A night at the theatre

Now that I know there is a high likelihood that I will end up having a c-section I have started to do a bit more about finding out about what is involved other than just saying "ouch" a lot. It is not a pleasant experience, but neither would a normal birth be so it really is a case of it being pretty miserable either way. I am also so worried about my health now (Bump will be fine, the doc gets her out at the first sign of trouble, it is her large incubator who is the one at risk now) that the option of just getting her out as soon as she would be able to survive safely seems rather appealing.

So I found myself this lunchtime on a very good, British, baby website that has been very helpful throughout when I have had a quick question or worry at work and need some perspective. However, when looking at its description of a c-section I did start to wonder who wrote it.

"A screen will be put up while the procedure is taking place. Some partners like to peek over the screen but others prefer not to see what is happening. You may like your doctor to tell you what he is doing, so that you know the minute your baby is born. Many parents like to have music playing in the theatre as well."

This makes it sound like we are going for a night at the opera rather than major surgery. Although I do remember once seeing a dreadful rendition of Wagner and it was a very painful and traumatic experience.

Side effects

After the general panic that was this afternoon after I was told my blood pressure was getting too high too fast and being told all of the wonderful complications that go along with it, I sensibly took myself off to the pharmacy to get the magic pills that might help, or might not, but it's worth a try.

Anyway, being the child of a scientist father and a mother who spent most of her working life working in hospitals I googled the drugs I had been given to see what they are and whether there are any side effects.

Amongst other side effects, they are likely to cause nausea, dizziness, fatigue, swelling of the ankles and problems with the movement of ones bowels.

So, just like being pregnant then.

Slave boy wanted

I went to see Dr D today to check on my blood pressure. It has gone up again, meaning I had to listen to all the additional complications this could cause me (because I am not scared of labour sufficiently as it is), and have been put on drugs to try to lower it.

It also means that I am under strict instructions to take life a lot easier, so no more racing or the gym for me, and spending lots of time on the sofa doing as little as possible.

So, I am wondering whether now is the time to advertise for the aforementioned nubile slave boy to tend to my every whim...

Things that go bump in the night

I have largely steered clear of the marketing machine that is baby books and magazines during my pregnancy. A number of people have told me that they offer conflicting advice and therefore hinder more than help. I am also lucky that I have a great doctor, who I trust completely to tell me anything I really need to know or worry about.

I was, however, given two books by my friend K who lives in Oz. She is a Brit, wonderfully practical in her approach to her two delightful daughters, and a rower to boot so I trust her judgement and the books have proved to be great. The books follow the format of most pregnancy books you can get, with a week by week or month by month review of what is going on. I have found both useful in different ways, and have not skipped ahead and pretty much read them at the appropriate time.

Last night I realised that with all the excitement of the waddle at the weekend, I had fallen behind my reading and so settled down in bed with the cat to read this week's update. This covered labour.

I know that Bump has to come out at some point, but I am convinced that there is some form of grand conspiracy to ensure that nobody actually tells you about what is going to happen until it is, quite frankly, too late to do anything about it. Dr D only told me about the process last week ("there's not much point before now"), no other Mum will tell you anything other than "you forget it quite soon afterwards", and the books don't cover it until week 35, as I am now finding out.

It is, being brutally honest, a horrible process. If ever there was an example of why Darwin got his whole theory so horribly wrong then childbirth is it. I can't believe that after millions of years of evolution there isn't a better way to do this. There is, quite simply, not an easy or pleasant way to give birth to the next generation. As I explained to the Boy in bed last night, who queried why I looked so traumatised after reading the relevant chapters, you are going to either rip, tear, be cut, fall apart or all of the above and there is nothing you can really do about it. Dr D even gave me a nice little demonstration of the need for cutting rather than tearing by punching his fist through a bit of paper (as if I couldn't imagine it without that helpful image!).

Leaving aside the fact of the bits "down there" and the stitches required afterwards, your body then turns into something that will hate you that bleeds, leaks and won't work for a good few weeks after the main event. All the while you are trying to "bond" with the very thing that caused you all this hassle in the first place. I will want to take to my bed and be tended to by nubile young slave boys, but just when I need to feel lovely again I will be up all night, tired, leaking (that whole bit really worries me), have engorged breasts and generally miserable.

Of course I then had the most hideous nightmares all night as a result of thinking about all of this.

Why, oh why, did I not read those chapters before I got pregnant.

How to make a mummy-to-be smile

Yesterday I was feeling pretty grim. It had been a weekend without enough sleep, I was feeling tired, fat, spotty, a bit dizzy and generally not very happy with life.

As I was waiting for a lift at work on my way to a meeting I was chatting to a couple of my team members. D, a very sweet girl in my team, spontaneously said "You look really pretty today".

I didn't know whether to hug her or cry. So I smiled and told her how lovely she is.

Keeping the romance alive

According to a book donated to me by a very yummy mummy, L, it takes a lot of work and effort once Bump arrives to keep the romance in your marriage and ensure that this side of things don't get sacrificed as a result of the new addition. All sensible advice.

The past weekend the Boy and I had our wedding anniversary. We've never really done much to celebrate. I think we've been out for dinner a couple of times in the past, and one year I made the ultimate sacrifice and made him garlic prawns with the heads on (I am scared of prawn heads so it was a gut wrenching experience). But as our anniversary only falls 5 days before my birthday we tend to roll the two into one. Most years we are on holiday, as our anniversary falls outside the rowing season and therefore in prime holiday time, so we have often been away to celebrate. Last year we were in Bali with friends and family.

This year, however, we surpassed ourselves in the celebrations. Saturday involved going rowing (me in a single scull, him in a double) followed by a fry up with other rowers. I then found myself on the ferry to Macau in the early afternoon.

The Boy had booked us a hotel near the start and finish of the course, but by the time we checked in the only non-smoking room they had left had twin beds. As being in a smoky room the night before a race is just about the worst thing you can do in preparation, we took it. The beds were rock hard, not an inch of give, and set about a metre apart - we would have to lean out of bed to hold hands. You also jarred your back if you tried to, lazily, flop down on top of them, so forget any frolicking even if we had the energy after the hard rowing session in the morning. After an early supper, we were in bed by 10 - separate beds of course.

On the day of our anniversary, at 3.30am, thinking it was 4.30 and so 2 hours before the start of the race, the Boy woke up to eat a banana as fuel for the race. After shouting at him, he then went back to sleep until 4.30 when his alarm went off again and he ate what was possibly the worlds driest granola bar. I think I shouted at him again, accused him of sounding like an overgrown rabbit, and was generally rather rude about being woken up again. That said, the bed wasn't the kind of place one would want to dwell.

At 6.30 we were standing in a pitch dark stadium about to start the Macau marathon. I did it with my rowing coach, and the Boy did the half marathon alone.

Once back to HK, barely able to walk, let alone engage in any form of marital gymnastics, I fell asleep on the sofa for the afternoon.

The evening of our anniversary was spent cooking with and for the men's crew I successfully coached to a bronze medal at the National Championships this year. They wanted to say thanks, and so everyone came round for a big meal at our place. My present for the day was a very nice Tiffany necklace that the boys bought me to say thanks for coaching them.

Then we fell asleep at 11.

Despite it appearing possibly the most unromantic anniversary possible, it was completely appropriate for us. It involved sport, getting up insanely early, and time spent with friends. It was one of the best we've had.

However, I think it should be pretty easy to continue this degree of romance when the Bump comes!

Racing the Bump

With only six weeks until the due date of the Bump, I should probably be taking things easy. But then this is me we are talking about and so I found myself at 6.30am this morning standing in Macau stadium with about 1,000 other people about to do something, well, all a bit silly really.

It wasn't the toughest race I have ever done (that is reserved for the 31 mile rowing marathon I won in the UK), and rapidly walking 5km is something I would have normally scoffed at. However, I find myself sitting on the sofa now, next to the Boy who did the half marathon, feeling really rather proud of myself. I beat the time I was hoping for by about 5 mins, and considerably faster than the speed I managed on my very first training waddle. I also beat about 100 other women in my category - which does rather beg the question of how they managed to go even slower than me - and my support coach, J, was very glad not to need the various hospital phone numbers he had researched prior to the race.

It was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the more challenging races I have done just because I proved to myself that I could do it, even at 34 weeks pregnant when most normal women are lying around the house with their feet up.

Of course now I can barely move with an entirely new injury, which seems to be some form of impact injury on my pelvis and is making moving very painful and difficult (well, if you pummel a bone with 24 pounds repeatedly for 45 mins then it's not surprising that it's going to hurt). However, Bump is unaffected and happily doing her usual gymnastics.

As an aside, as I was on the ferry on my way back I was pondering what my next training goal should be. J suggested that I had quite a major event to train for in about 6 weeks.