Not feeling pregnant & mum-to-be worries

I always had this vision of what it would be like to be pregnant.  Regardless of being overweight or thin, I'd have a glorious proud bump, feel my baby kick and just have that knowing that you're pregnant.  You hear these stories about how when women do their pregnancy test, they already knew they were pregnant, well, it wasn't like that for me, quite the opposite.

I was just doing the test to prove the Dr wrong, I *knew* I wasn't pregnant, I'd been here several times before, each time convinced I was, then I'd get the negative test and my period that would ensue.  But this time, I had a positive, yes I was happy, over the moon - but I was in shock, I hadn't felt pregnant.

When we look back, we can see I had all the symptoms:

• Very achy boobs
• Missed period(s)
• Off coffee
• Tiredness
• Loss of appetite
• Gone of most of my favourite foods

The list goes on... but I'd attributed that to all the crazy things going on in my life, like losing my brother, having the flu/chest infection/bad asthma and then all the tablets I was on to fix all those things (antibiotics, steroids, increased inhaler and to treat a bout of thrush, canasten (tablet)).

The next morning I did the 2nd pregnancy test that came with the one I bought, and it failed... it didn't give me a negative, but the test simply didn't work, and the control line (or any line) didn't light up.  I went to work and told both my boss's that I was pregnant, but I felt like I was lying to them, and that feeling hasn't really left me.  I thought I'd feel better after my 12 week dating scan.  

I remember when she turned the screen to me to show me little Squidge, I reacted by saying "There is a baby!" and then "Oh my god" in utter amazement.  I have the scan pics to prove he/she is there, but I still don't feel pregnant.

I worry about so many things, I worry about down syndrome, I worry that the canasten tablet I took will have a thalidomide effect on my unborn baby, I worry that because I'm very overweight, that they'll have some horrific defect or heart problem or something, I worry that because I'm vegetarian and I'm totally off quorn I'm not getting enough protein, and that'll really affect my baby... the list is endless. I know there's nothing I can do about it (other than bring more protein into my diet), and I guess I'll never stop worrying, ever...

I'm just counting down the days until my 20 week scan, then I can see that Squidge is still alive, and hope that the reason I haven't felt him/her kick yet is because it's still a bit early, or that my placenta is in front of the baby, I'll see that things are ok (or not) and be reassured that there's still a baby there.  The crazy thing is, I've had no symptoms to tell me otherwise, I've not had any bleeding, no horrific pains other than stretching pains, it's all in my mind.  I get this from my mum, she was a worrier.  But sadly, because she's not with us anymore, I can't just call her up and ask her all of these burning questions I have.

The crazy thing is, I'm not at all worried about when the baby arrives, I know we'll cope, and I can't wait, it's the 'being pregnant worries' that keep me awake and keep my mind from being present.

I really hope these worries go away on the 27th May at my next scan...  I'm not letting myself buy any of the big stuff (i.e. pram, cot, new carpet etc) until we know for sure that Squidge is ok at that scan.


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Week 17 pregnancy update

Left: A selfie before heading to a friends house on Sat night, I took much pleasure in doing a full face of makeup for the first time in a while :)

Top Right: The hubby and I have set up our old Minecraft tekkit sever and have been playing again, this has been much fun!

Bottom right: Weekly purchases - I adore the macadamia hair mask which is normally £30 for that size tub, but they had it for £18 on beauty bay, so with the money I saved I purchased the macadamia 'flawless' to try :)

MY WEEK
You might have seen in my last post it's been a busy week filled with hospital and midwife appointments, nothing to worry about, just the 16 week bloods, and 16 week midwife appointment :)
I still don't feel pregnant though, despite still feeling quite woozy, my appetite not being there etc, I'm convinced something is wrong because of this (I know that's completely normal).  I just can't wait for my 20 week scan so I can find out for sure if everything is ok :)

SYMPTOMS
More retching, and specifically, my first set of throwing up! It was quite comical really, I'm there, brushing my teeth and before I spit out the toothpaste, I feel really sick (this happens every time I brush my teeth since I became pregnant, it's the action of spitting it out). With that, I wretch (again, typical daily occurrence when brushing teeth), then as I spit the toothpaste out, the tea I just drank gets thrown up with it :P

What's funny, I'm there with my head in the sink and I say out loud "Oh my g..." and as I'm saying "god" I throw up more tea :P Very comical :P

Still have the usual lower back ache, I'm also pretty boiling most of the time :)

WEIGHT
Down 3lbs this week, been eating pretty normally, but much smaller quantities of everything, still eating plenty of fruit, but not getting much protein.  I'd usually get that from Quorn since I'm vegetarian, but I'm off that now too :/

DIET
Still off cheese, quorn and anything remotely rich (i.e. anything not plain), loving potatoes still (jacket), mango, grapes and the odd packet of starburst :)

BUMP
Still nothing visible - my friend seems to think she can see a difference, but I'm not convinced!  I still can't really feel a firmness when I lie down, hubby thinks he can but I think it might be wishful thinking.

NEXT SCAN
27th May - it can't come quickly enough! I want to see Squidge and know everything is ok :)

BABY STUFF
Haven't bought anything new this week, although in a couple weeks time we are going over to a friends house as they're selling their crib and some other bits, so we're going to check that out, whoop!

Thanks for reading, I hope you've all had a fab week <3

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A week of appointments

This week has been the busiest week so far of my pregnancy.

On Tuesday I had my 16 week bloods done, including a GTT (Glucose Tolerance Test) - one of the reasons I had to have this is because I'm overweight, and they want to check that my body is still making insulin ok.

Surprisingly (because I suck at paying attention to what's written in letters) I only expected this to be a quick blood test, but when I got there and read the letter, I realised it was at least a 2-hour ordeal.  The appointment was for 8:30, we arrived nice and early at 8:20 and was ready to have my blood take right there and then.  But it wasn't until 8:35 that they managed to draw blood, why?  Because I have terrible veins that collapse as soon as a needle gets near them, and they're tiny, so they're really hard to find.

I had 3-4 people try to take blood from me and they eventually got it from the back of my hand (which is where I told them they'd need to take it from in the first place).  So after 3 stab-wounds (one in my arm, 2 in the back of my hand) I was whisked off to my next appointment.  I had my wee dipped, my BP done (something like 143/85 - pretty average for me) and I was weighed.

After that, I had an appointment with the consultant since I'm having a consultant-led pregnancy due to weight, heart problem (SVT) and my underactive thyroid.  We had to wait for about an hour to be seen, but the consultant was lovely.  She's put me on 75mcg of aspirin as a preventative measure in the hopes I don't develop pre-eclampsia.

I was due to have the downs blood test too... now, I'm going to speak really frank and candidly about this.  When we found out I was pregnant we decided we wanted the downs test.  Ultimately, after long talks, we knew we would terminate if the test was positive (a horrible thought I know).  But when it came down to it, while we were in the hospital I just didn't want to know.  If it came back as high risk, I wasn't prepared to have the amino and then I'd be stressed for the rest of the pregnancy about our baby - we'd rather take my chances and live in ignorance.

After seeing the consultant I had another appointment to see the endocrinologist (hormone specialist - i.e. thyroids).  She increased my dose of thyroxine from 150 (which had been increased since pregnancy) to 175.  Then I was whisked back to have my second blood test as part of the GTT, again from the back of my hand.

Next we had to cash in my prescriptions at the hospital pharmacy, this took aaaaages, over a 1hr wait!

Well, that was Tuesday.  Then today (Thursday) I had my 16 week midwife appointment, this was very short and sweet.  The midwife once again took my blood pressure which was a brilliant 130/80 (perfect!) and sent me on my way.

All in all a very busy baby week!

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