Pregnancy
« Previous EntriesThirty-eight weeks pregnant. And that’s enough.
Thursday, March 6th, 2008So tomorrow is Friday. Hmmm, what shall I do?
I know. LET’S GO HAVE A BABY.
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Tomorrow I am being induced because of the diabetes, because the scans say the baby is getting too big.
The registrar two weeks ago reassured me in his lilting Nigerian accent, ‘no need to worry, you can go to forty weeks before we will book you in for induction. Come in for a sweep when you turn forty weeks,’ he said, making a large circle in the air with his hand, ‘and if that doesn’t work we’ll break your waters forty-eight hours later,’ he continued, making a violent jabbing motion. I hoped he reserves those gestures for women who have already given birth and know what the hell those hand motions mean.
The consultant on Monday had other ideas. ‘You need to deliver that baby this week. Can you come in tomorrow?’
‘Er no,’ I said. ‘I have three other children to arrange childcare for.’
My mother is on holiday in South Africa. My sister is away skiing. My best friend is away in London. My other best friend is in Scotland. My neighbours are going to a funeral.
So Matthew will have to look after the children.
And I will be attempting to squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of somewhere very much smaller than a watermelon.
Alone.
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Packing a labor bag
Thursday, February 14th, 2008So I’ve been having irregular contractions for a couple of days. But last time round I had the same thing for several weeks before my due date and Ben ended up being fifteen days overdue. Even then he only came out because I was induced. Lazy boy.
So I’m not worried.
But I have packed a labour bag. Just in case.
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Third trimester: thirty-five weeks pregnant
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008From behind, you can hardly tell I’m pregnant (until I start to move and then the pregnant waddle gives it away). I carry my babies all out the front and it kills my back. And at thirty-five weeks I am carrying ALOT of baby out front. And I’m hurting.
The last few weeks of pregnancy are vile. But I’m on the home stretch now and I cannot wait to meet my baby. Knowing this is my last pregnancy makes it somehow easier to put up with the awful last few weeks. And even though I worry now and again how I am going to cope once the baby arrives, friends have told me that everything is easier, including the sleep deprivation - particularly the sleep deprivation - when you know it is your last baby. They say you cherish the moments because you know you won’t ever have to go through them again. Okay, well perhaps you don’t cherish the sleepless nights, but I know what they mean. I’m relying on that to get me through SO THEY’D BETTER NOT BE LYING TO ME. That, and finding a wonderful nanny and maternity nurse (even though I don’t bottle feed, I envisage the maternity nurse whisking a well-fed, milky baby away to wind it and deal with the explosive night-time diapers only to return it to me asleep, thereby ensuring that I never have to do more than roll over and offer tit). Oh and I might as well get a super-efficient housekeeper and cook too. You know, while I’m dreaming.
On a more practical note, I’m having what feels like mild cramps tonight. Because 1) Matthew has left for a week in the US 2) I haven’t laundered any baby clothes and 3) I haven’t packed a labour bag.
So this would be just the night to go into labour.
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So, yes, I’ve had to find out what the Glycemic Index is
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008I’m feeling better than I have been in ages. The crazed, sugar withdrawal days are over and I am feeling better for eating healthily. Who knew?
The nausea has also gone, probably because the massive high blood sugar/low blood sugar swings have gone, cast out with the refined carbs. Who knew? Clearly not me.
In fact the whole family is eating better. We are converts to the GI diet which is good for weight loss but also for diabetics who want to control their blood sugar levels. The children have always eaten healthily, or at least what I considered to be healthily - home cooked, mostly organic, lots of fruit and veg - but looking carefully at what they were eating I can see that their blood sugar would have been swinging fairly wildly throughout the day. Combine that with the natural activity of a four year old boy and a six year boy and there is really no house big enough to contain them. Although I can’t convince the older boys to switch from white bread to granary, I have been able to replace simple carbs with complex carbs, in most cases without them even noticing.
Still, lest I sound too evangelical about our new eating habits I still cannot get a lentil past my lips.
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Thirty-two weeks pregnant: glucose tolerance test and gestational diabetes.
Friday, January 25th, 2008Bugger, I can’t reach my water, I think lethargically.
‘Please could you pass me my water?,’ I ask Matthew beseechingly, necessitating him getting up, crossing half the room to pass me my glass which is only centimetres out of my reach. He does so - not for the first time - ungrudgingly, seeing first-hand how overwhelmingly tired I have been and how awful I look.
As I lie there I realise with slow-creeping certainty that this is not normal. I mean, I remember feeling tired before and, sure, I have three small children and a baby in utero that between them don’t let me sleep much but this tiredness and generally feeling crappy is exceptional. My anaemia blood test results came back fine so I telephone and book myself in for a glucose tolerance test even though I will have to call in yet another favour with a friend just so I can spend four hours at the hospital starving and nauseated.
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Last time I went for the gestational diabetes test it was like a day out. Because when you are home all day with small children any kind of break from them takes on a new kind of pleasure. Even if it involves throwing up, fasting and being stuck with needles.
This time the test isn’t so bad. During the long wait I finally get a chance to finish reading Tracy Thompson’s book Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children and Depression - possibly not the best book to go waving about in a waiting room full of pregnant women - which I have been reading to try and get a handle on how I have been feeling recently. After the second blood test I gratefully gulp down the cup of tea offered and drive into town. I have someone to look after the children for the whole day so I make the most of it by having lunch out and then doing a bit of shopping - an altogether more pleasant experience without my crying, tantrum-laden toddler in tow. It hurts to walk far but I do anyway, remembering that this is probably my last time alone before the baby comes.
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The hospital calls pretty much right away. It’s not the news I wanted to hear, nor really expected despite my semi-obvious symptoms of excessive thirst and tiredness.
The midwife runs through the diet basics: swap simple carbs for complex carbs and refined sugar for natural sugar. I think of my daily diet, which has relied on refined carbs to keep the nausea at bay, and look in the cupboard where I can see nothing complex or natural.
She runs through the risks to me and the baby: early induction is likely because of the risks of a large baby (my babies are already large without gestional diabetes) and to reduce the risk of stillbirth, a 3% risk of stillbirth and 1% risk of the baby dying in the first month, a 50% risk of me developing diabetes in the next 10-15 years.
She invites me for a three hour appointment at the hospital for checks and advice. I think momentarily about declining, the way she makes it sound like I have a choice, and think how Matthew is not going to be thrilled that he must stay home, even though he was due to fly to the States. ‘You’ll be monitored weekly but this is the longest appointment,’ she says, as if that makes the whole thought of weekly trips to the hospital with three small children any better.
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Sugar withdrawal is nasty.
Already tired and depressed, I start to feel even worse. I start to hallucinate about bowls of cereal and milk and a milky, chocolate-covered cappuccino. I scrounge through the cupboards looking for snacks that don’t involve sugar. There’s nothing.
I go out to the grocery store and wander up and down the nut aisle. I come away with a basket full of wholemeal bread, brown rice, nuts and chickpeas, feeling virtuous but uninspired.
I’m already the environmentalist. Now I’m the lentil-loving hippie too.
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The recipes in my GI diet recipe books don’t look too bad. It’s a wake-up call for my diet, I think. It’s a warning system that I am susceptible to late-onset diabetes. I have a chance to change my ways now. Before it’s too late.
I try not to think about chocolate cake.
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And so now I will be having a baby in six weeks, instead of ten weeks. As I have to be induced, at least I don’t have to wait until I am fifteen days overdue like last time. Because being fifteen days overdue with a big baby was so much fun.
Six weeks. I’d better get on and order the poor thing a mattress. And a chocolate cake for me for the moment the baby arrives.
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