34 weeks pregnant

Well, 34 weeks pregnant today and only a week until I finish work.

I had my midwife appointment today and all was fine – baby is still breech though so I need to get bouncing on my birthing ball, or, as midwife suggests: “going on all fours with your bum in the air”!! I go back at 36 weeks, and if little Madame is still breech I’ll be referred for a scan at Warrington. Hopefully she can “turn it around” before then, anyway.

I’m also thinking about starting on the raspberry leaf tea. Last time I didn’t start drinking it until about a week overdue – then I decided to guzzle it by the gallon load. Don’t know if it helped or not, but labour did start two days later. I’ve read a study which says that if you have one cup a day from 32 weeks it makes the second stage of labour shorter, which can surely be no bad thing. I wasn’t brave enough to try it as early as that, but now I’m 34 weeks I think I might give it a go.

I’ve also made the call to the hospital about seeing a Supervisor of Midwives re my VBAC plans. I spoke to somebody on the labour ward just now, and get the impression that, unless I’m a bit pushy, I might get fobbed off a bit. Being pushy isn’t really in my nature so I need to pull it out of myself a bit, I think.

In order to arm myself with everything I want to know, everything I want so say and what I want them to help me with, I’ve just been looking over my VBAC research, my draft birth plan and also re-reading Lilly’s birth story to work out what it is I do and don’t want this time.

(In a nutshell – last time there was an awful lot of intervention – waters broken without warning, blood taken from baby’s head, numerous attempts to put monitors on baby’s head, continuous monitoring and not much mobility because of suspected fetal distress, failure to progress, need to have c-section, failed epidural, general anaesthetic. Phew)

So, in order to get my head straight for when and if I finally get to talk to somebody who will help me agree a birth plan that I’m comfortable with, one which might actually lead me to have as good a chance as any to achieve a VBAC, here are the outpourings of my mind…

Things I did not like about last time:

•  Continous monitoring meaning I wasn’t very mobile, leading to failure to progress (which is what they are helpfully proposing for this time too)
• Waters being broken early, and with no warning that they were going to be broken (scary, unpleasant, no need)
• Gas & air not helping – perhaps I wasn’t doing it right? (Please god let it help this time!)
• Monitor being put on baby’s head – three failed attempts!! (painful, awful)
• All the checks for fetal distress (water’s clear, blood test from baby) came back clear, yet fetal distress was still assumed from the off. Why?
• Having an epidural put in – didn’t like the big needle – grumpy anaesthetist didn’t help – and he carried on even though I was having a contraction – which made me cry – and might have been one of the reasons why the epidural eventually failed
• Side effects of epidural – shivering, being sick. Will this happen again? What is the alternative, pain relief wise? Pethedine?
• Epidural not being able to be topped up when it came to c-section – leading to general anaesthetic instead. What are the alternatives? Spinal block?
• Being told that, once bloods have been taken from the baby’s head to check for distress, this has to be done every half an hour? (felt like a threat to make me agree to a section)

As a result of all the above, my birth plan so far reads as follows:

Birth plan for Baby No.2

•  My last labour resulted in an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic – something I am very keen to avoid this time.

 

•  I want to be kept informed of what is happening at every stage, and why it is happening

 

• I understand that labour is unpredictable but I would like as little intervention as possible in order to allow my labour to progress naturally. My aim is to achieve a VBAC and to avoid an emergency caesarean.

 

• If possible, I would like to wait until at least 7cm dilated before my waters are broken. If it is thought necessary for my waters to be broken, I want to be told about this IN ADVANCE and be told the reasons for it.

 

• I am open minded about having an epidural, if possible I want to wait until after 5cms dilation so as not to increase the risk of an emergency c-section

 

• I understand that fetal monitoring will need to be carried out, but I wish to remain as mobile as possible throughout labour, so would like this monitoring to be done intermittently, not continuously. I would like to avoid having a monitor attached to the baby’s head unless this is deemed a necessity for medial reasons.

 

I feel a bit like this birth plan is all negatives – basically DON’T ANYBODY TOUCH ME!!! LEAVE ME ALONE AND I’LL HAVE THIS BABY IF YOU DON’T MIND!!! But that’s the way I feel, a little bit.

My last birth plan reads like a fantasists list to Santa. The only things on there that happened was my request for Lilly to be given vitamin K by mouth (which was hospital policy anyway) and for Tony to be given the baby in the event of my needing a section under general anaesthetic. Whoop de Whoop.

Anyway, all this could be scuppered if Little Miss stays breech. And I know Tony is secretly hoping she does, because he thinks a planned section would be easier and less stressful. He does support me but I know he can’t really understand why I want to put myself through childbirth when I don’t really “have” to.

It feels good to write it all down. I just hope I can be as clear about what I want when this Supervisor of Midwives person calls me back. I don’t really want to be fighting these battles on the day I’m in labour.

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6 weeks pregnant – first visit to the midwife

Well, I’ve reached six weeks pregnant today and had my first appointment with a midwife.

This appointment was the booking in appointment with the midwife who visits my local GPs. It is a little bit complicated because the midwives who visit my local GPs serve Wigan hospital, not Warrington, where I am having my baby. So, basically, the midwife I see at my GP can’t really tell me anything specific about what really will happen – because procedures are different at the two hospitals. My actual booking-in appointment will take place at Warrington – more of that later.

Up here, we don’t necessarily see the same midwife each time, it’s just pot luck who you get. Today’s midwife was one who I saw while pregnant and in the weeks after having Lilly. She’s a bit brash, but I like her, she’s quite to-the-point and down to earth.

She wrote out a few notes and gave me some leaflets. Then she asked me about my last pregnancy. I told her – very straightforward, uncomplicated pregnancy and a birth that was anything but. 10 days overdue, over enthusiastic intervention by consultant, failed epidural, emergency c-section under general anaesthetic. I said I was keen to avoid that scenario again if at all possible!

Most of what she told me I already knew. That they’ll go back over my birth notes and see what the reasons for the c-section were, and if it was a straight forward failure to progress (rather than breech or other complication that is likely to recur) then they’ll be ok for me to go for a VBAC – vaginal birth after caesarian. That’s what I really want.

She asked me how far i’d manage to progress last time. I guessed about 5cm. She said this time I’d probably get to 5cm quite quickly, then after that it’d slow down and I’d labour like a first timer, which I knew.

She also said that the consultants would probably be a bit reluctant to induce me if I went over 14 days (which is the maximum time they’ll let you go overdue before an induction at Warrington, at Wigan it is 10 days apparently). This is because the induction process puts more intense pressure on the scar on your uterus. She said if it came to induction they might agree to a “half hearted” induction – one pessary to see if it worked on its own, otherwise they’d advise a section.

It’s a subject I need to do plenty or research on, and if anyone out there can tell me where I begin, that’d be brilliant!

I also asked the midwife today about some of the other things that i’ve been thinking about. One was will I do any harm to the baby by lifting and carrying Lilly, who weighs nearly 2 stone! She said it was just like exercise – if you’re a regular jogger before you got pregnant, you can usually just carry on. So that’s reassured me a bit. Besides, a friend of mine has just had a second baby (her first is a little younger than Lilly) and her partner was away in the Navy for most of her pregnancy, and she survived.

The other thing I asked her about was the swine flu jab. It gets rolled out to pregnant women next week and the Government are very keen to stress that pregnant women should have it. I’ve really already made up my mind about it – I want to have it - and I was only really wanting to ask her whether I had to book an appointment, or they’ll write to me. However, she thought I was asking her opinion and launched into a big rant about how she isn’t going to have it, it hasn’t been researched enough and she doesn’t care what management say! Something she did say though, which I suppose makes sense, is that by 12 weeks the baby is fully developed, and it might be best to wait until then. I checked with the receptionist on the way out and she said the jab is only being offered to pregnant women who are at least 13 weeks pregnant (so in second trimester) anyway.

So, there we have it, first midwife appointment. My next one is not until November 16, which is at Warrington. My 12 week scan is booked for 2 December, which can’t come soon enough. I’ve looked at the cost of private scans, and at Take A Peek in St Helens, where we had our 3d scan with Lilly, you can have a reassurance scan for £65. I think we’ll try and hold out though, it seems silly to pay for something which we’re going to get anyway a few weeks later. But we’ll see.

On another note – I am already showing!!! To me, it looks pretty obvious. If nobody has guessed at work yet, I’ll be insulted! Not sure how I can keep it under wraps til 12 weeks…. last time I kept it secret until five and half months!

And symptoms wise, I’m still the same. Nothing much to report. I get really tired around 2pm at work and just can’t find the energy or motivation to do anything. I think this might be a combination of pregnancy and caffeine withdrawral!

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