Week 34

Here I am. Week 34. The gestational week I found out that Sybella had died.
Truthfully, week 33 seemed worse, in hindsight, as it signalled the anticipation of approaching week 34.
Still, though, I was badly anxious. Badly. My stomach was in a constant knot. I wasnt sleeping. One particular night, I woke up, heart pounding, sweating, and desperately trying to feel him move. He didnt move for about twenty minutes. For those twenty minutes, I was convinced he had died. I cried and beseeched "please move...please move." Eventually, he did and the relief then made me break out in new, cold sweat. In the morning, I had an appointment at 11am for heart monitoring, but I woke early, jumped in the shower and was physically sick from nerves. I gagged and retched under the water, shaking all the while. "This is not normal," I told myself, and I knew it well. I arrived for my appointment at 9am, two hours early. I sat there, jiggling my foot, until the midwife eventually let me in before my appointment time. Once attached to the monitor, I relaxed slightly but watched the baby's heartbeat like a hawk. My trace finished, so I went to the hospital cafeteria to have lunch. That made me nervous, as there wasnt much to choose from. I went with Subway, only salad and cheese, toasted and microwaved (mmm, hot, soggy lettuce) and a chiller drink from Gloria Jeans. Milk drink products seemed to fill me up, as I wasnt tolerating proper food all that well. Before leaving, I went to the bathroom. I noticed on the toilet paper, a tiny reddish-black blob. Clot like. But tiny, like a matchhead. I went to the car and sat there for a while, wondering what to do. Should I go back and tell a midwife? Or go home and see if anything else happened? After speaking to Kelvin, he told me to go back and tell someone, otherwise I would panic all night.
I did that, and found myself at L&D, strapped to a monitor again, and getting a speculum exam. Nice. No obvious bleeding was seen, and my cervix was closed. Good stuff. But on the machine, the baby's heart was racing. "Tachycardia" was the word they used, which is a horrible word. For a good two hours I sat there, having horrid Braxton Hicks, watching the heartrate stay twenty beats above the normal baseline. In my mind, I envisioned cord accidents, fetal hypoxia, and the tachycardia being the beginning of the baby's distress. Needless to say, that night I was a mess again. I didnt sleep, I just lay there, frozen, counting movements and googling "fetal hypoxia."
The next day, I gave up. I rang my midwife and asked to be admitted to hospital. I needed emotional respite. I needed to be free of responsibility. I needed to sleep.

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