2014

Ok, so it seems like everyone around me is giving birth, like some great cosmic joke that’s so unfunny. In the past 2 weeks, I have FOUR(??!!) friends who gave birth. Even the angry cat at my void deck (whom I always thought was male and just a little bit fat) decided to deliver 3 really cute squishy baby kittens.

Meanwhile, I’m still here, as pregnant as ever.

Had another round of contractions on Saturday night and the husband was all “I think it doesn’t look so good, let’s go in to the hospital” but I was not to be faked again. I grabbed a hot compress for my back and decided to ride it out while rolling around like a crazy person all over my bed. I must have been semi delirious because apparently I was yelling incoherent words along the lines of “I WILL NOT GO BACK IN UNTIL I SEE THE BABY’S HEAD!!”

I hear the world record for the longest gestational period lasted 375 days, which I will attempt to break with this pregnancy. You know me, I’m nothing if not an overachiever.

Instead of sobbing into my pillow, in the spirit of optimism and happy thoughts and all that, I decided to make a list of why it’s great to be 9 months pregnant and still not give birth.

1. Weight training.

Who needs gym time when I’m carrying weights everywhere I go? That’s 3kg of baby + another 3kg of placenta, amniotic fluid and extra boob mass. It’s exercise 24/7, yo.

2. Spider veins.

I don’t have stretch marks but I do have some pretty rad spider veins running across my belly. The kids saw it the other day and they thought it was really cool. They took turns using it as a track for their Hot Wheels collection and after that, I conducted an extensive lesson on our family tree.

3. Heartburn. 

You’re probably thinking, this can’t be a good thing…and you’d be wrong. You spend all this time getting well acquainted with feeling like your chest is on fire, and it’s all very good training because a day might come where you’re actually having a heart attack. Most people would be all “what’s happening to me?” but not you. If that day ever comes, you’d be prepared. And we all know early intervention makes all the difference.

4. Shortness of breath.

That feeling like you can’t breathe and you’re about to pass out after climbing 3 steps? Harness it and use it. So like if you’re ever captured and water-boarded for important secrets like How To Make Your Baby Sleep, you’d be able to last at least 1 round before caving. That’s like a serious skill to master.

5. Frequent toilet breaks.

After you have kids, you’ll realise how precious toilet breaks are. Sometimes, a mom just needs to take five in the toilet and there isn’t a more legit time for a bona fide toilet break. Take them liberally and more importantly, ENJOY THEM.

6. Memory loss. 

When you’re nine months pregnant, you forget stuff like people’s names and important dates. Forget a birthday? Flash your belly for a free pass. Call people by random names like Lindsay or Sally, they won’t mind. In fact, I’ve stopped using my kids’ names and started pointing at them and saying “YOU” or “BABY”.

7. Backaches.

Okayyy, there’s nothing good here. Moving along.

8. Fatigue. 

After a few months of second trimester energy, I’m back to falling asleep all over the place. Partly due to pregnancy fatigue and partly due to the fact that I’m hardly able to get in any sleep at night with all the contractions and pain and general discomfort. I was almost dozing off when I heard Kirsten sneak into the room and whisper to her brother “Shhhhhh, mommy is sleeping because she’s pregnant. Let’s go play quietly outside.” I got a whole 5 minutes of silence before they decided to see who could stack more lego bricks on my eyelids…quietly.

It’s been a crazy 36 hours which started with some painful, regular contractions on Sunday evening. (yay, finally right?) It was fairly manageable at first so I tried to sleep it off but this is a very thoughtful baby who woke me up at 3am with some good old fashioned pain in the uterus so I could watch the World Cup finals. I love a good game of soccer but frankly, given the state I was in, I enjoyed that match just about as much as I enjoy a bare-handed fist fight with an alligator.

By 7 in the morning, the contractions were about 10 minutes apart and the pain was getting out of control so I woke the husband to send me down to the hospital. I wanted to hulk smash everything in my way but I was also excited to finally give birth. It’s a cathartic mixture of rage and excitement.

9am, got warded and hooked up to the CTG, which recorded erratic contractions ranging from 7 minutes to 15 minutes apart.

I was asked about the pain level. “About 5-6”, I said.

How do people rate pain anyway? Should a 10 be having your arm ripped out by a shark? Or getting stabbed by a fork in the eye – is that just like a 9.27 on the universal pain scale? Or maybe walking barefoot on a minefield of lego pieces on fire – that should be a solid 10 in my books. Also, people who say childbirth without epidural is “relatively painless” or “quite ok”? Shut up, you’re ruining it for the rest of us.

Most of the time, anything above a 7 counts as “STOP TALKING AND MEDICATE ME NOW!!” anyway so 5-6 was in the range of dangerously close but imma put on a brave face and power through so I don’t look like a big baby.

And then came the super fun cervix check. By 2 different people (double yay). I’v never had so much attention given to my cervix. There was like a conference regarding the length of my cervix going on in the delivery ward, complete with grave looks and thoughtful nods.

“Not even the slightest bit dilated” was the official diagnosis.

Now this is my cervix being a jerk. My uterus finally had a turn of heart and decided to get on with the program, albeit reluctantly, so it was all like “ok fine, you want contractions, here you go, here’s more pain for you” but then my cervix had to be all “HELL NO!! NOTHING’S GETTING OUT OF HERE, NOT ON MY WATCH!” so my uterus got all confused and isn’t quite sure what to do with all the useless contractions.

So I’m stuck with erratic contractions ranging from a pain level of 3-5 but not much else. I had to be on the CTG machine every 4 hours in case it escalates, which it might, because with Finn, I went from 1-10 cm in like 2 hours. Apparently, I could be in this state for hours or days or weeks!!??

My options are a c-section (awful recovery), induction (increased risk of wound rupture) or to just wait it out. I’d like to choose none of the above but that’s not one of the options.

Looks like it’s gonna be a waiting game for now.

On the bright side, I’ve lasted 37 weeks (!!) but honestly, this pregnancy has been really tough, by far the toughest among the four. And the closer I get to the end, the more intent my body seems on making it as unpleasant as possible.

I have all the ailments of the previous pregnancies plus some new ones I didn’t even know existed.

Like this is the first time I’m having severe dizzy spells, almost to the point where I’m about to pass out. These flashes of vertigo and disequilibrium makes my brain feel like it’s submerged in water and I don’t know if I’m even vertical or which side is up; I just want to curl up like a ball on the floor with a bucket in my face. It’s a terribly helpless feeling, not knowing when it’ll hit or how long it’ll last or what to do about it.

And the cramps! I’m cramping all the time. Braxton Hicks contractions is like your body’s way of being mean just for fun. As if one round of actual labor isn’t enough, it’s like “here, you need some practice pain before the real pain.”

But I’m starting to see the genius in this, it’s part of the grand plan to make the last trimester so awful that it trumps the trauma of labor so by the time the real labor comes, you’re so miserable that you welcome it with open arms.

At this point, I’m looking forward to the pain, because then it means that everything is finally coming to an end. So every time I start to cramp up, I get super excited, like “Oh oh oh is it time now? How about now? Or now? Or now? PLEASE MAKE IT NOW I WANT MORE PAIN!! GIVE ME PAIN!!!”

And then after 2-3 rounds of contractions, nothing.

“Ha, gotcha! Practice over, get back to being pregnant!” says my uterus.

Anticlimax, I’m so over you.

All my kids have been delivered full term or beyond so I don’t have high hopes of this baby coming early. But hope’s a funny thing – even the littlest bit can be comforting. Or crushingly disappointing. One of those.

Everyday, I wake up and ask my comfy uterus the same question: “Are we there yet?”

And everyday, I get back the same response. “We’ll get there when we get there.”