Feeling a little off....

I'm wondering if I'm starting with the morning sickness and if I am, this would be the earliest it has hit me.  I have moments of feeling not really sick, but a little off.  I've been taking an extra 50mg of vitamin B6 to help ward off morning sickness.  I have no idea if it will help, but thought it was worth a try.  After all the diclectin is half B6. 
From my looking online, it appears that 100mg of B6 is not only safe but good during pregnancy. 

Where To Give Birth?

Since you asked Larissa I thought I might as well make it a post, after all, this is my pregnancy journal.

First baby was a birth center with midwives, that ended with scheduled c/section.

Second baby started with midwives, but changed to homebirth midwife.  After 22 hours of back labor, I begged for the hospital where our baby was born via VBAC.

Now, with this baby I am using the o/b who delivered #2.  It's an hour drive one way, but I really liked her and I trust her.  She is more 'midwife minded' than the midwives I started with for baby #2.  She helped me get the Diclectin and will not induce me if I go late.  I can even see her for ALL my prenatal visits. 

Very Tired

I'm not sleeping!  I've never had this problem with the other pregnancies and wonder why I'm getting it now. 

I lay in bed for hour after hour and when I finally fall asleep it's such a light sleep, that I wake at the smallest noise (last night it was my boy's stuffy nose). 

After 5 nights of this, it's really hitting me today.  Since my boy has a little cold, I think we will have a low key day and hang out on the couch together.  I sure am thankful for laptops!

First Thoughts

It's been 3 days since we got the first positive test and the biggest thought I've had is that I wish I would feel this good for the next 8 months!  Realistically though, that is not going to happen.  At best I probably have just 2 short weeks until I start to feel sick. 

The children are so excited and my daughter has come to me several times saying "Mommy, I'm worried about baby.  Would you please drink some water to give to baby?"

They both want to play with baby and it was not getting through to them just how small baby is right now.  Yesterday I went into the pantry and got 2 grains of rice.  I gave one to each of them saying "this is how small baby is.  Can you play with baby?"  No, they each said.  They finally understand that baby needs to grow in mommy's womb for a loooooooong time.

We told the family by putting our son in a shirt that said "Big Brother". For family who live out of state we did a Skype call and those that were close we did it in person.   Some got it right away, but not everyone :)  It was a lot of fun to watch everyone's reaction when they figured it out.  It took my dad a long time.  He went in the other room to play with the kids and after DH and I had left (they were babysitting), came back to my mom and said "so when's it due?" 

The Journey Begins

The first test was a faint + on 10 DPO, then 11 DPO it was a little darker and now at 12 DPO it's dark enough for the camera to pick it up. 

12 days past ovulation.

Our Daughter's Pregnany & Birth Story

Okay, it's been almost 5 years and I've never written it out. I wonder how much I will remember. But as I sit here doing Kindergarten with her, I am amazed at how much she has grown. She changed my life the moment she was born. Her love of learning has been with her since day one and I'm not lying. I started to teach her to read a few months before she turned 3 and we were doing pre-school by age 3 and now kindergarten at age 4. I look forward to what the future holds with my little artist.

Here goes.....

One month after we were married, we learned we were expecting! It was an answer to our prayers as we really wanted a baby. I guess you can say it was a half answer to the prayer since we asked God for a boy and got a girl :)!

About 2 weeks after finding out we were expecting, I started with the first feelings of sick. It quickly got worse, to the point of me being in bed most of the day. Just about anything I ate would come back. I remember thinking that I must be a wimp since I couldn't continue on with my normal life. My husband and I were unable to go out on dinner dates, have fun with others (and for me it was getting to know the families in my new church as I had moved to North Carolina from Vermont 2 weeks before our wedding), or anything else newlyweds might do.

One thing I prayed for was that God would give me the strength to go to church every Sunday. It took me a couple of hours to get ready and I would have to eat laying down in bed, but God was kind and as far as I can remember, I don't think I missed a Sunday. But as soon as we got home, I would go to bed.

My husband did not work for the first 3 months of our marriage and he was wonderful in taking care of me and being next to me for every trip I made to the toilet to throw-up.

I remember it was around Thanksgiving time when I started to throw-up a bit less. It went from many (6+)times a day, to only a couple times a day. As the weeks went on, I would find myself going a whole day without throwing up! But I must say the nausea never fully went away and the last time I threw up was the morning our child was born.

We had chosen a free standing birth center that was just over an hour away from our house. It was one of two birth centers in the state of NC at that time and homebirth midwives had to work 'underground'. I really blame myself for not telling them how sick I was, but I didn't want them to think I was a complainer. Since I wasn't losing weight (wasn't gaining much either), I thought I must not be very sick.

Anyways, we enjoyed the more natural approach to pregnancy through our midwives and were never pushed to do anything we didn't want to - we NEVER had an ultrasound until I was 36 weeks along and I will tell you why.

At this appointment the midwife thought the baby was breach. They had recently been surprised by 2 other breach births and didn't want to take a chance with me. They set up an ultrasound appointment later that week. It was our first time in a hospital for this pregnancy, but it would not be the last.

Sure enough our baby was breach. Next step was to schedule a procedure called 'external cephalic version'. Basically they push and pull on your baby in hope of turning it. This was done at 37.5 weeks and was extreamely painful, but I knew if baby did not turn I would have to have a c-section. After what seemed like hours, they gave up. Our baby would not turn. My stomach was very sore (I had bruising that showed up later) and I was having contractions, but the baby's heart rate looked good. After a couple of hour of observation, we were sent home with a birth date of our child - he/she was to be born in 10 days, 1 week before my due date.

So we went from planning a natural childbirth to as medical of a birth you can have. This hospital was one of the largest (if not the largest) teaching hospitals in the state (UNC). The morning of our c-section came and we arrived at the hospital. With the exception of being very happy to have our baby, it would turn out to be the worst day of our lives.

It started by being lied to by the pediatricians that if we didn't give our baby the eye ointment they would have to notify CPS and start a file on us. We were planning on not vaccinating or giving the baby ANYTHING after birth. They had their "talk" with us before our midwife arrived. Later at our 2 week PP check-up she was angry to learn we were lied to.

Next my husband was not allowed in the OR until after I had my spinal placed, a procedure they started BEFORE the midwife arrived. I remember hearing the Dr. say to her when she walked in the room "I didn't realize she was your patient".  Made me wonder if they would have done anything different if they did know.

What happened next was awful. I had to listen to the anesthesiologist tell the student (that's right, a student) where to place the needle. It took 3 or 4 tries before it was placed correctly. I was screaming in pain. Looking back, I wish I would have told the anesthesiologist to do it himself! Because of all the wrong placements, I would have to endure months of horrible back pain and numbness. Pain that would not allow me to hold my daughter while standing for the first months of her life.

Finally my husband was at my head, touching me, kissing me, talking to me. It was a relief to have him there. They went on with the c-section and I remember having a 'hot spot' where I felt a lot of pain. After a lot of pulling and tugging, they got the baby out. It was said the cord was around her shoulder in such a way that she was not able to turn.

Our daughter, Eliana was born weighing in at 7lbs 9oz, 20 3/4 inches. Her eyes were wide open looking all around.

Eliana is a Hebrew word meaning "my God has answered". God had answered our prayer for a baby, it was just a long, hard 9 months to get her.

She had been breach the whole pregnancy and had what was called a 'breach head' and one leg that was very comfortable at her head as it had been in the womb.

Looking back, I now know I had a 'mild' form of HG.  I didn't lose weight, but the sickness prevented me from preforming my daily activites. All the 'morning sickness' tricks people told me did nothing to help.  I can't remember all that I tried, but it was a lot.  I never felt good during this pregnancy and little did I
  know it would be much, much worse the next time around.

Pretty Cool

I just went online to a due date calculator and if I am to get pregnant this month, my due date would be:

October 4, 2010

My 33rd birthday.

Bendectin and Diclectin

You might wonder why I'm thinking (hoping, praying) Diclectin will work for me.  Go back to the year 1977.  Early that year a woman found out she was pg.  Her son was just turning a year old and the thought of being "sick as a dog" while chasing after a busy toddler was overwhelming.  She asked her OB if there was anything she could take. She was told about and given Bendectin and it worked so well she took it again in '79 for another pregnancy.  Who was this woman?  She is my mom. 

Sadly, Bendectin is no longer available in the US and this is why:

Bendectin is an anti-nausea drug that is a combination of Vitamin B6 and doxylamine succinate (antihistamine) and was on the US market from the 1950's until 1983, when it was voluntarily removed from the market by its manufacturer, Merrell Dow. The reason?  False statments that it was causing birth defects. As alarming as that sounds, the evidence and history has not shown any proof between its use and an increase in birth defects. Today most OB's approve of its use and tell you how to "make your own" over the counter version. If you do some research, you will see that upon Bendectin's removal from the market, the rate of birth defects remained steady while the rate of hospitalizations for NVP doubled. It has been thought that Bendectin was used by lawyers, eager for money, as a reason to start suing. The legal fees were costing Merrell Dow more than the drug was making so they removed it from the market.

Most interesting to me is that due to all of this, Bendectin (Diclectin) remains the most studied antiemetic for use in pregnancy. And these studies showed it was safe and effective. Diclectin is a "Class A" drug - the safest rating there is.  I was told by my MW that Tylenol was a "Class B"

Click HERE for the FDA drug rating chart.

Bendectin is still available in Canada under the name of Diclectin, I was able to get some and this is how:

My husband and I met with my OB and talked about our desire to have more children and how to better control HG.

She was comfortable with me taking Diclectin and wrote me a Rx.

I then took to the internet to find a pharmacy in Canada where I could order it.  It was as easy as scanning my Rx and emailing it to a company called canadadrugs.com.  I had it 2 weeks later.