Category Archives: Pregnancy

Whiiiine

Posted on June 1, 2006 | 8 comments

So this morning I had a rather unpleasant internal examination – want to hear about the state of my cervix? No, didn’t think so :giggle:

Anyway, as a result, I’m super sensitive and irritable, so I’m going to have a whine about some online-y things that have been getting me down of late.

Can anyone tell me why some people are completely comfortable with ruining the online experience for the rest of us? My question stems from a few ‘issues’ I’ve been having:

I am informed by OtherHalf that my domain name was recently appropriated by someone for use as a ‘sender’ address for spam. So if I’ve spammed your mailbox lately, sorry, it truly was not me. I don’t use this domain for anything mail related. OtherHalf has put measures in place which will hopefully stop this happening again – what makes me most angry is that not everyone can necessarily protect themselves like this – I’m just lucky to have someone on hand who happens to administrate mail servers for a living.

Secondly, I was targeted by a couple of splogs recently. Splogs are apparently ‘spam blogs’ – fake blogs (usually full of nonsensical or plagiarised content) set up purely for the purpose of either A) promoting other sites belonging to the blog-author via lots of linkage, or B) making money from AdSense impressions by luring visitors to the splog, or C) both. It seemed to be a couple of the B-type splogs which got me – incoming links to my blog are listed on the WordPress interface, and I usually check them out to see who’s linking to me (Um… I do believe that’s called vanity!) In this case, by visiting the blogs in question, I earned the authors a little bit of income from their Google AdSense ads. Sucks :grr:

Edit: I just want to clear up a little misunderstanding – Splogs are not exactly the same thing as comment spam. I have quite good comment spam moderation on here, and if I got more, there are several WordPress plugins that work really well at eradicating comment spam. Splogs are not possible to control in this way – they work by linking to me, I see the incoming link via Technorati or the WordPress interface, and visit the blog to find out who it is that’s linking me. Slightly different, and I can’t control who links to me… all I can do is stop visiting those sites to check. It’s more like referer log spamming, if you know what that is. If you find what you believe is a splog on Blogspot, you can ‘flag’ that blog as having ‘offensive content’, but I don’t know how effective this is at having them removed.

OK, now the third thing is a little closer to home. Stitching Exchanges. More specifically – mine. In trying to sort out the state of affairs – who has posted and received, and who has not – it has become apparent that one of the group has… well… disappeared. Absconded. Leaving behind her a trail of unfulfilled exchanges (so I hear now). Mine included. I feel awful for the person who’s missing out on her exchange (only she won’t miss out in the end, because of course I’ll arrange a replacement for her), and I feel really let down personally (partly because I’m the moderator, and partly because I was the person to send the fiber/embellishment supplies to her to use in this exchange). Why would you do that? Personal gain? There’s very little of that in this case. Malicious intent? I guess some could take perverse pleasure from upsetting people like this… but I just don’t get it. At any rate, it has soured my first experience of moderating an exchange, and I’m not sure I’m going to be jumping in to do another.

Aaargh! There was more, actually, but I think I’ve got the bulk of my grumpiness out of the way, so I’ll just stop here… Finn and I are going to go and cook Osso Bucco to make me feel better 🙂

PS. In case you did want to know the state of
Things-Cervical, all is well, and the finger-crossing can commence now, please :giggle: ! This month, one way or the other, I’m going to have a baby 😮 !

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Posted in Blog Blather, Counted Stitchwork, Family, Pregnancy

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New Baby

Posted on May 22, 2006 | 2 comments

No, not that one :giggle: ! But there is a treasured new arrival in this house tonight – OtherHalf has a new laptop. I don’t expect him to emerge from its clasps for the next few hours…

hmmm…. days…

…weeks…?!?!

On the topic of the other baby (because I seem to be unable to talk about anything else these days), the day after I posted last provided me with a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’, as I sat through over an hour of contractions every 2-5 minutes or so. These turned out to be ‘just’ Braxton-Hicks contractions, but whoever said those are painless was obviously of the male persuasion! To distract myself, I took it upon myself to ruin Finn’s life:

finn-hair
I think this may be the last haircut I give him – he’s old enough now to be slightly embarrassed by Mum’s efforts :giggle:

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Posted in Family, Pregnancy

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Ugh

Posted on May 18, 2006 | 1 comment

Once upon a time this was a stitching blog, really it was. There’s not been much of that particular activity going on for a while, I fear. My day goes somewhat like this: get up, have breakfast, potter about for a while, do dishes, laundry, whatever, make lunch, eat lunch… collapse in a pile! I sleep on the couch for a while as Finn plays Sesame Street or similar on my laptop, then we kind of muddle through the afternoon with some boardgames/ books/ visiting friends/ grocery shopping, I struggle to come up with something vaguely resembling food for dinner, eat, then collapse in a pile again for the rest of the evening! So you see, today’s title was about the most I could come up with, given my current stores of energy.

It’s really quite surreal at the moment. When I run into people who haven’t seen me for a bit, they invariably feel the need to point out

A) how enormous my belly is, and
B) that I appear to have lost weight

which, you would think, should be mutually exclusive, but apparently are not. I have not so much lost weight, as transferred it all into my uterus! After losing about 3kg post-GD-diagnosis, I am now only 3kg more than my pre-pregnancy weight. 3kg, I’m sure you could figure out, is all (plus more) taken up by Small+placenta+fluid+etc. So, in fact, a net loss for me, yay! My face, arms, legs, backside, even breasts, are all melting into my belly. Bizzarro!

Anyway, despite the fact that I’m around the same weight, I feel ginormous, and I’m hopelessly clumsy. I had to stop regular walking due to fear of injury – I fell down a couple of steps the other day, and I seem to regularly be straining my abdominal muscles. I bought an uber-cheap and uber-crappy stationary bike instead, and so far we are getting along just fine.

In other Small-news, her scheduled birthday has been pushed back two days from June 20 to June 22. I don’t actually know why, I received this information via my answering machine, so I’ll have to ask the doctor next Thursday. My suspicion is that the hospital has just changed their regular surgery day from Tuesday to Thursday. Anyway, while my first thought should have been “great, an extra 2 days to possibly result in a normal birth…”, my first thought was actually “not another two whole days, please, no…”! But yes, the extra two days may well be useful. That brings me to 40 weeks + 2 days for the scheduled c-section – I’m actually really surprised they didn’t bring it back in the other direction. Anyway, pretty soon I’ll be requesting all the “go into labour” vibes and old-wives-tales you can spare :giggle:

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Posted in Family, Pregnancy

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It’s Not You, It’s Me

Posted on May 10, 2006 | 1 comment

I haven’t been here lately because I have been in an utterly foul mood, and I didn’t want to say something I might later regret! I’d like to go ahead and blame it all on the hormones, if I may :giggle: I don’t remember being so pissy when I was pregnant with Finn, but for the last two weeks, I have felt like I’ve had permanent PMT. Not good. Pity the fools who cut me off on the road! (Ummm, before you go ahead and flame me, I am actually doing my very best not to taint my child with bad language, so I just let my road rage simmer). But that guy – that one in the shopping centre the other day who stood in front of my shopping trolley (which was, at 5pm, being pushed by an equally irritable 3 year old) to ask if I’d participate in somesurveyorother – after he had just seen me decline the offer (politely) from his colleague, not 3 metres away… don’t pity him :grr: He deserved far more than the black scowl he got. I mean – looking like I did that day, in my daggiest tracksuit and unwashed hair, with my enormous belly weighing me down… did he really think I was just hankering to get my teeth into some marketing research? Yeah. Right.

You get the idea. So I’m staying away until I have something slightly better to report. Hopefully that will include a couple of exchange happy dances – once they arrive at their destinations, anyway.

Later edit: I just realised. It just hit me right out of the blue – the reason I was probably not so cranky last pregnancy was because I was allowed to eat sugar! I was no doubt getting cranky, but bingeing it away with good stuff like Tim Tams! Damn!

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Reallyreally T-i-i-i-i-r-e-d

Posted on May 3, 2006 | 3 comments

I didn’t even do any of the physical ‘stuff’, but after six days of living amongst chaos, I am completely exhausted. I just wanted to check in and say all is well, the major construction works are done. Works slow to a crawl now, as the patching, painting and tiling are all up to OtherHalf and I, so don’t expect them to be finished in a hurry :giggle: But the kitchen/living area is already a much better place to be, so I’m happy.

I am also very happy about the state of Things Gestational. She’s not breech! We have one head-down, bum-up baby, which is wonderful news. I tentatively drafted a post two days ago in which I speculated that might be the case, but I decided not to tempt fate, and wait until today’s growth scan. Words like ‘perfect’ and ‘beautiful’ were murmured by the sonographer (wheee!), and the growth estimate puts Small at just above average – as in, not ginormous :giggle: Combined with a BP of 110/80 last week, and great blood glucose levels for the last three weeks, things are at last looking smooth (touchwood-touchwood-touchwood!). If only it weren’t for that darned 40-week deadline. We shall see… I’m through making any predictions with this one!

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Small Stuff

Posted on April 26, 2006 | 2 comments

The Hiccup Stuff
Or more accurately, the hiccoughs. They have started. Finn hiccoughed in utero for about the last two months. (Didn’t stop for about a month afterwards, either). Looks like Small will be following suit. I think it’s so cute! Much cuter than my abdominal bits are feeling and looking lately, anyway.

The Wall Stuff
The Wall, it comes down this weekend. Be afraid. Be very afraid. You know, I’d really like to take Before and After photographs, I would. If only I could get the kitchen and living areas clean enough to do so first! (Actually, I’ll probably have to, since the tearing down of said wall will necessitate some tidiness, after all).

The Dyeing Stuff
#1 – I’m very sad at the loss of my dyeing space, due to Wall-goings-on and the rest of the kitchen ‘rearrangement’. Am going to see if I can manage enough space in our stupid tiny laundry area to set up, but it may well be that my dyes go away for the forseeable future.
#2 – Hoping to squeeze this in before packing the dye-bits’n’pices away. Mum gave me some yarn to try dyeing. I picked up a couple of Landscape dyes (easy-peasy no-extra-acids-needed wool dyes) from Kraftkolour on the day they were closing their doors (sob! They went mail order only, how sad). So I’m going to try a couple of vareigated yarns. I don’t really knit – I can manage a scarf or a cushion though, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.
#3 – Also on the dyeing, I just wanted to remind those of you who’ve bought some floss that you probably should rinse it in cool/lukewarm water prior to stitching with it. I do rinse fairly extensively after dyeing, but there is always a chance of some excess dye left clinging. I’ll add this suggestion into my sale page shortly.

The Employment Stuff
You may remember a bit ago I decided not to take on the offer of a job, as documented here? Well, my lecturer has come back to me with a modified offer – would I like to do some marking? This can (mostly) be done from home, and it won’t begin at the very start of semester, so Small should be 2-3 months by the time I start. I said yes, I’m interested. I’m probably going to slap myself later – my university is not renowned for its generosity s’far as remuneration is concerned. Nor does the time allotted to mark assignments come anywhere close to the actual time that marking takes. But… I figure, it keeps my brain alive, keeps my toe in the water. It could be a good experience.

The Stitching Stuff
Um… no :blank: Must try harder.

Meep. Where does the time go? Finn has been at kinder all morning and I have acheived nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Except a very ordinary blog post. Sigh.

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Posted in Dyeworks, Family, General Ramblings, Other Craft, Pregnancy

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One Big Joke

Posted on April 17, 2006 | 8 comments

I knew it was going to be difficult raising a girl… but I had no idea she would be causing so much trouble so soon :giggle:

So intent is Small on defying her mother’s wishes for a ‘normal’ delivery (note I’m just talking about the exit-location here – I’m totally pro-drugs!) that she is taking nothing for granted. Let’s examine the facts:

1. One previous C-section – this already stands me in good stead for a second surgical delivery. My hospital of choice is not anti-VBAC, but their policy states subsequent pregnancies should not progress further than 41 weeks, and, most importantly, no chemical inductions will be performed. I understand the reasoning for this, I do (these drugs are associated with a higher risk of uterine rupture at the previous scar site). But this one factor plays a big part in this whole situation.

2. Blood pressure ‘issues’ – currently my blood pressure has been at normal levels for about 5 weeks. This is good. However the increased BP might make a reappearance. If I do develop pre-eclampsia, making it necessary to deliver early, no chemical induction… so, straight to caesarian.

3. Gestational diabetes – currently under good control – I was not placed on insulin, the few high readings I recorded earlier in the piece were attributed to a ‘learning curve’, and all is OK on this front so far. But simply having this diagnosis means my time-limit is now 40 weeks. No GD patient will be allowed to progress past this point. Again, hospital policy. Again… no chemical induction.

These three factors considered are enough to make you (and me) fairly confident that I won’t be having a normal delivery. However, clutching at straws, I’ve requested a ‘stretch and sweep’ – kind of a ‘manual’ induction, if you like. Just to see if I can go into labor at all. (As I doubt I would go into labor naturally before 40 weeks – I was late with Finn). They have consented to do this… at 38 weeks. That early, it probably won’t make an iota of difference. Grrr.

Anyway, just in case all of this wasn’t quite enough, there’s a 4. Wait… you’re gonna love this. I did. (I think I’ve finally reached the point of a slightly resigned ‘what next…?’)

4. She’s breech.

Ahahahahaha….. hmmmm…. :blank:

(Petulant child)

We’re booked for a June 20 (surgical) birth-date. Nine weeks tomorrow… and counting 🙂

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Forewarned is…

Posted on April 7, 2006 | 2 comments

In her book “On Death and Dying” in 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed these ‘five stages of grief’:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Apparently it is not unusual for patients diagnosed with chronic illness – not just terminal illnesses such as cancer – to progress through these stages (not necessarily separately or in order).

I believe it. It became apparent to me sometime early last week that I had progressed neatly from ‘denial’ to ‘anger’ over this whole diabetes debacle. I don’t recall any ‘bargaining’, but that could be because I don’t subscribe to any Higher Power with whom to bargain? Regardless, these last few days, I seem to have landed squarely in ‘depression’. Despite my best efforts of the last two weeks, I seem to be headed straight for the insulin, probably by the end of next week, would be my best guess.

I know, I know… technically I have not been diagnosed with a chronic illness. Technically, gestational diabetes mellitus is most often just that – gestational, therefore a transient problem. I think the main problem I have is that I tend to over-educate myself about anything that’s going on in my life. And all that I’m reading points to a fairly huge risk of me being diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic in the next 10-15 years. As in, a 30-50% risk.

So the changes I’m making now, to my diet and exercise regime, must be made for life, in reality. Knowing I must do this is not really the same thing as feeling like I can do it. Knowing something is only for the next 10-12 weeks is entirely different, and entirely doable. (And for the record, I am doing it – I’m eating well, exercising, and have been losing what little weight I’ve put on through the pregnancy). Changing my habits for the rest of my life involves overcoming years of poor eating and exercise habits, and years of the crap self-esteem which lurks beneath. It strikes me that forewarned is not always forearmed. Sometimes, to be forewarned is to be burdened with excess stress and anxiety, both of which add their own little risk factors to one’s health.

Right now, I’m having a hard time coming to the ‘acceptance’ stage 😥

Meh. Must stitch…

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Posted in Family, Pregnancy

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Cancel Those Chocolate Eggs

Posted on March 24, 2006 | 6 comments

Right now I could go a glass of good red wine or three, but cancel that too 🙁 I’ve just had a crappy phone call to top off a pretty blah week. I have gestational diabetes. Just fricking fabulous!

Sorry. I know it’s not the end of the world, but it’s just one more thing to add to my list of ‘why-I-wish-this-pregnancy-was-over-already’. And three weeks before the annual chocolate-orgy that is Easter… that’s just cruel and unusual punishment, wouldn’t you say?!

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Posted in Family, Pregnancy

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Gold Star For Me!

Posted on March 16, 2006 | 3 comments

So, I fully intended to sit down and write a somewhat shamefaced apology to the world on behalf of all Melbourne for the giant flying koalas debacle… but I kind of got distracted by my health.

I am still sorry about the koalas. And the duck. Let me just say this… it was not MY idea! Our ‘esteemed’ Premier said in an interview just prior to last night’s opening ceremony that said ceremony would showcase Melbourne as the truly sophisticated city we are. Um. Yeah.

But that’s all forgotten now. I get a gold star for my blood pressure today!

See, for the last six weeks, I have been deliberately not talking about all things pregnancy. Because the more I talk about it, the more I think about it, and the more stressed I get. And the more it becomes a problem. My blood pressure, that is. The problem, it seems, and I have believed this for some years anyway, is that I have what is affectionately known as ‘white-coat hypertension’. Essentially, that means doctors stress me out to the point where my blood pressure increases just by visiting one! It just kind of makes it hard to accurately monitor my bp. I have experienced the joy of having a 24-hour monitor strapped to me once before, and 90% of all the measurements were within a normal range. Admittedly, my ‘normal’ bp is on the high end of the scale, but not to the point of requiring treatment.

Those of you who’ve been pregnant, however, know how antsy doctors get about blood pressure and pre-eclampsia and whatnot. So six weeks ago, when my bp was suddenly high at one antenatal visit, I was launched through a barrage of extra visits, endocrinologists and fun tests. One of the ‘features’ of the public health system (and please don’t misunderstand me, I love the public system and that I can still have a baby for free, nada, zip in this country) is that you never seem to see the same doctor twice. That sucks for white-coat hypertensives, and frankly, the bedside manner of the last three doctors I saw left much to be desired.

Today – brilliance! I saw someone who in fact turned out to be someone who was once a semi-colleague of mine. During my honours research year I was stationed in a hospital department partnered with his. He recognized me, which was nice. And, he treated me like a human being. What’s more, like an intelligent human being. You have no idea how much more at ease this puts me. After talking things through with him, my BP today was back down to normal (for me), which makes me super happy. Now that it’s officially on the hospital record that I have eccentric bp, even the scowling doctors should be somewhat appeased, and what’s more I feel better armed to discuss my options from hereforth. No, it’s not a guarantee against pre-eclampsia, by any means, but it makes me feel much more confident that I’m not heading directly (do-not-pass-Go) down that route.

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings, Pregnancy

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