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2006-06-04 - 8.58pm��previous entry��next entry
39 weeks, 4 days pregnant - getting things done in the house
Back again for the Evening Bulletin, hehe! Thanks once again for the sweet messages and notes! Jemma, I think you are right, I should probably just focus on the fact that the most likely time for me to have Matthew is a few days after my due date. Oh well. Yesterday that idea really bugged me, but today I am feeling weirdly less bothered by waiting, which is nice! :)
I am so tired this evening though. Today I have had such an urge to SORT, and since there was a ton of stuff to sort and clear and tidy and box up, etc, in the bedrooms, I tackled those while Mummy played with Arthur downstairs! Yay! Neil put things in the loft and we have a lot more space upstairs suddenly. I am so pleased because I managed to TOTALLY clear our bedroom floor, and categorise everything, AND clear out the wardrobe and seperate things for charity, the bin, and the loft! So now we have four more bin bags of things to go to the charity shops in the morning, plus boxes of things in the loft, and best of all, loads of space waiting to be used in the wardrobe! Yay! I felt so tired after I finished, and I still do, but I did have so much extra energy while I was actually sorting. For a moment I stopped and thought, "Hmmm, hang on a minute... sudden burst of energy....?!" but I'm trying not to dwell on anything that might be a teensy weensy indication of labour around the corner, because then I'll just get all disappointed again when it's not!
But I feel fine. I feel achy and tired, but fine. Mummy and Neil are tired out and both said to me, "Not tonight... please!" so it's sure to be tonight, isn't it? Heh.
I haven't noticed much in the way of contractions or crampiness today, though I have had a little periody crampiness accompanied by interesting discomfort in my tailbone this evening. Nothing much to report though.
Oh I checked my cervix again today and YAY I can find it!!! :) It's soft but not mushy yet. I read a zillion things online about how midwives check the cervix and how to translate what you're feeling into notable facts and figures, etc, to refresh my memory from midwifery training. Not that I really got as far as cervical exams or anything, but I remember some stuff from my studies. Anyway, I could only feel the bottom half of my cervix and the opening, so it's still quite high yet. From what I can tell, I seem to be maybe 70% effaced or more, definitely not less, which is encouraging! At least when I DO go into labour, my cervix doesn't have far to thin out before getting on with dilating. I remember my first internal examination during my labour with Arthur - HOURS and HOURS after painful contractions had started, and at least 6 hours after my bloody show and everything - and I was only 1.5cm dilated with my cervix soft on one side and not-so-soft on the other. So I guess I had a lot of work to do for hours to get the cervix even READY to dilate. This time it looks like I won't have all that work to do, so I'm hoping it will be much quicker!
Anyway, I couldn't reach far enough to determine how dilated I might be, but I can definitely feel inside my cervix. I felt something in there that was very firm but also slightly soft to the surface of it, so I wondered if it might be Matthew's head? Also it had a slightly grainy texture, and it's exactly the same feeling as if you rub your finger gently on a little bit of wet hair against your skin. So I wonder if Matthew has lots of hair like Arthur did, and if I was actually able to FEEL it today! How cool if that's true! :) So I'm encouraged anyway. And all the more so, since I don't have the same feeling of urgency to go into labour today. I feel more chilled out about the timing today, which is a big relief.
I am having quite a few Braxton Hicks contractions this evening which is normal for me. This is the first time in weeks and weeks that they haven't given me a weird anxious feeling under my skin when I notice how they are quite frequent or strong, or if they make me feel breathless or queasy. In fact, if I feel like that, it makes me want to smile and my body welcomes the sensation. Soooo different to how I've been feeling lately, and that's such a relief. The weird anxiety I had yesterday and for a while before that seems to have melted away. I'm really excited about labour! I can't wait to experience it again. I know it's gonna be hard work and painful, but I know I can do it. The pain did not pose any problem for me last time until I had a posterior baby to deal with! And I don't this time, so I know I can handle it. Me and my TENS machine, that is! ;)
I just ate a lovely lasagna and a HUGE salad! I really like salad at the moment. No dressing or anything, just the leafy stuff that I usually don't like so much because it's bitter or just tastes like I'm munching on dandelions or something! It's weirdly yummy right now. I ate an ENTIRE tub of fresh pineapple chunks (not the canned type, the freshly cut fruit salad type in a box from the supermarket) last night! Boy did I have heartburn during the night! I even had to take something for it, which I don't normally.
I have had 3 really strong BHs since 2 paragraphs ago, which I guess is about every 2 minutes :) I like practise! It leads to the real thing, and I'm excited about that! But practise is fun too! I feel so good and positive about everything right now! Yay!
Tomorrow, Neil is back at work as it's Monday. In a way, both of us can't believe he's actually going to work on Monday because we really felt that Matthew would come this weekend, and now the weekend is over. But oh well! If I DO end up with the exact same timing as with Arthur, Matthew would still be born within a week from now, so that's exciting! A week suddenly doesn't feel like very long, now that the weekend is over. It's like, this time next weekend, and that feels reeeeally close! Not sure how close it will feel halfway through a very LONG day with Arthur during the week though! I'm so glad my mum is here to help me. Tomorrow she and my daddy are coming round sometime late in the morning. I have given up checking my blood pressure really, as it seems so much improved and I feel fine, and my urine definitely has no protein in it. I do check it once in a while, maybe every day or every other day, and it's either normal (around 128/75 - a little high for me, but perfectly fine) or up where I am not crazy about it being but where it doesn't seem to be bothering me much anyway. If it seems a bit high, I just rest. But I think it's fine in general. Anyway, so I think I'll be okay with Arthur till my parents get here tomorrow. Then we will continue to tackle the house and look after Arthur together. Daddy is going to take a big TV set that we need rid of, to a charity shop in his car, and also some BIG boxes and stuff to the rubbish tip which will make everything look less cluttered and more spacious :) And he's going to fix a drawer that keeps sticking - one that contains some of Matthew's clothes.
On Tuesday the midwife is coming, and then Wednesday is my due date! I don't think I have anything else planned during the week. Daddy is going back to France tomorrow evening, as he has to do some work over the middle part of their stay in England, and he works from home so all his stuff is there. He is staying home almost a week and then coming back for the last few days of Mummy's stay, by which time I should hopefully have had Matthew and he can just turn up and be a doting grandfather to my sweet boys! In the meantime, Mummy is moving from my grandparents' to my brother's flat, as it's more local to us. Without a car, she would have trouble getting to us from my grandparents' house, and there is plenty of public transport from my brother's place that would get her here quickly. Or Neil could pop and get her. Or she could get a taxi. It's not ideal, but it should work.
My tailbone hurts. Hmmm, that's actually a new symptom for me this pregnancy, and it's only started today. Maybe I did something too much while I was sorting and clearing today? It hurts most if I sit on this chair and lean forwards onto my thighs, tipping my bum out behind me and arching the small of my back. Maybe I'm tipping Matthew's head into it and the pressure is causing the hurtyness? It's like an achy bruise but from the inside. Weird. Ohhh maybe it's bouncing on my birth ball?! I have been doing that a lot and maybe my ligaments and muscles in there aren't used to the activity and are a bit sore therefore? That's probably it. Oh well.
I can't believe I can now say, "I'm due this week!" I loved saying at the baby shower when people asked when I was due, "On Wednesday!" :) Lots of people didn't know when I was actually due, and many of them were kind of shocked when I said, "Wednesday" as it sounds soooo close! Which it is! How exciting!!! :) Three days to go....
Okay I have room for ice-cream (as ever, hehe!), so I'm going to get some, and then maybe relax with a book or play on a computer game or something. Last night I played Theme Hospital and it was nice to just do NOTHING constructive for once and zone out completely into something really non-productive! :) So I think I'll do that again before I go to bed. I had trouble sleeping last night. I got more and more and more restless until eventually at 1.30am I just switched the light on again and read my midwifery text book (poor choice of reading given the state of my mind last night, but oh well!) and then tried to sleep again an hour later. I woke quite a lot after I finally fell asleep, but at least it was weekend and that meant I could lie in till 10am if I needed to (which I did) as Neil watches Arthur during the mornings on the weekends :) I hope I sleep better tonight! Or if I don't, that it's for a VERY good reason! ;) I'll update again soon!
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