thirty-four weeks pregnant

Pregnancy day 238...42 days to go!

Baby is now 17.75 inches long and weighs about 4.75 pounds. 

Well another week has passed and things are definitely getting more uncomfortable. The weather here has been very warm (which normally I would love) but being 8 months pregnant, the heat makes everything much more of an effort. My feet are swelling now (yuck) and sleeping has become nearly impossible. And then yesterday I started to get a sore throat and a runny nose, so I think I have caught a cold. I'm trying not to moan too much, but it's frustrating to not be able to take normal cold medicine!

I have only 3 more weeks at work now and it is starting to feel that the end is near, though there is still so much to do. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have handed over most of my workload to my replacement and my last two weeks can be more relaxed.

Someone in my antenatal class recommended a second-hand baby shop to me, so on Saturday my husband and I decided to go check it out. It's in a converted barn out in the middle of the countryside so I didn't know what to expect, but it was huge and had tons and tons of second-hand baby clothes, equipment, toys, and maternity clothes! I bought 4 summer maternity tops and a TENS machine all for really cheap! It was amazing. We decided that we would be buying all of baby's stuff from there in the future. If anyone lives in the Suffolk area of the UK and wants the details, let me know!

In terms of medical appointments, I have an ultrasound scan today (Monday) and then my 34 week midwife appointment on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to seeing baby again on the scan - he is probably going to look huge! The scan is just to check that the placenta has moved because at my 20 week scan it was low-lying. I will post an update later in the week about the appointments. 

midwife & NCT update

It was a busy day yesterday: I had my 31 week midwife appointment and my NCT class on the same day. I thought I would write a quick blog post to say how they went otherwise knowing me and my baby brain I will completely forget the details by the weekend.

The midwife appointment was in the morning before work and it went well. Everything was "normal" according to the midwife. From the scribbles she put in my maternity notes I can make out that my blood pressure was 100/60; fundus height was 31 cm; position was "ceph"; and fetal heart-rate was 148 bpm.

I think ceph stands for cephalic, which means head-down. She also wrote that baby was "free" which I think means he is not engaged yet...so overall everything seems fine for being 31 weeks. My next appointment is at 34 weeks and is scheduled for 30th May. 

NCT class last night was all about pain relief. It was good to go through all the different types of pain relief available, but it was scary too! We discussed all the options available from natural things like hot baths and massage all the way up to the hard core options of epidurals and opiates.  For each type of pain relief we went through the pros & cons.

I found out that the medical options for pain relief at my hospital will be Gas & Air (aka Entonox), Pethidine (aka Demerol); or an Epidural. I wasn't aware about all the negative side effects that some of these drugs can have and it scared me a little. For instance, Pethidine crosses over the placenta, effecting your baby and potentially making him "drugged" for a day or two after birth. 

We also talked about something called a TENS machines, which I didn't know much about. I'm thinking about getting one because it's a natural way to deal with early stages of labour and can be used in combination with Gas & Air. If anyone has used a TENS machine in labour I would love to hear about your experiences.

I decided after the class that my favourite options at the moment are hot water, TENS machine and Gas & Air. But I'm not going to rule out any of the more hard-core options completely because who knows how I will feel once the contractions start.