James is here!

A few hrs old

Now at 1 month

Well... We made it to 32w 6d before James decided he wanted to come on out and meet his sisters. My waters continued to drain, and I ended up with an infection which obviously triggered pre-term labour. It started in the early hours of 26th october (almost 4 weeks after my waters originally broke) and by 6am the ctx were getting stronger, so I called Dh and had him come home from work, and called my mum to watch the girls. We got to the hospital around 11am and they stuck a CTG monitor on me to measure my ctx. By 2pm the consultant came to see me and said that we needed to get baby out. Because he was breech, it had to be a section, which I was totally fine about, and James Alan arrived at 4.19pm weighing 4lb 1oz.

He's now a month old and doing great, he's still in SCBU (like NICU) but is doing well, he's off all monitors and has never needed oxygen. He is doing well with his bottles, but sometimes needs to finish with an NGT. He weighs 5lb 15oz and has 67mls every 4 hours.

Oh boy!!

Well things have gone a bit mad here. At the end of september (The day after JJ's 1st birthday) I got rushed into hospital as I couldn't breathe, and my chest was really wheezy. At first the dr's thought it was a suspected clot on the lung, but that came back clear, then they thought it was pneumonia, but that came back clear as well. So they finally said it was a bad chest infection, with the possiblity of pregnancy induced asthma. Just what I needed. So after a short stay in hospital with nebs etc.. I came home with an inhaler and antibiotics.

Then the following Monday (1st Oct) My waters went, and I was only 29 weeks. So I had to go back to hospital, where it was confirmed that my waters had indeed gone. I had steroid injections to help mature his lungs if he needed to come out, but thankfully I never went into labor. So after a few days they sent me home on antibitoics and I have to go back into hospital every couple days to have a monitor put on, and have bloods drawn to test for infection. I also have u/s every week to check how he's doing and to check my AFI levels, but right now it could all still happen at any time. We're hoping to make it to 36 weeks and then the dr will either induce or schedule a section as the risk of infection from a prolonged rupture goes up after that. At the moment it will likely be a section because he's breech and doesn't have a lot of fluid to turn himself round, but I guess anything could happen. So we are just taking things day by day right now, I am on bedrest probably for the rest of the pregnancy.

WOW!

Firstly let me apologise for not having been around, there has been a whole lot going on and not enough time or energy to keep up with everything. BUT... We had our level II U/S on friday and we're having a BOY this time!! I'm still getting over it, after having 2 girls, I guess I just figured it would be another girl. His name is James Alan, and everything seems normal with the u/s.

It's blown the girl/boy sickness theory right out of the window. It's often been said that Hyperemesis is worse with a girl than a boy, but now I know otherwise. Having only had girls, I couldn't comment other than to repeat others experiences, but now I know that it's not gender based. This 'blue' pregnancy is not as bad as pink PG#1 but way worse than pink PG#2.

The thing I don't get about this illness is how it can change so much. Good days, (only throwing up 3-4 times) bad days, (throwing up constantly as soon as something touches your lips) heartburn nausea, and my latest one "sickly sweet" nausea.. It's weird and hard to explain, but even when I breath in and out if feels really sweet in my stomach, like I've eaten too many sweets, or been on a rollercoaster all day or something. Not pretty.

JJ took her first steps at 10.5 months but I missed it...again. I missed Kimi's first steps because I was PG with JJ and sick and this time I was at a midwife appointment when she did it for her daddy. She's also starting to say proper words now. She can say "Hi", "Chief" (said Teef but she only does it when our dog is around) "Go" and her favorite of the week "car" she will see a car on tv, or one of Kimi's toy ones and that's it, all you hear for an hour is "Cah"

And Kimi? Well... She has her own 'princess bed' now and is sleeping a bit better although she mostly still wakes once in the night, occasionally twice. She's hit the terrible two's head on and I really don't have the strength to deal with it, but know I have to, so that's not helping the HG much either. She's going through the "flop" stage, if you try to take her hand she drops to her knees, if I bend over to cuddle her she grabs my hair and flops, if you want her to do anything she doesn't want to do she flops...AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!! Aside from that though she's doing really well, and even helped to choose her baby brothers name.

My better half has gone back to work after a 3 week holiday, and boy do I feel it, not having him around makes life so much harder right now, I can't nap whenever I need to like I could before, and the dishwasher doesn't automatically load itself before I've even got out of bed... But still he won't let me do anything around the house, except look after the girls.

Started already

I was kinda hoping that life would be kind to me on at least ONE of my pregnancies, but now I'm guessing NOT.

14 weeks in and I get my first "hotel stay" for IV's. The hyperemesis has hit me with a vengence, maybe it's my fault for thinking that it wouldn't be as bad this time.. yeah 7 litres of fluid and cyclizine injections every 8 hours in my thigh later and the threat of being catheterised if I don't pee was JUST what I wanted. I'm finally out and feeling somewhat human(ish) again. I have a higher dose of meds which seem to be helping so far, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to go back. I love the hospital, and the staff are wonderful and their knowledge of HG is great, but nobody really wants to be in hospital, even a good one.

Fingers, toes, legs and anything else that won't have me racing to the porceline Goddess are being crossed that I don't have to get any more treatment aside from the pills.

May update:

Ok.. Here's the short version, and believe me, the long version is looooong and you really wouldn't want to hear it..lol.

So at the end of April we discovered that we were expecting again, TOTAL SHOCKER!! We were done. Had our 2 kids and were totally happy. This news has totally changed everything. And so the hyperemesis has hit again already (see link to right), and I'm wondering how I will cope with a baby, and a toddler, especially with the SPD (last time I was on crutches it was so bad). I already have meds, but I'm still blah! I am coming round to the idea, but it's a lot to take on board.

However, there is good news too. Kimi drew her first picture!! Such a big girl, sometimes I forget that she's only 2 (well, will be 2 next week)Check this out!

And also Miss JJ got her first tooth, bless her.

Dad's 60th Birthday.

Me and Dad

Emily, Gracie, Kimi & JJ

Dad's birthday went without any hitches, there was quite a good turn out at his party, including somefriends from Holland, and various family from all over the East coast of England. All the children (all girls, under 2yrs) were well behaved (can't say the same for all the ADULTS..lol :P) But it was a good day. Dad has picked up his bus pass, and for some very strange reason, he's awfully proud of the fact he gets cheap bus tickets now, but really don't get it cos he still has a car and never uses the bus! Oh well..lol

Finally...

Yes I've worked it out, and I now have a bit of time in the evenings. I've managed to get JJ to bed by 7.30pm by cutting out one of her naps in the afternoon and giving her a long bath so she kicks and splashes and tires herself out. It's working!!

And Kimi has finally started going to bed by herself. There was a time if you put her in her cot and left the room she would scream the house down. CIO didn't work because she'd get herself so worked up she'd puke. So we were resigned to cuddling her to sleep then putting her in the cot. Well a few days ago I was fed up with it, JJ was screaming for a bottle, DH was working late and I just chucked her (not literally) in her cot, gave her her milk and her teddy and left the room, I went down to JJ, fed her and put her to bed, and when I checked on Kimi she was fast asleep, so I took the bottle away and chilled out til DH got home.

We tried it a few nights to make sure it wasn't a fluke and nope! She will go to sleep herself. We sometimes hear her talking to herself, but in general she nods off almost straightaway, and if not, she talks herself to sleep.

Nights to myself ROCK!!

6 Months going on 10! (contains FOODMENTS for my HG friends)

Ok so "little JJ" has the biggest appetite ever, she's not quite 6 months yet and she already has cereal for breakfast, a dinner and pudding at lunch and a dinner and pudding at tea time!! Her favourites are mummy's home made cottage pie and and hot mashed bananas. But she will happily scoff down anything I put in front of her, and so far she has only had one very mild reaction to a food that we have now taken out of her diet. She has been wearing 9-12M clothes and for the most part she is still in those, but she has also been getting into some 12-18 month stuff too, I have a real feeling that give her another 6 months and they'll be wearing the same size clothes! At last weigh in she was over 18lb so she's probably over 19lb now as that was over 2 weeks ago.

Terrible two's

Kimi heard about the terrible two's and wanted to get in on the action early. She's driving me nuts with the constant whining, and a sound I can only describe as a cross between a grunt and a growl. It's like something you'd see on Harry Enfield's teenage character "Kevin", only in miniature form. She has suddenly decided she NEVER wants her hair up, even though she'd been so good with it up until now, we have lost so many hair bands it's not funny anymore.

What's worse is that I heard from many friends that the terrible two's never really goes away, One has an eight year old who she says (hopefully jokingly) is still going through it. I think it's time to get a padded room for mummy! Either that or a sound proof room for Kimi! And someone help me when JJ gets to that stage and I have two of them!

The strange thing is, that as annoying as she's getting, she is also getting so much sweeter too. A couple of days ago she grabbed my head and kissed my nose then pulled me into a hug. She's started telling her sister "wuffoo" which is Kimi-speak for "love you" which is a new thing. Then yesterday she kissed both my eyes, and then my nose, then my mouth and then hugged me and said "my mummy"

Maybe the cuteness is a counteraction for all the annoyances she has right now, but I sure wish she'd just do the cute thing and leave the grunts and whining behind.

Computers...URGH!!

I have decided... Computers are more trouble than they are worth. Ok so I couldn't live without mine, it has been my salvation, and my ruin at times. My ex left for someone he met on our first computer, but then I met DH online too a year or so after that. It was also my best friend when I had hyperemesis gravidarum when pregnant, and the girls on the HER website (linked right) were my angels. They supported me through everything and now I try and do the same for those suffering now, I'm totally hooked on that site.

Anyway, back to my computer issues. Last week my computer started running slower than usual, and my spyware scanner was alerting me to all kinds of tracking cookies etc... I know enough about computers to know that's NOT good. But I figured that if the spyware catcher was getting them then that's good. WRONG. every day I was getting more and more, and getting these really annoying pop ups, even though I had my pop up blocker on AOL as well as IE and had messenger pop ups disabled in my control panel. Whatever, I needed to find out what was going on. Eventually my computer just froze on me... Couldn't even shut my computer down, had to turn it off manually.

Great so now it's time to reformat the darn thing. PC whizz buddy tells me how to do that and I set to work. It was a toughie as I'd never done it before, but I managed it better than I thought I would. The main problems started AFTER I'd done the reformatting. I tried to get AOL back on my pc and it decides to tell me that my passwords are wrong.. uh-huh if you say so. I eventually get past that hurdle and then it tells me that my modem hasn't been detected.. UGH!

This all happened yesterday, and I finally got the internet back on this afternoon. And then comes the joy of putting all my programs back on again since I wiped absolutely everything off. Oh joy, guess what? NO SOUND! Grrrrrrr! Aparantly I had no sound drivers at all, or video drivers, so here we go again with searching all over the world (ok the web) for a generic driver because I don't have a motherboard disk since my pc was built from scratch rather than bought from a shop. FINALLY get it sorted and have sound again and got most of my programs installed again apart from PSP but Nikki is bringing it back tomorrow as she'd borrowed it.

Oh and one night away from my forum had me chewing my arm off!

Feeding time at the zoo

Yes JJ has started solids, Ok she started a while ago, but don't tell the HV's..lol But she has just started on fromage frais..wow, she likes that! here are some pics, oh and the dress she is wearing is one of Kimi's old 12-18M ones!!

SLEEEEEP!

I'm beginning to forget what having a good night's sleep is like! Both of my girls started sleeping through at a very early age (5wks) and now that Kimi is still sick I haven't had a proper night's sleep in almost 2 weeks. I sure hope she feels back to her old self soon and actually starts sleeping thru again... I need sleeeeeeeep!!

Nan

I have just recieved word that my nan may have to go into a nursing home, she has been in hospital for a couple of weeks now after collapsing at home with breathing problems. Luckily my aunt was there at the time, so she wasn't left alone for any time. Turns out she has a clot on her lung, she's been given meds to disperse the clot, and seems to be doing well, but mentally and physically, she is not well enough to look after herself. Her memory is so bad she almost has a goldfish memory, and she is not steady on her feet at all. So it looks like she will have to go in a home. I know she will hate it, she loves her home, and is feircly stubborn. I have a bad feeling about this. But at the same time, it's what will be best for her.

YEY JJ!!!

Look at my baby! She sitting up!!

Whoops!

Poor Kimi

Kimi was sick with an RSV last week, she ended up in hospital for a couple of days and is now out and recovering well. Of course we ended up with stomach flu which left us wiped out this week, so this is the first chance I've had to get on here. Here are some pics of our poorly girl

Complaint

Well Walt and I are in the process of writing our formal letter of complaint to the hospital that ruined my birth experiences with BOTH of our children. First there was Kimi who was never going to get out without hurting herself or her mummy, but the dr's wouldn't listen and I ended up with an emergency section. Then 16 months later JJ. I'm not going to tell the whole story, but lets just say that things were done to me that no woman in labor should have to go through. I should've had another section, I begged for one, but the jr Dr (SHO) didn't believe in sections unless a life is at risk. So instead butchered me and gave me a spinal that didn't work and was manhandling me all over the place. I'm still recovering almost 4 months later, where as a section scar would have healed by now.

Anyways, the letter is started, and we are pulling no punches at all. We have stated what our problems are, and what we want done about it. All we need to do now is call my health visitor and figure out how to get the actual name of the SHO (it's one of those foreign names that no-one can spell OR pronounce..lol) as all my notes are at the hospital. Then we can rewrite it and send it off. I would have printed it, but my printer is on the blink and can't afford to fix it.

Oh Joy!

I need sleeeeeeep!

Urgh. I need sleep! Poor Kimi has been teething for what seems an eternity, she had 5 coming through but then she got better and we figured that was it, and the two days that she didn't wake every hour, JJ thought it would be cool to take over her role! And then Kimi took over again after that... I'm used to having such good babies. Both of them started sleeping through at 5 weeks, and we're talking 10 hours, not the 5-6 hours the health professionals tell you about. I figured I deserved good babies after the pregnancies I had. If hyperemesis wasn't enough, I also had SPD (Symphisis Pubis Dysfunction) where your pelvis seperates too much during pregnancy and grates and wobbles causing extreme pain when you try to walk, move etc... Anyways, I got the good babies, but the teething bit sure sucks!If you look at the picture, you can see her new teeth (and her feeling sorry for herself) they are the molars each side and the incisor on our left (her right). There is also 2 other molars coming through, on the top, but you can't see them on the pic.

And feeling very sorry for herself

Christmas 2006

Christmas came and went without any hitches this year, and woohoooo! I'm not pregnant this christmas either!! ;)

The girls got spoilt, not only by us, but all our family and friends, so big thanks to all who sent presents. Kimi got lots of toys that make noise (Daddy's idea, of course it was, he isn't HERE all day listening to them!!) She also got her faves, Peppa pig, Noddy, Thomas the tank engine, as well as a chicco star kitchen, she has been cooking dinner for us every day.... 10 times a day!

JJ got the baby Einstein activity center, she is a little small for it at the moment (although if you pack her in with a pillow, she's ok) but she loves it. She's also got a whole bunch of teethers and rattles etc... She also got lots of clothes, which was good because all the 6-9 month clothes Kimi had were summer clothes, so we didn't have too many warm clothes... Now we do, and she looks sooooo cute!

Boxing day we all went to mums, and ate a lot. Alan and Rachel were there with Gracie and we tried to get a decent pic of the 3 girls, but cousin Gracie bashed JJ and in the end all 3 of them were crying, so we gave up! Here are some of the xmas pics.