9 Weeks, 4 Days

Friday 28 June 2013

Wednesday we had our first appointment with Dr B, our OB, and wow is he great! I really liked him and felt really at ease with him. He was great as putting my concerns to rest, I think he may have even eased some of Bio Mum's worries! Dr B has an easy going manner and a calmness that I think will work well for us.

He was great about answering our questions (and there were quite a few of them) and put my mind at ease about the majority of things that have been worrying me. He did an ultrasound and said everything looks good, which was great to hear. It was so amazing to see little Dash on the monitor again. Even in just a few weeks since our last scan they look more baby like.

One of the things I liked best about Dr B was that he made it very clear that his aim is for our baby to be born healthy (also for me to be healthy too) and that he is willing to go about that however we feel is best. He is open to natural births, drug-free or with drugs, or even an elective caesarean if that's what we want. I'm not sure yet. I think I want to wait, see how Little Dash goes before we make a decision on that one. I know a lot of women feel that they want the experience of a natural birth, I'm not sure I am one of those women. The only thing I know is that I want our little Bub to be born healthy and in the least stressful means possible. I honestly don't feel like I would be missing anything if we did decide to have an elective caesarean, but for now I want to wait and see. 

I had lunch with my friend T on Thursday and couldn't help myself, I had to tell her about Little Dash! I am struggling so much keeping to myself and I just had to tell her. She was so excited for us, which means so much. We are lucky to have such amazing friends and family to support us through this. I'll be telling another person this weekend, my Dad. He is going to be in town for some training and I've decided to tell him. I really wanted to tell him face to face and given that he lives on the other end of the country this is probably my only opportunity to do that. I am going to ask him to keep it to himself for now (I am happy for him to tell my step-mum though) so that I can tell our relatives when I'm ready.

I figure while he's here he may want to go out and have dinner and stuff, but given my morning/all day sickness and all around exhaustion that is probably not something I am up for so telling him will explain why I am lazing around on the couch and not really eating properly! I am excited and nervous to tell him. I know he'll be happy, but I am nervous telling people before the first trimester is over. It's all going to be ok though. I know it.

So it was blood test day again yesterday and all is looking good. In a few short weeks the Clinic will stop working with me, which is sad, but I am looking forward to not having my blood taken every week. I am so grateful to them for what they have done for us. Without them we wouldn't have Little Dash growing and thriving in my tummy and we wouldn't be experiencing this challenging, but also amazing time. I will forever be grateful to them and Dr D for helping us on our way to becoming parents.

Poor Bio Mum is still really sick with a nasty cold and is at home to hopefully get better today. I hope she is getting lots of sleep and drinking lots of fluids. Its always hard when the person you love is sick, especially when you aren't 100% yourself. Fingers crossed Bio Mum is on the mend soon and feeling loads better.

In other not so good news, we took Moo to the vet on Wednesday night as she has been scratching her ears a lot and found out that not only does she have infections in both ears, she also has a cancerous tumour on her side. Poor Baby! Moo will be having surgery on Tuesday to remove the tumour, which thankfully looks like it won't have spread. When the vet left the room after telling us I got all teary (lets blame the hormones!) and since Wednesday Moo has been sleeping in our room with us. I'll update with how the surgery goes.

So that's where we're at. 12 week scan and bloods are coming up in July and we are back to see Dr B in early August. Fingers, toes and everything crossed that all continues to go well and that Little Dash keeps thriving in there! Also eagerly anticipating feeling better soon and morning sickness going away. 

Happy Friday!

9 Weeks, 1 Day

Tuesday 25 June 2013

I can't believe we are at 9 weeks already, although I am looking forward to the end of the first trimester so we can tell people and hopefully the morning sickness will get better!

It was a rough night last night, I felt sick all day and then once I got home I just couldn't stop myself throwing up. It was the first time throwing up since I started on the Zofran so that wasn't great. I managed to pop some little blood vessels around my eyes while vomiting too, great huh? I ended up spending the rest of the night in bed, unable to bring myself to eat anything except my hydralyte icy-pole and later an up & go drink. Other than that it was just water and feeling miserable.

Today I am still feeling pretty rough and have struggled to eat much of anything today. I am trying to keep getting food in, but its hard. I hope all this sickness means we are having a very healthy baby!

Poor Bio Mum has a nasty cold at the moment, which isn't good for a couple of reasons. 1) I hate seeing her feeling so crappy, 2) I haven't been able to really look after her too well as I have been nursing my morning sickness and 3) I so don't want to catch that cold myself! Poor Bio Mum! She was sick only a few weeks ago so this is kind of ridiculous. Fingers crossed she gets better fast.

Tomorrow we have our appointment with Dr B, our OB. I am both excited and nervous to be honest. I hope it all goes well and will post with how it all went in the next couple of days. I hope we get another scan, I want to see our little Dash again!

I'm having lunch with my friend T on Thursday, which will be great as she and her girlfriend K have been overseas for the last 2 months...of course when we last saw them I wasn't actually pregnant yet. Now I so badly want to tell her, but I am determined to wait. It's just so hard sometimes!

Week 8 Day 3

Thursday 20 June 2013

Another blood test day today, all is looking good. Here are the results:

Progesterone - 120
hCG - 228,582

Yeah the hCG is kinda high. The nurse I spoke to asked me if we'd had a scan, I said yes last week, she then very delicately asked 'so how many heart rates did they find'. I guess those numbers are in twin territory, which was a concern pre-scan. The nurse did tell me the numbers are really good, so that was nice. 

I was still a little concerned (despite the reassurances of the nurse) so I did some Googling and here is what I found:

hCG levels in weeks from LMP (gestational age):

• 3 weeks LMP: 5 – 50 mIU/ml
• 4 weeks LMP: 5 – 426 mIU/ml
• 5 weeks LMP: 18 – 7,340 mIU/ml
• 6 weeks LMP: 1,080 – 56,500 mIU/ml
• 7 – 8 weeks LMP: 7, 650 – 229,000 mIU/ml
• 9 – 12 weeks LMP: 25,700 – 288,000 mIU/ml
• 13 – 16 weeks LMP: 13,300 – 254,000 mIU/ml
• 17 – 24 weeks LMP: 4,060 – 165,400 mIU/ml
• 25 – 40 weeks LMP: 3,640 – 117,000 mIU/ml

Source: http://americanpregnancy.org/duringpregnancy/hcglevels.html

So seeing that has made me feel a bit better as we look to still be in range. Little Dash is doing well it seems.

Morning sickness is still a problem, but a much more manageable one now that the GP prescribed me Zofran. That stuff is expensive, but worth every cent. Zofran has meant that I have been able to eat (although not a huge amount and only select things) and function enough to go to work. I haven't thrown up at all since I started taking it so that is pretty great. 

We have our first appointment with our OB next week, Dr B. I spent a good half an hour earlier today writing down a list of questions I want to ask (I got to about 20) so I don't forget. I am excited to go see Dr B, I really hope we get to have another scan so we can see little Dash again! 

So next week its OB on Wed and blood test on Thursday.

Bio Mum has been doing home improvements lately and doing a great job of it too. We decided that the best room to put the nursery in would be the room next to our bedroom, which is currently Bio Mum's study. So Bio Mum (with little help from sick me) prepped and painted our spare room so the study can be moved in. Then it will be time to start the nursery. I am hesitant to do anything in the nursery until we are into the second trimester, I don't want to jinx anything. It just seems like jumping the gun to get started too soon.

I did cave though and buy the first toy for little Dash. I was at the supermaket and feeling all kinds of sick and I walked past the baby stuff. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a musical Eeyore! I loved Eeyore as a child so couldn't help myself and bought it. Eeyore is now sitting in the cupboard waiting for the arrival of our little boy or girl.

I have since has to restrain myself from buying any other baby stuff!

Well that's all for now, I'll be sure to post next week with how our OB appointment goes!

Week 7 Day 2

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Today we are 7 weeks and 2 days pregnant and this afternoon we got to see our little Bub for the first time when we had our 7 week scan. It was an amazingly moving experience. Little Dash (Bio Mum thought Bub looked like a dachshund/sausage dog in the ultrasound so now Bub is also known as Dash) is amazing. Their little heart was beating, this beautiful little fluttering that brought tears to my eyes. 

Little Dash is at 7 weeks 5 days, so 3 days ahead of schedule, a little overachiever just like Bio Mum! Little Dash measured a wonderful 1.42cm and their little heart was beating at a very healthy 152 beats per minute. 

Here is our little Dash

Seeing little Dash today was incredible. I have been feeling so sick and this gave me something tangible to hold onto. 

The last few days I have been so sick I haven't been able to keep much of any food down, in fact I haven't been at work since Tuesday last week. I had a rather violent vomiting incident this morning so off to the GP I went where they gave me the good drug, and I am now pleased to report that I have been able to eat this afternoon! Yay! The tablets are pretty expensive (or actually wafers) but I so don't care, it has been so great to be able to eat and keep food down!

I am not 100%, but man do I feel better!

Blood test tomorrow and then, if all is well, back to work on Friday! Now I need to go call my sister and tell her all about little Dash!

6 Weeks, 2 Days

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Today is day 45 of this pregnancy, 31dpo and 26dp5dt.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I have been feeling pretty unwell. Morning (or more accurately all day) sickness has been kicking my butt. I have been struggling to eat much of anything aside from skittles (healthy right?) and just gernerally feeling crappy. It was comforting at first, letting us know that Bub was growing away in there, but now it's just draining. I find it hard to even function, work is basically 7 hours of torture a day...actually I'm home today. 

I was feeling so bad this morning I went to my GP instead of work. He gave me a script for pramin which should help without causing any problems for Bub so fingers crossed it helps. He also gave me a medical cert for the rest of the week so I can get used to the tablets and get some rest. Growing a baby is exhausting!!

It was blood test day yesterday and the results were good. Here they are:

Progesterone - 169
hCG - 56,077

Yeah we are over 56,000!! I guess that's why I feel so sick! Grow little Bub, grow.

Oh and now down to 1 crinone every second day, blood test tomorrow to see how that's going.

Last week we told our friends Tanya and Erina about Bub, it was great to be able to share the news with them. Erina had their baby boy in April so it was great to talk to someone who understands what I'm feeling.

Seven week scan is next week, which we are so looking forward to!! I cant wait to see our little one.

We've also booked in with an OB, so seeing Dr B on 26 June. 

Well that's all for now, I need sleep! Fingers crossed for feeling less sick tomorrow!!