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2004-11-05 - 12.02pm��previous entry��next entry
40 weeks pregnant - due today!!!
Me again! *sigh* Yes, I'm still here, and yes, today IS my due date!! I have managed to reach 40 weeks pregnant! I will put a belly pic in the gallery later today when Neil is home to take one. I want the last photo in the gallery to be one taken in early labour or something, so this might not be the last one. But if I go into labour tonight or something then this will be the last photo. Wow. I wouldn't take another one for another 2 weeks, and I hope to God I don't get to 42 weeks! So this should be the last one!
Thank you Jennifer and Judy for your guestbook messages - they encouraged me a lot to hear about your experiences. I was also reassured to hear that you can be feeling perfectly normal and non-labourish and still go into labour any time! Yay! I hope that will happen soon. Because yet again, absolutely NOWT is happening.
Yesterday my mum came round again and we chatted and then watched a movie (About A Boy), and after that it was early evening, and I started to get my usual barrage of Braxton Hicks contractions. I really do get frequent, pretty regular contractions every evening, it's weird. They were more uncomfortable last night than they've ever been, ranging from very uncomfortably tight to mildly painful, so Mummy started timing them. They were five minutes apart. She got kind of excited until I told her that they are that frequent and regular every evening! Am I weird?! I don't think they are meant to be so well patterned if it's not real labour, but it's NEVER real labour all the same. Sometimes they are more like 2 or 3 minutes apart too. Well of course they lasted maybe an hour or so and then faded out. They didn't bother me because I am used to them and don't have any expectations at all that they might be the start of labour.
Last night we finally got desperate enough to have sex! I think the last time was to put Arthur IN there, hehe! So this time we were hoping to encourage him out, having read about prostaglandins in semen being a good thing to ripen the cervix, etc. Anyway yeah, I am just too ungainly, huge and uncomfortable for sex. Plus urgh, I can't imagine why on earth anybody has sex - it is that repulsive to me these days! And then after all that, nothing happened as a result. Tsk. I don't know if I am desperate enough to try that again in a hurry! Maybe next week... Anyway it didn't work, so there's not any particular reason why it would work another time either. I'm just going to have to wait.
Still bouncing on my birth ball. I've stopped taking the raspberry leaf tablets. I don't know why. Just noticed I haven't remembered to take any in the last four or five days. Oh well. I feel really down and despondent about things today. I guess I am not good at dealing with the very end of pregnancy, since I've been pretty down and grumpy in most of my recent diary entries! Sorry! I try to think positive, and there's loooads of positive things, but I just FEEL down.
Oh, and another really joyful thing is that my noggin is definitely still in my nose, despite having been "completely removed" during surgery. I'm so fed up about that. Yesterday I had my first nosebleed from it since the surgery, so I had to look at it with a torch and such, and yeah, it's growing quite big. I feel like crying about the stupid thing - it seems like nothing can make it go away, even the top nose specialist at a big London hospital and surgical removal. I'm so upset that it's made life so miserable for me during my pregnancy, and here it is starting again :( Anyway, what can you do? I just have to put up with it and hope it will go away after I'm not pregnant anymore. I somehow doubt that's gonna happen though, since it's defied all the other expected norms. And I don't have a referral to the Top Nose Guy anymore, since he discharged me saying that I wouldn't have any further problems :( Pesky buggery thing.
Today I got the dreaded email from Babycentre, telling me why my newborn is sleeping and feeding like he is, and encouraging me to hold and talk to him a lot, as he will watch me intently and learn to mimic my facial expressions. I cried like a baby reading that stuff - in fact it's making me tear up just writing about it. I want him to be here, I want to be doing all those things. Babycentre knows it's time. I know it's time. I know he will be here very very soon, but in the meantime, he's NOT here. I can't hold him in my arms yet, and they are starting to feel achy like they are physically programmed to be curled warmly around his little form by now, and the fact that they are not is hurting them or something. I still LOVE to feel him moving inside me and wiggling about, but I don't know.... Something aches and makes me cry when I think about him still being inside when I am soooo ready and longing for him to be in my arms.
I really do feel like my body will never go into labour. It feels as impossible and surreal as when I could not imagine ever getting pregnant, or seeing those lines on a pregnancy test. It just felt like I was genuinely incapable of that experience for some reason. Labour and birth now feels the same way. I know all these BHs are a great sign that my body knows how to contract its uterus and therefore probably will start doing so with some useful intent fairly soon. But I just FEEL like my body will never do it, and I'll have to have drugs administered to get him to come out. Or something. It's depressing.
Today and yesterday I spent a fair few hours playing Theme Hospital on the playstation. It's distracting and entertaining, and while I play that, I stop caring that I haven't given birth yet. I just think how I want to improve my hospital and win the level, and normally that used to depress me because what a trivial thing to be focused on while life rushes by! But right now it's helpful. I NEED to stop being so bothered by the fact that I haven't given birth. If that means worrying more about meeting the requirements for a level on a game then so be it. Plus I get to lie down on the sofa while I play it, so I am conserving my energy! Or something :)
I guess Mummy is coming round again later today. Last night she and Daddy were kind of excited about my contractions and said they might see me during the night! They would be waiting for my phone call. I know they were excited and thinking it was starting to happen, because they phoned late in the evening to see if everything was okay. Unfortunately we were, erm, having sex at the time (!) so we let the machine get their message. Good old parents ;) They would be mortified if they knew they had disturbed us! Hehe!
Neil phoned someone about our broken (NEW!) tumble dryer, and they sent someone round TODAY!!! Yay! But the bad news is that the thermostat is broken and they have to order a new one, which won't be here until next Friday. Grrreat. I told the guy I will be washing cloth nappies pretty soon, and he said I can still use the washing machine part, just not the tumble drier. Oh well. At least they'll come and fix it at the end of next week I hope. Not too long. If I have to wash nappies in that time, I'll try to use the slim fitting ones that I made, with boosters if necessary, because they will dry much better on the radiators than the Kissaluvs or Tots. I'm sad about that because my favourites ARE the Kissies and Tots! Oh well. Maybe he won't even be here by then :(
Oh pllleeeeeaaase come soon Arthur!!!! I keep telling him how much I'm longing to meet him, but he just shovels his little feet around and seems perfectly happy to be where he is. He has had hiccups today and lots of wiggles, but he's asleep at the moment I think. Everything is ready. Everything. We have 3 old sheets. Five shower curtains. 2 old hand towels. Five old bath towels. One hooded towel for Arthur when he's born. One old dishevelled (but clean!) bathrobe for me when I get out of the birth pool at any stage. One heater. One birth pool. One pump, a hose, a sievy thing for the pool, thermometer, birth pack, birth ball, TENS machine, a mountain of nutritious (and not-so-nutritious!) snacks for us all to nibble while I'm in labour, a freezer full of good easy meals for after the birth. One engaged baby. One set of hovering grandparents-to-be. And one extremely fed-up mother-to-be. I hate waiting when everything is so ready!! If everything wasn't ready I could channel some frustration into finishing things off, but all I can do is sit and wait, and my brain gets to wondering why it's not happening, and if it ever WILL happen. Urgh.
Anyway. I guess I have nothing else to report. I'm not sure what to do today. I didn't get enough sleep last night so I should probably nap later, but I feel quite wide awake at the moment. In fact today and yesterday I have had more energy than the previous days. Not loads more but some, noticeably.
UKparents has disappeared from existance online :( I'm really bummed because I had a group of ladies there that I was part of, all due in November. We have kept up with each other's pregnancies since we became pregnant and now the site has suddenly been pulled from existance without any warning, so I'm bummed about that. I was looking forward to seeing their babies born and announcing Arthur's birth. One lady had her baby 2 days ago, that's the last thing I know, on her due date. A lady in another buddy group online has had her baby, and she was due the day after me so I am feeling kind of squished about that too. I'm so happy for her, but yeah I guess I'm crappy because I feel cross that she gets to have her baby and she wasn't even due before me! *sigh*
I guess Arthur isn't going to be a due date baby, or I would probably have some signs of labour by now. It's likely to last a while so even if I went into labour now (midday), he would probably end up with a birthdate of tomorrow's date, the 6th. I just keep praying and praying that he'll come soon. Sometimes I am cross or absolutely begging God to help me give birth SOON!!! But other times I am better about it and I trust God with the timing, whenever it might be. I wish I felt like that all the time, because it's so much less stressful just to trust God! I DO trust him, but at the same time I can't believe days are going by and Arthur still isn't here. I don't understand why I can't just have him now, since there's no reason why he has to stay in there any longer, and I'm asking God for him now.
The repair guy didn't even ask me when my baby was due :( That would have cheered me up for my whole day probably, to be able to answer someone, "He's due today actually!" But he didn't even ask :( I am sooo touchy and sensitive about the slightest things at the moment. I almost want to go out to some shops or something, purely for the opportunity for someone, ANYone, to say, "Ooh when's your baby due?!" so that I can feel the thrill of saying, "Today!" But that's just stupid, and I'm too uncomfy and tired, and I haven't got anywhere to go or any reason to go out. So I won't. Man I need to cheer up.
Will update again soon, or as soon as there's news - oh and I will post that belly pic later on. Probably in another 7 hours, since that's the earliest Neil will be home to take my photo. My stretch marks are getting more noticeable on my bump :( And my bump has gone very itchy now. Please can I just have a baby now?
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