NZ Baby Blog

At 2.12 am on the 18th of June Ms Charlotte Rose Blake joined us in the outside world with a lusty cry to show all was well, and then settled down to see what all the fuss was about - laxing out under the heat lamps.

She weighed in at a very average 3.28kg.

We got started at 6pm ish, phoning Grandma & the midwife around 7pm. By the time Grandma had gotten here it looked like it was going to be another false start, but as the midwife was already on her way to the hospital she said come in anyway.

Off we went, found the birthing unit, and was very disappointed to find we weren’t in a room with the grab bars on the wall, and that we didn’t have a lazy boy either! Si had to sit on the swiss ball in the bathtub!

Things aren’t that exciting when you can read a book while pacing about (Book was the Sari Shop which was OK but sort of petered out at the end).

At 10pm we were looking to break the waters to get things morning along, but as it turned out, they broke anyway themselves.

4 hrs later and full dilation is achieved and then begins the longest 12 minutes of my life complete with a lot of swearing, some pleading, and attempts to negotiate which all failed to impress anyone, but in the end out she came without any interventions.
Then it’s a bunch of drugs to try and prevent an excess of bleeding in me, more gas (mmm good gas), cuddles with baby, checking everyones ok, food for both parties, and finally off to the ward for some rest.

You know you’re getting to the business end of your pregnancy because you start to get more pain! In my case jack-knifing out of bed at 5am with leg cramps.

This is a sub-optimal way to wake up, so I turned to Google in search of answers. What I got was what you often get with non fetally harmful pregnancy conditions “we don’t know why it happens, try eating differently, put up with it”. In this case, try eating more salts & minerals (Potassium, magnesium, zinc and sodium were popular suggestions), walk around to walk it off, put some heat on your leg.

The key here being “we don’t know why it happens so we really don’t know how to stop it happening“. Getting cramps when you’re running a marathon, you can kinda see why you might be a bit short of some vital minerals, and why keeping your electrolites up would be a good idea. Sleeping in bed seems an altogether less strenuous activity (especially when you’re 6 months pregnant), so it’s harder to see why at 5am you suddenly run out of something (assuming you’re not sweating etc in which case removing a duvet seems a good idea).

As it happens, I’ve had general OOS pain issues, and pre-pregnancy had been getting treated at the Southern Cross Pain Clinic in Wellington - but had been discharged. So as I had some hip pain as well I booked myself in to see what could be done that didn’t involve eating my own weight in bananas (Potassium).

Apparently there is quite a simple explanation for why you might get leg cramps in pregnancy. The part of your spine/back where the messages about cramps come from is about a hand width above the small of your back. So your causal options are referred pain (check, pain in hips could do that), and/or just pain from trying to compensate for carrying a 5kg lump out in front - again more plausible than that you’ve had a run on your magnesium store.
Consequently there is some safe treatment that seems to work.

I got saline injections into the area, as well as into my hips, and it’s keeping the cramps under control.  In addition, when I get that “pre cramp” feeling in my legs and feet, I apply a hot wheat pack to my back and it’s meant that so far I’ve had no more jack-knifing out of bed.

The cost of private treatment was about $175 I think, so a bit more than bananas, but worth it I think.

The doctor is Dr Giresh Kanji - a very sympathetic man. If you’ve got health insurance you can probably get it for nix if you get a referal from your midwife or obstetrician (or even GP).