Out of the time warp!

Gosh, I cannot believe how quick this week has gone - consider me out of the time warp!! I realised I hadn't even posted an ICLW introductory post - gee, too late now - sorry gang! I have been trying to comment up a storm though and I have been finding some really wonderful blogs, I love ICLW!!

This is just a quick post to let you know that I am still around and going strong. I had been really good this week, almost no nausea and then I had a day of throwing up - it was wierd!! I am better again now though, thank goodness. The tiredness is still hanging around though - I am hoping to kick that soon.

JourneyMan went into the hospital one night this week for a sleep study, I am sure that he has sleep apnea - it is very scary at night. Then I am off tonight to the coast for a work conference and won't be back until tomorrow night. I originally wasn't going to go but now I am really looking forward to it.

Well, I had better get moving!!

A rollercoaster week to 12 weeks!

Well it was a very full on week to get to the wonderful 12 week mark. You know that I had been having crazy dreams but on Wednesday I got some very bad cramping. As most of you know, I have had cramping through most of the pregnancy so far but this was different and so bad I could barely get off the couch. It passed after about 20 mins (and I then went and had lunch with my Aunty) but it shook me up. After the lunch out, I rested all afternoon and was lucky enough to be able to work from home on Thursday. I mainly just had a dull ache from then on.

On Thursday night the cramps came back with a vengeance and I ended up calling the on-call OB (poor man). He assured me that as long as there was no bleeding (there wasn't), everything was most likely fine. That made me feel a little bit better but I was still nervous when we went to the 12 week scan on Friday.

Thankfully it was at 8:30am so we didn't have to wait long and there we saw our delightful JourneyBaby:

It was wonderful to see JourneyBaby with a strong heart beat - we even saw the two hemispheres of the brain. The sonographer said that everything is 'perfect' which was absolute music to our ears. We had to call later on to find out the down syndrome risk which ended up being 1 in 4500 - hurrah! I have to say, I didn't quite understand how much joy I had been holding back until yesterday - gosh, the happiness and relief was amazing.

In other news, JourneyDog got a haircut yesterday and his normal groomers were not available so we took him somewhere else. Well, he has turned into a dog freak and looks like an 80's girly poodle dog. Not that the poor thing looks particular masculine with his fluffy woolly coat but honestly, I couldn't recognise him and it freaked me out. He was very sad and morose yesterday as he doesn't really like the groomers so he has been very clingy on me - I have been enjoying hugging his Woolly self though.

Have a fab weekend everyone!

More dreams and questions answered…..

So, I have still be having crazy dreams over the past few nights – some worrying and some not so. On Sunday night I dreamed that I went and got another dog without JourneyMan knowing. He was fine about it but the house was crazy with JourneyDog and the new dog. Last night I had a dream that at the 12 week scan the baby measured significantly smaller than they are supposed to – hopefully it does not come through. For all that though, I am sleeping a lot better at the moment. For one it has cooled down a bit and secondly, I seem to have gotten in to the knack of falling straight back to sleep after a night time visit to the loo – thank goodness to because I was absolutely exhausted.

Good news on the all day sickness, I seem to be getting a few days off from it lately which I am hoping will get more and more and then it will disappear altogether – that would be really lovely!
Yesterday, I felt sooooo good that I did a marathon of cooking so that I could get some meals into the freezer. As I have been feeling ordinary some nights I haven’t been up to cooking which means we have ended up grabbing some take away. I wanted to make sure that we were eating healthier so that was why there was a big cooking marathon yesterday. I did chicken and sweetcorn soup for our lunches and froze some cheese sandwhiches to toast each day as well. I did a pasta bake and a sausage and tomatoe casserole which I portioned up and put in the fridge (we had the pasta bake for tea last night). I also cut up some celery, carrots and popped some cherry tomatoes into zip lock bags to have for snacking. I feel better now that we are eating a bit healthier and so far everything has been pretty yummy! I am going to have a cooking day each week so that life will be a bit easier.

Okay – so some people have asked some questions / made statements in their comments and I am going to address a few here:

Wifey asked: Why do you have scans one a week?

It is actually only once a week from 14 weeks and the reason is because of my unicornuate uterus which is often associated with an incompetent cervix. The scan is to ensure that the cervix is not opening – if it starts to, my OB will put a stitch in it.

Jill said: I think that you should write about your Everest experience.

I definitely will over the next few posts, Jill – it is a pretty long story so it will take awhile!

Miss Tori said: If you cried watching My Sister’s Keeper, don’t read the book!

Yes, I have read the book Miss T and I have to say was disappointed with the changes in the movie, I think that the reason that I cried the whole way through is because I was thinking about the end of the book (and because my hormones are going wild!). Funny story about when I read the end of that book. A few years ago I trained to do a half marathon and because it wasn’t a circuit course, they had buses that could take people to the starting line. The people that I knew on the race were all doing the marathon so I was on the bus by myself so I brought My Sister’s Keeper to read on the way. It happens that I finished it on that bus, driving to the starting line of the half marathon and sobbing quietly by myself – people must have thought I was a nutbag!! Happily, I went on to the complete the half marathon!

11 weeks & 2 days!

Yay, I am now at 11 weeks and two days and I have to say, I am looking forward to the 12-week scan this Friday. Very exciting in indeed. I have to admit - each time I have had a scan, I have felt comforted for awhile and then the concern comes back again. I am really looking forward to when we reach 14 weeks and have a scan weekly. At first, I thought that was a bit of a curse but now I am seeing it totally as a blessing that I will get to see the little one each week.

I did have a dream on the weekend that really disturbed me, I dreamt that I miscarried. I woke up and was quite upset but then happy that it was only a dream. I have worried a bit about things since then. I had a good talk to my sister on Saturday and she said that she had the same kinds of dreams in her pregnancies. She made me feel better because she kind of validated my worrying - I had gotten a bit worried about my worrying (for crying out loud!!).

I have had a very busy weekend but I will update you tomorrow when I have a chance - need to have a rest right about now!

A Flattering Gift....

Thank you to Chelle and TIO for nominating me for:

I am VERY flattered! If you don't know them - Chelle is Mum to the gorgeous Baby Bean - if you get a chance, check out her post remembering BB's birth - it is very special. TIO - or The Impatient Optimist is a fellow Melbournian and is in the 2WW at the moment - pop in and keep her company!

The rules of this award are:

* Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
* Copy the award and place it in your blog.
* Link the person who nominated you for this award.
* Tell us 7 interesting things about you.
* Nominate 7 bloggers.
* Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.

7 (vaguely) Interesting things about me:

1. My most crippling fear is of a window without curtains at night – I absolutely hate it!! I think it stems from watching too many horror movies because my fear is that I will see a face at the window. JourneyMan thinks this is hilarious though gets frustrated at my hysterical demands to close the curtains – even if only a crack is open. Last year when we went to stay in the country for a long weekend – I remember nearly having a heart attack when I went to the toilet and the curtains weren’t closed on the window – too scary!

2. I was a good swimmer when I was a youngster. When I was in grade 3 I competed against the grade 6 kids at my school and won. I love the water and feel that it is really healing to me. So much so that despite the fact that I am not supposed to be having baths, I have been having them (though they are quite cool) because it just makes me feel a lot better.

3. I have seen four of the seven natural wonders of the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Victoria Falls. I nearly died after climbing up to Everest Base camp as I had altitude sickness and our guides were pushing us to go further and further – it was only because my bestie put her foot down and made them take us back that I am here today. To make this trip worse, two weeks after I got back I was hospitalised for a blood clot in my lung, which had collapsed, I could barely breathe.

4. I luuuuurrrve books with a passion. I can read them over and over again. At the moment I am re-reading The Lord of the Rings – it is different every time and I get something new out of it at each new reading. I have so many well worn favourites, they are like old friends that I go and see and enjoy their company. Instead of a painted feature wall in our loungeroom we have a wall of uniformed shelves of books that JourneyMan put up for me – it makes me happy just to look at it.

5. I am a lifeguard and a swimming teacher. I worked as a lifeguard at an indoor water slide at a hotel in Banff, Canada. I taught swimming lessons to children when I was working at an indoor pool at a cross country ski resort in Colorado. I’ve worked behind a bar in London and as a cleaner at a hotel. I have worked as a receptionist at a youth hostel in Las Vegas.

6. I have realised that when I am really scared that I freeze and cannot move a muscle. I found this out on a trip to Africa when I was in a tent camping by a river and a hippo came and pushed up against my tent in the middle of the night. Hippo’s can’t see very well but when it felt the tent it trundled off. I can tell you, lying on your back looking up at the bulk of a hippo – it looked 10 stories high!

7. I am a noisy sleeper, I talk in my sleep, laugh in my sleep, walk in my sleep (though I haven’t done that for awhile) and I grind my teeth. On a trip from the north of Australia back home to our city in the south, my bestie and I had stopped off in a motel overnight. I had a dream that the room was on fire but was startled awake by screaming. I said to the bestie ‘did you hear that screaming?’ – she responded ‘yes, it was you, you dickhead, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’

Here are my 7 nominees:

Tireegal at Happy Go Lucky

Jill at All Aboard the Pity Boat

Circus Princess at Circus Children

Deaga99 at Are we There Yet

Lifeslurper

Wifey at Journey through Infertility and TTC

Miss Tori at The Winding Road to Parenthood

Work blues and good news....

Okay, so you know that I had hell week at work last week with half of the websites that I am project managing going live - it was hell right up until the day that we went live and then it was a big anticlimax (which was fabulous because it meant that we had done everything right!) . We were due to have another couple go live tomorrow but it has been further delayed at the last minute - the last two days I have been tearing around like a mad thing trying to get everything fixed in time - unfortunately we ran out of time. A bit disappointing because I was hoping to have them done tomorrow then have Thursday and Friday off - 3 days a week is my ideal at the moment but I am having trouble getting my time down to that with these projects at the pointy end.

Anyway, you know that I have been a bit worried about my contract ending at the end of Feb - well, one of the guys that I work for gave me a call today asking how long I can work for because he has a project for me - yay! I am hoping it will all work out fine!

I realised that I have been a bit of a bloody whinger lately so I have decided to write a list about all of the things that I am enjoying about being pregnant (and well, it's been a while since I made a list!).

Good things that I have found about pregnancy:

• Actually being pregnant - I mean, how excellent is that - sometimes I still am pinching myself at how lucky I am
• I really didn't need to cut my fringe (bangs) to hide the smiley wrinkles in the corners of my eyes - the fluid has puffed them out so that they aren't visible any more - whoo hoo!
• My skin is really nice at the moment - hopefully it will stay that way!
• JourneyMan is forgiving of my hormonal mood swings - a constant refrain in the house is 'hormones, raging around my body!'
• I have become a master at hiding the grey in my hair because I haven't dyed it since before we went to Thailand
• Thinking about about the wonderful baby growing inside me and wondering what he / she is going to look like and be like personality-wise!

On another note - I had been too scared post in case I jinxed it but the all day sickness had eased off over the weekend - unfortunately it came back with a vengeance today but I am hopeful that maybe it is passing - big yay!

Thank you to the lovely Chelle for nominating me for the beautiful blogger award - I will get on to my responsibilities asap!

Worries and another boring weekend.

I am really glad to see that my ticker is past 10 weeks - less than two weeks to go and I can breath a little more of a sigh of relief! I have to admit - I felt good (and overwhelmed) after seeing the OB - I guess I thought I was pretty prepared and that I wasn't going to hear anything new but the whole incompetant cervix thing has thrown me for a bit of a loop. Since the appointment I have been worried. I have done a bit of research and the news does not seem to be good. I know that they are going to do anything that they can to make sure that I keep JourneyBaby but I can't help being concerned. I am so sorry to be whinging at such a happy time but I thought I was over finding out all of the things that are wrong with my body for goodness sake.

Oh and how about me being a big ole doofus!! You know how JourneyMan and I were working on the tax stuff all week last week? Well, I turned up to the appointment on Friday but the receptionist told me that I had the wrong MONTH - der Fred - honestly, I drove all the way over to the other side of town for nothing - oh well, at least we are ready!

So, it has been another fairly uninteresting weekend. Work was so busy last week that I really needed to have a rest over the weekend and that is what I have done for the most part. I did go to see my sister and her 3 boys on Friday afternoon - goodness me, they are a rumbunctious lot - I was exhausted (and so was JourneyDog!) by the time I left. Yesterday, I mainly stayed couch wise and rested while JourneyMan went for a ride on his motorbike with his brother and then went to a friend of his to play video games. Oh, I stupidly watched 'My Sister's Keeper' last night and sobbed the whole way through - what the hell was I thinking? Today I had lunch with my Mum which was really nice though I nearly fainted in Target - I had to go and sit on one of the little platforms that a manequin was on.

Sorry to bring the post down again but how do you stop worrying? How do you feel positive when you are so nervous? How can I get through the next 6 and half months without driving myself crazy? I am struggling with these things at the moment - which is a little disappointing as I really want to enjoy the pregnancy.

A whole bunch of information!

Well, it has been an amazingly busy few days. Work has been crazy – officially it has been hell week and we still have the ‘go live’ to go through tomorrow (for only half the sites – booo). I have been in at work by 6:30am every day and am having trouble sleeping because we are in the midst of another heat wave. Last night I had to ‘sleep’ in the lounge room with the air conditioner on but I didn’t really get very good quality sleep. The exhaustion is crippling and unfortunately increases the all day sickness which I am hoping will start to abate over the next couple of weeks. I am really looking forward to at least some of this project being over so I can go back to my 3 days a week.

The other thing that has been happening is the mad preparation for our tax on Friday – goodness, nothing like leaving things until the last minute. We broke the back of the work of it last night but then I realized at work today it didn’t save properly – gaaaaaahhhhhh!!! So we are back to the drawing board but after a ridiculously crazy problem solving day today – I am going to have to have a break tonight and get to bed early and face it all tomorrow.

In much, much better news – we have had another scan today and seen our gorgeous little JourneyBaby (with arms and legs – whoo hoo!!) and the heart beating away healthily. I have had a couple of appointments over the past couple of days. Yesterday I went to see the haematologist and he checked me out to make sure that everything was going okay – blood pressure was all good and he let me know how to do the injections as the pregnancy progresses. I let him know that it was likely going to be a caesarean and he said that it was actually a better thing so that they could plan to stop then Clexane before and then restart again. I also have to get a blood test to make sure that the Clexane has not had an adverse effect on blood counts etc.

So, today JourneyMan and I went for our first appointment with the obstetrician. He was recommended to us from our fertility specialist (well actually from the receptionist!!) for the fact that he is a high risk pregnancy specialist. So, here is a summary of what he said in regard to my myriad of conditions:

Factor V Leiden:

He is happy that I am on the Clexane and said that this would almost guarantee that I wouldn’t get a clot during the pregnancy – big yay on that! He told me that he has had many patients with clotting disorders so that is a big relief that he is experienced with this.

Congenital kidney defect (only have one!):

He said that I would need to be closely monitored to ensure that I don’t get any urinary tract infections so I will be having 6 weekly urine tests to ensure that everything is going okay down there! I did have a blood test as well as urine test today so hopefully all is good.

Unicornuate uterus:

This was the big one, he had a lot to say about it and also said that it was the biggest problem that we would face in the pregnancy. He said that on average most women with a unicornuate uterus deliver between 34-36 weeks though some go as early as 29 weeks and some can go full term. He said that we would definitely be having a schedule cesarean, which I expected so that wasn’t a shock. He said that I would have progesterone pessaries from 20 weeks to relax the uterus and hope that it stretches enough to get me to late term. The other thing that he mentioned was that women with unicornuate uterus can sometimes have an incompetent cervix and what could happen is that the cervix could open and you lose the pregnancy without even knowing – freaked the hell out of me!! His plan to ensure that this does not happen is that from 14 weeks onwards I will be having an ultrasound a week to make sure that the cervix is good. He said that if it does open up, he will put a stitch in it (?!?!!?).

So, all in all, pretty good. He was a really nice guy – seemed very patient and most importantly, he has had significant experience with all of my issues previously. I am very happy! I am still spinning from all of the information (on top of a significant lack of sleep) so haven’t had a chance to digest everything just yet. One thing that I am happy about is that although it is going to be quite time consuming to get to the ultrasound each week – I will be able to see our darling JourneyBaby every week – how lucky are we?!?!

On a personal note, I am determined to get to at least 36 weeks. If I get to exactly 36 weeks, JB will be born on my birthday. Or if it is one day after that, it will be on my Mum’s (and late Nanna’s) birthdays – that feels very right to me.

Phew – long post, I am going to have to go and have a lay down now!