Well James darling, it's been weeks and weeks since I wrote the last entry. You are now nearly 32 weeks old, which means only 2 months left before you are expected to make an appearance! Your cousin Loussia was born about 4 weeks ago on the 3rd of May. You won't remember this but as I held her in my arms you kicked her bottom through my tummy! Seeing Loussia made me wonder even more what you look like and what your character will be. I can't wait to get to know you!
I'm getting nice and big now as you grow, and although it's getting uncomfortable to bend down I am happy to see how well you are growing. You must be nice and healthy in there! From scans and tests we have had we can tell that you are doing well, even though I panic every so often that you are not thriving for whatever reason. Because mummy has wide hips you stayed quite low in my abdomen for a while, and so we thought you might be too small, but you soon popped up and now you are exactly the right size and sitting where you should be! Also, because the placenta is on the front I can't feel you kicking and moving about as much as I would like and that worries me sometimes too- but I'm sure you're having a good go in there! I can feel you now just under my ribs, moving your feet around.
We already have lots of things for you - a crib to sleep in, a pram to go about in (so I can show you off to everyone), a car seat so we can take you home from hospital, and lots and lots of clothes! We have bought some pale blue paint for the nursery, but so far Daddy hasn't had time to redecorate as he is working lots of overtime to earn extra money to buy things for you - and in between I keep arranging for us to do things and see people, so we've been out of the house a lot. That will change when you get here - we won't be going out anywhere near so much!! But believe me, we won't mind at all - staying in with you will be more fun than any going out could ever be.
Anyway gorgeous boy, must go now and do some work - I still have 2 weeks to go before I can give that up!
Big kisses,
Mummy
Monday, 1 June 2009
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Baby Diary entry 1
This is for you, James, when you're old enough to read. That time seems many moons away as today you are still 4 months away from being born! Your daddy and I are waiting for you so impatiently. We can't wait to meet you and see your little face! Who will you look most like? Will you have dark hair like mummy or blonde hair like daddy? Your eyes will most likely be green eventually but they'll be blue when you're first born. Your nose will be a tiny little button and your fingernails will be minute little circles - even smaller than holes punched in paper, smaller than ladybirds. We've seen you wiggling about on the ultrasound and heard your heartbeat - strong and fast. I've felt you move inside my tummy and it feels like little kernels of popcorn popping. I love feeling you because it reminds me that you are there and that in the not too distant future we will have a son. I wish I could feel you all the time! Daddy wishes he could feel you too but you are too small at the moment for your kicks to be felt from the outside. He puts his hand on my belly every evening and you probably feel the warmth coming through. I read that at the moment you can hear his voice better than mine because it is lower and deeper. I hope that you can hear him and it makes you feel safe like it does me.
Your daddy and I think about you all the time. Not just what you will look like, but what kind of personality you will have. Will you be bookish like mummy, or musical like Daddy? One thing is for sure, you will be wonderful, whatever you like to do, and we will always encourage you to be your own person, and do the things you enjoy. Your grandfather Dowling thinks you will be a West Ham fan and play Rugby. I picture you playing the guitar like daddy, and I want to teach you how to rollerblade. But you can try everything and just stick with the things you like. I really do think about you nearly all the time you know! I go to work everyday and I get on with things but in the back of my mind I am just thinking of you.
There are lots of websites talking about all the different phases of pregnancy and how you are developing and I look at them quite often even though by now I mostly know what they say!! This week (Week 23) your hearing is pretty well established and you are approximately 29cm long 'crown to heel' as they say. Although you are almost as long as a ruler, you are still quite thin. Over the next few months you will put on lots of fat and everything will get stronger and more developed. Mummy is already making the meconium - the best quality breast milk that you will drink in the first couple of days before normal milk takes over. Mummy's body is preparing just as much as she is preparing in her mind, and preparing the house for your arrival. Mummy wants to spoil you by buying pretty nursery furniture but you won't notice it until you're much older so we will save the money so it will last longer and I can stay at home with you for as long as possible before going back to work.
Anyway my gorgeous little Jim Bean (I like to call you this, and Daddy calls you Jimbo), I must do some work now. You're not here yet so I need to at least try to think of other things.
Big kisses to you, all my love always,
Mummy.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Miracles do happen
It has now been several months since i last wrote on this blog and with good reason. In my last entry i wrote "Strange how even with all experience to the contrary, I can still allow myself to hope that I might be pregnant for as long as the incontrovertible evidence has not yet arrived."
This was somewhat prophetic as it turned out as on that occasion I actually did turn out to be pregnant! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! I haven't written since because I wanted to get to the point in the pregnancy where it is surer to succeed. I was convinced that early excitement would only lead to disappointment. (Crazy, I know).
As this has been a blog about infertility (albeit an unread one), I now want to leave a message for my non-existent readers, just in case someone one day stumbles across it. When we were trying, at the darkest times, I would spend literally hours trawling the net for some piece of miracle advice; something that would either unlock the secret to getting pregnant, or at the very least help me to relax about it and accept the future whatever it may bring.
One day I found a web page that really spoke to me. A lady was describing her quest to get pregnant and the increasingly desperate measures she and her husband were resorting to. She spoke of the feelings of anger, depression, frustration, inadequacy etc that anyone in that situation will understand only too well. It was a long and well written piece that really drew me in, and I believed that by the end of it, I would have received the miracle answer I was looking for.
Unfortunately, when I got to the end, all I found was a plug for her book. Send "$15.99 plus postage and package and you'll find out the big secret to getting pregnant." I felt so let down, so scammed. I would've gladly paid $1000 or more if I believed that the book really would give me the answers, but I didn't believe it. And the reason I didn't believe it is that no woman who has experienced infertility would ever want to profit from other women going through the same thing.
So here - for what they are worth - are my totally free tips, based on my experience, in case, just in case, they can ever be of any help to anyone else. I must point out that in my case the infertility was 'unexplained'. I had only mildly polycystic ovaries, I was ovulating each month, I had no endometriosis, my tubes weren't tied etc. If you have any of these problems, I guess the solution is going to be more medical. But if, like me, you just can't get pregnant, then maybe you might find some help here.
Seek out older women who have not had children. You'll see that their lives have not been destroyed by this fact, and that on the contrary they have lots of really cool things going on that mothers don't or can't because they have other responsibilities. I was lucky to find several strong, beautiful women around me who had come out the other side of the fertility struggle, had accepted and moved on. They had great houses and cars and went on really fab holidays each year! Think what your life could be like without kids. I started to imagine my life without and it didn't seem too bad after all. I started to think - why am I so desperate to change my life? What’s wrong with it the way it is? I have a great husband and friends, a great social life, and I can afford to spend money on myself. I went out and got my hair done, and started thinking about the two-seater sports car I was going to buy!
Prepare your body. If you're thinking that you don't need to give up bad habits and take up good habits in order to get pregnant (like every pamphlet will advise) then you're probably wrong. You can look at the youngsters who get pregnant in seconds after a boozy night out and think if they can do it why not me? You can think of the overweight girl of your acquaintance who got pregnant second month of trying, and think if she can do it why not me? But you won't get those answers. It just isn't you. For most of the year before I got pregnant I gave up drinking almost entirely, and smoking very definitely entirely, and I started jogging two or three times a week to lose weight. I went for long walks in the countryside every Sunday and even climbed Snowdon. I lost a stone and a half and got distinctly fitter. Did it help? Who knows for certain, but it didn't do any harm, and I feel much better in myself for it.
Conversely, don't put pressure on yourself. I was doing all the above, and I think it was great for preparing my body, but I was being quite hard on myself. Eventually, after the last session with the fertility specialist where she told me that my remaining option was IVF (but not until I was 35 on the NHS) I cracked a bit and took up smoking and drinking again for a little while. I got pregnant during this time. Now I’m not advocating bad habits as a way of getting pregnant (it didn’t work for me at all during the first year of trying) but I think the point was that I had decided to be my old self. I was sick of fertility being my primary preoccupation. I wanted to be able to say ‘great’ in response to the question ‘how are you?’ and mean it. I wanted to enjoy myself properly again without that kind of stiffness that had somehow crept in over the past years. I really, really wanted to be happy for my best friend and be there for her when her baby arrived. I guess it was a mental shift, and maybe it’s not that easy for everyone, but I think I had reached the right time for me to be able to do it.
Don’t dismiss the idea of anti-depressants. Again, I’m not advocating this for everyone, but I believe these really helped me. I’m not sure if I could have affected that mental change I mention above without them. I only had a mild dosage but I swear it just rubbed the corners off, and helped give me the strength to move on a bit. See other entries for details of this! At any rate, don’t be afraid to ask your GP for help, be it drugs or counseling. And if your GP is not sympathetic, change your GP!
Change your circumstances if you have to. I was surrounded at work by women getting pregnant, and having to live through their pregnancies with them day by day. Because I work in marketing in publishing my work environment was almost entirely comprised of women of child bearing age, and this meant that I was constantly reminded of my baby quest and unable to put it out of my mind even (especially) when I was at work. My specialist asked if I could change job, which I thought was extreme, but eventually when two colleagues announced they were pregnant on the same day, I decided to apply for a job elsewhere. (I thought a tech company would have a higher incidence of men and therefore I would have fewer pregnancies to deal with). I got the job and handed in my notice. I got pregnant in my notice period. Was it because I was busy thinking of something else, or was it because I was relieved to be getting out of fertility central? It might have had nothing to do with it at all of course, but I still think that if you’re in a situation that’s adding to the pressure on you to have a baby, then get out of that situation if you can!
My final tip. This doesn’t have to do with relaxing, it’s a bit more practical than that. Do not use KY Jelly or any other lubricant while you’re trying to conceive! It doesn’t say so on the packet but it’s pretty toxic to sperm. In fact it almost says the opposite as it says ‘not a spermicide’ on the packaging. I guess this is to cover their backs in case someone does get pregnant while using it. But that’s not likely. It slows the sperm right down and traps them before they get anywhere near the egg. I got pregnant 2 months after stopping using it.
Which of the things above was responsible for me getting pregnant? Perhaps a combination of them all, perhaps none. I hope with all my heart though that you read something here that will help you, and I wish you all the best luck in the world for getting pregnant.
This was somewhat prophetic as it turned out as on that occasion I actually did turn out to be pregnant! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! I haven't written since because I wanted to get to the point in the pregnancy where it is surer to succeed. I was convinced that early excitement would only lead to disappointment. (Crazy, I know).
As this has been a blog about infertility (albeit an unread one), I now want to leave a message for my non-existent readers, just in case someone one day stumbles across it. When we were trying, at the darkest times, I would spend literally hours trawling the net for some piece of miracle advice; something that would either unlock the secret to getting pregnant, or at the very least help me to relax about it and accept the future whatever it may bring.
One day I found a web page that really spoke to me. A lady was describing her quest to get pregnant and the increasingly desperate measures she and her husband were resorting to. She spoke of the feelings of anger, depression, frustration, inadequacy etc that anyone in that situation will understand only too well. It was a long and well written piece that really drew me in, and I believed that by the end of it, I would have received the miracle answer I was looking for.
Unfortunately, when I got to the end, all I found was a plug for her book. Send "$15.99 plus postage and package and you'll find out the big secret to getting pregnant." I felt so let down, so scammed. I would've gladly paid $1000 or more if I believed that the book really would give me the answers, but I didn't believe it. And the reason I didn't believe it is that no woman who has experienced infertility would ever want to profit from other women going through the same thing.
So here - for what they are worth - are my totally free tips, based on my experience, in case, just in case, they can ever be of any help to anyone else. I must point out that in my case the infertility was 'unexplained'. I had only mildly polycystic ovaries, I was ovulating each month, I had no endometriosis, my tubes weren't tied etc. If you have any of these problems, I guess the solution is going to be more medical. But if, like me, you just can't get pregnant, then maybe you might find some help here.
Seek out older women who have not had children. You'll see that their lives have not been destroyed by this fact, and that on the contrary they have lots of really cool things going on that mothers don't or can't because they have other responsibilities. I was lucky to find several strong, beautiful women around me who had come out the other side of the fertility struggle, had accepted and moved on. They had great houses and cars and went on really fab holidays each year! Think what your life could be like without kids. I started to imagine my life without and it didn't seem too bad after all. I started to think - why am I so desperate to change my life? What’s wrong with it the way it is? I have a great husband and friends, a great social life, and I can afford to spend money on myself. I went out and got my hair done, and started thinking about the two-seater sports car I was going to buy!
Prepare your body. If you're thinking that you don't need to give up bad habits and take up good habits in order to get pregnant (like every pamphlet will advise) then you're probably wrong. You can look at the youngsters who get pregnant in seconds after a boozy night out and think if they can do it why not me? You can think of the overweight girl of your acquaintance who got pregnant second month of trying, and think if she can do it why not me? But you won't get those answers. It just isn't you. For most of the year before I got pregnant I gave up drinking almost entirely, and smoking very definitely entirely, and I started jogging two or three times a week to lose weight. I went for long walks in the countryside every Sunday and even climbed Snowdon. I lost a stone and a half and got distinctly fitter. Did it help? Who knows for certain, but it didn't do any harm, and I feel much better in myself for it.
Conversely, don't put pressure on yourself. I was doing all the above, and I think it was great for preparing my body, but I was being quite hard on myself. Eventually, after the last session with the fertility specialist where she told me that my remaining option was IVF (but not until I was 35 on the NHS) I cracked a bit and took up smoking and drinking again for a little while. I got pregnant during this time. Now I’m not advocating bad habits as a way of getting pregnant (it didn’t work for me at all during the first year of trying) but I think the point was that I had decided to be my old self. I was sick of fertility being my primary preoccupation. I wanted to be able to say ‘great’ in response to the question ‘how are you?’ and mean it. I wanted to enjoy myself properly again without that kind of stiffness that had somehow crept in over the past years. I really, really wanted to be happy for my best friend and be there for her when her baby arrived. I guess it was a mental shift, and maybe it’s not that easy for everyone, but I think I had reached the right time for me to be able to do it.
Don’t dismiss the idea of anti-depressants. Again, I’m not advocating this for everyone, but I believe these really helped me. I’m not sure if I could have affected that mental change I mention above without them. I only had a mild dosage but I swear it just rubbed the corners off, and helped give me the strength to move on a bit. See other entries for details of this! At any rate, don’t be afraid to ask your GP for help, be it drugs or counseling. And if your GP is not sympathetic, change your GP!
Change your circumstances if you have to. I was surrounded at work by women getting pregnant, and having to live through their pregnancies with them day by day. Because I work in marketing in publishing my work environment was almost entirely comprised of women of child bearing age, and this meant that I was constantly reminded of my baby quest and unable to put it out of my mind even (especially) when I was at work. My specialist asked if I could change job, which I thought was extreme, but eventually when two colleagues announced they were pregnant on the same day, I decided to apply for a job elsewhere. (I thought a tech company would have a higher incidence of men and therefore I would have fewer pregnancies to deal with). I got the job and handed in my notice. I got pregnant in my notice period. Was it because I was busy thinking of something else, or was it because I was relieved to be getting out of fertility central? It might have had nothing to do with it at all of course, but I still think that if you’re in a situation that’s adding to the pressure on you to have a baby, then get out of that situation if you can!
My final tip. This doesn’t have to do with relaxing, it’s a bit more practical than that. Do not use KY Jelly or any other lubricant while you’re trying to conceive! It doesn’t say so on the packet but it’s pretty toxic to sperm. In fact it almost says the opposite as it says ‘not a spermicide’ on the packaging. I guess this is to cover their backs in case someone does get pregnant while using it. But that’s not likely. It slows the sperm right down and traps them before they get anywhere near the egg. I got pregnant 2 months after stopping using it.
Which of the things above was responsible for me getting pregnant? Perhaps a combination of them all, perhaps none. I hope with all my heart though that you read something here that will help you, and I wish you all the best luck in the world for getting pregnant.
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