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2006-05-03 - 9.12pm��previous entry��next entry
35 weeks pregnant - antenatal appt, lists and getting ready!!
Arthur is napping so I have a moment to write my 35 week update! Wow, that last week just flew by! 35 weeks feels like a mid-way mark though, rather than a big milestone. I am excited about reaching 36 weeks next week! I reach term in TWO WEEKS, just 14 days!!!!! Yikes! Random numerical thingy: I like how today I am exactly 35 weeks pregnant and have exactly 35 days to go until my due date! :) Getting soooo close now!
Well it has been a tiring week, pregnancy-wise. I am fine and everything seems normal and healthy, but I am heavy and tired and all that end-of-pregnancy stuff. I haven't weighed myself accurately but I did step on the scales a couple of mornings ago with clothes on and after eating breakfast, and was 11 stone 3lbs. I guess I could take a lb off for the clothes and food, and probably say I weigh(ed! I could be more now!) 11st 2lbs. So, 3lbs more AGAIN. What does that take me to?? 37lbs or something, in total? I am losing track! My maximum weight at the end of my last pregnancy was 11st 5lbs, so I'm nearly as heavy as I've ever been. Less of an actual total weight gain though, so far. I know I am in the middle of a mega lb pile-on at the moment (!!) and my experience so far during my pregnancies is that those are fast and furious for a week or two and then stop dead for a while. So hopefully I'll stop gaining soon and allow my body to adjust to the new weight! My ankles and basically the whole of my legs from my knees down are NOT happy with me! I was getting ankle aches and cramps a lot before, and now I get cramps in my calves and SHINS (didn't know I had enough muscle over those bony bits to actually cramp them!) just by turning my ankle, the muscles are so stressed with how fast I'm gaining weight I think. My stretch marks are finally showing more purply-blue over my bump (the ones that were already there from Arthur), but no new ones yet, and no red ones. The ones on my hips are FINALLY starting to itch like they are stretching - like the bump ones were a month or so ago. Most of my weight is on the front, even more than last time, so the hips aren't having to stretch quite so much (yet!).
This week I have noticed more swelling in my hands and feet than before, though nothing severe at all. My fingers and hands get kind of sausagey like my toes have been, during the evenings. I haven't bothered trying to squeeze my rings on for months now but I'm sure they wouldn't go on now.
Yesterday I had my slightly late 34 week midwife appointment at the doctor's surgery. It was quite a long and drawn-out one, but it went fine. I had blood taken to check for anaemia and antibodies, and also my final Anti-D injection (unless Matthew is Rh positive, in which case I'll have another after the birth). This time it REALLY hurt, and my arm hurts like crazy still today. I had trouble sleeping on that side last night. Weird how the last one didn't cause me any bother and this one is so uncomfortable! Anyway, yay, they're done now.
My blood pressure was fine and dandy - 123/73, which is always a relief to hear! Although it didn't start creeping up until maybe 38 weeks last pregnancy, so I'm still hoping it'll stay normal till I give birth. My pulse was 114 though!! But I was knackered and flustered, and Arthur was opening drawers full of needles and stuff while I was tethered to the desk with the blood pressure cuff! He was charming and smiley for the appointment but BOY he is into everything these days! He opened every cupboard and drawer that wasn't locked, pulled the papery stuff off the examination table, climbed on the scales to pull on the window blinds, tipped the loose change out of my coat pocket and rolled each coin across the floor till it got under the radiator! He banged the aforementioned radiator (which clanged and echoed most beautifully!) so hard that we couldn't hear ourselves talk for a while! He locked and unlocked the door repeatedly, got at the midwife's handbag, and pulled a piece of velcro off her filofax folder so it wouldn't do up again, the monkey! He took his shoes off and ripped open all the poppers on the crotch of his dungarees, and showed us his nice homemade nappy, hehe! He was just a monkey yesterday, and I was tired tired tired from the whole day like that, so I'm not surprised my pulse was racing! He had only given me 3 broken hours sleep overnight too, so yeah. But he smiled and was charming and said thank you when the midwife gave him things, and only got slightly cranky right at the end of the HOUR long appt, so I breastfed him while I finished chatting to the midwife, as he was signing for milk. The midwife LOVES Arthur - apparently even when making mischief he can do no wrong! Also she was so excited that I'm still breastfeeding him and encouraged me to breastfeed him there and then if he wanted some. So I did :) It was nice to have such open support somewhere out of the house.
Anyway, so BP was fine. My urine had no sugar or protein, but it was ++ for leukocytes so she is sending it off to the lab to be tested. That is a good sign of infection, but I was surprised because I don't really feel like I have any symptoms of a UTI, and I usually would. I am crampy and peeing frequently but that's so normal for this stage of pregnancy anyway. It doesn't hurt to pee. We'll see what the test results say.
We talked through the home birth stuff. In this area where I live, you have to sign a consent form, which goes in my notes to say I've given my consent to have a homebirth. It's such an annoying form, and their policy is that they have to read it out word for word with you before you sign it - it's about all the potential things that can go wrong. I remember last time I felt so annoyed hearing it! It makes me feel like you're being patronised for your choice, and being told that there's all these risks and reasons NOT to have a homebirth, and then at the end if you're still foolish enough to want one, you can sign your name and then they can wash their hands of your crazy choice. Tsk. Anyway, she wasn't at all heavy with me over the contents of the form (unlike the midwife who took me through it on my first pregnancy, tsk!)because she knows I already heard it all last pregnancy and went for my homebirth anyway, so she just rushed through it while Arthur deafened us banging on the radiator, hehe! And I signed it. And now that's done.
My next appointment is NEXT WEEK! Yay! And it's an exciting one, because it's on Wednesday instead of a Tuesday, which means I'll be exactly 36 weeks pregnant and that's the time they come round to your house and drop off the birth supplies! :) So next week I will get the box of birth supplies and another antenatal check at home, yay! Yesterday she gave me the list of things I need to provide for a homebirth. It's the exact same photocopied list from last time, which I have kept somewhere, but I'm glad to have another copy because it saves me digging out the old one. We basically have everything on it already, because we have been there before. Except the angle-poise lamp and the portable heater. But I'll probably borrow those again. We have all the old sheets and towels and plastic sheeting, etc, which is the main thing! I had to beg and borrow all over the place for those last time, so I carefully put away all the things people gave us, ready to use for future homebirths! Now we are well stocked up :)
Then a week after the appointment I will be good to go for my homebirth! If I happen to go into labour before then, I'll have to go to hospital, but now I only have to wait one week from next week's appointment before I am fine to sit at home and labour and give birth, as and when it happens! So exciting! :) I know I may have some cause to transfer to hospital, and I'm far more open to that possibility after my experience last time. But that's okay. I still plan to have my homebirth! I am just feeling less.... activist-ish (!!) about a possible transfer, like last time I was convinced there was no WAY anything was making me go to hospital. But it did, and it was okay, and necessary in the end. And everything turned out for the best. So if that has to happen again, that's fine. I would prefer to have my baby at home, and that's what I plan to do, that's all :)
The midwife I saw yesterday was very nice but I noticed she tends to be a bit vague. I remember some stuff from my training that I saw she was not doing quite as it should be done and it was kind of frustrating. She didn't check off my Anti-D preparation with another health care professional before administering it, which was a BIG no-no when I was training, even later when I was training as a nurse. You always have to check the details are correct with another HCP before administering it. Maybe they were just short-staffed, but that's not really a good enough reason not to follow safe protocol with an injection of something. It made me feel wary anyway. In the end she checked it off with me, and that made me feel better. I have checked bazillions of IV and IM preparations before so I felt confident that I was seeing that I got the right stuff!
After she took my blood she used an ALCOHOL swab to press on the puncture site!!! Umm....?! Of course alcohol stimulates bleeding like nothing else (and those swabs have no absorbency, obviously?!), and sure enough after a couple of minutes when I lifted it up to peek under, blood RAN down my arm. I had to ask her for something more absorbent to use (which of course stemmed the flow within like 10 seconds)! Just a little detail but I get fidgetty about those because it makes me wonder what BIG things are getting missed or not quite done safely or appropriately.
I got on the table thingy for her to feel Matthew and measure my bump, and it was flat as a pancake (it shouldn't be), no pillow or anything! And when I lay down I noticed that the table was actually uneven so that the head end was a little lower than feet!! And there was a dip where the table folds, right in the small of my back. So then she measured my bump and said, "It's not the biggest bump in the world, is it?" Um, no, but it's certainly not on the small side of average! She measured my uterus at 32cm!!!! Which is nuts. That puts me 3 weeks behind, which I'm obviously not. I could feel by her poking finger that she hadn't found my pubic bone accurately to measure from too. Tsk. I guess I should have said something, but I felt too much like I would have been telling her how to do her job and that didn't feel nice. So I didn't. I seem to recall that last pregnancy somewhere around this stage, I had an antenatal appt with a doctor at the hospital and was on a similarly stupid table with a big dip behind the small of my back, and measured 2 weeks behind when I KNEW that was not the case. The doctor actually cautioned me about "baby" being small for dates at the time too, tsk. Stoopid doctor/midwife. It really shouldn't be that hard to make sure you have everything in place to measure accurately, especially if you're then going to start talking about inadequate growth to the poor innocent mother as a result of your inaccuracies!
Anyway. Then the midwife said if the baby was measuring too small by term I would probably not get to have a homebirth. I just did the smile-and-nod thing, knowing that when *I* position myself correctly next week for being measured on my own sofa, she'll get an accurate measurement which will show her that my baby/uterus is actually on the larger side of average and that there's nothing to worry about. But tsk. It was so annoying. Of course I have measured myself today, lying flat on my bed with a pillow under my head, being absolutely sure to measure exactly from my pubic bone to the top of my uterus with a tape measure, and of course it's 36.5cm. Stoopid midwife. But she's very nice, so.
She didn't tell me anything about what she was feeling of Matthew while she poked and prodded him, and I usually ask if they don't tell me, but I was distracted by my little man so I forgot. Anyway I know he's head down and stuff. I have been finding him really easy to feel for myself at home, so I know where he is! He has hiccups at the moment :) I think he is lower than he used to be because his hiccups are all an inch or two above my pubic bone these days. They used to be to one side of my tummy where his back is, at the level about halfway between my tummy button and my hip, so I guess 5-6 inches above my pubic bone. I also feel him hiccuping against my cervix as his head rebounds there, so I know he is lower, but I don't think he is actually engaged yet. It's really hard to feel my pubic bone these days because there is such a hard bulge right above it, sort of hiding it underneath, which is actually Matthew's head!! I have to really fiddle about to find the curve of his head going back under the pubic bone and THEN I can locate the actual pubic bone to measure from. Maybe that's why the midwife measured from the wrong place yesterday? But she should know about stuff like that anyway.
Matthew's heart rate was good and normal, though it did dip right down and then speed up like crazy while we were listening. I hate hearing things like that, it always makes me nervous even if I know it's normal, and I always have to ask "Is that okay?!" for reassurance. I just like to hear that it's okay. And she said it was.
I had bad dreams all last night and kept waking from them. I dreamt that Matthew died inside my womb, or rather, the majority of the dream was that he was dying and in the end he did die. We kept listening to him on the doppler and his heart rate was just soooo slow and getting slower, and we knew it was bad news. It was such a horrible dream. I could feel him moving about so I got all excited and said he must be fine after all. We went and had a scan and he was still alive but then his heart rate went down to 20 and the sonographer said, "Oh dear, I'm so sorry" and I wished they would get him out fast so that he would survive, but there just wasn't time so nobody bothered to do anything :( I woke from it but kept going back into the same dream. When I woke I always just wanted to lie awake till I could feel Matthew moving, then I would know he was fine, even though I knew it was just a dream.
Talking of Matthew moving, he is REALLY active this week!!! He has been moving so strongly that it has hurt me sometimes, and his limbs feel so much stronger and bigger than before. It is starting to feel so familiar from the last few weeks with Arthur, the type of movements he's making now. When he pushes his feet out and sweeps them across me, for the first time this week, I can feel this smooth warm sensation of his actual feet as they sweep across. The warmth is the most noticable part of the feeling. It's hard to describe, but it's like, it's body heat that isn't mine, it's someone else's warm feet that I can feel, with THEIR warmth. I know it's his warmth because his feet are actually warmer than any part of me, even the inside of my womb as he pushes against it. It sounds weird but I don't know how to describe it any better. I remember that exact same feeling from Arthur, but I think I felt that kind of sensation much earlier than this with Arthur. But he was far more active and pushed out much harder with his feet than Matthew has so far! So maybe that's all it was. Last night I had to keep stopping while I was eating my dinner and leaning back to give Matthew more room. He was shoving his back and bottom out and stretching his limbs (all at once!) as hard as he could, and it was just impossible to put food into my stomach while he was doing it! It was so uncomfy. He did it over and over, for nearly my whole meal, and it's the very first time that I felt a little aggravated by his movements, because I was tired and hungry and just wanted to relax and eat my meal, and he wouldn't let me! But it was so nice to feel his big strong movements, letting me know he was fine and healthy, and making me aware of his little presence in there :) He is pretty wriggly at this very moment actually. I can feel little flickery fingers down by my hip on side, and something large and pushy up under my ribs in the middle - a bottom or foot or something, I can't tell unless I'm leaning back and examining my bump properly! I'm sat forward at the moment, hunched over my bump, and he hates that lately so he is pushing. He really doesn't have much room in there at all now. He shoves Arthur about when he's breastfeeding if he leans too hard on my bump! :)
The stats at Babycenter.com say that Matthew is 18.2 inches long now!! That is officially newborn length, as many newborns are born at 18 inches at term :) The average is 20 inches, and Arthur was 20.5, so he's probably about what Babycenter says right now. Weight-wise though, he's still more likely to be 2 weeks ahead of their estimations, just as Arthur was, so that would put him somewhere around.... WOW!! 6.3lbs!!!! Over the six pound mark, how amazing! No wonder he's feeling heavy in there! I can't believe my tiny one now weighs over 6lbs. That's totally newbornish. All his measurements should now be within the normal range for a full-term newborn! Wow. I can't believe we're at this stage already! :)
I am still going crazy for weird smells at the moment! How I LOVE creosote and strong bus fumes! I could breathe them in as deeply as I can, over and over and over and not stop, it seems! But I don't because it just feels wrong to, like I'm poisoning my body (and my baby!) if I do so. I just love the smells though. A new one this week is Arthur's bubble bath. It has a certain smell that makes me want to eat it, and not that normal "everybody loves the smell of baby bubble bath" smell - something else behind all that perfumey stuff that is chemically and acidic. It's that part of the smell that is driving me insane this week! I almost went ahead and tasted it when I was running his bath last night, but again - chemical goo = not a healthy option, so I didn't! Weird.
Arthur is awake so I had better stop for now.
Okay it's the evening and he's asleep again. I just bought my TENS machine on eBay!!! Yay! I bought a new Elle TENS the cheapest way I could find, which was from a retailer on eBay rather than an online store. I am excited about it! It looks soooooo hi-tech compared with the more basic hospital-hire one I had last time, and it's miiiine! I know I will make good use of it, as I'll use if for this labour and hopefully one or two more! And then if it's still in good working order, I'll be able to sell it on, so it's actually going to be a great investment and save us money in the long run :)
I have been all about making lists this week. It's obviously the time for making lists, as far as my hormones are concerned! It feels great to do them because it eases my itchy anxious feeling that I have as the time disappears more and more and I know we still have things to get ready. If I have it all listed then at least I can see EVERYTHING that needs doing and work through it. That feels lots better.
It's also that time ALREADY where I had planned to start preparing to pack my hospital bag, now that I'm 35 weeks! I won't NEED it packed till 37 weeks, but it's not a bad idea to start listing and packing from around 35. Most websites I go to recommend packing a bag at 36 weeks. Last time I meant to do that but didn't get around to it till a bit later. So I googled hospital bag lists and found a pretty good one to modify for myself here. It was way easier than trying to think of everything I needed last time and list it all! So now I have made a complete list of things to pack. I'm going to pack one bag for labour and another bag for postnatal stuff, as that way it will be easier for Neil, my mum and the midwives to find stuff during my labour, and also for if I have to transfer AFTER labour for any reason, I'll only take the postnatal bag. There are lots of things on that list at the link I posted that I'm not going to pack, like all the homoeopathic remedies, music bits (if there is something that takes me away from home, I know from last time that listening to music will be the LAST thing on my mind!), and a support pillow. If I was spending my whole labour in hospital I would take a lot of support thingies probably, but I won't be hopefully, so I won't pack them.
I also added snacks and change of clothes for Neil, a watch with a second hand, hair bands, Lansinoh (though hopefully I won't need it, given that I'm already breastfeeding), and all the cloth nappy stuff I'll want for Matthew. Arthur wore cloth from birth (he's never worn one single disposable!) even in the hospital and it was no problem at all to take our stuff in and deal with it there.
Then I made a list of things I still need to buy for packing everything on that hospital bag list. They are mostly just basic things like snacks, bottled water, glucose sweets, etc. I have some left over disposable breast pads and maternity pads, but not enough I don't think, so I'll buy another pack of those for the hospital bag. Also things like a 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner. I didn't even think of that last time and ended up having to wash my hair in the shower with the Johnson's baby top-and-tail solution that we'd packed for bathing Arthur! As it turned out, the hospital provided baby bubble bath for bathing the babies, but no toiletries for the mums, so that's what I had to use! This time I'll be prepared :)
The only other things on the list to buy were a sun hat for Matthew, for if it's hot and sunny the day he comes home, as I have NOTHING summery like that in newborn size, with Arthur having been born in November! But I just won an auction on eBay for two reeeally cute little newborn boyish sunhats from Next :) So that's crossed off the list, yay! And TENS machine is crossed off now too. And I wanted a fan of some sort this time, as I was sooooo hot all the time last time I was in labour, and needed someone to constantly wipe my face with a cool cloth. In June I am always uncomfortable with the warmer weather, no matter if it's mild for the time of year and I'm not even pregnant! So I know I'll feel overheated and desperate to cool down. I wish I had had a fan last time! So I searched good old eBay and found some battery operated hand-held "beach fans" for sale! They are bright coloured, soft, safe-foam blades, just switch on and off with a button, and BEST of all, they can be filled with water so you can spray your face at the same time as fanning it! Perfect for labour! And very cheap from this eBay retailer. So I bought two. They'll come in handy on summer holidays for our two little boys in the future, so I figured we'd better have two rather than one!
The other thing we still want to buy is a car seat for Matthew. He can use the infant car seat that Arthur used (which is in the loft) but now we've had experience with one little one already, we know we'd prefer to put Matthew in a birth-to-4-years car seat right from the start, the same as the one Arthur is in now. A Concord Ultimax, to be specific (which I know I've mentioned before), because they are so fab that we wouldn't consider any other car seat! I am looking around online to browse the latest designs and colours (there are always so many lovely ones!) so we can choose one. I want a different design to Arthur's, so that they are unique to each of my boys! Anyway, it's not urgent because we have an infant car seat that Matthew can use at first, but we want to get one asap. When we have a little bit more money or something! But soon.
The other thing I have finally got around to this week is adapting Arthur's birth plan and writing out Matthew's birth plan from it! I have finished it now, and just so it's recorded here with all my other pregnancy stuff, I have posted it as a separate entry right before this one (so that this one is the most recent entry - the birth plan would be a bit boring for people to find when they come to read an update methinks!). I'm happy with it, and confident about asserting myself over everything on it. It was so nice having Arthur's saved on the computer, because it made it sooooo much easier to write a birth plan for this time around. I changed a few little things, and cut out all the stuff that was previously there about the birth pool and that. And included some new stuff about Arthur's presence during labour and delivery, etc. I have a big thing about him being able to have access to me at all times if it's feasible and he wants me, and I particularly want him to be free to come and breastfeed like MINUTES after the birth if he's around and wanting to, when I first put Matthew to the breast. I don't want him to see Matthew breastfeeding for the first time and feel he can't just come right on over and latch onto the other breast and join in. It's reeeally important to me, so I have included that in my birth plan. Neil looked over it today and feels happy with everything too, and he's going to print it out at work (we don't have a printer) and then I'll show it to my mum so she's all clued up on it too for the big day. I'm so glad that's done! :)
Arthur kisses my bump sooooo much these days! I don't know why, because we don't really make a big thing of asking him to kiss my bump or anything. It's so cute! Mind you, he is very kissy and affectionate, not just towards my bump (!) so maybe it's a coincidence? It IS the most prominent part of me, after all, hehe!
I have been sewing cloth maternity pads this week. I decided on a sort of "tri-fold" pattern, one that is easy to sew as it's not many layers of fabric, but then you fold it in 3 lengthways and hey presto, you have a super absorbent pad! I want to make a dozen heavy duty ones for the first week and then a dozen lighter-weight ones for after that. So far I am doing great! I have made 10 heavy duty ones, out of a layer of pretty printed fabric (jersey, flannel or corduroy even!), then a layer of burley knit terry or thick cotton sherpa, then a layer of LUSH soft velour that matches the printed fabric :) So when it's folded it's 3 layers of print fabric, 3 layers of very absorbent sherpa or BKT, and 3 layers of velour. Plenty of absorbency, and I chose those fabrics for their softness too :)
Then I have so far made 7 lighter-weight tri-fold pads, out of one layer of sherpa and one layer of flannel print or thick printed interlock. So, the pad ends up with 3 layers of absorbent flannel and 3 layers of absorbent sherpa. I used my overlocker to serge them which was SUPER easy compared with using the sewing machine, and it was so much fun to match up fabrics! I used a different printed fabric for each pad :) Anyway so I'm nearly there on preparing my cloth pads. I think I will attach wings with snaps on to hold them in place. And maybe a layer of microfleece on the centre of the trifold surface, for the "stay-dry" thing. And I found a site online that suggested using a PUL liner underneath the pad if more protection is needed, rather than sewing PUL into the pad itself, which is a great idea so I'll make some PUL liners too. And then I'm all ready! After that I'll finish the few wraps and nappies in newborn size that I still want to make, and then the newborn nappy stash will be complete! THEN I want to sew that summery newborn sling, and if I have any time left after that, I really want to get a few more nappies sewn for Arthur. And then I can give birth ;)
Okay I think I have written everything for now and I want to do some other stuff before going to bed this evening so I'll finish here. Thank you for the guestbook entries and Jeannie for the comment on my bump! :) I do feel sooooooooo pregnant now, and so big. I have to waddle slowly if I am walking out somewhere with Arthur, and my pelvis aches and feels loose while I'm walking. I feel really really pregnant. It's so weird that I actually AM really really pregnant! So exciting! I still can't believe I really am pregnant again, sometimes! I am so happy and blessed :)
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