12 WEEEEEEEEEEEEKS!!!

Hooray!!! I'm finally just about to finish the first trimester officially! Soooo thrilled since the risks of anything happening are now lower, but still a wee bit scared.

Today I had the dating scan at Stirling Hospital... Oh God, I miss Ninewells!!! I got to see yet another midwife that was not as helpful and nice as the one that took me in for the pre-booking appointment... I kept asking questions that were not responded and I was not offered the NT scan (the one to see the nuchal fold) because they don't do it and they are not trained to perform it... So, unless I pay £200, I will go about without it.

The good news: I saw my baby again!!! And it has grown quite a lot since last time... The nurse couldn't get a nice picture because it couldn't stop jumping and moving around!!! How wonderful it was to see my little pea moving acrobatically!!! The nurse says it measures 12 weeks exactly (although my 12 weeks aren't supposse to be until tomorrow) and that everything looks fine and perfect at this stage.

Just to be on the safe side, I book myself for the down syndrome and spina bifida screening and that is suppose to happen next month... I want to make sure that everything is normal and enjoy a relaxed and wonderful pregnancy...

Still haven't told anyone, apart from a couple of people at work, but I'm planning to make it public very soon... I can't hold my tummy in any longer (specially at night time!) .

So far, I'm feeling great, despite the levels of water retention that, for me, are alarming... However, the midwife says that it is quite normal for a pregnant woman to triplicate the amount of fluids on her body (there were no questions as of where is the swelling, if there is any discomfort, what am I doing about it... A bit dissapointing, really). Apart from this, I have not experienced any more nauseas or cramps or major headaches or nothing!!! If it wasn't for the tight clothing, I could swear I was not expecting at all!

Anyway, I'll leave you with the pictures for this week and I'll keep you posted ;)

10 Weeks :)

Not a lot of things have changed recently, but I'll make my best to summon you with the latest news of my Baby Pea...

As I said in the previous post, I had my first antenatal appointment on Friday 13th March... Unfortunately, when the Doctor booked the appointment for me, I didn't remember that on that day I was suppose to be on the last day of a 3 days training course... So I re-scheduled the date for the 20th March and off I went on my course... On Wednesday I was feeling great in the morning... Got up really early and enjoyed and made the best out of the day. After lunch, I felt extremely tired and struggling to keep awake... What a drag!!! It had to be the longest afternoon of my life!!! Before getting home, I stopped at Costa Coffee for a Mango Frescatto and an almond biscotti... Delicious, as usual! However, after a while, I started feeling quite nauseaus and ill... Couldn't have anything to eat that night. My stomach felt like if it has been turned up side down, but I managed to have a good night sleep.

The next morning, the feeling continued and actualy worsened... Despite my attempts to beat morning sickness with crackers and tiny sips of water, I was still feeling ill and for the first time, I was sick after lunch... Not a pretty picture!

On friday, my stomach went back to normal and I pretty much recovered my "healthy" appetite!!! I had a lovely dinner that night with my Sister and her family and overindulged myself with chips!!!

Saturday and Sunday have been great! I weighed myself this morning and since last week, I only went up 100 grams!!! Things are slowing down on the weight front!!!

Here is a picture of my bump at 10 weeks!!!

Emergency, emergency!!!

I wasn't planning on writing anything until next week, Friday the 13th, day of my first appointment with the antenatal care unit, but something happened this morning...


Since yesterday I've been feeling extremely tired, more than usual, I even fell asleep on the sofa in the afternoon! Anyway: I've also been off food... Nothing appeals to me... My appetite has gone, by the looks of it... But what happened this morning has little to do with what I just said... I think I saw some blood when I wiped after being for a pee... I confirmed that the world can turn upside down and that, suddenly, everything is superficial and nothing else matters... I phoned the Antenatal care Unit but they can not see me until tomorrow... I then phoned Ninewells... God, definitely, has put angels in this world... Some of them Angels are at Ward 35 in Ninewells Hospital... I had a quick shower and drove up to Dundee... I was thinking just about everything... I was thinking good things and bad ones as well... I didn't have to wait for long before they took me in for the scan... The Nurse's faces were very reassuring that, no matter what, everything was going to be fine... As soon as he scan started, the voice of "look at that" brought a tear to my eye... Then they asked me: "can you see the heartbeat?" And there it was!!! My little pea's heart beating away!!! I can not describe the feeling... I supposse it's unique to every woman, but it can not be described with a lesser word than "MARVELOUS!"


The baby has grown an awful lot since the first scan! 10 mm, in fact! Today it measured 18.4 mm :) And everything seems to be going perfectly fine. The Nurses explained that because of the amount of growing of the baby, I will feel exhausted and tired most of the time... Hence my nap on the sofa!!!


Anyway: everything is ok... I will go to Stirling tomorrow anyway, just to have another glance at my beautiful baby pea!


In the meantime, I'm considering seriously another nap!!! See you later!!!

8 Weeks!!!

Technically: 8 w+4 days today!



Things are no much different these days, but at the same time, I feel I'm living in a complete different world.



Week 6 ended up with that awful feeling of catching a cold. It started on thursday 19th February 2009, half way through my Civil-Ordinary course. My throath was killing me and my "healthy" appetite seemed to be dissapearing slowly. That night I had a horrible sleep. I went to bed at 8:00 pm, completely exhausted... Woke up at 1:00 am because the pain in my throat was unbearable and literally didn't let me sleep. I made myself a cup of hot lemonade with honey and went back to bed. After an hour and a bit, I was again in the Land of Nod. I felt slightly better on the weekend. The idea of having my first scan the following Monday was far too exciting to allow me realise if I had a cold, the flu, or any other illness under the sun!



On monday 23 January, I went to work (I haven't told anyone yet) and at 11:40 I left to Hospital with the excuse of yet another test... On my way to Ninewells, I didn't know what to expect... I had no idea if they were going to be able to see anything... What if there were two??? What if it was something else??? What if it was all wrong??? The internal scan started and within a couple of seconds, the lovely nurse said "there it is! Can you see the beat? It's more like a flicker on the screen"... And yes: I could see the flickering!!! Still no shapes or nothing, but there was definitely a flickering!!! And if the Nurse says that's my little pea's heart beating, Oh boy! You better believe it!!! There were also 2 small cysts but I'm not to worry about them...


The nurse told me that, as on that day, I was 7 Weeks + 2 days pregnant and that my due date is the 10th October 2009!





Here's a picture of what I saw! It made as much sense to me as it makes sense to you right now :) But believe me: It made me extremely happy!









That afternoon was a blurred... I went back to work, but my mind was foggy and I started feeling really bad, so I went home. I was unable to go back to work for the rest of the week. My inmune system was proving to be really weak. On Thursday, 26th January, I started developing a fever. Spoke to the Doctor and he told me to take paracetamol, as it s perfectly safe for me and, most importantly, for the baby... And, althought I wanted to be drug free during my pregnancy, I read somewhere that is better to take the medicine rather than fight the fever by yourself as it can be disastrous. On Friday I'd lost my voice. Went to the Doctor that afternoon. He checked on me and signed me off for another week...


As is my custom and common practice of always being fashionably late, I took some pictures of week 8 one day after becoming 8 weeks! So, officially, the pictures are 8w+1d :). The difference from one day to the next are not huge visually, but the scales suggest that I'm growing like a mushroom! So far, not counting the 2 1/2 kilos of hormones and water retention at the beginning of the treatment, I've put on nearly 5 kilos!!! That's almost 1 kilo a week!!! Anyway: I'm still eating sensibly and I'm excercising on my bike (and on the wii) most of the days (what else can you do to keep yourself alive while medically forced to stay home) but the weight gain thing doesn't seem to get any slower. To put my mind at rest, I phoned a friend of mine that has pretty much the same thyroid condition as I do as well as PCOS and who recently had a baby... She confirmed that she was pretty much the same: a lot of weight to begin with and then it slowed down a lot... I suppose it will be a matter of waiting and keep on my regime!
Still with something left of my cold, otherwise feeling great!!! No vomits, major nauseas, morning sickness! NO NOTHING!!! The only thing that has changed: I HATE PEPPERS!!!

2 Lines (times 6)

December has always been for me a month to look forward to, maybe due to the fact that Christmas is my favourite time of the year, but this particular December, the 2008 one, started with no hope of starting a new course of injections, mainly because the staff at Ninewells Hospital, were going to be off during the Festive Season... With this in mind, and not knowing when my next period was going to start, I decided to enjoy christmas and wait for the arrival of my cousin Pipino on the 29th. December.

We had a great time in Christmas and New Year (althought Frazer was on call on christmas eve and christmas day!!!). As planned, my cousin joined us from Venezuela and we had a fantastic Hogmanay (New Years Eve) party at our house! Our neighbours, my Sister (and her new bump), my nephew and my brother in law, all gathered together to celebrate the New Year!
On the 3rd. of January 2009, a very "on time" and surprising period arrived... I phoned the Hospital to request an appointment on day 3 of the cycle. It was arranged for me to be there on the 5th January 2009. Injections began the very same night. This time, the dosage was increased to 75mg, having experimented with an hyperstimulating 100 mg and a nothing-doing 25mg, 75 seemed to be right. Had my first scan and a folicle started developing quite promising: 12 mm!!!! Something to be excited about!!!!
The next scan was even better: the follicle grew to an amazing 16mm! And SURPRISE! There was another follicle of the same size on the other ovary! I was then given, on the 16th January 2009, the follicle-breaker: Ovitrelle. A single shot of this and it was just a matter of go loving crazy and wait...

My cousin left the next morning.
During the following couple of weeks, my life was pretty much normal, with the exception of 3 undesired kilograms that were added to my body due to the hormones and the strange twinges and cramping on my lower abdomen.

Socially, life didn't stop either: I even had a couple of drinks on Saturday 24th January while on a tournament of wii fit against the neighbours!!!
By Monday 26th. I was feeling a little bit anxious...The cramping was not normal, and despite knowing it was way too early, I decided to perform a pregancy test while at work... Three long minutes and I was just about to throw the "peed-on-stick" away, when a pink shadow caught my eye... I spent the whole day sitting at my desk, looking that suspicious line, trying to convince myself that it probably was an optical illusion but praying for it to be a positive! Repeating the test was mandatory for a now paranoid me! So, the next morning I did the other test of the pack... Another shadow! A little bit darker that the first one and appeared still within the 3 minutes!!!
"Ovitrelle", I thought....

The case is that this medication lingers in the body for up to 10 days and gives false negatives when a test is performed too early. I had to wait... And I did!
The following tests were performed on day 10 post inyection: positive! Darker lines this time! But still was not to be oficially announced to the Daddy until the alleged day of the missing period.

I have to confess I'm not the best dealing with suspense. Physically I didn't feel bad at all! I was tired, with some cramping from time to time and sore breasts, but nothing else. Mentally was a different story. I felt nervous and anxious, but above all, I have no idea what was going through my mind. I was nearly crashed into on a roundabout for the lack of attenion I was paying to the road! I became extremely forgetful! (not that I've got the best memory ever, but imagine bad memory times 100!).
By the end of week 4, I decided to break the news to the father of the pea!
In preparation for this event, I went shopping on Saturdat for what I though could be a good idea and a good "clue" for the mistery I was just about to reveal... If you are thinking dummies and mittens, think again!, I went to Waterstones (a book shop) and got "A Bloke's Guide to Pregnancy"! as the perfect dad-to-be gift!

The next morning, on Sunday 01 February 2009, I woke up really early (which was not a difficult thing since, although tired and sleepy, I would get up in the middle of the night to go for a pee and after that was very hard to get to sleep again!), wrapped the book with a fresh test stucked on its side, and woke him up...

Despite my image of his reaction being similar to that out of "Knocked up"(which you can watch on the video link), and still waiting for the punch line, Frazer just went pale and cold... Mute... And after a while, he asked: "are you pregnant?" to which I responded (with obvious tears) "yes, I am!"... The hug didn't come immediately after telling the news... For that I had to wait for the shock to go away... That day passed in slow motion...

Briefly...

As every story, this one has a beginning... It started a long long time ago, maybe more than I can remember... It started with my dolls, my barbies, my drawings, my practical jokes of stuffing a pillow inside my overalls and going out pretending to be a pregnant teenager... The desire of becoming a mum has always been inside...

When I got married, I was not in a rush for a baby... I wanted to make things right, to enjoy with my husband, to make the best out of our first years... However, the biological clock started ticking a little bit louder and I could hear nothing else...

Things have not been that easy... And somehow I knew it was going to be a difficult journey, probably because of my awareness of having PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome). The months became years. Nobody that has not been through a similar experience knows how bitter are the tears and how deep is the pain of looking around and finding that all friends and family we surrounded by newborn babies and that half of the population you know was pregnant...
Hope is hard to keep when you've tried all sort of treatments and your body refuses to cooperate... Eventually, a place was made available for us on the waiting list for IVF... Until...