Thursday 24 November 2011

Keep calm and carry on? Or panic and freak out?

Yesterday I left a slick, shiny gym in London with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.  I felt calm walking slowly from the gym through the tall glass buildings.  The wind whipped around me, traffic and people rushing past in the half light of the dusk.  Surrounded by bustling people, it somehow felt like my own special moment.

Yesterday I finished the final component of a personal trainer diploma.   When I began the course, I managed the first week before finding out that I was pregnant.  Whether I would be able to finish before my body gave out on me was questionable, especially after we discovered I was harbouring twins in my swiftly disappearing six-pack.  The last module just happened to be 'Adapting Exercise for Ante- and Post-Natal Clients', something I wanted to specialise in as a personal trainer.  I was the only pregnant student there and provided a useful example to the others in the gym demonstrations.
me sporting my six-pack

The man sitting next to me was a father of twins, now one-year-old.  He provided a happy and optimistic account, saying how they were fun and happy to give mum time to do other things while they played together.  But then we got onto birth experiences.

'They were delivered at 30 weeks,' he told me.

30 weeks!?  But I am at 32 weeks and no where near ready to be carted off to the hospital!  I knew this was common with twins, but blissfully ignoring the fact that I was at that point where these things happen.  I resolved to pack a hospital bag this week and finally write that birth plan.

So yesterday wasn't all self-satisfied smugness.  And it even got a little worse.  Thom and I were invited to a twin-specific ante-natal class that evening at the hospital.  My warm glow after leaving the gym was wearing thin by the time we left the house and the comfy sofa into the cold, dark night to get there for 7pm.  It was completely wiped out by the antiseptic smell wafting over us as we passed through the automatic sliding doors.

Yuk, hospitals, I thought, the idea of my fellow student's wife giving birth at 30 weeks fresh in my mind and the enforced hospital stay that early arrival would necessitate.  Just to tip me over into total panic stations, the class included a video of parents of twins talking about birth experiences, including the weeks into pregnancy they were at delivery.  32 weeks.  36 weeks.  My heart pounded as I counted the where we would be by then.

Our class continued with a trip to the Special Care Baby Unit, a little ward with friendly nurses and little tiny babies in clear plastic boxes.  Not the warm cuddly image I had in mind for my own.  The nurse pointed through the glass at a tired looking woman smiling into one of plastic boxes.

'Here is one of our ladies who gave birth today!'  Turns out she was meant to be on the twins ante-natal class with us that evening, but her babies had other plans.  And so there she was, like a walking wake-up call, that this is possibly happening very soon.

I woke this morning full of resolve.  Pulling a handy list off the internet of what should be in a hospital bag, I strode into town with a purpose, armed with my debit card and a healthy dose of anxiety.  Probably not a bad thing for me because now I can sit here and write to you with the calm knowledge that a suitcase now stands packed and ready should the little wrigglers make a surprise appearance.    


      

Saturday 19 November 2011

Maternity leave: time to baby-bake

I'm sitting on the sofa eating crisps and dip, as smells of the curry Thom is cooking up are wafting from the kitchen and straight into my brain.  It's making my stomach rumble and I've had to pull away from the crisps briefly, for my own good.

Yesterday was my last day at work before maternity leave.  It was strange feeling leaving the front doors of the hospital where I work, my bag containing the last of my personal stuff from the office, clutching a big bouquet of flowers from my co-workers.  I made my way home in a kind of haze, finding it hard to believe that this would  be the last time doing this in a while.  Even more surreal, was the knowledge that the next time I commuted to work, my life would be very, very different.

Today, unusually for us, we slept late into the morning before sluggishly rolling ourselves into the day with some strong coffees.  Thom's, a big mug.  Mine, a mini-dose.  We had the whole day with no commitments and beautiful autumn weather.  We eventually strolled up into town to meet with our friend, Bianca and do a little browsing of the shops.

Without work waiting for me on the other end of the weekend, I noticed an urge to get lots of things sorted.  Things that I'd been telling myself, 'Once I'm on maternity leave, I will....'  I made a start on stockpiling toiletries, in anticipation of future months when I would not be so mobile or so blessed with the freedom of spare time.  We got home and I continued organising and getting ready.  But as the sun started to dip below the horizon, and my feet were speaking to me with curse words, I realised that this was silly.

I want to get ready, but this time is also for resting.  Thom refers to it as my 'baby baking time', and in truth that is the real job at hand.  So I changed into my slippers, left the pile of baby clothes in the spare room and parked on the sofa.  Thom got to cooking, as he has faithfully done throughout the 7 months so far, allowing me to just baby-bake.  With this luxury of time and curry on it's way, I'm one lucky baby-baker.
Thom's dinners: yummy and heartfelt

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Winge and thankfulness: taking stock of what I got

One more week of work and I will be on maternity leave.   In some ways it has all gone so fast and then at other times I feel like I've been pregnant forever.  This might be because I got off pretty lightly with the majority of unpleasant pregnancy symptoms.  No sickness.  No vomiting.  Tiredness but I like to nap anyway. 

Now that I am stretching my physical limits, I'm noticing some unpleasant things.  Swollen feet have arrived.  At the end of the day, when I remove my socks, my fat little ankles look like sausage links from where the socks cut in.  I even bought a larger pair of shoes, which feel big at the beginning of the day and rather snug by the end.

And I have dizzy spells.  At the last scan, after laying on my back for 15 minutes, I was going pale and woozy.  The weight of the babies presses on the Vena Cava, a major vein of the body, cutting off the blood supply as it tries to return to the heart from the body.  My blood supply was being cut off by the very weight of my own body.  Amazing.  They turned me on my side and waited for the colour to return to my face.

Fat feet.  Fainting feeling.  Ever bigger belly.  And the continuing fear of the stretch mark fairy payign me visit.  I am literally counting the hours until Friday at 5pm.  

But I had a kind of a gift arrive through email that is helping me to feel thankful and made me take a fresh look at my so-called tribulations.  A brave woman named, Heather, emailed as we both have blogs about our travels through motherhood.  Mine, a sometimes rambling winge.  Her's, a harrowing story of life and death, confronting cancer in the midst of bringing a new life into the world.  Click here to read Heather's blog

Heather's blog tells the story of her fight with mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that attacks the lungs.  At a time when she should have been bonding with her baby and getting used to being a mother, she was forced into a battle for her life.  6 years later, and she is still here, a testament to the amazing resiliency people can find where they least expect it.

My sausage feet, frankly, pale in comparison to the things Heather went through.  I imagine I will still winge now and again.  Even now, I have come in from work and dived straight under a blanket on the sofa.  I'm hoping Thom will make dinner appear at when he gets in, as my rumbling tummy says the twins are hungry, but I am too tired and feeling too sorry for myself to move.  But despite my slug-like qualities, I am thankful, and Heather has reminded me of how much there is be happy about.  I hope you'll have a look at her story and it enriches your outlook, too.