Six months and rising. (Preparing for Birth)

Member Name: peel.rebekah

Product:	Preparing for Birth
Date:	08/12/01 (853 review reads)
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Oh well, I guess this category title will have to do...and there I was searching for a 'pregnancy in general in general' type situation to write under...no such good fortune.

I'm just over six months into my second pregnancy: The morning sickness decided to make its retreat around the start of the fifth month - a blessing indeed, as I suffered the whole way through when I was pregnant with Victor.

But now, as many a pregnant lady will tell you, is just about the time when you start getting bored and tired with the whole 'ordeal'; now is when lumpet in tummy regions is beginning to wake you up in the middle of the night with gargantuan alien kicks and remarkable wind patterns; when toilet runs every five minutes make popping out to the supermarket an absurd torture; when mood swings teeter on the edge of screaming madness/blubbering tears; when this damn baby is making his own individual stamp in the way of stretch marks across your belly...

Ahh, and the natural beauty of childbirth looms dauntingly ahead...

*Coping with pregnancy.

A preferred sub title, as while you're getting all excited and fluffy about the arrival of loving bundles, one still has to cope with all the down sides of the situation:

-Gnashers.

For me, the most important thing I did in between my first and second pregnancy was to go to the dentist. I'm jolly happy for all those lucky women out there with perfect teeth, but me and mine, they're diabolical, and what nobody thought to mention to me before I found myself unexpectedly pregnant with Victor, was that bad teeth get even worse during pregnancy.

Labour pains are one thing, but they are relatively short and give you a rather worthwhile end product: Dental pain and toothache for nigh on four months with only paracetamol to calm your nerves can be somewhat depressing - and definitely not what an inflated, tired and hormonal mother-to-be needs t
o relax her.

I read up on what supposedly happens to ones teeth while pregnant, and while most dentists expect you to suffer from swollen and bleeding gums (pregnancy gingivitis), nobody mentioned what happened to me - first time and second time round: At about five months I began to feel my wisdom teeth move; During my first pregnancy, one of my wisdom teeth actually broke the existing tooth that was standing in its way - serious dental work is to be avoided during pregnancy because of the drugs involved and the position you have to lie in (putting pressure on the baby and your spine), so I had to wait four months before I could have the remains of the tooth extracted.

Second time round, and although I took full and utter advantage of one years free dental work on the NHS after Victor was born, I find myself in the same situation: A wisdom tooth on the other side has decided to up itself, putting pressure on the rest of my teeth and breaking one of my front teeth in two...luckily I didn't have to have any drugs to have a false piece put in, otherwise I would be doing the last four month stretch looking like a bit of a hag (ahem).

So that's a very important tip for all you trying-to-be-mothers-to-be...go to the dentist now, while you still can.

-Sleeping.

Do it. As often as you can, 'cos it only gets harder to do later on in pregnancy. I've just 'invested' in a giant piece of foam cheese to stick under my increasingly achy belly - it helps some, but the intensifying 'need to pee' every time baby or you moves (or your partner snores and wakes you up, damn him) is enough to make you rise with tired eyes every morning.

Being pregnant with a second child is somewhat harder still: When I was pregnant with Victor and dog dead tired then I could just collapse on the bed without a care in the world...now I have a 22 month old snapping at my heels, urging me for biscuits and Teletubbies.
..so whenever Victor takes a nap (or rather if ever, as he is still only seduced into slumber under duress), I join him.

-Vitamins and stuff.

I eat as sensibly as I can while pregnant (Bananas help me in more ways than one) with plenty of fresh veggies, fruit, fish and chicken on the menu - I was given a very strange recipe card from the French hospital, suggesting I should eat pigs trotters and tripe...umnn, perhaps not - But none the less, I take my vitamin, iron and folic acid supplements religiously. If I don't take them everyday, I soon feel the effects: I'm more tired than usual, more achy and therefore more irritable and more likely to snap somebodies head off :o) I also up the daily dose of vitamin C, as my immune system seems to take a 9 month holiday from anti cold and flu action while I'm pregnant.

-Clothes.

It's kinda exciting when the first buttons pop on your normal everyday trousers/skirt...but a few pairs of maternity knickers down the line and it isn't so much fun anymore. I'm sure those complete sets (trousers, skirt. dress and shirt - available at M&S) are a good investment first time around, but I don't like to feel restrained by maternity clothes, so I opt to stretch my already baggy trousers and jumpers that cm (km) further.

Comfortable shoes are my biggest must - I'm normally a healthy size nine, and later on in pregnancy I go up to 9 and a half with the water retention - so I have a very faithful pair of worn in Nikes that have seen me through both pregnancies so far.

-Skin care.

With all the extra blood and hormones in your system, strange things can occur: You can either end up with that blooming/glowing cheek look, or you can have bizarre outbreaks of spots, dryness and burst blood vessels in places that you just don't want them.

I'm constantly on a roller coaster between these examples; one day spent with giant, open pores, the
next day with a full English Rose flush. My only advice is to indulge yourself and go to a skin/beauty specialist now...go on pamper yourself.

On the other hand, don't bother with the latest stretch mark treatment - if you're going to get them, then you'll get them, no matter what you do. Oil yourself up (or get someone else to do it as that's much more fun) to ease the tightness and itching, but don't expect anything to calm the spread of the marks...and don't worry about them, they will fade with time.

-Baths.

I don't think anybody can truely appreciate a bath until they've been pregnant. If you haven't got one, then move...or become resident at your local swimming pool. I have at least a bath a day, and as the pregnancy progresses I find myself having two or three. The utter wonder of having all that weight taken off you; the luxurious warmth caressing your swollen bits...ahhhhhh.

*Preparation for childbirth?

First time round most of us go into the situation a little blinkered: This is not of our own doing, but a mass conspiracy by our mothers to rather unhelpfully 'forget' all the important stuff they should have remembered to tell us. The whole way through my first pregnancy, I was telephoning my mother just to check if this or that was a natural thing to happen to a woman...simple, little things (well, not any more) like ones nipples resolving to enlarge themselves overnight...you get the picture, there's no need for me to go on, is there?

And then the whole messy birth thing itself.

We can prepare ourselves in the very orderly and physical sense of packing the right amount of knickers and pads (ha ha, you never have enough knickers or pads), the Evian water spray (err, yes, mine was left at home the first time round) and the 'your version of the list', but nothing can prepare us for the emotions that are about to run riot through our lives..
.I'm even wondering now if I can possibly be prepared the second time round.

For me, preparing myself the first time was attending all my prenatal courses, knowing what Vitamin K was and why I would be offered it at the birth of my child. It was knowing what drugs would be on offer, what complications were likely...not worse case scenario stuff, but small details like the umbilical cord being wrapped around the neck - which it was, and that dad would be handed baby first.

This time my planning on that scale is: Get to the hospital sooner (as it's likely to be a quicker birth), and how to introduce the new baby to Victor (we're going for a neutral baby in crib gets handed, by daddy, to Victor, who is sitting on mummy's knee...oh well, we'll wait and see how that goes.

First time I had no way of really preparing myself for the pain (my mother in complete denial yet again), and I think that was for the best - now, I'm beginning to get nervous about it all, as this time I know what kind of a ride I'm in for ;o)

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