11 weeks along with baby number 4, little Pipkin

All the grandparents now know they are expecting another precious grandchild come March next year. We've not told siblings yet but will do once we have the scan no doubt. The scan is at the moment set for 2nd September late afternoon,which isn't very convenient due to the fact that we are on holiday from this Friday til next Friday (2nd September). I've tried phoning up three or four times to rearrange it but no luck getting through or getting a callback (I've left 2 messages so far). It might be possible just to get to the appointment on time but it will be close and will rob our chance to break the journey with a few hours at a park or something else.

We will be going with my inlaws this time. We don't usually holiday with our parents, but we have decided to this year because my father-in-law got a poor prognosis diagnosis of prostate cancer earlier in the year. He has just finished his last session of chemotherapy last Thursday so he should be feeling fine on the holiday. It'll be lovely for us all to create some lovely memories together!

Changing the subject, at the weekend we told my dad and step-mum about Pipkin. How we announced it was we signed a birthday card with Pipkin's name along with our own. I wrote something along the lines of how I hoped he didn't spent the entire birthday party the day before under an umbrella, which he answered, but completely missed Pipkin's mention underneath! 😂 He turned to talk to one of the boys while my step-mum picked up the card, read it, and we watched her reactions carefully. Her eyes widened, she turned to us, mouth open slightly and said "is this an announcement?" When we nodded, she said with amusement "he didn't notice did he?" *head shake* "um, love, I think you should read your card again!" Haha! Reactions have greatly been positive/neutral which I'm grateful for. I haven't been expecting hugely excited reactions like you tend to get for number one (and maybe number two) but as long as they're not negative that's great.

Other news, the morning sickness has returned, I'm generally feeling pretty pants. It's a bit worse too as I've actually retched a few times before I made myself take a sip of water or lie down. Still grateful that I have it mildly compared to some, but it is definitely hampering my ability to function in day to day stuff. Making meals is difficult. Staying upright is difficult. The list of jobs I want to get done before our week away is not getting any shorter which isn't good. I felt sick all day yesterday. I managed to set the washing machine going, make meals for the boys, and sweep the floor. That's about it. I need to hang up yesterday's washing, get another load on, clear and clean the inside of the car (although just clearing it will be better than nothing), and make a start packing the suitcases. I woke this morning feeling better, but the sickness is descending again, but I am determined to power through. If I get at least one job ticked off the list I will be happy. I will do this!

Thanks for your private congratulations, and your comments. I know I'm not a frequent poster anymore. Xx

10 weeks. TEN!

So already we appear to be a quarter of the way through our last pregnancy. Morning sickness has reduced to practically nothing although I do occasionally feel it creeping up a bit. Not enough to bother me like it did from 6-8 weeks, and I appreciate how lucky I was to get it for only two weeks, and milder than a lot of people do. Even if it has been my worst case!

For a while I've been thinking how I'd like to give this little baby a nickname in utero. Robert was Sausage, Christopher was Squidge, Daniel didn't really have one. And I was thinking about it and every now and then a nickname would pop into my head. Twinkle was one. There were a few others I don't remember. But today, out of nowhere, the name Pipkin came to mind. My little Pipkin. :) It's all still so surreal to me at the moment. No movements, no scan photo, symptoms have abated, although I'm still needing to wee loads, and I've started getting round ligament pain. I sort of still can't believe we have a tiny baby on the way. So I think maybe naming him, even in this temporary capacity, might help make things more real.

The boys ask questions on nearly a daily basis about the baby. When will the baby be born? How big is the baby now? Is it a boy or a girl? What shall we call the baby? They are so excited about the baby which is absolutely lovely and heart warming. Even Daniel, who clearly does not have a great understanding about it all just yet, keeps saying, as he holds his finger and thumb an inch or two apart, "is vis your baby, mummy?". Today, the older two boys passed some of their time by writing down their ideas for baby names on paper. Robert's ideas were Stephen, Ryan, Lauren and Hayden. Christopher's ideas were Daisie, Amelia, Lola, Florence and Jack. :) we put them up on the fridge so they could add to their lists if they wanted! What a lovely bunch of big brothers our little Pipkin has already! 😍

Baby 4- 9 weeks 3 days update

I had my booking in midwife appointment on Tuesday (at 9 week 1 day). It went well and despite being kept waiting in the waiting room for 20 minutes, I was out 10 minutes early from the appointment! The midwife who booked me in wasn't my usual one, but she said she recognised me. I didn't at first but on my way back home it suddenly occurred to me that it might have been one of the midwives who came out for a postnatal checkup after Daniel was born. The checks all went OK. Blood pressure, and wee fine. They checked my height and weight, I was in the normal range which is good because I've gained 2 stone since last year. Doh. Got the usual talks about what to avoid eating/drinking. Got my blood test forms. First one being the booking bloods, the other one being the GTT I have to take at 16 weeks due to prior gestational diabetes and close family history of type 2.

I went to get my bloods done this morning with the boys. I talked them through how I expected them to behave in the waiting room while we were in the car, got them to choose a book from the house before we left. They were as good as GOLD. They sat beautifully and looked at their books. I read Daniel's one to him, the other two sat and read to themselves. I was so proud! It was lovely to get smiles from the other people waiting room rather than frowns. When it was our turn to go in, the boys stood and watched and asked questions to the woman taking my blood. Daniel kept saying to the woman "you a doctor?" and she kept saying she wasn't but Daniel wasn't having any of it! Haha! "you doctor!" "no no I'm not a doctor." "you are!" Robert and Christopher were fascinated watching the blood come out of my arm and we're concerned it was going to hurt. I said a little bit, but they could help me be brave. After the blood was taken, they wanted to hold the tubes, which the lady was happy to let them do. Robert marvelled that they were warm, and then said matter of factly, that it is because we are warm blooded. ;) I was very pleased with their behaviour and the questions they asked about the process. Robert also asked why they put the band on my upper arm. I love it when learning opportunities present themselves like this. The only thing is that the woman said, "oh, three boys? I bet you hope this one is a girl!" which I am sure I will be sick of hearing by the time I'm half way through my pregnancy let alone near the end. Any good comebacks to this? Apart from repeating over and over "I'll be happy whatever as long as the baby is healthy" the truth is that while I would love a girl, I feel like I am a mum of boys now. It will be odd if I do end up with a girl. :) what will be will be! We will end up finding out around the end of October or the beginning of November. Seems a long way off yet but I'm sure it will go so fast!

Baby 4 - 8 weeks 3 days

Feeling very glad I have this blog to offload in. During my last pregnancy, I offloaded in a group on Facebook and in statuses on my page, and I ended up getting the feeling that people were getting frustrated with my attitude to certain aspects of my pregnancy. I had one fairly kindly worded comment, once when I was a week overdue and counting, about my frustration at going over, which underneath the kind wording basically said "stop moaning, some people can't actually gestate babies to full term and they would give anything to be in your situation, and they have a lot more problems with their babies than you do, so stfu." since then I have felt somewhat like I can't offload in places like that, especially with stuff that is probably trivial compared to others' situations. At least here, readership is limited, but it gives me that place where I can actually say stuff that I don't want to keep bottled inside.

I haven't even told that group about my pregnancy yet. I've not told many people about it to be fair. Only my mum, husband (obviously), the boys (more on that shortly), Alice, a few Facebook friends, the ones that I stayed in contact with from my first pregnancy forum foray, and you guys. Not necessarily in that order. :) but yeah that's basically the reason why I am considering keeping it off Facebook for the most part, because once it's public knowledge, I feel like I will have a licence to moan. And I DO NOT WANT to moan with this little one. There are some aspects of pregnancy that are not pleasant of course, but on the whole I am so thrilled to be carrying this life inside me. It's all a little surreal at the moment, as I always find it in the early weeks, when all you get to go on is the second pink line, and the early symptoms, and the lack of period. This being my last pregnancy, I really want to savour it! I want to really notice everything, record it all and feel good about it.

I'm feeling like the positivity is a little hard to come by at the moment, because my morning sickness this time round is much worse than with the others. I'm still not actually vomiting, but with all my other babies, I had just the mildest nausea on waking, which went away within an hour. The norm for this pregnancy seems to be: wake up, feel mostly OK. Get up. Feel nauseous. Try to eat breakfast. Eat some. Feel a bit better. Nausea stays to some degree until 3-4pm which puts me off eating somewhat. Feel fairly normal in the evening. Repeat on waking the next day. The day before yesterday I felt fine on getting up. Hooray I thought. Prematurely! I then started feeling sick around 10am,and felt nauseous for the rest of the day, much worse than normal. Luckily yesterday was a normal day, but this morning I feel OK again which has left me with a foreboding feeling for what may await me the rest of the day! I'm now gone 8 weeks, which means I've now missed two periods. Thankfully bleeding is the same as with my other babies, that is, non existent. I was worried in the early days as I had spotting AFTER my BFP. Which I'd never had before, always in the days before my period was due. But after two small spotting instances at around 4.5 weeks I've seen nothing since.

Last night I was sitting watching TV, and my tummy was popping like crazy. I KNOW it's way too early to feel movements yet but I did wonder for a while. But nope, more than likely just wind. :) I can't wait to start feeling the baby. Neither can the boys, Robert in particular, which leads me to what I was going to talk more about.

We told the boys about the baby on Sunday. They (the older two at least) looked at me incredulously when I told them, then they asked "what? There's a baby in there? Right NOW?" They looked so happy! :) Daniel doesn't really understand. He's only just turned 3 a few months ago so it's all a bit surreal for him, and I don't blame him, because he can't SEE the baby, and I don't have a bump yet or anything. Robert is by far the most interested. He knows about how a baby is made, since he asked one day, and we answered very basically, but he kept asking for more and more detail so we answered him honestly. Anyway, when he found out about the baby, he asked me "did you and daddy breed then?" (breed! Haha!) and when I answered him affirmatively, he then asked "did you breed at night?" when I answered yes, he then looked all downcast and said "awwww! I wanted to see it!" to which my eyes probably popped out of their sockets and I thought "ummmmm.. I'm pretty glad you didn't, and I'm pretty sure you'd be glad too!" Robert has since asked me lots of questions about the baby, about the baby's milk (and has begged me to let him try some from a cup when the baby is born, something I have no problem with), about how big the baby is, whether it will be a boy or a girl, where the baby will sleep, and so on. Christopher is slightly less interested but I know he will become more interested as the pregnancy progresses and he sees the scan pictures, sees the bump and feels the baby kick. :) Robert will LOVE it all, and seeing as he is home educated, he will more than likely be attending all my antenatal appointments with me so will see the midwife check my blood pressure, see them take my blood for the blood tests, hear the heartbeat, see her feeling my abdomen and measuring it. What lovely learning experiences for him! My first appointment is in 5 days (counting down!!) which he won't be attending as it is an hour and a half long and mostly filling in forms that I am aware of.

In a few weeks time we will be going away on holiday with my in laws. We don't usually holiday with the boys' grandparents, but since we learned in February that my father in law has stage 4 prostate cancer, we have come to realise that they will not be around forever, and this is a wonderful opportunity for them and the boys to make memories with each other. We are thinking that we will go away with the other grandparents over the coming years as well. I'm hoping that by then my sickness will have abated, or lessened, as I will be 11-12 weeks by then. Of course it still may be going on, but I will have to see. I am guessing that the in-laws will find out they are expecting their 5th grandchild while we are on holiday together! I've been looking at mugs where they are plain on the outside and on the bottom on the inside they have a secret message. I so want to buy one of those! :) also I've got a cute picture for announcing the pregnancy on Facebook if I choose to. :)

Well that post ended up longer than I thought! Well done if you got to the end!