I meant to update a lot sooner than this, and really really (really) do not have time to do so tonight either, but I am not sure if I will get any better chance on another evening! At the moment I have 15 patches to make and sew onto the knees of little jeans, and it's on my "to-do" list before the baby arrives, so this has been my 6th evening running spending the whole time from putting the boys to bed until late, sewing and semi-watching Sense and Sensibility on repeat. For some odd reason I am NEVER tiring of that movie right now, and I must have watched it a dozen times in the past week while sewing and am already happily anticipating watching it again tomorrow evening while I sew! :) Eventually I'll get bored of it and not watch it for ages, but apparently not yet.
I am doing better, I think - thank you for asking! :)
I don't really know how to describe how I'm feeling lately, so I can't really say. Neil has been home since I last updated because of the (very) long weekend, but he is back to work tomorrow. I am so thankful to have had the chance to rest up a lot and have a lot of help with the little ones. My emotions are odd (not particularly anything I can explain, just not my norm) and I often can't seem to deal with the antics of the little ones. I feel such a desperate need to escape sometimes, and I have been able to disappear upstairs and change bedsheets, or look at lists in my bedroom, and things like that, when I've needed to, because Neil has been here. I am not sure how I'll do with that kind of thing for the rest of the week without Neil here. This sounds really daft, writing it out and reading it back! I wish I could explain it better.
I feel like two things are going on - the first being that I am gearing up for labour and birth, and the new-baby-ness that follows. The second is that I am kind of dealing with feelings and stuff over Elijah's growth and the fact that it's all so up in the air right now - I can't know how he's doing in there yet, I have to wait another week and a half to find out. I can't know when he'll arrive - will they let me wait and go naturally, or will they say he needs to come out sooner? I can't know if I can have a homebirth or if I will have to be induced. I can't know if his issues mean that he will become distressed during labour and I'll end up with some major interventions (terrified of needing to have a c-section). I have no idea how labour and birth will start, progress, and finish. Or how he'll be on the other side of it. Or how *I'll* be. Or where I'll be. And since I can't know any of this stuff yet, everything is held in suspended animation, and I think the way I feel and am "dealing with" things (or not, as the case may be) reflects that at the moment.
I'm no longer crying all over the place, and my feelings are kind of less raw. But I feel odd. Sort of numb but irritable as anything. Normal but subdued, and unable to feel much emotional energy, if that makes any sense. I just want to busy myself, and not be distracted. Unfortunately that feeling means that the distraction of my lovely children is something I find really hard to deal with right now - and dealing with the distraction of children is a major (and precious) part of my role as mother-of-many-littles! I have no tolerance or patience of any sort, and am noticing that I'm kind of snappy and unkind in response, very easily - I'm ashamed to say. Nobody is irritating me more than my sweet hubby right now, and today he hurt his lower back. Through my ridiculously hormone-tinted glasses, he seems to be making a huge deal about it, and it's driving me nuts. Nuts. I feel like an emotional pressure cooker, and not very much in control of myself, and that feeling in itself makes me a bit anxious, just of ME and what I might come out with next. I am trying really hard to busy myself in a different part of the house to where the boys or Neil might be. That sounds awful, but I am anxious that I'm going to be too irritable around people right now, and I want to keep from saying something I'll regret by simply staying away from people as best I can!
Neil isn't at all involved in pregnancies, as such. He gives the various highs and lows little attention, and it bothers me, but there we go. It's just how he is with pregnancy. If something or other gets me in a state of feeling like an emotional pressure cooker, all it takes is a little trigger and that kind of thing erupts (unhelpfully). He does have a low pain threshold, but it drives me batty that I can't count the number of days and nights over even just this pregnancy near tears with pain in my back, and I still have to get on with 12 hour days on my own with 5 little people who have a lot of needs and demands for this sore pregnant body to meet - and meanwhile he's making a big deal out of what looks (by mobility and his description) to be less pain than I've had to deal with, can be helped by drugs that I can't be, and is apparently able to sleep like a log at the moment even without pain relief - a luxury that my back pain didn't allow me. I know I'm being irritable and unfair. But little things... it only seems to take little things to allow the whole pent-up unhappiness about other things spill out. I know that's NOT a good idea to indulge in, most especially when hormonal or stressed over something else. I am not sure how to stem the flow, so I am keeping my distance today, and hoping it's a hormonal blip that will pass tomorrow or something. Neil is a fabulous and incredibly involved daddy, and I don't mean to complain about him, just to clarify! The above is just part of how I'm doing today, so I'm including it.
I have been feeling very tense about Heather being away this weekend. To know that my sole support for labour and birth would not be around if something "happened" was a scary thought - well, just a very upsetting thought. If something happened and she was away, she said she would try very hard to get her doula friend to come and be with me in her place. But I don't know her, have never met her before, and would feel very unhappy without my Heather with me. I would not have Neil with me at all, even in that kind of situation. And the possibilities ahead of me re. birth and the little one I'm carrying are making me anxious and are just "unknowns" right now, so that makes it more difficult to deal with, I guess, than if I was just waiting to have my perfectly well-growing baby at home like I was a few weeks ago. I had no concept of any issues - I didn't see there being any at all (naiive?), but now it feels very much like there's a chance things might go as originally planned, but likely not. It all just feels very unsettling and upsetting right now.
Anyway, Heather is home tonight, as far as I know - she and her family were coming home from a long-weekend getaway today. I can't even describe how relieved I feel about that! Tomorrow she is out all day at a doula conference, a fair journey from me, but she said that if anything happens she will leave the conference and come to me, even if it takes longer to get here. Then it's Wednesday the next day, and I will be 38 weeks pregnant - which is when Heather officially goes "on call" for me until 42 weeks, by which time I should have given birth one way or the other! That means there is nothing that she wouldn't stop immediately and come to me, day or night, if I need her - for an appointment even, or if anything happens with the baby or with labour, etc. SUCH RELIEF to know that's only 2 days away! I think I will breathe so much easier after that. She and her daughter are actually coming over on Wednesday morning, which will be lovely! She said they'll come and give me a break with the boys. Her daughter is 13 and WONDERFUL with the boys. They all love her to bits, and get very excited that she's coming round, even if Heather isn't with her sometimes! She reads them stories and plays games and builds train tracks and is generally a wonderful help. She's homeschooled so that's why they can just come round on a Wednesday morning! :) I really just am longing for some company, but I think the boys will take up most of Heather and her daughter's attention. In the afternoon they have to be somewhere else, but Mandi (my favourite midwife) is coming round to do a 38-week antenatal check on me. I'm nervous to know what my bump will measure, even though it doesn't really matter - it's just a tape measure, and the scan the following week will tell me how things are REALLY going. But I'm still anxious to see if my bump is growing since last week. If it's not, I STILL have a week to wait.
I am also beginning to feel a bit stressy about getting things ready for having a baby now. Just a bit, not loads like I have done in other pregnancies. We are much more prepared this time in any case, so that helps a lot. But we STILL haven't moved Samuel into the boys' room. Every weekend we've intended to, but something has been in the way. No safety gate purchased. Samuel (and the other boys) not being well. Now they're well, but we've found a bit of mould in the bedroom that we want to clean before moving Benjamin to the other end of Nathan's bed for Samuel to move in, because it's near where he'd be and I don't want him sleeping there with mould on the wall! Yuck. But Neil hasn't got round to it this weekend and now his back might prevent him doing it for a bit. So we wait again. But I am not sure how much longer we've got! :S It's mainly for Samuel too, because otherwise it's a double-whammy of a transition for him, and I don't want him to have anything that makes life more difficult than it needs to be as he becomes a big brother for the first time. So that's stressing me a bit.
I finished packing my hospital bag, and cleared a couple of boxes out of my room this weekend, but I was told by the head of community midwives (and Heather) to rest up as much as possible, so I have just done bits and pieces at a slow pace, and that's all I've got done this weekend.
Jackie, the head of community midwives, was very reassuring in her phone call. She said Mandi had texted her to say that I had needed a growth scan, and so she was calling me to see how it went! So nice! :) She wanted to ask about the follow-up appointment, and whether I would be seeing the consultant. She wanted to give me a heads-up about what to expect him to say, and also to find out when the appointment would be so that she could arrange to BE THERE!!! I was so touched by that -she's ever such a busy person and has a lot of responsibility within the hospital and community. And yet she is interested enough in me that she wants to make time to be at the appointment. She wrote me a birth plan in her own time, and she wants to be able to help me add to it if there might be a different situation for the birth, like induction and a baby who might not do okay with the process. I am just so touched and happy - relieved as well. It feels so good to be so well supported.
She said that the most likely scenario if Elijah isn't growing well by the next scan, is that my placenta is tired and pretty much done for this pregnancy. She said often the signs of that happening are a slowing down of the baby's growth in the last month or so of pregnancy - basically like what is happening here. His blood flow is good, and he's active and seems well. She hopes it's just a "blip" and that he'll pick up pace by the next scan. If he doesn't, she says the consultant will want to discuss how long we let this pregnancy continue for, even though I'll already be 39 weeks. What she means is that he will want to induce me pretty much anytime from then, because if Elijah isn't growing well inside me, at 39 weeks he would be better out. He will grow well when I am breastfeeding him. The other concern is that if my placenta isn't giving him optimum nutrients and oxygen, he may be doing okay now, but the stress of labour and birth might mean he doesn't manage so well and may become distressed. That really scares me, because it's like, no matter where I am or what kind of birth we start out with (induced, not induced, whatever), nothing can really protect him from getting into trouble during labour, and that's my worry, much more than the when and where of it all. If the option to induce was there to protect him from that, then yay, but it's just to get him out. How he'll fare during the process isn't known, and there's a risk for him.
The whole thing makes me so nervous. Yesterday I was daydreaming about birth and stuff, like I have been for several months now, just going over previous births in my mind and looking forward to this next one. And I realised that instead of looking forward to it, I feel pretty anxious and scared about it. Even if I strip everything else away, just focus on everything being FINE at the scan and having the homebirth and the healthy baby, etc. Even then I feel scared of the upcoming birth suddenly. Like it's a big hurdle to get over, and it's COMING and I suddenly feel like I want to hide and not have to go through it! I think that's normal in the last weeks of pregnancy, psychologically. I really do. I think I have had that feeling every time, and I think it's something most (all?) women feel at some point in the last weeks of pregnancy as that HUGE moment approaches. Labour and birth really is a BIG deal! ;) Not necessarily a bad big deal, but a very very BIG deal nonetheless. I am excited in many ways, but getting really quite nervous about having to go through the difficult parts again - transition and birth being the main things!
But ohhhh I can't wait to have this baby boy safely in my arms. I hope hope hope so much that he'll be just fine, and not be at all distressed by the process. I can't imagine the relief I will feel right after giving birth when I am holding him all messy and new and squeaky-sounding in my arms, and the wait and "unknown" stuff is OVER, and he's here and NOW I can look after him properly and help him grow like he needs to. I'm frustrated with my placenta if that's what it is! I can't do anything about it to help him grow! When he's here, I know I will be able to do something for him, and he will grow well on my milk. I will just be relieved to have him in my arms.
The good news is that he is nicely active. He moves much more than 10 times a day (which he's supposed to do), and I can tell his alert active times from his calm active times. He still practises breathing (I see his back go up and down through my tummy) and gets hiccups - twice today, which is more than the once-a-day he's been doing for a while. It's very reassuring that he's moving and active and hiccuping, and it helps me a lot. I just hope he's going to be okay and is growing in there.
The other thing I have to do (as per Jackie and Heather's instructions) is to eat loads. Nutrient-dense foods, ideally, but basically I need to fit in mini-meals between my meals and so on. I am sure to gain a TON of weight, but I pray that some of it goes to Elijah! The idea is to put as many nutrients as possible through my placenta to help him grow, if it's tiring and not passing them on so efficiently. Also the rest part is so that I don't use up resources that would otherwise be passing onto Elijah as well. Jackie told me that it wasn't scientifically backed up, and there was no particular proof that it would make him grow, but that it was the advice recommended and there would be no harm at all in following it - it MIGHT make a difference. So I'm trying! I love all the eating, but sometimes I am just feeling too full!
I weighed myself last week and was 11 stone 9lbs - did I mention that already? I can't remember. I am not looking forward to getting on the scales again after the amount of eating I've been doing, lol!
Anyway. It's so late and I must go to bed. I have not been able to sleep until 3am or thereabouts for many many nights now, so I'm hoping that will change tonight otherwise I am toast tomorrow. I'm just so much more tired lately, even with Neil letting me recover from the nights by lying in in the mornings while he's been home. I'm always tired out when I get into bed, but I just. can't. sleep! For the life of me! Eventually RLS kicks in and then I am done for for a few hours. Megan sent me a link to an article about using a bar of soap as a remedy for RLS and muscle cramps today, so I am eager to try it and see if such a crazy idea will work for me! ;) I have been having a lot of trouble with cramps in the sides of my lower legs above my ankles, at night. Especially in the small hours of the morning and first thing when I wake. I lie still with my feet and legs straight, and feel my foot slowly pull up sideways as the muscle above my ankle scrunches into a cramp - it's horrid! Stretching or rubbing doesn't seem to help, or if it does for a moment, as soon as I relax again, up goes my foot to the side with a new cramp. I hope the soap trick works! I'll post a link another time.
Will update soon! Thanks again for being kind and encouraging last entry!