Pete's Eats

So, I’m sitting here thinking how to write the sound you’d make when pulling your own hair out – the title of this post is the closest I can get I think. It’s a pathetic attempt I know – but there isn’t a great deal of scope to pull my own hair out so I’m having to guess…

The past 8 days have been pretty full-on. Last Monday, Nete started to have contraction pains at 4am so we trotted off to the hospital in a fairly urgent manner. It being 4am in Brighton we managed the journey in a fairly quick time thankfully because when we arrived at the maternity unit they declared that Nete was in the early stages of labour… At 33 weeks it’s a bit of a deal that – not a big deal mind you, not really these days, but still. They promptly produced some tablets that are supposed to slow down the contractions. They needed to do this so that they could administer two sets of injections, 24 hours apart, of steroids that would develop baby-Kate’s lungs prior to birth. The tablets worked and the course of steroids was successfully completed…

Two days later the contractions were still coming at an alarming rate/intensity but nothing else was happening. Nete kept telling the midwives that she felt like she needed to ‘have a big fart’ and they in turn kept looking at her with a raised eyebrow. It turns out that this wasn’t because it’s perhaps a bit odd to share this kind of information with a complete stranger but rather because this is a tell-tale sign of impending birth…

Three days later the contractions are still the same. Nete has stopped telling the midwives about her ‘needs’ because she began to fear the eyebrow.

Four days later and still everything is as it was on day one but Nete’s not saying anything now because she just wants to come home.

Five days later and she manages to convince the doctor that all is well – but the midwife is on to her… Thankfully, she empathises enough with Nete to keep the dirty secret and the doctor finally signs her out after a further two hours of monitoring – without the contraction monitor attached thanks to the friendly midwife…

So, the upshot is that Nete is now home and walking around rubbing her ever expanding tum whilst grabbing things randomly and breathing through her ‘tightenings’ (we don’t mention the ‘C’ word now) and I look on with ever increasing levels of panic.

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Tomorrow I shall catch up on emails and the like – assuming nothing happens between now and then.