38 weeks

While I was lying in bed last week wide awake and thinking baby was on the way, there were lots of thoughts going through my head. One of those was about the state of chaos the nursery was still in. So I got mum to come over and she and I spent a couple of hours going through everything. The bike gear has all been sent to the shed, the Tupperware and Christmas decorations have been packed up and re-homed and the nursery finally looks like a kid’s room! We even set the bassinette up, so I could find out if I had the right sized sheets. It took a bit of trial and error, since we couldn't find any instructions, but we got there. Then of course the instructions turned up, in the secret pocket of the bottom. Where else would they be? I have even managed to clean some of the tyre marks off the walls, although only the ones I could reach, of course!   

We had a meeting last week with integrated living, one of the assistance schemes available in our area. We had a lady come out to visit and go through the paperwork needed to set me up as a client. Basically I've set it up so I can get assistance with housework and personal care after baby is born. I hopefully won't need it, but it's set up ready to go if I do!

I have been so sore lately! My neck and shoulders are full of rocks and so tight! The extra weight I'm carrying, combined with the poor posture it's giving me is not doing good things. When I get really tight in my shoulders, I get a nasty needle sensation. It's kind of like an itch, except it's under the skin and I can't scratch it, it only goes away when the knot is worked out. Which is not helpful when it's out of my reach. Poor Tim gets to help me deal with this at all hours of the night when it's keeping me awake. He tells me I've been snoring too, another common pregnancy symptom. At least my snoring will go away once the baby is born...

I remember talking to my rather-well-endowed-in-the-breast-department cousin about how she had had to start sleeping in bras while she was pregnant, because she needed the support. Can't say I had expected that to happen to me. Guess what? It has. 24 hour bra wearing it is! I've also noticed that my belly makes this really hard lump on my right hand side when I get up. Because I have a pillow under my hip to take the weight of my veins and nerves running down my spine, baby shifts to the side over night, resulting in a very lop sided bump when I first get up! 

So it’s been a rather eventful couple of weeks. First the floods and my waters breaking, oh wait, no they didn't. This week Tim and I got a really nasty bout of what we think was food poisoning. We both went to bed a few nights ago feeling awful and within a couple of hours poor Tim was suffering waves of vomit and diarrhoea. Fortunately for me, I don't eat as much as Tim, so I only had the vomiting and I hung on for a while before I started getting sick. I was feeling pretty bloody awful by morning, but nowhere near as bad as Tim was. He couldn't keep anything down and was starting to cramp up. He said to me at one stage that his cramps were the worst pain ever, or something along those lines. I think I told him we will decide that in a few weeks once this baby is out! 

By afternoon I wasn't keeping anything down either. I'd been drinking all day but I knew I was getting dehydrated anyway, so I gave the hospital a call and they told me to come in. I left Tim flat out on the couch and my mother in law drove me in. 

When I got in there, they stuck me in isolation, under suspicion of gastro and started to monitor the baby and I, take my vital signs, all the usual racket. My blood pressure is usually low, but it was very low by this stage, around 80 over 30. I wasn't feeling like it was particularly low, mostly just feeling really tired! So of course they stuck me on fluids. I know I've said this before, but I don't have good veins at the best of times. I though the doctor looking after me might have actually been able to hit a vein, but she struggled. Also, it turns out she was just a confident intern. From now on, no one is sticking needles in my veins unless they are a senior doctor, paramedic or pathology nurse. They seem to be the only people who can reliably hit my veins. I don't mind having students around and even having them use me to practice on most things, but that is now off limits. 

Next on the list was to insert a catheter and do an examination. They weren't in any hurry to give me a catheter, but with a cannula in my hand, I sure as hell couldn't do them myself! So the intern doctor came back to do both of those. Like last week, they used a speculum and had a look at my cervix to see what was going on. She was about to do that when she looked up and asked if I was scared of those too. I must have had the most dumbfounded look on my face as I told her of course not. I really wish I'd added that I wasn't scared of needles either; she had just really hurt me!! I think she might have got that idea when she saw how deep the bite marks I made on my arm were, as I was trying to distract myself. Anyhow, I digress. My cervix was not ready to let a baby out anytime soon and the baby wasn't 'engaged' so they were pretty confident my contractions were from the vomiting, not because I was going into labour. I was glad that I wasn't going into labour off no sleep, dehydrated and a day of vomiting, with Tim in even worse condition. 

There was one interesting thing to come from all this- I can definitely feel contractions!! I was lying in bed, waiting until I thought I could feel them, then checking the monitor to see if I was right. Once they got a bit stronger, I was getting it right basically 100% of the time. It feels like a tight band around my belly, and pressure on my bladder. I feel a bit more confident now that I'll know when I do go into labour. 

They ended up keeping me in overnight to monitor my contractions, then discharged me at lunchtime. 

I have been proven wrong! My butt pressure sore has indeed healed before baby’s arrival! One less thing to worry about there.

We have finally got the nursery to the stage where it actually looks like a nursery. (Obviously it takes me a while to write a post sometimes). I'm really happy with how it has come up. 

This makes me smile everytime

I've found that one of the things already-parents seem to delight in, is telling soon-to-be-parents about poonami's. For those of you fortunate enough to have never witnessed a poonami, it is literally a shit storm. A poo explosion. Every parent has experienced them and they give us almost parents these sage warnings and smile at each other as if to say 'oh they think they know what they are in for. How adorable'. While they are giving each other this look though, they miss the wry look between Tim and I that says 'oh I think we have a pretty good idea'. 

You see, part of having a spinal cord injury is that you have a limited amount of control over your bowels. Every para and quad out there has experienced some form of bowel incontinence at some stage. A lot of us are able to manage pretty well after a while, by medication and following a routine. However things don't always go to plan. In some ways the pregnancy constipation is easier, because it makes it highly unlikely that things are going to explode everywhere. Because I was in the hospital with a drip in my hand Tuesday night, I skipped my bowel meds. That was no problem, but it meant there was a bit of a back up a couple of days later. Let me tell you, a baby poonami has nothing on an adult one!! (Not to mention they are babies, they don't care. It's never fun as an adult having to deal with incontinence issues). So lesson to self, and others in my position, don't skip bowel meds at 8.5 months pregnant unless it's absolutely essential. Two showers and two toilet stops later.... No wonder I'd been feeling uncomfortable overnight! Also, total credit to Tim who is my runner is these situations, mainly to the washing machine and spare chair parts cupboard. It's not a fun job for either of us. After this week, what can a baby possibly throw/project as is we can't handle? Ha! 

We went into the hospital this week to have our check up with Dr D, only to find out she was sick with the flu. I went off to the bathroom to do my UTI sample and came back to find Tim had been busy while I was in there. They had had me booked in to see Dr P instead (the Dr who had wanted to book me in for a caesarean without even considering any other option), so Tim told them we didn't want to see him. They gave Dr D a call to see what she wanted to do and she's rescheduled our appointment for next week. That will be to check my progress, to see if I (and baby) am ready for an induction next week. We do have a date tentatively booked in, depending on our progress, but I won't be sharing that date here sorry. You'll just have to wait and see!

Well, I think that is about it for now. Who knows what I will have to write about next week?