![The Doctor Is [IN]](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1263/1384310808_1c5e3cd3d5.jpg)
Got this from the hubs... thought it was funny! Unfortunately, we don't have such neighbours, nor similar amount of space, but one can continue to fantasise....
Thursday 20 December 2007
Wednesday 19 December 2007
the weekend...in hospital!
Amidst the christmas shopping and cheer, we ended up at QEQM hospital in Margate on sunday afternoon!
It all started on saturday night/sunday morning at about 2am. I was trying to get to bed when I started feeling what I thought were contractions! It's way too early for that to happen (not even 30 weeks yet!?) and thought it might be what they refer to as 'false contractions' or 'Braxton-Hicks' http://www.askbaby.com/braxton-hicks.htm. We started to time them though and it turned out they were coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting about 20-30 seconds! This went on for about 45min-1 hour and I was starting to panic. It then went away with the help of Ellie (our hotwater bottle!) and I managed to get some sleep.
The next morning, at church, it started all over again. Thankfully we'd already decided to bring along my hospital notes anyway, and when we rang the midwife, she told us to go straight to QEQM where there are consultants on call. This made me panic even more as it indicated that they thought it was more serious than I had anticipated.
So we made the 30 min car journey to QEQM and got admitted straight to the labour ward where they put me on a drip for 24 hours with muscle relaxant, gave me 2 shots of steriods for bubba's lungs (in case he comes early) and some antibiotics (which I'm still taking now). They also strapped on the fetal heart monitor and another one to monitor my contractions and thankfully after about half an hour or so, everything calmed down.
The consultant did an internal exam and confirmed that my cervix was still very tightly closed (good news!) but with the ultrascan, also confirmed that my placenta praevia was now a stage 4 http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/complications/placentapraevia/ which means that we'll definitely have to have a caesarean section sometime weeks 38 or 39. Hopefully baby will decide to stay in there till then, and we don't experience any bleeding of any sort.
It's been nerve-wrecking to say the least. The GP has signed me off work from now till baby comes - I guess that's the best option! I'm now having to find things to do whilst I'm whiling my time at home. Quite excited about the possibilities of ordering food off the internet, and of course, in the run up to christmas, wrapping christmas pressies...! We'll probably be renting lots of box-sets of DVDs...and reading lots of books.
ok - gotta get ready to go shopping with Chris now - I'm not allowed to go out by myself now, so need chaparones!
Love
P and the blue pea
30+2 weeks
It all started on saturday night/sunday morning at about 2am. I was trying to get to bed when I started feeling what I thought were contractions! It's way too early for that to happen (not even 30 weeks yet!?) and thought it might be what they refer to as 'false contractions' or 'Braxton-Hicks' http://www.askbaby.com/braxton-hicks.htm. We started to time them though and it turned out they were coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting about 20-30 seconds! This went on for about 45min-1 hour and I was starting to panic. It then went away with the help of Ellie (our hotwater bottle!) and I managed to get some sleep.
The next morning, at church, it started all over again. Thankfully we'd already decided to bring along my hospital notes anyway, and when we rang the midwife, she told us to go straight to QEQM where there are consultants on call. This made me panic even more as it indicated that they thought it was more serious than I had anticipated.
So we made the 30 min car journey to QEQM and got admitted straight to the labour ward where they put me on a drip for 24 hours with muscle relaxant, gave me 2 shots of steriods for bubba's lungs (in case he comes early) and some antibiotics (which I'm still taking now). They also strapped on the fetal heart monitor and another one to monitor my contractions and thankfully after about half an hour or so, everything calmed down.
The consultant did an internal exam and confirmed that my cervix was still very tightly closed (good news!) but with the ultrascan, also confirmed that my placenta praevia was now a stage 4 http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/complications/placentapraevia/ which means that we'll definitely have to have a caesarean section sometime weeks 38 or 39. Hopefully baby will decide to stay in there till then, and we don't experience any bleeding of any sort.
It's been nerve-wrecking to say the least. The GP has signed me off work from now till baby comes - I guess that's the best option! I'm now having to find things to do whilst I'm whiling my time at home. Quite excited about the possibilities of ordering food off the internet, and of course, in the run up to christmas, wrapping christmas pressies...! We'll probably be renting lots of box-sets of DVDs...and reading lots of books.
ok - gotta get ready to go shopping with Chris now - I'm not allowed to go out by myself now, so need chaparones!
Love
P and the blue pea
30+2 weeks
Thursday 13 December 2007
G at 29 weeks...
Hiya..
this is the blue pea, in situ (ie, mummy!), at 29+3 weeks. I think he's huge... most people think it's huge... he's also wriggling alot. He likes ice-cream and brownies (hehe...so does mummy!) - literally goes mad and dances around about 10 minutes after ingestion.
bought a gym ball for me to do balances on - not sure if it's blown up enough!
ok - gotta go now. Gotta read the other PhD draft now!
Love
P and the blue pea xx
Wednesday 12 December 2007
Bureaucratic behaviours
I have insurance policies back in sg because I started paying into them since my late teenage years. Obviously, due to the fact that I live in the UK now, there are 'perks' that I cannot enjoy due to sheer geographical reasons. One of them is a free comprehensive physical check up done at the hospital every couple of years or so. I did my check up in Feb 07 and it was brilliant. As it claims that it's transferable, I thought I'd give it to my sister-in-law to use it.
Which I did, all the way in the summer (Aug/Sept). She informed me that she needed me to extend the validity of the voucher and to do that, I needed to ring them in sg to extend it (why?). But I did it, anyway. Which was when all the rubbish started.
I rang them last night, GMT 12.30am. Explained the situation to person at the call centre. Figured it wasn't a big problem - all they need to do is extend the validity of the voucher and let me know when the new deadline is so that sil can go make a new appointment. The reply came, that I had to wait for a letter to be issued to me before she can make the appointment. I asked why we couldn't just ring in a few days time - the answer that came back didn't make sense. I hung up, after confirming that it was going to be done for me.
I couldn't sleep after that (it was quite a heated conversation) and whilst tossing and turning, it came to me that if I had to wait for the letter to arrive, it must therefore mean that it's already on the computer system way before that, which means that sil can theoretically ring in in a few days time to book her new appointment.
So, I rang the company again to see if I could make sense of it. Again another heated conversation ensued. The woman on the other side confirmed that in fact the extension had already been made at about 3pm local time (2 hours before I rang the 2nd time). When I heard that, I was really happy, and then said that must mean that sil can now make her new appointment. A "you must wait for your new letter" conversation started. I asked whether I needed to sign anything or fill in anything, and she replied in the negative. So I asked, why then do I have to wait for the letter? It's not like sil has to bring the letter to the hospital, does she? (apparently not). The woman could not give me a good reason why we needed to wait for the letter.
She then suggested that I needed to have informed the company that I was nominating someone else. I said that it was not in the form in the first place - all the form said was that I should hand it over to the nominee for them to make the relevant appointments. I pointed out that it was her company's form, which she should be familiar with. She then proceeded to 'blame' me for not informing the company about the change of person. I said that it didn't matter in the first place when sil made the initial booking anyway, so why should it matter now? She couldn't reply.
I got really het off by that point and told her she was wasting my money and time since this was not a free-phone call but an international one. I then asked her to clarify that there was no need for us to wait for the letter since it's already been done on the computer - and she confirmed it (even to the point of saying that when the hospital calls to confirm it, they can see it on the computer as of now). I then told her that that was all I needed to know. And hung up.
Morons!!!!!!!
P and blue pea
Which I did, all the way in the summer (Aug/Sept). She informed me that she needed me to extend the validity of the voucher and to do that, I needed to ring them in sg to extend it (why?). But I did it, anyway. Which was when all the rubbish started.
I rang them last night, GMT 12.30am. Explained the situation to person at the call centre. Figured it wasn't a big problem - all they need to do is extend the validity of the voucher and let me know when the new deadline is so that sil can go make a new appointment. The reply came, that I had to wait for a letter to be issued to me before she can make the appointment. I asked why we couldn't just ring in a few days time - the answer that came back didn't make sense. I hung up, after confirming that it was going to be done for me.
I couldn't sleep after that (it was quite a heated conversation) and whilst tossing and turning, it came to me that if I had to wait for the letter to arrive, it must therefore mean that it's already on the computer system way before that, which means that sil can theoretically ring in in a few days time to book her new appointment.
So, I rang the company again to see if I could make sense of it. Again another heated conversation ensued. The woman on the other side confirmed that in fact the extension had already been made at about 3pm local time (2 hours before I rang the 2nd time). When I heard that, I was really happy, and then said that must mean that sil can now make her new appointment. A "you must wait for your new letter" conversation started. I asked whether I needed to sign anything or fill in anything, and she replied in the negative. So I asked, why then do I have to wait for the letter? It's not like sil has to bring the letter to the hospital, does she? (apparently not). The woman could not give me a good reason why we needed to wait for the letter.
She then suggested that I needed to have informed the company that I was nominating someone else. I said that it was not in the form in the first place - all the form said was that I should hand it over to the nominee for them to make the relevant appointments. I pointed out that it was her company's form, which she should be familiar with. She then proceeded to 'blame' me for not informing the company about the change of person. I said that it didn't matter in the first place when sil made the initial booking anyway, so why should it matter now? She couldn't reply.
I got really het off by that point and told her she was wasting my money and time since this was not a free-phone call but an international one. I then asked her to clarify that there was no need for us to wait for the letter since it's already been done on the computer - and she confirmed it (even to the point of saying that when the hospital calls to confirm it, they can see it on the computer as of now). I then told her that that was all I needed to know. And hung up.
Morons!!!!!!!
P and blue pea
Tuesday 11 December 2007
End of term!!
This is week 12, and the end of term is nigh...! This friday, in fact. I can't believe it - we've survived yet another term. Funny how when I was at university as a student, I always thought my professors had a cushy life (they probably did - 15 years ago!), not having to teach so much and having long summer breaks. Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I see that it's not so (nowadays anyways)... I've never had a full summer holiday - taking only a week or two at the max - and now that I'm going on maternity leave, I realise that actually, we are entitled to 30 days leave plus 13 days of bank holidays/public holidays! I really shouldn't be that silly and not take the hols entitled to myself. I've tried to take some time off the last couple of weeks but haven't been successful. Last couple of weeks, I've spent the time that I didn't have to do any teaching, reading PhD drafts and marking students' essays! Today, am doing another student's PhD draft! Am getting tired now.
We've put our christmas tree up and did up the lights last night - will try and stick a photo up here when we get round to it. Have started wrapping presents and writing christmas cards too. Can't believe it, it's 2 weeks to christmas!!
Going for the University Carol Service this evening, and meeting up with Jeanne and Matt before that for dinner. Looking forward to that!
ok - back to the grind now.
Love
P and the blue pea
29+2 weeks :)
We've put our christmas tree up and did up the lights last night - will try and stick a photo up here when we get round to it. Have started wrapping presents and writing christmas cards too. Can't believe it, it's 2 weeks to christmas!!
Going for the University Carol Service this evening, and meeting up with Jeanne and Matt before that for dinner. Looking forward to that!
ok - back to the grind now.
Love
P and the blue pea
29+2 weeks :)
Thursday 6 December 2007
Update on the nursery!
We have bought our nursery cotbed and changing unit/chest of drawers! Very very exciting, and it's all installed in the nursery now. The bed looks like this http://www.boori.co.uk/index.asp?m=&cat=2&p=6 and the chest of drawers, http://www.boori.co.uk/index.asp?m=&cat=5&p=25
We first looked at it when we went window shopping (oh... 6 months back) and we thought that it was really really nice, but too expensive. Then, a nursery store near by (like 2 miles from our house!) decided to close down and slashed all their prices. Last weekend, we were there, hoping to get a bargain price car-seat (to no avail, since the only one that would fit our buggy was in pink and flowers and we figured it was really too much to impose onto our blue pea just yet!), and we saw that they had slashed the prices of the furniture! The price was so low that we thought it was similar to what we would have paid if we had bought a regular set of furniture!! so we were very pleased. :)
It's all coming together we think. We got some curtains and together with the black-out blinds, the window is sorted. Dad has offered to pay for a car seat which is great *thank you grandad*.
It's nearing the end of term now - I have 2 more lectures to give and 1 seminar to do and I'll be done for this year. I can't wait. I still have exam papers to set, a PhD draft to read, and a paper to complete by year end but I'm not worrying about them now. I've had a hectic couple of weeks with essays to mark and the other PhD draft to read, so I'm taking a mini-break today! hehe...
ok, have to go have my lunch now.
Love
P and the blue pea
28+3 weeks
We first looked at it when we went window shopping (oh... 6 months back) and we thought that it was really really nice, but too expensive. Then, a nursery store near by (like 2 miles from our house!) decided to close down and slashed all their prices. Last weekend, we were there, hoping to get a bargain price car-seat (to no avail, since the only one that would fit our buggy was in pink and flowers and we figured it was really too much to impose onto our blue pea just yet!), and we saw that they had slashed the prices of the furniture! The price was so low that we thought it was similar to what we would have paid if we had bought a regular set of furniture!! so we were very pleased. :)
It's all coming together we think. We got some curtains and together with the black-out blinds, the window is sorted. Dad has offered to pay for a car seat which is great *thank you grandad*.
It's nearing the end of term now - I have 2 more lectures to give and 1 seminar to do and I'll be done for this year. I can't wait. I still have exam papers to set, a PhD draft to read, and a paper to complete by year end but I'm not worrying about them now. I've had a hectic couple of weeks with essays to mark and the other PhD draft to read, so I'm taking a mini-break today! hehe...
ok, have to go have my lunch now.
Love
P and the blue pea
28+3 weeks
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