Tuesday, July 15, 2003

As promised, shower pics and the baby's room here. A million thanks again to Maggie for throwing a great shower!!!
Showered and ready to go
Saturday was the baby shower and it was a blast! Friday night, we went out and my mother-in-law got a mess of fruit. On Saturday morning, we chopped and washed and peeled and then threw it all in a box and headed over to Maggie's place. We decorated a bit and set up the food table and then people started to arrive. People carrying gifts and food! I decided that Saturday was going to be a black-out day for the gestational diabetes thing-I didn't check my sugar, and I didn't care. We all hit the food table and there was much chatting and laughing, nobody told me any birth horror stories which was appreciated. The gifts were piled high atop the table-people were very generous and there was much oooing and awwing at all the little clothes and stuffed creatures. Thank you everyone! I have pictures and they will be posted soon! We managed to get the loot home and Steve and I got to assemble and play with it. Steve and dad got the carpeting installed, after encountering many problems. By Sunday night, we had the crib up with the bedding and suddenly it's starting to look like a room!
On Monday morning, Steve's mom left and we went off to the hospital for the attempted baby turning. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The doctor strongly advised against it because the chances of the baby turning were about the same as it turning on its own and the risk of having an emergency cesarean were looming. The baby appears to be moving well and seems very healthy despite the fact that it's small, that's good news. There's always the chance that it will flip over before the 28th, so I'm trying to stay positive. It's getting harder and harder to work, my brain's having a difficult time focusing on anything. Today, I'm pretty happy to be in an air conditioned office though, because it's going up to 31C + high humidity.

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

What else?
We finished painting the squares in the baby's room on Monday, it looks really neat! We also finally got around to taking the stroller out of the box. It took us 30 minutes to figure out how to unfold it! It looked easy enough when the guy was doing it in the store. I think that I even did it myself at the store. Good thing that we decided to try it out before actually needing to put a baby in it and go somewhere, two idiots and a baby out on the sidewalk manhandling a folded stroller. The instructions were really more diagrams without much detail which didn't help. The baby shower is this weekend and my mother-in-law is arriving today, with more presents. The doctor is going to try to turn the baby around on the 14. I've been told that this hurts quite a bit by the doctor, and generally when doctors tell you that something hurts, they're not making it up. Until Monday, I'm still going to try all of the stuff I've heard about to get it to turn by itself. Perhaps when we get to the hospital, the doctor will have a look and discover that we're heads down and feeling fine!

Monday, July 07, 2003

thhhhhppppttttlllll
Last Thursday we received a call from the hospital confirming my scheduled c-section on July 28. This scared the hell out of us because we didn't schedule anything with the hospital. Turns out that my doctor decided to book it because he's 99.9% sure that I'm having a c-section. You have to love a doctor who gives you so little hope of avoiding having your midsection sliced open. He logically explained why he thought this, but that's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted some compassion from him, perhaps any sign that he actually realised how big a disappointment this was to me and how scared I am of the surgery. I didn't get it, which of course just made me mad, and stubborn. I talked him into trying to turn the baby, which will be attempted either the 14 or the 24. I got some advice from an experienced midwife, she made me feel hopeful. I talked to a female doctor and a nurse at the hospital who sympathised and told me there's still a good chance that the baby will turn of its own. The nurse did tell me that my doctor is one of the best at the hospital, even if he's not the most compassionate. This made me feel better, because I was starting to worry that I had chosen a c-section crazy man.
Needless to say that I'm still very down in the dumps about the whole thing, I'm trying to stay positive and relaxed, but it's difficult.