Pregnant. Finally.

16 weeks

by Veronica on March 17, 2012

So, sixteen weeks.

There’s not a lot of anything new to update. The nausea and exhaustion continue, as does the expansion of my uterus.

My joints have gone to shit and I succeeded in sleeping badly last night, waking up with my left shoulder fully dislocated. I’m sort of glad that I was half asleep relocating it, because I don’t remember much, except that it hurt and all of the muscles around it were spasming.

The muscles in my neck are swollen this morning and my shoulder blades ache, but that is nothing unusual.

Still no weight gain, but I seem to have stopped the weight loss, finally. Eating is becoming easier, provided I don’t forget to take the maxalone and my EDS nausea doesn’t flare (which involves remembering to take my PPI medication every morning).

Apparently the baby this week is the size of an avocado, which merely makes me crave avocado and toast and doesn’t speak to me of a baby kicking around in there.

Oh! And movement – from the small flutters I’ve been getting, we’ve transitioned upwards to definite pokes, some of which can be felt externally. Amy is very eager to feel the baby kick and I’m hoping I can indulge her in the next few weeks.

Isaac however just wants to kiss and pat my stomach, which is very cute at lunchtime and not so cute 30 minutes after he’s been put to bed.

My breasts are huge (you can see me trying to contain them) and starting to leak. This I find incredibly unfair – I didn’t have to deal with randomly leaking breasts until I was 7 months along with both other children, so what the hell body?

Yet again, I can repeat that despite the nausea, exhaustion and broken joints, this is my least eventful pregnancy.

It’s a bit bizarre, in a good way.

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On pregnancy, listeria and being risk aware

by Veronica on February 20, 2012

in Pregnant. Finally., Soapbox

We’ve all heard about the dangers of Listeria, supposedly lurking in every single piece of cold food that you didn’t prepare by hand, yourself. No soft cheeses, no restaurant salads, no uncooked egg based sauces, no ham, salami or other deli meats and certainly certainly no sushi.

Today I made sushi using smoked salmon and I enjoyed every single mouthful of it. The benefit to eating something that I felt like eating, for me, far outweighed the minuscule risks associated with eating a cold prepared food.

Listeria is a food poisoning. It isn’t a bacteria that is present in all cold food – no, it’s food poisoning that can potentially grow in cold prepared food and is killed by heating. You’ve probably got more chance of contracting salmonella than contracting listeria on any given day.

And yet, I find that as soon as I’m pregnant, there is this Listeria Hysteria that surrounds every mouthful of food I eat. Does that contain ham? Has that lettuce been washed and stored properly? Is that egg cooked through entirely?

I’m just a little bit sick of it. Especially considering if you’re hospitalised during your pregnancy, the hospital sends you up commercially prepared ham salad sandwiches for lunch anyway and the midwives don’t bat an eyelid.

Pregnant women seem to become public property. Everyone suddenly has a say in what we’re putting into our bodies and it’s getting a bit ridiculous. I’ve already given up a lot of things in order for this pregnancy to progress safely, I don’t particularly feel like giving up all cold foods too.

My baby might die from listeria – but also, I might get hit by a car tomorrow. Or a truck might crash into my bedroom. Or I might fall down a flight of stairs.

I don’t think it’s about being frightened, so much as it’s about being risk aware. If I prepare sushi at home, using ingredients I trust, in a clean environment, then my chances of listeria are probably smaller than my chances of contracting salmonella, or breaking my nose walking into a wall (very real possibility).

This is my fourth pregnancy and hopefully our third baby. Any number of things could go wrong yet. My chances of pre-term labour are higher than normal, my pelvis might fall apart, I might dislocate a hip and end up hospitalised. I might get an infection (again) and land in hospital for a week (again).

Anything could happen, but provided I am careful, I am doubtful that it is going to contain listeria.

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12 week update and asking advice

by Veronica on February 18, 2012

in Pregnant. Finally.

Twelve weeks. Yes, really, I’ve managed to hit the milestone that is meant to herald the start of pregnancy being amazing. You know, for all those normal people out there.

I was going to crop out most of the garden, but I thought some people might like to check out the edging of green. I had to change the angle of this photo from the last one, because my tomatoes have grown too high to be seen over. (Tomatoes in bottom left corner) Behind me is the black currant and jostaberry bushes, getting ready to drop their leaves and in the bottom right corner is the flowering perpetual spinach. It makes the whole garden smell like honey.

So far this pregnancy I have lost 5kg (11lbs), which has sent my Ehlers Danlos into a spin.

Normally my EDS is managable, provided I don’t lose too much weight, but obviously I wasn’t able to control the weight loss, even with anti-nausea medication and here I am.

Basically this means that my gastic system has gone on strike, leaving me unable to eat a lot of foods. Dairy being the main culprit, with meat being close behind.

Now, my anti-nausea medication is excellent for controlling morning sickness and making life bearable, but it is less effective on EDS nausea, merely stopping me vomiting while I wait the waves of nausea out. Not vomiting is always a bonus, but I’d prefer I was able to actually eat things.

Even worse, being unable to digest dairy means that I have effectively lost most of the fat content of my diet. Rich food makes me unwell at the healthiest of times and I’m left wondering what on earth I can eat to stop the weight loss and keep myself relatively healthy. Any ideas? Currently I’m living mostly on fresh fruit and crackers.

I recently bought a trail mix of dried fruit, seeds and nuts and have been snacking on that, but there is a limit and I’m afraid that my body is going to pull the same trick it pulled with Amy’s pregnancy, which left me incredibly unwell for the entire nine months and a good 10kg underweight.

So, there’s that.

On the upside, aside from the nausea and weight loss, this has been the least eventful pregnancy I’ve had, with only a tiny bit of spotting at 5 weeks and not a single drop of blood afterwards. A huge improvement from the pregnancy with Isaac, that included bleeding through all three trimesters.

Frankly, I am a little surprised at the lack of bleeding, knowing that there was a large patch of blood inside my uterus at my ultrasound. But I’m certainly not complaining about it.

No real food cravings, unless you count the fact that I want to stab everyone who mentions sushi or sashimi. I swear, I would kill for some sashimi right now.

And finally, I’m pretty sure I felt the baby move, which seems to be following the same path as the other two kids, both of whom I felt at around 12 weeks.

I guess there are benefits to being underweight, because the first thing I thought was “Thank God you’re not dead.”

Bonus.

Did you have any food issues while you were pregnant? How did you manage these?

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The state of the uterus: 9 weeks

by Veronica on January 29, 2012

in Pregnant. Finally.

Does anyone else find the comparing of fetuses to food objects creepy? “This week, your baby is the size of a large GRAPE!”

I’m sorry, a grape? REALLY? Is that the best you can do?

It’s creepy.

Things since I talked about the pregnancy last time:

I continue to manage my nausea with anti-nausea tablets and I have not thrown up for a while, if we don’t count the retching out of my bedroom window the other day. If I forget a tablet however, I am in dire straits, needing to take myself to bed with a bucket immediately.

I’ve lost 3kgs since falling pregnant this time, but my weight is still above 60kgs, making this my healthiest pregnancy yet. (With Amy, I fell pregnant at 60kgs and gave birth weighing 57kgs. With Isaac, I lost 6kgs in the first trimester. Yay for managed nausea!)

I ate three thin slices of sausage last night and felt … okay. It appears my meat aversion may be limited to beef, chicken and blowjobs. A piece of lamb on Australia day upset my stomach pretty badly, even thought it tasted great. It might have been because it was the first non-fish protein that I had eaten since the wedding.

My blood pressure is driving me mad, sitting somewhere just above dead and making me race for the extra salty potato chips in order to bring it back up above “please don’t let me pass out in the supermarket” levels.

Exhaustion remains, mostly because I am sick of feeling so fucking sick. I was pregnant, I miscarried, and then promptly fell pregnant again, not giving my body any time off. Fourteen weeks cannot come soon enough (although if this pregnancy is anything like Isaac’s, there will be slight nausea easing after 10 weeks. I can only hope.)

Really, that’s it. Everything else is pretty normal – except my breasts.

Have I talked about the massive breast expansion of this pregnancy?

WOW. I am overflowing out of all of my bras, despite moving up a cup size just before getting pregnant (for the first time). I remember the painful aching accompanying this from Isaac’s pregnancy, but considering I conceived him only shortly after weaning Amy, there wasn’t much my breasts could do. This time, they’re HUGE.

I have awesome cleavage right now.

I’m just saying, there are some perks to feeling so crappy.

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Things I had forgotten about pregnancy

by Veronica on January 14, 2012

in Pregnant. Finally.

1: Morning sickness is just as bad as EDS nausea, but it doesn’t ease with sleep and when I’m not actively wanting to vomit, I am always slightly queasy.

2: My body gets confused easily and forgets what it ought to be doing – things like regulating blood pressure and keeping my internal core temperature stable are optional, apparently.

3: An embryo the size of my fingernail takes a remarkable amount of energy to keep alive.

4: My stomach gets very large very fast in the first few weeks and then doesn’t grow so much between 14 weeks and 25 weeks. See below, photos from the pregnancy with Isaac in 2008: