Hospital Update - a comedy of errors

Cooking up a storm for the freezer

I cannot believe how quickly time has been passing!

 I've added a couple of days volunteer work to my schedule and between those and my frequent naps, I've been reading and cooking, but not so much writing or commenting.  

I have some catching up to do.

I had my compulsory booking appointment with the new, local, hospital last week. 

I'd booked a taxi in advance but when I called to enquire as to it's whereabouts when it was ten minutes late, I was told I was sixth in line and it would likely be another half hour?  

So much for advance booking.  

So I called the hospital to try to reschedule the appointment and was told they'd send out a letter with another appointment time in about three weeks.

Three weeks!  I explained that I was 30 weeks pregnant not the usual ten weeks they'd expect at a booking appointment and would it be possible to see someone earlier?  

They took my number.

I was very lucky that they found me another appointment that afternoon and I made it to the midwives clinic on time despite the best efforts of the public transport system to prevent it. 

In theory its only three stops on the train and a five minute bus ride, but the trains come three times an hour and the buses only once an hour so a bit of coordination is required.

I was seen by a final year midwife student supervised by a senior midwife who covered all the same stuff covered in my three booking appointments in the UK and the appointment at the Royal Women's. Yes, I know about smoking and drinking and eating nutritiously and why the recommend breastfeeding over bottle feeding etc.  Thanks for all the brochures etc again.

Despite my being told that the staff at the local hospital would have access to my records on the same hospital system before I transferred, they did not. They just had the handheld notes.  The senior midwife had to call the other hospital to get all the clinical notes faxed over, much to her annoyance.

They weighed me - according to their scales I've put on 10kg since I conceived - and cautioned I was putting on too much weight. That surprised me a little since I wasn't putting on enough early on. Yes, I have been craving dairy (more on that in a future post) but mostly eating the same as usual. The senior midwife said the dairy was good and to keep with it, but make sure it was low fat and be careful about what else I ate. 

 Consuming low fat anything is pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum of healthy eating from my perspective so I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.

It did bother me to think that I was putting on too much weight so when I got home I spent some time with Dr Google and given my starting BMI 10kg is within the healthy range for weight gain for the start of the third trimester. Maybe they forgot I was 30 weeks already..?  I went out and bought my own scales so I can keep an eye on it and weighed in 3kg under their measurement.  Of course I don't know whose scales are wrongly calibrated.  Whatever, I'll just watch my weight gain irrespective of the actual number.

They measured me - the fundus was 29cm which is right on target.

They took my blood pressure - which was normal, but high for me.  I had Mr Duncan take it again a few days later (with the fancy blood pressure monitor he bought while trying to get the Australian visa) and it was back down to normal-for-me.  So maybe I was just a bit stressed out what with the taxi debacle and new hospital and everything.

They did not test a urine sample which surprised me.  So far I've only given one in Australia, and that was after my very first appointment with a doctor here, they took blood and urine.  In the UK the NHS has you bring your own urine sample from home to every appointment.  At my hospital they had a big box of specimen jars sitting on reception for you to take from for your next appointment.

They sent me for a blood test to verify blood type.  

Now apart from the fact that I was issued with dog tags at birth with my blood type imprinted on (don't know if they still do that in Sweden), and have known since I was tiny what it is and told them.  And the fact it had my blood type written in the handheld notes from the other hospital, they said I had to get a blood test to determine my blood type.  

Why?   

I didn't understand.  

Blood type doesn't change with age!  

Hospital policy it seems.  No wonder medical care costs so much if they have to keep re-ordering unnecessary tests due to 'policy'.  I did mention my iron count was traditionally quite low so they ordered a haemoglobin test as well.

That was worth giving a vial of blood for.  My reserves are depleted (they were okay when tested back in November) so I'm back on the Floradix, beet juice and home made liver pate.  I tried a mushroom version this time.  

Yum!

Although I faxed off the booking and payment details for the childbirth education classes over a month prior, it seemed they had no record of me and wouldn't be able to fit me in to a class until August.  

A bit late, methinks, given I'm due in barely eight weeks.  

Fortunately I held off cancelling the classes booked at the Royal Women's until I had new classes confirmed, so I'll attend those instead.  Given I'd miss out on the tour provided as part of their childbirth education classes, the midwife sent me off with the student midwife for a quick look at the birth facilities, so I know where to come on the day.  

Gulp.

They have four birthing rooms, three of which have a private bathroom/shower, and a separate room with a birthing pool.  The rooms are all very clinical though, full of wires and monitors - quite scary looking.  If we were still in London, I'd opt for a home-birth but I don't think I get that option here, since I was a) so late on the scene and missed out on the midwife care scheme by months so I'm under the care of an obstetrician (who I have yet to meet) and b) am considered high risk due to my age.

I'm not exactly brimming with confidence at this point.

If I want a birth without medical intervention, I need to spend my time focusing on being calm and relaxed and not allow the whole medical side of things to intimidate me and create feelings of fear or anxiety.

And breathe...

Fear

With my first pregnancy I was a bit anxious because it was all a new experience.  But I was innocent enough to believe things would probably be fine, until it all went downhill at ten weeks.

With my second pregnancy I was hyper-vigilant.  

I worried and over-analysed every symptom until we passed 14 weeks gestation. 

Now that we were out of the first trimester surely it was safe to hope everything would be okay.  I had three whole days of relative peace-of-mind before things went downhill again.

This time I have every reason to believe the pregnancy will go to term - we're now more than 75% of the way there.  I'm healthy and growing and gaining weight as expected.

But that is just in my head.  

In my heart is fear.

I know that babies can still die in utero in the third trimester.  

Some babies are stillborn.  

And some babies die due to birth complications.

Upon waking every morning the first thing I do is check for movement.  

Most often there is none and the cold fingers of fear start to crawl up my spine. 

Pickle seems not to be a morning person, preferring to save the major acrobatics for when I'm trying to fall asleep at night.  I know this in my head, but still the nightmare scenarios play through my mind until I first feel movement later in the day.

All I can do is treat myself well and hope for the best.  It is much more difficult than I would have believed.

There are no guarantees.

Tiger Towel

As modelled by my kitchen chair

I went to buy baby clothes for Pickle the other day.

I found it totally overwhelming.

Even outside the pink/blue themes there was lots of choice and despite my careful research, once in the store I had no idea about quality or price or anything.  I came home with just a couple of onesies and a big headache. 

I complained to Mr Duncan that I really just needed to inherit a big bag of baby stuff so I didn't need to make so many decisions.  

Lo and behold, I was visiting one of my few Melbourne friends the other day and she mentioned she'd recently been through the wardrobes of both her little ones' and I should go up to the spare room and feel free to help myself to anything I wanted.

I love it when you put something out to the universe and it answers like that.  

I went home with a bag full of gender neutral stuff in newborn and 000 sizes along with a few pieces of 00 and 0 stuff for the future.

Newborn clothes ready to go

The next day I came across some high quality Egyptian cotton towels on sale and I thought I'd make a hooded towel for my friend's two year old as a thank you for the baby clothes.

I first came across these cute hooded towels when I was pregnant with Poppy and working from home.  I had lots of time to surf the internet for baby things to sew while waiting for people to join conference calls.  I couldn't imagine making one for when Pickle is born, but they seem perfect for a toddler to exercise their imagination in.

The instructions are good and I'm very happy with the end result, but I encountered a few issues along the way.  If you decide to make one of these, don't make the same mistakes I did...

The bath towel I bought was 640gsm and because there were no matching hand towels left on sale in the same colour I bought a bath mat instead which was 1050 gsm.  Most luxurious, but next time I will use thinner towels.

While the size of the bath mat was fine, the thickness caused me no end of problems with the sewing machine.  My needle kept getting gummy and skipping stitches when sewing the pupils of the eyes, the nose and whiskers.  I guess two layers of heat and bond was a bit much.  Next time I'd sew those bits onto the white fabric before sewing the fabric onto the towel.  I also had problems with the feed dogs due to the thickness of the towel when satin stitching the face bits and had to stitch backwards and forwards again and again.  It turned out the satin stitch worked best for me when I used the reverse functionality - though sewing circles backward was a bit tricky.

As for putting the face together... my sewing machine foot just would not accommodate so many thicknesses of towel, so I ended up hand sewing on the ears and muzzle using a darning needle.

I can't wait to give it to my friend's two year old and see what she makes of it!

Mediterranean Dinner Party

I invited friends to dinner on Thursday night.  

Our first dinner guests - actually our first guests - since moving in six weeks ago.

Unbeknownst to me, my invitation coincided with the local power company's plan to replace all the electricity meters in the neighbourhood.  

Of course it did.

'It will take two hours, tops' said the nice power company man as he came by to say the power would be turned off in ten minutes.  

That was at 11am.  

By 2pm they had discovered the power in our rental property was not earthed and they 'could not in good conscience' return power to the property while it was a death trap unsafe.  

Fair enough.  

They wrote us an official defect report and said we needed to get an electrician out to repair it asap.

We called the property manager to authorise/arrange an electrician only to find that our property manager no longer works for the company and they haven't allocated anyone new to her properties. 

Nice one.  

We eventually got an electrician who couldn't find any earthing wires to the water pipes to be repaired and speculated that they were removed when the property was re-plumbed, sometime in the past, and most of the metal water pipes were replaced with plastic ones.  The issue became locating an appropriate pipe to run a new earthing wire to.  

So the electrician had to call someone out to drill holes and climb around the roof so they could run the new earthing wire across the length of the house.  That was complete by 4.30pm.  

But the power company employees finished work at 4.00pm so we needed to get an after hours team to inspect the repair, rescind the defect notice and turn the power back on.

The power was finally returned just after 6.30pm.  Our guests were due at 7.00pm.

Our friends are vegetarian and I had planned a Mediterranean menu - mostly Greek versions of dishes inspired by this cool book I took out from the library - A La Grecque: Our Greek Table.  I don't usually do much baking, but had intended to bake a fresh spinach and feta pie and bake some bread to go with dips and salads.

By the time our guests arrived, the amended menu was

• Mediterranean dips - hummous, tzatsiki, melazanasalat (see below)
• Toasted pita bread - Mr Duncan ran out for some from the supermarket, to substitute for the homemade turkish flat bread I had planned to make from my library book.  I'll have to take a photo of that recipe for future experiments.
• Spanakopita (reheated from the freezer)
• Sweet potato, feta and basil salad - The gas was still on but the ignition spark on the stove is electricity dependent.  Once I found some matches to light it, I was able to boil the sweet potato instead of roasting.
• Fattoush salad

So it all worked out in the end but I was in such a flap I totally forgot to take any photos.

Tzatsiki

This is a simple mix of chopped cucumber, mint and garlic stirred into yoghurt that I've made for years, but I followed the library book recipe method and made it the Greek way by

1. straining the yoghurt to make it thicker (don't forget to save the whey and use it for other things) 
2. removing the seeds from the cucumber before slicing and draining the chopped cucumber, sprinkled with a little salt in a colander for a few minutes before mixing into the yoghurt.
3. mixing a little extra virgin olive oil into the finished product

These changes made for a much thicker, luxurious texture which really complimented the pie (and also went well with some grilled lamb chops the next day).

Melizanosalata

This was Mr Duncan's favourite dip when we were in Greece.  

It is made with grilled eggplant.  I threw it and the hummous together in the 30 minutes between the power coming back on and our guests arriving.

Ingredients

• Eggplant
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Parsley

Method

1.  Slice the eggplant.  

2.  Place slices on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil.  

3.  Grill under a high heat for approx 5 minutes either side until soft and slightly charred.

4.  Mash eggplant in a bowl with remaining ingredients.  

5.  Blend until desired consistency reached.  

If you like you can fold in some crumbled feta cheese.

All-purpose DIY pregnancy pillow

While I consider this pregnancy to have been fairly 'easy' on me so far (not that I have anything to compare it to), I have been experiencing hip pain and heartburn at night.

Looking at the long and intimidating list of items to purchase in preparation for your new arrival I noted one said 'nursing pillow' and wondered what that was.

It turns out it is a horseshoe-shaped pillow that you can rest the baby on to nurse, thus bringing the baby up to a more comfortable height and saving your arms.  I also read on a message board somewhere that I could use a nursing pillow during pregnancy, to help with my discomforts at night.

The Boppy Pillow seemed to be the go-to product, but I also read complaints in the forums that it wasn't firm/high/wide enough for various peoples tastes.  

I found a great, easy to follow tutorial for a similar nursing pillow that would be firmer and higher and decided I would alter it a little to make it wider so it would fit around Mr Duncan's waist too.

I went down to the local charity shop in search of fabric and came across a bonanza.  

They were having a half price sale.  

Not only did I find a tablecloth made out of a sturdy cotton fabric to use but I came across a pillow stuffed with hypoallergenic filling I could use and another bag of craft filling - all for the princely sum of $3.00.

Textile filling

(And a black leather ottoman for $2.50 that matches our black leather couches from Mr Duncan's bachelor days.)

I could use a good footrest

After I got the tablecloth home I was a bit reluctant to cut it up - it really is quite pretty, with blue and white checks.  

When I measured up the fabric needed for the pillow it left me with half of the tablecloth - which happens to be just big enough to fit our table.  

So I'm going with the best of both worlds and saving half to use as a tablecloth.  

For now.

When I placed the pattern on the folded fabric, I added a half an inch up to the fold to make it that little bit larger to accommodate Mr Duncan's girth.

I need to find some fabric to make slip covers (I'm thinking one side soft and fuzzy and the other side cotton or flannel).  I also think I'll make a couple of slipcovers in the original 'Boppy' shape to bring the two ends closer together in the middle, like a ring, so it could be used for propping up baby or tummy time when the time comes.

In the meantime I've squeezed it into a normal pillow case to keep it clean and in the past two days have used it

• to sleep on - with my hip in the hollow and my belly resting on the back to take the pressure off 
• to sleep against - with my back propped up against it and another pillow on top for my head to stop the heartburn rising up
• to rest my laptop on my legs
• to support my lumbar back while sitting on the couch
• as an armrest to lean against

I'm sure it will come in useful when the baby comes, but I can't believe I haven't been using one of these for years!

As an Amazon Associate I will earn from qualifying purchases from Amazon.  Read the disclosure for more information.