Immodesty

The thing that has both surprised and amused me most about being pregnant is the lack of modesty that comes with it. It starts off slow and increases until by the end of pregnancy you no longer give a damn! Now, I have always been a little bit of a shy and modest girl. Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude but I am the kind of girl who likes dim lighting and turns her back to get undressed. Now I find myself not caring about letting it all hang out!

I've heard stories from friends of mine who were mortified after their deliveries to hear from their other halves that they threw off their clothes in the middle of labour and spent hours panting naked, and about the sheer amount of people who enter the room and have a good peak at your nether regions during birth. I guess this is the norm and you spend those few months of your pregnancy building up to that.

It's not just nudity either, there's also the bodily functions. Nobody warned me about the sounds I would be making all through pregnancy. I have never been a burping or farting kind of girl. Burping was a largely silently into my hand sort of affair after a gassy can of Diet Coke. Farting was rare and my husband always suspected I was shy and did it privately but that wasn't true, I just didn't do it much. It was kind of a shock to find myself emitting these sounds all of a sudden but once I (quickly) got over the shock and initial embarrassment of it, I have embraced it, and with glee! I have found myself making sounds that could sink a battleship and laughing over it rather than being mortified, and what's more, if I'm honest I'm kind of impressed with myself!! Luckily, Hubby finds it very amusing!

But anyway, if nothing else this lack of modesty is probably good preparation for labour and birth. I'm sure it's nature's way of helping us get through it. I for one am embracing it, it's strangely liberating!

It's never ending!

It seems like it's one drama after another. I just want to get on with my pregnancy in peace and hope for a safe and reasonably uncomplicated delivery resulting in a healthy and happy baby. Is that too much to ask?

"What now?", I hear you ask. Well, I tested positive for Strep B (GBS). I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK they don't test routinely for it, I only did the test because a friend told me about it. They did do a swab test for me at the hospital but were very honest about it being not totally reliable, so I paid to have a lab test done. This came back positive and I will have to discuss the implications of this with the midwife at my 38 week appointment on Thursday. What a drag. As I understand it, I may have to be given antibiotics during labour to avoid the potentially threatening infection passing to the baby. Not all babies are affected by the infection but it is potentially very serious for those who are. The worry about antibiotics is that they may affect either of us following the delivery so it is a case of weighing it up. I'm feeling really confused and anxious about it so I'll see what the midwife says before taking any next steps.

What a drag!

Post pregnancy clothing

Because I have a tendency to obsessively over-prepare, I went shopping today for all the last bits and pieces I need for the new arrival and for me for post-arrival. Mainly nursing bras, but I thought I'd throw in a couple of nursing tops too as I can't imagine I would feel like shopping for them by the time I'd need them. The selection available in both Mothercare and H&M were disappointingly uninspiring (as are the selections I've seen available from the online stores). And even more bizarre, I noticed most of them seemed to be in horizontal stripes. Now why is that? Does it seem ironic to anyone else that the majority of nursing tops are in the most unflattering pattern possible, for a target market most likely to be feeling the least confident about their body shapes they have ever felt?! Strange indeed.

Well, here is what I ended up with. 2 stripes and 2 plain.
I guess I'll have to play around with my existing wardrobe and try to figure out ways to be creative with what I already have.

DVT scare

Maternity leave got off to a dramatic start. I ended up in A&E (the ER to my American friends) with suspected Deep Vein Thrombosis. The first day of leave was actually my birthday and that evening my left leg started to swell up and hurt around the knee and lower thigh area. By the time we were coming home from dinner I could barely walk on it. I think Hubby thought I was just maximising the birthday experience and wanting to be spoiled as much as possible when I asked if we could take a cab to and from the restaurant!

I thought I'd sleep on it and maybe it would right itself by the morning if I had it elevated for a while, but it was no better the next day so I called the midwife who told me to come in to the hospital. As it was a weekend they decided A&E was the best place to go. After the initial assessment, an ECG and a long wait to see a doctor, they suspected DVT and gave me a blood thinner by injection. I had to go back the next day for another, and then back on Monday to get an ultrasound on the leg and a follow up with the results. I was pretty freaked out by it all. I presumed having to have anti-coagulant injections daily is not only inconvenient, it would have serious implications for my delivery. So I spent two days worrying about it. Thankfully it was a happy ending. The ultrasound was done and they couldn't find a clot so it was just a false alarm. I can't tell you how relieved I was. I had a follow up with an A&E doctor after the results were posted and he said it looked like it was inflammation of the knee, exacerbated by all the extra fluid and weight gain from this stage of pregnancy. He ordered me to take it easier than I have been and stay off the leg as much as possible, and just generally relax more. Good advice indeed!

Re-thinking the birth plan

I had some disappointing news from the midwife at my last checkup. Because my BMI is higher than it should be I won't be able to have my baby in the Birthing Centre as I'd planned, I'll have to go to the regular Delivery Suite. I am only just over the limit by one point so I kind of feel like it's unfair. It's a new hospital policy they have because of an incident they had recently where a very obese woman had complications during her labour and had trouble being transferred because of her weight. I'm not that heavy and I haven't gained a hideous amount of weight during my pregnancy so again I feel it's unfair, but I do also understand that they have to have one rule for everyone.

I'm annoyed at myself for being overweight too. I was somewhere in the high 160s before I got pregnant. Here they take your height and weight readings and calculate your BMI at the start of your pregnancy and then don't weigh you during pregnancy. I asked my GP why and she explained it can cause women to worry too much about gaining weight and they shouldn't during pregnancy, so it's to avoid people obsessing about it. She said as long as you are eating healthy for one and not gaining too much weight then they don't want us to worry about the numbers. That made sense to me and I was grateful for it but now I wonder if they did things differently would I not be in this situation.

After the initial disappointment I'm doing fine about it. I can still have the active, midwife-led birth that I want without medical intervention unless required, but if I do decide to ask for an epidural I won't need to be transferred. Lately I've been worrying a little about labour and getting more and more nervous so maybe it's a bit of a blessing in disguise.

That was the first antenatal appointment I've had where I came away not feeling good and positive. This midwife was scary! She also quizzed me on the signs of labour in a kind of aggressive and teachery way and then sent me home with reading material. It felt like school! I answered her questions right though, so I guess I've been paying attention. And then when I got home I asked Hubby and did even better than me, having memorised how frequent and regular contractions should be (I just vaguely said regular and frequent!), so I am pretty impressed with him right now!

Lady and bump of leisure

As of about 2 hours ago I am officially on maternity leave. Hurrah!! I am very excited about being free of work responsibilities and being able to put my feet up and rest a little before my big life change. There's stuff to do at home but it doesn't seem so daunting now.

All of my NCT group are either mothers already, on leave already or about to begin leave, so we are having our next get together over lunch next week. It'll be nice to be ladies who lunch, if only for a short while.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Growth scan

I was 34 weeks yesterday and had a growth scan to check how the little guy is doing. Scans always make me anxious, there's always that little niggling worry about finding something wrong. But I was fretting about nothing. So far he seems to be bang on target and doing well. He's growing at the right rate, current estimated weight being 5 lbs 4 ozs, and all measurements show as right in the middle of the range. We looked at brain, spine, kidneys, bladder and heart, and everything looks good. Good blood flow from the cord and placenta posterior high. Baby is also head down, as I'd suspected, and in good position. They announced it's just a matter of waiting for him to be ready to leave now, and the Obstetrics clinic don't need to see me again unless something else comes up so they discharged me into midwife care which is what I'd hoped for.

All good news and quite a relief. Now I'm counting down the days left at work (less than a week now!) and entertaining my in-laws who just arrived yesterday.