much better, thank you

Much more sleep was had last night. And I'm feeling much better, too. Thank God it was hyper-acute.

And thank God for breast pumps.

"Baby Blues" My ARSE- notes from the pit of despair.

No-one can prepare you for how you will feel, but I want to try. I also want to write this all down, for the same reasons I made a blog about my miscarriages in the first place.

Calling it the 'baby blues' makes it sound quaint and twee, like a minor 'whoopsie', a trivial matter. Well, it's not. It's fucking horrible, and I'm in the depths of it.

I don't know about anyone else, but like about 20% of the population, I've been depressed enough in the past to be medicated. Not hospitalised, mind, but enough to be familiar with neurochemistry. If you have, too, you'll know just how *bad* that feels.

Well imagine nearly your worst point of depression. The nadir of your self-worth and experience of life, and just to the left or right of that. (ok, to be frank, just short of suicidal). Now, imagine that developing, literally, overnight. In 12 hours I went from "yeah, I need some food and I have a headache, but otherwise, wow, I just had my baby" to "I am the most incompetent woman unlucky enough to conceive".

Themes that repeat themselves at 2am
- there was a reason I had all those miscarriages- someone *was* trying to tell me something: I'm not meant to be a mother.
- I'm so useless I can't even breastfeed properly. What would I do in the third world?
- I'm not worthy of this baby. Some other subfertile/infertile should have been blessed with my luck. I don't deserve him.
- my idiot, freak-show, cartoon-sized boobs are so ridiculous. I am so huge. And they're so enormous, I can't feed him (the big boob paradox) [God knows what size they are now- my E-cup bra is at least 3 sizes too small]

and, at the worst (it makes me cry to even think that I think this)
- I wish I had miscarried at 15 weeks
- I resent P for even existing
(but at the same time I'd like to stress I would NEVER, EVER harm him)
And immediately I have these thoughts I hate myself even more for having had them, deepening my feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy.

I find myself just wanting to disappear, to drive off into the night. But I also want to make sure P is ok. Deep down I know this is completely irrational, but last night I found myself wondering if there was anyone actually living at the convent around the corner: "foundling" has such a wistful sound.

I know from other episodes of depression that "it will get better, it always does" (if that sounds like a mantra, well, there's a reason for that). But right now, I don't ...feel... that. Intellectually, I know it, but you know, *knowing* it is different.

I can write all this now, though, and just the process is making me feel better. Or can I write because I feel better? In the end it's immaterial.

baby blues

Women of the blogosphere, enjoy the last weeks of your pregnancy. Now that Baby P is here, I miss my belly. I miss patting it and rubbing it, and in a strange way, I feel kind of 'empty', like a shell. Although I can now see him and hold him whenever I want, there is such a special bond when your baby is inside of you, growing. Enjoy it as much as you can; as a pregnant woman you are a special being, a glowing, mystical beautiful thing. A new mum is just another mum.

Right now, I'd take my SI joint pain, my symphysis pubis pain, the breathlessness, waddling, carpal tunnel, trigger fingers, reflux, lethargy, sleeping interrupted by weeing over my case of the 'baby blues' any day.

Oh wow

Baby boy born thursday 22nd feb after 17hour labour, and a dural puncture! More to follow when i get home (blogging from phone almost as frustrating as breastfeeding).

"double clicking your mouse"

I'm taking a huge risk writing this post, because my mum is about 5 metres away from me sitting on the deck. I'm soooooo busted if she walks in, right now. But this is a subject close to my, well, umm....

If you Google "Pregnant Masturbation" you actually don't just get porn, but do actually get "Is it safe to...?" type Q and A.

But no-one else has actually said how, ahh, difficult it is.

Not that I have much of a libido anymore; maybe if I did I would have realised a little sooner, or gradually, that, well, things are kind of out of reach. How do you get past that belly bulge exactly? Maybe just having a partner who is not on either nights or evenings would help. Or bad carpal tunnel.

The scariest thing: I thought up this post as I was sitting through our department's morning meeting. On quality indicators in Anaesthesia. On the other hand, maybe that's not so suprising after all....

My belly at 37+3

I only really have stretch marks on this side because this is where most of the kicks have been!

The Adventures of Heavily Pregnant Woman

0130: Get up, have a pee
0330: Get up, have a pee
0530: Get up, have a pee
0545: Listen to husband getting up to go to work
0630: Get up, have a pee
0700: Get up, have a pee, put on swimmers
0730: let cat out for pee. Drive to swimming pool. Say hi to little old ladies. Have a pee.
0745: Do 1500m swim. Get out. Have a pee and a shower.
0900: Get home, let cat in, have a pee. Have breakfast. Have a pee.
1000: Have a pee. Check email.
1100: Have a pee. Try to do online education and discover College still hasn't sent out password to log onto modules. Get so upset that get urge to pee.
1130- oh, around 2-ish: Listen to podcasts and sew. Pee. Lunch. Pee.
1400-ish. Pee. Nap.
1500. Pee. Get the guilts about having done nothing all day. Write 'to do' lists. Realise have only 10 days before due date. Hyperventilate. Pee.
1600. Pee. Walk to supermarket for dinner ingredients. Come home. Pee.
1700: Watch trashy game shows and figure if game show host is actually a lawyer, I can aspire to be a travel show reporter. Realise I can't be a travel show reporter and mum of a neonate. Cogitate on all the things I can't do now a mum. Wonder how two year old would cope with Annapurna circuit walk. Or maybe just, y'know, the Kepler Track. Or strapped to a sea kayak. Pee.
1800: Watch trashy 'current affairs' shows (*sure* the lady taking the polygraph has *no* bad feelings towards Schapelle Corby). Think about wasted day. Pee.
1800-1930: Wait for phone call from husband to say he's on his way home from work. Pee. Make dinner listening to podcasts.
1900-2030: Husband gets home, goes for swim. Pee.
2030-2130: Eat dinner. Pee
2200-2330: Get into bed. Get out of bed, and go pee. Get back into bed. Read chapter of book until eyes close. Start to nod off. Need to *&^%ing pee. Pee. Sleep.

Riveting, isn't it.

38+1

My obstetrician said to me this morning "You're looking very pregnant there". I thought,"Well, derr fred..."

The lady in the chemist (I NEED lip balm) didn't think I looked that pregnant; that's because Raby's head has dropped even further in my pelvis (my fundal height has dropped another centimetre- ahhh, I can breathe again...). If you look, now when I walk my bump follows my pelvis whilst my top half swivels the other way. It looks very odd!

So now I have officially less than 2 weeks to go. (My scan this morning shows everything is looking 'right on time'). I am resolving to look as pregnant, waddle, sigh and hold my back (I can't really grab my symphysis pubis in public) as I can, and do as much as I can that I won't be able to in a few weeks (like going out to a matinee). I'm going into full 'embrace the goddess of fertility' mode, because I don't know how much longer I will be able to, nor if I ever will again. That's a really sad thought.

I am the Worry champion of the world!

I am a mass of worries.

Last night I was woken up by some amazingly painful stomach cramps. I've got a bit of the irritable bowel, so I'm used to having bad 'wind pain' but this was something else: I mean, it's never woken me up before. I lay there in bed feeling my tummy and thinking, well, maybe this is actually labour. But my uterus wasn't tightening like with Barxton Hicks. About an hour later, I woke up and have basically had bad diarrhoea ever since.

Now I'm worried this is going to bring on early labour (although at 37+6 it's hardly premature!).

I'm worried that this would mean the in-laws would have time to come and see the baby (like they have been threatening to do) before they jet off to Tassie (God alone knows that it's way too far to fly from, say Hobart to Sydney, on a 90 minute direct domestic flight, the type you can get on sale for, say, $99 to come and see your new grandbaby once you have flown from Canberra to Hobart... I will never understand these people and how their son turned out so normally).

Yesterday I was worried because a class from the special school crossed the road at the same time as me and I looked at a young woman (probably 17 or 18) laying in her wheelchair with flexion deformities and a bib and thought: maybe an elective cesar is the way to go... even though I know intellectually that cerebral palsy is most often caused by repeated hypoxic in-utero events than a single episode of bradycardia during labour. Then I worry about all the times early in the pregnancy when I was so convinced that it too was doomed to miscarry (and at an 80% likelihood, not without reason) and I kept excercising until I was wheezing, and worry if these were enough hypoxic episodes.

I have bought birthday presents for my neice and nephew, and I'm worried they won't be 'right'...

I'm worried about what I'll do with mum when she comes to stay (although she's bringing her !!lawn bowls!! and plans to go visiting the local clubs).

I'm worried about just how much more weight I'm going to put on.

I'm worried that the horrible carpal tunnel won't go away post-partum

I'm worried about the part two exam and my inability to get my shit together re: module 2 and the formal project

See...