Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • And we’re off to see the Wizard!

    Or more correctly, the geneticists at the Hospital.

    My GP who admitted straight away that he didn’t know anything about EDS – and then asked me how to spell it so he could google it – was a little hesitant to agree that I may or may not have EDS, because there is normally a family history associated with it.

    That is, until my Dad* stepped in and mentioned that him and both his sisters had all had very similar symptoms as teenagers and that one of my aunts still suffers from CFS like symptoms.

    All of us with no solid diagnosis. Although that may have something to do with the fact that Dad and his sisters were never taken to the doctor for any of this.

    What can I say, my Gran is a bit … strange – and not in a good way.

    So, once my doctor heard that there was indeed a strong family history of similar symptoms (Gran was sick as a teenager too and as an adult, although Dad says she whines so much about everything you never know what is really going on) he was more inclined to believe that EDS is a distinct possibility.

    And we’re back on the medical roundabout in the hope that something shows up this time. Sigh. I have no idea how long it will take for me to get seen because as of next week all the clinics at the hospital will be taking 2-3 weeks off. My doctor isn’t hopeful for an appointment being before the baby arrives, but hey, maybe that is for the best.

    I had to laugh, the doctor mentioned that ‘I would have thought that if one has EDS and is super stretchy, that child-birth wouldn’t be super easy’. He did look slightly abashed when I told him that I didn’t have a hard time birthing Amy at all. I wasn’t game to mention the fact that my Aunt had one of her babies in her own bed just as the Ambulance arrived. Yeah, we don’t have trouble birthing babies at all.

    Not to mention the fact that I ended up at the physio for a pelvis that was separating and twisting about 10 weeks earlier than it should have. (Pelvis has been hurting for about a month+ now for anyone counting down the weeks and wondering why I said 10 weeks when I have only 6 weeks ish left to go).

    Oh yeah, only 12 more sleeps until Christmas! Have you got it all together yet? (I don’t).

    And that horrid baby widget thing that I refuse to put on my sidebar, but still occasionally check on with my due date tells me that I only have 40 more days until my due date. We’re on the count down now baby.

    —

    *Dad had an appointment at the same time, so I asked him to come in with me while I talked to the doctor. I suspected that the doctor probably wouldn’t take me seriously unless I had Dad there to mention about him and my aunts and whoa, I was correct.

  • Just Checking

    Just upgraded to WP 2.7 and am just checking that everything still works okay.

    Ignore me over here, okay?

  • Also…

    Also, I forgot to mention, I have a guest post up over at Jenni’s today! She’s just about to give birth to her second baby any moment now. Unfortunately, after planning a home birth, her baby flipped breech in late November and has since refused to turn. She is now 40w5 days pregnant and OH so ready to be done.

    Head on over to read about my stresses for giving birth to #2 (which incidentally, is only 6 weeks away now).

    AND… it’s only 14 more sleeps until Christmas. Are you panicking yet?

    Anyway, here is the link directly to my post, go read!

  • Physio

    Right, so Monday I had an appointment first with my midwife and then later that afternoon, with a physiotherapist specialising in pregnancy.

    The baby is fine, still measuring quite small, but the midwife is confident that he is healthy, just a little below average. Honestly, as the person who is intending on pushing this baby out through my vagina, smaller than average suits me fine. Amy was ‘smaller than average’ and yet she was a completely healthy weight. I have been told not to expect a baby any bigger than Amy and really, I can deal with that. Healthy is all I care about.

    Plus, I have enough clothes in the teeny sizes to not really want a huge baby.

    The physio was … interesting. It was meant to be a class, only the other girl booked didn’t show up.

    According to the physio, all my pelvic and hip pain stems from the fact that the right side of my pelvis has twisted anterior, while the left side of my pelvis is normal. She realigned my pelvis and then gave me a sex-ay pelvic brace to wear to keep everything in position.

    So.

    We talked a little about my CFS and the condition of my muscles and joints which are in her words ‘the worst muscles and joints I have ever felt’. Apparently all my joints and the muscles/ligaments holding them together are very weak and not in great condition.

    Even better? She doesn’t think that any of this is related to my pregnancy at all, she feels that it is all related to my “CFS” and has been aggravated by my pregnancy.

    My CFS was never ‘formally’ diagnosed. It was what my GP told me I had after 2 years of tests and bloods showed nothing conclusive. It was what everything boiled down to when I was still sick and nothing could be found.

    I got put in the ‘too hard’ basket.

    Chronic Fatigue Syndrome though, generally has disappeared between 2-5 years after the onset. This February I will have been sick for 7 years without any change.

    A while ago when Mum blogged about everything, Bendy Girl emailed Mum to ask if I had ever been tested for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome [I hadn’t] because my symptoms sounded very similar to EDS. We never thought that much about it because my joint pain and other issues were always talked about as secondary to my fatigue and nausea.

    However, with the Physio having said what she did, it brought EDS back into something that may be a possibility.

    I went and did some research into the symptoms of EDS and wouldn’t you believe it, I agree with just about every symptom.

    • skin that bruises or tears easily? Check [I permananently look like Nathan is beating me in my sleep]
    • wounds take a long time to heal? Check – [We won’t talk about the fact that it took me 12 months to heal from the episiotomy I got when Amy was born or that I have to take lots of Vitamin C in order to get anything to heal properly at all]
    • stretchy rubber band like skin? Check [You should see the skin on the back of my hands and elbows stretch. I just thought I was weird!]
    • loose unstable joints causing frequent dislocations [My knees both have dislocated, my left knee spends all it’s time threatening to and my elbows always want to pop out as well]
    • joint problems and pain [Aleve anti-inflammatories used to be my friend, until I got pregnant and couldn’t take them any more.]
    • double jointedness [my wrists, ankles, fingers, shoulders and hips all bend in ways other peoples don’t]

    I can do this with my wrist

    And this is my foot when I sit on the floor with my legs extended and foot relaxed.

    Yes, I curled my toes up, it’s cold here today and I had to take my socks off to photograph. Heh.

    I can also do this, but I can’t photograph while I do it, so I stole this photo from Bendy’s site.

    At this stage, I’m still speculating and worrying, but coupled with everything else, it seems like it could be a possibility, especially as almost every photo I have seen of EDS causes me to say ‘but I can do that too’.

    So, I’m off to my GP Friday to see what he has to say and to get a referral to a specialist who knows about these kind of disorders.

    And frankly? The whole thing scares me.

  • Stretchmarks and all

    Well, here are my 33 week photos (33+1 if you are counting down as assiduously as I am), taken stretchmarks and all. I figure that taking the shots with a t-shirt covering my belly seems to give a skewed view of how big (or small, depending on who you are) I am.

    Prior to the photos, lets all talk about stretchmarks.

    I got hardly any stretchmarks on my belly when I was pregnant with Amy. The one or two I did get all appeared in the 2 days before I gave birth to her, so post partum I was pretty much stretchmark free. On my belly at least. My breasts? Well let’s just say that I’m was counting the stripes of real skin left on them by the time I gave birth to her.

    If you are considering not breastfeeding because you are worried about what it will do to your breasts, I am here to tell you – Do not be such an arse! Pregnancy changes your tits heaps more than breastfeeding ever will. If nothing else, breastfeeding at least left me comfortable with my post baby boobs because god knows I had them out of my top more than they were ever in it.

    The rest of me didn’t escape unscathed either, I got stretchmarks behind my knees (seriously what is up with that? My legs didn’t gestate a baby) and all over my hips and bum. I even got 3 very pretty ones right at the base of my spine. You know that spot where all the teenage girls are getting tattoos done? Yep, right there. Oh the sexy. Hehe.

    But even in all my stretchmarkiness, I was proud of the fact my tummy was mostly unscathed.

    Then I got pregnant with a second baby.

    And now? I’m laughing at my old self the whole time I rub Vitamin E cream into my belly.

    Every single stretchmark I have on my belly now has generated from one I got with Amy. Most of them I didn’t even know I had prior to them growing. This time around my tummy is looking less than unscathed, but my boobs? Well they must have been stretched to their limits already because I’m not seeing anything new appearing there.

    Let’s not talk about the backs of my legs though. Let’s just say I doubt I will be barelegged in public for a long long time. Stockings all the way baby.

    Anyway, I digress. I promised photos right?

    Here you go!

    I think I’m covering the worst of them with my hand. Not to mention I still have another 7 weeks to go! To be honest, I’m not in the slightest bit worried about them, except for the fact that they itch like a motherfucker and who wants to be wandering around in public scratching themselves? Not me. I’m using lots of moisturizing cream, but it doesn’t seem to help the itching. Next step? Amy’s all natural eczema cream. Just as soon as I find whereabouts it has been put.

    The other side, minus my hand. I took this one by myself using the mirror in the bedroom to see what I was doing. Nathan gets the photo credit for the one with my head in it.

    Hmmm, I seem to have stretchmarks I haven’t even seen yet. God knows that I can’t see my vagina anymore. Which leads me to my next bit of advice. If you can’t see something FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT TRY AND SHAVE IT. Not unless your razor has guidewires (my new one doesn’t). Not unless you want to be wishing for soothing aloe cream every single time you pee for the next 24 hours.

    Thank me later, okay?

    Oh and my gorgeous daughter. How could I not throw in a photo of her?

    She is completely unimpressed by the idea of me having a baby. She refuses to look at my stomach anymore and won’t even let me talk about the baby. Any mentions of a baby brother or a baby in my belly are met with an adamant SHHHHH Mummy! and her pulling my top down to tell me ‘All done!’.

    Poor kid, her world is going to be blown apart. Hehe. I think she will cope quite well with it though, she is reasonably gentle with other people’s babies and has only just decided to take issue with her cousin since her cousin learnt to walk – her cousin just turned 1.

    Apparently babies are okay when they are lump like and useless. Walking talking babies who take the attention away from Miss I’m The Centre Of The Universe? Not so much. Probably a good thing that we will have a few months of crying lumpdom for Amy to get used to her brother.

    In other pregnancy news (aka – how I’m feeling news) I have an apointment with a physiotherapist this coming week in order to try and address my pelvic pain that makes rolling over in bed/putting socks/underwear/pants/shoes on/walking etc excruciating. Most days I am okay and can function, but some days all I want to do is sit with a heat pack on my pelvis and never move again. The Midwife is hopeful that the Physio will be able to suggest something. Personally I think the only thing that is going to fix it will be giving birth, but that’s neither here nor there. I plan to ask the physio about my separated tummy muscles and how to help them heal or reattach to each other or whatever they need to do to be normal again after the baby comes.

    [Coming to a pregnant woman near you, ALIEN BELLY BUTTONS! Feel your baby kick with just a thin layer of skin and uterine muscle between you! Freak your partner out by asking him to press your belly button and him feeling nothing behind it! Try to convince your gestating baby that your belly button is NOT the exit and he should not kick you there! Good times my friends, good times. You can have all this and more when your stomach muscles separate during pregnancy too!]

    The baby continues to be completely ambivialent about what position he lays in. He’s mostly head down, but sort of sideways and sometimes he spins in circles before stopping to hiccup and kick me in the bladder. He seems to enjoy long sucks on his toes and wiggling just enough to stop me falling asleep. I anticipate that I’m not going to sleep the whole night through for another 2 years, but hey, my blog isn’t called Sleepless Nights for nothing.

    [And before you ask, no Amy does not sleep through the night regularly. We maybe get 2 nights a week where she doesn’t sleep too badly, but mostly I am up to her 1-2 times a night for nightmares or thirstiness or just plain needing mummy. We’re getting there though]

    So really, that just about sums up the last few weeks. We’re planning on moving the bedrooms around this weekend so that Nathan and I have a bedroom that a cot will actually fit into and god knows I’m starting to feel antsy about getting things together. I want Amy to see the cot and get used to it so that it isn’t a big deal later. Plus with Christmas coming in the very middle of the next 7 weeks (actually it’s 20 days away, but who is counting) I expect that January 22nd will roll around incredibly fast.