Monday 13 February 2017

Full term shortly! UPDATED

In a day and a half I will be full term with second bubs.  I am so ready for this pregnancy to be over, but so not ready to have a second bubs to look after (especially as Bubs#1 is being so demanding!).

My BP has been all over the show lately- I've had a high first reading twice the past two weeks, but the second reading has always been lower.  Today the first was 124/90 (odd) and the second was 126/82.  Mostly we are in the 130s/80s.   My urine was good for awhile (there had been +1 protein at 32 and 34 weeks).  Fortnightly growth scans have shown bubs to be hanging out on the 50th percentile so that is good!  The umbilical hernia is killing me, but otherwise I am in good shape from about 7am to 6pm, at which point I just fade and become immobile for a few hours.

I thought I was getting closer to labor, but turns out I was deluding myself (I know, right?).  My signs:
  • my bump seems lower (aka my boobs are feeling the effects of gravity once again), though I am not waddling often and not having too much pressure down there, there has been more than before.
  • I had period like cramping pain the last two days.
  • I had lower back pain off and on the last two days.
  • I have felt a bit more nausea and the urge to have explosive poos (TMI, sorry- but the iron supplements have prevented this urge from becoming a reality).
  • I've been feeling off.
  • My lady business has been feeling off (don't know how else to describe this one).
  • This week is a busy week so Murphy's law states I should go into labor or develop pre-eclampsia to throw the system into chaos.
Turns out what all these things (except the first and last ones) mean is that I have a UTI.*****  Yay.  The bub's head is still up (scoring me a 5/5 still), so I have no idea why the bump is lower as she hasn't changed position (I swear to god it is lower!  I am not crazy!!) .  On the bright side I lost a kilo?  I got some shopping for the mother in law done after the midwife sent me off to the local hospital to do a urine analysis and PET bloods (this has become a weekly thing)?

*****Turns out it isn't a UTI.  What the hell??  Either way I am chugging the cranberry juice.

So here is the birth plan:  If I get pre-eclampsia it will be a cesarean section.  If I go into labor spontaneously we try for a VBAC (bubs still being in a good position of course).  If I don't go into labor by my due date of 1 March, bubs gets yanked out the sunroof on the 2nd of March.  I don't really know which option I prefer, but as none of it is really in my control I guess it doesn't matter.

Speaking of midwives (which I was a paragraph ago), I think I will have my midwife/OB rant now, as I promised it in my last post.  So Dutch midwife had her baby in January (mid month I think), but she wasn't going to be seeing anyone for a few months around that time (I can't quite recall what the deal was or when she is back).  So I have been at the mercy of dippy midwife.  Dippy midwife can't get to appointments on time to save her life, and only texts if she will be more than 20 minutes late (I blame this for my high BP reading the first time I met her- the second meeting I had with her she had double booked).  She also forgets things, like to bring urine dipsticks in from her car when she does the clinic here in my town.  So two weeks ago I didn't have to pee on a stick.  Last week she forgot to weigh me.  She never asks about headaches, visual disturbances, other signs of bad things (she assumes I know I guess?).  And the best of all, she can not figure out my gestational date to save her damn life.  She is attached to a pregnancy wheel that I do not think she knows how to read.  For example, when I was at 34 +5 she thought I was 35 +2.  I have pointed out my due date (confirmed by ultrasound and BBT chart rather than LMP), but even so I can't account for her being off by four days.  When I argued with her, she told me that it doesn't go by 7 day weeks.  Now, I know when you try to calculate months pregnant, it doesn't go by neat little 4 weeks in a month.  But I am pretty sure that it does go by 7 days in a week!  My ultrasounds, my dutch midwife, and the OB all go by 7 day weeks.  If I hit my week on a Wednesday (like I do this pregnancy), then each Wednesday I am at 34 weeks, 35 weeks, 36 weeks, and so on to the due date (a Wednesday!!).  The OB had no clue what the hell was up with this midwife's calculations, but I got a lecture when I told her I gave up arguing the point (as the dates matter- though I figure they only matter if something goes wrong, at which point I will speak up).

Ok, now onto the OB.  I have met with her 3 times.  Once at 11 weeks.  After that I was supposed to meet her at 20 weeks and then every four weeks after that.  That is not how it has happened.  Dutch midwife had to chase down the second appointment for me, which ended up being at 27 weeks.  Funny thing about that appointment- though they sent me a letter with a time and place, when I arrived at the clinic I was told I had no appointment.  They had cancelled it without bothering to tell me.  The doc saw me anyway, but then in her letter she was all like "...It was a pleasure to unexpectedly see Tiggy at my clinic today..." which made me feel like I was appointment crashing.  Then she was all like "I will see her monthly from now" but by that she apparently meant calendar month as opposed to every four weeks because I saw her in early December and then not again until the end of January (35 weeks)- which was to be my last time seeing her.  My other complaint about her is her bedside manner.  The first two times I saw her she kept pointing out that because I wasn't one of her private patients, she wasn't going to be at the delivery, take my calls after hours (I have never called her nor has either midwife called her on my behalf), etc etc.  No mention of it the last time, so that was good.

Well, my next post should be a birth post.