Hello, LO.

Here is LO. His/her heart is beating strongly and he/she is 2.9cm long. They pushed my dates forward, so I'm now 9w5d. New due date is October 2. I'm tired now, but I'll write a proper update soon about our appointment - which went well. Let's just say, so far, so good.

Big day tomorrow.

Well, as the title says, it's a big day tomorrow - all being well, we get to see LO for the first time and to confirm my dates. I'm vacillating between nervous excitement and nausea-inducing terror. If LO's little heart is beating (not TOO little, mind you - all four chambers would be nice...) then I can relax a bit about the miscarriage risk. Not totally, mind you, but a bit. But then I have to start really worrying about all the other potential problems that could be brewing. And if there's no heartbeat? Well. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I was sick as a dog again this morning though, which is quite reassuring, because I wasn't sick at all with the baby I miscarried. It just feels scary to be getting back onto the hospital bandwagon - it all starts to feel real now. While hardly anybody knows, I can just keep pottering along, and pretending that I'm not really pregnant. But once I'm 'in the system' - it all starts to really hit home. I still have no desire to tell everybody what's happening. Only four of my closest friends know - two are fellow heart mums - but that's it. I'm itching to tell Charlie - I know he'll be so excited, but it's a long time for him to wait without knowing what's going to happen to his baby after it's born. I think we'll probably tell him when we go on holiday - I'll be 17 weeks then, and we'll be having the big anomaly scan a week or so later. That's assuming I haven't ballooned to the size of a small continent by then - hopefully I can convince him I've just eaten too many pies. I haven't told my mum yet. Part of me really wants to, but I know how desperately worried she will be, and I just want to spare her the worry and fear for as long as I can. She - and we - have been through so much over the past couple of years, and I'm so very conscious that this time round, she doesn't have my dad to lean on for support, and stubborn assertions that all will be well. I miss my dad so, so much. Every night as I turn off the light by his photo in the living room, I whisper how much I miss him, and ask him, if there's any way he can, to look after this new little baby of ours. I know that Dad used to pray for all of us, by name, every night, and he would also pray for our, as yet unconceived, future children - that they might be healthy. I know it sounds terribly irreverent, but I feel like Dad's got an even more direct line to the Almighty these days, so maybe he might be able to put in a word or two on our behalf. I so wish Dad was still here. The pain of knowing that he isn't really doesn't seem to get any better, however much time passes.

I'll let you know how we get on in the morning.

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Sleepless in Cardiff...

It's late, and I can't sleep. Pete is away and I miss him so much. I seem to need his physical presence all the more when I'm pregnant - even if he's just asleep next to me, just having him here is comforting and reassuring. I have so much flying around my head - we have the first scan on Friday and I'm starting to get a bit anxious that there won't be a heartbeat. I've even been dreaming about it. In many ways, I don't feel a huge maternal bond with LO yet - I'm more concerned that if all isn't well, we'll have to go through all this again - the physical pain and inconvenience of miscarriage, the stress of the 'two-week wait', and then the exhaustion and the sickness. I so hope all is well with this tiny, little life. Hang in there LO.

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First hospital appointment...

I went to the GP on Friday to set things in motion. To be honest, I tend not to have too much to do with the midwife at my GP's surgery when I'm pregnant - I tend to be seen more often at the fetal medicine department at the hospital. Anyway, I know the staff at the hospital pretty well... my obstetric history tends to make me pretty memorable... and I saw a lot of the team at the fetal cardiology conference I spoke at last year. I had a quick chat there with Gill Jones - the senior sister in fetal medicine, and told her I was hoping to become pregnant again. She said when I was, to register with the GP and then call her. So, as requested, I went to the GP on Friday, who promptly referred me back to the hospital! And today I rang Gill. It was great to speak to her. Although I wish my pregnancies had all been totally straightforward so I had no reason to be on first-name terms with all the hospital staff, it does feel good to have such an amazing supportive team rallying round me and LO. Gill asked how I wanted to approach this pregnancy, and I told her that we'd like a scan in the next week or so, just to confirm my dates, and to check LO has a heartbeat and is growing in the right place. I also said that we'd prefer to have no further scans until about 18 weeks when we will be able to find out for sure what we are dealing with. She was more than happy with that plan, and booked us in for a scan next Friday (March 4). Assuming all is well with LO, I am looking forward to seeing him/her for the first time, and just enjoying the experience, rather than trying to analyse every measurement. So hopefully, God willing, I'll be able to share LO's first photo with you next Friday! Gill asked how I've been feeling, and I told her how sick and tired I've been... so much more than with the boys. I asked if nausea and morning sickness was likely to be worse because I'm older now, and she said that's not necessarily the case, adding: 'But don't forget there could be two in there...' I did joke with Pete the other day that maybe I'm having twins because I've been feeling so awfully sick, but apparently the older I am, the greater my chance of a multiple pregnancy. Eek. My cousin has twins, so they're not unheard of in our family... but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! I don't mind what we have - so long as it can stay here with us. I'm still having 'girl' vibes about this pregnancy. I don't know why - maybe just because I feel so different this time round. It's certainly the first pregnancy where I've found myself referring to the baby as 'she'. I guess we'll have to wait and see about that too! For the record - I'm now 7wks and 5days, and LO is about half an inch long.

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Seven weeks.

I'm seven weeks today and I must admit, for the past week I've felt pretty diabolical.
Chas has been off school with tonsillitis, which hasn't helped, but I have been SO nauseous. Like constant, unremitting motion sickness.
I'm not being sick every day, but I think this nausea is actually worse.
It's very hard to function around it.
I'm just hoping that sick mother = healthy baby.
I'm going to ring the hospital in a few days to book a dating scan in a couple of weeks.
Here's hoping all is well so far.

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Bleagh.

Ok, so trying to vomit surreptitiously is no fun.
In fact, vomiting at all is no fun.
But when you are being sick/trying to avoid wetting your pants because you are heaving so hard AND making sure your 7-year-old doesn't hear you puking... well, that's really no fun.
And I REALLY don't want Chas going into school, sitting in the 'news circle' and telling all his classmates: "For some reason my mum keeps being sick every morning..."
Hey ho - I'm almost enjoying this early morning sickness (in a self-pitying kind of way) because it most likely means that LO is growing well. I'm going to dig out my old pregnancy diaries from Will and Charlie and try to find out when I started throwing up with them - in my head it was nearer seven weeks.
I'm five weeks and six days today. Can't believe I'm almost halfway through the first trimester already. Long may the days fly by!

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The delights of morning sickness...

Ah yes. I remember now.
Well, here we are - only 4wks 6days in and I'm feeling so queasy already.
I haven't actually been sick yet, but have more than made up for it with the amount of heaving and retching going on.
This is all kicking in so much earlier than before - it wasn't until about seven weeks with Will and Charlie that morning sickness really took effect.
Maybe it's because I'm older this time round, or maybe my hormone levels are higher, but LO is certainly making his/her presence felt.
I don't know why, but I have a bit of a feeling that this baby might be a girl. I could be wrong, but I 'knew' from day one that Charlie was a boy.
I've been having fun looking at all the old wives' tales, to see what they reckon I'm having, and according to the ones I can check so far, it's looking like a girl too...
1. Very nauseous from early on.
2. Craving sour/citrus - I can't stop drinking bitter lemon, lime cordial and orange juice. (But I think I craved lemony stuff when I was having the boys too! I certainly had a thing about ice when I was having Will - I'd sit and crunch my way through bowls of ice cubes like they were popcorn.)
3. Bad skin - tell me about it - I have more spots than I EVER did in my teens.
4. If maternal age and year of conception are both odd or both even it's a girl, if one of each it's a boy - well, Will was born in 2002 when I was 27, and Charlie was born in 2003 when I was 28, and I'm 35 now and it's 2011... but I'll be 36 when the baby arrives, so I don't have a clue!

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
At the end of the day, I just hope, boy or girl, that LO will be healthy and well.

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