Last antenatal class

Tuesday was the last night for the series of antenatal classes.

The guys were sent to the kitchen area (I guess a nice change for some of these blokes - no, I'm not referring to you Bas, I love your hot chocolates too much to even think about being a smart ass.) to list their manly concerns about fatherhood.

So we, the less fortunate halves, were left to our own devices and discuss girly topics.

Traditionally, girly topics revolve around men, shopping, babies, fashion, Desperate Housewives and sex. Not that evening. We talked about poo, stitches, audience, breasts, weight gain and oh look! sex.

Sensitive souls, do not read beyond this full stop.

• Poo: most women in labour have, and will.
  The good news are - midwives are so used to it that they'll deal with it before the labour partner even notices.
  The even better news are - you can always head to the toilet prior to delivery.
  If you wait till the last minute to go to the toilet, the potentially bad news are - you'll be pushing from the general lower abdomen area, so you might end up having a home water birth. In your toilet bowl.
• Stitches: tears are also common. Fortunately, most aren't as bad as I thought they were (or maybe my brain went into survival mode again and thrusted a rosy filter around my ears) and generally heal on their own. Some do require stitching, in which case there are some tablets or something that can make water less alkaline and so urinating less painful. And in other cases, the obstetrician (or whoever has the scalpel handy at the time) will perform the cut. Any way to help prevent this? Yes. Dip a thumb or two in massage oil and rub them where they don't belong.
• Audience: how many people will take a peek in there? Labour partner(s), midwives, obstetrician, anaesthetist, paediatrician, and potentially any hospital intern/student. Any attempt at modesty will be promptly forgotten and/or ignored.
• Breasts: they've inflated. They may deflate. They'll degravitate. Nothing can be done.
• Weight gain: it's about normal to gain 10-12kgs during pregnancy, and slimmer frames are more likely to lose the weight faster. I distinctly heard someone gasp when I said that I've only gained 7kgs. Unfortunately there will still be a leftover bump after delivery, presumably caused by the vital KitKat reserves built up over the past 9 months. Wearing these corset-type nana's underwear might help.
• Sex: still possible until the last week of pregnancy, though if some women are not in the mood, they can always resort to wearing the aforementioned underwear as a deterrent.

Another visit at Auckland Obstetric, this time meeting Dr Paul McPherson again.

After all these nights struggling to learn to sleep on my left hand side, NOW he's telling me that it doesn't matter.

And that one theory as to why Dutch women are having such easy labours is because they bike everywhere. Easier said than done, Holland is as flat as a pancake, not hilly like New Zealand. Must remember to ask Bas to install the wind trainer in the lounge so I can have another token go at exercise.

Babies & boobs

I'm 31 weeks pregnant today.



On Tuesday was our antenatal class #5, with the focus on breastfeeding.



So we found out all about the advantages of breastfeeding, but not quite about its limitations, since the trend these days is to encourage breastfeeding.



Why breastfeed? Well there are a lot of reasons that websites, brochures, books, magazines, organisations, nurses, obstetricians, lactation consultants, midwives, mothers etc will list out so I won't bother. But three words: Less. Smelly. Nappies.



Why not breastfeed? There are only very few reasons not to, but Richard yesterday said something along the lines of 'mutilated nipples', which were more convincing than anything else. Thankfully, it wasn't a reference to Hari's cannibalistic tendencies. Instead he was outlining the importance of getting as much info as possible from lactation consultants - I think I'll most definitely do this.



So, things for me to remember:

• Feed Tadpole as soon as he shows signs of wanting to feed. It probably would have helped if I had taken note of what these signs are.


• To avoid mastitis (where the milk clots in the ducts and creates an infection), hold Tadpole in all sorts of positions (except upside-down) where he can use up all the milk ducts. Alternatively coerce Bas into massaging me after each feed.


• A newborn's stomach is about the size of a small marble so Tadpole will not want to feed a lot at first. After 10 days it will be about the size of a golf ball.


• We should give him anything other than breastmilk, including water, till 6 months. Curse my short memory, I can't remember why we have to stick to breastmilk for that long.


• Some people recommend breastfeeding till the child is 2. I can't see this happening with me. I know that this is natural and that some cultures have done this since the dawn of time, but women in these cultures also happen to have breasts like this.

We watched a video which felt a lot like an audio-visual pamphlet on why we should breastfeed. I've never seen so many naked breasts in my life. And before the guys ask where they sign up, remember two things:

1. You have to get your girlfriend/partner/wife pregnant in order to be eligible to watch this video.
2. These are NOT the photoshopped type of breasts you see on the Playboy centrefold. Some of them will have stretch marks. Most of them will have a baby hanging on the nipple end. All of them will have a liquid-based defense mechanism if you get too friendly.

Information and finances

... or rather, too much information and not enough finances. This seems to sum up the last stretch home.

Today I'm 30 weeks pregnant.
6 more weeks till I go part-time.
8 more weeks till I completely stop work and get to sleep in on whichever day I choose.
And I don't want to hear anyone telling me that thereafter, 7am starts are considered a major sleep in.
10 more weeks till the beginning of the end.

We went to The Cot Factory on Wiri Station Rd today. We had considered various options for Tadpole's bed, which included hammock over the cot, stand-alone hammock, Moses basket, bassinet, portable cot, wooden cot and a combination of the above; and now I can proudly say that I know exactly what these things look like. The reason why we wanted a cot from The Cot Factory is because they are not two, not three, but four in one! AND we got to pick the colour! $1,200 later, we'll get a cot, a small bed end, an inner-sprung mattress, a teething rail cover (Blyth, the director, threw it in for free), a change table and a change mat all delivered to our door.

We also headed to The Baby Factory and low and behold, standing there were Ave and Irene. Ave has got 10 days to go and seemed pretty prepared and serene about it. Irene just needed to buy something. Anything, as long as it had something to do with babies - so we headed home with a sling that she got for us, and a convertible car seat that we selected after much prodding around.
I must clarify that what Irene got us is the type of sling is to carry Tadpole in, so my hands are free. Not the type that you use to throw stones at people.

The Birthcare tour was pretty quick and easy. The birthing rooms are soundproof, which helped because there was a woman in labour right then. That is, this helped us.

Thursday morning - went for another visit at the obstetrician. Lynda seemed pretty happy with my textbook-type progress, with good blood pressure, 28-29cm fundal height and two heartbeats ('like a Time Lord' says Bas who watches too much Dr Who). Apparently around 1 in 3 women in Holland have home births, and about 60-70% woment in NZ go for epidurals - Anglo-saxons have the highest rate of epidural use in the world, which means one of two things:

1. They've got advanced medical technology and have faith in it
2. They are wusses

Tuesday evening - Antenatal class #4. I remember we went through informative stuff. Unfortunately I don't remember much of it, besides the fact that the umbilical cord stump on newborns looks gross. Lucky I wrote down some notes on my i-mate.

Antenatal class #3 and hospital tour

We didn't wuss out this week and went back to the Onehunga Community Hall for the third class. This session was focused on a few things, but I mainly remember the discussion and roleplay around the birth.

Last week they discussed natural pain relief methods, and this week dealt with other pain relief methods, which included gas, injection and of course epidural. Nadine (the midwife who takes the course) seems to like her alternative medecine; I don't think she painted a very pretty picture of the epidural process. But then let's be fair, besides the anaesthetist that charges $600 for the procedure, I can't think of many people who would manage to make it sound appealing. Darryl-Lee said it was the worst 15 minutes of her life. She also said she'd do it all over again.

So, the birth...
During the first stage, dilation is at around 1cm per hour. If not already done, make sure there's tarpaulin everywhere, especially on the car seat as amniotic fluid will instantly reduce the car's resale value.
Calling the midwife needs to be done at the second stage, when contractions come every five minutes and last for a minute. Unless it's night time, in which case I should wait till the morning so as not to piss off the woman who will be spending some time poking things around in between my legs.
If the placenta expelling needs to be artificially induced, we have 7 minutes before the cervix shuts down for business. Some people take it home, presumably to bury it under a tree to celebrate the birth. I hope these people don't have a dog that likes digging.

We were given some photocopies, about "Unexpected outcomes" and ways for the LMC to deal with them. Nice way to call all the things that can screw up during labour. They included:

• Induction of labour, if there are risks to the mother or baby. In which case they'll put some Prostaglandin on the vagina; but other methods include hot baths, hot curries and hot sex. Works for me. Except for the curry.
• Artificial rupture of membranes, where the sac has to be manually poked and burst
• Augmentation, if the contractions are weakening. In which case an IV drip of Syntocinon is given
• Baby's heart beat monitoring, to check that they aren't getting stressed, and if so they'll pass meconium (baby's first poo... inside me :-S )
• Forceps / ventouse, which are respectively a set of metal salad tongs / plunger to pull the baby by the head
• Caesarean section, which apparently are performed on 30% women at Auckland Hospital.

On Thursday evening we went to Auckland Hospital, for a tour around the facilities. All the women who attended looked so heavily pregnant, the only bump that was slightly smaller than mine belonged to a man.

The hospital is huge with 9 floors in the main building, and I'm quite glad we went. We found out where to park, where to go, we got to see what a delivery room looks like, and how to get out of there. Good to know: there are cafes. And a bookshop. Though things weren't quite perfect - St Pierre's Sushi is missing out on a fantastic business opportunity there, with 600 births a month.

The visit was about 30mins long, and by the end of it I finally managed to relax. I hadn't heard a single blood-curling scream, or seen any nurse rushing around with a worried look on their face. But maybe it's because there are no nurses left in New Zealand.

I did notice a lot of people walking around with stethoscopes around their neck though. It's probably a status symbol in the medical world. I wonder whether the neurosurgeons walk around with TWO stethoscopes.