Hell is other people… scaremongering gits who are already parents. 7, June 2008
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, Art, General Wittering, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, Pregnancy Issues, whinging, winging.Tags: inducing birth, induction, labour, labour and pregnancy, labour nerves, laid back and pregnant, people and pregnancy, pre birth nerves, pregnancy, pregnancy and birth, Pregnancy Issues, reactions to labour, reactions to pregnancy
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Today I am in good cheer on the whole but a conversation I had last night is beginning to really get to me. So much so that I thought that if anyone else out there has had this kind of experience I should put it here. At least that way it it might help someone in the same boat to know they’re not alone!
If they want to leave a comment on this post it’ll help me to know they’re out there and all – although I’ve posted it on a forum, too, which should cover that side of things.
Ok, as ya’all know this is my first pregnancy and I’m on the cusp of week 42, with an induction booked for Wednesday and yeh, I’m nervous. I’ve never done this before and now it looks like I may have to do something which is already difficult in what is, reputedly, a fairly grim manner. Although the jury’s out on that, I like the sound of labouring fast, even if harder is a slightly scary verb!
Anyway, the way I see it, there’s no point my crying or railing or struggling because that’s a waste of energy, energy I’m going to need. My little one is going to arrive soon. Labour varies from woman to woman but the odds are, it is going to smart a tad and furthermore, in the days and weeks afterwards my world is going to turn upside down – in a hard way, yes but also in a good way.
If he doesn’t engage and arrive before Wednesday, being induced may well hurt more than ordinary labour. The only good thing is, this being my first, at least I won’t really know… and at the end I’ll get most of my body back and I’ll finally get to meet the little blighter!
Well, when people ask me how I feel and I tell them that, I could really do with just being jollied along or reassured – honesty is not a problem, telling me yes it hurt like hell but all things must pass is ok – and most people do just that, or say nothing.
However, there’s another element, among my friends who already have children, who seem to think that making me as frightened as they can is a helpful and constructive thing to do.
Why? Explain please?
We all know that one of the secrets to a good labour is to be as calm and relaxed as possible. These people are supposed to like and respect me so how do they believe putting me into a blue funk is likely to improve the experience?
When I tell them I’m just going to do the best I can they ask me if I fully appreciate how difficult it’s going to be or how much agony I will be in, whether I realise how important it is that I somehow force the baby to come before the hospital steps in.
When I say Mr BC and I will muddle through they ask me if I understand just what I’ve done to my life and my marriage?
Hmm… well, what do they think I am? Stupid? I’m a first time mum after 12 years of marriage at almost 40, do they really think we haven’t had time to think this through?
I know when you’re pregnant everyone thinks they own you, I appreciate you are far less likely to be treated with courtesy by people you don’t know, to be offered a seat on a bus or served first in a shop than if you are say, on crutches (I have done both). Those are strangers, though. These are my friends.
Is it me? Am I too naive or too laid back? Or is it them?
What the fuck is going on?
The worst thing is, it’s quite hurtful and it’s getting to me a bit… and I really don’t need that kind of thing right now, I have enough to concentrate on. So… I wonder, has anyone else had to put up with any of this kind of shadenfreude? It’s like they think they had a crap time and now they want to make sure I do.
Sighs. There we go. Rant over.
Fucking annoying bastards!
Oh well, on the upside, an old friend, who was given one of my names for each of her little ones, has been made a godmother and has contacted me to commission a framed name, along with three sets of flashcards!
Boo yacka!
It’ll also be something to keep my mind off the going or not going into labour conundrum next week and for the purposes of my maternity allowance my first “keeping in touch” day – I’m allowed 10.
Inducements… 6, June 2008
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, General Wittering, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, Pregnancy Issues, not while you're eating, whinging, winging.Tags: birth, fed up, hormonal, induction, labour, overdue, overdue pregnancy, pregnancy, Pregnancy Issues, pregnancy the end, pregnant, pregnant and jaded, pregnant week 41, whinging
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Inducement booked for next Wednesday, 11th June. Difficult to explain how delighted I am that there is now a finite finish to this – it’ll be busy and I may not get in on 11th or 12th but I reckon I have to have managed it by Friday 13th.
So… though I’m glad it will finish by then, at the same time I’m not at all looking forward to the concept of being induced which has been given a pretty universal thumbs down – barring one, possibly the rule-proving, exception – from everyone who’s experienced it.
No matter. The one positive comment came from somebody whose first child was induced. This is my first child, it’s not as if I’m going to know if I have a horrific labour. I mean, I am in that it’s going to fucking smart but since I’ll have nothing to compare it to, I will only really know if I have another and the labour goes swimmingly. Yes. Perhaps, in this case, ignorance truly is bliss.
Had my hormones “done” by the reflexology lady today. This should help the braxton hicks and other things that will cause the little blighter to lock and load, at the least. It’s not going to do any harm, anyway, which is the important thing. She suggested I have a sleep afterwards which I did… for three hours! I have woken a human dynamo!
Ah let’s hope they work and he locks, loads and arrives naturally before I get induced.
On a lighter note. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to after the baby is born.
1. Being able to sleep (this afternoon excepted) for more than 40 minutes at a pop.
2. Being able to see my feet.
3. Having ankles.
4. Being able to wear my engagement ring.
5. Being able to climb the stairs without gasping for breath and going blue.
6. Only my boobs aching.
7. Being able to bend down and pick things up.
8. Meeting my little one at long last.
9. Gradually, over time, being able to wear a variety of clothes rather than the ever dwindling number of outfits I can currently cram myself into – at present; a pair of winter cords for cold days and a pair of cotton capri-pants for hot days neither of which stays up.
10. Cutting my toe nails for the first time.
11. Doing one firm stool per day.
12. Riding a bicycle.
13. Being able to run.
14. Being able to wear more than one pair of shoes.
15. Being able to wipe my arse in ease and comfort!
16. Being able to sleep on my back – possibly even my front.
17. Not weeing like it’s a national sport.
18. Being able to dry my feet without pain and breathlessness to the point of almost losing consciousness.
19. Not having reflux.
20. Not having sinus.
21. Being able to stand up long enough to have a shower or blow dry my hair without getting so tired I want to go back to bed again.
22. An end in sight to the SPD exercises!
In short. Not being pregnant!
Meh for deffo. 2, April 2008
Posted by babychaos in Grumpy Old Bag, Pregnancy Issues, Small Scale Disasters, whinging, winging.Tags: chronic pain, dealing with pain, managing pain, managing spd, non-lifethreatening pregnancy complications, pain without analgesics, pregnancy complications, Pregnancy Issues, pregnancy pain, pregnant, recalcitrant babies, spd, transverse babies
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A meh day.
Ragged.
Last week, well on Sunday and Monday, the Muffin turned. No longer was he lying diagonally across me, with all his weight on the dodgy bit of pelvis he was upside down, the correct way and pain-wise, all was peachy. Hell on Monday I even cut the hedge…
Tuesday… the great conundrum… shall I go swimming or borrow my friend’s hot tub for an hour or two? Seeing as I feel so goddamn good, I’ll swim.
Noooo! That’s the wrong answer! Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
I go swimming, it’s lanes. There are two. Fast and slow. It’s a lie. They are splashy crawl and breast stroke. There is NO difference in speed. Both are fast.
Damn.
I get in and do 15 lengths of backstroke. I have to go faster than I want to because it’s very full and I am holding people up if I don’t keep pace – a pace I’d usually have no trouble with, I might add.
When I get out, I learn two things.
1. SPD and kicking. Absolute no-no! Whatever they say, breast stroke legs probably would be better.
2. At some point in the proceedings, the Muffin has retreated to the bottom again.
3. I can hardly walk to the changing rooms.
Nooooooooooo!
Night comes, pain comes, sleep – or at least deep sleep – doesn’t. I wake up feeling like shit and as if I haven’t slept.
Never mind. I have cheered myself up no end by having a haircut. For the next 24 hours or so I will look like a smart well turned out female. That’s good as for the most part I feel like there are actually three sexes, man, woman and pregnant. It’s great to feel womanly again.
This afternoon… not so great. I had a doctor’s appointment but the SPD smarting a tad I decided to eschew the bike and take my car. I jemmy myself into it, turn the key and what happens. Short of a sad metallic sigh, nothing. The battery is flat. It picks now, for the first time in about three years to die on me.
Arse.
I get out, lock it, admonish it for being a little bleeder and go get my bike. Luckily there is still time. I flee up the hill, or at least, creep up using the granny ring, all the while wheezing like an asthmatic pensioner with a 50 a day high tar fag habit. Just get there on time. Ask the doctor all my questions. She reassures me about the scary ones but there is no easy answer to the SPD. I will be in pain… for the next 9 weeks at least and for anything up to 6 months after the birth possibly ever, depending on whether it knits back right or wrong… oooh a post partum visit to the chiropractor essential I think..
She confirms my suspicions about the Muffin’s unusual diagonal position. Head on the left at the bottom, feet kind of half way up on the right. Unfortunately, the fact he tried two days upright and slipped back after the swimming is most likely to be less to do with the backstroke and more to do with his being comfy like that and therefore, disinclined to move to a less pain-inducing position.
Bugger.
Sometimes, even when life is great, it kind of sucks!
Are organisational skills a strain of the luck virus? 1, April 2008
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, General Wittering, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, Pregnancy Issues, Small Scale Disasters, whinging, winging.Tags: chaotic, clocks go back, daylight saving time, disorganised, DST, lack of organisation, my brain has gone missing, organisation, pregnancy, pregnant, rants, why daylight saving time
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Yes.
Well, at least you won’t have to guess what this post is about. Not too much anyway. It’s about organisation or the fact that achieving a smooth running life actually appears to bear no relation whatsoever to the amount of effort you put into organising it.
I used to watch a comedy TV show called Red Dwarf which is set four million years into the future. One episode is all about luck. The the heroes discover that luck is actually a virus and come across a phial of the stuff.
Yeh, well I reckon organisational skills are kind of similar. Mine only work when I’m planning what I need to do and ordering other people to do the nitty gritty – ie in a job – the minute I personally get involved the wheels fall off big time.
Let me explain…
Once again, I have become an unwitting victim to the pointless tweaking of reality to make life just that little bit more complicated for the rest of us – especially those of us plagued by the bloody chaos fairies the way I am – by the organised tidy bastards. In this case the ones who dick with the clocks, solely, I am certain, to punish disorganised people like me for not being automata such as they.
Why is being organised such a big deal? Why is it in this day and age of equality for all that being organised is considered the holy grail of personal traits ahead of everything else. I don’t punish these anally retentive smeg ends for having OCD and an imagination bypass so what have they got against people like me?
Ok, I’m not organised – I try to be, you know, the way Canute tried to stop the tide – but I’m fighting a losing battle. When I do try to organise my life, you’d be amazed at the lengths I go to to ensure everything runs smoothly and you’d be even more amazed at how consistently I still manage to lurch spectacularly from one crisis to another in a state of perpetual chaos…
Except at work where, by din’t of planning what needs to be done, when and by not actually tainting the process by being directly involved, I was known for my ruthless efficiency.
Sighs…
As you know, I’m pregnant. I am also vague. That doesn’t mean I lack self discipline, it doesn’t mean I can’t – or don’t try to – organise myself, it just means it’s a lot harder for me than it is for any of you. That doesn’t make me dumber or less worthy than anyone else it just makes me different.
So. Every year here in Britain they fuck with the clocks. Twice. First they put them forward in spring, so we get more daylight, then they put them back in winter so it gets dark an hour later. Whatever they say, nobody actually knows why. The official reason given each year is that it’s done so that the kids get to be outside in daylight on their way to school in winter.
Sorry but that’s cock and bull for a start.
It might have been true once but not in my lifetime, not when you have to be in your classroom for registration at 8.30 am and they don’t release you until 4.00 pm.
In the depths of winter here in Blighty, even in the South, it gets light at about half past eight and dark at four so when you’re going to school in deepest, darkest winter you actually do both journeys in twilight and see no daylight, outside break times, at all. So that explodes that theory then.
Trust me, I went to school for 13 years. I know.
On Saturday night, the clocks went back so all of a sudden on Sunday morning, when I woke up, the time that had been 8 am yesterday was 9 am today.
That meant it was time to go round house, checking each and every single piece of electrical equipment, either to move the clock onwards an hour or to press the button to confirm that yes, I notice it has gone forward automatically and yes, I would like to keep it that way.
The most important thing, of course, was my Compaq iPAQ.
This is the machine by which I live and die. I know my limitations, especially at the moment. I’m far too vague to actually remember when and where the legion of health professionals watching over my pregnancy have arranged to see me and that’s why I have an iPAQ to do it for me. I set it to beep at me before each appointment in good time.
Good time being however long I will need to get ready and get to wherever I have to go with whatever equipment, samples etc they require and not be late.
Having turned on the iPAQ on Sunday morning and clicked “yes” on the “all the clocks have changed do you want me to go forward an hour?” button I went to bed on Sunday confident that anything I had scheduled for Monday would not be missed.
Conscious that I had a doctor’s appointment which I’d cancelled and rearranged 3 times, I checked the time and date of that before turning the light out. Wednesday. Good. I relaxed into my cosy covers and slipped gratefully into the land of nod.
Spool forwards to Monday morning and you can imagine how delighted I am when at 10 am, while I am happily hoovering the hall in my pyjamas, the beeper goes on my iPAQ to tell me I have a physiotherapy appointment at 9.30.
Shit!
It would be physio, these appointments are like fricking unicorn poop.
I check the clock on the iPAQ and sure enough it says 10.00. Even the sodding diary knows it’s 10 but the fricking beeper attached to the diary, the beeper I’m relying on, is still running on Grenwich Bloody Mean Fricking Bastard Time.
Yes. It thinks it’s giving me an ample half hour warning to cycle a couple of miles to my local hospital and not miss my appointment… half an hour ago.
Arse.
I ring. Yes. I’ve missed it. I get the next available appointment. 23rd April. Yes that’s right, 3 week’s time.
Balls.
So I’d lay bets a lot of you are more organised then me and your lives run more smoothly BUT. Do you go to the lengths of chaos management I do? I’d bet you don’t. Surely, setting alarms to beep when you have to, get up, again when you have to get ready, when you have to leave and then, finally when you are meant to be somewhere has got to be approaching the outer limits of tidy personesque OCD.
It probably goes beyond… yeh, I’ll bet the most unimaginative anally retentive Bauhaus furnished flat dwelling robotoid doesn’t even do that.
But I’ll also bet, if they do, that the sodding things don’t malfunction like some thousand year old droid with silicone brain rot. And if they do, when they tell other people their plight is met with sympathy and deemed by all to be a very unlucky fault in the machine not, as with me, regarded as a fault in the owner (and greeted with a lecture about being more organised and not checking the machine properly or doing a soft reboot etc etc).
In short. It WORKS for them… and not for me.
Why?
Because they have the virus and I don’t. It’s the only logical reason.
…Bastards!
