Place your bets (again)
Only 5% of births actually happen on their due date. Care to hazard a guess as to when Louisette will arrive?
Some useful facts:
1. Statistically, the most likely day for first time mums is one day after the due date (which begs the question, why don’t doctors make THAT the due date?)
2. My mum was extremely late with all three of her babies – the first two were artificially induced after two weeks (but ultrasounds make due dates more accurate these days).
3. My sister’s baby came four days early. (I shall be drinking much raspberry leaf tea and other recommended birth-inducing things, as she did – although I haven’t aquired any of the tea yet.)
4. Louisette had “engaged” (head down and heading outwards – although in her case, only a tiny bit of the way) when my midwife last saw me, on Wednesday 21st. I think, based on the shift in nausea, that she engaged a week before that. In first pregnancies, birth usually happens two to four weeks after the baby engages. My sister’s baby was fully engaged three or four weeks before the birth.
5. My mum-in-law’s two children were both a month premature (that would be the equivalent of Wednesday last week) – but I don’t think mum-in-laws are any sort of guide.
At present, I’d like to give birth either tomorrow (since my midwife will be just back from her holiday leave) or on Thursday 12th (when my sister will be in town ready to help). My due date is the 18th, and if I’m late I’ll be induced on the 28th (unless for some bizarro reason I ask them to wait a few more days). Labour generally takes around thirty hours (including fifteen hours of uncomfy but not painful “pre-labour”) in my family.
I am not currently in labour 🙂
So, pick a day and place your bet!
Sarcastic Christmas Letter
It was the best of news, it was the worst of times.
January: For our two-year wedding anniversary, CJ and I flew in a hot air balloon over Canberra – and I began writing a steampunk novel featuring a ballooning bushranger.
February: We took a pre-emptive babymoon to Merimbula, and went horseriding for my birthday.
March: Began trying for a baby.
April: Had a chemical pregnancy (a miscarriage so early that I wasn’t even late – at the time, we thought it was a faulty test).
May: Pregnant! Woot! Immediately began eating all kinds of super-healthy food, and prepping frozen meals for first-trimester nausea. First-trimester nausea hit, and hit hard. Went to hospital twice, lost seven kilos, and didn’t eat a proper meal for two months.
June: Very sick. Began taking zofran. Gave up most of my work (all of it casual).
July: Very sick, but improving. CJ subbed in at my remaining jobs. Cats showed sympathy by throwing up around the house.
August: Sick, but able to work four hours a week. A USA agent requested the full manuscript of my novel (but later rejected it).
September: Sick.
October: Sick.
November: Sick. Also muscle pain and sudden intense fatigue as the January due date drew closer. A second US agent requested the full manuscript of the finished steampunk novel.
December: Sick. Didn’t give birth. Note to self: Next time you create life, use cadavers and electricity.
Coming next year: A baby! The ability to brush my teeth without risking vomit! A thrilling adventure to Hong Kong and Beijing! More surprises! Writing success at last??
Obscure Relatives
One of the main side effects of Christmas (along with stretched waistlines and strained credit cards) is seeing relatives one doesn’t usually run into. Pictured here is just one small branch from my dad’s side of the family (and my parents on the right). I’ve actually lost count of how many cousins I have – seventeen or eighteen, I believe. There’s another family of seven on my mum’s side, but they’re even harder to get into one room at one time (presumably because they’re supervillains with secret identities).
This particular group (if you include my parents and I) hasn’t been in one room for seven years. But we managed it on Christmas Eve, and had a rather nice lunch.
I’d like to think there’s some kind of forced perspective happening in the following photo, because I swear I’ve made CJ look smaller.
The near future
Soon I will be un-pregnant. It is three weeks until the due date (and two weeks until both my sister and my midwife are in town, ready to go). I may actually be early (typically – though of course not always – once the baby has descended, the birth is two-four weeks away. According to my personal estimate, it has been two weeks already). That probably means this is the last pre-labour recitation of the peculiar things going on in my body.
Since I rarely leave the house, and do almost nothing (yesterday was a big day: I showered AND brushed my teeth, and wore clothes instead of PJs for several hours – oh, and about half an hour of light housework, too!), my hip and back pain is minimal. I’m physically very weak (I’ve had to stop properly closing my cough medicine bottle, because I’m not strong enough to open the child lock) and very unco (dropped literally ten items yesterday – and yes, I’m actually using literally in the correct sense). Turning over at night is more difficult than ever because of pain, weakness, and nausea at each stage (turning over has had stages for a while now).
Lately the nausea has grown worse, although it’s also changed (mostly for the better). I feel sick longer, and my digestive system is more screwed up than ever (it’s truly peculiar), but there’s less reflux. Clearly, as Louisette moves downwards, there is a 2.7-kilo weight on my bladder and bowel, and a little less pressure on my oesophagus (which is GREAT because I find it deeply insulting to feel so sick and so exhausted, only to feel so much worse when I lie down – and I’ve long since altogether given up ever being truly horizontal). I can definitely feel when she punches my bladder. For a few seconds I suddenly really, really need to pee – and then I don’t.
She is upside down, with her head basically inside my hips (which means that I have a new and different kind of hip pain – very much a pain in the bone rather than the muscles). Her back fills the left side of my belly, and her bum is in the neighbourhood of my belly button. Most of her movement is therefore on the right side of my belly, and I feel much sicker when I lie on my right side.
I have had two more severe leg cramps in my right calf, both of which were excruciating for a short time and then made me limp for two days. Every time I lie down, both of my legs immediately stiffen up. The muscle is incredibly brittle, and it makes me want to stretch – but I can’t stretch, because that is likely to trigger another excruciating cramp and more limping. So I’m careful to never so much as straighten either leg when I’m lying down.
The lower half of my belly has plenty of vertical stretch marks, which doesn’t particularly bother me. In amongst the stretch marks is a bubble of raised skin like a mostly-healed scar from a second-degree burn. This turns out to be a lump of muscle that has “separated”. Gross, hey? It is only mildly painful (much like a mostly-healed scar from a second-degree burn, as it happens – been there, done that), but it does feel rather weird and more painful when A Certain Someone kicks it.
About two weeks ago, my feet and ankles suddenly swelled up, and my shoe size increased by about two sizes in a matter of hours (I can squeeze into my thongs if necessary, but mostly I wear CJ’s shoes or stay barefoot). Sudden, lasting swelling can be a sign of high blood pressure (which can be Very Bad Indeed), but my blood pressure has remained low.
It so happens that I took a photo of one of my feet very early on (to demonstrate my deliciousness to mozzies), so here’s a handy comparison of then and now:Â
Here are some of the things I’m looking forward to when I’m not pregnant any more:
Erm. . . having a baby.
Lying down without pain or nausea. Particularly being able to lie down and read a book at the same time (for some reason, holding a book makes me sicker).
Turning over in bed without pain or nausea or planning a turning-over strategy.
Drinking water without difficulty. Also drinking soft drink, mint juleps, juice, and even a little alcohol.
Wearing my wedding ring. Wearing all the clothes I usually like to wear (including, someday, jeans). Wearing my shoes. Wearing heels. Wearing boots. Wearing my corset (. . . at some point).
Getting off all the medicines I’m now on – especially metamucil, which is extra hideous when you’re nauseous (I assume the daily metamucil dose will return to my life within a few years; it’s part of being over twenty years old, really).
Knowing what I’m in for, baby-wise (colic? bad health? a determined escapee? someone who wakes thirteen times a night?) Making plans for the near future with some idea of what they’ll involve.
Running errands – any time of day! They’ll be far more complex, but I don’t care!
Brushing my teeth twice a day, every day.
Eating – anything I want to! Bacon! Soft cheese! All the things that currently make me nauseous! Vegetables! Lollies! Nuts! Fruit! Chicken! Bread! Different types of breakfast cereal! Sushi!
Exercise! It’ll be a while, but someday I’ll be able to do more than two minutes of slow-motion exercise a week. I’ll be able to walk! At a normal speed! I’ll be able to lift groceries, and pick things up off the floor without needing half an hour to recover! One day, I’ll be able to swim again! Plus, I’ll be able to do my share of household work!
Less nightmares (although my wacky pregnancy dreams have had some good moments – I particularly enjoyed my crime-fighting dream, which is apparently what my subconscious thinks early parenthood is like).
Christmas (well duh)
This is what Christmas looks like at CJ’s parents’ house, where we spent our Christmas Day:
And this is what CJ and I look like three seconds after the last presents are unwrapped (CJ is reading the latest “Girl Genius” graphic novel, and I’m reading “Ember and Ash” by Pamela Freeman *double swoon*):
2011 Top Ten Awesomenesses
6. Beach (for our second honeymoon/pre-emptive babymoon)Â and sandcastle
Getting rescued by firemen was cool too.
2011 was somewhat dominated by pregnancy and pregnancy-related illness, but there were a few other really cool things going on: I wrote and edited a steampunk novel; CJ’s brother got engaged (CJ and Louisette and I will all be visiting Hong Kong and Beijing next year for the wedding – and blogging about it, naturally); and my sister and her family told me they’ll be living in Canberra (for at least a year) from June 2012. We had dramas with disappearing cats, a ceiling collapse, and nearly going to court over a paperwork issue – but it all worked out in the end.
Your Christmas Cthulhu
On our honeymoon, CJ and I went to the Wharf restaurant in Merimbula. The food is great and the location stunning. There was only one problem – we forgot to take any money. CJ went home to get some, and the staff invited me to wander downstairs for free – where there happens to be an aquarium.
That was the day I met my new favourite animal: the giant cuttlefish. It has a face full of tentacles, and it stared at me with as much interest as I stared at it.
When we went on our second honeymoon early this year, one of my greatest hopes was to see my betentacled friend once more. It was still there (along with a new, smaller one), and twice the size as it was two years earlier.
So here it is: nature’s cthulhu. You’re welcome – and Merry Christmas.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEcmq1pfa0M&list=UUV1ouIamDXynbdULuW4-FZw&index=1&feature=plcp
Tomorrow: The top ten awesomenesses of 2011, with pictures and links.
Brothers from afar
Probably the best thing about Christmas (and, in some cases, the worst) is that family members come home to visit. CJ’s younger brother lives in Beijing (we’ll be visiting HIM for his wedding in 2012 – and blogging all the way), and he’s currently right here in Canberra – this is CJ’s entire immediate family, plus his maternal grandmother.
I’m counting the days until my sister and her husband and daughter arrive.
Good to go
I’m at 36 weeks today, with less than a month until the due date. If I went into labour now, Louisette would be premature (and delivered in hospital rather than the birthing centre), but the staff wouldn’t try to stop the labour. In one week, she’ll no longer be premature.
CJ and his brother were both born at around this stage in the pregnancy, so we always promised each other to be good to go by now – and we are. The labour bag is as packed as it can be; CJ has moved his computer out of the study/baby’s room; the bassinet and cot are both set up; the car seat is installed in the car.
It is great for me to see everything in order, and it’s a nice way to remind myself that I’ll soon be able to brush my teeth twice a day, EVERY day! and so much more. Oh, and I’ll get to meet my daughter too.
For the last week, my nausea has increased again, including cramps every day and just general silliness from my digestive system. It turns out there is a very good reason: Louisette has begun heading for the exit!
There are five “stations” between a normal baby locale and the “fully descended” position. Louisette is at the first station. Some babies don’t descend at all until partway through labour (others are positioned the wrong way up for ages, sometimes leading to an extra painful breech birth). Louisette, however, is perfectly positioned for labour. The fact that she’s partly descended means two wonderful things:
1) Unlike my mother, I will probably not need to be induced due to extreme lateness.
2) I probably won’t have to push as long when I am in labour.
It is hugely encouraging to know that things are genuinely happening in a giving-birth direction.
Community Christmas Carols
Every year, Woden Valley Alliance Church (or WVAC, which sounds like a new hoover in an infomercial) holds a free all-welcome BBQ and fun day, with face painting, a jumping castle (which adults aren’t allowed on – how unfair is that?), and of course Christmas carols and Santa and lollies (who arrived in a jeep this year, barely making it onto the scene before a massive storm erupted overhead – usually he rides a Harley Davidson). CJ and I never miss it.
It’s so good when a church manages to do something that is well organised and genuinely enjoyable for absolutely anyone who shows up.
CJ offered to play his bass with the carols this year, so I took my chance and stole a paparazzi shot of him.
Felicity Banks 