Bewared of Unplanned Works

Our midwife visit is tomorrow, in which we're hoping to go over...well, to be honest, neither of us has a fucking clue what it is we're supposed to go over.  We're supposed to go over something, anyway, possibly the early view of a birth plan, my weight, what topiary shapes I think will be in season in this year's summer gardens, who knows.  It's on the schedule to visit le midwife between weeks 16-20, so visit le midwife we will.

My next scan is the anatomy scan, which is scheduled for the 20th of June.  I'll be past the 20 week mark then, but my guys are running a bit small anyway so perhaps it's ok.  We talked today-both of Aidan's kids will be staying with us then, and he's going to ask if they want to come in and see the scan, to sort of get to see what's going on and be a part of it.  This is only if they want to, and I swear we're not usually that crunchy granola or anything, but we want to include them.

Actually, we're pretty crunchy granola.

But we're not going to be breast-feeding when the kids are in high school, decked out in their homemade hemp ware or anything trippy like that.

(We're not going to be breast-feeding at all, actually.  I had a radical breast reduction many years ago, and now although I can drive my two little chevys to the levy, well, you know how the song goes.)

Or at least I thought my next scan was going to be the end of June.  Turns out life can sometimes be a little unexpected.  I had no idea I'd wind up getting a scan today, because if I did I can guarantee you I wouldn't be wearing The Ugliest Panties from my collection known as "The 1990's-Early Fugly".  I also would've trimmed my hedges back because my God it looks like I made out with the business end of a Brillo pad down there.  I've let the fields go back to the green, so to speak, as Aidan keeps enticing me with his promises to trim it in cute attrative shapes (I know I should wax, but him shaving it into shapes is way more fun than waxing).  We both decided it wouldn't be at all weird if the midwife were to do a check-up and see, say, a Nike swoosh there.  I'm just saying-in this household Picasso himself decides what goes on I just act as the canvas.

So no-had I known that today I'd have an ultrasound on my abdomen and three fingers inside of me (and not in the "I want to get freaky with you" kind of way), then I can assure you, things would've been done differently.

At least I remembered to change out of my Conjunction Junction T-shirt, the one with the peach juice dribbled down the front.  Thank heaven for small favors.

I've had a fantastically horrific cold for over a week now, complete with endlessly running nose, hacking cough, sneezing, and the inability to breathe without sounding like a Sleestack.  I've been on a pregnancy-safe homeopathic concoction that Aidan makes for me to help with the worst of the coughing.  Some cough syrups are ok while pregnant, but the ones that they do allow here have codeine in them and I'm allergic to codeine.  So I've been toughing it out with this absolutely vile liquid that Aidan whips up for me, but which I admit works.

But this last bank holiday weekend, I started getting worse.  The cough settled in my chest and stayed there.  My throat is raw and I sound like a really sexy 10 pack-a-day smoker.  I'm not enjoying this.

Cue to this morning, when I woke up.  My right arm was fast asleep, the plugged nose meant I was drooling like I'd just been for a party time at the dentist, and my uterus was an extremely hard, painful ball hanging out on my stomach.  It hurt like hell, and was the size and density of a basketball.

Throughout the rest of the day, I've had some pretty bad cramping, where it feels like my insides are squeezing up and then releasing.  It's not RLP, because I get that, too.  It was getting to the point where sitting was uncomfortable.

I rang up the midwife.

I explained the cough, the uterus discomfort, the whole business.

Her response?  "We'd like you to come in to the central delivery suite right now for a check."

Always a good thing to tell someone that's prone to nervous anxiety.

But to be fair, we were pretty calm.  Aidan came with me.  We stopped by the post office first and he bought me some Mike and Ikes, which I haven't seen sold here before.  We battle the parking garage at the hospital and head to the Labor and Delivery ward. 

It's completely quiet in there.  They lead us to a room, bring us a cup of tea, and then blow my arm clean off take my blood pressure, which was normal.  Then the midwife tries to take my temperature.

She can't find the thermometer.

Aidan kindly points out he sees one on the wall behind me.

She goes to it.  She battles to get it off the wall.  She comes within moments of wrenching it and about 3 cm of plaster of the wall with it, when Aidan politely clears his throat and suggests that said device may actually be bolted to the wall, perhaps she just needs to remove the probe part to do my temperature?

"Oh," she says, looking at the device.  "You're right."

He winks at me.

Damage averted.

She also hooks up the Doppler and finds both heartbeats right away-one is up to the right of my navel, the other just above my pubic bone. 

The nice doctor then comes in.  He announces he'll do a scan and check my cervix.  He and the midwife wait for me to disrobe, and that's when I notice I am not only wearing my granny panties, but that Cheetah has just swung out of the jungle of my pubic hair looking for Tarzan and Jane.  I cringe.  There's nothing for me to do, it's not like I can ask him for a Lady Bic and 5 minutes of trimming time or anything.

So I disrobe.

I'm pleased to report that my cervix is nice and long and completely closed (this message brought to you by the letter "E", the number "7", and the product "KY".)

Apparently this is a good thing, which will reveal to you just how completely clueless I am about this whole "giving birth" bit.  The doctor seemed very happy about the long and closed cervix, and seeing as he was the one with his digits in the business end of my Cadillac of Love, I'm going to go with "this is a good thing".

The scan revealed two babies looking not unlike the bad guy from Alien.

I'm further happy to report that all looked just fine in there-amniotic fluid was fine, the membranes were fine, the babies were fine.  The babies were so fine that Lemonhead #2 was thoughtfully kicking its sibling in the head.  Lemonhead #1 was vaguely moving its arms in return in a "Ger offffff!" kind of way, proving that my children will be active babies, possibly active babies with a Cockney way of dealing with conflict. 

The end result was that I have badly sprained both of my abdominal muscles thanks to coughing.  So Google?  You listening, you fear-inducing pain in the ass?  Tell people that are searching on you that excessive coughing while pregnant can apparently not hurt the babies, as according to the nice doctor, the one who fingered me and didn't even give me a half-ass "I'll call you.".   They just fuck up the mother a bit.

Tomorrow I'll be making an appointment with my GP to see what can be done about my cold.   

Comments

[teamwinks]

Glad to hear google was all wrong with their world is going to come to an end worse case scenario prognosis!

[caltechgirl]

Glad to hear sibling rivalry has commenced and both Lemnonheads are doing ok.

Get well soonest!

[Margi]

I remember being told, directly, in a stern voice to STOP. CONSULTING. DR. GOOGLE.

Heh.

Hang in there, lovie. Coughs due to cold SUCK. And spraining the abdominal muscles? ZOWIE. OUCHIE.

I hope you feel betta soon.

xoxo

[Lindsay]

Dr. Google is an asshole.

[canape]

I hope you weren't kidding about the couples trimming sessions, because if you are, I'm totally over here feeling solidarity with you for no reason.

I've been best buddies with a saline nasal and sinus wash today. Good stuff. Burns like hell, but so far, it's stopped my pregnant sinuses from making my head explode.

Hope you feel better very very soon.

[Donna]

Dr. Google got his degree from an online university in Jamaica. Stop asking him anything.

Gadzooks, you sprained your abdominal muscles from coughing? Sorry, babe.

[Bea]

Mr Google says the evilest things. Hopefully we can retrain him.

Bea

[Kath]

Dear Vanessa, this post was too funny. I'm so glad everything is OK with the Cockney Twins (hey, wasn't that sort of the name of a group in the 80s?), and I hope you get better very, very soon.

[Z. Hendirez]

I sprained a muscle in my upper chest from coughing once. That was more than a bit annoying.

Cockney? Not so bad, so long as they don't decide to resolve issues in "Irish soccer fan" sort of way.

[Vanessa]

Canape-Let us unite, fellow soldier of the Lady Bic! Because I wasn’t kidding-we think it’s a great way to have fun and it’s a bit naughty to boot

:)

[Anita]

Dr. Google is an ass and should have his medical degree taken away.

Add me to C company of the Lady Bic troops. Sgt is the only one who is able to keep the deck tidy, I can't see a damn thing down there anymore! And it is naughty ... in a good way :)

[Lut C.]

What a great escape from the 'breast-feeding' questions. :-)

Great to hear the babies are fine, too bad you're feeling a bit under the weather.
That exam didn't sound very enjoyable though.

[minawolf]

I came down with bronchitus and I'm about ready to "pop" as my doctors say. So I can definitely understand the frustration of being sick. I'd totally accuse you of giving it to me if you lived on this side of the ocean too :)

The scan sounds like it was wonderful! The best ones are around that time. You can see things so clearly!

[Carol]

Gosh - so sorry about the cold and the strained muscles. doesn't sound like fun. but I love that you are still able to maintain your sense of humor. :-)