The 20 week (gender) Scan

Last week was my 20 week scan.
We've known since the test turned pink that we wanted to find out the gender, but most importantly we were nervous about his or her health.
As I had a molar pregnancy last summer and I had hypertension when I was pregnant with Oscar, we were going to be a bit more nervous than normal.
I knew baby was okay to an extent because I've been feeling a lot of movements and even sometimes a good old kick.
It turns out we needn't have worried at all. I'm measuring to my original dates, which is nearly a week bigger than my due date, and all insides are normal. There was one kidney that had a bit too much fluid in it but sonographer lady wasn't worried but I have to have another scan in July just to make sure.

She couldn't get a good look at the spine so I had to jump around for a couple minutes, which only just about worked! And then she gave us the news we'd been waiting for...boy or girl? Phoebe or Phoebo?

I'd been dying for a girl, hubby and son were wanting a boy. Either way, we're all happy that the baby is a healthy little boy :)

I keep getting asked if I'm disappointed because Its my last baby and I wanted a girl.
I hate the word disappointed. It reminds me of when you're a kid and your patents aren't mad at you, they're "disappointed" so you feel 10 times worse.
I'm a little sad that I'll never get to do the girl things but I won't love him any less just because he has a wiener.

We did have baby names sorted but hubs has decided he no longer likes the boy name and now we can't agree on anything!
Queue weeks of arguing!

19 Weeks

well, 18+6 ;)

Easter Break

Since about mid December we've been without Andy's car. The gearbox went out the window and it's taken us/the nice garage man MONTHS to find one that will fit into our car AND be in our budget.

We're getting it back today! WAHOO.

I can go back to blagging lifts and taking Oscar out to places further than the City Centre. And with the sunshine slowly but surely popping it's head out, it has come at the best time. Beach here we come!

So far all we're doing is mooching around, getting our crafty stuff out to play with and going for walks.

Though I did have to put up with a magician at a kids party and Gangnam Style was on repeat for about 20 minutes.

Just Plodding Along

Not much has happened over the last couple of weeks.

We're coming up for Easter Break which terrifies me no end.

-How do I entertain a 4 year old child for two weeks when the weather is so NAFF?!

So for now I'm just taking it easy. I've had headaches on and off for a week or so and all my belly muscles and skin is stretching so that's loads of fun.

OH, and heartburn has kicked in. Wasn't hoping from a visit from the heartburn fairy until at least the 3rd trimester!

My bestie has also just announced her pregnancy! We're only about a month apart in due dates so it'll be really excellent bringing up our last babies together.
It wasn't planned to work out that way! but I'm sure we'll have tons of fun moaning to each other and being able to keep each other company when we just wanna cry!

I didn't have many friends sticking by me when I was preggers with Oz, so it will be fab to have her going through the same.

 Misery loves company and all that ;)

Breast vs Bottle

It has always been my plan with this second baby to breastfeed.
With Oz, I wanted to try it and see how it went but knew that ultimately I would bottle feed. My mother bottle fed all of her children so it was really all I knew and being quite young at the time I was quite selfish and didn't feel I could give myself 100% to my baby all the time.
It wasn't long before Oz was spending some nights away from me either so it was all out of ease and comfort for myself rather than what was best.

Even before I was pregnant with baby number two I've decided to breastfeed and trying to get it into my head that that's what I'm doing and really preparing myself for it as early as possible, gathering all the information I can and steering away from buying bottles. However there's always the fact that not everyone supports breastfeeding particularly in public. I saw this article this morning and it really makes me fearful as a first time breast feeder how I'm going to cope:
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/times_guardian/news/2013/march/13/breastfeeding_mum_told_to_quit.aspx

The comments below the article is really where I feel disgusted. I don't feel like I should have to plan my entire life around feeding my child, it's completely natural and in my opinion, if babe and boob are covered there's no issue about it. I feel self conscious about myself as it is without other people coming up to me and asking me to shove off because THEY are uncomfortable. How did he think he was making that poor mother feel by telling everyone what she was doing!

It really makes me nervous to think I might be faced with these prejudices in my town and I can really understand now why women choose the bottle over the breast. I am still wanting to breastfeed but its going to be something weighing on my mind until I have the balls to leave the house with my baby.

Mothers Day and Belly Bumps

I'm a little over 15 weeks now and I'm really starting to feel it!

I'm getting pains in my sides from all the stretching, I get tired so much quicker and, the worst of the lot...I never can get comfortable!

On the plus though, I'm big enough to get offered seats on the bus, I can pig out on anything I want without feeling guilty about it and I can be lazy and get hubs to do the housework for me.

Which is what my lovely boys were doing for me yesterday. I woke up to toast and a homemade cookie with some apple juice, then they left me to watch telly in bed while they went and tidied up downstairs. We chilled out for much of the day and then went to eat a roast at the in-laws. We were even treated to BEEF! my favourite. All in all I can't complain...much

Me at 14+2

Freaky Dreams

I don't dream often (or at least remember them) but when I do they're very strange.
And now that my eggo is preggo, the dreams are coming thick and fast.

Pretty much every night I'll have 2-3 dreams that are just plain effed up. I remember having a few weird dreams when I was pregnant with Oscar but this is ridiculous.
I had one dream where I was out on the tiles with a cheeky girl - hot pants and all. And another where I was sent to boot camp with a character from a book I'm reading.
The freakiest by far though was where I was a ninja but used sharp pencils to stake people with.

Bleeding mental.

The 'nub theory'

My sister-in-law introduced me to the nub theory, where the angle of the nub in your 12 week scan could tell you whether you're having a boy or a girl.

It seems a little too good to be true though and even after staring at my scan pic for ridiculous lengths of time, I'm still not sure!

Here's the website explaining it all:
http://m.parentdish.co.uk/2009/06/03/nub-theory-baby-gender-prediction-at-12-weeks/

Have a read, then tell me what you think my little squid is gonna be! Maybe you'll be better at it than I am.

13 Weeks

I've been ill the last week thanks to my darling son.

He got ill right before the half term and then me and his Dad get ill for his week off! We still managed to do something everyday bar one though so he didn't miss out on the fun things.



So, even though I've had the scan now, I'm still bricking it. I remember all the feelings and pains and whatnot from my last pregnancy and I'm getting them this time too but, I just feel so much more worried about everything! It's not stopped me from buying baby gear mind. (though boyf has put a limit on the spendage!)
I'm planning to buy little and often to spread all the payments out over the next 6 months.

I feel better in myself though. Not so tired, not so ill....still no energy but then again, I'm pretty lazy when I'm NOT pregnant so not much has changed there.



All in all, i'm taking it bloody easy and eating a lot of BLT's.

12 Week Dating Scan

So!

I had my 12 week scan today! Everything is fine in there, baby growing perfectly though was being a bit of a cheeky bugger and couldn't get into a good position for the sonographer.

Still managed to get a good picture though.
Now I just have to try not to freak out about labour!

Back to being me

Well I'm around 12-13 weeks now.

Scan is next week, and I'm finally beginning to feel a bit more normal. I'm not so tired (though both my boys have been ill this week so I'm tired from that!) and I didn't really have any other complaints. It's thankfully been quite uneventful.

The only thing I've been left with now is a podgey belly. It's that awful stage when people who don't know the secret just think I've eaten too many pies-which is kind of true but I've only gained a couple pound really.

I'm getting a bit more hopeful now that I'm nearing the end of the first trimester, mainly because I've had none of the symptoms I had last time from my partial molar pregnancy in the summer.
I felt VERY sick last time and ended up losing half a stone because I couldn't eat and I was too tired to do anything. Of course I'll still expect the worst come the day of my scan but I am being cheeky and I'm on the lookout for cute baby things! Better to start early so the mister doesn't realise how much I'm spending.

Mwahahahaa

Hopefully my next update will contain belly pics. Wish me luck

Taking the P***

It's my lovely boyfriends week off work this week so I have full on been milking it!

He's done all the school runs, cooked the majority of dinners, tidied the house (including washing dishes!)...the only thing I've had to worry about is the laundry. And so long as we all have clean underwear and Oscar has clean school uniform I am perfectly happy to put that on the back burner.
I've been lazing on the sofa watching Neighbours, Gilmore Girls and the E! channel. Bliss.

I got my letter today giving me the date and time for my 12 week scan. It feels ages away. It already feels like I've waited eons and its killing me not knowing what's going on with my baby. Or if there is even still a baby at this point. I've had no unusual symptoms that would point in the direction of another molar pregnancy but its hard not to have the doubt in your mind.
I have seen a heartbeat, I just hope it's still there beating away on my next scan YEARS away. (Okay, 2 weeks. It just feels like years).

Right, The Kardashians is on, and I have to yell at Andy to fix the dinner. I am sooo going to miss this when he's back at work!

I Will Eat It ALL

So, I've been fairly quiet mainly because I've been mostly asleep or eating for the past few weeks.

I wake up at 7am for the school run, get home and crash on the sofa with a snack, fall asleep until lunchtime, have another nap after lunch, wake up for the school run (unless I can convince hubby to go do it for me!) and sleep till dinnertime. Bed by 10pm.

I'm like a baby. All I do is eat, sleep and poop!

Which of course means my house is an absolute sh**hole. Dishes only get done when I realise I have nothing to eat my cereal in (that's after using terrines, cups and measuring jugs as well). I try to go the long way around on the school run to get a bit of exercise everyday but after that I just can't do anything.

I also want every food thing that's advertised on TV or mentioned in passing. So far this week I've craved kit kat chunkys, toffee crisps, cheese sandwiches, tuna paninis and right now, for the last couple of days all I want is a Salsa Twister from KFC.

I feel like i've gone a little bit crazy and my brain can't think of the right words. Last night I asked hub if he could get the hoohaa out the thingy and give it a wash. I was there for about five minutes trying to find the correct word for 'hoohaa'. Eventually i remembered it was a PAN!

I can't wait until this bit passes. It was the most hated part of pregnancy last time around as well. 2nd and 3rd trimester I can do fine but for the love 'a god I can't sleep no more! my poor house.

Right, I need to go nap...

If at first you don't succeed...

So, seeing as nobody is following my blog at the moment I feel like I can put this out there. It's a bit of a secret see. Shhhh!

On Oscar's last birthday (May '12) me and my fella decided to properly try for another baby. We'd been thinking about it for a while but with Oz turning 4 we thought it was high time we had another before the age gap was too big.

We got pregnant right away.

I very quickly became nauseous  my stomach already felt hugely bloated and sore at just 6 weeks and by 12 weeks, I looked 6 months pregnant.

At my 12 week scan I was diagnosed with a molar pregnancy. Which basically means too many of his guys got into my girl and it started to produce 'grape like cysts' instead of a baby. I had to have surgery to evacuate what was in the womb and told not to try having another for at least 6 months. I also had to have blood and urine tests every 2 weeks.
It also explained why I was so very fat and so very nauseous  because the hormone you find in pregnancy is very high in a molar and can make pregnancy symptoms far more worse than they are supposed to be usually.

Of course I was upset and disappointed but I also know it's just one of those things that happens and I moved on pretty quickly and incidentally...got pregnant before my 6 months were up!

At first I was very excited. But then it sunk in that I was now 10 times more likely to have it happen to me again. I was desperate to have a scan to make sure everything was okay and made up a fib to my doctor to get an early scan.

The first scan was 2 days after christmas and it was slightly too early to see anything but I was slightly reassured to the fact that there was everything there so far and all in the way it should be. I got booked in for another scan two weeks later.

That was yesterday.




I was fairly optimistic for this scan. I was around 7 weeks pregnant and had no nausea and no bloating. The only symptom of pregnancy I had was feeling quite tired all the time. But of course there is always that doubt and the fear of having to go through a molar pregnancy again. I was quite terrified. I remember laying on the surgery table last time and was crying my eyes out. That was the only time I cried though!

So, I took my very tired boyf to the hospital yesterday and as always in the Early Pregnancy Unit (EPU) I  was seen very quickly. The nurse was friendly and really put me at ease straight away. She shoved that giant stick scanner thing up my hoohaa and said pretty much straight away "well, there's the heartbeat."

I felt instant relief.

I could relax knowing that so far, my baby was fine and that I'm so very glad I didn't give into the temptation of cigarettes and alcohol over christmas!

It's not quite all safe just yet until my 12 week scan but I'm glad I'm one of those people who can get knocked down over and over and still keep getting up. You just gotta try try again!