34 Weeks Pregnant - low platelets again!
Last week’s blood tests show my platelets have dropped off a bit again, which for Australian standards has technically put me back in the range of gestational thrombocytopaenia (very borderline still). Platelets dropping during pregnancy is physiologically normal for some women, and certainly seems to be my norm, since I know it happened with my first pregnancy too.
31 Weeks Pregnant - bonding with baby
For many of us, this past week has been a week of holiday and family time. It certainly has been for me and my family. We enjoyed a few days with some of the extended family, and are loving having a week for just our family at home right now, after a very full year. It’s important to spend time together, bonding as husband and wife, parents with children, siblings with siblings.
And it’s just as important to spend time bonding with baby!
29 Weeks Pregnant - is my baby too big to be born vaginally?
When I had my morphology ultrasound around 21 weeks, the sonographer commented that baby was measuring in the 96th percentile, and that my provider would probably want to schedule growth scans during third trimester to make sure baby wasn't getting too big. I just smiled and thanked her, but I knew that we would not be planning any growth scans based purely on this comment...
27 Weeks Pregnant - heading into the third trimester!
Well, that went quickly! Here we are heading into third trimester! I am so so grateful for how well I’ve been feeling this pregnancy. My energy levels have been so good, it’s really been amazing!
I’m also really glad I was able to get into a routine at 20 weeks with daily birth prep exercises, both mental and physical. Now in third trimester I have some changes to my birth prep routine.
24 Weeks Pregnant - finding balance and rhythms in life
It’s been a quiet week this week, just normal busy daily life with my husband and two little girls. There’s nothing much particularly coming up for me around pregnancy right now, though I am feeling baby move regularly and continuing with my near-daily practice of Spinning Babies exercises, breathing and “horse lips” exercises, and listening to positive birth affirmations and relaxation/visualisation audios. I didn’t have enough of these quiet weeks in my last pregnancy, so I am really enjoying it!
23 Weeks Pregnant - birth reflexes, aka, your body knows when to push!
I listen to The Great Birth Rebellion podcast regularly, and this week I listened to an episode I’d missed on birth reflexes. That was really fascinating, hearing the explanations and comparing with my experiences with my first two births.
21 Weeks Pregnant - my birth preparation protocol
You may have heard the saying, “if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”. I feel this applies to birth as much as anything else. Now clearly, I don’t mean we can “fail” at giving birth! That baby is going to come out! However, if we have a particular plan for how we would like the birth to occur, we need to prepare for it. This applies whether you are planning a vaginal birth or a Caesarean birth.
18 Weeks Pregnant - plan for your birth!
I’m planning my third birth after two uncomplicated, and frankly, fantastic birth experiences. But let me tell you, you never get to the point where you don’t need to plan for birth! And you can’t just “copy and paste” your birth plan either, since no two pregnancies and births are the same. Not to mention the fact that we never finish learning. You may have made an informed decision on something for your first birth that you now have more information on or think differently about, and so you make a different decision for a subsequent birth or postpartum…