Oranges and Melons

I've been meaning to post a new entry for ages but I've found that I've had very little to say so I've been put off. Things have been so tame that the best I could come up with a couple of weeks ago was that my satsuma had a baby satsuma growing inside it. Riveting.

However, things have moved on a little when you take the last 4 weeks together. There have been 3 National Childbirth Trust (NCT) classes and three NHS antenatal classes. D has been to them all with me except the most recent NHS class which was a breast feeding workshop. I let him off the hook because the previous week he had a 'mare with his remote access and had to go into work at 2.30pm. He was so angry. I hadn't seen him angry for 12 years. He doesn't do angry. He had actually headed off to work intending to miss the class as he had so much to get through. I turned up at the class by myself and 5 minutes later, in walked D. Awww. But actually, he's not going to miss much by skipping the last two because it's all covered at NCT on a Sunday.

The NCT classes are a right pain to get to. I think we were assuming we'd have a car by now but the snow put paid to that with David having had two tests cancelled. Happily, he passed on 14 February but it might be a while before we have a car. So it's two buses for us on a Sunday. We are out from 2.30pm to 7pm for a 2.5hr class at a village hall type place in scheme-ville. We are already half way through. Tomorrow is their breast feeding workshop. I wonder if there will be a knitted boob like there was at the NHS class this week.

On Monday of last week, I tried to walk to work. It was a lovely, frosty morning but with a hint of Spring in the air. After 15 minutes, I twanged what I presume was a ligament under my bump. I did this by walking up a gentle slope. Thinking I could 'walk it off', I carried on. Five minutes later I was in some agony and hobbling towards a bus stop. I'd quite happily have been stretchered off. I could barely take another step.
I was raging. I think it means no more walking to work for me. Urgh. I called the midwife because it was soo painful, but it did ease off and completely disappear by the end of the day. However, I've had a few pangs since. Boo.

I'm 32 weeks pregnant now and apparently the baby's movement is at its peak. It is certainly active. The last few days it has barely stopped moving. The only time it seems to stop is when my brother or Mum are trying to feel it kick. It's a tricky wee thing. I'll miss it when the moving stops.

On Wednesday evening, we had a visit from the police. Eek. We had had a card through the door on Friday asking us to call the West End police station from Tuesday onwards. I thought 'from Tuesday onwards - can't be urgent!' and promptly forgot. So they turned up at the door. We had just been practicing hypnosis and had only just finished. I was zen-like. Normally a visit from the police would have my heart beating nineteen to the dozen despite my innocence. The hypno must really be working. Anyway, someone had stolen a 'device' (they wouldn't be more specific) which had GPS and its last known position was our street. So they wanted to know our names, ages, work places, our movements on a particular date and whether we'd had any visitors that day. Luckily, because we are so busy these days, I could actually remember where we had been. Cast iron alibi. Kind of.

So that's the latest. Also - I am so so so so so tired, and am 10 stone, 10.5 pounds. 'Mare! And the baby is the size of a honeydew melon. Now, THAT I believe.

Baby Boiler

The day after my last post was D's birthday. We were woken up at 5.45 to a very loud and terrifying noise coming from our heating system. The baby was leaping about all over the place because I gave it such a fright waking up so suddenly with my heart pounding. I was still on holiday from work and so was able to get the boiler man round in the afternoon. Turns out our pipes were blocked. They think. It was either that or the pump. Except he couldn't find the pump. In a two up, two down, tiny terraced house, he couldn't find the pump. So he said we didn't have one. In any case, the system was pretty screwed and there was no simple way to fix it in the long term.

So we chose to just replace the 26 year old boiler and be done with it. With a baby on the way, it's probably for the best although it will totally blow our hard earned savings.

I spent all the following weekend drawing up a baby-boiler budget spreadsheet. With hindsight, I could have named it better. All frivolous spending has been banned. Supermarket shops are to be strictly monitored and no more coffee at work for me or posh sandwiches for D. Sigh! And of course, no spending money to have Lost prints professionally framed.

Anyway, the boiler is in now and everything seems to be fine and the pump was safely located and replaced. It's good to be warm. And we get a £400 rebate from the Scottish Government to help pay for it. Thank you Scottish Government.

My next project is to think about getting a tumble dryer. Even though we haven't much space. We'd need to get rid of our kitchen table. But with a baby coming and taking up our current clothes drying room, it may be the only option when my life becomes laundry-tastic. It's not going to look good for re-sale of the house to have what is a quite spacious kitchen filled with white goods that aren't neatly under the counter top (freezer is taking up floor space since D let me have a dishwasher). But I guess selling is a long way off.

In other news, we finished HypnoBirthing last Sunday. Or I should say, we had our last class. We met with the other 2 couples for lunch beforehand just as we did last week and had a good time. At the class, we saw a video of a British water birth at home. It convinced us to ask the midwife about a home birth. She is going to come round in early March to chat about it properly.

At my midwife appointment, I had blood taken again and got my anti-D injection - in my backside!

That all went fine except she had to draw blood twice because she wrote my name wrong on one of the vials. It was the first time she'd EVER done that. Lucky old me. At my appointment there was also a midwifery student. She got all the good jobs - like testing my pee. She also got a shot at palpating my tummy. I felt for her as she wasn't too sure what she was doing and the midwife left her with me alone for ages. But she found the heartbeat of the baby with the doppler while the midwife was out the room. Then the cheeky baby moved so the midwife didn't believe that she'd heard it when she came back in and asked where the student had been holding the doppler. The baby is breech at the mo but there's plenty of time for it to move.

Since my last post, I bought a nursing chair for the baby's room. It's a modern rocking chair which glides rather than rocking. We now have far far too much stuff in the house and that's only going to get worse.

This week the baby is the size of a butternut squash (!) and I am 10 stone, 6.75 pounds. That's only 0.25 pounds heavier than two weeks ago although I'm definitely way huger. So the six jumpers I had to wear the last fortnight were probably masking my true weight.

Birthdays and Brainwashing

We've been on holiday from work since 19 January. Poor D has to go back tomorrow on his birthday. He's not happy. He's got too used to spending every waking minute with his enormous wife. We were supposed to be getting the house in order while we've been off, and while we've done a bit of this, it's been a pretty lazy time. We've been lying in and lounging around. The bathroom is still not finished and the place is still a tip. But D has cleared out the attic. And then refilled it with different crap. And the poor soul has had to retire one of his mountain bikes as it's going to be too expensive to maintain it. He is still in mourning.

I had a lovely Lostie birthday in that I received the BEST gift from @andalone (THANK YOU!!!!!) which happened to arrive that day. It was a Dharma baby-gro and a t-shirt for me (which I'm scared I'll never fit into). And then later in the afternoon, I received my prize for coming 2nd in the Kharma Initiative raffle which was two posters (one being the Not Penny's Boat print from the second Lost poster event) and a 'Hurley and the Numbers' gelaskin cover for my Ipod Touch which was the giveaway item at the Damon, Carlton and a Polar Bear reveals. I now have 3 of those items. One from the Glasgow reveal and the other from the Chicago reveal. V. happy.
Also on my birthday, Dad and D went to Mamas and Papas to pick up our travel system, cheap(ish) buggy and cot bed. Today D put the cot bed up - it's lovely. I'm glad we didn't go for a real cheapy. The baby's room is small and we have real storage issues in this boxy little house. But people manage with less.
The one bit of useful tidying I have done is to sort out my Lost posters. Some have gone in the attic to be framed another day when there's more cash. The others I have set aside to take to the framers on Friday, the last of my days off from work. I'll get four done and the rest will just have to wait sadly. At least until some kind person takes us to Ikea where I might be able to pick up a frame for them.

Hypnobirthing has continued and we are still enjoying it. In class 2 we learned the principles of glove anesthesia where you numb your hand and then apply your hand to any part of your body you want to numb. I managed the hand but wasn't able to transfer it. If you perfect this, you can use it at the dentist instead of an injection.

We also learned that I can practise birth breathing while going to the loo for a number 2! If you can breathe out a bowel movement without pushing, you can do the same with a baby. Just lovely.
In class 3, D learned gentle touch massage which he can do for a while when I'm in labour (although he'll get sore arms if he does it too long). In the hypnosis session at the end of the class, I feel that I went under very quickly. We were in the deep recesses of our minds looking through a book of our lives so we could erase and rip up any pages which contained fear that might get in the way of our best possible birth experience. Most of my fears are not borne of any past experiences or stories I've heard - I've just made them up for myself. So I found it difficult to find relevant pages in my book. But I pulled out a few. I need to think of ways to visualise my fears so I can do this more effectively the next time I 'go through the book'. Do I sound sufficiently sucked in yet?

The technique to get you to go deep inside yourself seems to be to get you to count down, and use language like 'down' and 'deeper' until you are in a hypnotic state. When I was being counted down, I felt myself on an escalator, and then eventually on a rope pulley system (like in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves after Robin shows Marion the riches in the tree house and then they get down by rope, rather than by ladder). When I got to the bottom (or when the counting from 10-1 had finished), there was a huge lilac, gleaming diamond floating in the air in front of me. This wasn't something I was being prompted to see. It was the most vivid thing I've seen under hypnosis. The hypnotherapist made no mention of it and was telling me to go find a room down a corridor (the one with the book) . I tucked the jewel under my arm as it seemed too important to leave behind. I have no idea what it means. Perhaps it is the source of life, death and rebirth?
Eventually we were asked to visualise our new family once baby has arrived. I saw me and D and a baby. When the hypnosis was over, we were asked if we saw the sex of our baby. I hadn't thought about it while I was under, but I immediately replied 'yes' without hesitation. But I'd borrowed the image of the baby I imagined from a dream I'd had and that dream, I'm sure, was influenced by a picture of a newborn boy I'd seen at work the previous week.

On Friday, I spent a lot of time practising the hypnosis. D has also been given hypnosis scripts to read to me so that I can associate the sound of his voice with being relaxed.

So, as you can tell, it's pretty much occupying my thoughts at the moment.

And that's the way it needs to be if it's to work. I'm also getting more keen on the idea of a home birth. However, it is remarkable how sinister some people think hypnosis is and how foolhardy they think a home birth is. They think it is hippy dippy nonsense. These people are the ignorant ones but sometimes it's difficult to hold your ground. Especially when these people have given birth themselves and think that makes them experts on birth in general. It makes them experts in the birth of their own children and not a lot else. Granted, I'm not even an expert in that yet but I'm more expert in self hypnosis than they are. So there, see!

This week, according to the iPhone app of pregnancy wisdom, the baby is the size of a... cucumber. Que??

Today I am 10 stone and 6.5 pounds. YIKES!

Hypnosis! (And not in preparation for my impending kidnapping by Ethan)

This week our baby is the size of 2 juice boxes. That's according to one of my American pregnancy iphone apps. This was a deviation from its usual fruit and veg reference points. I quite often have to Google these. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, baby was the size of a spaghetti squash. Say what now? Equally puzzling are the assertions that baby is the size of an avocado or 'an ear of corn'. But what sized avocado and ear of corn? And we all know those transatlantic cousins do things bigger and better than we do. So a 'giant' ear of corn? Or just a sad Scottish ear of corn? Do you get Scottish ears of corn? Anyway, I was delighted about the juice boxes because as of Season 5, episode 11 of Lost in 2009, I know what a juice box is. No need to Google (ooh - unless US juice boxes are bigger too?). We call them 'wee cartons of juice'. So, although it triggered a fairly dramatic series of events, I'm glad Aaron changed his mind from milk to juice.
The crochet is going well but I'm waiting for a new consignment of wool in my preferred colours so the blanket is on hold for now. But I am 'well into it' and am determined to produce at least two blankets by April. For now, I have swapped to making a silly hat but I haven't got the tension quite right and have made it a bit too big and have consequently run out of wool in that colour. I've been crocheting away while we watch Still Game, episode after episode as we've just got the box set. I'd only seen a couple of episodes on telly but thought it was worth the purchase. We love it.

Today we were at our first HypnoBirthing class. Just beforehand, neither of us wanted to go. I dislike new situations and D just prefers the path of least resistance. This means he agrees to my mad cap plans months in advance for peace, then when they approach implementation, he wishes he could just stay in the house. The added 'threat' of being hypnotised was not helping his frame of mind. Although he was mostly joking when he mentioned being made to run around like a chicken.
But it was actually a really nice afternoon. We watched a video of women just 'breathing' their babies out. No pain, no pushing, no screaming. Very very hard to believe. But you have to believe it for it to work. You have to train your sub conscious to believe it. I therefore have to listen to birthing affirmations everyday and also self-hypnotise every day. At today's class, she put us under at the end. It worked quite well for me first time and I stopped being aware of my body - it was a bit like floating. Most of what was said made sense and one of the appealing things about it was the supposed effect on the baby once it is born. If you are relaxed and sending the baby endorphins because you are happy, then that will be the baby's natural state. If you are stressed, worried, etc, you'll be sending it all those stress hormones and then that will be its natural state. So when it's born, it will cry more to produce those stress hormones it is so used to. So HypnoBirthing proponents claim that HypnoBabes are happier and eat and sleep better too because they like to have those happy endorphins in their bodies. It makes sense to me.

What I believe a little less is the chances of really having a calm, pain free birth. I think that hospitals whip you up into a state of anxiety and then you are on their conveyor belt production line. Someone on the class said that her sister in law's midwife wouldn't believe her (over the phone) that her labour was as far advanced as it was because she sounded too calm. She'd been doing hypnobirthing techniques and was completely relaxed and under control. However, one of the NHS indicators for judging the advancement of labour is how stressed you sound. That's just super, isn't it?

This week I have broken the 10st barrier. Eek! I remember how hard I worked to get below that marker. I am 10 stone, 1.75 pounds. This is a gain of 8.25 pounds (I think - it's late and I'm tired). The NHS don't seem concerned about weight but the interweb says I should have gained more than this by now. Ach, well.

Christmas Vomit and a Wriggly Baby

It's been Christmas time! No eagerly anticipated phone calls but quite a lot has happened since the last post. We had our 20 week scan on 15 December. It was amazing to see all the bits and pieces of our baby. We saw its alien face, its heart, the compartments of the heart, bladder and kidneys (which are working nicely), the pelvis, thigh bone, two little thumping feet and best of all the wave of a bony hand. But we didn't find out the gender. The sonographer was an absolute witch. She got my back up right away by starting the consultation by saying 'so what can I do for you then?'. Grrr

'Just a short back and sides today I think, Blackadder'. Or maybe my 20 WEEK SCAN. FFS.

So I admit I went into stroppy teenage mode and said 'I don't know' and it just got worse from there. Got to love a medical professional with no bedside manner. Silly moo.
D can now feel the baby! I learned at the scan that my placenta is in an anterior position, so at the front of my uterus. This is probably why it took me so long to feel the baby. The upside is that it wasn't too much longer before the movements were big enough to be felt from the outside. The bigger movements he can feel with his hands. But his preferred method is to 'listen' to the baby. So I've had him semi-permanently clamped by the ear to my belly. But of course I don't mind. The baby seems to like it too as he definitely moves more when D's listening.

The continuing saga of the 'Extreme Snow' pretty much blighted the run up to Christmas. Christmas shopping involved risking life and limbs at the shops or hanging around your front window, biting your nails wondering if your Amazon order was going to turn up on time. Of course it all turned out okay in the end.

Christmas was pretty quiet. The family dropped around for a while which was lovely but not long after they'd gone I started to feel pretty unwell. By 8pm I was vomiting legendary amounts. As usual with sickness bugs, I felt amazing for the next 2 hours before the build up to the next bout began. Luckily I was sick just once more at midnight. I'm a dab hand at puking these days so that didn't bother me nearly as much as it would have done a year ago. But I did worry about the effect on the baby and I had no appetite and no energy for a few days. That's what I get for assuring Dro on Christmas morning that I was 'done with vomiting'.

We are beginning to accumulate baby stuff now. D bought the baby a Christmas present of a wee outfit. Awwww. And C has given us lots of clothes I need to go through. I met H for lunch today and she said I could go round one evening and have my pick of some things she's happy to give away so I'm really excited about that. Don't suppose she has an oceanic plane mobile though.

Yesterday I was at the midwife and I continue to be normal. My belly is the right size. My blood pressure is perfect. There is nothing suspect in my wee. I heard the heart beat again too. I also got the MATB1 form that means my work has to be super good to me and treat me like a princess.

Today I bought some quite expensive wool to make a small blanket. This is as much as my crocheting skills will allow and even then I am really pushing it. No mummy made booties for this child :( I will update on progress or lack thereof.
In other developments:

• We bought a LUDICROUSLY huge Christmas tree on line by mistake. It's supposed to be 6 foot tall but is, in fact, more like 6 foot wide. If we already had the baby, we could lose it for days in there.
  
• The perception of time when sober at the work Christmas lunch might be (is) different than the time experienced when drunk at the work Christmas lunch.
  
• my weight today is 9 stone and 12.25 pounds. This is still 11.25 pounds less than my pre-weightwatchers weight in 2008. Just love watching the scales edge up the way again after all that hard work.

Can you feel it?

We are fed up of icy weather. Most of the snow melted on Friday but there so much ice left on the pavements out of town that I still can't walk to work. I need exercise and I'm going mad. I'm sick of the bus. Literally. Two days last week I've been very near to vomiting on Edinburgh's historic Royal Mile on the way to work. I've had to spit up some 'pre-vomit saliva' in various closes on the way down the road. Hahahahaha - nice. If I have to live it, you have to know about it. But no actual vomit for 15 days and counting.

We got most of our Christmas shopping done on Saturday and bought some maternity clothes for me. This is good because I've been reduced to wearing my stretchier dresses to work. They were pretty short to begin with and, with a bump using up more fabric than usual, they are now very close to indecent - more appropriate for a tropical island than sub-arctic Edinburgh. Still, I aim to be one of those irritating women who stay thin except for the bump. So long live the short dress wearing!

On Friday I felt the baby move for the first time. D is jealous and says 'You get all the good stuff'. At first of course I wasn't sure what I was feeling. It's a bit like a bubble bursting under your skin, or like a tiny muscle spasm.

On Wednesday we go for our 20 week scan which is pretty exciting. If it all goes well then, we have to assume the baby is fine. Now I just need to worry about it being ugly. I was being teased at work about how many ugly babies there are. And how some have cone shaped heads because they've been suctioned out. Was totally traumatised. Today someone mentioned the words 'facial birth marks'.

Although I'd quite like to know if the baby is a boy or a girl, D isn't keen so we are going to wait. We'll know soon enough I suppose.

Finally in a week without much to say, I'm 9st, 11.5 pounds. I am getting really quite big.

"We're stuck in a bloody snow globe!"

There has been thick snow on the ground for 8 days now. The most snow there has been in Edinburgh for 50 years. There must be 30-40cm lying outside which is A LOT for us. We think 5cm is something to spend every waking minute thinking about. There was a good deal of snow last weekend and I had a stinking cold and was not impressed that I couldn't go out and play in it. On Sunday night it snowed the biggest amount and I had to venture out to work on Monday. I have never seen so much of the stuff in suburbia. I ended up walking the nearly 3 miles to work and it was lots of fun but took 80minutes when it usually takes 50. And I was absolutely exhausted afterwards.

That first day wasn't dangerous underfoot because it was all fresh snow. The biggest risk was not knowing where the kerb was under it all. But in the days after, as it got trampled down, I started to get seriously worried about Squirrel Baby. D had to walk me home from the shops on Tuesday and met me outside work on Wednesday. I'm convinced I'm going to fall getting to or from work. AND because of my funny blood, if I fall and don't manage to damage SB, then I still have to have an injection in case there's any bleeding inside.

Once at work, there was still no respite from the snow. I was dealing with its consequences all day every day I was in. Writing messages for staff about the snow and whether they were allowed time off for not getting in, thanking those who did get in etc etc.

I was off work on Thurs and Fri luckily. Usually those days off are for Christmas shopping or getting deliveries. But none of my deliveries turned up. I got a serious case of cabin fever.

So we ventured out today into town. I got stud things for my shoes and then we headed to Brunstfield and had lunch there. (Weight today - 9st, 9.5 pounds) As a treat, I had my first full fat, full caffeine cola since 23 August (sorry SB). It was out a bottle and not draft and the best thing I have ever tasted. Then we walked home. It took twice as long as usual. Another 80 min walk. But that's what I need. SB needs fresh air and exercise and so do I. It was freeeeezing and we counted and named at least 6 different types of snow. Most prevalent - sand snow and falsandsnow (snow that looks like sand snow, and you think you'll sink into it but you don't - hehehehehe). Yup - we are chumps.

So I have a week of fear and trepidation ahead of me. Colleagues are fed up of me whining on about it because, baby or no, no one wants to risk limbs just trying to get to work. Normally in Edinburgh, it snows for two days max, then it rains and it all melts. Not this time folks. We have 12 more days of freeeeezing weather forecast. My sinuses have taken against me and my head hurts, and more recently my teeth. C has emailed me to say 'YOU SHOULD NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE FOR 2 WEEKS BECAUSE YOU ARE PREGNANT AND ESPECIALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE RHESUS NEGATIVE'. Arrghhhh. The roads and pavements are only going to get worse. Soon there will be 'cobbled' ice everywhere. I'm doomed. DOOMED.