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2004-10-08 - 8.31pm��previous entry��next entry
36 weeks!! - belly pics and lots of updatey stuff
Soooo much to write tonight but ow my back hurts such a lot, so I am going to have to somehow try to keep this brief! Or maybe save it halfway through and finish it later? We�ll see.
Well I�m 36 weeks pregnant!!! Only one week to go before I reach full term and can happily deliver my baby at home!! Yay! If Arthur is following the average, he is 18.6 inches long (47.5cm) and weighs 5lbs 12oz, which is what his mummy and daddy weighed when they were born! Neil weighed exactly that and he was born at 36 weeks. I weighed 5lbs 10oz at term (perfectly healthy). I can�t believe Arthur could be bigger than I was when I was born! It�s just a weird thought. Nice weird, but mind-blowing all the same! According to various fetal development websites, his body is now round and plump due to his fat deposits which are there to keep him nice and warm for when he comes out! He is even getting dimples on his knees and elbows! :) By now his intestines are holding a considerable amount of meconium, which I hope he is going to save for depositing in his soft new nappies, and not before or during his birth! His bones are still hardening but they are nearly there apparently. His gums are slightly ridged with the baby teeth underneath the surface. I can�t believe my little boy is so big and ready for the outside world already! It seems almost yesterday that he was a little �bean� a few millimetres tall. He now has equal circumference of his head and abdomen, and his nervous system is �adequately mature� for outside life! He has a firm grasp and spontaneously turns towards any source of light. Isn�t it amazing?! The websites say from now on his growth will slow considerably. His body fat is about 15% now which is all he needs for being a separate little person to me!
I know he could be born any time he wants and be perfectly fine. He won�t even need assistance with breathing now, not even extra oxygen. He continues to practise his breathing, which I can watch him do, as my tummy does a gentle rise and fall on the side where his back is, as he practises. I would really like him to stay in there till at least next Friday though, because then I know I can have him at home if all is well. It will be such a weight off to know that if my body starts doing it�s thang, I just run a bath or hop into bed, or pace the house or whatever, with no pressure hanging over me to grab the hospital bag, get dressed, contemplate a car journey, etc. Sooo nice. To know that I don�t have to get dressed or go anywhere until I feel up to it in the days or weeks after he is born and in my arms at last.
Arthur got another gift!! Our lovely family friends from California came to England to stay with my grandparents (they did a house swap with my grandparents for a year in 1979 and the two families have been close ever since), and Martha, who has grandchildren of her own now, made Arthur the most beautiful present!! She rears sheep at her home and she is also super talented at crafts and knitting and anything hands-on. She does all the care for their animals herself � delivers the lambs, etc. Anyway, she sheared her sheep, saved the wool, cleaned it, HAND dyed it in the barn, in various shades of the softest blue colours, hand spun it, and knitted it into the most beautiful and soft baby blanket I ever saw! Arthur is one lucky little boy! It is so luxurious. She wrote him a sweet card too (for Arthur himself!), welcoming him from his American friends, and inviting him to visit with his mummy and daddy anytime so he can meet the sheep who donated their wool for his blanket! :) They are such lovely people � we are so blessed to have them for family friends all these years.
Urgh I am not feeling too well at the moment. I feel kind of queasy and lightheaded and exhausted. I think I am just tired, but I so want to write this entry tonight and post the belly picture. I will hurry up.
I have been to the ENT specialists twice since my last entry!! I went on Wednesday and saw the usual consultant, and he cauterised my noggin AGAIN, which recovered even quicker than the last time (i.e. that same day!). It didn�t reduce the size much at all but I was still glad to have it done. Guess what?! I told the consultant that the anaesthetic they usually use doesn�t work on me at all, and he said he would try the children�s one because it�s a slightly different preparation, although I shouldn�t expect it to work. Well, not only did it WORK (yay!!) but as soon as he put it in my nose, I said, �Oooh it smells of banana!� � to which he commented that for some strange reason adults don�t normally seem able to smell the banana (even when asked!) but all the children he uses it on do. So I guess I am still a child after all, hehe! :) Anyway it worked soooo much better than the other one, and although it was a little bit painful after a while, it was much more bearable. He said I really needed to be seen by the top nose specialist at Big London Hospital (gosh!) because he wasn�t sure what was the best thing to do, and it was clear to him that it was getting out of hand despite weekly treatment. So the nice nice nice doctor referred me to the top nose guy (!) and got me an appointment TWO days later (wow!!) which was this morning. So this morning I saw Top Nose Guy, who had two student doctors with him (I love students!). He was so nice, he really listened to me and asked me to tell him everything from MY point of view, instead of just looking at the notes or asking what some other doctor had told me. He showed the students my noggin and they made impressed noises :) He looked at it carefully and poked it with a big long metal thing to see where it�s root was, and then he told me what I�ve already heard a billion times, that it�s a pyogenic granuloma, �somewhat� common in pregnant women, but which can cause varying degrees of bother. He said some women who have them never have any bother from them, and I am the other end of the scale! He said he has never (Top Nose Guy at Big London Hospital remember!) ever seen one as big as mine! I feel kind of proud, hehe! But tsk. Pesky thing. I did feel so relieved to hear that I�m not just moaning about a slight nuisance all this time � it really is extremely rare for anyone to present with one as big and troublesome as mine. Which felt good to hear, like I am not crazy for finding it hard to deal with.
Anyway he didn�t even hesitate, he said it has to come out. He said no wonder the cauterising has not worked, because it is far too big for chemical cauterising. I asked if he would cauterise it anyway today, to reduce it a little while I wait for my surgery, but he said there was little point, and he would put me on an urgent list for surgery. Then I had to take my details to the Day Surgery Unit (long and �urrrgh my pubic boooone!!� walk) and when the receptionist there saw a huge red circled �36 WEEKS PREGNANT� on the card, she went to talk to her supervisor, who booked me in right away for next Thursday to have my surgery! Yay! I am nervous, but soooo glad to be having the thing removed. It was necessary a LONG time ago. Anyway my appointment time is 7.30am!!!!! Yikes! At Big London Hospital, so a 45 minute drive. Oh man. And I may have to wait all morning till I get my surgery, but she said seeing as I�m pregnant, they might let me be done first :) I hope so! I just want it over and done with. Surgery will be under local anaesthetic (scary) and should last about 30 minutes. They�ll use the same injection that they use at the dentist, so it shouldn�t hurt me to have it removed. I told him I am scared about bleeding and about blood going down my throat and making me sick. He said they would operate on me semi-sitting, and yes there will be bleeding, but hopefully they�ll be able to control it by cauterising as they go along. If it bleeds a lot they will pack it. I have to wait 2 hours in the waiting room after surgery to be sure that it�s not going to start bleeding before I get home. I can�t wait till it�s just over and done with, but I�m soooo not looking forward to the actual surgery. I�m also hoping that it won�t end up putting me into labour (which is a small possibility), because I will be 36 weeks and 6 days pregnant, and therefore not quite �eligible� for a homebirth. Tsk. If that happens I am just gonna labour at home without calling the midwife until I�m practically pushing, just to get past midnight so I�m 37 weeks and can call the midwife without a battle about where I should be!!
Um� what else? I am still having stronger Braxton Hicks contractions than before. They are really very uncomfortable now, and I get them quite a lot. If I am in an awkward position or if I�m in the car and the road is bumpy then they do actually hurt and nothing eases the hurting. I�m trying to use them as practise for breathing and relaxing through them. It�s almost automatic to tense up but I have learned that THE most important thing in labour is to relaaaax through contractions. It makes them more effective, and uses way less of your energy. Labour progresses much faster that way too.
I am becoming increasingly frantic about the state of the house these days! I am desperate to get it ready for the birth and for having a new baby around the place, and it�s soooo not ready. It�s full of clutter and dust and totally needs a serious clean. I am working on the clutter but it�s taking ages because I�m not usually feeling up to clearing much at any one time. I am going to get a cleaner in for a day next week, to do all the jobs that come after clearing the clutter! So I am hoping I can hire someone to vacuum the whole house, dust the whole house (serious job, that one!), clean the bathroom and the bathroom floor, clean the kitchen, the scummy bit behind the sink, the oven and the microwave. Those are all just waaaaay overdue for cleaning, and the job is feeling way too big for me now. Neil has too much on to manage it before next Friday, and I want everything READY by next Friday, when I�ll reach full-term and will start waiting for Arthur to arrive. Right now he�s still cooking and developing, but from next Friday I feel like he�s done with the cooking and I am just waiting till he�s ready to come out. Which really could be any time. I guess it sort of could be any time from now really, but yeah, when I reach term it really feels like he�s coming. So I want everything ready or I�ll probably go crazy or something! I have noticed in the last 2 days I have suddenly got more energy than for a while. I am not hugely energetic, but for some reason I am just feeling like I can do things and not fall over with tiredness afterwards, which I haven�t felt for a while. Two evenings ago I went to Homebase and did some shopping for a few things. That was the first time I�d been out in a while, since I�d just been too tired before then. Yesterday I did various things in the house during the day, and then went out late afternoon and did a huge load of shopping at the supermarket. That normally exhausts me but I was okay. I was tired at the checkout and gladly accepted help with packing. People look at me so nervously these days! They look like they expect my waters to break at any moment or something! Hehe! Maybe I really do look that pregnant now? What do you guys think?
Anyway after the supermarket I still had energy to unpack the shopping and make dinner. I don�t know where the energy is coming from since I am not sleeping that great at night. But I�m not complaining!! Today I had to get up early for my appointment so I was tired. I didn�t sleep too well last night because my pubic bone was sooo sore. I kept waking and needing to roll onto my other side but my pubic bone and my hips just hurt too much to turn over. So I would get up out of bed and go for a pee (my pelvis makes the loudest CRACK when I get up from sleeping!) and then fall back into bed on the appropriate side and sleep till the next time I wake needing to turn over!
Oooh I am having a stonking BH contraction right now. Sometimes when I get big ones they really squash Arthur down and make me feel like I need to pee and poo at the same time! This one is making me feel like I am about to pee on the chair so I think I�ll just waddle upstairs and go to the toilet before I write any more!!!
I am back :) I don�t know if Arthur is engaged in my pelvis yet, but he is definitely very low down these days. I feel a lot of pressure in there, especially on my bladder when he moves his head. I can feel whether he�s turning his head from side to side or lifting up his chin. But anything he does with his head is just plain painful! It feels like sharp pinches to my bladder, like, reeeally sharp!! Ow. But in another way I love the feeling because it�s actually his little head that�s moving against me to cause it! I love thinking he has a head � I know that sounds crazy!! But I never really felt his head before it started pinching my bladder. I can�t wait to look upon that little head and its cute little features, and cup it in my hands. Oh he has just started hiccupping! :) My sweetie-boy!
Well what else can I tell you? We are having a new kitchen floor fitted tomorrow morning � yay!!! That�s one big thing to check off my list! When the house is clean and clutter free (next week hopefully!) that will make me feel a whole lot better. I need to finish making Arthur�s birth announcements. I need to start making meals for the freezer. I�m starting that tonight actually! We are having spaghetti bolognese, and I bought 4 times as much minced beef as we need, so I�m gonna cook the whole lot up into one scrummy sauce with veggies in and everything, and then we�ll eat one portion tonight and I�ll freeze 3 portions. I bought a load of cheap freezer boxes in portion sizes when I went to the supermarket. And bendy straws for sipping drinks during labour! I love gathering little things together ready for such a wonderful momentous event!! It�s so exciting!! It�s waaaaaaaay more exciting than even packing or shopping for a holiday of a lifetime!! :)
Okay I can�t think what else there is to say. But I have posted my 36 week belly pics in the gallery! There are two this week, because I decided to do one normal one and one naked belly shot, just so you can see how big Arthur is getting (and me too!). I feel so huge now. Wow this entry was long! My back hurts. But it�s all for the most amazing cause! And this little �cause� and I need some serious spaghetti with plenty of sauce, and ohhh if only I had bought more of that chocolate brownie cheesecake�. gaaaaghhhaahh (drool)�. We ate it last night. Go to Tesco and buy it (if you live in England of course!) � oh man it is so scrumptious!! But yeah, I digress. Spaghetti. Must go and cook it! :)
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