9 weeks

Ok, so i didn't get around to posting my questions after all, so sue me!

My appointment with Dr Pregs went well. I like him, he was nice and friendly and easy going and make you feel comfortable easily. He seems approachable and open to questions, so it's all good.

I got to have another scan, so i've got another little pic, which is ace. Little Walex looking like a bigger smudge than before.

I asked him some stuff about the birth, which was on my mind, stuff about pain relief and when he would be seeing me at the birth - you know, just to catch it as it came out, or before. He made me feel pretty good about the birth and pain relief thing. Just'go with the flow' is his feeling, see how you're coping and ask for something if you're not. I'm so all for analgesia, unlike lots of mothers-to-be it seems who are keen on 'no intervention, drug free labour'....yeah, bugger that!

I raised the question of my bizarro hereditary neuropathy with pressure palsies and whether the baby pushing it's head on my vagina for hours would result in a neuropathy....that one threw him! Seems that lots of women get neuropathies from child birth anyway, let alone freaks like me with a chromosomal deficiency leaving me way prone to it already.......i think i can see a Caesarian coming on......

I'm going to see my neurologist to ask her opinion and try to get some sort of recommendation as Dr Pregs certainly admitted, it's the first time he's had this one! I got the feeling he was already leaning toward the c-section. And hey, i'm not arguing, a numb perineum for a year or so afterward is not what i'm after either!!

Hospital Shopping

We looked at two hospitals on the weekend. I have managed to get myself an appointment with two different obstetricians, one delivers at Frances Perry House and the other at Jessie MacPherson. These are my hospital preferences as they both are associated and co-located within major public hospitals with intensive care units, both Neonatal and Adult. I can't help but think like that, seeing that i used to be an ICU nurse - always hope for the best but prepare for the worst!

Anyways, so we visited both FPH and JM on the weekend. We looked at the patient rooms at JM - but not the delivery suite and we looked at the delivery suite at FPH but not the patient rooms! Not quite sure how we are supposed to compare now! I'm not sure what i was expecting really, but i wasn't overly impressed by anything....for some reason i was expecting plush and hotel like surroundings, when what we saw, in both instances were just hospital rooms - of which i've seen many before. These rooms were just like that really.....hospital rooms......!

I have my first obstetrician appointment tomorrow morning with Dr Pregs (I know, funny!) - he is the guy who works at FPH - which i think is my preference at this point. So unless we clash terribly and i think he's a twat, i'll ring after the appointment and cancel the other obstetrician.

Looking forward to the appointment tomorrow and have written up a big list of questions, which i'll post later today. We also get to have another scan tomorrow - that's exciting too! 9 week scan.

I hate ginger

I hate the smell of ginger and I hate the taste of ginger. I find it somewhat ironic that the the smell and taste of ginger make me want to be sick and yet ginger seems to be standard natural remedy to nausea and vomitting.
I have been taking ginger and vitB6 tablets every morning in the hope that they will make my nausea go away. They haven't yet.... I have to try my best to swallow them down before i cop a whiff or a taste of it in my mouth and it makes me want to puke!
This nausea thing is unpleasant. I am so looking to forward to the wonderful 12 week mark when it's supposed to go away...well, that's the hope anyway, all the books say it should be going away by then. I'm 9 weeks tomorrow. Trying to stay positive...i read this morning (on the wonderfully informative internet of course) that having nausea means that you actually have a decreased risk of miscarriage.....well, that's good then..... :)

Public knowledge

We made an announcement on Saturday to the boat crew. Didn't really plan to announce it to everyone, just wanted to let Noel and Nev know as i wouldn't be sailing anymore. Noel decided we should tell the whole crew, so before we knew it we were making an announcement to th whole crew. It was kind of nice to tell everyone and they were all happy for us. On the other hand, it's still so early and i'm still scared something may go wrong.

I'm still feeling sick alot, but it's manageable and i'm able to stilll function ok. Though speaking of function....my bowel function has become somewhat bizarre and not pleasant! It seems to be living a life of its own and producing things that don't really resemble anything like what it used to!! I have other body changes too, weird little things on my breasts, little lumps and stuff. This pregnancy thing does such weird things to your body. It takes over completey and is now running the show!

Nausea....blah....

This nausea thing has been getting worse. I feel sick now pretty much all day, every day. Am struggling for things to eat because the thought of eating makes me feel sick, even though actually eating seems to be ok and sometimes even makes me feel better!
Since Kylie went away i've been living on toast and vegemite, two minute noodles and steamed vegies. Thank goodness she's back tonight because we've run out of fresh bread, noodles and vegies!!

Happy Snap!

I have a happy snap of Walex!

Walex is about 9.5mm long and has a little heart beating at about 129pbm - which is all great news.

Was so relieved to see the little heart beating on the screen!

My doctor (Dr ManOfFewWords) congratulated me and seemed really happy. Funny, he was the most talkative i think he's ever been - perhaps it's because it's the last time i'll see him now!

Kylie had to go away this morning for four whole days! She called me at about 5pm (about half an hour after my appointment) and i told her the good news. She was really happy and excited too! I called mum as well, who was happy.

I am really happy. I still feel sick though!

Today's the day

The scan got postponed last week. I was driving to work on the Thursday morning and it was funny because i was literally just thinking, minutes before, 'thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow' because it meant that we would finally know whether we had a little beating heart in there...or not...and then the phone rang. It was the IVF clinic saying that there had been a mistake and that the doctor didn't do pregnancy scans on Friday mornings, we would have to postpone it until Tuesday!!
So, it's Tuesday today and i've managed to get myself through until today and at 4.15pm i will front up for my scan and get to see what's going on inside me.
Kylie had to leave this morning for a four day camp in the bush somewhere to put out fires (part of her MFB training), so it's just me on my own (again!).
Gosh i hope it's all ok.

6 weeks tomorrow

So tomorrow is the 6 week mark. Kind of a milestone. The 6 week scan is booked for the following morning at 8.15am.

I am nervously excited...or something like that.

I hope it's all going ok.

I've been feeling really good. Almost back to normal size (well, perhaps slightly larger than i remember) but certainly feeling pretty good.

I just wish this Friday would come.

Not sure how i will react if the news is bad, that is, no heartbeat seen. Kylie won't be there as she has to go to school and can't take the time off. Well, perhaps it's better, i can just deal with it by myself for a while before i have face anyone.

Of course, i am quietly hopeful that things will be good and that we'll see a healthy little Walex with a heartbeat.

I saw my friend Jo the other day. She's now 9.5 weeks along, which is a relief for her as she miscarried at 6 weeks last pregnancy. I was saying to her how it is hard and you just worry about getting to 6 weeks, then worry about getting to 8 weeks and then 12 weeks.......she agreed. She's already had one child. It was funny because she said even at 12 weeks, you then worry about getting to the next stage and the next stage, and then when the baby is born...well there's a whole other world of new worries that start!

Gosh. This whole experience has been and will continue to be a real lesson to a stress head like me on trying not to stress all the time and just going with it!

Damned if you do and damned if you don't

After over a week of feeling like crap all the time and having the most massive stomach on the Earth, i am finally coming good. After getting up to 76kg at the height of my discomfort i am now back to 74.6kg, i don't feel nauseous really and my stomach discomfort has subsided substantially and my breasts aren't as sore.

Now, i know all of that sounds good. But now i'm worried that because what if all these symptoms subsiding are because the baby has stopped developing? At least with all these symptoms in full flight you really know something is happening inside. Now, i don't know whether to be happy or just plain scared....

This waiting game is agonizing, much worse than the waiting for the pregnancy test bit that everyone says is hard.

I got a pamphlet in the mail yesterday from the IVF clinic, it was call 'A Positive Pregnancy Test. What now.' It tells you all of the things that could be found at the 6 week scan - only one of the options was a 'viable clinical pregnancy' and the rest were things that pretty much equated to no more baby. According to the statistics on the IVF clinic website if we can get to the six week scan and see a foetal heart rate then we have a 91.6% chance of going on to have a live birth. These odds are much better that what we currently are looking at.

Just to summarise the stats on their site:
- 47% of patients will have a positive pregnancy test (check)
- 26.7% of these patients will have a miscarriage
- once a foetal heart rate is seen at the 6 week scan, only 8.4% of these patients will go on to miscarry.

Though, the way i see it, everyone's chances are not necessarily equal as the patient population they are dealing with often have fertility problems, so i should have a pretty good chance, as besides some mild endometriosis, i am pretty much healthy (fertility wise!) as far as we know.

And of course, the little embryo we implanted was apparently a 'cracker' as i've said!

It's still a week until the scan......

Hello Walex!!

I am sick, i am nauseous, i am fat, i am uncomfortable, i am in pain

and

i am pregnant!!!

Hoorah!

Went and had the blood test on Thursday morning and they rang me at 11.34am! That was pretty quick. She said 'Congratulations, you are pregnant.'

'Holy cow.' i said.

HCG level was 348, which she seemed please with. I booked in a '6 week' scan for 27/7 and that was that. No more drugs to take or injections or vaginal gels! Thank goodness.

I was not well on Thursday and so poor Kylie's birthday night was a bit of a fizzer! I could only manage to lay on the couch and so she went to get take out noodles and, well, that was kind of it!

Friday the nausea kicked in good and proper and so as well as being fat and in pain i felt like i was going to chuck....all bloody day.....

I hate nausea. I hate it worse than pain i think. I had discovered though that despite feeling like you want to spew, the best thing seems to be to keep eating, all day long, which is hard with an already MASSIVE stomach!

Today has been somewhat better. I actually slept most of the night and although teetering on the verge of nausea-ville i have managed to constantly shovel food into myself and keep the hard core nausea at bay!! I also bought some dry biscuit type things to knaw on, some of those sea-sickness / morning sickness acupressure bands that you wear on your wrists, along with some natural morning sickness remedy (vit b6 and ginger) - i'm trying to cover all bases!

I told my boss yesterday.....i know it's frightfully early and i would have preferred not to have to tell him for sometime yet - but, i knew i just couldn't go to Sydney on Monday and i have been sick all week and with the prospect of sickness continuing and us having a meeting next Tuesday to talk about company strategy and my role going forward and with the fact that i already look like a whale, i figured that - hell, why not just come out and say it. He was really good actually and is keen for me to be able to continue on, both before and after the baby comes (!!) in whatever capacity and time committment we can organize. That is good. He was even talking about doing, say, two days per week in the office and one at home or something. We are going to look at replacing me with another PM (fantastic) and i can do Analysis and Design type work - which is what i would prefer anyway!

Kylie and I also told my mum. That was really cool and she was so happy.

So here i am, with a baby growing inside!!! It is freaky. I am nervous and just hope it keeps on growing and everything is ok. I can't wait to get to the 10 week mark or something. Somewhere safe. I guess it's never safe, but at least safer than here, the 4 week mark....i am worried that every little twinge in my stomach (and there are lots of them with this fat, bloated stomach with pains and cramps and stuff) there may be something wrong. Just gotta wait it out.