39 Weeks…EDB 28/05/13

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

I’ve decided that I must be good at waiting, as it’s all I seem to have done today.

• 10:50am…walk to bus stop
• 10:57am…wait for bus
• 11:08am…get on bus and travel to hospital (about 5 mins away)
• 11:35am…get called in to see midwife for 11:30am appointment
• 12:06pm…wait in line at pathology to hand in another urine sample
• 1:00pm…finally get seen at pathology. I have missed the 12:55pm bus, so I decide to get some lunch to fill in the time to wait for the next one.
• 1:20pm…eat lunch
• 1:40pm…wait at bus stop for bus home
• 2:25pm…get on bus and travel home (about 10 mins away this time)

So, onto my midwife appointment. My blood pressure is normal (125/75), my feet are swollen (and not to be worried about), and there was +1 protein in my urine (hence the trip to pathology). The baby is measuring at 41cm (not unexpected as I’m expecting a long baby), 140bpm, is 1/5 engaged in my pelvis, and don’t my hips know all about it. My next appointment is Friday next week (40+3) and we’ll be discussing induction. I’m hoping that I don’t make it to that appointment.

Sunday, 26 May 2013 (Day 5)

On Friday night, I went to bed with what I thought was bad gas pains in my left side. Throughout the night, I produced the various gas and bowel movements to back up this train of thought, however, the pain didn’t get better. I took some Mylanta tablets to try and move things along.

On Saturday morning, I was woken by a searing pain in my left side. The pain was intense, and I had trouble getting myself out of bed and then to the toilet. I had to stop and breath through the pain as a wave of contraction overtook me on the short 5 metre journey from my bed to the toilet. The searing pain continued to varying degrees throughout the day, as did the peaks in pain. On the suggestion of my best friend, I decided to record these peaks in pain, however there was no pattern, and I couldn’t discern the start and end of the contractions due to the continual searing pain I was feeling. I was taking Paracetamol throughout the day to control the level of pain I was feeling.

I had a shower early as I was having trouble urinating on the toilet. The pain I was feeling meant that I couldn’t lean forward without pain, and the pants I was wearing meant that I couldn’t spread my legs enough (to fit my belly between them) to lean forward enough to do more than a trickle of urine every 15 minutes, unless of course I wanted to pull them right down to my ankles. The problem with that was that I then had to pull them back up, and I was struggling enough with trying to wipe myself after I had been to the toilet. Anyhow, I wanted to get into my nightie so that I could go to the toilet easier. This part of my tactic worked, however, the searing pain intensified after my shower so that I was in tears. Under the hot shower, massaging the spot felt very nice, but after I got out it was excruciating, especially after I had dried my feet.

I ended up sitting in a recliner with a wheat pack around my pelvis. I haven’t had a wheat pack for long, but I’m sure glad I bought one because it is very effective at relieving pain. After a while, the searing pain subsided and I could feel the start and end of my contractions. I was having mild contractions of varying duration (30 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds) every 3 minutes. However, after an hour they petered out. I went to bed, expecting to be woken up by breaking waters or intensified contractions, however, I woke up completely pain free several times throughout the night for my usual toilet visits. In fact, the searing pain did not return until this morning.

I had noticed several things throughout the night, however. Because I was completely pain free, I could tell the moment the searing pain started, and I started to notice that if I supported my bump, the searing was either greatly reduced or non-existent. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the pain was actually caused by round ligament pain, and the pain that woke me both mornings was due to the need to do bowel movements.

I do not think all the pain was for nothing, and I firmly believe that the baby will come this week. However, any people asking whether I’ve had the baby yet will be directed to the following website: http://haveyouhadthatbabyyet.com/. Rest assured that I will tell some people by text message once I have had the baby, and the rest of the world by Facebook once I am ready to announce our latest addition. I am in no hurry to be “supermom”, and I want to take as much time as I need to recover from such an undertaking as childbirth, whether natural or by caesarean.

Monday, 27 May 2013 (Day 6)

This morning, I took my car in for a major service. I live in an "out of the way" part of town, so the courtesy bus nearly always does a special trip just for me. Today, he managed to make it a round trip, dropping off two other people. One of his destinations for another lady was the hospital, and he jokingly offers to drop me off to have my baby. I smile coyly, and accept his offer of the front seat, while declining his offer of assistance to get in. He drops off the first lady and is taking the second lady to the hospital, and finally asked the question I've been waiting for: "so, when are you due?" "Oh, tomorrow," I casually answer, at which point I hear two gasps and exclamations from the other passengers. For the rest of the trip, I felt like everyone was expecting me to go into labour then and there, but it was funny at the time. I expect I'll be the amusing talk of the office today, and I'm sure there'll be some sort of jib when the bus picks me up again about me still being here and not in labour down at the hospital.

I noticed last night that my heartburn, particularly at night, has been greatly reduced. Yay! The round ligament pain also seems to be greatly diminished, so I may actually be able to try some of the “old wives tales” everyone has been regaling me with (not that I think they’ll work, but they’ll be good for a laugh). For those that don’t know, the round ligament attaches from the uterus to the pelvis, and I seemed to have had an inflammation at the pelvis end of the attachment, so any sort of sudden movements were causing me great pain. Of course, I couldn’t take any sort of NSAID (i.e.. ibuprofen or the like) to help heal the inflammation and help with the pain, so I just had to live with good old paracetamol to dull the pain and being careful to not aggravate the ligament.

38 Weeks–EDB 28/05/13

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

I had another midwife appointment yesterday. Fundal height is between 38 and 39 centimetres, and baby’s heart rate is 140bpm. My blood pressure was 138/78 which is more/less than last time. I also had a trace of nitrates in my urine sample, so the midwife sent it off to pathology for testing on suspicion of possible UTI. The baby’s head is not yet engaged, but is butting up against my pubic bone ready to.

I got a phone call from pregnancy care services today saying that my urine sample from yesterday was contaminated with other bodily fluids, despite my following their instructions and even using a new KFC style face washer on my nether regions. I am now to submit another sample straight after having a shower, and then catching a urine sample, which I cannot see thanks to a rather pregnant belly, mid-stream, in an impossibly small container. I normally give myself a pat on the back if I can manage to give a normal urine sample in my state without missing the target, but this feels a little ridiculous. Then, there is the issue of trying to find a park at the hospital so I can submit this new sample. I don’t know if I want the sample to be clear or not after having gone through all this effort.

I made further enquiries of baby-direct.com.au as I have not yet received my pram, nor any shipping notice from them. They have reassured me that it was dispatched on Thursday, and it was picked up from the warehouse by the courier on Friday, so it should reach me this week.

The swelling in my feet has completely disappeared now.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013 (Day 1)

My sleep was disrupted last night around midnight for a couple of hours as I had first heartburn, then a very blocked nose that wouldn’t shift. I ended up napping while propped up into a sitting position with my numerous pillows which helped, until the baby decided it was play time, and that s/he wanted to play by putting little feet in my diaphragm, making it difficult to breath again. My discomfort was also increased by a very realistic practice contraction and lots of pressure on my cervix by the baby’s head. My nose eventually unblocked enough to allow me to sleep properly without panicking about the pressure on my sinuses.

I delivered my very special urine sample to the hospital. After the rigmarole of actually collecting the sample, I then had to drive five minutes to the hospital, drive around for at least ten minutes trying to find a park, walk five minutes to collect and sign the forms from pregnancy care services, and then deliver the sample to pathology which took around 20 minutes waiting time to be seen. That’s a lot of effort for a little sample which probably has nothing wrong with it.

I’m getting quite a few Braxton Hicks contractions each day now. Some of them can be described very well as pressure waves, and others are just annoying bands of pressure where you normally get period pain that may or may not extend to my back. Either version can make me feel the very sudden urge to need to urinate. However, as my bladder doesn’t actually hold very much at the moment, it doesn’t take very much to need to very suddenly go to the toilet. Peeing every half hour when I’m drinking a lot is not uncommon to me.

Thursday, 16 May 2013 (Day 2)

I seem to have fixed the problem of overheating in bed (for now, anyway). I have one of my waterproof cot mattress protectors under our regular mattress protector for just in case my waters break while I’m in bed. I noticed that this seemed to affect the breathability of the mattress, and that I was frequently rolling over because my shoulder was hot and sweaty. It didn’t occur to me until last night to just move the protector down the bed so that my shoulders were lying only on the original mattress protector, and hey presto, I didn’t wake up all hot and sweaty. I am also trying to limit the number of pillows I take to bed with me, but I do have them stacked up beside the bed ready for deployment at a moment’s notice.

I was rather rudely awakened at 7:15am from a dream about five lambs that were ransacking the house while I slept to someone knocking on the door. On discovering it was actually the courier that was delivering my pram, I ran (yes, pregnant women can still run when they really want to) out the front door, leaned over the front veranda and let the lady know that I actually was home, before realising that I was only wearing a nighty that you can see my underpants through, not to mention it was cold outside. I quickly excused myself and went and got my dressing gown.

So, here’s the kicker. The pram that I was sent was not the pram I thought I was receiving. In fact, I received its bigger (and normally more expensive) brother. The website item label and the picture didn’t match up, and I assumed that I would receive the labelled item, not the pictured item. Anyhow, I don’t see any reason to send it back at this point, unless it doesn’t fit in the car, as it is actually the pram that I originally wanted but couldn’t afford. It has all the features of the one I ordered, and then a tonne more that I wanted but was compromising on for the sake of cost. I’ve had a quick play around, and I love the way it clicks into all it’s various positions.

Monday, 20 May 2013 (Day 6)

Brad let me keep the pram – yay!

The swelling in my feet has returned with a vengeance I have a feeling it is related a little to my hydration levels. We’ve had a cold snap arrive the last few days, and my desire to drink water just isn’t in existence at the moment. I’m trying to force myself to do so today.

I’ve moved the fit ball to in front of the computer so that I can sit at my desk and rock my hips at the same time. It seems that the baby is trying to engage, and this is causing me quite some back, hip, and period type pain. I even broke out the new heat pack I bought recently, and it works quite a treat.

37 Weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!–EDB 28/05/13

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

My pregnancy update email that I received from Huggies this week told me to not feel bad if my appetite has increased, as the baby needs me to eat extra so that s/he can put on fat layers. Just as well, because I’ve been absolutely ravenous for the last two weeks, as it’s nice to have permission to eat all this extra food.

I just got an email from baby-direct.com.au, telling me that my stroller will be shipped on Thursday, and I should have it on Friday. This pleases me, although I’m disappointed that I missed the shipping deadline last Thursday (the day that I ordered it). I understand though that small operations cannot afford to have couriers pick up parcels every day.

I had a delightful night’s sleep last night. It appears that my sleep is inversely related to the temperature. The lower the temperature is, the more sleep I get. It has very little to do with heartburn like I originally thought, although when it is warmer it takes much less to wake me up.

I must say, the baby has been very active lately. The movements are mostly telling me to sit up or stop pushing there. I feel like I have a giant punching shrimp in my uterus! I’m also getting a lot more pressure on my tailbone than normal, so hopefully this means that the baby is starting to engage.

Wednesday, 8 May 2013 (Day 1)

I went and paid out my other layby today. It’s the first time I’ve noticed that driving has become rather uncomfortable in the last 48 hours. There’s a lot of pressure below my belly button where my stomach rests of my thighs (probably why I’m sitting like a fat man now), and a great absence of pressure against my diaphragm and ribs, which I’m hoping means that baby is heading south for the winter. No noticeable drop in my belly though.

But back to the layby. I now have some more maternity clothes so that I’d have something to wear in hospital (we can’t have me starkers after birth now, can we?) and there was also a towel rack in there, which required assembly. I can now say with great pride that I have assembled the towel rack myself, and the nursery now feels “finished”.

Oh dear! Tonight, my foot has blown up so that there is no distinction between my ankle and my foot (but still a beautiful distinction between my calf and my ankle, so no cankle LOL), and bub's kicks inwards are so not fun (as bub has turned fully anterior)!

Thursday, 9 May 2013 (Day 2)

After 12 hours of being recumbent, the swelling in my feet and ankles has not decreased, so I’ve put socks on to try and control it. If that doesn’t work, at least I’ll be able to feel more quickly if it gets worse. I’ll also try and take it easy today and spend a lot of time with my legs up.

I had a reasonable night’s sleep. The temperature was playing slight havoc, as was the fact that I couldn’t seem to get enough sheet to cover myself with. It seems that while hubby was being very helpful and making the bed while I was in the shower last night, he managed to put the sheet on so that most of it is on his side. So, I instead slept very snugly under my polar fleece dressing gown, which was quite comfortable as polar fleece breaths.

36 weeks–EDB 28/05/13

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

I had a visit with the midwife last night. Basically, my lack of sleep makes my general feeling of dizziness and weakness hard to diagnose, but it could also possibly be due to dehydration or not taking enough iron supplements. She thought dehydration seemed likely, especially given that I improved dramatically after drinking 2.5 litres (she said I had a beautiful urine sample, with no traces of anything, including infection), but she also said that I could increase my iron supplement intake. At the moment, I’m taking around 20mg daily, and I can safely increase this to 100mg. While I don’t intend to increase my supplement this dramatically (as iron makes me feel nauseas), I will if my feeling of well being doesn’t improve. I actually had a reasonable night’s sleep last night, although I still feel like I could go an have a nap quite easily, so I might try increasing my supplement by 15mg and see what happens. However, it is quite normal to feel tired at this stage in pregnancy, and the midwife said that my body is just preparing for disrupted sleep patterns due to the baby (I had a feeling she’d say something like that).

Last night I was also given my second Anti D injection, and I submitted a swab to be tested for Group B Strep. My blood pressure was a little higher than it has been previously, but not high enough that the midwife was worried (and she also figured that my dizziness was due to low blood pressure so the higher blood pressure was my body compensating), and the foetal heartbeat was 140bpm once again.

My next appointment isn’t for two weeks. While I look forward to hearing what the midwives have to say about my pregnancy and hearing the foetal heartbeat, the time between visits at this stage also means that they’re happy with how my pregnancy is progressing.

Wednesday, 1 May 2013 (Day 1)

I feel like crossing into May is yet another milestone. The baby’s hospital bag is packed, my hospital bag is a work in progress, and I’m hoping to be able to pack the majority of my labour bag today. The baby’s bag was fairly easy, as everything is provided for the baby while we’re in hospital. I only need to take a going home outfit or two (in case of accidents). My hospital bag is a work in progress because I’m wearing most of the clothes that I need to pack. I put all the clean clothes in the suitcase and pull them out as I wear them and then repack them again once they’ve been laundered.

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night, only waking twice to go to the toilet. I think I’ve hit on something with the blocked nose. Heartburn, and particularly reflux, makes my body produce excess phlegm as a defence mechanism. This means that I get pregnancy rhinitis as well as a post nasal drip and cough. I think the blocked nose is part of all this, so I did a little experiment last night where I dosed up on Gaviscon before I went to bed – not that big an issue as my oesophagus was burning as a result of all the heartburn I’d been suffering during the day. It certainly seemed to do the trick, so I might have to incorporate that one into my evening routine.

Alright, that was an afternoon of turmoil I’d rather not have to repeat. Basically, the company who were supposed to be supplying our stroller (Best Baby Pty Ltd) have gone into receivership, so I was trying to find out how to get my money back because they were uncontactable by any means. I ended up calling my bank (St. George) because I’d paid for it by credit card, and it turns out that this is my saving grace. MasterCard have this lovely anti fraud system which means that because I paid for a product that I haven’t received AND the associated company has gone into receivership, then there is a very good chance that my claim will be successful and I’ll get my money back. Yay! The bad news is that it will take 4-6 weeks to process.

After spending hours this afternoon researching companies that sell the Love n Care Capella Compact in pink (don’t read anything into the pink – we hated the lime), I’ve finally found one that has one in stock, so I’ll be ordering that tomorrow from baby-direct.com.au, and hopefully it will be here in a week.

Thursday, 2 May 2013 (Day 2)

I think my experiment with controlling the heartburn to control the blocked nose is working. I only woke up twice again last night, sleeping for four hour stints and only waking to go to the toilet. Now I just have to solve the problem of temperature control. I don’t understand how I can wake up feeling so hot, and yet so cold at the same time. Anything that is in contact with anything (mattress, pillows, or Brad) is hot and sweaty, and yet everything else so cold to touch. The blessing is that unless I actually touch the affected limb, I can’t feel how cold it is. I was also having problems with circulation last night, because I kept on waking up with fingers having pins and needles.

I do find amusement in all this “discomfort”, and yes, the baby is the source of this amusement. I woke at 4am and I was struggling to return to sleep, partially because of a slight discomfort caused by my rapidly growing child. The baby couldn’t have been anymore stretched out if s/he tried, with head against my left hip bone and feet against my left rib bones. In trying to relieve this tiny little discomfort, I unfortunately woke the baby, so I spent the next half hour playing with his/her feet across my belly.

I have ordered my pram from baby-direct.com.au (dum-dum-duuuuuum), so we’ll see what happens now. Watch this space for further reports.

I’m feeling a little more settled and prepared for labour. Everything is either packed, on layby, or coming with tomorrow's groceries, and I've written notes as to where everything that isn't packed is currently located, just in case it's hubby that's finding them.

I'm full term (37 weeks) next Tuesday...

Friday, 3 May 2013 (Day 3)

My Braxton hicks contractions have been getting a little bit serious. Over the last few days I’ve noticed that they’ve changed. They used to just make me feel like I need to pee, right now, but they now have a definite “push” feel to them. I can feel my whole uterus clamp in a downwards motion. They’ve also become much more frequent. I actually got woken up twice this morning with BH contractions.

Saturday, 4 May 2013 (Day 4)

I actually got 5 hours straight sleep this morning, from midnight until 5am. As that is the best I can expect for the next couple months, I’m pretty happy with that. Apparently I started snoring after I got back to sleep at 5am, which Brad thought was probably suitable pay back for all the time he’s snored in my ear.

The nursery is almost finished. The only thing remaining is a few covers and the towel rack. It’s very exciting! I even brought one of my laybys home so that I’d have something to do in the nursery, otherwise my nesting instinct was going to go crazy.

Monday, 6 May 2013 (Day 6)

So, we can call the Gaviscon heartburn non-stuffy nose experiment a failure, but that’s alright, because I’m full term tomorrow! If contractions start now, they won’t attempt to stop them, so yeah, baby, you can get out now LOL. Let the stair walking and squats begin to help baby engage and become a coconut between my legs – a fair swap from the high baby stopping me being able to breath properly discomfort.

My belly button appears to have finally popped. It points downward still, but it is definitely all exposed (I’ve pulled it upward for the photo). The underside of my stomach is rather sore, partially because of the stretch marks, and partially because I end up resting it on every bench or table I stand in front of.

I think I just got hit with a bit of the nesting bug. Floors vacuumed. Washing machine seals cleaned. What shall I do next? Why, I should clean the bathroom sink and the toilet bowl of course!