End-of-term

[j4]

36 weeks today; 4 weeks to my due date, 2 more weeks of work to go, 1 more week until Sprocket is officially at term (not to be confused with 'term' in the Oxford sense, though I think it is 8th week) -- any time before 37 weeks she'd be considered 'premature'.

My bump looks comically big, I feel exhausted from lugging it around with me, and everything aches a lot of the time. Unfortunately I can't find any comfortable positions to rest/sleep in, no matter how I configure the nest of pillows; I'm trying to sleep on my left side to try to encourage the baby into the right position, but this means I often end up in a position that makes my shoulder ache. Still waking up at least once a night. Last week I had new fun and games when I was woken up by excruciating cramp in my leg, bad enough that the leg/foot was visibly twisted, and the rest of my body apparently forgot that it was aching and just shot out of bed to try to stand up & force the cramp out. The muscle was still aching a couple of days later and my foot was feeling pins-and-needles-ish, so (having got myself a bit worried about possible thrombosis) I phoned NHS Direct, who said it wasn't urgent and said they'd phone me back at some point in the next 12 hours (they didn't). The pins-and-needles went away and the muscle ache faded, so I guess nothing to worry about after all. Legs still feel crampy, but I gather this is quite normal in late pregnancy (though nobody seems to know quite why). Still cycling (it's less effort than walking, it doesn't hurt, and may even be helping) and still no swelling of legs/ankles as far as I can see, so it's not all bad, but my goodness I'm knackered.

We're slowly ticking off the things we have to find/buy for labour/birth/baby: this week I've ordered new mattresses for the moses baskets and waterproof sheets for the bed/sofa, and next week the Nappy Lady is coming round to sell us all the nappies we'll ever need, hurrah. I've even got most of my hospital bag packed (not actually following that specific list... but then most of the lists are provided by people who are trying to make you buy everything from them, so it's hard to get a sensible list of the things you might actually need!) -- I'm hoping not to have to go to hospital, but having useful things in one bag seems like a sensible strategy anyway. We're also trying to sort out furniture: getting bookshelves fitted next weekend (which will leave us with at least two surplus bookcases, if anybody's interested...) to make more space, and slowly trying to move baby-furniture into what will become baby's room.

The thing we don't have yet is a car seat, but it sounds like there's simply no way to have a baby without one -- the midwife says if I do end up in hospital they won't let me leave without a car seat, even if I'm not planning to go in a car -- so we're going to have to try to borrow one. I honestly don't think she'd ever met anybody who was planning to give birth without owning a car before. :-/

I had an Intergrowth scan on Wednesday, which may be the last one (I've got another scan scheduled for March 30th, but given that's only 4 days before my due date it's possible that baby will have already appeared by then). They gave me my 'presents' this time anyway -- a huge shopping bag with the Intergrowth logo and the slogan "21st century mum", and a tiny tshirt for baby with the Intergrowth logo and "Class of 2010" on the back -- I didn't even realise they did this, I didn't do it for the freebies, but they're both really nice gifts! Taking part in the study has been a huge win all round for me -- reassurance, more pics, a chance to see all sorts of bits of baby's insides (!), and another midwife's opinion on all sorts of things -- and it's nice to know I've done something useful for medical science.

This time they also calculated baby's approximate weight -- last time they mentioned this she seemed to be a bit on the small side, but it seems she shot up into somewhere around the 80th percentile while I wasn't looking, and is now approx 6lb 6oz. Apparently she'll gain between a quarter- and a half-pound a week between now and birth, so she's going to be much bigger at birth than I thought -- some of the tiny newborn clothes we've acquired may never fit her! They also said she was the right way round (her spine towards my left, not back-to-back), but frankly she's such a little wriggler that I suspect she'll change position a dozen more times before birth.

I also had my last SPRINT checkup on the same day, but they just took some more blood, gave me a biscuit, and thanked me for taking part in the study. When it finishes I'll find out the results (and whether I was actually taking selenium or just a placebo), but that won't be for about two years, so I'll probably have forgotten all about it by then!

On Thursday my midwife came round to see if our house was suitable for a home birth. We'd done our best to make the house look like a proper grown-ups' house (it now even has CURTAINS in the bedroom, thanks to timscience's kind help and his monster drill!) but I was still really worried that she'd take one look at it and say "You can't POSSIBLY have a baby here!" In the event though she said it was all fine, and she's still positive about me staying at home provided the iron levels in my blood don't get any lower. She went through a long information-dump of everything I might possibly need to know about, from aromatherapy to ventouse; I was glad I'd read most of it beforehand so I wasn't worrying too much about remembering everything! She even mentioned homeopathic pain relief as a possibility ("but only if carried out by a qualified practitioner") but didn't look too offended when I said "it's OK, we have water on tap". The choice of placebos available to pregnant women is really amazing (and I do get tired of being told "it can't be a placebo because it worked for me"). But in case you think I'm turning into some kind of boring crusader against hippy remedies, I'll confess that I did buy some clary sage massage oil (not because I think it has any magic powers but because it smells wake-up-ish) -- to be honest I'm not generally that keen on massage but it does seem to help the backache at the moment and I suspect it'll help in labour.

Work is getting frantic as I'm realising just how little time I have left to do all the things I said I'd do before going on leave; there are major updates to the course booking system which I can't release yet because the people I'm doing the work for are still testing (which is good, just a bit last-minute) and still coming up with new suggestions for (grahh), and the underlying database is being upgraded some time next week; I was hoping to release it a month before leaving, to give things time to bed in, but too late now. I've written heaps of documentation, and they're freezing active development on this stuff while I'm away, so whoever has to maintain it in my absence (probably not my maternity cover) will be in a much better position than I was 4 years ago when I got handed a heap of Perl/XSP and told "make it work better". (Four years! I can't believe I've been there that long.) Things I have to fit in before I leave: releasing the aforementioned code; giving a presentation to the rest of the team about how the course booking system works; hacking some nasty javascript (zoomable images, pop-up AJAXy things) for another project; attending a half-day "developer day" for the department's coders/designers (brainchild of a very young and enthusiastic member of staff who wants the department to be a bit more like a hip Silicon Valley startup and a bit less like part of an 800-year-old university...); having my Annual Review (we're not going to set objectives for next year, but it's a chance to look back at the previous year, to talk about how we might use my 'Keeping in Touch' days, and to discuss plans for returning to work after maternity leave). I've also got to fill in the Head of Department's survey about how we think the structure of the department should be reorganised (resisting the temptation to sound like I'm pleading "please save a place for me in the new structure"). I feel like I'm going to miss a lot of interesting changes while I'm away; I'm hoping that (given the university's normal pace of change) there will still be fun opportunities to be had when I get back. (Everybody's told me that I won't even give any of this stuff a moment's thought once I'm at home with the baby; I know my priorities will change, but I really can't imagine all my other interests in life being switched off at the mains like that. OK, I can imagine being too tired to think anything at all, but surely not for a whole year.)

I think that's about it for now... and baby is furiously kicking me (seriously, my bump looks like a badger in a bag) to remind me that it's lunchtime. :-)

Comments

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I'd forgotten most of the really fun bits of pregnancy, so it's nice of you to remind me - cramps, random aches, nosebleeds (are you having nosebleeds?), braxton hicks, one foot lodged under the rib cage for hours at a time, less sleep than you get with a newborn...

(It is 8th week and I know this only because we're seeing Jon on friday)

Incidentally, I never did tell you my name idea (about as serious as unsolicited advice should be); you know how McK names for girls are really trendy right now? McKinley, McKenna, McKayla, McKenzie and so on. Well, you could name her McKnight. Throw in daddy's Batchelor name and she'll sound like not just one lawyer but a whole firm!

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

More usefully, we have a car seat of the right sort which we're not using, and can lend you. I can leave it with Jon at the weekend, if that's helpful for you.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ooh - if you're really not using it (ie not likely to need it in the near future - I'm not due till April 3rd) then that would be brilliant! Thank you!

You (singular or plural) would be welcome to pop round at the weekend but I warn you it's going to be a bit frantic here - we have an antenatal class, a man coming round to put shelves up, Owen's parents visiting on Saturday & a friend visiting on Sunday ... no I don't know how this is going to work, I think I will just sit on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate & hold court while people come and go. ;)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, hang on, people in Oxford have also offered me car seats -- probably easier than you lugging it all the way from Cambridge! So thank you for the offer but probably won't need it after all. You're still welcome to pop in at the weekend if you want anyway. :-)

[j4.livejournal.com]

No nosebleeds (so far - touch wood!) or braxton hicks ... I'm actually rather hoping for braxton hicks as it'd be good to have a bit more clue what contractions might feel like! But I gather not everybody gets them...

you could name her McKnight

*giggle*

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Hopefully you'll skip the nosebleeds. After all, you had much much worse nausea than I did it doesn't seem fair you'd get all the other symptoms too. I didn't get BH with B, but did with J.

We would love to see you, but I think we're only in Oxford long enough to eat dinner, we're staying in Banbury this time.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Hopefully you'll skip the nosebleeds. After all, you had much much worse nausea than I did it doesn't seem fair you'd get all the other symptoms too. I didn't get BH with B, but did with J.

We would love to see you, but I think we're only in Oxford long enough to eat dinner, we're staying in Banbury this time.

[rmc28]

All really interesting, thank you for the update.

As You Know, I did not lose all interest in work or things other than baby once it had arrived, despite what "everyone" told me (oh how annoyed I got with "you might change your mind" ... because obviously everyone else knew my personality better than I did, oh wait no they didn't). So I support you in your scepticism :-)

I can speak for the quiet relief on adjusting to having to go to hospital that at least I didn't have to pack too, because The Bag was packed and ready in the bedroom, just in case. Clothes (mine and baby's), pyjamas, toiletries, nappies, wipes, favourite old paperback, emergency money. The one thing I forgot was a camera, but Tony brought me mine later, along with the sequels to my paperback.

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Tee hee. I had some massage oil I'd made up which turned out to be useful both for massage and oiling the hinge on the mum-next-door's door. It was driving her insane and getting staff to deal with it would have taken weeks...

[j4.livejournal.com]

I did not lose all interest in work or things other than baby once it had arrived

Indeed - you're a good role model for me in this respect. ;-)

BTW, completely unrelatedly, I saw your tweets the other day... CHICKENS! Excellent! :-)

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

The thing we don't have yet is a car seat, but it sounds like there's simply no way to have a baby without one -- the midwife says if I do end up in hospital they won't let me leave without a car seat, even if I'm not planning to go in a car -- so we're going to have to try to borrow one.

I know I shouldn't be, but I am absolutely staggered by this. I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year.

I also don't see how it fits with the whole "kick you out as soon as possible" ethos.

[jinty]

Don't quite see how it doesn't fit with the "kick you out as soon as possible" ethos? But in any case it seems to vary from place to place - R reminds me that his friends in South London took their first baby home in a bus without a car seat. Also, we weren't officially checked for car-seat-havingness before being allowed out of the JR, but then as she *was* in a car seat they might have just looked and not asked. It might yet be the case that we could have got away with it, we don't know.

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

It's also rubbish (unless things have changed in 3 years, which I suppose they might) - we walked out of the JR with #2 in our arms (well, in Mrs S's arms - I had the bags). The senior midwife on duty did look a bit shocked, and quickly found a junior midwife to walk us to the door, but there was no indication that we would be refused exit.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, I thought I remembered you saying that you'd been able to carry the baby out -- but the midwife was quite insistent (well, as much as she ever is, she's a bit on the vague side). I fear it depends who's there at the time; but I don't want to be trapped there & not allowed to take my baby home! (Or forced to sign things saying "Yes I realise that I'm a bad mother" before I'm allowed to go.)

I do wish they actually had a clear policy and an explanation of what you're supposed to do if you don't have a car (apart from "get a car"). :-/

[aendr.livejournal.com]

We had a car seat - one that does from newborn to 4 years and isn't carryable. We'd also had the fit checked by a professional. The midwife didn't believe me that it wasn't the "normal" travel system kind and tried to insist we took it out of the car and brought it into the hospital. After a lot of arguing, she wrote in my notes that I was being difficult and made me sign that I was taking the risk with my baby before she would discharge me.
I complained and asked that if midwives were going to be like this, they got some training in what travel options were available - not just group 0 turn-your-arms-to-gorilla's-ones car seats.

[tortipede.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find that 37 weeks is Term, but 40 is Full Term ;)

You'll be welcome to borrow our car seat if needed, although if you go more than a week or so overdue we might have to just leave it with you just in case (we'll be off on our hols).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ... I have now been offered three car seats though! Can I keep your offer in reserve & give you a shout if we decide we do want to borrow it? You've already been very generous with your baby equipment anyway! :-)

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

We have our old one we can just give you. If you travel in a car, even a taxi, you must have baby in a proper car seat, rear-facing. Body weight times velocity = smushy ba. This is undesireable.

Baby bicycling horror sighted on Woodstock Rd a few years ago: Chinese dada on bike, on the back of which, tied with lots of twine, wobbled a cheap moulded plastic garden chair of child size, in which was bungee corded a smallish baby without a helmet.

[j4.livejournal.com]

If you really don't need your car seat any more that'd be fab -- thank you so much! I definitely owe you lots of nice dinners or similar -- you've been incredibly kind & generous & I hope I can repay you in some way.

Can we arrange a car-seat-and-furniture handover some time soonish (I don't want to sound demanding when you're being so lovely, but I am starting to get twitchy about Having Things To Hand)? Also, if you're interested in taking our surplus bookcases off our hands (or getting the name of our shelving chap -- though you may want to wait & see how well he does ours ;-) then let me know & I'll give you the measurements.

Point taken about the car seat -- it's just depressing to find that society really is set up so that everybody has to have a car (or at least behave as if they have a car). :-/ And part of me thinks "well if they're going to put me in the hospital against my will then they can damn well supply the means to get me & baby home again safely". That's just the grumpy badger talking, though -- I don't want to fight with them. But I do want to stay in my sett if I can! :-}

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

I expect you'll be in your sett for the duration, and if not, there will be a good reason for getting you out. The thing to recall is that at the end of it you have your baby on the outside of you in good shape and you and her dad will be able to take care of her. The weird bit will be sharing this: after all, you have a nine month head start on him...

[naath.livejournal.com]

car seat
WTF; surely you only need one if you were planning to, um, take a car? I guess maybe a lot of non-car-having people get a cab? Is there no bus (surely you don't use a car seat on a bus? I see loads of people with prams on the bus)?

[jinty]

I think the idea is that you do take the newborn in a carseat even in the bus, as being safer than carrying her in your arms - yes, you do see people with prams in buses, but a newborn needs to go in a carrycot style pram bit which doesn't secure her in case of accident. To be honest, though, a sling will hold a baby just as well as a car seat, if not better IMHO.

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Unless you or someone else falls on her. A carryseat has rigidities useful in the event of vehicle accidents...

I'm not antinature, but even buses aren't natural.

[camellia-uk.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear everything's going ok! I'll try to knit a bigger hat for you ;-)
With that many pics taken I'm shocked baby doesn't already have her own facebook or flickr page... (or does she?!) :-)

[j4.livejournal.com]

You're not allowed a facebook account until you're over 13! Anyway by the time she's old enough to care about it facebook will be in the "Omigod, mum, you're so embarrassing, nobody uses that stuff any more" category. ;-) ("Yes dear, I know, but all my other boring grown-up friends still use it. Now don't forget to charge your jetpack.")

I should scan in the pics and put them up on flickr, though.

[camellia-uk.livejournal.com]

*laughs* true though! By the time she grows up there'll be men on mars and we'll have cured stupidity. Well, maybe men on mars anyway.
Pics would be good, looking forward to seeing the real thing soon too :-D

[j4.livejournal.com]

there'll be men on mars and we'll have cured stupidity

If we put all the men on Mars that might deal with the stupidity as well... ;-)

looking forward to seeing the real thing soon too

Me too! And you must come and visit when she's out. :-) I'll try to get the pics sorted, but scanning is a faff...

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Clary sage is contraindicated in pregnancy. Organic chemicals are complex and cross the placental barrier. Wakey-upish safe in pregnancy will be orange, lemon, mandarin, or grapefruit.

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I thought it was supposed to be good for labour though?

[k425.livejournal.com]

It is. It helps with uterine contractions. (Which is why it's contraindicated at other points of pregnancy.)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry for the confusion, the clary sage is for labour (as recommended by midwife). I just won't bother with the oils etc until then -- like I say, not really that fussed about massage for its own sake (most girly 'pampering' stuff just makes me twitchy & irritable - further evidence that I am Not A Real Girl!), & addedentry is doing a good job of prodding my back in the right place when it's aching without the oils.

All those citrus fruits make me feel thirsty just thinking about them! :-} Grapefruit juice is something I am really missing (just too acidic given I'm getting so much heartburn anyway).

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

You can make a pretty easy grapefruit sorbet which won't kill your tummy. Grapefruit juice with 3-4 drops grapefruit essential oil (say, 1 cup), 1/2 c sugar syrup; beat 4 egg whites, mix it all together, freeze, mixing it up from time as it freezes. The egg white takes the edge off the acids. Taken in small amounts...

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Not a cup of oil. A cup of juice.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Sounds nice (raw egg, though...?) but I've never had any success with the sort of sorbet/ice-cream where you have to remember to keep stirring it as it freezes -- I just forget (or I'm out/asleep/etc) & it freezes solid.

Not too long before I can drink the juice again anyway, assuming the heartburn goes away when baby is no longer sitting on me... :)

(BTW do email & let me know when would be a good time for you to come round and exchange a car-seat for tea/cake/etc! :-) I'm off work after March 18th if that makes things easier...)

[brrm.livejournal.com]

getting bookshelves fitted next weekend (which will leave us with at least two surplus bookcases, if anybody's interested...)

I may be in the market for a bookshelf or two soon (depending suitability etc), but not until the end of this month - which I suspect is too late for you.

And hope all goes well with the bag-badger, too :-)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm due on 3rd April, so at the end of the month I may still be sitting around twiddling my thumbs. :-} Someone else has expressed an interest in the bookcases too (again depending on suitability etc) but if they don't want them & I'm still online/awake/etc when you do want them, I'll let you know!

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Pass them on, Jan, I need my head examined.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I've examined it enough to know that it's a very nice head, full of interesting things! But if you don't want/need the bookcases then that's fine. :)

[juliet]

The Intergrowth thing does sound kind of cool.

Re waterproof sheets: I read a useful-sounding tip for homebirth the other day, which is to make up the bed with a clean set of sheets for post-birth, then put the waterproof stuff on the top, then the (presumably not yr best) sheets over that for during birth. Then once labour is over, the midwives can get rid of the dirty sheets & leave you with nice clean ones without actually having to turf you out of bed to remake the bed (you can just scootch over a bit to one side then the other as they take the dirty ones off).

Although now I am unsure as to whether the idea is that one does this at 37 weeks & just leaves the sheets there until labour, or to get whoever's with you to make up the bed during the v early stages of labour, when there's plenty of time between contractions. Anyway.

"it can't be a placebo because it worked for me"

Since, after all, even when you *know* it's a placebo it can still work, never mind if you think it's not.

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

The many layered sheet tip is also good for night-time toilet training in a few years!

[j4.livejournal.com]

I have heard that tip about sheets too & it sounds very sensible -- fortunately we have lots of sheets (I don't think any of them would count as 'best', frankly!) so this should be do-able. I don't want to sleep on crackly waterproof stuff any more than I have to, so will probably do them in early labour -- I get the impression that one is supposed to be able to move around a fair bit until things really get going. In fact the lovely independent ex-midwife who did our personal antenatal class suggested baking a cake during early labour, because it keeps you occupied, lets you lean on the kitchen units when you need to, & means you've got a cake to eat afterwards! I dunno if I'll take her advice but I certainly like her attitude. :-)

even when you *know* it's a placebo it can still work

Well quite. NB despite my banging on about Proper Science, I reserve the right to demand MOAR PLACEBO if things get really bad. :-}

[juliet]

A is planning on baking bread in early labour! Unless things kick off this evening in which case we will consider pancakes instead :) But yes, waterproofing at that stage sounds reasonable. (Although waterproofing early would also deal with potential water-breakage if that's your first sign of labour, I suppose.)

I am all in favour of placebos where they work :) (I took Evening Primrose Oil for really bad PMT stuff for a year or so, in the full knowledge that there's no good evidence that it helps. It worked, though, so I was quite happy with that pretty much regardless of *why* it worked.)

I found a study based at Oxford Brookes which found pain perception reduction in women who used 'aromatherapy oils' (various according to taste, it seems, including clary sage & lavender) during labour. Again, no comment on the why of it & could quite easily be placebo... or simply experiencing them as relaxing & that relaxation helping with the pain perception. I tried out some of the hypnobirthing/relaxation stuff I've read (for A) the last time I had my period & was surprised at how much it helped -- obviously a very different level of experience (!) but nevertheless interesting. Have used it since on headaches as well with some success.

ION: as a fellow iPad owner, and person of a Similar Age, did you know that Jeff Minter has just released Llamatron for iPad? (Minotron) It is AWESOME, in a 'oh hey where did my weekend go' way.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

(Prodded by a third party to look at j4's LJ, hence reading weeks-old posts.)

I think that might be the OBU study I took part in. I used lavender and peppermint oils during labour, and frankincense during the caesarean, despite no particular interest or belief in aromatherapy - I didn't consider it at all before it was offered by the midwives, but I didn't see an obvious reason to refuse either. Lavender was relaxing and distracting during contractions - "ooh, I could be in the garden instead of here"; peppermint actually did stop me feeling sick, but then it had done all the way through pregnancy, mostly in the form of Polos; and frankincense was pleasant enough and I suspect worked mostly because they had me inhaling deeply from my cupped hands, which is a known anti-panic technique with or without added scents. So I would say my conclusion is 'if it smells nice to you there and then, why not?' rather than 'hey, this stuff is brilliant, try it'. :)