Tuna and Coke Make Me Cry

Second Trimester is well and truly under way but despite what everyone expects, I am not magically more relaxed, no, and heck no it has not flown by, it snailed by! It felt like forever to get to this stage and it's even slower now! Have no fear, I felt exactly the same about everyone else's present and past pregnancies, I couldn't believe how fast they were going hehe.

The crying and MS have been replaced by violent headaches, is that normal?

As for the movement, I know you'll all think I'm mad and lovely Vicky already kinda alluded to that on FB but I had a definite light pop from the inside on the middle of belly, bellow my bellybutton. Felt just like the flicker kids do to each other by putting their two fingers together and releasing one fast, what's the name for that? Anyhow, that's what it felt like and I just KNOW it was not gas. Guess we'll know it if was LHB in a few weeks when and if it happens again.

Tuna and Coke can make me cry with desire these days. I can't believe it how MUCH I can crave the two. I have them both around -the kids drink it and the mister eats my tuna salads with his eyes- so they are staples but they cripple me, I am not joking, it's shocking how in tears I am wanting just a bite or just a glass... I know what you're thinking, they are not that bad, can have some in moderation, I just can't afford risking anything still... What with the progesterone being one in the evening only I am scared stiff something would go wrong and I would rather I don't feel guilty for the Coke if something should!

Anyone else felt they were doing stuff they shouldn't in their dreams? Last night I dreamed a quarter of a bottle of vodka before I realized it and someone pointed my big belly out and then I freaked and begged random strangers on the street to take me to the hospital to have my stomach contents emptied! That was fun. NAWT.

Other topics wise.... no good news presently, with the exception of those few interviews -of which two said "no thanks" because I'm not having the Swedish for one of them and the other two jobs won't happen at all!- none of the other ones have answered in any fashion except, some of them to say that they will not look over any applications till late August or September!!!

My consulting business is going nowhere fast, it's astounding how stuck it is. My other business enterprises are moving somewhat but they would not replace the level of income I need, in particular since we need to start saving like mad for the Australia move.

I'm going to have to go see if my union can offer any uneployment help but it's unlikely due to how I was not a member long enough and I am so opposed to even going to ask but as of the 15th of July I am unemployed, no two ways about it. Utterly depressing.

I'll keep trying, we need me getting a position so that we can survive on our new trimmed budget and then set aside a boatload a month so that we're poised and ready when Down Under calls the Viking over. It's mad how energized by this future move we are. There are many loops to jump through, the perfect score in the Cambridge course we have coming up this month, getting formally hitched real fast, getting our certifications -his in particular, my profession is no longer on the list-, getting our medicals -including mom's so that will be scary considering she's a walking illness-, changing my passport and finally applying before November because the Viking becomes 36 and consequently destroys 5 points.

It's a long shot but we're confident we can make it and daydreaming about our house with a pool by the beach has become our ritual of every evening and keeping us smiling.

We're mad. And so are you for reading this much of my crazy ride! Loves you all much!

21st of June, Nuchal Scan

So we're back. This was an anti-climax after all that wait.... the woman doing it was well and truly out of it and couldn't take a decent picture to save her life!

We saw his digits at some point FFS! He was stretching and jerking and moving about a lot it felt like he was bothered we kept bugging him. I'm sorry we didn't take a video but then again they probably wouldn't have allowed it.

My results are a whooping 1 in 20000 so that's really great for my weight and my age, she said it was very rare that they would be as low at nearly 32. So we're out of the woods with that.

I think this experience convinced us to try and organize a 4D one for 16 weeks or such to confirm LHB is a boy. At least we'd get some decent images...

12+2 she said and the 31st of December, which means that he hasn't caught up with the proverbial one day behind but hey ho, he implanted late, that's all, he's right on track ever since!

Oh and the Viking mentioned the Doppler and she raised a big stink shaking her head "oh no, no no no, very bad to use it on small baby" to which I say: "Bah, piss off!"

Here is the bad picture.... however, his tiny button nose is clearly there (his right hand is up against his face too) and cute and extraordinary and so unbelievable.... we made this, the button nose, we made it out of nothing, we've been seeing the nothing so many times and then we saw a little better than nothing, a sac but that too contained not a trace of a nose! And then we had a dot and that doesn't have a nose! And then a snowman and everyone knows snowmen don't have noses! Now we have a baby! A baby that moves and looks like he sneezed and waves his little toes and fingers at the end of his feet and hands AND HAS A NOSE!

Astounding.

Woe and woe and woe

2weeks and 2 days, and tomorrow big Scan day, surreal! Happy Peach day to us and I love telling people "I entered the 4th month" heh.

Speaking of ... Maybe l should rename this diary "The Fat and the Toothless" because to my combined astonishment, disgust and desperation, one of my nearly front teeth left me yesterday! They were already bad but this was one of the relatively healthy ones and it never bothered me till evidently LHB needed to build something he had to store on calcium for. I don't know what to do, l'm taking my vits -btw what's the deal with A being bad during pregnancy?!? they sell no special prenatal ones here!- and eating diary daily, how much can he need?

Pretty miserable about it as l can't imagine how l can interview like this and we can't afford the astronomical cost to fix it or not unless we jeopardize our move to Australia!

To add to it, I'm crushed about the no job situation AND we'll have to leave to get my passport sorted in Romania next month in lieu of September or October as my brother and sister-in-law won't be able to dog and mum -sit after that which puts more financial and emotional stress on it all AND we had serious alcohol induced "oh but what about the baby" dramatic issues on Thursday so no take off was accomplished rendering my wining and dinning of the Viking utterly useless.

So yeah, woe IS definitely me!

Of Boobs, Bumps and Cramps

Yesterday I had a terrifyingly bad cramp. It felt like my entire down-bellow painfully contracted and stayed that way for a while and I couldn't relax it or even move at all, it hurt like a mofo! Is that a contraction and if so should I be way worried that I had one that soon or is it something other? Of course at the time I thought it meant impending miscarriage and I freaked out like mad but it was just as we were reaching the central station and a long long train trip ensued so there was nothing to be done right then. Nonetheless, of course getting out the Doppler was the first thing we've done when we reached the hotel at midnight determined to go to the AE if we heard nothing but after a few minutes of looking too low as per habit I moved it up nearly where my right ovary is and there it was. It's alive again!

Have I told you that I have a bump? I know most of it is from the flabber IVF inflicted on me but part of it is all baby so I am not hiding it. It sprung over the past week or so. Strange to wear but exciting. I've noticed something real funny while we traveled down to the work-slash-romantic-date-city yesterday. I wore a dress with a cleavage and it was astounding to witness the following succession of events.

1. Guy notices me.

2. Guy stares at my flumonguous boobs.

3. Guy sports "Oh Yum" leery smile

4. Guy's eyes travel South and meet my bump.

5. Guy sports "Oh Yuck" grimace.

Very entertaining!

Today he is teaching classes and I am loitering in cafes, seeing a movie, reading and window shopping, I'm not sure how well I'll cope with this being a lady of leisure business but I reckon it ought to be ok for one day. This evening we're going back to the hotel to change then we have dinner out together and that's when I plan to intoxicate and seduce him. If I remember how.

We have a 2 days work/getaway next week. He's teaching some courses in Goteborg and I'll be tagging along so that we finally spend some time away from mom, the dog, my brother and his wife, etc.

I guess I'll stop being a born again virgin!!! -Well it's his new cherry that will be popped, I had some self trial runs to ensure all systems are go :) -

Bad Apples! But 11 weeks!

Well last night before bed I whipped up the machinery, applied oodles of gel and asked the Viking to "let me place it, I have a feeling on th

e location" and then handed it to him to hold and move about as necessary. Only moving about wasn't necessary, turning up the volume was and there it was. I could see his eyes widening even in the dark. "Ohhhhh it's alive!". We'll never get tired of discovering he's alive, must stop when he kinda gets the reference

He held the Doppler under strict instructions not to move it and I grabbed the iPhone and made a wonderful, clear as day recording which we then spent the next hour replaying to count and recount beats. 150 on average. We were truly stoked and as soon as I woke up I reached for my laptop to download it and show it to you, dear readers as well as stick it in an email and send it to the future paternal grandparents who are now starting to work out that this is really happening and, bless their hearts, asking for new pictures all the time. It's the pivotal moment when I realized Apple is dreadful, evil and trying to kill me! It's gone. It erased it but never downloaded it. I was close to breaking something, likely, the offending iPhone with a close second being the offending iTunes except it would go with the non-offending computer.

We'll try again tonight.

At least tonight we don't have to spend another 2 hours reading about placenta formation, wondering when LHB starts swallowing, disagreeing on what a large plum looks like and having moments like this:

Viking: "....to the umbilical chord which will grow to reach 55-60 cm"

Me: "WHAT?!?"

"What what?"

"60 centimeters, are you serious?!?"

"Yeah, why?"

"What do you mean "why" that's huge!"

"No it's not"

"It is! I can't fit 60 cm worth of a thing in my belly!!!"

"Yes you can, your intestines are meters long"

"That's different, those are already tucked in somehow!"

Happy 11 weeks to us!

LHB - a boy! I said so!

Last night at the clinic while I was nearly shivering with fear that LHB will be dead -as you do- I told the nurse

"Pain we can take, I just want to know that he's ok."

"..or she"

"Umm nope, it's a boy."

"Wow you're convinced!"

"Absolutely, just no doubt about it."

And she started laughing

"With my first I didn't even want a gender scan, that's how sure I was it was a little boy. In comes my birth date and when the midwife holds him up my first thought was "Oh dear lord I should have never had that fish finger it's handicapped, it's missing his willy!" and it wasn't till much later that I realized my little girl was just fine!"

To quote the doctor: "It's alive and literary kicking"

We had some more pain (and loads and loads of paranoia) and got it checked out. It's not from LHB, in fact, he was astonishingly well, so much so that he was moving! He incredibly waved his hands and legs and pushed them about in a "leave me alone already!" fashion and then turned his posterior to the screen. We took the hint, left and brought him home.

Now we can survive the next 12 days till the Nuchal.

In fact I can more than survive, I am having a broad smile and the beginning of a sigh of relief, surely a moving, heart beating baby at 10+4 is impressively close to the green zone, maybe we are gonna make it after all!

So I don't post much do I? What is it now? At most once a week? That is no book gonna make! I must get more disciplined, surely there's a way to write about paranoia and depression which is not all doom and gloom, eh?

Yes still depressed and loathe it. This is meant to be a time of such joy and jumping up and down with delight at my tutu being trashed and instead all I am thinking of is our impending bankruptcy. Not exactly a topic to shake. A few interviews and a few "maybe"s are not good enough, realistically, even if I get lucky enough to get a job, no one will hire before the famous Swedish summer where the country virtually closes and by the time they will call me for last interviews -or starting work- I'll be six months gone and my belly will enter before me making it nearly impossibly for anyone in their right mind to sign me on.

The mood is gloomy across the board, the Viking is working 80 hours weeks in addition to his huge commute, I'm sendng CVs left right and center and trying to think of capital-less business ventures to shake a profit before our next stack of bills, my former employer is a complete arse and is avoiding my calls and with it, paying me what he still owes me, etc. In fact I am so busy doing all these things over the day that I don't even have time for facebooking and blogging the way I used to do when I was at work! :)

Baby wise.... man, being terrified is not getting any better. I've discovered 1 week is the most I can go with no sign of seeing or hearing Little Human Being. Thankfully this should be remedied soon thanks to Karen, an extraordinary friendo-sister who was lovely enough to pop her Doppler in the international mail for me. Don't know when it will arrive but whenever it is, it ought to be before the scan on the 21st.

The feeling of dread is not helped by cramps. A few days ago I had huge Ovulation pains and no, not pains "like that" but what I would bet the farm was ovulating from both ovaries. (FertilityFriend sent me the usual "W00t you're laying an egg email so it was bang on time too!) It hurt like a mofo! I wish my ovaries would get the memo already, this is ridiculous. And to top it, over the past few days I've had huge AF like cramps in all directions, right under the pubic bone, right up under my belly button, you name it it hurt. I've been, naturally alarmed by this like mad but then again there has been no blood and that has to reassure me and to top it, over the past two days my symptoms feel like they've decided to give me another assault, after a week of nearly nothing my (.)(.) make me scream, I'm throw uppy and craving prego stuffs at the same time and I'm even lovey dovey to the Viking which is a sure hormonal sign!

Next item on my worry list is having to space out and then cut out the Progesterone suppositories as they are finishing. I'm terrified. What if I made my apparel too lazy to produce enough hormone on its own? When do I get a placenta? Isn't that what will make all the hormones from hereon? I'm 10+3 (lovely double digits!) and will be 11 by the time I reduce and 12 or 13 when I stop, is it likely it will come unglued?!?