Back in July I posted that my partner and I are expecting a baby, and after that I went a bit quiet. I posted a few days ago that there were things that I was finding difficult and I wasn't ready to talk about it, but this blog is to share a little bit more about what has been going on.
So first things first, morning sickness was awful and to some extend still is awful. It's no longer as constant as it was, but it is still difficult to manage, I still need to take medication for it occasionally and it's still horrible when it happens. With it comes exhaustion, because I was throwing up what I had eaten, everything I would typically eat made me feel sick or I just had an aversion to food because I felt like everything was going to make feel sick and I just wanted to not feel sick. There was a point where the only thing I could reliably consume was slushies and Quorn Chicken nuggets.
Everyone told me that once I got to a certain point (and this point changed so many times depending who I was speaking to and when) morning sickness would stop, and I think it stopped for about three or four weeks before it decided to come back, but I think that was partly the stress of trying to move when I could see the countdown to the baby coming was ticking away super quickly.
At twenty weeks we went for another scan and everything was all good, and that's when we were told we were having a little boy. We were both happy, but we had also discussed it and we were going to be happy as long as they had ten fingers, ten toes and weren't born in Burnley. To be fair, we could have got over missing fingers or missing toes... (It's a joke; my partner's from Blackburn. It's a thing.)
I'm not good with timelines because of the ADHD, but some time after the morning sickness paused and then came back I started struggling with pains from the growing bump that were later confirmed as pelvic girdle pain, so getting around has been pretty painful and I have to plan what I'm doing over the course of a week to make sure I have the energy and ability to get through all of the plans. Yes, I've been to physio, yes, I've tried resting, yes, I have a support belt, and no, none of these things have made it completely better. I'm managing, but that takes planning.
Recently I've been struggling more with anxiety and symptoms of ADHD, likely because of the amount of time I was off of ADHD meds. There is a lack of consensus between different areas of care in maternity, ADHD care and perinatal mental health care as to whether certain meds are safe and also whether it's better to have a certain level of risk to ensure the mother is doing okay. Thankfully everyone seems a bit better aligned for me at the moment, but it took a lot of time, a lot of appointments and a lot of messing about to get here, and there was a lot of other things going on at the same time that complicated matters.
Since we did this last time. A boy! Yay! Do you know what you're going to name him?
We've got a good idea, yes, but it's something we don't want to share until we've met him. We're still debating over a middle name, but both agree he should have one, but I think we're pretty set on his first name. He already has a couple of nicknames too, one of which is just Little Man. I call him that a lot when I'm talking to him.
*Insert name here* is a good name...
I feel like this is what 90% of my male friends have said to me, and not only does it get old, I really don't know why my male friends think I'm going to name my son after them... People have made a lot of suggestions, and I'm sure we'll come to something that we like and that other people disagree with, but it will be our decision.
When's your due date?
Late December and that's as specific as I'm being on the Internet, partly because babies are considered to be full term at 37 weeks, due dates are 40 weeks but first babies are known to go over and can be up to 2 weeks late, so there's a long stretch of time when he could arrive, even if he goes to term.
Ooooh, Christmas Baby!!
Yes, he's probably going to be born very close to Christmas and Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and Boxing Day are all in the mix for when he might arrive. Is it what I would choose? No. I think birthdays that are too close to Christmas are a bit disappointing because they get overshadowed, but we'll see what happens.
Have you looked at nurseries yet?
Urgh, this one is so depressing, but yes, I have. It felt strange to be booking him in at a nursery when he's not even here yet, but at the same time we knew where we wanted him to be going, so we had to get a move on getting him booked in. I'm really thankful for the additional provision that's been brought in, but it has meant that "competition" (I hate calling it that, but it's what it gets referred to as...) for places is ridiculous, so booking him in early was necessary.
Oh, you're carrying *big *small *high *low etc.
Comments on my body have tended to be things like "oh, you're blooming" and I can't help but say something like "yeah, blooming huge..." but there have been a number of people who have told me I'm carrying in a certain way, and mostly they didn't even know me before I was pregnant, or previously in my pregnancy, so I really want to ask how they know or why they need to say anything about it. Honestly, the weather getting colder has been something of a blessing because I can just wear big hoodies and hide my body shape a bit/a lot.
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