Thursday, May 14, 2009

Antici........PAtion

One way or the other, this weekend is going to be interesting.

When we move house, we always seem to pick the worst time. A few years back, we picked the single hottest, record-breaking weekend in London. Now it seems we have picked the single worst, record-breaking one in Cape Town. Yup, the air pressure is set to drop to 940mb. Given that Hurricane Katrina was at 920mb when it made land in the US, that's pretty scary. Winds are predicted to get up to 100km/h.

Hmm.... could be interesting trying to move house in that sort of weather...

But there's something else I'm more interested in. I think I had a contraction today. A proper one. Not just a Braxton-Hicks.

With both previous pregnancies, I had contractions in week 33 (which is where I'm currently at). With Nellie, my waters broke after about 3 contractions (!!), and then labour had to be induced after 10 hours of not much else happening. With Zoe, I had contractions for about 8 hours, after which the pregnancy continued as normal until she died. I've been expecting something to happen this week, so wasn't surprised. I was, however, alarmed.

Thus far, nothing further. Baby boy seems healthy (although I can't find his heartbeat). He's kicking strongly, and the placental blood-flow sounds healthy, so I'm not too worried about him.

I'm not at all worried about him arriving this early, in fact. I am, however, worried about going into labour and not being in hospital to be monitored, and/or not having had some steroid injections beforehand. I suspect that Zoe died during the initial phases of labour at 37 weeks, following which the labour stopped again (for the 2nd time).

My uterus has been feeling rather irritable all week, which was the same with Zoe. ("Irritable uterus" means it's hard all the time and the midwife is unable to feel physically the position the baby is lying in. It's a sign that you're going to go into labour soon.) While the meds I've been on are supposed to reduce the risks of stillbirth, I have no idea what impact they will have on my body's decision to go into labour.

Nellie was born at 33+4, which would be on Saturday. She's fine, so I have all faith that if he's born this week, he'd be fine too.... as long as he is born alive.

So - will we be moving house or not this weekend??? Will the weather, or the baby, cause us to change our plans???? THAT is the question.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Cooks! Saw Skype message this morning - didn't know who you were at first... hehe. BEST of luck, everything WILL be fine. Let's go have our babies!! Will keep in touch.