Waiting For the Pot to Boil: 40 weeks, 4 days

OK, now I’m in danger of getting fed up! Its funny how something takes over in your head. If I think about it, I’ve no real need to be fed up. I’m still shit scared of the actual event and its hard to pinpoint when my mentality changed from not being in a hurry and not being ‘ready’ to being more than ready and then getting to a point where I no longer think about what is going to happen and just want to get on with it!

I think part of it is other people’s impatience and everyone making you think you ‘should’ feel fed up – they say “don’t worry, it wont be long” or “you must be getting really fed up now” so you start to think you should be. Plus the “not long to go now” phrase kind of makes you get your hopes up that its imminent…then 2 more weeks pass without anything! I don’t mind people asking, after all, I get excited about other people and have asked many a friend at the end of their pregnancy the same questions they have asked me. I’m sure I have even uttered the words “not long now” too. I know they are just excited for me and that’s great, so if you are reading this, please don’t stop asking.

What also contributes are the false starts. About 3 times, I’ve geared myself up to think “this is it” – after each of the sweeps (of which I’ve had 2) I’ve felt awful. My hips and body ache and it makes me feel miserable, I’ve felt lucky to get to bedtime but fully expect to be woken in the night in the throes of labour. This then means I spend the whole night in a half sleep where every twinge makes me stir thinking this is it then nothing, every ‘dribble’ down below I think my waters are breaking but no. I then wake the next day feel absolutely normal again and it makes me feel like it was a wasted opportunity. That it should’ve happened but now I’ve ‘missed my chance’.

Finally, I’m concerned about this baby being born too close to Callum’s birthday, 2 September. I’m worried our children are going to hate us for the continuous joint birthday parties. But after talking this through with my Dad, why am I worried? Does this really matter? Perhaps it will be better. They aren’t going to be sharing presents as they’ll be 4 years apart in age and ones a boy and the other a girl! Maybe I need to get over this fear. It may mean Callum might not get much of a birthday this year but this shouldn’t matter for the future really!

Because of this, I’ve decided to change my way of thinking. My new ‘Due Date is my Induction Date – 29 August. I’ll not ‘expect’ her to arrive before then but if she does, then great, at least I know I’m mentally ready! And perhaps I’ll stop sitting around just waiting for it to happen – I’m sure its much more likely to happen if I’m distracted and not thinking about it. After all, remember the great adage “A watched pot never boils!”

Locked & Loaded: 40 weeks, 2 days

I had my next MW appointment today for another sweep and to book in my induction.

My BP was really good and no other problems. When she did the sweep, she said the baby was fully engaged, I was 1.5-2 cm dilated, cervix soft & central, waters bulging, braxton hicks occurring! So, seems we are all systems go and are just waiting for the signal!

Because everything is going well, the induction isn’t booked until 29th August in the hope that I’ll go into labour naturally before then. I need to call Poole ante-natal ward on 28th at 7am to confirm all is well and get details of what I need to do etc.

My MW said if I didn’t go into labour before next Tuesday I was to text her so she could get me in again for another sweep and then another on the Thursday if still nothing. Technically, this is one extra sweep than I should have as they normally only do 3 but she wasn’t counting the one at the hospital (as it didn’t do anything) and she wants to give me the best possible chance before the induction.

The sweep itself was a little less uncomfortable than last time and, compared to baby’s movements at the moment which are like someone scratching away at me from the inside with a knitting needle, was a walk in the park!

So still we wait! And bounce! And wait!

I’m very emotional today. Burst into tears this morning because I couldn’t find my knickers! Its a sorry state of affairs when a girl cries over knickers! Then, because I was grumpy and miserable, this affected Callum’s lovely mood and he became emotional too. I felt awful that by the time we got to nursery we were both in tears! I hate it when my moods affect his, especially when he started the morning so well.

Callum is being very sweet at the moment with this morning getting straight up and cleaning his teeth, bringing his clothes to me to get dressed and then making himself his own breakfast. He is so proud of himself. Then yesterday, he went down and made me breakfast in bed of cold dry toast (its the thought that counts!), the day before he cleaned his teeth and got himself dressed in his favourite attire of his England football kit! I hope this keeps up when the baby does arrive but doing all this and being so good then me being all grumpy with him makes me feel so bad and guilty. Rotten Mummy – I need to try and make it up to him tonight!

Finally, I just feel the need to log my weight gain before I have the baby. Amazingly, I’ve still put on less than 2 stone this pregnancy! 1 stone, 10 lb (probably 11 now as weighed a couple of days ago). That feels like an achievable weight to lose after I’ve had the baby!

Happy Due Date

So I have made it to my Due Date – something I’ve been curious about for the past 8.5 months and I must admit its a bit anti-climatic! Everything feels just the same!

I had another hospital appointment today (and one on Monday just gone) and as my BP is thankfully behaving itself, they are happy to leave it to my Community Midwife to do another sweep and book in my induction when I have my next appointment on Friday (17th August).

I was kind of hoping they’d book it in today as it would be nice to know it wasn’t too far away but I know, if baby isn’t ready, the whole induction experience is less likely to be effective anyway so best give baby a chance to come when she is ready.

I used my dowsing crystal the other day to try to predict when baby will arrive. It has predicted 18 August which would make a lot of sense if the MW does another sweep on the 17th and this one works. I’d be happy with that. For one, it is convenient as it is a weekend, he he, but also she would only be 3 days overdue so not too much waiting around (or too big ) and there are still a couple of weeks before Callum’s Birthday. That is my main concern about going too long after today is that baby will be born only a few days before Callum’s birthday. Its going to be hard not doing joint birthdays as it is but I imagine it will be inevitable if they are only a few days apart! Plus it would also be near the bank holiday – there would be both plus and minus points for a bank holiday birthday.

I’ve no more signs that baby’s arrival is imminent, just the usual regular braxton hicks, so for the time being it is just continue to wait and see.

I’m not fed up as such or taking any desperate steps to try to get baby out yet – just the odd bit of bouncing on the ball…and the fact that nearly every dinner is spicy is purely just coincidental (ahem) but I am starting to fantasise what it will be like to bend in the middle again!

Beep Beep and Sweep, 39 Weeks

Thought I’d just do a quick update following today’s hospital appointment further to my last blog post.

I was having more tightenings last night similar in strength to Friday but nothing more than that. Kept me awake some of the night though as every time baby moved it seemed to kick things off.

Todays appointment was booked for 2.30pm. I had Callum’s swimming lesson in the morning, then we went for lunch before heading for my appointment. After being so good on Monday, Callum was being a little monkey today and my patience was very thin. I was worried that that in itself was enough to raise the blood pressure.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait as long as last time despite the worrying signs of it taking me about 5-10 minutes of driving round the car park to get parked and then the antenatal waiting room being really busy.

The blood pressure checks were similar to Monday, the first one being done manually and recording as high and then the other two being done by the automatic machine and being under the highest acceptable level (140/90). She wouldn’t tell me what the first one was, she just said she didn’t want to record it as it was rather high.

I think the other two were 137/88 and 127/86.

After the BP checks, she went to have a word with the consultant about what the ‘plan of action’ was going to be. When she came back she said that they wanted to see if things kicked off on their own so she was going to give me a sweep* to see if that helped. They would also get me in for BP checks twice over the next week and then they’d make a decision whether to induce me on my due date based on how my BP was behaving. Of course, if nothing had kicked off on its own before then.

I wasn’t expecting the sweep and as I had a bad experience of internal examinations when being induced with Callum I was a little nervous about it but it was probably best I didn’t know about it in advanced as I would have just worried about it. It wasn’t the most pleasant thing and was quite uncomfortable/painful but no where near as bad as the internal I had in the delivery suite with Callum. Thankfully, I was curtained off for it too with another lady distracting Callum. Not something I really wanted him to be witness too.

Since then, nothing has really changed or kick started. No increase in tightenings, still just the odd one here and there. My right leg aches like hell and feels like its about to fall off but not really sure I can attribute that to the sweep or being a ‘sign’!

I’m not expecting much to happen. I have my next community MW appointment tomorrow at the doctors and imagine I’ll be having the same false starts over the weekend.

 

* What is a sweep? – A membrane sweep is where a Midwife ‘sweeps’ a finger around your cervix to hopefully separate the membranes around your baby from your cervix. This process releases a hormone which can help to kick-start labour within the following 48 hours.