Go Out For Dinner..... Have A Baby

I've been a bit slack updating this blog. There hadn't really been much to say. I could have posted the 3D pics we had done, but there were only a couple of good ones and I put them up on the Facebook page. Was really looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks and having more done where Jellybean's foot wasn't in its mouth. I could have posted about getting organised for the baby shower, but I hadn't done anything. We did pay off the layby and pick up the cot but we're still waiting on the pram coming in. I could have posted about putting the cot together and trying to find the energy to put up the wall stickers. But I had time. I had plenty of time to get everything done. Or so I thought....

Jellybean Nelson - now known as Levayah Rose Nelson - came into the world on 18th October at 5:21am by emergency c-section, weighing 1970 grams.

We went out for dinner on Thursday night to celebrate a friend's birthday. I had a period pain-like cramp earlier in the day, took some panadol and thought nothing of it. Started to eat my pasta at about 8pm and needed to blow my nose, so went to the toilet and felt a gush in my knickers on the way there. Blood. A fair amount of it too. Waddled my way back to the table trying to keep calm, told Geoff we had to get to the hospital ASAP and off we went. Luckily we were in the city and not far from Women's & Children's where they at least had some information on record about me.
They saw me nearly straight away, put the baby on the monitors and the heartbeat was great which made me feel so much better. They ran tests and checked me out and after 2am I finally got a room - I was staying in at least overnight. Geoff went home and I did ask them if I was having my baby - they told me not that night but at least by the end of the week! I went off to sleep for a little bit and woke up with massive cramping. They tried to find the baby's heartbeat, which had been PERFECT the whole time and it had dropped to 80bpm. Next minute they were calling a "code 0" and all these doctors started rushing in and I was told that I would be having an emergency c-section to get the baby out. WHAT???? Unfortunately Geoff couldn't be in theatre with me, so when they rang him they told him not to hurry. I can just imagine how much panic he would have been in, getting home and only having about an hours sleep before being woken up to be told your girlfriend was about to go and have an operation to deliver your early baby. And then him having to call my Mum to let her know, after telling her earlier that I was only in there for observation!

I recovered from that surgery quite well and got to see my baby for a few minutes before being taken to another room on the Delivery Ward. I was constantly monitored by lovely midwives, given my medication when I needed it, had a button to push for instant pain relief. Then I was moved to a different room on the Postnatal Ward. But the doctors were worried about how pale I was (even though I am naturally pale) and the amount of pain I was in when they pushed on my tummy. It was so bad it was shooting into my arm. Then all these doctors were rushing in and out and drips were being put into me and they were SO PAINFUL, then I was being rushed into theatre again for a second operation in less than 12 hours to fix intra-abdominal bleeding and given a blood transfusion (3 units) for acute blood loss anaemia.

HOLY FUCKBALLS!

I did not recover from that surgery very well. My mouth was dry, dry, dry and I wasn't allowed any water. The best they could do was a few drops on my lips. They wanted me to move my head and I couldn't, it felt so heavy and I was so tired. I could hardly move my legs. They moved me out of recovery and back to a room on Delivery Ward and I was basically yelling for them to bring me a fan because I was hot and I needed WATER!! One of the midwives sneakily gave me an ice chip and kept doing so every time she came to check on me. Those midwives on that ward were awesome. On Sunday afternoon I was able to sit on the edge of the bed for a couple of minutes. On Monday I was able to get out of bed and sit on a chair and then even have a shower later on. I was doing so well that they moved me back to Postnatal... and I didn't like those midwives at all. I know they had a lot more women to look after, but they were just plain rude. They didn't supply tissues there and basically had a go at Geoff like he should have known that. The only one I liked I had for a little while on Monday night and part of Tuesday - he was a young guy called Peter and he had a great sense of humour and he was very helpful - even let me know that they could take my milk down to NICU for me instead of just putting it in the fridge. None of the others had said that. And then when I asked one of them too she told me she was too busy and she'd just put it in the fridge, then the NICU called me the next morning asking for my milk for the next feed!

I was probably meant to stay in longer, but I was desperate to get home. My head was all stuffy probably because of how hospitals feel pressurised and I just wanted to see my Dad and Kaos. The doctors came to see me and said they were happy for me to go home if that's what I wanted (and I didn't have to rush out of there as they didn't need the room in a hurry).

I had a pretty decent sleep last night but am feeling crap today with this heavy head, so have made an appointment with my GP tomorrow and can hopefully get some antibiotics.
Levayah (the hospital refers to her as Baby Halls) has been moved out of NICU and into Special Care where she is breathing on her own, feeding through a tube but vomiting a bit after each feed and losing some weight so now she's on a constant feed where it slowly drips through. I don't feel bad that I've had to leave her there as I know it's the best place for her, but I do feel bad that I don't get to see her very often because of the way I feel. I have to put myself first in this instance and make sure that I recover fully and feel better for when she is able to come home.

I'm also in shock that she is a girl when I was totally convinced I was carrying a boy!

29+4 Weeks

My belly is getting bigger!
I have told Jellybean that it has to grow to the room it already has because if I get any bigger I don't know how I'll be able to walk. Having enough problems as it is with my legs aching because of the extra weight and sleeping is beginning to be uncomfortable. Cannot find a comfy combination of pillows or leg positions.

Only 12 days to go until we get to see Jellybean in 3D! Can't wait to post those pics.

And I don't have Gestational Diabetes! Had the test last Monday and didn't hear anything back - they tell you that no news is good news!

Weeks 23 & 24

Am now feeling Jellybean move a lot more during the day and even more at night. Can also see it kicking, which is very cool. Tried to post a video on here but it wouldn't work.

Had my 2nd antenatal appointment yesterday, the first at the hospital where I'm going to deliver. They were going to start a new book for me but luckily they just used the one I had and I didn't have to go through all the questions again. The midwife was lovely. Jellybean's heart beat was 147 and my belly is measuring 26cms which is normal. I now have to have the Glucose Challenge Test in 3 weeks and I'm hoping I'll pass it because I don't want to do the longer test that you have to fast for.

Jellybean is also very happy that Uncle Kristan was released from hospital yesterday afternoon after being admitted on Wednesday (which was his birthday!) What sounded like it could be something very serious, turned out not to be so we are all very happy.

Weeks 21 & 22

For the past 2 weeks I have had an ear infection in both ears. The 5 day course of antibiotics didn't seem to clear it up nor did the ear drops but I am FINALLY starting to be able to hear things better, instead of feeling like I'm constantly under water. I now have this strange cough that I only seem to get at night. Luckily Geoff sleeps through anything - me coughing, blowing my nose and vomiting. Hopefully not a baby crying though. He'll definitely need to wake up for that!

I can feel Jellybean moving around more, usually it's at night when I go to bed but today I have noticed it quite frequently. Apparently now it is able to hear noises and can respond to the sound of my voice and music and the phone ringing etc.

I've ordered the nappy bag and the cradle was delivered the other day, so I've put that together (all by myself!). Have to start thinking about the baby shower now, decide if I want to hire a room somewhere or just have it at home. I am still thinking about it being a joint birthday celebration/house-warming as well. Then I have to get started on making the invitations.

Bump Pic @ 22+3 weeks

The Nursery (Part 2)

For those of you not on Facebook (hi Nay! xx), the nursery has now been painted and the colour turned out great. We also went and ordered the cot and pram yesterday and today my bond money went into my bank account so I ordered the cradle as well. Now just have to get sheets and quilts and blankets for them both. Still haven't found a wall sticker that I 100% love. They have some that match the cot set that I am getting but I didn't like them that much.

Here is a pic of the quilt and I love the matching lamp too!

Week 20

Half way there! Jellybean is doing great. Don't feel any movement during the day, even though I'm not busy and am usually sitting or laying down, but it definitely gets active at night when I get into bed. I'm the one not doing so well at the moment. Started off with a sore throat and sore neck and last night I couldn't get to sleep because the right side of my face was painful. My jaw was sore, my teeth were sore, my ear was in pain. Finally I had to get up and take some Panadol as I was nearly in tears from not being comfortable enough to go to sleep. Luckily it worked and I got some sleep, but today I cannot hear out my right ear very well and my neck is still sore.

This weekend we will start on the nursery. I have chosen a colour called Puddle for the walls and am hoping to find a nice wall sticker to decorate. I did find a cute koala one at a reasonable price, but shipping from Canada was going to be nearly the same amount! So I'll have to keep looking. I've seen a lot of other cute ones, but they haven't been gender neutral. At least after the walls are painted I can FINALLY order the cot!!

The Nursery

I've been wanting to get started on the nursery ever since we moved into the new house, but we have been using it as a storage room. Most of my things are still in boxes and don't need to be unpacked and put on display but I have a lot of boxes of books and am looking for a nice black bookcase to put them in. Dad did some rearranging today and moved some of the boxes out of the top of the wardrobe so boxes from the office could go in there and the bigger boxes from the room could go into the office. Slowly getting it sorted. Then hopefully next weekend Geoff will get in there and start sanding and painting the walls.

This is what the room currently looks like:

Jellybean's First Photoshoot (19+4 Weeks)

So we went and had our 19-20 week scans today at 3pm.

Jellybean was face down for a while and then decided to scoot all over the place. Very active little thing! Then when it was time for head measurements and face shots it didn't want to co-operate. Cheeky! It opened its mouth quite a bit, like it was singing and we got a photo of it yawning. Looks a bit like an alien in that pic. Everything measured well and all the things they check for were there, like major arteries and organs. No Down Syndrome, which I knew from not hearing back anything after my 15 week blood test. Heartbeat of 143bpm. Head circumference of 17 cms. Measuring at 21 weeks - not worried by this like some people are, I'm still going by the date of my last period and know that babies can come earlier or later than expected anyway.

Only got 12 photos on a disc and most of them were a bit scary looking, but here is our Jellybean:

I think I'll definitely get some 3D/4D scans done at about 32-34 weeks.

First Bump Pic @ 18+4 Weeks

I should have been taking photos every week to see the changes, but then I thought that I'd rather just take a photo when there was something to take a photo of - and now there is. For some reason I am pushing it out just a little bit to make it look bigger haha.

The Name Game

Choosing a boys name was easy. We've had that one locked away for a while. Choosing a name for a girl is so much harder. I have names that I like, but my boyfriend doesn't like them. I want something that sounds pretty and is unique but not too outrageous. A name that can be shortened to something that doesn't sound horrible. I've probably been thinking about names since I was 16 and have always favoured boys names because I've wanted to have a boy. So if this Jellybean is a girl, then perhaps it will have to have a boys name! I've searched many websites for inspiration but nothing has jumped out at me. Some names I like have already been used by people I know and I want to be different. I know there are 5 months to go, but I want to be prepared so I hope we can come up with a name we both agree on soon.

Some Thoughts

I'm not the type of person that has many strong opinions on things. I definitely do not push my opinions on other people or think they are stupid for having opinions of their own. Well, maybe it depends on the subject.

On this blog, I will not be posting photos of me breastfeeding. The Internet doesn't need to see that. Those photos will be for me, my boyfriend and my close family only. While on the topic of breastfeeding, my intention is to do it but if it doesn't work out and the baby doesn't want to then I will not feel like a failure if I have to use formula. I do not care how my baby gets its food as long as it is healthy and grows properly.

I don't have a Birth Plan. All I know is I will deliver a baby. If it happens to be naturally, then that's all good. If I have to have an epidural, that's fine. If I have to have a caesarean, I have no problem with that either. Because I know that plans never work out the way you want them to. Again, I do not care as long as my baby is healthy and happy when it arrives.

We are not finding out the gender until it is born. I don't think it's necessary and would rather it be a surprise at the very end. We will have the nursery in neutral colours and have a couple of neutral outfits for the first few days. It will be a summer baby so will not need many clothes to start off with.

One topic I do have an opinion on though, is finance and living situations. I am a big believer in doing things yourself. I have been saving ever since I started work and it was easy at the beginning because I was 17 and still living at home. The only thing I had to pay for was my phone bill. Then my parents split up and Mum moved out, so I started paying her rent and had to pay the bills. Then Mum wanted to sell the house so Dad and I had to move out and I had to pay even more rent and the bills were a lot more. I was paying all by myself, the rent and bills were not shared. Luckily I really didn't go out that much so I could still save as well. When the house was sold, I received some of the money. I always wanted to buy a big house, not a small unit or apartment and wanted as much deposit as possible so the loan wouldn't have to be huge. I thought I would have to do it on my own and that was going to be impossible to buy in the area that I wanted.

At the beginning of this year, I was made redundant and received a large payout. Then I found out I was pregnant. Well, I had to buy a house then, there was no room for us all in the place I was renting and it's hard to come by a 4 bedroom house to rent in a good area for a decent price, especially one that allows pets. I had a decent deposit and as I didn't have a job anymore, it didn't matter to me if I lived a bit further out than what I originally wanted. Luckily I have a wonderful boyfriend who has a well paying job and can pay the mortgage and support us all. Unfortunately, I broke my lease and still have to pay rent until they find new tenants.

My point is, life is hard for most of us. Living is expensive. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices and go without something so we can have something else. You can't rent, leave your job for any reason, have a baby AND expect to save for a house at the same time. You may have to put off buying a house for a bit and unfortunately use your savings for the rent and the baby. I don't believe you should move in with your parents. You are 2 adults starting your own family. And if you're also planning a wedding? Well that doesn't make any sense to me either. If you can't afford to rent your own place on one wage, have a baby and save for a house deposit, then you can't afford to pay for a wedding either. You can't afford holidays. You can't afford meals out all the time. You can't afford expensive clothes for yourself or the baby. That's not how saving works. You don't move in with your parents to afford every single little thing that you want. That isn't being a grown up. That is not living in the real world.

It's been a long day and I must go to bed.
Goodnight! =)

Weeks 1 - 18

Not much to report about these last 18 weeks.

I took 3 early home pregnancy tests. I didn't think I would be pregnant, but one night I did eat cookies & cream icecream with sour cream & onion Pringles crushed into it. I did the first test a day before my period was due and it was positive. I was so excited I couldn't stop shaking. My boyfriend and I were going out for dinner that night and I had to wait until he got to my house so I could tell him in person. I took another test a couple of days after that and the 3rd a couple of days after that. They were positive too. When I went to my GP, he didn't even bother checking with a blood test, my 3 positive tests were good enough for him.

I've been very lucky and haven't had morning sickness. I make sure I have some dry biscuits or a piece of bread as soon as I wake up. If I don't, then I feel a bit queasy. Constantly snacking throughout the day also helps. I haven't rid caffeine out completely, I still have 2 cups of tea a day and I do drink a LOT of iced coffee and coke.

I missed having a scan at 12 weeks due to not knowing when settlement would be on our new house and then moving, but had my first antenatal appointment at 15 weeks. We didn't get to see the baby or get any measurements but got to hear the heartbeat. That was amazing to hear that there was actually something alive in there. Now I have to make my 19-20 week scan and antenatal appointment and we will finally see our Jellybean!

Introduction

Hi and welcome to my blog.

I probably should have started this 18 weeks ago. In fact, I did create the blog around that time and just never started writing anything. I have started many blogs in my life and eventually I abandon them all. They are still out there somewhere in the Internet world.

I recently watched a vlog on Youtube of someone I knew - about her pregnancy, birth and beyond. She definitely should have been an actress because the person in the videos was definitely not the same person as the one in real life and in my opinion she just shared way too much information about personal things.

Anyway, after watching the vlog I decided that I should get started on my written blog. There was no way I was going to video myself every week (no one wants to see that) but I still wanted to document my first pregnancy for myself and for my family. If anyone else was interested to read it, that would be fine but I wouldn't imagine anyone would want to.

So, this is my first pregnancy. I'm 30 years old and have been with my boyfriend for 4 months. I've wanted a baby since I was 16 and had an ectopic pregnancy. I had hoped to have a baby before 30, but it didn't happen. I never met the right guy who wanted the same as me. It never even happened accidentally, although I tried. Before my current relationship, I was with a guy for over a year. It was my longest relationship and I thought "this is it, I'm going to get my baby at 30". His sister accidentally fell pregnant and although I was upset about that, I hoped that it would make him want to have a baby too. He knew how much it meant to me, how I didn't want to be "old", how my previous ectopic could affect my chances of falling pregnant or having it happen again, how I didn't want to "plan" to have a baby and just wanted it to happen when it happened. He didn't understand any of that. Or he didn't care about my feelings. He was too focused on himself and his guitar and his computer equipment and weirdly, his sister. It started to all fall apart a week before my 30th birthday but I tried to hold it all together. Then I got really sick over Christmas and missed a lot of work. I tried to manage Christmas Eve with my family without painkillers, but it was no fun for me. I couldn't spend Christmas with his family, because I needed to take the painkillers but they made me fall asleep. He was upset and angry that I wasn't there. He got drunk and acted erratically at my house on New Years Eve. I was still unwell but got no emotional support from him just a lot of disrespect. I started to see a physio and a psychologist. I tried to hold on to the relationship. I don't know why, I could see that it wasn't what I wanted anymore. Then in February I was made redundant from my job of 13 years. Again, there was no support from him. He didn't ask how I was feeling or tell me he'd be there for me. Basically it was "oh well, you'll find something else". A couple of weeks later, he broke up with me. I was angry. We had talked about things, I thought we were sorting things out. Turns out he was just giving up. I should have done that a long time ago.

About 2 weeks after that I met my current boyfriend. I wasn't really looking, but had signed up on a dating site just to see what was out there. I had already seen him a couple of times at parties but we had never spoken and we were "friends" on Facebook, but there hadn't been contact. When he saw that I was newly single and had joined the dating site, he used information from my status updates to find me on there and contact me. I didn't have a profile photo, so he searched through a lot of other profiles before he found me! I was shocked when I got his first message and wrote back "this is kinda freaky, but you actually sort of know me!" I didn't hear back from him that night and it got me worried! I shouldn't have been though. We messaged back and forth and then switched to texting and I arranged for him to meet me in the city on Friday night at drinks I was having with people from work. I had already booked a hotel room for the night before inviting him out as I was planning on having a big one. But I couldn't wait that long to see him and invited him to my house on the Wednesday night. So we met up, got along and fell in love. A couple of weeks later on 3rd April, we found out I was pregnant. I'm now 18 weeks and we are living together in a lovely 4 bedroom home we bought. Yes, things moved pretty fast, but that's just the way we like it!