Sooooo close and I just can’t wait for it to happen. I’ve done the nesting thing, the house is ready – if we go any longer it’s going to unready itself. Sunday through to yesterday I felt really tired and I’ve been having almost premenstrual symptoms - mild lower back and abdomen cramps, hot flashes, mood swings – and I went off nesting. I may (or may not) have had a show – hard to tell but there was a LOT of goo. This morning in the wee small hours I was woken by pain but it was the baby-leaning-on-nerves-pain more than cramps so pooh about that. Today I’ve felt more energetic and back at the nesting thing, I even made a pillow case! Fingers crossed that this means it’s nearly time!

Saw the obstetrician yesterday and after being nearly fully engaged the week before baby had disengaged himself but went back in when I stood up. Doc advised walking and standing etc and said ’see you next week’. Bit disappointed, what I wanted him to say was ‘oh the baby’s about to come in oooh two hours, you’d best pop down to the hospital now’, but alas he didn’t.

I’ve started taking Raspberry Leaf tea which is supposed to help tone the uterus and be good during contractions and heck since it’s reputed by some to also induce labour we thought it worth a try. We’ve also tried walking and bonking (sans condom) – bonking seemed to bring on braxton hicks and apparently only works to induce if the cervix is up for it anyway. We might give that another go on the weekend - it’s a bit difficult at the moment because of how big I am and also I’m not exactly in the mood, plus worrying about the baby – I blame that for chasing him out of the cervix.

According to the doctor’s calculations we’re due next tuesday but going by when I THOUGHT I was ovulating, plus the fact that the doctor is basing this on our first scan which he had a bit of trouble with, I think we’re probably due this week. Which is good because if we go overdue we won’t be pushed too early into a medical inducement. As much as I am trying natural things I’d rather avoid too much medical intervention if possible. Still, ask me again next week and I will probably be all ‘bring it on’.

Anyway, meanwhile still having pmt like aches so hopefully it won’t be much longer!!

ETA: oh and my feet and hands are swelled up something hideous. That is all.

Had to moderate some spam so I thought I should do an update

well I’m officially 34 weeks on Tuesday so I’m optimistically calling it 3-6 weeks now when anyone asks I’ve got 3 more weeks at work and then as far as I’m concerned bub can come anytime after that.

So far so good. There’ve been no major problems and aside from sleep issues – getting up 2-3 times minimum a night and discomfort when trying to get to sleep – I’m feeling pretty good. Bub kicks and moves a fair bit - and has no respect for his mother’s internal organs – and he gets hiccups. He’s got good growth and so far I’ve avoided swelling feet and high blood pressure. I’ve been going to preggibellies exercise classes which have seemed to help my back and also pelvic floor.

We bought the last few essentials yesterday – a bin, a nighty for me and something comfy to wear whilst in labour – so now I just need to pack my bag and put some old towels in the car (the ambiotic fluid isn’t good for car upholstery apparently).

Fingers crossed that all continues going well over the next month or so!

I just realised this morning (when I woke up at 5.30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep) that I only have about 11 more weeks at work. I’m currently going through the process of coming to terms with the change I’ll be making by choosing to stop working – not just take maternity leave but 100% stop my current career and start something new. Not to say that I’ll never do paid work again, but at this point I’ll be free to decide what and when that is.

Anyway, this morning I went online to buy my cousin a gift for her baby shower from the site she’s registered at and realised after looking at their handy checklist that OMG!I don’t have anything for the baby and he’ll be here in just over 15 weeks..

ok, so we do have a pram, a car seat and a change table as well as some miscellaneous clothing items and towels that have started to appear from family and friends but not ALL the essentials.

I’m going to have to get busy…

ETA: I feel as big as a house already on my tummy and still have 3 months to go, but I have started going to Preggi Bellies exercise classes.

Well we had our scan today and baby passed with flying colours. We also found out it’s going to be a boy. A BIG boy. aieee…

Of course we thought maybe this would be the case because we had heaps of girl names but hardly any boy ones.

In other baby plans we bought a pram and a baby seat today as well.

Busy busy.

I think I’m 18 weeks, but I’ve lost count in the last few hectic weeks. Suffice to say though that we’re having the 19/20 week scan next week – squee!

So all’s going well aside from a very nasty cold that hit both myself and thehusband.  The morning sickness has pretty much gone, only slightly queasy now and I can last 5 minutes after getting up without eating breakfast immediately. I’m starting to get rounder too, though I haven’t put on much weight, I’m still only about what I was when I got pregnant, so I guess the baby is eating all the condition I had on before then But I am feeling better – I was given antibiotics for my cold and they have kicked in, and this morning I even went for a walk!

I can feel the baby moving now – at first I wasn’t sure if it was the bub or if it was me but I’m pretty sure it’s the little tiger doing somersaults.

Mum has been asking if we’ve bought anything yet and finally on the weekend we started looking at baby stuff. We bought a change table from Ikea and also a baby name book. We had a look at cots and also prams.

What else…we’ve booked the hospital, saw the obstetrician a week ago again and all was fine…. will post after next week’s scan.

We had our 12 week scan recently. The main purpose was to check for the likelihood of Downs Syndrome. Although I followed the drinking water and juice instructions the baby was being uncooperative and resolutely remained asleep and standing on it’s head (as long as its in that position when it needs to come out) while the sonographer tried to do the ultrasound. I emptied my bladder, walked up and down, rolled around, but still nope, the peanut wouldn’t move so she couldn’t get a good measurement of it’s neck which is the whole point of the exercise. She did get plenty of photos of its bits and I saw its heart and it was waving its tiny arms and legs around. So we tried an internal scan – which wasn’t as horrid as I thought it might be. She got a shot but not a good one, so having used up our 45 minutes we went out to walk around and have some orange juice while the next appointment went in. That worked, when we went back in the baby was horizontal and the sonographer got a shot of its neck. 

Results were good, I’m in a low risk category. It also turns out from one of the blood tests I had that I’m immune to chickenpox, yay. This scan also showed the baby being older than the last scan.

We saw our obstetrician and midwife again last week to get the results. All fine and the baby’s been dated a day older, so I was thirteen weeks last tuesday. I’m booked in for my 20 weeks scan too.

 Morning sickness is still bothering me, but I am feeling a lot better in myself – more energy and motivation (thank goodness) – I’m even keen about work. It’s such a change from the last three months where I felt like death warmed up every morning and it was all I could do to show up at work and function at the minimum level – forget about housework!

TheHusband has been really rather excellent however and has done above and beyond his fair share of housework and has even been sensitive about my lack of libido during the week! 

Tonight is the first time I’ve felt good in ooh about 2 weeks. Not sick, actually energetic, positive. I’ve had morning sickness pretty much continuously. Not vomiting, just a low level of continuous nausea that has just zapped me. It’s got so that I can’t look at a baby book without feeling sick. I think I must finally be getting a handle on what to eat and when to counteract it.  Anyway, I don’t want to speak too soon because I know it could be a gazillion times worse, and at least I can function. Also, it turns out I’m only 7 turning 8 weeks along so I could have another month of this at least.

I went to my first obstetrician appointment on Friday. The doc was nice and so was the midwife. The appointment took a while and the doc did a scan to determine age. He had a bit of trouble measuring the peanut but he got it at 7 weeks 2 days. This means the peanut is 5.2 weeks old and that I probably ovulated when I thought I did – 3 weeks after my period finished. Stupid irregular cycle. It also means the peanut is due Nov 12, not Oct 29.  Anyway we saw the peanut and it’s little heart beat and got a print out of the piccy. I’m all booked in for the 12 week scan and associated blood tests and have appointments all the way through set up with the obstetrician.

Pregnancy so far – first few weeks, good, aside from sore boobs, wondering if I was pregnant etc. Then I got really hungry one day and then morning sickness hit. Morning sickness has been a bitch and I got rather depressed about it the Thursday night before Easter because nothing was fun anymore just nauseating and there was soo much to do and I didn’t feel like doing any of it.  But some time off over easter spent with the family cheered me up even though this week has been worse MS wise. I have to have milk in the morning, I’ve discovered and eat early. A proper lunch seems to help too.

Apart from that, my breasts are still tender and I get tired easily. Oh and I get emotional over weird things. Like bumper stickers.

ETA: just read over my old posts – my ovulation was even later than I thought it was – must have been when I was having the cramps in the morning. Or possibly I had conceived then? Interesting to see what age they give the peanut at the next scan.

It was only tuesday that I had my first positive test, but it seems like ages ago, what with all the emotional upheaval and busy-ness at work.

On Wednesday morning I tested again then went for a blood test. Friday morning I saw my gp.

Blood tests came back fine – no horrific diseases – but my blood type may be an issue (something I didn’t realise – I knew if I was a rhesus negative there may be a problem but I’m not, I’m AB+) and I may have to have an injection so I don’t become immune to any future babies. BUT they didn’t do a ‘are you pregnant test’ which was the whole freaking point, I thought. When I told the doctor I’d had two negative tests to start off with he suggested I have another one just to be sure. I was like – uh…didn’t the blood test come back? And he said that they didn’t test for that anymore. I accepted that but later it hit me and I got a bit upset because I’d been waiting for that official confirmation. So then my mum and my friend were saying things like ’so you don’t know if you’re pregnant?’ which upset me more because I do KNOW but everyone, including me, was expecting an official signed, stamped blood test.

Ah well. So I did another urine test when I got home – couldn’t go at the doctor’s so he said it didn’t matter. And of course positive and stronger than ever. I was upset with my doc and thought he was full of crap because this is the second time when he’s waved off stuff I’d read (pre preg tests being the first time), but then I re-read my Miriam Stoppard book and it does say that the test is only used in difficult cases and didn’t actually say a blood test was needed for the doctor to confirm pregnancy – I was just reading that into the ‘confirm pregnancy’ part. 

Anyway, I also got a referral from my doctor for an obstetrician, so when I got home (and after my next positive test) I called her to book in. She was booked up for October. The receptionist was lovely and so helpful, she offered to check for me even though she wasn’t hopeful, and gave me the names of some other good doctors I could try (she didn’t call back so I’d say that’s a no). I tried them. Booked up. I tried the other obstetricians my doctor had suggested, one’s office was closed until next week, the other – booked up.

At that point I had a little cry – the bit where I got upset about the non-test and also not being able to get into any obstetricians.

Then I called my health insurance and asked if the hospital nearest us (smaller but the doc had said it was good) was covered, and also checked on the two big ones as well. Yep, so that’s fine.

I had the phone book out to get the number of one of the suggested doctors and noticed an ad for a doctor at the smaller hospital so I called them – engaged. One of the receptionists I’d called had suggested that I pick the hospital I want and get a list from them. I’d floated that idea with the first receptionist and she’d sounded dubious but I thought it was worth a try. So I called the smaller closer one and the woman who answered rattled off a list of names at high pace (including one of the highly recommendeds who was full, and the one I saw in the phone book).

I called the first one and hallelujah, they weren’t booked up. So I have an obstetrician and my first appointment is in 3 weeks on the 28th of March.   Then I had to call my gp back and get a new referral letter and then had to drive back to the doctors to pick it up.  

Of course then I began to have doubts – why were there spaces, isn’t he any good (I’d given up on a femal obstetrician after the second phone call)? But yesterday while I was at work, thehusband did some research about both the hospital and the obstetrican – loads of good stuff about the hospital, not much about the doc but nothing negative so that’s a good sign. We figure he’s just not one of the ‘celebrity doctors’ which is a self feeding cycle – they get raves on the net, so they get more bookings from internet traffic and therefore more raves.

However I do need to book into my hospital asap. I will do that Monday morning.

Husband also found some pregnancy exercise classes nearby and read up on the hospital classes that I also need to book in for.

I told my parents and siblings on tuesday but was waiting for the blood test to tell my grandparents – so I told them yesterday too. One grandma has 11 other great-grandies and her three eldest granddaughters (myself included) are due to have babies this year – mine will be number 13, so she was pleased but the other grandma was more excited since she’s only got one great grandy so far.  It will be my parent’s first grandchild. They didn’t sound too excited and I mentioned it to my sister - she agreed and had called them on it and they said that they were trying not to get too excited too soon. My sister on the other hand is estatic and SOOOO excited. One brother made poor jokes about being the uncle. The other (the youngest) said exactly the right thing and congratulated me.   

Now it’s my turn to do some research so I’m ready to make some calls on Monday. 

Hmm just realised that the doc didn’t even take my blood pressure – isn’t that something that’s supposed to happen?

(all being well)

So. Thursday I tested – I had Friday morning and Monday off so I thought that if I was pregnant it would be very convenient for me to find out then. Nada. So then all weekend I was waiting for my period, accepting the fact that this wasn’t the month for us. I even had cramps in the night. Nothing. But, I gave myself until Tuesday because that would be six weeks since my last period started. I tested and I thought I saw a second line appeared. I called in husband. He said, yes, it looks like a second line. I agreed, yes, it was definitely a second line. We got a bit excited after that.  I even took a picture (the test ).

I called the blood test place (the doctor gave me a referral when we saw him about conceiving) but they said an appointment wasn’t necessary so I went first thing this morning before work. I’ve made an appointment to see my doctor Friday morning, so hopefully my tests are back before then. I also tested again this morning and yep, definitely two lines.

So yeh – I’m pregnant! I’ve been so many different emotions since yesterday morning – excitement, a downer, disbelief, excitement again, acceptance, more excitement, impatience. So. Yep. Wow.  

I took my second pregnancy test today. The first was last month when my period was two weeks late. I was going to wait until my period was due this time but finally gave in today. It was negative of course.  Which of course proves nothing because I took it too early. 

Technically my period is due about Tuesday but that depends whether I was ovulating last week. So I might go another week after this before it shows up. Another whole week of playing am I, aren’t I? Meh. But, it will be ok. The thing is, I don’t have any symptoms any more/feel like I’m pregnant. Since the cramping in the wee small hours of yesterday morning I’ve had no real symptoms except a bit of discomfort in the abdomen. My breasts a very, very slightly tender when they get man-handled by thehusband but not really – again, could be a period coming on. I don’t even feel tired and only the teensiest bit nauseous (really, I could be imagining it). In fact, I feel pretty damn good compared to last week. So chances are I really was just ill last week.  Also I read that too much folate can cause nausea and bloating. I’ve been taking folate supplements and there’s folate in my breakfast cereal. How much is too much? It could explain the nausea. A virus could explain my temperature and tiredness. Cramps – heck, it’s my crappy period.

Have decided to look on the bright side (after having a few reality check moments re being a mum) – as much as I want kids, my life is going to be majorly changed, it’s going to be hard work – so every month I take to conceive is another month of freedom Of course I say this now – if I don’t conceive after a few more months I’m sure I’ll be well and truly over the freedom stuff. So I’m kind of in a zen space about it at the moment which is good. Maybe I shouldn’t be in such a hurry to change our life – things are good at the moment and a baby will arrive when it arrives.  

Anyhoo…

I was using one of those new fangled digital tests too btw – fancy.  For next time though I bought an old fashioned type because if I’m going to be regularly testing and getting negatives I can’t afford to keep paying $20 for two tests.