Lottery jackpot – a vacuum extraction delivery

Will that be with or without an episiotomy?

I saw a questionably appealing offer on the midwife centre notice board today to join a scientific study.

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‘In the event that your birth would have to end with vacuum extraction, you would enter a random draw for either a having an episiotomy or not…’

For expecting women who are scared senseless of having a forceps or vacuum extraction birth lead to severe vaginal tears (including me and I assume most women), is this a tempting offer?

A bit of excitement and an element of surprise in the middle of a chaotic delivery is exactly what you need, right? Let’s not all jump in and register at once.

Scientific studies in all honor, but I will probably prefer the staff to make the right decisions during my delivery and not decided by a random draw. But maybe that’s just me.

To baby moon or not?

Shamelessly borrow and steal traditions from other countries, I say.

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We recently went on a spa weekend. The excuse? A baby moon, what seems to be an American phenomenon that really doesn’t exist in Sweden. A trip or weekend away as a couple before the baby comes along because, well because you can.

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We went to the Djurönäset Spa in the Stockholm archipelago. A 40 minute drive felt just about all my body could handle, even so we had to take a food and toilet break. We had an absolutely magic weekend with coffee on the cliffs overlooking the water, yoga and sauna. The coffee break was my thing. And it wouldn’t be our baby moon if we didn’t have a working session to write our birth plan. It became a sort of baby conference – highly recommended.

Now that this went down so well, maybe we should introduce the push gift tradition as well? Will bring this up at home.

Knits, root veggies and due date countdown

 

I took a short walk in the autumn sun today (giving thanks to my pelvic girdle for the steps I received). I love walks this time of year when the air is crisp but its still sunny. It’s nice to be able to dress warmly for once – at the moment the hot flushes mainly mean I walk around in my underwear and compression stockings. Convenient really as I’ve now outgrown most of my pregnancy clothes.

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Never before have I wished for the short Swedish summer to end. But then of course with this autumn comes the baby. Just nine days to go now, unless of course I go over by two weeks, in which case I have a 25-day wait ahead. How should one relate to the D-Day? It does feel depressing to add two weeks after counting down for 40 weeks, just to be sure. But perhaps it’s best way to avoid going mad.

Fitness bottom reached

I have always been very active. From playing in the little boys football league at age 9, to getting through the Virgin triathlon in London Docklands dirty waters and a completing a marathon.

The other day I reached rock bottom. In a pleasant and almost liberating way.

I was using a reclining exercise bike at the gym was looking forward to a few minutes of spreading my legs wildly and panting. First when six minutes had past I noticed that I had not even turned on the machine. Zero resistance and yet I was sweating like a pig. I laughed contently.

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Of course I miss high intensity training or even being able to go for a brisk walk these days. But at the same time it is a beautiful and very useful experience not being able to work out, to completely give into what my pregnant body wants, with not a thought on performance. Well, I guess my body does perform a miracle every day in producing this baby.

Sometimes I think that nature gave me early SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction) for a reason. I simply had so such a long way to go in unlearning how to perform that I needed some extra help.

Fattest person in pregnancy yoga

 

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We sit along the walls of the small yoga room. The typical lovely and slighly confused yoga teacher has left the loud music on in the background, but I can still hear her ask everyone to share whether its their first baby and when they are due. At first I don’t find it uncomfortable at all – I’m not exactly shy.

But after the first and second woman share a due date several months ahead of mine, I panic. My bump is by far the biggest and I’m pretty much due later than everyone else in the room.

The whole room seems full of beautiful, perky little round bumps. I look down at my barrel shaped body and begins to cry.

To add to my misery I have terrible pelvic girdle- and back pain, apparently also because my tummy has grown so quickly, and cannot even sit cross-legged. I usually love to challenge myself physically and enjoy yoga but now I barely make it through the class, mostly lying on my side with a mountain of pillows around me. The breathing exercises become my thing.

On the way home, I start thinking how insensitive it was to expose these hormone fueled, possibly hypersensitive pregnant ladies to this, right? But every non pregnant person I share this with look at me blank face.

Thankfully I have never suffered from a distorted body image or been particularly insecure about my appearance. Why did this affect me so much? Apart from the hormones that turn me into this irrational emotional package. And why is it even a bad thing that my bump is big? Shouldn’t I just be happy and proud that I’m pregnant? My wise partner tells me that surely it would have been worse if the bump didn’t until very late in the pregnancy, this does happen to some. Had I not been pregnant, I would most likely also be thinking in that way.

Of course I color match baby clothes

Today I found myself going through the washed, folded and sorted baby clothes. Again. (I obviously also have an Excel document to keep on top of what we have in different sizes – doesn’t everyone?).

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To my dismay I found myself thinking that I have to buy more monochrome bodysuits to match all the patterned trousers. Grr! I really didn’t want to become this person. Surely that’s not important? I blame the pregnancy hormones and blindly trust that I’ll get my priorities straight once the baby comes.