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Thursday 6 November 2014

Pregnant ramblings

Still totally flummoxed on the naming debacle after people have been posting our "already named" child's name all over Facebook. This is not the first time, it started months ago. I managed to get over it the first time. Ugh. People are the worst. I thought up a new name that I like last night but the BFG nixed it - apparently a kid with that name bullied him and sat on him when he was little. Ouch. It's so tricky when you have an association with a name to avoid thinking about it. I have rejected many names because of people I know or knew with the name. Basically our child is going to be called Bob, which is our default name for everything, because we are so stumped on names.

On a positive note, I am loving our antenatal classes. The lady taking the class is a third generation midwife. She was born at home with her gran as midwife and has been attending births since she was little. I love how pragmatic she is. This is a class for people who want to attempt vaginal delivery and she is obviously giving us as much advice on the matter as possible, but she is not one of those militant natural birth advocates. Some people feel that we should not even be told about pain options or the fact that birth is even painful at all. Apparently even saying that it will be painful is causing it to be painful. If you say it is uncomfortable then the idea of the pain supposedly goes away... please, spare me this. I know I personally am going to feel some pain. And that is fine. I am guessing there are some women who do not feel pain during labour and that is wonderful. But I think that most of us are going to have to face the pain but accept it and not be scared, you know? So yes, our midwife explained all the pain management options to us and when they are likely to be appropriate or innapropriate depending on how labour is unfolding. There are some cases in which an epidural is very appropriate. I appreciate her honesty and I appreciate that she is removing the guilt some women will feel if they end up having one despite their best intentions.

I am hoping to avoid one for reasons pertaining to my messed up back. I have a scoliosis and apparently it is harder to insert one in a skew back, but I also have a damaged back and epidurals can cause permanent back pain in a few unlucky people. Also I react badly to anaesthetic and it scares me because of that. All that said though, if the time comes and I really feel I need one I am sure I will not hesitate! I am not trying to be a hero. Just so scared of operations. Ridiculously scared. Like when the baby was breech every time I tried to mentally prepare myself for a C-section or read up on how to recover from one I would panic and just shut the idea down. I know I should try to prepare myself in case Squirmy (this could be his name?) decides to flip again. But I just can't really bear to think about it. I am such a ninny. Please don't flip, Squirmy.

The midwife also showed us a birthing video. Again I am impressed by her pragmatism. I have watched tons of episodes of the UK version of One Born Every Minute so I though I was totally prepared for the whole birth thing, but the video she showed us made labour look HARD. The lady had no pain meds other than the laughing gas and she had a short active labour of about 4 hours before the baby was born, but she was suffering. She was in a lot of pain. They don't usually look so scared and sore in One Born Every Minute! I am wondering how much they edit out?? But again the midwife emphasised that this was an example of a good birth. She had no complications, and her pain and discomfort never got to the point that she needed anything more than the gas and air. So we should be accepting that that is how a good unmedicated birth looks like.

Eep.

P.S. will be 33 weeks tomorrow. Cannot believe how huge my belly is. It just feels like a giant bag. I could actually feel it growing! At the beginning of the week all of a sudden my skin got tighter and thinner around the belly and I knew I had grown. So weird. Now the skin is a bit looser again. Ugh. I am so scared to see how this stomach will look after birth and how the heck I will ever restore these stomach muscles. For vanity purposes of course, but also, my back needs tight stomach muscles, it cannot hold itself up without them.

Eeep.

2 comments:

Damaria Senne said...

Hey. I'm glad to be back again. I can see I missed A LOT - including the fact that you're preggers. Congratulations.

Squirmy Bob, or just Bob for short, sounds is an interesting a default name:)

po said...

Hey Damaria, so good to hear from you! You have been dealing with things far more important than blogging these last few months. I am just so happy to hear from you :)

We have named numerous cacti and pets Bob over the years, we may end up naming our first human Bob too. Ha, not really, but I am really sad about the way my name choosing has been treated by other people.