Welcome to the blog...

Well here goes, I guess. In more ways than one!

I'm hoping to use this blog as a place to write about my experiences as a newbie and developing mum. I'm currently expecting my first child - a little boy - any day, and I wanted a place I could come to when I wanted to wax lyrical, hysterical or just plain whimsical about the whole thing. I have a (mostly friends-only) LiveJournal account, and though I've mentioned much about my pregnancy on there I don't wish to bore everyone senseless with stories of what the baby's up to! This blog, therefore, is where I plan to direct people who want to know more about this particular and huge aspect of my life from now on.

If you're wondering about the title...

In pagan terms, the moon has often been viewed as a symbol of sacred feminity and its three phases (waxing, full and waning) as corresponding to three archetypal phases of womanhood - maiden, mother and crone. So I could be considered to be entering the full moon phase in a fairly physiological way right now, and thought it made a fitting title when I couldn't think of anything else!

At the moment I'm thinking back over much of my pregnancy, which has been a strange rollercoaster of emotions and one of the more...well, frankly bizarre experiences I've ever been through.

I became pregnant unexpectedly and it was somewhat of a shock at first, but we settled into the idea very quickly and are now very much looking forward to meeting the baby. One of my main concerns at first was that I was on strong drugs (pain relief and muscle relaxants) for a severe form of Fibromyalgia Syndrome and central sensitisation, and was obviously worried about the effect this could have on the developing foetus. However, my medical team was incredibly supportive about getting all the relevant information from the drug specialists, and additionally the muscle relaxant qualities of pregnancy hormones have led to such a pronounced reduction in pain that I've been able to come off all but the most innocuous painkillers, albeit (almost certainly) temporarily. All scans have indicated that the baby's perfectly healthy and growing well.

The flip side of the 'natural muscle relaxants' coin is that I've developed SPD - symphysis pubis dysfunction, a hormonal condition of pregnancy that causes the SP joint (at the front of the pelvis) and others around it to loosen too much and destabilise. It hurts, and makes the most disturbing crunching noises when I'm trying to sleep - usually, I might add, trying in VAIN to sleep. However, this almost always corrects itself after birth, so that's another good reason to look forward to meeting the little one.

Apart from these elements, and a spotting scare at 25 weeks (it's all fine, turned out to be nothing to do with the pregnancy!), I've really enjoyed the experience of being an expectant mother. Much as in the rest of life, we always seem to be waiting for the Next Big Milestone - be it the 12-week scan, finding out the sex of the baby (for those of us who do), the start of the next trimester, reaching 'full-term' status at 37 weeks, and finally the actual birth. However, I've really enjoyed the actual process, even watching my body change and grow which is something that worried me given a 12-year eating disorder in the past. Feeling the stirrings of life within me, and becoming ever more aware of a developing personality in there, has been a profound experience. I'm still amazed by how utterly protective I feel of my coming son, and I turn into a lioness if I feel anything's threatening his welfare - such as the throng of sharp elbows and shoulders that seems to accompany the influx of tourists here in Edinburgh every Festival season! I've found myself walking with one arm placed shelteringly in front of my abdomen, and haven't noticed until someone's bounced off it... If I feel like this now, how much more powerful must the actual experience of motherhood be, when my baby's no longer within the (relatively) safe confines of my body ?

I have a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety about my approaching motherhood, something I'm told is pretty universal among first-time expectant mums. While I already feel close to and protective of my little bundle, at the same time I have worries about how I'll cope, whether I'll be a good mum, whether I'll bond with him straight away - all the usual things, but no less troubling for the fact that they're common. Everyone (except perhaps one person who has admitted she has her own 'issues') has reassured me that they feel I'll be fantastic, which is lovely to hear but doesn't really stop my own internal churning! ;-)

I guess I'll do what mothers have been doing since time immemorial. Falling through the days, managing hour-by-hour if needs be, and just waiting out the madness until things settle a little more. I know that with the chronic pain condition and so on I might have a difficult life at times, but my priority is making sure my baby son is well cared for, and if that means that sometimes I have to back off from other engagements and interests, then that's what I'll do.

When it comes down to it...I'm a stubborn old redhead.

Strangely (or so it seems in today's borderline tokophobic Western society) I'm looking forward to the birth. I've been told I may have more problems with labour pain than the average woman due to the central sensitisation, which causes my pain (and sometimes random other) signals to be 'amplified' on their way up to my brain. However, if this doesn't happen, I may find that being used to daily pain stands me in good stead for some of the experience. Doctors say it could go either way, and nobody really knows until labour starts and progresses - isn't that the same as every woman? I'm curious to see how I'll cope. My ideal is to use TENS, gas and air and a birthing pool, but I'm keeping an open mind. The only thing I really don't want is systemic opioids, as I want to breastfeed the baby and would regret him being born too sleepy to do so, or (even worse) with respiratory distress. I also spent much of my pregnancy coming off prescription opioid pain relief, so the last thing I want is to be plugged full of them again - apart from which, the anaesthetist recognises that it'd take an awful lot of it to have a decent analgesic effect on me!

Only thing that scares me about labour, apart from anything being wrong with the baby? Caesarean section. The idea of having major abdominal surgery to birth my baby makes me shudder!

I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories after the fact, and probably several elements will have NOTHING to do with how I 'planned' it. ;-)

See you on the other side, as it were!