Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Small Scare

We had a small scare on Monday, being my last week at work I was looking forward to packing up my desk, cleaning up my files, handing over my work and walking away for this place to start my new job filled with sleepless nights, crying baby and dirty nappies.

Things did not go to plan, I was feeling crap and on the way to work I almost got off the train to turn around and go home. I didn’t I came in and then lasted 2 hours. To keep me conscious on the way home I took to counting how many rail/road crossing we had from the City to the Station where I park my car. But I think that I did blank out at some points. I vaguely remember driving home and seeing Tim sprawled out on the couch as well.

In the morning my Temperature was 36.7°C, when I arrived home it was 37.5°C (at 12:30pm), next time Tim took it at (approximately) 1pm it had jumped to 38.5°C, after 20 minutes went to 38.8°C. This is where we started to panic as I had taken 2 panadol tablets at 12:30pm, I couldn’t take anymore.

Off to the GP, where all they could do is look at you sympathetically or should I say pathetically and offer no real help. I was to continue as I was going, panadol every 4 hours and twice the amount of fluids. My blood pressure was below 100!

I’m so grateful that I have an active baby, even while trying to sleep in the afternoon when piles and piles of blanket on me to get warm, my little Bobim was moving around without a care in the world. If this was not the case and Bobim had not moved in the time when my temp had spiked I would’ve been sent to hospital.

Tim and I stayed home yesterday and did not move off the couch and I feel much better today, if only my hacking cough would subside and I could breath out my nose I would be much happier. What away to mark my last week at work…sick!

To all the pregnant ladies out there, infertile and fertile, please take care and KEEP AWAY from anyone who has even a small sniffle.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

31 weeks today

At time it feels like this pregnancy is progressing really slowly, other times I stop in awe at how far I have progressed. This morning is one such morning, getting into work I flipped my desk calendar to reveal that I was 31 weeks. SHIT 31 weeks, already huh…well that is amazing.

I continued blogging through out this pregnancy as I didn’t want to forget this experience, at times I have been riddled with guilt at complaining how I was feeling. Today I’m not going allow myself to feel guilty as ‘growing a baby’ for me is not a walk in the park, part of me knew…just knew that it would not be 100% easy. Far from it…I knew instinctively that I would struggle at points.

Walking – I have now slowed right down to a snails pace, I’m still happy to walk anywhere just as long as I take my time. I have also developed the pregnancy waddle, it was not intentional it just seemed to have happened. I think that it is my bodies natural way of dealing with the pain associated with walking….oh yes it is painful my uterus is stretching and Bobims head is low so the movement can and does cause pain. It is hard to describe how it feels, perhaps maybe like a groin injury….hmmm not sure as I’ve never had one of those but hopefully you get my drift.

Stairs – I can climb down but and up them if I need to but I prefer not to climb up as it too is getting really painful.

Sleeping – I’m sleeping much better now as I have found a routine, from the time I go to bed which is about 8:30pm to midnight I sleep with a big pillow that is shaped like the letter ‘C’ with another small pillow making the whole arrangement look like a giant donut. In between this time I will have had at least 2 toilet calls. At midnight the giant ‘C’ pillow is removed and I’m left with the small one for when I sleep on my right side sometimes accompanied with a squishy pillow for between my legs. For some reason I don’t need a pillow under my belly when I sleep on my left side.

Movement - Bobim continues to move all the time and my favourite time of the day is when I’m sitting in front of the TV with my shirt / top lifted up and I watch fascinated with the belly movement. I haven’t felt comfortable ‘talking / reading / singing’ to Bobim. There are times where I hug my belly and saying small things to him, just feels weird to me to be talking to my belly.

Boobs – Colostrum still leaking every now and then, but my size has not increased at all. Which has me a little concerned but I guess that something is working right. I did try and buy some maternity bras the other day; you would think that it would be easy to by a…one maternity bra in this day and age. But nope nothing in my size, which is about an 18B….yes I may be a big lady but my cup size has either been a B or a C. Lucky I am finishing work early at least it gives me 2 months to find a place where I can buy a maternity bra that will fit me.

Monday, June 19, 2006

OB Appointment

Today I had another check up, this time with the midwife as the OB has gone on holidays.

My blood pressure was fine 130/75, this has been a constant level for throughout the pregnancy.

My weight down another kilo the midwife was very happy with this progress, so now a total of 12kg. But realistically I have been monitoring my weight and I’m currently fluctuating 0.5kg to 1 kg.

Urine analysis fine; Bobims heartbeat today was 142 again fine. My tummy was measuring roughly at a 31week pregnancy, this got me a bit worried as I’ve heard for others that I’m having a ‘big’ baby. The midwife told me that because I’m 30 weeks and 5 days that this is still ok and no indication of a big baby.

Must stop listening to MIL and other people.

The best part of the visit was learning my little babies position. His head is facing down low (not engaged) but still down, his bum is near my belly button and his back was curved along my right side. Legs and arms were facing to the left. I was told that it is unlikely that he will turn but it may happen.

OOOOHHH and now I’ve gone to fortnightly visits!!! I’ve got all my appointments booked in now…things are really moving along now.

Part of me feels really guilty that I’ve had such a wonderful day filled with such happy news and my darling friend Bugsy is having such a horrific time, right now.

Bugsy – you are in my thoughts and I wish more than anything that you were not going through this hell.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Miracle email

I don't normally post these emails, but this one really pulled at my heart strings, I hope that you enjoy this cute little story....I don't know if it is made up or real but it is cute all the same:

How much does a miracle cost

A little girl went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet.
She poured the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect. No chance here for mistakes! .

Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door.

She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good. Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!

"And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages," he said without waiting for a reply to his question.

"Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone.

"He's really, really sick... and I want to buy a miracle."

" I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist.

" His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl I'm sorry but I can't help you," the pharmacist said, softening a little.

"Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs." !

The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does your brother need?"

" I don't know," Tess replied with her eyes welling up. I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money."

" How much do you have?" asked the man from Chicago.

"One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered barely audibly.

"And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to."

"Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents---the exact price of a miracle for little brothers "

He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the miracle you need."

That well dressed man was a doctor, a surgeon, specializing in neuro-surgery. The operation was completed free of charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.
Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place.

"That surgery," her Mom whispered. "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?"

Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost...one dollar and eleven cents ... plus the faith of a little child

Prenatal Class #7

I was tempted not to go last night as I was falling asleep on the couch when I got home. But I was worried that I would miss something important. It was not that bad but I could’ve missed it and part of me is glad that we went.

We went over everything that we had learnt in previous sessions and some settling techniques for when you get home with the new baby. We had a lot of discussion about Hospital visitors and visitors when you arrive home. Tim and I had already discussed this and we both know that there is nothing on this earth that will keep my parents away from the hospital. Plus my Dad already warned me that no force would keep him away.

Again we went overtime as there was too much discussion from the annoying ones. I do feel much better after being asked to give feedback. Doing the work that I do, I’m very used to giving and receiving constructive feedback and I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to express my disappointment in managing ‘interruptive’ ‘outspoken’ people. There have been times where I have felt that I couldn’t ask my questions, as the poor midwife was already being bombarded with stories and opinions from other sources.

But I preserved and made sure that I knew the answers to these questions:
* When should I pack my bags – the Midwife suggested that we have our bags packed from 34 weeks onwards. Previously I had received conflicting advice, so I’m going to go with her suggestion.
* The hospital pamphlet mentioned that they delivery babies after 35 weeks gestation, my question was where do I go if my waters break before that – We were told to call the hospital and most likely we would be called in for an assessment and then possibly be sent to a larger hospital. This was good to know and I’m glad that I screamed out the question over the top of the annoying ones.
* My last question was who would call the OB – The midwives will call the OB when it is confirmed that I will be going into the hospital.

Being our last ‘couple’ class you could just feel the excitement in the room.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Being scared

I was asked a question this morning “Are you still scared” about the pregnancy and / or baby. My response was Fuck YES I’m scared….sometimes I’m down right terrified. Any women pregnant and blogs, reads other blogs or visits baby websites would’ve heard all sorts of stories that would terrify anyone. We live in an information age where we ‘know’ way too much about a lot of things. Going back 50 years or so pregnant women were ignorant about a lot of things, and sometimes I too wish I was ignorant…but I’m digressing.

The questions posed to me got me really thinking about how my fear has progressed throughout this pregnancy ride. In the beginning I was worried about rising beta numbers, was it an empty sack, would we see a heart beat? Should I still wear a pad and check for blood every pee break?.

The fear / questions then progressed to will I have a Down Syndrome baby? Is the Placenta in the right place? Am I eating enough? Why am I still cramping from time to time?

Now the fear I have is surrounded around the Birth, will I be able to cope with the pain? Will I be able to last the duration? Will I tear? Will I be able to breastfeed? Have I got enough nappies, clothes, blankets, love? Will I be able to cope?

These are all the questions that go through my mind but…most times this pregnancy STILL DOES NOT SEEM REAL. I feel my baby kick, shit I SEE the baby kicking and logically I know that Bobim is in my tummy, yet it does not seem real. We’ve been going to the prenatal classes, we’ve painted and set up the room yet does not seem real.

We’ve put all the furniture in the room, unpacked the “chest of dreams” and put all the clothes away, bought some rattles and toys and decorated the room and yet is still does not seem real. It was shock to see it all done up and I stood there and cried and cried, because to me it still did not seem real. Seeing Bobim’s room helped but and sometimes when I walk past I’m shocked to see the cot, change table, tall boy and baby stuff around.

There are still times when I look at my husband and ask him “Am I really pregnant?”, “Are we really going to have a baby”. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ask “Is this really our baby” in the delivery room.

I’m 30 weeks pregnant today, Bobim is moving, kicking, somersaulting, dancing right this minute but it is still does not seem real and I have to wonder, will it ever?

Friday, June 09, 2006

Numbers

I’ve meaning to write this post about the significance of numbers in my life:
1) I only have one more Prenatal Class left (except the Breastfeeding workshop which will happen later). Or at this minute the number of hours left till I can go home.

2) Is the number of days until my weekly telephone call to my parents. Being limited to one call a week has been quite hard, whilst I may not have seen my parents often about once every 2 weeks or so, I spoke to them just about every second day.

3) Is number of working weeks left. It is also the number of days off I have after I post this blog entry, gotta love public holidays!

13) Is the number of working days I have left, this one happily decreases every working day.

26) Is the number of days left until my parents arrive back home.

29 +2) Today I’m 29weeks and 2 days pregnant, I never thought that I would make it this far and I can’t believe that I’m nearly 30 weeks.

75) This is the number of days I have left before Bobim ‘should’ pop out!

I’m sure that there are more significant numbers I could think of but am just too tired to even concentrate….the number I see right now is 4:12pm which means I can go home now…and also signifies the time it has taken me to write this post.

Sleep

Last night may go down in history as the worst night ever as far as sleep is concerned. One of the pregnancy books says that by going to the toilet more often you body is ‘preparing’ you for sleepless nights. Ok I get that…and I’ve been handling going to the toilet just fine. For me the trips are about every 2-3 hours but can be hourly. Not a problem I can fall back to sleep just fine.

What I don’t get is the need to go through the pain that I had last night, sleep deprived nights due to feeding and a baby crying is GOOD reasons in my book. But not being able to sleep because it feels like the basket ball in your tummy is pulling all your muscles should never be classed as ‘preparation’. No amount of pillows different sleeping positions seemed to help and when I did fall asleep without any pillow support, I woke up in pain and could hardly get out of bed.

Tim tried to help by rubbing my tummy, which only woke Bobim up and got him kicking. When I was able to find a good position to sleep in heart burn set in and even taking Mylanta did nothing to help.

I’m now grumpy as all hell and just want to crawl into a good position and have a snooze, preferably without the heart burn.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Results

Until I was prompted by Bugsy I didn’t even remember that I had a Blood test last Friday. The standard Gestational and Iron tests. My results are normal, I don’t know what the numbers mean but the glucose came back as 6.7 and the one of the iron numbers was 83. Honestly all I heard was ‘normal’, ‘normal’ all is good and don’t stress.

I didn’t realise how relieved I would be when I heard the results. All the weight that I’ve lost has done me some good. I’m still at the same weight and have not gained a gram in the last 3 months, my baby belly is getting bigger and the weekly guide to pregnancy book I read says that Bobim should weigh roughly 1.15kg.

Prenatal Class #6

First part of the Class consisted of going through a caesarean procedure step by step, the class was again held up by someone (read fucking annoying bitch) asking specific questions about the recovery time frame difference from having had a general versus an epidural. It turns out there is an hours difference….OK that was really important to know.

Then we got shown how to bath your baby. This was a good thing to see and again Tim got to have a go at undressing the doll. One good suggestion was made during this time, which was to ensure that your nappies, wipes, creams and change table were already set up before you left to go to the hospital. Lucky for me as I’ve already got that all set up.

We were visited by someone from the Australian Breastfeeding Association, who gave a very rushed presentation about what the association is about and trying to get people to subscribe to the association. We got a show bag with more reading material. Honestly I wasn’t very impressed with the presentation, for me it was too rushed and she was a bit too pushy about joining the association. But I will check out the website and have a sticky beak of the forum that they have.

We also had a video on the prevention of SIDS, which was good to see and we learnt that having a baby sleep on another’s bed (like a big double bed) surrounded by pillows is not a good thing. This was something that we previously didn’t know.

At one point the Midwife mentioned that the hospital was against dummies, and I tried to ask why, but as usual my question was lost or disregarded to the someone (again ready fucking annoying bitch, plus sister). It was quiet obvious that these people were not just annoying Tim and I but also some other couples. At one point I distinctly heard being murmured “We don’t care about your girlfriends babies…” I had to chuckle.

I did make it a point to get to the class early last night so that I could ask the midwife some questions one on one. Throughout the whole Prenatal experience I haven’t felt nervous about ‘handling’ the pain factor. I’ve been more worried about the fact that I may not be able to have the stamina to handle the duration of the birth process and that I will easily get tired. I wanted to ask if I could demand a caesarean if I felt that I wouldn’t be able to go the hard long yard. Her response was to talk to my OB, but did state that I may just surprise myself with what I can handle.

I asked about a Birth plan and she frowned and then said that in her experience most women rock up with a birth plan in their hands and due to something or another, the birth plan was thrown out the window.

Sassy – Your last comment though gave me some things to talk to Tim about, like cutting the cord and whether or not he wanted to witness the birth. During all the Prenatal Classes these things were not really discussed and it was interesting hearing my husband’s response. But like me we have both decided to keep an open mind about the whole birth and try not to pre-empt any decisions or situations that we may face ourselves in.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Prenatal Class #5

I know, I know I’ve been a bit slack with reporting back on this class, but give me a break I haven’t been too well.

It was a good but long class and you know whenever a group of people get together there is always one that is out spoken and has the “whole world revolves around me syndrome”…you know the ones. This group is no different what is worse is that there is not just one but two of these people present.

Within this group I have not mentioned my infertility woes, to me it is not important to share with them my experiences. I don’t feel the need to ‘justify’ why my pregnancy is more special. My family here in Australia and in Hungary know how special this pregnancy is, I don’t feel the need for strangers to give me additional sympathy. Plus I don’t know their stories either and it is not the point of these classes.

One particular ‘support partner’, who is a female helping her sister, felt the need to share with us that she is already a mother to twins conceived through IVF. Great, good on her yes IVF can work for some. However having to hear explicit details on her birth is again not the point of these classes, it is obvious that she feels the need to contribute and perhaps even scare some of us. One brave soul spoke up and told her that we didn’t need to hear about her catheter incidences during her birth. We were there to learn about different types of pain relief available.

The IVF mother of twins sister asked all sort of graphical questions relating to tearing. At one stage it got just too much and I ended up saying that after glimpsing some of the other ladies cringing at the idea of 2nd and 3rd degree tears “that some of us would like to be ignorant of these things and not have to know everything about it all”. The midwife did step in and suggested that she would be more than happy to discuss all her questions after the class.

To be honest I’m not looking forward to the next two sessions, as these two ladies have ruined the experience for me. It starts off great but ends up being a 2 women show, and we never seem to cover what the midwife has planned and we go over time.

Ok, there were some things that I did learn that I never knew before…pethidine is used as a pain relief. I only previously knew of the gas and epidural. What Tim and I were surprised to learn about is that if you have pethidine then your baby must be given an additional injection ‘like they do drug addicts’ to counter the effects.

I also didn’t know that when you have an epidural you must also have a catheter inserted (hence the whole catheter incident discussion). The thought of a catheter put me off the whole epidural suggestion as I’ve seen them being put in before…not nice at all.

There were pro’s and con’s for each pain relief intervention and now for me it is just a matter of thinking what I would like to have during the birth. I’m not keen on writing a birth plan as to me birth is so unknown how can you plan for it? But I will be discussing with Tim my preferred approach to the birth and pain relief.

Today right now I’m not keen on the pethidine the con’s out way the pro’s for me.