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Pregnancy diary: week 30 – buggy and blood issues

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Before I go any further, I should say that this post isn’t as horrific as it sounds! There’s no gore involved. Just a couple of things that happened at the end of last week that have been on my mind this week, as I think about what I can (or rather can’t) do about them.

First, I discovered last Friday that one of the back wheels on our buggy was dodgy. As I tried to push it to the supermarket, I saw that the wheel was wobbly and making the whole buggy wobble slightly as I pushed it. So I used our ‘spare’ buggy instead – a cheap secondhand stroller that we have for taking on car journeys because it folds up smaller than our usual buggy. There was no obvious reason why it should suddenly have a wobbly wheel, other than the fact that this is the third time in 18 months of use that we’ve had a problem with the back wheels. When we’ve heard back from the manufacturer about getting it fixed, I’m going to write a whole post on this, an honest review post from someone who’s used the buggy for more than a few weeks (that’s the trouble with most buggy reviews online – they are by people who’ve recently bought the product, so not much use for long-term durability experiences). So I won’t name (and shame) here.

When it’s working, I love our main buggy – it’s lightweight, easy to fold, easy to push, parent-facing or outward-facing, and fits in our small car boot (with not much room for much else). The secondhand stroller is pretty good too, but it has no parent-facing option and isn’t as easy to push as the other. But with the warrantee nearly up at 2 years after we bought the main buggy in October 2010, we’ve decided to sell it once the wheels are fixed, and get another buggy, one with more durable wheels, as the current one clearly wasn’t made to be used as often and for as long distances as we use it. I don’t see the point of a buggy that you can’t use as often as we do, but there you go; maybe living in Cambridge has warped my sense of how long is a normal distance to walk each day!

Throughout this pregnancy, our plan has been to continue using the (now read ‘a’) single buggy once the new baby is born, by carrying baby in a sling and Andrew in the buggy. I didn’t get on very well with the couple of different slings we were given when Andrew was little, for various reasons, so I didn’t use them much more than just around the house now and then, especially once he was quite heavy. But since then I’ve learned a lot more about babywearing, and I now know that there are many more slings available than the types we had, which are more comfortable to use. They’re not available in the chain high street shops selling baby products, so I’ve had to do quite a bit of internet research to come to the conclusion on what type of sling I’d like. Finally, about a month ago, I ordered the sling! However, it’s currently not available in the UK, so I have to wait until September for it to be shipped and arrive. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it on here yet – I was waiting until it arrived and could show me wearing it (potentially tricky with bump, but you’d get the idea). But as the topic has come up with the buggy issue, I’ll mention it here anyway. I’ve gone for a Moby wrap. It’s a long piece of stretchy fabric that you tie around you in a specific way that holds baby safely next to your chest. A stretchy wrap is great for newborns up to older babies, and is supposed to be a good starter wrap if you’ve never used a sling that you tie up yourself (rather than a structured one with clips) before. Below is a picture of someone else wearing it! When I saw this lace print design, I thought how pretty it looks, and so went for this design because it’s a bit more unusual than the plain colour ones and as I’m going to be wearing it a lot, I’m thinking of it like a piece of clothing.

Moby Lace wrap - worn by someone who looks like she doesn't have a baby the age of the one she's wearing! She looks far too awake and with it ;)

So the wrap for baby is sorted, but now I feel like we’re back to square one with the buggy for Andrew. By this time in pregnancy with him, we’d sorted the buggy, so I (usually so organised) feel a little uneasy about being 30 weeks pregnant and not knowing what our long-term plan about buggy is. For now I’m happy(-ish) to use the stroller with Andrew, but there will come a point at which we need to decide whether we’d like a double, or another single. I’m currently imagining two options: 1. I’m happy to carry baby in the wrap and push Andrew in the stroller until baby is big enough (about 10-12 months) to go in the stroller and Andrew is a good enough walker to use a buggy-board and walk some of the way (he’d be 2 1/2 years old by the time baby is that age, and is already a keen walker for his age); 2. I find that I’d prefer to push rather than wear baby once he/she gets to a certain weight, and by that time Andrew is not a good enough walker to reliably use a buggy-board and walk some of the way. There’s also the potential situation that I get fed up with the stroller and miss my easier to push single buggy, particularly when wearing baby in the wrap whilst pushing.

Option 1 means we wouldn’t need to get a new buggy, though possibly another single buggy (rather than stroller) if I miss the easier pushing action. Option 2 means we’d need to get a double buggy. As neither option is clear at the moment during pregnancy – because we need to wait until I actually have 2 children to walk around with to see how they develop – I can’t really do anything about this issue right now. As I said, this makes me feel a little uneasy, but we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better in the long run to wait. Of course I can do research into single and double buggies, and believe me I already have done lots, but we can’t make the final decision until later in the year or next year. My reasons for not just going for a double straight away are that I’d like to wear baby in the early months because this will be good for my milk supply (with which I had big issues with Andrew) and good for baby (with Andrew I missed out on knowing about the benefits of holding baby so close all the time), plus we don’t have loads of room in or around our flat and, as far as my research so far tells me, double buggies are pretty big contraptions, either wide or long, and heavy, which I’m happy to avoid if we don’t have to have one.

Bump looking bigger all the time. Not sure I'd say that I feel like I'm blooming, but certainly growing!

I think that’s enough on buggies for now! The second issue I’ve been dealing with this week has been my blood. More specifically – the platelets and cholesterol in my blood. The results of my glucose tolerance test last week came back fine in that I don’t have diabetes (yay!), but it was spotted that my platelets are ‘a little lower than normal’, to quote my GP, who has asked me to return for another blood test in 2 weeks to monitor them, in case they drop any further. After some googling, I’ve discovered that this is in fact pretty common in pregnancy, although I’d never heard of it before, and didn’t have this when pregnant with Andrew. Platelets are cells in the blood which help it to clot when necessary, like, for example, if you cut yourself and bleed, the platelets help clot the blood so it stops flowing and the wound starts to heal. As far as I can see from googling, it’s quite common for pregnant mums to have a slight drop in their platelet count during pregnancy, usually the 3rd trimester. Although it’s not certain exactly why this drop happens, there are a couple of factors that may be involved: the body naturally destroys platelets and replaces them with new ones, but in pregnancy this process is sped up, so you have fewer but younger platelets in the blood; the body produces more plasma (the liquid bit of blood) when pregnant, which means there are fewer platelets per millilitre of blood, though they can still perform just as well. As far as I can tell, if they drop a lot more, I’d probably have to have a hospital birth, as I would need treatment if I lost a lot of blood if the birth was complicated or I needed a c-section. So let’s hope it’s just a slight, normal drop, and that they won’t drop any more.

Completely unrelated to pregnancy, I also had a blood test a couple of days before my glucose test, because we’ve applied for life assurance for me. The reason is that I used to have a policy through work which would pay out a large sum based on my salary if I were to die (a policy which Tom also has), but of course with leaving work soon I’ll no longer have this. It’s not exactly a nice thing to think about, but now that we have children, our concern is for them if something were to happen to us. The insurance company wanted me to have a lipid test, although when the nurse came to do it, she wondered why they had asked for this, because it’s not routine for people as young as me. Anyway, it turns out from that my cholesterol is slightly higher than normal, according to the very undetailed letter that the insurance company sent me. So of course I googled again, and lo and behold, it’s pretty common in pregnancy to have slightly raised cholesterol, because my body is producing more of the various types of fat it needs to produce for baby, to build him/her up! Annoyingly though, the insurance company said in their letter that they can’t give me life assurance based on my cholesterol as it stands, so they need to reassess in 3 months – note that they don’t refer to pregnancy anywhere, but 3 months time is when I’ll no longer be pregnant. I’m pretty suspicious now as to why they wanted me to have the test in the first place, as they knew I was pregnant from the application form. So I tried to ring the company to say that this was unfair, because it’s normal to have slightly higher cholesterol in pregnancy and that I have no history of raised cholesterol. However, the call centre agents were unable to help, and said that I should speak to my GP, who would receive the results too (they were posted on the same day as my letter), and ask them whether in their opinion this higher than normal result was purely pregnancy-related, because that would hold more weight in an appeal to the insurance underwriters than my own googling.

So…… I made a GP appointment for three days after my letter had arrived, thinking that this would be enough time to ensure that the results had arrived at the surgery. The letter from the surgery about platelets was also pretty vague, with no info about what platelets are and why a slightly low count is a potential problem, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss both blood issues with a knowledgable health professional, and check that the info I was finding on websites was accurate and applicable to my personal situation. I managed to get an appointment for 11.50 – I thought I would be away from work for about half an hour or so, as the surgery is not far from my office. How wrong I was. When I turned up, the receptionist  warned me that the doctor was running ‘a little late’. It turns out she was running 45 minutes late! So I eventually went in at 12.35. I realised that she was a locum as she introduced herself. I explained about the blood tests, and asked whether it was normal to have slightly low platelets and slightly high cholesterol in pregnancy, and what the implications were in both cases.

First she tried to find the results on my profile on the system. It was clear that she had no idea how to use the system, and faffed around for a while before she decided to ring reception as she couldn’t see the ones from my insurance company. Reception talked her through where they should be on the system, but there was no trace of them there or in the post from that day. So that’s the fault of the insurance company, or Royal Mail. Sigh. Still I thought it was worth pursuing the questions of what low platelets and high cholesterol could mean for my pregnancy, because even without the exact numbers in front of her, she could still talk to me about these things, and offer me some reassurance for why I would be monitored. It was at that point that she brought up a web browser window on her computer, and typed the platelets question into Google! I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes!! I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or say anything. In the end I just kept quiet, and luckily the phone rang again – it was reception confirming that there were no results in the post that day. The GP then said it was probably best if I came back another day to see another doctor once the results were there, and she thought baby would be hungry, so I should go and have some lunch. By this point I was totally in agreement with her – I didn’t want to waste another minute of my day in her room!! I’d already been away from my office much longer than I intended, and ended up being away for nearly 1.5 hours. No lunch break for me then – sandwiches at the desk whilst doing stats instead. I could have just stayed there all morning and googled in my lunch break instead of waiting for the GP to google for me! Incidentally, I’ve written an email with ‘feedback’ to the practice manager about my experience.

As you can see, this week has been quite eventful in one way or another, and none of the issues are particularly enjoyable, though they could be worse – just frustrating more than anything else, not knowing what will happen about the buggy, my blood clotting ability or the life assurance. On top of (or maybe because of?) all this, I’ve been feeling quite tired this week, which I know is normal for later pregnancy, as I felt similar with Andrew and it does mention it in various books/websites that I’ve read. I’m hoping that a nice 3-day weekend with my boys will take my mind off these things and give me some rest. I’ll be back again next week with another instalment of pregnancy news, one week further on the countdown to 40!
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