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 2nd
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.
