d then! :) So far, my pregnancy has measured 3 days behind, though it could have caught up by now. And I know my dates... but even if it still measures 3 days behind, I would still be 13 weeks exactly.
13 weeks, or 13 weeks and 3 days (or anywhere in between!) is a fabulous time for a scan in terms of the accuracy of the nub theory! ;) I'm excited about that! There wouldn't be any room for doubt or second-guessing, at 13 weeks. By then, it would be very accurate - a flat nub = girl. An angled nub = boy. End of. I am hoping (presuming) that I will see either an angle or, like last time, a total absence of an angle, at 13 weeks. I have had babies in the "grey area" at scans before, where it's possibly flat, or is it mayyyybe angled slightly?!?! And because I've been 12 weeks and 1 or 2 days pregnant, it has been on the early side to be accurate anyway, so I have just had to wait until the 20 week scan for confirmation. That shouldn't be the case at 13 weeks, so I'm excited! :) Any angling up that a boy nub will do, will have taken place properly by 13 weeks, whereas a week earlier, it would still be flat and just beginning to angle up. I feel pretty confident that even if we don't get a good picture of the nub, by watching it at the scan, I should get a pretty clear idea of whether this baby is a girl or a boy. I'm still leaning boy, but I don't know why. Morning sickness start time, maybe?? Or maybe just because I would really love another girl and I'm protecting myself a little deciding that it's probably a boy?
I am not thinking of names any more. I don't want to fall in love with the perfect girl name and it turns out to be a boy! Or suddenly feel "that's the ONE!" with a boy's name, and KNOW that it's a boy therefore. I don't mind if it's a boy, but I want to wait until the scan to KNOW! I am trying to steer clear of trying to figure it out beforehand now - it's only 5 weeks away! And I'm hoping SO MUCH that I will feel better by then.
Okay, I have to go. I am feeling too sick and it's crazy late. I have been going to bed when the children do, to escape the nausea, which has been great for my sleep! I have sometimes had 11 or 12 hours sleep (broken with Lydia and such) a night!!! I know my body is doing big things though, because I am STILL exhausted by the afternoon, and feel breathless doing much. We went to the local playground on Elijah's birthday and it absolutely did me in. The nausea hit the roof and I had to go to bed for a while when we got in, just to escape the nausea and because I was grey with tiredness. Crazy! I was reassured reading in my blog that other pregnancies at 8 weeks have been similarly exhausting, and my body is REALLY working hard, even though it doesn't look like it to an outsider!
Tonight is the first night in many that I haven't put myself to bed with the children, because the nausea has eased off a little so that I can tolerate being up. :) I have to get to bed now though. Nathan lost two (!!) teeth today, so I have to be a Tooth Fairy first. ;)