Wedding! Moving! A baby!

Wow. The slightly hilarious account below is a blog entry that never came to light that I have just discovered on a laptop clear out. I'm now married and pregnant! (yes, overlap) Third blooming trimester! Reading the words of a very unknowingly poorly version of myself makes me sad but triumphant to be where I am now. Have a read and I'll catch you up after...

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I am with child! And I feel the need to write about it on here. Mostly because a handful of people in my life find this entertaining (the blog not the fact I'm pregnant...)  Also the need, at 11 ish weeks, to remember how I feel and just generally vie for some sympathy. 

I want to start with the newly peppy pregnant Steph. I was on fire. I pulled in a delivery all by myself at work and smashed through it. I 'konmaried' the whole house and submitted this Star Wars illustration to Hereford Gravity Zine. Poor Jar Jar. 

Pregnancy, I thought, it's the tits!

Then 7 weeks came and with it my affinity with the toilet bowl. I tried everything. The seabands. The ginger. Biscuits. Lemon. Sleeping it off all day. Gentle exercise. Mint tea. Dioralyte (omg vom).

I still don't have any real 'cure' apart from the odd sour apple or cherry maoam and vitamin water.

I got quite dizzy from not really eating at all and dehydrated from not keeping down as much water as usual. By no means is it Hyperemesis G, but it was enough to make my veins shrivel up and not give blood easily. When I had my booking in appointment my midwife (lovely lovely midwife) tried twice to get blood. Then I got sent to the hospital so they could extract some. The midwife nurse tried twice and stopped after declaring my hands and wrists were just 'too small'.

Then a junior doctor tried. She noticed I had shit circulation and freezing hands and promptly filled up some medical gloves with hot water to raise my veins. On her third try she got blood out of the back of my hand, but it quickly stopped flowing. After the fourth try she grabbed a consultant. The consult tried twice. Couldn't do it. I asked her "what happens now?" She said "we keep going"

Well I cried. I was feeling a tad sorry for myself and really like it was my own fault for not drinking enough or dealing better.

Then the anesthetist came in and tried the inside of my wrist, when that didn't work I cried more. He ordered everyone out. He said 'Why are you crying? Have you been poked a lot today?' HA just a few mate. I don't hate injections or needles at all. I have tattoos and piercings, but my veins were apparently like soft noodles that jumped around the point, and i could feel the syringe being wriggled around under the surface of my skin every time. On the 10th try of the day we had blood! Glorious Blood. Including on the floor.

The constant physical aches, pains, twinges, crippling fatigue and vomit  have taken there inevitable toll on my enthusiasm for most things. Including the wedding. That's right your looking at a preggo bride! Illustration has unfortunately waned. Nothing looks right. I am truly hoping for the second trimester energy!

Exciting things have kept my spirits up. Including two successful (out of about 10 unsuccessful) hearings of the heartbeat on our home doppler!

I also have my Hen do approaching fast. Those poor poor unsuspecting henlets have images of me shotting tequila.... At least I can have a sympathy 'hangover'.    

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Guess who actually HAD HYPEREMESIS, yep... me. Is it a British thing or a woman thing that we try to power on and not bother anyone? I struggled on until the morning of our 12 week scan and by the end of the day I was hooked up to IV's in hospital.

You can read my Hyperemesis Gravidarum (I can't say it without thinking 'Wingardium Leviosa')  post soon. It will include all the details of the Hen do.

At current I am 30 weeks pregnant. Very much still nauseous but enjoying all the wriggles, pokes and hiccups that this baby can give. I have a 'tiny bump' and am eagerly awaiting all the extra girth the next 10 ish weeks can create. No stretch marks but covered in a dark peach fuzz. A wolf baby must be inside. Myself and Mr Stephydraws have since moved and I'm absolutely hankering to settle somewhere and get my desk and my paints out. With the sickness, the wedding and the moving (and Glastonbury thrown in for good measure) its been MONTHS. However I have left work now and the long days have brought me to this little waffling space, dreaming of ways to create and be happy and not be too busy until the little man is here.