| and shades of grey |
| a blog about nothing in particular |
I found a website that lets you combine the mummy and the daddy’s faces to see what your future baby might look like.
This is what Nudge might look like if he’s a boy:
And this is what Nudge might look like if he’s a girl:
And this is what Nudge might look like if Johnny Depp was the father:
I think it’s probably time I went back to work, don’t you?!
Now that I’m officially past the 12 week mark, I can come out publically and announce that I am pregnant. I’ve written a few entries recently which were set to private but I’ve now published them for general consumption. Little Nudge is due 9 March which means we’re already a third of the way through the pregnancy.
We had the nuchal translucency scan yesterday. I’ve been pretty sick since late Sunday, mostly my asthma has been completely out of control but I’ve also got an underlying chest infection. I’m not sure where it came from because the only symptom I’ve had is a constant dry cough. Anyhoo…. I mention this because I’d been hitting the asthma meds pretty heavily and it’s very likely that doing so has led my both mine and the baby’s heart rates being much higher than normal. My own peaked around 120 on rest when it’s usually around 60. One of the indicators they look for in babies with trisomy 13 is higher than normal heart rates. The results came back as the baby being low risk for trisomy 18 and 22 but high risk for 13 based only on the elevated heart rate.
They have an obstetrician onsite at this particular ultrasound clinic and she wasn’t sure that the u/s tech took the right measure of the baby’s hb so she got her to do it again and then sent us into the “quiet room” (the one with the couch and the tissues) to wait. Eventually she came out to explain her concerns and asked to do the u/s again to be extra sure. She tried to talk us into booking in for the CVS which was her preference over the amnio because the placenta is front and centre but we declined. In my eyes, it’s really very likely that the asthma meds have caused the fast hearts so what’s the point of risking miscarriage from a very invasive procedure? Exactly.
I’ve been very unhappy with my GP (she was very condescending to me recently and now I don’t trust her) so yesterday afternoon I took myself off to the local dodgy medical centre and – hooray; it’s under new management! The doctor I saw was about 30 and very careful to get my history etc. He prescribed antibiotics for my chest infection and rejigged my asthma meds because apparently my other doctor had prescribed “child doses” for me. He’s also given me a quick course of prednisone to help with my asthma. And the best part: he phoned the MotherSafe hotline to double check that he was giving me things that are safe during pregnancy and he asked me to call him in a day to let him know how I’m getting on. I’ll definitely go back to him.
The ob’s registrar received a copy of the NT scan report so she called this morning to push us towards having an amnio as well. After a bit of back and forth, she eventually called back to say that she’d spoken to the other specialists and they confirmed that Ventolin can definitely cross the placenta and cause elevated fetal heart rate so she’s now happy for us to do nothing until the 18wk morphology scan. We’re very relieved :)
And lastly, the asthma steroids are working now and I’m actually able to walk to the bathroom without getting too breathless. My darling husband took the day off to stay home and look after me. I’m going to stay home again tomorrow to rest up because I’m still wheezing a lot, my heart rate is still up at 100-ish and I’m very tired. Mamma’s gotta rest, you know? :)
Today was a GREAT day! It started off very early; I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up and played a computer game (reliving the good old days on VtM:R circa 2001) then went back to bed to cuddle up with the husband. We hugged and dozed until after six then had some breakfast and left the house for the first medical appointment of the day. The husband had his check up then we took the car back to the dealer to have the first service done on it. While we were waiting, we walked up to a nearby baby store and pushed their display strollers around the store. So many choices! We have NO idea which one would be best but I guess there’s plenty of time left before we need to make that decision.
The car was ready before long and we headed to the IVF clinic for a check up with the professor. He was very happy for us, of course, and he was completely one hundred per cent supportive of my first choice hospital. Infact, he said he use to be the director of obs there! And best of all, we got to see our little baby on ultrasound. He confirmed that there is just the one baby, thank goodness and everything looks good. He (she?) was moving around a lot which I loved – tiny arms waving about… he dances like his dad ;)
We left the clinic and headed to the specialist ultrasound centre that my GP had referred us too. They did a proper diagnostic dating scan which put us spot on for 9wks and we got to see the little one wiggling around again. They assured me that there is currently amniotic fluid but we’ll keep an eye on this over the coming weeks/months.
I was so tired by the time we got home that it was all I could manage to throw together some hotdogs for dinner and a quick chocolate pudding with custard for afters. :)
I’m just on 9wks now and am guilty of peeing on a stick about twice per week. I bought a pack of 50 cheapo tests on ebay for $20 a while back so the expense of testing thankfully isn’t an issue. The stupid thing is that as the positive line comes up, my inner commentary gloomily reports to me that it would be positive for a while yet, even if the baby had died. I am truly my own worst enemy; why do I keep doing this to myself? I haven’t knitted a stitch since my BFP mostly due to not wanting to knit for a baby that possibly won’t make it, as well as some nausea and tiredness. It’s taking everything I have to rise above the doubt and force myself to be positive about this pregnancy.
Being positive now: This week saw a big milestone; I am past the point of my first miscarriage. I’m booked in to see the professor again on Monday and he said he will do an u/s to check on things (it’s really just to confirm the pregnancy and to do a head count). His u/s machine looks pretty compact and I don’t think it prints images (somehow having an image of the baby will make it more tangible to me) so I have sneakily booked myself in for a proper diagnostic dating scan in the afternoon. I butted heads with my GP this week; she refused to write a referral to my first choice hospital (where I lost my son) on the basis that it’s not a major teaching hospital. I tried to explain to her that based on my history, the ob there said I should be high surveillance this time and she kept talking over me by saying “No, this is a perfectly normal STANDARD pregnancy”. She also didn’t want to do any blood work (the results are required by the hospital when booking in) and furthermore, she told me to STOP TAKING MY PREGGO SUPPLEMENTS! I came home, argued with the husband, had a big cry and a bad night’s sleep. At least I got the u/s referral. In short, I won’t be going back to see her. My SIL keeps recommending her doctor to me so I’m going to book in to see him next time.
I mentioned tiredness and nausea. I’ve been consistently tired since about the fifth week. I wake up around 5.30am, go to work, get home around 6pm, flop on the couch while the husband makes dinner, eat, nod off until around 8 or 9pm, then the husband gets me up and off to bed. Rinse and repeat. At the weekend, I’m generally just too tired to do anything except lay on the couch and watch telly or nap. Remember that quilt I was sewing? It’s still on the dining table, waiting for me to sew on the backing and the binding. Hopeless. I’ve also had a lot of nausea which is a shock since I had no morning sickness at all with Max. Occasionally I’d get waves of ick but that was always associated with odd smells like coffee and cold fridge air. This time I’m feeling sick about an hour after waking or when I move around too much. Normally I like to tackle all of the filing at work in one hit so that everything is up-to-date, neat and tidy. I get a lot of satisfaction in that, rather than just doing a bit here and there which is what the others seem to prefer. Anyway, in recent weeks if I tackle all of the filing in one hit, it means three hours of moving briskly back and forth between the A-Z file sorter on the bench to the various shelves in each of the sections within the compactus. All of that up and down, left and right, back and forth motion makes me so ill that I can barely manage a sip of water without wanting to hurl everywhere.
The FIL asked me a completely random question last week: do I get cravings for strawberries? HUH? I don’t really have any cravings although I’ve been thinking about a big bowl of vanilla icecream for the last few days. And my favourite lunch at the moment is cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado on multigrain bread. There are plenty of foods that I really don’t want: one is my normally favourite salmon pasta dinner. I love that stuff but at the moment I really really don’t want it. And buttery toast. Blergh. And I’ve really not wanted our favourite dessert treat: icecream sandwiches. It’s not the icecream, but the chocolate biscuit part that I don’t want. The husband is using all these differences in my pregnancies to back up his hypothesis that we’re having a girl this time. My money is still on a boy, because there ain’t nuttin’ but boys in his family. And that’s not a bad thing; I really would love to have another little boy :)
One more thing: depending on how well the next few weeks go, we’re thinking about booking a short holiday somewhere. The husband and I have been stockpiling our ADOs; he’s got about 12 and I have 8 owing. We’re intending to take a week off in September and are trying to decide where to go. Maybe Broome? We’ve even talked about Hawaii and New Zealand since those options are going to cost the same. I think we’ll wait and see if the next few weeks go ok with the pregnancy.
* ADOs = Accrued days off: essentially we work 40hr weeks but are paid for 38; the extra hours accrue to a day off/month.
I’m still around but you probably wouldn’t know that given that my last few entries have been set to private.
Bullet points, because they’re cool…