24w6d - Alone

I'm back in the UK now, busy as ever. November is going to be a mental month. Then it's December already! Holy shit!

While I was away, I had time to do some musing. This often happens when I spend lots of time with my family. I also met up with my friend's parents- the friend who isn't talking to me. This also caused a lot of musing. Interesting, and opposite.

First, I will dwell on the continued hurt caused by my absent friend. I see her parents when I'm in the States, or have for the past 5-6 years, so I thought I would still see them even though she isn't talking to me. Because I hope this time will pass. And it was lovely to see them, as usual. However, it also was made very clear through the answers to my questions about my friend, how much I have missed the past 4 months by her cutting me out of her life. Because a lot has happened in hers, that she clearly has no interest in sharing with me. On top of her absence in my life, which I already find painful, this was equally painful. It's really just a crappy situation and I do wonder in dark moments if our friendship will ever recover this slight. Or if she even cares to be my friend at all in the future.

I've also felt the slight absence of other friends, although not as obvious or I think as intentional. Just people I was hearing from are suddenly being heard from less. Perhaps I'm sensitive because of the first situation. I don't know. At any rate, it made me feel more alone, which in some ways made me feel sorry for myself.

But then the alternative to these thoughts is that I was pondering the idea that I'm really never going to be alone again. At least for a great number of years and period of time, I am the sole person responsible for another human being who will need my attention and time and care. I won't be able to just 'up and go' as I like and please, which has been my life for a very long time. It was a rather sobering thought to be honest. While I greatly look forward to being a parent, it will certainly be tough as a single parent to not have that other person that you can catch a break from. I will be completely responsible all of the time. And that's huge. I'm sure there will be times when I hate it. But I also know/hope that it will be beyond worth it. I just can't really imagine exactly how different my life is going to be. Theoretically I understand it, but the reality will be its own thing, for sure.

So there you have it. Two completely separate musings on the concept of being alone, or not alone as it were.

24w1d - movement

I've been away visiting the States and forgot I had blogger on my tablet! It's been a pretty busy trip; usually I take 3 weeks to do this trip and see all my friends and family. This is a somewhat condensed version in 2 weeks, so less down time. I'm only here a couple more days, then it's back to England, and the month of November. Time seems to be moving fast again. With baby coming in February, it didn't feel like much time left!!

At 24 weeks now, everything tells me I should be feeling the baby move. I think i do feel her move but as she's still small, what I feel it's like a small twinge. No one tells you how it's supposed to feel. I completely understand how some women could not know they're pregnant at this stage. It's very easy to ignore those twinges as a muscle thing, not a being growing inside you thing. Now, I can't ignore my shape and body changes, so that's kind of a giveaway, but the movement thing is pretty subtle so far. As she gets bigger, and runs out of room, I resurrect more obvious sensation. For now though, is a funny thing, and not what I expected I guess.

On this trip I've received a number of gifts for baby, pretty much all clothes. I haven't been given a single thing from my registry. It's slightly annoying as I've been given a ton of hand me downs and don't really need clothes. I do however, need the things on my registry. In grateful for the gifts, but wish people were more practical. Ah well.

November will be a busy work month for me, and then it will be December. So crazy. Time is sneaking up on me, is how it feels. It's still hard to believe I'm going to have a baby. Definitely still played by worries though. I think I need a new post for that one.

22w1d - Advanced maternal age

On Tuesday I had a meeting with the obstetrician at the hospital. This was scheduled because I am borderline for pregnancy risk factors- my age, my weight, and my history of ovarian cyst and abdominal surgery. The meeting, which was very short, was relatively uneventful. However, the registrar said that due to my age, they recommend I have an induction at 39 weeks.  Apparently, once you are 40, your risk of stillbirth doubles from week 39 compared to a younger women. This sounds awful, but what it really means is your risk goes from 1:2000 to 1:1000 which still means you have a .01% risk of stillbirth. Still, this was not news I was expecting or prepared for. It sent me to looking through the internet and forums to confirm this information which does seem legitimate. However, it sort of sucks. Follow up reading suggests that induction does not increase the chance of a cesarean section, although I think this is widely held belief. I guess in part the reality is that older mothers in general have a higher rate of cesareans.

This will be something I need to continue to discuss with my midwife and doulas. I really wasn't planning to have the baby early, and I wasn't even thinking about induction at this stage. I guess I need to, and I need to start thinking about when to do it. It seems unclear if the testing shows a difference between 39w and 39w6d so I could get very close to my due date, or I could just decide to go a week early. Although this would only mean I took a week off of work. Decisions to make. But at least I have time to see how the pregnancy continues to progress and talk to my support team.

In other news, I'm off to the States tomorrow for a couple of weeks which should be good. Going to see family and friends which I'm looking forward to. Although I never look forward to the long flight. Hopefully all will be well. I got compression socks to wear so I can be a good pregnant woman.

21w1d - Doula interviews

I've been busy interviewing doulas so that there is plenty of time to build a good relationship with one before labour. I started off looking on the Doula UK website and contacted two doulas. One was not available during my delivery. The other I had a nice phone chat with. However, she encouraged me to speak to a few more doulas and even facilitated this by sending around a message to see who was available on my due date to give me a short list to review. It turns out there is a Cambridge specific doula website which was useful, although I hadn't come across it initially.  I looked up everyone on the short listed and contacted 5 more doulas.

Last week I managed to speak to everyone on the phone (and one in person). All of the douals were really lovely and it gave me a very positive feeling about birth. It was hard to think about how to narrow the selection but I felt a slight affinity for 3 of the 6 so I arranged to meet in person with those 3. I've met with two so far and the third will be later today. Again, everyone is lovely so it's going to be difficult to select.  Although in speaking to everyone I think I've decided to do what's called a 'shared' service where you basically have 2 doulas who split your job.  This came about because I was asking what happens if a doula can't make your delivery.  They go on call for 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after your due date.  But of course, emergencies happen.  I believe a doula will do everything in their power to make it to your birth, but what if they can't? Okay, they tend to have a backup, but you may not know that person.  In my case, it is possible that there will be no other birth partner (still not clear on the boyfriend situation). So I wanted extra assurance that in case of emergency, there would definitely be a back-up and that I would get to know that person. Also with shared doulas they can support each other- so for example, if my labor was very long, they could trade off so one could get some rest but I was still supported.

So I guess that generally means I need to pick two from the three, and then see what sort of shared packages they can offer me. I will say just from going through the interview process, I feel very positive about hiring a doula and what they will be able to do for me pre-birth, at the birth, and post-birth.  I'm glad to have this being sorted now, as with half of the pregnancy to go, it should give me time to develop good relationships with whomever I choose so that I feel the most comfortable and supported throughout the process.

20w5d - Vaccinations

I rang my GP this morning to see about getting a flu and whooping cough vaccination.  I'm travelling to the States in 2 weeks so on top of exposing myself to germs I'm not used to, I'll be stuck in planes for 7 hours each way.  I figured I should probably get on top of the vaccination thing. I looked online for when I should get the vaccinations because I was sure I'd seen somewhere that you were supposed to get whooping cough at 28 weeks or so.  But then I found this article that supports this site that says from 20 weeks is the right time. I guess that makes me bang on target. And with two weeks to travel, it's time for it to settle into my body to be useful (I hope).

I have no major pregnancy news to report. Feeling good still, which is nice. I can still fit into my baggier regular jeans so I'm not completely onto my pregnancy wardrobe yet. It's funny though- the way pregnancy clothes are cut, the second you put them on you just look pregnant. Not that I particularly mind, although I did see an AWFUL photo of myself from Saturday which was just.... truly terrible. I need to get some nice pictures of me being pregnant and delete the horrid one. Hopefully I can get people to oblige when I'm in the States!

Baby shower invitations have gone out for mid/late November. A friend of mine here (British) asked why baby showers are before the birth since so much can go wrong. I understand her point, but I said it's usually to give you things you need for the baby arriving to which she retorted that the point should be celebrating the baby- not just giving you things. I am always amused by cultural differences!! But it's true, baby showers are not traditional here in the UK really, although quickly being adopted by spreading American culture.

20w1d - 50% and scan

Yesterday I was officially halfway through this pregnancy. Sort of crazy! Parts of it have gone fast, then parts have gone slow, now it seems fast again. This morning I put on normal clothes and I didn't feel particularly pregnant. This gave me a mild anxiety about going for my anatomy scan. What if something was wrong?

Of course nothing was wrong, baby girl was bigger than last time. I got to see all new parts of her body including her spine and the four chambers of her heart beating. Looks like she's still above average on size, although not quite as big as the last measurement. My next scan isn't until 34 weeks.

I had them check my ovary while I was at it. They brought in a radiologist who works in the pregnancy clinic but also specializes in female reproductive scanning. She found the ovary and didn't see any unusual growths or that it was any bigger than it should be. So this was also a relief. My mother lost her second ovary during her pregnancy with me, where a cyst grew to be 9lbs. So I was a little bit nervous this could happen to me as well, but so far it seems okay.

First round invitations have gone out for my baby shower which some friends of mine are hosting. We've decided to have it a little early because the idea time would be smack in the middle of December which just doesn't seem like a good time at all. So it was either be early, or late. We opted for early. That's cool though. I'll be more comfortable for it.

I've been interviewing doulas with an eye towards picking one. I have three more to get in touch with, as I've narrowed down to 5. Then I'll meet a shortlist from the 5 in person and then pick someone to go with. The two I've spoken to so far have been really nice and I definitely am enthused about the idea of having one.

So far in the pregnancy I've gained about 5 pounds. That seems okay. At one point I thought I'd gained more, but I think I just ate a lot the day before. I know I will start gaining in the second half of the pregnancy but I'm still conscious of trying not to gain too much seeing as how I already started heavy. So far I feel okay about it. It was good to know that I could fit into my regular jeans today- although they are no where near as comfortable as maternity jeans!

19w1d - Productive

I had a four-day break up to Manchester this past weekend where I got to see two lovely friends of mine who are both already mothers. It was lovely to see them in general, but it was also great to talk about pregnancy related things; to get advice and stories of first hand experiences. I went shopping with one at the pharmacy where we filled a basket with 'things I'll need straight away' including breast pads, maternity pads, nipple cream, baby butt cream, etc. Sometimes it's very helpful for someone else to say, 'Get this, it works.' where I don't have to get my brain around all the different advice out there. I also went with the other to look at nursing and sleeping bras which was also useful. I think though that I might see if I can find those cheaper when I'm in the States. Although with the drop in the pound, it may not be the case.

I've started wearing some of the maternity clothes I bought which are ridiculously comfortable. I'm starting to show, and maternity clothes seem to make it look worse, but mostly the clothes are still too big as I don't really have a big enough bump to fill them yet. This will change.

I'm still benefiting from various hand-me-downs which is great. I believe I have now scored a newborn car-seat, a bouncy seat, and a highchair. Although the highchair straps are manky and need replacing- but I've called the manufacturer who says they don't have a replacement. They suggested a different harness though so now I need to go to the store and see if that's really feasible or not.

My mother sent me an email last night because she knows a woman who had kids and she sent through a list of her favorite things. Which was fine. However, then my mother continued on to question my choices about what I wanted saying I should use what her friend used. Like I haven't done my research? As though I don't know what I actually want in my house? Or, you know, that I haven't talked to a number (ie, many more than one) of recent parents about all the things they used and put all of the conflicting advice together in my head to sort out what I believe will work best for me? Gr.

I heard back from the first doula I emailed that she would be away during my due date so couldn't offer her services. I've reached out to another that I liked. I have no idea if I'm late or early on the doula search, but I do know it's going to be important to find one I actually like if they're going to be with me in labor. I'm sure I'll find one I like eventually.

One week to my anatomy scan! Looking forward to that. It's been a while since I've seen baby girl, and it will be exciting to see all the bits of her!