Monthly Archives: April 2006

Happy and zen

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There’s nothing like a day of being crampy and grumpy and miserable to make you appreciate only having swollen ankles. Today, I am so not-in-pain that I’m all zen and happy and barely feeling pregnant at all, and if the dilemma on whose horns I am currently poised is whether I put my feet up under my desk or sit up straight and thus am able to reach the keyboard without straining, well them’s not very pointy horns.

Yesterday, I was the other thing. Grumpy and crampy with New Exciting back pain thrown in for good measure. Because the back pain was a new thing, I almost thought maybe this would be it and today I’d be in labour (and thus not have to write the blasted hurricane plan, which was certainly a consideration of a silver lining). But at about 2am this morning, suddenly it all went away and today I’m lovely and happy. And bumpy. People have stopped telling me how small I am. I don’t think this is a coincidence.
Luckily, I had a midwife appointment yesterday, so I was able to not be too paranoid about the new pain. They took my blood for the “36 cultures” (no, that doesn’t mean we have to stick you 36 times, it’s just the 36 week thing) and I had the pelvic exam that will be a regular feature of my visits from now on. Apart from taking various swabs and confirming that my chronic yeastiness is still around (lovely, eh? no wonder nobody reads this stuff) and giving me a prescription for it, my midwife said I’m 70 percent effaced but still not dilated at all. Which is fine with me because not only will B. be away at a conference this weekend, but so will the midwife. So when she said “You’re not going to be having a baby this week” there was more than a hint of the imperative in there along with the wise-woman prognostication. Fine with me, especially if I keep feeling like today more than yesterday.

That would be nice.

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A bit more abstract

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I just had to get all that updatey stuff out of the way, but what I really wanted to talk about was much more abstract.

Every now and then I stop and try to think about what’s really going on here. To convince myself of how there can be an almost-fully-grown baby in me. It’s still hard to do.

Yes, it moves. Lots. But I still think of it as a part of me – my liver or my kidneys do things I have no control over too – why should this new tummy not be similar. To grasp that it’s a whole person that is other, with a soul separate from my own – if you like – that’s what’s impossible.

When it’s on the outside, how will I relate the baby in our house to these moving bumps under my skin? Will I somehow instinctively know that it’s the same entity? Or will it be a whole new thing? I suppose what I’m asking is whether we’ll have a ready-forged connection, and I’m pretty sure the answer will mostly be No – because that’s what the whole bonding thing is about. I suppose for its part, the baby will be more familiar with me – the sound of my voice, my smell, my heartbeat – than I am with it.

Bizarrely, I sort of feel like the whole “growing your own” aspect of the baby is less important, now that I’ve done it. Except for the genetic side of things, which is totally magical and I can’t wait to find out about. I’d put money on a blue-eyed blond(e), but I suppose there’s precedent for brown or even red hair and green eyes too. Somehow, I assume it’ll take more after B. or my Mum than me and my Dad.

Maybe because of all my blonde cousins.

Head down and ready for the off

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Oops, it’s been a while. Like, five weeks, I suppose, since I’m 36 now, and officially 8 months pregnant. There were a few days back there when people were leading me to believe I wouldn’t get this far, because I was having cramps and they sent me to the hospital and gave me an IV and put me on a monitor and said “Hmm, yes, you’re having contractions”, and officially what I was admitted for was “Pre-term labour”; but after a few hours they relented, gave me a jab, and let me go home. Mostly I was stressed because poor B. was back at work, from where I was meant to pick him up after my appointment because he hadn’t cycled that day. So he had to get a taxi home. At no point did I really think I was about to drop a sprog.

The cramps continued on and off, and still do, but I’m flooding my system with water and they’re much weaker these days. All in all I’m more comfortable than I was a few weeks ago, and sleeping better too, which is great. Every time something happens I think “This is it, now, it’ll be this way till the end of the pregnancy”, but then it wears off, and things are better again. I like that about it.

The good thing about that day was that I got to lie in a hospital bed in the labour and delivery area and find out what it’s like to be hooked up to all the stuff. Which let me to understand that I really don’t want an IV or continous monitoring while I”m in labour if I can help it, since it really does feel restrictive. It’s all very well to say that you can move about because the IV’s on wheels, but that just doesn’t cut it. Also, I got felt up in the lady parts by three different people in quick succession, and am now officially without shame. And my lovely midwife ascertained that the baby was not only head down, but actually engaged, and my cervix was 50% effaced. And she said “Well, this baby’s not going to be late, anyway.”

Since that was two weeks ago now, who knows what’s going on with my cervix at this stage. But the baby’s still head down, because the doctor I saw this week, who didn’t want to do a pelvic for whatever reason, ordered a sonogram to make sure the baby was where it’s meant to be, which of course it was. So we got a couple more headshots for free.

Next week they’ll do all the cultures and whatnot that they need to do, and then I’ll be free to go into labour when ever I choose.

But not until the hurricane plan is written, some would say.

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