38 weeks, and a very pregnant Christmas

You’ll be relived to hear that this isn’t going to be the big old moan that my 36 week update was. That doesn’t mean I’m feeling much better or more relaxed, just that I can’t be bothered to moan anymore. I can’t be bothered to get upset with how unprepared I feel. What the point?

Being very heavily pregnant at Christmas is a very strange thing. I was pregnant through a Christmas with Iris too, but I was only 16 weeks and only just had a tiny bump. It wasn’t the same. This year I am HUGE. Emormous. Absolutely massive. Well that’s how I feel anyway. The midwives keep measuring my bump as slightly small for my gestation so I can’t be that big, but I definitely feel it.

I’ve missed alcohol this festive season. Really missed it. I’d kill for a G&T.

It’s been fun though, and busy. I’ve kept going and going through the hip pain that makes me want to curl up and stay still. There have been periods of rest too though, thankfully. Having Trevor at home has meant I’ve been able to sneak off for the odd nap. Those naps have saved me. They’ve meant I can get through to the evenings with the kids and still have a little bit of energy left.

The hip pain is severe now. The very pointless physiotherapist appointment I had a while ago informed me that I’d likely end up on crutches towards the end, and I’m pleased that I haven’t. It hasn’t got as bad as I’d feared. I’m reluctant to talk about the pain too much with any medical professionals now. They’ve made it very clear there is no help available for me, and I’m scared they’ll find any reason to talk me into a hospital birth. I do not want a hospital birth. That’s my biggest fear. No doctors unless absolutely necessary.

My plan is still to go to the birth centre and have a relaxed water birth. Trevor is sorting out an iPod docking station and I’ll sort out some relaxing music. My bag is packed. Loose plans are in place for the care of Iris while I’m there. We’re done. We’re basically ready. I feel anything but ready! I’m slightly nervous about staffing now. The midwife pointed out that I may have to go to hospital simply because there may not be the staff to open the birth centre. I told her that they’d have to drag me kicking and screaming then. I’m not going.

I had my 38 week appointment yesterday. It went ok. As usual it was brief and formal. Wee sample check, blood pressure check, listen to the heart beat, have a feel of baby’s position. Apparently she’s back to back in there, which I kind of guessed. Her position has felt weird for the last week or so, with feet sticking out of my belly where I wouldn’t expect feet to be.  I was advised to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor. I won’t be doing that. Instead I’m going to have a good read of the Spinning Babies website and some other links shared with me on Twitter. Trevor and Iris blew the birthing ball up for me last night too. Hopefully a good bounce will help her move around. I can feel her head grinding down low in my pelvis so I’m not sure she actually has the space to move around! Is it such a big deal? Does it really matter if she doesn’t move? I always worry that the midwives are trying to frighten me for no real reason, like they did a thousand times when I was pregnant with Iris. I’ve come to not trust them very much, which really is a shame.

The appointment ended with the midwife trying to book me in for a stretch and sweep next week, and then getting annoyed when I refused it. Baby will come when baby is ready. I want that to be sooner rather than later, but I don’t think trying to make it happen earlier is a good idea. I won’t be having a sweep the week after either, which she didn’t seem impressed about. “Well how exactly do you expect to avoid going overdue?” I don’t. Some pregnancies are longer than 40 weeks.

My next appointment with her is at 40 weeks and 3 days. Hopefully I won’t make it that far because I really don’t want to see them again.

Still, this isn’t actually the big old moan I said it wouldn’t be, despite appearances. Because I am ok. I’m happy and I’m excited. Not ready but excited! I’ve been washing and folding tiny little baby clothes and wondering how Iris can ever have been that small. Trevor keeps grinning at me and telling me he’s excited, Iris keeps kissing my belly and saying ‘baby’. Having a little tiny one around again is going to be lovely.

36 weeks

I wrote this last week, feeling pretty terrible. Things have got worse and then a lot better since then, and I don’t feel like this anymore. I still feel the need to share it though, if only for myself. To have it to look back on. Pregnancy is wonderful and beautiful. It’s also a huge thing to put your body through and even when it’s fairly uncomplicated, it’s still bloody hard work. I’m 37 weeks and 2 days pregnant now, and feel much much better. 

There’s only one way to describe how I’m feeling now, at 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant.

FED UP.

Although, it’s mostly not the pregnancy itself making me feel like that. It’s everything else. I’m not ready for Christmas, and I so want to be ready because it’s so close and because I love Christmas. I’m not ready for the baby either. All of the baby clothes were packed away as Iris grew out of them, and all of them are all jumbled up in big bags of various sizes and are in various locations all around my absolute dump of a house.

Which leads me nicely on to another thing that is really getting to me. This house. This mess. I’m too big and too sore to do too much now, but the whole place needs a good sort out from top to bottom. A serious sort out. The kind where you actually throw tons of stuff out. Not the kind where you say ‘oh this old broken useless thing, lets put it away for another 2 years in a weird location and reconsider our options then even though nobody will use this piece of crap in the meantime’. Which is exactly how we usually do clearing out.

Oh the laundry! It gets washed and dried and folded, but it NEVER gets put away. It’s virtually impossible. Iris likes drawers. As I’m putting clothes in one she’s pulling them out of another. So it just gets put into piles that grow and grow. I say ‘piles’ and not ‘pile’ because that’s exactly how it is. Not even in the same room. The cot (that nobody has ever slept in) is full, as is the spare room and both of the big girl’s beds are covered in it too. I have no idea where they will sleep at the weekend, and I definitely don’t know if I can find the inclination to clear the spare room before my mum is supposed to come and stay after Christmas.

We’ve all been ill. Mostly Iris, but me and Trevor too. Being ill when heavily pregnant sucks, but having a poorly toddler at the same time sucks even more. I need to get out of this house. We’ve barely left it in weeks and weeks and I just can’t take it anymore.

I AM SO LONELY.

Trevor works in renewable energy, and our current government are doing just about everything they can to abolish anything green so he’s working crazy hours to try to fight back. He’s off early and home late, gone for hours and hours and hours, and in the meantime I often don’t even manage to get dressed. It’s ridiculous. Iris is fantastic company and I love her dearly, but I NEED GROWN UPS. I need them now more than ever. I need other kids too, to entertain Iris so that I can watch her play for a bit instead of playing with her.

Most of all, I need some time off. This side of the baby coming. And this is not going to happen.

Yesterday I dragged poor Iris out on the bus to the supermarket. I wanted to buy Trevor’s little nephew a Christmas present and get lunch in the cafe with the kiddo. Oh, and we need toothpaste. The bus ride there was hell. I got my grumpy toddler out of her pushchair to prevent a screaming fit, but then I couldn’t convince her that jumping up and down on Mummy’s big belly was a bad idea. Ouch. She wanted to look for birdies out of the bus window, but it was raining and all of our feathery friends had hidden. Apparently that was my fault. I had a headache. I should have stayed at home.

To cut a long story short, I felt sick and dizzy and had to lean on the pushchair in the shampoo aisle for a bit to stop myself falling over. Iris screamed. Then I hid in the loo for a bit, but I still didn’t feel better. So I decided to just catch the bus straight back home, but the bloody driver saw me approaching the stop in a distressed hurry and drove off. 4 minutes early. I cried. A lot. There were people around but everybody ignored the heavily pregnant crying woman with the screaming toddler. People are so nice. Not.

Generally, I don’t feel too bad. Not physically anyway. I ache and it’s a struggle to get down on the floor with Iris, but that’s to be expected. The bugs we’ve been passing between us have hit me hard, but in between them I feel ok. Just very tired. Emotionally I’m a bit of a wreck. Probably because of the tiredness. I just can’t cope with anything. I want my mum! Iris knows I’m not myself, and has responded by clinging to me. Even poor Trevor can’t do anything with her, and she just shouts at him when he tries.

What we both need is a good dose of fresh air.

The pregnancy insomnia has reached a point where I just don’t bother trying. Iris goes to bed, and then Trevor goes to bed, and I just sit on the sofa doing some crochet or watching rubbish TV. There is just no point. If I’m not right on the verge of dropping off I know I’ll lie there arranging pillows and wishing I could stop Trevor from snoring. My hips ache like mad when I’m still and there is no place more uncomfortable than bed right now. So I sit and wait until my eyes get heavy and I’m struggling to do whatever I’m doing, and then I go up. I’m getting about 4 hours a night which is nowhere near enough. The only perk to not getting out of the house much is that I often nap with Iris. An extra hour in the afternoon makes all the difference.

I feel slightly better about the actual birth since going to visit the birthing centre last week. I’m still terrified, but at least I don’t have to go back to the horrible hospital where Iris was born. The birth centre only has room for 3 women, but rarely even has 2 at a time. The walls and corridors still look like a hospital, but the main birthing room is pretty nice. The lights dim, there are lamps and candles, a birthing pool, and lots of space. The main benefit is there are no doctors! They were so rude when I was in labour with Iris, wandering in and out constantly and disturbing me. I do not want them near me unless it is very necessary this time. I have my in-labour phone number stored, and we know the way there. I feel better.

I don’t have a bag packed, which is freaking me out a lot. I need to do some shopping and some packing, but I just can’t find the energy. I need to sort through the enormous mountain of baby clothes and find the newborn stuff. Help?

 

34 weeks

  Actually, 34 weeks and 3 days.

39 days until due date.

I still have a feeling she’ll come early. Probably only by a few days, like Iris did, but I don’t think she’ll miss her due date. Probably a good thing because I don’t want to be induced. I really don’t want to be induced.

I haven’t been able to figure out her position just from movements for quite a while now. Sometimes the kicks are down low, and I swear she’s trying to use her feet to break out. Sometimes she kicks up high under my ribs. Sometimes her feet seem to poke out of my side. She rolls around a lot and it makes me feel a bit sea sick. Maybe she’s completely changing position several times a day. It certainly feels like it. I had a midwife appointment today, and from feeling my belly she thinks the little love is head down but lying diagonally. 

Every single time I lie down to sleep she gets hiccups.

I just can’t stop crunching on ice cubes. 

My hips are very very sore. I’m trying not to think about it, and I’m definitely not going to make a big deal of it. There seems to be no help for it available on the NHS here anyway (apart from that pointless physio appointment I had), and I’m scared they’ll try to convince me to have a hospital birth if they know how sore I am. I’m getting around though. We’re doing less and less, and have whole days at home now. But we’re getting out more than I dared hope we would be by now. Iris is a little ball of energy, but she’s been poorly and has wanted to stay home and watch Peppa Pig quite a bit. I hate to see her suffer, but her more peaceful state has been a lifesaver.

I feel enormous. I have been told several times that I don’t look so big. In fact somebody said yesterday that my bump with Iris was bigger. It doesn’t really matter what people say though, when you can’t see your toes you feel enormous. I’m apparently measuring at only about 31 weeks, but I don’t let these things worry me. Whenever I hear of sizes of unborn babies being predicted this early, they are always horrificly inaccurate. 

I can still put my own shoes on, just about. I can’t shave my legs.

I cannot sleep. 

I can’t get comfy. A pregnancy support pillow helps a little but I ache so much by the end of the day. If I do manage to get comfy I need a wee, or some Gaviscon. Or she gets hiccups. It’s very frustrating and I’m very tired. 

I woke up this morning feeling pretty unwell. I even had blurred vision. This is one of the signs of pre-eclampsia so I was a bit worried. My blood pressure is fine and my urine sample was clear though, thank goodness. I later developed a headache too, so I guess I’m just a bit run down. I have zero appetite so I’m probably not eating enough.  

Iris has her own unique way of communicating with her baby sister. Check out my Instagram video here!  

So. 6 more weeks. 2 weeks until my next appointment. Who knows who it’ll be with as I was informed today that my usual midwife has moved to Merthyr Tydfil! 

December

My last month of being a mum to one.

My last month before becoming a member of the two-under-two club.

Christmas, too.

I’m overwhelmed.

It’s not a bad feeling. I’ve been a little negative a lot of the time lately, and I know I’ve bugged people. I’ve bugged me, to be honest.

I’m completely consumed by thoughts of the birth, the day when life changes all over again. I can think of nothing but how soon that day will be here. I still can’t decide where I want to give birth, or how, or with who. It’s the gross stuff on my mind. The stuff that comes as a shock the first time around because nobody tells you about it. The bleeding for weeks, and the baths without bubbles, the leaky boobs and the feeling of having no control over anything.

The house is soon to fall apart again. Those long nights watching box sets with a baby who never sleeps. Not getting out of the house for weeks on end.

I’m being negative again.

I was totally blissed out for a few weeks after having Iris, despite all of this. I felt happier than I’ve ever ever felt and I finally felt complete. It was a wonderful feeling, and I’m excited to feel it again.

I’m excited for Christmas too, more so this year than last year. Iris has no idea what it’s all about still, of course, but she’s able to enjoy it this year. She’s already gasping in wonder at the sight of Christmas trees and flashing fairy lights. She may just explode with excitement when we put our decorations up in a couple of weeks time.

My hips are sore and I’m tired, but there is a lot of Christmassy stuff going on locally in the next few weeks I’m determined my little lion won’t miss a thing.

December is here. A month for preparation and celebration. And hopefully some rest.

 

Birth anxiety

It wasn’t what I’d hoped for, Iris’s birth. It wasn’t horrific, and we’re both fine, but I just wanted something more. A birth that made me feel empowered, not out of control. A birth in a quiet place, with quiet people. Not a theatre full of noisy people. Full. I mean full. It felt like there were hundreds of them. I wrote about it here.

It may not have been the worst most traumatic birth ever, but it’s still left a scar. A scar I didn’t see until I got pregnant again. 

Now I’m terrified. 

Seriously, I’m a mess. I have been for weeks. Months probably. 

Trevor seems to think I’ve lost it. He says he feels we’ll be safer in the hospital. I disagree. I never ever want to go back to that maternity ward. I never want to have a room full of doctors looking at my private area. I never want that test where they take blood from your baby’s scalp while your baby is still inside. Not ever ever again. 

I also never want my waters to break before labour begins, ever again. And I definitely don’t want those waters to be full of meconium and I really don’t want to hear the panic that caused in the person who answered the phone on the ward’s voice ever ever again. Ever. 

What I do want is to chill out. Not want. Need. 

I’m making myself sick. Actually sick. Most nights when Iris and Trevor are snoring (so loudly) I end up back downstairs, filled with panic. Sometimes actually being sick. 

Tonight I’m lying in a warm bath writing this instead. More for my hip pain than for relaxation, but still. Tonight I’m pulling out the hypnobirthing. Tonight I AM going to start the process of chilling out about this birth. 

And then tomorrow I’m going to book to look around the two local-ish midwife-led birthing centres. I’ve been meaning to do that for ages, but the phone calls themselves fill me with dread. I don’t even know why. 

Tonight I’m going to sleep in the spare room, where the hypnobirthing recordings won’t disturb them, and their snoring doesn’t disturb me. 

Tomorrow I’m starting again. Tomorrow I am going to begin getting excited about the new baby instead of dreading the birth. Wish me luck. 

Our Birth Story

Today the story of Iris’ birth is over on Mum’s Days!

Writing it felt odd and was hard work. I had so many drugs that it all went a little blurry. It was also over 30 hours long so there was a lot to remember!

Find it here: High Risk Pregnancy