Friday just gone saw me hit 28 weeks which means I'm now officially into the home stretch. Third Trimester! It's scary to think how little time we have left now. It's like I've finally gotten used to being pregnant and soon everything is going to change again.
I'm truly loving my bump. I've been one of those women who just can't keep their hands off it, especially since Bo is pretty active and seems to expect some kind of response whenever he makes a move in there. I'm not loving the weird shape of my belly button so much, but it's a small price to pay for this gorgeous, round belly I've got now.
My Ovia Pregnancy app informs me that Baby Bo is currently the size of an echidna which is a painfully spiky animal to be considering in relation to one's reproductive organs!
He's certainly feeling a lot bigger these days and should be clocking in around the 2lbs mark by now. I'm more aware of body parts than I have been in the past. One day last week, after sorting a bunch of baby clothes onto his shelves, I wound up with a little foot using my ribcage as a footrest. Four hours later, after feeling something akin to heartburn in my lower ribcage, I was able to get him to shift it by lying on my side in a warm bath. I angled the side of the bump he was occupying so it was out of the water and he snuggled down into the warm bit. Instant relief! I'm going to have to get them to install a bath for me at work!
As I mentioned, mum's been visiting, and as I had a midwife appointment on Friday I invited her along. Mr Click has been to every appointment along the way for the IVF but I think he finds the midwife catch up appointments a little boring, apart from hearing Bo's heartbeat. He's deaf so he misses a lot of what is said, and there's lots of talking about various bits of my body that he's sort of excluded from, so I gave him the day off from this one and took mum instead so she could listen in on her grandson.
It ended up being a longer appointment than I was expecting. Up till now my appointments have consisted mostly of checking my blood pressure and heart rate (always higher when I'm at a medical appointment), doing a urine dip (finally got the hang of not producing ketones), checking whether I'm still throwing up (only when I forget to take my ondansetron), and then running through a little check list of how I'm feeling, how the baby is doing and topping up any bits and pieces I need like leaflets or vitamins.
This included all of the above but also my anti-D injection and a discussion about the birth and breastfeeding.
The anti-D shot is because I've got Rhesus Negative blood and rather than checking what blood type Mr Click is and trusting that the Glasgow Royal injected the right sperm into my egg, it's more fun to stab me with a really big needle and inject something stingy into my arm! It's basically to protect me, Bo and any future offspring against complications arising from my body becoming sensitised to Rhesus Positive blood.
I was under the impression I'd get two of these shots during pregnancy but it turns out they were giving me the full whack in one go. I'm grateful for this because it's not a particularly pleasant injection, though it's probably comparable to others I've had along the way. More stingy than the Clexane I was on, probably on a level with the Prostap.
One of the downsides to IVF treatment is that you get very familiar with needles and when the midwife brought it out I recognised that it was a green coloured needle. Those are the thick ones I used to draw up the liquid out of a vial before switching to a finger orange one for the actual injection. The anti-D injection is intramuscular so is done with the giant green needle. I felt pretty bruised afterwards and it bled a bit (because the big needle punches a sizeable hole in your arm), but otherwise it wasn't too bad. The midwife kept warning me it would hurt and apologising but it really was no big deal; getting a Prostap shot to my bum then having a bumpy ride home was still more unpleasant than this one.
We chatted about my hopes for breastfeeding, which was kind of good to have my mum there for, since she's done it twice herself. I want expecting the little pop quiz from the midwife about why breastfeeding was good for the baby but I rattled off what I knew about boosting his immunity, giving him the right vitamins and all that jazz. I feel confident that it's something I'll be supported with along the way and that they'll answer any questions I've got along the way.
We chatted about skin to skin after the birth as well, and how Mr Click can be involved with that. Probably the one bit of the discussion he missed out on in this appointment, but he'd already told me he wanted to do it so I knew his thoughts and feelings. He's also expressed a wish to stick at the head end of the bed when his son's born so we spoke about that too. I'm comfortable with him being wherever he's must comfortable during my labour, providing that's conscious and in the same room as me. Him getting squicked out and fainting if things get a bit gory won't do anyone any good!
That kind of led nicely to our discussion about the birth when the midwife checked I was aware that it would be likely I'd be induced at 39 weeks if labour didn't happen naturally by then. It wasn't news to me, but it's kind of scary to actually hear someone else say it.
The main reason for this is because of the IVF treatment. With a 'normal' pregnancy there's a margin of error for when the vast was conceived and how old the placenta is; in an IVF pregnancy we know virtually to the minute. After 40 weeks of pregnancy, IVF babies have a higher rate of complications, which isn't fully understood but is thought to be due to a combination of factors; the placenta gets older and doesn't function as well because the baby is almost done using it, women who have had fertility treatment may be older so don't have age on their side, other factors which caused the infertility might come into play (we're well aware of my endometriosis and the clotting issue that could have potentially stopped the placenta from working in the first trimester), among other reasons. All this means that the closer we get to my due date, the safer Bo will be outside of my body.
The other issue is because I've been flagged as high risk, I'm not allowed to give birth on the island. We have a tiny community birthing unit (one room, plus another with a birthing pool) and they just don't have the tools and equipment for dealing with a complicated labour. The last thing anyone wants is for a helicopter to take them to the mainland while they're in the throes of labour and things have started going wrong.
I'll be giving birth in the consultant led unit in a big Glasgow hospital so it's better that I'm booked in there for a specific date than potentially having to make an hour and a half ferry and road journey, or use the aforementioned helicopter. We should find out more about the specifics at our December consultant appointment.
The midwife had a good poke at Bo and figured out that he was chilling in a had down, bum up position. His heartbeat was just fine (I think measuring between 126bpm and 155bpm while she monitored it); he got a good solid kick on his old nemesis, the doppler, too. It was hard enough that my mum saw it move from across the room. I had my belly measured too and clocked in at 27cm, putting Bo squarely in the 50% percentile.
And that was pretty much it, apart from me asking the midwife about my glucose tolerance test and her realising that I did need to do one and it should have probably been scheduled for that day's appointment.
I did that yesterday in the end, but that's for another blog post.
Years ago, when I was young, I was part of a group of breastfeeding moms and we would help other moms, to learn the "womanly art of breastfeeding." I breast fed my children and it was the best most loving and bonding experience I could ever have. One son, I breastfed till he was 2 years due to food allergies and my youngest son, weaned himself at age 8 months old, then got down on the floor with his 2 older brothers and learned to walk a month later!
ReplyDeleteI started out feeling kind of ambivalent towards breastfeeding figuring I'd either try or I wouldn't but as I've bonded with Bo I kind of want to keep the closeness we've established over the last few months.
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