Here's looking at you kid

So we had a scan to see what the placenta was doing and we got to see the baby- hard not to. Amazing to see their wee face. They had the hands all clenched ready for the hitting of my kidneys which is what they are doing every night!!!! Fun. But it is great that they are doing such a lot. I think that is their hands at the front of the photo but I am not really sure. They were a bit squished to see whether they are a boy or a girl but I have a feeling that it is a boy. Mothers intuition and all. I am sitting on 100% as I was sure that Molly was a girl!!!

My counsellor has returned to work. I am not sure how she is managing as her baby is only 3 months old, but it is good news for me. This week has been pretty hard. I am 31 weeks so it was hard not to relive what happened at this point with Molly. Got married this day, had a bbq this day and tomorrow she would have been born. I think that it is timely that my counsellor returned as my head was/is really in a pretty bad spot. I had not seen her for just over 3 months and it is amazing how quickly I had reverted back to negative and really highly strung thinking. 35 years of conditioning is pretty hard to break it would seem. The scary thing was that I did not even notice.

She said that I have a choice to stay with my thinking really elevated or to try and bring it down. SO much easier said than done. So I am going to take the hard road and try and get it sorted. The main reason I want to do this as I really don't want Molly to learn my bad habits. I would hate for her conditioning to be that there is nothing to trust in the world and that you are really just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

 I remember being really worried about passing on anxiety when I was pregnant. Molly has a pretty big genetic loading for anxiety from both sides of her family and I really wanted to make sure that her nurture compensated for that. I also really did not want to put my shit on her. But slowly it is creeping in. This is just life and I have to give myself a break that I am not a failure as a mother but I do need to step it up when it comes to seeing what effect my dealing or not dealing with stuff has on her.  And how she effects me, as I really do not what to be the person that I was before she was born.... Highly strung going round in circles.

I am on weekly monitoring for bp and pee now which is good. The baby will be fine now that we have reached 32 weeks. Every day is a bonus and it will be weird to be in new territory. I am thinking that there was a lot of this pregnancy that I have looked back and thought what happened with Molly. As of Tuesday I will not be able to do.... Exciting.

Anyway John and I are off for coffee. Making the most of Grandma whilst she is here as it looks like she will be off in about 3 weeks. Yikes.

Thinking of all the high risk pregnant woman and the neonatal people!!!!

So I am on a bit of a high. A bp reading at 31 weeks of 110/70. This is close to what I get when I am not pregnant. I never thought that this would happen. I am not sure what has happened to my head but it seems pretty clear. The chances of having this baby in a week are small if that. Then we are in unchartered territory. What will it feel like to be 35 weeks pregnant? I have no idea!!!!! Good I suspect.

I suppose that I have just let go a few things as well. I have no control over what is going to happen. If the baby comes early then there is nothing that I can do to stop that BUT I can have control over how it effects me... in a way. This comes back to old stuff having an effect on what is happening now but I feel that we are heading to very familiar territory once we hit 32 weeks. It cannot be a shock as it was with Molly. I am more prepared and I think that the baby is stronger so that if it does come early then the chances of complications are less. It is not like at 23 weeks. Touch and go. And not to say that there won't be a curve ball but the chances are lower and I am liking the good odds. And curve balls are just life I suppose.

I am not sure how I got my head in a better space. Went and had a massage and came out feeling like a different woman. Had gone in feeling like the world was about to end and my thoughts were in a real tumble but now seems ok. At the moment I am only speaking for today. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. And I have to expect that there are good and bad days. That is normal.

The one thing that is making me slightly sad as I head to 32 weeks is that I could not give Molly longer in utero. She had such a hard start and I know that this is her journey but it does make me feel sad. All the things that she had to go through.... man she has shown me strength!!!!!

Anyway thoughts to neonatal and high risk pregnancy peoples.

dust is settling

Last week we went to Adelaide. 1- to get Molly's belly button hernia repaired and 2 to see an ob to get a second opinion about if we should be doing anything differently in this pregnancy.

The repair of Molly's hernia was pretty horrible. She is such a trooper and takes things on the chin (she has had such a lot of things to take on the chin) but it was really hard to watch her go through yet another thing. She had a wee pre-med before the surgery and it was kind of funny as she looked drunk. She was in fits of laugher in the pre op as a helium balloon was touching the ceiling. It was a bit of a different story afterwards. I was lying on her bed and I said to John " I think that it is her coming" as you could hear her crying as she was brought down the corridor ( from quite a way away). It was horrible for her.

 She just could not settle and was kicking and crying and we all felt so helpless.  Finally we were able to get her to sleep and when she woke up a while later she was back to herself but in a bit of pain. This time was a bit different for me as I had John and Mum there. Usually it is just me there which is ok, you just get down to business but with 3 and her being so distressed I think that we all felt surplus. I have my fingers and toes crossed that we do not have to go through anything again for a very long time. For Molly. I really do think that she has been through enough!!!

For the second reason we saw the Dr and he was a bit condescending to start off with. Starting going on that we should think of the glass as half full not half empty and that nothing might happen this pregnancy. He totally did not get it. So we stuck at it and finally he gave us some figures that we need to keep in mind. Said that if my Bp goes up by 15 points systolically or diastolically then it is to get re-checked again that day and if it is still up then again the next day. He talked us through protein in the pee and what that would mean at each stage and what it would mean if there was no protein in the pee but an elevated bp. Said that we would not be getting any different service in a metro area and both John and I came away thinking that we were actually getting better service where we are. Our midwife is great and is very respectful to what we are going through and the choices that we make. This guy was almost at bullying stage at the end of the consult for me to go and get a gestational diabetes test done. John and I were like... our daughter is about to have surgery.... give us a freaking break.

Anyway my head is a lot calmer this week. I never thought that I would say (and I am slightly nervous to say) but I am kind of over it. I just want to lie on my stomach at night, and not to worry about things however slightly or consumingly and to meet the wee fella. I really hope that we make it to 37 weeks and I hope that the next weeks go really fast. I am ready for the next stage (which I am sure will be less sleep or no sleep and chaos!!!)

Thoughts going out to neonate and high risk pregnancy women.

Dummy Run

Last week was quite full on.
I had some pain which to me was the same that I had when Molly was born. So I did the appropriate thing and did nothing for a couple of days, then it got to much and I rang the unit. They said that it needed to be checked out so I got a friend to mind Molly and went to the unit (I find that having Molly at the appointments makes it SO stressful). They basically gave me the run around. Said that my obs were good and as the pain was on the left side then I should go and see my G.P. It was really annoying that my midwife was not there and it seems that if she is not there then the care is going to be dodgy!!!!

I had told them that when I had hellp that the pain was on the left side... Who knows why, pressure from my liver on other organs is the only thing that I can think of.

So that got us worried. Are we doing the right thing by being here? There was such a discussion when we were thinking of getting pregnant. Do we stay here? Do we wait longer? Do we do this at all?? We are SO happy with our midwife. She is great but am are worried as she cannot be there 24/7 for us just incase something happens. hhhhmmmm

I went and saw her last night and she had obviously had some mention of what had happened as the first thing that she said was "what is your version of event?". The thing I stressed and that she got was that I do not seek out help easily. I went to work the day that Molly was born thinking that everything was ok....

Anyway I did end up going to see the G.P. I was not going to but the anxiety got the better of me and it was just intercostal pain. I think that we have a bit of a big baby getting grown!!!
I think that our plan will be that if my midwife is not available then we will head to the G.P. They are lovely. I am not going to go to a place that does not take my concerns seriously.

So the figures from last night are ok but not that great. BP had to be done twice. First read 128/90 then 10 minutes later it was 137/84. At least the diastolic came down. These are pretty high numbers for me. I usually sit around 110/60 so am trying really hard not to get too anxious about it. I am glad that I do not have a bp cuff here as I would be checking it every 5 minutes which I think would be worse. I am hoping that this stays stable. My midwife thinks that it is ok as I had these figures at the beginning. Might just be my pregnant bp. It is funny with anxiety. I have been checking out the pre-eclampsia website heaps which is really cool. Nice to find people that have been through the same thing. You can see the anxiety jumping off the page with some women's blogs and it is funny because I will think "man you just need to do this, and RELAX" and then I think hang on that was me a day ago. It is SO hard to divorce yourself from the anxiety when you get triggered. Maybe this is my lesson from this pregnancy. To be honest, I don't care at the moment. I just want to make it to 32 weeks and then 35. PLEASE!!!! But I keep telling myself that I have no control over this and what happens will happen. Sometimes easier said than done!!!!!
My mum is coming tomorrow and I am really excited about it. I think that this may have a dramatic effect on the outcome of my pregnancy. I can rest as much as I can. YAY.
Anyway take care. Better go and get Molly.
Thinking of all the neonates and hoping that we are not going to join them soon.

Did lose it slightly

So after writing that I was all zen and that I was not going to worry about what was going to happen with this pregnancy, I promptly went off and started to worry. In fact I got myself all worked up. It was one of those occasions when it just seemed to get out of my grasp.
I went and borrowed a bp cuff from my friend and was measuring my bp constantly for a bit and then worrying when the numbers came back the same. I got really fixated on the numbers....
I am sure that if this was happening to a friend of mine when I would be saying whoa back girl. It is all looking pretty good. But I could not step back from myself and do this.
The negative and the positive parts of my brain were really going for it. I would try and think positively and then whammo there would be a negative thought come in and I would be off again. I don't think that there seemed to be a point to the worry and so I asked myself many times.... WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??
And then I started to try and look at things that were good in my life so that every time I thought of something negative, I would think of something good. It might be that the trees look pretty, that Molly is totally cool, that I have the perfect husband and slowly the positive took over.
I also thought that there are aspects that I need to get control over so that if I am in a situation where I feel that I have no control then I have control over the bits that I can. I cannot control if I have a prem but  I can be more involved and have control over other aspects of my care than I was with Molly. Namely the first 24 hours post birth. So I have written a plan that I will print out and keep in my wallet so that if the worst should occur then I know I have thought about the stuff that I want to happen and can just give the paper to the carers. Then I feel like I have got some control in a situation that I have no control over.
Sorted.
I have been following a woman's blog that had hellp at 28 weeks with her first child and she is about to have her second child. I am SO excited for her. I do not even know her and will probably never meet her but it is SO amazing to see someone go on and have a term baby, especially when she had hellp worse than me. YEAH!!!! I felt like jumping up and down and the thought that she had made it. Hopefully it will be us next!!!!
Take care
xx

It is a done deal

John has finished his course. THANK GOODNESS. It is amazing how 1 course can put so much extra stress in the house. Now if I don't feel like getting Molly to sleep at night I do not feel immensely guilty about getting John to do it. I think that we are now in the calm before the next storm.

My mother in law has been here for the last 2 weeks and went home yesterday. It was really nice to have an extra pair of hands on board and the sleep ins were ace. There is always an interesting relationship between a mother in law and a daughter in law. I just did not feel like I could tell her what to do despite her  asking. Seemed a bit bossy to do that.  It is not like with your own family. My mother is coming over in 2 weeks and I think that she is quite used to me bossing her around. I think that she would find it quite strange if I did not ( she might find it a pleasant change though!!!)

I went and saw the midwife today. I think that every time that I see her I think, man she is cool. Totally what I need. She listens to what I have to say and then reacts in such a good way.

I have been having some pain in my left upper quadrant and I was getting worried as this was were I got pain when I had Molly. I think that I must be the only person that had pain on their left not right hand side... Anyway that was getting me worried. She thinks that the baby is lying in a way that its' feet would be up there so that is cool.
We talked about me getting worried about whether hellp will happen again and she basically said there is no point worrying about it. And she is right. I think that I read somewhere that if you are going to get pre-eclampsia then it starts when you are 8 weeks pregnant.... I am not sure how reliable that is but essentially it starts when the placenta is getting embedded so by this stage it probably is a done deal. Either way. By worrying about it all it does is give me more stress, make my bp go up and make me not enjoy this pregnancy. It might end tomorrow and this WILL be the last time that I am going to get pregnant. So I am going to write this on my fridge as this is where I write the things that I need to remind myself to do. I started doing this when I was getting counseling and I found it really helpful. Poor John used to come home and see "Let the control go" and all sorts of wee gems on the fridge. I am so lucky to have such an ace husband.

Anyway the numbers are 137/79 which is slightly higher than I would like but I am sure that it will go down now that we have the house to ourselves and John's test is over. I love getting visitors but it can be nice when they go as well.
Pee is good.
My midwife has ordered some bloods so that will be good to see how all is going inside.
Anyway, thoughts to neonate parents. I am off to write on the fridge!!!

Getting those pesky thoughts under control.

First things first.... well done the all whites. Man talk about beating the odds. I hope that they can get further!!!!
Things have been cruising. John's mum is over and it is going to be hard when she goes. Luckily my mother comes over 2 weeks after her so there is only a wee time that there is not an extra pair of hands in the house. Also John will have stopped studying by that time (bring on Thursday) so that will be at least one stress off. Aaaahhhh family weekends. I am looking forward to them.
But at the moment I get a sleep in every morning which is BLISS. I am getting pretty tired but I am sure that this is because I am fighting a wee cold. Molly had it last week and John and I have it this week.
Whenever I get any symptom that reminds me of what happened with Molly then it is all panic stations. With my swelling and now a bit of tiredness I am like OMG is this the start of the end???? I really don't mind if I was to have another prem, I would just like it to be at or around 32 weeks. I am not sure how I would handle it if I was to have a prem that was younger. I know of people that have had kids at 28-29 weeks and the kids are great. It is just that it is not my comfort zone. I suppose 32 weeks was not either until I had a child born at that gestation age.
So we will see. Everyday is a bit of a battle not to let the scared thoughts get on top of me. And then everyday that goes past is another day that the baby is on the right side and I am well.
I get really excited about this baby at times. It is something that I never had time for with Molly. I suppose that it is pretty cool that I can find some normal feelings amongst it all.
I am going to see the midwife again next week. I think that at 28 weeks I start to go weekly. Not sure if I want to start that after next week. I will think about it over the week.
Anyway thoughts to the neonate parents and babies. It is past my bedtime!!!