Babies, definitely not for the faint hearted!

All comical musings of excess hair growth aside, week 17 turned out to be quite harrowing and in no way helped my cause when it comes to eliminating grey hairs. As it turns out, I think I learned the direct correlation between blood pressure and stressful situations this week from personal experience.

With Monday came my midwife appointment at the clinic where I waited for half an hour after my appointment time to be seen by yet another new face and asked all of the exact same questions I was asked the previous week. Sigh! No I have not started smoking , changed my diet, gotten taller or become an alcoholic in the past seven days. Better ask me again next time though, in case I succumb to a life of vices in the next seven days.

Measurements were good, babies heart rate was strong and I managed to survive the entire appointment without turning into a feral four year old and having a tantrum on the floor of the consultation room. Barely.

The rest of the week went by without too much drama apart from business drama in regards to clients suddenly all forgetting to pay us…at the same time…and a particularly interesting smelling customer that had me revisiting my close bond with the porcelain bowl after she had left. I have said it before and I will say it again. Deodorant is not a luxury item, it is a god damn public service people. Get it on ya!

Thursday night came along and husband had a couple of big jobs to finish worth some big dollars when they were collected on Friday. I set him up for the night at his work bench with drinks and snacks and off I went home to cook dinner and look after our daughter. I was feeling fine, things were on track and silly me, I thought they were going to stay that way.

Midnight , right on the dot, I am sitting on my bed watching tv while my daughter slept next to me and I felt something odd down below. Off to the toilet I go, only to find when I stand up that my pyjama bottoms now look like they have been involved in a chainsaw massacre. I was sure they were blue when I put them on. Now they are red. Well actually, now they are in the bin. There was no saving them.

Freaking out is not a term that adequately describes what I felt at that moment, seeing so much blood at a time in pregnancy where you well and truly do not expect to see it. I bled a lot when I was pregnant with my daughter but never after 12 weeks. I remembered every time I rushed to the hospital feeling like I would bleed to death being told that there was nothing they could do , i was better off to go home and miscarry there.

Naturally, my first instinct was to go but not wanting to feel that sting of rejection for both myself and my baby I decided to call the maternity ward first. Seems 17 weeks deserves a little more attention and I was told to come straight up.

The rest of the night was a blur of blood tests, iv’s and the most excruciating pelvic exam in the history of the procedure. I kept a brave face. I had to. My daughter and husband were waiting just outside the curtain. The non sound proof curtain. The only evidence of my plight was the sky rocketing blood pressure and heart rate on the monitor and the cold sweat I was drenched in. Talk about stoic. I even managed to crack a few jokes during the ordeal so that my husband would think nothing serious was happening at that time. Whilst I was waxing lyrical about random subjects the nurse chuckled and the obstetrician used forceps to pull large blood clots from the surface of my cervix. Fun on a bun!

Another midwife arrived to listen for the babies heartbeat. We listened. And listened. And we got nothing. Looks were exchanged, brows were furrowed with worry and the midwife even tried to pass my own heart beat off as the babies to make me feel better but we all knew, myself included that this was not a good sign.

The obstetrician then had a conversation with me in a low voice, with a sympathetic hand on my shoulder that involved the word miscarriage more time than I care to count. He tip toed around the word, almost using only a whisper whenever he had to say it just in case I turned into a basket case at the mere mention of what we all knew could very well be the reality at this stage. My reality!

Then the worst part. I had to wait until 11:30 the next morning to have an ultrasound. That was nine hours away. That was cruel and unusual punishment. My husband and I barely spoke. The next morning we both went to work, as usual. Set up shop as usual. Just pretty much business…as usual until 11am when I quietly said goodbye and went off to the hospital.

My words to a friend , “it is what it is”. What could I do? I could not get caught up in a game of what if and if only. It helps nobody. I had to stay level headed. I could fall apart later.

My appointment time came and went and my bladder was full to bursting. Every woman in that waiting area did the same awkward little shuffle to her seat, the same little side to side shift and the cross / uncross of legs. Silently we suffered until I was the last one in the waiting room and I could suffer no more. There should be a law against keeping a pregnant woman waiting past the time of her ultrasound appointment. In fact when all is said and done i might make that my new crusade. Because you know, It is not like I don’t have enough on my plate right now.

There are no words to describe that rush of relief when that ultrasound shows a healthy baby, a healthy heartbeat and you realise you haven’t lost it. It is an experience I have now had twice in my life and it always takes your breath away. There was baby, kicking away. The sonographer said that my placenta was lying over the cervix which was more than likely the cause of the bleed but other than that the baby was normal and right on track.

So now, in order for me to successfully avoid another c-section, my disobedient placenta has until 32 weeks to move its ass upwards and out of the way. I had a feeling I was getting out of things too easily this time round. But all is well for now. I am taking it easy, no heavy lifting and I am going to have relax my standards about house tidiness but it will be worthwhile in the long run.

For now, here is the latest pic of the baby Sasquatch.

Girl? Boy? Or…Sasquatch???

The general consensus between my family and friends seems to be that I am having a boy this time. I have to say that I am inclined to agree even though it actually goes against what I thought was my destiny but I will explain about that in a moment.

Many reasons have been given behind their pick of sex ranging from gut feelings, the way I am carrying to the sheer fact that this pregnancy has been so drastically different from my last. I hate to tell them but it could go either way, I mean, the odds are fifty percent it is one or the other right?

At the risk of sounding a bit flaky I went to see a medium once and she told me quite certainly that I would have two babies without the need for fertility treatment. They would both be girls and the first one would be within the next 12 months. After ten years of no baby I thought, yeah whatever but then along came Daughter number one right on schedule. I became convinced that she was right about everything but I guess our destiny is constantly changing to stay in line with free will and the decisions we make in life.

The reason why I am starting to lean towards maybe carrying a boy is because of the sheer amount of hair that I am currently growing. For that reason, I must apologise that it has been so long between blogs. My daily tweezing, waxing and plucking rituals have gotten way out of hand and it is taking up way more of my spare time than I care to donate.

The PCOS has always kept things interesting when it comes to black, fast growing hair in weird and unwelcome places but this is a whole new species of animal right here. My expanding stomach has developed the loveliest black snail trail. Inch long, straight, thick and black. The very same kind of snail trail that might be coveted by some men with washboard abs. The problem here is that I am not a man and I most definitely do not have washboard abs!

My husband and I were spending a rare moment lying in bed together the other morning when he began to stroke my lower back. With his usual lack of discretion, diplomacy or even self preservation he asked me if pregnancy makes you grow more hair. I raised an eyebrow and told him that sometimes it did, why did he ask? I then proceeded to warn him to think through his answer very carefully before delivering it lest he experience what happened the last time he referred to me as ” preggo” . Needless to say, the bruises from that little slip up are still fading.

He had asked me because apparently I have a patch of hair growing on my lower back now that could sustain its own ecosystem and may explain why I have been feeling warmer than usual lately. The logistics of waxing, plucking or even threading my own lower back started to do my head in but there sure as hell was no way that I was going to go anywhere publicly to have it done. I decided that it would stay and I would try hard to embrace my inner wolf man.

In a rare show of speed and accuracy, I answered my husbands question and statement about my current rate of hair growth with a swift elbow to the exact same region where his bruise was from the last episode of ” how to piss off your pregnant wife in ten seconds or less”

I feel compelled to say that In no way do i encourage domestic violence but seriously people, who in their right mind calls a pregnant and dangerously hormonally imbalanced woman “preggo” and “hairy” ?

A dead man walking, that’s who!

For now, the question will remain. Does this excess hair growth signal the arrival of a baby boy? Am I just getting hairier with age? Or am I giving birth to the worlds first Sasquatch baby to be born in captivity? Only the 20 week scan will reveal the answer. Perhaps.

Until then……happy waxing.

Ageing gracefully? …..not on your nelly!

I heard the alarm go off this morning and knew that I should get up. I really should wash, dry and straighten my hair, apply a respectable amount of makeup and in general, just try to make myself presentable for the workday ahead. If this was going to have even the slightest chance of happening, I had to get up now. Right bloody now.

My four year old had crawled into bed with me last night and was sleeping peacefully next to me. I didn’t want to get up. I just wanted to cuddle her and lay in bed until oh, say…noon, watching cartoons and eating toast in bed. But no, I had to get up now.

I looked at the wardrobe door. Behind its mirrored surface was the dryer, straightener and ever growing collection of cosmetics. Grrrr, I really had to get up right now. For a moment, in my head, I reverted to a five year old. ” but I don’t wanna get up, I’m still sleepy” I said to myself in my best childish whiny voice.

Childish whiny voice won the battle, I rolled over and cuddled my daughter for another five minutes. Of course before I knew it I was dozing and five minutes turned into half an hour and all hopes of makeup and sleek glossy hair went out the window. When I finally got up, I had accepted that teeth brushing, hair brushed and swept away with head band and deodorant were about all I could hope for now.

Husband was already in the shower as I stumbled into the bathroom. Our bathroom is unfashionably small and impractical and it is turning out to be a hazardous place for my increasingly pregnant frame. I stumble into walls, knock things off of the tiny, narrow shelves and just generally create havoc while I am in there.

This morning, whilst plucking a surprisingly black, thick hair that had cropped up overnight from my chin ( thanks PCOS) I noticed the sun glinting off of something on the top of my head. I leaned in closer for a look. This resulted in me knocking over and potentially destroying my electric toothbrush and nearly spilling a whole bottle of eye makeup remover.

I leaned in further. What did I find? A freaking grey hair. Pointing loudly and proudly straight up from my head. Gleaming in the sun like a beacon to guide lost seafarers back to shore. I slammed open the shower door. I possibly broke shower door in the process but to hell with that, there were more pressing matter at hand here.

” what colour is this hair” I demanded in a voice a little to high pitched and panicky for my liking.
” ummm, it’s grey, sorry Hun ”

It took me less than a second to pull that bitch out and I had to restrain myself from combing through every individual strand looking for its partners in crime. I still had a child to dress, teeth to brush and now it was more important then ever that my hair be hidden underneath a head band.

As I stormed off to the bedroom, I pondered my old fading stretch marks from my first pregnancy and the ability of the new stretch marks to begin to form even though it would have seemed there was no room for more. I thought about the patches of delightfully dimpled cellulite that this pregnancy has brought to the backs of my thighs.

Today I literally feel like I am deteriorating at a rapid pace. I am still a sensible person and have no intention of running off and having various plastic surgery procedures that will result in me looking like a really badly made up drag queen ( cue pic of Pamela Anderson ) but I am definitely not going down without a fight.

Needless to say, I found time for makeup this morning. The fate of the entire western world depended on it.

Does anyone know CPR? Resuscitating the healthcare system.

I have not ever seen an advertisement for a job vacancy within our local public hospital system. However, after my visit today I imagine it would look a little something like this……

Job Vacancy
Medical Receptionist
Bendigo Health

Must have relevant medical experience and be able to demonstrate complete and utter disinterest in all patients.

The ability to be rude to even the nicest of patient will be viewed favourably.

Please send resume and three references from people you have been recently rude to within the last fortnight to the manager.

………………………………

As you may have gathered, I have just returned from my booking in appointment. Yes folks, my time has come once again to make my way through the maternity maze and hopefully come out the other side in one piece, physically at least. Mentally may be a different thing all together.

The midwives were nice. The clinic ones always are. Somehow they never seem to be the same ones you get on the ward though. I did require some extra blood tests that my GP forgot about so off I went in search of the new pathology place. It would have been nice if someone had told me that the hospital pathology department now only caters to emergent patients or patients on a Saturday morning. For everyone else you now have to walk outside of the hospital and about five minutes down the road to an inconspicuous looking building situated in a very strange spot.

I found it, eventually, after much walking around like a doofus. I entered and looked upon a room full of people sitting quietly and no reception desk. I looked again. Nope, still no reception desk. After a minute or two of looking like more of a doofus, an elderly gentleman pointed to a small table hidden over in a corner. Apparently you just take a number and sit down. Eventually a blood letter will materialise and call your number. I was number 17. I think I just felt the day get longer.

After the blood letting I then had to make my way a little further up the road to radiology to make my 19 week scan appointment. Upon entering and presenting my referral I was told that they did not handle the obstetric scans here and that I had to go back to the hospital. Grrrrrrrrr. I think I may have audibly growled at that point.

It was now 11am and 2 hours had passed since my 9am appointment. I was getting hot, flustered and of course, now I had to pee as if civilisation itself depended on it. Deep breath. Onwards towards the “other” radiology. Which just so happened to be across the road, up a steep hill and around the other side of the hospital.

I walked through no less than ten people standing in the entrance way to the radiology smoking their cigarettes and wondered if I should go back to maternity and update my details about my smoking status as I now felt like I had just chugged down a whole packet myself. Of course, there was a line. I lined up, I waited.

Once I was seen by reception I presented my referral once again and was cut off mid sentence and told to go around the corner to desk number four. Okey dokey then, around the corner I go to find desk number four in complete darkness. Back around to the front and on the end of the line once more. I felt like a kid in that South Park episode where they go to a theme park and line up for. Ride that turns out to be just another line. After all, it is not a true theme park experience without the lining up and waiting is it!

Once I made my way to the front again and informed the receptionist that desk number four was in fact closed she rolled her eyes and told me to go to desk two then. As if I should have already known this and was wasting her precious time.

Desk two had a sliding glass window complete with lock and key. Behind said window was a plump and in no way pleasant looking woman who was furiously typing something into her computer. I smiled as her eyes darted up to meet mine but my smile was not returned as she went back to typing. I shuffled on my feet for a moment wondering if she was going to open the window anytime soon. She must have realised I was not going away so she finally decided to open the window and snap at me “next please” . I turned my head. There was nobody behind me.

My referral made a third appearance and this time the lady snatched it from me and read it with a deep sigh of frustration.

“What is this for”
” my 19 week scan” I replied.
“When do you need it for”
” well when I am 19 weeks pregnant I assume”
( eyes rolling) well how far along are you now”
” 15 weeks so I guess I need it no later than the 10th of may”

A this stage the woman’s eyes rolled so far back in her head I actually became concerned that she was having a seizure. She snapped at me something about being booked out until June so she may not fit me in, I shouldn’t have left it so late.

What the hell! I was given the referral an hour ago, how much sooner could I have gotten there!
Well I had ju st about had enough by this point so my pleasant demeanour quickly morphed into pissed off mama mode.

The following exchange went a little something like this……

” excuse me, the fact that you are booked out until June is neither my problem or my fault. My first booking in appointment was an hour ago, I was given the referral then. The hospital have been aware that I am expecting since I was four weeks pregnant. That was eleven weeks ago. They only decided that they needed to see me today. I appreciate you are busy, I am busy also and I don’t see why I should have to be subjected to rudeness when I am simply following an instruction given to me by my midwife.”

Well, her tune changed a little then and what do you know. Magically an appointment became available on the 10th of may. What a miracle!

Finally I was done, safely in a taxi on my way off of the hospital grounds. My phone rang. It was the midwife. Se had forgotten a blood test. Could I come back and get the referral.

No way, not on your life. She is now posting it to me. I am free. Until Monday for my next appointment. God help me.

Holidaying in hell.

Every year we take a couple of short breaks. It has come to my attention that some of the surrounding business owners think that our practice of going away at Christmas and Easter is overly indulgent and has caused us to become the target of much jealousy and criticism. What a joke!

As business owners, my husband and I work very hard. Much harder than we ever had to for our wages working for someone else. As a result of our efforts and the fact that hubbie is incredibly good at what he does, we book out for six to eight months in advance with work meaning that poor hubbie has to work all day and most nights until the wee hours of the morning to keep on top of it all. That will teach him to take pride in his work :p

As you can imagine, working 80 plus hours a week soon takes a toll on ones health and well being so we make sure to close for a week or so a couple of times a year for a recharge. If that makes us indulgent then so be it. I would rather be indulging by the beach for a short while than indulging in the mental health ward after a mammoth nervous breakdown but to each his own I guess!

This Easter we decided to go somewhere other than our usual beach destination. This time we went inland and booked a holiday house in the grampians, Halls Gap to be precise. For the second time in my life, I used stayz.com to source the accommodation. It was a long selection process due to the fact that almost every property in halls gap is a holiday rental and they are all roughly the same price. They really did not cut me a break in the sense of refining my search criteria.

A the end of the day I wasn’t looking for the Ritz, it just had to be comfortable, clean and with the modern conveniences one would expect. Namely heating, cooling, washing machine etc. I eventually made our choice after being phoned personally by the property owner after making an online enquiry. His answers to my questions along with the beautiful property photos sealed the deal and we booked and paid.

We worked long and hard and no matter how stressed we became, we just held on to the fact that come Easter we would have a week to unwind in the grampians. It was our life line. I should have known right there and then not to put so much stock into one thing. It was a recipe for disappointment.

The day of the holiday finally arrived. Google maps told me that it would be an easy two and a half hour drive to our destination and as we headed off I began to program our destination into the new GPS we had purchased as a joint Christmas present. The Navman seemed to have trouble finding this easy two and a half hour route and decided that the fastest it could get us there was in three hours. Oh well, I thought. We weren’t in a hurry so off we went. I chose the fastest route which also happened to be the most economical and the easiest according to the Navman.

Before long we were directed onto a series of narrow dirt roads that weaves through various farm paddocks and barren landscape. Never at any point were we warned about the inclusion of dirt roads in our route selection so it was quite a surprise. After quite a while of winding and weaving through the unknown we eventually came to a cross road where a sign informed us that we had intersected the Pyrenees highway. The Navman had decided that it would be best for us to ignore the presence of a sealed highway with a green sign pointing the way towards our destination. Instead it thought it best that we cross over the highway onto yet another unsealed road barely wide enough to accommodate our little Holden cruze.

Yeah right, not happening Navman . I threw that useless piece of junk into the glove box and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief once our tires were gliding effortlessly back on the bitumen. We had been winding through back roads for nearly an hour by this point so imagine my surprise to find out that we had actually only just managed to make it to a town that is no more than twenty mites from home.

Nerves were frayed, tempers were rising and child was beginning to whine in the back seat. We decided to pull over for a brief rest break to get back into a positive mind set. The drive continued and we headed towards Ararat where we intended to do some grocery shopping for the holiday house.

Pregnancy has begun to lay havoc with my back and shoulders with a lot of nerve pinching and muscle pulling of late. I have been struggling with a bit of sciatica which is interesting and painful but about 20 minutes from Ararat I became aware of a pinched nerve in my shoulder that started with a slow nervy throbbing. By the time we got to the supermarket, my shoulder and arm was on fire. Nerve spasms were racking through it and I was a as close to tears as I have been for a long time. My first instinct was to go for the nurofen. I ran into the supermarket and straight for the medicine aisle. There it was, nurofen, my saviour. I grabbed at the nearest packet and then remembered I was pregnant, I should check to see if this was ok for me to take. I nearly cried again when I read the back of the box.

” do not take during the first trimester of pregnancy and especially during the last 2 trimesters. ”

What the hell? So basically, don’t take it at all while pregnant. I was distraught and grabbed my iPad to google the reasons why. I was not convinced. Well it turns out it can cause birth defects of something so the box got roughly thrown back on the shelf. I bought what I thought I needed for the holiday but I was so racked with pain that I was incapable to stringing a sentence together let alone planning a menu.

When I got back to the car I remembered I had kids panadol in the luggage. Don’t judge me people but I was so desperate I ripped the lid off of that bottle and just took a big chug straight from the bottle. I fell back int the car and strapped myself in for the long wait to see if it would work.

The rest of the drive, thirty minutes or so was in eventful and we arrived at the holiday house just as the pain started to ease off in my shoulder. Which was great as I was going to need all the strength in my arms that I could muster to slam doors and cupboards as I walked around the holiday house from hell in a state of unadulterated fury.

Our “secluded and private” was surrounded on all sides by other houses, one of which we could clearly see into from our bedroom window. Secluded my ass. It turns out that the owner of the house is a photographer by profession so the carefully angled and filtered pictures served to lull us into believing that we were renting a lovely, private, modern and fully equipped holiday home.

What we actually got was a dilapidated weatherboard kit home from the mid seventies that had not even half of the inclusions we had been promised. Within minutes of arriving and still seething, there came a knock on the door. A plumber had arrived to fix the toilet that was not working. He informed us after about twenty minutes that he had done the best he could and that we could flush it but that it was leaking all over the floor so to keep towels down. He would not have time to fix the leak while we were there.

The washing machine was present but with a little hand written note on top informing us that it was not operational. Further inspection of the guest book showed that it had in fact been broken for nearly a year and the owner decided that he really couldn’t be bothered replacing it. Cupboard doors didn’t close, walls had cracks through them, exhaust fans were mouldy and the place was just generally filthy. The beds were horrid, the insects inside the house were unwelcome and the cutlery and crockery was dirty. I believe this to be due to the fact that there was no dishwasher so the previous visitors weren’t really all that fussed about not giving me food poisoning.

We ended up leaving early for two reasons. The first being that without the use of a washing machine, we soon ran out of clean clothes and towels. The nearest laundromat was a forty minute drive away so the thought of spending half a day driving and washing did not appeal. The second reason was the unwelcome visitor I had in my bedroom the night before we left.

If you have never been woken up by a huntsman spider the size of a slice of bread tap dancing across your face then I can tell you now not to bother adding the experience to your bucket list. Thinking of it even now still makes me shudder. I love nature, don’t get me wrong, just not nature with eight legs, on my face.

And of course any bitch session about holiday accommodation would be incomplete without photos….
enjoy, I know we didn’t!

The very hungry caterpillar

14 weeks in and a very familiar yet still very strange feeling has begun in my tummy. I must say that I have been most surprised by the subtle squirming I have been feeling from time to time as I had not expected to experience it yet although apparently it does happen earlier with the second baby or so I have been told.

These first few movements always kind of creep me out a bit. Oh come on, don’t act so shocked, when have I ever struck you as that eternally maternal mommy! I’m just telling you how I see it. The first movements are weird. It feels like a small alien is squirming around in there. I swear that if one didn’t know they were pregnant they would be certain that they had some kind of parasite living in their digestive tract.

Personally, I prefer the more definite movements that happen later on. The kicks to the ribs and such. But then again I have always been a glutton for punishment!

I can’t help but think of my squirming baby as the very hungry caterpillar. I have a strong urge to eat one of everything that the caterpillar eats in the book to appease it. Maybe everything but the leaves. I try to steer clear of unidentified plant matter as a rule.

The good news this blog is that I have been nausea free for weeks now, thank you very much! The bad news is that this signals the return of my appetite and someone might want to pass on the memo to my brain that being pregnant is not an excuse to eat everything in sight.

On my recent holiday I ate way more chicken parmigiana than was socially acceptable. Even the mention of chicken parmy has my mouth watering as we speak. I am also experiencing a brief yet intense flirtation with mayonnaise. Which is disturbing seeing as I recently found out that it is one of the most calorie dense, bad for you, fat ass inducing foods known to man. And there is no 99% fat free Praise crap in my fridge. We are talking full fat, whole egg American mayo.

Great, now I want to eat a chicken parmy with mayo on the side. Hmmmm, breakfast of champions? I think not.

I also read recently that I should expect to put on between 11 and 16 kilos this pregnancy. Mostly in the next three months, second trimester. The same article also mentioned that regardless of that recommended weight gain, the actual weight gain during pregnancy seems to be closer to 20 to 30 kilos among women in Australia at the moment.

30 kilos, are you freaking kidding me! I am literally petrified at that thought. Considering that the birth of the baby will shed maybe 10 of those, that leaves an extra 20 to dispose of after all is said and done.

Holy biggest loser batman. I really have to get this eating thing under control now otherwise you will have to read my baby weight woes in about 6 months time. As of now, I have not actually put on any weight. Still the same as the day I fell pregnant so those parmy’s have yet to absorb into my ass cheeks. I may just go home and dispose of that jar of mayo however, before it is too late.

On a side note, next Monday is the dreaded checking in appointment at the hospital. “Shudder”
So I anticipate that I will be spending most of this week getting worked up and anxious about my return to the maternity ward from hell.

Wish me luck.