Today I had three tasks to perform.
1.) Write a birth plan.
2.) Put the co-sleeper up in my bedroom.
3.) Tidy the flat.
I have failed at all three.
I did at least attempt number two, but it appears to be beyond my capabilities to piece together any kind of furniture in a secure manner befitting somewhere I will be laying my firstborn down to sleep, so I am going to have to admit defeat and ask my brother to do it. So much for being an independent woman.
Anyway, I am 37 weeks tomorrow, which is something of a milestone as this means the baby will no longer be considered premature if it was to be born tomorrow, and I will no longer need to call the hospital in panic if I go into labour. Instead, I can just stay here on my own and deliver the baby myself. Or something like that. Anyway, this may well end up being necessary tonight as I am about to go and drink some raspberry leaf tea, which is a drug so allegedly potent that women are advised not to drink it before 32 weeks in case it brings on premature labour. The NHS-endorsed Emma's Diary website actually warns that it should not be drunk at all, as its effects are unknown. Somehow, contrary to what it says on the tin (or at least in old wives' tale popular folklore), I suspect that these unknown effects do not include spontaneous labour and delivery, given that raspberry leaf tea seems to be strangely absent from the induction protocol of any hospital anywhere. Even Netmums, that usual haunt of badly written horror stories with appalling grammar where you can usually find hard evidence for pretty much any pregnancy myth ever, appears not to have too many tales of babies born suddenly and quickly after their mothers imbibed herbal tea.
Mercifully I have also not been able to find a shred of evidence for the Story of the Cyclops Baby which the loopy librarian at work decided to tell me shortly before my 20 week scan, after making a tenuous link between my students reading the Odyssey and cyclopses being an actual thing and not fictional monsters. One does not want to go into labour fretting about what horror might actually come out. It's bad enough that I've never even slept with the baby's father. There could be all sorts of unknowns lurking within without worrying about the baby having the conventionally accepted number of eyes. Although Loopy Librarian did attempt to soften the blow upon witnessing my horrified visage by explaining "it's some kind of problem with the brain. The baby died shortly afterwards anyway," as though that made it all right and it must have been a great relief to everyone. Some pregnancy horror stories are just too awful to be shared.
Anyway, I'm off to drink my raspberry leaf tea. If you don't hear from me in a while, you can assume I've gone into labour.
Showing posts with label birth plans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth plans. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 June 2014
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Too many choices....
Now I appreciate that this sounds like an odd thing to say, and also as if I m moaning (again) but sitting on this sofa really isn't the pleasant and comfortable experience that DFS intended it to be.
This of course is not the fault of the sofa, which is, under normal circumstances, very comfortable indeed, and entirely the fault of the beachball-like appendage attached to my midriff. I am told that birthing balls are good in these circumstances, but I am not sure they are good for balancing a laptop or, for that matter, my dinner. Also, what does one do with a birthing ball after one has given birth? It hardly seems worth the time, expense or sacrifice of harmonious interior design.
Anyway, the baby's head is now engaged. At least, this is what I was told by the midwife today. She also thinks he may have turned around and be facing the right way. HALLELUJAH. Hopefully this means I will not have to endure "back labour" and be screaming for an epidural before I've managed to breathe through the first contraction. Although that said, someone at work was singing the praises of epidurals today and saying she couldn't believe she had endured her first two labours with only gas and air and wished she's realised the benefits of painlessness sooner. I am so confused. I thought epidurals were all wrong and a way of evil male doctors reinforcing the patriarchy by making women lie down and endure being ripped apart with forceps and scalpels. I mean, that's what my hypnobirthing books say. I am so confused. My hypnobirthing books also say women in Africa give birth by finding a suitably secluded tree, then crouching down and breathing the baby out painlessly, which contrasts hugely with what I've read in the Guardian, which says women in Africa are all suffering needlessly long labours which last for weeks on end and culminate in obstetric fistula. In whom is a confused mother-to-be to place her trust? The Guardian probably has a better claim to authenticity, given that it has previously been right about a number of things, such as that Jeremy Clarkson is a knob and that nobody looks good in dungarees, but then I did see a recipe for saag paneer in there today that didn't include tomatoes and I like tomatoes in my saag paneer, so perhaps I cannot live my life blindly following the Rules of Being a Liberal Feminist set by the Guardian. Also I remain conflicted by an article I read in there a while ago which suggested that same-sex marriage should be opposed by all right-thinking liberals as marriage as a concept reinforces the patriarchal idea that women are the chattels of their husbands and therefore no one-gay or straight-should get married.
The latter is a convenient view for a washed up spinster such as myself to pretend to have, though.
Although the Gaurdian also says I am not a washed up spinster, and that no woman should feel defined by their marital status or how good the Daily Mail says they look in a bikini, which is an even more convenient view to have.
GOD I AM SO CONFLICTED ABOUT LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING. How am I going to write a birth plan expressing my "choices" when there is no consensus about what the right choice is, ever, about anything?
This of course is not the fault of the sofa, which is, under normal circumstances, very comfortable indeed, and entirely the fault of the beachball-like appendage attached to my midriff. I am told that birthing balls are good in these circumstances, but I am not sure they are good for balancing a laptop or, for that matter, my dinner. Also, what does one do with a birthing ball after one has given birth? It hardly seems worth the time, expense or sacrifice of harmonious interior design.
Anyway, the baby's head is now engaged. At least, this is what I was told by the midwife today. She also thinks he may have turned around and be facing the right way. HALLELUJAH. Hopefully this means I will not have to endure "back labour" and be screaming for an epidural before I've managed to breathe through the first contraction. Although that said, someone at work was singing the praises of epidurals today and saying she couldn't believe she had endured her first two labours with only gas and air and wished she's realised the benefits of painlessness sooner. I am so confused. I thought epidurals were all wrong and a way of evil male doctors reinforcing the patriarchy by making women lie down and endure being ripped apart with forceps and scalpels. I mean, that's what my hypnobirthing books say. I am so confused. My hypnobirthing books also say women in Africa give birth by finding a suitably secluded tree, then crouching down and breathing the baby out painlessly, which contrasts hugely with what I've read in the Guardian, which says women in Africa are all suffering needlessly long labours which last for weeks on end and culminate in obstetric fistula. In whom is a confused mother-to-be to place her trust? The Guardian probably has a better claim to authenticity, given that it has previously been right about a number of things, such as that Jeremy Clarkson is a knob and that nobody looks good in dungarees, but then I did see a recipe for saag paneer in there today that didn't include tomatoes and I like tomatoes in my saag paneer, so perhaps I cannot live my life blindly following the Rules of Being a Liberal Feminist set by the Guardian. Also I remain conflicted by an article I read in there a while ago which suggested that same-sex marriage should be opposed by all right-thinking liberals as marriage as a concept reinforces the patriarchal idea that women are the chattels of their husbands and therefore no one-gay or straight-should get married.
The latter is a convenient view for a washed up spinster such as myself to pretend to have, though.
Although the Gaurdian also says I am not a washed up spinster, and that no woman should feel defined by their marital status or how good the Daily Mail says they look in a bikini, which is an even more convenient view to have.
GOD I AM SO CONFLICTED ABOUT LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING. How am I going to write a birth plan expressing my "choices" when there is no consensus about what the right choice is, ever, about anything?
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