Just wanted to update to note a few things - last week, the day after my last entry, Neil found my Doppler in the garage, and we put a new battery in it, and I went upstairs to see if I could hear the baby's heart beating yet. I was confident, because I have heard most of my babies by that gestation, and the ones I haven't, it's because I hadn't checked that early (but did somewhere during the 9th week, just a few days later). It didn't take me too long before I heard that sweet little sound chuffing away merrily! My Doppler doesn't have a number on it for beats per minute, but I count them over a minute - 168, which is perfect for that gestation. It should get faster still, around this week, and then begin to slow down. The fast rate doesn't mean it's a girl, it's just the development of the heart (it revs up, starting slow (like 100 bpm or less at first) and then slows down after that. It should be around 180bpm right now. :) I wanted to listen in again tonight but I have left it too late, I think, as I'm feeling sick and should get to bed. I started spotting mid/dark brown this morning and it has continued through the day, the same, so although I'm a veteran pregnancy-bleed-er (?!), it's always somewhat dismaying to see it, and I feel better for hearing the heartbeat. I'm encouraged by still feeling sick though! :)
The nausea has been more manageable since 8 weeks and 3/4 days, which I presumed would last a few days - maybe even a week if I was lucky! - and then kick back in again, but here I am at 9w4d and I am still managing a bit better. I am nauseous all the time from waking to sleep at night, and late morning it notches up a gear, and then a further gear after lunch, and yet further around 4pm or so. If I don't carefully watch how I handle it with food and drink, it goes back to just as bad as before, and I can't do anything or think about anything, just grimly bear the nausea. The difference this week has been that I struggled to pick through a meal before, and hoped I would keep it down. I ate next to a sick bowl, in my room, lol! Except not lol! :/ As the meal gradually went on, I would feel a little less like I would throw it back up, but I would not be able to eat more than half the meal or I would feel like I'd throw up because of overstuffing my stomach. This week I (OH SO THANKFULLY!!!!!) haven't had that. I am eating meals with nausea, but most of them without overwhelming nausea. Sometimes it's overwhelming to start with and I take it slowly, and it eases off quickly compared with before. Some of my meals, I have actually enjoyed my food! :) While I'm eating, if I'm able to enjoy it, the nausea might even almost disappear, until I get to the overstuffed feeling, which at first was at about halfway through my meal, but then I would leave it 15-30 minutes, come back and pick at a bit more, and eventually I was eating a full portion over an hour or so. Now, for the past few days, I have been able to eat maybe 3/4 of my meal before feeling nauseous and overstuffed all of a sudden, and once or twice that feeling has been mild enough for me to ignore it and continue eating until my plate was almost clean anyway. Felt sick for it, but it settled quickly, and I feel so much more at ease knowing I am eating well - better sized portions for the nourishment I (and the baby) need, etc.
It is also helping my tummy, somehow, not to have tiny portions and then get hungry quicker (which = nausea). I happen to have the type of system which doesn't like snacking frequently instead of meals - I end up feeling sluggish and full of wind, and like I haven't eaten "well", inside. I have begun to notice this week that a proper meal (and this doesn't work for "lunch" type meals like soups, salads, sandwiches, cheese on toast, etc.) in the evening will really settle my stomach by about an hour later. I might feel nauseous again because I haven't eaten anything in an hour, but a small snack and I feel better straight away. I feel GOOD for eating a proper meal. It has to be proper - carbs, veg and protein. Meals that work for me in this way are spaghetti bolognese; roast chicken with the trimmings; chicken pie, mashed potatoes and veg; homemade pizza; salmon, pasta and veg, etc. Meals that haven't worked for me are macaroni cheese (cheese is not my friend this pregnancy, apparently), take away pizza (doesn't have the same effect as my more wholesome and filling homemade pizza for some reason - it's okay, but leaves me unbearably thirsty (and I can't drink much!!) and queasy); waffles; breaded fish with oven chips; and pasta with a basic tomato pasta sauce. If I have the veg/carbs but not the protein, it doesn't have the good effect. If I have the protein but kind of "snacky" carbs with it and no veg, not the good effect either.
I am trying to work out if I am especially needing protein this pregnancy, as that was a definite gender thing for me, as it turned out, which I had heard about before my own experience from other mothers-of-many! :) I have craved protein with all my boys, but I realised early in my second trimester with Lydia that I really hadn't cared much about protein so far, even though I'd been eating it. I didn't have that same "pull" towards eating it and an urgency or craving for any type of protein so far, and I had by then with all my boys. The other ladies said the same thing - sure enough she was a girl! :) So I am curious to get some clues this time! I think it's too early though - I didn't really think about it with Lydia until 14 weeks ish? And obviously morning sickness is occurring until that kind of time anyway, so maybe that is in the way of cravings until it's eased off? I can't remember! I'm sure I had protein urges earlier than 14 weeks with my boys, but I don't remember if it was as early as 9 weeks, like I am now. I need to read my blog entries for the first trimesters with the boys, but that's a LOT of reading, lol! And I don't have time! ;)
So far, I am enjoying protein, and I keep thinking maybe I DO need it, because it's a necessary component of my meals if I'm going to feel better, but I don't think that's how it felt with the boys... I remember craving eggs with several of them, and meat, and someone telling me in my comments, "OH, IT'S A BOY!", lol! ;) I have sometimes had two eggs for lunch several days running, but not particularly because I urgently want eggs, more because I am trying to find a proper lunch to eat, instead of toast or something rubbish like that! ;) Carbs all leave a bitter taste in my mouth, so veg and protein (and sugar - oh, sugar is going down well this pregnancy! :D ) balance that out. If I eat an entirely carb-y meal then I'm doomed to bitter, mouth-watering-ness that leads really fast to nausea within minutes of eating. Like toast and sandwiches. I have eaten ham and cucumber sandwiches this week when I had no eggs, and that was okay, but I felt pretty sick afterwards.
So, no particular protein cravings YET. If I'm between meals and feel really grim, Cadbury's finger biscuits, traditional fudge and toffee are all helping in little bits and pieces! ;) As far as drinks go, I am so grateful to have discovered carbonated water this time around. I only found it because I asked at Facebook for tips, and so many people said fizzy water that I gave it a go. I have to switch the brand every now and then because I get "immune" (?!) to the specific tang or flavour of the water and it makes me feel sick after that, and a slight change improves things. I also have to drink them ICE cold. Sometimes it helps to drink with a straw. I can drink milk with a straw much better too! I start the day with exactly the same thing every day for breakfast, which normally would bore me silly, but I am not about to mess with something that works right now! Weetos chocolate wheat rings and milk. Every day. I eat a bowlful, throw a handful more in the remaining milk and eat those, and then drink the slightly chocolatey milk. Then I have filled my stomach AND had a drink to start the day. I can't stomach even the fizzy water first thing in the morning, so I'm grateful that I can gulp down chocolatey milk! :) Other cereals are not helping my tummy, so I'm relieved that I have one that works.
I am really only drinking fizzy water and milk, and have stopped looking for flavoured alternatives or teas, because there's not much point really. Many make me feel worse, and I've found something that works, and can drink 3 tall glasses a day at least, which makes me so happy knowing that I'm better hydrated this time than any of the previous times at this stage! :)
I have that yucky constant slight snottiness-of-nose that I always get in the first trimester, which comes hand in hand with postnasal drip, which REALLY aggravates my nausea and bothers my gag reflex. I blow my nose a lot, just to try and keep the yucky goop feeling away, but it's very persistant. I have had this with all of my pregnancies, so it's just something annoying to put up with for a while.
I have a little teeny rounded bump when I lie on my back and my tummy caves in (normally when I'm standing up it bulges out, such is the state of my abs!). I looked down this morning when I was lying in bed and had lifted my top off my tummy, and was really excited to see a rounded sort of semi-circle shape rising out of my tummy, about 2 inches above my pubic bone! It was about 3 or 4 inches across, and just such a sweet sight! :) Hello womb! Hello baby! :)
I am eagerly awaiting the first little movements - I had already felt some by this gestation with a couple of my pregnancies, but it was days away from now that I felt all the others for the first time - so exciting!!! I wondered at 8 weeks and 4 days if I felt the faintest little 'sweep' sensation against the inside of my skin a couple of cm above my pubic bone, but I didn't feel any more, and I dismissed it as too early. So I can't WAIT to feel those precious sensations again!! So near now! :)
I'm excited to be nearing 10 weeks! That's a quarter of the way there, and it is such a relief to be 4 weeks into the morning sickness, with HOPEFULLY less ahead of me than behind. Maybe not, but heading towards the end of the first trimester is always a wonderful thing! :) My baby only has a few days left of being called an embryo - soon he or she will be a fetus! Or foetus, if I'm spelling it English-ly, like I probably should! :P
Tomorrow is Saturday, and Neil is leaving home before we're awake, being picked up by his brother and sister - they are going to his mum's house, 4 hours drive from here, to surprise her and take her out for a meal for her 70th birthday! :) I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that surprise! He will stay overnight and come back on Sunday afternoon, and honestly I am nervous! I'm blessed that my hubby NEVER has a night away from the family. He has no cause to in his work. So we - myself and the children - are completely used to him being part of the chaotic end-of-day routine with dinner and bedtime, etc. I don't know how to do it without him! Although I've done it before when he has been home very late... I haven't done it with 7 children and morning sickness, though... :/ Despite the morning sickness improving, I'm still wary of it coming back to bite me in the bum (since it has in my previous pregnancies) at any time, and also I am still struggling between 4 and 9pm every day. Some days I have (fanfare!!!) been able to make a meal for the family before he is home from work, serve it and eat with the children! This is AMAZING compared with the past few weeks! But still, some days I have had to hang in there and wait for him to come home from work and help me, even if it has meant a really late bedtime for the children. That is still an improvement on the last few weeks, but it's a shame I can't help more, especially with the long hard day he has had! He is helping me so much, and makes the food when he comes in. So I am nervous of having a bad day tomorrow and no help with food in my yuckiest hour - even having something pre-prepared and heating/serving it is unbearable when I feel that sick. And if I make it through that, I'm nervous that I'll feel too nauseated to see the long bedtime routine through upstairs. This week I have been able to, but Neil helps with putting the little ones to bed while I breastfeed Lydia to sleep (which, lately, she isn't falling asleep to very often). The big boys have a couple of chapters of a book together while we do that, and then go to their beds to await me coming to tuck them in, pray, do back-rubs, etc. which I can only do once the three littlest are asleep. So it can be a long process, and I can't just feel too sick after a while, and go downstairs to be near a bowl, or get a snack to try to ease it! I'm nervous! I hope it will go okay... I know that if I can get them all asleep, and I'm out the other side of that, I will be okay. Even if I feel grim by then, I can escape it by going to bed and falling asleep.
Well, it's late and I've been waffling for a long time! I think I will go to bed. I am trying to think if I've missed anything... I have been especially exhausted today and yesterday - can't catch my breath sometimes, talking, climbing the stairs, calling the boys in raised voice, etc. - those things make me run out of breath and puff for a while. I feel too heavy to hold myself up sometimes, and just want to lie down or recline a lot of the time. If I am breastfeeding in the armchair or something, and can lay my head back for a minute, I feel like I took a drowsy pill and could fall asleep and sleep for AGES, if I had the chance! I think it's a stage of pregnancy thing - this is familiar from other pregnancies, on and off - especially during the first trimester. I hope that isn't too bad tomorrow either!
Oh, I forgot to mention last time that I had just started a cold sore! I NEVER get those any more unless I am pregnant, or abnormally run down and low - usually has to be a combination of emotional wrung out and physically on the floor for me to get one now. I only get them when my immune system is low, and that happens naturally when pregnant, so I guess that's why I got one. HATE those things! They are so sore, and ugly, and most importantly, I CAN'T KISS MY BABIES!!! :( It's a small scab now, so I hopefully only have a few days left before it's not infectious any more and I can kiss my little ones again! It's when I CAN'T that I realise how very very often I kiss my little children, and it becomes really hard not to be allowed to for days on end!
Okay, GOING now! Back soon, hopefully!