21 Weeks Pregnant

Another week down!

It's been a bit of a slow one really. Knowing the gender has now sent me into overdrive with wanting to buy things but I'm skint. It's an unusual occurrence for me to have spent up especially when I'm still a couple of weeks away from pay day but with the gender party and the doula deposit and the babymoon I've booked and desperately clinging on to spending money for - I'm broke.

Plus, I realised that I'm completely clueless as to what I should be buying in terms of baby clothes, or anything really, and I've found it all quite overwhelming.

I hate buying clothes at the best of times but when indecisiveness kicks in, I really hate it.

I reckon that a newborn winter baby just needs long sleeve and long leg sleepers. Assuming they don't get covered in crap, she can wear them all day and night. Maybe even two days and night? Her bum will be clean and she'll get wiped down as required, so no need for a new outfit every day... We'll see.

In terms of the pregnancy there do seem to have been a few changes.

My boobs suddenly look very veiny. I've always had visible veins in my boobs anyway thanks to me being busty and pale skinned, but now it's like several lightening bolts shooting down the top half my boobs - thick and blue. Luckily they mostly disappear after I heave myself up into a bra.

Earlier in the week I also suffered from the worst stomach stretching pains. I get the feeling I've said that before but these were much worse! They were sharp and intense and they covered every inch right from my groin all the way up to my ribs. It was really sore and they lingered for two to three days.

Then, after they had finally dwindled, instead of the usual affect of my belly getting bigger and my little lady having more space which I always thought resulted me feeling her movements less - my belly looks the same size and her movements are out of this world.

For the last two days she is moving at unusual times. Never before in the car, but now she'll wiggle away for most of the journeys. I can feel her so frequently that it seems that she is active for most of the day.

Also, she packs a wallop! I've been able to feel her with my hand for a few weeks but now I can see my hand being hit away from my belly. I got James to feel and he couldn't believe it. There was no doubt at all that she had just given him a massive whack!

Her strength has increased so much that I have even started to wonder if she might not have enough fluid or something but there is nothing really to indicate that and when I saw that one of my apps said that she was now 27cm from head to toe (omfg) which is bigger than my forearm!!!! then I guess it's not that surprising.

Shit, that is half of her term length! I thought that they grew a bit more exponentially, as in the amount she grew each additional week was greater than the amount she grew the week before. I thought maybe she reached half of her size about week 30.

Anyway, another symptom has been an increase in discharge. It's really creamy and smells that way too (sorry tmi). I haven't really had any at all throughout the pregnancy but I had quite a large smear of it the other day and a consistent amount since. I actually wondered if I had thrush but I don't think it is. I was a bit raw down there, but I wipe so fastidiously to minimise infection risk that it does tend to be. I went a bit easier and the rawness went so I'm assuming the discharge is pregnancy related.

The only other things are that my coccyx is still aching constantly if I'm sitting and feeling a bit sick if I'm stuck standing around in a shop.

Weight wise I didn't put on anything this week. So 0.2 lb gain last week and 0 lb this week will hopefully mean that I'm evening out a little more against my recommended pregnancy weight gain.

At 19 weeks I was about 2 lbs over the maximum recommended and now I'm about 0.5 lb over.

Pregnancy Yoga - 05/09/13

I had my first ever pregnancy specific class today - yoga!

I haven't done yoga before, but I have done a few pilates classes, but i'd mainly signed up to the class to meet local mummies to be anyway.

It was £45 and that is for 4 x 1 hour sessions, so pretty steep but one of the few activities that is local.

I made the mistake of taking an afternoon nap and then it was a mad dash to make and consume my tea (for fear of feeling sick at the class) before grabbing my exercise ball and jumping in the car.

You have no idea just how hard it is to have a giant bouncy ball in your hands and not actually bounce it on the ground. I was almost feverish trying to control myself, knowing that I couldn't risk popping it!

I reach the venue, a sports injury clinic during the day, and am greeted by the instructor who appeared to be a women perhaps in her late 30's. She immediately guesses that I am Louise which makes me suspicious that there aren't actually many people attending and that turns out to be true.

I head upstairs and there are three chairs laid out in front of one of those stands with an enormous paper pad on it covered in writing.

There is already a women there, sitting on one of the chairs and filling out some paperwork that I notice is present on all of the chairs as well as a pink booklet.

I sit next to her and start filling out my questionnaire, feeling slightly frustrated that it seems at least part of the session will be spent "in the classroom". I ask her name and introduce myself. Her name is Andrea and she has an accent that I immediately think sounded Australian but it was different somehow so I'm thinking either New Zealand or maybe even South Africa. I didn't ask because I didn't want her to think it was that obvious. She seemed shy but friendly.

The questionnaire was pointless. What do we hope to achieve? What do we like about exercise? What do we dislike about exercise? Etc.

We'd already filled out a health questionnaire before attending so why we couldn't do it then I don't know.

The instructor appeared with another lady called Charl (or something. Short for Charlotte?) who also seemed nice but I immediately felt less compatible to her than I was to Andrea. She was just the sort with whitened teeth and orange skin and I'm not into that at all, I'm a bit more of a frumpy country girl.

The session finally began with us doing one of those god awful public introduction bits where we all take turns to say our name and how far along we are and things. Charl went first and revealed she was 27 weeks and then said something about pains down her side. Then it was me and even though I covered the same topics as Charl, the instructor still leaned in towards me as if she expected more so I elaborated and added that I was having a girl. I could sense Andrea looking forward to her turn so that she could reveal that she was just one day behind me and was also having a girl!

I might get my money's worth in the form of a pregnant local friend afterall.

I was surprised actually because Charl had the smallest bump which she seemed happy with for her figures sake and Andrea had the biggest. I'm terrible for bump envy - it's not fair!

The next 25 minutes were spent going through the stuff on the board and typically I found it all rather dull because of course I'd already read about all the stuff covered such as changes that occur during pregnancy and the hormones involved and good posture. How any expectant mum wouldn't have already made it their business to know all of it already, I don't know. We all looked equally bored anyway. 

Finally, it was time for some yoga! After the warmup.

The warmup involved standing and rotating our arms and all that usual secondary school PE danncing around type stuff but unfortunately my overlooked post meal fatigue was kicking in and I started to feel really ill. Not sickness. It's like I can't breath and start getting hot and dizzy. I pushed through just willing it to end so I could sit on my ball for a bit and eventually that time came.

Now it was time for some yoga!

It basically involved sitting on the ball and attaining and maintaining a good posture while tensing our stomachs and then performing some movements such as pushing on leg out or lifting our arms or moving our pelvis back and forth.

We did a taster of each movement, the intention being for us to practice at home with the help of the pink booklet we received.

There were about 8 moves in total and then we did some stretches and it was time to go home.

I left with my new best friend Andrea and she asked for my full name so she could find me on facebook and I asked for hers and we parted ways.

I repeated her name over and over all the way home so I could add her and I eventually managed to find her, only to discover she has blocked messages and friend invites. So I had to wait for her to add me and I'm still waiting now but I doubt she'd remember my name tomorrow if she didn't bother tonight *sigh*.

I'm such a loner.

There is always next week I guess! As for if I get around to the yoga at home.. We'll see.

Bump Progression 8-20 weeks

Oh, nearly forgot!

Finally as promised... Bump pics :D

You don't quite appreciate how thin you were until you get to 20 weeks...

No skin stretching yet but I did have a moment where I couldn't read the scales!

Anomaly Scan - 20+3

Phew, what a relief! Everything was great with our little girl :)

We were only waiting for about 20 minutes to be called in for our ultrasound which was good and then we were lead into your bog standard ultrasound room.

I was told to hop on the bed and she quickly got started.

James had been given instructions to record on his phone without asking which turned out to be a good idea because as soon as she caught him she insisted that he switched it off. He managed a fair few seconds though so hopefully there is something decent on there.

She started by counting the hands and feet - two of each - and I was amazed at how long and skeletal they looked now. She has started taking on that appearance of being folded over herself.

Then she did the brain, face, abdominal organs like the stomach and kidneys and the spine.

Then she did the heart which always looks abnormal to me as it seems so busy and irregular, but she seemed pleased that it had four normal chambers.

I did ask her for confirmation that everything was normal after each section but she frustratingly would just cooly reply "it's fine". I don't know what I was expecting but it felt like there was a lack of compassion considering the weight of her response on my nerves.

As she was going along she also took some measurements of the head circumference, abdomen circumference and the femur length (the bone that goes between your hip and your knee). Apparently they can use these measurements to date the pregnancy but it seemed to me that they were just used to compare my baby against growth trends.

I asked her to sex the baby and she confirmed that she is indeed a she and we could clearly see her bits at one point.

During the entire scan baby was having her usual wiggle and purposely covering her face although at one point we managed to catch her sticking her tongue out! It was so cute.

She took a couple of pics (another £4!) and we were sent to another waiting room to see the consultant.

The pics clearly shows her profile and she looks just like her daddy. She seems to have his nose anyway, poor thing, but in a way I'm glad if she looks like him at least a little bit. James is definitely smitten and he even seemed a lot more enthusiastic than me. I always have it in my mind that she doesn't like the scans but James was really enjoying it and kept reaching out and squeezing my arm. I think he almost squee'd when we saw her tongue poke out lol

We had a nosey through the notes and immediately noticed that they were still working off our 12 week measurement rather than our KNOWN conception date so everything was based upon baby being 20+6 rather than 20+3 and therefore also compared a little below average on the charts whereas at her correct gestation she is obviously more advanced.

It seems she has an average head, big belly and stubby legs. James' nose and my body! Ah well lol

I remember without checking that her head circumference was 18cm so the diameter (or width) is about 5.7cm which seems frickin huge! About the length of my little finger! OMG and it's only going to get bigger... Makes my eyes water at the thought!

Time started to drag from then on. It was about 50 minutes waiting just for the consultant appointment and James was starting to get a bit irritated.

When we were finally called in we were shown into the nearest room on the corridor and there was a man sitting at the desk who looked absolutely fucked. He had a scruffy shirt on, stubbly face and kept on yawning and I actually felt a bit sorry for him. It turned out that this was the head consultant and not a peon like last time.

It took him ages to navigate through my notes to find the scan results so I had my blood pressure done and pee sample checked by the nurse - both normal - and he was asking about my Clexane as I returned to my seat. We mentioned the IVF and he started looking on the computer before acknowledging that we'd been through a lot to get pregnant. He asked my age and when I told him that I'm 28 it seemed to make it more significant somehow.

He seemed a bit concerned, asking if I was sleeping and if I was suffering much anxiety regarding the pregnancy. I was explaining that I'm not feeling particular anxious unless she stops wiggling as often as other days but he continued talking as if to himself about getting me some extra ultrasounds so I promptly stfu. I conceded that it would probably help me feel less anxious and so now I'm getting scans at 26 and 32 weeks! :D 

He asked if that would be sufficient and I suggested he perhaps gave me scan pictures for free too, but it didn't work unfortunately. James was amused though :)

I mentioned to him that my coccyx is very sore and it aches to sit and to stand from sitting and he asked if I was getting shooting pains down my legs, which I'm not, and he seemed to lose interest at that point.

The entire appointment must have taken less than 5 minutes which caused James to mutter about how pointless it was as we left, but I'm glad I've got some extra scans and he seemed nice.

Pic of our pretty daddy's girl:

Video to follow later.

Gender Disappointment - 03/09/13

The first and only post I was going to make today was going to be about my very scary anomaly scan but instead I find myself having to address an issue that I would rather have ignored because to be honest I didn't even realise that it applied to myself and my husband so I don't feel qualified to do it justice.

The reason I am now actually posting about this topic isn't because of a certain "judgemental", "patronising", "shameful" "hormonal rant" - not my words btw - because I didn't even read that comment myself.

I post from a blogger app so there are no comments to read as far as I am aware (apologies for the friendly hellos I might have missed).

The reason that I have changed my mind is because someone who I had considered a friend decided to contact me directly to shun me and my involuntary reaction and I figure that maybe there are others who are similarly "disappointed in me after everything I have been through".

It seems that there are those who expect others to control and censor their feelings to keep them within the realms of excessive gratitude for overcoming infertility and perceived gender disappointment apparently does not satisfy these conditions.

To start, I would like to point out that even after 6 fresh ICSI cycles that I do not find myself perched on any sort of pedestal. I do not feel that infertility is worse than the issues others suffer, I do not believe I wanted my child more than others, I do not regard my child to be a miracle and i do not expect any special treatment or curtsies from others.

Similarly, I do not feel that I owe it to anyone, not to my child and certainly not to strangers, to stifle how I react to any given situation.

To clarify, I *preferred* a girl and my husband *preferred* a boy. We got a girl.

Therefore, clearly my sadness was not in relation to the baby being a girl because I got exactly what I wanted.

We are chasing our ideal family life, not a baby, and that ideal consists of a handful of children in which case you assume you'd get at least one of each gender at some point and in that situation the gender would have been a complete non-issue - for the first born at least!

Unfortunately because of just how difficult our situation is (aww) and how hard we had to work at getting our miracle (oops!) we have to accept that maybe we will only get one child and in that situation we unavoidably find ourselves clinging to the specifics of why we want children. I had visions of being mother of the bride, shopping trips, spas and having the grand kids around all the time (more likely with daughters) whereas my husband had visions of doing all the rough and tumble sports he likes such as rugby and mountain biking.

My husband is the one who was never expected to have children and we had even taken to calling the embryo a boy all this time, perhaps I didn't mind because I wanted him to be content - I don't know.

When we cut into that cake and discovered it was a girl, I didn't see my happiness I just perceived my husbands sadness and reacted to that. Everything that I have been through with infertility has been for my husband and it would appear that it extends to the pregnancy also.

My husband immediately assured me that he was still happy and she could still mountain bike and he even informed me she had more chance of being a world champion as a girl *sigh*.

If people cannot comprehend someone being sad for a person they love before before being happy for themselves, well that is a very selfish person indeed who I'd suggest doesn't know what love is at all.

Even if I give those people who reacted in a negative way to my account of our gender reveal the benefit of the doubt that they misinterpreted my feelings on the gender of our child, I still find their response to be unforgivable.

If I've heard "as long as the baby is healthy" once, I've heard it too many times. No one has suggested that they would opt for a sick child over a child of the wrong gender. No one has prioritised gender above health. No abortions will be taking place. They simply take the good health for granted and express a preference in gender. Not acknowledging their feelings doesn't make them go away.

I know someone who has a handful of kids of the same gender and was still desperately chasing a child of the other gender while i was looking at never having children. The fact that we are struggling for our first child while they are popping out several with ease is irrelevant - the bottom line is that we are both yearning for something to complete us. That sense of desperation is the same in both of us.

I am just as guilty of not being entirely satisfied with all the wonderful things that I do have in my life as she is so who am I to judge or belittle them?

Anyway, so those are my feelings on the topic. Please feel free to leave all your venom in the comments section where I won't be reading them anyway.

My girls got balls! - 02/09/13

After yesterday's embarrassing defeat in the gender guessing and some mocking remarks about how I must need a lesson in anatomy *cough* I thought I'd post up the misleading scan images in my defence :)

Right then. So this is the first one that was taken at 12+3. You'll all know what I'm referring to and I still cannot comprehend how it turned out to be a vagina. By this stage the genitals should be mostly formed i think and it isn't umbilical cord because you can see it in the pic going up the baby.

Then this is the second one taken at 18+3 and if you look between the legs there are two small circles next to each other that look like they are in the right position to be little balls.

In conclusion, I still think it looks like a boy!

However, these images probably explain why they do sexing in 2d and not 4d :)

Gender Reveal, It's a......... - 01/09/13

......

Not much fun telling you at the start of the post is it? :P

The day started with me waking up at 6:30am to put the pork the oven. I'd decided on hot pork sandwiches with stuffing and apple sauce and then some other bits like salad and corn on the cob.

The pork was a huge 4kg loin and google said it needed pretty much 4hrs 30 to cook.

I intended on going back to bed but while I was downstairs I figured I'd just butter some bread and chop some salad and before I knew it, it was 11am (party at 12) and I still had loads to do and didn't even have any knickers on yet! 

So while i was still dressed in only my dressing gown, my brother and sister arrived early to help out.

It seemed like a good idea at the time but I'm not sure that they didn't just get in the way. They took orders ok but couldn't function without my presence so by 11:40 I still hadn't gotten ready and just had to abandon them to their own common sense and hope they did ok.

I'd only been upstairs 5 mins when the doorbell went and the first guest had arrived! I was late to my own party.

Once everyone arrived we left everyone to help themselves to the buffet and it was no time at all before James informed me all the pork had been eaten and a few of the guests including myself and James hadn't even had any yet!

James came telling tales on my brother who had apparently eaten three slices of pork when he knew what was there was all we had for everyone. It is slightly irritating just because there was other things to eat, it's not as if there was only pork.

Funnily enough as I scraped up the grainy remains of the pork onto a muffin (aka bap, batch, etc) my brother appeared and actually asked if I was going to have all the scraps to myself! Greedy bastard!

Time seemed to pass at a pleasant rate. They were only obliged to stay for 2 hours which isn't really long enough to get terribly bored and I had a nice chat to everyone and even my doula attended.

I wasn't going to invite her but then I figured why not. I want to get to know her more before the labour as knowing someone is a lot to do with me feeling confident and comfortable which is the whole post after all. I'm glad that I did because she was really nice and funny. She scorned me at one point though because I mentioned to someone else I hadn't eaten all morning - oops!

The football was put on to the TV muted at the request of both mine and James' dad *sigh* but after a few minutes I had the pleasure of turning it off so we could cut the cake.

We gathered everyone together and they all stood around us as we prepared ourselves to cut into the cake and we both froze. James was muttering that he didn't think he could do it and the tension was building. I had a moment of bravery and plunged the knife into the cake and separated a corner from the rest of the cake but it still didn't expose the sponge inside. A few moments later and another surge of bravery and I toppled the corner over to reveal a cake with a lot of jam inside and no colour.

I just stared at it feeling very perplexed.

James instantly blurted out, "omg, it's a girl!" and it dawned on me that the majority of that jam soaked sponge was actually pink colouring.

What was happening? I didn't understand. 

I just kept on staring at the jam inside and started to cut a few pieces away to check the middle and James immediately knew what I was thinking and laughed at me trying to find the blue that I knew must be there somewhere.

I was shaking and James even offered me a chair. 

Right then, James mum walked in from outside. She'd sneaked out for a cigarette and had missed the whole thing! Oops. We have since decided it was definitely FILs job to ensure she was there.

So the cake was distributed and we watched the DVD of the gender scan which was pretty pants but did seem to show the "three lines" that everyone rattles on about. SIL informs me that boys don't have any lines, they just have a bit sticking out.

Immediately afterwards everyone went home and as the last people left, I sat down and tried to process what had just happened.

I knew one thing and that was that I wasn't feeling very happy. In fact I was feeling rather sad about it all. I thought maybe I was just tired and overwhelmed, and maybe I was, but people tend to squee in delight when they reveal their gender, especially when its what they hoped for, and I really felt like I wanted to sob.

I felt disappointed for James wanting a boy, shunned that the family name wouldn't be continued as requested, sad that I'd kind of lost the little boy we'd created and even named all these months and guilty that all I was consumed by all these feelings.

I did want a girl, I really did, but for some reason I was more devastated than elated.

James came and sat with me and he said something about knowing it was a girl all along and I barked at him that the only reason that him and his dad thought it would be a girl is because they all like to foretell doom and now they had it, something to be upset about, our little baby not being a boy.

He was sweet and reassuring though and I had a bit of a sob about how I felt and he seemed to say all the right things about me being tired and it being a shock after calling the embryo Johnny all this time.

I wondered if I was mourning the loss of Johnny.

James declared we'll use it as a middle name for our little girl. I quickly overcame my grief at that suggestion.

We went out for dinner, it was crap, but we chatted about girls names and James has laid claim to a new favourite. We'll see.

I'm feeling better about it now though. My little girl.

It just goes to show that you never know, until you know! I will of course be getting the gender verified at my 20 week scan on Tues *cough*.