October 2006 Archives
Anytime I have been feeling exhausted or unwell (which has been pretty frequent over the past nine months!) I have tried to coax Emily into my bed so we can both have a sleep. This never works of course as she is far too busy. Generally what happens is the TV gets put on and the bed gets covered with all manner of toys and books.
A day last week I was feeling particularly bad and went to bed, whilst still reading stories and playing of course. Emily was up and down off the bed and in and out of her room and my room. I must've dozed off because I became aware of a snoring noise and Emily was most definitely not in bed with me. So look where I discovered her! I couldn't believe she had crawled under the bed and gone to sleep - especially after trying to get her to come to bed with me! The funny thing was she was in the middle of a whole lot of boxes (which I moved out of the way to take the pic!). It took a good five minutes of calling her to wake her up!
Here's a close up of the cutie sleeping:
Not long now. In fact its 9 days to due date, but I feel like I am going to be pregnant forever! I think its made it worse by everyone saying I could go early! So these last few days are really dragging. But it looks like junior is holding out for Warrens birthday!
Anyway thought I would share what is probably the last bump pic to be taken, I can't imagine getting any bigger - I better not anyway! I am having such trouble getting off the sofa or out of bed now its getting silly. So what's your bets then? Girl or boy?!
Well the time surely is moving along now and we only have about 2 weeks to go till the big day. Everyone I see seems to think I will go earlier but at the moment I feel that is not looking likely. I am just gonna keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't go beyond the 2 weeks!
I had my appointment with the physio last Friday, who was lovely. She said that I am a bit wonky but nothing major to worry about. She gave me some exercises to do and a support belt. I wore the belt home, by which time I had to take it off as it was SO uncomfortable! It goes under your bump and is quite big and stiff and makes you feel like you are wearing cardboard knickers! At least I know its nothing major and I will just have to put up with things for a little longer.
My ankles and feet have started to really swell and I am finding it even difficult to fit in my extra wide comfy clog shoes on that I bought when I was pregnant with Emily. So now I am realising I really do have to put my feet up and take it easy over the next couple of weeks. I also have a bloody cold and very sore throat, which I can do without I can tell you!
On a more positive note my anxieties about the forthcoming labour day have started to ease marginally. I was never anxious with Emily, in fact I was super confident. But I think because I have felt so rotten this time around its hard to feel positive about the big day and the nerves have really been setting in. I just feel so exhausted and unfit (months of not walking anywhere!) that the prospect of a marathon labour is very scary. But yesterday I had an appointment at the hospital and after the usual check up I went to see a senior midwife in the delivery suite. She was so friendly and helpful that she really helped put my mind at ease and I only saw her for five minutes as she was in the middle of a delivery! After talking with her I think I have decided this time around to go for a water birth. I had considered it before but ruled it out, but because of my pelvic pain I think the buoyancy of the water will help a lot - the physio also thinks this would be a good idea and advised me to talk to someone about it. Also I used the bath as pain relief with Emily and found it very good.
So I am still nervous about the whole thing but I am starting to feel a bit more confident and in control. To be honest I can't wait until junior is born and I can start feeling well again.
I'm not sure how much I have posted about this pregnancy in relation to when I was pregnant with Emily. But then it has been difficult to focus as much on this one when I am running around after Em whilst sleep deprived! I have to say the past couple of weeks, although I still didn't feel great, I wasn't feeling quite as breathless, as I think the baby has moved down slightly. But I have still had a lot of pain in my pelvic/groin area and tops of my thighs. Sometimes I feel like I can hardly walk or lift my legs to get dressed and its particularly bad in bed at night. Last night seemed particularly bad and I was in agony all night and had very little sleep.
I had mentioned this before to the midwives and they reckoned it was how the baby was lying, but somehow it didn't seem right to me and felt much more than that. I never felt this way with Em. I was beginning to feel like I wasn't being listened too and I was getting the stock pregnancy answers. I don't like to self-diagnose but after speaking to a few women at the moms & tots groups and further investigation I felt like it was worth mentioning and looking into. So yesterday at my appointment I spoke to the midwife about what I thought. Luckily she was very nice and as soon as I described how I had been feeling she knew what it was straight away and said she had the same thing with her pregnancy.
So I am pleased to know that I am not a mad hypochondriac and that I will be looked after in an appropriate way! The thing I have is called 'Pelvic Athropothy' which I think most pregnant women suffer with to a certain degree but in some cases it can be more severe and hinder walking and cause more pain. She is referring me to an obstetric physio who will be able to help and hopefully also advise me about labour - as I think in some instances when you suffer from this, if you want a natural birth (which I am hoping for) you need to consider alternative birthing positions and not just the 'lie on your back' one. So I will wait and see what happens, hopefully it won't take long for the appointment and I feel a bit more reassured that people are starting to listen to me and take me seriously.
Last night we had a major breakthrough, it may not seem major to anyone else but us, but believe me it is! Firstly, one thing which is not due such a celebration is that in order to discover this breakthrough Emily wet the bed last night. Its third time she has done it since she has been out of nappies and quite strange considering she has been dry right from the start. Some people say that change can effect them, so whether its anything to do with starting Playgroup/School or the pending new arrival its hard to say.
Suffice to say, last night, Emily came into our room quite distressed, partly because she had wet the bed and partly because she had managed to get rubby wet too. Most people will know the significance of rubby but for those of you who don't - rubby is an old sleeping bag that Emily used to wear and gradually over time became totally attached to it. Whenever she sucks her thumb she holds rubby over her nose and rubs it (hence the name). In fact she never sucks her thumb without it and the main point here is to say she NEVER sleeps without it. Once, we left it in a restaurant and I nearly had a panic attack at the thought of it disappearing. It has been rubbed so much the end of it has completely worn away and now has a big gaping hole.
Rubby gets very dirty as you can imagine and we kinda let this go until its really bad, but last night we had to draw the line at giving it her back to suck covered in wee! So in desperation I asked her if she wanted to look after baby's rubby instead, until hers was clean. Amazingly she agreed straight away and luckily I had a spare sleeping bag in the wardrobe (previously no other sleeping bag or anything else for that matter would've done).
So now we have a substitute. This is such a relief, not just for washing purposes, but just in case we did ever lose it.
This might seem slightly late in coming but believe me the past week has been just madness! So Thursday saw Emily's 3rd birthday. I can hardly believe she is three already, she just seems so grown up sometime. I baked cakes (somehow, although it killed me!) on Wednesday night to take into Playgroup, as she spent the morning of her birthday there. This was great as it gave me the morning to blow up balloons, put up banners and get some final wrapping done. She came home and we opened a few cards but no pressies until Daddy got home from work, luckily a bit early.
She had so many lovely gifts. We got her a pop up fairy toadstool tent, lego, some books and as you can see a must have doctors kit (we later discovered that Steve & Lydia had the same idea as us - Doh! But great minds and all that). I would be here forever if I listed all the lovely things she got so instead I will just say thank you to everyone - you are all so thoughtful and kind.
We had a family tea/low key party Thursday night and then a totally mad full on kids party on Saturday - which was bedlam! Party games were planned but weren't totally successful as the kids were all hyper and hard to round up! But we all had fun and despite a couple of overwhelming tears on Emily's part she had a ball too. It certainly didn't seem like my birthday too!! Once everyone had gone I put on my PJ's, got a big cup of tea and had a lie down!
If you want to see a couple more pics click here.
