Well, I've been meaning to post for a while but between work and getting ready for baby, there hasn't been much energy left to do so. This one's just a quick miscellaneous entry to catch up and I hope to begin posting a bit more reliably once I take annual leave in a couple weeks.
Baby and me: According to the books, baby weighs approximately 4lbs this week and is roughly the size of a pineapple. She's a very active little girl, her busiest periods being at breakfast, lunch, late evening and around 2/3 am.
Symptoms now I'm officially into third trimester include mainly tiredness and breathlessness as baby gets bigger and puts more strain on my body; and I'm peeing a bit more often, though it doesn't really affect day to day life so much at this stage. In the last couple weeks, I've been getting some form of acid reflux. I'm hesitant to call it heartburn, since I only really feel it in my throat, it seems to be at it's worst if I've been for more than 3 hours without eating and it is aggravated by dairy (as I found out when trying to ease it with a milk and honey remedy) At the moment I'm having some success in easing it with peppermint tea.
Parentcraft Class: Birth In October, we attended the first of our parentcraft classes; and in the two hour session on birth, we covered quite a lot of ground. This session was an open class led by our midwife and we were apparently a larger audience than she was used to - about twenty of us in all, mostly couples. The class covered early signs of labour, when to call the midwife/go to the hospital, the process of labour (with some rather amusing props) birthing positions and a discussion on common forms of pain relief.
We were a little disappointed that this was only a two hour session instead of the multi-week course they used to run, feeling we could have benefitted from separate sessions on the various topics covered (as always with the NHS, it came down to funding) but on the whole, we found it to be a positive experience. We went at a pace that covered everything neatly within the session's allotted time with most questions getting answered or referred to an appropriate and accessible source. We liked that time was taken to explain the birthing partner's role and techniques they could use to help at different stages of labour. It was especially comforting to hear the midwife offer honest accounts of her own labour and the experiences she had in supporting other women during theirs.
Bump Band: As my belly finally started to expand (the waistline still oddly narrow in proportion) I took the time to hunt around in town for a support band that would bridge the widening gap between the waistband of my trousers and the hem of my shirt (because I'm far too hot most days to dig out the winter wardrobe) What I hadn't counted on were two things:
1: There are no mother and baby shops in the city centre. You have to drive (or in our case, take the bus) to a shopping mall miles out from the city centre to find so much as a Mothercare. The alternatives for those of us who don't have all day to jump from pillar to post are either go online or hope they carry what you're after in Boots or the maternity corner of one of the department stores (yes, corner. Apparently, it's not worth a full department any more)
2. My size is apparently not big enough to be expected to need a support band. Everywhere I looked, I could find nothing for the smaller bump.
It took three stores and five staff members to eventually find something in my size.
No comments:
Post a Comment