Tag: ill conceived

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Calm Before the Storm

I think I’m approaching a place — if not quite of zen-like serenity — of at least calm acceptance and lessening anxiety. [Oh god, there are not one, but two flies in this office. They keep landing on my hands as I type and buzzing around my face and I cannot manage to swat them. Om.] Partially, this is because I’m 35 weeks tomorrow which is really the home stretch, so I had bloody-well start accepting things.

Part of it is because we have managed to clear out and paint the third bedroom and located most of our newborn apparatuses (apparati?). I’ve also been relieved of the bulk of my paid work which kind of sucks because there goes the bulk of my income. But it’s also kind of a relief because I no longer have to worry about working ahead and figuring out how to cram a newborn into my already hectic WAHM schedule. This means I’ll have most of September to seriously clean, organize, nest and otherwise get ready for baby. (It also means I’ll be posting more here and including more PR and sponsored posts — heads up! — and writing more elsewhere too, eventually.)

I think part of it is also that I’ve been feeling better. There are still aches and pains, but the alarming, mobility-robbing pains I was having in my pelvis throughout the second half of my second trimester are much less severe. This could just be because I’ve been trying to do less and have learned what will cause a flare up and what helps with one. Who knows? Or maybe knowing that the birth is around the corner means I’m less concerned about coping with achy ligaments and trick hips for a just few more weeks.

I’ve even taken the time to sit quietly at night and feel the baby moving and squirming and kicking me in the ribs. (Either that or punching me; we’re not a hundred per cent sure if this babe’s head down yet.) I’m trying to relish these last weeks and days of being pregnant, looking down in awe at how my body has accommodated a growing baby and more than a few extra pounds of maternal fat stores. I’m anticipating what it will be like to hold a newborn baby once again and enjoying watching the older kids get more and more excited as the due date nears. This will likely be the last time I get to do this, so it’s nice to be able to live in the moment.

35 weeks. We're all just pretending now that my shirt meets my pants, okay?
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The Baby’s Coming Fret List

I’ve got a checklist a mile long to get through in the next three months. I have to reach for a paper bag just typing that. I’m having a baby in three months and I don’t even know where my Moby Wrap is or my breast pump or any of the baby clothes. And what about a snowsuit? Won’t it need a snowsuit?!

Still, through the power of obsessive fretting, I have managed to cross a couple biggies off my list lately.

Number 1, the car seat. Yes, my dear friends, I figured out how to squeeze three car seats across. Behold:

I especially love how when I shared this picture on Facebook all the mothers of three were astounded. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t quite seem to understand the feat of engineering involved. Engineering and hours of internet research on which brands of car seats would fit best. From left to right you have the original Britax Marathon that we bought for Colum and Irene now uses — it’s huge. Then there’s a Sunshine Kids Radian, the slimmest car seat on the market, and a Chicco Keyfit, among the skinniest infant bucket seats. It’s a tight squeeze and replacing the Marathon with another Radian or a booster seat was my contingency plan if this didn’t fit. I may try putting the bucket seat in the middle so I can recline the driver’s seat a tad more, but I’m afraid it will be too snug to snap the bucket seat in and out of the base easily. Whatever, it’s done!

Number 2, air conditioning. Do you remember last summer? Do you? Because I do. I remember day after day, week after week, of unbearable heat. There was just no break. You can usually count on a couple weeks worth of serious heat wave in a Toronto July, but last year it was the whole month and August, too. The main floor of my house was a warm and sticky mess and I mostly just flopped around barely able to function. The second floor was like the furnace of hell. We put our one portable air conditioner in the kid’s bedroom and ran it overnight and sprawled out ourselves before a multitude of fans. Never again, I said. Never again. That brings us to this summer, during which I will be enjoying the third trimester of my third pregnancy, and we still had no a/c! Until yesterday. Cue the angels singing, please.

Now I only have to get Colum to the dentist and the doctor, get Ed to get his driver’s license so that I am not the only chauffeur this family has, clean out all the junk in the basement “office” (including a fridge and a stove), move all the actual office stuff from the unfinished third bedroom upstairs, finish the bloody room and figure out what baby gear I have and where it is. Why do they not put GPS’s on Moby Wraps?!

Oh, and I have to do all of this while taking care of my other two kids (remember them?) full time and doubling the number of work hours I put in from home so that I might get ahead enough to actually take a couple of months off when this bambino arrives.

And I get to be very pregnant while I do it.  That means that on top of being tired and slow, I will also be completely irrational and you will likely find me on my hands and knees meticulously cleaning under the stove instead. Because of course.

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Pizza Party Pooper

Today was Pizza Day at Colum’s school. I love Pizza Day with all my heart because it means I don’t have to make him lunch at 11:15am since he’ll eat when he gets to school.

So my plan was to walk Colum to the bus stop and then continue into the Junction to pick up pizza slices from Vesuvios for Irene and I. How could this plan possibly fail me?

Well, as we were walking together and pushing the empty stroller, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. It must be gas, I thought, but boy did it hurt. It also seemed to have triggered a Braxton Hicks contraction and I felt my entire midsection tighten up. I had to stop walking until it passed. We then continued around the corner when it happened again: a sharp stabbing accompanied by a tightening sensation. This time I actually knelt on the sidewalk while waiting for it to pass. Irene knelt down beside me.

This couldn’t be a contraction, could it? Nah. I’m only 22 weeks along. The baby’s not even viable yet. I always go into labour at 39.5 weeks, everybody knows that. Even if it does turn out to be something, I thought, the midwives and doctors will be able to stop it. Sure. There’s no reason to panic . . . unless I have to go on bed rest! Who would take care of the kids then? We would be so utterly and completely screwed.

I pulled myself together and tried to continue walking again when I felt a familiar urge. “Irene, get in the stroller because we need to go home right away. Mommy needs to poo.”

Ahem. So yeah, everything’s fine. No contractions, no labour, no bed rest. Just some killer gas pains/bowel movement and ill-timed Braxton Hicks.

But, alas, no pizza for me.

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It’s A Baby!

I finally had my 20-week anatomical scan last Friday and it’s good news all around. There is one (singular) baby residing in my womb who scored straight normals on all counts. Seriously. Head shape: normal; profile: normal; abdominal wall: normal; genitalia: normal. I hope this kid knows that this is the last time it will get away with pulling this average crap. Not one excellent on the entire page. Pshaw.

The truth is, though, that I still cannot get over the fact that there is a little human in there. This is my third baby and my fourth ultrasound and I still do a double take the first time the tech says, “There’s your baby.” I don’t know what exactly I’m expecting. By 20 weeks I know it’s not going to look like a tadpole anymore, but I still think it’s going to be some sort of sea monkey-type creature. But no! It’s a human baby. Only one human baby and a healthy-looking one at that. Fucking A, as they say.

We didn’t find out the gender, of course, because everyone knows only the weak and morally inferior need to know their baby’s sex. *Break to guzzle Coca Cola and unwrap my second McDonald’s cheeseburger.*Burp. As I was saying, I’m still kind of in denial about this whole third kid thing and finding out the sex is just bound to make it all feel so much more real and imminent — which it is not! This pregnancy is scheduled to continue for at least another four months and I intend to enjoy our mutual anonymity while it lasts.

Oh, here’s the glamour shot:

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13 Weeks (and 4 days)

And we have a heartbeat!

I figured I should probably just cut to the chase since I’ve left you all hanging for four days after finally hearing the heartbeat. I blame my husband; you should too. (WINKING! Totally winking here. The guy’s been working his butt off lately which just means less time and energy for me to do what really matters: blogging.)

After much waffling and foot shuffling, I finally decided that I should pop in for another listen. Hearing that several women I know have had missed miscarriages late in their first trimester was definitely an influencing factor. So was a friend just saying,”Go!” So I dropped the kids off with my parents last Thursday morning, figuring I’d probably have to wait around for a while and then I’d go in for my monthly blood draw at the lab.

Instead, my midwife saw me right away and found a crystal clear heartbeat in less than 30 seconds. It took longer to walk from the car. (Mostly because I refuse to pay for parking, but still.) What a relief! Now I no longer have to wonder if every tummy rumble and gas bubble is the baby moving or if I’m simply losing my mind. I can relax and let that first definite movement be a wonderful surprise.

I’ve also taken to squeezing into my regular jeans for as long as I can, which seems to make me feel less huge. So I’m not stressing about twins any more. We’ll find out eventually, but there’s really no good reason to worry. So all’s well and good in the pregnancy department, despite my tricky hip and lowered bladder capacity.

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Obsess Much?

Ok, I’m starting to obsess.

I thought I was alright until last night when I sat down to finish an hour or two’s worth of work after putting the kids to bed at 8:30. Cue 11pm and I still have yet to write a sentence because I’m too busy googling “no heartbeat with doppler at 12 weeks” and “missed miscarriages.” Did you know that it’s possible for your baby’s heart to stop and not have any symptoms of a miscarriage for weeks? Then I started to wonder if I even feel pregnant anymore. I mean, I do feel better. But then again, that’s what the second trimester does for you anyway.

I was pretty much just planning on waiting until my 16 week appointment to hear the heartbeat. I already waited all this time, right? What’s the difference? I certainly look pregnant. Of course, given that this is my third pregnancy, the chances are pretty good that I’ll be able to feel the baby move by then anyway. So the heartbeat will be no big deal. So … do I continue to obsess for another couple weeks or do I drag my ass back to my midwife to try again on Thursday morning? And if I don’t hear it again? It’s still early, so I continue to obsess for another week or two. Ugh.

(Yes, I could have scheduled a 12 week ultrasound, but I decided just to do the one at 20 weeks instead and you need to book these things weeks in advance. If, by 16 weeks, there’s still no heartbeat with the doppler then I’d be sent to an emergency ultrasound clinic.)

And did I mention that I’m huge? I’ve always shown my pregnancies fairly early and carried all my weight right up front in my belly, so that’ s not really anything new. When I was about six months along with Irene an elderly woman who lived in the apartment building I was working at stopped to argue with me about my due date. I simply could not have another three months to go; that was impossible; I was too big. Unless, that is, I was carrying twins.

Twins. Yep. I also filled up my Google search bar with queries like, “early signs of twins,” “12 week twin belly pics,” and “no heartbeat 12 weeks twin pregnancy.” Now, let’s get this straight: I’m not having twins. No way, no how, unh-uh. First of all, I’m always big. Maybe not quite this big, but I went into this pregnancy with a few extra pounds to begin with and, hello, it’s my third freaking pregnancy. I also have no history of twins in my family whatsoever which lowers the odds of naturally conceiving fraternal twins. And identical twins are really quite rare. (Thanks, Google.) But everywhere I turn people are talking about twins.

First, the med student at my endocrinology and pregnancy clinic wanted to confirm how many babies I was expecting. Huh? I was eight weeks pregnant, how could I know? Then Rebecca Woolf from Girls Gone Child who just announced her third pregnancy found out that she was indeed expecting twins. People started misspelling “baby’s” as “babies” and suddenly half the people I talked to seemed to have twins. Out of the friggin blue my husband and my mother-in-law separately told me that it would be nice to have twins. Then Colum comes padding into my bedroom the other morning talking about Jojo and Robin. Who? Jojo, I knew, is the name he’s given the baby, but Robin was new because he decided it was going to be twins. And did I mention just how big I am?

***

I didn’t get a chance to finish this post earlier today and I must say that I feel somewhat less crazy and obsessed. I might pop in for another stab at the heartbeat Thursday, or I might not. I’ll see how I feel. The odds of my having twins (and not being able to hear either baby’s heartbeat!) is astronomically small. I’m pretty sure I’m still pregnant according to my sticky right hip, the massive zit on my chin, my ginormous belly and even bigger appetite. And I almost started crying just watching Irene watch TV earlier today.

Anyway, I’ve found a new obsession to fuel my procrastination yet. Gardening! (Like I may plant some basil and rhubarb, maybe.)

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12 Week Check Up

I had my 12 week appointment with my midwife today and she couldn’t find the heartbeat with the doppler.  She warned me that it was hit and miss at this age, that the fetus is small enough to find places to hide. She said some women opt to not even try at this stage because they don’t want to worry. But I wanted to try.

She thought she maybe heard the heartbeat fleetingly at first, but couldn’t find it again. She also thinks my placenta is probably at the front which makes it even more difficult.  My uterus is growing appropriately, though, as is my belly, so chances are that everything is fine. Still, it’s just nice to hear that heartbeat for the first time, you know?

I opted to skip the 12 week ultrasound and just do the anatomical scan at 20 weeks which means the next scheduled stab at finding a heartbeat is in a month — at 16 weeks. My midwife said that if it’s eating at me, then I can stop by any Thursday morning when she has office hours and she’ll try again. God I love the quality of care you get with midwifery. They always make time for you. I’m not sure that I’ll need to take her up on it, but it’s good to know that I can drop in if anything doesn’t feel right.

I also wanted to follow up on something the endocrinologist said; she was surprised I hadn’t had thyroid issues with my previous two pregnancies. I asked my midwife if my thyroid levels were even tested before since this time around I had routine blood work done at the same time as my prenatal and I didn’t know which test detected the hypoactive thyroid. She told me that thyroid levels aren’t tested for in standard prenatal blood work and then looked back in my charts.  Sure enough, they hadn’t tested my thyroid levels during either pregnancy.

So what does that mean? It means how long I’ve been hypo is anyone’s guess. I know I thought I felt fine before this pregnancy, but I also know that I haven’t been able to shake the extra 20 pounds I’ve been carrying around since Irene was born. Within a year and a half of having Colum, after gaining 50 pounds during his pregnancy, I was down within five pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight. I had chalked it up to not being quite as active this time around and being a couple years older, but who knows? Maybe it was my thyroid all along.

Gotta love those appointments that raise more questions than they answer.

On the bright side, Colum has dubbed the new baby Jo Jo, which I actually kind of like for an unborn baby nickname. It’s sexually ambiguous, cute and ridiculous enough that you won’t be tempted to actually use it.

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Ill Conceived

Ah, maternity jeans. (What? You don't keep your only full-length mirror in the playroom?)

I did it!

For the first time ever I managed to keep a pregnancy a secret for the entire first trimester. As of this Thursday I will be exactly 12 weeks pregnant with my third child due on September 30th. Do you know what this means? It means I can finally let the cat out of the bag and let my belly out of my jeans. Because by the third go around, there’s not a lot left besides a denim waistband to hold my uterus in place.

Ah, maternity jeans. (What? You don't keep your only full-length mirror in the playroom?)

Why wait now? The main reason is because this time I have a near five-year old’s feelings to consider. I didn’t want to tell the kids about the new baby (or worse, have them overhear us talking to other adults about it) and then have to disappoint them in the event of a miscarriage. This time I would play the odds and wait. Also, did I mention this is my third pregnancy? It’s not the life-changing and overwhelmingly exciting event that my first and second were.

Except, of course, that it is life changing. I mean, I can barely keep up with the two kids I already have,  my sub-par housekeeping standards and my two-hour-a-day job as is. What am I thinking throwing a newborn into the mix? We haven’t even finished the third bedroom of this house yet. This could be a bad idea, so bad it’s funny, I thought. And then, the same way every indie musician is constantly coming up with new band names, I thought that a humour blog about a third pregnancy named “Ill Conceived” would be perfect. Not that I actually found the time to pitch the idea to anyone or anything. (Email me if you need a pregnancy blogger!)

Then the other shoe dropped. And by shoe I actually mean blood test and by dropped I mean less than stellar results came in. I went to my family doctor at around 5.5 weeks after getting a positive pee stick result. (The generic brand still rocks my world for $5 and change!) I told her that I hadn’t actually bothered getting the routine blood work she’d requisitioned months earlier done, so could she just write me a new one with a pregnancy test and the standard prenatal work added to it? I know the ropes by now and I also know that a blood lab is likely to have better luck finding my puny little veins than my midwife. I was wrong. The lab tech had to draw all six viles of blood from my hand. Ouch.

The doctor’s office calls me a week later to say that the lab had mislabeled half my blood work and that they would mail me a requisition to get it taken again. Yippee. This time it was a new lab and a new tech and she found my vein. At least there was that. Because the next week I came home to find a message from the doctor’s office saying she needed to see me the next day to discuss my results and I had an appointment at noon. No real choice in the matter. Gulp.

It turns out that my thyroid levels were not so hot. They were pretty low, in fact, when they’re supposed to go up during pregnancy. It also turns out that thyroid hormones are pretty essential to the neurological and cognitive development of the fetus, much of which takes place during the first trimester. So my doctor wrote me a prescription for synthetic hormones that I needed to start taking that day and said she would book me into an endocrinologist and I would likely need blood drawn every six weeks during pregnancy to monitor my hormone levels and regular appointments with the specialist on top of the standard prenatal care I’d get from my midwife. Oh, and there’s a good chance that this could be a chronic condition.

Ill conceived all right. It works on so many levels. Dammit.

I don’t know how long I’ve had a hypoactive thyroid. I do know that I felt fine until I got pregnant. Then I felt tired. It was normal first trimester fatigue, I assumed, except it was crazy intense. I could barely get through the days and it felt like I was moving through a fog, a brain fog. Writing more than the bare essential was impossible and I can’t vouch for the quality of any writing I did do during that time. Within a few days of starting the medication I felt better. (Except for the back-to-back bouts of cold and flu.) And now, a month later, I basically feel like my old self.

The good news is that this condition is easily treatable with medication. The slightly disconcerting news is that I didn’t start treatment until I was 8 weeks along. From what I read on the internet *smirk* and what the med student at my endocrinology and pregnancy clinic told me, there’s not much to worry about. The important thing is that I’m getting treated now and the chances of any adverse affects are quite slim. (The adverse affects would simply be a less smart kid.) So I’m not going to worry, I’ve decided, and I’m actually doing a pretty good job of it.

Don’t you worry either, but please do catch up with me here as I blog about daily life and this pregnancy.