Email 7
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SUBJECT: Pregnancy Update #7
Hello again friends and family!
Week 36, and this may be my last update until the 'big day', particularly if my mother is right and I go into labour early. Probably. She's always right, but don't tell her I said that.
Firstly, let's see what the experts are saying: Maureen the Maestro tells us that the baby is getting big (oh really?!!), and that it has fingernails. Fabulous. So now instead of just trying to beat me to death, the baby is going to start tunneling it's way out with it's new weapons. As for me, she's got even more wonderful, although unheeded advice, about bras and a bit of warning about 'secretions' - trust me, you don't want to know! She also says to rest as much as possible. Fine by me! Something also about nesting - if this is telling me that vacuum cleaning the house at four in the morning is normal, then I am very glad to hear it.
Super Susan is telling me that the baby has pretty much grown right into the uterus, with very little room to spare. Also another amazing shock. I thought it was trying to get into my chest just for something to do. She also using the wonderful term 'jabbing' in reference to what it's doing with it's arms and legs. Not a word I'd use ... unless a sharp instrument is also involved. That's more what it feels like.
Birth classes are super boring. I tried to get out of it the other week as I just KNEW they were going to start carrying on about breastfeeding. Now this is not 'advice', per se, as much as an order. Or more to the point, the nurse stares you right in the eye and says "If you do not breast feed, your baby will become a hunchback with a speech impediment!" If nothing else, it means they have an excellent career ahead of them doing theatre run after theatre run of Richard III. On the other hand, they could be exaggerating. I, for one, know they are, so I was basically the only mother there not trembling and burning bottles at the stake. Ah yes, mothers milk is best and all, but it's very difficult to be so 'au natural' at four in the morning in the freezing cold ... if you know what I mean! Not that the nurse was going to hear any argument, so the baby doll came out again, as well as a lovely 'lifesize' (although vastly bigger than mine!) fabric breast, so we could 'practice'. I can just see in a few weeks time in the maternity ward when some of us new mothers who are brave enough to ask for a bottle ... out comes the fabric breast to beat us in the head. Looking forward to that.
A couple of the girls had actually gone into labour a few weeks early, so last week we were treated to a tour of the maternity ward complete with two of our fellow 'birth classers' sitting there in shock with screaming babies. When asked by some of the first timers what it was really like, they simply mumbled and looked like they were about to cry. I remember it all too well now.
They also gave us a rude shock by letting us know, quite proudly, that "this hospital has a rooming in policy", which basically means that the 'nursery' is used to store cloth nappies, NOT babies. So if I reach for that red button in the middle of the night with the plea to take the baby away while I sleep, I'd better have a good excuse!
© Cynthia M. Piromalli 2002
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