Everything is OK...

I've been really lax updating my blog for the last few days, however everything is absolutely fine at the moment - I've just been really busy! 

I wanted to pop down what's been happening, however sadly it won't be in any great detail as I've spent today with my Mother in Wiltshire, celebrating her Birthday which was last week, however she was on holiday with the rest of my family - after driving to her, picking her up, driving some more and walking around all day (S health told me I'd reached my daily steps and time active target!) before having afternoon tea and driving her and then myself back.... *and breathe*.... I'm rather tired! 

Thursday was a big day for me as I had my 'booking in' appointment. Shows how much I know as I thought I'd be having a scan, but no... It was just a lot of form filling in and a blood test where the midwife took 5 vials of blood. She was lovely and put numbing cream on both arms... and my Boyfriend came with me for support - she said she had written to the Consultant about my fear of childbirth and needles and the Consultant said once I'd had a scan, I could make an appointment to talk to her about a possible elective caesarean. 

I'm still adamant I will terminate if they aren't comfortable allowing me to have one - for that, I am 100% sure. In regards to keeping / terminating if that's not an issue, I'm 90% sure I want to continue as I've had the most amazing support from my 2 youngest sisters and my Boyfriend has been just utterly amazing. I am still in awe at any woman who chooses to go through this without such support as I feel I'm hanging on by a thin thread as it is... 

In regards to eating, I've not been great the last few days. I've switched back to porridge and raspberries in the morning as it's getting colder and is easy and convenient - I've also been still eating salads at work (I had a salmon donburi on Friday lunch time with wholegrain and lentil rice), however yesterday my Boyfriend and I made a 'healthy' stew, which was healthy as it was in the latest BBC Good Food magazine in their 'make it healthier' section - However, the fact we ate a LOT of it, probably negates the fact it was healthy....

Saturday was spent at the hairdressers and moving more things from my house into my Boyfriends house - I've got until the 22nd November to actually officially clear my house, but the more I do now, the less I have to do later on and it takes the pressure off slightly - My house doesn't really look like my house now and that's really sad as I've been here for 5 years and it's rather unsettling.

At 9 weeks and 2 days pregnant my symptoms still seem to be very minor with no feeling sick, not that much tiredness (just a bit harder to get up in the mornings) and my hormones are still not where they were a few weeks ago, when I felt really bad - I've got no idea what's going on inside me, however I'll phone the appointment line tomorrow and see if they've received everything. My midwife wrote 'NEEDLEPHOBIC AND ANXIETY' across the top of my yellow maternity notes so I imagine that will catch the eye of everyone who reads it!

My BMI is currently 31.5 so that's way too high. It's not morbidly obese, but it's 1.5 into 'obese' and that's just not great... I'd like to be sensible about losing weight but not crazy and my midwife said it was fine to exercise and eat healthily - the best goal is to not dramatically lose weight but not to gain any, either... 

Right... to bed now - I will update tomorrow with pictures, more details and the most important thing - document what I've been eating which will be a LOT healthier than it has been for the past few days.

Unexpected kindness from strangers

I'm glad today is nearly over!

Unfortunately I didn't sleep very well last night - My sisters flat is very near a main road and the traffic noise outside was really bad. I managed to nod off a few times, but seemed to wake every 1-2 hours which meant I was rather tired in the morning... As I'm cat sitting in my sisters flat I didn't have the usual 1.5 hour commute into London but a 30 minute tube ride instead. However, as it's a much busier tube line it wasn't an overly relaxing commute to work!

Despite bringing some Malt Loaf with me, I managed to totally forget it so I bought a yoghurt in the company canteen and ate that whilst putting together some last minute statistics my Boss asked me to do at very short notice. We've just moved desks at work due to a number of business areas changing so the first hour or was spent sorting things out and trying to find out when our desks would have power as we were relying on our laptop batteries holding up!

My mood has been pretty stable for the last few days, however today it took a bit of a turn for the worst. I post on an online forum (I imagine some people could hazard a guess as to which one) and have been posting regarding being pregnant and being totally honest about how I feel - the fact that I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, how I feel scared, unsure and how, on Thursday I'm going to have mixed feelings over my scan / what the midwife says. Now obviously, on an online forum, you accept that others have different opinions to you, however one person asked if it was really the right forum for me as I wasn't like the others and other people are so happy / anxious about their pregnancy progressing and I'm not.

I don't think the poster meant anything bad per se, however it made me feel really upset - I have been very grateful to strangers for offering support (and have tried to post on other threads to support people in return) and to suggest that it might not be the right place to post for support as I have different thoughts and feelings to the other women made me feel like a freak and I was trying to hold back tears as I was at work today.

Lunch was a salad from the canteen and I was trying to 'get over the feelings', when a random poster on the same thread sent me a private message saying she hoped I was OK, that she totally understood how I felt and how she thought it was good I was really thinking whether Motherhood was for me. A total random person who didn't need to make effort to do anything and she made time to send me a really lovely message. It really helped and made me feel less like a freak - I just want to be happy and excited but I can't be at the moment.

I keep thinking 'Yeah, I can do this MY way' but then I worry if I'm being naive and no matter what I say / want, I'll turn into a martyr who puts her children first, before anything, never wants to go out and buries her head in the sand as her relationship and career goes down the drain.... I know I'm asking a rhetorical question, but surely it's possible to have a life and children? surely? 

As the afternoon progressed, so did my headache and a dull ache seemed to develop in the middle of my brain. 5pm arrived and I headed out of the door and straight to the nearest Boots so I could buy some earplugs and hopefully sleep better tonight. I also bought dinner in the Tescos Express next door so I could buy fish fingers and beans - Hardly the most glamorous of dinners, however I was really craving both beans and fish fingers and it turned out really well :-) 

My Boyfriend texted me and told me he was getting my cold, which isn't good - I hope he feels better soon (thankfully I'm not coughing as much and my sore throat has gone, but it took long enough!). I don't mind cat sitting in my sisters flat, but I am feeling a bit lonely at the moment and I still have a lot of worry and anxiety in the back of my head in regards to being pregnant and what to do.... 

One day at a time, working from home tomorrow so I can hopefully have a great nights sleep! Things always feel less dire when you're not tired or feeling knackered. 

Coming to terms with things?

Today has been a lot easier than the last few days

It's been different but quite nice 'living' at my Boyfriends house for the last couple of days. I stayed over his house last night and as he's lovely... He gave up his bed for me (I find it really hard sleeping with anyone in the same bed) However, as his bed is very different to mine - He suggested we just 'take' my memory foam mattress topper and all of the bed linen, and just roll it into a sausage and take it to his and stick it on top of his mattress on his bed..... So we did! It looked like we were carrying a body out of my house and into his :-)

We cuddled and talked until midnight - The fact I'm still petrified... I don't want my life to change beyond all recognition... The idea of sleep deprivation terrifies me. Apparently people think having a baby is 'Hell' and then all parents say 'It's so much worse than your worse Hell imagined'.. And that's it.. I just don't think I'd cope with lack of sleep very well, then I'd get annoyed, upset, not bond with the baby... I was also saying to my Boyfriend that if it wasn't to happen (e.g. I miscarried) I think I'd feel an awful sense of just, well, relief - that my life won't change, that I won't have to go through pain and 9 months of pregnancy.... and then more pain to get the baby out.. and then sleepless nights. However that makes me feel so guilty, like I'm such an evil person for saying that.

But, if someone had 2 termination pills in front of me right now - and gave them to me without any judgement, I just don't know if I'd be able to take them. I honestly don't - there's something stopping me, but I don't know what that is. I said to him that I just can't see any positives about having kids, none at all, just 18+ years of crap. How can I have changed my mind so much in such a short space of time? I wanted this, and now it's actually happening, I'm just focussing on all of the negatives. 

Thankfully my Boyfriend just listened - said he would support me in whatever decision I made, that he thought I worried too much and that I'd be a fantastic Mother, however it was up to me and he wouldn't want to influence me either way....

After saying goodnight to my Boyfriend, I actually slept really well. It was kind of like being in my bed, but in a different setting and I managed to sleep from 12:00 midnight to 5:00am and then after going to the loo, slept until 7:30am... That's the best night sleep I've had in a week. After more cuddles in bed (seriously, this isn't usually like me, I'm like the Ice Queen and I've turned really clingy) we decided to head down to Winchester Farmers Market to get some meat for our stew, make the stew and then go Alpaca trekking! Despite getting to the Farmers Market by 10:30, it was already quite busy and after a quick orange juice in Costa (I already had 1 cup of tea in bed this morning and I'm trying to cut down to 2 cups of tea a day), we grabbed some Mexico Guidebooks in Waterstones and then wandered around the Market.

As well as getting some Buffalo meat for the stew, we also got a fishcake each and some 'bubble and squeak' which was effectively brunch as it was getting to 11:30 and I hadn't eaten breakfast. The fishcake was lovely (not too spicy or smoky) and the bubble and squeak wasn't bad, although by the end of eating it, I was rather full. I *also* went into Phase 8 and actually found a really nice dress which I tried on. Unfortunately, despite the fact I'm currently wearing a size 14 Phase 8 top as I type this, the size 16 dress was too tight across my chest, so I bought the size 18. I'm not planning on wearing it as a dress, but I thought with black jeans or trousers for work, I could wear it more like a tunic... Also, the material expands, so in a few months..... Yeah well, let's just wait and see what happens....

We got back to my Boyfriends house and started on the stew - 8 hours on 'low' in the slow cooker - GO! And then we went to do some 'Alpaca Trekking' which we'd both been looking forward to. We wandered around fields with Alpacas on leads a few months ago when we visited the Hensting Alpacas and had an absolutely amazing time. I found the deal on Groupon and for £25, you could stroke, learn about and walk around with the Alpacas. The people running it were lovely and you could tell they loved their Alpacas a lot and cared for them  loads as well - so it wasn't just about 'the money', but educating people. When I saw a very similar deal on Groupon again for a different Alpaca farm, I thought 'Why not?' so today we went and visited the Penny Bridge Alpacas.

The whole set up was slightly different and they had a lot more Alpacas than at Hensting - however their alpacas didn't seem as well trained (one of them kicked and grazed my Boyfriends leg) and they didn't seem very happy walking around on leads. It was lovely to see them wandering around the fields and they look absolutely cute and cuddly, however they had all been sheared a couple of months ago, so they weren't as fluffy as they had been in the Hensting place. If you've never been Alpaca trekking and fancied doing something different, I'd certainly recommend it - Despite it not being as fun as last time, it was still nice to get out of the house and by the end of the 2 hours, I realised I'd done 8,500 steps, just by going to the Farmers Market and walking around with the Alpacas, so not bad exercise, either ;-)

I also felt more - calm today, a lot more accepting about what was happening and a lot less worried. I even managed to look at baby bottles in Boots when my boyfriend was looking at sunglasses, which is a massive thing for me as I didn't cry and was actually 'interested' in the things.... Don't get me wrong, I'm still petrified and if someone offered to put the clock back 6 weeks without any repercussions, I'd do it in an instant.... However that's not how life works, so yeah.. I guess you can only moved forward.

By the time the Alpaca fun was over, it was 4pm and I was starving after only eating a fishcake and a small amount of bubble and squeak. The slow cooked stew wouldn't be ready for another few hours so I suggested to my Boyfriend we grab something light and we settled for 'beans on toast' - classy. We stopped off at a local shop to get some bread and whilst in the queue, I noticed a new chocolate bar out from Galaxy - 'Duet'... My boyfriend grabbed one of each and when we got home, we tried them. I was quite impressed with my willpower as I only had 2 squares of each one. Oddly, I don't have a massive craving for chocolate at the moment, so 4 squares in total was more than enough.  I also only had one slice of bread with a small can of beans and now feel totally fine. I can easily wait another 2 hours for dinner :-)

The slow cooked stew consists of a 'slow cooked stew mix', with potatoes, carrots, swede, tomato purée and buffalo meat - No added salt or sugar, so shouldn't be too bad for me. I'm quite looking forward to it as it's smells lovely! 

Tomorrow night I'm at my sisters house in London - I'm really looking forward to seeing my younger sisters (the youngest one is staying with the second youngest one and her boyfriend as she's saving to buy her own place in London). I think we're going to an Italian restaurant after work and I'm keen to continue my healthy eating so will hopefully be able to forgo a started and just find something really yummy for my main.

It would be nice to think that this sense of 'calm' continues - the last few days have been so unhappy and sad for me - swinging between 'If a woman of half my age can do this, so can I', to 'Dear God, Dear God, what have I done? I can't do this and need to terminate'.... However all that matters, right here, right now is that I am trying to nourish my body with healthy food so that I can reach the best decision for myself and my boyfriend, whatever that may be.

Pregnant and wanting an ELCS from the start

It's been 2 days since I found out I'm pregnant.

Even saying it is weird. After doing 2 tests and them coming back negative, I just thought that my period was late due to stress. When I took the 3rd test on Tuesday and saw 2 blue lines I burst into tears and shaking, called my Boyfriend at work. He was due to come home anyway for a conference call, so I drove round to his house at lunch time (as I was also working at home) burst into more tears, apologised for 'ruining his life' and 'trapping him' and was just totally freaking out.

I've not slept much in the last 2 days as I just keep going over things in my head - I've been getting very minor periody like cramps, but so far, that's it. According to the calculator, I'm 4w+5 which apparently is '4 weeks and 5 days' - Christ, already getting in with the lingo. The main worry was / is financial as I thought it would take MONTHS to get pregnant. After all, I've had Pelvic Inflammatory Disease twice, a very severe uterus infection... so to get 'first time lucky' is just a totally crazy thing to happen. As it stands, I won't be entitled to my company maternity pay, so that's not great, however since I found out, My boyfriend and I have decided I'll move in with him in the next 2 months and he'll continue to pay the rent / bills and I'll put all of the rent / bill money that I would have paid on my house, into a 'maternity pot'....

I know it's normal to be anxious, but due to being needlephobic / terrified of medical professionals and after witnessing my sisters horrendous, horrendous birth 2 years ago (First baby... 3rd degree tear... double prolapse... so much blood she fainted...) I just know I can't / won't go through that, so whilst at the Drs, discussing the fact I had a bald patch on my head, I burst into tears about being pregnant and said that I wanted an elective caesarean... and if I wasn't able to have one, I'd terminate.

I feel like the worst person in the world even saying that, but it's honestly how I feel - The potential of having to go through something like my sister (who has diagnosed PTSD and can't talk about her birth without crying 2 years on) is just not an option.. It's just not - I'd go through the next 8 months being petrified, upset and not enjoying any of it. 

The Dr was lovely and actually spoke to another Dr who said I should book an appointment with the midwife to discuss things. When I went to the Drs reception, they said they had an appointment for today! So in less than 4 hours after seeing the Dr and only being 4 weeks pregnant, I got a midwife appointment...  I went this afternoon (after saying to my work colleagues I had an emergency dentists appointment) and promptly burst into tears at the midwife - I said the same thing... I am petrified of medical professionals, terrified of needles and not being in control of my own body and just couldn't fathom going through with a vaginal birth.

She was so, so lovely. She phoned up a Consultant who said that usually, they don't consider it until 14 weeks pregnant, but as I would consider a termination, they advised the midwife to write a letter to the Head Consultant, outlining my feelings to try and get things done earlier. She also said she'd book me in as early as possible for a 'dating scan' and to take bloods and we could talk more then. She said that whilst she couldn't promise anything as it wasn't her place, there was a woman who had similar anxieties to me and whilst she had to be referred to a Consultant, she was granted an elective section.

We then talked about the blood test (apparently they take FOUR viles of blood) and she said I could have numbing cream beforehand and she'd hide the needles and I wouldn't have to look. She also said 'Let's look at your veins' and put the weird elastic strap on my arm and told me to pump my fist a few times.... She said she could see lots of veins, so I should be fine. This has made me feel so much better. She listened, she could see I was so upset and worried and she respected my wishes...  I asked if I could make sure I saw her again, and she said yes, so now I know there's a lovely, lovely midwife to see - this makes me so happy as I can 'plan' to see her and planning makes me less worried about stuff.

She told me to get a 'planning pack' from the reception - which they gave me and a urine sample pot... apparently you have to give a sample when you next see the midwife? I get to fill everything out which I am sure will be fun... 

So my midwife appointment (Dear God that sounds so weird) is on 8th October when I'll be 8 weeks. 4 weeks of, well.. not very much to happen. But that's OK, as I believe I could potentially get an elective section and be able to plan things, not worry as much and can maybe even enjoy the next 8 months.

So... Food!

Well, Since I found out, I've not really been hungry at all, but I'm trying to eat as much as possible. Yesterday at work I had some green yoghurt with granola for breakfast and it was delicious. I also had a banana and for lunch, we had a work lunch at 'Revolutions' (Yeah, it is a vodka bar but it also serves food at lunch time!) everyone else had a burger, but I had a 'green salad with lemon and garlic chicken' with mineral water. I've cut my caffeine right back to two cups of tea a day and am mostly off the Cherry Pepsi Max unless I really want one. 

Last night, my boyfriend and I did 'healthy fish and chips' again, which was lovely and today I've had some malt loaf, a handful of strawberries and a wholemeal pitta bread with grilled chicken and tomatoes for lunch. Tonight I'm having fish fingers and roasted sweet potato wedges.

Obviously with this news, I'm not going to necessarily achieve my goal of fitting into size 14 trousers by Christmas, but I can still achieve my goal of eating healthy. I'm going to try and ensure I don't go too crazy, but I want to nourish my body and not cram junk food in my gob.

I still don't feel 'happy', but then it's only been 2 days since I found out - that's no time at all. However the fact that I've had a very positive experience at my local medical practice today where everyone seemed to respect my wishes and help me, has made me feel a lot less worried.

Now I know....

So that's what's been going on behind my back at work.....

I’ve spent most of today in a very anxious state as I had my scheduled meeting with my Boss today. After sleeping quite well, I woke at 5:45 and found it virtually impossible to get back to sleep as I was running through work related things in my head and working out how many hours I had until I had to be in a room with him. Despite my head being full of worry, I managed to remember my breakfast (porridge and blueberries) and my lunch, which was the last portion of my healthy moussaka, hiding in my fridge.

Work was quite busy in the morning and kept my brain focussed on other things – As my lovely work colleague had arranged lunch with someone else, I decided I’d stay in the office and work through my lunch break, eating at my desk. I don’t really like doing this on a normal basis, however for some reason felt quite vulnerable and didn’t want to walk to town on my own. This was compounded by the fact that the weather was pretty dire and whilst I had an umbrella, I used the torrential downpour as an excuse to stay indoors.

My meeting happened at 1:00, as per usual and after 30 minutes of discussing updates, my Boss said ‘As it’s your appraisal tomorrow, I thought we could discuss what’s going to happen with the company and where you want to go with your role’…… You know when you’ve gone over and over and over something in your head and feared the worst? I honestly think I’ve gone over the scenario so many times, I was totally calm. Long story short – There are a lot of structural changes happening in the company and people are getting promoted and things are changing. This means that my role doesn’t really ‘fit’ in anywhere… and due to people ‘losing a lot of confidence in me’ apparently, it will be ‘doubly hard’, to sort things out…..

The conclusion? There isn’t one at the moment – My Boss wants to know if I’m ‘up for the challenge’ which, of course, I have to say I am (as I don’t have another job offer on the table yet), however it was quite upsetting to hear critical feedback when he wasn’t able to give me examples. Oddly though, I’m not as upset as I thought I would be as 1. I don’t believe he’s conducted himself in a very good manner (all the meetings with my teams, not inviting me etc…) and 2. If you’re not able to give examples, how can you be expected to actually believe the feedback is true?

Additionally, if this is ‘all’ that’s going to happen – e.g. someone else get promoted and the structure change, it also means that I don’t have to get a job offer straight away as I can coast for a few weeks until I get a firm one, that I won’t be sacked and that I will be able to pay the bills. I guess we’ll see tomorrow if anything else happens at my appraisal, however as I’ve got a final interview on Wednesday, and hopefully one on Thursday, I’m really hoping I can resign by the end of this week (Wow.. that’s kinda cool, really).

Another thing that’s on my mind at the moment is that today marks the 3 year anniversary of my cat being put to sleep. He was a rescue Persian who I adopted when he was 5. Sadly he was incredibly mistreated and the rescue center were appalling. When I adopted him, he had fleas, ear mites, a perforated ear drum, an eye ulcer, chronic cystitis and ringworm. The Rescue center refused to help with the bills and despite me being a student, I paid everything – which over the first 18 months of his life cost me £4,000. The next 8 years of my life were filled with a cat who was incredibly ‘screwed up’, who would urinate everywhere (even on you) and who sadly, never was able to get rid of his ringworm, despite being shaved and washed multiple times.

Despite him being the worlds most evil cat who honestly nearly drove me to distraction and cost me thousands, I loved him to bits and don’t regret a second of it. Unfortunately he got thinner and thinner and thinner and I realised he wasn’t happy so made the decision to have him put to sleep (based on the vets opinion that he looked like he was getting to the point of kidney failure). I still can’t write about what happened on the last day as it still brings tears to my eyes, but I can honestly say it was the hardest decision and most upsetting day of my life to date – not even my relatives dying has come close to the pain I felt. I was very lucky that my Boyfriend was there to support me and I know that he loved him too, even though he didn’t know him for as long. Three years today – I still miss you Bailey.

In the next hour, I’m going to be heading home with my lovely work friend, where we will make vegan sushi and watch the last episode of ‘Geordie Shore’ before launching into a marathon of the new series of ‘Love Island’, which I’m told is absolute tripe and really bad – Perfect for us :-) I’m looking forward to getting out of the office and hopefully getting rid of my headache that’s been dogging me for the past few hours. I’ll continue to healthy eat tonight, but am feeling quite vulnerable and really like the idea of just getting a hug from my boyfriend who I’m sadly not seeing until tomorrow.