Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A day in the life of a pregnant woman

The baby had hiccups last night for about 10 minutes. It was funny at first, then when they didn't go away I got a little worried. How do you tell a fetus to hold its breath or eat a spoonful of sugar? Then it was just funny again and eventually they subsided. I am told this is normal, even though the baby is "breathing" amniotic fluid.

I'm still down with RLP. If I'm out and about and the pain starts I sit or squat for a few minutes and most of the time this helps. But when it's in full swing it feels like someone stabbing me. Or at least how I imagine that feels, having never actually been stabbed. Fortunately my hips are feeling better and less arthritic. I'm hoping they were aching from all the walking, and I've done my best to rest for a few days.

Today Steve and I went to the anesthesiology office to fill out paperwork and watch the epidural video. It was moderately informative, although our childbirth prep classes covered most of it. I'm pretty sure it was created in the seventies with drawings of pregnant mothers with feathered hair. I laughed out loud when it got to the part where they tell you how to arch your back when the needle is inserted "like a mad cat at Halloween, or a rainbow," complete with drawings of both. And later it talked about tubal ligation with a diagram showing the tubes tied... with bows.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! I forgot about that video! Isn't it terrible?!?! I think I tuned out partially because I definitely don't remember the part about arching your back or the bows...that's funny.