Tag Archives: Pregnancy Hormones

Feb 11 2014

30 Weeks Pregnant - Homicidal Thoughts

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So I’m 30 weeks pregnant and three-quarters of the way through! It’s been a fairly eventful week with falls, arguments, deranged cleaning and much more besides.

The nesting instinct has definitely kicked in and I’ve been busy redistributing clutter throughout the house. I’ve also turned into the ultimate slave-driver and am regularly demanding Craig get on his hands and knees with the floor wipes. There’s a snagging list of small jobs to do and a further list of what is still needed for Mini Madam, which are helpfully displayed next to the list of potential names in the downstairs loo. With all three lists on A3 paper blu-tac’ed to the wall, the loo now resembles Cameron’s reputation management team’s office.

Speaking of Craig… well he’s been doing my brain in this week. Irritatingly, his pregnancy app of choice is Bump Watch. Yesterday he came running into the bedroom brandishing his iPhone “Gem, Gem, Gem! Great news. Read this. Explains why you’ve been such a moody cow!” - thrusting it in my hands to read. With a massive grin on his face he watched me read the following:

“… For many women, as your due date approaches, it’s a common and very normal time to feel more emotional than usual. You’ll experience more frequent mood-swings, and very likely some anxiety over the baby and the new responsibilities that lie ahead”

Great. The love of my life now feels he has unbridled justification for getting on my wick, watching my temples pulse, then excusing the whole thing by putting my subsequent outburst ‘down to my hormones’. All this, thanks to the pregnancy app that I insisted he download in the first place.

Honestly. Some men experience ‘Couvade Syndrome’ (sympathy pains) when their partners fall pregnant, but my man seems to have taken on a more ambitious role - he’s regressed to the mental age of a 5-year-old. He’ll sing ridiculous songs, laugh hysterically at his own jokes, and whimper at me constantly. It’s like having two children at home at the moment! I’m seriously repressing the urge to slam his head in the fridge door over and over again.

On a more serious note, I also had a nasty fall this week. Having walked into the lounge and found my little dare-devil dancing on the dining room table, I scooped him up and attempted to deposit him on the comparative safety of the sofa. Tripping over his toy garage, I managed to fling Dexter onto the sofa before landing pretty awkwardly on Bump. It hurt like hell.

For the next hour I did nothing short of panic. I got all the emergency numbers out, crawled into bed and waited for something dramatic to happen. But aside from some strong (but not painful) contractions and lots of kicking, Mini Madam seemed fine. The only strange thing was a tumbling sensation as though the fall had rejigged things in there and given her the freedom to break on through to the other side of my belly. I can’t be sure but I have a strange feeling she might have turned around! Imagine that. If so, we’ll find out in the first week of March and we could be in for the much-wanted natural birth plan after all.

Physically, I’ve also been getting incredibly short of breath this week. Just climbing the stairs leaves me panting like Paula Radcliffe. This is apparently normal as my uterus is pushing upwards into my diaphragm, and in turn into my lungs, but it doesn’t make it any less irritating knowing there’s a reason for it. I can also really feel baby bearing down in-between my legs which is making my waddle ten times more pronounced than it already is. Whoever said that all pregnant women possess a sense of beauty is very wrong, very wrong indeed.

 

Sep 24 2013

Exhaustion, Sleepwalking and The Smoke Detector Incident - Week 11

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I’m not sure I’ve ever been this tired. Although Craig recalls me being really exhausted in my first trimester with Dexter, this beats it hands down for me. I feel constantly jet-lagged.

Everyday I’ll be up at 5am to do a little work before Dexter wakes, then be propping up my eyelids by the time he stirs in his cot. By Dexter’s nap-time at midday, I’m usually prostrate on the sofa capable of no more than occasionally changing tv channels. It’s no better when Craig comes home from work as Dexter gets so excited to see his daddy that you can hear the squealing miles away - not exactly conducive to sneaking in a quick nap. It’s now almost nine o’clock at night and I give it ten minutes before my head hits the keyboard …

bbb76ac35689d3b29af346517f0fedaf Exhaustion, Sleepwalking and The Smoke Detector Incident Week 11

This looks no less frightening than me at 2am in the morning. Think Helena Bonham Carter in Sweeney Todd…

… And tomorrow I’ll do it all again.

I’ve been doing some really strange things in my exhaustion. I’ve always been a sleepwalker and it’s got me into some embarrassing situations over the years. At university I lived in a shared house with some other students - in my sleep, I once filled every single glass in the whole house with water and arranged them in a semi-circle around my bed - it looked like an occult symbol and I almost sliced my foot open in the morning when I swung my legs out of bed.

Just a few years ago, on a work trip to my employer’s sister office in Dublin, I left my hotel at 2am in my pyjamas and headed in the general direction of the nearby River Liffey. Luckily security staff spotted me on CCTV and guided me to back to my room. I only found out about the incident when reception cheerfully filled me in upon checking out.

Although I haven’t managed anything quite as extravagant in the past month, the signs are there that I might be due an episode. It usually happens in times of high stress and exhaustion, and particularly when I’m in an unfamiliar place. With a bit of luck, the fact I’m sleeping in my own home, will mean you won’t find me walking around my village naked in the dead of the night, but I’m still doing some strange old things.

This afternoon I spent hours searching for my purse and even went so far as to suspect my 16 month old of tossing it out of the pushchair when we went for a walk earlier in the day. I found it 15 minutes ago (4 hours later!) in the fridge. The fridge!

Unfortunately this isn’t an isolated incident either. Yesterday I flushed my favourite necklace down the toilet, and a few days ago Craig caught me re-homing a bottle of ketchup in the washing machine.

I’m also finding it difficult to differentiate between dreams and reality - I’m constantly having to double-check whether conversations I’ve had with Craig have actually taken place or I’ve dreamt them. These can be really mundane conversations about packing for holiday, dinner that evening, or additions to the weekly shop. I suppose this shows just how boring my dreams must be!

I’m still very emotional too.

You might remember that last week I had CloudbabiesTVgate with Dexter, well this week it was the Smoke Detector Incident. In fact, the remains of our smoke detector are now laying beside me as I type - a mass of shattered casing and mangled wiring.

You see, today I popped Dex down for a nap at around 1.30pm. I was so shattered I wasn’t sure if I should crank open the laptop or crawl in bed for a nap of my own. In any case, I thought I’d start with a nice bath as it takes around half an hour for Dexter to settle into a sleep anyway. So I crept around upstairs and tried to run the bath quietly so as not to disturb Dex. At this moment, our over-sensitive smoke detector decided to have a tantrum.

At first it was just a few intermittent beeps, no doubt in response to the fact I hadn’t opened the bathroom window. But then, just as I was beginning to relax into my bath, it got in a real paddy for reasons unknown. As the bloody thing is located over the top of our stairs and is too high for me to reach, I first tried the tea towel trick to fan the air beneath the sensor. Dexter (who still hadn’t succumbed to the land of nod) thought it was hilarious to see mummy and her pot belly prancing around naked under the noisy thing.

But it didn’t work.

Thinking back, a mop handle would have done it. Or perhaps I could have dragged the living room foot stool upstairs to help me reach the damn thing. But I was so tired. I just couldn’t think clearly.

When I spotted that a few neighbours and passersby were staring up at my open window and pointing, I lost my temper. I started to throw shampoo and conditioner bottles at it. Bits of plastic came splintering off and spatterings of Pantene coated the cobwebs in the corner of the stairwell, yet still the battery clung on for dear life. Deciding I needed something a little heavier, in my sleep deprived state, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to launch Craig’s trainer at it.

All I can say is RIP smoke detector.

The whole episode left me rocking back and forth on my bedroom floor, still as naked as Eve without the leaves (with the open windows continuing to let in the September chill). Any thoughts I might have had about Dexter getting his head down, and me getting in an hours power nap, flew out those windows at that very minute.

It’s been a very bad day.

NOTE: I’m definitely not advocating you should ever smash up your smoke detector. They can save the lives of your family and every home should have one. Getting medieval on said device won’t score you any brownie points with your other half either… Craig has been struggling to put up a new one for the last hour and is currently hauling a bunch of expletives at the ceiling… I guess each of these might as well be yelled at me for being so stupid.

Welcome to week 11!

 

Sep 16 2013

Midwife Care for a Second Baby… 10 Week Update

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Thursday last week we had our first midwife appointment for our brand new bump. It was our first time meeting her as we’ve changed doctors surgeries since having Dexter. I suspect she was probably running a little late as we were called in a good half an hour late into the appointment, which meant the session was mostly ‘all business’. Adding to the sense of urgency was the fact that we had Dexie with us. Before we even went into the appointment, he’d been behind the front desk chatting up the receptionists, following strangers into doctor’s rooms for their appointments, routing through stranger’s handbags in the waiting room… he just wants to explore everything at the moment and has one of those cheeky faces that means he gets away with murder.

In the waiting room, he had a right time of it, crawling over the midwife’s scales, pulling urine sample pots out of her drawers, and inventing new uses for her blood pressure cuff. Craig and I struggled to keep an eye on him and natter to the midwife at the same time. Lesson learnt - maybe we’ll grab a sitter next time.

Our midwife was really lovely - chatty but informative. She gave Dexter a cuddle when it was time to leave which was a relief - he clearly hadn’t given too bad an account of himself.

We received our (rather disappointing) Bounty Pack and set of notes, and briefly discussed the plan for the next 30 weeks. Due to high BMI count and Dexter contracting Strep B in his first few weeks she mentioned the likelihood of an “Elective” C-Section but reassured us that nothing was set in stone at this stage. She also managed to fit in all our blood tests so we wouldn’t have to make any additional appointments before our scan date. It was all very easy and we’re pleased we changed doctors surgeries to get access to a community midwife.

Of course there are a few disappointments. Due to time constraints, we weren’t able to test to hear baby’s heartbeat. Given this is our second pregnancy, we won’t see her again until week 16 so have a long wait to hear it! I also didn’t make big enough deal out of my morning sickness in my opinion so we’ll need to book in a session with the GP if I decide I need anti-sickness medication.

In a bid to provide more reassurance things are going well, we’ve gone ahead and booked a private scan for this Thursday to finally answer the question of whether this is twins or not. Hopefully we’ll leave that appointment feeling a little more ‘pregnant’ and excited. As we’re off on holiday in a few weeks time, we’ll have plenty of time to sit around the pool to get our heads around the c-section issue. Our hospital doesn’t routinely offer VBAC’s (particularly given the other risks mentioned above) so we might well have to fight for a natural birth if we want one.

I think we’ve reached a turning point this week. I feel less stressed and anxious, but also less connected to this pregnancy. It doesn’t feel very real and I regularly forget I’m even pregnant at all - I nearly ordered wine at a restaurant this weekend! When pregnant with Dexter, I kept a notebook on my bedside table and Craig and I rarely discussed anything else. This pregnancy started off the same, but seems to have tapered somewhat. Compared to last time, the midwife appointment was anti-climatic. It all went smoothly, but that bubble of excitement was missing. Given we’ve worked so hard to create this new life, and can’t wait until he or she gets here, the pregnancy itself feels less chaotic and (dare-I-say-it) fascinating.

Did anyone else feel like this second time around?

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