jemjabella

Baby Isabel is Home

Isabel was born at 10:32 on November 14th weighing 7lbs 11oz. We came home last night, and she's settling in nicely.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick post to say thank you for the massive response to her arrival. The cards, e-mails, facebook messages, tweets... it's overwhelming! I'm still going through things in between feeds, cuddles and snoozing so please don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't get back to you all straight away. Love to you all, you guys rock :)

Low Iron, Absolutely Gutted

I've had the majority of my antenatal care through the local midwife-led unit. It's a very relaxed atmosphere, a great team of midwives who're all there for you and make you feel like you're the only woman in the world currently having a baby. Clearly that's not the case, but it's nice to be made to feel that comfortable. Because it's a midwife-led unit, they don't have any obstetricians or doctors to oversee labour/birth and consequently, you are only allowed to give birth there if you are considered "low risk".

The nearest obs-led hospital for higher risk pregnancies is much further away, some 40 mins or so by car (if the roads are quiet). It's big, it's very "sterile" and short of branding you, one almost gets the feeling that you couldn't be any more like the member of a herd. In, pop baby, out again. Not only is it very de-personalised, it's also where I went last year so not particularly full of fond memories for me.

Throughout the majority of my pregnancy, despite the early bleeding/etc, I've been classed as low risk and have therefore planned to have sproglet at the midwife-led unit. I've been very relaxed about it all purely because I felt so comfortable with the 'service' provided there. Unfortunately, blood tests at about 20 weeks showed that I was borderline low iron. Because of various guidelines and the risk (albeit low, but risk indeed) of bleeding complications post-birth caused by anaemia, I had to get my iron up to get back into the low risk category and thus "qualify" for the birth I wanted.

I was prescribed iron tablets, but suffered a very bad reaction to them and as such bought myself Spatone, which is apparently naturally iron-rich (it's just water, comes in sachets, you take it with OJ for the vit C benefits). Lots of pregnant women rave about it, and several of the midwives were positive too. I started on the recommended dose and after two further blood tests discovered that it wasn't actually doing anything... that is, my iron level was exactly the same as it had been previously. I upped the dosage (at the recommendation of the midwife) and had another test two weeks ago.

Somehow, despite the higher dosage (and my diet, which mostly seems to consist of cabbage, broccoli and steak at the minute) my iron has actually dropped. As I'm now 39 weeks (so 1 week until my due date) it's too late for me to do any more 'work' on getting my iron up, which means I now have to go to the bigger hospital with the obstetricians on hand.

Although this means very little in the grand scheme of things, it's such a shift mentally I really am struggling now with feeling positive. Absolutely flipping gutted.

The long post that I didn't write last week

I feel I should start this post with a series of finger exercises as I may be here a while. Anyway...

Let's start with the move. We picked up the keys on Friday 9th October. Although there'd been some discussion in the days previous about the place not being ready (it was being used as a holiday let and still contained the original furniture) we expected to see some progress having been made to get it habitable. Uh, no, t'was still full of the owner's stuff.

Arrangements had been made to begin the move with smaller bits on the Friday, with a friend of my mum's helping on the Saturday. This was a fine theory but didn't go to plan and we ended up with 95% of our furniture in the new place (alongside the owner's furniture) by the end of Friday. All that was left at the old place was our bed and the pets... which obviously couldn't be moved until the landlady/whomever had come to collect the old furniture as we didn't want to run the risk of the cats getting out. We spent the weekend living between two places, and I ended up having to take an extra day off work (Monday 12th) to try and get things sorted.

The furniture was finally moved out on that Monday, allowing us to start arranging our stuff and getting the bed/pets over. We didn't finish until near midnight Monday, with me due at work the next morning (36 weeks pregnant, very tired).

I finished work a week earlier than originally planned (due to exhaustion and a very engaged baby's head making it difficult to sit for long periods of time) on Thursday 15th October.

On Saturday 17th October, as we were leaving my mum's, the car died. We had basically driven a few yards up the road when suddenly the engine cut out and we coasted to a stop. Karl checked a few things, poked a couple of relays under the bonnet and the car started again so we proceeded home — followed by my mum just in case. The car made it, parked up outside, we saw my mum off home and then Karl went to start it again and it refused to start. Seemed to be an intermittent relay issue, but Karl did some jiggerypokery and diagnosing with his laptop software and, IIRC, we had no more problems that week.

Saturday just gone, the 24th, we were on our way to my mum's when the car died again. Except this time it wasn't on a little town back road that is rarely used, but coming off a busy roundabout connected to the M54 (busy motorway) approaching a supermarket retail park at around 5ish. Nothing like the sound of rushing motorway traffic/Saturday shoppers to inspire feelings of despair and frustration. This time the car refused to start and we spent a couple of hours at the roadside with collective family members trying to a) diagnose and b) fix the issue long enough to get us somewhere safe. I'd just like to offer my "fuck you"s to the guy at the Vauxhall dealership in Trench, Telford who was of no use whatsoever, but a big thank you to Churchill's breakdown cover who had a man out to us within about 30 minutes.

The car was started and recovered to my mum's down the road where it has been sat most of the week. Final diagnosis is a fucked ECU, which is apparently the computer thingymabob which makes things work. Something to do with that and relays and earthing and switches... or something. If you're interested in that sort of thing you'll have to wait for Karl to blog about it because it means sod all to me.

What really fucked me off about that second breakdown was the fact that I was stood at the side of the road, very visibly pregnant at near-38 weeks, and not one person stopped to ask if we were OK or whether we needed a phone to call for help/etc. Hundreds of cars went past in the time we were there. It's only lucky that a) I had my phone and have been keeping it topped up because I'm not far due, and b) my mum lives so local because otherwise I'd have had to walk half a mile or more to get help, and in my state that's all but impossible.

Anyway, breathe.. breathe... because of the proximity to my due date, we decided pretty much straight away that we'd need to get another car to act as a temporary run around while our main car is off the road (ECU has been sent away for repair today to a fantastic company called Blue Streak Europe, should hear back tomorrow). Karl is restricted to automatic gearboxes due to his license, and we didn't want to spend an absolute fortune with sprog so close and this being a temporary measure. After some primitive searching, we settled on an M-reg auto Astra similar to Karl's old car from a local second hand dealership called Dream Car Sales for £500 plus £60 MOT inc. parts/labour if necessary. (Loving that DW template website based on an AutoTrader special.)

Straight away the guy (whom I assume is the owner) from Dream Car Sales rubbed me up the wrong way (metaphorically speaking) but we were desperate and cheap local autos are few and far between. We gave him £200 deposit on the condition he'd get the car MOTed next day — which he did — while we organised temporary insurance. Got a call back the next day (Tuesday 27th) that it was ready for pick up. It had failed the MOT on exhaust and brake pipes but these had been replaced and a pass cert was issued.

I, even in my absolute ignorance of cars and all things mechanical, have no idea how that car managed to pass an MOT test. For starters, it only goes above 20mph if Karl applies very gentle pressure to the throttle (putting your foot down to pull out of a junction is ... well, it's impossible and suicidal). If you try and go up a hill without a significant run up to build speed the speedometer bottoms out at 10mph. Karl was worried about one of the tyres and, although this is only a temporary solution our safety is paramount, so he took it to a local mechanic and they took the tyre off... it fell apart in the guys hands. There's a massive hole in some rubber tube-y thingy that shouldn't be there, no air filter, and one of the battery terminals is VERY badly corroded. Karl came in 30 minutes ago to tell me that the bloody thing won't even start this afternoon, although I think he's fixed that now.

Simply put, Dream Car Sales of Oakengates, Telford are useless cowboys and sold us what they called "an excellent runner", a car one of them said "he wanted for his daughter but we beat them to it". If we hadn't already been expecting a bit of a banger, I'd be seeking professional advice and making life difficult for Dream Car Sales right about now. As it is I'll have to settle for blogging about them.

So... "tl/dr" summary: I'm now 38w2d pregnant, no imminent signs of labour. We are moved, even though there's plenty of junk still in boxes. We are back on the 'net, thank you BT and PlusNet for your prompt service. My mum has been an absolute marvel with the move and providing transport post-breakdown. The main car is currently off the road although this is, touch wood, very temporary.. oh, and I'll be having an Astra bonfire at some point to get rid of the heap of shit banger we're running around in at the minute. Marshmallows anyone?

Not Long to Go Now

An appropriate title in more than one way...

Firstly, we had confirmation this week that our applications for a different local property had gone through. We get the keys Friday 9th, and I'm hoping to be fully moved over that weekend. We'll then have until November to get the flat shiny 'n new, but given that we had to sacrifice our deposit to leave this tenancy early I'm not entirely bothered to waste too much time on it. This does mean that I'm likely to lose Internet connection at some point and have no idea when we'll be back on; I will update my twitter by phone if anything exciting happens (hah).

Secondly, there is of course the small fact that I'm just over a month away from my due date. Still, even these last few weeks don't seem to want to go by peacefully. After a routine antenatal check-up on Thursday I found myself booked in for a scan on Friday because the midwife was worried about baby being small for dates. Turns out that baby is fine, smack bang on the line for growth and the reason for the inaccurate fundal height measurement is because baby is very low in the pelvis. Although I did find out that apparently baby has long legs; just like his/her mum then!

By Friday afternoon I was in quite a lot of pain around my back, inner thigh and hip. This meant I got little sleep so by Saturday morning I was back in for another check, only to be told I have an irritable uterus. From what I've read, this simply means that my uterus is almost constantly contracting, but without causing any change to the cervix (although there is a slightly increased risk of pre-term labour). I'd assumed that this almost constant tightness was all fairly normal what with it being my first, but obviously not. Anyway, I'm sure I'm the only one who finds any of this actually interesting!

Have a nice week, everyone :)

Personal Perspective

This is an odd entry in that Karl regularly chimes in (quoted). However, given that what I'm about to discuss affected us both, I'm sure you can understand.

If you'd asked me this time last year my opinions on 'mommy bloggers' and 'mommy blogging' I'm sure I'd have given you a cynical retort about the standards of these bloggers and where they could, quite frankly, stick their views. I'd have been firmly with the childless 20-somethings, stuck in the mindset of "I know best", trying to impart my wisdom on things that seem obvious to anyone with half an education. Funny how 12 months changes things, though.

On the 13th of October last year I woke up, stumbled into the bathroom and chucked my guts up. I went back to bed, assuming food poisoning, but within a few hours had a very faintly positive pregnancy test in my hand and my mum on the way with something a little more accurate. Karl came home for a change of clothes on the way to a prior work engagement, I told him, he swore, I cried. It wasn't the best evening of my life... waiting for the one person I desperately needed to hug me more than any other to decide whether or not he could cope with what I'd just told him.

(Karl: I did indeed swear, but it was more down to the stress of racing home from work to eat, shave and shower, then dress smart and race right back in under 30 minutes due to an open evening. I was a tad shocked, very unprepared, and quite unsure of how I'd make a good father figure!)

I don't think either of us were prepared for that day, but it was honestly a piece of cake compared to what followed. The couple of weeks after that I was in and out of the doctors being plied with various pills and vitamins to try and keep the morning sickness (later realised as hyperemesis gravidarum) at bay. I missed most days off work, and by Friday 31st of October I was quite badly dehydrated, hadn't kept food down in around 48 hours, was throwing up blood, and had lost nearly 20kg in weight. I was taken into hospital, hooked up to a drip and had blood taken by the bucketload.

I was kept in overnight and promised a scan on the Saturday. By the time I was finally called for the scan, it had honestly felt like I'd been hanging around for months. My mouth was dry, I'd not eaten in over 3 days and although the drip was supposedly sorting my fluids out I couldn't recall a time when I felt shittier. The scan revealed that I was actually pregnant with twins. Twins. That's two potential babies sucking every last ounce of strength out of me. However, neither had a heartbeat. They'd stopped growing at about 8 weeks. I cried a little, although they were tears of relief. Relief only for myself, because I didn't want to have to go through 9 months of what the previous 2-3 weeks had thrown at me. Selfish relief.

(Karl: We both did, to be fair. It's still a bit of a point I ponder in my more introspective moments - Never saw them, but they did exist for a while. Odd feeling, and one I do tend to mark in my own way.)

They gave me options for how to proceed. I could wait for nature to take it's course, take pills to help things along, or have a D&C. I opted for the D&C. I just wanted everything sorted, I wanted to be back to normal... seeing Karl without that worried look in his eyes (Karl: worried I was. You didn't see the state of Jem. Not a good time.), sitting on the Internet playing with my code, back at work with my colleagues, playing with my animals. Sunday came, 4 days without food, nil by mouth for the surgery. I remember chatting with the theatre nurse about twins running in the family. I remember the anaesthetist talking me through what was going to happen as I drifted to sleep, and then it was all over.

(Karl: During this time I was sat with my mother in the hospital canteen, talking about life and being very open about everything, including everything she went through with me in hospital all those times. It was quite a revealing time. Thank god for parents - I really felt at times like I was coming apart, so tired I couldn't recall half the driving I was doing, and so on. I don't think I'd have coped otherwise, especially not with getting the house ready for Jem's return.)

I wasn't actually going to write about this. Up until now, only a few very close friends and family had been made aware of what went on, the rest told of tummy bugs and viruses. Yet, as I get closer to my due date — 8 weeks to go — I can't help but feel that not only did my experience have a massive impact on how I dealt with this pregnancy (which, as you may know, has not been without its own set of issues) but also made me realise that no amount of education, no amount of smart-alec Internet debates, no amount of thinking you know best can prepare you for what life is going to throw at you. Each step you take shapes your next, not what you think you know.