Category Archives: Juno!

Counting down…

April 7, 2015 18:16 | Leave a Comment |


So… 38 weeks. Feeling huuuuuuuuge!

38 weeks means it should be only two weeks to go. We shall see. However, it’s very rare that babies actually turn up on their due date so I have a feeling I’ll be going over (according to my mum I didn’t want to come out and was quite late).

But it’s okay – kinda – because my OB is on leave for ten days and won’t be back until two days before my due date. Being over isn’t necessarily a bad thing – except of the fact that I’m going to be really uncomfortable. Eh… that’s nothing new.

At least this is a temporary discomfort. It’s been seven months since the accident and my arm still hurts. Obviously nowhere near as much as it did but it kinda sucks to wake up every day and have it twinge and ache. And sometimes it just flat-out hurts. But apparently it’s all part of the process of my arm healing.

On the upside, I’ve made huge progress with my physical therapy. I have a very good physiotherapist who I’ve been seeing weekly for about four months now courtesy (mostly) of TAC. I can lift my arm above my head to nearly the same point as my right, undamaged arm. Sideways I can nearly get to the maximum reach point but it still hurts when it gets above my shoulder. Backwards reach is still not great and it hurts but really, how much do you need that particular motion? I can dress myself so there’s not much point getting worked up about. It’ll either come back or it won’t. I was told that I would never recover 100% mobility so I guess the backwards reach is it for me.

When I reach sideways, I can feel it pop and creak so there’s still a fair amount of weakness in my shoulder which will only ever be fixed by me doing exercises – of which I have plenty. It’s more important at the moment that I focus on being able to lift things up as very soon I’ll be lifting a little person who’s only going to get heavier. So I guess she’ll be helping with my rehab.

There is only one small upside to breaking my arm. It’s made me realise that labour won’t be anywhere as scary as it’s made out to be. After all, I went through four weeks of severe pain with nothing to show for it except a dodgy arm. At least with childbirth, it’s worthwhile. There will be this amazing little person who will make it worthwhile. It also won’t last anywhere near as long 😉

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It’s suddenly a bit more real now

March 16, 2015 15:32 | Leave a Comment |

We had a growth scan on Friday and for once she didn’t spend the whole time turning away from the scanner. So we got to see her face. It’s getting a bit squashy in there so it’s hard to judge what she actually looks like. But she has perfect, pouty lips. We could see those clearly.

She’s currently measuring in the 80% growth percentile. The one thing that is worrying me a little is that she apparently has a big head, which could make labour… uh… interesting. But, of course, all the measurements in scans are mostly best guesses so I’m hoping her head measurement isn’t actually accurate.

Not long now – five more weeks – and we’ll get to see her for real.


Squishy little face. D’awwwww!

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Sooooo…

February 25, 2015 18:55 | 1 Comment |

This is me at 32 and bit weeks pregnant.

I gotta say being pregnant is one of the strangest things I’ve ever been through. Probably the oddest thing is watching my stomach move on its own, sometimes quite energetically.

Less keen on the having to pee all the time, including multiple times at night. Preggie brain might not be real but the interrupted sleep and insomnia certainly is and that’s not good for optimal brain activity. Also not so keen on the indigestion either. It started about a week after the morning sickness stopped so I didn’t really get a break at all from feeling crappy.

Everything is getting that little bit harder. It’s harder to get out of bed, it’s hard to roll over in bed. It’s getting harder to get off the couch. I feel slow, heavy and awkward (even though I still weigh less than I did when I got really fat). My centre of gravity is wacky and I haven’t even bothered to try to get on my step-thru in two weeks now. I bump my bump into things all the time because I’m still not used to it.

To be honest, I’m kinda over it. I’m tired so much of the time. My feet hurt from the extra weight. I had terrible pain in my knees for a few weeks because my gait changed (but a round of acupuncture helped with that). I miss being able to ride my bike(s). I miss being able to move freely. I miss being able to get up a flight of stairs without being out of breath. I miss my fitness, I miss having a body of my own because right now I’m not an “I”, I’m a “we”. There’s two of us in here and she’s pretty much in charge.

I feel like I’ve lost a lot of autonomy. My whole world at the moment is about her, trying to make sure she’s healthy and growing. So, of course, I wonder who I am. Am I me any more? Who will I be once she’s out in the world? I know I won’t be the same as I was but I don’t know who I’ll become either. It’s like being in stasis. I’m waiting to see what happens next.

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Well, hello there!

December 12, 2014 18:17 | Leave a Comment |

20 week scan has been and gone. According to the doctor who did the scan, she’s perfect. Which I’m assuming means not too big and not too small, growth-wise with an excellent blood flow through her heart. Her brain has two spheres and was all there 😛

She was pretty active during the scan too which is always nice to see. Except for when we tried to get a profile shot and she kept showing us her spine (which was kinda freaky).


This was the best profile we got. My little fidgeter 🙂

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So much for me being all zen about my accident

December 7, 2014 19:38 | Leave a Comment |

Time to admit it.

I am really angry about it. As in really, really fucking angry.

Sigh.

I guess it all came to head for me when we went up to Bright for our annual cycling-eating-drinking extended long weekend with a big group of friends and I had to sit by and watch everyone else having a grand old time conquering mountains and spending serious time on the bike.

Me? I barely managed a 40km ride. I had to be pushed up a small rise that was maybe 250m long because I couldn’t get up it on my own. (Don’t get me wrong – I am eternally grateful for that push because otherwise I would’ve had to have gotten off and walked.) Yes, it was awesome being on my bike again but the next day I regretted it. My arm was so painful and it took a few days for me to recover. I don’t believe it set back my overall recovery but it was just so frustrating. I really felt like I should’ve been doing so much more and I couldn’t. All because some stupid woman ran a red light and hit me.

Okay, yes I’m pregnant so there’s no way I was going to be riding up even the smallest mountain. I knew that, accepted it but I had been looking forward to doing what I was capable of – which would’ve been a lot of flat(ish) rides. I should’ve been able to do so much more than a pissy 40km.

I know I should be grateful. My injury really isn’t that serious. When you think about what could’ve happened, I really did get off lightly. I could’ve fracture my pelvis, suffered a serious head injury, internal bleeding or I could’ve miscarried but all I did was break my arm. I should be grateful but I’m not. I feel like I’ve lost so much.

Those weeks should’ve been about me whinging about morning sickness and getting some sympathy for that. I should’ve excited about being pregnant. It should’ve been about me doing what I needed to do to stay fit and still riding my bike. But no, I spent weeks lying in bed because I couldn’t do anything else. I’d wake up in pain and go to sleep in pain. It took weeks for it to get to a tolerable level so I could try to get my life back on track.

I wanted to do what I could to stay fit in the hope that it’d help me have a reasonable birth experience and a faster recovery. I know the shortness of breath I experience these days is because my diaphragm is being squashed but that doesn’t mean I have to like it! I can’t help but think if my accident hadn’t happened, stuff like this would be a bit easier

I was initially quite zen about the whole thing but I realise now that I am really angry about it. I’m angry about being in pain so much of time. I’m irritated about the fact that when I wake up in the morning I have to be careful about how I stretch because if I do it wrong, it’s a whole world of pain. I’m angry that my rehab will take so long and that even when it’s done and I’ve “recovered”, I still won’t have full functionality. My arm is never going to be 100% ever again.

I’m just generally pissed about the whole thing.

It really feels like the last three months have been so chaotic. Nothing has been normal. My calendar is full of medical appointments and little else (okay, the baby-related appointments are pretty exciting and make for a nice change). While I am making progress – I’ve gone from being able to not lift my arm at all to to about 130 degrees in front of me – it feels like it’s taking forever and it’s hard to not get frustrated by how slow progress is. I can’t really reach backwards at all and I’m still restricted in how high I can lift my arm to the side. It’s a slow, painful process.

As petulant as this will sound, I always end up thinking that this shouldn’t have happened to me and that is just so unfair (see, petulant – next I’ll be stamping my foot). I guess the problem is that before I didn’t really have time to be angry. I was so focused on dealing with the pain I didn’t have room in my head for anything else. Now I do have time and I’ve pretty much lost my zen attitude. I want for it to be done. I’m so over it and that makes me angry.

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And life goes on

November 2, 2014 11:52 | Leave a Comment |

It’s kinda amazing when you think about it.

I’ve been through what most people would consider a traumatic event – both physically and mentally. But life just goes on. It doesn’t stop because you’re in pain or feeling like absolute shit. It just continues rolling on and the only thing you can do is roll with it.

I finally had an appointment with my naturopath yesterday (yes, I have a naturopath – feel free to roll your eyes) and she said something I found quite interesting. She commented that found my answers to her questions about the accident and how I was feeling “quite measured”. I think she was expecting me to be angry or stressed out of my brain. But really, what’s the point in being either of those things when that’s just a huge waste of energy?

Okay, I’m still a wee bit ticked off about the whole situation. I’m in pain every day and that’s not conducive to a positive, chipper frame of mind. But all I can do is deal with it. I can’t change what happened, I can’t make it be different regardless of how much I wish I could. I got the only justice I knew I would because the woman who hit me didn’t get away scott-free. There were ramifications for her actions. She was fined – heavily so – and from what the police officer was suggesting, she’s lost her driver’s license. That’s about as much justice as I could’ve realistically hoped for.

Initially it was incredibly stressful and hugely upsetting. I was petrified the whole time that something was wrong with the baby. Not a lot of people knew I was pregnant at that point so it’s hard to deal with it when you’ve got people asking how you are and all you want to blurt out is I’m so scared that my baby is dead. Because that’s what I thought. For an entire week.

This particular aspect of my situation wasn’t handled particularly well by the hospital. What would’ve made me (and Richard) feel a million times better would’ve been an ultrasound. Or someone coming to see me who could find the heartbeat. But I didn’t get any of that. Their attitude was that I didn’t have any abdominal pain, there wasn’t any bleeding so I (and the baby) were okay. An obstetrician came to talk to me and tried to be reassuring and tell me that they were sure everything was fine but it wasn’t enough. We finally found out the following week at our 10 week obstetrician appointment where I had my first ultrasound – a quickie done in my obstetrician’s room. There’s no words to describe how it felt to see my little passenger wiggling around and hearing the heartbeat.

Knowing that didn’t take away the amount of pain in my arm. It didn’t change my immediate situation. But it lifted an enormous weight from me and it got rid the mad panic in my brain.

So right now, my choices are either:
1. dwell on what happened and how unfair it was
or
2. focus on the here-and-now.

After all, I’m still pregnant. In about five months time there will be a little person who will need me. I can’t allow myself to dwell on the bad shit in my life – of which, I will admit, there is plenty right now – because it’s not good for her. Me being all petulant and grumpy won’t help me grow a healthy human being. My focus must be on getting my arm back to as normal – or as normal as it can be – so in the not-too-distant-future I can do stuff like pick up my baby.

At the moment, it feels like I only have a finite amount of energy each day so isn’t it better to put it towards recovery? All that anger and frustration just becomes a burden so why not put it aside? I didn’t die and I’m not seriously injured when you really think about. It could’ve been a million times worse but it wasn’t. My baby survived. She survived me being hit by car. She’s still in there, wiggling about, growing, developing. She’s alive and that should be reason enough to focus on what’s good in life.

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I’ll just leave this here shall I?

October 29, 2014 15:58 | 3 Comments |

I’m sure some people were probably wondering why I’ve lay-byed a girly step-thru at Velo Cycles. But there was most definitely a reason and this is it…

Just in case you don’t get it, this is me saying I’m up the duff. Or for my non-Australian friends – I’m pregnant. Richard and I are going to become parents on 19th April 2015 if everything goes according to schedule – which never happens with babies. So my parents might get to do something nice on their 45th wedding anniversary that’s not sixth grandchild related after all…

We’re pretty excited.

Big thanks to my good friend Kelly Tindall for doing such a cute announcement drawing for me. You should read his online comics: Strangebeard and The Adventurers. I especially like The Adventurers.

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