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2004-09-23 - 12.52pm��previous entry��next entry
33 weeks, 6 days - midwife appointment :)
Thank you for the guestbook entries and the prayers! :)
I had my 34 week appointment with the midwife today! It went really well. Arthur is head down but not engaged yet. I was beginning to wonder if he might be engaged, because just these last few days I have been suddenly peeing a lot more, and I thought maybe my belly was a slightly different shape. But nope, he�s not there yet! She did say his head was �well down� so that�s good! He didn�t mind being felt, and his heartrate was nice and steady and normal. I had blood taken because I said how I�ve been dizzy and breathless and tired, so she just took one tube to test for my full blood count, so see if I�m anaemic. I have been feeling better though, dizzy-wise, so that�s good. Maybe it�ll be okay? My urine was perfect! Nothing in it at all, not even sugar this time! She said she figured I didn�t have my sugary cereal for breakfast this morning, and she was right � I had toast and marmite instead! I guess my kidneys just leak the sugar when I eat sugary stuff. My blood sugar is normal in any case. My blood pressure was fine (115/70) as ever. I had my last Anti-D injection (well, at least till we find out if I need another one when Arthur is born), which hurt but it wasn�t so bad as last time. I said ow ow ow, but then realised what a wimp I was being, since I will be in a whooooole lot more pain with the very same midwife standing by in a month or so!! Anyway I�m glad to have all the needly stuff over with this pregnancy! I don�t think I have any more routine blood tests now for the rest of the pregnancy, unless I am anaemic of course.I did tell the midwife about my noggin and about the big nosebleed and how I�m having follow-up appointments at Big London Hospital, but I didn�t tell her what the ENT team had said about my homebirth plans. I did not want her to have a reason to go all unsupportive over my homebirth. She was actually really nice about the noggin and said what a nuisance it must be for me. I have had to make a billion phone calls to Big London Hospital to find out why they still haven�t sent me an appointment with their ENT people, and finally this morning they gave me an appointment for next Wednesday in the emergency clinic. Apparently I need to see the top docs but their top doc is on holiday till mid-October, so I will have to see a consultant at the emergency clinic instead. Which is fine by me, so long as they do the right thing for me and don�t gloss over anything important. The noggin is growing and picking up speed too, as it nearly fills my nostril again. Tsk. I wish they had just taken the darn thing out when I asked them too. I�m sure it�s going to become necessary, because it has grown back just 2 weeks after recovering from being cauterized, which is not a good sign. I can�t have it cauterized every 3 weeks till I go into labour. It�s too painful and it takes me a week to physically recover from the ordeal, and my nose is stained and weepy and scabby and clotty (yuck) for a whole week after having it cauterized. So that is no good for when I go into labour. But that is what will become necessary if they won�t remove it. So I don�t know what to do. I think it would have been best to have the surgery. If I still need to have that done, I am getting anxious because I�m getting nearer and nearer to my due date, and I need enough time for the surgical wound to heal before labour.Anyway, I have been phoning AIMS all week but they always have their machine on, so today I emailed the chairperson with the whole story, and hopefully she�ll reply and I�ll get some advice on what is the best thing to do.Today my midwife told me that if they have another lady already in labour at home when I go into labour, I will have to go into hospital to have my baby, because they won�t have enough midwives to send out for homebirths. I just nodded and smiled, but I have absolutely no intention of going into hospital if that happens. I have already read somewhere that I am well within my rights to insist that they provide someone to attend me at home, even if they don�t have the staff. Apparently the NHS is required to provide (at their own cost) an independent midwife if they can�t provide their own staff for a booked homebirth. So I am staying at home and refusing to budge if that happens. They are required by law to attend me if I won�t go into hospital. But I wasn�t about to hash that one out with my midwife at my appointment, since she would just get all defensive, and that wouldn�t change anything anyway, so I just smiled and nodded, and hopefully it won�t come to that when I�m in labour! I have asked AIMS about that too, just for extra backup. My next appointment is at 36 weeks, at HOME � yay!!! The midwife is going to bring me a list of things I need to have for the birth, and I can�t WAIT for that appointment!! It means things are really happening, my homebirth is really planned, and it�s getting close to the birth!! I am changing doctors surgeries between now and then � have finally found one that I�m in the catchment area for! But the midwife says it won�t affect my appointments with her because she serves our area as well as the one I used to live in.Well let�s see, what else can I talk about? I�m hot. It�s cool and rainy and windy, but I�m still hot and sticky. Bleurgh. Arthur is very squiggly :) My tummy is moving and lurching like a waterbed as I write this! He�s not going mad kicking or anything, just squirming about gently. I am peeing a lot more lately. Neil noticed it last night too. I can�t sit through a movie without needing to stop the tape and pee, and I am now peeing about 6 times during the night, which isn�t the best fun, but I don�t really mind it. My bladder feels pinched a lot now, and Arthur is feeling really quite heavy in my pelvis these days. I don�t have that sensation that there�s a bowling ball between my legs (!) yet and I can�t feel the pressure of his head when I sit down, so I guess he will drop even lower than this soon and those feelings will come then.Ooooh Arthur got another gift in the post!!!! I am highly excited about it because it came all the way from Canada!! Thank you Andrea!! She MADE Arthur�s gifts � two of the thickest, softest prefold nappies I ever felt (they look like they are sized for an older baby, maybe 12 months ish?) and she also bought him a little baby vest aged 12 months, and ohhh she made him a blanket/quilt!!!! I cried when I opened it up because she had taken all that trouble to sew it herself, and because it has his name on it!!!! I don�t know why, but I am just so excited to have a baby item waiting for Arthur, with his name on it! Just seeing it sitting there in our living room makes the whole thing feel so much more real. I am having a baby. He is coming soon. I have a baby called Arthur. He is REAL!!! Look, someone even made him a blanket with his own name on it! It�s so exciting!! I can�t stop looking at the blanket. Here is a photo of Andrea�s gifts, just because I am that excited about them :)
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