Making my way through life as a first time mum in Walthamstow

Saturday 17 March 2012

37 weeks - the final countdown!

Hurrah! I've made it to 37 weeks, this means the baby is now generally considered to be full term. All his little internal organs are fully developed now, so whenever he decides to make his appearance he should be fit and healthy to face life on the outside. I haven't seen any signs of approaching labour though, so I'm fully expecting to hang on till the full 40 weeks if not a bit longer. At my 36 week check-up, baby had finally turned into a head-down position after being breech for several months, which is good news as it means I can avoid having to go through an ECV procedure to manually turn the baby which I've heard can be quite painful and sometimes ends up with an emergency C-section if the baby becomes too distressed. The baby's head is only 1/5 engaged, so I need to spend this week focusing on my posture and sitting on my gym ball to help him drop down into position. 

I think I've had a pretty good comfortable pregnancy up until now, but these last couple of weeks I've been really starting to suffer from lack of sleep caused by severe heartburn and acid reflux. Every day I take a cocktail of remedies including Tums, Zantac, Gaviscon chewable tablets and two spoons of liquid. I have to sleep with my head up on four pillows to keep the acid reflux from spilling up into my throat, but can never seem to get comfortable and wake up exhausted and with a sore back from where I've been lying at a funny angle. I knew that my insides were all squashed up by the growing baby, but we were shown some pictures at my NCT class this week which really brought it home for me.

Before pregnancy
36 weeks























You can see just how much the pregnant woman's intestines and stomach have had to be squished and moved to make room for the growing uterus, no wonder I feel like this! There is some light at the end of the tunnel, as the baby drops further down, which should happen in the next week or two, my lungs and stomach should get some very welcome relief. Until then I will continue to stock up on the Gaviscon and be grateful to have made it this far so smoothly!

1 comment:

  1. Hello, I stumbled here as i think you did a nice blog about our Organiclea stall ages ago... and I saw you did a nice thing on a local supperclub... and Hornbeam is doing a supperclub evening... and I thought I'd let you know about it on twitter. Then I saw this sister blog and realise you have a lot of other things on your mind too right now! So - this is to say good luck, I was in your position almost exactly 2 years ago so empathise with your soon-to-be rollercoaster ride.. and if you find time to tweet about this that would be great! http://www.hornbeam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Supper9a.pdf
    We are @organiclea and hornbeam is @hornbeamcafe. Good luck and enjoy yoursef!
    (If I already know you online and haven't made the connection - sorry!)
    Cheers
    Rebecca, Organiclea

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