Email 6
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SUBJECT: Pregnancy Update #6
Hello again friends and family!
It's going by terribly fast now, isn't it? Oh dear.
Firstly, let's see what the experts are saying: Maureen the Maestro tells us that the baby looks very 'babylike' (as opposed to something 'foetus like', I imagine), and that it should have it's head down. (In other words, if it doesn't, get it 'fixed' or labour will be 10 times worse.) And the movements are very 'vigorous'. (Vigorous is not the word I would use - rather I prefer the term "thrashing about like a shark in a feeding frenzy". I know where his bottom is, I can give him a good smack when he gets a bit excited, as some of these 'vigorous' movements can be bloody painful.) And apparently everything has developed and reached maturity. (This is nice to know, but also a bit scary as it means "Any time from now ...".) As far as I'm going, I'm supposed to be getting very tired (oh really?), yet not sleeping well (oh really??), and have soreness in the ribs as the baby kicks upwards (oh bloody really???). Thanks for telling me all that, or I never would have known.
Super Susan is basically ranting away in a similar vein, and tells me the baby is 42 cm.
Hubby and I have now reached the next exciting phase of pregnancy - the Pre Natal Classes. These are basically two mind numbing hours a week of stuff you already know (though they do have free biscuits - but not Tim Tams, another example of the double edged sword of our public hospitals), run by the scariest midwife the hospital has to offer. Hubby thought she was "nice". I thought she looked like an extra from 'Xena' (not a great thing when I know could very probably be her I'll be arguing with over obtaining drugs during my labour), and was a bit distressed by the way she'd fling her plastic pretend baby over her shoulder when she wasn't really needing it. While I'm not one who thinks children need necessarily be treated like they're made of glass, this was over the line. Hopefully she doesn't to this with real babies. Perhaps that's why they get her to do the classes, and keep her out of the delivery room ...
So the first class basically covered things like what not to eat, what to eat, etc. By seven months, you're really not interested anymore, and have narrowed down your diet to chocolate and chips, despite your best intentions. She also began talking about anatomy, which I figured most of us in the class would already know! How does she think we got there in the first place?
Then came (dramatic music) ... the Birth Video, which no-one seemed to be looking forward to. While they don't scare me, I also wasn't looking forward to it, as they were usually made about a decade ago in a country you've never been to. So, of course, we had this maniacal English woman having a home birth, stomping about the house to ease contractions and being very chirpy (did I mention that these videos - although real - never seem to be very realistic?). Fortunately, my baby gave me a good kick in the bladder and I had to nick off to the bathroom - just as the video midwife was laying newspaper on the lounge room floor for this insane woman to give birth on. "Great, she's having a litter," I thought, as I took off to the loo, not too worried if I missed it. And of course it was all over by the time I returned (hoorah). Although the video was short and the woman had a pretty easy birth (so they told me later), I did still return to a room full of horrified pregnant women, some with tears in their eyes at the very thought of having to do ... "THAT". Needless to say, a very in depth conversation about drugs followed.
Tomorrow night, according to the program, we are going to see some more of these entertaining videos as well as discuss Birth Plans. I myself don't have one. It seems, from all the 'readers stories' in the baby mags, that all women who have them (and usually 'plan' on having a natural birth, no drugs, etc) end up getting induced and having a c-section. Seems like bad luck to have a Birth Plan. If they ask me what mine is, I'll just say "get it out, however, whatever" and not worry about details. I'm not a great believer in planning things that, essentially, I don't get much of a say in.
Had a bit of a scare last week, but things seem okay now. Nice excuse to laze about and watch Arnie movies!
© Cynthia M. Piromalli 2002
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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