Almost at that magical date that the entire pregnancy has hinged upon! May 23rd 2012. Wednesday. The day after tomorrow. Regardless of when my little man actually turns up, I have officially ARRIVED at baby time! :) So exciting. And terrifying. And wonderous! All at once!
As usual I should be getting in bed instead of updating my blog, so I will TRY to be brief! ;)
Mandi, my favourite midwife, came round today. And Jackie (the head of community midwives) phoned me this morning to catch up on how everything is going - so nice! :) It's a couple of days early, but today was my due date antenatal appointment. I declined a sweep - don't want to mess with that unless I'm 41 weeks and having the threat of induction waved in my general direction. There's too much added risk with Group B Strep anyway, and thankfully Mandi was of the same mind about it.
Everything looks fine - my blood pressure was 116/68 and my urine was totally fine. Mandi could feel straight away that Elijah has grown when she felt him through my tummy. He's lying in the position he's always in - back along my left side, feet against my right side (LOA), and his head was 4/5 palpable still. He's in there, but still quite high. Benjamin was that high at least in early labour, and Mandi reminded me that he may not go down any further until some good contractions move him there during labour! She measured my bump as 37 weeks, but she's fine with that since I had a scan and it showed he is growing.
Mandi is working tomorrow (Tuesday), Thursday this week, and then not again until Monday. She's also doing Tuesday and Thursday next week. Gestationally for me those dates would be 39+6, 40+1 (Benjamin was born then), 40+5 (she's booked me in for my 41 week appointment that day if I haven't had the baby by then), 40+6 (which will be the day after a probable sweep, which has so far brought me a baby the next day the two other times I've had it done), and 41+1 (around Samuel and Matthew's gestational arrival). Mandi has delivered Samuel and Benjamin, and Heather and I are praying praying PRAYING that I will give birth on a day that she is working again! She only works three days a week (no nights), so it's not that likely, but then God answered these same prayers last time, even though she was barely working at all over the time I was due! :) I would LOVE to have her with me during labour and to deliver Elijah as well. I am not sure if I would otherwise get a midwife that I like and who would be as sensitive and understanding as Mandi, and definitely not one that I know so well, so I would reeeeally like it to be Mandi! Thursday this week isn't the best day for Heather because it's her daughter's 14th birthday. She and her daughter have agreed that she would come anyway if I went into labour that day, but it would just be nicer for her to be with her family rather than with me I think!
I am hoping (without a TON of confidence) not to be waiting until next week! 41 weeks pregnant is comparatively WAY less fun than 40 weeks pregnant, lol! I would rather give birth before that point this time! I have done so twice though - both starting with really obvious shows and labour right after. Arthur's was at 40+2 (though he didn't actually arrive until 2 days later), and Benjamin's the day after my due date. It occurred to me that Arthur and Benjamin are SO similar in personality (and a bunch of other things, including looks!), and Matthew and Samuel are my calmer, easy-going boys with a TON of similarities, who both kept me waiting until I'd had a sweep at 41 weeks! ;) I have no idea what Nathey would have done if my waters hadn't broken at 35 weeks. He's fairly easy going so maybe he would have waited longer, and I wonder if that's a reason why my assertive, more fretty children gave off their "please get me out of here" hormone which in turn triggered my body to begin labour (so clever how that works!) earlier than that laid-back pair who were happy staying put for as long as I'd let them! ;) With that in mind, Elijah seems to me to be a very laid-back baby (from what I can tell so far), and if my theory is right, wouldn't that make him the type to stay put until a sweep started things off at 41+ weeks?! I hope he'll come sooner though!!
The midwife asked if I had had any early signs yet. I have had a few little things here and there, but those could easily mean not-a-lot other than just the usual "gearing up" thing that can go on for about as long as a piece of string, if you know what I mean! Any day now.... or not! ;)
I have been very crampy today, low front and back. That's usual for me at 39 weeks, regardless of when the baby arrives, so I'm not putting much on that. I feel like I am very uncomfortably constipated alllll the time, which maybe I am to some degree, but I am suspicious that a bony little head pressed against my bowel is at least part of the reason for that feeling at this stage! I remember trying to go to the loo like 5 times during the morning on the day that Benjamin was born (after the show, but before contractions started). I just felt so backed-up and uncomfortable, but couldn't really do anything, and it was very distracting. I feel like that today, but again, it doesn't mean I'm ABOUT to go into labour, particularly.
I am also losing little bits of mucus plug today every time I go to the toilet. Sounds more exciting than it is - it's really just LITTLE bits, and that can be normal for ages before labour begins. If any of it was blood-stained, that would be a very different situation, but none of it is. I keep checking! :)
The other thing is that Elijah has been a bit quiet yesterday and today. Yesterday he was quite a bit less active than normal, although still moving the same number of "sessions" - just the odd kick here and there for them though, and I just got a feeling of him being the opposite of active in there, in general. This morning when I woke up, he wasn't wiggling about (not that he always is) and I suddenly got really nervous because although I knew he was moving before I went to sleep, I was nervous about the quietness in there. I got my doppler out at 6.45am and listened in. It took forever to get the wonky battery thingy working (it's a bit broken but still works eventually!) and in that time I got REALLY anxious about him, having felt his position which usually gets him wiggly, but he was totally not moving. Thankfully the thing started working and I heard his happy little heartbeat. He started to move a bit as well while I was listening, and it was encouraging to hear accelerations in his heart rate as he moved and stuff. I listened in for a good 5 minutes or so, and then put the doppler away and tried to get a bit more sleep (didn't succeed unfortunately!). But I was glad that he was okay. I spoke to Heather on the phone during the morning before the midwife came, about various things, but I mentioned his activity levels, and she said I could mention it to the midwife if I was concerned, but it sounded like he was moving plenty, just more "quietly" than before. In her experience that sounded like a pre-labour sign, and I remembered the same thing had happened with Benjamin. He was so quiet the day or two before he was born. I even wrote here that I went to bed on my due date and lay awake anxious about his quietness (though he was still moving, like Elijah is now, just not as vigorously or often), and said to God aloud, "Lord, I'm nervous about Benjamin's lack of movement..." or something like that, and INSTANTLY he began wiggling about really vigorously and kept it up for a while! It was such a relief! He was born the next day :)
I did tell Mandi about it, and she said that as long as he's having 10 sessions of movement per day and keeping to his norms in that way (he has had 8 sessions so far today, some quite wiggly, others just a few quieter movements - he usually has exactly 10 by the time I get in bed, so I think he's pretty much on track still), I do not need to worry about it, but if I'm not sure, or if it makes me anxious and I want reassurance, I can call them and have him checked at Day Assessment. So that's good to know. She also said exactly what Heather said, that in her experience he's probably gearing up for labour and birth pretty soon, if he's having a quiet couple of days - the calm before the storm, she described it as! ;)
So all those little signs together ARE rather exciting, but with my history of having little exciting signs here and there and then STILL waiting at 41 weeks, I don't want to let myself think about it too much and start wondering if it might be very soon. Because then if/when it doesn't happen for ages yet, I will become super-duperly frustrated and fed-up! ;) That part in itself is no fun, so I would rather stay as carefree about it as possible for as long as I can manage to!
Today is Monday and Neil is back to work after the weekend. Yesterday I had the craziest thing happen. It was like a food craving. I HAD to paint my toenails. I don't think I've ever felt that before, or at least not in recent pregnancies and not that I can remember anyway. But I HAD to paint my toenails, and what's more I had to paint them pink and sparkly - very girly! ;) But I don't have any nail polish!! I never really do that kind of thing so I don't have any. I did once have sparkly nail polish, and it might even be in the loft, but it has probably been nearly 10 years since I painted my toenails and even if I could find the stuff (which, trust me, is an impossibility in our horribly cluttered loft!) it would probably be all congealed or dried up by now. Anyway, this weird craving-type-thing was all-consuming! So strange for me! When I wrote about it at Facebook, quite a few people commented that they painted their toenails (or had the urge to) right before labour started, which I hadn't even considered until I saw all their comments, and I found it very interesting! Time will tell whether that's why I'm desperate to paint my toenails, I guess!
In the absence of nail polish, I shaved my legs and clipped my nails (not awfully easy when this pregnant, but I managed!), and moisturised my legs and feet. I never do this! I mean, obviously I cut my toenails, lol! But I shave my legs pretty rarely, unless it's summer (which it hasn't been at all yet, but that looks set to change this week, urrrgh - overly warm weather just in time for me to give birth, boo! I would much have preferred to be giving birth in the cool fresh rainy weather we've had for aaaages!), and NEVER moisturise. But even so, the urge to have girly sparkly toenails continued, and in the end I went on Amazon late last night and used some birthday money to order a set of various pink nail polishes, and a separate sparkly one. I put them on express delivery, haha! They've been dispatched today, and I'm absolutely LONGING for them to arrive tomorrow - that would be the soonest they could possibly arrive. The pink set might arrive first, because the feedback is great for fast delivery for that seller, but less so for the sparkly nail polish seller. If so, I will paint my toenails pink when the pink stuff arrives, and just add a sparkly layer over the top when it gets here! :) It's such a crazy feeling - I honestly feel like I CANNOT go into labour until I have pink sparkly toes. Seriously. I also need to bake a few things before I can start producing oxytocin, haha! Noteably (sp?!) chocolate refridgerator cake (made this morning!), double batch of flapjacks (less than a double batch is a pointless task in our household of flapjack-loving boys, and even that disappears in a day or two), and a batch of iced fairy cakes. I made lemon fairy cakes (these are basically cupcakes, in case anyone is wondering, but smaller and without a ton of buttercream on the top - just glace (water) icing instead) with the boys last week and then went in a flash, so I need to make more! Maybe plain instead of lemon this time, although the lemon was lovely! Anyway, I digress! And I'm supposed to be going to bed!!! Baking is usually a good pre-labour sign for me too, although I have been having bouts of that for months now, so who knows.
Well, I had better go to bed. I am still not sleeping great, but my best success at the moment is to get up and spend 5 minutes stretching out my various leg muscles - feels like it takes AGES in the dark bedroom, but it's worth it. I usually fall asleep within 30 minutes of doing that, whereas I might have already been awake for hours, so it's a big improvement. I am going to try it before I even get in bed tonight, as I'm really really really tired out and can't run the risk of a few hours of sleep after not being able to get to sleep for a while. I have had more energy today to do housework and such, than I have for a while. I have cleaned a bit in the bathroom today, and done various post-weekend catch-up chores in the kitchen, re. laundry and the floor, but my lower back aches for it, I think, tonight. I can focus (and WANT to focus) on housework really well, but I can't seem to focus on the boys much at all. I have little patience and their noise is unbearably distracting. I am finding it makes me feel fidgetty and irritable to sit with them and play and snuggle and stuff - which is sad! :( I do it anyway, but I am much more "sane" busying about the house doing nesty stuff. I guess it's hormonal and normal, but I don't like the feeling of finding my children's company irritating! I also can't for the LIFE of me get my head round simple stuff like meal preparation, or responding to "Mummy, I'm bored!" like I normally can. I just have fluff for brains, and the more I sit and squeeze them, the more ridiculously absent any useful thought is, and I actually start feeling panicky and tearful about it after a while. It sounds daft but I could. not. manage. to put dinner on the table tonight. I just couldn't think of anything, even though there's food in the cupboards and I could see it there. I just couldn't think what to make, or who would actually eat it, or anything. I tried sitting and concentrating on it, and pulling myself together for an HOUR, but was constantly interrupted by kids arguing, or having done a poo, or getting stuck and screaming, or "He took my toy!" or "He hit me on purpose!! Yes you did!! Yes you DID!!! YES YOU DIIIIIID!!!! (thwack)" I about wanted to scream, and I couldn't get anywhere on the food front!! I felt upset that Neil would be coming home AGAIN at a time when I should have the boys ready to go to bed, not running riot around the house, unfed and totally nowhere near ready for bed, at the end of a hard day's work! :S
So, Neil came home just as I was serving cereal and toast for dinner. *sigh* And the boys went to bed soooo late. I hope I can sort it out tomorrow. It's getting really hard to manage the days, even if I have energy and "know" what I need to do - I can't seem to actually DO it by the end of the day. By halfway through the day even if it's a GOOD day, I really feel quite desperate to have a break, to be able to get away upstairs and rest or focus on what every fibre of my being is wanting to do - the arrival of my baby and the psychological and practical preparations. I can't seem to be in the moment any longer with the usual daily stuff and the children. I wish someone could help me with the boys so I could take those apparently necessary breaks at this pre-labour stage of pregnancy. I have no choice so I DO it all the same, but I'm struggling a bit. That's a MAJOR reason for me, not to want to wait the whole of this week before giving birth (or worse, into next week!). I know that it gets more difficult day by day as 41 weeks arrives, and I am already finding it difficult. I think I just need to have a baby now. I am nervous about the scale of the event, when it happens! But I really just want to have it behind me now, the hormones and hugeness, and my sweet baby in my arms, resting up and recovering for a couple of weeks. I'm so looking forward to that part! :)
I will update again soon!
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