Month: November 2007

My democratic duty has been exercised

And I didn’t put the Liberals last. In the past week, the Christian Democrats put a flyer in my letterbox, advertising that they are against Islamic immigration and gay rights. Apparently, Fred Nile is Worse than John Howard. Who’d a thunk it?

I have visited the nephew, who gave me a big grin as soon as he saw me, even though I haven’t seen him in a week, and have hired cleaners. They can’t start till next wednesday, so if you visit in the meantime please bear in mind that I am even less interested in housework than I am in cooking. All of my attention has been absorbed by chocolate ice cream and intimacy with the couch. And on that note…

Yesterday, when I was mad

A couple of days ago, I was chatting with Miriam (who was “due” on Monday, we are having a race for last) about pregnancy brain. She has just moved house, and is dealing with unpacking, and getting ready for a baby, and was complaining about being rather too vague to make the job easy.

I, feeling cocky, claimed that my vagueness had dropped off, and that I was feeling pretty good.

Until yesterday, when it took me three tries to get my undies on.

I’m now off to vote, and hopefully will get a chance to visit Alex before I come back to meet our new cleaners – the old ones sacked us because the house had too much fur!

Think you’re good with words?

Try www.freerice.com.

By defining words, you can donate rice to the UN food program. Apparently the difficulty level goes up to 50 – I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary, but I can only seem to get it as high as 44. But I did donate over 1000 grains of rice, while eating icecream, and being unable to sleep while the rest of the house snores away merrily. Yes, even the bunny.

Ok, I get it now…

I have heard many pregnant women talk of how the last few weeks of pregnancy are the worst, and that after about 37 weeks, they are well and truly over being pregnant, and ready to meet their new baby.

I understood this, yet never empathised until today. Everything hurts. My fingers are so fat and painful from the carpal tunnel that my knitting holds little joy, I can barely take a step without agony, and last night I was woken up by gastric reflux so violent that it burst into my nose. NOT GOOD.

Today, after two days resting, I felt ready to attempt to take on the stupermarket. I shopped (it was well overdue), and got all the shopping into the car. Doesn’t sound like a major achievement, but when it was over I felt like I had conquered Everest, and deserved a large Gin and a nice lie down. I got neither, but I did find this.

Thanks to Cindy for the link to this, that started the adventure!

Evil Bird!

Man Dies Trying to Rescue Cockatoo. Well, I am sure the bird didn’t mean to kill anyone, she was just doing her job as an ornery feathery person.

While on the subject of evil cockatoos, I should relate a charming tale of our own evil avian. Last week, while sitting in the living room, I watched her climb down off her house, and walk over to the baby gate we have installed between the kitchen and the living area. I called Mark over to watch as she calmly placed on leg on the gate and pulled it shut – barring us entry to the kitchen.

I guess we’ve been told.

Home Again

Talk of staying away from hospital was premature. I had been feeling rather ordinary all day yesterday, which I attributed to the stress. But when I still felt vile at 4pm, after napping from 1pm, I suspected there was something going on. I hadn’t eaten all day, so when I started violently throwing up, there wasn’t much to come up.

It only took me a few hours to decide to call the hospital this time, they had me come in for some fluids and medication (Oh, how I love thee, Zofran!), but by the time I had 2 bags of fluids and the meds and was feeling better, they decided to keep me in overnight. I felt a bit like a malingerer, but Inigo’s heartbeat was pretty high when we got to hospital, so for his sake it was probably worth the hassle. And we got to try out our emergency planning, and get to test run the maternity unit at Hornsby. I have to say I can’t fault them – the midwives were wonderful and though they were really busy, they did a great job of making us comfortable and reassured. Poor Mark spent the night on a fold out chair in the birthing suite, I had a relatively comfortable bed, but hardly slept a wink.

They let us out at about 8.30am, I dropped Mark off at work, and now I am off to hopefully catch up on some sleep.

PS. I haven’t been looking forward to Christmas, until I saw this

Thanks Sarah!

Back to Plan A

Inigo decided to spend this morning heard down, so no ECV, and no hospital stay!

THe head doctor seems to think that he will stay head down from now on, but I don’t want to get my hopes up – he is still pretty mobile (“a very active baby”, in the words of the doctor).

So I am home now, and about to have a nap since I got hardly any sleep last night, and I don’t have to go back to hospital till Friday morning (39 weeks on Friday).

A Cute Baby

Alex At 8 Months-2

Just because I haven’t put up any pictures in ages, and because my nephew is one of the worlds cutest babies, and also to remind myself that there are some rewards for going through all this….

This picture was taken last month, when Alex was about 8 months old, and the cute meter started going off the scale. Since I took this picture, he has started to recognise me between visits, and on Melbourne Cup Day he actually smiled at me as soon as I arrived.

I think he likes me.

News of a sort….

Last friday, Inigo was head down, and the midwives were happy – at least it’s possible for him to be head down, there is no obstruction preventing the position.

Yesterday, the ultrasound confirmed his position, and I almost cancelled the appointment with the Doctors today. Everything was normal, normal, and great. He is big, but not freakishly so, and has good blood supply, good fluid levels, 4 chambers in the heart, and huge testicles (just my observation on that one).

I thought I’d better go to the appointment anyway, and dragged Mark along with me. Thank goodness! We had a bit of a surprise – he has turned since yesterday, and again between the doctor having a look and the “boss” doctor having a look.

On monday I have another appointment for a procedure to turn him. I get injected with a drug to relax the uterus, and then (with the aid of the ultrasound) they poke him and hopefully get him to turn head down again (where he was yesterday). There are some risks associated with the procedure, but it roughly halves the number of caesars that have to be performed – so I figure it’s worth a shot. They will only do it if he is breech – head up, bum down. But if he is transverse, and spine up (like he was for the first doctor today), they will admit me and keep me in until he settles in a safer position, or comes out. And if he doesn’t settle, I’ll be booked in for a caesar at 39 weeks. The reason for keeping me in hospital, is that with his spine curved up, the chance that the umbilical cord will prolapse and cause a problem is quite high, so it’s safer for both of us to be in the hospital in case my waters break, or labour starts.

Which is all a bit scary, but better than the first option – which was to be admitted today, and observed. Better pack my hospital bag then 🙂

So, nothing really new, I just have to be a little bit more mentally prepared for medical intervention, and meeting Inigo sooner rather than later. Just in case.

And now I am off to hug a bunny and eat cake.