Wednesday 9 March 2011

news in briefs

Hello! Still pregnant. Eight months and one day, now. That makes the Event sound exceedingly imminent, but pregnancy is ten months, not really nine, so it's not too soon. Although I think my baby will appear earlier than the official due date of 3 May. Probably, knowing family luck, on ANZAC day. Would that be good or bad? Benefits of a public holiday birthday probably outweigh drawbacks of a war-oriented day birthday.

I'm starting maternity leave at the end of next week. That means I have seven working days to go. Woo hoo! And only about seven hundred items left on my to-do list. Although, because I am a sucker, I am coming in to work and going to meetings and giving lectures on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the first week of leave. And, not that personnel has actually approved my leave yet. But that's the date I applied to go, with a medical letter supporting my application, and I will indeed cease to turn up to my classes. In seriousness, working is getting much too hard now. I'm typing this at my desk at work just before I leave for the day, and my back and belly are very sore and tired. Teaching is too tiring and my whole body aches when I go home after a day of it. I really need the ability to sleep in the middle of the day now too. Also, pathetically, I am weeping little sooky tears whenever anyone says anything vaguely emotional to me, and I don't agree with that sort of thing in the workplace. Earlier on I had hoped to be able to keep working until about 37 weeks, my obstetrician very quickly put the kybosh on that. I was a bit taken aback at the time, but now I see that she was completely right, just as she's been about pretty much everything else.

I made the curtains, Dorian has painted the baby's room and put up shelves, and Basil tried out a selection of the baby's sleeping and traveling containers for comfort and size. I bought a chest freezer and have been filling it up with frozen dinners. We went to a childbirth education class where everyone went 'ewww' when the midwife got out the forceps and clanked them together. She had a doll baby for demonstration purposes which, when it wasn't being stuffed into a rubber pelvis or produced out of an organza amniotic sac, fixed its beady little creepy doll eyes on my husband and tried to freak him out.

Our car has broken down several times now and I'm getting very keen on the idea of acquiring a new one before, you know, my waters burst or something like that.

I'm now injecting myself with insulin thrice daily and it's helping keep my blood sugar in the proper range. I haven't gained any weight since i got pregnant and my obstetrician is pleased about that. At my last ultrasound, though, the ultrasonographer said my baby is almost topping the scale for largeness around the abdomen, and unless memory deceives, he said the baby is thus likely to get stuck halfway out, which, as A.R. said on Twitter, could get awfully awkward at parties. Although really, babies don't get stuck halfway do they? They get out somehow, by hook or by crook.



Along with a lot of sewing, house and garden pottering, and sleeping in the middle of the day, I plan to use the pre-birth part of my maternity leave to re-establish the habit of blogging every day, which I miss immensely and regret having fallen away from. I will try, though, not to make it all about pregnanty stuff, since that is beginning to be boring even for me.

17 comments:

elsewhere said...

Nice to hear from you! I saw you office door the other day. People do seem to get v bored of being pregnant in the last month or so.

lucy said...

My birthday is on Anzac Day and it's awesome, or at least it was until I moved overseas. I miss my public holiday birthdays. I did occasionally feel left out that I never got to take cake to school on my birthday in primary school or like I shouldn't be celebrating on a sad holiday, but the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks.

lucy said...

I also meant to say, enjoy your pre-baby leave. I hope everything goes smoothly.

Unknown said...

My partner's b'day is the day after Anzac, which is nice as we get to have picnic parties on the public holiday but she doesn't get totally usurped by 'the one day of the year'. (And as she's English, she didn't even know what AD was until she came here.)
I spent my pregnancy wondering what it would be like for my babe to have a birthday on Xmas Day, as he might have, but he came very early, so that was a waste of wondering.
Pregnancy news isn't boring, from my pov!

zigsma said...

Oh, hang in there (not that you have much choice) - this last part is the hardest. Well, was for me. I felt like I'd been pregnant for about three years and that I would continue being pregnant forever. Rather insensitive ultrasonographer if you ask me. No pregnant woman needs to hear that. And it sounds ridiculously wrong. Ultra-idiot. Naps during the day are an excellent idea. Looking forward to reading more posts!

Mindy said...

As far as I know, having had two caesars myself, once the shoulders are out the rest just slides out after them. Tummies are squishy anyway. I wouldn't listen to the sonographer.

M-H said...

Sonographer is an idiot. She should be told to tape her mouth shut. I've had three by vaginal delivery, and the last was 9 kilos. Slid right out. It's not size that matters as much as position.

I'm looking forward to daily blogging.

And doorbitch wants "consq" - an abbreviated consequence? Of what?

lucy tartan said...

9 kilos!!! 9 pounds, that must be. Or I'll have nightmares.

It's kind of strange that this sonographer said that, because he's excellent otherwise. He did an amniocentesis on me at 16 weeks and it was quick, skilled, almost pain-free and without complications afterward. So given that I trust him I did spend the week after the scan feeling pretty concerned, and getting my head adjusted to the likelihood of a planned caesarian. On the whole that sort of mental preparation has got to be a good thing - but at the same time, I don't need to pre-empt whatever my primary carer has to say about the whole topic.

From what I can inexpertly tell, the baby's position is positive for 32 weeks gestation. He's been head down for over a month now, and from various twinges low down I suspect his head might have dropped into my pelvis.

I think there's a lot of wasted wondering goes on in pregnancy.

Lucy, thank you.

El, what days are you around? We should try to catch up for coffee next week, if we can.

Suse said...

I definitely concur with Mindy and M-H. It's the bony bits (head, then shoulders) that pave the way and the soft bits just follow easily.

Good luck, and enjoy the baby daze.

Suse said...

Oh, just noticed "9 kilos".

Sweet Jesus.

iODyne said...

so good that you have Baz road-testing all the gear.

X X X Ann O'D

librarygirl said...

I remember that crochet hook.
I remember a baby came out four and three quarter hours after it appeared.

Zoe said...

Yeah, Jethro needed the crochet hook. It really does look exactly like that, too :)

Ampersand Duck said...

Oh, it's so nice to read more than 140 characters from you! Am looking forward to reading more soon...

Hope that leave gets approved or you'll have to have the baby on the VC's desk in protest. Naps will be nice, before and after.

Anonymous said...

Attempts at measuring the size of foetuses at the end of pregnancy are notoriously innaccurate. So try not to give the ultrsound guy too much credit.

Happy maternity leave! I used and recommend Buffy dvds.

meli said...

what happened to the extra blogging? not long to go now, i hope all is well. the last little bit feels so strange...

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