Back in business

Hooray, my internet's back. Since the last, hurried blog post, more things have happened. It's never boring in our house, I can tell you.

So, on Wednesday night my wife wasn't feeling much movement again. We know that she has an anterior placenta - which is where the placenta sits in between the baby and your skin, creating a cushion - which is what we suspect is the main cause of our son's reduced movement, but we were sensible and went to the hospital anyway.

After a trace, the midwife explained that she'd been authorised to give my wife a 'sweep'. Frankly, the procedure should be described as a 'claw', because it consists of the midwife using her fingers to sweep around the inside of the cervix, to try and stimulate the release of hormones that bring on labour. It's not something that I'd want to go through, and my wife dealt with it incredibly well.

However, not long after that we were told that the decision had been made to keep my wife in hospital overnight, just in case. Recently, for every trip to the hospital, I have insisted on bundling our bags into the boot, just to be sure. Finally my caution paid off, so I went down to the car to get my wife's things, and I left her until the morning.

When I arrived back at 10am she told me that a lady in one of the opposite beds had spent the majority of the night screaming as loudly as she could, so she hadn't had the most sleep. One of the doctor's was very rude to her during rounds, and then we were left together.

After an hour (or maybe more) of monitoring where our son gave an absolutely terrible trace, she was visited by another, kinder doctor. He explained that he wanted her to have another scan, then another trace. If either of the two procedures came back unsatisfactory, then they would look to induce her. The scan came and went and the doctor was very happy with it, as was he with the trace, so fortunately, my wife was allowed to come home.

But not before another sweep. And this time, the midwife who performed it was on a mission. Obviously, I was sat at the head of the bed, next to my wife, because I didn't particularly want to see anything, but the midwife nearly disappeared. It appeared as though the sweep had some effect, though, as multiple times during the night I was worried my wife was going into labour. Not yet though, and if she doesn't before Sunday we have to pay another visit to the hospital.

Until then, the waiting game is on, again.

Kael