The freakish male midwife

That was my luck! i had to be assigned to a male midwife student at the maternity today. When i saw him enter the room i immediately thought of "Meets the parents" and the Ben Stiller nurse character, except this one was much less good looking:) I went to the maternity because i just wanted to make sure everything was ok. I have been having a lot more than 10 braxton hicks contractions a day lately and was worried it was a sign of preterm labor. Of course once i got there i had no contractions whatsoever. He was nice enough but very strange: he was going to pull up my panties to give me a pelvic exam!!! crazy!!!, definitely would never happen in the US or would be cause for a lawsuit:) i yelled "NO! let me do that myself!" thank you very much. You'd think he would have understood but no he was going to hang them back to me after...i explained that women DON'T LIKE others especially men touching their panties, hopefully he got it and won't subject another woman to this crazy treatment! Everything was ok as my cervix hasn't moved at all but i found myself rushing to the hospital again 2 hours later as I was bleeding!! i completely FREAKED OUT. I was told not to worry and that it is very likely due to the pelving exam -- the freakish male midwife again! I should have know as he hurt me quite a bit. I really have to wonder why a big tall guy like this one would ever want to become a midwife...? The reassuring thing is that he won't be around when i give birth as he's only at this hospital about twice a year as he told me at the end. Pweh!

A watermelon

That's what my belly looks like AND feels like! I'm not sure if i'm supposed to get bigger but i feel like it's impossible! I can't believe my neighbor yesterday who thought i was only about 5 months along...

Update on birth process

I have to say those birth classes have been pretty helpful. In addition to learning how to breathe, we also went over the best positions to adopt during labor and delivery. I understand i'm supposed to move as much as possible during labor: walk around, move the hips in circular motions, squat, use a yoga ball, etc. During delivery it's best not to adopt the conventional so called "gynecologic" position lying down. Best is to take advantage of gravity and stay propped up or squatting to make it easier for baby to come down - or lay on the side which make it easier because baby doesn't have to rotate. The other thing is to position the feet with the toes oriented inside and the hills outside (opposite of V position) which opens up the bones of the buttocks and makes it easier for baby to come out. The one really tricky thing is to know when to head for the maternity given regular contractions could be there for a while but if the cervix isn't dilated it's false labor and i'd be sent back home. The pb is that i can't figure out if my cervix is dilated myself:) so we'd have to head to the maternity even for no reason- I have a feeling it's likely to happen... One other good trick we learnt: take a medication to empty bowels when labor starts and given the intestinal process stops during labor this should avoid embarassement. The other good thing about it is that since it empties the bowels it will help make room and should facilitate dilatation of the cervix. Good to know! I'm asking my doctor for it on Monday.

Showing her tongue!

We had the last ultrasound this week and everything's ok!. The best part is that the little one showed us her tongue on the screen, it was so funny:) She weighs about 2.2Kgs which at 33 weeks is in the normal/small range. She's already well positioned head down and back to the front but i understand she could still rotate her back. The doc said she's very dynamic and that's good -she was moving so much it made it difficult for him to take measurements. The best news is that the cervix is still well closed and she's unlikely to come before term! yeah!! she must had heard her mummy telling her to wait a bit more.