Today has been crazy. I knew it was a busy one – internet being installed, washing machine being delivered and D’s parents visiting – but I was thinking I’d be in uni for most of it, after an appointment at the antenatal clinic this morning. I was nervous about this, I felt certain that the doctor would turn around and say nope, decided not to induce you, we’ll let you go until the middle of May before we do anything.
Not exactly. In fact, quite the opposite. He’s put in a request to book my induction for the 28th April. This time in a month, I’ll either have had the baby, or still be in labour (I’d quite like to have had the baby by now, but I’m steeling myself for a long induction process). It’s hard to describe how it feels – I think I’m a little bit stunned. This is what I wanted; the pain is getting too much to handle and the stretching looks like I can’t stretch much more (although, as everyone reminds me, I’ve got another month of growing to go!). But at the same time, it’s like… wow. The end of the journey – or rather, the beginning of an entirely new one – is so close I can practically grab it.
So I’d probably have been fine to go into uni after my appointment today, but my blood pressure was doing crazy things – 140/100 on the first go, which is high. Then they tried again with the electronic monitor, and they couldn’t even get a reading – and then finally, on the third go with a different cuff, they got a slightly more respectable 138/85, which is high for me but not worryingly high from a pregnancy point of view. But that scare, combined with killer headaches, my pulse being 125bpm when it should really be less than 100, and my feet looking more like pufferfish, meant I decided it was probably best to give uni a miss for the day.(N.B it’s important for me to point out here that these can be the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, so if you’re reading this and thinking headaches, swollen feet… ahh but she was fine so I must be too, don’t make that assumption! It’s a dangerous one to make. If you’ve got high blood pressure (if you have a home monitor; I don’t), headaches and visual disturbances and abnormal swelling in your hands and face especially, contact your midwife immediately and get checked out.
Better to be safe than sorry!)After uni and a scan yesterday (baby wasn’t in the mood for posing, but we got to see its tufty hair at the back of its head! Clearly taking after D, who has lovely tufty soft curls at the back of his head), we went to the supermarket because cravings still haven’t let up, and it’s still fresh fruit. We ended up making a massive fruit salad and, inspired by seeing articles about pineapple bringing on labour, we ended up with five tins of sliced pineapple. Turns out it’s fresh pineapple that is rumoured to bring on labour, but I’m happy with five (well… four now) tins of pineapple anyway. We left the last of the fruit and veg aisles and, sure enough, I burst into tears. It was a combination of the fruit and veg aisles finishing (don’t ask; I can’t even see the logic behind that one), and seeing nice cider on special offer and… well, something about it upset me. I don’t think it was the fact that I’m not allowed it, because one drink isn’t going to hurt, especially not now. And I can’t really see any other explanation for cider making me cry. I’m going to blame hormones, because I won’t be able to get away with it for much longer.
