Things I never thought I’d ever do…

OK so the boredom has reached a new level – to the extent that yesterday I made a rubber band ball from scratch. Yes, I actually took the time to wind hundreds of rubber bands around a small ball of tin foil.  I have grave concerns for my sanity….

Let the shopping commence

Following today’s check-up with the specialist all is looking good. There has been no change in my cervix and Noddy is an estimated 3lb 4oz, so growing nicely.  I’ve just had a quick look on babycentre.com and at 28 weeks gestation they give an estimated weight of 2.25 lb. It’s not until 31 weeks they give an estimated weight of 3lb 3oz. 

While this weight is giving me a huge comfort should Noddy decide to make an early entrance, at the same time its filling me with some fear if he’s not born until 38-40 weeks as he’s on track to be a pretty hefty fellow. Having previously delivered a 5lb 10 oz baby, to me full term babies are better in small(er) packages.  However, after all the trauma of this pregnancy this  would be a nice problem to have as I approach full term.

Today’s growth scan did reveal that there hasn’t been any change in the choroid plexus cyst on Noddy’s brain.  The doctor said that while this is unusual as she’s always seen these cysts shrinking by 28 weeks, it’s not necessarily anything to be concerned about. She’s still fairly confident that it will shrink and she’s reassured that it’s not growing.  Also, as it was discovered at 24 weeks, rather than at 20 weeks which is more common, it could just be that it’s all happening a little later.

So hearing today’s good news I’ve now reached one of my own personal milestones – shopping.  This afternoon I’m all set to start buying. Whilst I don’t need any baby clothes or baby linen, I need to start buying things such as monitor, bottles and feeding accessories and a few wall decals etc for his room. It also means that I can begin to unpack some of the additional boxes of baby paraphernalia that we’ve hung on to over the years. It’s all beginning to get quite exciting.

The other good news is that the doctor said I can increase activity slightly – although I’ve already done this, so probably best to keep it more or less at the same level that I’ve been at for the past few days. She was not concerned that I’d made a few trips to friends house/airport etc and as long as I’m not walking too far, and predominantly sitting down I can begin to do things that might relieve the boredom slightly.  I therefore feel a trip to the cinema coming on to see Sex and the City II with my mother in law. 

Now, where’s my credit card…..

To buy or not to buy

I’m finding it impossible to put off buying any baby necessities for much longer.

I originally promised to hold off until I’d reached 28 weeks as didn’t want to be tempting fate.  I crumbled yesterday and bought some closet organizers for Noddy’s room so we can begin to organize clothes, bedding etc.  Next step will be to bring in the furniture, although I’m far too superstitious to be putting up the crib until he’s born.

But for some reason I keep shifting my own goal posts to buy additional necessities – monitors, decor finishing touches, bottles, sterilizers etc. All the fun stuff that I’m really excited about.  For some reason I now don’t want to be buying anything until I’ve had tomorrow’s check up.

But the wait is killing me. Let’s face it – online shopping is one of my few pleasures at the moment. And since Sue arrived yesterday with all sorts of adorable baby goodies, both Ben and I are beginning to get really excited about having a tiny baby in the house again. Obviously we don’t want any imminent arrivals, but now we’ve passed the 28 week milestone and knowing that Noddy is growing nicely, suddenly it’s all feeling a bit more real.  I think until now we’ve been denying ourselves the excitement.  Fingers crossed all will be well tomorrow and I can whip about the visa card.

One down, one to go

I’ve reached the first major milestone in this pregnancy – 28 weeks.  32 weeks here we come. 

However, Noddy wasn’t going to reach 28 weeks quietly so on D-day itself we ended up in hospital as I was cramping, contracting every 5 mins and feeling quite a bit of downward pressure.  Thankfully this visit was far less traumatic than the last.  On arrival we were put into triage rather than a delivery room where we had just one nurse, rather than an army and not an incubator in sight.

Less than 2 hours later I was in Starbucks enjoying a latte on the way home. It was all a false alarm, contractions stopped, no change in the cervix and on examination it’s thought the pressure was simply because the baby had turned and is now head down and in the 3rd trimester you feel all pressure significantly more in subsequent pregnancies than in the first.  And the fetal fibronectin test came back negative so highly unlikely I’ll go into the labor in the next 10 –14 days.  What a relief.

The other big excitement of the weekend was that I left the house – and not to go to a doctors appointment.  The three of us headed off to a friends house to celebrate Father’s Day so for once I had a change of scenery and the comfort of someone else’s sofa.  I can’t tell you how nice it was to leave the house and be greeted by people who didn’t immediately follow the hellos with the words “Please strip from the waist down.”  Sean and Allison – thank you for a lovely time – and the leftovers!

Today’s news is that Mum and Dad are going home this afternoon.  I shall miss them hugely and am incredibly grateful for all they’ve done over the last 3 weeks.  Ben’s mum arrives this afternoon too so help will remain on hand.

In the meantime, Wimbledon has started. Coverage starts at 3:30am so needless to say the DVR will be working overtime! I sure hope Sue likes tennis.

Toes? What toes?

It’s official: I can no longer see my toes when standing up.  I know they’re down there somewhere but I sure have to lean over to see them.  Thankfully, I have to spend most of my days lying/sitting down so I do in fact get to see them regularly, which seeing as I recently had a pedicure is a good thing.

It seems, in fact it’s a fact, that over the past 10 days or so I’ve popped and my belly has grown considerably leading to many asking if I’m in fact further along than previously thought.  Sadly, the answer is “[heavy sigh] No! The dates are right, they correspond with the growth scans.  I’m just getting bigger by the day. 

Feeling very uninspired

Apologies - my posts this week have been few and far between. The reason being that I'm feeling very uninspired and increasingly frustrated with being able to do so little. Therefore I have little of interest to share and as I've been told many times, if you have nothing nice or interesting to say, it's better just to listen and learn.

Today it's five weeks since this enforced captivity began and in that time I've left the house just three or four times - each time for a doctors appointment. Life has hardly been exciting. But yes, things could be a lot lot worse so I count my blessings.

I'm also being humbled by the book I'm reading - Three Cups of Tea. For those not familiar with the title it's the story of a mountain climber, who following a failed attempt to summit K2 and upon being guided down the mountain by a local villager who also nursed him back to health, made a promise to return to Pakistan to build a school for the village. This task took him three years, the majority of which he lived on less than a shoestring saving every penny he had to fund the venture and every spare hour he had to fund raise. Finally he managed it and through further hard work in the end built nearly 20 schools I believe. I've only got as far as a dozen schools so far. But he turned his promise into his life's work, became a much loved member of many rural communities who live in conditions that we can't fathom and as a result made a huge difference to these people's lives. Suddenly my career in marketing seems a little pointless - let's face it I've hardly changed anyone's life. At best I've convinced them to part with some of their hard earned cash to buy things that they probably don't really want, certainly don't need and could undoubtedly live without.

Bored, so bored

I have nothing more to say.

Who says bed rest can't be glamorous

This weekend I spent some time at the hairdresser. A lot of time at the hairdresser. Sadly it wasn't my usual hairdresser. Instead I visited Salon Jemima who's chief stylist had little experience and no qualifications other than a good eye for all things plastic, pink and shiny. OK, so I may not have left the salon (aka the sofa) as stylish and as coiffured as I'd have liked, but hey I had far more fun. See for yourself.

In addition, Jemima and I did lots of puzzles. She's always been a bit of puzzle queen, easily managing a 60 -100 piece puzzle. But feeling slightly bored of the Hello Kitty and Spongebob puzzles that she's mastered in recent months we bought her a new 150 piece puzzle. I know I'm biased but even I was impressed at how quickly and easily she completed this one, with little intervention from me.

Today I'm paying the price of spending too much time at the weekend sitting outside in the sunshine. I definitely did too much and as a result need to cut back on my activity for a few days, increasing my time lying rather than sitting. I'm bored already.

On the plus side, my sun lounger has arrived - unfortunately on a day when the sun had decided not to grace us with its presence. Fingers crossed for a some more sun later this week.

Day 21: Crosswords to Cross stitch

This time 3 weeks ago I was recovering from the general anesthetic following the cerclage, suffering severe side effects from the magnesium sulphate drip, vomiting and doubting if I'd ever feel human again, despite the nurses reassurance that within 24 hours I'd feel like a new woman.

As per yesterday's post the cerclage is holding up nicely. Some additional news is that the results of the fibropectin test the doc did yesterday is negative which means I have a less than 1% chance of going into labor in the next 10 -14 days. All is currently going according to plan. And long may it last.

Today's been a good day. I found a lovely lady who comes to house to do manicures and pedicures so Mum, my friend Jen and I treated ourselves to a bit of at-home pampering. And I have to say it was lovely - a far nicer experience than the local nail salons that I usually frequent. And no more expensive. We're already planning another visit from her in a couple of weeks, perhaps this time a little later in the day so we can enjoy a bottle of wine. Obviously I'll only have a very small glass! We all got a bit of shock when our girl revealed that the reason she got divorced was because her husband was gay. She added that his boyfriend was rather lovely. Well, there's not much you can say to that and we were all a bit stunned.

So I've reached another level on the geek-o-meter. In an effort to keep boredom at bay Mum very kindly bought me a couple of small cross stick projects. I used to do quite a lot of needlework as a young girl but it's been a good 25 years, if not longer, since I've picked up an embroidery needle. In just three days I'm hooked - it's really quite addictive, not to mention tiring. It really does make your brain work as following the pattern is not as easy as it sounds. It's so addictive that I've still yet to get round to watching some of the films I had on my to-do list at the start of this bed rest experience. I actually found myself telling my neighbour earlier that the reason I hadn't watched 'It's Complicated' yet is because I just haven't had enough time. How ridiculous is that? I've been so conscious filling my days with activities so as to avoid the trap of daytime TV that I'm potentially missing out on the one good side of forced inactivity. I shall maybe put that to rights tomorrow and settle in for a good few hours of movie watching.

Day 20: No change is a good thing

We’ve all heard the mantra: Change can be a good thing. 

Well in my situation, change is a bad thing – a very bad thing.  And I’m delighted to report that following my appointment with the specialist today, there has been NO change. The cerclage is holding up nicely.  I’ll have another check up in two weeks.

Unfortunately they didn’t do a growth scan today and I’m not scheduled to have that for another 4 weeks.  I know that means that they’re not concerned but knowing how big the baby is gives me a good level of comfort should I deliver early.  I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge if, and when, we come to it. Fingers crossed we won’t. 

I quizzed my doctor on what the plan is, assuming all continues to go according to plan.  Once I reach 28 weeks I should be able to increase my activity levels slightly, and then again at 32 weeks.  At 36 weeks they’ll remove the cerclage and then consider induction at any point from 37 weeks depending on how I’m doing.  They don’t like to induce before 39 weeks but equally delivering a baby on the freeway because you haven’t made it to the hospital is not a good plan either. Her words not mine.

Medical issues aside, it’s been a good few days.  Yesterday was Mum’s birthday and as we all know once young children are thrown into the equation, celebrating birthdays, regardless of whose birthday it is, is more about them than the birthday boy/girl.  Jemima had very lovingly made a surprise Birthday crown for Granny and I’d been cunning and with the help of a great friend of mine, arrange to get some cupcakes. So we had a little birthday tea party for Granny yesterday afternoon. Jemima loved it and we all loved the cupcakes. Here are some pictures

Day 18:

I’m afraid I’m feeling very uninspired and can’t really think of anything witty or meaningful to ramble on about.  I really should jot down my ideas as they come to me, rather than foolishly thinking I’ll remember when it comes to writing my blog.

I’ve just finished by 3rd book since bedrest began – Dune Road by Jane Green.  A good easy read, but doesn’t exactly set the literary world on fire.

One thing I am pleased with is how little daytime TV I’ve been watching.   With the exception of the French Open I’ve steered clear of all Oprah, Rachel Ray etc. I have to confess to occasionally succumbing to Say Yes to the Dress!   

Day 19: Being Productive

Who said bed rest was all about daytime TV and reading meaningless chick lit books?  To a degree I’ve achieved more in the past 3 weeks than I have in the past 3 1/2 years. 

Over the past two days, together with my mum, we’ve sorted through nearly four years worth of baby and toddler clothes (yes, I kept absolutely everything), deciding which are ‘boyable’ or not for Noddy.  And those that are very obviously girls clothes (basically everything from 3 months up) has been sorted by age and season ready to be taken to the consignment store by my mother in law once I reach 28 weeks.  I’m afraid I’m too superstitious to be really preparing for the arrival of Noddy before then.

To think I was worried that as we were having a boy I’d have to invest heavily in new clothes and baby supplies, believing almost everything we had for Jemima was pink.  How wrong I was.  Following the clear out I’m left with two extra large storage sacks of either gender neutral or boys clothes. I was obviously far more cautious buying for Jemima than I remember, plus I’d forgotten that before Jemima was born my sister in law passed down lots of baby boy stuff.  In short, I won’t need to buy anything for the first 3 months at least, unless of course he arrives very early and we find ourselves needing preemie/tiny baby clothes. However, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

And I’ve finally got round to doing Jemima’s scrap book.  That basically means sorting through 3 1/2 years worth of pictures, artwork, treasures, certificates and cards that for whatever reason I’ve kept due to sentimental reasons. Believe me that is no small task and has taken a lot of glue and two scrap books.

I’ve also finally started Jemima’s School Memories book which allows me to log key facts, stats, random things from Pre-school through to Grade 6.  So finally, Jemima now has an official record of her toddler years! 

Tomorrow is a big day: My 2 weekly check up at Eastside Fetal medicine when I’ll have another growth scan, plus an internal scan to check the length of my cervix. Here’s hoping it’s nice and long!

Looking at the forecast, we’re in for a good week or so of sunny weather so I’m glad my sun lounger is on order.  It should be here by Saturday which is when the sun is really set to come out. I’m looking forward to getting some fresh air and fingers crossed a bit of a tan and a good does of Vitamin D.

Reaching Week 26

So today I’m 26 weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever counted days/weeks quite so much. It’s a small but significant milestone and I’m feeling good – physically and emotionally.

The sun is finally shining so I’m actually lying outside today which makes a nice change. Although to write this I have to write in the shade and admittedly it’s a bit chilly. Today’s post could be written in installments as I shift between sun and shade!

Unfortunately, we’ve had further complications thrown into this bed rest.  Thankfully, not affecting me or the baby but instead my daughter who seems to be suffering from a cold/fever/sore throat. Ironically, her sore throat developed the very day she was schedule to have her tonsils removed.  Needless to say we’d already postponed that as it was just a worry that we didn’t need.  So once more I’m reminded how lucky ( and grateful) I am to have Mum and Dad putting their lives on hold to be here to help us.  I certainly couldn’t be looking after sick toddler on my own.  She seems to be on the road to recovery so fingers crossed we won’t require a trip to the doctor and yet another dose of antibiotics. 

Shifting to the sun to warm up my chilly fingers.

Day 13: Just 7 1bs heavier

I know this is a situation that most women would be loving but since I was weighted when 8 weeks pregnant, I’ve gained just 71bs.  The doctor doesn’t seem concerned and so far the baby is growing well (nearly 2lbs just over a week ago)  but I’d feel happier if I was packing on a few more pounds.

However, on the downside, I was also rudely informed by the doctor that one reason she’s not worried is because at just 5ft 3ish inches tall, and weighing 135 lbs at week 8, I was in fact 15-20lbs over weight to start with. 

So let me recap – in the past 4 weeks my OB has given me three key bits of information: –

1. I have an incompetent cervix
2. I have an irritable uterus
3. I am (or at least was) fat.

I mean talk about kicking a girl when she’s down. Come on doc, where’s the sugar coating?  I should hate this women, but instead I have a deep respect for her and huge trust in her.  She works incredibly long hours, juggles a family with two small boys and doesn’t dress it up as being easy!

The good news from yesterday’s check up is that all is going well.  We’ll see what next week’s appointment throws up  when they check the length of my cervix.  Fingers crossed it’s still a whopping 2.5cms.

On the downside, after just 2 hours away from my sofa I was shattered. And I mean shattered.  I immediately snoozed on the sofa when we got home and didn’t quite recover for the rest of the day. In fact, I’ve even spent all of this morning in bed, rather than on the sofa and yes that included a couple of snoozes too.

So last night was a little scary, and in hindsight a little amusing. I woke up at 3am feeling distinct pressure ‘down below’. My alarm bells started ringing but I stayed calm and went back to sleep as was showing no other symptoms. At 5:30am was still feeling it and was about to wake up Ben to say that I thought the baby really was not far away.  Instead I opted to go to the loo first.  In turns out I wasn’t in pre-term labor as initially feared, I just needed to poop!  What a relief

Day 10: Becoming strangely addicted to puzzles

It’s dawned on me that this blog was probably far more exciting to everyone else when I had tales of false labor and recurring contractions to recount.  Personally, I’m glad I don’t and I hope it stays that way for many more weeks. I can only apologize (albeit very half-heartedly as I’m sure most of you would expect) if it makes for slightly dull reading.

In the absence of any hospital visits over the weekend and hence a very quite couple of days, I have to confess to turning into a bit of a nerd.  My drug of choice – word puzzles.  I know, and it pains me to say it, but I’m becoming worrying addicted.  And it certainly helps pass the hours and gives me some mental stimulation which quite frankly daytime TV fails to do.

I’m also ploughing through the Stieg Larsson book trilogy.  If you haven’t read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ already I strongly encourage you to pick it up – but only if you don’t mind sacrificing some sleep as you read into the wee hours of the morning. It’s a real page turner. Ben is currently reading it – and he’s not normally a reader but even he managed to prioritize a few chapters of this over work yesterday. For those of you that know Ben that’s means it must be a really good book.

Currently I’m halfway through ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ and while it was a little slower in the beginning I’m now and well and truly hooked.

I don’t know anyone from Sweden and have never spent any time there so have little understanding about their culture, but judging by the books they have a lot of sex – and most of it is somewhat questionable. Monogamy is not something they tend to practice and they also drink a lot of coffee. And I wasn’t aware that Sweden was a huge coffee drinking capital of the world but from what I’ve read so far it leaves Italians in the shade.

So it’s only fair to warn you now that by the time this bed rest is over I may well have mutated into a complete crime fiction and word puzzle geek, lacking in any social skills whatsoever.  I’ll be relying on all my wonderful friends to bring me back from the darkside and remind me of the joys of whiling away the hours over a latte or a glass of red while discussing the finer points of contemporary culture i.e. celebrity gossip, fashion must-haves and reality TV.  After all if you discuss these at the right level of detail then you’ll also touch on politics, the arts and religion at the same time!