How Far Along: 8 weeks (32 weeks until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: While my nausea is still there, and picks up dramatically for hours at a time, I'm mostly feeling much better. I'm starving a lot of the time and have to remind myself not to stuff my face because I end up feeling sick from eating too quickly. I'm starting to get some stretchy feelings down in my stomach and am noticing a bit of a bump that isn't just my leftover belly fat.
What I'm Thinking: I've been thinking a lot this week about how blessed I am. I have been given a heart moved to always say YES to what God is giving me. After each baby I've had the feeling that I'm satisfied with how our family looks, but in my heart I've always left it up to God. Every new pregnancy has been a source of joy and excitement. I know how truly blessed we are to have such abundant fertility, but also that we have hearts open to the gifts that God gives us through our fertility.
What
I've Done This Week: I've been working on making heartier foods to help grow this baby while keeping up my blood pressure. I've always had low blood pressure, but it gets much lower while I'm pregnant, causing fun fainting spells and getting sick when I need to give blood. Fun, right? So, once again, my Doc has advised a high sodium diet. Good times. I also got the call with the date for our dating ultrasound. On November 8th at 8am we'll get a sense of how far along we are, and also confirm the number of little ones swimming in my womb. I suspect only one, but you never know, it could be two!
What I Hope To Do Next
Week: I have no big plans for myself. I'm trying to keep active in the middle of my nausea so I have a few playdates planned with some close friends who won't take it personally if I toss my cookies in their bathroom. Other than that, we'll chalk this week up to surviving the first trimester.
Sunday, 21 October 2012
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Baby 5: Week 7
How Far Along: 7 weeks (33 weeks until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: Still nauseous. Pretty much all day. I got about 2 hours of a break from the nausea today and stuffed my face with a feeling of urgency since I've felt too sick to eat. I'm starting to feel some stretching down in my lower ligaments, which is making me a little sore. I've also found myself hyper-sensitive this week. I've been jumping to conclusions and crying at the drop of a hat. I keep catching myself crying at commercials and then start laughing at myself! All in all, I'm just trying to survive the first trimester, and I'm finding that easy when I feel the joy of new life brewing in me!
What I'm Thinking: I'm spending a lot of the day trying to figure out what it is I can eat that'll fill me up with nutrients without making me sick. Luckily, my mind is more pre-occupied with baby names and nurseries to get too upset about the nausea. Sure, I'm finding myself whining (internally and vocally, sorry!!!), but underneath it all I'm so grateful that God has blessed my motherhood with more abundance.
What I've Done This Week: I called my doctor by chance this week and managed to get an appointment. There is a benefit to having a Doc who specialises in pre-natal work because we can often get the dropped appointments from women who have already delivered their babies. We managed to get a referral in for a dating ultrasound, and a prescription for diclectin (which has done an awesome job fighting my nausea, but sadly knocked me out with exhaustion and gave me a racing heart, so I can't use it anymore. Boo!).
What I Hope To Do Next Week: I'm going to work on finding the perfect mix of ginger and other ingredients to keep the nausea at bay. I'm also going to work at upping my prayer life to give me more focus and balance so that I can let go of my little complaints and focus on what my 4 beautiful children who are already born need from me. Lots more hugging and silliness is in store!
How I'm Feeling: Still nauseous. Pretty much all day. I got about 2 hours of a break from the nausea today and stuffed my face with a feeling of urgency since I've felt too sick to eat. I'm starting to feel some stretching down in my lower ligaments, which is making me a little sore. I've also found myself hyper-sensitive this week. I've been jumping to conclusions and crying at the drop of a hat. I keep catching myself crying at commercials and then start laughing at myself! All in all, I'm just trying to survive the first trimester, and I'm finding that easy when I feel the joy of new life brewing in me!
What I'm Thinking: I'm spending a lot of the day trying to figure out what it is I can eat that'll fill me up with nutrients without making me sick. Luckily, my mind is more pre-occupied with baby names and nurseries to get too upset about the nausea. Sure, I'm finding myself whining (internally and vocally, sorry!!!), but underneath it all I'm so grateful that God has blessed my motherhood with more abundance.
What I've Done This Week: I called my doctor by chance this week and managed to get an appointment. There is a benefit to having a Doc who specialises in pre-natal work because we can often get the dropped appointments from women who have already delivered their babies. We managed to get a referral in for a dating ultrasound, and a prescription for diclectin (which has done an awesome job fighting my nausea, but sadly knocked me out with exhaustion and gave me a racing heart, so I can't use it anymore. Boo!).
What I Hope To Do Next Week: I'm going to work on finding the perfect mix of ginger and other ingredients to keep the nausea at bay. I'm also going to work at upping my prayer life to give me more focus and balance so that I can let go of my little complaints and focus on what my 4 beautiful children who are already born need from me. Lots more hugging and silliness is in store!
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Baby Girl / Big Girl
I guess it's kind of official. We have 4 big kids. I'll withhold my sobs for a more private time. In the past few weeks, baby girl has graduated from, well, my baby, to one of the big kids. While this has been influenced somewhat by our new pregnancy, I think she's made the move mostly on her own.
It started not long after her first birthday. She weaned from breastfeeding. Almost entirely cold turkey. Brutal. Her independence was written all over her face when she refused to breastfeed and reached for her cup instead. She also started picking up her fork and actually uses it to eat (sometimes). Who is this kid? She's a tiny toddler.
She also graduated into clothes that, for the most part, weren't defined by her age in months, but by the year. 1T clothes break my heart. I'm never ready for the idea that she's not tiny, but grown big enough that she'll be the same size for the bulk of the year.
The next thing that happened pleasantly surprised me: She started to walk. A few steps here and there. A shuffle from one piece of furniture to the next. Then, finally, full on walking. She still crawls once in a while, but she prefers to walk everywhere with her cute robot zombie swagger. Her older brother started walking the day she was born, so the fact that she's months ahead of when each of her siblings started walking kind of blows my mind. She has also started to dance, which is pretty adorable.
On top of all of this, she's actually started talking. Not just words, but sentences. She's been working on "I love you" for a while, partially because her siblings shout "I LOVE YOU DADDY" at the top of their lungs while we watch him go off to work everyone morning. Beyond that, she's started making simple sentences like "want up" or want down" or my favourite, "want that" which can mean anything.
The fact of the matter is that around this time in each of the other kids' lives we were mere months away from meeting the next baby. In baby/big girl's case, she's got more than half a year to keep on growing. She won't be potty trained or anything, but it'll be a world of difference for me to see how big she really is next to the new baby over 30 weeks from now. I'm so glad I'm not watching all of her milestones under the haze of late pregnancy. My belly is still very small, so I'm still able to pick her up, enjoy her, cuddle with her. So while she's not a baby anymore, she can still be my baby for a little while longer.
It started not long after her first birthday. She weaned from breastfeeding. Almost entirely cold turkey. Brutal. Her independence was written all over her face when she refused to breastfeed and reached for her cup instead. She also started picking up her fork and actually uses it to eat (sometimes). Who is this kid? She's a tiny toddler.
She also graduated into clothes that, for the most part, weren't defined by her age in months, but by the year. 1T clothes break my heart. I'm never ready for the idea that she's not tiny, but grown big enough that she'll be the same size for the bulk of the year.
The next thing that happened pleasantly surprised me: She started to walk. A few steps here and there. A shuffle from one piece of furniture to the next. Then, finally, full on walking. She still crawls once in a while, but she prefers to walk everywhere with her cute robot zombie swagger. Her older brother started walking the day she was born, so the fact that she's months ahead of when each of her siblings started walking kind of blows my mind. She has also started to dance, which is pretty adorable.
On top of all of this, she's actually started talking. Not just words, but sentences. She's been working on "I love you" for a while, partially because her siblings shout "I LOVE YOU DADDY" at the top of their lungs while we watch him go off to work everyone morning. Beyond that, she's started making simple sentences like "want up" or want down" or my favourite, "want that" which can mean anything.
The fact of the matter is that around this time in each of the other kids' lives we were mere months away from meeting the next baby. In baby/big girl's case, she's got more than half a year to keep on growing. She won't be potty trained or anything, but it'll be a world of difference for me to see how big she really is next to the new baby over 30 weeks from now. I'm so glad I'm not watching all of her milestones under the haze of late pregnancy. My belly is still very small, so I'm still able to pick her up, enjoy her, cuddle with her. So while she's not a baby anymore, she can still be my baby for a little while longer.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Baby 5: Week 6
How Far Along: 6 weeks 1 day (33 weeks and 6 days until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: My cold is all gone, but I'm finding myself constantly nauseous and I've been really tired. I have spells where going up and down the stairs a few times leaves me winded. No matter what I eat, my nausea isn't going down. It definitely could be worse and I feel like a bit of a whiner knowing how easy I have it. I've never had really bad nausea with any one of the kids, particularly with the 3rd and 4th pregnancies.
What I'm Thinking: We got the results of the blood work a few days back. My hcg (pregnancy hormone) was really high for where I thought I should be in pregnancy. This explains why I'm feeling so much nausea. The higher level could mean a couple of things. Sometimes carrying a boy causes an early spike in hcg. Another option is that I'm further along than I had thought, by up to 4 weeks (oops). Yet another option is that we have double the baby going on in here. That's the least likely, though not impossible as my paternal grandmother was a twin and had at least one set of twins (my Dad was adopted, so it's hard to interpret too much information from what little we have learned about his family). I wouldn't mind being further along, this being a boy, or even if this is twins.
What I've Done This Week: Besides harass my doctor's office for the results of my blood work, I spent most of this week getting over my cold and trying to master my nausea. I made an appointment with my doctor to request a dating ultrasound, but we can't get in for another week to even request the referral for the ultrasound. The suspense!!!
What I Hope To Do Next Week: I'm hoping to keep plugging away at getting baby's room ready. We have so many months to do it, but once his or her room is ready, we can work on the other rooms. I'm also going to go through all the baby clothes and re-sort them into gender and gender neutral.
How I'm Feeling: My cold is all gone, but I'm finding myself constantly nauseous and I've been really tired. I have spells where going up and down the stairs a few times leaves me winded. No matter what I eat, my nausea isn't going down. It definitely could be worse and I feel like a bit of a whiner knowing how easy I have it. I've never had really bad nausea with any one of the kids, particularly with the 3rd and 4th pregnancies.
What I'm Thinking: We got the results of the blood work a few days back. My hcg (pregnancy hormone) was really high for where I thought I should be in pregnancy. This explains why I'm feeling so much nausea. The higher level could mean a couple of things. Sometimes carrying a boy causes an early spike in hcg. Another option is that I'm further along than I had thought, by up to 4 weeks (oops). Yet another option is that we have double the baby going on in here. That's the least likely, though not impossible as my paternal grandmother was a twin and had at least one set of twins (my Dad was adopted, so it's hard to interpret too much information from what little we have learned about his family). I wouldn't mind being further along, this being a boy, or even if this is twins.
What I've Done This Week: Besides harass my doctor's office for the results of my blood work, I spent most of this week getting over my cold and trying to master my nausea. I made an appointment with my doctor to request a dating ultrasound, but we can't get in for another week to even request the referral for the ultrasound. The suspense!!!
What I Hope To Do Next Week: I'm hoping to keep plugging away at getting baby's room ready. We have so many months to do it, but once his or her room is ready, we can work on the other rooms. I'm also going to go through all the baby clothes and re-sort them into gender and gender neutral.
Monday, 1 October 2012
Baby 5: Week 5
How Far Along: 5 weeks 1 day (34 weeks and 6 days until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: Less nauseous, but definitely more hormonal and cranky. My abdomen has a little swelling down where baby is carving out his or her home. I've also been craving pickles and now, surprise surprise, bacon, and french fries with cheese and gravy (aka POUTINEEE). I also got sick pretty much all this past week with a vicious cold. I've been taking care of it with ginger/lemon tea with thyme in it (an idea I got from my bro) and taking spoonfuls of honey which immediately cured my sore throat!
What I'm Thinking: I'm starting to come out of the initial shock, and I'm settling in nicely into thoughts of tiny toes, cute little cheeks, and a button nose. I'm kind of convinced this baby is a girl, although I've been surprised before.
What I've Done This Week: I got my bloodwork done this week. That was totally fun until I almost passed out and then got sick. Those little dishes they give you to upset yourself into are so tiny! Too graphic, sorry! Moving on... we also picked up some second hand cloth diapers for the medium size in the brand we love, Bummis, that will fit from 8-15lbs. We noticed with Baby Girl that we never seemed to have enough in that size.
What I Hope To Do Next Week: We ALL got sick after I got my cold, so we're still hoping to do the flooring in the baby's room. After we're done that, we'll be doing the flooring room by room in the rest of the upstairs so that there is NO carpet left in our house by the time he or she makes his or her big arrival.
How I'm Feeling: Less nauseous, but definitely more hormonal and cranky. My abdomen has a little swelling down where baby is carving out his or her home. I've also been craving pickles and now, surprise surprise, bacon, and french fries with cheese and gravy (aka POUTINEEE). I also got sick pretty much all this past week with a vicious cold. I've been taking care of it with ginger/lemon tea with thyme in it (an idea I got from my bro) and taking spoonfuls of honey which immediately cured my sore throat!
What I'm Thinking: I'm starting to come out of the initial shock, and I'm settling in nicely into thoughts of tiny toes, cute little cheeks, and a button nose. I'm kind of convinced this baby is a girl, although I've been surprised before.
What I've Done This Week: I got my bloodwork done this week. That was totally fun until I almost passed out and then got sick. Those little dishes they give you to upset yourself into are so tiny! Too graphic, sorry! Moving on... we also picked up some second hand cloth diapers for the medium size in the brand we love, Bummis, that will fit from 8-15lbs. We noticed with Baby Girl that we never seemed to have enough in that size.
What I Hope To Do Next Week: We ALL got sick after I got my cold, so we're still hoping to do the flooring in the baby's room. After we're done that, we'll be doing the flooring room by room in the rest of the upstairs so that there is NO carpet left in our house by the time he or she makes his or her big arrival.
Monday, 24 September 2012
Baby 5: Week 4
Since I had so much fun live tweeting our fourth baby's labour and delivery, I thought it would be fun to track this pregnancy week by week with short little blog posts about how I'm feeling, what we're doing, and what I'm thinking!
How Far Along: 4 weeks 1 day (35 weeks and 6 days until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: A little nauseous, but not too bad. I have found the general smells of my house excessively repugnant and have spent the past 48 hours cleaning the house like crazy. The house smells a little better, but still looks like a bomb hit it. I'm also pretty tired, and find myself dozing off while sitting up. The 4 already born kids are keeping me on my toes!
What I'm Thinking: I'm so excited about our new baby! We're already working hard picking out names (we already are pretty much settled, but I'll leave that mystery for a while in). We're also praying hard trying to pick the right Godparents for our new baby.
What I've Done This Week: I went to get my blood requisition form for early pregnancy! The Doc seemed pretty excited too. I also called the local Midwives to get myself on the waiting list. We also picked up another pack of newborn Bummis diapers and an Ergo baby carrier for when baby arrives (which is useful now for baby 4!).
What I Hope To Do Next Week: We bought all the flooring to replace our nasty stinky upstairs carpet. I plan to work with my hubby over the next week to start ripping up the old carpet and prepping it for the new laminate flooring, starting with our new baby's room!
How Far Along: 4 weeks 1 day (35 weeks and 6 days until I'm due!)
How I'm Feeling: A little nauseous, but not too bad. I have found the general smells of my house excessively repugnant and have spent the past 48 hours cleaning the house like crazy. The house smells a little better, but still looks like a bomb hit it. I'm also pretty tired, and find myself dozing off while sitting up. The 4 already born kids are keeping me on my toes!
What I'm Thinking: I'm so excited about our new baby! We're already working hard picking out names (we already are pretty much settled, but I'll leave that mystery for a while in). We're also praying hard trying to pick the right Godparents for our new baby.
What I've Done This Week: I went to get my blood requisition form for early pregnancy! The Doc seemed pretty excited too. I also called the local Midwives to get myself on the waiting list. We also picked up another pack of newborn Bummis diapers and an Ergo baby carrier for when baby arrives (which is useful now for baby 4!).
What I Hope To Do Next Week: We bought all the flooring to replace our nasty stinky upstairs carpet. I plan to work with my hubby over the next week to start ripping up the old carpet and prepping it for the new laminate flooring, starting with our new baby's room!
Pregnancy (Take 5)
I'm pregnant with our 5th baby! My heart is overflowing with joy and expectation! My husband is incredibly excited too, as usual, and joined me in informing anyone who would listen about our latest little miracle! We called, Facebooked, tweeted, and told everyone else we could in person, even whipping out my freshly peed on pregnancy test to show baby girl's Godmother when we found out as we were going out that evening.
I know at one point I thought to myself that maybe 4 was enough kids, but at some point my heart began to grow, to make room for another little soul to join our family. Once the post-natal fog lifted and life was getting back into order, it was so obvious to me that our family had room to grow. For the first time in the 6 years of our marriage, it took us about a year to conceive. Usually I was finding myself in possession of a positive pregnancy test between 6 and 9 months post-partum. That my youngest is 13 months might seem close to many people, but that is a huge gap in my mind! She's already walking (although crawls sometimes too), eats everything and anything, is incredibly social, sleeps like a champ, and has self-weaned. Her extended breastfeeding is the reason we didn't conceive sooner, and it was an incredible gift to both she and I. I had more recovery time for one. I also had more time to settle into a routine in our new house. I even managed to start getting more involved at our Church, which has meant a lot to me! I also found the energy to get myself started on homeschooling our eldest. With a June due date, we'll have the whole summer to recover before hitting the books again! For her, it meant longer bonding, better nutrition when she was under the weather, and lots of cuddles with Mommy.
So here we are, 5th positive pregnancy test in hand, excited beyond all belief and dedicated to enjoying every minute of it. One of the first things we did was upgrade our baby carrier to an Ergo because our Snugli had really worn out over the past three babies. We also picked up another pack of newborns Bummis diapers so we can exclusively cloth diaper from birth. I hit the grocery store and picked up 300 pre-natal vitamins (as I had run out and wanted closer to a year's supply) and have started to take them daily. With only very mild nausea I'm finding life is going on as normal, though I've been exhausted once naptime hits! The upside of my energy level staying basically the same is that my incredibly strong sense of smell which only happens when I'm pregnant is forcing me to start working on house work to keep the stinkies at bay.
The other big news pregnancy wise is that I got in touch with the Midwives at our local hospital. For most people who might read this outside of my province this may seem like not a big deal, but here in my province we've had to work hard to get Midwives with privileges at our hospital. They weren't available for my first three pregnancies, and they were on hiatus due to political issues during my fourth pregnancies. Today, with two full time midwives and one part-time midwife, I was able to make myself only second on their waiting list for June! Unless I risk out this basically guarantees me a spot! I have wanted to try for midwife care since I first heard of how midwives work, but this is the first time I've been able to sign up. I'll be sad that our regular baby-catching family doctor won't be our regular care provider as we have a beautiful relationship, but I'd do just about anything to have more personalised, natural birth focused care that won't have me alone with a nurse for hours on end. I find the nurses at our hospital range from incredible to absolutely awful. The nurse from my last birth would wait until my husband was out of the room and say all sorts of crazy things, like how I should stop being so noisy as it wasn't helping me labour. The upside about all of this is that's there actually a pretty good chance my family Doc will be in the hospital when I deliver as she is works in the Peri-Natal clinic and does regular rotations on the birth unit. I'll be praying that I get both a Midwife and my own well loved Doctor.
That's all so far. Get ready for belly pics, folks. I'm going to start taking them weekly so you can see how ridiculously fast my belly POPS!
I know at one point I thought to myself that maybe 4 was enough kids, but at some point my heart began to grow, to make room for another little soul to join our family. Once the post-natal fog lifted and life was getting back into order, it was so obvious to me that our family had room to grow. For the first time in the 6 years of our marriage, it took us about a year to conceive. Usually I was finding myself in possession of a positive pregnancy test between 6 and 9 months post-partum. That my youngest is 13 months might seem close to many people, but that is a huge gap in my mind! She's already walking (although crawls sometimes too), eats everything and anything, is incredibly social, sleeps like a champ, and has self-weaned. Her extended breastfeeding is the reason we didn't conceive sooner, and it was an incredible gift to both she and I. I had more recovery time for one. I also had more time to settle into a routine in our new house. I even managed to start getting more involved at our Church, which has meant a lot to me! I also found the energy to get myself started on homeschooling our eldest. With a June due date, we'll have the whole summer to recover before hitting the books again! For her, it meant longer bonding, better nutrition when she was under the weather, and lots of cuddles with Mommy.
So here we are, 5th positive pregnancy test in hand, excited beyond all belief and dedicated to enjoying every minute of it. One of the first things we did was upgrade our baby carrier to an Ergo because our Snugli had really worn out over the past three babies. We also picked up another pack of newborns Bummis diapers so we can exclusively cloth diaper from birth. I hit the grocery store and picked up 300 pre-natal vitamins (as I had run out and wanted closer to a year's supply) and have started to take them daily. With only very mild nausea I'm finding life is going on as normal, though I've been exhausted once naptime hits! The upside of my energy level staying basically the same is that my incredibly strong sense of smell which only happens when I'm pregnant is forcing me to start working on house work to keep the stinkies at bay.
The other big news pregnancy wise is that I got in touch with the Midwives at our local hospital. For most people who might read this outside of my province this may seem like not a big deal, but here in my province we've had to work hard to get Midwives with privileges at our hospital. They weren't available for my first three pregnancies, and they were on hiatus due to political issues during my fourth pregnancies. Today, with two full time midwives and one part-time midwife, I was able to make myself only second on their waiting list for June! Unless I risk out this basically guarantees me a spot! I have wanted to try for midwife care since I first heard of how midwives work, but this is the first time I've been able to sign up. I'll be sad that our regular baby-catching family doctor won't be our regular care provider as we have a beautiful relationship, but I'd do just about anything to have more personalised, natural birth focused care that won't have me alone with a nurse for hours on end. I find the nurses at our hospital range from incredible to absolutely awful. The nurse from my last birth would wait until my husband was out of the room and say all sorts of crazy things, like how I should stop being so noisy as it wasn't helping me labour. The upside about all of this is that's there actually a pretty good chance my family Doc will be in the hospital when I deliver as she is works in the Peri-Natal clinic and does regular rotations on the birth unit. I'll be praying that I get both a Midwife and my own well loved Doctor.
That's all so far. Get ready for belly pics, folks. I'm going to start taking them weekly so you can see how ridiculously fast my belly POPS!
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