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2009-06-28 - 10.26pm��previous entry��next entry
38 weeks, 4 days...
No 38 week belly picture yet! I just haven't got around to it, but hopefully I'll still get one taken before 39 weeks. Or maybe just do a 39 week one? It's so HOT and horrid and humid, and I know we're blessed because we have a plug-in A/C unit that lives in my bedroom (since the last time we had hot weather when Matthew was born!), but it's not cooling me down very much really. It's definitely better than the fan, but we don't have the A/C on at night because I don't like to have the window open with the hose hanging out at night (have a thing about spiders strolling in while I'm sleeping as my bed is against the wall under the window!), just the fan. It doesn't do a good job of cooling the rest of the house during the day, just the bedroom (which is all it's meant to do really, but anyway!) and I'm soooooo bad with hot or humid weather. It's so exhausting, and much more so when you're 9 months pregnant! Anyway, I am not actually wearing enough clothes in the evenings for a belly photo! ;) And feel too hot and tired to put more clothes on just for a photo, so that's partly why I haven't got one taken yet for 38 weeks. Tooooo hot!
It's Sunday evening and Neil took Friday off last week to make a long weekend for getting some serious "baby prep" done, but alas (as I so pessimistically predicted!) even with the extra day we've still accomplished next to NOTHING over the whole weekend, and it's stressing me out so much at the moment. The little boys take up basically all our energies and time, and there's just nothing left! :S But we HAVE to get things ready, and now the weekend is over once again - a long one at that! Aaargh! Neil is hoping his boss will let him take another day or so of holiday time at the end of this week or the beginning of next, but I don't know if I'll have that long or not, hence the stress-factor. I can't believe I can now say my due date is NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow.
Neil did bring down the newborn cloth nappies from the loft, and my birth ball, this weekend. I have sorted through the nappies today and decided which I want to keep down. I have to say, I don't plan on using cloth nappies for this baby, and Nathan only wore cloth nappies for the first couple of months. I can't believe how I've changed over the whole nappy thing, seriously! I was the biggest DIE HARD cloth nappy fan ever, before having babies! Arthur and Matthew only ever wore cloth, even from their very first nappy after birth. I REFUSED to put a single disposable on them, and never purchased any ever. When Nathan was born, they were both still totally un-potty-trained (we hadn't even started with Arthur), and my brother bought disposables for them and put them in them while Neil and I were in the hospital having Nathan. Then it was hard work keeping 3 in cloth nappies full-time when we came home, and the left-over disposables kept whispering to me from the corner, hehe! Neil finally decided we would put them in disposables during the day to make things easier, and cloth at night. It wasn't long before they were in disposables all the time, and then Arthur potty-trained himself, and Nathan started to wear disposables at night because we couldn't find any cloth ones he didn't wee through (which was the case with ALL of them as tiny babies, actually). He wore the newborn (size 0) and then size 1 cloth nappies, and that was it. Before he outgrew the size 1 nappies, he ended up in disposables full time. And I honestly can't believe I'm sitting here typing this, but I have never looked back. I don't miss a THING about cloth nappies! Well, you know, I miss that they're better for the boys than disposables, and I miss the variety and the cute-factor. But I LOVE the slimmer bums and the clothes they fit better, and the EASE, and the throwing-away-of-yucky-stuff. There were a couple of size XL fuzzi bunz in with the newborn nappies for some reason, and I randomly put one of them to my nose and RECOILED. I had forgotten about the stink issues we were having with the cloth nappies, even when clean. Urgh. I HEART not having to dispose of poo. I like not having to deal with boosters and wraps and foldy bits and elastic or velcro that is past its best, and cute fabric going annoyingly stiff or holey after a million washes.
I actually can NOT believe I'm even of this mindset, and I was so unhappy about switching to disposables when we did, but I honestly would not go back to cloth. I loved it at the time, and now I just DON'T like the idea at all. Even looking nostalgically through my nappy stash (which we still won't pass on till we're SURE we're not using them any more - you never know!) and fastening and unfastening my favourites (and there ARE some gorgeous nappies in there!), I still would rather use disposables. We use Tesco's own brand. At first we used the basic economy ones, because they were the cheapest and we had no income. And then we switched to the SuperFit ones that are still very cheap compared with name brands. The boys have no issues whatsoever, no nappy rashes, no discomfort. They don't sag, NEVER leak, and don't leave horrible gel balls on their bits (the basic economy ones DID though). They are soft and elastic and yes, papery and rustly in a not-so-lovely way, but very slim-fitting and barely noticable under clothing. I can't imagine choosing to put them in cloth, really! I'm sure some of my readers will be AGHAST because of my huge cloth addiction and desperation to convert everyone to cloth, in the past, haha! And because you might be a huge cloth nappy fan yourself and can't believe a long term cloth user would convert to disposables and never want to go back! ;) But there it is. I haven't written about that at my diaries in all this time because of how I felt somewhat sheepish about it! I don't want to put anyone OFF using cloth nappies - they're better for the baby, the environment, basically EVERYTHING. They're soft and gorgeous and incredibly cute, and you can find them in so many designs and varieties. The options are endless. They save you incredible amounts of money, are EASY to use and wash, and just make you feel good to use! :) But this clothie is an ex-clothie, folks. I'm happy with disposables, truly!
BUT! Tradition has it that my babies wear a size 0 Kissaluv (almost the cutest thing in existance) as the very first nappy they wear. And actually, I LOVE Kissaluvs. I would prefer to use those than disposables. They are soft, suuuuper-cute, so easy to use, tiny and slim-fitting on a teeny tiny new baby, and do a marvellous job with the meconium and newborn poo. The meconium washes out in a flash with no staining, although there is still some yellow staining in mine from the later breastmilk poo that I should try to sun out while it's hot and sunny! They need a wrap over them, and I like Proraps (I have 4) and Bummis Super Whisper Wraps (I have 2 in newborn size). Arthur never fitted the Proraps well due to his chunky shape, but Matthew and Nathan did, and I think Benjamin will too. I have 12 size 0 Kissaluvs. I also have various homemade wraps that I found better than the ones I bought, for the early weeks. And some homemade soft soft soft towelling "outer" and microfleece "inner" nappes that fit a new baby beautifully. And a few Very Baby homemade nappies, and some newborn Honeyboys. Oh, and 4x XS Fuzzi Bunz! So, I'm washing all of those to use on Benjamin when he's born. It will take him (in my experience!) about a week or less to pee through those in one single urination once my milk really gets going, and after that I will probably switch him to disposables. It has always been a real issue finding things that my baby boys won't wee through within an hour or so, especially at night! I THINK it has to do with oversupply (milk-wise, that is), because I just haven't had any "light wetters" and it always co-incides with the huge increase in milk at a certain point. Nathan did wet through disposables at night occasionally, in the early months, until we figured that going up a size was in order at that time! That helped. Anyway, that is the plan!
I'm excited to use cloth nappies on Benjamin to start with, because I love the teeny tiny cute nappies, and most of all I love carrying on the tradition and seeing my new little boy person in the same nappies that his brothers have worn before him! I don't mind doing nappy washes frequently either, at all. But I'm looking forward to disposables too, because they're so easy and help soooo much with the wetting-through issue, which we've found really trying in the past. I know there are some ever-so-cute outfits that he won't fit well while he's in cloth nappies, and that's another reason that I'm looking forward to when he's in disposables because he can wear them comfortably then! :)
So I'm glad Neil got the cloth nappies down, and have had a LOVELY time stroking and folding them, and sorting them ready for the wash! I'll wash them tomorrow and put them away ready for Benjamin! I also have 2 packs of 24 newborn disposables ready for him too, one of which is in the hospital bag.
My birth ball is down, yay! BUT, I can't find the little piece that stops up the hole! Oops! So it's basically unusable! :( I hope I can find it yet. I really feel like sitting and rocking on it lately. It's so hard to get comfortable now, whatever I'm doing, even sitting or resting or lying down. My pelvis hurts (STILL no pubic bone pain this pregnancy!!! How awesome!!!) at the back and in my hips and my actual bump hurts easily too depending on the position I try to rest in.
I had my 38 week midwife appointment at home on Thursday. It went fine. I had met the midwife once before (there are 10 on the team and I have not met all of them yet) and she's lovely. The boys were all around us but I put something on TV for them to watch to try and distract them a bit while the midwife was here! They just talk incessantly to whoever is visiting and I literally cannot get a word in edgeways! Which is okay, but not when it's an appointment and the focus is me and the baby, and I NEED to talk to the midwife, or her to me! So, the TV. It kept Matthew fairly distracted, but Arthur just chatted away all the same to the midwife. She sat down next to him and opened my notes, and there was a moment of silence, and then Arthur said, "Do YOU believe in Jesus?" and just waited for her response! Hehehe! She said, "Actually yes, I do believe in Jesus!" :) He said, "My mum's mummy and daddy who are called Nana and Grandy and live in France, THEY don't believe in Jesus." and looked very serious, holding eye contact with her. She said, "Oh." and he gave her a moment more and then turned back to the TV, just like that! He's so funny :) He chatted about all sorts after that and generally wanted to know everything about what she was doing or saying, as always!
My blood pressure was 118/70 - fine for me. I was careful to provide a "clean" urine sample this time and not just on a stick! I wanted to see for sure if there were any leukocytes this time (there were the last 2 times) or whether it was just contamination. So I was careful to do a proper mid-stream sample, and it was clean as a whistle! Yay! Nothing at all, no sugar, protein, blood, leukocytes, nothing! :) So that made me feel better! Benjamin was wiggly again, though he's definitely running out of space in there. His heartrate was good and strong, and she put his head as 4/5 palpable again. She said he's definitely not "free" as she can't wiggle his head, and that's what I've been finding when I check him. But he hasn't engaged like I wondered. He is also still high and free in the mornings when I wake up - I can wiggle his head about freely above my pelvis then! I have no idea when he'll finally engage. Maybe not till labour is underway like they say?
My Bartholin's Cyst is still there, urgh. I googled it and feel more reassured about it. It's not an abcess because it isn't painful as such. I'm a little uneasy about the fact that I have Group B Strep present there, for when it does pop during delivery, as I don't want a GBS infection there, and I think there will be a little risk of that. If it doesn't pop during delivery (and I don't need stitches, in which case they'll apparently have to pop it then anyway), I think I will have to get the doctor to pop it at my 6-week postnatal check. I read that they can stay for ages and ages, though they're harmless, and I know from checking mine that there will be no possibility of uhm, conceiving another baby, shall we say (!), unless the cyst is taken care of. I wish it would go away!! So annoying that it's there at all. But oh well.
Talking of the Group B Strep situation, I have actually made a decision at last. I prayed before I went to bed last Tuesday about it, and felt like I need to trust God and not be anxious. In the morning when I woke up, I did not see a reason why I should not pray that God would protect Benjamin from GBS and go ahead with a natural homebirth, and trust God to protect my baby. I got too nervous about having antibiotics at home because of the slight risk of anaphylactic shock (1 in 10000, basically the same risk of GBS to the baby in the first place! A tiny risk - it's higher in the States, for some reason, but that is the statistic for the UK), so I didn't want to do that option any more. That left choosing a hospital birth with antibiotics, or a homebirth without. I researched carefully, and found significant enough risk factors to both myself and Benjamin if I DID have antibiotics. The deaths associated with antibiotics actually balance out the deaths associated with GBS (in the UK), and so I have chosen to decline antibiotics and have a homebirth, if all goes well. I phoned the midwives that very morning and informed them of my decision, and then texted the doula to tell her the same. She's obviously super supportive. The midwife on the phone asked me which senior midwife I had spoken to, to clear this with. I said I hadn't, and that this was my decision. So, she said she would let everyone know. And that is that!
NOW I feel better, because it felt like I was going to have trouble choosing a homebirth at the last minute if I hadn't "prepared" everyone for one beforehand. Whereas I can choose to have a hospital birth at any point from here on. Which I still might, depending on how things go. If my waters break before labour starts, I think I will be highly likely to feel like heading for the hospital for my antibiotics and labour and birth. Otherwise I will see how things go. If I get a fever during labour, or if my waters do break early-ish in the whole process, I will feel uneasy about staying at home, and probably choose to go in (for definite if I get a fever). I'm praying that my waters will not break till he is being born, like with Matthew, and that the labour itself is quick and doesn't drag on. The midwife who came on Thursday knew of my decision and told me I will have to monitor the baby's condition for 48 hours after his birth, like they would do in hospital if I hadn't had antibiotics. I have to check his temperature, respiration, tone and heartrate every 2 hours. I think that will make me a bag of nerves and interfere with me enjoying him and getting the rest I need, which is a bit of a problem, but Heather (my doula) told me I should pray about the anxiety and trust God, and that if the midwives tell me about that again, I should ask them not to discuss it with me any more, because I know what to do now (they've already told me) and discussing it further is just making me anxious. I don't want to feel that I'm making a dangerous decision for Benjamin and then just hoping God will bail me out! I want to feel that I am putting Benjamin in God's very capable hands, and asking him to keep Benjamin utterly safe from even picking up GBS on his way out (let alone developing GBS disease) and then TRUSTING HIM in faith.
The Group B Strep Support website says this:
"About half of the babies born to mothers colonised with GBS at the time of delivery will become colonised themselves and, of these, only around 1 in 200 will develop GBS disease, even without any preventative medicine during labour. Carrying GBS during labour and delivery does not mean necessarily that you or your baby will become ill."
There is still part of me that's anxious about choosing not to have antibiotics, and if I take my eyes off God on this one, that's where I go, and start to think I ought to opt for the hospital birth and antibiotics. So sometimes I still don't know what to do! As far as the midwives are concerned, I am set on a homebirth. I don't plan to tell them I'm wavering and haven't really finished deciding yet! ;) It's just so much easier to have a BOOKED homebirth and to decide to change my mind at the last minute than the other way around. One of the biggest reasons for having a homebirth is still the boys. Neil and I keep discussing it and just can NOT see a way around the childcare issue. Even now that we have a doula. Unless Neil misses the birth completely. Which we don't want! Even if he does, the boys likely won't do well with me gone for a couple of days and nights, and for Nathan it could make the difference between him accepting his new baby brother or not, which is a major consideration for me. It's a very high priority to me, to have the boys ease into this transition well, and a homebirth will totally facilitate that, whereas a hospital birth will NOT, seriously. Also, I don't want to have to "come home" - it's so exhausting and such an "occasion" in a way that I don't like, it's so unhelpful! I will get no rest in hospital and the effect of that carries on for WEEKS once I'm home. There are so so many reasons to stay at home, and also reasons why a hospital birth will cause us undue problems and inconveniences as we try to adjust as a family - each one of us. So I really want to stay at home. But I will go into hospital in a heartbeat if I have any concerns over Benjamin's safety, or if I just change my mind about the whole thing, I suppose. If it weren't for the boys at home, I would probably not be concerned about going into hospital to give birth at all. But I'd rather be at home, and the fact that we DO have the boys at home makes an enormous difference, one that we can't resolve at all in terms of having someone to look after them, and their stress over not having Mummy and Daddy around.
Anyway. I'm back to wavering now that I've written all this! Urrrgh.
I have my 39-week appointment on Thursday this week. The midwife yet again said it would be at the clinic, and I (yet again) had to ask her if it was possible for it to be a home visit, and then get asked why! Tsk! Each time (only in the last month though - I went to clinic before then!) I tell them that it's so much easier for me if it's a home visit (duh!) because I have to bring all three of my under-5-year-olds with me and if I go out with them at ALL these days, I find it exhausting and just basically totally traumatic (they are not well behaved, sadly), and feel ILL for the rest of the day. Hello?! I am 38 weeks pregnant and huge, with 3 very small (and somewhat unruly) children. Isn't it obvious that they shouldn't really be suggesting I haul all of our butts to the clinic every week?! So, she booked me for a home visit, thankfully! She wrote in my notes though, that I said I was unable to go to the clinic, as though that was a bit off of me, tsk! She said that she couldn't tell me what time of day a midwife might come to do the appointment, because it depended on their postnatal visits. I feel like she was being a bit unnecessarily something-or-other with me, just to make a point. They've always managed to give me a time before now for home visits, and actually that's a bit off to say that they can't tell me what time of day they'll come anyway! It's not true for a start. Tsk. I felt like she was subtley saying, "Well, if you're going to be that difficult, you'll have to put up with the consequences - we can't be arranging ourselves around one pregnant woman who can't be bothered to get to clinic! It's inconvenient to US!" I didn't like that. But I just said, "It doesn't matter to me what time - like I said, I don't go out with the children any more because I feel ill for the rest of the day if I do. So I'll be home all day anyway. It's just nice to have a home visit!" and left it at that. But it bugged me.
I had a good chat with Heather on the phone this weekend and she's going to come round on Thursday at 1pm just to chat for a bit and see me and the boys. She knows we won't get much chatting done with the boys around, so we talked on the phone about any anxieties I have and things with the midwife and so on. Arthur has still been saying he doesn't want to hear my "fuss" when Benjamin is born, and I told Heather about this. She suggested I pray with him, and so I did, last night before bed! We talked for a while about it, and then I prayed with him that he wouldn't be anxious, and that baby Benjamin would be born at night-time and the boys would all sleep right through it, whatever noise I ended up making, and not be worried. I said he could pray too if he wanted to, but he said not. Then he changed his mind and closed his eyes and prayed, "Lord, I just want to pray that baby Benjamin will be born at night and we won't hear Mummy's fuss. And please don't let Mummy have bleeding and don't let Babydot die. Amen." Aw :) He was asking recently about "Babydot" dying, because he remembered it from early in my pregnancy, when I was bleeding and told him that Babydot had died (I was so sure he had!). He said he didn't want Babydot to die, and I said he was big and strong now, and would be born very soon and was not likely to die. He asked me what made me think that Babydot had died all that time ago, and he wasn't satisfied with my previous answer at the time of the bleeding, which was that I felt that "God had shown Mummy" that Babydot had died. So this time I told him that Mummy had some bleeding and that usually means that the baby has died, so that's why I thought it. But the bleeding went away and we had a special scan and it showed that Babydot HADN'T died at all, and now he's nearly ready to be born! :) So I guess that's where his prayer came from. Yesterday I found that children's story about home births called "Hello Baby" (can't remember the author) that I bought when Matthew was on the way, and read it with the two older boys. They loved it, and both gasped in amazement when I turned to the page where there's an illustration of the baby being born. They were both pointing at the baby's little head and saying, "Look! Look!" like it was the most amazing thing - which of course it IS! :) I managed to read it all without choking up toooo much, hehe! I can never read that aloud without having to control a wobble in my voice, I find it so moving and lovely! So that's good, and I'll read that with them plenty more times over the next week. It's helpful because it talks in a very relaxed manner about the mother making lots of noise, and how normal it is, and how the children present were not anxious about it at all.
Okay, it's getting late and I have been so tired lately, so I MUST go to bed! Neil is back at work tomorrow. He's hoping to get Friday off again and maaaaybe Thursday (I'm so hoping!!!). Tomorrow evening he is going to take some of the boxes cluttering the bedroom over to his brother's to store in his garage for a while, and that will help (my stress levels!) a lot. I bought a good quality futon mattress for Neil to use while he's temporarily in the boys' bedroom, so we can get rid of the huge mattress permanently on the floor in there, filling the room. The futon will be rolled up every day and just stored under the bunk bed ladder, which is soooo much better. Also I think a futon will be endlessly useful for many many years to come, in all sorts of situations. I bought a narrow single, so it's even more versatile, and I bought and washed sheets for it recently, so it will be all ready for him tomorrow night! :) The boys are still somewhat wakeful at night and it's much easier to have one of us in there to settle them right now. Neil will stay in there to get the best night's sleep that he can after Benjamin is born, at least until Benjamin is past night-time nappy changes and the boys are sleeping through his crying at night too.
I have felt really weird and "jangly" this evening, like underneath my skin is itching all over, but not an ACTUAL physical itch. I just feel restless and uncomfortable, and like I can't settle mentally or physically to anything. Heather printed and laminated some prayers and declarations from the Supernatural Childbirth book (and some that we wrote specifically about me and about Benjamin), which I have stuck to the side of my chest of drawers by my bed, and also our prayer list (for the various things I am asking of God for the birth, like no tearing, less pain, more control and slowness in the second stage, boys not being afraid of my noise, etc, etc - it's a long list!). I pray those out loud every night before I go to sleep, and again in the morning when I wake up. There's a specific one about anxiety and fear, and physical tension, and that is one I seem to need ALL the time lately, but it helps SOOOOO much to pray it out loud. I feel very different after praying it. If I am ever in the bedroom during the day and lie down on the bed for a few minutes (sometimes I am starting to do this right after putting Nathan down for a nap, before going back down to the other boys), I pray them then too. It's really helping me, and it keeps me focused on God and not my anxieties, which is the best thing.
Okay, I could write a ton more about physical this-and-that, but it's too late to continue now, and this is long enough! I do not have any signs of impending labour so far, suffice to say! ;) Braxton Hicks are strong and sometimes frequent, sometimes not. Benjamin still gets hiccups (he has just started some as I write this actually!) but not as frequently as he used to - maybe only a couple of times a day now. He now weighs over 7lbs (!!!) and is at least 19.5 inches long - about time to be born, don't you think?! I am eager to meet him but recently have started feeling this weird ambivalence, where I suddenly don't want things to change around here, because it feels hard enough as it is! :S I know that's a normal way to feel though.
I am not losing my mucus plug as such, but I have a lot more mucus-plug-type CM this past week, sometimes quite a lot, and sometimes just the usual amount. So I guess things are vaguely beginning to gear up. I am probably at least 2cm dilated already anyway (since I was a good 1-2 when I checked at 34 weeks) so that's not too surprising.
That is all! Except that I love feeling baby hiccups and will miss them ever so much in a few short weeks! :( Benjamin's pushes and shovings when he moves his legs "assertively" are really starting to hurt me now, and the same when he turns his head. I'm getting eager to hold those little feet in my hands as they push about, instead of having a slight panic about how there's surely no way the amniotic sac can hold up much longer with the kind of strong pushing and shoving he's doing in there, and then what will I do?! That sort of thing! ;) Not long now!
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