Nesting, C Section & week 39 update

I have never been the sort of person who keeps a tidy house. My mother had a fridge magnet that declared:

 

and I’ve always remembered it… plus I like to live in a home that feels lived in rather than like a show-home. However for the last couple of weeks I have been obsessed with having a sort/tidy/clean of the whole house! It’s most unlike me but I've actually quite enjoyed it! I’ve tackled more or less every area of our house, and the amount of black bin bags we’ve gone through is pretty high! Sam even joined in and got rid of a load of clothes too (I’ve yet to tackle my shoe collection but however!) But I figured it’s way better to do all this before we move, and before I'm having to take it easy after a C-Section! The bathroom has been cleaned from top to bottom (including all the grouting) as has the kitchen and the whole place has been hoovered thoroughly!

I’ve also stocked the freezer up with dinners (so far 6 main meals, like curries, bolognese etc, and 3 cakes!) so that when neither of us feel like cooking when I'm home from hospital and sleep deprived we can just bung them in the microwave and make rice or something else easy to go with them! None of this is normal behaviour for me, so it is definitely the ‘nesting’ instinct taking over! Most bizarre, and I honestly didn't think it would happen until it did!

If you read my post on choosing a C-section a few weeks ago then the outcome is that it was finally agreed by a consultant. Even if one agrees then another one has to it turns out, but it would be far too convenient for them to do that on the same day, so we managed to get another appointment a week later, which resulted in another week of worry and strain… The consultant that day didn't turn up to work however, but we met with a wonderful doctor who listened (again) to all my concerns, was upset that the NHS counselling service still hadn't given me an appointment (been waiting since march!) and said that he would ‘nip up to the labour ward and find an obstetrician’ for me. Fifteen minutes later (we made awkward small talk with the medical student who sat in on our appointment) he was back, but on his own. I genuinely thought it was an outright no, but it turns out the lady who he spoke to agreed it after looking at my notes and had signed off. He ran me through how the operation works, highlighted the risks (which I could quote back to him verbatim by this point, statistics and all) and we signed the consent form! Obviously at some point after the baby arrives I'll write about my experience, but as you can imagine we were both so relieved and the date is in the diary!

Briefly, the only new symptoms I have experienced since my week 37 update is some extreme acid reflux, some slightly stronger braxton hicks type pains in week 38 and then in the final week, the absolute swelling of my feet, lower legs, arms and hands. I have tattoos on both feet and they look warped at the moment! I look elephantine! I can’t get my wedding rings off and can only wear about 2 pairs of shoes that I own. 

It’s pretty uncomfortable and I’ve been attempting to rest and put my feet up but I also didn't want to waste my last few days of ‘freedom’ sat on my bum, and have various lunch/tea dates with friends which has been lovely! My piddling/sleeping cycle has got worse and I really not getting much sleep at all because my cold means I cant breathe through my nose during the night, so I get a gunky mouth and a bunged up nose, paired with the fact that it’s getting warmer, night times are no fun at the moment! Lets hope the baby sleeps through and I can get some sleep (wishful thinking haha!)

My next post will be post-baby, so see you on the other side!

Bump update: week 37

So the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a nightmare, truth be told! On Wednesday I'll be 38 weeks and I am suffering!

After the disastrous consultant visit (I wrote about it here, and also wanted to express my thanks to those who commented and tweeted after that post) I then went further into anxious mode, until my MW appointment last Wednesday. As ever she was completely supportive, horrified that the consultant hadn't listened to what I had explained and brushed me off as a 'first time worrier', she got right on the phone to the hospital to make me another appointment with a different consultant, who I met last Monday, and who agreed (yay!) but said that it had to be signed off by a second doctor (he then helpfully gave me a prescription for some iron tablets with someone else's name on, cheers doc!) BUT I am seeing the 2nd consultant tomorrow morning, so hopefully my months of not knowing will be over!

And as for symptoms...
We went through some new symptoms (itchy body, including feet and some slight swelling in uncomfortable places) and my general tiredness levels, my MW took some blood and advised me to call the next day at 5pm, however by 10am the next morning I had already had a call from the hospital asking me to call back to discuss my results, worrying, but super quick service! SO it turns out my iron levels had dropped lower than they were last time they were checked (30 weeks, I think) even though I have been taking Feroglobin iron supplements and eating well, and the blood test that measures liver function was also low, (as recognised by the itchiness, which is very scientifically clever!) so that needs some tablets, but I said I already had consultant appointment on Monday, and could I wait and sort it all out then, the answer was yes, as long as the baby is still moving as normal (which it is, phew!) although I had been experiencing some really painful twinges all that morning.

She said it was probably just the braxton hicks getting a bit more powerful, or that I was just doing too much, or the baby was getting more confined as it grew, or a combination of all of these things. It was a pretty stressful day at work too (stupidly I was on my hands and knees scrubbing things and checking under beds ready for a butt-load of visiting VIPs) but after a 2 hour nap the pain seemed to have eased off by that night (last thurs!) and has since reduced to bearable levels and pretty much remained that way.

I've also developed some skin tags and changes to a couple of moles, mainly around my neck, a few google searches tell me this is normal and that they will go after the baby arrives, but the moles changing I am going to get checked at the Drs just in case!

Other than that, my symptoms have more or less remained the same (frequent piddling!!) but the aches have got worse, especially first thing in the morning! If it didn't take me so long to wash and dry my hair I'd move bath times to the morning but I think a warm bath before bed helps me unwind, so I'm not really willing to change my routine! I look like a decrepit old lady until at least mid day when things have eased up a little!

I am due to finish work on 23rd May (this Thursday ) and have more or less finished the handover to the person who will be managing the hotel for me in my absence, but it's going to be so strange not having to be on call 24/7 and not knowing what the hell is happening, but I'm sure I'll get over it pretty quickly!

I have been told I am having a leaving party on Tuesday too, hurrah! I'm meant to be going to a meeting (with dinner and a stay over) in Bournemouth on my last day, it'd mean I get to see all the people from the hotels in my region before being off for so long, and have a proper catch up, BUT I am inordinately worried I'll go into labour and Sam won't be there and I'll have to make someone drive me home in the middle of the night or something... I'll see how I feel the day before and decide then!

Anyway, I will keep you all posted on the yay/nay C-section meeting! Also, I'm moving about 7 weeks after the baby arrives, (blog post here on my other blog) any tips?

Life in Limbo

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I like to have things planned to a T. A huge big fat CAPITAL T. When things are not planned and/or I have no control over them I get anxious, and often angry. My life seems to be in Limbo right now, for a various number of reasons, the main being the obvious one of the imminent arrival of baby KPB (don't worry, I'm not going to give it a triple barrelled surname, I wouldn't be so cruel!) and then the smaller but still important issues of where are we going to live, same place, different, next town over? Will I go back to work? more importantly when will I stop work to start maternity leave? How will we cope with Sam not having a bog standard working pattern? Will I get lonely once our house mate moves out/we move out, with Sam working late at night? How will we afford to pay for things without my Salary?

I figured the best way to tackle these things is to get my thoughts down on paper (blog-paper?) and then see how other people coped/plan to cope, and I have been speaking to my GP about how best to tackle anxiety (more on this at a later date, potentially but there is a bit more to it) and I know one of the best ways is to discuss my thoughts with people, but as I don't have a particularly deep relationship with the mothership (I think this is because I don't like to worry her) and my husband is like an excited puppy and always has a positive spin on everything (which normally is ideal, as he is the positive to my negative, but sometimes I do NEED someone to be blatant with me and point out things that might crop up in a negative/constructive aspect, and not just say "it'll be fine, wait and see") SO here goes...

Where will we live? Long story short there is a slight possibility that a friend will let us his 2 bed flat at the cost of his mortgage (plus bills, but still about 400 less than the going market rate) BUT only if the current tenants want to leave at the end of their 12 month tenancy, which is through a letting agent. (keeping them would give him more income, but if they left he'd rather have someone he knows in the flat) This flat is in Worthing (half an hour drive away) but right next to the train station for easy travel/Sam to get to and from work and also has a car parking space with it,so I could get my car back on the road. It has 2 beds/2 baths and is about 3 years old, plus we have 2 close friends who happen to live in the same road. It is also closer than where we are now to my mums house, and other friends. So we have to wait a few more weeks to see if that will work out. If it does it is too good to turn down. If it doesn't then we would more than likely stay where we are, (a 2 bed maisonette in central Brighton) but would need to cover the whole rent, as opposed to the half we pay now (our lovely housemate will be moving out) and of course we would be paying around an extra £100 a month in bills too, which was her share. All this with me earning SMP and not my salary. We contemplated moving somewhere cheaper, but actually our rent is cheap compared to other similar places, so to move somewhere noticeably cheaper we'd have to move right to the outskirts of Brighton, making it more difficult for Sam to get to and from work (currently a ten minute walk for both he and I).

conclusion: there isn't one yet!

Will I go back to work? When will I stop work? without bemoaning my company/area manager too much I will say that considering I told him I was expecting at 9 weeks pregnant (to get them off my back about a potential move to maidstone!) and at the time of writing I have 8 weeks left till me EDD and no decision has been made I'm pretty pissed off! I know who I want to cover for me, (I manage a large hotel for anyone that didn't know) as I have spent a lot of time with him over the last few years and know that he would do everything efficiently and properly and already works in the hotel so he knows all the intricacies and ins and outs, whereas if the decision is made that it will be someone external the handover period will take potentially 2 or 3 weeks, bearing in mind I have the last week of April off and ideally don't want to work till the baby actually falls out leaves not very long at all. Another gripe is that we were told he would make a decision on the 1st April, but then realised the day before good Friday that he was on holiday all that week and "do you mind covering for me Lauren" so not only an increased work load during the Easter holidays (already the busiest time of the year so far) but who forgets they are going on holiday?!!!! OH and a third gripe, my last regional manager told me I should get a say in the cover as it is 'your hotel' but he's since moved regions and my area manager seems more intent on being seen to make the right decision than actually making it! does he not realise this is stressing me out big style?! (I have told him how I feel, by the way, I'm pretty vociferous but he clearly has no back bone and doesn't want to rock the boat with the 'higher uppers' because he's new to the position!) GRRRR

As for if I will go back, I genuinely don't know. I would love not to, and have a bit of a career break, but actually my main worry is not money but boredom. I've worked solidly full time for the same company and I'm not sure how I'd cope going from high stress levels and being busy and active 5 days a week (or more!) to basically sitting on my bum watching my child grow up. I've contemplated doing a foundation degree type thing through the open university (which is pretty cheap if you are a low income family, which we would be if just Sam was working) and re training to do something that I could do to my own schedule, but I'm just not sure what. Then if we have another child later down the line, I would effectively be putting my career on hold even longer, if we waited for the (hypothetical) 2nd child to reach school age... Also I earn more money than Sam, so it would make more financial sense for me to go back and for him to leave, but I think maybe I'm ready for something different!

conclusion: who knows?

Shift patterns and family routine. Fairly often Sam works 5 nights a week. And by nights I mean 3pm - 3/4am. He often has different and separate days off in a week and, and doesn't generally know what these will be till only a few days before (thanks Sam's bosses, you make planning really easy) At first I was dreading the long evenings alone (as lovely flatmate will have moved out by then, or we will have!) from 3 till god knows when, but then when I thought about it a bit more, once baby KPB is sleeping more to a routine and is going to bed around 7pm, SO CAN I!!) I wont need to feel obliged to do married people things like cook him dinner and watch a film together, I can just have a nice relaxing bath (positive thinking!) read a bit of my book and then be asleep by 9pm with no distractions or guilt at not spending time with my husband, ready for the inevitable middle of the night feeds. Sam has even said that if it works out that the baby will need a feed within an hour of him getting home, he can do it!

Then providing he wakes up at a reasonable time (normally 10/11am after a late night shift) hopefully the baby will have had a morning nap and we can have nice family time/lunch together whilst the sprog is awake (and yay for eating a bigger meal at lunch time, more time to burn off the calories!) then I can walk into town with Sam to get out of the house on his way to work.

conclusion: this one could benefit everyone!

So, a potential positive one out of three. Brilliant, no wonder I'm stressed.

How did you cope with things that you couldn't control, either when pregnant or in other phases of life?

Useful things to make Pregnancy easier

 

Pregnacare (or similar!) combined pills – I am useless  at remembering to take pills and tablets, so have a combined pill that has all the right vitamins and minerals in means only having to remember to take one pill a day, and that I can just about manage. More info on the boots website here

A pregnancy pillow (or a spare normal pillow) – Some nights I toss and turn too much and end up flinging the thing out of bed, but mostly I am exhausted enough to conk out and not move till I need to go for a wee, I posted already about mine here, but you can just sleep with a regular pillow between your legs and under your bump, but it’s a good idea to not sleep on your back when the bump gets bigger, it can trap nerves and make your legs go numb!

Crackers/cereal bars/ginger hobnobs – in the first few months they help to stave off pregnancy, and in the last few months they’ve been perfect to keep at work for a quick snack (I don't take a  lunch break at work, just graze throughout the day) and for early mornings, I'll have a cereal bar on the way to work then have a bowl of cereal/porridge when I get to work (the only bonus of early starts is that I have chefs on hand at the hotel to cook, I’m just fed up of of cooked breakfasts after so many years there!)

A pregnancy app- See this post (& this week according to the app the baby is as big as the head of a cauliflower, in case you were wondering!)

Loose fitting PJs – comfort over style, primarks biggest size work wonderfully, but I have to roll them up because I am short.

Something that smells nice to slather on sore stretched skin – I have been using a multitude of things (don't want to get bored!) but most recently have been loving the Seascape Soothe range (reviewed here)

Rennies/antacid tablets – don’t leave the house without them. keep them by the bed, in your bag, on your desk, in the car, EVERYWHERE! they’re a godsend. The weird thing is that I can go a couple of days without any heartburn/acid reflux, then for a few days EVERYTHING gives it to me!

A food delivery service (or an obliging partner/friend who will do it with you) – Asda delivers my groceries, and I top up at local shops on the way home from work. If Sam and I both had time together to go to the supermarket (i.e. if we didn't work at opposite times to each other) then I would make more of an effort to go, but waddling round the supermarket with a trolley then battling the old ladies on the bus with the bags isn't my idea of fun (although it is good exercise, see next point!)

Regular exercise – I'm not saying run a marathon, but unless your Dr tells you otherwise its a really good idea to keep doing non-strenuous exercise, even if its just walking, but there are lots of yoga videos on YouTube (here are some third trimester ones, as that’s what I am now) but there are local classes in most areas I expect, definitely in Brighton anyway!

A cleaning lady/man – I don’t have one of these, but if money were no object I would get help in an instant. Cleaning bathroom/kitchen floors on my hands and knees is getting difficult and tiring, and I'm only going to get bigger. Plus I only like to clean when I'm in the right mood, and that hardly ever happens!

A comfy bra – I’m still on the lookout for one of these! I purchased some non wired bras from M&S and they were just really unflattering, and still not that comfy. Yesterday a very nice lady in La Senza measured me, but all their bra’s are of the bullet proof padding variety, with underwire. She gave me a ‘body kiss’ to try on which was so padded round the underwire that you could hardly feel it, but I didn't want all the ‘oomph’ so I didn't buy it. She did however make me try a smaller band a bigger cup, which seemed to work slightly better than what I was going for before, so the hunt continues, and in the mean time I bought a maternity bra and a nursing bra from Mothercare in their sale, which are doing for now. Needless to say the moment I shut the door behind me when I get in the bra comes off and the PJs go on.

a smaller handbag – I was carrying around all kinds of crap I didn't need, so I changed to a smaller one (slightly) and make a point of emptying out the stuff I don't need every couple of days, because dragging around all the extra weight wasn’t doing my shoulders any good at all!

Please do feel free to add your couldn't-do-withouts below!

Are we nearly there yet?

 

No we aren’t, I have 14 weeks left still. I was reading ‘what to expect when you’re expecting’ and one of the emotional symptoms for month 6 was something like ‘some boredom with the Pregnancy (why cant people think about something else?!)’. I related instantly, then felt guilty for doing so. But It does really seem like I have been pregnant for ever, but am only 2 thirds of the way through!

As I may or may not have said before, I feel like I would have more of an affinity with 'baby’ if I knew the gender. Instead we are both calling it ‘it’ or sometimes sprog. Personally I don't think this wrong, I'm carrying it, we made it and we can call it what we want… And will when it’s born! However other people have sneered and made their feelings clear (hello, mother in law) about it, and people on Facebook have accused me of not being maternal (coming from a middle aged guy who has no kids I didn't get too offended)

I have also had to endure endless rounds of questioning from various friends & Sam's family members who we visited in our week off and travelling round the country to catch up with people. Some questions bordered on invasive and fell right into the ‘none of your business’ category. I completely understand that each person didn't know that all these questions had been asked yesterday/a week ago by someone else, but people seem to think that just because I’m incubating a new life that it gives them complete freedom to ask really personal questions about the birth/our financial situation/my career/the routine that we will implement and so on and so forth. If these people are women then they of course give anecdotes of ‘in my day we…’ and ‘well you DEFINITELY shouldn't/should do x/y/z…’ I don't even know the answers to half the questions and may not until the time comes for many of the scenarios, I'm worried to death about how we’ll cope and what the future brings, but attempting to focus on being positive and luckily I know that whatever comes at us Sam and I will manage to get through it together.

Anyway it was all a bit overwhelming and I was kind of relieved to be in the car and heading home, although that was also partly because the car was JAM PACKED full of baby related things that we’d been given or bought over the week. So the relief was partly to do with the fact that we started and have subsequently almost accumulated all the things we’ll need for the arrival of the bouncing bundle of joy, hurrah!

We had a few gift cards left from Christmas/various other things, and had other things already as they’d been given to us, so now the catalogue runs as follows…

• 4 ‘grow bags’ in various sizes and togs
• a heap of muslins/bibs
• bottles and teats in different flows (in prep for expressing milk/if breast feeding doesn't work’
• a travel system (2nd hand but for £40!) that includes a car seat/changing bag
• a baby bath
• a play mat (given to as no longer needed, as with the bath)
• a huge bag of toys and the book ‘what to expect in the first year’ (From Sam's cousins)
• an even huger bag of clothes (boyish, but we will pass them on to someone else if we have a girl)
• 3x boxes of nappies (180 in each, supposedly enough for a month) in various sizes
• a cotbed (its PURPLE!) and was 2/3rd off and should last till 4 years old ish, and we got a changing table to go on the top (this will stay in storage at work until we have room for it!)
• a Moses basket (that my mum found at a bargain price, unused in a charity shop!)
• a baby monitor
• a baby carrier
• a huge box of assorted baby care things (cotton wool, breast pads, nipple cream etc!)
• a white rocking chair (this and the last 3 things from my friend Amy, who's baby will be a year old on my due date!)
• We also bought lots of non gender specific vests/sleep suits/clothes etc in various sizes which should be enough to keep us going until we can go out (with the baby!) and buy the rest the clothes that we’ll need

Needless to say I've catalogued everything in sections in my ‘baby notebook’, even down to clothes by size. Now I cant honestly say this organisational streak will continue post partum but its a start, and I now feel SO much happier that we’ve effectively got what we need to be going on with, (Even if we do need to get Sam's friend Theo round to get it all back out of the loft when we need it, because I cant fit through the hole anymore, and Sam never could in the first place!

And before you say it, I know that we haven't got a steriliser yet, but Sam is in charge of the technical things and he’s on the case! What else am I missing?

Lists lists and more lists

I like to write lists. Lists make me feel organised, and like I have something to achieve (although sometimes I write something on a list that I have already done, and then cross it off so I feel like I have made progress)

The below are a few of my current lists, which are either in my phone or in the back of my organiser, along with a select few items from said lists... I have purchased a notebook with sections in it, to attempt to get properly organised, with lists of what people have very kindly offered to lend us (thanks Steph!) and things that people have said don't bother with, and even the 'hospital bag' list... (Which currently only says 'camera and big knickers' on it...but i've got plenty of time for that one yet!

The things I can do when the baby gets here and I wont be working list

• watch Sabrina the teenage witch from start to finish
• read all the unread books on my shelves (I know this is unrealistic)
• start making all my own Christmas/birthday cards again
• craft projects 

The Baby Names List 

• SECRET! we're just not telling... (Well Sam can't keep his trap shut but I am not telling, so you'll have to bribe him!) He has chosen the 'girl' name, therefore I get to choose the 'boy' name. & the middle names be default, because I am carrying it around for 40 weeks after all, but obviously the names will be subject to what the baby looks like when it appears, the thing is, what if you decide to call it Maud and it comes out looking just like a Marjory...? Plus i've heard stories of people either turning their nose up at whatever you say it's name will be, or stealing the name!

The Baby Shopping List

• everything. (well, almost, we will have a crib from Steph, and my mum already found us a nice moses basket and stand, and another friend is giving us her daughters cot-bed when as she's almost grown out of it, at 5 years old! (so hurray, no bed buying till then!)

The other things that might be useful to get hold of list

• a food processor
• an ottoman (for keeping blankets and such in...plus I just want one)
• a rocking chair
• lots of tupperware containers so I can cook most of the weeks food on one day and freeze it (this will never happen and we will live off takeaway fish and battered sausages for at least a month!)

The things I am worried about list

• how will I know what it wants when it cries (shouldn't be calling it it really...)
• what if it is funny looking, and people are too polite to say anything (I KNOW how this makes me sound)
• that I will go stir crazy with only myself and a small human for company
• how on earth am I going to have my every other daily long hot soak in the tub with bubbles and a book (lets face it, i'm not)
• taking the baby to a wedding at ten weeks old
• our finances

The what I definitely do not want to do when bringing up my child list

• Let it use a dummy till it is three. I have a friend who did this, and one day she had to tell her daughter that she had to give it to another baby who needed it more, there were tantrums and there were tears
• Let it watch CBeebies incessantly
• Let it wander around with snot hanging from its nose
• Dress it it anything with 'babe' written on it (i'm looking at YOU primark)

I know that many of these are unrealistic, and some are downright daft, but this is a place for honesty, so do share any lists you made, or worries you had/have pre baby!