D Day - Delivery Day

This post has been sitting in draft for some time, and unfortunately I can tell that my blog might get somewhat neglected now that Hunter has arrived!  Spare time is precious these days, and it's usually spent making sure I have a shower and getting Hunter and myself out of the apartment each day for a good wander with the stroller, either down to Tribeca to see Mark or to Wholefoods, Buy Buy Baby, a pharmacy or to have a 'what's happening in the world' catch up with someone... but I'll go back to D Day before I carry on with the most recent weeks.

On the day of Hunter's birth, we arrived at the hospital just before 6am.  There was barely any traffic on the West Side Highway so it was a very quick ride up to Columbia Medical University / NY Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights, past Harlem.  Mark and I had a nervous wait in the maternity reception before we were asked to go to the pre-op rooms, which was followed by another anxious wait.  Of course, naturally you're still thinking about what could go wrong at this point; will the c-section go smoothly, will he be healthy, what will he look like, will he have a birth mark all over his poor little face etc.!  I changed into a hospital gown and had a cannula inserted.  The baby's heart rate was being monitored, as well as my contractions, which had apparently already started although they were too mild for me to notice anything physically.

We were originally due to go in at 8am, but that came and went.  We were told by our nurse that there had been two emergency caesareans that had taken priority in the operating theatres, so we had to wait until we were told anything further.  Finally close to 10am, after what seemed like an eternity, we were told that we would be going in shortly.  Dr Holden arrived at the reception desk and we waved a quick hello.  I'd had to go to the toilet several times due to nerves, as well as the drip running through me.  Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to eat anything after midnight, so I felt quite clogged up when normally my breakfast would get me moving!

Dr Holden came to collect me and Mark was to wait until they had done all of the pre-op stuff, such as my epidural etc..  He had been given his own hospital gown to put over his clothes and would be picked up when they were ready.  I walked in with Dr Holden, the anesthetist and the rest of Dr Holden's team.  Dr Holden asked me to sit on the hospital bed facing him and to slouch.  He helped by putting his hands on my shoulders, and the anesthetist inserted the needle with the anesthetic that was to numb the area where the epidural would be inserted.  I felt a tiny prick, which wasn't painful at all.  Dr Holden then told me to be very still for the epidural, which was going in next.  I was quite nervous, but it was over in no time and they quickly spun me around to lie on the bed.

A big blue sheet was drawn up in front of my chest so I couldn't see past it.  The anesthetist was on the right side of me, monitoring the anesthesia by what I was able to feel.  It was taking longer than expected to take effect, so they tilted my body so that my head was lower, allowing gravity to move the anesthesia more efficiently.  Mark came into the room shortly afterwards and stood on my left side.  He started peeking over the sheet and despite being asked to sit down because "many dads have been known to pass out", he actually tried to convince them that he would be fine because of all the fish he has gutted!

Dr Holden had already told me that I would feel poking and prodding but no pain.  Soon he said to me from the other side of the blue sheet that I was about to feel a lot of pressure.  It was a crazy feeling, like I was being pushed down into the floor a few times, and then all of a sudden I felt this huge WHOOSH and knew that the baby had come out.  Mark and I had been looking at each other the whole time and had both started crying.  It was such a colossal wave of emotion, like nothing I've ever felt before.  They asked if Mark wanted to go over to see the baby under the heater, where they were cleaning him up and performing all of the required tests, while I was stitched up.  It was very strange hearing his first cry from behind the blue sheet and not being able to see him.  Mark came back around and told me he looked like my Dad, which wouldn't be such a bad thing later in life but I wasn't sure how cute a baby that would make him!  Though, once the swelling from the fluid retention had gone down, he looked quite different and very cute.

Once the anesthesia began to wear off, I started to feel the pain of the incision.  I actually couldn't move out of the bed for two days from the pain, even though I was taking some fairly hardcore painkillers.  They managed to help me out of bed on the third day, so that I could shower and get cleaned up.  I had Hunter in the room with me during the entire hospital stay, as opposed to my room mate who's baby was in the nursery for most of the time apart from feeds.  Mark had been coming up to the hospital to spend each day with us, some days running up along the Hudson. It was a nice feeling being in the hospital with doctors and nurses to help you with everything and give advice.  By Friday my milk came in, which was extremely painful and looked quite ridiculous!  I still felt totally battered and not in any state to go home, so I requested to stay in an extra night.  On Saturday, we packed everything up, left with numerous supplies of things from the hospital (diapers, wipes, baby blankets, giant hospital pants for me!), and made our way home as a family.  It was such an overwhelmingly scary prospect that I was totally overcome with emotion when we came home and cried (happy tears!) for some time!

The Lead Up

So I'm now writing this post following Hunter's birth, and in this sleep-deprived state that I am permanently in at the moment, it is very weird thinking back to pre-Hunter days! 

The few weeks prior to the birth of the baby really seemed to fly by.  It was great having the time off work to prepare, as I made countless visits to various stores, in particular Buy Buy Baby, the huge baby department store on 7th Avenue in Chelsea, which has everything you could ever imagine baby-related.  It was also nice being able to rest up in between.  My hip was still quite painful during the night, so it was good to be able to relax when I wanted to for as long as I needed to.  The weather was scorching and hotter than anything I had experienced in years.  I made sure I drank loads of water each day, and some days were spent inside in front of the air con and fan.  A few days before the baby was born, I didn't leave the apartment until 7pm that evening because of the sweltering heat outside, and even at that time the humidity made it still feel like it was more than 40'c.

The date of the delivery was initially scheduled in for Friday 19th July.  We found this out early in the week prior.  I had always wanted the birth to be as close to my due date (25th July) as possible, so asked Dr Holden if we could move it closer to the 25th.  The dates that Dr Holden was working around the 25th were already booked up, but if someone went in to labour earlier, then I would be able to take their slot.  Closer in on July 17th, a slot on the 24th came up, but Dr Holden had said that the 23rd was better for him, so if a slot was to come up for that day, it would be ours.

On July 22nd, the news of Princess Kate going in to labour was on every channel and people were eagerly awaiting the news of the future King's birth.  I was in the Chelsea Markets with my girlfriend, Lucy, who was over from Australia when I received a call from Dr Holden's secretary to tell me that a slot had come up for the 23rd, the next day, and could we be at the hospital around an hour and a half before our 8am delivery.  It suddenly felt so surreal that our baby was to be delivered the next day, in a matter of hours.  I called Mark and told him, 'We are having a baby tomorrow!'.  He was really excited.  It was so weird to think that we had just one more night of 'the two of us' before we became a family.

Later that afternoon, there was news that Princess Kate had given birth to a baby boy named George. It would have been cute to have our baby born on the same day as the future King, but our little guy gets his own day the day after!

The Final Sonogram

Mark and I were both excited and nervous for the final sonogram on the 25th of June.  Mark hadn't been able to attend previous sonograms, so he was excited to see the baby in the live scenario and we were both looking forward to seeing how different he looked compared to earlier pictures.  I was also anxious to see if the placenta had moved and whether the decision about the birth was taken out of my hands.

The baby was facing down and towards my spine, which unfortunately made it difficult for the sonographer to get a good angle for us to see him properly.  It was amazing to see the intricate bone structure of the baby, his spine etc..  The sonographer performed several checks, including making sure the kidneys looked healthy, which she advised is an additional Down's check.  She said that everything was great, and that also the placenta had moved away from the cervix.

Following the sonogram we met with Dr Holden and during our appointment he ran through all of the risks associated with a caesarean birth (http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a1029062/caesarean-birth-what-are-the-risks-and-benefits).  Many of these are very scary, however as I have mentally prepared myself for a caesarean throughout my pregnancy, I have decided to continue to plan for the caesarean birth.  Dr Holden said that I could change my mind at any time, but I know that my decision is unlikely to change at this stage.

We discussed the date that the baby would potentially be born, and Dr Holden is going to check the days he is in the hospital during my 40th week (19th-25th July), so that we can schedule in the caesarean.

I finished work and began my leave on June 30th.  I'm now on 'short-term disability' leave in advance of the birth of the baby, and my twelve weeks maternity leave begins from the date of birth.  In recent weeks, my hip has become extremely painful during the night and I'm not getting much sleep at all, so it's a huge help having the time prior to the birth to prepare both mentally and physically for the arrival of the baby, as well as to have the time to make sure that everything is in order before it all gets crazy!

To C or Not to C

For as long as I can remember, I had always thought that I would prefer to have a planned caesarean section over a natural birth.  This had stemmed mainly from the traumatic stories I'd heard from many friends of mine who had had nightmare natural births, most with epidurals.  My sister-in-law had a prolapsed uterus following her labours, which meant that she could literally feel her uterus inside her cervix, and had to undergo a hysterectomy to have it treated.  Some other girlfriends of mine who had also had natural births had told me some horrific stories, where they had haemorrhaged or other dramas had occurred with the baby during the birth, such as the umbilical cord being wrapped around the baby's neck causing the baby to lose air and it had all gone pear-shaped, or forceps or the suction tube being used to get the baby out, which is quite a distressing way to helplessly see your little baby be brought in to the world.  Other girlfriends had told me that it's never the same again 'down there', which also concerned me!  Also, for one reason or another, several other girlfriends had ended up having emergency caesareans, so all in all, I was more of a proponent for a planned caesarean than a natural labour.

Once I fell pregnant, however, I became more open to the idea of going with the flow and letting nature take its course.  At one of the appointments with my OB/GYN he had said that the normal process was to go down the natural route, unless there was something that precluded this from happening.  So at that point, I was becoming more willing to accept that I would probably experience a natural birth in all of its glory.

When the time came for the anatomy sonogram, it hadn't occurred to me that one of the checks the sonographer would perform, in addition to confirming whether the baby itself was anatomically correct, would be to check what position the placenta was sitting in.  Towards the end of the sonogram, she said that she had noticed that the placenta was sitting low, and would conduct an internal sonogram to get a better view of its exact position.  I was unable to recognise much on the screen, but she pointed to a large blob that she said was the placenta and that it was sitting quite close to the cervix.  She had one of the OB/GYNs come in and explain to me what it all meant.  She said that it was too early to be concerned about, as most placentas that are sitting low move up as the uterus expands throughout the pregnancy, but that they needed to make me aware just in case it came to the point later in the pregnancy where it had remained there so it wasn't a surprise.  I had my appointment with my OB/GYN shortly after and we talked briefly about it.  I asked him whether it was common and he said that it was not really common, but not uncommon.  I've done some reading since, and if the placenta remains in a position that is close to, partially or fully covering the cervix, a diagnosis of 'placenta previa' is given, and this only occurs in around 1 in 200 pregnancies.  My OB/GYN added that it would be checked again at around 36 weeks and it would be then that the call would be made as to whether or not a C-section is the recommended method of delivery.

Finding out that the placenta was sitting low made me wonder whether I would be truly happy if I had to have a planned c-section with the decision taken out of hands.  One of my girlfriends has had two planned caesareans in the last few years and said that she has no regrets whatsoever.  There was no stress or drama for either her or the babies, and her recovery was relatively quick.  She was up and walking same day, and started exercising again after 6 weeks, with only a 9cm scar to show for it, and this will usually fade well.  The added bonus is, of course, that there is no wear and tear 'down there';'The Fanny Saver', as many girlfriends of mine refer to it as!  Other women I've spoken to, which include those who have actually had both, have said that if they had to do it again, they would have the caesarean any day.  An additional plus would be, I imagine, that it's also a much less stressful situation for the father-to-be to be in, having heard how traumatised some of my girlfriends husbands were following their respective labours and deliveries!

One of my other very close girlfriends who recently gave birth in London had an epic labour of 50 hours, which encompassed water birth, hypnosis, induction and finally a c-section.  She said that at the end of it all, the epidural and c-section were amazing.  I think she is amazing for continuing that long without demanding a c-section!  After managing through a hellish 50 hours of pain and agony from a natural birth, I think I'd be quite disappointed if I ended up having a caesarean in any case!  She said that she didn't get the level of advice or care that she would have hoped for, and was actually discharged from the hospital the day after her delivery!  Here in the US, the hospital stay is 2-3 nights following a natural delivery or 4-5 nights following a caesarean.

I'm almost more inclined now to once again prefer a safe, planned c-section.  I've done a lot of reading about the operation as well as the recovery, so am not naive or ignorant to it.  I know that the pain around the incision and other abdominal discomfort will be immense, but I think I am prepared to put up with whatever I need to post-birth if the trade off is not going through the stresses and risks associated with a natural birth.  It's no right of passage for me to experience child birth, and if the placenta remains in a low-lying position it is out of my hands anyway, but I'm now completely fine with that.  With the extra time in hospital, I will also get a good chunk of post-delivery care from the doctors and lactation consultants, which will be great.

At one of my last appointments with my OB/GYN, I asked him what the options were if I was actually quite partial to a caesarean.  He said that if the placenta has moved when it's checked again at 36 weeks, it will also be then that we could have a chat about whether I then want to elect for a caesarean.  More recently, we've been talking as if I am having a c-section whether or not the placenta has moved, as I've become so used to the idea of having it.  I did have some concerns about having a caesarean after reading articles that said that babies born by planned caesarean before 39 weeks are more likely to have breathing problems than those delivered vaginally or by emergency caesarean.  My Dr reassured me, though, that they do them after 39 weeks in any of the 7 days leading up to the due date, so at this stage our little boy will be born between the 19th and 25th of July.  The actual date will be determined in early July when my Dr knows his schedule for the hospital and we will then book it in, which seems quite bizarre!

Pregnancy Bump & Weight

One of the quite funny (or mostly irritating!) things I've found during the pregnancy is strangers giving their opinion as to what sex they think the baby is, based on either the shape of the bump or the weight that I'm carrying.  I'm sure every pregnant woman goes through the same thing!  Early on in the pregnancy, I had a few people who I didn't know well at all tell me that they could tell that because of the areas I'd already put weight on (thanks!), I was having a girl.  They said that 'apparently' just a bump with not much weight gained elsewhere means you're having a boy.  Now that we know we're having a boy, it's funny that some people are now saying to me that it's a boy bump, though I think that's because my bump is so huge rather than anything else!  I think in the early stages when there is not much bump to see, that it's impossible to make a judgement as to what sex the baby is.  Plus, other girlfriends of mine who have recently had girls barely put on any weight at all.

Now that I'm in the later stages of my pregnancy, I can certainly tell that as the bump is growing, my lower half is responding in much the same way!  I'm still trying to get to the gym regularly during the week, but I've not done any running at all since I discovered I was pregnant, as it just isn't comfortable.  Even brisk walking now is a stretch (literally!), so I'm relying on the elliptical (cross-trainer) as my main form of exercise, which I've found to be the most comfortable with the ever-increasing bump and weird weight distribution.  It feels lower impact than even a fast walk, and I can try to target my legs and not twist at all while holding on!  It's also an added bonus being able to watch E!News when I go up to the gym at work during my lunch break.. ha!

I am almost gagging to be able to run again.  It's not that fun being limited to less effective exercise when you're used to a regular and more effective exercise routine that balances out a healthy appetite!  At this stage, it won't be until early September that I'll be running, following the recommended six week wait after birth.. gah!

Anatomy Sonogram and the Sex

As the weeks and months pass by, I still find it unbelievable to think that I am carrying a little baby.  For so long there was nothing physically to show for it, and at each of the early sonograms I would look at the screen in disbelief and awe.  In the lead up to the anatomy sonogram, which is to check whether the baby is anatomically fine with ten fingers and toes etc., I was both excited and nervous.  Excited because it would provide me with more proof of the little person growing day by day inside me, and nervous not just to confirm if the little one has the right amount of body parts, but also because of the paranoid thoughts that something may have gone wrong in between the check ups.

I had to head up to the Columbia University Medical Centre for the anatomy sonogram, which is way up around 165th Street, as my OB/GYN is based up there on Fridays.  I had to have it on that day, as I had just reached 18 weeks, which is the earliest you can have the anatomy sonogram, and as I was leaving for London the next day for two weeks, it would be too late for me to have it when I returned.

I hopped on the bed and just before we started, the sonographer asked if I was wanting to find out the sex of the baby that day.  Mark and I had spoken about it before, and Mark had said that he would prefer not to find out, but if I really wanted to then I could.  I had been totally torn for weeks, as I really wanted to find out for a number of reasons.  The main one was because I was so hoping for a little boy to start, so that we'd have an older brother scenario, and because of this I thought I might need a little time to also get excited about a little girl.  Plus, I thought that it would be nice to be able to talk to and refer to the baby as whatever it was and with a name, which would allow us to have more of a connection with it.  I was also so over people, in particular strangers, telling me what they thought I was having because of where I was gaining weight!  So when she asked me if I would like to find out, I answered her by saying, "Well, my husband doesn't want to know, so I don't want you to tell me, but I really want to know!".  She laughed and said, "Well, this is going to take quite a while, and if you're paying attention you'll be able to see me type the chromosomes on the screen at one point", so I made sure I paid attention the whole way through.  It did take quite a while because the whole exercise was an amazingly thorough one, in literally looking for each and every body part to make sure it was present and correct.  When we finally got to a screen where I thought I recognised a little fluro member, she wrote 'XY' on the screen, and I knew that they were the chromosomes I was looking at.  She stayed on the screen and asked if I could see.  I said, "Oh wow, it's a boy!", to which she laughed and said, "I'm neither confirming nor denying".  I was so excited, but was still aiming to keep it a secret, thinking to myself that I hadn't been definitively told, so I could be wrong!

Mark had his suspicions that night when he returned from Chicago, asking me how it went.  I told him that the sonographer had said that he was an extremely active baby, flipping and twisting all the time.  He asked me why I was referring to it as a boy, and I told him that the sonographer had been referring to it as a boy, which was the truth even before the chromosome screen, so I was just naturally doing the same.  I also told him that the sonographer had said the baby had long fingers, to which Mark replied, "Golly, we might pop out a funny-looking, ginger-haired kid."  I asked why we'd have a baby with red hair, and he reminded me that all three of his brothers are strawberry blonde and had red hair as kids.  What colour hair our little boy has is yet to be seen, but Prince Harry has certainly made red hair sexy.. haha!

I left for London early the next morning, successfully without having disclosed the chromosome story to Mark.  Over the two weeks that I was there seeing my girlfriends (and working out of the London office at the same time), I was asked numerous times if I knew what we were having.  I was hopeless at keeping mum about it (literally!), though my reply would be, "I think we are having a boy because I think I saw the chromosomes".  I was dying to speak to Mark, as I couldn't hold it or my excitement in any longer and wanted to share it with him, but it had been impossible to speak to each other during the second week of my trip, as he was doing the Atacama Desert Race with Richie, a crazy week-long race through the Chilean desert that encompassed a marathon or more each day, and there was no phone coverage out there.  Richie had taken up the email package so that he could send long messages back to Emma at the end of each day for Em to update his blog, but other than that, Emma and I had no direct contact with the boys, and would have to wait until they were back at the finish line in San Pedro to speak to them.

I returned to London the day after the boys finished the race, and that afternoon Mark and I Skyped while he was waiting to board his plane back to NYC.  He told me how he had been telling people doing the race that we were going to name our baby Sunny if it was a boy, because we got married on the Sunshine Coast, or Goldie if it was a girl, because I was from the Gold Coast.  I started blurting that I actually had to tell him something and straight away he said, "I knew it.. you know don't you!  Ok, what are we having, a Sunny or a Goldie?"  I said, "We're having a Hunter", as that was the name that I had previously mentioned to him that I loved.  He smiled, and jokingly said that the fact that we were having a boy softened the blow of finding out early, though I think he also secretly wanted a boy to start.

It's so nice being able to talk to him as a 'he' and with a name (Hunter has stuck so far.. result!).  He is now also kicking, or performing somersaults or whatever he is doing in there, more and more each day, which is a strange feeling but very exciting at the same time.  The movements were initially less obvious, feeling more like bodily twitches similar to indigestion rather than anything foreign in my tummy area, but as the weeks have gone on, they are now clearly identifiable, and Mark and I get a lot of enjoyment simply by waiting for them with our hands on my belly while we watch bad television each night!

Redundancies vs Promotion

Preparation for my promotion process began well over a year prior to the official promotion round.  I had travelled on my own to the Paris and Milan offices in late 2011 to implement the Risk and Control Assessments in the branches, and the majority of 2012 had been spent continuing to demonstrate that I was operating at the level of Vice President, and to 'knock it out of the ballpark' as my boss kept reminding me.

I had been very lucky with my move to NYC.  Having gone to my boss in London on my return from honeymoon to let him know that Mark and I intended on moving to NYC later in the year, with the intention of giving him ample time to find someone to replace me, I wasn't quite certain what the reaction would be.  Fortunately, he immediately asked if I'd like to transfer with the team and work out of the NYC office, to which I replied a definitive, "Yes!", and he set about organising the transfer for me.

It was a relatively painless process, apart from the employment lawyers at work leaving the visa application process to the eleventh hour prior to our scheduled move date, and the additional laborious task of having to line up for hours at the US Embassy in Mayfair.  However, the visa process itself was very straightforward.  The L1 visa that I was being transferred under is an employer-sponsored visa for employees who have been with the company for more than two years.  It is initially granted for a 2 year period, which can then be extended for another three and, if the employer is a well-known company, is merely a formality.  Although our move to NYC and the shipment of our belongings both to NYC and back to Australia was going to be a small financial burden on Concep, at least the cost of my visa was something that had been taken care of by my work.  Plus, the relief of me having a job to go to upon our arrival in the US meant that we had one less thing to worry about.

The move to NYC provided me with another dimension and opportunity to take advantage of in my career, with a significant number of the Commodities stakeholders being based in the US.  I knew that the promotion process was already underway, and was nervously anticipating the interview that would be scheduled between myself and my promotion 'sponsor', who would be a Director or, more likely, an MD at the company.  I finally heard from my promotion sponsor, and our meeting was set for early the following week.  On the day of the planned meeting, I hadn't heard from him to confirm a time as planned and assumed that he was too busy to meet that day and would have to reschedule.  However, he contacted me mid-afternoon to confirm the interview and check whether I would be right to pop up to his office in an hour's time.  I quickly revised my notes and soon made my way up.

He immediately put me at ease and, refreshingly, conducted our meeting as more of a discussion rather than an interview.  This both comforted and concerned me, as I wasn't quite sure whether we would have covered enough ground for him to be armed with adequate ammunition in order to fight my corner in the Promotion Committee meeting that was being held in mid December.  Nonetheless, I had to trust that the interview had gone as well as it could have and that I had done my best to impress.

The weeks following went by without any news.  My boss in London had been told that no news was good news in the lead up to the formal promotion announcements around 'bonus time' in February.  During this time, I had discovered that I was pregnant, but informing work about it was something that I thought would best be left until after I had been told news of my promotion, one way or the other.

In the week of 'bonus day' in early February, we had a somewhat unforeseen turn of events.  Three people in our US team were made redundant.  Two days after redundancies had occurred, we were still getting used to our dramatically-reduced team and the knowledge that the work that had suddenly been left behind would have to be redistributed among us immediately.  That afternoon, one of the two remaining Directors in our team called each of us in to an office one by one to give us our bonus messages.  I was called last, which I wasn't expecting as I thought that my boss in London would be the one to deliver my message.  However, as I was now a US employee, my message was driven from HR in the US.

I was immediately told that I had been successful in my promotion and was now a VP.  As much as the huge wave of immense relief swept through me, I couldn't help the bitter sweet feeling I had about that week, which had seen three people lose their jobs.  Also, the fact that I was still concealing my pregnancy made me feel a bit guilty, which was silly.  It was just unfortunate timing.  I had been advised that although the US has minimal employment laws, one of the laws that the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did have was The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which forbids discrimination based on pregnancy when it comes to any aspect of employment, so for this reason, the likelihood of me being let go after my promotion was, luckily, non-existent.

I wanted to be able to tell my team in London about my pregnancy in person, which meant that I should really tell my ultimate boss in NYC prior to my London trip at the end of February.  I decided that I would tell him the news the day before I left for London, which would also be the day of my anatomy sonogram, and enough time for the dust to have settled following the redundancies.

When the day came, I went and asked if I could speak with him for five minutes.  He waved me in and I began telling him that I had some news.  I think he actually thought I was resigning, as when I told him I was 'with child', he looked almost relieved!  I started telling him that it was a huge surprise for Mark and I, probably going in to a bit more detail than I needed to!  I told him that I'd be off from around the end of July for about six months, but jokingly said that the good thing was that if I was in London, I'd be off for the whole year.  I told him that I was committed to my job and would be making sure that things would flow smoothly in my absence.  He congratulated me and we had good chat, so much to my relief, it had all gone well!

Symptoms, or Lack Thereof

Not having suffered through any morning sickness was, I suppose, another reason for my delayed discovery.  A few weeks after I knew I was pregnant, I started waking up in the morning absolutely ravenous, with a slightly painful hunger that wouldn't let up until I had something in my belly.  The Dr said to keep a stash of water crackers in the bathroom cupboard so that I could quickly access them in the middle of the night, if required, or when I wake up.  Now when I wake up at crazy hours of the night, I just head straight to the kitchen to wolf down a yogurt, banana or apple.

In early January, apart from having the odd lower back dull ache and noticing that my boobs were becoming more sensitive, I thought I had escaped the worst of what others go through in the way of morning sickness or symptoms etc., but a few nights in a row, my wisdom teeth (mainly my bottom right wisdom tooth) started flaring up in the middle of the night and becoming agonisingly painful.  I read on the internet that it is also common for expectant women to have their gums flare up due to pregnancy hormones, and if you also happen to have your wisdom teeth flare up, that there's not much that can be done about it until after you've had the baby, unless you want to go through the agonising removal of them with limited pain relief!  I made an appointment with the dentist the following Monday.  He said that he would aggravate the area around the tooth with the idea of getting it to bleed and then settle down.  I also had the hygienist thoroughly rip my mouth apart, which was good in a masochistic way, and give me a dressing-down reminder about how important good oral hygiene is, so I bought a new electric toothbrush (with a normal toothbrush head, rather than a round head that I'd not found that effective in the past) and passed through the pharmacy to buy floss and mouthwash and also the recommended Hydrogen Peroxide 3% mix that the dentist said to use several times a day by swilling around my mouth with warm water to kill bacteria.  The dental cover provided by my dental insurance through work also has added incentive to get back to the dentist regularly, as it covers quarterly hygienist treatments.  Thankfully, my wisdom tooth settled down in a couple of days, but it looks like I will at some point have to have it removed, as its current coordinates are way out of line with the rest of the troops!

I haven't had any cravings as such.  I suppose the only 'craving' I have sometimes had is the main thing I can't have, alcohol!  Though even that has settled down.  I have the odd sip here and there, though I've become less inclined to feel like it, opting more for OJ or soda water and fresh lime.  I felt less guilty about having a the odd half glass once my Dr said it was absolutely fine, but when I do have any wine, which might be once or twice every few weeks, I top and tail it with loads of water, and usually have a spritzer.  It will certainly be weird being able to drink freely again!

The Nuchal and Results

Heading to the Mid Town Columbia Medical Centre on Wednesday 23rd January for the Nuchal (or Downs Syndrome) test was quite nerve-wracking.  I knew that the test is a combined test of both a physical measurement of the back of the baby's neck, which is done by the sonographer looking at the ultrasound, and a blood test.  Not only was I nervous about what the sonographer might discover about the baby's neck measurement in my presence, I was also nervous about seeing the baby again, and whether or not everything was still ok.

The sonographer asked me to lie on the bed and proceeded to put the ultrasound gel on my stomach, followed by the ultrasound instrument.  On the big screen in front of me I saw the shape of the baby, and the sonographer said something about the baby sleeping.  She moved the instrument around to get different angles while she was pressing a button that was producing some photos.  She gave them to me and I kept looking at the screen, not quite sure what she was seeing and feeling a bit hesitant to ask if all was as expected.  She said again something about the baby not wanting to have its picture taken and I said, "Is there a heartbeat?", to which she laughed and replied, "Yes, of course there's a heartbeat.  I wouldn't give you photos of the baby if there wasn't a heartbeat!"  I guess that was obvious!  Almost instantly the baby started flipping around and about on the screen like it was in a swimming pool.  It looked very cute.  The sonographer then started taking measurements of the baby, including the neck.  Then it flipped again and was facing away in a position that wasn't really conducive to measuring it.  She said that she was measuring my ovaries etc. while the baby was hiding.  After a while, she said that the baby wasn't wanting to play ball, and that she was having trouble getting some more measurements of the neck.  She said that she was going to ask a Dr if what she had already obtained was ok.  She came back and told me that the Dr had said what had already been taken was enough.  I had a feeling of relief, thinking that if that was the case, then the measurements of the neck were at least a good sign.   I asked her if she knew my due date, and she told me it was the 25th July.  I then had the blood test taken by a nurse, which was only a prick on my finger to place five spots of blood on a test sheet.  The nurse said that my Dr would have the results in a few days.  Once I'd left, I looked at my calendar and calculated that going by my due date, I was 14 weeks the next day, which put me exactly in line with my October cycle.

I already had my next appointment with Dr Holden scheduled for the following Monday, so was hoping that he would have the results by that date.  Mark was coming with me to this one, as I had assumed that it would be another sonogram that Mark would be able to experience.  We were called to Dr Holden's room and I was asked by the nurse to give a urine sample.  Dr Holden came in shortly after and asked me to hop up on the bed.  I asked if I had to remove my pants, expecting to have another internal sonogram, but he said that there was no ultrasound today, and that we were going to listen to the baby's heartbeat.  I was a little disappointed that Mark wasn't going to experience the sonogram that day, but it was still very exciting listening to the baby's heartbeat, which was beating at around 140 beats per minute; much faster than an adult.

I hopped off the bed and my Dr asked if I had any questions before we moved on to the Nuchal results.  I had actually come prepared this time with about 3 pages of questions in my notebook!  Some of the questions were practical questions such as access to the hospital when I go in to labour and whether I should call an ambulance, considering that the Columbia University Medical Centre, where I am to give birth, is all the way up on the Upper West Side at 168th Street.  My Dr put me at ease, saying that the typical length of time for a first pregnancy is 24 hours from initial contractions to birth, so I should be fine making it up the West Side Highway to the hospital!  I asked what the latest is I could travel to being pregnant.  He said it's fine up until really the last month.  I was worried about our trip to the Caymans in late May, but he said that it was absolutely fine, and that the airline probably wouldn't even realise that I was pregnant.  I asked about travelling once the baby had arrived, and he told us that it would depend on where we were going, with regard to jabs etc..  He also told us that the passport process is quite a lengthy one, in that it takes around 6 weeks alone for the birth certificate to be sent out from the hospital!  Then the passport process for a newborn takes anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks, and that is after having the passport photos taken and applying in person with an 'Identifying Witness' who is a US citizen and can vouch for your identity at the time of the application.

I also asked him about certain things that I'd read on the internet, such as the ingredients in some herbal teas being harmful to unborn foetus'.  Mark had bought me some sachets of different herbal teas from a store near his office in Tribeca, and after Googling some of the ingredients, like burdock root and yerba mate, and 'pregnancy' I thought that I'd potentially already done some damage to my baby, as some sites advise that these ingredients may cause damage to the foetus, and could even lead to birth defects!  Luckily (again) the Dr put me at ease, explaining that the amount of these ingredients in the herbal teas is so minute, that there is no chance of them harming the baby whatsoever.

He also reassured me that it's fine to eat as much salmon as I want to.  I had queried this because so many sites recommend that you stick to no more than two servings of oily fish a week, but he said that there's no chance of overdosing on the good fats, Omega 3s, so enjoy!  He also said lobster is also fine to enjoy, with its levels of mercury being low.  He said that the mercury risks are only if you have chronic exposure to high levels of it, meaning if you eat huge amounts of the fish or seafood with high levels of mercury every day or so of your pregnancy.  I'm not really eating tuna at all, but apparently having it a couple of times a week is totally fine.

I asked about caffeine, diet drinks and sweeteners, all of which he said to enjoy in moderation.  He told me that the Hydrogen Peroxide 3% mix that the dentist had told me to use was totally safe.  I also asked about alcohol, mentioning wine in particular, to which he replied, "Half a glass is absolutely fine".  I was the one who had to fill in a frequency of "once or twice a week", to which he nodded in response.  I've actually only had a small glass or so every few weeks, but it is nice to have a reasonable Dr who reassured me about so many things that I'd read about on so many misleading websites! 

The next thing was to discuss the Nuchal results.  He explained that the average possibility of having a baby with Downs Syndrome for my age was 1 in 300, but with the tests that had been taken, our baby's chances were 1 in 6,600.  He said that with such a low possibility, they wouldn't recommend any additional invasive tests to be performed to confirm 100%, so we were very relieved that the test results gave such a confident result.

Of course, telling Mum that night of our eagerly awaited results her immediate reaction was, "But what if you're the 1 in 6,600?!"!!!!!

Unexpectedly Expecting

Finding out that I was pregnant was the most surreal experience I think I've ever gone through.  Having had previous notions that it would just not be that easy to fall pregnant, considering how many girlfriends of mine have had difficulties, how long I'd been on the pill, how old I was (almost ancient in fertility egg years!), I never thought that it would be something that would just 'happen'.  I had gone off the pill in early August 2012, with the idea of giving my body a break.  Mark and I certainly weren't trying for a baby and were assuming that we were being careful when we needed to be, but our calculations were obviously way off!  We were in the process of packing up our lives and moving from London to New York, which was actually postponed by a week due to Hurricane Sandy, so an additional, crazy new element or experience was also not really on the radar.

The whole week prior to discovering we were pregnant, I'd felt totally out of sorts in a weirdly, physically-vulnerable way that I couldn't describe or explain.  I was waking up each morning to get ready for work with a funny feeling in my stomach that felt neither like hunger nor illness, and more like a weird, toxic feeling.  I really thought it must have been a form of alcohol poisoning and that my body was wanting a break, which made a bit of sense considering the amount that I had been drinking out and about with friends and visitors since we had arrived in New York.  Each night that week at home I was pouring myself (as normal!) a glass of wine and I could barely stomach a sip.. my taste buds were so off!  I also wasn't wanting to eat what I normally would during the day at work.  I'd go down to the cafeteria, which totally spoils for choice, and everything that I would normally pile on my plate was making me gag with one look.  Instead of my usual huge boxes of food for lunch, I was having small servings of lettuce and carrot, which was totally weird for my normally over-indulgent appetite.  I was also hitting a wall at about 2-3pm everyday, feeling like I had chronic jet-lag and putting eye drops in my eyes trying to wake up, not knowing what on earth was wrong with me.  My joints and muscles were aching, and each day at the gym I could barely manage a short 20 minute or so run.

My girlfriend, Lynds, and I had made plans to have brunch (lunch in NYC) on the Saturday (8th December).  We met at Isabella's, a lovely restaurant near her in the Upper West Side, and I began telling her how I was so looking forward to a wine with her, but that the whole week prior I'd weirdly not felt like wine or normal food.  She said straight away, "Oh my god, Chicka, you could be pregnant".  I said "Nooo.. Mark and I have been careful, and my cycle is so out of wack anyway, I can't be".  She made me go to the pharmacy on the next block to grab a pregnancy test before we started drinking, so I thought I would just go along with it for a laugh, as Lynds can be quite persistent when she thinks she is on the money.  I asked her to order the bottle of the Muscadet (our fave to drink together) while I was gone.  I came back and started on my wine and she said, "Please go and do it now, for my own conscience", so I went to the loo in the restaurant(!), and the positive result came up straight away.  I immediately thought that there had to be something wrong with the test, and managed to do the 2nd (luckily the packets come with two!), and that came up straight away too.  I got back to the table and was in shock.. absolutely floored!  Lynds was on the phone to Dylan and saw my face as I sat down, and was jumping up and down excitedly while I was shaking my head in shock!  I called Mark, who luckily answered while on his road bike riding downtown, as I had to tell him because Dylan was coming down to join us.  I told Mark that I had some news and he said, "What, you're pregnant?" as a joke!  I told him, "Actually.. I am".  After an "Oh my god, what?" and "I can't believe you're telling me this news over the phone" and me explaining that I was in shock and didn't know how else to tell him because Dylan was joining us, he cut short the bike ride to come up to the UWS and join us.  I could barely speak throughout the meal!

That afternoon we, coincidentally, had been invited to the 1st birthday party of Mark's cousin, Jess', daughter, Ally May.  The party was full of babies running around, crawling, screaming.. a world that we were now soon to be a part of!

Over the following weeks we told our parents and a few close friends, as we wanted to wait until we had a proper scan to make it more official and real.  We also told friends who we were seeing in person, as it was so obvious that something was going on with me not drinking alcohol!  I still had trouble believing it myself, and did two more tests in the following two weeks.  I also didn't know how far along the baby was, with my cycle being so out of sync, so couldn't estimate the due date.

I soon discovered that everything I would do with regard to my pregnancy here in the U.S. would, thankfully, be covered by my private medical insurance through work, which is extremely lucky.  If we were having the baby in the UK, none of it would be covered under the medical insurance through work.  As I'd only enrolled in the private medical on the Friday prior to finding out, I had to wait until the enrolment cycle was processed the following week to make an appointment to see an OB/GYN.  I finally managed to make an appointment at the Columbia Medical Centre near my office on New Years Eve, as that was the next available appointment.  When the appointment date arrived, I thought that it was a meet and greet with my OB/GYN, but not only were my urine and blood tests taken, he did an internal sonogram as well, which was a surprise.  He stuck the camera up and all I saw at first was this lifeless blob and thought to myself "Oh no", but then he moved the camera around and it became more recognisable.  He pointed out the head and I said, "Is it alive??!" and he said, "Yes, yes, it's alive!"  I was suddenly overcome with emotion and started crying when he pointed out the heart, which was going crazy like a butterfly, and then the little arms and legs.  Then it started moving like it was dancing, and I really could not believe that what I was seeing was inside me.  I asked how far along I was and my Dr. said that I was (surprisingly) in line with my last period and around 10 weeks.  At the end of the appointment, he gave me his cell phone and said to call him straight away if an emergency was to crop up.  The sonogram was such a surreal experience, ironically making the whole thing more real.  A crazy end to the year, and an exciting indication of the crazy year to come!

New York Living

Our departure from London in November 2012 was quite a process.  We had begun packing, boxing or binning all of our belongings in the months prior, with most of our things being sent back to Australia for our eventual return to Oz, whenever that may be.  Our farewell was happening on the 26th of October, and we were moving out of our lovely Mews flat in Fulham a week later.  We were lucky to be staying with friends during the transition, as our flight was booked for the 6th of November.  However, due to 'Superstorm Sandy', which was the hurricane hitting the west coast of the US at the time, we decided to delay our flights by a week.  Most of Manhattan was without power, and people were having to pay crazy rates to secure hotel rooms.  We finally left on November 11th, myself with hugely mixed emotions.  I was so sad to be leaving London and my girlfriends after it being home for 10 years, and was extremely sentimental about all of the memories I had and people I would miss.  On the other hand, moving to New York with Mark was going to be the next chapter in our lives, and there was so much to look forward to.

Our first month in NYC was a bit of a whirlwind.  We were in and out of four different places with our suitcases and an ever-increasing number of carry-bags in as many weeks.  Our first place of temporary NYC accommodation was a gorgeous two-bedroom Soho apartment, which we were lucky enough to take up on our arrival due to a friend, Natalie, whom Mark had met on his visits to NYC, being (coincidentally) in London at the time with her husband, Steve.  Nestled in the heart of the trendy Manhattan neighbourhood and literally next door to some of the most exclusive designer stores, it almost gave us a false first impression of what NYC living was going to be like!  However, knowing that Steve's employer paid for the $9k-a-month apartment soon made us realise that our visions were probably more fantasy than reality.  Following our week in Soho, we shifted downtown to the Financial District apartment of our friends whom we had met on honeymoon at Namale in Fiji.  Another lucky coincidence, whereby Richie and Mary had, unfortunately though fortunately for us, been inconvenienced by the hurricane and were spending several weeks back home in Arkansas due to their office in downtown Manhattan being without power.  Luckily their brand new apartment building, which had also been without power in the first week or so following the hurricane, had had its utilities and power restored by the time we took up temporary residence there.  Towards the end of that week, we then moved in to a sublet apartment on the cusp of the West Village and Chelsea, which Mark had found on Air B&B and had actually stayed in previously.  It was in an extremely convenient location for both of us work wise, and gave us another neighbourhood to explore whilst we found something more permanent.

Although NYC was our new home and Mark and I had been heading to our respective offices each day, it surreally felt like we were on some sort of working holiday, as we were living out of our cases and bags and had not unpacked for several weeks.  We had already been looking at apartments with the idea of taking something between 6 and 12 months.  Mark had looked at numerous places, sometimes six in one day, and we were starting to tire of the whole tediously laborious process.  We had several brokers on the look-out for us, one of whom was the broker who had found Natalie and Steve their apartment in Soho.  Aware of this, David, was showing us amazing loft-style apartments in TriBeCa, Soho and Chelsea, which were all in the region of $6-8k a month.  With the heartbreaking broker fee of (typically) 15% of the year's rental amount, we were looking at parting with a substantial amount of money from the outset, which is normal practice for Manhattan rentals.  Add to that the cost of having to buy all of our furniture for these unfurnished Manhattan apartments, and it was really was going to be a sickening exercise.  I was highly offended one morning when David met us in Chelsea to show us a one-bedroom apartment that was being advertised for $8k a month, which was apparently under market rate.  We were meeting with the agent representing the apartment building, who had already shown several prospective tenants the apartment and was confident that it was going to be rented imminently.  David showed up wearing what looked like his pyjamas, a pair of flannelette pants with a jumper over the top and teamed with some laceless Dunlops.  Knowing that we were potentially going to be paying this man an extortionate amount of money for simply rolling out to bed to 'represent' us to the apartment building's agent incensed me somewhat!  Nonetheless, we were eager to find a more permanent place of abode and discussed the required process for us to register our interest in the apartment.  We soon realised that we were to have difficulty being accepted as tenants, and were told that as neither of us had any US rental or credit history, the likelihood of us being accepted by the management rested solely on the leniency of their application process.  We had already had a similar situation, with an apartment that we'd seen in our first week in the Little Italy neighbourhood end in disappointment.  Having seen it one evening and being very excited at the potential of it being our new home, we turned up the next morning to go through the application process, which we had been told by our broker would be easy for us as long as we both had jobs and payslips in relation thereto.  We were told by the apartment building's agent that as neither of us were US citizens and neither of us had US rental or credit history, we would need to either a) pay a year's rental upfront; b) have a US citizen earning 70 times the rental month per year be our guarantor; or c) pay a guarantee company a month's rent to be our guarantor.  It was almost laughable, and so hugely frustrating.

However, in the midst of suffering yet another setback, Mark found another apartment being sublet on Air B&B, which was in the middle of the West Village, in a gorgeous mini Mews-type cul-de-sac called Patchin Place.  The apartment itself looked adorable, and we quickly both the tenant to express our keen interest.  Mark viewed it the next day, and agreed our move-in date with the tenant, which was sooner that anticipated and would result in an rental overlap with the current Air B&B apartment, but necessary if we really wanted it, which we did.  We moved in later that week and, even though it was potentially only going to be our home for two months, we immediately felt more settled.  Dina, the tenant, was taking a break from her corporate life for a number of weeks and heading to Asia on vacation.  She had let us know that while she was gone, we would receive a number of packages in the post that contained DVDs of movies in the current award season, which she would normally be here to watch and vote for.  We quickly became increasingly excited at the mystery packages that we began receiving on a daily basis, and began making our way through the entire collection of movies that were being released in the cinemas in the lead-up to the awards ceremonies.  Les Miserables was the only movie that we had not yet received before Christmas and the one that I so desperately wanted to have popped in the postal tray.  Finally, however, on Boxing Day, we received that also, which made for a nice-post Christmas present from Hollywood!

We were in Patchin Place until late February.  We moved out when I was heading to London for two weeks while Mark was heading to Chile to take part in the Atacama Desert Race with one of his best mates, Richie.  I was going to London to see everyone and would stay with Emma, Richie's wife and also one of my best girlfriends, during that time.  I was lucky to able to work out of my London office, even having my old desk and name tag still there.  My visit to London really hit me emotionally, as I realised how much I'd missed everyone and everything and yet wasn't living there anymore.  I think it was also due to the fact that our time in NYC hadn't really felt like much more than a working holiday, as we had been so unsettled for the several months that we'd been there and we essentially living out of our suitcases for that time.  I was, once again, sad to leave London and slightly apprehensive about getting back to NYC.

As soon as I hopped off the plane, I was cheered up by the sun, an ever-present feature of NYC.  I made my way to our next place of abode, which surprised me happily by being bigger than the picture I had from memory.  We had been fortunate enough to secure another flat for our return to NYC, which had been the flat of one of Mark's good family friends, Dermot.  He was moving out and we were lucky to be able to take it over at the right time, after our previous nightmare experiences of finding a place.  We are now on Hudson Street (still in the West Village) between 10th and Charles, and have some great cafes and restaurants literally on our doorstep.  The weather seems like it has really turned a corner in to Spring, with gorgeous sunny days almost every day.  It's nice finally being unpacked after four or so months, and it's nice to finally feel settled in NYC!

Welcome to my Blog!

So I'm finally starting a blog.. yay!  I've been keen on the idea of getting one up and running for quite some time, which was partly as a result of doing a writing course in London a couple of years ago, but I was always a bit nervous or hesitant for some reason.  I think being the owner of a website and all of its content that is so exposed had seemed like such a daunting prospect!  For a while I've been using Evernote, a brilliant app that was suggested by one of my girlfriends, as a means of journalling some blog-type entries, but hadn't taken the next step to actually 'publish'.

I was finally given the nudge I needed when last week Mark surprised me by telling me he'd bought the domain 'nessypower.com'.  The excitement and novelty of having my own blog took over and we took the time to link it up to Blogger as the host.  I'm not sure to what extent of 'life' I'll be using the blog, but it will at the least be a means for me to indulge my hobby of writing about things relevant to my life as and when.  So here we go!