The pregnancy effect

It's a life changing experience to get pregnant. Changes are :-

1. I used to sleep on my stomach but need to sleep on my sides now as bump is sticking out. Also can't sleep on my back as baby will press on my blood vessels and I can feel faint (Happened to me when I was lying on my back during one of the scan and I was feeling faint, so scary).

2. Leg cramps. Got three leg cramps one after the other last Saturday night, worst cramp so far. Eventually I have to wake Sam up to relieve my leg cramp.

3. So tired...... Feel so tired, especially every Sat after going out shopping, I must go to sleep at mid-afternoon to rest.

4. Out of breath. I feel out of breath easily after a flight of stairs. Got to walk slowly and minimise the things I carry around.

Pregnant
I'm 14 weeks pregnant and just had the first baby scan last Thursday. The baby is now 8.36cm and wasn't co-operative during the scan as the baby kept facing the wrong direction for the scan for the heart, face, etc. In total, the ultrasonographer saw me 4 times and each time, she press really hard into my belly hoping to see the right position!! Overall, she managed to get all the scans and the baby is fine. We were at the hospital for the 10.30am appointment and we only managed to leave at 4pm!

My appetite is really bad and not improving, feeling nauseous most of the time and still can't stomach meat (e.g. pork, beef, lamb). As I'm not eating meat, my blood test result shows that my iron level is lower than expected and now I'm on iron supplement tablet.

I was hoping that during pregnancy I can eat what I like but this wasn't the case for me....:(

Our garden collections
We are visiting DIY shops weekly to do some home improvement and will always visit the garden centre and buy something for the garden.

This is our collections :-
Goji Berry (it was only a bare roots with no leaf when we bought it, now it's has grown.
I always want a cherry tree and have bought the first one that fit into our garden (It's a miniature patio version which means it will only grow up to 2m in height), however later did I realise that it's sour cherry (for cooking). Hopefully, if I leave the cherry abit longer (when it fruits), it will be less sour and can be eaten straight from the tree.
Lemon tree, again it's a minature patio type, so it's small.
My climbling roses to grow on the fences and use as security measure.
Potatoes bag. Can you see the 2 small little plants growing from the bag. Apparently the potatoes are ready for collection when the plant flowers. Not sure when the little plants will grow and flower.
Broad beans plant, growing well but no beans yet.
Strawberry plants. These are not those we grew from seed, as they either died are way to small to bear any fruits this summer. Therefore we bought small strawberry plant pots from garden centre and plant them onto this strawberry pot. Really hope there's some fruits for us this year!
Spring onions, they are small, isn't it.
My carrots!! Hope the pot are big and deep enough for them to grow.
Rockets for salads.
The one that we are most proud of - Lettuce. We bought the 99 pences pot set from Homebase for growing lettuce and repot them into these 2 larger pot. These are great for the guinea pigs and they love it!
Our other plants (e.g. peppers, sunflowers, chili padi) in the greenhouse)

Hope these plants will cut down on our grocery shopping expenses each week.

Plant
As we have a garden and it's nearly spring, we decided to grow some plants from seeds (i.e. chili and strawberry). Finally saw a sign of life of the stawberry plant today.

Can you see it?

Crispin with Cookie
Crispin is sleeping and Cookie is fearless (or trying to be invisible by not moving)! Cream kept running away, thus unable to get nice shot without me holding onto her.

The two of them are soooo sweet.....:)

Valentine's day walk

The charity (All Dogs Matter) where we got Crispin from organised a Valentine Day walk last Sunday and we are pleased we went. Sam & I make some new friends and so did Crispin.

Crispin after surgery
Sam dropped Crispin off at the vet at about 9am in the morning and we were back at the vet at 4.15pm to pick him up. The surgery went well. He had 3 bottom front teeth & large left tooth removed, castration done, lump removed and microchipped.
Crispin is in the buster collar so that he wouldn't be able to lick/ touch his wounds and the buster collar will stay on for 10 days.
The vet also took some x-ray of Crispin and informed us that he has hip dysplasia on his right leg. No surgery required, but we need to think about treatment plans for him :-
- Oral supplements (Glucosamine & Green-lipped mussel)
- injection
- Hydrotherapy

Tennis Ball
Crispin will only play fetch with tennis ball, no other balls or items!! And can only be play at home as he's too distracted with smell of other dogs outside and refuse to play.
At the moment Sam is driving Crispin to the vet for surgery which includes :-
- Neutering
- Removing a lump near his right rib
- removing one of his teeth
- x-ray his leg

Hope everything will be ok.

The furminated Crispin
Isn't the coat shiny!! Crispin has a diet of :-
- Wet food = Natures menu/ Wainwright/ home-cooked food (chicken, veg, rice & potatoes)
- Dry food = James Wellbeloved
- A can of sardine weekly
- Treats (Kong/ Wainwright/ dried pig ears/ dried triple/ carrots)

We just bought the furminator and it works amazingly!! Got alot of fur off Crispin and Sam can't stop not furminating Crispin.

Crispin


Name : Crispin
Breed : Black labrador
Weight : Approx 20kg (is underweight!)
Other animals : Got along with Cookie and Cream. Crispin will walk to their cage occasionally and look at them for a while and then walk away. Cookie and Cream behave as normal (not hiding when they see Crispin).

At the moment we are very likely to keep Crispin. Sam is taking him out for a walk every morning at about 6.45am for half an hour and I take him out for another half an hour when I'm back home from work. Good exercise for us. Crispin sleep in the living room (same room as Cookie as Cream) and loves to sleep on Sam's armchair when we are not around (as we do not allow him on the armchair when we are in). I think sometimes, he want us to go out without him so that he can sleep on the armchair!

So far, Crispin has been very well behave - no barking, chewing of stuff, jumping on us, etc. However, when he's out walking, he does pull on the lead and not always response to us, thus we definitely need to train him on these.