Back and Forth

I’m shattered. It’s been a packed, emotional, and exhausting couple of days…


Yesterday T and I went up to the hospital for the antenatal class: it was a long day, running from 10am until nearly 4pm and we were bombarded with information. A lot of it was common sense or things I already knew, but it was useful to talk about signs and symptoms of labour, when to call or go into the hospital, and things like that. I will admit, though, that as the midwife who was leading the class was talking through what happens at each stage of labour, I did get more nervous! She definitely could have chosen a better turn of phrase every now and then… I mean, obviously I know that Spud has to come out, one way or another, and obviously, either way it will hurt, but I’ve been pretty chilled about the whole thing so far, and now I’m less chilled. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, though: on the one hand maybe I’m being more realistic about my expectations of the experience, but on the other, perhaps I’ll get more panicky now?

I did enjoy the last part, as we were talked through things like breastfeeding and expressing, as this is something I’m planning on doing (and the crochet boobs were funny). I’m also possibly going to rethink an element of my birth plan after understanding more about levels of induction to bring on labour, although I’ll talk it over at our next midwife appointment to be certain.

After the class T and I drove up into town for him to go to work and for me to meet up with my work friends who had arranged a few drinks as a leaving do for me! They had also got Spud and I some lovely gifts, which did make me cry a few happy tears. We had a fab evening hanging out in a corner of the bar we always drink at (non-alcoholic in my case, now, of course!), laughing and reminiscing; and they’ve made me promise to let them all know in advance when I’m going to bring Spud in to see them all in case people are off work that day!

It was a long day, and a late night, and I didn’t sleep very well at all due to a combination of back pain, over-tiredness, and not feeling Spud move very much at all. The few flutters that T or I could feel were very soft, and felt more like the little bumps we were getting twelve weeks ago rather than twelve hours. When I finally got up in the morning T agreed that I should probably ring the maternity triage to see what they said, but when there was no answer after a couple of attempts, we jumped into the car and went up to the hospital anyway. I was worried about wasting their time; that they’d tell me to leave it longer, but obviously there was none of that, and we were seen straight away.

I was hooked up to a machine with two panels; one which measured Spud’s heartbeat, and one to check whether I was having contractions. After about five minutes the machine started beeping and the midwife checked it over and laughed, saying that the one which was checking for contractions was sending an alert to make sure it was connected properly as it was registering no activity at all, so that was a relief. The heartbeat monitor, conversely, picked up the beat right away; it was strong and steady, and the little graph that was recording the beats stayed consistent for the whole time. The midwife reassured us that Spud was probably just having a lazy day, or had maybe turned round and was booping towards my back: but she did also say that I was never to worry about going in for a check if I had concerns.

I felt pretty stressed out after all of that, so T and I went swimming in the afternoon! T is a member of a local gym, whereas I despise gyms: but it has a pool, and members can pay a fee to get a guest in so we spent an hour or so swimming and it was sheer bliss to have the weight, literally, lifted from me for a while! My back pain, and the ache in my ribs, has been getting worse over the past week or so, to the point that it sometimes brings me close to tears, so to just not feel that for an hour was amazing! We’re hopefully going to be able to go a few more times before Spud appears, as not feeling like a landlocked walrus was wonderful!

How was your experience of antenatal classes? Did you have to go into the hospital at any point to be checked over during pregnancy? And does anyone have any tips on dealing with back pain??