The difference a date makes

Another entry seems to have been eaten, which I put down to my perpetually disappearing Internet connection.

Well. Consultant visit this morning was with my own assigned consultant, who I have seen for precisely five minutes prior to today, all of which were on last Friday.

He reiterated the unlikelihood of the tumour thing they are testing for. I'm more relaxed about that anyway, in the extremely rare case of the condition, knowing about it is the key, managed it is not particularly dangerous.

I am not to be allowed home, despite begging and proclaiming that *this* does not help reduce my blood pressure. Nor do the drugs much actually. But that is another thing altogether. He said he would like to wait till 37 weeks and that I would have to stay here. I cried.

What the consultant did after speaking to me made everything better.

First of all he discharged the noisiest hypochondriac person in the world who was in the bed opposite, restoring peace and commencing the first of my complete change of room mates as they moved onwards to home or labour and new labouring/sickly ladies arrived throughout the day.

Then he returned to me to tell me that we would go for 36 weeks and subject to theatre availability, a section would be booked around that date.

A booking has now been made. For Friday. This Friday. 3 days away. 2 sleeps after tonight. My daughter will be here in less than 3 days and any guilt I feel at curtailing her gestation is assuaged by the belief that her and I are both at danger if we continue. As an incubator my usefulness is shortly to be finished and medical attention would be better provided out of me.

And 36 weeks is pretty much ok, especially for a girl.

I am now very excited and much less freaked out. I did the essentials (bottles, tiny baby size sleepsuits, cot mattress etc) shopping online today, hubby has many collections to make at the weekend as if all goes swimmingly we could feasibly be home on Monday. Woo!

I could still be ill, baby could need special care. We have no guarantees. We shall be optimistic today though.

Another day, another outlook altogether...

Emotions

Babies make me cry.

They don't usually, I recall being like this when I was close to having the boys. The sight of a newborn, especially if I see footage of it actually being born, has this bizarre response of being really tearful. I don't know if this is a result of a bonkers mix of hormones and tiredness, or if it's a overwhelming sense of OH MY GOD I'M HAVING ONE OF THOSE SOON!!!

Older babies I don't seem to have a problem with. Just teeny tiny ones. I'm sure I felt the same emotion when I saw my own newborns, but that was mixed in with unadulterated joy and relief as well as the tearfulness.

I may add that the tears aren't actually shed, they just threaten.

All my emotions are heightened, I'm quick to lose my temper, over worried about things and generally fretsome and grumpy.

Today's worry is down to a very obviously upset tummy. I don't think I've eaten anything potentially harmful, but there's always the worry. Or it could be a sign of impending labour too early. The Braxton Hicks are fairly frequent; each time I am now thinking, is it real? Could it be? It doss hurt a lot sometimes.

The lady from my online group who had her baby at 31+5 weeks had a condition called acute fatty liver of pregnancy, which sounds horrendous, and can only be cured by delivery. Poor soul has had this in all three of her pregnancies, which seems extraordinarily unfair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_fatty_liver_of_pregnancy

Point being, it wasn't a spontaneous labour. I seem to be in good health (although don't want to tempt fate) so early delivery shouldn't be required. Spontaneous early labour, well that's a whole different worry.

Hang on in little girl, a few more weeks yet.

And ow again

I was doing ok. This week the boys and I were only at school/work for three days and for those three days daddy took the boys up to school. I have walked only to work and back and all other journeying has been by car (I excuse myself, it hurts a lot). And my pelvis has been ok.

Today I didn't leave the house, but I did do rather a lot of bending and tidying and general getting up and down to do things and I am very, very sore. Which is a right pest.

I foolishly said "yes" when the class teacher asked me if I could help walk the kids up to the museum on Tuesday. Which is approximately three times as far as I am able. Walking is not my strong point, yet the words coming out of my mouth were "sure, count me in!" not "sorry, I can't help". So I'm going to have to send a note in to apologetically renege, and hide for the rest of the school year. It's only three weeks. And, of course, the subsequent 12 years that I will have children in that school. Hmm. I can't put myself in a position of pain just to be nice though.

Boy am I sore tonight. A bath is my only respite. I'm still ecstatic to manage baths however. Miracle baby.

On a happier note: today baby is viable, being as we are at 24 weeks. One of my many pregnancy updates said it was now trimester 3 but it's not. 3 lots of 12 weeks only adds up to 36 weeks. I'd guess it's 24 weeks after conception, so 26 weeks, or week 27 if you like, before we're actually into trimester número tre. Middle trimester still we are.

Not very viable, I think she would have a 10% chance of survival if she were to be born now, and some time to be spend in hospital. But she would have a chance of survival which is good to know.

I don't want her to come early. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to not be pregnant any more (and have her here to cuddle), but I don't want her to have to face problems from the start and have a long struggle with her in hospital. That must be diabolical. I want her to arrive on September 26 when they take her out at 39 weeks and 2 days.

Besides, I've got maternity leave to enjoy sans baby first, before I have the glorious long leave with baby.