22 weeks and I'm back!

And it's 22. Still amazed to be honest.

The conference-trip away to the Azores was great (food was something else and the views...oh my God...totally recommend it) but tiring...my feet and ankles were so so swollen but the temperature didn't really allow to wear support socks...I took it as easy as I could and to be honest being away made me a bit nervous. You know all the what ifs...But I had the doppler with me and it was such a reassuring thing! The highlight of the conference was that my student won the best poster award! Woohoo!! So nice for her and for me too!

My belly is growing and I feel the baby moving much more regularly specially since the last few days! And it's a papaya now! Woohoo! But I am a bit more tired (perhaps still from the trip), we were away at the weekend too so a bit more travelling added up...and I'm going to Italy next friday! I promise that's the end of my travelling...and I have a cold as a nice gift from the air plane too...

When I came home on friday last, it was my birthday and Mike surprised me with a totally unexpected gift! Almost two years ago I had gone back to our jeweller with an idea of a ring in mind. We chose the stone and planned the design, but then...one thing and another the ring was never ready when we were in Italy and I kind of gave up on it after a while. Well...the ring magically appeared in Dublin in my kitchen!

I love it! And it's great also I can wear it now, it was planned for my right hand but due to the bit of fluid retention it doesn't quite fit and I am wearing it comfortably on my ring finger which felt very bare since I had to take off the weeding and engagement rings!

I'm also posting another series of belly pictures to humour you a bit (I know you can't wait LOL!) I don't have a weight update as I was away and I religiously take it on Sunday morning after peeing and before breakfast...

What do you think? It seems almost the same to me, I know the pics aren't identical but a part from the fact that the belly feels higher (I could find the heartbeat beside the bellybutton the other day!) it has not projected forward much. We'll see if I have a growth spur in the next while. Oh and I'm starting pregnancy yoga tomorrow!!

21 weeks (tomorrow!)

It's a day early but given that I'll be flying to the Azores very early in the morning I'm not sure I'll have the time to update.

So this week really flew by. With all that happened it feels like the days were on top of each other. Yesterday there was the funeral of the girl who passed away and I decided not to go. I get so upset and emotional at funerals I don't think I could cope with the devastation of her parents and friends. I hope everyone understands.

I'm feeling well overall, I've changed the prenatal medicine since yesterday and my tummy has taken a turn! I hope it'll settle soon.

I feel more regular movements, definitely every day now and it's really reassuring. I can feel them as high as my belly button at times and if Mike has his hand in the right spot at the right time he can feel the kicks too! He loves it and makes so so real.

I'll bring the laptop to the conference so I hope I can stay tuned with what my cyber friends are up to, otherwise I'll catch up with you all when I'm back next weekend. Actually the plan at the moment is that as I touch down in Dublin on friday (my birthday wohoo!) we'll bring the cats to the cattery and we head off to the countryside for the weekend visiting our dear friends in their fairy tale cottage! So lot's of travelling ahead, I'll make sure I'll rest as much as I can any time I can.

The Anatomy Scan

It went well! Wohoo!!

But the day started really badly. I came into work and found out that a girl doing her PhD in the lab beside mine passed away suddenly last night. it sounds like an aneurysm but it's not know yet. Her friends were devastated as you can imagine, their supervisor was out of the Country and expected back today so I was alone there with them not really knowing what to do... It was terrible.

When Mike arrived saw the dreadful atmosphere and tried to make me focus on our little Elvis and that it was different and that everything would have been ok. But our trip into town wasn't the most cheerful.

The tech was lovely and took all the time needed to explain to us what she was doing. Everything measured as it should be, Elvis is 20w2d (officially 20w3d) and doing really well. He was moving a lot and at times it was difficult to get the right angles, but she managed all the same.

One thing that really surprised me was that she was scanning as high as above my belly button!! Wow! Big step since the scans just above the pubic bone!!

I told her about my fear of the IC and she reassured me saying there wasn't really any reason to think I could have it but she had a look all the same. It was external u/s though so I'm not sure how meaningful or accurate the measure is, but for certain it was close with no funnelling (nice narrow canal) and appeared to be 3.6cm. Of course when I looked it up I read it should be 4 cm at my gestational age and I'm telling myself that 3.6 and 4 is almost the same...but I'll have it checked again when I'll be in Italy at the end of the month by the ever helpful family friend gyn!

One thing I have is an anterior placenta (which I knew already) a bit on the right hand-side (this is why I can feel movements normally) and it's quite low. Not covering the cervix but near enough to have the tech write down a note to be rechecked at 34w. She says it is likely to go up so not to worry but that I may experience some bleeding as I go further along. Great...

In fairness it was so good of her to give me a heads up in case it happens, she repeated it would be quite common, painless and to try not to panic, just go to the hospital and get checked, the cure would be a couple of days of rest. Apparently as the uterus stretches the placenta is pulled and is not so elastic and a capillary may blow hence the bleeding. If the placenta stays where it is I'll just have a schedule C-section which is definitely not the end of the World.

Here are two pics from today, the first one is the profile and the other one is a shot of the face! You can see the nose and the lips!

Next OB appoitment is on the 5th of October but as I said I may have a sneak peak at Elvis in just over a couple of weeks!

Half way through! 20 weeks

If someone could have promised me years ago this would have happen one day I think I would have made sure he/she became an official Saint. But you never know. Fears, doubts, tears have been my companions for the last three and half years. Sometimes people who find out about our story think I'm incredibly strong. But I am not that strong at all, I just played with the cards I was given, if I could have changed the game believe me I would not have thought about it twice, f**k being strong! Who cares? And yet I'm here now. I decided to do a proper "point of the situation" so I borrowed the typical questions from another blog and used them as guidelines. Here they go!

How Far Along: 20 weeks

Total Weight Gain: sadly, as of today, I've put on 11kg...this is massive

Maternity Clothes: yes, can't really wear anything else and my wardrobe is quite limited!

Symptoms: I feel very big, though I'm sure I'm not that big, and movements a slow and many seem like an epic achievement (like turning in the bed, or getting up from the floor). My ankles are swollen most of the time and I've started wearing those socks to improve the circulation, they seem to help.

Stretch marks: yes, on my boobs, they just exploded way too fast!

Sleep: I’m sleeping ok-ish, getting up once to pee and then I'm awake for a while, back to sleep and I'm awake around 6.30. Surely the fact that the Dude starts screaming like a seagull around that time doesn't help...you cannot believe it until you see it!
Best Moment of the Week: Feeling a kick on the outside! It happened only once on Thursday night while I was in bed.
Movement: I feel movements every day now, but the frequency can be very very different. Some days only a couple of light touches in total, others much more often.

Food cravings: not really anything in particular, but definitely sweet things of all sorts, preferably chocolate based.
Gender: Don't know! We think we may go for a surprise!
What I Miss: Nothing at all, I wouldn't trade this for anything.
What I'm Looking Forward To: Honestly? Having Elvis here with us. Everything in between is a mix of anxiety and what ifs.
Weekly Wisdom: Listen to pregnancy relaxation CDs
Milestones: Half way through the pregnancy! Unbelievable.
Emotions: doing quite ok, but I am more irritable and a bit more emotional than usual. If I feel anxious I take the doppler out and listen to Elvis heartbeat which is now around 150bpm on average.
Upcoming Appointments: Anatomy scan on wednesday followed by blood tests for thyroid functions.

So this is it my readers, me and Elvis! I'll post belly pics at the end of the month (oh by the way, I was not bottomless in the previous ones! But it looks that way for some reason..)

In other news, I almost finished that proposal I mentioned last week, so I hope I'll be a bit more present after tuesday. Still have done nothing on the posters and I'm leaving next sunday for the conference...

Cats are well, Patches is without steroids now but back on the thyroxine, we just could not keep him off the meds, he was well for 5 days like I wrote last week but then he started getting worse, so we agreed that we do't care about the accuracy of the test, for us the value was so low that it's unlikely it was skewed by the meds or other illnesses.

Today there is the All Ireland Hurling Final and Mike is going to see the match, I'll be watching it from the couch! Come on the Cats!

19 weeks, Patches and Work

Oh my, it's been a full week without posting! Thankfully I had not signed up for ICLW or I would have definitely struggled with commenting.

First news first. 19 weeks! Little Elvis is a mango! I am quite sure I can feel more movements, they would not be too frequent, but certainly after having eaten something if I put my feet up I feel little pokes! No butterflies for me, or at least I would not describe them as such, sometimes more like vibrations but the only time I'm certain is when I can feel a distinct poke!

All well, sleeping is getting better, I still get up for a pee so I don't think that will go away, but I don't mind. Weight gain this week is stable! Delighted with myself! I definitely feel the extra weight, specially if I sit on the floor playing with the cats and have to get up...I kind of have to turn on my knees first...

The belly is now quite defined even when I wake up in the morning and I'm flat on my back. Nice!

Since this week I will have to change my weekly picture outfit as my sister pointed out I was at the limits of decency! So stay tuned for the next round of belly pics!

Oh, I meant to say that Mike and I will not look to find out if Elvis is in fact a boy (I think so though!) or if we've been calling a girl Elvis all the time...If it happens that we see something from the scan it's no problem but we won't ask the tech to tell us. We think we'd like the surprise!

I also wanted to update on Patches. Remember his blood-work showed hypothyroidism? Well, we started giving him the meds and he was reborn to a new lively, playful and hungry kitten! We were so delighted. Then, the Ultimate Vet Hero told us that a colleague of hers, working in the Vet hospital at our College, specialised in endocrinology and was really interested in seeing Patches. So we brought him there on Tuesday and after a long visit she said she doesn't think he suffers from congenital hypothyroidism. Yes, he is very small, but lacks many of the traits typical of this condition. While visiting him, she saw that he had a big ulcer on the roof of his mouth and said that was typical of another viral condition. She advised to stop the thyroid meds, stop the steroids (she think they may have masked the thyroid real functionality) and put him back on the antiviral. Then re-test him in a month. Reluctantly we did, knowing well that Patches wouldn't be doing well with no steroids for more than two days. But he did very well for 5 days! Our Ultimate Vet Hero is very happy that if we have to give him 0.5mg of prednisolone every 5 days is really no big deal and won't affect the next blood test.

Finally work. Term starts in two weeks, I have to write a proposal for a grant (deadline 7th of September) and I am as motivated as a dead slug... I've done all the less important bits like my CV, the budget, the titles and abstracts (yes two...a scientific one and a lay one) and can't bring myself to write the damn thing! Hopefully I'll be inspired soon....and it better be very soon! I also have to prepare a poster for the conference I'm going to on the 12th of September. Again, I've played with the background, the font, the title...oh boy can I be less interested in doing it?

Ah well.

18 weeks and Weekend Update

Thanks to all of you for your support on my last post. I was sooo stressed out about it but it turned out to be better than I thought. Mike looked after him completely and I just stayed in the office reading bogs and surfing the net! He was very respectful this time, and kept the noise to a minimum when he got back. We kept the cats in our bedroom for the night and I was more relaxed. I even decided I could use the time to iron the giant mountain of clothes that had accumulated. Delighted now to have the house back to myself!

On Friday and on Saturday we went out for dinner with two different sets of friends and when we told them our news (and a brief background on how we got to this point) they were all delighted for us, we had a great time which contributed to my weight gain though...

And this brings me to the fact that I'm 18 weeks today! Can you believe it? And yet...here I am!

Everything is good, the only issue I keep having is sleeping which is still a bit all over the place. I have to get up once for a pee and even though I'm trying my best, I do wake up almost completely and feel ready to start the day....at 2.45 am! The fluid retention is now localised to my hands and my ankles which unfortunately meant that on Friday I just had to remove my rings...ah well, for Elvis it's all worth it! The weight gain is on a steady rise and it's going 80% on my boobs which are now huge, itchy and with unavoidable stretch marks despite the generous oiling I go through twice a day. Again I'm so happy I'll take all the stretch marks that come my way with a smile on my face. Movements are a bit more convincing (still no more than a weird sensation though) but strangely I feel them more when I am in a seated position rather than lying down, I think it may be due to the fact that my placenta is on the anterior wall and quite high. We also listened to the heart beat which is now stronger (I can basically pick it up straight away) and the rate is a bit slower generally between 140 and 155 which it's the way it should be as the brain takes control of rhythm.

For your joy I'm going to post a belly picture galore of the last four weeks as I understand today I'm officially entering the 5th month of pregnancy!

So annoyed...

Breathing to stay calm isn't really helping. I'm in a very bad mood and although I think I may be a bit hormonal, I generally do work really hard to keep acting normal...

Here's what happened. Yesterday Mike sent me an email asking me if we could host a friend of his on Saturday night. This guy is coming to Dublin from quite far away for a night out with a group of friends or ex co-workers I'm not sure. Basically he needs a place to crash for the night before driving back home.

I'm generally extremely happy to have people over, but not this guy. First of all he smokes and I can't stand the smell of smoke at all (this was always the case but now is magnified a million times). Of course he won't smoke in the house, but the clothes bother me all the same. Second, when he's drunk (as he will be) he's out of control and I can't stand him (note that he's a very pleasant guy otherwise). Third, the last time he stayed over after a night out he stepped on the futon mattress with dirty shoes and didn't bother cleaning it even when he was sober the day after. I mean he's no teenager, he should know better. Finally we have the cats and I am not sure when he'll be coming home in the middle of the night if he can at least make sure they aren't running out the house terrified...

Anyway, I replied immediately saying that we were out for dinner so not really easy to arrange for keys. Mike said he would tell him so and see. I replied back saying that actually the idea of having this guy drunk in the house was not appealing at all. I never heard any more on the matter until Mike informed me that they arranged for the keys and he'll be staying over.

Oh ok then...I'm glad my opinion matters...

I am so distressed about this, I didn't sleep at all last night and I'm on the verge of tears constantly... If I could spend the weekend somewhere else I would. The thought of having to get up on Sunday to a stinky house is revolting and at what time will he leave? Do we have to entertain him? Can't face it, just can't.