Week 11

My sickness has all but gone. Thank goodness. I was getting a bit 'sick' and tired of it. Nothing really seemed to help. It still rears it's ugly head if I don't eat or drink enough, or if I find myself in a stuffy environment - like at work for 8 hours!

The tiredness catches up with me mainly in the evenings. By 9pm I am struggling to stay awake, so I have been heading off to bed with a book by about 8.30pm. I don't suppose the dark nights are helping much either, now we've put the clocks back. It will soon be dark by 5pm. I don't actually mind the dark nights when it's nice and bright and breezy during the day. It's the grey, rainy ones that make it miserable.

Stefan has been poorly again this week, although I think it's a continuation of what started last week with the high temperature. He's had a really nasty cough for a while. The doctor gave him an inhaler, but it's not made much difference in the long term. He hasn't got a chest infection and cough medicine isn't really easing it.

On Thursday night, he had a particularly bad night. We were up and down to him most of the night, with his coughing and distressed crying. I took him to the doctor first thing as I noticed his breathing was quite quick and very shallow. Doctor prescribed some steriods to help open up his airway tubes, which had apparently narrowed and were inflammed, and he diagnosed him with croup. The steriods worked wonders and Stefan slept for nearly three hours, peacefully that morning.

When he woke, the coughing started again, and the short, raspy breathing was back. Darren came home from work incase we needed to take Stefan to A&E. I was exhausted, very tearful and pretty scared for Stefan. In my panic, I passed out and was sick.

Darren took over and I went to bed for the rest of the afternoon. Physically and emotionally drained.

I'm looking forward to my scan next week now.

Week 10

What a week.

Friday (19th), the midwife came over. I wasn't overly impressed with how it all went to be honest. Lots of questions about my past pregnancies/miscarriages, talk of paying for a private scan to check for Downs Syndrome because of my age, she was unprepared with her leaflets/info and hadn't bought any to give to me and I was told not to call the number I had been given incase she was driving!

Maybe I'm just a bit sensitive at the moment with hormones all over the place. It's not been the best pregnancy so far compared to sailing through the first few weeeks with Stefan and I am feeling sick and tired all the time.

Anyway - because my cycles had been so long post MC (38 days) she couldn't give me an exact due date, so I could be anywhere from 14th-24th May. The scan at the hospital will be able to tell me more. So, I might be a week behind or a week infront of where I think I am at the moment. I'd also forgotten about the needle thing at this stage too. Lots of blood was taken, and I hated every minute.

On Sunday evening Mum came over to stay. I had a nice restful morning on Monday while Mum helped with Stefan and the housework. Chores all done, we decided to pop to Mothercare to get some bits I needed for Stefan - Wellington boots for nursery rainy play days mainly. We parked up, and we both noticed a strong smell of petrol. Yep - I had sprung a leak. Great. When we got home, I booked the car in the garage for the following morning and got on with lunch for the three of us.

After lunch, poor Stefan took a turn for the worst, completely out of the blue. He started to burn up, throw up and look generally unwell all in a matter of five minutes. I managed to rock him off to sleep and placed him in his cot, where he slept for a good couple of hours.

In the meantime, the leak on the car was getting quite bad and petrol was leaking into the road. I was quite worried at having to drive it, so I called my breakdown cover and arranged for them to tow it to the garage. I'm not sure there was any petrol left in it.

Stefan woke up and was a little bit brighter, although he was sick again. After a clean up and a drink, he seemed on the mend, so Mum went home. An hour later at 4.30pm, Stefan was unwell again, hot, tearful, sicky and just wanting to be cuddled, I was begining to worry about him. At the same time, the pick up truck arrived to tow my car away. Trying to have a conversation with the driver was difficult with an upset, sick child in my arms, yet he was insisting that because the garage closed at 5pm, he needed me to go with him to push my car keys through the garage letterbox if they had already closed when he got there. He was not at liberty to do so, and needed a sign document (or something?? I was more concerned with Stefan than my car at this point) In the end, I told him there was no way I could go with Stefan being so poorly, so I left him to decide what to with my car. Either take it or leave it, I was passed caring!

I watched him from the livingroom window hitch my car to his truck and as he reversed out, he bumped my car into next doors' car. Great!! Thinking he'd get out and have a look, I opened the front door to see him drive off! As I didn't hear anything for the rest of the evening, I presumed my car had been left at the garage.

Stefan didn't improve and he was hot and lifeless most of the evening. By 7pm, I asked Margaret next door to come and have a look at him as neither of us had seen this in Stefan before. We stripped him off and cooled him down with a flannel, gave him some Calpol and called NHS direct for some advice. He did finally go off to sleep in his cot wearing just a vest and a cotton sheet. In the morning he was back to his normal happy self. Phew!

As Stefan was much brighter on Thursday (25th) and Darren was on half term, we drove down to Braintree to see Ray and Sarah and the twins. It was a nice break as we stayed in a hotel overnight, and spent all day Friday with R&S. The twins are so teeny tiny, and gorgeous. Can't wait to have baby No. 2 now.

Week 9

Had a much better start to the week this week.

On Saturday we went to Ruby's 4th birthday party over in Syston. Stefan had a great time with the other children, although they were a little bit too old for him to join them on the bouncy castle!

We drove over to my Mum and Dad's on Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the weekend with them. Sunday was lovely. We all went to Warley Woods, and walked through to Lightwoods Park. The fresh air was just what I needed to ease the sick feelings and Stefan loved walking through the trees and sitting on Dad's shoulders. I was able to rest a lot and have a couple of catnaps throughout the day. Mum really looked after us with helping out with Stefan and cooking a beautiful Sunday lunch - yum!

It was my first week back at work this week. I'm now a week behind as the first week of term was last week. I had to fly by the seat of my pants for all of the sessions this week. Nothing was put in place, I'd had no time to prepare and I really had no idea what I was teaching on what day. Still - it was OK in the end.

I'd forgotten how hard it is to get both Stefan and myself ready and get out in the morning on time. By the time I'd got to work at 8.30am, I felt like I'd done half a day's work already. What's it going to be like when there's two children to see to!?!?! Think I need an easier job. Or to win the lottery.

The sickness is relentless. I think this is why my throat isn't getting any better. I'm either retching or being sick, so the strain on my throat is making it hard for it to heal and my voice is still not back properly. I think I've learned to live with this illness now.

There's been lots of invites recently that I've had to turn down with one thing and another. The lastest was a gig at the Y Theatre to see T-Rextasy. We were going with Freda and Simon, but I had to bow out at the last minute. Illness and pregnancy got the better of me. Darren went alone in the end. I've also missed Rachel and Chris' birthday celebrations. I'm looking forward to the end of these early pregnancy weeks when hopefully my body will settle down and I'll be able to have some sort of social life again.

Week 8

I am starting to get over the very worst of this virus now, although I have still got a broken voice and if I use it too often for too long my throat starts to become very painful. There was no way I could teach this week, so I've had a third week off work. I'm desperate to feel well again and get back to work, and back to my normal self.

I've been feeling increasingly tired and sick this week. As awful as it is, I'm getting some comfort knowing that the pregnancy is OK and my body is behaving perfectly normally. I'm finding it a real struggle in the afternoon when my tiredness and sickness is at its worst and I have to be there for Stefan. By the time 6pm arrives, I'm totally shattered and can think of nothing else other than going to bed. The housework is suffering as I am sleeping when Stefan sleeps, instead of using the time to catch up with the chores. Nevermind. It will get done eventually.

I've felt quite lonely over the past few weeks. Not being able to get out of the house or go to my normal groups has left me feeling a bit down in the dumps. On Thursday, I really felt that I needed to get out of the house with Stefan, so we went swimming at Braunstone Pool. They had a baby/toddler session and we caught the last 20 minutes. We both really enjoyed it, although I'm not sure how much good it did me. Now that we don't go to the swim sessions at the gym since I cancelled my membership, I think it will become a regular thing for the two of us.

Some great news this week - Ray and Sarah gave birth to twins, Jack and Amy om the 10th.