Books, Bath Bombs, and Boogie Nights - Becoming Me

Wow, what an incredible 4 months it’s been! I sometimes can’t believe Henry’s 4 months already (19 weeks and 3 days, to be precise) because it’s going so quickly, and at other times, it feels as if he’s been with us forever. I’m sure most parents are familiar with that feeling!

I know I’m biased but we really have been lucky. He’s a brilliant baby – he sleeps well at night, he took to breastfeeding easily, and he’s very chatty and giggly. The only issue has been his reflux, prompting my husband to ask (after a particularly explosive reflux session, getting through 6 outfits within 10 minutes), “Reckon we can return him to the fertility clinic and get our money back? Tell them that this one’s defective; he keeps leaking!”

For anyone suddenly concerned – yes, he was joking!

In short, parenthood is amazing and so far, nothing in the world can beat the feeling when Henry smiles and giggles at me.

So why did I suddenly feel overwhelmingly sad a few weeks ago?

It wasn’t constant. It wasn’t all encompassing. It didn’t make me feel anything negative towards Henry.

But still, I felt sad.

And guilty!

After everything we’d been through to have Henry! All the worries; the pressures and fear; the money; the medication I had to inject; the incredible excitement when we realised the IVF had actually worked!

Why was I feeling sad?

I worked out pretty quickly that I wasn’t sad about Henry in any way.

I talked with my husband about it and I talked with my friend about it (she’s had 4 children – if anyone could relate, I knew it would be her!), and after a lot of soul searching, it became clear that I was worried about losing myself.

I realised I don’t want to be ‘Henry’s Mum’ - I want to be ‘Emma, who is Henry’s Mum’.

I don’t know if that distinction makes sense or seems important to anyone but me.

Of course Henry is always going to come first in my life now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not myself anymore and I realised that I needed to start making some time for things that make me Emma.

If someone asked me what hobbies my husband enjoys doing, I’d tell them photography, playing his guitar, and woodworking. If someone asked my husband what hobbies I have, he’d probably tell them drawing and doing crafty things (knitting, sewing, etc).

Except, actually, I haven’t done anything in a long time.

How long had it been since I read (and finished) a novel? I couldn’t remember!

How long since I’d drawn something just because I wanted to, not for a gift? I think it was when I drew Sam Carter (bonus points for those who know who that is) back in 2015.

When did I last write for the fun of it, aside from this blog which is more like therapy? Again, I couldn’t remember.

Some of that is just life as an adult getting in the way, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I’d been focused on “baby” for so long, that I’d completely neglected myself. Obviously once you’re pregnant, everything tends to become about getting ready for the baby, and rightfully so, but I don’t think it had occurred to me just how much I’d been all about the baby before I was even pregnant.

We made the decision in December 2016 that I’d go to the doctor in January about not being able to fall pregnant, and from that moment on, everything in my head became about this. Operation Parent. I was desperate and determined.

Appointments, tests, scans, keeping diaries of when things happened, then the surgery and IVF itself – I lived it completely. I was IVF Emma, and that left very little room in my head for regular Emma.

Tunnel vision!

So I’ve made a promise to myself that I’m going to make some time for me to be me.

I’ve got some books to read when Henry is napping, or has gone to sleep in the evening – I’ve already finished one! My lovely husband has bought me some bath bombs (I hate bubbles in a bath but fill it with fizzy pink sparkles and I’m all over it), and I’ve just started going to tap dancing lessons.

I feel better already! When I arrived home from my Tap lesson last night, my husband commented that I looked refreshed. He was right! Exhausted and sweaty of course, but definitely refreshed. 

So my message to anyone out there who’s pregnant or has just had a baby, is to still make time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing – it can be as small as reading a chapter of a book while the baby is napping, but it’s so important to remember that you’re an individual too, not just a parent. 

It doesn’t make you a bad parent to want a bit of time for you!

Is breast really best?

As a brief disclaimer, I am breastfeeding Henry and we have found it relatively easy. We’ve been lucky.

Of course the medical answer to the question is “yes, breastmilk is the most nutritious and beneficial food for a newborn” but really, I’m not here to talk about it in that sense.

So let’s try again. Is breast really best?

No, I don’t believe it is.

I believe that ‘Breast is Best’ is a catchy and emotionally manipulative slogan.

I believe that breastfeeding can be a beautiful experience.

I believe that what is really ‘best’ for a baby is to be fed. Whether by breastmilk or formula, a baby needs to be fed.

And I believe that a baby needs to bond with a mother who is happy.

As I said before, for me, breastfeeding has come easily, and I was given fantastic support from the midwives when I was in hospital (a brilliant midwife named Rhiannon, in particular). Unfortunately, for many of my family and friends, this has not been the case but they have felt pressured to continue trying to breastfeed because “everyone says breast is best and I need to do the best for my baby.”

It makes me so angry that these wonderful, strong women are feeling this kind of pressure; that they’re feeling as if they’re bad mothers for considering using formula. Being new to motherhood is an emotional and overwhelming experience on its own, without adding the worry of being a bad parent.

Now I have no problem with someone wanting to persevere with breastfeeding if they’re finding it difficult, but if someone is truly struggling and refuses to consider formula purely because “breast is best”, then I do have a problem (with the slogan, not the woman).

Desperately trying to continue to establish breastfeeding can be physically and emotionally exhausting, and can put undue stress on hormonal, tired and overwhelmed new parents.

Imagine this scenario – a mother is trying to breastfeed her baby. It hurts and he doesn’t stay latched on well. She suspects he isn’t getting enough milk because he can’t latch on properly. She considers changing to formula but remember – breast is best – so she thinks that if she just carries on trying, they’ll manage it. After all, she has to be a good parent to him, and if she switches to formula, that isn’t “best”! What parent wouldn’t want to do the best for their child?

Is the breast really the best thing for the baby in this scenario? No! The breast isn’t giving that baby what it needs – what would be best is for him to be properly fed!

Now imagine this scenario – a mother is struggling to bond with her baby and is diagnosed with Post Natal Depression. She is told by the doctor that she desperately needs to go on anti-depressants, but that she can’t while she is breastfeeding. So she’s now torn – does she stop breastfeeding and take the medication? Or does she keep going with breastfeeding? Well, she hasn’t bonded with her baby thanks to the PND, so she already believes she’s a bad mum. She doesn’t need that confirming by her deciding not to give her baby the best. And remember, breast is best!

Surely this baby deserves a mother who is healthy and able to bond with it? Yes, the baby is getting all its nutritional needs (unlike in scenario 1) but its poor mum is tearing her mental health apart to try and keep it on breastmilk.

How about this scenario – The idea of breastfeeding really makes this mother feel queasy. She doesn’t know why, it’s just never something that has appealed to her. Now though, hearing and reading “breast is best” everywhere is making her question this. She really doesn’t want to breastfeed, but does that make her a bad mother? Don’t good mothers want what is best for their child? If breast is best, then that’s what she feels she needs to do, even if it goes against everything she wants.

It can’t do this mother and her baby’s relationship any good, for her to be regularly having to partake in something that she absolutely doesn’t want to do. What if she then comes to resent her baby for it? Yes, being a parent can mean sacrificing things for your child, but a mother's health is just as important as the baby's. 

And what about the mother who tries really hard but their milk just doesn’t come in properly? Or the mother whose baby has to be in special care for a while, and they can’t get breastfeeding established once the baby and parents are reunited?

Now it might be that in any of those scenarios, the mum carries on breastfeeding, perseveres, and actually it all does work out fine. The point is, it might not, so the least that the professionals can do is make it so that she doesn't feel pressured in either direction. 

I can understand feeling disappointed if you want to breastfeed and can’t for whatever reason; I’d have been disappointed if I wasn’t able to. What isn’t right though, is the amount of pressure to breastfeed. I gather from speaking to friends and family that once the decision has been made by parents to stop breastfeeding and use formula, the support and information seems to be pretty good. It’s the decision making process itself that isn’t right.

It should be an easy decision – what is best for me and my child?

So is breast really best?

Not for everyone.

Fed is best. Happy is best.

Make a decision based on that, not on a slogan that, let’s face it, relies on being really lucky that the words breast and best are near rhymes.

Birth!

So here it is!

On the way down to Labour Suite, the midwife explained that I was never in line to have the 3^rd dose of the induction medication.

Were I being induced because I was overdue, they would continue the normal induction process until it either worked or they had to stop and deliver the baby via c-section. However, because the induction was due to my waters breaking, they were under a time limit of only having 48 hours to get labour started properly.

Hence my move down to Labour Suite 48 hours after my waters broke!

Not being entirely sure how the next part of the induction would work (given that my contractions were clearly still not properly established), I asked whether I would be allowed a water birth.

She actually scoffed!

Thanks, lady.

I think she realised she’d been a bit rude and dismissive because she then explained why. To progress the contractions, I would need to be hooked up to a drip of oxytocin right up to the point of giving birth, and while on the drip, the baby would need to be monitored constantly.

It was at this point that I realised, with not a small amount of dread, that aside from going to the toilet, I would more than likely be laying in the same position on the same bed right up until I actually had the baby.

So here I am – still cheerful at this point! On the right of the photo, you can see the medication on the drip, going into my hand. On the left, you can see the monitor, recording the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions. 

The midwife settled me into our room and said she would be back soon to put me on the drip and monitor.

I really can’t explain how excited I was at this point! Nervous, yes. Terrified, of course. But still so excited.

Soon, the midwife returned and hooked me up to the drip. She showed me a long tube with the medication in it, and explained that all the medication I should need was in there, and that a specific amount would be released each hour. This amount could be adjusted based on how my body and the baby were responding, and I would be starting out at 1mg per hour.

To be honest, I was expecting this to be adjusted each hour but I was increased to 2mg an hour pretty quickly. Within about half an hour, I think.

It wasn’t long before shift change gave us a new midwife, Vicki, and Hayley the student midwife, who would actually be the one who ended up coaching me through the birth itself.

At this point, not much was happening really. For a good few hours, I was in a cycle of my medication being increased, staying as calm as possible through some quite intense contractions, and watching the monitor.

My husband only told me this once I’d already given birth, and I had no clue at the time, but the midwives were at this point considering giving me a c-section, because I wasn’t really reacting when I had a contraction. They were apparently worried that if I wasn’t feeling the contractions when they were registering as strongly as they were on the monitor, I wouldn’t be able to use them properly to help me push.

The thing is, I was feeling them! I was just trying to stay as calm as possible and breathe through them.  Luckily for me though, by the time my medication was at 9mg, I knew I’d need some pain relief, so began using the gas and air but in all honesty, it didn’t do much apart from make me feel light headed.

Around 10pm, my cervix was checked and I was proclaimed to be 4cm dilated! The decision was made to increase the medication again, taking me to 11mg per hour, to ensure that I continued to progress.

The gas and air was still feeling a bit useless, so I asked for pethidine. Let’s just say, if I were to ever be giving birth again, I wouldn’t bother with it! It made my light-headedness worse, it made me feel nauseous, and it didn’t really do anything to help with the pain.

I don’t know how long it was after that the pain became unbearable. I do remember it was quite sudden!

I told my husband I needed an epidural, and I had it within about 10 minutes. The relief! It turned out that the medication had been turned up so high to help me feel the contractions that I was actually contracting too much and too often (which I never knew was possible). Looking at the printout from the monitor, it was almost as if I was having one long contraction, as it didn’t have a chance to fade properly before the next began building.

No wonder it hurt!

I took the opportunity to get a bit of sleep, though it wasn’t completely restful – an epidural doesn’t completely numb you, you know!

Around 3am, my cervix was checked again and I was fully dilated! Vicki explained that she’d like me to rest for bit more and let the baby descend a bit further on his own.

“You’ll be pushing in an hour.”

I do remember feeling suddenly very nervous at that point, but I think tiredness overrode that because I know I did fall asleep again after texting my family to tell them I was fully dilated.

4am arrived, along with my midwife, student midwife, and the midwife in charge (to wish me luck).

It began!

Altogether, I was pushing for an hour and a half, and the majority of that time was incredibly frustrating. I knew going in that a lot of pushing is to just move the baby down the birth canal, but to be honest I didn’t fully appreciate quite how much effort that takes! Though I couldn’t be sure of timings because – hey – was a little too busy to look at a clock, I’d estimate that of those 90 minutes, at least 80 of them were spent getting him down the birth canal. Actually pushing him out was easy in comparison to that!

I think part of the problem is that you can’t actually tell how much progress you’re making at that point – you’re completely reliant on the midwives telling you that he is indeed moving.

Yes it was very tough, yes it was extremely hard work, but I think I went into a bit of a trance because suddenly one of the midwives said that she could see his head. I do remember that I didn’t believe her! No way was I that close to actually having him!

So she made me reach down and feel.

“Oh my god, he’s got hair!”

At this point, my midwife let the student midwife (Hayley) talk me through the rest of the birth. It all happened rather quickly after that. Before I knew it, there he was!

They put him up on my chest immediately and I just held on. It didn’t feel real that this, right here, was my own baby and that I got to keep him.

After negative test after negative test, countless invasive and undignified examinations, and IVF, was it really possible that we actually had our baby boy there in front of us?

I expected to be hurried straight back up to the ward but actually, I had a very relaxing couple of hours on the Labour Suite. Henry was checked over, I had a shower once my legs started working again after the epidural, and I was given some food (it all came straight back up but they got me some more and I managed to keep it down – apparently that can be because of the injection they give you to help deliver the placenta).

After all that, Henry was wrapped up and put into his little cot, I was given a wheelchair, and we went back up to another private room on the ward.

And there we were… a year and 2 days after finding out that my fallopian tubes were blocked and we needed IVF, we were sat in the hospital with our brand new, perfect baby.

Henry, born at 5:30am on 6^th May 2018.

Perfect.

Induction

Loaded up with all our bags, plus a massive v-shaped pillow, we made our way to the hospital at 4pm on the Friday. Thankfully, we were given a private room, which was a huge relief! The idea of sleeping on a ward had filled me with horror, and I waddled into that building quite prepared to beg for a private room if necessary.

When we were shown to the room I was told that I’d be induced soon after arrival, so that the baby wouldn’t be left too long without the protection offered by the waters. We got ourselves set up – I had all my snacks lined up ready to go, my husband got the tablet set up on the wifi so that we could Netflix some random comedies to keep my distracted once the contractions started*.

*Other streaming services are available!

I knew I'd be spending a lot of time in this room!

A midwife popped in to introduce herself and welcome me to the maternity building. She explained that they were very busy so they would start the induction process around 6pm. Yes, it was slightly annoying to have to wait when it’s something so exciting but 2 hours isn’t an awful wait really.

6 o'clock came. 6 o'clock went. No induction.

To be honest, it wasn't the lack of induction that bothered me. It was the fact that nobody came to tell me why it would be delayed, or even that it would be delayed. I pressed the call buzzer a few times and the staff told me that someone would see me ‘soon’.

At this point, the excitement had pretty much disappeared and all I was feeling were the nerves! It had suddenly hit me that I might be in hospital longer than I originally anticipated, and that it was really about to happen. I just wanted them to get on with it!

Eventually, at 9:30 p.m. one of the night shift midwives – Julie – came to start my induction. She explained that there had been a delivery on the ward (which is pretty rare because usually the woman is sent down to labour ward in time) and that this is what had caused the delay. It was totally fair enough, but I still wished someone had popped in to explain, rather than just leave me hanging.

Anyway, induction time!

There are a number of stages to induction, which broadly follow the pattern of monitoring, medication, monitoring, and waiting. This process can be done 4 times, at specific intervals, but not everyone will need all 4 doses to successfully start their labour.

It begins with spending half an hour hooked up to a monitor to see how the baby is doing, which provides a baseline for the midwives to compare to later monitoring. For those of you who don't know, when you are on the monitor you have to sit completely still otherwise the pads of the monitor can slip and they won't be registering the baby anymore.

Now I don't know about you, but when I have nothing to do, I can sit totally still for hours, watching tv, reading a book, or even doing absolutely nothing. On the other hand, when I am told that I HAVE to sit still and not move, I become incredibly restless.

As soon as she put the monitor on, I was pretty sure I’d be able to run a marathon at that moment. I just wanted to MOVE.

Still, it's only half an hour, right?

Wrong.

Because, once that monitoring is over, the next stage of induction begins.

This part is when the midwife inserts a pessary of medication into the cervix. It contains prostaglandins, which is the hormone that the body releases to stimulate contractions. Although it isn’t instant, a few doses of prostaglandins is often enough to kickstart labour.

Then you’re put on the monitor again, this time for an hour, to make sure that the baby is not distressed by the medication, and to see whether any small contractions have begun.

This entire process was repeated 6 hours later, which for me was 3:30 in the morning. Joy of joys.

Before my second dose, I had started to have contractions and although they were only about 30 seconds long and were quite far apart, they were still frequent and painful enough that I noticed them! So you can imagine, when the midwife arrived at 3:30, I hadn’t had very much sleep.

3:30am monitoring - baby was nice and sleepy with a heartbeat of 122 beats per minute!

Again, the baby was monitored for half an hour, a pessary was inserted, and I was monitored for another hour. There was some good news though! When the midwife checked my cervix before giving the prostaglandins, she explained that because my cervix was almost completely effaced and I was having small contractions, she didn’t expect that I would need a third dose! Fantastic!

Effacement isn’t really something we often hear about when discussing labour, or when it’s portrayed in tv/film – we hear about dilation and that’s it, but actually a significant portion of that early labour, the part that seems never-ending, is spent with the cervix effacing. Usually, the cervix is a long tube which points down in the top of the vagina. During the early stage of labour, the contractions are forcing the cervix to flatten, or 'efface'. Only once the cervix is fully effaced can dilation begin. This is why the early stage can seem so disappointing – to have been in labour for hours and hours, to be told you’re only 1cm dilated?! It’s just important to remember that in that time, those contractions have turned your cervix from a 2cm long tube, to being completely flat!

My cervix was checked again at around 10 o'clock in the morning.

1 cm dilated!

How exciting!

When being induced, if you need a third pessary, this takes place 24 hours after the first hormones were given, meaning I was preparing myself to wait until 9:30 on the Saturday evening.
A second midwife agreed that I would probably not need a third pessary, but she explained that the final call on that wouldn’t be made until much closer to the time, so she wanted me to make sure that my progress didn’t stall. I was encouraged to walk up and down the stairs in the maternity building, go to the shop in the main hospital building, and take a warm bath.

Knowing that no more intervention would be taking place until late into the evening, I sent my husband home to have a shower and get some sleep. We’re lucky at our hospital that they do allow a partner to stay overnight, but they don’t provide much in the way of comfort. My husband (who has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), had spent Friday night sleeping on the floor and was not allowed to take a shower on the ward.

He didn’t want to leave me, but understood that during this part of the induction, I didn’t need him as much as I would while in full blown labour. I needed him to be in tip-top condition, and that meant a shower and sleep! So off he went.

My Mother-in-Law stayed with me, and after a while timing my contractions while I bounced on a maternity ball, we took a slow shuffle to the shop to buy an ice cream (yes, she also shuffled – if you’d seen her recent ankle injury, you’d understand).

50 second contractions, 5 minutes apart. Still not close enough. I was starting to think I’d be having that third pessary after all!

On the way back to my room, we ran into my husband arriving back at the hospital. We returned to the room, to find a Midwife knocking at the door.

I introduced myself.

“Ready to come downstairs to labour suite then?” Was all she said.

I responded, rather foolishly, “What, now?”

“Well that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” The Midwife replied.

Yes. Yes it was! She gave us a few minutes to gather all our things and then we were off! To labour suite! To have our baby!

Here. We. Go!

What an exciting and exhausting few weeks we’ve had!

15 days before his due date, at 5:30am on the 6^th May, our Henry made his entrance into the world, weighing in at a healthy 7lb 12oz (3.52kg, for you strange people who use metric to measure babies).

So let’s go back to the beginning.

(And by the beginning, I mean last year).

4^th May 2017 – I spent the day in hospital, had my laparoscopy and we found out that we needed IVF to have a baby.

Fast-forward to 3^rd May 2018.

It was a Thursday, and was both the Local Council Elections and a Parents’ Evening at my husband’s school (NOT for a year group he teaches, thank goodness). On Parents’ Evening days, his school finishes slightly early and any staff who don’t have appointments are encourage to go home straight away, so he made it home around 3pm and we immediately drove to the local church to vote. Once we’d finished there, he suggested going home via the shop so that we could get an ice cream – music to a heavily pregnant lady’s ears when it’s so hot outside!

On the drive to the shops, it’s lucky no police cars were around because we’d definitely have been pulled over for my husband to be breathalysed! Swerving the car all over the road and hitting every. Single. Pothole.

“I’m trying to jiggle the baby out of you!” he responded when I asked what on earth he was doing.

Fair enough.

Anyway, we bought our ice creams and drove (swerved/bounced) home. Standing outside the front door as my husband unlocked it, my waters broke.

You mean it WORKED?!    

        

Side note – had I tried to work up to my original maternity leave date, I’d have been dismissing the children on the playground at the end of the day when my waters broke. Thank heavens I took maternity leave early because THAT would have been a story that never got forgotten at school!

Now let me warn you – these next few posts are going to go into specifics about labour and childbirth, so if you’re squeamish about it, or just don’t particularly want to read those details about someone you know, I’d stop reading now!

Ok?

Sure?

Righty-ho, here we go!

I honestly don’t know how some people say that they weren’t sure if their waters had gone or if they’d wet themselves because for me, the feeling was so alien that there was no way I could confuse the two! Maybe that isn’t how it feels for some people but for me, there was no mistaking what had happened.

Still, I said nothing about it to my husband, just mumbled something about needing the toilet, and escaped to the downstairs loo.

More waters. And more.

By the way, for any pregnant women reading this – they don’t warn you quite how much amniotic fluid there is. It’s a lot. Just… a lot. Buy all the maternity pads. Seriously, all of them.

Once I was sure that I wasn’t imagining it, I told my husband, “So… we may have a Star Wars baby yet!” (May the 4^th be with you, for anyone who has been living under a rock).

I then ran back to the toilet because yet more waters made an appearance.

(I told you – a lot! Pads. Get them).

So the next job was to call the hospital but for some reason, I felt really silly doing it! I shouldn’t have – waters breaking is a perfectly legitimate reason to call the maternity assessment unit – but I did.

They asked me to put a fresh pad on, wait for an hour and then come to the assessment unit, bringing that pad with me so that they could check it was my waters and not urine. So that’s what we did.

We arrived at the hospital around 5:30 and I was taken to labour suite to be assessed, as the assessment unit hands over to labour suite at 6, so they figured they may as well send me straight there. They confirmed pretty quickly that it was indeed my waters breaking, and hooked me up to a monitor so they could see a) how baby was doing and b) whether I was contracting yet.

Hint: I wasn’t.

Medically, this is called PROM (Pre-labour Rupture of Membranes), which is when the amniotic sac breaks more than 1 hour before the onset of actual labour.

The pad with the blue strap is measuring our baby's heart and the pad with the pink strap is measuring my contractions.

I did have to stay in for a few hours (about 4 in the end) because the baby’s heartbeat was a little bit too high for the midwives to be completely happy, but eventually he settled down. I was sent home with the instruction to return to the hospital the next day (the 4^th May) at 4pm to be induced.

Blimey.

Logically, I knew that would be the next step if my contractions didn’t begin on their own overnight, because they can’t leave the baby out of the protection of the amniotic sac for very long, but still, eeep!

I asked the midwife what I needed to bring with me for the induction and she replied, “Everything. Once you come in tomorrow, you won’t be leaving until you’ve had the baby.” Double blimey.

Off I went home, hoping of course that my contractions would start overnight, would increase relatively quickly, and I’d be able to go into hospital the next morning, avoid induction and just pop a baby out.

No such luck, of course!

I did have twinges of pain throughout the night, and I found it very difficult to sleep because of the heat, the twinges and the fact that every time I moved, yet more waters came out. So I spent a good portion of the night sitting on towels and plastic bags on the sofa, making lists of housework to do throughout the Friday before I was due at the hospital.

To be honest, the only thing that stopped me actually doing those jobs overnight was the fact that I was too scared to move, lest I ruin the furniture or the floor with more leaking waters!

We spent Friday morning and early afternoon doing housework, making sure that when we returned from the hospital, we wouldn’t be greeted by a house that was stressful.

That afternoon, which was exactly one year to the day from when we found out we would need IVF to have a baby, we went into hospital to have our IVF baby induced. There’s some kind of poetry in that, I feel.

Maternity leave, surprising symptoms and a pesky placenta!

So I’ve been a bit rubbish updating this blog recently, but now I am officially ON MATERNITY LEAVE, I have time!

What is it that I’ve been up to these last few weeks, then? I last left you 6 weeks ago, while I was off work with pregnancy related exhaustion and contemplating bringing my maternity leave forward from 38 weeks to 36 weeks. Well I’m 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant, and here I am, on my 2^nd week of maternity leave!

It was definitely the right decision to bring my maternity leave start date forward 2 weeks! The final week at work was utterly exhausting and I’m so glad that I decided to listen to my body and start at 36 weeks. When I think about how I’d be feeling if I was still at work today… I don’t think I’d have coped!

I know some people do manage to work a lot closer to their due date and ideally I would have liked to, as it would mean longer on maternity leave after he’s born, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

Teaching is such a physically active job and also requires you to be performing (a very accurate word to describe what we do) ALL day long. If you work in an office or call centre, for example, you can grimace and pull faces, sit in funny-yet-somehow-comfy positions, and take a few minutes to run to the toilet.

These simply aren’t possible when you’re responsible for a class of 7 year olds! You’re on your feet teaching and demonstrating, you’re walking around the classroom checking answers and making sure that everyone is able to do the work, you’re having to be active and energetic enough to make the lessons engaging and stimulating, and you certainly can’t leave them all alone in the classroom while you run to the toilet! I do love my job but it definitely is not easy when you’re 8 months pregnant!

After a lovely send-off from my colleagues, I’ve fully embraced maternity leave! The first Saturday was spent in lovely sunshine with a wine glass full of sparkling strawberry fizz and a box of chocolates; I had a haircut and used my mum-to-be spa pampering kit!

Since then, it hasn’t been quite as fun to be honest. I’ve spent a lot of time sorting out paperwork and doing general housekeeping, simply to keep my mind off how uncomfortable and restless I am at the moment!

Just cannot find a comfortable position to sit or lay in, my feet are like hippo feet, my heart feels like its racing, I’m feeling nauseous, and every time I change position slightly, I need a wee… definitely needing things to take my mind off it!

Surprising symptoms

There aren’t many symptoms that have surprised me this pregnancy, probably because I’ve read around the subject so much while we were going through the IVF, but as we’re coming to the end of the journey, two things have stood out to me that no-one mentioned!

The first is clicky fingers. I’ve always had joints that crack easily but this has taken it to a whole new level! Reading up online, this seems to be fairly common and not something to worry about, but it has taken me totally by surprise. Apparently it’s caused by two things: fluid retention in your joints and also your joints all loosening up as your body prepares for birth.

It doesn’t bother me at all. Like I say, I’m used to cracking joints, but it was definitely a surprise to find that this was a symptom of late pregnancy.

The second surprising thing has been that my bump is almost numb to the touch!

It’s the weirdest sensation – if I touch my bump with an object (like a pencil) rather than my hand, I can sense that something is touching it but nothing more than that. I can’t tell if it’s soft or hard, hot or cold, rough or smooth.

So strange!

Again, reading up on this shows that quite a few women go through it. The explanation given seems to be that the skin over the bump is just so stretched, it goes numb. Odd!

A pesky placenta

At my 20 week scan, I was told that my placenta was quite low, though thankfully not covering the cervix at all, so I would need another scan at 32 weeks to check if it had moved up out of the way. It was explained that a low cervix can cause excessive bleeding during a natural birth, as the pressure of the baby’s head pushing against it can cause damage. If my placenta hadn’t moved by 32 weeks, a c-section might be considered.

“Don’t worry, in 90% of these cases, the placenta has moved by 32 weeks!”

Of course, it hadn’t.

At 32 weeks, the scan showed that it was roughly 3cm away from the edge of the cervix, and at the hospital I’m with, they would prefer at least 5cm.

“We’ll re-scan you at 36 weeks and make a decision then. It might have moved, but even if it hasn’t, they may think 3cm is far enough away at that point. It depends where baby’s head is.”

This is where all the confusion comes in! Everywhere seems to have different views on how far away the placenta needs to be to be considered safe! Some hospitals want it to be 5cm away, some want it to be 2cm away, and all measurements in between. It made it quite difficult to predict whether I was likely to be considered safe for a natural delivery or not.

36 weeks rolls around and we finally had our answer!

It seems to be far enough away to allow me to attempt a natural delivery. Not that we actually know how far away from the cervix the placenta is, because “baby’s head is so far down, we can’t measure it!”

Two different sonographers checked and agreed that the baby’s head is already so low down that it is below the placenta completely, which means the placenta must be far enough away, even if they can’t take a measurement in mm.

Huzzah!

So now, it’s a waiting game.

3/4 loaded

That’s right folks, I’m at the 30 week mark (as of Monday 12^th March) and little Blob is growing strong. Well, he certainly feels strong!

My current obsession is watching him move – I find it mesmerising to see my bump dance around, especially as I can feel it happening. Part of me can’t wait to meet him (so near and yet still so far) but part of me is sad the pregnancy will be ending soon because it really has been magical.

We’ve been very busy the last few weeks, trying to get the house to a state where it will be totally ready for Blob to arrive, and we’re almost there! Only thing left now is to sort and tidy the study. It’s been used as a dumping ground while we decorated everywhere else, so it needs to be put back into a usable state so that my poor husband can stop having to work at the dining table.

As far as preparing for the baby himself to arrive, there isn’t much more we need! The chest of drawers/changing table (which belonged to Blob’s Grandma in her childhood bedroom) has been restored and painted. The rocking chair we found second hand for £30 has been taken apart, re-glued and screwed together, sanded (by me – I helped!) and painted. The only thing left that we really need to do in his room now is paint a shelf and put it on the wall!

I even have my hospital bag pretty much ready to go.

A few people have told me not to worry about getting the hospital bag ready yet, and advice online says to have it by 36 weeks, but I know a few people who have had their (perfectly healthy) babies between 33 and 36 weeks, so I wanted to be prepared from 30 weeks just in case.

On a less fun note, it’s currently a Thursday morning and I’m sat on the sofa at home. This past week, I have been so utterly and completely exhausted that I spoke to the doctor about it yesterday. I know tiredness is a normal part of pregnancy but I’ve barely been able to make it through each day at work and driving home has actually felt unsafe.

The upshot of my conversation with the doctor is that she wants me to take the rest of this week off work to properly rest and she is sending me to the hospital for some blood tests.

How on earth am I going to make it working up to 38 weeks, if this is how tired I am at 30 weeks?

I understand that maternity leave/pay is something that the government and employers need time to sort out, but I’m starting to think that you have to make the decision too early. The letter with your maternity leave start date on it needs to be submitted to employers by the 25^th week of pregnancy, but that is still within the time when most people are feeling ok!

I can’t say I felt the 2^nd trimester ‘glow’ but I definitely felt physically alright at week 25 and had no idea that the extreme tiredness I felt at the start of the pregnancy would come back with quite such a vengeance! At that point, I felt I could easily work right up to 38 weeks. Now, I’m not so sure how easy that will be.

While I don’t want to have too much of my maternity leave before the baby is born, as that will take time away from my time with him, I’m starting to wonder whether I should bring my maternity leave start date forwards a bit, to maybe 36 or 37 weeks. I want to be well rested and ready for him, not exhausted and stressed. 

It’s worth thinking about.