Birth plan, part 1

 

I don't really know where to start with a ‘birth plan’. I spoke to my midwife about it at last weeks appointment, and she said that basically it can be as detailed or as simple as you want it to be, but that of course sometimes things just don’t go to plan, so always keep an open mind. As an aside, I really like this midwife, my first few appointments were all with someone different and one of them was quite possibly the most unhelpful person I've met, after looking at my notes a few weeks ago she had managed to write down my height wrong, and a few other anomalies had crept in too.

Anyway, I digress, I explained to the MW that I didn't really know where to start with thinking about the birth, and in actual fact I had quite a lot of anxiety about it, amongst other things. She said it needs to cover three main areas, which can be as detailed or as simple as you want them to be.

• What is important to you (who do you want with you, where do you want to do it? )
• What you feel are priorities (including pain relief/coping techniques, do you want your baby cleaned before being given to you etc)
• How you want things to happen after the birth (breastfeeding or formula, vitamin K injection or not…)

So I am right at the beginning stages of the process, and so far all I know is that a) Sam will be with me and not my mother/anyone else, BUT that if things go on for a while and he needs a break, but that b) a friend who lives not far from the hospital and had her baby there a few years ago will be on hand for support if possible, which is good to know. In the true spirit of my ever growing procrastination, I actually made a full and detailed list of what to pack in my hospital bag instead of getting any further with the birth plan, but i’ve started thinking about it and have 13 weeks left anyway, so expect another post on the subject further down the line!

Tools and things you may find helpful:

The NHS Birth plan webpage, you can fill out online and print it for your records

The NHS 'how to write a birth plan video’ which you can watch here

The Tell me a good birth story website (Steph found this website really useful before she had D, and recommended it to me)

Bountys advice on writing a birth plan

And the Netmums take on it

and just for the sake of argument, here is an article that I found about why ‘birth plans are worse than useless’ (the 899 comments on the article don’t agree!)

 

If you are a mum already, how closely did your experience resemble your birth plan, if you had one? Any tips?

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?

Stuff we like: Pregnancy Apps

 

Now I never bother paying for apps, I'd rather make do with the ads/slightly less content on a free app that bother coughing up for however much it costs. Also I get bored of things very easily and end up with a phone full of crap I never look at. However, I do like to keep my apps grouped by type, and have been using the 'health' section a lot recently.

The only reason I could give the midwife an accurate (ish) date of conception was due to the period tracker lite app. It lets you note when your period starts and ends, therefore tells you when it is due, and you can keep track of symptoms, and when you 'make love' (for want of a better term!) You can also save the data or have it emailed to you, so if you change phone you have a back record (my previous years of poor diary keeping meant I genuinely had no idea when I was due on, because I had such irregular periods anyway)

Once I knew I had a bun in the oven I downloaded a couple more apps, some of which I have since deleted, but the ones I use the most are:-

'What to Expect Pregnancy' (from the same people who published the book (and subsequent spin off Hollywood blockbuster... hmmmm) my version has ads as it's the free version. You enter in your EDD (estimated due date) and when you open the app you get the screen that tells you how far you are, what size the sprog is and a countdown. Along the bottom you have the weekly and daily sections, with the weekly giving you an overview of what's happening inside overall, and each day giving you tips (varying from food, exercise, symptoms, and once a week or so a tip for the dad (my fave basically being 'ask if she wants to have sex don't assume')

It also has a pictures section, where you can store a picture for each week, but I've not bothered with that as Sam takes one every two weeks for himself (which I share on instagram and here anyway). There is also a forum, based on your expected birth month (access to other forums is possible too) and I've not really bothered with this either.

Sprout app - Very similar to the above, but gives you a creepy 3d sort of image of your unborn child, with bits to click to find out more. The next section 'doc says' also gives a weekly and daily breakdown of information, but if a certain topic interests you you can click it to add it to the 'ask your doctor' list, which appears in the organiser tab, which lists things by section (ask the doc, a to do list, a list of new-born essentials and what to pack in your hospital bag) Obviously I am too much of a list-addict to pass up on writing my own lists, and as previously mentioned I have a whole sectioned notebook for preparing for this child, BUT if you are not manual-to-do-list inclined then its a useful feature for shizzle!

The last section 'tools' has a weight tracker, so you can monitor your weight gain, a kick counter and a contraction timer (most of which are the 'paid for' features in other pregnancy apps)

Womancy - more similar to the period tracker app, it shows you a calendar and lets you put your current symptoms in, along with the option of your weight and waist size, which you can then view on a graph. However I weight myself in stones and pounds, and the idea of converting it first is too much effort so I've not bothered so far, but for a free app if you did want to keep track of these then its a decent option.

The other often used app in my health section is 'white noise' (I have two, each app has slightly different sounds) and although these days I am so tired I can fall asleep anywhere generally, pre pregnancy I used to get a few sleepless nights, particularly when I was really stressed. Basically the app plays a background noise that lulls you (hopefully) to sleep, but I have friends who say that these apps can work well with young babies too (and are a cheaper, if somewhat far more inconvenient (if you actually need to USE your phone) option that Ewan the dream sheep, for example)

Trying to get inspired

 

Now don’t get me wrong, I am very excited to be having a baby, and can’t wait to watch it learn, grow, explore and develop. But I've not yet bought one thing for the new arrival. No clothes, no furniture or anything. Well, actually I bought some nappy bags and some wet wipes in poundland the other day, but I don't think that counts. I’ve bought a notebook with sections in for ‘what we need’/’what we’ve been lent’/’in an ideal world we would buy…’ and we’ve been given some bits too…

So in a bid to try and get excited about actually buying things and planning the nursery, I’ve been having a snoop around Pinterest (all images link to the original pin)

The Bam-B crib – it turns into all sorts of other things. Incredibly pricey as you have to purchase all the bits for it separately, but in theory, and if money were no object, a useful bit of furniture!

Labelled drawers, so the sprog can get itself dressed (obviously not for a few years yet…) But I know already that I want my sprog to be as self dependent as possible as early as possible.

Completely cutesy and something I would never manage to keep looking neat, but I like the big flowery things… we’ve kept a couple of the strings of origami birds that Sam made for our wedding decor to go up in the sprogs room.

We already have wall decals in our bedroom, and they are a really easy way to add interest to a room, especially if you are renting and/or covering up mouldy bits… (which is another reason to want to move by the time the baby arrives!)

Seriously, who's house actually LOOKS like like half the stuff you see on pinterest… anyway, I like to idea of big baskets to keep stuff tidy.

How completely OTT is this? I’ve pinned a couple of completely outrageous bedrooms on my baby board too, seriously these people must be rich beyond belief, plus your kid would only fit in the above bed till it was about three, maximum!

If you’re a mama then at what stage did you start to get excited for planning and buying things? Someone accused me of not being particularly maternal the other day, which I thought was a bit harsh, I'm making the most of not having a house full of mess actually!