moi moi moi

baby belle - 36 weeks

where has the time gone? i knew it would go fast after christmas but now i only have 3 days of work left before i go on leave and baby belle, in theory, could make an appearance any time after the end of this week.

my main concern is to get things ready around the house. the front room is decorated now and is the room that i plan to give birth in, although i also need to get the bathroom finished and touch up our bedroom just in case things don’t go to plan and the boys are downstairs or something.

i had caleb in hospital. i had to walk through a&e late on a sunday night to get to the lift to take me up to the maternity suite. pissed people shouted go on girl and it’s a boy to me, i could hardly walk. i had waited until the last minute and kneeling in the back of the car was horrendous. caleb was born in the early hours of monday morning and although i had no complaints about the hospital and was well looked after, i just couldn’t relax and wanted to get home. you have to wait 6 hours until you are ‘released’ and i can honestly say that i was clock watching for that whole 6 hours.

i decided to have gallo at home because delivering caleb was so easy - i couldn’t do gas and air even though i was looking forward to it and hadn’t needed any help during labour. i had gallo in the front room late on a saturday night whilst caleb was upstairs asleep. when he woke up in the morning his baby brother was there in bed with us. gallo came much quicker than caleb - the midwife was called, turned up, told me to push and there he was.  my mum was in a panic that she’d have to deliver him it was that close. i think that the 2 midwives must have been there about 45 minutes tops. we cooed, had a cup of tea and went to bed. it was a much better experience for all of us, especially as we knew that he would probably have to go into hospital for a little while afterwards.

after caleb was born he developed severe jaundice. the boy was orange. and we didn’t realise until the health visitor came around and said that we needed to get to hospital. they didn’t know what was wrong with him and he had to have a lumbar puncture. he was under a lot of lights and was within striking distance of having a transfusion. his bilirubin levels came down with the introduction of yet another light thank goodness and they discovered that he had abo incompatability. marv’s blood type is b+ and i’m o+. caleb turned out to be b+ too which meant that, in simple terms, when my antibodies passed through the placenta to him, they started attacking his red blood cells causing bilirubin levels to rise resulting in jaundice. it was scary.

i was monitored throughout my pregnancy with gallo although there is nothing that can be done to prevent abo incompatibility - it’s just one of those things and it’s dependant on what blood type your baby has (which can only be determined after it is born). i was on a targeted list which meant that a midwife came to visit the very next day to check up on gallo, confirmed that he was developing jaundice and to hospital we went. i think he stayed in for a couple of days under lights compared to caleb who was in there for a long time.

chances are that baby belle is going to have the same blood type as his daddy and brothers, so any chance i can get to have him at home and hold and feed him before he goes in under the lights i’ll take. it’s horrible just watching your newborn lying there with a feeding tube and heartbreaking not being able to pick him up. i don’t know how those with seriously ill little ones cope.

so i’m finishing rooms off, gathering old towels, popping to b&q for industrial plastic sheeting…exciting stuff. it’s even exciting not knowing when it’s going to happen. i say that now, as soon as i go a day past 2 february things will change and i’ll be moaning - a day past the date you’ve been given feels like a year, believe me.

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baby belle