Snap, crackle, and POP

My body sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies. The relaxin hormone is really kicking in and pretty much every joint in my body now will pop or click on demand, and often of it's own accord. It's most disconcerting, especially for me who has come to associate clicking/popping with injury as a result of my hip problems. So, I have to keep reminding myself that this is 'normal', at least for being 7 months pregnant.

The other result of the relaxin is that it's getting hard to sustain an uninterrupted night's sleep - something which I've had no problem with until recently (I'm a good sleeper.)

Obviously I have to now lay on one side or the other and I'm finding that the pressure on my hip joints coupled with the fact that they are looser than normal is creating fatigue-type pains in my butt and outer, upper thigh. I'm almost 100% sure of the cause of this pain because, at last night's birthing class, another pregnant woman mentioned the same problems and this is what the instructor confirmed was going on also. Unfortunately, changing positions side-to-side doesn't really help and neither does the old pillow between your thighs trick - once it starts hurting, the only way to get back to sleep is to sit upright with your legs out in front of you, so that your pelvis is stablilized again. I'm getting about 4 good hours of REM sleep on a good night before I wake up for the first time with the pain, try to adjust on the other side, then try to adjust on my back, then about 2 hours later, finally get back to sleep for another couple of hours before I need to get up. So far 6 hours of sleep isn't hurting me during the day - I used to do only 6.5-7 before I got pregnant anyway - but I'm well aware that this only gets worse (and then worse and worse after the baby comes along!) Oh well, suck it up, I guess!

If you read my other blog (which nobody seems to be doing - yes this is me whining/complaining) you'll know that the SPD problems seem to be subsiding. Maybe this is something to do with the increase relaxin in my system, maybe it's something to do with the number of self-help remedies I immediately jumped-on, who knows and who cares? I'm just glad to be relatively pain free. It's still definitely there and I have to think about it with my movements but it is not nearly one tenth of the problem it was a week ago. This has definitely lifted my spirits.

Two weeks into our birthing classes now and last night was an overview of the stages of labor. Again, nothing too gruesome yet, although there was a nice hairy crotch shot featuring an emerging head near the end of the video. This got some of the men hiding their head in their hads and squirming (I feel sorry for their wives!) I saw my first birth in grisly detail on the tv at the age of 2 and so I wasn't too affected, although I do confess that it takes on a whole new meaning when you're imagining that being YOUR crotch in just a couple of months. No point in worrying about it now, though. Another one of those 'suck it up' moments.

One of the disturbing things we did learn in class was that many doctors will thin our your membrane (some sort of separation of the fetal sack and your uterus achieved by running a finger around the opening to your cervix) during a routine pelvic exam and without telling you. It's a technique used by Doulas and midwifes to try and induce the onset of labor without drugs and, it is said, can result in labor occurring 1-3 days after it's done. Typically doctors do this to try and get things moving along when you're close to or past your due-date. You can tell if the doctor has been doing things "up there" that he/she hasn't told you about, if you leave your appointment and see some light spotting on your panties. This clearly 'induced' (ba-da-bum) a sense of horror and unease amongst everyone in the room. Why would doctors do this without telling you and how on earth do they get away with it???? I guess because it's hard to prove it happened but still, not confidence inducing!

Another surprising thing was how nurses evaluate how many centimetres dilated you are. Since dilation is the be-all-and-end-all measurement of how you're progressing in labor, you would THINK that there would be some fancy device used to measure it. After all, this is a world in which we can engineer a bionic hand onto the stub of an arm. BUT, the reality is that nurses do this important task with their fingers, leaving it to educated guesswork. This is all fine and dandy if you've got the same nurse throughout your labor but, as the instructor pointed out, if that nurse leaves at the end of her shift and you get a new one, nurse #2 may have a different 'measurement' of how many centimetres you're at. Sometimes people get discouraged because the first nurse will say 4cms and then the second nurse will come along two hours later and claim you're only 3cms! Can you imagine all those hours of pain and someone tells you you've gone backwards!!!!!????

What's even crazier is one of the things the instructor suggested we do to try and put our minds at rest should this happen to us: take a good look at the size, length, and thickness of the fingers of the new nurse as compared to the old nurse, because that is a factor in how they measure. I can just see it now....


ME: "But the last nurse said 4cms two hours ago!"
NURSE 2: "I'm sorry m'aaam but I'm only measuring 3cms."
ME (to Hubby): "GO MEASURE THAT WOMAN'S FINGERS THIS INSTANT!!!!!"

You think I joke but I am seriously going to make a mental and physical note to pay attention to shape and size of nurse's fingers on the big day.

Otherwise, the only other thing to report was an amusing activity with a baby sock and a plastic easter egg... I'll explain if you really want to know.


Tonight is our Baby Basics class. Just a one night deal to help us learn the basics of parenting that will enable us not to accidentally suffocate or drown our baby in its first few days of life. I'll report more on that in another post.


And how is baby doing? Baby is still very active but the movement is different now. Before a kick was a kick and a punch was a punch - a one-shot "bop" or "pow". Now the movements are less about playing Mike Tyson with the uterus wall and more about using it as leverage to move around inside. The pressure starts at one point and then slides along for a few inches as you literally watch your belly undulate. At the same time you get this unsettled, queasy feeling in your tummy as the baby tries to reposition itself. Sometimes the hands get involved on the other side of your belly too, which is always fun - seeing and feeling both sides of your belly expand in opposing directions is just a blast.

For the most part, it seems that the legs/feet are up at the top of my belly, although usually to the right side, suggesting baby is at a 45 degree angle. I'm pretty sure, although am no expert, because it's definitely getting easier to tell hands and feet apart. Also, the pressure on my bladder has been increasing in the last week (I had to pee 3x within 45 minutes after dinner the other day) and so I'm guessing that could be from the head bopping around down there. Of course, this is all 1st-time-mother conjecture. My next ObGyn appointment is this Thursday and I'm hoping we'll do another ultrasound to get an inside peek for what's going on in there. I also want to start chatting with her more about her methods, practices and decision-making criteron for the birthing process. Now we're getting more informed about options and different ways of doing things it's time to make that list of questions and start firing them off!


The other day I had lunch with a friend and she asked me two questions:

1) What have you enjoyed most about being pregnant so far?
and
2) What are you most excited about?

This may sound cold and selfish but my honest response to these questions is/was:

1) Nothing. I have not enjoyed one iota of anything to do with this whole process.
2) Getting my body back.

Another friend asked me a similar question (about being excited) at lunch yesterday and, having had time to think about it more, I revised my answer a tad: I am looking forward to the baby being about 3 months old, with the birth behind me, when routines and sleeping patterns have been established for all of us and the zombie phase is over, and when I can really start getting back to being myself but, of course, in the mommy role.

With that in mind, just 5 months to go.

BREATHE!