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2009-05-26 - 12:38 a.m.��previous entry��next entry
33 weeks, 4 days (well, 5 now!) - lots and lots of BHs tonight...
[I wrote this entry yesterday afternoon but never got to finish it as we're having trouble with our internet connection 90% of the time (highly annoying!!!!). I know it's unfinished, but I have finally got online at last and it's 11.30pm already so I can't finish it, but I wanted to post what I'd written before it's old news or something!]
I'm nearly 34 weeks! The speed of time is really astounding to me!
I have so much stuff to write, just bits and pieces, that I have been wanting to write for most of this last week, but I haven't had chance. The internet is being sluggish for us (not sure why) and also I have had a few early nights lately as I seem to be getting soooo tired. I get really bad restless leg syndrome in the evenings - the more tired I get, the worse it is. So I flail about on the sofa trying to catch-up online and stuff, and eventually the leg-flinging gets too ridiculous and irritating (!) so I give up and go to bed. I have had pretty bothersome RLS (and arms, for that matter - I'm weird like that!) all my life that I can remember, but it does tend to be a little worse during pregnancy. I'm thankful that at least I'm used to it! I feel for people who have never had it before and get it as a by-product of pregnancy! It must be awful if you've never had to put up with it before.
I think it was about a week ago (Tuesday, I think - it's Sunday today) that I had a really HURTY baby bump for the best part of the day, and worse in the evening. It felt like a band several inches wide, all the way around the lower part of my bump and over my hips and the small of my back. It just HURT all the time, not like contractions or waves of discomfort or pain. In my right side just above and inside my hip, it felt like a huge bruise or a badly pulled muscle. I never felt anything like that before so I was a bit concerned, especially with how distracting and constant it was. The "band" felt like it was under pressure all the time and a heavy pressure at that. I wondered if it was a bladder infection or something (didn't seem like it, and I was having no other symptoms), because I had to pee 4 times that night! I am currently having to get up in the night to pee 2 or 3 times every night now, so that's not tooooo far out of the norm I suppose.
Anyway, the next morning I reached down to my tummy as I lay in bed, to feel the baby, and found a VERY obvious head not far below my tummy button level in my left side!!! Aaaargh! I felt kind of unsettled at the thought that my baby might have turned transverse (the rest of the baby seemed to be curled up in a ball but not lower than the head) at 33 weeks! But it did explain the band of pain and discomfort and the bruisey feeling with pressure from inside. Not the 4x night-peeing though! ;)
Well, by that evening I couldn't feel a head in my side any more so I lay on the sofa and had a slightly more vigorous (!!) feel for the baby's position, and discovered his little head down in my pelvis after all! :) So, I don't know what that was about. I STILL have a bruised feeling in my left side/inside my left hip, but it's gradually fading off. If the baby kicks me there or pushes his feet there, it HURTS like someone pushing on a bruise or strained muscle. I can't figure out what has caused it, or if it's a strained muscle (or how I did it, if so!) but I'm glad it fading off.
I've been very low on energy this week, but this weekend I seem to be having a spurt of energy, which is nice! I get breathless and tired out standing up and talking (that's all!) and have to sit down and catch my breath a lot throughout the day, but apart from that kind of tiredness I don't feel TOO exhausted at the moment. This weekend is the first really warm summery weather this year, and I am not good with heat (as you'll know if you've read me for a while!). It makes me feel actually ill for a good few weeks till I start to adjust to it, and even then I find it draining and hard to cope with, even when I'm not pregnant. I don't know why! It's just how I have always been. Less so as a child, but definitely from my late teens if not before. Being heavily pregnant in the summer isn't exactly THRILLING to me, shall we say! ;) I have done it once before, with Matthew (who was born in the middle of June at 41 weeks) and that was a very hot summer here. It was noooo fun. I keep hearing that this is going to be a hot summer here too (and I wouldn't be surprised, seeing how I'm going to be heavily pregnant and the last time we had a hot summer I was too, haha!). I have bought a few new maternity clothes to try to keep myself cool enough - a pair of linen knee-length shorts that are soooo cool to wear (I'm wearing them now!) and actually big enough to go over my butt! ;) They're size large, which everything NEEDS to be for me by the end of pregnancy, even though I'm nowhere near a size large when not pregnant! I get so huuuuuge by the end of pregnancy. I have no idea how much weight I've gained now (last weighed myself at 29 weeks) but it certainly feels like a LOT. I'm huffing and puffing everywhere, hardly fitting any of my jeans, shorts or trousers around the bum and thighs (urgh) - everything is tight to full stretch over my bump as well now - and just feel HEAVY when hauling myself around the house! ;) I am slightly dreading to see how much I weigh, even though I can't believe I'm saying that, since obsessing over weight-gain during pregnancy is a huge peeve of mine! Tsk! I don't feel overly comfortable with how I look lately, except for my lovely baby bumpety! That's always a beautiful thing! :)
Anyway, not long to go now!
I have started actively working on the Baby Preparation (to-do) list. I didn't say this last entry, but when Neil and I prayed about whether to take our house off the market when we had an interested viewer (who had made an offer a while back), I really felt like God was saying this baby is coming sooner than we think. Honestly, that slightly freaked me out, and I felt oddly totally unconfident of my ability to discern God's voice from my own thoughts/anxieties, so I have put it sort of to the back of my head, asked God for confirmation if it's really from him, and left it at that. I don't want to act on it if it's just my own head churning that kind of thought out, and not God speaking to me at all! But, I communicated it to Neil, and we have quietly stepped up our efforts to get things ready for the baby, just in case. It can't hurt to be a little better prepared, can it?! Even if I go to 42 weeks in the end, haha! ;)
I checked my cervix yesterday, for the first time this pregnancy! Now, I am always CAREFUL, don't worry! I don't go poking about and disturbing stuff. I know what I'm feeling for and I am very careful. So my cervix was RIGHT THERE and very soft and stretchy. Also easily admitted a fingertip and if I wasn't being careful I could have probably admitted two, but I didn't try. It didn't feel particularly effaced (thinned out) though and I couldn't feel the membranes or the baby's head, so that's something. I think this is normal for me at this stage of pregnancy - I checked between 30 weeks with Nathan and had a very soft cervix then too. With Nathan I could feel his head really clearly too, but he was VERY low in my pelvis compared with the others. I also checked my cervix with Matthew at 37 and 39 weeks. I couldn't find it at 37 weeks as it was so high, but at 39 weeks it was like it was yesterday, low and soft, and easily admitted a fingertip. I couldn't feel his head though (unlike Nathan - I wonder if that had anything to do with my waters breaking early??).
Yesterday I went to Tesco on my own! :) I didn't go for food, just to search out some stuff to tick off my list (ours is HUGE and has non-food stuff over 2 floors). Neil had taken the boys to the park so it was a good time to go, especially with a little burst of energy. I got tired OUT walking round Tesco for ages with a trolley, and very thirsty too. I began to have Braxton Hicks contractions that took me a while to identify. I'm not used to noticing them whilst walking around. Usually I really notice them in the evenings when I'm resting on the sofa or something, or sitting on the floor with the boys in the day time. I kept having moments (sort of 30-60 seconds) where I couldn't walk too well because my bump just felt too tight to move anything connected to it! I couldn't move my legs close to each other to walk, and felt breathless with the tightness. I thought maybe the baby was pressing in a certain way or something the first couple of times, as the pressure felt immense low down and very uncomfortable, and I would feel like I needed to wee or something till it went away. Only when it happened for a third time, about 10 minutes after that last one, did it dawn on me that these were probably mild contractions! They didn't hurt at all, just were very uncomfortable, so I knew they were just BHs. I continued on, but the next one came about 5 minutes later, and they got closer together. By the time I waddled/leaned-on-the-trolley to the checkout with my stuff, they were every 2-3 minutes! I felt a little bit anxious about the way it felt, and wanted to get out of the supermarket and rest myself sitting down (there was nowhere to sit down in there) and have a long cold drink. I felt too hot and very thirsty, so that was probably the whole cause of it.
I was still having BHs aplenty when I got home, but I rested up more, sitting down all the time, and they must have eased off because I don't remember having trouble with frequent BHs after that. I did drink plenty when I got home too, and had a drink that I'd bought in the car before leaving the car park. With this warmer weather, I MUST remember to drink more! Which is a good reminder - I'll just pause to get a glass of water! :)
Ack, that was no good! I drank 2 glasses of water, but added a jam doughnut that I'm sure I didn't really need! *sigh*
Anyway, so I got a good few things at Tesco, which was exciting! I bought various things (sun hat for Arthur, measuring jug, etc) but will only list the things I bought that relate to baby preparation! ;) I bought:
* 2 packs of disposable maternity pads
* box of 40 breastpads (this makes me laugh as I will need more like four HUNDRED breastpads, but hey ho, 40 is a good start! ;) )
* 2 packs of Tesco's own brand newborn nappies (there are no other brands that perform better, in my experience) - 48 nappies to start off with
* 2 big packs of cotton wool pleats - even when we use cloth wipes, we always start with cotton wool for the first couple of weeks, I guess because we've always been told to or something! ;) It's softer and seems better suited to a brand new teeny tiny bottom and boy parts! We have used cotton wool balls before now but they're fiddly and pesky and too small, so I bought lovely thick pleats this time! We use them with water.
* 2 soft/medium pillows and 1 firm pillow, for breastfeeding and possibly for birthing support (or swap for the older ones on the beds for this purpose!)
* a few cheap (�1!!!) garden toys for the boys, like watering cans, sand toys, etc, for extra activities to occupy them when I'm too pregnant to do much with them, or have a new baby attached to the breast all the time.
* I also bought a few things for the activity boxes I plan to make for the boys. I'll write more about those later.
I've put all the baby and maternity items in a box in the bedroom so they're all together. I'll be taking some of them out to put in a hospital bag soon, and it's handy to have them all in one place. It was so exciting looking over them and packing them into the box! Just having purchased breastpads and newborn nappies and stuff like that, it makes it feel really REAL that I'm getting very close to the time when I'll have another precious little baby boy in my arms! Things like this, tangible things, really bring it home.
I also bought a few little clothing items for the new baby - I know, I know, we have three sons already, born in all different seasons! ;) I don't need anything new for this fourth baby boy! But I saw some little summery one-piece outfits for sooooo little money, and couldn't resist them! I bought 2 packs of 2 outfits in newborn size (up to 11lbs) - one pack are short-sleeved, long-legged sleepsuit type things with no feet and poppers at the crotch (rompers, therefore??). One of those says, "Mummy loves me!" which made my heart melt, because I dooooooooooooo!!! So. Much. Already.
And the other is a set of two similar outfits with short sleeves AND short legs. They are all so sweet and tiny!!! And in the evening after I showed Neil my exciting stash (he was sarcastically excited about the maternity pads and cotton wool pleats, cheeky man!), I opened one of the packs of newborn nappies and literally went squeally over the tiny cuteness!!! Neil rolled his eyes at me! I know I have two little ones still full-time in disposable nappies, but I still feel so excited over seeing teeny tiny newborn nappies again! :)
Okay the boys are home from the park, so I will finish this later.
[Oh, I just want to add a couple of things from this evening itself! Then must go to bed! ;) ]
This evening I picked up a very exciting "item" that I won at eBay a couple of days ago! I had planned to write about it when I finished this post but I can't now - I WILL asap though! I took photos of it this evening so hopefully I'll get those uploaded tomorrow and post another entry then - IF the stupid internet starts behaving itself! Tsk!
Also, this evening I have been having a LOT of Braxton Hicks contractions. It has been hot today and yesterday (too hot for me!) and humid. I don't feel over-warm right now though. I have been trying to keep my fluids up, especially in the evening when I have more opportunity to sit and keep on drinking water.
About an hour ago the baby was THRASHING about, and I do mean that! My whole tummy was lurching and morphing and jumping. He kept it up for a good long while and I started to worry that he was having a life-or-death struggle with his entangled umbilical cord or something. :S Don't laugh! It's a genuine anxiety! He was so vigorous with his whole body all at once, and alllll his limbs at the same time, and it hurt quite a bit because he was grinding his head constantly. It felt like boring pins in my cervix and bladder, or some location in between that I can't actually identify for sure! Really sore, and he didn't stop doing that, even when his limbs had calmer moments.
Anyway, after he calmed down eventually, I noticed several BHs close together (like a couple of minutes type of close) and the third one hurt, proper hurt. After that they kept on coming the same, and varied between reeeally uncomfortable and actually painful. I was trying to do a Tesco grocery order online (hoping the internet wouldn't fail me! We're out of milk/cereal/meals/lunch fodder!), and after a bit I went to my bookmarks and found I still had Contraction Master on my list from last pregnancy! :) So I opened it up and started timing them. I timed quite a few (7 or 8) and each one was about 45 seconds long and the gaps between them were 2.5 to 3.5 minutes. I made sure to be resting on the sofa and drink water between them. They all hurt and I had to pause with my hand on my tummy - well, I don't know if I HAD to, but I was distracted from anything else I was trying to do. But I didn't have to breathe different or anything. I told Neil the Braxton Hicks were starting to feel more like contractions than Braxton Hicks, and that I was timing them.
I am having one at the moment, just putting it onto CM. I decided to go for a wee, in case that helped. Every time I had a BH it would make me feel like I dessssperately needed to pee, although I have been several times already this evening! I dread to think how many times I'll be up in the night with how good I'm being with drinking water as often as I can while all these BHs are going on! So I went for a wee, and checked the boys, and came back down, and the next BH I put on CM was 8 minutes after the previous one. The next one was 5 minutes, and since then they have all been 4.5 minutes apart, 50-60 seconds in length. I sometimes feel surprised when one starts because it doesn't feel like long since the last one, or it feels like longer (so I hope they're spacing out and going away!) but when I put it on good old Contraction Master, it's helpful to see that they are actually really quite regular at 4-5 mins apart. Hmmm. I am not sure what to make of it. Probably I should make absolutely nothing of it, drink my water up and go to bed. I think I have had "time-able" strongish Braxton Hicks contractions that came close together for an hour or so in my previous pregnancies though, so it's not a NEW thing for me, just that it IS a new thing this pregnancy. I have just finished another BH and entered it on CM - the 5th one since I came down from the loo 20 minutes ago. My readout says:
11.30pm (the first one after the loo) - 1min 8sec long - 8m36s since the last one.
11.35pm - 59sec long - 5m34s since the last one
11.40pm - 1min 5sec long - 4m36s since the last one
11.45pm - 53sec long - 4m30s since the last one
11.50pm (uncannily on the 5 minutes here, according to the clock!) - 1min long exactly - 5m0s since last one
Since I have been writing that out, I have had two:
11.53 - 55sec long - 3m14s since last one
11.56 (just now) - 1min 21sec long - 3m18s since the last one
So, back to 3 mins. It's odd. I am drinking water between them. I do feel like I need another pee, and it's getting late anyway, so I should probably just go to bed. But I wanted to write about it, since it's happening at the moment and I happen to have internet access for once! Also I will want to write about it even if it was a couple of days from now and somewhat old news. So there it is. I hope it's nothing to worry about!
I have my midwife appointment for 34 weeks on Wednesday, BUT Neil forgot about it and so hasn't booked to work from home that day and thinks he won't be able to now. It's the appt where I (another sore BH starting) talk about the birth, having made my decision like they asked me to by 34 weeks - did I say this in the earlier part of the entry? - I'm booking a homebirth, yay!!) and I know I will not be able to talk properly with the boys around. They interrupt and distract and cause trouble, and I wouldn't be able to relax and talk with the midwife (that one was 55secs long, and 4m42s since the last one), so I sort of need some childcare for that one. AND the 36 week appt, because that's the official "Birth Discussion" appt and I hope they will do my GBS test then too, so another one where the boys would be best ELSEWHERE! ;) The next two appts or so should be fine to have them around, but I am hoping for "cover" with the boys at my due-date appointment, because I totally plan to ask for a cervical stretch-and-sweep on that occasion! ;) I waited till 41 weeks till I BEGGED for one (having declined one at my due date) with Matthew (another BH starting), and gave birth the next day, and I sooooo do not wish to wait till 41 weeks before asking for a little help this time! If my body isn't ready at 40 weeks then it won't do anything anyway (1min 10sec long and 4m28s since the last one).
So, the long and short of it is that I may have to phone the midwife tomorrow and rearrange my 34 week appt for 35 weeks, when Neil would be more able to work from home and thus enable me to go to it without the boys. I thought of asking the midwife to come here, but actually we'd be swamped by small boy people, two of whom would talk without ceasing to the midwife the entire time, oblivious to the fact that we're trying to have a discussion. Which would not be ideal!
Another BH is starting! What is up with all these BH contractions?! They are all painful, but I guess only very mildly when I think about proper labour! I can type through them, but I would rather stop and wait till they pass because they're very tight and uncomfortable, and distract me. Okay that one was 59secs long and 4m9s since the previous one. They seem pretty regular, don't they? If it wasn't so late maybe I'd consider just calling one of my midwives, just to ask their advice on it. Just in case it's not good, or something. But I'm thinking their advice would be to rest, drink plenty and that kind of thing. And I'm doing that. The boy bean is having the occasional wiggle so I know he's okay in there. Another one is starting already!
That one was 55 seconds long, and 3m10s since the last one. It's after midnight now so I really ought to go to bed, but I'm a bit disconcerted by these contractions. I think it's 2 hours at least now, since they started at this pace/soreness. I don't think they're getting any stronger particularly.
Well, I have now had another which was a stonker. I had to breathe differently :S And I felt nauseous. I have been feeling a bit queasy lately in the evenings anyway, and dizzy too, so I am not necessarily putting much on that. I also need to pee again, and maybe that's why the last one was more painful? It was 1m30s long, and came 3m57s after the last one. At 12.20am, I'm not sure what to do if it gets so that I should be phoning somewhere or going somewhere. That makes me uneasy! I hope it's just harmless Braxton Hicks...
Here's another... 1m9s long, and 4m 18s since the last one. Neil has gone to bed a while back - should I wake him up?? I don't know what to do, since they seem a little more painful and they've been going on for a while now. I can see such a pattern on the Contraction Master record that I'm making, and the longer the list of contractions gets, the more I'm getting a bit... pre-occupied, let's say, about it! Should I just go to bed and stop worrying? Wake Neil? Phone someone? What if they say it's better to be safe than sorry and to come into hospital for monitoring? I don't want to do that, especially if it doesn't turn out to be necessary! I have boy beans asleep, and I need my sleep too. And I will have to go alone in the middle of the night, because Neil must stay with the littlies. Maybe I'm starting to worry, and thus think into it too much, and should just go to bed. If I wake Neil and tell him all this, he'll be just as clueless as I am as to what to do, and all he'll be able to suggest is that I either go to bed, or else make the decision to phone someone about it.
This last one has lasted 55secs and was 4m26s since the last one. The times for this past hour's BH contractions are:
11.30, 11.35, 11.40, 11.45, 11.50, 11.53, 11.56, 12.01, 12.05, 12.09, 12.13, 12.17, 12.21, 12.25, and here's another as I type at 12.29. They've all lasted between 55 seconds and 1min 30 seconds long (mostly less than 1m10 though). These last three really feel sore on my bladder like I need to pee so I will go and do that first, before anything else! After the BH finishes, which it nearly has. They hurt but I can continue as normal if sitting still. That one was 1m30s long though.
Okay, have been to the loo - I think I had a BH on the toilet because it was super uncomfy to pee with lots of squeezy pressure that lasted after I finished as well. None since though, yet. Now, as I was coming downstairs, it being late and me heading for bed in a short while, I didn't bother putting more than underwear back on, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror as I came into the living room, and I kid you not, the boy has dropped this very evening. Maybe I'm wrong, but my bump is now really low and sticky outy and I KNOW it wasn't at 8pm when I looked at my bump in the same mirror just before I headed out to pick up the exciting eBay item I mentioned earlier. Maybe it's all the Braxton Hicks? Or maybe he'll pop right back up by the morning?
It has now been 9 minutes since I had a BH and I don't feel another one yet, so I think I will hurry up and go to bed! It's nearly 12.45am now so I need to get some sleep. I will update tomorrow, since it has been a weird night tonight!
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