my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Antenatal classes mark one April 3, 2009

Hello there speck,

Hope you’re sleeping well…. I certainly didn’t. My maternity pillow certainly helped, but all in all it was a horrible night. I tossed and turned (albeit not with the speed and ease I’m used to) all night, kept awake by a plethora of exciting things: back pain, the nightly possum migration from the neighbours to our house and visa versa via the window awning directly beside our bed, pubic symphysis pain, and a rowdy and recurring bat fight presumably in a fruit tree nearby. Yippee!

Your dad and I walked up to the first of six antenatal classes at the hospital last night. It was a manageable walk, we were both thinking that when the time comes it might be easier to walk to the hospital than drive. That said, I’m glad we have five more antenatal sessions to get to: your dad is directionally challenged at the best of times, and I can forsee him getting me to the oncology ward instead of the mother’s hospital unless he gets to practice how to get there at least a few more times…

The class itself was kinda funny.  It would be really hard to pitch a class like that to such a mixed audience – it was the “changes in your body” or something like that class, run by a phsyio.  Essentially we talked about some of the obvious changes that can happen to your body, and did some exercises to stretch our pelvises and relax and stuff like that.  All pretty straight-forward, and if you hadn’t worked it out by this point in the pregnancy you’d have to have had your head under a blanket pretending you weren’t pregnant.   There were about eight couples in the class, ranging from 25 to 31 weeks pregnant.    We practiced getting in and out of bed and picking a baby from the floor and putting it on a bed and picking it up again.  You were played by a big white hospital pillow.  Well acted.  While it was ok, I’m looking forward to the bit run by the midwives where we get to see the birthing suites and talk through more about baby stuff and less about pubis bones.  I think that will be more relevant to me.

Had another appointment at the obstetrician today.  I’ve hit a new milestone in the weight department.  Yippee again.  Still walking / cycling / yoga or something nearly everyday, but I guess I’m eating more than normal too.  Oh well.  Have a glucose test and a bunch more blood things scheduled for Monday, so hopefully that will prove that I’m all ok and just a bit fat (i.e. not diabetic or anything).   Not much to report from the obstetrician, all he did was ask if I was ok, at which point I burst into tears, and then he hustled me in to take blood pressure and hear your heartbeat.  My blood pressure is all good.  And your heartbeat was a bit irregular but we poked you and it went back to fast again.  Apparently its normal for your heartbeat to change speed a lot, often as I change position etc.  He also palpitated my uterus and your head is pointing down where it should be.  Which I knew already as your kicking my ribs on the bus on the way in indicated where you were quite clearly.

Otherwise. Starting to think more seriously about the fact that you’ll need a name.  Your dad and I have  a few options that we’ve come up with, and one or two we even like.  I guess though we need to ponder some more.  And see you.

Keep safe.

love mum

p.s. last night in between anxiety attacks and nightmares consisting of work and family-related melodramas, I dreamt that you were born, but that somehow there were four of you.  I was trying to leave the hospital and having difficulty working out how to get four babies home.  My dad (your grandad) and my mum (your grandma K) were both there.  I remember I just kept saying over and over to your grandad, “I don’t understand.  There was only ever one when they did the scans.  Where did the other ones come from?”.  He just shrugged and continued to try to help collect you all…

 

dreaming of your birth April 1, 2009

Dear Speck,

good morning little squirmy one.  You are moving around whenever I sit or lie still.  Its been going for days.  Given that I work sitting still, and sleep lying down, that is a lot of squirming.  Its quite disconcerting to lie down and watch you make my stomach go into strange shapes.  You can make it ripple, make a lump in it as you push up & stay pushing up, and make it just jiggle a lot.  Good work.

Had a strange dream about you last night.  I was reading about birthing before bed, so no surprises as to where the thought process came from.   The dream was about you being born.  Good for me, you came out really quickly, and it wasn’t too painful – I actually remember saying to your dad, “well, that wasn’t too bad, must have been really lucky”.   Anyway, you were gorgeous except you had a very funny shaped little nose.  Your eyes looked at me and I loved you a lot straight away and just didn’t want to put you down.  You were pretty clean too compared to the mucous and blood-covered babies I’ve seen born before.   You were also amazingly well-developed for a newborn as next thing in the dream you were trying to pull your own head up and I was trying to make sure I didn’t drop you as you squirmed around.

I think I have a phobia about dropping you when you come out.
And you were a girl, though I don’t remember seeing any genitalia, just knowing that you were a girl.  You had a big head too.  But it is your eyes that I remember most clearly.  Bit spooky.

This week overall you’re suddenly feeling a lot more real to me.  Might be all the moving around.  I’ve started calling you baby, and now I really think of you as a little person more and more.  Wheras before you were a bit more ephemeral in my mind somehow… Now you’re solid and you move me around when you want, and you seem to get cranky when I lie on the side you’re resting on, and you seem to respond to your Dad’s voice when he talks to you (or me) by moving around.  And if you were born early you might survive in a humidicrib.  Much more than just a speck.

anyway, hope you enjoy the exercise down there.

love you
mum