Earlier on when people are asking about how my pregnancy is treating me, I'd proudly flashed my grin and said "It's been a breeze". Inexperience mother-to-be, that's me. I spoke way too soon. Yes, my first trimester and second trimester are smooth sailing journey. But the nightmare starts during the last stretch of the pregnancy journey, third trimester.
It is not as bad as nightmare per se but it is really tough on me. When I started to hit 32 weeks, my weight keeps climbing up till at one point I considered to stop eating. Of course I didn't because that would be crazy but I watch what I eat and more importantly I've stopped snacking on junk food now. There's another reason for this but we will get to that later. Right now I'm in my 36 weeks and my total weight gain is 12kg. I thought this is not bad but someone was rubbing it to my face and said she only gained 10kg.
Let me tell you, I really really hate those know-it-all mothers or been-there-done-that mothers. These kind of people will bombard you with advice which some are not applicable anymore or 20 years out of date advice. *roll eyes*
Normally I just ignore them and don't let them get to my head but sometimes it's hard. I mean every pregnancy to every woman are different. Why compare? Just so that you can appear superior? So you think you are a better mother? Pffts
Enough rant, on to the more important update!
I feel like a whale now
*********** The update above was written on 1st Dec 2016. Obviously a month later, I already gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. So I guess I pick it up where I left it off last time.
The reason that I was told to watch my diet was because I was diagnosed with gestation diabetes. I guess all those chocolates and ice creams are the ones to be blamed. I was diagnosed during my second OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test) because I vomited during the first test.
My result
I knew right away something was wrong when I received the phone call from the clinic the next day. They asked me to come in and I was told that my glucose level is slightly higher and they wanted to refer me to General Hospital. This is where I started to get really worry. I was told that I probably will be hospitalized for monitoring. During this time, the husband was away in Perth visiting his father so I felt super alone. I remembered crying like mad when I was driving to hospital because I don't want to be hospitalized.
Upon seeing the doctors at GH, I was told the same thing, I have 3 choices to monitor my glucose level by doing the 7 point glucose test. 1) Hospitalized 2) Come to the hospital every 2-3 hours or 3) Do the test myself at home.
The idea of being hospitalized really break me down so I opted for the third option, I asked if they could rent me the kit but alas they can't. So I went to my local pharmacy to get one, The doctor also requested me to make an appointment with dietitian for consultant. I skipped the appointment because I was exhausted and not in the good mood to listen to the same thing all over again eg: reduce carb, no junk food etc etc.
The glucose test kit
I have to do the test for 7 times before and after every meals and before I sleep.
That means I had to prick myself like this for 7 times
It is not fun
I was supposed to bring the result in for checking by the doctor but I didn't in the end because my result was in normal range. So what I did was monitor what I eat. I stop all the junk food, have less rice and avoid any bread/noodles. It was tough at first because the more you're not allowed to eat it, the more you will crave it.
My bump at 36 weeks
I was so ready to pop by 36 weeks because I felt so heavy and it started to be difficult for me to walk. I had to waddle now. Not only that, I started to feel intense pain on my left crotch every time I get up from sitting/lying down too long. Imagine the pain every time I had to get up at night to pee. Although I visited the toilet less at night now, I couldn't sleep well. No position is comfortable at this stage and my chest always hurt. It was like gastric pain but not gastric pain and it's not heart burn either. Paired it with my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, it was impossible to get a good night sleep.
During my last checkup at Polyclinic at 36 weeks, it is confirmed that my baby is breech as in her head didn't turn down to get ready for labor. I know the baby is breech at around 30 weeks when we went for scanning at private clinic. But the doctor told us there is still hope because some babies turn down nearing the end of term.
Again I went to General Hospital for proper scanning and follow up as advised by Polyclinic. I was given the option to do ECV (External Cephalic Version) which is a procedure to manually turn the baby down. This procedure comes with its own risk eg: the umbilical cord may tangle at her neck, defect to baby physical feature, rapture in amniotic sac, and the procedure may fail to if baby reverse back.
All of those risk really scare me. I don't want anything bad happened to my baby and upon discussion with the husband, I opted for planned Cesarean section. I was preparing myself for normal delivery all this while and suddenly I was told that my baby is breech. Now I had to change my mindset to prepare for the surgery. Even the surgery itself comes with its own set of risk but at least the risks are mostly on me, not so much on my baby. I was surprised at how calm I was when I know I will have to undergo the surgery. I guess having a positive mindset really helps.
Now that we already set the date for the surgery, it was time for us to do final preparation for baby arrival. Our biggest concern is baby cot. I got my eyes on one of the baby cot in Ikea but the shipping cost is double the price for the cot. So we got no choice but to source locally.
Finally settled on this one because it is fordable and the height is adjustable
We washed and cleaned as well as sanitized all the baby stuff eg: milk bottle, clothes and hunt for newborn diapers. At this point, my feet were really swollen. In fact I felt like my whole body is swollen.
Sneaking it date night before we welcome our little one
Can you believe that we are parents now?
I was supposed to finish this post last month but never got around to do that. I delivered my beautiful girl on 13 December 2016 and still in confinement until now. I think this is the biggest milestone in my life. Will share about my labor story soon!
