On Friday I turned 19 weeks! It is scary how quickly it seems to be going now – the first few weeks after I found out seemed to drag so much, yet here I am now coming up to halfway, though thinking that I have this length of time to go again, it seems a long time again! Thankfully I will be having a scan every month from now on though, this two months of not checking on little Shrimp has been torture! It’s getting better now that I am feeling movement more regularly though, atleast I have a reassurance that I can rely on.

You may remember that a couple of posts ago I wrote about looking for a dress to go to a relatively posh do in. I spent a day in the city and eventually found a dress to wear.
So last night I got all dressed up – ok, I spent most of the day getting ready – where did all this extra hair on my head come from? I swear it now takes double as long to wash and style (Not helped by me not knowing what style to do and I believe I probably exhausted all the youtube tutorials before giving up and making it up as I went!)
Eventually ready I posed for some photos for my mum, and honestly I love the dress. From the side I was obviously pregnant, but from the front you couldn’t really tell, and the best part – because the dress isn’t a maternity dress I can wear it again and again, and I will because I really love it!

So being out for the evening and busy all day getting ready I hadn’t had any time to sit down and concentrate on feeling Shrimp move. A couple of people asked me throughout the evening if Shrimp was enjoying themselves and I think a look of panic had to have come into my eyes each time I replied that I hadn’t felt any tiny dancing tonight. I enjoyed the evening, pushing those fears to the back of my mind, forcing myself into believing that I only hadn’t felt any movement because I hadn’t been concentrating on it.
When I got home at half 1, one of my mums first questions was whether Shrimp had enjoyed it! I forced myself to relax, as I’m normally dosing off at about 8 or 9 in the evening I knew I should go straight to bed having not had any naps all day. I managed to push it from my mind promising myself that if I didn’t feel anything I’d check first thing in the morning.
This morning I had my breakfast and sat with my hand on my belly, knowing it would be unusual for Shrimp to be awake so early, and so I wasn’t any more worried when I didn’t feel any little kicks against my hand, however having not used my doppler in the last few days I felt no guilt in having a little check. It took a while of wooshing crackly silence, all the time my heart was in my mouth and I wasn’t breathing, but eventually there was the fast tap tapping of Shrimps heart. I checked it against my own heartrate to make sure it wasn’t mine, and then the noise dissappeared. I moved the probe around a little and it came back, clearly Shrimp decided to play hide and seek with me! I sat there listening to the heartbeat for a minute, then turned off the doppler. without turning it off I would just sit and listen all day!

I have a feeling this fear isn’t going to go away, that until I give birth any time I don’t feel anything I’m going to panic. I think the fear is probably heightened because I only have 2 weeks to go until the stage in pregnancy I lost my little girl, but noone has indicated to me it is likely to happen again. We shall see what they say at my 20 week scan in 4 days!!

So last night, me and Shrimps daddy headed out to the cinema. I sat with my hands over my tummy enjoying the film when all of a sudden I felt something. I turned my concentration to it, thinking I’d imagined it, but there it was again, a little nudge against my hand. I decided it must be a massive bubble of gas or something, it felt so much more definite than I ever felt in my previous pregnancy, but I kept my hands there and the nudging continued! Not a fluttery feeling, not like gas bubbles popping, but like a baby kicking from the inside. It was so surreal. Every time I thought I’d grab daddy’s hand to see if he could feel it too though, the movements stopped for a bit. They’d always start up again though, and continued right up to the end of the film! Being 17weeks and 5days I wasn’t expecting to feel anything so definite for months, but I have no doubt about what I was feeling!

All I wanted to do today was sit and wait to feel Shrimp again, but no such luck, I’d already arranged to go dress shopping for the posh do I am attending in just over a week.
We set off straight after lunch, allowing me to have done my injection before we left. Might be a bit strange doing that in the toilets somewhere – I feel awkward enough taking my tablets in public!
My back has been aching for a couple of days now, an aching feeling around my lower back, either side of my spine, a pain which is made worse by walking so I wanted to make this trip as quick and successful as possible. Arriving in the city at about half one we set off on a trail around the shops. We had already partially planned which shops to try – the ones likely to be in my price range and have something relevant. We got through them quickly, mainly because the majority of them either didn’t have evening wear, or the evening wear cost around £200, at that point we exited the store as quickly as we could! In the entire day I picked up one dress that was maternity wear, it was on the sale rack and was a total coincidence it was maternity. The only shop I found a dedicated maternity section in was H&M and there was definitely no evening wear in there!
I should probably mention that I am relatively tall, 5’10”, meaning that even normally I have to check the length of maxi dresses as some are just too short. Today I found that removing the couple of inches that my bump takes up makes 99% of maxi dresses too short, and even made knee length dresses unsuitable for this event! I found Quiz dresses were the only ones that would potentially be suitable, but I wasn’t over-keen on them, so chalked them up as maybes.
Four hours later however, I was ready to give up and go back to Quiz, pick one, any one, and go home, but first we decided to give House of Fraser a go, even though the first price tag I looked at was £195 I knew they had bargains occasionally so we kept looking and finally I found a lovely Little Mistress dress which is big enough over my bump, is long enough to not look too short on me and is dressy enough for the do and best of all, it was £37.50! It was the last on the rack, the only colour combination I liked and in my size. It was like it was meant to be! I bought it as quickly as I could and left, glad that it was finally over!

  
A couple of sneaky pictures I took in the changing room – I shall hopefully get some nice ones at the event

I’d been limping around the city for about 4 hours, my back was absolute agony by this point. I even had to sit down waiting for our lift to get us, and finally sitting down in the car felt so amazing I could have just stayed there!

Now why didn’t I just buy online? Honestly, I normally do. Buying clothes online is my norm, but with an ever growing bump I needed to know it was going it fit and give me room to move and eat.
I don’t know why I couldn’t find any maternity ranges anywhere, maybe they were there but didn’t include evening wear so I didn’t notice them, but I must admit I did keep my eyes peeled for any signage and it atleast didn’t jump out at me!
I know some stores keep maternity ranges online which is fair enough, it keeps costs down not having to keep all sizes in stock in all stores, but it made actual city shopping a total nightmare! With the amount of pregnancies going up I’d have thought everywhere would have a maternity section!

Atleast I have finally got myself a dress, that’s one less thing to worry about, now for shoes and jewellery! I think I’ll be raiding my cupboards for those. Less walking!!!

So the injections are not getting any easier and I’m pretty sure I will never get used to them. I have now done 29 of them, finishing my first prescription tomorrow! I have found that getting the right amount of pressure is tricky, many times I have plucked up the courage and jabbed the needle in only for it to stop after only the tip has gone in and have to take it out and start again, then there is the fact that the stuff still hurts. Not every time now, and I haven’t yet worked out what happens different when it does hurt, but sometimes the liquid stings like bees and sometimes I can hardly feel it! And lastly I have the fact that sometimes the injection bruises, and I don’t mean a little bruise, I mean a massive great bruise that swells to a lump and really hurts! Obviously the injections are thinning my blood, making me more likely to bruise, I have noticed this down my legs, a little knock and I have a bruise to show for it. I was warned about this side effect, however the bruising around the injections goes dark purple within minutes and keeps growing for hours! To start with it was only occasional injections that were causing it, and then it was after every injection, more recently however I have noticed I am not bruising so much! Work that one out! I haven’t changed how, when or where I inject, but for some reason I don’t seem to be bruising at the moment. Maybe my body is being nice and giving my sides time to debruise themselves before starting again!

As you can see from my previous post ‘Bump Photos’ my bump is steadily growing. I love showing it off and it’s starting to get past the ‘is she just realllly bloated’ stage. I am pretty sure people in the street must be able to see I am pregnant, atleast I hope they can! I wore a dress last night that used to be able to conceal my bump, but noticed that it just made it more obvious. I was so happy!
I have got a posh do to go to in the next few weeks and I haven’t thought about buying a dress for it yet, as I didn’t know what size I would be, whether I would be the same size I was last time at nearing 20 weeks or bigger or smaller or god forbid, not pregnant any more. Considering all this I have put it off ’til now to get a dress, and now I am panicking as I am really fussy and don’t have a massive budget and it seems if you add the word maternity to things you instantly add a whole lot of money to the price tag! I am going to drag my mum into the city in the next week with one aim – to find me a dress – and we shall suceed! I think I will also look at empire line non maternity dresses as I am sure that I will be able to still fit in them without the hem line going funny and atleast that increases my choice a little! I shall add updates to this dress hunt – I’m sure lots of pregnant ladies have exactly the same problems as I am having, I’m sure there is a simple and cheap solution (apparently cutting the stomach out of one of my dresses is not considered a sensible budget option)

For the last few days I have been trying to feel Shrimp move. During my last pregnancy I never felt what felt like butterflies like everyone else describes it, I only felt her kicking when I held my hand against my belly and it felt like gas bubbles popping in my gut. I am finding myself hyper aware of my stomach, feeling for anything that might be a kick or a shuffle or a hiccup. I have taken to sitting there on an evening with my hands clutching my stomach in the hope I will feel a little kick. I half convinced myself Tuesday/Wednesday that I was feeling kicks, they seemed constant and concentrated in one area, but by Thursday morning I sat all morning clutching my tummy and nothing, absolutely nothing! Obviously my first thought was that I was clearly wrong about the previous couple of days, that I must have been really gassy (great!) then my mind started to wonder and maybe Shrimp is just asleep and will start kicking again soon… Then I began to panic that maybe this was exactly like last time, that maybe those last couple of days was Shrimp kicking, only they would be the only ever kicks I would get to feel. Last time, being my first baby, not knowing what I was feeling for I was feeling the kicks and in my heart I knew what they were but it wasn’t until I stopped feeling them that I KNEW what they had been. That couldn’t be happening to me again could it? I grabbed my Doppler and half panicking, half excited, turned it on, moving the probe around my stomach listening for a heartbeat, I moved it right round my stomach, panic rising in my throat, not again, not this time. Then there was a quiet dumdumdum, moving the probe slightly it got louder and clearer, then moved away again, I moved the probe around and found it again, listening with relief and finding myself relaxing to the sound. Without having my own home Doppler I would be a nervous wreck by now. Having not felt any movements since then either, I would have been ringing the midwife this morning asking her to listen for baby’s heartbeat.
I am going to be one of those women who will panic about every little thing, and without a home Doppler the midwives would probably be getting so many calls from me, they’d probably block my number!! I am pretty sure the sudden moments of panic won’t change until this baby is in my arms and not in danger of my body any more!

So this morning my phone app informed me that my baby is now 17 weeks (yeah, my phone didn’t really need to tell me, my head has it’s own counter!)
This gives me:
Just over 2 weeks until the posh do.
3 weeks until my scan when I can hopefully find out if I’m having a little girl or little boy.
4 weeks until I reach the point that last time it was all over (I shall not think about that, I shall not think about that – who am I kidding? It’s all I can think about, then I feel guilty when I catch myself.)
7 weeks until baby is viable.

The last few months I’ve been feeling incredibly ill, spending a lot of my time in bed watching tv, I couldn’t even bring myself to do any craft or anything (up until a few days ago when I started kitting again), which is so unlike me, and I was only dragging myself out if I needed to, for doctors appointments and the like. I started feeling better a few weeks ago, but in the last few days my energy seems to have pinged right back up. I hadn’t worn makeup for months, up until yesterday, when I put on a faceful and I felt alive again! You honestly wouldn’t believe how just a little bit of makeup makes me look not like a zombie, and this gave me the confidence to go with my new found energy.

So every Monday at 9.00AM I’ve been going to have a blood test to make sure my thyroid levels are still heading in the right direction. I had my last one of these this morning, and the phlebotomists first comment was that I looked well and was glowing – ok so the glow was the makeup but my, did it make a difference. I have pretty much been skipping around today, it’s crazy, like I’ve gained the whole few months energy back!!

I went straight from the doctors where I had my blood test to the hospital where I had an appointment with my thyroid consultant at 10.30AM. Unsurprisingly her clinic was running 30minutes behind, sitting in the waiting room I wasn’t really concentrating on anything but suddenly in my tummy there was a tiny floopy feeling and as soon as I’d felt it, it was gone. I’d never felt anything like it before to describe it as, not sure if it was baby rolling over or what but I’ve occasionally felt similar over the last couple of days and wondered… I was eventually called and again she commented how well I was looking. I’m not sure if that was the fact I’ve gained a stone since I last saw her, had eaten a square meal in the last few days, the makeup or the massive grin on my face.
We talked about how I was doing and she said all my results were heading in the right direction, and we’re now round about normal. She is reducing my Propylthiouracil down from 4x 50mg tablets 2x a day (400mg a day) to 1x 50mg tablet 3x a day (150mg a day), with a plan to move me onto 10mg Carbimazole a day in 2 weeks as this is considered safe to use in the second trimester. She is loathed to leave me on Propylthiouracil as it is known to be detrimental to the liver (both mine and babies) if used for extended periods. I am having a blood test in two weeks, before I change onto Carbimazole and then one in another 2 weeks to see how the Carbimazole is working.
She also mentioned that I will need to have a close eye kept on my thyroid levels at both 24 weeks and 30 weeks as if my thyroid levels are high at these points, it is likely to affect baby’s thyroid and if baby gets an over active thyroid it can affect weight gain, which is obviously crucial for a growing baby. I am booked back in to see her in 7 weeks when I will be around 22 weeks pregnant so we can see how it is going and discuss what extra tests I may need in the next couple of weeks. She seemed really positive and with every consultant I see I am getting more hopeful that maybe, just maybe, everything will go well.

On the way back from the hospital we stopped off at Asda to pick up my bounty pack, and decided that while I was there I would have a quick look round the clothes for me. I stumbled into the baby clothes and instantly homing in on a gorgeous pink set I realised that as much as I was saying it was cute, I wasn’t imagining a baby in it, just that I liked it. Phew. I hadn’t broken my one rule of imagining the future. Back in the car I opened my bounty pack and found it contained some gorgeous little white booties that say cutie on. Same reaction of how adorable, but again not imagining my baby wearing them. Let’s hope I can keep this up!!

I had a midwife appointment on the 18th which I was really excited about, remembering that at my 15 week appointment last time I got to hear my babys heartbeat and just hoped it’d be the same this time. I turned up and was quickly called in. I went through a speedy roundup of what had happened in the last few weeks and eventually she asked if I’d like to try to hear babys heartbeat. I of course jumped at the opportunity but she warned me that its possible that its still too early to hear anything. Luckily almost as soon as she put the microphone on my stomach I heart a heartbeat that was too fast for mine and as she moved it around it got louder. She counted that babys heart was at 155bpm which is apparently good! I couldn’t stop smiling! Thankfully that’s another hurdle over.
Now to hope my 20 week scan is just as positive! Only a month to go, and counting.

I am now nearing 15 weeks and am finding the panic is there, festering in my mind all the time.
I used a home Doppler on myself a couple of days ago and for the first time heard the magical noise of Shrimps little heart thumping away, and the panic faded, for a couple of days, and now it’s back.
I had tried using the Doppler a couple of times before to hear the heartbeat, but hadn’t been able to find anything. I had pushed the panic that caused away, knowing it was still early, maybe baby was too small to be picked up, or was tucked up behind my placenta, but the fear was there and I was slowly convincing myself that it was all over, every twinge in my tummy, instead of the growing and stretching of my uterus, was to me, the start of a miscarriage, the start of the downwards spiral, and that like last time, my body wasn’t letting go. Was keeping hold of my baby’s body.
But no. Atleast two days ago, my baby was alive and well. I know it was baby’s heart not mine because it was thumping away at a rate of knots that mine definitely wasn’t (I had my hand on my pulse as well, covering all bases) and baby was moving. Keeping the microphone in the same place where the sound was loud, it suddenly faded, and moving the probe across a bit it was louder again. I have a proper little mover and shaker and I cannot wait to feel the little kicks. I spend every evening with my hand clamped over my tummy determined to feel something. Sometimes half convincing myself that the gas bubbles popping in my gut are little kicks, and I suppose they might be, but until they are stronger and constant I will never be sure!
I am trying not to use the Doppler too much, limiting myself to once a week. This week I’m waiting for my midwife appointment on Tuesday 18th, where hopefully she will use hers and be able to give her expert opinion on if baby’s ok. I don’t want to use mine too much, as one, I’d be sat using it all day every day, and two, I’m not convinced how safe they are, so I’m sticking with limited use.
I also, touch wood, seem to have avoided the horrible experience of the incredibly heavy bleed I experienced at 12 weeks during my last pregnancy, a gushing of water thin blood poured out of me in 5 minutes then stopped. My 13 week ultrasound showed a clot next to the sac which no one seemed concerned about. Thankfully no such clot was picked up (or atleast mentioned to me or on any of the scan reports) this time around. Every little thing that is different to my last pregnancy seems to be a positive.

I am hopeful that this pregnancy will suceed, the doctors are only filled with positive comments and hope, but I find myself unable to think about Shrimp as a baby. Last time I imagined and I dreamed and I lost it all, it was a feeling I can’t describe. Not only did I lose this little baby who I inexplicably loved with everything that I was, even though I had never seen her face, I also lost the future I had subconsciously planned for her. The afternoons sitting in the garden, the walks with the grandparents. I found I had even imagined her going to school. All that future was snatched from me the second I lost her.
This time I am thinking of Shrimp as they will be looking at stage they are, considering the fact that even if I delivered now, they would have beautiful little ears, and fingers. I am focussing on being excited about the fact I’m pregnant, without giving myself a false future. I am more than aware that this miracle growing inside of me could be snatched away at any point and I am determined to cherish it, but I don’t think I will allow myself to think past a full term birth, to think about me holding a beautiful, moving, breathing, crying, screaming, kicking, baby until maybe a week before I’m due, at which point I know I will have 9months of mental preparation to squeeze into a week, but this baby is so wanted, will be so loved, that I’m sure that won’t be an issue.