with my beloved daughter sitting on my lap, giving me kisses and cuddles.
I am the luckiest person alive.
I am off to enjoy it.
Sunday 18 May 2008
Friday 16 May 2008
And the other post...
These images are a bit out of order... but ah well.
I have recently, with the small patch of lovely weather we have had, discovered a park not far from where we are living. I set out on Tuesday with the intent to take the kids for a walk, and I was wanting to find one of the lovely maples that we can see out the upstairs windows to make use of all the lovely autumn leaves.
As it turns out, all those lovely trees are actually on peoples properties, not on the parklands that cross about 4 blocks just down the road (mostly tree edged sports fields). But in searching I did find the playground tucked behind some tennis courts. With the kids it takes about 10 minutes to walk there (that is travelling at a 2 1/2 year olds pace) Given how hilly the area is, it is actually a reasonably comfortable walk... not flat, but nothing too steep either.
For this photo she was on someones nature strip. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the lighting was SO lovely - hence the orange hair. lol! (I bribed her with Tic Tacs to sit and look at the camera, so now whenever we are walking back from the park she will randomly sit down on the ground and say "I have Tic Tac please - I sitting down!" Oops.
Toby's first swing. He was completely obsessed with his sister, and would not look in my direction, no matter how much I called.
Oh, I made that beanie, too.
Toby on his half birthday. He was getting a bit tired, so he would not sit... but I was determined to get something. As per usual, using his forehead to lift his head up.
We have a yard full of these things... and Hannah is doing her part to ensure the seeds are well distributed so we will have many more to come.
Just playing in the back yard at our old house.
I love my Boganvillia. I will miss it when we sell the place. :-(
That is about it, really. Just a bunch of random photos for this one.
I have recently, with the small patch of lovely weather we have had, discovered a park not far from where we are living. I set out on Tuesday with the intent to take the kids for a walk, and I was wanting to find one of the lovely maples that we can see out the upstairs windows to make use of all the lovely autumn leaves.
As it turns out, all those lovely trees are actually on peoples properties, not on the parklands that cross about 4 blocks just down the road (mostly tree edged sports fields). But in searching I did find the playground tucked behind some tennis courts. With the kids it takes about 10 minutes to walk there (that is travelling at a 2 1/2 year olds pace) Given how hilly the area is, it is actually a reasonably comfortable walk... not flat, but nothing too steep either.
For this photo she was on someones nature strip. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the lighting was SO lovely - hence the orange hair. lol! (I bribed her with Tic Tacs to sit and look at the camera, so now whenever we are walking back from the park she will randomly sit down on the ground and say "I have Tic Tac please - I sitting down!" Oops.
Toby's first swing. He was completely obsessed with his sister, and would not look in my direction, no matter how much I called.
Oh, I made that beanie, too.
Toby on his half birthday. He was getting a bit tired, so he would not sit... but I was determined to get something. As per usual, using his forehead to lift his head up.
We have a yard full of these things... and Hannah is doing her part to ensure the seeds are well distributed so we will have many more to come.
Just playing in the back yard at our old house.
I love my Boganvillia. I will miss it when we sell the place. :-(
That is about it, really. Just a bunch of random photos for this one.
Thursday 15 May 2008
OK... a slight delay.
I kind of ran out of time to get back and finish the story. And TBH, I am not actually all that keen to. Thinking back over the time in the hospital, there were a lot of frustrations... all par for the course. But I find more than the upset of having a child in hospital for 3 weeks, I just feel angry when I remember the little things, the slip ups that set him back a little... All I wanted was to have Toby with me, and anything that held that up was downright devastating.
So I will be brief.
It was a while before I got to have him out of the SCN again. We had to wait for him to come off the glucose drip, and then for him to be weaned off the warmth of the isolette. That in all took about 2 1/2 times as long as it should, due to midswives forgetting to decrease the drip/temp at the right time... so instead of being about 12 hours, it took over a day. When you are desperately waiting for a chance to take your child and just cuddle them, without having them attached to drips, and having to remain in the SCN, with midwives watching over you... and when you are counting down the hours until you are sent home, away from your child before they are even a week old... Any delay was near unforgivable.
Finally he was allowed out. I begged the night staff for a chance to take him out, just for a few minutes before his next feed. I was given 20. 5 minutes later the morning staff came on, and came and collected him. As soon as he was gone I burst into tears. I had not even taken him out of his crib, because he was still asleep and not quite due for his feed. I was trying to be so good, and for it I was robbed of the chance to finally have a cuddle with him outside of the SCN.
Hmm... I did say I was a bit angry, didn't I. I will try to tone it down.
Anyway, after 5 days, I was discharged. Surprisingly, I coped quite well with that. I had devised a routine that never had us away from him for more than 2 feeds. Within about 2 days of being discharged, I was driving again. I did get permission from my GP... but as I was having such a good recovery, and with Toby in hospital, it just was too hard to wait it out.
A couple of days after I was discharged, Toby started to get snuffly, and came down with a cold. 2 days after that, his sister presented with it as well. In a round about way, a point was made about the fact that we had had her in the night before she got sick when she had a slight cough. We had not thought it was anything - just her being a little tired. I think what irritated me more, though, was that Toby was already sick at this point. We had no way of knowing that she was carrying anything when she showed no signs of being unwell.
The cold really set Toby back. He did not feed well, and that made it worse. We were only able to try a couple of suck feeds a day, and the rest was just straight down the NG tube. It. took. a. lifetime. before he was taking full bottles. Nearly 3 weeks, to be precise.
Most of the next couple of weeks was just a long monotony of going in and out of hospital. Hannah hated leaving her brother behind. She kept wanting to take him with us.
Once it became clear that Toby was going to be in for a little while, I mentioned something in passing to the Paed about how I would love to have him home for our anniversary, Dec 1st. By the last few days of November, he was getting close, but he was not quite ready to come home.
So the Paed arranged for Toby to take day leave for the day (completely off her own bat). It happens with SCN babies if there is a special event on... but not at our hospital. She had to really push to get the hospital to allow it. Apparently it was the first and last time they were going to allow it. She basically told them that she had already planned it with us, and that she just needed them to provide the form to sign him out.
It was a lovely day. We went home for a little while, and then we went out and had fish and chips in the park for dinner.
A couple of days later I was able to room in, and he was discharged the following day. We finally had our baby home. 3 weeks and 12 hours after he was born, still nearly 2 weeks before he was due.
There is a heap missing from that story... the jaundice (which he had until he was about 10 weeks or so), the blood tests... they seemed almost daily! But that is the bulk of it.
The child in question calls, though, so that is where it is ending for now. BBL with some stuff from the last couple of days.
Saturday 10 May 2008
This one is shorter... Or not
The weekend preceding the birth I was in and out of the hospital for monitoring. I had had a show, and was feeling quite crampy. My Ob loved having his patients hooked up to those monitor things at the slightest niggle. I saw the same midwife both times, and leaving the second visit she had said that from what she saw she did not think it was going to be long.
Monday. There I was, home from the shops, sitting on a towel (as was standard by that stage) the bed talking to DH. It was about 7.30pm.
I had just started to say something to DH, but got cut off (cos, naturally, what he said was more important) and while he was prattling, I felt the tell tale "pop" and then dampness. I politely waited until he had finished what he was saying before I piped up with... "Ummm... my waters just broke... I think... either that or incontinence has reached a new level..."
Now I do have to backtrack here a little (already). The thing I had been interrupted from saying. It was to go something like this...
"You know, this would be the perfect time of night for my waters to break, or me to go into labour. We could get Hannah down to bed, have mum come around to be with her, then go into the hospital, get everything sorted overnight, then in the morning, bring Hannah in to meet her new brother."
As always, Toby was desperate to obey.
As it happened, it did not quite go that smoothly. Hannah did not want to go to sleep. Given that we wanted to make the transition as gentle for her as possible, we just all packed up and went into the hospital together. DH saw me settled in, we were waiting for the Ob, the test that came back from the the towel looked to be amniotic fluid, but they were not 100% certain (the flow had stopped for the trip to the hospital, so there was none on the pad I was wearing). Meanwhile DH and Hannah headed home, put Hannah down to sleep, my mother went over, then DH came back into the hospital.
While he was gone the Ob arrived. They got me onto the bed (the midwife on at the time was actually the one who was at Hannah's delivery) and did some more tests to confirm that my waters had actually broken. Given the re-commencement of leaking as I was getting up, the tests were a bit unnecessary (It was decided that I had a hind water leak) Given all the issues, they called in the team for an emergency C/S.
Somewhere in all this Stuart arrived back, and while I was being prepared for the op, he was suited up in that lovely blue hospital gear.
So into the theatre, spinal block in (I think it was a spinal), and soon they were hacking away ready to FINALLY get that bloody baby out. I was actually extremely calm... more annoyed that I could not see anything of what was going on than anything else.
They cut through the layers, and when they got to the uterus and made the incision... well, with the amount of fluid I had there, there was a fair bit of pressure. It went all over the floor, and all over the Ob... and they still suctioned out another 4 litres. Wow.
I should add here that through the entire operation up to this point, my DH - my wonderful support person - was sitting talking to the Anaesthetist, about 1 1/2 meters back from the bed, leaning back in the chair. Naturally, a conversation about computers was far more important than the birth of your second child.
That said, I actually found it highly amusing, because it was just so bloody typical. In some ways it distracted me from the fact that I was laying on the table, unable to move...
Once that was all sorted, the baby was pulled out. 11.40. Had he been 20 minutes later, I would have had an extra day in hospital. *sigh*
Being prem, they first had to make sure that he was breathing fine on his own, and all that. He did have a blue moment a minute or so after he was born, but they never actually needed to put oxygen on him. It just passed on its own. They also had to check that his oesophagus was clear, as at this stage we still did not know the cause of the polyhydramnios. During all of this, he managed to wee on the midwife... twice. Clever boy.
All that came back clear, and he was wrapped and bought over for a cuddle. As it turned out, his APGARs were 8 and 9 - exactly the same as Hannah's.
Next he was taken out and weighed, and admitted to the SCN. My big fatty boy was a fantastic 2690g at 35 weeks, 3 days. By comparison, his sister was 2125g at 37 weeks 5 days.
Meanwhile, I was stitched up, while the Ob and the others present were chatting away about holidays. My Ob believes that the best way to spend your holidays is at home just enjoying your family. Travelling is just a waste of time. The others were picking on him a bit about it. Personally, I have no idea how he would know, as I heard through his receptionist that he had cancelled his last lot of holidays, because some of his patients kicked up a stink about him not being available. Poor guy.
Once I was all stitched, I was into recovery. Nothing much exciting happened there... Just hung around chatting to the midwife (why I had had when I was in with Hannah, and she was the one who got her feeding well enough to be discharged the same day as me).
After about half an hour I had recovered enough feeling to be taken through to my room, via the SCN. By this point Toby was in an isolette with a glucose drip, as his blood sugars had dropped. After a few minutes in with him I was taken through to my room, and DH went home to relieve my mother and take care of Hannah.
By 4am I was sitting up on the bed, begging the nurse to let me out (well, not quite begging... but I was itching to get up and about). She said that I would have to wait for the morning staff (it ended up being nearly 10 before I was let out). She did, though, sneak Toby in for a visit when they had his drip off for a few minutes.
He was so perfect. Naturally I had to pull the camera out, and get some photos - which given soon after that he was stuck back in the SCN with a naso-gastric tube, and it was to be days before we would have any time away from the SCN with him, and weeks before he had the NG tube out and was able to come home, I am really glad that I got.
Well, that has taken all my free time yesterday, and most of my Mothers Day morning to compile. DH's Mothers Day generosity is wearing a bit thin, so I will have to cut it off there... I will try to get back later to cover Hannah's first visit, and some of the nicer moments of the hospital stay.
Monday. There I was, home from the shops, sitting on a towel (as was standard by that stage) the bed talking to DH. It was about 7.30pm.
I had just started to say something to DH, but got cut off (cos, naturally, what he said was more important) and while he was prattling, I felt the tell tale "pop" and then dampness. I politely waited until he had finished what he was saying before I piped up with... "Ummm... my waters just broke... I think... either that or incontinence has reached a new level..."
Now I do have to backtrack here a little (already). The thing I had been interrupted from saying. It was to go something like this...
"You know, this would be the perfect time of night for my waters to break, or me to go into labour. We could get Hannah down to bed, have mum come around to be with her, then go into the hospital, get everything sorted overnight, then in the morning, bring Hannah in to meet her new brother."
As always, Toby was desperate to obey.
As it happened, it did not quite go that smoothly. Hannah did not want to go to sleep. Given that we wanted to make the transition as gentle for her as possible, we just all packed up and went into the hospital together. DH saw me settled in, we were waiting for the Ob, the test that came back from the the towel looked to be amniotic fluid, but they were not 100% certain (the flow had stopped for the trip to the hospital, so there was none on the pad I was wearing). Meanwhile DH and Hannah headed home, put Hannah down to sleep, my mother went over, then DH came back into the hospital.
While he was gone the Ob arrived. They got me onto the bed (the midwife on at the time was actually the one who was at Hannah's delivery) and did some more tests to confirm that my waters had actually broken. Given the re-commencement of leaking as I was getting up, the tests were a bit unnecessary (It was decided that I had a hind water leak) Given all the issues, they called in the team for an emergency C/S.
Somewhere in all this Stuart arrived back, and while I was being prepared for the op, he was suited up in that lovely blue hospital gear.
So into the theatre, spinal block in (I think it was a spinal), and soon they were hacking away ready to FINALLY get that bloody baby out. I was actually extremely calm... more annoyed that I could not see anything of what was going on than anything else.
They cut through the layers, and when they got to the uterus and made the incision... well, with the amount of fluid I had there, there was a fair bit of pressure. It went all over the floor, and all over the Ob... and they still suctioned out another 4 litres. Wow.
I should add here that through the entire operation up to this point, my DH - my wonderful support person - was sitting talking to the Anaesthetist, about 1 1/2 meters back from the bed, leaning back in the chair. Naturally, a conversation about computers was far more important than the birth of your second child.
That said, I actually found it highly amusing, because it was just so bloody typical. In some ways it distracted me from the fact that I was laying on the table, unable to move...
Once that was all sorted, the baby was pulled out. 11.40. Had he been 20 minutes later, I would have had an extra day in hospital. *sigh*
Being prem, they first had to make sure that he was breathing fine on his own, and all that. He did have a blue moment a minute or so after he was born, but they never actually needed to put oxygen on him. It just passed on its own. They also had to check that his oesophagus was clear, as at this stage we still did not know the cause of the polyhydramnios. During all of this, he managed to wee on the midwife... twice. Clever boy.
All that came back clear, and he was wrapped and bought over for a cuddle. As it turned out, his APGARs were 8 and 9 - exactly the same as Hannah's.
Next he was taken out and weighed, and admitted to the SCN. My big fatty boy was a fantastic 2690g at 35 weeks, 3 days. By comparison, his sister was 2125g at 37 weeks 5 days.
Meanwhile, I was stitched up, while the Ob and the others present were chatting away about holidays. My Ob believes that the best way to spend your holidays is at home just enjoying your family. Travelling is just a waste of time. The others were picking on him a bit about it. Personally, I have no idea how he would know, as I heard through his receptionist that he had cancelled his last lot of holidays, because some of his patients kicked up a stink about him not being available. Poor guy.
Once I was all stitched, I was into recovery. Nothing much exciting happened there... Just hung around chatting to the midwife (why I had had when I was in with Hannah, and she was the one who got her feeding well enough to be discharged the same day as me).
After about half an hour I had recovered enough feeling to be taken through to my room, via the SCN. By this point Toby was in an isolette with a glucose drip, as his blood sugars had dropped. After a few minutes in with him I was taken through to my room, and DH went home to relieve my mother and take care of Hannah.
By 4am I was sitting up on the bed, begging the nurse to let me out (well, not quite begging... but I was itching to get up and about). She said that I would have to wait for the morning staff (it ended up being nearly 10 before I was let out). She did, though, sneak Toby in for a visit when they had his drip off for a few minutes.
He was so perfect. Naturally I had to pull the camera out, and get some photos - which given soon after that he was stuck back in the SCN with a naso-gastric tube, and it was to be days before we would have any time away from the SCN with him, and weeks before he had the NG tube out and was able to come home, I am really glad that I got.
Well, that has taken all my free time yesterday, and most of my Mothers Day morning to compile. DH's Mothers Day generosity is wearing a bit thin, so I will have to cut it off there... I will try to get back later to cover Hannah's first visit, and some of the nicer moments of the hospital stay.
Friday 9 May 2008
Its going to be long...
My baby boy is nearly 6 months. On Monday to be exact.
I figure that it is about time I actually put together his pregnancy/birth story - 6 months is plenty long enough. But between now and then we have a massive amount of stuff on, so I am starting now. With any luck it will be finished by the time he is one.
So. Lets start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. *sigh* that is so lame. What is worse is that I have left it there.
DH and I disagreed somewhat on when we were going to have a second child. Well, given that we disagreed on having the first child, that is no big surprise (by the by - Hannah came about after a lot of procrastination on DH's part, ending finally in one careless night in Bangkok. She was not conceived then, but I pointed out that if he was willing to take a risk, he was willing to have a child... The next month I fell pregnant).
I wanted a 2 year age gap. DH wanted 2 1/2 minimum. We compromised on starting TTC at a point where we would have at least 2 years and 3 months. I do not do pregnancy well, and we knew that we could face complications. That won me the sooner start. As it happened, both our kids were conceived first try, and both pregnancies survived, despite their hiccups.
The month we started trying DH was not well. Being the obsessive person that I am, I was charting, and although there was a slight chance, I suspected we had missed the boat. I had not relied on how stubborn my kids are.
A couple of weeks later, and the obsessive testing started. Actually, I think it was more like about 8dpo... *blush*
Yes - I admit it - I am guilty of one of those "is this a line?!?!?" posts on EB. After such an easy conception with Hannah, I was terrified of being disappointed with this one.
(After much playing in photoshop to make the faint smudge as strong as I could)
Pregnant with a 18 month old.
Thankfully the MS was never too bad - I did not get beyond just being queasy. Energy levels were fine... life was good.
About 6 weeks pregnant I started bleeding. Heavy enough that I had reason to be concerned, not so heavy that I actually was. I had spotting/bleeding with Hannah on and off, so I had just taken it as being part and parcel of my being pregnant.
Checked in with the Ob, had a scan, measuring a little behind, but no biggy. Come back in a week, here is a prescription for progesterone in the mean time. A week later, another scan, and there was my little heartbeat. All was good(ish) again.
This time around the bleeding was a lot heavier than it had been with Hannah. All up I spent nearly 6 weeks on bed rest. How I did that with a toddler, I am not sure... but we got by.
Finally around 14 weeks, things settled down. So much so that we actually planned a trip overseas (after consulting the Ob). At 19 weeks we took off to Singapore and Malaysia for 2 weeks. The day we came back, DH quit his job, after accepting a position with one of their customers.
Life cruised along for a while. Hannah turned 2, I got a bit fatter, DH started his new position.
Somewhere around hereish (could have been earlier or later) I also found out that I was anaemic... although that was no surprise - my iron levels are always low, and naturally they are worse during pregnancy.
26 weeks and I woke up in the middle of the night with cramps. They passed, then came back a couple of minutes later... Oh crap.
I got up and went to the toilet, then lay down again. Over about the next hour they gradually died off. Threatened prem labour, back onto bed rest for a couple of days, then take it easy from there on it. About that point we decided to put Hannah into care one day a week (which she loved/s).
After that the pregnancy started to get uncomfortable. Then downright painful. Come 32 week scan, and we discovered something new. I had too much fluid. WAY too much fluid.
There were a few things that could have caused this... one being gestational diabetes (which I had come up clear for at the test), another being a possible digestive blockage with the baby... or it could have just been one of those things. It was decided when I next spoke to my Ob that I would be booked in at 36 1/2 weeks for a C/S (we had also discovered that Toby was breech, and with the excess fluid (polyhydramnios), and also having a bi-cornuate uterus, I was a high risk for prem labour, and it was better to have the CS planned rather than go into labour first and risk cord prolapse or placental abruption, which are both risks of polyhydramios).
By about 34 weeks I was really over being pregnant. I could not find relief in any position. The pain was just constant. I felt sick, I felt tired... I was just over it. I had a torn stomach muscle, which meant that even breathing hurt. As it turned out, this was at least in part due to Toby having his head wedged up under my ribcage - so much so that when the Ob check it on the ultrasound, he was not actually able to find it, and had to determine where he was with the location of other body parts. Thanks for that, kid. You have just absolutely set in concrete your position as the youngest child for life. As much as the outcome is worth it, there is no way known I am going through that again.
Here is where I start to bleed into the next instalment, so I will keep some parts brief.
35 weeks, 3 days. I had been feeling crampy for a while now, and I was just getting a feeling that something was about to happen. It was a Monday. Wednesday and Thursday DH had some massively important work stuffs on that he was not able to miss. Knowing this, I did something a little naughty and went shopping. Naughty? Well. See. My logic was that if something was going to happen in the next couple of days, I wanted it to be that day. A day or 2's difference in gestation was nothing much, and I was feeling so retched that I was ready for it to be over. Plus we were still short a couple of items, and if something was about to happen, then better to have everything ready.
So, went and shopped - all nice and uneventful. Go home, pottered around for the rest of the day. Come about 7.30 in the evening, I was sitting on the bed (on a towel) talking to DH, when I felt a little gush...
Now I am going to be nasty and skip forward to the last part that is relevant to the pregnancy, and skip the birth story. That will be in the next post.
After Toby arrived, and they did all the checks to make sure that he had no problems causing the fluid, he was taken to the SCN (being prem) and as part of his monitoring, they were keeping an eye on his blood sugars. As it turned out, they dropped shortly after he was born. From this (and his size - he went from being a little small for dates through most of the pregnancy to being ahead for dates at birth) that I actually did have gestational diabetes.
So. My pregnancy summery.
Already known issues:
Bi-cornuate Uterus
Narrow Pelvis
Issues that arose through the pregnancy:
Early pregnancy bleeding through the first trimester.
Anemia
Threatened early labour @ 26 weeks
Breech baby
Polyhydramnios (excess fluid - over 4 litres!)
PROM
AND... Undiagnosed gestational diabetes.
I absolutely adore Toby, and he is worth every second of that pregnancy. But there is no way known I will EVER go through that again.
Coming soon: Birth Story.
I figure that it is about time I actually put together his pregnancy/birth story - 6 months is plenty long enough. But between now and then we have a massive amount of stuff on, so I am starting now. With any luck it will be finished by the time he is one.
So. Lets start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. *sigh* that is so lame. What is worse is that I have left it there.
DH and I disagreed somewhat on when we were going to have a second child. Well, given that we disagreed on having the first child, that is no big surprise (by the by - Hannah came about after a lot of procrastination on DH's part, ending finally in one careless night in Bangkok. She was not conceived then, but I pointed out that if he was willing to take a risk, he was willing to have a child... The next month I fell pregnant).
I wanted a 2 year age gap. DH wanted 2 1/2 minimum. We compromised on starting TTC at a point where we would have at least 2 years and 3 months. I do not do pregnancy well, and we knew that we could face complications. That won me the sooner start. As it happened, both our kids were conceived first try, and both pregnancies survived, despite their hiccups.
The month we started trying DH was not well. Being the obsessive person that I am, I was charting, and although there was a slight chance, I suspected we had missed the boat. I had not relied on how stubborn my kids are.
A couple of weeks later, and the obsessive testing started. Actually, I think it was more like about 8dpo... *blush*
Yes - I admit it - I am guilty of one of those "is this a line?!?!?" posts on EB. After such an easy conception with Hannah, I was terrified of being disappointed with this one.
(After much playing in photoshop to make the faint smudge as strong as I could)
Thankfully, I was not to be disappointed. After far more tests than I care to admit to, I was finally had a line strong enough to actually believe was there. I took it to the Dr and went for a blood test. Inconclusive. Given I was barely 4 weeks, that was OK... by the time I had the results I had done a digital test, and had my answer.
Thankfully the MS was never too bad - I did not get beyond just being queasy. Energy levels were fine... life was good.
About 6 weeks pregnant I started bleeding. Heavy enough that I had reason to be concerned, not so heavy that I actually was. I had spotting/bleeding with Hannah on and off, so I had just taken it as being part and parcel of my being pregnant.
Checked in with the Ob, had a scan, measuring a little behind, but no biggy. Come back in a week, here is a prescription for progesterone in the mean time. A week later, another scan, and there was my little heartbeat. All was good(ish) again.
This time around the bleeding was a lot heavier than it had been with Hannah. All up I spent nearly 6 weeks on bed rest. How I did that with a toddler, I am not sure... but we got by.
Finally around 14 weeks, things settled down. So much so that we actually planned a trip overseas (after consulting the Ob). At 19 weeks we took off to Singapore and Malaysia for 2 weeks. The day we came back, DH quit his job, after accepting a position with one of their customers.
Life cruised along for a while. Hannah turned 2, I got a bit fatter, DH started his new position.
Somewhere around hereish (could have been earlier or later) I also found out that I was anaemic... although that was no surprise - my iron levels are always low, and naturally they are worse during pregnancy.
26 weeks and I woke up in the middle of the night with cramps. They passed, then came back a couple of minutes later... Oh crap.
I got up and went to the toilet, then lay down again. Over about the next hour they gradually died off. Threatened prem labour, back onto bed rest for a couple of days, then take it easy from there on it. About that point we decided to put Hannah into care one day a week (which she loved/s).
After that the pregnancy started to get uncomfortable. Then downright painful. Come 32 week scan, and we discovered something new. I had too much fluid. WAY too much fluid.
There were a few things that could have caused this... one being gestational diabetes (which I had come up clear for at the test), another being a possible digestive blockage with the baby... or it could have just been one of those things. It was decided when I next spoke to my Ob that I would be booked in at 36 1/2 weeks for a C/S (we had also discovered that Toby was breech, and with the excess fluid (polyhydramnios), and also having a bi-cornuate uterus, I was a high risk for prem labour, and it was better to have the CS planned rather than go into labour first and risk cord prolapse or placental abruption, which are both risks of polyhydramios).
By about 34 weeks I was really over being pregnant. I could not find relief in any position. The pain was just constant. I felt sick, I felt tired... I was just over it. I had a torn stomach muscle, which meant that even breathing hurt. As it turned out, this was at least in part due to Toby having his head wedged up under my ribcage - so much so that when the Ob check it on the ultrasound, he was not actually able to find it, and had to determine where he was with the location of other body parts. Thanks for that, kid. You have just absolutely set in concrete your position as the youngest child for life. As much as the outcome is worth it, there is no way known I am going through that again.
Here is where I start to bleed into the next instalment, so I will keep some parts brief.
35 weeks, 3 days. I had been feeling crampy for a while now, and I was just getting a feeling that something was about to happen. It was a Monday. Wednesday and Thursday DH had some massively important work stuffs on that he was not able to miss. Knowing this, I did something a little naughty and went shopping. Naughty? Well. See. My logic was that if something was going to happen in the next couple of days, I wanted it to be that day. A day or 2's difference in gestation was nothing much, and I was feeling so retched that I was ready for it to be over. Plus we were still short a couple of items, and if something was about to happen, then better to have everything ready.
So, went and shopped - all nice and uneventful. Go home, pottered around for the rest of the day. Come about 7.30 in the evening, I was sitting on the bed (on a towel) talking to DH, when I felt a little gush...
Now I am going to be nasty and skip forward to the last part that is relevant to the pregnancy, and skip the birth story. That will be in the next post.
After Toby arrived, and they did all the checks to make sure that he had no problems causing the fluid, he was taken to the SCN (being prem) and as part of his monitoring, they were keeping an eye on his blood sugars. As it turned out, they dropped shortly after he was born. From this (and his size - he went from being a little small for dates through most of the pregnancy to being ahead for dates at birth) that I actually did have gestational diabetes.
So. My pregnancy summery.
Already known issues:
Bi-cornuate Uterus
Narrow Pelvis
Issues that arose through the pregnancy:
Early pregnancy bleeding through the first trimester.
Anemia
Threatened early labour @ 26 weeks
Breech baby
Polyhydramnios (excess fluid - over 4 litres!)
PROM
AND... Undiagnosed gestational diabetes.
I absolutely adore Toby, and he is worth every second of that pregnancy. But there is no way known I will EVER go through that again.
Coming soon: Birth Story.
Wednesday 7 May 2008
You want me to what?!?
We have seriously dodgy kitchen chairs. Some of the seats are not properly attached, and when Hannah climbed on one this evening, it slipped, and she got caught half down the back of the seat.
Hearing her call, I rescued her, and gave her a cuddle while she got over the scare.
After a couple of minutes, I asked her if she was OK now, and was told no, she was sad, so we resumed our cuddles.
Next thing she pipes up with "Mummy, kiss my bottom!"
Sadly, she meant it.
Hearing her call, I rescued her, and gave her a cuddle while she got over the scare.
After a couple of minutes, I asked her if she was OK now, and was told no, she was sad, so we resumed our cuddles.
Next thing she pipes up with "Mummy, kiss my bottom!"
Sadly, she meant it.
Monday 5 May 2008
You make my heart smile
I love that expression... and lately it has taken on a much deeper meaning. There is nothing that brings me more pleasure than watching Hannah and Toby together, and there is just something in seeing their adoration for each other. Aww. Warm fuzzies.
Thursday 1 May 2008
Just a ramble today...
I have been catching up with a few old friends via the Facebook chat thing lately, and I have really started to realise just how much my kids are the centre of my universe. Every single time I start chatting to someone who I have not seen in a few years, the kids manage to rate a reference within the first 3 sentences. Usually something like "Toby is asleep, so I am just taking a few minutes to myself" or "The kids are being really ratty today." And you can guarantee that within the first 3 or 4 minutes there will be a link to a photo sent for the poor person to gush over...
But then, with kids like mine, how can you not.
Hannah and I have a game at the moment - the "I love you" game.
It goes like this:
Me: I love you Hannah Banna
H: I love you Mummy Mummy
Me: I love you Hannah Banna
H: I love you Her Her
Me: I love you Dorothy
H: I love you Wags
Me: I love you Captain
H: I love you Murray
Me: I love you Jeff
H: I love you Anthony
Me: I love you Tomato
H: I love you Capsicum
Me: I love you Lettuce
H: I love you Cucumber
Me: I love you Onion
H: I love you Asparagus
Me: I love you Monkey
H: I love you Giraffe
And so forth...
I am forever amazed at her ability to follow and grow on the game. I can run out of things on a topic, and she will still be going. Then there are the times like just now when I go to start the game and I get "No mummy, stop. No I love you, please, play a different game!" *sigh*
She also has these fantastic conversations and arguments with herself.
Please Hannah, can I have some toast?
Here you are Hanny.
Thankyou Hannah!
Your welcome.
Hannah, want to come and play?
In one minute. I'm eating.
Oh, OK.
*eats*
No - don't hit me, Hannah!
Sorry Hanny.
That's OK Hannah.
I really wonder about the other side of her personality... she can be quite a trouble maker at times. lol! DH has actually had to tell "them" off for arguing in the car before.
And not to leave out poor Toby! Well, he has been a bit ratty today... just not happy when he is awake (save for 4am this morning when he was perfectly happy to be wide awake and chatting... *sigh*).
We are working on sitting at the moment. I would love to get him a Bumbo, but unfortunately finances are just not stretching that far at the moment. He can sit up to maybe 30 seconds at a time if he is perfectly balanced by me first. Not bad for a kid that hates being on the floor!
For all his rattyness, the one thing I will give him credit for is he sleeps, and he is predictable. He is up between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning, asleep again between 10 and 11, asleep for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours, then basically is up for up to 2 hours (absolute maximum that he will do) and sleeps for 45 mins - 2 hours at a time for the rest of the day. He goes down for the night between 8 and 9, wakes about an hour later for a quick feed, or just to be re-settled, then I do not hear from him again until sometime between 1 and 2am. I never expected to have a kid who was that easy to predict.
Well, that is my nattering about stuff that I am sure no-one but me is interested in, but hey, that is what Blogs are for.
But then, with kids like mine, how can you not.
Hannah and I have a game at the moment - the "I love you" game.
It goes like this:
Me: I love you Hannah Banna
H: I love you Mummy Mummy
Me: I love you Hannah Banna
H: I love you Her Her
Me: I love you Dorothy
H: I love you Wags
Me: I love you Captain
H: I love you Murray
Me: I love you Jeff
H: I love you Anthony
Me: I love you Tomato
H: I love you Capsicum
Me: I love you Lettuce
H: I love you Cucumber
Me: I love you Onion
H: I love you Asparagus
Me: I love you Monkey
H: I love you Giraffe
And so forth...
I am forever amazed at her ability to follow and grow on the game. I can run out of things on a topic, and she will still be going. Then there are the times like just now when I go to start the game and I get "No mummy, stop. No I love you, please, play a different game!" *sigh*
She also has these fantastic conversations and arguments with herself.
Please Hannah, can I have some toast?
Here you are Hanny.
Thankyou Hannah!
Your welcome.
Hannah, want to come and play?
In one minute. I'm eating.
Oh, OK.
*eats*
No - don't hit me, Hannah!
Sorry Hanny.
That's OK Hannah.
I really wonder about the other side of her personality... she can be quite a trouble maker at times. lol! DH has actually had to tell "them" off for arguing in the car before.
And not to leave out poor Toby! Well, he has been a bit ratty today... just not happy when he is awake (save for 4am this morning when he was perfectly happy to be wide awake and chatting... *sigh*).
We are working on sitting at the moment. I would love to get him a Bumbo, but unfortunately finances are just not stretching that far at the moment. He can sit up to maybe 30 seconds at a time if he is perfectly balanced by me first. Not bad for a kid that hates being on the floor!
For all his rattyness, the one thing I will give him credit for is he sleeps, and he is predictable. He is up between 8.30 and 9.30 in the morning, asleep again between 10 and 11, asleep for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours, then basically is up for up to 2 hours (absolute maximum that he will do) and sleeps for 45 mins - 2 hours at a time for the rest of the day. He goes down for the night between 8 and 9, wakes about an hour later for a quick feed, or just to be re-settled, then I do not hear from him again until sometime between 1 and 2am. I never expected to have a kid who was that easy to predict.
Well, that is my nattering about stuff that I am sure no-one but me is interested in, but hey, that is what Blogs are for.
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