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2004-08-23 - 5.00pm��previous entry��next entry
29 weeks, 3 days - nappy photo and stuff
Another half-week mark! I like half-week marks, especially the bigger and tireder I get! Thank you for the guestbook entries � still working on getting a chiropractor, actually I found a really good osteopath who pretty much only works on pregnant women with SPD, but he�s based a couple of hours drive from me. Still, the drive would be worth it (if it didn�t aggravate my pain!). I left a message but he hasn�t got back to me yet.
The night after my last entry was just soooooo awful, I felt really down about it in the morning. I was in too much pain to sleep most of the night, mostly in my pubic bone (the left side only), but also in my left hip and the outside of my left thigh at the top. If I stayed in one position too long I literally could not turn over or even wriggle to a different position for the pain, it was horrible. The day wasn�t much better so I felt pretty depressed about it. It didn�t matter if I sat, lay down, walked, or how I tried to move or position myself, I couldn�t shift the pain in my pelvis at all, and if I put any weight on my left leg or lifted the knee or rotated my hip slightly out from my body then it was just really really painful. The right leg/hip is absolutely fine though! I was prepared for another naff night or for it to perhaps get even worse, but I was soooo relieved to have a better night! I don�t know why. I woke pretty much every hour to turn over or pee (5 pees in one night, must be getting towards the end of pregnancy now!), but I was smiling away in the darkness because of how it hurt so much less than the night before and I could actually turn over any time I needed to! When I got up in the morning I walked downstairs to get breakfast and it was only while I was eating it that I realized I had walked downstairs and across the kitchen without being distracted by pain, so that was good too. Maybe it is the aquanatal classes? It was so much worse after the first session too. Hmmm.
Well I am still in pain even sitting here typing, but it�s more bearable than before so I�m relieved. I still plan to get an appointment asap with someone who can fix my pelvis or whatever needs doing! I don�t think pelvic pain like this can be right and I�m pretty sure if I just put up with it then it will have an impact on the birth. I am having a lot of low back pain across the back of my pelvis on the left side today and yesterday. And my hips click a lot more than they used to. So I�m sure my pelvis is wonky or something, and needs shoving back into place.
My noggin is STILL in my nose :( Tomorrow I plan to go back to the doctor because the antibacterial cream obviously isn�t working. I had a nosebleed this morning for absolutely no reason whatsoever, which was weird. Normally I have to blow my nose or poke it or something to start one off. This morning I woke up, went to pee, splashed water on my face, and when I patted it dry there was blood on the towel. I hate that noggin! I�m not sure what the doctor can do now because I can�t take the antibiotics necessary to blitz it because I�m pregnant. Maybe I�ll mention my pelvic pain to him too?
Well I think Arthur has changed position. Over the last week I have been saying to Neil more and more that I don�t think the midwife was right about his position. At my 28 week appointment I asked her what his position was because I was SURE he was transverse. I never had any movements down in my pelvis, and I got kicked in my right side exactly halfway between my ribs and my hip, constantly. Also I got punches and fiddling sensations to the left of my tummy button, and a bit lower. The midwife said she �thought� she could feel a head down in my pelvis and she wrote cephalic (head first) under presentation in my notes. But I have tried to feel his head and I absolutely can�t feel anything, hard or not. At first I figured she must know what she�s doing and my baby-feeling skills are very rusty from my midwifery training, so I just thought yeah, he must be head down. But I don�t think he ever was. The last 2 days I am SURE he has been transverse, because as he gets bigger his body parts get easier to discern. And his movements have stayed the same since we got home from France. Up until then he was pretty much breech the whole time, because he spent a lot of his time trampolining on my bladder (which I think I must have written about a billion times back then!). But right after we got home (that was at the end of July), he has been persistently transverse, I�m sure of it. When I get a Braxton Hicks contraction, my womb tightens around his shape so it�s easier to see where he is, and there�s always a lump that�s longer across than down. It�s far too wide for him to be head down. Every day he gets hiccups and they are always in the centre of my tummy, one side usually and a bit lower than my tummy button. If I lie on my right side (where his feet are) then he actually practices walking movements against the mattress! I can feel his little feet go up and down against the bed! He�s so sweet :)
So I KNOW he hasn�t been head down, I�m sure of it. Stoopid midwife! Tsk. Well, this morning I woke up and he was all sleeping and quiet. I lay awake for a while and then Neil came in to kiss me goodbye as he was going to work. He put his hand on my tummy and Arthur gave one big kick, and it took me by surprise because it was a couple of inches above my tummy button but completely central, not out to the side or anything like normal. Anyway that was his only kick (he was just saying goodbye to Daddy!), and then I lay for a while longer and then got up. I first realised something was different when Arthur got hiccups, and they were jolting against my pubic bone (fortunately not hurting it in the process!), waaaay lower than I ever feel them. The pregnancy books say that hiccups don�t bother babies at all, but I am wondering if that doesn�t ring true for Arthur, because I�ve noticed that if he gets hiccups while he�s being all quiet, then he seems to react to them very quickly by kicking and squirming about. Often he�ll only go quiet again when they stop. Anyway this time he got the hiccups and started to move and wiggle, and boy did it feel different! I could feel pressure on my bladder and the odd bump to my rectum reeeally low down in there. Like I said, I never get any movements at all down in my pelvis, so I knew he had to have changed position. If he�s down there now then he most definitely was NOT head down before. Except now I�m starting to wonder whether he�s head down or breech. There�s a lump just above my tummy button that I can push and it floats away and then back again every time I push on it. Isn�t that what a head does? I have had a lot of sharp pains and twinges on my bladder and somewhere else that I can�t pinpoint (maybe it�s my cervix?) as he wiggles about in general, and the odd thumping feeling down there, so I am not sure if his feet are down or up. I haven�t felt any kicks up the top yet today so maybe that�s because his feet are down? Would his bottom float away if I pushed it, or is that only something a head does? I reeeally want him to be nice and head down rather than breech! But at least he�s not transverse. I think he was actually in a shoulder presentation before, because I found a hard round lump down by my left hip, and his feet were up and to the right. That would not have been good for birth!
Anyway he is longitudinal at least, but I don�t know if he�s breech or cephalic. We�ll have to see.
Today I went into town and bought sewing supplies!!! Yay! It was fun. I was tired and breathless just walking around but I took it slow and I wore my nice jeans and my �pregnant and proud� embroidered top! I love that top. The sales assistant commented on it and said she thought it was great! She also said �ooh you�re carrying low!� and asked when my baby was due. I love love love being pregnant. I don�t tire of people commenting at all! I felt so squeezy with excitement and joy as I walked away from the shop, I was just thanking God for blessing me with being pregnant over and over again under my breath, I felt soooo happy! :)
I went up to the baby department in the big dept store which was fun too. I haven�t been there since before I had a bump, and it was lovely to roam the aisles picking up cute little things and looking at them whilst sporting a huge bump for all to see! People are still looking at me more than people used to, which I like, because I know it�s because I�m looking pregnant. I didn�t buy any baby stuff though. I want cream flannelette flat sheets for the moses basket, but nobody seems to have them. How hard can it be to find a flannelette sheet in cream?!! Tsk. Or a cotton cellular blanket in cream for a moses basket. There�s loads of cream out there, but it�s all for cots or cot-beds. Pesky.
I picked up a few food things before coming home, but not many because I was just soooo tired and heavy-feeling that I didn�t know how I�d last standing in the queue at the supermarket! I thought my legs would fall off. I guess I just tire quickly now I�m this pregnant. I should have paced myself better probably.
Ooooh we have a new car!!!! I think I mentioned that Neil went to sort one out recently, and now it is ready and Neil didn�t tell me until he pulled onto the driveway in it, for a surprise! It�s soooooo nice. It has air conditioning. Ahhhh. It�s cooler and rainy now, but still humid, so I used the air con when I drove home, and it was looovely!! More importantly it has the switch fitted so we can turn the passenger airbag off in the front, and put Arthur there in his carseat when he�s a tiny boy :) It�s so exciting getting things ready for when he�s really truly actually going to really be here!
I ate an entire family bag of chocolate-covered raisins this afternoon :( Urgh, that�s so bad of me! But I just had to eat them, and I couldn�t stop. I didn�t even feel sick for it, it�s like I just deep-down neeeeded chocolate-covered raisins! But that many, urgh. Fortunately there are now no more of them, so I can�t stuff myself further! I had a chicken and coleslaw sandwich for lunch. Ohhhh my goodness food is wonderful at the moment! I often feel so sad that I am full when I finish my meals, because if I wasn�t then I know I would want to cook a whole �nother portion and eat it all over again! It just all tastes so great and I want to eat and eat and eat and eat and never stop! Hehe!
I weighed 10 stone yesterday! But llb less today, so I�m wavering around the 10 stone mark now. I guess that would put my total weight gain around 29 or 30lbs, which is okay. Online thingies are telling me that the average weight gain for this stage is 15-20lbs, so yeah I�m way over that, but who cares. I feel great for eating this well, and apart from the aforementioned chocolate raisin disaster (!), I eat healthily. I don�t look weighty, except my butt feels big to me. But in the mirror I look fine. I still look like I am carrying Arthur very �neatly� and there are no rolls or big squidgy areas outside of my bump, so my weight gain must be just fine for me. I read that you can expect to gain an average of 11lbs during the 3rd trimester, so hmmm! I don�t really want to have a total gain of 40lbs but that�s purely because I don�t think my little frame would be happy or remotely comfortable with that much extra weight. I hope I have done my big �pile on� (!) in the second trimester and that I won�t gain as much as the average this trimester. I have noticeably slowed my weight gain since starting the 3rd trimester actually. I�ve only gained about 3 or 4lbs in the last few weeks, compared with STONES in the previous couple of months! Hehe!
I finished sewing that Lennon print nappy wrap I was telling you about! I bound the legs with white microfleece and added aplix for fastening. It�s newborn size and soooo cute because of that! It�s only about as wide as a biro! I can�t wait to put Arthur in it. I took a photo:
Then today I sewed my first ever wool wrap!!! I used the orange wool that I bought from the States and I had already felted it in the wash ready for sewing. I made it in a size 1, so that should fit from about 10-20lbs. I bought orange thread today, and I love buying threads in new colours and seeing them all nicely coordinating with new fabrics as I sew them! I also bought more needles (have broken soooo many over the past 18 months!) and elastic and oh I found some really cute appliqu� thingies, a giraffe one and a lion one. I could make Arthur some reeeally cute wraps with a smiling giraffe appliqu�d to his butt! :) I have to find the perfect fabric to compliment the appliqu� though. Ahhhh I love making nappies!
Well what else is there to say? I really want more chocolate raisins right now. But it�s a GOOD thing that I don�t have any! And I�m not going to buy any more either (watch me write next entry that I gave in and ate 3 bags, hehe!). Oh I had a bath last night � the first one in aaages, because I have been taking showers all through the summer. I was feeling kind of hormonal and weird and irritable and weepy, so I listened to some music that takes me back to childhood (unfortunately it made me feel all insecure and weepy!) and then I had an aromatherapy bubble bath :) The bath worked wonders and I felt better after it. But I discovered new things about baths since I last had one! First, my butt is definitely a whole different butt to the one I had in the spring! I am now WELL cushioned, lol! I always felt bony sitting on my butt in the bath before, but now oooh it was like sitting on a nice inflatable cushion! :) Yay for bigger bottoms! Very comfy. Also I can�t cover my bump with the water, no matter how flat I lie or how deep the water is. My bump is too big. I loved that because a year ago (and more) before we conceived, I used to lie in the bath and arch my back so my tummy would stick out above the water. I used to do that and pretend there was a baby in there, and be all wistful imagining it being a reality. Now it really is!!! It gives me so much joy, MUCH more so because I had the pain of having to wait when I wanted it so much. I am glad now that we had to wait and try and hurt over it because it makes the joy so much more wonderful, and you don�t take things for granted. At least I hope I don�t. I would never lie in the bath grinning and praising God because my bump sticks above the water if I hadn�t had the time where I longed for a baby in my tummy and had to wait and hurt over it.
Arthur seemed to like the bath. He wiggled a lot! We have a fluorescent light in the bathroom (urgh) so it�s pretty bright when you lie in the bath, and I know he can see that brightness really quite clearly now. Sometimes I covered him over with a flannel to shade him :) I love spending time with my belly all naked and just watching it move and talking to Arthur and feeling so connected with him. He�s such a sweetie. Neil told me he loves Arthur the other day. I knew he did but it�s lovely to hear him say it :)
And I learned that I really really DO want a birthing pool, because the bath is not going to cut it at ALL! I can�t even cover my bump, and I feel restricted by the sides. I don�t think I could use it to relax in during labour, so I�m glad we�re getting a pool. The bigger the better too! I do find water relaxing, so I think it may help, even if it doesn�t ease any pain, it should help me to relax my muscles which would be a way of avoiding more severe pain in any case. We are ready to order the pool but it arrives so quickly after you order it that we�re going to wait just a little longer. Maybe when I�m 30 weeks we�ll order it? We want to test drive it anyway :)
Okay I really can�t think of what else I wanted to say now, so I�ll finish this entry I think. I keep saying I�ll get back to people�s emails but I�m sooooo crap at it, I�m really sorry! I am quite behind. I will reply I promise. Sorry I seem to say this every entry! I will always reply to emails. I am just so slow and it�s honestly nothing personal! :) Will update again soon!
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