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June 2, 2003
30 Weeks
I will start of this week with my Prenatal Class, which this week focussed on interventions during labour and delivery, inductions and that sort of thing. To someone who is looking to have an all natural birth, this class was interesting to say the least. Both Simon and I were continuously surprised at how positive these interventions were spoken of by the nurse teaching the class and by the other couples in the class. At the beginning of class we were asked to write down one word that came to mind when labour was said… Well, of the responses, and there were twelve, eight of them were pain. Eight of twelve!! I was quite surprised and whispered to Simon that it was far too late now, you were stuck with this little person and it’s got to come out somehow! Simon’s response was baby, mine was life changing – I cheated and used two words – I can think of a number of other things that come to mind, like joy, amazing…
I found myself consciously trying to hold my tongue during the class when questions were asked about what alternatives there were, what happens when this intervention occurs and more. One woman, who actually is a doctor and works at the hospital was really upset that she might not get an epidural at the EXACT moment that she requested it. Because, you know, the anaesthesiologist might be in the OR with a woman having a c-section, or might be administering an epidural to another lady, but that wasn’t acceptable, as she knew that during the day they have one on duty and one on call, so she wanted the hospital to phone the one on call to come in and do hers! Oh my lord, the selfishness of it all. I just kept looking at Simon and sending messages back and forth to each other silently. I did find out a couple of very interesting things that they do as sort of standard procedures, for which I am glad that I know now, because I can ask that they not do that to me now that I know. One of the things they do is administer a pitocin booster shot immediately after the shoulders are delivered so that the placenta can be delivered in five to seven minutes instead of the thirty to forty that it used to take. Well, gee, thank goodness! I mean, faster is always better, right? Sense my sarcasm? There are a number of things that I now have information about and can make my views known to the doctor and nurses prior to being overloaded with decisions that need to be made right at the very moment in my life when I don’t want to have to make a single one. I will talk more about our birth choices in a later entry when I have had more time to reflect and confirm some of them.
I finally had my physiotherapy appointment this week as well, and just in time. My sciatica was really starting to be a problem for me. Being a physio veteran, I am very familiar with all the movements and postures that they ask you to do to determine what is going on with your muscle and skeletal systems. I am also very aware of how many problems that my body has and how many things my body does that are, as I call, ‘special’ :-) The physiotherapist, Bethany, was a really sweet lady, and as far as my vast experience with physio’s go, was one of the best I have had so far, which does say a lot! I showed her all the exercises I was doing already and she was very, very impressed with my activity level so far for the pregnancy and that I have been able to adapt and alter my exercise routine throughout the pregnancy to the my ability to do the exercises etc.
She also tested for abdominal muscle separation in three spots along my stomach, and when I did a crunch the first time she made a funny sound and the second and third time her expression became more of a surprised look. She said that usually when she tests clients that she can at least get the tip of her finger in between the muscles, but with me there was absolutely no separation at all :-) I was, as you can imagine, very pleased! It was definitely a result of me doing my core exercises so religiously that has let me do the things that I am doing while being pregnant, and I am so thankful that I have persevered in doing these exercises. They allow me to do things that normal pregnant women would not be able to do, let alone one with the pelvic problems that I already have, and I know will allow me to be stronger after the birth as well :-)
She actually could only come up with two exercises for me to do to strengthen the particular muscles that get aggravated with the sciatic nerve because I was already doing so many exercises that focussed on this area too. I will see her again in a week’s time, and she is getting a support belt made for me also, to help with when my pelvis is bad and the pain is really strong. I am curious to see how this will help my pelvis, as I have no doubt that it will. I have been doing the exercises for a few days and already am noticing a difference when I do them of how easy the last ones are getting from when I started on the first day, which just goes to show that it is indeed working.
This week was just chock full of appointments, but this next one was for our poor puppy, Brook. For those of you who remember, she did not decide to do some interior decorating again, thank goodness, but instead has come down with a urinary tract infection. The hardest part about it all is that she is so aware that she is doing something bad like not being able to hold her bladder, and is so clearly miserable because she is letting down her mum and dad. We finally were able to take a break and get her to the vet, once again everyone was amazed at how big she is now, and got her started on some antibiotics. She immediately started to get better, she’s been on them now for four full days and by the second day she didn’t have to go to the bathroom as much and has stopped cleaning herself so much as well. So, I have no doubts that she will recover just fine, she has also stopped looking so sad, which is nice, it’s very hard to resist those huge golden eyes! :-)
I had another doctor appointment this week as well, and it went just fine. I saw the same RN initially for all the measurements etc that need to be taken, and then talked to my Dr. I reminded them that I should be booked for another ultrasound and the nurse was actually a little surprised that they had not booked me yet. I am going in to check that my placenta has indeed grown up and out of the way of the cervix, as it was fairly low-lying with the 20 week ultrasound. I am not too comfortable getting a second ultrasound, just as I am uncomfortable getting the first ultrasound, however, this one has the ability to greatly change our whole outlook and goals for my labour and delivery and therefore I feel it is important enough to undergo. I would like to labour at home for as long as possible and then deliver at the hospital, but obviously that will change if the ultrasound shows that my placenta is still low-lying. It won’t be until 32 weeks, so I won’t have news for a couple more weeks. I did get the result of my glucose test, my level was 4.3, very low actually, which is wonderful news. I have to say that I wasn’t really all that surprised because of what I wrote, that the Little One was very quiet despite the sugar boost. The level they re-test you at is 7.7, so I was considerably lower than that. I got to hear the heartbeat again, and this time for a really long time, which was just lovely. The heart rate was 148 this visit, the Little One was fairly active :-) My blood pressure has remained really low, and my weight gain is also conservative, both good news. The baby was also head down, although that is quite up to change still.
This weekend we worked on moving and spreading the soil that we had dumped late this week on our driveway. We were able to enlist a fellow from Simon’s grad group, which was great, as he helped a ton. I went to yoga and then returned to do my part, which was spread the soil as the guys moved it via the wheelbarrow to the backyard. I ended up spreading 16,000 kg of soil. Yeah, that’s right. An almost 30 week pregnant woman spreading a tandem load of topsoil. Just blame my slave-driver of a husband :-) Well, actually, it wasn’t too bad. I took lots of breaks whenever I needed them, and found that I wasn’t having sciatica spasms at all during the day. My pelvis was getting sore and tired as the day came to a close, but it was exactly the same sensations as I had experienced last year when I was raking out the gravel for our side yard to level it out a bit before the developer put down our sod.
It was actually really funny because we had WAY too much soil. Our neighbour had four loads dumped last year, but our one load was almost double what his one load was last year, we have obviously got a very reputable soil company, which is wonderful. The soil too was quite deep and rich, completely unlike the very clay-like soil our neighbour had. So I had spread the soil an average of six to eight inches for the 24 foot by 55 foot section of grass we are doing this year, and had a third of the pile left. We were originally thinking that we would spread to a maximum of four inches, but had to put on more otherwise we would have a massive amount of extra soil. As it was, we had a lot of extra, so we decided to put it along the side of the house to even out the level to where we would like it to be in our future gardening plans, and also put it along the front where the sidewalk runs, as we’d like to eventually have the whole area as one level from the front door to the sidewalk with a wall at the sidewalk. Right now the gradient, while not steep, is not really conducive to placing a bench or anything out there. Also, with it more level, it makes it a nicer place to play in for little people :-) So, now we have a much more level yard, all we have to do is wait for the grass seed to grow in… This will hopefully be before Simon’s parents arrive, as we have been teasing his dad that he’ll not get out of his lawn-mowing chores just because he’s on vacation.
One of the best things about this weekend was that I was finally allowed to open up the stroller box that has been sitting in our backroom since mid-February. Now, before the feminists start rearing their head, not opening it was completely valid, as with it assembled those things take up a bunch of space! When it was in the box, we used it as another flat area to do laundry upon and other things like building projects. Besides, drawing out the opening just made me more and more excited for when I could open it, which was when I reached 30 weeks. Simon and I put it together, it was super easy and we laughed at the instructions which really do seem to be for the simple-minded when it comes to baby furniture and items. Perhaps it is because of our vast experience assembling IKEA furniture that has enabled us to put together items like strollers with such ease, IKEA furniture for anyone who has dealt with it is always interesting because they invariably forget a piece, or give too many which makes you second guess which nut or screw you used etc. Anyway, we carried it upstairs to the guest room; waiting for the painted furniture in the nursery to finish curing a bit more before we put it in there. Brook and Miss Scarlett were VERY intrigued by this contraption, and true to form, Scarlett hopped right into the basket at the first opportunity to check it out. Quite cute. We let Brook sniff around it and gave her lots of treats while she was checking it out, which of course she liked quite a bit :-) So, now we have the stroller (actually a travel system) all assembled, the furniture painted and curing… things are really shaping up in the nursery! We will hopefully get the hardware and drawers put together next week on the changing table, at which point the room will start to look really great!
Symptoms: Several symptoms have cropped up this week. I have been having a little more trouble sleeping of late, a direct result of my growing belly! I just haven’t quite settled on a position yet, which makes me wake up more frequently during the night. Oh, the other thing is that for the past four nights I have consistently woken up at 2:30 in the morning to go to the bathroom. Exact same time for four nights in a row :-) I usually wake up sometime between 3:30 and 4:30, but after falling back to sleep these past nights I will AGAIN wake up around 5:00 to go pee again! I don’t think my bladder is appreciating the growth this Little One is doing. Oddly enough, I don’t find it aggravating at all, just funny. It also takes me forever to get up, because it is actually quite painful, like little shards of glass in your bladder when I stand up, then hobble to the toilet to relieve myself. Too funny :-)
The other thing this week was that I was having these really, really painful stomach muscles spasms for a couple of days. It was in the muscles that are really low, and were so painful that I actually had to stop whatever I was doing to breathe through the pain. I think most of all it was just surprising, when I would get the spasms, it was just so unpredictable. Lastly… Can I show you my battle scars? :-) That’s right, I have, just this week, gotten my first stretch marks for this pregnancy. They are so amazing, and no, I’m being honest here. I acknowledge their importance in showing me way more than the movements that I feel that this Little One is growing very strong and healthy inside of me. I have noticed that they are almost exclusively on the left side of my belly, which is where the baby’s head has been almost consistently for a couple of weeks now, and that when I have some in the morning, by the late afternoon they have faded, only to have some more new ones by the time I go to bed. How absolutely amazing is that? It’s like literally watching the baby grow, right before your eyes. It also makes me want to meet this little tiny person more, to see what they look like, this person who has now had a very physical effect upon me. Wow :-)
**Talk to Me**
How did you find the other couples in your prenatal class in regards to their perceptions of birth?
When did you start to have more trouble sleeping because of your expanding belly, and what did you do to combat it?
When did you get your first stretch mark, and where was it? On your belly, on another part of your body…
Namaste, Laura and the Little One
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