Day 3 - Panic, relief and joy

It was a terrible way to start the day - the tests for jaundice had been rising and the decision had been taken to treat Bubs with Phototherapy, by putting her under UV lights for as much time as possible. The poor little mite hates it - she needs to be naked so that she can get the light on her skin and ends up crying and crying because she is cold and alone. And we have to just sit there and let her, because to touch her or cuddle her would be to interrupt the treatment - heartbreaking!! And to add to the problems, she used up all her energy crying so that when it came to feeding time she fell asleep without taking a drop. This means that her dehydration problem is getting worse and is just being exacerbated by being under the bright lights all the time - a viscous circle.

Nicole is already feeling hormonal & tired, and having all this stress of a crying baby that she can't comfort is making everything seem 10 times worse than they actually are - a low point was reached this afternoon when Bubs was so exhausted that she was almost comatose - not even pricking her heel to take blood for blood-sugar measurements got much of a rise out of her! Since then things have improved - she had a good feed later in the afternoon and Chris and Sam came and prayed with us, and we feel a lot calmer and more able to cope with it all.

The doctors reviewed her case in the early evening and decided that she should be moved to the specialist care unit so that she could be fed through a tube directly to her stomach - the only way to break the not feeding/too tired cycle! It means that she will be in a different ward from Nicole, but it is a short walk away, and is going to be a good thing on a number of levels. It will take the responsibility of feeding off Nix for a while so she will be able to sleep, they have the means to keep her warm but still under the UV light and by pumping the right amount of food into her tummy they will be able to build up her strength so that she can feed on her own. It will mean a longer stay in hospital, but we're willing to do whatever it takes for her to be well.

The joy came as we finally settled on a name - Janel!!! And No, it's not a made-up name, we "discovered" it on a Canadian friend who was at University with Nicole - and it's the name of one of the actresses on The West Wing (Janel Moloney who plays Donna) which is when we started talking about it as a possibility - according to various websites, so take it with a pinch of salt, it is from the Gaelic meaning "Darling", or it means "God is Gracious" or it means "Jehovah has been gracious; has shown favor." All of which is quite apposite!! It was one of many things that we thought we had plenty of time to decide on before Bubs arrived - but she had other plans!!!

Anyway, its late, so I will post now and continue the adventure another day...

Graeme (and for Nicole and Janel)

T + 48 hours (Graeme again)

An update on progress...

Nicole and the baby will be kept in Hospital until Sunday at least, as the blood tests have confirmed that Bubs has an infection of some kind so they want to be able to give her the antibiotics and monitor her progress easily. This means that Nix will also be there for the weekend which is not so much fun, as she is struggling to sleep. To be fair, it is not the ward that is keeping her awake, but that Bubs takes over an hour to wake up, feed, get changed and winded and put back down, after which Nix tidies up, goes to the loo and then it is almost time to start the process all over again.

Feeding is causing a little concern as Bubs is struggling to adapt to feeding for herself - she gets the breast into her mouth and after a few sucks, falls asleep. Nicole is expressing a little and feeding by cup, topping up with fomula if needed. This is beggining to be a worry, because Bubs is loosing weight - she started at 2.19kg, was 2.12kg after 24 hours and 2.06 today - and becoming a little dehydrated. Nicole has been told to decrease the feed intervals from 3-hourly to 2-hourly, which means that sleep will be even more precious. It seems that baby's digestive system is taking a little while to "come online"; the doctors are not worried yet, but please pray that things start to work as they should sooner rather than later!!

Other than the tiredness, Nicole is well - her stitches seem to be healing nicely although she is still swollen and sore, and finds walking and sitting quite difficult.

But the most important thing of all is that Bubs is healthy and GORGEOUS!!

What can I say, I'm the daddy :-)

Graeme

And suddenly, there she was... (by Graeme)

Well, all of a sudden its all over and we have a daughter!! Since we thought we'd have another 6 weeks to debate the matter, she doesn't have a name yet, but she was born just after noon on Tuesday and weighed in at 2.19kg.

Nicole's waters broke just after 7pm on Monday evening and there was some bleeding, so the hospital told us to come straight in. She was contracting every other minute for about a minute when I got there after dropping her off and parking, and they moved her to the labour ward to keep an eye on her and baby. She was about 1cm dilated at that time. The contractions calmed down after a while and I left her there to come home and drop off the car and fetch some extra panties - there was a lot of water coming out of the woman!! She was almost exactly 34 weeks, so they thought that everything would be fine, but they gave her a steroid injection which will help the development of the baby's lungs.

We spent Monday night in the labour ward, and by mid-morning Nicole was having painful but irregular contractions - her blood test had revealed an infection of some kind and so they decided to induce in case it has passed to the baby. They put her on the drip at 10am and I decided to go home and have a shower and get changed as the doctor reckoned that she would take 10-12 hours to deliver, and that they would re-assess in 4 hours. Nicole called at about 11:30 to say that I needed to come back at once as labour proper had started (she'd gone from 1.5 cm to fully dilated in less than 90 min!!!!). Unfortunately, baby was born while I was stuck on a tube outside Kennington - bum luck!! There was a bit of a scare when her heartbeat couldn't be located, so she was delivered by ventouse to get her out ASAP. Her chord was wrapped around her neck and she was apparantly VERY purple, but she started breathing on her own and seems to be happy and healthy. She'll be kept in for at least 48hrs while various tests are done and antibiotics administered. Nicole tore a blood vessel and needed several stitches, but her perineum is fine. I was there for the stitching and that was bloody and painful enough - perhaps being stuck in the tube was a mixed blessing :-)

That's enough for now - more details about the first few days to follow later.

Graeme

A small scare

Coming back after a week's holiday was a shock to the system! Not least because everyone at work kept commenting on how suddenly my bump has enlarged. So here's a photo (32 weeks), just to confirm that actually, I'm not that large (although I feel ENORMOUS!). (I'm not smiling cos I'm in pain... see below.) As the measurements go, I'm right on target.

Baby is now head down, although not engaged, which explains why my ribs are getting the beating they are: it feels like she already has a diploma in kickboxing! Apparently weeks 30-32 are the ones when babies are most active, at around 470 movements a day. Hers all appear to take place between noon and midnight, and mostly into my ribs! Let's hope that once she's born she'll change her routine and be more active in the morning and less active at night.

I've started feeling some Braxton-Hicks contractions, which can be rather uncomfortable. At least I know that everything is working normally though and my uterus is exercising for the big day.

Drumroll please....... After much deliberation and thought we've finally decided on a name... 'Oi! You!'. Only joking! We're no closer to choosing a name for her actually. Although we had a brief spell of agreeing on one potential name, none of my current favourites even hit the page for Graeme. So it's back to the drawing board I guess. In worst case scenario, I guess 'Oi! You!' could work.... after all, some poor kid we know of has been given R2D2 as his middle name! And in other news today I discovered that some poor child of a celebrity star was given the first name of 'Moon Unit' - no kidding. (Can't remember which celebrity, though I think the surname was Zapper....)

Last week coincided with a rather bad piece of news: Graeme's gran died rather suddenly. She was 91, and in frail care following a serious fall, but had been making good recovery. We had hoped she would live till March, which is when his family was gathering back home for a wedding, and would have been the first time the baby would be introduced to them. It would have made a lovely photograph to have her holding her first great-grandchild. Sadly, 'twas not to be. Thankfully we know she's in a better place now, out of pain, and we know that she lived a full and happy life and had a 'good innings'. Right to the end she was other-centered and uncomplaining - such a challenging witness to all of us from the 'Now' and 'Me' generation!

Today we had a bit of a scare. I've been getting odd little pains at the top of my stomach, which I put down to the baby kicking. Last night, however, it became excruciating. Today was better, but still rather severe. So I took myself off to the local hospital (not the one I'm booked into) for a check-up. At first they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat, which was scary enough; when they did, she then decided to show off by going through an entire gym routine for over an hour! What a show-off, even at this tender age!!

Then they thought I was going into prem labour, at which point I thought I handled it all rather calmly and made a few jokes to cover my panic! When they did an internal exam though (and took a quick smear - OW!!!) they realised I wasn't. (Phew!) The docs then thought I must have fibroids (small benign tumours in the uterus) so did a quick ultrasound scan. They were wrong yet again.

So the good news is that all is well with baby. The bad news is that they haven't got the foggiest clue why I'm pain. I've been given a course of painkillers and told to keep an eye on it at home. It's just "one of those things", I was told. Thanks for that! That's really going to help me sleep better tonight. Still, it could be worse - I could have gone into labour. I'm grateful that the baby is fine, and at the end of the day, I don't really care about how much pain I'm in, as long as she continues to be okay. (I'm definitely turning into a mother!)

Hey! Did you read in the news today that wrapping up warm - especially noses, heads, hands and feet) really does stop you getting sick? (Well, it's not quite as straighforward as that, but the outcome is the same.) So my Mommy was right after all! I think I'll definitely become a fussy mother now.... "put your jersey on Love, I'm cold".

Nicole

30 weeks and counting...

The pic is a bit out-dated. It was taken in week 26, and I'm now in week 30, but it gives you an idea of the size I've become!

I read recently that as we near the end I need to keep an eye on how frequently the baby kicks - anything less than 10 times in 12 hours and we have a problem. Needless to say, no sooner did I start trying to count, than she went through a VERY quiet phase, and I started to panic quietly to myself. However, she soon picked up again and has been VERY active since.

At the moment she seems to be lying diagonally across my stomach - one end up under my ribs and the other pushing down into my pelvic area. Because she's getting so big now, when she turns you can actually see a wave across my belly - it's like watching a tsunami wave before it reaches the beach: you have no idea just from watching it of the power beneath the surface!! Most of the time now, when she's kicking, it's incredibly uncomfortable and frequently quite sore - especially when she kicks up into my ribs and lungs.

Again, because she's getting so large, I'm finding my lung space dramatically reduced, so I'm finding even little tasks take far more energy than previously simply because I can't get enough air. In terms of teaching, that means that I no longer have the lung capacity to yell at kids! I'm sure they appreciate it, but it is really handy to be able to yell when you need to - particularly in emergencies where they are in danger!

I've only got another 7 weeks left at work. It feels like an eternity, but I'm sure it will pass quickly enough. I'd love to start maternity leave sooner, but then that means I'd have less time at home after the birth, which is more important to me. So I guess I'll have to just slow down and pace myself to ensure I can make it at work till then!

Nicole

28 weeks

Another milestone reached - 28 weeks! It's amazing to think that if the baby were born today, she would be able to survive. It's incredible that all she will do from now on is mature and grow, but that she is already fully formed.

So of course, I've been thinking a lot about a prem birth, particularly as I've recently heard from a number of first-timers who have had one, usually with complications. And feeling suitably terrified of labour. I still don't want to think about it, and I'm not sure that I will want to think about it at all between now and then; not that I want to be uninformed or ill-prepared, but my imagination is active enough and thinking about the pain makes me feel rather ... I don't know... "uncomfortable" doesn't begin to cover it!

I guess I'm also trying to avoid thinking about what happens after the birth... from chronic tiredness to post-natal depression (which I know I'm going to have... and I'm not just being pessimistic here - I have both the temperament and the hormonal make-up that are common in women who get it), from having to get over the gag reflex and dealing with nappies to dealing with a screaming baby and split nipples; to the ultimate terror of having to be completely responsible for this little thing for the next umpteen years.

I know there are plenty of joys - bonding with her, first smiles, first everythings... but right now it's a bit hard thinking about those when I know there's a lot of really unpleasant stuff to deal with as well. I know I'm not ready for this - not in a million years - and it doesn't help that I know no-one ever is.

So that's my current psychological state. Physically I'm okay. She's still kicking ferociously, and doing millions of tumble rolls. At times it feels like someone is running a finger down the inside of my stomach, and squashing my solar plexus against my stomach muscles - very weird! She's been kicking my ribs and lungs quite a bit too, which has been really sore - to the extent that I have to get up and walk around a bit to calm her down.

Having said last time that my cramps had gone, it seems they've returned. The past few days I've had really bad foot cramps again, which neither heat, nor massage, nor walking, nor salt seems to have helped. My indigestion has also gone through the roof again the past few days.

I've been really trying to keep calm at work, and not yell or get angry (to keep my blood pressure down, amongst other things) and to work shorter days (rather than the usual 10 hour days I do). This past week was really good - I even managed to leave school at 4pm on 3 consecutive days! (That's an all-time record for me!) As a reward for this, I took myself shopping on Friday, and got a really nice preggy wear outfit for work - who says you have to look frumpy when you're pregnant?!?!

Graeme's had the cold I had, so neither of us has been sleeping well, with the result that I've been more tired than normal. We're both on the mend though, so hopefully sleep will return to normal soon, and with that, some more energy! I'll need it next week - my work load shoots through the roof (it's tests and projects week, so marking will be my primary, secondary and tertiary activity for the week!)

This weekend we spent some time getting the spare room more or less ready to become a nursery. As baby will sleep in our room for the first while (and my mom will be in the spare room), we just sorted and cleared to make space for a rocking chair and stuff. It felt odd - like planting bulbs for spring - you put them in the ground according to a how you imagine they will look when they flower, but you really won't know whether you've been successful or not until the spring. You put all this effort in, but you still only have bare ground to look at all through the winter. (Of course, it's all worth it for the sudden bloom, but it's a long time to wait!) So we're trying to imagine how all the baby stuff will fit in the room, and what needs doing in anticipation of that, but the room is still far from being a nursery, and won't be one properly till April some time... about the time my bulbs will be flowering!

Nicole

3rd trimester already!

I can hardly believe that I've already reached the 3rd trimester! 26 weeks! We're into the final stages now...

I feel even more huge than ever, although everyone says how tiny my bump is. Looking at some of the other women at the clinic today, I have to agree. I am tiny. Definitely in the round, rather than a protruding bump. The blessings of a first pregnancy and unstretched muscles I suppose - except that that means the baby pushes on your organs more....

Had a slight concern at my check-up today as it looks like I may have developed diabetes. It doesn't come as a surprise - I've always been on the high end of the normal bell curve where it overlaps with the diabetes bell curve, so I'd anticipated getting it during pregnancy. At this stage, they're not going to do anything about it, just monitor it at the next check-up. Less biscuits for me then....

I've also picked up a cold - nothing too serious - which means my heart rate is up even more, and I've been feeling rather faint. Still within normal rates, I'm assured, but definitely higher than normal for me. Even the short trip to the clinic today (by car!) was enough to lay me out for a bit afterwards.

Sensibly, and before anyone tells me to take care of myself, I've taken time off work, so hopefully this won't go down into my chest, which is when my other normal problems tend to arise. Given that the weather has turned, and winter is definitely on its way, I need to avoid getting worse at all costs, and I'm being good and taking care. Can you imagine trying to give birth with bronchitis or pneumonia??? Nah, thanks, I'd rather not!

On the up side, my leg cramps seem to have all but disappeared! I still get twinges, but nothing near as bad as previously. While my sleep is now less disturbed by them, I'm starting to find turning over in bed difficult and that because of my bump pulling my spine in odd directions, my back is getting sore at night.

I've taken to having extra pillows for support for the first part of the night. They're too much hassle to sleep with the whole night - making turning over a complete nightmare - but at least it seems to have stopped the backache.

The other up is that the Tissue Oil my mom sent me (South African miracle skin product!!) has stopped that horrible stretching sensation - both muscular and skin. I use it religiously every morning, except on weekends when my morning routine is different, and on those days I can really feel the difference! As yet, no stretch marks either.

Baby is doing well - kicking ferociously now, especially any time I raise my voice (usually to tell a kid off for not doing their homework...) or use my stomach muscles or change sitting/ sleeping position. All the measurements are normal, and the heart beat sounds normal. We're still no nearer to naming her, although *ara variations are all high on the list (Tara, Zara, Lara, Cara, etc.). We're in no hurry about this - when we see her I'm sure we'll figure out what suits her best.

OK - time to rest some more while I can.
Nicole