Braxton is a Hick

If Tricky was a library book, I'd have gotten a stern reminder letter and threat of a fine by now.

My Obstetrician doesn't think he is due until the 1^st of June, but I thought he was due on the 25^th of May because of a miscalculation when I first gave him all the information. It doesn't really matter anyway since such a small percentage of babies are born on their actual due date... apparently only 5%, with 75% coming after. That leaves 20% coming early, including all the premmies. So if we're going to place the safest bet, you'd chose after.

I had an appointment today to get checked out to see if anything was happening and without turning this in to the too much information super highway, I can tell you there is definitely some movement at the station. The OB in all his infinite wisdom assures me that it is “any day now”. Gee, thanks, I could have bloody told you that!

For the past three days I have had a strangely regular pattern of Braxton Hicks contractions. They come about five minutes apart, getting me to the point of thinking that this might actually be early labour when all of a sudden... nothing. They completely stop. It isn't strange to have BH contractions, or for them to be close together or for them to stop, the thing that is weird is that every time it happens it lasts for almost exactly five hours. Five hours on, five hours off. Does Tricky have access to a stopwatch that I'm not aware of? Perhaps he is doing a tally on the placenta like a convict carving the days on a cell wall?

Yesterday at the five hour mark they didn't stop so I emailed Hubby saying exactly what we had joked I would say: “I have no idea if this is the real thing, but I'm having contractions five minutes apart.” He left work within minutes but by the time he was home (under an hour later) they had stopped. They had been so strong and regular that we both thought I wouldn't make it to the OB appointment today, that instead I'd be seeing him in the birthing suite. Wrong again. Hurry up, Tricky! We just want to meet you!

So tonight I will go back to fondling the acupressure points that are meant to help dilate the cervix... I already have miniature bruises on the spots because I've been pressing them for a week. It is handy though because now Hubby and I can locate them without thinking!

Things that don't go bump in the night

It is hard not to go straight to panic mode when you realise you haven't felt your bub kick all day... this is what happened to us on Saturday

I had acupuncture in the morning and every other time Tricky has either gone completely mental during or immediately after the treatment and stayed really active for at least half an hour. After the session he hadn't moved and I thought nothing of it, assuming he was sound asleep (a Saturday morning sleep in, who could blame him?).

At 3pm when out with Hubby I mentioned in passing I couldn't feel him moving at all, but I still wasn't concerned, just very aware. A few times I thought it was him moving only to realise it was a small Braxton Hicks contraction.

I decided to have a bath at 7pm and if I laid really still and wrapped my arms around my belly I could feel the tiniest little movement, really similar to those first flutters – nothing like the footballer who had taken over my belly in the last two months. Where had my robust Tricky gone? By this point I was had passed being aware and had moved on to full blown concern – not panic, because after all, I could still feel him very slightly.

Hubby encouraged me to phone the midwives at the hospital, reminding me that we were told at antenatal classes to call for any reason and not to feel silly. But I still felt silly as I made the call... and then felt even worse when as soon as I introduced myself I burst in to tears!

My problem is I've never done this before – what is normal?! I've read the books so I know that foetal movement slows toward the end because they run out of room, but was it normal for him to go from being the number one draft pick one day to almost nothing the next? Surely it would be more gradual than that? The midwife, Louise, was fantastic and said we should just come in, have it all checked out on the monitor because then “you'll feel much better knowing he is fine”. She could not have used better words.

At the hospital Louise strapped me to a cardiotocography (CTG) machine which measured Tricky's heart rate and any contractions I was having. There is a speaker on there so you can hear the lovely swishy noise of the million miles an hour heartbeat. The standard monitoring is 20 minutes and in that time they like to see a good base heart rate (between 110-160 beats per minute) and two positive variations – meaning their heart rate spikes up twice as a result of their moving or a contraction. In the first 20 minutes Tricky's heart beat was nice and strong but only spiked once so they decided to go another round. Sure enough he decided to play along and his heart rate spiked again after I felt a small movement. Hooray!

The verdict? Louise and the other midwives think he's engaged (congratulations, Tricky – it's a lot earlier than I expected – oh wait, different type) and as a result can't squirm around as much as before. They figured this by having a bit of a feel around of my belly and because he didn't respond to the 'lemonade trick' where they try to give you and therefore the baby a sugar high by making you drink lemonade.

I like to find the silver lining in things that aren't the best. Not as a way to sugar-coat the sometimes negative or depressing parts of life, but as a way to remember that it is life after all and there are no guarantees. It might sound a bit stupid but the whole time that I've been saying that I'm having Braxton Hicks I actually had no idea if that was really what was happening... I was just going on what I'd read. I could very well have been feeling indigestion for all I know! But there it was in black and white on the machine print out – I was having small contractions (silver coloured ones). So now that it's confirmed that those feelings were what I thought they were, I'm no longer concerned that I will not realise I'm in labour – even after everyone telling me YOU WILL KNOW!

Did you have any dramas with your pregnancies? How did you manage to stay calm and not think about the worst case scenario?

A big FAT mind your own business!

Today I was at my local shopping centre, minding my own business doing my famous duck impersonation (waddling) from one end of the place to the other when I passed one of those temporary stalls in the mall. Actually passing it would have been fine – I tried to, you see, but a man from the stall stood in front of me so that I would have to stop... now I don't like being accosted at the best of times, let alone when I'm 700 weeks pregnant with a dodgy hip that decided today was the day to up the ante in the pain stakes. If you are a mall-seller feel free to offer me a sample, ask if I'm interested or try to wave me over – but if I say no or shake my head politely and you decide to BLOCK MY PATH, you better watch it. I chose to remain calm and gave him a very obviously fake smile, hoping he would see that behind the lip gloss were fangs that could cause him irreparable damage.

He introduced himself to me as Eric and tried to sell me a weigh loss challenge (yes, on the brochure he forgot the 'T' in weight and we all know how much I hate bad spelling – is the spell-check button so hard to find?). For only $49 I could get eight weeks of one on one coaching, a support group and advice on nutrition and food choices that would help me through the pregnancy... when I pointed out I had only four days to go until D-Day (my bump was quite compact this morning) he said “Well it is great for after baby to get rid of all the fat” and started rabbiting on about how his 'ex' struggled with post-baby weight loss and blah blah blah, I stopped paying attention at this point.

I haven't even had the kid yet and already I'm being told I have a time limit to lose the baby weight! At my obstetrician appointment today I was weighed and I have put on 13kg since becoming pregnant – within the normal range, and I was an average size 12-14 before that (I may only have two pairs of pants that actually say size 12 but dammit, it counts!). So lovely Eric, with no idea about my personal history has decided that I need help to shed the kilos. Gee, thanks. I feel so warm and fuzzy inside knowing that you care. If Eric had been a buff guy then his words might have carried a bit more weight (possibly around the bum, maybe the thighs), but instead his gut size rivalled mine – I have a BABY in there, Eric, what's your excuse? Aww a cute little beer baby? What will you call it? Carona if it's a girl or TED if it's a boy, how sweet.

I declined (very politely although my teeth may have been clenched slightly) when Eric offered to start my program right there and then. Without missing a beat he asked for my details so he could call me in a few weeks time to get me started on my very own 'Biggest Loser' challenge (and I really doubt he has permission to use that particular copyrighted catch phrase). I said I'd pass for now and concentrate on just having the kid. He was disappointed to not get a sale (maybe my fake smile was too genuine looking?) and ended with “Good luck, I hope everything goes well. I'd love to know what sex you have” which for a millisecond had me thinking not only was he a beer-bellied path blocker who said I was fat, but that he was also a pervert... hey, you never know with these mall sellers.

Did you feel the pressure to lose the baby weight?

Sweeps

Some people celebrate the birth of a child with cigars, champagne, presents, investment portfolios or sports club memberships... we are celebrating Tricky's imminent arrival with a spot of light gambling.

The rules for the sweepstakes are pretty simple: pick a date, pick a weight, pay $5 and sit back and wait to see if you get the cash – winner takes all and it's almost $150! To make sure everyone had a fair chance of winning they were told my actual due date and the date that my obstetrician wouldn't let me go past without being induced. If two people had the same date then it would go to the weight with the person closest without going over being the winner – it's just like being on the Price is Right except that Larry Emdur is replaced by Hubby's mate, Neil.

The dates picked span a massive 22 days – starting with Aunty Penny's pick on the 17^th of May (guess she didn't win since I'm sitting here with a belly full of baby still). She thought Tricky would take after me and be a week early, but he seems pretty happy swimming around in goo at the moment. For $150 I'm considering picking a date no one else has chosen (funnily enough, my official due date) and booking in for an induction!

I'm very ready for him to arrive. Even though it means actually having to go through the birth process - which is understandably a little daunting - it also means an end to the constant heartburn, the dodgy hip and top of Hubby's list... an end (or at least reduction) in the snoring! By day I'm your average, waddling preggo, but by night, watch out – I'm a chainsaw! It's similar to turning in to a werewolf, except I don't tear you limb from limb... I make you want to do it to yourself.

So for now I'll continue drinking my raspberry leaf tea and attending my pre-birth acupuncture and yoga sessions to get my body ready... and just wait.

Did your bub come on time?

Lacking wisdom

Whilst eating my lunch today I noticed that one of teeth felt a little sharp when I touched it with my tongue. So I did what any normal, non-dentist person would do – I shoved my finger back there to see what I could find. What I found was slightly disturbing – half my tooth was missing! When did this happen? There was no pain, so I don't know if it broke during lunch or weeks ago.

Of course I went straight to worse case scenario and figured that my tooth would need to be taken out without any anaesthetic due to being pregnant. Before anaesthetic you could take a swig of rum to numb the pain, but oh no, no such substances can touch this sacred vessel. A quick internet search (thank you, Google) and a call to my obstetrician's office to confirm, I found out you can have a local anaesthetic, which surprised me because you can't take plain old over the counter ibuprofen.

One phone call later and I had an appointment for 3pm down the road with a dentist I'd never met before. I was a little bit scared but figured since the tooth didn't hurt yet, I'd probably be able to wait a few weeks until Tricky is born and then go back to have the tooth taken out while under the influence of some hard core dental drugs.

I sat in the chair, pretending that I wasn't scared and the dentist, Steven, informed me that yes, my tooth had broken but luckily it was one of my wisdom teeth so it didn't need to be saved, he could just extract it. As lovely as he was I wanted to tell him that no matter how pretty he made it sound with words like 'extract' and 'remove' all I could hear was “I will GOUGE open your gums and YANK out this tooth whilst laughing at your PAIN”. He did make me feel better by telling me it wasn't my fault that the tooth had gone bad, the way it was shaped meant a toothbrush could never reach it. I bet he says that to all the heavily pregnant women though.

So I had a decision to make. Get it 'extracted' right then or leave it and wait for it to start hurting before I came back. I figured I might be really busy in a few weeks, what with an infant an all, so I decided to go ahead with it. The tooth was history.

I was draped in a very glamorous lead apron for a quick x-ray then numbed up and Steven got to work on my dodgy tooth. But that sucker just would not budge - it took 45 minutes of yanking to get it out, luckily all in one piece. By the end of it all I'd been in the chair for just over an hour and even though I wasn't in any pain I'd managed to carve half moon shapes in the palms of my hands with my fingernails, just from the tension of having to sit there. At the end he told they normally schedule a check up appointment for ten days after a wisdom tooth removal to make sure that everything is healing up properly but because my 'delicate condition' meant I couldn't be sure just how available I'd be, they'd call me at the seven day mark just to see what I wanted to do. But then it got even better, because Steven said that if I'd had the baby and was worried about my tooth (or lack there of) he would COME TO ME to check it out. How nice is that?! I have never heard of a dentist making house calls before.

The anaesthetic has worn off now and it's no where near as bad as I thought it would be. I'm left with a dull ache, a massive hole in my gum and my tooth in a little plastic bag. If I leave under my pillow I wonder if I'll get any money?