Pregnancy Update and our journey to our rainbow.
Hey guys!! Long time no see!! Apologies for that but you will find out why a little later on.
As many of you know I am currently 34 weeks pregnant with my little lady, who also happens to be my rainbow baby.
This post is basically going to be a pregnancy update and information on the lead up to it which brings me to one of the reasons that this blog has taken me to long to get up. This is going to be a very personal post that goes over a part of my life that was very difficult for me and my family. Therefore it has taken me a while to pluck up the courage to post this and to even write about it! However, from talking to other women, it is something that happens more often than is spoken about and I feel that if there is a place where it is spoken about openly which can help another lady, either going through it or who been through it, even just one lady, then this post has done its job.
So here goes....
My son was born in December 2014, he was rather unexpected, as I go through in a previous blog and at the time myself and Ian weren't planning on anymore children for quite a while!!!
However, in November 2015 we found out that I was pregnant again. At the time we had just had to moved out of our flat and back in with my Grandma in Nottingham. So again, it wasn't the best timing in the world, but, we were excited none-the-less! In our eyes, growing a new life is always something to be celebrated and I have been asked the question before 'did you ever consider aborting as it wasn't the best time?' And the answer is...no. Not even with Ollie. It's something that never entered my mind and personally I couldn't do.
However at 8 weeks pregnant that choice was taken away from us as I had started bleeding. Bright, fresh blood and after passing, what looked like a rather large clot, it was confirmed that I had, unfortunately, lost the baby. It was a really dark time for me but it made Ian and I think about kids and when we wanted more and we decided that we would wait until we were out of my Grandma's house before trying for another baby.
We mourned the loss of the baby very privately, we didn't even tell family. I am a very private person and deal with my emotions by bottling them up and not talking about them and I dealt with this in very much the same way. I shut off and just didn't talk about it, to anyone, I just threw myself into caring for my son and looking for a house for us to move into.
February 2016 rolls around and we are still living with my Grandma, when we find out that I am pregnant again. (It is worth noting that we were preventing pregnancy at this point just as we were when I fell pregnant with the previous baby and Ollie!) We found ourselves in the same place as we were in November, pregnant at not the best time, but again happy, if a lot more nervous this time. We decided not to tell anyone for a while as we found out very early on, so when, at 6 weeks, I started bleeding again, just as before and lost the baby, no-one knew.
I have been asked, even by family, why didn't you just tell your family what happened. I didn't say anything because if I spoke about it, I couldn't just shut off and try to move on, it would be spoken about and I would have had to admit that, in my eyes, I had failed. I have since found out that many women feel this way and I can tell you, you didn't fail at all. For whatever reason, that baby wasn't meant to be but the one you conceived after or the one that you will conceive next time will be. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and that helped me to deal with the situation.
So when in August 2016, I once again found out I was pregnant, I was understandably scared. However, our situation was very, very different this time around. We had moved into our own house in June and had been actively trying for a baby for a good few months. It had never happened and the August was actually the month that we said we were going to stop trying and see what happens, typical!
The day before we found out I was pregnant we had taken Ollie to Mcdonalds and the sweet curry dip tasted weird (which had been a symptom of all previous pregnancies) and I couldn't eat the chicken nuggets. Ian had made a snide, jokey remark about was I sure I wasn't pregnant and we had laughed it off. That night was date night and with his remark in my head I chose a mocktail.
The next morning I thought I would test just to see. Ian was downstairs with his mum and Ollie when 2 pink lines came up on the test and I immediately burst into tears and shouted down to him. He was happy and we both had a really good feeling about the pregnancy this time, so we decided to tell Ian's mum, that and the fact that I had obviously been crying and we had to have some sort of explanation. We also told my Grandma (who asked why I had handed her a thermometer!!) and my mum (fun fact: it was actually my mum's wedding anniversary!)
We figured out that our due date would be around the 30th April going from the first day of my last period.
This pregnancy couldn't be more different than Ollie's if it tried and it was that way right from the start!
The nausea started at around 5 weeks and continued throughout my first trimester! Not fun when you have a toddler running around to try and contend with as well as focusing on keeping food down!
12 week scan came and went and everything was perfect!! We decided to go for an early gender scan so that we could do a gender reveal at Oliver's 2nd birthday party. We went in hoping it was a girl and we weren't disappointed!! I cried with happiness on the scan table, we couldn't quite believe that our family was being completed in the most perfect way! The 20 week scan (luckily) confirmed it and here she is: 
However, it has been my body that has suffered much, much more this time. Everything from breaking out in spots right from the beginning, to being diagnosed with SPD at 16 weeks pregnant and dealing with that the entire way through.
I have been in twice for reduced movements but everything has been great since the last visit. I do get stitch type pains up both sides of my bump, and have been checked thoroughly by the doctor and everything looks fine, so they're unsure as to why I still get them. I was prescribed codeine for the pain from that and my SPD, which has been a god send recently, with my hips getting worse the bigger we both get.So day-to-day life is a struggle as simple things such as rolling over in bed, walking and even doing housework are much more difficult for me now. I occasionally even have to use crutches to get around, until recently, when little lady decided to bruise my ribs on my right hand side, which is very painful! Makes lifting my arms too much fun, which you can then imagine makes looking after Ollie fun too!
So all-in-all this pregnancy hasn't been easy and hasn't been fun recently! At 34 weeks pregnant I am definitely ready for her to vacate, but she has to stay put for at least 3 more weeks for us to have our home birth and, ideally, a little longer to make sure that she is as healthy as possible.
Right now though it is just a waiting game to see when she decides to make her appearance. I will of course update when she is here and there will be a blog about our home birth experience too.
Thank you so much for your patience with me on this post, I have other posts planned so keep an eye out for those!
But for now I will say goodbye and I will talk to you all soon!!!
