Belly belly

Ah the uncomfortableness has started to kick in.

Sometimes my uterus feels really hard, and when I'm lying on my side in bed, its quite uncomfortable. I am sleeping with a U shaped pillow between my legs, and supporting my belly. Its hard to roll over with my pelvic pain and a huge pillow in the bed. Poor hubby, I am taking up a bit more room.

I am walking like a little old lady (still no waddle though). A bit of a pain when you are loaded with grocery bags and its raining: you just can't hurry!

Baby is the size of a head of lettuce apparently. Feel more like a watermelon to me!

I am not delusional

I have been avidly watching maternity programs on Discovery Health, and one of my favourites is Deliver Me. Another one I watch often is A Baby Story which shows a variety of deliveries from C-sections to water births. Very informative and shows the spectrum of experiences (good and bad) and options available. Of course these two shows are US based and is quite different to Australian practices but still, I'm sure an epidural is still administered the same way. Leave me out of that if possible!!

BUT. But I am not discounting the possibility of needing (or wanting) to have one. I watched one particular episode of Deliver Me where the mum-to-be was adamant about no drugs and no intervention. Well, they sure didn't hold back on the screams she was emitting from the pain she was experiencing! She had been labouring at home for 17 hours before she came to the hospital. And then after 24 she had still not progressed and she conceded that she needed an epidural. And when they told her it would take an hour for it to be administered she screamed Noooo!!!! 36 hours later she gave birth to a large baby vaginally. She also haemorrhaged quite severely and nearly had to have an emergency hysterectomy. Quite scary and a reality check. Had she stayed at home to birth, she may not have survived.

I mean, I want to do it all naturally. But I have not a clue as to how much it will hurt. This woman said "it was like a lightening bolt shooting through your body and it's just wrong!". Now how can I imagine that?! I don't know what her pain threshold is so I can't knock that she tried to go without but conceded. I am open to whatever is available to me, and I will never say never, until I am in that situation. Only then will I be able to say whether I can go without. I won't be afraid to get off my high horse!

30 week OB check up

All good. BP and baby's heartbeat good. My glucose screen was fine, so no diabetes, iron and calcium levels excellent.

He wasn't too concerned about the pelvic instability or the diastisis ~ just the usual pregnancy war wounds.

Baby's head is down, which is excellent. Which is what I suspected with the pressure I get in the bladder at times, and I'm sure Cheezel is currently in the optimal position as I feel the kicks mainly on the right side. So hopefully that is the position by the time delivery comes round in 10 weeks time.

Next appointment in a fortnight.

Yawn

My first restless night of sleep. Feel tired this morning but couldn't sleep in.

I think I had my first Braxton Hicks last night too, at least the most obvious feeling ones that I've really noticed. But I'm not entirely sure.

It felt like I had a tummy ache, low down, and my uterus felt quite hard. It wasn't all over my uterus, just down low. And they lasted about 10-15 seconds, then subsided, then came back a couple of minutes later; this happened about 4 times.

That along with the SPD and trying to find a comfortable position in bed. Oy. Plus my belly is getting that little bit bigger where I am needing some support now I think. At the moment I'm just using my rolled up pj pants as a prop, might need something more. I have also introduced a sausage pillow to put between my legs. Apparently it makes it easier to roll over and alleviate the SPD pain, but frankly, it feels just as uncomfortable with a pillow.

And I woke with my left leg feeling like its about to have pins and needles. So I roll over but that strange sensation remained. Quite a bizarre feeling, and wriggling my toes and massaging the leg didn't help, so I had to just get up. Its probably the uterus pressing on some nerve internally.

*yawn*

Dad's

Craig did his Dad's Only workshop. I think he found it interesting. He asked lots of questions, which I'm glad he did. Now we have a month until our big workshop day.

Reminds me, I must book my TENs lecture...

Physio

Saw the physiotherapist this morning.

I have a tubigrip (elastic band thing that goes around my bump to help with stability).

Apparently I also have about a 3cm gap between my stomach muscles or 'diastisis' (separation of the rectus abdominis muscles), which again adds to my instability, along with the pubic symphysis dysfunction. And my butt muscles and my inner thigh muscles are tight and sore from trying to keep my pelvis together.

So I have to wear the tubigrip, I have to ice for 10-15 minutes, I have to stop doing thigh squeezing pilates exercises, and I have to roll to get up out of bed etc.

She gave me some massage that absolutely killed, but I feel better for it.

When I got up (earlier than usual) this morning, baby hadn't moved for an hour and a half, which was unusual, as the morning Cheezel is usually quite active. But by the time I got to my appointment, there was movement. So I was relieved. Cheezel just had a sleep in I guess!

SPD

Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction.

I'm 99.9% sure that's what it is.

Okay, so walking a distance is a bit of a pain. Walking around the house is no problem. I was like a little old lady going to the market today. Sheesh.

Anyway, I booked a physio on Monday morning, so hopefully they can prescribe me a hip brace or something. Maybe some more strengthening exercises.

I iced it a bit and that sort of helped fractionally. I still have to be careful and keep my legs together! Ha! Just gotta keep taking it easy and get it back to how it was before the pilates class; I'd be happy with that, and I promise to be super good from then on. Honest. No pushing my luck.