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2004-09-10 - 4.34pm��previous entry��next entry
32 weeks - antenatal appt and breastfeeding class
Yay, I�m 32 weeks pregnant!! I�m so happy to be pregnant, and so amazed at how far along I am now! You�ll have to wait till later for the belly pic because Neil takes them when he gets home from work, but I am too impatient to write an entry to wait for that! :) I will probably upload it later (maybe this evening) or else I�ll write another entry tomorrow anyway and upload it to the belly gallery then.
(edited at 8.20pm to add - belly picture now in the gallery! :) And I like that I'm looking at Arthur all mushy instead of grinning chubbily at the camera like usual!)
AIMS called me back this morning but I was in the deepest sleep EVER and didn�t even hear the phone (very unusual for me!). The chairperson left a message asking me to call her at home!! Wow! :) I feel really good about my homebirth plans now. I feel confident and assertive, and sure that I will get my wishes, and that AIMS will give me a lot of support. I tried to call the lady back but her machine is on again, so I�ll keep trying. I�ll let you know how I get on with that!
Wow I have been sleeping soooo great since my ENT appointment! I think it�s partly to do with no more fear of surgery, and partly to do with the fact that I can breathe through my nose again for the first time in a month maybe. It�s soooo wonderful to breathe through your nose. I can�t believe how much I always take something like that for granted! It�s so nice. You sleep way better. Last night I took a while falling asleep because I had restless legs, but I distracted myself practicing pelvic floor exercises, and I think I fell asleep somewhere during that! I slept for six hours straight, and if I woke up briefly in that time I was so dopey that I can�t remember it at all. I woke at 5.50am, absolutely amazed that I hadn�t needed to pee till then! Normally I pee a couple of times before 6am. I had been in such a deep sleep that I was staggering against the walls just getting to the toilet! Then I took a while to get back to sleep, and woke groggily when Neil was getting ready for work, but I zonked out again till 10am!!! I had vivid dream after vivid dream, and I was so out of it every time I woke. I think my body is catching up on the quality sleep I�ve been missing for so long, and I feel soooo much better for it physically, already. Yay! I mean, it�s 1pm and I have not felt remotely like I need a nap yet, which is amazing for me these days. I love good sleep!
The breastfeeding class yesterday was excellent! I learnt soooo much, and I thought I knew a lot already because I have read books and books on breastfeeding, and also learned how to help women to breastfeed when I did my midwifery training � I even passed my breastfeeding viva, which was my first practical exam on the course! But that was years ago now. It was ground-breaking at the time because it was all hands-off and correct latching, etc, not like in the old old days. So I felt pretty confident about it already, but I knew I would learn more at this class.
I guess here I should offer that warning about how I�m likely to rave on about the wonders of breastfeeding and yeah I�ll probably come across as not being able to fathom the choice for formula feeding (in normal healthy circumstances), simply because I�m so excited about how amazing and incredible breast milk and breastfeeding really is, and because of the amazing things I learned at last night�s class. So if you�re likely to find that offensive somehow, or annoying, or like I�m challenging you personally (which will be your misinterpretation by the way!) then PLEASE do not read any more of this entry. I will be writing further down the page about my antenatal appointment today and about Arthur�s 32 week stats, etc, so there is more normal stuff to come, but please don�t read the breastfeeding bit if it will make you want to rant in my guestbook. I don�t want a debate. These are my thoughts and feelings and excited opinions and they are not up for debate. I will also be writing a ton of stuff that an expert lactation specialist told me and she is soooo expert that basically I don�t think the stuff she said is up for debate either. She really knows her stuff, even if it�s different to what doctors have told other people about breastfeeding. I would say she is more likely to be right. So yeah, if that would bother some people then don�t read.
Soooo, breastfeeding!!! I am so excited to breastfeed!! We got to ask a bazillion questions, whatever was on our minds and whatever we wanted, it was so cool. This lactation specialist (breastfeeding counselor, whatever you call it!) is a leading national expert and has been doing this for 30 years! I am so lucky to have her in my local area. There is absolutely NOTHING she hasn�t seen, no problem she hasn�t encountered (trust me, she told us about some really rare ones that I�d never even heard of!). So I felt confident in her answers, especially asking her about problems with breastfeeding, etc. Because of the recent to-do in my guestbook I asked her lots of questions in front of the class about reasons why women CAN�T breastfeed, and if it�s really true. She said 2-3% of women CANNOT breastfeed their babies. That leaves 97-98% of women who can feed their babies, and that doesn�t mean maybe TRY and find it hard and then decide it�s impossible, that means CAN feed their babies! It�s okay to give up if it is hard though, but she said if you have a breastfeeding specialist on hand then you should never be leaving it till it gets hard. We were told to call her at the first �niggle� of an issue, before it got out of hand. All problems can be fixed apparently, especially the earlier they are dealt with. They get way more difficult to fix the longer you put up with them before asking for help, but they are still fixable. If it�s too much to bear or the whole amount of effort you have to put in is depressing you, then she said don�t do it. Just bottle feed. Breast milk is undoubtedly far and away the best food you can give your baby, but formula is still food.
Did you know that if you leave breast milk in the fridge for 8 days and test it for bacteria every day, the milk will actually get cleaner and cleaner?!! I thought that was amazing! A formula company did a study on it and were probably rather peeved with the results, as they would not have helped their marketing for formula, haha! It�s the fact that it�s full of the mother�s white blood cells and her immune system, which clean and purify the milk the longer it stands. No other food cleans itself! All other foods gradually decay and become more full of bacteria each day. Breast milk is so amazing. But Hilary (the lactation specialist) said not to leave it in the fridge longer than 3-5 days because after that, all those good immune nutrients have been spent on keeping the milk clean, rather than going into the baby�s body with all those wonderful benefits to the baby�s health. They are better off in the baby rather than cleaning the milk in the fridge!
Anyway so I asked about whether it�s really true that a woman CAN�T have enough milk to breastfeed. My mum was told this, and indeed did not appear to have much milk at all so she had to stop. Hilary said in rare instances some women cannot make enough milk but you can tell before they even give birth that they won�t be able to. She said some women have breasts shaped like thin cones or �toilet roll holders� (!!) and those are the types of breasts that are likely to not have the space for the ducts and tissue required for producing enough milk. But that is extremely rare. Extremely. Almost all women have breasts that extend around the side and up into the armpit. During pregnancy, breasts tend to become way more ample and broad, and if by the end of pregnancy they are still like long thin cones (!) then maybe you�re someone who is reeeally rare, but yeah, it�s that unlikely. The most common reason for �not having enough milk� is feeding persistently with incorrect latching or feeding to a schedule (something that was almost universal when my mum was breastfeeding) � ie. not feeding to the baby�s demand, or not feeding frequently enough. Those things will result in increasingly reduced milk production till you really don�t have enough milk. But it can still be corrected with help at that stage, it just means a bit of work at first.
Another reason she stated that a tiny proportion of women can�t breastfeed is if they are on medication that would be harmful to the baby through the breast milk. And that is it. Everyone else CAN breastfeed their baby, and if they are given the right help from early on, or the instant any sort of an issue starts to crop up, it should NOT be difficult. Oh except Hilary said she saw two cases over her 30 years of extremely rare women who had nipples that were too big for the baby to feed from! Yikes! One lady had nipples over an inch wide � just the nipple! And the baby couldn�t get his/her mouth round it properly! The other lady had nipples that were over an inch LONG!!! So the baby was gagging on them. Both those ladies expressed and fed their milk to their babies in bottles. But man that would be rare.
She also said breastfeeding should NOT be painful. I have heard sooooooo many women saying, �Oh they tell you it shouldn�t be painful if you�re doing everything right, but let me tell you I did everything exactly right and it still hurts, so that�s rubbish!� Well (don�t get mad with me if this is you!) they are wrong. If it hurts, no matter if you or even your doctor/midwife thinks you are doing everything exactly right, something IS definitely wrong. Cracked or bleeding nipples are a sure sign that something is not happening right and needs fixing. Nipples will never be like that if everything is right with the feeding. Nevvver, according to Hilary. And she knows her stuff so I believe her.
We got to practice with breastfeeding dolls, and Hilary taught us the anatomy and physiology of breastfeeding, it was great! She had enlarged photos of babies breastfeeding, and of the milk let-down reflex. She said some women have powerful let-down reflexes and the milk comes down really forcefully. And that other women have slow �sip� let-down reflexes and take longer to feed their babies. She thinks maybe my mum had a slow let-down reflex and was told (like everyone was in those days) to feed me 15 minutes on each breast. With a slow let-down reflex I would not have got nearly enough food that way, and her breasts would have made less and less milk after each feed, so it wouldn�t have taken too long before she really didn�t have enough milk to feed me with. Poor Mummy. She thought she was a failure. Stupid darn doctors/midwives back then! But Hilary said they didn�t know this about breastfeeding in those days.
Anyway it was soooo interesting, and I have absolutely no doubts that I will be able to successfully breastfeed Arthur till whenever he chooses to wean. If he�s born prematurely so that he can�t suck well enough yet, I will express till he can. If for some reason I need to be on medication for a short time that he can�t have, I will express till I�m off it, so my supply continues while I�m on the medication. If I have to be on medication for a long time then maybe I can�t breastfeed, but I see no reason why I should be on medication. Hilary said that occasionally some women plan to breastfeed for a long time and then for no apparent reason after like 6 months they get all repulsed by the idea of breastfeeding, and so they stop. She said most of them totally didn�t expect to feel that way as they were planning to let the baby choose when to wean. So I guess I�ll have that in the back of my head incase that happens. But otherwise I totally do not see any reason why I won�t breastfeed Arthur till he chooses to stop. I am happy to tandem nurse if I have another baby before that point too. I just think breastfeeding is so amazing, and I can�t wait to do it!
The only thing that I�m not sure I�ll totally love is smelling of warm/slightly off milk all the time! Well I don�t really know how it smells, but I am not crazy about the smell of milk in any case, and the idea of constantly having the smell under my nose isn�t thrilling, but I will just have to be super hygienic and remember how great it is for Arthur! And how worthwhile it will be for snuggle times with him too. I know that if there are any problems starting out � big or small � I can just phone Hilary. She said to phone any time, day or night, even if it seems like a silly question rather than a problem. She would come to us at our home, and she said she will always be able to help. In the rare instance that she can�t help, she says she refers women to a special clinic (not local though) run by the 2 leading breastfeeding experts in the country! I can�t believe how blessed I am that my area has this kind of support! I had no idea it was so good here. So I feel really happy and confident about breastfeeding.
Today I have been to my 32 week antenatal appointment at the local hospital. My midwife is away with no cover, so I saw the obstetrician at the hospital instead. She was nice and the appointment went well. I am too normal for hospital appointments, it seems! Hehe! She kept asking me about things that might be wrong, and I just kept having nothing to tell her � she didn�t seem to know what to write in my notes or anything, hehe! I told her I have a pregnancy polyp in my nose which gives me nosebleeds, and that I�m seeing the team at Big London Hospital about it. I told her they wanted my maternity care transferred to their hospital, but I just wanted her to know that when they get in touch to try to do that, I do NOT want it to happen! I didn�t bother mentioning my homebirth plans. There�s little point since I am having one regardless of what she would advise. So there :)
My blood pressure was great � 100/70, and my urine was normal with just a trace (one +) of sugar again. She asked about it and I said my blood sugar had come back normal after the ++ of sugar in my last urine sample, so she was fine with that. My kidneys are just spilling urine more than normal, that�s all. I�m not worried, so I�m glad nobody else is! She felt Arthur�s position carefully which is what I was most eager to hear about. She says he is head down, which is great! And that his back is on my left side and all his limbs poking out on my right side, which is about right, since that�s where I feel his feet all the time. He wiggled quite a bit when she tried to pinch his head to see where it was � poor boy! She said, �Oh this baby doesn�t like me! He�s wriggling when I try to feel him.� Poor Arthur! He didn�t seem terribly agitated though. I think I am pretty good at being able to feel when he is agitated or not by how he�s moving. I got a Braxton Hicks contraction right after that and my tummy went all hard, so she waited till it passed before continuing to feel my tummy.
Last night at the breastfeeding class I felt really quite crampy low down. It was different to anything I normally feel because it was like mild dragging period pain very low down. Normally any niggles or cramps that I get are painless, just uncomfortable, and they don�t normally resemble period pain in any way. So that bothered me a little, but it didn�t persist after the class. I felt pretty uncomfy sitting in that chair for 2 hours though. Oooh the other thing that was new last night was like a weird searing pain in the vaginal area. Oo-er, taboo word!! ;) But I am not squeamish about personal stuff (as you are probably well aware by now!), and anyway how else do I explain it without saying vaginal?! That�s where it was. Like a shooting pain from the top to the bottom (and now I think about it, on my right side only) but it was too dull and searing to be a sharp shooting pain. Hmmm. I read somewhere on FF (I think) that vaginal pain like that is caused by pressure on the cervix and the pressure on those nerves is referred down the vagina. Or something. Anyway it kept happening on and off all evening, even after the class. So I wondered if maybe Arthur had dropped a tiny bit lower than normal and was pressing more on my cervix? I haven�t had any sensations so far this pregnancy that he�s pressing on my cervix. He does lie very low but I�ve never really felt pressure down as far as my cervix. Maybe this is the start of it? Anyway I have had no pains like that or crampiness today so that�s good.
Anyway then the doctor listened to Arthur�s heart beating and it was loud and clear and healthy, and she was pleased :) She measured my bump and asked had I had any growth scans. I said no and asked if I had measured outside normal parameters or something (why else would she ask?) � and she said she wanted to measure again because I was measuring a bit small. I thought, �Of course I�m measuring small � can�t you see there�s a dip in the table I�m lying on where the back is raised, and my bump is having to sink into the dip, therefore reducing the measurable part?!! D�oh!� But yeah she measured again, said hmmmm I guess it�s ohhkay (way to inspire confidence!) and wrote in my notes that my bump measures 30cm. To be absolutely �perfect� it should measure 32cm for 32 weeks, but I know it�s fine so long as it�s within 3cm either side of that. The measurement also depends on what position he�s in at the time. Plus I�m not remotely worried because during the week I measured my bump myself (lying completely flat like I should have been allowed to today) and it measured a fraction over 31cm. So pfthth. Arthur is just fine. It annoys me that my notes say 30cm, because that�s not accurate, but oh well. It doesn�t change the fact that he�s growing fine and that it is NOT going to affect my birth plans! Yeah I�m getting quite militant about those the nearer it gets! I feel like a mother animal getting all protective about her birthing environment as the time draws nearer! Woe betide anyone who messes with this nesting mama�s choice of birthing place, hehe!
So it went well. Arthur has been quieter than normal today, but he is still wiggling from time to time. He had the hiccups while I was in the waiting room and during the first part of my appointment. In fact he had them right up to when the doctor started feeling for his position � I said to the doctor that he had hiccups at the moment, and as soon as she poked at him I guess he must have been shocked out of them, because they stopped straight away!
He�s such a sweet little love. When he stretches and wriggles his legs about, I can see the outline of them pushing across my bump and it is all getting clearer and clearer to see every week. He is getting so big. His 32 week stats say that he is now 42.5cm (16.7 inches) long from head to heel, and he now weighs nearly 4lbs � well, on average probably about 3lbs 12oz, but he could be 4lbs already. Yesterday I noticed he was making a weird movement, so gentle that I might not have noticed it if I hadn�t been watching my tummy with my hands laid on it (like I do a lot these days!). He was rocking slightly, back and forth � I don�t know if he was rocking his whole body or just an arm or what, but a large part of him was rocking, just gently. It was very rhythmic rocking, so at first I thought maybe I was picking up a weirdly strong version of my pulse on the surface of my tummy somehow (!) because when I checked my pulse at the same time as feeling this rocking with my other hand, it was almost the same. But that�s just it. It wasn�t quite the same. And after a while I realised it was definitely Arthur moving � it wasn�t pulse-like enough, and I could actually feel his body moving back and forth. Plus he wasn�t keeping in perfect time with my heartrate, because every now and then he�d be a little slower than my pulse or a little faster, or stop for a few beats of my pulse and then start again or correct the speed of his rocking to get it back in line with my pulse rate again. It was so amazing. I wonder if he was rocking to the sound of my heart beating, but I don�t know if that�s possible or anything. Are babies able to mimic rhythm with their bodies at this age? I didn�t know they could do that yet. But I can�t think of another explanation for what he was doing in there. It was too well timed with my pulse to be a random coincidence, but not well timed enough for me to be mistaking my own pulse for his movements. Anyway it was so sweet :) I wanted to take him in my arms and rock him at that moment, sooooo badly. But I love that he can bring himself comfort and pleasure by rocking himself and that my body sounds bring him comfort too. Mummy thinks that this is a sign that he�s going to be musical or something, heh. But actually he probably can�t fail to be, since he has two musical parents and four musically talented grandparents. So yeah. Musical baby :) She also reminded me that I used to rock and rock and ROCK as a baby (and toddler). I broke my cot rocking back and forth over the months, and I used to rock and sing in the pushchair too, and bang my back against the seat in time with my singing. The weird thing is that Daddy used to do the exact same thing (and he is very gifted musically, he is a composer by career and for pleasure), and he too broke his cot from rocking. I wonder if Arthur will be the same?
Well what else about Arthur? He is now beginning to develop his own immune system, which I think is very clever of him! Until now he�s been borrowing from me, and he will continue to use my immune system for a while anyway. He will get regular doses of my immune system in liquid form when I breastfeed him too, which is great.
I can�t think what else I was planning to say because 3 hours have passed since I started this entry � I got phone calls and needed lunch, etc. Oh my appetite is back with a vengeance! Maybe it�s because everything else is falling back into place, like my sleep, etc? Or maybe Arthur is starting another growth spurt. He usually goes quieter when he is growing fast, and he is quieter than normal today. Plus I haven�t gained a single pound in over 2 weeks, and all of a sudden my appetite has gone enormous again, starting with dinner last night and continuing today, so maybe this all points to another baby growth spurt? It probably means I will see the reading on the scales change again soon, but oh well.
Anyway I think that�s it for today! I am going to sew this afternoon. I am making Arthur a waterproof nappy wrap that will fit him over Christmas, and it�s red with Christmas trees printed all over it and gold glitter that miraculously didn�t wash off in a hot wash! So yay, I�m making a cute Christmas wrap for him! It should fit his weight from 10lbs to about 20lbs, so I�m sure that will cover anything he might weigh at Christmas. I am using green PUL fabric (waterproof) for the inside which matches the Christmas trees :) Maybe I�ll post a photo when it�s done, or maybe I�ll wait till I�ve made some more nappies to take one photo of several together and save space in my photo site. It�s soooo much fun sewing nappies!
I need to eat. But I will update again soon, especially when I hear back from AIMS about my homebirth plans. And I will add the belly pic to the gallery either this evening or when I next update. Eight weeks to go!!! :)
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