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2004-10-27 - 4.27pm��previous entry��next entry
38 weeks, 5 days - midwife appt
Thank you for the nice guestbook entries! :) Just a relatively quick entry (for me!) to tell you about the midwife appointment today. And oh, I think I lost a bit of my mucus plug this morning!!! I was excited but yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean much. And it was only a tiiiny bit, and not blood-stained or anything. But at least it must mean that my cervix is getting pretty soft and maybe even thinning out and possibly dilating just a tiny bit?? So that's good.
Okay everything went well with the midwife except for one thing. My blood pressure is up. That's the last thing I was expecting, and I'm feeling pretty down about it. My blood pressure has always been so low, and today it was 130/90, which is high enough to worry about. BUT, I had just been rushing about like crazy trying to tidy some stuff in the lounge before the midwife arrived - I even RAN upstairs (didn't know I still could!) with an armful of laundry because I could see the midwife pulling up outside and I wanted to get the laundry upstairs before she rang the doorbell. So consequently I was utterly out of breath when she and her student arrived, and it honestly took me like 5 minutes to catch my breath enough to speak! It was only when she sent me upstairs to do a urine sample that I got the opportunity to breathe and relax for a moment before coming back downstairs. So it could well be that which put my blood pressure up, and they did take that into account.
My urine was fine - no protein, no sugar, etc. Nothing abnormal at all, so that's good too. I don't have any excessive swelling, or a certain pain beneath my breastbone like they kept asking me about. But I have to say, I have had some squiggly silvery things in my eyesight on a few occasions lately, but only when I've um.... just been to the toilet to battle with my severe constipation! So yeah, I put that down to straining or something. But hmmm. And I HAVE been getting headaches over the last few weeks, but my blood pressure has been fine some of that time (the last time it was checked), and they aren't that bothersome. They are always the same type of headache though - like in all the bones of my face and the base of my skull at the back of my neck. It does feel like a pressure in there, but I don't know. My mum says that sounds like a high blood pressure headache, because her doctor once told her that years ago. Oh dear. I have one of those headaches today, and I had one the last 2 days actually. But painkillers sort them out, and sometimes just something like opening a window for some fresh air - so I figured it was due to water retention in my face or stuffy air or central heating or something. Now I'm not sure.
Anyway, the midwife said she would do my other checks and then take my blood pressure again at the end of the appointment to see if it had gone down at all.
The student (who was very nice and looked kind of new to it all!) felt my tummy and listened to Arthur's heartbeat with the Doppler. His heartrate was perfect and everything sounded very strong and healthy. I asked if they could tell me if Arthur is engaged yet, and the midwife said she was pretty sure I was, from the moment she set eyes on me when I opened the door! She said I have definitely dropped, and that I look a different shape. I guess she has really trained eyes because I can't tell if I'm a different shape to the last appointment at all. Anyway then the midwife felt my tummy and said he is engaged. She could feel 1/5 or maybe 2/5 of his head, which means he is engaged. Hooray!! But I was feeling fairly confident of that myself, because of the amount of pressure down there now and the increase in pelvic pain.
He wiggled his legs and pushed his feet around a lot while they were feeling him! It was very sweet. They were pleased because they kept asking me if his movements were okay, once they took my blood pressure. They must have asked me like 5 or 6 times over the whole appointment. He's definitely active enough, which I'm thankful for! Otherwise if he was a quiet baby I would be panicking! They said if his movements become diminished I should not hesitate to go into hospital and be monitored. They told me about high blood pressure causing certain risks to the baby and the placenta (and me as well). They took my blood pressure at the end of the appointment and it was 130/80, which is lower, but still significantly high enough over my normal level to warrant concern :( The midwife is going to come back the day after tomorrow to check it again, and in the meantime I have been told to rest.
If it's still 130/80 on Friday, the midwife said she would send me in for monitoring for a while. She said if it had stayed at 130/90 at the second reading today, she would have sent me in then and there! Yikes! I asked her how high my blood pressure needed to be before it was something to worry about, and she said, "About now really!", but they were very relaxed about the issue in general, which helped me. They didn't scare me by saying worrying things, and they acted calm and like things would be fine, they just wanted to keep an eye on things.
I don't want pre-eclampsia, I don't want pre-eclampsia, I don't want pre-eclampsia. Pllleaaase don't let me get pre-eclampsia Lord. I'm so close to having my baby now, and I desperately don't want anything to go wrong at the last minute. If my blood pressure stays up I will have to go into hospital to be monitored, and if it doesn't look great then I will become a high risk pregnancy with only 1 week to go, and that would be soooo sad :( Because then I would probably not be allowed my homebirth, and what's more I would probably end up having to be induced or even get an emergency caesarean if my blood pressure shoots up suddenly. I just want to be at home, relaxed, with nothing extra to worry about, and welcome my little boy into the world as calmly as possible.
So I'm a bit bummed about that. But everything else looks fine. I mentioned the constipation problem and my midwife wants me to take lactulose. Oh joy. Lactulose (or any substitute) and my IBS do not get on. It just gives me pain and bloating. But she said it sounds as though I need it. And she said the urge to go all the time could be partly due to Arthur's head pressing against my rectum (how nice!) and causing the urge to go. The hard back of his head is pressing me right there, due to his position on my left side facing sideways, so that could well be the problem.
I can't think what else. I am still taking raspberry leaf tablets 3 times a day. I took my blood pressure a couple of times in the 2 hours after the midwife left, after relaxing on the sofa watching TV for a while, and it was 130/80 the first time and 138/78 the second time. Poo. I am going to try to rest as much as possible, and not do anything at all around the house, but the hardest thing will be to relax my mind because I am tense about lots of stuff not being done in time for the birth. It's going to be less easy to relax if I feel restricted from getting those things done. But yeah, I'm not stupid - there is no way I'm doing a THING between now and Friday's midwife appt!! I hope the rest will make a difference to my blood pressure. I am nervous about what will happen otherwise.
No other major things to report. I have had quite a few BH contractions today but not painful ones, and certainly not remotely regular. I feel very pre-menstrual and crampy today, both in the small of my back and low down in the front. I took a shower this morning and found that it felt nice to direct the shower onto the achy parts in my back and belly. So hmmm, that definitely shows I am more crampy than usual. I had an okay night's sleep. Got up to pee unusually frequently though, and am still in a lot of pain when getting up, in my hips and pubic bone. Arthur feels so low now, I can actually feel a pressure like a little hard ball - not as big as a bowling ball though, bulging between my legs! It feels like a hard ball that weighs a LOT is stretching into my pelvic floor muscles like it's sitting in a hammock. It feels weird on my pelvic floor muscles. I noticed this morning when I went to do my pelvic floor exercises (Kegels) that I can't contract as tightly as before, because it feels like there's something huge in the way! Also I think maybe I might be having the slightest tiny bit of stress incontinence occasionally - urgh! Just yesterday and today though, and only the tiniest bit.
So I was going to go to the charity shops today and get some old sheets, but I can't do that now, so I guess I'll have to think of something relaxing to do instead. I can't think of ANYTHING relaxing!! The only things I usually do if I'm lying about are watching TV or playing computer games, which have the potential to wind me up, so that's no good! I don't have the patience to read or just listen to music at the moment. Being really quiet and still makes me very restless and irritable, so I don't know what to do about that. I could take a relaxing bath, but I just had a shower, and I can't just sit in the bath for the next 2 days!! I am happy to relax, but I don't know what to DO to stop me getting bored out of my mind, and which won't make me restless or over-active in my mind. But I'll try. I need my blood pressure to come down by Friday.
Well I think that's all for now. I want to bounce on my birth ball (well, I don't know if I should even do that), but I don't want to do so until my parents are here, because I don't want to risk bringing labour on before they're here! They arrive in 4 days!!!! I'm so glad. It's a full moon tomorrow. That's always a busy time for babies arriving. I hope Arthur hangs in there. But also I hope he doesn't, even if my parents miss his arrival. I'm torn. I want him to be born now, so that all this last minute worrying stuff is no longer an issue and the whole big journey is over with. But I also want him to wait just a few more days so I can have my mum's support at the birth. I don't know. But I don't want to have to give birth attached to IV drips in hospital.
Anyway, that is all for now. I will update again soon. Nine days till my due date....
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