The birth of Ike!

WARNING: YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T READ THIS IF YOU ARE PREGNANT.
So yeah, as you probably already know, I went into labour on October 27th. I was getting pains from about 2am. The pains finally got so bad I thought I might need pain relief at about 5:30pm, so I went to the labour ward as I had been instructed to do. When I went to the hospital, the contractions were happening every three minutes and lasting for about a minute each time. At about 6 o clock I was 5cm dilated. I actually managed without pain relief until about 9pm. The midwives were marvelling about my pain tolerance. At 9pm I had gas and air. At first, I couldn't work out how to use it properly and thought it wasn't doing anything. Once I got the hang of it, it was amazing. Yeah, the contranctions still hurt but I didn't care about it. It made me feel like I was somewhere between drunk and stoned. Twas great... Although it did make me talk a load of absolute bollocks. When they examined me at 10pm, I was just under 8cm dilated and they thought he would be born within the hour. They also discovered he was in the posterior position (his back was against my back). By about 11pm, the pain was immense and gas and air made no difference to it whatsoever. The baby was also getting very distressed. I then had syntocinon to speed things up and hartmann's solution because apparently I was very dehydrated (even though I had had 8 bottles of water due to the gas and air making my mouth immensely dry). At this point, I also agreed to have diamorphine. From this point, I don't remember much so I'm going to write about it from what people have told me and vague, blurry memories. Apparently the diamorphine was injected into my butt. I was absolutely off my head. I even agreed to let my mother take me to the toilet (how bloody embarrassing!). I couldn't walk on my own. By this time it was about 1:30 and when the midwife examined me, she decided to break my waters. I remember this being the most painful part of the whole thing. When she broke them, there was apparently very little amniotic fluid. I didn't even get wet. I just felt a tiny drop on my leg. For a while, nothing happened (apart from being in a lot of pain). I went to the toilet a second time at about 3am. The pain was so bad that I had to have gas and air in both the toilet and the corridor. I was accompanied (and being held up) by both my mother and the midwife. I got tangled in all the wires and everything in the door to the toilet. It was rather humiliating. When I came back from the toilet, the midwife suggested an epidural as the pain was exceedingly bad, my blood pressure was going way up and I felt like I needed to push (even though I was only 8cm). Even though I had previously planned not to have an epidural under any circumstances, I ended up agreeing to one. I had to sit on the end of the bed, bent forward while they shoved the needle into my back and stuff. I had 3 tubes of stuff going into me. After I had the epidural, the midwife examined me again and found I was STILL only 8cm dilated. She could feel a bit of the cervix over the baby's head (or something) which she moved off (which even with the epidural was apparently very painful for me). The epidural wasn't working very well so the anaesthetist topped it up a few times. At about hoobs o clock, I had finally got to 10cm and could start the whole pushing thing (after the doctor agreed to it). I couldn't feel the contractions properly, so it was difficult for me to push at the right time. I could only feel some of the contractions and they had to watch the monitor and feel my belly so I knew when to push. It was veryyy slow. After about an hour and a half of only semi-successful pushing, they decided to use the ventouse thing to help pull him out. They were also going to do an episiotomy and they gave me two injections (I actually remember feeling the sharp scratches!) and just as she went to pick up the scalpel, he was born (at 7:44am). When he eventually came out, it was like he'd been shot out and he very almost fell onto the floor because he came out all in one push. Him coming out felt really weird. It was like a slippery, weird feeling. They passed him straight to me and I decided to call him Isaac Sirius. He was perfect. Apparently then I was bleeding immensely heavily and I needed to go to theatre to fix my third degree tear. There was like a zillion people in the room at this point. I only got to hold Isaac for a few minutes. I somehow ended up in theatre and my mum was allowed to be there too. The grandmother stayed with Isaac. After being fixed (which took an hour and 20 minutes) I went to the recovery room and they finally brought Isaac back to me. They stole some of my blood in the recovery room and eventually, they took me and Isaac to the ward.

Isaac weighed 8lb 14.5oz... So it's not surprising I had a third degree tear. His head circumference was 36.7cm. He was 52cm long. He had an apgar score of 9.

It wasn't fun being in the hospital, but it would have been worse if Isaac wasn't there. It was very frustrating not having control of my legs (because of the epidural) and I felt like absolute shite for ages. His blood group is A positive and mine is O negative, so I had to have another anti-d injection. There was a horrible moment in the hospital where I was going to go to the toilet and there was a huge amount of blood and I felt rather dizzy and horrid. It was rather scary... but everything was ok. I had to stay in hospital until like the 30th. I think that was mainly because my haemoglobinz had somehow managed to go down to 8 (even though it was like 12 or something a few days before). We finally went home on the 30th at about 5 o clock.

Yesterday I took him out for the first time. Nowhere interesting... just shopping. I was carrying him in the baby sling thing (couldn't be arsed with putting together the pram). Isaac recieved a lot of attention. Every time I went into a shop, people asked me questions about him. They seemed shocked when I told them he was only 3 days old. He dressed up as a skeleton for halloween. I have to wait until he's asleep and stuff to do things like write this blog. For some reason, I don't mind that he pees on me, poos on me and pukes on me. He's adorable and I loveses him! <3

Imminentness!

I've been getting pains since about 2am. They started off about 20 minutes apart and gradually went down to about 9 minutes apart. The midwife came at about 10:30 or something and did another sweep. This time it hurt a little. Apparently I'm 3cm dilated! She stretched it a bit or something. The pains have got worse since she left. His head is fully engaged. His heart thingy is 130-140. My blood pressure is 110/70... So all is hoobygroovy!

Apparently I should go for a walk, eat, have a bath and whenever I feel like I need pain relief ring the labour ward... So I shall do all that, but first I shall make sure I have everything I need in my hospital bag!

The midwife said she's almost certain I'll have him in the next 24 hours... so hopefully (unless I decide to blog later on today) next time I write on this blog, I'll have had the baby! =D

Hoobletoodledooo!

Sweepysweepysweepsweep

I have now had a sweep. It was nowhere near ad bad as I thought it would be... The midwife didn't even look at my fanny or anything. I'd read that sweeps can be painful but it wasn't even slightly painful... It was a teeny weeny uncomfortable, but that was it! Apparently she managed to get quite a good sweep. It wasn't even completely mortifying like I expected it to be! Hopefully it'll help get things started... If it doesn't, I can have another sweep in like a week and if that fails, an induction onthe 29th... As both of those are too late to be convenient for me, I desperately hope the sweep works!

I'm not dilated yet, but I'm apparently about 50% effaced. My notes now say I have normal external genitalia and a normal vagina, which for some reason I find quite hilarious... Yay for having a normal flange! It's probably the only thing that's normal about me! I also have an anterior cervix... I can't remember what that means, but I think I was told that's a good thing. The midwife apparently felt the babys head and he's 3/5 engaged.

I still had some protein in my pee, but all is good as we know I have no infections or anything. My blood pressure was 117/70, which as normal is pretty good. The baby's heart rate is 138-149 so that is good.

So yes, HOPEFULLY he'll decide to arrive some time soon!

Hurry up!

Oh my god. I am literally willing to do anything for the baby to be born before Tuesday. If he's not here by Tuesday I'm going to have to have a sweep because I need him to be born as soon as possible. I am moving into my flat thing on November 1st and would quite like some time to adjust to the baby and stuff so that when I'm all alone I actually know what to do with him! On top of that, my grandmother got told she can have the operation she's been waiting a long time for on the 25th. She really wants to be there for the birth and I want her to be there too. So I need him to be born in the next week, so a sweep seems like the only option as I'm pretty sure he's going to stay put until after the due date (which is on Monday). I really don't want anyoneputting their fingers up my flange until I'm actually in labour, but I have a feeling it's going to have to happen. Not fair at all. I need to find a way to make him arrive by Tuesday!

I've decided I can't keep names secret for any longer. I'm going to have to tell you the ones I'm considering most at the moment. I have no will power whatsoever LOL. PLEASE DONT COMMENT ON THE NAMES. I don't want to know which one anyone prefers or anything like that. I'm going to look at him when he's born and see which name I think he should be called. I'm pretty sure I'm going to call him either Zebediah (shortened to zeb) or Isaac (shortened to ike). :)

Anyhow, I'm gonna go ponder ways to get this baby outta me! Bye!

It's October!

OHMYGOD! It's finally October... So eepyayyyfuckgollycrappycrapwowza=]o_O to that! XD I will have to have a baby by the end of the month. Well, by the 29th anyway as they wont let me go more than 10 days over the due date. The baby could decide to arrive at any time now! I hope he comes before the 19th, but not until at least next week. It'd be pretty awesome if he was born on the 11th because then his date of birth would be 11/10/09.

People keep nagging me about getting my hospital bag packed. I now have most things I need to put in the bag (maternity towels, stuff to wear whilst giving birth, nappies, etc.) BUT I have a slight problem... I HAVE NO BAG! I can't find a suitably sized one that I actually like anywhere! I am going to try Matalan today and if I can't find one there, I'm screwed!

I think I have it narrowed down to four names. What I think is my favourite out of the four names would probably be classed as a weird name by most people, but it's not like a made up name or anything... it is one of those names that people will inevitably be bitchy about. It's quite long too... Not quite as long as Charlotte, but it seems longer because it has four syllables. Gosh, I love the name though. I just can't decide whether or not naming him it would be a good thing. Hmmm... Ponder, ponder, ponder! XD

Update.

Wow... Less than a month left... 27 days actually as it's now September 22nd! I think I need to update this as I've been neglecting it once again lol!

I was slightly unnerved because a few hours ago I described a pain-type-thing I had to my grandmother. She said it sounded like a contraction and to tell her if I had another one. I was all like 'ohmyfuckinggod'. Luckily I haven't had another one. It's now a few hours later, so I'm probably not in labour or anything! If I was, I'd be totally screwed as I still don't have the stuff I need! XD

I was in Mothercare earlier. An overly talkative person that worked there decided to come and talk to me. She asked me how long there was until the baby was due and some shizz about pushchairs and stuff. The look on her face when I told her I only had 4 weeks left and still hadn't even decided on a pushchair was hilarious! I really do need to make decisions though lol! I went shopping with the intention of buying something big for the baby (either a bouncer thing or pram) and ended up coming back with some scratch mittens I spent £2.50 on and a few cds and dvds from HMV... So I ended up spending £30 on me instead... oops. =/

Last week in Manchester, my mother had been explaining to my two year old half-brother that I had a baby in my tummy. We thought he finally vaguely understood until he asked me to take it out so he could see it. If only my belly had a zip or a window!

I had a pretty huge freak out about having a baby a few days ago. I was all like 'ohmygodidon'twannahaveababy... blablablaahhh' and felt superly-megaly evil for thinking that stuff. I spoke to both my grandmother and mother about it and apparently it's normal to think shizz like that and my mother even thought that shizz once or twice when she was pregnant with H (who was actually planned)! Made me feel a lot better about the freak out. I'm pretty much over thinking that shizz now though. I think it was only because all of a sudden there's only a few weeks left, I've had a visit from the health visitor and I actually have to start frantically buying things rather than just flicking through catalogues and looking at stuff! I've also started thinking about the actual baby and stuff (yeah, it hadn't really dawned on me until recently that I was actually going to have to look after a baby)... There are constant reminders everywhere that I'm pregnant and it seemed like I couldn't escape from it or anything. I was pretty overwhelmed with everything and stuff... I found it scary how having a few shameful thoughts and being overwhelmed can affect other areas of my life so much. I'm getting used to everything now though and as I'm no longer freaking out, I just want to get everything sorted quickly and for him to be born soon! I'm so fed up of being pregnant and I just want to meet the squigglytiddlypeep! =D

I thought I'd settled on a name yesterday... Turns out I haven't. My list is very narrowed down though. Not gonna say what the possible names are though, as I'm still doing the whole not telling people names I'm pondering thing.

I'm still peeing a zillion times a night and still getting heartburn. I also never seem to be hungry anymore (I'm guessing that's pregnancy related). I keep getting lots of random twinges and pains and stuff too... and lots of backache and not being able to get comfortableness. Meep, I wish I had some interesting symptoms to report! XD

But yes, I am now 36 weeks pregnant and have nothing more to say so hoobletoodledoooo!

Updateyness!

Oops. It seems I have once again been neglecting this blog. I will try to write lots in it though as I'm not going to be pregnant for much longer. The baby is due in 4 weeks and 6 days. I'm not sure whether that sounds longer than 34 days or not, but whichever way I say it it's really not that far away!

My belly is currently jumping around hoobloads. I've been meaning to take a photo of my belly doing this for at least 10 weeks now, but it's impossible. Every time a camera is pointed at it or someone apart from me looks at it, he suddenly stops moving. I'm not going to bother going to the other side of my room to get my camera as I know that a video of my belly moving is inevitably not going to happen! XD

Every time he moves tonight, it hurts. He's being pretty evil! I think his head is pushing more down and it feels as though he's occasionally kicking my rectum or something. It's not a nice feeling! I keep getting lots of pain in the hard to describe bit somewhere between my belly and my fanny. It's like he's trying to headbutt his way out of me or something. I have a feeling the next five weeks are not going to be very fun!

I'm going shopping in Manchester again tomorrow (well, technically today). I hope to get most of the things I need. I still have hardly any baby stuff and I have a feeling shopping is going to get harder and harder as I seem to get more pain than I usually would if I'm walking and I'm certainly starting to develop the infamous pregnancy waddle! I got some baby bargains in Cheshire Oaks a few days ago. Unfortunately, I only really bought clothes. I bought a baby monitor thing that day though. I have a big list of everything I need to get. It's a little scary to look at, but hopefully I'll have crossed many things off it by the end of tomorrow!

Ooohh... and I was reading about week 35 of pregnancy on some online thing today and it said that mood swings are pretty common at this stage. I'm glad of that. I've been unintentionally behaving appallingly recently and now I have something to blame it on. I like being able to blame just about everything on pregnancy!

Pregnancy is affecting me in strange ways. It makes me want to buy shoes all the time. I know it probably sounds like I'm just making up excuses for my recent shoe-buyingness, but before I was pregnant I would never have even considered buying shoes. I'm not usually a very shoey person! Probably pregnancy hormoney things making me more female!

I had a huge craving for jelly and ice cream last night so I went to Tesco and bought some. It was amazing. I got a 2 litre tub of tesco value ice cream for 70p. Best bargain I've had in a long time!

Oh, I did that urine sample thing and everything was apparently fine. I have no infections or anything. It kind of pissed me off that everything was hoobacious though because it means I accidentally got pee on my hand for nothing. >.< I'm also pretty curious as to why I had protein in my pee. I want an explanation dammit!

Anyhow, hoobletoodledoooo!

clothes shopping!

Yesterday I went shopping for some baby clothes with my mum. Didn't get much, but I love the stuff I got. My mum paid for most of it (which surprised me). All I paid for was the greeny starry thing and a couple of bibs. The stuff is pictured above... apart from the bibs. I especially love the browny top with the trees and stuff on it! The dungarees weren't purchased yesterday, my mum had previously bought them along with a greeny hat thing.

H&M is AMAZING for baby clothes. The stuff is rad and not overpriced! I love it! When I've bought everything I actually need, I think I'm going to go there and spend all the left over money (if there is any) on clothes!

Monsoon had some lovely things. Way out of my price range though. It's certainly a shop for rich people. There was a shirt for a baby that cost the same amount as a shirt I bought for myself from River Island and thought was overpriced! I think I'll get the squigglytiddlypeep something from there at some point though... just need to find a special occasion or something to use as an excuse to spend so much money!

It amazes me how big baby clothes are... even newborn clothes... like, how the fuck is something that big supposed to fit inside my uterus?! o_O

Walking round Manchester all day whilst 33 weeks pregnant isn't the most comfortable of things. My back was KILLING me and so were my feet... and legs. My belly felt very heavy. I kept getting weird pinchy pains in the area I'd expect my cervix or something to be. It was horrible. Oh, and the squigglytiddlypeep kept kicking me in the ribs and stuff. I was surprised I didn't have heartburn on top of all that... I was exceedingly full (which just made everything all the more uncomfortable) from eating so much in pizza hut.

It wasn't a horrible day or anything. I didn't let all the pain ruin it. It was actually rather hoobacious. At least I bought some stuff... I'll buy more shizzle whenever I get the money from the HIP and SSMG. =D I love shopping!

Midwife appointment.

I just had my 30 week midwife appointment. Might as well write about it, as I have nothing else to do.

The squigglytiddlypeep is currently breech, but as I'm only 30 weeks, I have like 6 weeks for him to turn round in. If he doesn't turn round in the next 6 weeks I'll have to see some doctory person or something. It's definitely not a worry just yet though, as 6 weeks is quite a long time (although I'm certain the next 6 weeks will go really fast).

My haemoglobin is 10.4 and apparently the cut off point for needing iron tablets is 10... The midwife told me that if I don't want iron tablets, I need to start eating food with lots of iron in them, or take that pregnacare stuff. I don't do tablets, so I'm just going to try eating food with lots of iron... I'll have to google stuff and see what foods would be good to eat that actually taste nice... I will certainly not be nomming spinach or anything!

My fundal height had so far always been the same number of cms as the amount of weeks pregnant I am. I had a feeling it would be one cm over today though. Sure enough, when she measured it, my fundal height was 31cm! How psychic am I?! 31 cms is still normal though, so he's growing well. =]

My blood pressure is still good. It's 115/60. I'm not sure what the numbers really mean, but I know it's fine. The top number is the highest it's been so far, and the bottom number is almost always 60. =]

My pee was once again fine, as was the baby's heart beat.

Oooohhh... Yesterday my uncle basically called me a liar for saying my back was hurting because when his wife was pregnant, she was walking everywhere fine and didn't have pain... It totally pissed me off as I wasn't lying and it was aching like fuck. People should know not to piss of pregnant people! Me and my grandmother will take great pleasure in informing him that the midwife thinks I might have sciatica or something. Anyway, it's common knowledge that pregnant people get bachache! How the fuck can someone be justified in telling a pregnant person that they aren't in any pain?!

So yeah, that was my midwife appointment. Shizz seems to be going pretty well. My next appointment is in two weeks. =]

Boy or girl?

I didn't really see much of the 20 week scan as there was a lot of stuff they needed to check and the screen was facing away from me for most of it. My grandmother was there with me and she saw the whole thing. She said he's unmistakeably a boy. The ultrasoundy person was certain it's a boy too.

However, I have a silly niggly feeling that he could turn out to be a girl. I'm not sure why. It might be because I've heard so many stories of babies turning out to be the opposite sex to what the parents were told they would be. Maybe it's because it would be hoobloads easier for me to name a girl. Maybe it's because I read in a pregnancy magazine that research shows that people with lots of money are more likely to have boys and that kind of fits in with people I know who have had babies in the last few years (well, I don't really know many actual rich people... but I'm counting rich people as grown-up people with jobs that can afford to have a baby).

I just did an old wives tale gender prediction test thing. It said there's a 53% chance of it being a girl. A chinese gender predictor thingy predicted a boy. Why can't any of these things be 100% accurate?!

I think I'm going to try buying more unisex clothes just in case. I'm not that into unisex clothes, because the majority of them don't look that cool (in my opinion). I can't stand that baby yellow colour! Luckily the moses basket I have isn't blue or anything, so it's pretty much unisex.

Hopefully he will turn out to be a boy though. I wouldn't like to have wasted hoobloads of money on boy stuff only to find out he's actually a she. Although if he does turn out to be a girl, at least I'll have the perfect name! =]

Yes, I realise how silly this post sounds!

The joys of back ache!

Grrr! I know this probably isn't the best time to moan about this particular pregnancy symptom as I'm only 28 weeks pregnant and it's just going to get a lot worse as I get pregnanter, but gosh, it's horrid! Over the last week or so, my back has been immensely achey a lot of time time. Thankfully it's not a constant thing. As the baby gets bigger, my back is bound to ache a lot more, so I'm guessing this might not be the last thing I write about back ache!

I have found that leaning against a laptop or a tray can help sometimes. The more I do this, the more I get weird looks from people... I don't know why! Yeah, it looks a bit strange, but it's better than taking painkillers (which I never, ever do unless I'm in complete agony). I'm quite glad I still have Larry (my old, dead laptop). I knew that keeping him would be somehow useful. Leaning against laptops and trays doesn't stop the pain, but it is quite relieving. I'm not sure why it helps... My grandmother suggested that it's something to do with the straightness of things, but if I lean against a wall, I don't get the same effect. Heh, it's bizarre, but at least there's something that makes it slightly more tolerable! =D

Occasionally, the squigglytiddlypeep will move and the back ache will miraculously disappear. It makes me think that he's probably getting revenge on me for something!

At least it's probably better than morning sickness, which I somehow managed to completely avoid! =D It's definitely not as annoying as stretchmarks (which I will blog about at some point in the near future).

But yeah... I FUCKING HATE BACKACHE!

Hoobletoodledoo!

Names.

Rarrrrr! I am so fed up of people being quite horrible about names! My mother in particular (not just, her), but moooooo! He's my baby and I will call him whatever the fuck I want to call him! >.<

It seems that unless you are going to call your kid something extremely normal and overused (no offense to anyone with these names or children with the names) like Harry, Ben or Jack, people are going to be bitchy and really quite mean.

I had to rant about this after I told my mother to stop constantly calling the baby a particular name. It was only a suggestion I came up with a few weeks ago and she thinks he should be called it because she likes it. Her using it has made me cross it off my mental list of possibilities. What gives her the right to name MY baby?! After telling her to stop using that name, she went on to persuade me to tell her my current favourite names (even though I said I didn't want to tell her). I didn't want her to either latch onto a name or be absolutely fucking horrible about the names, like she had been in the past.

One of my favourite names (which was actually quite a common name) is apparently a dog's name and if I called my child that, my mother w0uld call him something else. That really pissed me off because it would be like my grandmother calling me Felicity or something because she doesn't like the name Charlotte.

Another name (one of my favourites at the moment) is apparently a bully target because it's the name of a very famous junkie associated with another celebrity who I can't stand. I had never even heard of him until my mother mentioned him and I googled. I'm pretty sure there are many more drug junkies in the world called Charlotte or Harry...

Apparently using Sirius as a middle name is bad and people would just think I'm an immature Harry Potter fan (this coming from a woman with a child called Harry). Yes, I like Harry Potter, but I love the name Sirius when paired with an un-potter-related first name. Besides, it is the name of a fucking star!

Apparently someone called Angus would be bullied because kids would associate it with aberdeen Angus. Yeah fucking right... I'm eighteen and I had to google Aberdeen Angus. >.<

There are many more examples I could give, but I don't want to give away the names on my list or rant so much that I get any more pissed off. Blahhh. If she can't think of a specific bad thing to pick on about a name, she'll just say something like 'it's a chav name', 'it's weird' or 'I know someone I don't like with that name'.

Oh, and if the name is obviously biblical (unless it's something like Lucifer) it's perfectly ok to use no matter how weird it is... Apparently someone called Job (BJ anyone?) wouldn't get bullied, but someone called Angus would? I mean, dude, where's the logic in that?!

So yeah, until the baby is born, I am telling nobody my list of names. Blehhh. If I was having a girl I wouldn't have this problem because there is only one name I would use and everyone seems to like it. >.<

Introductiony post...

I have recently realised that all I ever seem to talk about is pregnancy related crap and I'm starting to annoy myself with it. I decided it would be a good idea to make a pregnancy blog because it's somewhere to write all about my pregnantness without writing too much about it on my main blog. I'm sure my whittering on about pregnancy is boring to everyone who isn't actually pregnant... I know I wouldn't find it interesting if I wasn't pregnant myself! XD

The title 'Some girls are bigger than others' is the name of a song by The Smiths. I'm getting a lot bigger than I used to be, so I thought it would be an ok title!

I should have thought up the idea of a pregnancy blog sooner as there is now less than three months until the baby is due. It would have been nice to document the rest of the pregnancy, but oh well. It's not the end of the world!

I have a feeling I'll update this blog an awful lot because I have a lot of free time and a lot of pregnancy-related crap to whitter on about!

In this first post, I'll cover the answers to the two most commonly asked pregnancy questions. 1) When's it due? And 2) Is it a boy or a girl? I can sum that up in one sentence: The baby is due on October 19th 2009 and it's a boy.

I'll definitely write a proper post later on today! Look below and there's a pic of the little dude! =D