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2004-10-13 - 7.48pm��previous entry��next entry
36 weeks, 5 days - midwife appointment!
Thank you for the guestbook entries again! :)
Tomorrow morning I have my surgery to remove that stupid darn noggin in my nose. I am soooo looking forward to having a clear nose again because it�s been months, but I am pretty scared about the surgery. I just hate surgery, even if there�s nothing to be scared of. I just get scared anyway. And I am scared about how much I will bleed, etc, and whether a ton of blood is going to go down my throat to my stomach and make me feel sick or something. Urgh. I am really not looking forward to it. But once it done I will be so relieved and thankful that I don�t have it in my nose anymore! I am a bit worried about how I�ll physically cope with the early start too. I seem to feel really nauseated and dizzy when I force myself to get up too early these days � and by �too early� I mean like 8am!! Tomorrow we have to be up at 6am, and I am pretty sure I am not going to get a great night�s sleep, so hmmm. Anyway it will all be worth it. I also kind of hope it won�t start labour off, because I would rather go into labour naturally and not because of some high stress/adrenaline incident in a hospital! Although I can�t wait to meet Arthur so maybe that would be okay! But the idea of going into labour imminently is a pretty scary thought for some reason, so I�d prefer to just have surgery, come home, rest up, and get back to my old self and get a few more things done for Arthur�s arrival before he arrives.
Two days till I reach full term!!!! Can you believe it?!! I can�t. I am so thrilled because from 2 days time I can have my homebirth if I go into labour! Yay! And Arthur will be 100% ready to be born. He now weighs roughly 6lbs and is about 19 inches long. That�s newborn birth weight really, so that�s exciting/amazing to think about!
Yesterday I was really busy. I did too much as it happens, I felt really quite unwell by the evening, so that�s not great, but I got loooads done! I went supermarket shopping. I bought all the Christmas cards and I wrote and addressed 21 Christmas cards!!! I signed them all from Alice, Neil and Arthur, which was soooo exciting!! I figure I�m SO sure he�s an Arthur that I could pretty safely sign the Christmas cards before he�s even here. If by some unlikely fluke he is not an Arthur, then I will just have to buy a whole lot more Christmas cards and write them again! But I�m sure. He�s definitely a boy. And he�s definitely Arthur. So anyway I have written about half my Christmas cards. I have just finished washing allll the rest of the newborn nappies and wraps too! I discovered I DO have a newborn size Bummis Super Whisper Wrap, in Noah�s Ark print. It�s well used though, but it�s washed and ready for Arthur all the same. I also forgot to add to the newborn nappy list that I have 3 Honeyboys (homemade all-in-ones) in newborn size, and a pocket AIO that I made too. That was not meant to be a newborn one though, it just came out smaller than I expected, and I heard pocket nappies are not so great for newborns with breastfed poo! But yeah, it�s there. I also counted up the nappies and wraps in size 1, for after he grows out of his newborn nappies, just to be sure he has enough of them. I was amazed, because it turns out that he has 8 Kissaluvs (2 coloured, the rest unbleached), 7 Tots Bots (4 white, 2 unbleached, 1 coloured), 4 Honeyboys, 1 small Cuddlebun, 8 cute flannel print Tots replicas with fleece inners (homemade), and 4 towelling homemade Tots replicas! So looooads of nappies! And he has 2 Bummis SW wraps, 1 ME rikki wrap, 1 Tots PUL wrap, 3 fleece wraps (2 are homemade) and 1 Disana wool wrap!!! So I don�t need to make a single extra nappy for his collection � yay! I do have 3 half-made wraps in that size though � 2 are Christmas prints. So I�ll finish those at some point soon. And I have a half-made newborn wrap to finish. And four size 1 nappies in various stages of construction! So there�s a bit of sewing to finish off, but not anything that�s necessary. He has quite a good collection of size 2 (up to potty training!) nappies too � 6 Cuddlebuns, 3 coloured Tots Bots, 4 Tots replicas (cute prints and velour inners), 2 pocket AIOs and one normal AIO, and a full set of 6 Bright Bots flat terries. He also has one battered old fleece Redrap, SIX Bummis in size large (and 2 in size medium), one ME airflow wrap (very battered), a Kooshies wrap that I don�t plan to use on him because it looks like it will feel crappy against his skin, and two wool wraps! I had no idea I had been amassing such a good stash for him! I�m glad, because it means hardly anything needs buying or making for a long long time.
Anyway so after I sorted the nappies, I made the nappy pail liners, at LAST!! I have made 2 for each pail (we have two � one for white/unbleached nappies, and the other for coloured ones). I made the white nappy pail liner out of pink PUL, but I washed it on hot first with some white sherpa to check that it didn�t leak any colour. It didn�t, so I made the liners :) I used my green PUL for the two liners for the coloured nappy pail. I made the tops of the liners elasticated so they grip nicely round the rim of the bucket and don�t pull off easily. Then I put a liner in each bucket and they are all ready for dirty nappies to go in them!! I feel so excited about that!! :)
I tidied up a bit but didn�t get much done because I felt exhausted. In the evenings I never feel good anymore. I get nauseous, although not awful like with morning sickness. Just queasy like there�s a huge pressure against my stomach and it makes me want to barf. Well, not WANT to, but you know! I do seem to be able to eat okay, once I have eaten a few mouthfuls of dinner, then I seem to pick up and feel better, so maybe I just need to eat proper meals more or something? I eat well and don�t seem to need to reduce my portions because of having less room or anything, though I am noticing I don�t have room for dessert like I used to a month or so ago. Which is a shame because I am LOVING dessert at the moment!! Today I have snacked most of the day away. I just felt like tomato soup about an hour or two after my lunch, so I had some. And then I wanted chocolate. And then an apple. And then a Crunchy cereal bar. And then another apple. And so on! I don�t know if I�ll have room for dinner as a result, but I hope I will because it�s sausages and mash and MAN I love that meal!!! Mmmmm�. Food has never been so great as when I�ve been pregnant, and I�m so grateful for that experience! :)
I also seem to get kind of funny in my head in the evening. I am getting weird headaches more now, but they are in the bones of my face more than anything else. Normal painkillers sort it out though, thankfully. I think maybe it�s water retention or something putting pressure in there. I get hot flushes in my face some evenings now too � yesterday my face was burning painfully like I had a fever, and my eyes stung with it and my cheeks were flaming red, but I didn�t have a fever. In fact my temperature was a little below normal for me, so I don�t know what that was about! It did happen a couple of nights ago too though, so I don�t know. It�s not that warm now, but we have started to have the central heating on as a result, so maybe it�s my body adjusting to artificial heating? I don�t know. Anyway I hate to feel that hot and not be able to cool down. The rest of my body is normal temperature so the fan just gives me chills.
The midwife came to my house today for my 37 week appointment � a bit early but oh well! It was so exciting because this is the first appointment where she�s come to my house, and it�s THE appointment where final plans for the homebirth are laid down � yay!!! She brought a box full of stuff that I have to �put to one side� for the birth. I was desperate to nose into it, but it�s sealed with tape (tsk!). There is a list of what is inside taped to the lid, so at least I could read what was in it. Reading it really brought it home to me that I am about to have a baby. Not �going to� have a baby, but �ABOUT to�!!! How much more excited can I possibly get?!! I am just taut with excitement all the time, hehe! Maybe that�s why I get so hot and bothered?! Anyway, here is what the box contains:
* One delivery pack
* One suture pack (for stitching me if required)
* Sterile gloves (2 pairs each of 3 different sizes)
* Lotion
* Inco pads x 6
* Sanitary towels x 6
* 2 large rubbish bags
* White paper bag to leave in home (not sure what this is for!)
* Cord clamp
* Mucus extractor
* Plastic sheet
* Plastic aprons (white/green)
* Baby pack and tape measure
* Non-sterile disposable gloves x 2 pairs
It�s all just sitting here ready for Arthur!! I can�t believe I have a complete sterile delivery pack sitting in my living room, waiting to be used as I give birth to my little boy!! Yikes! Also the midwife gave me a list of things I need to provide for the homebirth. We have most of it already because it�s things like clothes for the baby, thermometer, nursing bras, changing mat, blankets, old towels, old sheets, plastic sheeting or shower curtains, nappies, top and tail bowl, etc. But there are things on it that I didn�t think about, like 2 pillows covered with plastic bin liners (!), hot water bottle (needs to be filled in preparation for midwives� arrival during labour for some reason!), suitable clear work surfaces (for the midwives to lay out the sterile packs, etc), tray (to hold portable delivery pack items incase I end up delivering in the bathroom or some other place we�re not expecting me to be!), portable heater, saucer/small plate for holding syringe (syringe of WHAT, that�s what I�m wondering!), angle-poise lamp for assessing perineum after the birth and to aid suturing if required, and bucket to hold disposal bag. Some of these things we don�t have yet. I think we are going to ask people at church if anyone has an angle poise lamp or portable heater we can borrow, because we don�t have those things and they aren�t that cheap to buy. We only have one old towel, and the midwife said we should have four, and in fact I should probably have 6 since I�ll be in and out of water during labour. She said she wouldn�t advise buying new towels, however cheap, because they need lots of washes to get the absorbancy up to par, and also they will be thrown away after the birth as they are likely to be very stained. She did say old towels are useful to have while I�m still bleeding heavily though, for when I want to take a bath, so as not to bleed on our normal towels. Good advice! But I don�t know where we�re gonna get old towels. The thing with old towels is, they are usually �old� because they are worn and no longer soft, and can be quite harsh and without much pile left. I am not crazy about something like that against my skin during labour or when tenderly nursing my sore-self after the birth! One of the old towels is supposed to be for Arthur when he�s born (as well as a non-old towel), but no matter how messy he�s going to make the towel, I don�t want him to have an old scratchy towel against him at any point. So I�m not sure what to do about towels yet. We also don�t own any old sheets, but the list says we need 2, and the midwife has suggested we might need more, because we might want to cover the sofas with shower curtains and old towels on top as well as the floor. We don�t have shower curtains, but my friend Yvonne gave me great advice about that � they are apparently 97p at Tescos!! So that�s where I�ll get the shower curtains. Crazily enough, we don�t have a tray either � which seems to me like it should be a common household item that everyone and anyone owns! So we need to buy a tray or maybe borrow one.
Last night I phoned the birth pool company that we�re buying the pool from, and asked them about drainage. Hmmm. It doesn�t look like draining the pool is going to be that straightforward. There are 3 options � bale it out with buckets (greeeaat!!), and it will hold approx. 50 bucketfuls, so that will be a fun fun task for someone after a long day/night! The second option is buy a drill pump to attach to an electric drill, and that will slooowwwly pump water out down the hose pipe and into an outdoor drain or the kitchen sink. I am not thrilled about emptying a birth pool down the kitchen sink, but we have no other options really. Our outdoor drains are bricked over, and the toilet is upstairs (thus defying gravity for the drill pump option!). A drill pump apparently costs about �15 and takes about 2 hours to empty the pool. The only other option is to buy or rent a submersible pump, which will empty the pool a lot quicker and if we have a long enough hose pipe, it should pump the water up the stairs and into the toilet. But it�s expensive, and I don�t know where to get one anyway. So yeah, I�m not sure about the drainage issue.
My back is hurting soooo much. Anyway, the midwife did my antenatal check, and all is well. My blood pressure is still nice and low � 115/65. There was nothing at all in my urine, despite having pigged out on chocolate and sugary cereal this morning before she arrived, hehe! My blood test results from my 34 week appointment were great � all normal, and my haemoglobin was 12.9!!! That�s even higher than the 28 week one! So I don�t know why I felt dizzy back then. I guess it can�t have been iron after all, though I�m sure I started to feel better when I had increased the iron in my diet and gone back on the prenatal vitamins with iron. Hmmm. Anyway I am pretty pleased with myself for such a great haemoglobin count after all that bleeding from my nose! :)
Arthur is measuring right on target again, and the midwife says he feels a good size. She says he feels exactly right for 37 weeks, not too big or too small, which was lovely to hear! His heartbeat sounded lovely and strong. He is still head down of course, as he has been for months now. She noted his position as LOL � meaning his back is on my left side, and his head is flexed with his chin against his chest ready for the birth, and his body and head are directly sideways-on to my body, neither posterior (facing my tummy) or anterior (facing my back). She said he is lining up nicely for birth :) I asked if he was engaged yet, and she said his head is 3/5 in relation to my pelvic brim. I know it�s not described this way in the States so I�ve been looking online for a way to translate it, but I haven�t figured it out yet! Basically when she can feel 5/5 (or the entire part) of his head, he is floating. 2/5 is considered �engaged� because only 2 fifths of his head are palpable above the pelvic bone, so the largest part of his head is through the pelvis, and he is therefore engaged. 1/5 is described as �deeply engaged�. Anyway Arthur is 3/5, so he�s well on his way :) The midwife said I could probably feel him lower down sometimes and then feel like he�s risen up at other times, especially when lying down at night. But yeah, I�m happy with 3/5 � it feels to me like he�s well on his way, but he�s not so deep in there that I have all those discomforts associated with deeply engaged babies yet!
I have been getting some really uncomfortable numbness and tingling in my left shoulder blade for maybe a week or more now, and it�s there more and more of the time these days. It�s not like pins and needles, it�s more of a tingly buzzing sensation that�s a nuisance rather than painful or anything. So I asked the midwife about it, and she said my ligaments all over my body are really loose now for labour, and that includes all the ligaments in my back. If my back is a bit wonky (which, as it goes, I discovered it IS when I saw my osteopath), then the adjustments caused by the looser ligaments could mean that some bone is pressing on a nerve and causing tingling or numbness. So that�s all it is. I�m glad my body is doing all the right things to get ready for giving birth! It�s reassuring somehow! I also noticed recently that if I kneel on the floor (or even on a soft surface like the bed) in such a way that my legs are folded in half � not the �kneeling up� type � then it only takes maybe 1-2 minutes for my knees to get painful, and when I try to open them out again they seem to have stuck in position a bit, and make the most awful crack as they pop out again. It�s really painful too, so I try not to kneel like that anymore! I guess that�s just loose ligaments as well.
Okay what else can I say? I�m not sure what else I had to say but my back is hurting me soooo much sitting at this angle so I will have to finish for now. I�m so sorry about all the emails I owe people � I feel so rude! Especially Cristie who I really really owe some emails to! And especially loads of people actually. So sorry � I will get there eventually (unless I suddenly have a baby, and then forget it people, I will be out of action on the email front for some time!!). Anyway I just wanted to say again that I am not ignoring anyone purposely, I am just really really bad at emails and I need to write so much in my diary when I�m here now, that by the time I�m done I am too sore somewhere or other to stay at the computer anymore! I do read them all though, so thank you to everyone who has emailed me recently :)
I will update again asap to let you know how the surgery went and whether it made me have a baby (!!) - but of course I will also update for 37 weeks! :) Full-term... I can't believe it!!!
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