HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR ADDED EFFECTIVENESS.

39 days to go. 22 days left at work. Let me tell you, Internet… this lady is ready to pop.

My girth (aka my planetary status) has in the last couple of weeks been elevated from a nice, respectable Mars/Venus right through to borderline Jupiter territory. Lovely Lynnette will tell me exactly how corpulent my belly is when I see her tomorrow; is it too much to hope that the visit goes like this?

Me: Good afternoon, Lovely Lynnette… may I present my gigantic tummy for you to measure?

LL: HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD! NO NEED TO MEASURE! LET’S INDUCE YOU 6 WEEKS EARLY TO SPARE YOU EVEN A MOMENT’S FURTHER DISCOMFORT, YOU POOR, KIND SOUL!!!

Probably not going to happen.

But in other news, I have officially started ‘nesting’. Its onset has only been mild so far, but it was sufficient enough to kick me in the arse and make some progress on getting the baby’s room ready.

This is pretty big news, dear readers… you may remember that Ben was born in November of 2004. It was April 2005 before we moved him into his own bedroom. And the decision to move him out of his tiny little Moses basket into his big cot was forced upon us; he outgrew that Moses basket and it was only at the point when the poor kid looked like he was squashed into a half of a walnut shell that we decided we had better get his bedroom ready. Honest, we’re not neglectful parents! We were just. So. Tired.

So… the fact that we’ve had the bedroom ready from a full 7 weeks prior to the estimated arrival of this baby is a pretty spectacular achievement. Jason did all the painting, and with the help of this fantastic fabric called Fabler from IKEA, I sewed some curtains and cushions and other lovely treats. This is a nice segue into a topic on which I’d be grateful for some advice under my ‘Things I Will Do Differently This Time’ umbrella: “Sleeping Arrangements.”

With Ben, he was in our room for so long that we had total nightmares getting him to go into his own room. Honestly, the whole bedtime routine was such a shambles; we had to cuddle him to sleep (even at 8/9 months old) and the minute he was put down he would wake up. We had this ridiculous Bedroom Exit Strategy which took about 20 minutes from start to finish and saw us being slave to the following painfully laborious 12-step programme:

1. Feed child. Enlist assistance of co-parent in advance switching on of all baby monitors, preparing of blankets, drawing of curtains, etc. prior to commencement of attempting to get child to fall asleep.



2. Burp child.



3. Cuddle child.



4. While cuddling child, mute the TV and switch on the subtitles so you can ‘read’ the dialogue from Coronation Street to eliminate any superfluous background noise that may disrupt the child’s easy slip into gentle slumber.



5. Establish that child is asleep. Listen for regular breathing, rhythmic rise-and-fall of torso of child.



6. Stand up, very slowly. Once you reach a full standing position, FREEZE. Just in case the movement may have yanked the child backwards on his journey to Dreamland. Hold your breath for added effectiveness.



7. Walk to the bedroom in slow motion. Enter the room and FREEZE. Ascertain whether journey from living room down the corridor to the bedroom disturbed the child in any way.



8. Put the child down in his cot, but DO NOT remove your hands from beneath his body. FREEZE. Ascertain level of sleep/wakefulness before proceeding to Step 9.
   Slowly remove your hands from beneath child’s body, taking vigilant care not to interrupt or agitate the child. FREEZE: keep leaning over the cot so the child can still sense close proximity of parental body heat.
9. Stand up only when you are sure the child remains asleep.



10. Take a deep breath: you will need to hold it for the remainder of the Exit Strategy. Now, walk out of the bedroom – in slow motion, and also backwards.
    Turn the door handle to a ready closing position. Grit teeth to ward off potential squeaks.



11. Pull the bedroom door closed, release the door handle in slow motion. FREEZE. Exhale slowly and quietly.



12. Establish whether any movement can be heard from within the room. Cross fingers to invoke aid of fairies, kindly spirits, gods/goddesses or karma and only retreat to safety of the living room – in slow motion – once you are certain the child is fully asleep.

I’m NOT doing that this time… so our temptation is to put the baby straight in the cot and bypass the Moses basket altogether, unless I am in a bad way physically after the birth and I need to have the baby right next to the bed.

Is that mean? Will banishing my newborn to its own bedroom straight from the off give it some kind of complex or other in later life? I’m conflicted. Maybe I should use the Moses basket for a few weeks, and then move the Moses basket to inside the cot, and then gradually take the basket away so the baby is just in the cot. These are the things that keep me up at night.

… and my constantly full bladder.
…and my aching wonky pelvis.

:-)

Drugs, Glorious Drugs

When you get pregnant you start forward-planning like crazy. I like to think I’m a fairly organised kind of gal, but there’s nothing like the pending arrival of whole new person into the world to really map things out for you. At the minute, ask me what I’m doing in February 2010 and I’ll be able to tell you!

Pregnancy is the multi-tasker’s wet dream: perpetual lists start forming in your head; myriad ‘what-if’ scenarios of varying eventualities start working their way into your subconscious. And with the luxury of hindsight, I am finding my second pregnancy has already thrown light on a whole host of issues, currently filed under ‘Things I Will Do Different This Time.’

Things I Will Do Different This Time: Chapter 1: Labour
Woah, MAMA… is this ever going to be different this time. When I was having Ben it was less than ideal; everything that I didn’t want to happen, happened. It was long and drawn out, I started pushing far too early, I had an unspeakably gruesome episiotomy and Ben was delivered by forceps. 39½ hours (actually, no… it deserves to be not abbreviated…) THIRTY-NINE AND ONE HALF HOURS from start to finish; needless to say it was no picnic. Don't get me wrong... it was all worth it in the end, but now that I've got the chance to do it all again there are a few things I will change.

I found that because it was my first baby, because I really had no idea what to expect, despite all the advance research and preparation, I was somewhat ill-equipped to make proper informed decisions while going through it all, because I had nothing to measure it against.

This time I’m going to get out of the bed, walk around a lot to bring things on nice and quickly, listen to some cool tunes to take my mind off the contractions (I've already got a few ideas for the track listing!) … somehow in all the hustle and bustle of my last labour I forgot that it was my body, and that I was in control of what happened to it. I just stayed in the bed, and took everything the midwives said to me as read.

I feel that I had my epidural way too early – of course, not knowing how much worse the pain was going to get, I wimped out really close to the start – which really slowed things down.

And the biggest thing: I am going to wait until I get that uncontrollable urge to push, before I actually start pushing. Sounds pretty obvious but it really is funny – when you’re pregnant with your first baby, you read all sorts about how when the time comes you will get an ‘uncontrollable urge to push.’ Let’s just analyse that statement a moment:

1. ‘Uncontrollable’: yep – totally know what that means.
2. ‘Urge’: mm-hmm… yesiree, I get that one as well, I’m down with the urge.
3. ‘Push’: check – opposite of ‘pull’. Thunderbirds are go!

But nothing -- and I’m sure my fellow Mummy friends will agree – nothing actually prepares you for the ‘uncontrollable urge to push’… it totally took me by surprise! I actually had no control over the pushing my body was doing! And I know you’re probably laughing right now – duhhh… Nicola, you idiot – but honestly, your body just does it! You have no say in the matter at all! In fact, in my gloriously euphoric pharmaceutical haze I remember having a drugged-up battle of wills with myself at the time:

Normal Nicola: “Don’t do any more of those silly pushes… you’re bloody exhausted! Just have a rest this time! Sit this one out, come on!”

Labour Nicola: “Great idea; I’m glad I brought you alonnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNG! Grunt, grunt, groooooan!”

Normal Nicola: “Hey man! What the hell are you doing? I thought we agreed?! Gimme five minutes, I just need to catch my breath.”

Labour Nicola: “Okay, okay, okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. Honest, I'm really sorry. I’ll really try not to dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it againnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNN!!!”

… and so on.

But the upshot of it all is, I really do think I started pushing too early. I remember the midwife (not the lovely Lynnette, I should clarify!) telling me when I was 4cm dilated, when I was 6cm and when I was 8cm. But I actually don’t remember her ever telling me when I was 10cm. What I do remember, is her asking me, “Do you feel like pushing?” A reasonable question, without a doubt. But I thought she meant, “Do you fancy having a go at pushing?” to which I replied, “Sure! I’m not really doing anything else at the moment, why not?” but what she actually meant was, “Do you have that ‘uncontrollable urge to push’ yet?” and I totally didn’t.

What I think happened was I started pushing before there was adequate room for Ben to make his grand entrance, and I just aggravated the ol’ bits and pieces 'down below' by trying to make things happen before they were naturally meant to.

Our bodies are pretty smart – they’re constantly in communication with us, letting us know how things are going, and this is probably never more important than while in labour. Now that I know what this 'pushing-babies-out' game is all about, I’ll go into the whole thing with a little less ignorance, with a lot less despairing, and most certainly a little more confidence.

Oh – and a much bigger appreciation for all the marvellous drugs.