Jasmine Stalker-Firth

Apparently, elephants are pregnant for 22 months, and at the moment it feels that I have been pregnant for that long. And to add insult to injury, Neil’s friend’s girlfriend had her baby on my due date. Congratulations to Sarah and Pete, Sophie looks beautiful.

My birthday has been and gone, although I was sure I was going to go into labour that day because the day before I was cleaning everything in the flat. The whole place is spotless and Neil said that there is nothing left to clean. Even behind the fridge is very clean.

I had a lovely birthday and we went and drank a sneaky glass of champagne on the grass as it was hot and sunny. Thanks to everyone for all my cards, presents and birthday wishes – very much appreciated. Jasmine picked out a 15 feet ‘Happy Birthday’ banner for me as it had all of the cast from ‘In the Night Garden’ on it and she recognised them. We have it wrapped right round our living room. It is brilliant.

So, we are just waiting now. Unfortunately, as I had that really bad cough for weeks, I pulled the big muscle (intercostal) under my left rib so had difficulty breathing without pain. It was just healing up nicely, when I had to climb over dialysis boxes in the middle of the night to get out of bed and I ripped it again. It really hurt. And then I went on my big cleaning frenzy and walked for miles each day as I had lots of energy and was having trouble sleeping, but didn’t realise that I was overcompensating so that I wouldn’t hurt my left side and have managed to pull the muscle in my right lower back. As it sits on a nerve, everytime I stand on my right leg I get a shooting pain up and down my whole leg and it is very difficult to walk.

I managed to set up the dialysis machine yesterday evening and then walked crab-like leaning on the wall to the acupuncturists round the corner to see if she could do anything for me. She stuck some pins in it which has eased it a bit today but the pain was excruciating on the way home. I thought I was going to stand in the street and cry and embarrass myself but luckily I bumped into a neighbour – the poor thing has a hernia – so we walked back together, very slowly, moaning. He was funny as he hadn’t noticed I was pregnant.

Normally, I get spotted for miles around as the pregnant woman and have middle-aged women rushing up to me in the street saying, “Oh you’ll have your hands full,” as they gesticulate at Jasmine in the buggy. The day we heard it four times when we went out looking at double buggies, Neil got really cross. I actually said to the last woman, “You don’t know the half of it, love.” As I was feeling a bit cheeky. The other day some woman asked me when I was due and I said, “Tomorrow.” She said, “Oh no.” I do wonder how some people get through life with such a cheery attitude.

Neil is a star and took over dialysis this morning and said, “Look at the clip of you.” He has a point! It would be funny the way I walk, if I wasn’t in such agony. The doctor, when I went for my antenatal appointment yesterday morning (Jasmine in the buggy so I had something to lean on to help me walk normally) recommended paracetamol, as there isn’t much else a pregnant lady can safely take, but I haven’t bothered since paracetamol doesn’t do a great deal for me.

I have been contracting away at night and then it stops after an hour so now I just go to sleep and think: ‘Whatever!’. We just have to be a bit patient, but please pray for me as the hospital only give you 12 days as a VBACer, before they give you a c-section. I know whatever happens it will be the best for the baby and I, but it would be much better dialysis-wise if I could just have a natural birth and the thought of not being able to pick Jasmine up for six weeks makes me cry.

We have tried all the old wives tales to bring on labour. On one list on the internet it said foot rub which Neil gave me and then asked if the next thing on the list was something like ‘Get husband to paint the kitchen/do the ironing/go shopping’, which made me laugh. The other thing that makes us laugh is all the twinges and symptoms I keep getting, as according to the pregnancy book, labour is imminent. So anytime anything happens we say, ‘Oh labour is imminent’. We have started saying it to Neil too whenever he gets any symptoms, e.g., needing to go to the toilet, as they are so generic they could apply to anyone.

Jasmine is great fun at the moment. She knows where her nose is and touches it when you say ‘nose’. I tied a belt to the babywalker yesterday afternoon and dragged her round our communal courtyard as she was bored being in the flat and I couldn’t really walk so we went and sat out there. She was a bit confused at first but soon got the hang of it and we had fun – me dragging her forward and Jasmine pushing herself backwards and laughing.

Whilst we were out there, another neighbour asked me if I was afraid being on my own so heavily pregnant, unable to walk properly, and with a young child (she had had to hold the door open for me for quite a while whilst I crab-walked sideways dragging Jasmine in the babywalker through the doorway). People are so funny. Neil would have found us in the courtyard on his way home.

Jasmine has hit another milestone – six months without an NG tube. Our consultant at Gt Ormond St congratulated us and said that it was a fantastic achievement, which was really nice of her and it makes me cry just thinking about it. I guess I am a bit hormonal today, perhaps labour is imminent (Grrrr). Or, it could be just that the Boro have gone down and I am very sad.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.