Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2004-11-04 - 2.42pm��previous entry��next entry
39 weeks, 6 days - T minus one...
I can't believe it is my due date tomorrow! I also can't believe I am still here waiting and Arthur is still pushing his little feet around in my side instead of waving them around in the air with very cute little bootees on while I cuddle him! I actually never thought I would go beyond my due date - nobody in my family has, so I figured nor would I. Maybe I still won't? Who knows.
Another uneventful day and night have passed. Absolutely no signs of labour today, yet AGAIN. I slept okay last night. Woke up quite a lot, but slept well when I did sleep. I feel rested enough this morning so that's good. Lots of Braxton Hicks contractions during yesterday afternoon and evening, but that's normal for me now, and I've learnt that absolutely nowt is happening when they are coming thick and fast, so I'm less excited about them now :( I don't feel very periody anymore either. Today I have been bouncing on my birth ball as vigorously as I dare (!!) and that gets very uncomfortable very quickly with the pressure of Arthur's head on my cervix. But that's the idea, so I put up with it and keep bouncing!
The midwife came round yesterday. In my notes, she wrote "T-2" for my gestation, instead of the usual "39+5", which makes it feel a bit more exciting! Although I'm dreading seeing her write anything with a plus sign next to it. My next appointment is Tuesday. Urgh. I don't want to have that appointment! I want to have my BABY!!! I would be 40 weeks and 4 days then, so I hope I will have had Arthur. Next Friday I will "have" to get a hospital appointment so they can pressurise me into being induced the following week. I have no intention of being induced, even if I have to refuse hospital policy (which is probably to induce 10 days after the due date). For one thing, I am NOT post-term until 14 days after my due date, so therefore I won't consider being induced till after that day. And even then, I might prefer to ask them to monitor Arthur daily until I naturally go into labour, because that's perfectly adequate. The only reason to induce is the risk of the placenta starting to fail and therefore endangering the baby, but adequate monitoring of the baby can pinpoint that if it's starting to happen. I would fully expect to have given birth by 14 days after my due date though, or any moment thereafter. So yeah, I will go to the appointment if I haven't given birth by then, but only to tell them I refuse to be induced. Unless of course I am just out of my MIND with impatience by next Friday and can't wait to get strapped to a bed with drips in my arms (heh, as if!).
Anyway the midwife appointment yesterday was okay. My mum was here, and that was nice. My urine was fine, no protein or anything. My blood pressure was the same as always, high for me, 135/80. The midwife said we'd just keep an eye on it, especially during labour, as it depends on the individual as to how labour affects blood pressure. Some people stay the same, and for others it can go up dramatically. I hope mine won't, or I'll have to transfer to hospital.
My belly measures 40cm, so exactly right for 40 weeks. Arthur's heartrate is steady and strong at 140ish beats per minute. He is fully engaged!!! Yay!! I knew he was - well, I was hoping she'd confirm that for me, since I never actually had the experience of knowing whether a baby in my womb is fully engaged before. She said his head was 1-2 fifths palpable. 2/5 is engaged, and 1/5 deeply engaged, so that is great!! No wonder there's so much pressure there now! Honestly, when I get a strong Braxton Hicks and I'm sitting upright, the pressure somewhere inside my buttocks (or just in front of them) is almost overwhelming. Not just a soft pressure either! Sometimes it feels like I am literally in the middle of the most enormous bowel movement, but an extremely hard pressure - sorry about the description, but it's the closest way I can describe the feeling! So he is good and low, ready to come out :) Oh and the midwife said she reckons Arthur weighs about 7 and a half pounds, so that's better than 8lbs! :)
My mum has brought her "homebirth bag" over here - it's really sweet! She has a change of clothes, comfy pyjamas for wearing while I'm in labour, 2 cameras and a million batteries! Hehe! She is going shopping today for nutritious snacks for her, me, Neil and the midwives to munch on during my labour. Yesterday she spent the afternoon here which was nice. I had an hour's nap during the afternoon on the sofa. I didn't really sleep but I did relax deeply and doze off for a little while, and I felt a lot more refreshed for doing that. When I got up I found that Mummy had cleaned the bathroom and tidied some of the fabrics in the spare room! She's lovely :)
I made the sausage casserole yesterday, and it was soooo yummy, we had to eat some of it for dinner last night! I am having a glass of red wine with dinner whenever I feel like it now. I keep reading that it's a good idea right at the very end of pregnancy, and won't harm the baby at all. Some say it has started labour for them, but failing that it will at least relax you for a better sleep at night, so yeah, red wine :) Yum! I froze 2 meals worth of the casserole too, so that's great. I need to make stew, but there's no meat for it yet and I'm too huge to get behind the steering wheel of the car now, so I can't go out! Not that I have the energy to either.
I am just sooooooo huge. When I think of the number of times I have said that in my diary - my gosh, I had no IDEA of what huge really means! I am just massive now. In the last couple of days I have found the faintest of stretch marks on my belly below my tummy button :( I'm so bummed. Why won't he just COME OUT?!!! He's ready, I'm ready, the due date is here - why stay in there making me ache and wait and give me stretch marks when it's unnecessary?!!! It's driving me crazy. But I can't do anything about it. I'm beginning to think all these things that people suggest as labour-inducers are actually myths. Sure they work for some people. But I think they probably "work" because that's when their bodies were going to go into labour in any case. There's no way to test whether they would have gone into labour at the same time WITHOUT having done those things. So I reckon it's all rubbish. I'm bouncing on my ball though, because I know it helps to thin the cervix out if there's pressure being applied to it, and that can either trigger labour, or else make labour shorter when it actually happens, because some of the thinning work is done beforehand. Either way it's worth doing. I think maybe the birth ball would have the same kind of effect as walking a lot. Lots of people have said that walking a lot has started labour for them. Again, I'm not convinced it wasn't just going to happen that day anyway, but even if it DOES work, I can't do it. I'm too unfit and my pelvis hurts too much. I would exhaust myself and that would be really detrimental to labour if it started soon after. So I think the birth ball must have the same kind of effect as walking, surely? What else does walking do, other than encourage the baby down onto the cervix? Hmmm...
Oh, marvellous news - those towels were taking so long in the dryer yesterday because our brand-new dryer is BROKEN. How much does this suck at this stage of my pregnancy?!!! The dryer has no heat function at all. I tumble dried things for 3 hours and they came out just as wet and cold. Stupid machine. And I know that we'll be covered for whatever is wrong with the machine, since we only just bought it, but it's the inconvenience that makes me so angry. They are sure to say they can't get anyone out to us until next week or whatever, and HELLO?!! I'm due to give birth tomorrow! I need to wash cloth nappies from pretty much the moment I have a baby. I need my tumble dryer. Lots of my nappies are thick and won't dry well on radiators. I'm so piddled off about this, but hormones are probably making it seem a lot worse! Everything annoys me. And I've noticed lately that I just feel ill all the time in some way or another. If something emotionally stresses me then I feel it physically almost straight away. Like I am physically stretched to the absolute limit or something. I break out in a weird sweat and get weak and nauseous as soon as I feel upset about anything.
I really want to have my baby now. But I guess that's all my news. Today I have put a laundry load on and am trying to dry it round the radiators and hanging off door handles, etc! At least the washing part of the machine still works! Later on my mum is coming round to see how I'm doing and clean a bit more. I do feel okay today - better than recent days. I think I have a little more energy, but I can't tell if that's because I've slept a bit better for the last 2 nights. I'm just feeling a bit anxious that I'll have to wait into next week before having Arthur (or longer!), and all sorts of pressures come on me at that stage, which I don't even want to think about. I wanted my parents to have at least a week to see Arthur after he was born, but they only have a week left here by the weekend. I hope Arthur will be in the unusual 5% of babies born on their due date! A due date baby would be lovely actually :) And that's tomorrow. I can't believe it. I have "done" forty weeks of pregnancy. I am so ready to have my baby in my arms and my body back to normal now, though I have to say, being pregnant has been one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. I am just so grateful to God for blessing me with a baby, with pregnancy. Thank you so much to everyone who is praying for me. I know prayer makes a huge difference so I value your prayers immensely! I will update again tomorrow if I can, and of course before then if anything happens!
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25