Pregnancy #2 – 34+6 weeks

I was doing a bit of reading up about the back-to-back position yesterday evening. It seems there are two reasons why babies fall into this posterior position:

1. The type and shape of pelvis that you have may make it more comfortable for baby to settle in the back-to-back position as their head is resting in the widest part of the pelvis.

2. Doing lots of sitting/leaning back rather than being upright/leaning forward makes it more likely for baby to swing round and lay against your spine.

There’s not a lot that can be done about reason one (although I suspect this might be the reason for me given my mum’s similar problems), but reason two can be worked on. Even though I make a conscious effort to sleep on my side overnight, I am guilty of slouching back on our sofa during the day and in the evening. It’s the sort of sofa where your bum sinks down, causing your knees to go above the pelvis; something that it is advised to avoid. 

So from now on I’m going to be much more aware of my posture and positioning. Some tips I picked up were: spend at least 10 minutes twice a day on all fours, sit on a hard chair the wrong way round so that your knees are below pelvis level and lean forward as much as possible. This is what’s known as optimal fetal positioning and helps encourage baby into an anterior position. Non of that sounds particularly comfortable, but it’s worth a try. The consensus from the web was that back-to-back labours are longer, more painful and more likely to result in an assisted birth, which is exactly my experience from last time. One which I definitely wish to avoid if at all possible. 

Apparently about 1 in 10 women go into labour back-to-back, so it’s not uncommon at all, but I will do my best to try not to be part of that 10% this time around!

Week 35

It’s the end of February, which can only mean one thing:

MY MATERNITY LEAVE HAS FINALLY STARTED!

Yes, after months of counting down the weeks, days and hours, I am finally free! I now have a month or so of filling my days with nice, relaxing things until baby arrives.

My work got me flowers, cake, an M&S gift card, perfumed moisturiser and a good luck card that everyone had signed, which was very kind of them.

Also this week was our final antenatal class, on post-natal care and breast feeding. Afterwards a few of us popped over to Carluccio’s for tea and cake, which was nice.

I seem to be getting less and less sleep at the moment, which I suppose is good training! I spend half the night tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable, in between trips to the loo. Other than that though, I’m doing ok. I’ve brought another yoga DVD, tailored specifically to pregnancy, and Tom & I have done it 3 times already. I plan to continue doing this over the next few weeks and also some swimming too; I’ve already been once since work finished!

I’m getting into buying mode now that there’s only a month to go: this week I’ve ordered a TENs machine, along with some breast pads, maternity pads and cotton wool for my hospital bag. I’ve also bought a couple of baby hats and a baby shawl, some pyjamas and a gym ball for labour!

Also this week Tom and I went for a meal at La Trompette to celebrate the start of my maternity leave!