Mar 26 2014

A Belated 36 Weeks Post & an X-Rated #GetBabyOut

Posted on March 26, 2014 by admin

I haven’t deliberately delayed writing this post, I was just pretty frustrated that my 36th week carrying this huge sack of baby and water was so painfully uneventful. This, despite me spending several hours embarrassing myself on a birthing ball, watching television with my hand down my bra, and conducting painful massages on bits of my body that I wouldn’t even expect Craig to touch. I even went against last week’s promise that I would never put myself through another bite of pineapple scoffing 3 LARGE fresh ones from Tesco in 2 days. Birthing Ball Labour A Belated 36 Weeks Post & an X Rated #GetBabyOut

Most of this week’s endeavours have been physical. I’m pretty sure my treatment of Craig could have earned me a segment on some crappy Channel 5 programme - maybe The Bad Wives Club, or Abused Husbands. When I’m not demanding he whip me up strange concoctions of food in the kitchen, I’m dragging him upstairs in the most unromantic way possible.

I’m not stupid. I realise that most of my experiments will come to nothing. I know full well that most of these tricks were either disproved some 100 years ago, or would need to be eaten / performed on a much grander scale than it would be possible (or even safe) for one person to achieve in one day. But still, I had hoped that Mini Madam would have at least given me a few little signs she was listening to her mummy.

The slightest change in her position or bit of pressure on my bladder and I’m ringing Craig and screaming that she’s gearing up and he had better come home from work (did I mention he’s often 100 miles away?). I seem to have reworked the morality tale The Boy that Cried Wolf for a modern day audience. When my water’s do finally break or I do get a contraction I can already see him rolling his eyes and deliberately taking the scenic route on the way home.

In truth, nothing has happened this week.

Nothing at all.

She’s still kicking away. I’m still producing pathetic amounts of wee every 10 minutes. I’m still crying at adverts with ‘sad’ music. I’m still exhausted after a single hour of parenting Dexter in the morning. None of this is new, and none of it is exciting.

I’m now thinking she’s planning on saying hello on April Fool’s Day as some form of punishment at having been evicted from the little den she’s made inside of me.

So keeping it brief - here’s the results of Operation #GetBabyOut this week. WARNING: This is not suitable reading for the faint-hearted… or for anyone really. GetBabyOut1 A Belated 36 Weeks Post & an X Rated #GetBabyOut

Sex

Don’t bother ladies. Seriously, you’re beyond the stage that you can derive any pleasure from a quick fumble now, and unfortunately the chances are this is also the case for your other half. 99.9% of Kama Sutra positions are now impossible or would have the unwanted side effect of turning off your partner for life. Spooning is your only safe option and you’ll probably find yourself inspecting the chaos on your bedside table rather than any meaningful attempt to participate in the activity at hand.

There is the merest smidgen of science that supports the fact that sex can help bring on labour. Semen may help to ripen, or soften, the neck of your uterus (cervix) ready for it to dilate when labour starts. Semen contains a high number of prostaglandins, which are chemicals that can help to relax tissues (high concentrates of this are used in induction pessaries given to overdue women in hospital - not sperm obviously, but prostaglandins).

Sounds good right? Well no. You’d need few pints of sperm to match the concentration found in just this one active ingredient in a pessary. Given the average man manages a tablespoon per session, even holing him up in a room with a naughty magazine wouldn’t be enough to get a sufficient quantity.

Tweaking your nipples

I can probably manage a quick 30 seconds before I begin to feel prudish / stupid / desperate. The sensation goes from ticklish to sore quickly, and I’d be lying if I said the thought of expelling a sudden burst of milk doesn’t put the fear of God in me. In truth, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to view my breasts as Objets de Désir ever again. They serve one basic function and that is is to feed my child. It has even got to the stage where I find myself physically cringing when I go for a night out and see women forcibly spilling out of their underwear.

Nipple Stimulation A Belated 36 Weeks Post & an X Rated #GetBabyOut

Unfortunately for me, there is some scientific justification for using nipple stimulation to evoke labour. The act of tweaking releases the hormone oxytocin which can help your labour progress. This hormone controls the contractions of your uterus (womb) during labour and can be administered by midwives (in synthetic form) to induce you. According to an uncited source BabyCentre claim (and I’m not suggesting this should become any sane woman’s pregnancy reference) in a study, 37% of women who had tried nipple stimulation went into labour within 72 hours.

This is certainly appealing but you’d need to stimulate your breasts for an hour, three times a day which is easier said than done when you have a curious two-year-old hanging off your arm from 8am - 8pm. Will it scar him? I’m saying yes, even if I’m just making excuses so as not to try it.

So that’s it from me. I’m now well into my 37th week so will report back soon.

Mar 10 2014

34 Weeks Pregnant! Things are Ramping Up

Posted on March 10, 2014 by admin

I wanted to write this post last week but Craigy placed me on a blog ban. He says the reason for this is because he wanted me to rest and recover from my recent stay in the antenatal ward, but I suspect it’s because he knew I was likely to fly into a tirade about the care I received and offend the very midwives who are likely to be delivering our baby in a few weeks time. As always, my bloke had a very good point.

Things have definitely ramped up considerably this month and I can’t see Mini Madam waiting until April to meet her family. 1509645 10151918062582190 1829871963 n 34 Weeks Pregnant! Things are Ramping Up

The whole saga began when Dex bought home a sicky bug from playgroup and infected his daddy with it. With a full clean-up operation in progress (I won’t go too far into it but I was sorely tempted to throw away our sofa) it was only a matter of time before my body decided to have a bit of it too. Given I’ve suffered with gastroesophageal reflux disease throughout this pregnancy, the situation was made ten times worse and I had a really shocking time of it. I struggled to keep down anything at all and began to suffer from a few mild contractions. 72 hours later I called my GP in a panic. Of course, he quickly referred me to the hospital to check on the baby.

Inevitably, baby was fine, but I wasn’t. My wee was the colour of Lucozade and at the insistence of the consultant I was instructed to stay in and receive IV fluids. Given the sickness had resulted from a bug, I was quarantined with suspected novovirus - quite the leap in diagnosis methinks - and I endured a full night of hellish barrier nursing, misadventures to my en suite (dragging a drip stand with dodgy wheels that could have given the trolleys at Sainsburys a run for their money) and extreme claustrophobia. I sobbed the entire night and was inches away from ripping out the cannula by the time 7am rolled round.

With no spare knickers, no purse, and no toothbrush - I felt like a tramp in the morning. To protect the other women on the ward, I’d been barely tended to all night and was feeling like a leper. In fact, after a lot of crying and a few hours worth of deliberation, I discharged myself. I’d like to pretend this wasn’t an easy decision but I’d be lying. I knew Mini Madam was okay and just needed mummy to calm down. I knew I couldn’t manage this in hospital and I needed to be at home with my boys. It was the best decision I’ve ever made and I’m happy to report I’m now eating and drinking without any problems.

The only positive thing to come out of the whole experience was a scan of baby that revealed her little head is down. This means we can go for the natural birth we wanted and I won’t have to endure a 5 day post-op stay in hospital. As hospitals and I clearly don’t get on too well, this is a HUGE relief. To be fair, given I officially hold the title of the World’s Shittiest Inpatient I suspect the midwives won’t want me in their care for a second later longer than is strictly necessary anyway. If I didn’t need IV antibiotics throughout the birth (thanks to Dexter’s history of Strep B) I’d be ordering a paddling pool this very second.

Now back home again I’ve had a whole new raft of symptoms that have got me frantically fake tanning and painting my nails in anticipation of an early labour. My inner thermostat has gone on the blink and I’m constantly sweltering (I even managed a spot of gardening in my undies this weekend!). Perhaps thanks to the fluids, I also feel like I’ve been inflated and my bump is now rock hard. Finally, I can literally feel my hips widen to accommodate baby. My contractions are persisting but are getting lower and longer in length - but are as yet too mild to take seriously. It all certainly seems to be adding up to a rush-job and I’m pretty sure she’s had enough in there.

Tomorrow I’ll be 35 weeks. I’ve got my fingers crossed she’ll manage another two weeks but it’s definitely a case of placing your bets now!

Mar 4 2014

33 Weeks Pregnant & Lemonade Gets me All Excited

Posted on March 4, 2014 by admin

As I’ll be 38 weeks as March disappears into April, I think by then I’ll have served my time. So this weekend Mini Madam had her eviction notice well and truly served.

Week 33 was an interesting one. MM has shifted on upwards and is now (crucially) off my sciatic nerve. This has meant, for the first time since January, I am now able to zip up my own boots. I also had a bit of wind a few days ago (I can now safely put this down to the entire 2 litre bottle of lemonade I consumed whilst catching up on One Born Every Minute) which saw me frantically googling labour pains and repacking my hospital bag with excitement bordering on hysteria. Needless to say, a few burps later and the panic was over.

33 weeks bump 33 Weeks Pregnant & Lemonade Gets me All Excited

It’s getting difficult to do basic things and I had to call Craig to help me shave my legs a few days ago. I figured it was this or potentially go into labour looking like a PG Tips chimp. Given most of the midwives at my local hospital went to school with me and could blackmail me on Facebook, I couldn’t face the shame.

Speaking of Facebook - I’m dropping from people’s timelines like no ones business. I’m learning the hard way that first babies are big news, second babies are timeline-clutter. I toyed with the idea of running a mini competition to guess Mini Madam’s weight, but I’m guessing I’d get an embarrassingly small number of comments that would send my pregnancy hormones into overdrive.

The deliveries were thick and fast last week and the guy from UPS began to look more and more haggard with each new parcel he lugged up the hill to my front door. Our bednest is now in place and ready for it’s new tenant, and we’re drowning in clothes and blankets that haven’t found their way to drawers yet. The whole operation resembles a stockroom at Babies R Us. Everything is still wrapped in cellophane and looking too new and perfect. Nothing like our actual home which looks like Dexter has invited around 30 of his playmates for a messy play soiree. I’m just too exhausted and ‘wide’ to do any housework.

This week (34) is the biggie. We’re off to see the consultant on Thursday (imagine a less jovial Anne Hegerty from The Chase, and you’re not far off!) who will scan me for the final time to determine Mini Madam’s position. If she’s still breech, there’s little that can be done. I suspect my consultant will still try to push the ‘cheaper’ VBAC option and advise me to spend the next few evenings ‘dipping my hips’ and contorting like a member of Spelbound. But Craig and I will pull the plug at this point and insist on a date for an elective Cesarian. I’m too anxious about this birth to leave it to chance.

Right now my guess is that she’ll defy all odds and be head-down by Thursday. This will send me into an entirely new panic and force me to discover a whole new world of Ugly - perineal massages, tweaking nipples and birthing balls… Oh the joy.