You’re growing down in there
week 37 huge pregnant belly!
excited. you are now officially full term and can come on down anytime. Week 37 hoorah. June 4, 2009
Hello little one,
how are you tonight? I’m exhausted. I gave up on working for a bit today and took some time out to go grocery shopping with your dad. We now have hospital snacks for the birth bag. And some food for this weekend!
YAY – we are going to the beach again. S arrives tonight from Sydney – you and I are going to the airport to get her – and then after our visit to the obstetrician tomorrow we will head off down the coast. The others will come a bit later in the day after work. AHHH. 4 days of nothing. and friends in a house on the beach. and food. I’m going to cook Galaktoboureko. Yummo.
And we are going to swim. It might be a bit cold. But whatever. I’m hotter than normal still..
So. You’re obviously moving downwards as those sharp twinges that the pregnancy books warned me about are happening in much more earnest than before. I believe its your head banging against my cervix. A bit like shooting pains up from my groin. But I’m thinking its a good pain as it means you’re moving closer to engaging. So its all good. Keep it up. And you’re still totally crazily active at the moment. Its like vesuvius down there in the lump that is my stomach. So you’re doing something. I have heard that generally babies go quiet for a day or two before coming out, so I reassured S today on the phone that you weren’t going to arrive early while we were at the coast. She was a bit worried you might just pop on out. And that everyone at the house would then want to accompany me to the hospital. I said that they’d all just stay in Byron & then come and visit after you arrived, and that she would be lucky as she’d be one of the first to meet you. Which got her excited. But then she exclaimed, “But we couldn’t have the Bombe Alaska. I mean, we could bring it to the hospital but I don’t think they’d let us light it!”
Mmm..Bombe Alaska. See, you can look forward to a life with us of eating well. I am looking forward to S’s Bombe Alaska and the beach…
yum yum
love mum
slightly happier with a raspberry smoothie June 3, 2009
Ok. It’s true. Raspberry smoothies do cure attacks of the grump.
raspberry smoothie - yum
Your dad is a champion smoothie maker. You’ll see.
though he is already scheming about ways to get you to eat meat when you move onto solids. I’m having no part of it.
Hospital Bag. What to take. June 3, 2009
Hello Baby,
well. Aren’t you an active little volcano. Your mum is very not happy this morning after a shocking night’s sleep. It wasn’t all your fault, but mostly hormones. Woke up at 2:45 am and my brain was just “BING – ON!”. With all sorts of half-real imagininings and panic and stress. Your Grandad, my work, your dad’s employment. All non-you related things. Things to do, people to see. Aagh. And then got a major attack of the itches all over my body for no apparent reason. I almost convinced myself there was a small spider in the bed that had been feasting on me. But examination in the bathroom revealed that was all just ficticious imagining.
An hour and a half later I finally gave up and got up, changed to the spare room and read my book for an hour. Yann Martel’s “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios’. Thankfully I was past the first story – the title of the novel, as that one made me ball my eyes out for about 20 minutes before bed the other night (though in retrospect, although upsetting perhaps helped me sleep better as I was emotionally exhausted by it. Needless to say the other night your dad did his usual “what the hell are you reading”. Tried to steal the book and throw it away a few times. I protested. Crying sometimes is ok according to my book-reading philosophy. Ended up he still had to comfort me after the story, with his usual grumpy hug. But I ended up with the book – so this is what I read last night). Anyway, the story I read wasn’t exactly uplifting – small sections of a warden’s account of a man’s last hours on death row – the account written to the mother. About 10 different versions. So not happy, happy, joy, joy. But it worked. Took my mind off whatever it was that had been keeping me awake and stressed, and I managed to go back to sleep. You then woke me a number of times – your movements at the moment when I’m lying down seem to be pretty major. Like all limbs and body flailing around like you’re playing volleyball in there. Its actually pretty disconcerting but I take it as a good sign that you’re healthy. But yeah, overall I missed a few hours of much-needed sleep so today am feeling a bit shabby to say the least.
Anyway, in order to appease the rising anxious nerves, I haven’t managed to pack a bag for the hospital. But I have written a list. So I’ve made a start. And you dad is in charge of labour food (mostly for him from what people have told me, but we’ll see), and he has made his list too. Neither of us have got any further than that as far as I know. So my list:
- your dad
- me
- camera, charger & memory stick
- cards & games for if we get stuck in a maternity ward for hours with nothing to do. Or just so we can play cribbage between contractions. Wishful thinking on my part. But I’m going with it.
- my phone. yes, I’m addicted to my iPhone and it is coming along with the charger. How else am I going to communicate with the outside world if there is no wifi / computer in the hospital? What were they thinking – its a brand new facility, where were the wifi access points, we wondered when we did our tour? Yes, again, I think you are going to subsume my entire attention after your arrival, and perhaps I won’t be thinking about the internet at all. In fact I really think I won’t give a flying contraction. But these are the deranged thoughts I’m frantically having as my ability to reason / think logically seems to desert me more each day the closer you come to arriving. So I’m putting it on the list so that my brain can stop churning over it and worrying for no rational reason.
- a bar of lemon myrtle soap. So I can smell it if I feel like it in the delivery suites. Its a good smell.
- a big poster of the rainforest / waterfall to look at in the delivery suite.
- nightie
- jammies
- toothbrush, paste, hair wash, moisturiser, hair band
- daywear. That is on the hospital’s suggested list. What the hell does that mean. I think I will just shove random t-shirts into the bag on the day. Whatever is clean. Pants are surely optional when you’re in hospital and have just had a baby.
- new big boobie maternity bras (yay, I finally found one that fit when in Sydney a few weeks ago, and then ordered up from the states – they arrived yesterday so now I have enough big-boob over-the-shoulder-milk-holders to hopefully be comfortable. For reference – Anita brand seemed to be the only ones that came in big enough sizes and didn’t make me look like I was a large mono-boobed monster and felt comfortable too).
- granny knickers – yeah, I’m taking the advice of a friend and buying up a pack of granny knickers that I can THROW OUT soon after you’ve arrived and we’ve gone home. I looked at the ‘wearable’ knickers – those incontinence knickers yesterday. One of my friends who is due the same time was given some by another friend who recently had a baby and said they were great. Yes, maybe convenient and I know some mums use them. But I don’t know if I could bring myself to put them on. Too much like your nappies. It might just depress me. I’ll stick with maternity pads for the moment.
- my ugg boots
- my ankle brace
- nursing pads to stop my leaky boobies
- maybe a few cloth nappies so that we can get the midwives to show us some nifty folding techniques to keep your liquid poo in.
- clothes for you -
- 6 singlets,
- 6 growsuits,
- a beanie,
- 2 pairs of socks,
- and a blanket to wrap you in for when you come home
- and newly added as of yesterday, something stylin’ to wear home so I feel like a superstar mum. My friend I visited yesterday had a great vintage long dress that almost glows radioactively there is so much orange and green from the 70s in it. I don’t know I have that exact thing, but surely there is something in my wardrobe left that doesn’t make me look like a bloated whale.
Ok. Got it all out. Can now relax. Schedule relax time.
Love you
mum
p.s. Byron Bay weekend beckons. I think I really need it.
sore but otherwise all is well. And you're endocrinologically all-ok based on my results too. June 1, 2009
Hello Speck!
Well, apart from the aches and pains increasing at a rapid rate over the past few days, all is going well. We went for a visit to the endocrinologist this morning, and the blood results from last week are back in. Summary:
- Hashimoto is behaving well with my levels all good. So you’re all good too. I have to keep taking the medication at a slightly lowered dosage for four months after you’re born and then hopefully we can cut it out again. So all levels of antibodies etc and the hormone itself are well within the normal range.
- My red blood count is totally right up to the top of normal again after taking the iron supplements, so I’ll just stick with those and you’ll have enough. Again, have to keep on it for a while after you come to cope with the blood I’ll lose and what not;
- My haemoglobin levels are also back up to normal so all happy there;
- My cholesterol is up but that’s cause of you and all should be good after you’re born;
- And I am officially a lot fatter than when we started this whole process. However, according to the endocrinologist, I look particularly healthy, energetic and good for someone who is nearly 37 weeks pregnant. I.e. I didn’t labour into her office looking exhausted and swaying like a buffalo from side to side (that is my read between the lines on what she said). She was quite surprised. So after the last visit when she freaked me out about how much weight I had put on she said it was all fine, that I was obviously fit and healthly before getting pregnant and there was a lot of weight in my boobs etc, and some people just put on more weight. And I was probably one of those people. And as long as I stay away from junk food during breastfeeding, it should all come off. Apparently breastfeeding is the only proven way to lose the stubborn and relatively intransient weight around the hips and thighs, according to her. Its the one time it might move when generally it just stays put. Good-oh, I’ve never really had fat hips, so I was a bit worried about that. Anyway. We’ll see how it goes.
- And, last but definitely not least, my blood pressure is still very very good. I.e. its the same as my normal blood pressure. So she said that this late in the pregnancy it would be very rare for me to develop pre-eclampsia now – the blood pressure would generally be slightly elevated already. Which it isn’t. So yay. More good signs for your impending arrival.
Your dad is officially sick of my complaining though. I had a pretty sore weekend. My hands and arms are really painful from the carpal tunnel (doctor said there is nothing to do about this). My hands look very swollen like a little ogre’s hands. Fat fingers. They are now hurting all day and I can’t do things like brush my teeth where I have to grip the toothbrush. Washing up is a bit hard too. I’ve been trying to convince your dad this means I can’t wash up anymore but he doesn’t seem to be buying it. In addition, my pelvis ache has worsened so now when I sit still for 10 minutes or try to lift my legs I get pretty bad shooting pains through the pelvic area, and I’m really stiff. I’ve been going for walks, which helps, but still gets stiff when doing other stuff. Rolling around on the fitball instead of sitting in a chair helps with that. We went to the park yesterday for your cousin’s 2nd birthday and my hips and pelvis just locked up each time I sat down and getting up and off the picnic blanket was really hard! And the reflux is bad too. All day now, even when I haven’t eaten. The doctor gave me some pills today which will she says will ‘make me a new person’ in two days time with respect to the reflux. So I’m going to take them! Yay. So yes, I complain a little out aloud and your dad is over it. But he doesn’t have to carry you about yet, so I just keep telling him to make soothing noises and deal with it. So far, he’s doing pretty well (its only the grimaces that give his real thoughts away).
Enough about me. Your new rocker arrived today too – yay! Its gorgeous and looks totally comfortable and fun and adjusts to lots of positions. Hope you like it. Good present. It goes totally flat and totally upright and all configurations in the middle. In fact, I think we could tip you upside down with feet higher than head if you really wanted. You’ll have to let us know how it is.
your awesome giraffe rocker
so you’ll be able to rock-on like us 
bad joke.
love you
mum
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