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2004-08-19 - 11.36am��previous entry��next entry
28 weeks, 6 days - The Noggin
I have a noggin in my nose. Okay so there�s no such thing as a noggin, but when I saw it, I decided that�s what it was! You know where I keep getting nosebleeds? The same spot all the time? And the 2 really big nosebleeds I�ve had in the last month? Well (this is soooo gross � sorry!) the last of my blood clots from the last bleed came out a few days ago and I noticed my nose still felt blocked and irritated, so yesterday I finally decided to look up there with a mini torch thingy, and there it was � a noggin. It�s some sort of extra nose (!) growing from the middle and it�s getting bigger so fast that it fills my nostril now and is bothersome with my breathing. Yuck. It made me feel really squeamish when I saw it! So today I went to the doctor and told him I had an alien-being in my nose. He didn�t bat an eyelid (I have such a nice doctor with a good sense of humour!) but just asked which side the alien was on, and then he checked the other side first (for aliens) and said there was a mild infection in there. When he took a look at the side with the alien in it, he said I have a massive nasal infection. Massive. I don�t know how that happened, but I�m relieved, because I was seriously weirded-out by that noggin, and I was getting worried that I�d have to go on some 18 month long waiting list to have it surgically removed or something. Thank goodness it�s just a bacterial infection which can be easily treated. He said it�s likely that the infection has tapped into a vein or artery, therefore making me really really prone to torrential nosebleeds. Ah-ha! So I�m hoping that when it goes away I will not get the horrible nosebleeds I�ve been having. I wonder how I got it? Hmmm.
So because I�m pregnant I can�t take the oral antibiotics, but I have this cream which I have to put up my nose. How lovely. But yay, my horrid noggin will go away soon! I got my money out to pay for the cream in the chemist, completely forgetting that marvellous thing whereby pregnant women don�t pay for anything medical! But the lady took one look at my bump and signed the back of my prescription so I didn�t have to pay. She didn�t even ask me for my exemption certificate! Yay! I look pregnant!! :) I wore my dungarees today. I love my dungarees.
Applying that cream might make me get a nosebleed, but I hope it won�t. I have to apply it anyway, 3 times a day for 5-7 days. I managed it once so far and no nosebleed :) The doctor said in the future if I get a nosebleed that isn�t easing off after 10 minutes or so, I need to go to hospital and get it packed or cauterized. Yikes! But I�m glad to know what to do if I get another of those really torrential ones.
I asked for my blood results while I was there and I�m soooo pleased, because they were excellent! He took my blood pressure too, which was 100/60, again really nice and low and healthy. My blood sugar is normal, thank goodness, even with the sugar in my urine on the same day. My kidneys must be spilling sugar a bit, which is quite common in pregnancy, but I would expect mine to be a little less efficient than most anyway, because they don�t work to 100% capacity in any case. I asked about my haemoglobin, in case I am anaemic (very common around this stage of pregnancy), and it�s 12.5!!! Which is fab, by the way. My 15 week bloods had a similar haemoglobin level, so I must just do good iron :) So I am nowhere near anaemic, in fact I am quite the opposite. Hooray! I�m so glad and so thankful that I�m healthy this pregnancy. Thank you Lord.
Arthur is bumpling and kicking right now, and giving me some good strong thumps somewhere on the inside. I can feel the rebound at the front, but I can tell the actual kick is to my back somewhere. He�s such a strong boy.
I had a really weird disturbing dream last night. I slept okay. I woke a lot, but I had this dream that I woke from and then every time I fell asleep again I was back in the dream, even though I woke several times throughout it. It was so weird. In the dream, I gave birth to Arthur at home, and he wasn�t really early, but I remember he wasn�t quite due yet. Anyway it was scary when he was actually born because he was tiny and red and his skin was all transparent so I knew he must be seriously premature. I was scared to touch him incase it hurt his delicate skin. I was also scared that he wouldn�t be able to breathe. But he seemed to cry. He was so ugly, I didn�t feel mushy towards him at all, which felt awful :( Then I thought I should try breastfeeding him, but he had a little jaw like a cat�s, with rows of tiny little teeth just like a cat�s front teeth. I had to prise his jaw open to latch him onto my breast, and when he relaxed he took a couple of sucks, and then stopped, looked me in the eye with a very angry expression, and said in a high-pitched tinny voice � �THERE�S NO MILK!� So I tried him on the other breast, and again he looked at me and said angrily, �THERE�S NO MILK!� So I told him to be patient and just suck for a bit longer, but he refused to take the breast any more, and I got really scared wondering how on earth to feed him if he refused to suck! It sounds stupid but it was a horrible feeling. Every night I put him back in my womb for safekeeping, and every morning I had to push him out again to try feeding him, etc. He wouldn�t breastfeed because he was angry that there wasn�t any milk. I knew there was colostrum because I�d seen it leaking � I just figured he wasn�t persevering enough to get any. Then I went to school and left him at home, but while I was there I realised my family were out as well so he was probably starving to death at home and crying for food with nobody there to feed him. Then the dream was panicky because I was trying to get home as fast as I could before he died of starvation. That�s the first time I realised I loved him, even though he was red and angry and ugly and uncooperative!
Weird weird weird dream. And not so nice to wake up from. I didn�t know what to make of my feelings when I woke from that one. Don�t know what it was about either.
Anyway! I went to my grandparents� house for lunch yesterday, and that was nice. I did get really tired out while I was there though, but it was good to see them. Arthur was very kicky after lunch and Granny saw my tummy jump even through my layers of clothes! She also got to feel his little foot when he stuck it out at one point. I talked to her for a long time about her birth experience with my daddy. She only had one child, though they longed for more. Grandoug got mumps when Daddy was little, and it made him completely sterile, as mumps will do if you�re male and get it as an adult. Granny had polyhydraminoes (excessive amniotic fluid) and when her waters broke they flooded the ward!!! Hehe! They gave her castor oil to induce her labour, even though she was only a few days overdue. Her waters broke at 11am, and she gave birth at 6.30pm, which is pretty good for a first labour. She had a couple of whiffs of gas and air, but otherwise didn�t use any pain relief. She found the pain manageable, and described it as being like a very bad period. Mind you, she had exceptionally painful periods (which stopped being painful after Daddy was born!), and I�m hoping maybe I will manage the pain of labour better than my mum did, because Mummy didn�t have very painful periods, and I have always had very painful ones. So maybe I�ll be better able to cope? Okay so I�m clutching at straws, but I�m just hoping! That�s the only thing I�m getting slightly nervous about now � the pain and how I will manage it.
The birth is starting to be on my mind so much more these days. I find myself constantly thinking about it, even when I�m trying not to or if I�m doing something distracting like sewing. It�s just on my mind. I am excited about it and looking forward to it in so many ways, but increasingly nervous about it in other ways. I am 100% confident that my body can �do� birth, so I don�t have that very common fear that I can�t do it or anything. But the two things I�m scared about are pain and how it will affect me, and whether I will throw up before or during labour. That seems to be quite common so I�m anxious about it. Obviously I totally do NOT want to throw up. It�s a big scary thing for me. But if I do, I will manage. I just don�t want to! When I get nervous about the birth I start to wish the weeks would fly by so that I could get it over and done with already! I don�t like something nerve-provoking to be hanging over me and looming ahead all the time. But there�s plenty of reason not to be nervous. My body is made to give birth, and I will do it. I hope I will do it really well, but I know that one way or the other I will DO it, and Arthur will be born at last.
Well that�s all I think. I just wanted to write about my noggin (!), which I�m sure you are all thrilled I wrote about! ;) I have my aquanatal class again this evening � I should have asked if I�m okay to get swimming pool water in my nose, but I guess it would probably be wise to keep my nose out of the water till my treatment is finished :( Such a shame, because I love being completely submerged in water. Oh well. I will update tomorrow for 29 weeks (what, already?!) and to tell you how the class went again! I am taking it easy for the rest of today, because I also did some housework and went to the supermarket yesterday, so I�m tired and my back aches a lot today. My ribs ache like crazy round the back, especially on my right side (where Arthur prefers to be!), and my pubic bone is definitely getting more painful during the night when I try to turn over in bed. I need a new method of turning over. Maybe I could try going from my side to all fours, to the other side, rather than squirming about on my back to get onto my other side! That�s where I get the pain in my pubic bone if I don�t have my knees firmly clamped together the whole time (which isn�t easy, believe me!). I feel so big and heavy. But it�s all good because I�m carrying a precious baby boy :)
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