Insert Catchy Title Here
CJ and I have just arrived at the hospital, and the change of scene is making me feel temporarily pretty good… at least between contractions. Three hours ago I had an internal exam and I was between 3 and 4 cms dilated, which means that I am officially and measurably in labour. I still feel like someone will say “Go home, stop whining and making such a fuss, you’re not going to give birth for ages yet.” Then I have a contraction. You’ll be shocked to hear that contractions are painful. I cling on to CJ, yell ‘ow’ a lot, and writhe about until the worst is over. And then I feel basicully fine until the next one.
Contractions on tap
The contractions really hurt now. I feel like I’m getting stabbed in the back – with a certain amount of twisting. One minute is a very long time.
They’ve been hurting for so long my endurance is shot. . . my sister’s pre-labour was fifteen hours. These have been gaspingly painful for almost two days. On the up side, they are now 6 minutes apart (or have been for the last hour, anyway – there’s a fair bit of variance). When they’re five minutes apart and last a minute each, I’ll be pretty darn confident that real labour has begun (it’s somewhat of a grey area). I’m using a contractions app on CJ’s iphone. It’s incredibly useful.
At present I’m sort of cheating, and sort of doing what I’m meant to. In order to speed up the rate of contractions, I stand up every few minutes. It brings on contractions almost every time. Midwifes do advise gentle activity (such as walking) during pre-labour, so I guess it’s legitimate. It’s not an easy thing to do – a little like cutting off one’s own arm in order to escape a trap. You know it’s necessary to end your ordeal, but it’s still extremely difficult to deliberately cause yourself pain.
Between contractions, I feel pretty darn good – normal, by pregnancy standards.
I’ve kept CJ up most of the night to massage my lower back as the contractions kick in. He fell asleep while I was in another room organising items for the labour bag (hairbrush and so on) – very very slowly. I’m letting him sleep for the moment, but it won’t be long. The thrill of staying up all night enduring pain alone wore off a while ago.
Recently finished watching the full Lord of the Rings trilogy (and “Stardust”, and reading “Sabriel” and “Lirael” by Garth Nix). My head is full of heroes, courage, and sacrifice for the greater good. I hope the heroic notions stay with me for a while at least, to help me through this.
Back to Bed
Things calmed down considerably around 4am, and I was able to sleep a bit. I just had breakfast and some milder contractions, and now I’m going back to bed.
Are we there yet?
It’s not quite 2am on Saturday 14 January, and I don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight (but I’ll dutifully try a few more times).
At 11am yesterday morning, I noticed a “pink show” happening (if you don’t know what that is, you probably don’t want to – fundamentally, it means the cervix is dilating). According to the books, labour “usually” begins within 24 hours after the pink show begins. . . or it could be weeks. But I was very much encouraged, especially after such a stupid night.
It’s fifteen hours later, and my usual evening of contractions hasn’t faded as it usually does. The contractions are more painful than they’ve been at any time in the last ten days of pre-labour (enough that they alter my breathing), and they’re roughly ten minutes apart. Louisette is moving extremely vigorously until a contraction prevents her, and I’m having a lot of those burps that are the body’s way of saying, “I haven’t forgotten how to throw up, you know” – especially when I lie down.
If the contractions get to five minutes apart, lasting a minute each, and a little more painful (and that pattern is consistent or increasing for an hour), I’ll wake CJ. At that point I’d be pretty darn sure that tonight really was the night Louisette was on her way to meet us.
If I have three or four properly painful contractions every ten minutes for at least an hour, I’ll call the midwife – but probably still stay home for a while.
I’m still more scared of another day of pregnancy than I am of labour. The thought of a C-section is truly awful, however. CJ really can’t afford six weeks of leave – and the recovery could be especially nasty, since coughing or sneezing can break the stitches – and I’ve had a cough since first trimester (I’ve been taking heaps of durotuss, which keeps it under control but doesn’t fix it completely – my body is too screwed up to heal itself).
I’ll blog again sometime between now and noon to say whether I’m off to the hospital, still not sure, or going to bed after another false alarm.
It’s Saturday, so although I doubt I’ll be linking you to an article today, here’s the traditional picture of a cat:
“Starcross” by Philip Reeve (2 of 3 books in the “Larklight” series)
[Pre-labour report: Last night I went to the bathroom every 1-1.5 hours. No contractions to speak of, and most decidedly not in labour. Most women hate the last weeks of pregnancy, but I have more reason to hate this time than most.]
This is the second book in the trilogy, and I admit it’s the weakest of the three. It still outdoes almost any other children’s book on the market.
The rest of this review is now at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Interpretive Economics
[Pre-labour report: Nothing interesting to report. Bah.]
Some of you may recall that I decided not to spend a single penny on baby items (in a gesture of control over our finances, since my income was halved by nausea this year). Reader Stuart foolishly claimed that when hormones and cuteness were combined, I’d be unable to resist buying at least SOMETHING baby related. This of course made my quest far more satisfying.
I had several advantages:
1. Two sets of financially stable, affectionate grandparents-to-be.
2. Friends who don’t take offense when I STRONGLY suggest a particular present for them to buy me (including brand and model).
3. A first-baby baby shower (and the general community thing of “Clear out your baby stuff and give it to the nearest pregnant lady”).
4. Christmas.
5. My birthday (which will happen only weeks after Louisette’s arrival).
I can now say with confidence that we are good to go. We have (or will soon have) a lot of high-quality brand new baby items (almost all of which I chose myself) including a cot, stroller, two car seats (one is a capsule – great for transporting a tiny baby without waking it up – and the other will last until she is four), a portacot (secondhand but high quality), and a nappy bag (I have a weakness for handbags, so this was particularly cool for me, and I picked it out myself).
We have a ridiculous amount of clothing, blankets, linen, towels, lotions, nappies, and so on. We also have most of the ingredients for motherly feeding independence (pump, steriliser, etc).
The only items that we’d really like and don’t know for certain that we have yet are a floorless playpen (that we can put around the baby, heater, or TV depending on the occasion), and a few more bottles. It is very likely that those items will magically show up (my side of the family hasn’t done Christmas yet, because it doesn’t happen until my sister and her family are in town, and they’ve just arrived). In any case, we don’t need them until several months after Louisette is born, so there’s no hurry.
I spent $65 on maternity clothes myself, and my mum bought me another $100 worth for Christmas. The “interpretive” part of my economics is that I did technically buy certain baby items myself, and I didn’t technically receive enough cash to cover them all (namely, a $25 change mat and about $33 worth of Huggies brand nappies, which I’ve been told emphatically and vividly are the only ones that actually work for newborns). So I’m choosing to interpret my Christmas maternity clothes as “credit” on my baby-specific “account” (since maternity clothes aren’t technically a baby expense, but I saved money on them by waiting until late November to acquire most of them).
I therefore declare myself a winner.
Tales from the Front Lines
No particular change with the contractions. I generally get one or two an hour, and flu-like fatigue most of the time. As a rule, going to the mailbox is too hard, and so is sitting in a normal chair for more than about twenty minutes. The relaxin hormone (the one that relaxes muscles) is doing its thing again, meaning more reflux, more back pain and more hip pain. Bones crunch in my back when I walk. When I turn over at night, I bite my lip to keep from crying out in pain.
The thought of another 24 hours of pregnancy – a whole long day and a whole long night – fills me with such depression that it borders on a panic attack.
It’s possible I still have over two weeks to go.
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Here are some true stories of early childhood – a perfect cocktail of humour and horror for your Wednesday afternoon.
My friend’s four-year old daughter was playing happily in their living room with toy cars. She drove them on a variety of different surfaces – the floor, the table, the chairs, and the TV. She is just old enough to entertain herself – what an exciting developmental milestone! Unfortunately, the TV was a brand new flatscreen and the cars had magnets in them. Thus endeth the flatscreen.
The following stories are all about my nephew, who is now six years old. To protect the guilty, I’ll call him Fred.
Fred is an unusually clever child, particularly regarding mechanisms. If you operate an electrical item – TV, laptop, phone – in the same room as him even once, he will know how to use it from then on. When he was about 18 months old, his mum was hanging out washing with him in the backyard. He wandered inside, and cheekily closed and locked the back door. Knowing that she always left the front door open, his mother was unconcerned. She hung out the rest of the washing quickly, and walked around the house to let herself back in. Fred had already locked the front door, opened the safety gate barring his way into the kitchen, and was “cooking” with large quantities of milk and flour on the kitchen floor. His mother was forced to smash a window to get in.
Demonstrating his remarkable independence and the ability to plan ahead with remarkable sneakiness, Fred ran away from home more than once, and was apprehended by the police (via neighbours) twice before he was three years old.
Last year (age six) Fred found a photo of his other mum (his birth parents divorced and his dad has remarried) that he liked, so he cut it out to put in his craft box.
Let’s pause here, dear reader, to imagine what the worst possible scenario could be, based on the above paragraph. I can inform you that Fred showed clear awareness of guilt, hiding the pieces of the photo and its surroundings inside his craft box where he thought they would remain undiscovered.
I bet I know what you’re thinking: wedding photos. That was my first guess too – but no. The reality was so much worse. Fred had destroyed his mum’s passport.
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These stories teach us two things:
1. Use contraceptives.
2. Don’t wish for smart children.
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CJ and I are currently working on teaching our cats what shiny new baby items are off limits (baby bouncer, stroller, bassinet, cot). It’s a lot for them to learn, especially since so many of the places they’re suddenly not allowed to go are extremely appealing (soft, and just the right size). We’ve left a certain amount of space for them inside Louisette’s room (not that they’ll be allowed in there with her for a good long time yet), and set up a pair of comfy boxes for their exclusive use. Here is Ana modelling both the open space and her towel-lined box (looking shifty because she’s not yet sure where she is and is not allowed to go):
Bonus Niece
This is just a random test blog to check that our capability for portable internet is, indeed, both portable and internet-y (so when I go to hospital I/my minions can still blog periodically).
[No, I’m not in labour right now.]
Look! My niece!
Men Make Fix
I come from an academic family, so my father-in-law (trained as a carpenter) is quite an exotic creature to me, and I love to see him and CJ (also most definitely an academic first) working together. You may remember that part of our ceiling collapsed many many months ago. There were delays as tradesmen and insurance representatives ummed and ahhed. Finally my father-in-law couldn’t take it any more, and begged to be able to fix it (in a temporary-but-secure fashion). My landlady said yes, and CJ and his dad did their manly thing. I mostly kept out of their way, but I still enjoyed the whole experience.
Oddly enough, the finished result is curiously beautiful – like a mosaic. Best of all, the parts of the ceiling that hadn’t been temporarily fixed (and were thus ready to collapse at any time) are now secure.
Also, the wooden squares match our light fittings. Just saying.
PS No changes contraction-wise.
Signs you like the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy a little too much
1. You can tell all the hobbits apart.
2. You consider the non-extended movies no longer canon once the “real” versions are released.
3. You name your pets after LOTR characters.
4. You’ve already watched the trailer for “The Hobbit” multiple times.
5. At a certain point, you began accidentally picking up Elvish.
6. You’ve had crushes on at least half of the members of the Fellowship: Frodo, Sam, Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli, Pippin, Merry, and Gandalf.
7. You’ve watched both commentaries all the way through – more than once.
8. You sometimes watch just the second movie on its own – because it’s still better than almost any movie out there.
9. You’ve participated in at least three all-day LOTR marathons, and know there will be more.
10. After hearing the cave troll in “Fellowship” described by the writers as someone who fell in with the wrong crowd, you dream that he finds a nice lady troll and settles down.
11. You name your pets after LOTR characters.
12. You accidentally quote LOTR in your own writing, as well as in ordinary life.
13. You plan to watch the movies as part of your “natural pain relief” strategies for giving birth – because they’re JUST THAT AWESOME – epidural awesome, if you like. Because you might be in labour, but at least you’re not. . .
-being turned evil by your macguffin.
-running after a band of uruk-hair for three days.
-a dwarf woman.
I’m 13 for 13. How many of these apply to you?
Pre-labour report: More contractions yesterday and last night, and then they calmed down again today. Bah! Fortunately my sister is now in town, and on her most distracting behaviour. I have now had contractions from 3 minutes to an hour apart for a week. Last night I wasn’t able to sleep for more than an hour and a half at a time. Gee, it’d sure be nice to have a baby about now.
Felicity Banks 