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2006-05-31 - 11.37pm��previous entry��next entry
39 weeks pregnant!! - June tomorrow!!!
I can't believe I'm 39 weeks pregnant! Just one week (SEVEN days!) to go until my due date is here. I soooooooo hope I don't get to it though! But yeah, I might do. I did last time, after all! It's just a brain boggling thought that I have made it through the whole of May and there is only an hour and a quarter left of May now! Where I live, anyway :) Then it's June. Time for Matthew to be born. I thought June 2006 would never really honestly ACTUALLY happen, because it was just too surreal to arrive in real life! But of course, it's June tomorrow and I'm due on the 7th, and this is really happening! I'm so excited/nervous/petrified/thrilled/exhilarated!
But I am still here and Matthew is still "there". That boy has dropped right down though, I'm sure of it. I feel like he is engaged all the time now, and Neil took a 39-week belly picture for the gallery tonight and it seems the lowest bump yet so far! Especially in comparison with the 36 week belly picture.
My mum is on a ferry to England AS I TYPE, and she'll be here at this house at around 10.30 tomorrow morning!!! That's 12 hours away. I'm so relieved! I still feel like I need to cross my legs or something overnight (!!) but I'm just so relieved that she's on her way and nearly here.
I have been checking my blood pressure frequently and resting appropriately and stuff. On Tuesday I phoned the Community Midwives' Office to tell them my blood pressure was up, and to see if I could speak to Pat about it, even though she was due to come and see me the next day. They told me she wasn't in and asked me lots of questions about my blood pressure, and symptoms, and Matthew's movements. They put me on hold while they relayed a lot of stuff to the Day Assessment Unit and then came back to me to say they felt it was fine if I was happy to wait till Pat came the next day, but if I was concerned then I could go to my GP. In other words, don't worry about it :) So that was good. Or it WOULD have been good if I hadn't got a phone call the next morning from some midwife I don't know to tell me that my appt had to be cancelled that day and someone would come on Friday instead. Neil took the message and he didn't mention my blood pressure, and then I couldn't get in touch with anyone for the rest of the day. Tsk. I am kind of annoyed about it, but oh well. I am good at monitoring my own blood pressure and I don't think it's cause for any serious concern, so I guess it's okay.
Tomorrow morning (Thursday) I am phoning the CM Office again, early enough so that there will actually BE someone there, to make sure it will be Pat who visits me on Friday, and not my usual somewhat-more-crappy midwife. I only want to see Pat now, especially with my BP being funny. If it's not Pat then I guess I'll cancel or make a bit of a fuss or something! I don't know. I haven't been seen in over 2 weeks now and they need to come and visit me properly when I'm this pregnant with something to be concerned about.
BUT, having said that, my blood pressure seems slightly improved today and some of yesterday. I don't know why - I have been praying, and I know others have been praying for me too, so I am pretty sure God has a large part to play! :) Today I went for a bra fitting - my first trip out of the house since my BP went up, and when I got home I was tired out. I wanted to take my BP straight away to get a picture of how much an unusual activity might be affecting it, and I was so surprised to see it was 125/70! Yay! This morning I even had a reading of 120/60, which is SUCH a relief! I had a reading like the one after my bra fitting yesterday too, when I hadn't really rested as such beforehand, so maybe things are improving? I have also had a couple of the higher readings, but it seems that I mostly get high readings when I have been looking after Arthur without help for any length of time. I feel bad about that somehow, that it's Arthur who puts my blood pressure up! Poor little boy! I can do activities upstairs with Neil watching Arthur and I don't have such high readings afterwards as when I'm trying to keep track of my little one downstairs, even from sitting on the sofa. But if I exert myself for too long and get tired out, I do get a high reading whatever I'm doing. So, who knows. My body isn't leaving me much choice any more about rest in any case, so I'm resting more anyways.
My bra fitting went well. I bought an NCT comfort bra and I know it will be a good fit when my milk comes in, so that's great! And if it's not, for any reason, I can exchange it with the lady I saw today. The fitting was at her house, and she has such a sweet little girl who is four, called Isabel. She was so curious about what we were doing, and I heard her mummy tell her that I was going to have a baby soon and I needed to see which would be a good bra for when I had milk for the baby :) When I finished trying bras on, she came to say goodbye to me, gave my belly a long stare, and asked me, "Is your baby coming out tomorrow, or sooner?" Hehe! I love the things little kids say :) I told her I didn't know, because babies come out when they feel like it - but it COULD be tomorrow, I would just have to wait and see!
Tonight I bought a Yes! brand nursing bra on eBay in what I think is sure to be my size for when my milk comes in. The seller exchanges if it's not the right size too, so that's good. Between the larger nursing bras I have already got, and these two new ones, and the couple I bought in a larger size recently at eBay, I SHOULD now be covered for all my nursing needs, so to speak! I have 4 boxes of breast pads ready and waiting - I know I'll need them for the rest of this year at least! I have washable ones too, but they were pretty much useless for me last time. I leaked right through them.
Tomorrow I am going to blow up the birth ball (if I can find the hose part to the pump, which has conveniently gone missing!) and start some lovely rocking and bouncing! I have been LONGING to rock and bounce on something for most of the last week, but too anxious to get anything moving before Mummy gets here. I know it might not change a thing, but I was too worried about the slightest risk before Mummy was here. Once she's here, I'll bounce on it all day long! :) I would REALLY prefer it if Matthew wanted to come out sooner rather than later, once tomorrow is here. I hope he won't wait until after my due date. I feel so uncomfortable these days, and once my parents are here, there begins an annoyingly stressy countdown until the "window" closes and they are meant to be getting back to France again. I want plenty of time after the birth for my parents to still be here to help me, and that won't happen if Matthew comes too far after my due date. Or at ALL after my due date, really.
I haven't been feeling too well the last two days. My appetite has dropped so much that it has surprised me to have food left on my plate that I can't manage! I have been putting everything and anything away for MONTHS - no portion is too big, etc! But now, I feel nauseous a lot and don't feel like eating. I do eat, and then I enjoy it, but I can't eat nearly as much without feeling full and queasy. It's not to do with a huge belly because Matthew has dropped, which should actually afford my stomach MORE space, not less. And I haven't had this earlier in my pregnancy, when my bump WAS higher and more squishy on my stomach. I think (from what I have heard and read) that it's another pre-labour sign.
Last night I couldn't sleep till 3am because I felt sooooo sick. It turned out to be wind making me feel yeurghy, but I do seem to be feeling nauseated a lot now. Today I feel soooooo tired. It made me feel a rush of excitement when I remembered Danielle's message in my guestbook from a few days ago, because she said she felt exactly as I was describing how I felt LAST entry, 3 or 4 days before giving birth, and the day before she gave birth she was just so tired that she just wanted to sleep all day. It's all making me wonder just HOW close labour is for me now! But then another morning arrives and nothing has happened. Which, so far, has been a big relief. But now that my parents are nearly here, it's going to feel less and less like a relief to see each morning in with no sign of labour!
It's so weird. My body FEELS like it is literally about to gear up and go into labour. I feel constantly poised, like I can't think ahead more than a couple of hours because I could be in labour by then. I definitely don't remember this feeling from last pregnancy. But then nothing happens. Is it even possible to WILL labour to hold off for a bit longer? I don't think it is, but that's the main thing I keep feeling. Like I am constantly holding back because I am so anxious about having my mum here for the birth.
This is a weird analogy but it's the best way to describe it - did you ever have some bug or something that made you throw up, and your body just KNOWS you have to throw up, but not just yet? Not that feeling that says you're going to throw up in about 5 seconds, but there's one where your body just knows you are going to throw up soon, and you feel unsettled and yucky and like you can't go far from the toilet till it happens, etc. I feel like that, but about labour (NOT the throwing up, thank goodness!). I feel like my body is gearing up for labour any time now, but not in the next 5 seconds. But it feels yeurghy and vulnerable and unsettled, as though it could be just hours away. All the time. But then hours pass and nothing happens. The only thing I am going over and over in my mind all that time is how I mustn't go into labour until my mum is here! So I just wondered if that's even possible to do. Or if I'm just reading into things that aren't there and I'll be writing irritable "still-pregnant" entries in 10 days time, hehe!
I can't think what else I was going to write. It's late and my brain feels weird. I am so sleepy today. I know I should heed people's warnings and go with my body if it is telling me to rest and sleep! I am so annoyed and frustrated that everything has been left till the last minute to do, and now it's a source of stress and something that is preventing me getting the rest I need at this late stage. Next pregnancy (I have told Neil!), this is SO not happening! I don't care if we get burnt out doing everything, but everything IS getting done by 36 weeks and not a DAY later! We can rest up for the remaining 4 weeks in the stress-free knowledge that our house is 100% ready for the big event, whenever it happens. I can't seem to shake the HUGE chip on my shoulder that I seem to have about this. It has made me so stressed out when I really do not need that, and I can't just let it go either. Since about 20 weeks I have been asking, pleading, nagging (etc) Neil to help me get this or that sorted enough in advance so that it's not a last minute stress. He always complained that there was plenty of time and that he was/we were too tired at that moment to do it. I did point out that we would be WAY more tired if we put it off and that it would be stressy too by then, but nope. So now it's exactly as I predicted, and I'm piddled off about it! But oh well, what can you do. It is not going to happen next time I'm pregnant though! Tsk.
Today we got the Moses basket down from the loft and the cotbed. In our spare room, we are putting up the cotbed by the single bed that I currently sleep in, and if I have to end up in that room with Matthew if our family bed thing doesn't work out, I will either take Matthew into bed with me, or have him sleep in his Moses basket, which I will place in the cotbed. I'm too nervous of Arthur knocking it over if it's on its stand or something. I often wake in the morning to find him in the room with me so I need to be sure he can't reach Matthew if I'm asleep and don't know he's there.
Otherwise we'll all sleep in the main bedroom, but I haven't slept in there for MONTHS due to crappy sleep during my pregnancy, so I don't know how easy I'll find it. Also I don't know how it will work for us to co-sleep with both our tiny boys! I don't know if it will make a big impact on Arthur's sleep, especially with all the night disturbances from Matthew getting fed and changed, etc. Or if Arthur's night wakings will affect Matthew. Or if, between the two of them, Neil and I will just be so exhausted and sleep deprived that we'll be completely unfit to parent them at all! So we have the back-up of the spare room arrangement, just in case. Except that Neil has lost the screws and fittings to put the cotbed together. *sigh* He's utterly lovely, but awfully scatterbrained, and things never get put away in any order, so we lose things a lot. I WISH there was a way to change that about him, because I think it's going to get more and more frustrating the more our growing family requires greater organisation on our part, but it just seems to be how he is. I love him anyway though ;) He's going to look for the fittings "at the weekend". Which, you know, sits just wonderfully with my fidgetty nestingness, because my body is saying that we'll need the cotbed up and running BEFORE the weekend, let alone have time to search the loft for a bag of screws, but hey ho.
Sorry! I didn't mean for this entry to get complainy! There are just a few leftover things stressing me out at the last minute, that's all. Not even that important in the grand scheme of things, but every little irritant is like it's under a HUGE magnifying glass to me at the moment! Everything has to feel right and organised, otherwise I just want to scream. I am soooo getting ready to have a baby. Everything in me is shouting it out! I organised my nappy-making fabrics on the new shelves today, so that was soothing and scratched my nesting-itch comfortingly. I also managed to finish a couple of the nappies I was making for Matthew, by putting the fastenings on them. And I sewed an extra-large Cuddlebuns wrap for Arthur, which I am REALLY pleased with. It's soooo soft! It's soft sage windpro on the outside, with an inner layer of buff microfleece. I serged it with ivory thread and it has ivory snaps :) I felt good making something for Arthur after all the rush to make loads of stuff for Matthew.
The Moses basket bedding and the newly sewn nappies and wraps are in the washing machine at the moment. That feels comforting to me too :) I can't wait to get them out and tumble dry them and fold them all ready for use! I really want to take a photo of Matthew's final newborn nappy stash, but I am still sewing and washing, so I reckon I'll run out of time. But I hope I'll get it done so I can have a little photo to record it here :)
Okay, that's all for tonight. I am tired out, and Neil is back at work tomorrow, so I have a few hours between when he goes to work and when my mummy turns up, to manage Arthur on my own. I will try and rest as much as I can while I do so! I'll update again as soon as I can, and the moment I have anything labourish to update about, of course! Thanks so much for the encouraging messages. They mean so much to me! xxx
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