I’ve been on maternity leave just over a week now it didn’t start off to great with me being bored and feeling a bit rubbish about myself, but as the week has progressed I’ve started to enjoy being off relaxing and catching up on all my TV shows. I’m particularly enjoying the lay ins most days I don’t get out of bed till 11am!
I’m now officially past my due date and currently a day late I think my baby is being lazy like his mum and not wanting to move! Every day things such as getting out of bed in the morning and walking up the stairs have become really difficult. Try getting out of a kingsize bed when you cant roll over on your tummy to get out, its a proper mission! Baby is moving around nicely so much so it actually takes my breath away sometimes when I suddenly have a foot sticking out.
So lets get down to the nitty gritty… I had a midwife appointment today at my local hospital, I thought id be brave and get the bus much to my mums disgust (lol) like I keep telling everyone I’m pregnant not disabled! if my waters break on the bus then id deal with that. I can confirm this wasn’t the case and I made it back home in one piece. I had a feeling I knew what was coming at this appointment so I thought id treat myself to some toast with marmite and a mango smoothie from costa before the dreaded appointment!
Witney hospital is really small and as soon as I walked in and sat in the minor injury’s waiting room I felt straight away I was going to have a panic attack as it was so busy and WHY OH WHY do they have to make hospitals so hot? I felt so claustrophobic and so hot and muggy, to keep my mind of it I started looking around at the other people in the waiting room trying to guess why they were there, I’m pretty sure there was a man next to me with a broken leg! poor bugger as the waiting time up on the wall was 3 hours! Anyway not long after the midwife came and got me and took me into yet another boiling hot room! god knows how these doctors and nurses work in such yucky muggy heat they need a medal just for that!
So we did the usual blood pressure and wee sample which were all ok. Then the dreaded words came… the midwife says I can perform an internal procedure to examine you and try and move things along, I kind of knew I would be offered this procedure called “the stretch and sweep” sounds delightful doesn’t it! Ive heard so many stories about this most people seem to gasp and make a funny face when its mentioned, ive heard rumours of a whole hand being shoved up you and swishing everything around… but at the same time friends have told me its nothing more than a smear test it doesn’t hurt and is just uncomfortable. So as the words are coming out of the midwifes mouth it almost went into slow motion because I knew I had to make a decision about what I wanted to do!!
I just thought to myself you need to man the fuck up Zoe your going to have to get your fanny out at some point so just get it over with, anyway who doesn’t love a bit of fisting on a Monday morning? (lol) I’m really pleased to report that the horror stories about the stretch and sweep are totally untrue! the midwife couldn’t have been more supportive and told me at every point what was happening, she probably only inserted 3 fingers at the most and i can say it was no worse than a smear test! over in less than A minute I laughed and told her the stories id heard of a whole hand being shoved up there and how relieved I am! So as a pregnant lady if you are offered this procedure please don’t be scared or put off! The results she found were very good I’m actually 2cm dilated and she could feel babys head which are all good signs that I’m on my way!
Since getting home I feel really very uncomfortable and have a lot of pressure down below and pressing down into my bum so I’m hoping the Monday morning fisting has done its job it currently feels like I’ve had a welly boot shoved up my lady bits As well as this I’ve had a tiny bit of bleeding which is normal as everything has been disturbed, so I’m currently laying on the sofa under my duvet feeling a bit sorry for myself and feeling emotional again about the thought of what’s going to happen to me soon. I’m looking forward to Mr M getting home so we can have cuddles and hot chocolate later to make me feel better.
The stretch and sweep may sound like some back ally procedure done with a broom handle but trust me ladies its nothing to fear and I would totally recommend it.
Z
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The Z word 