Doctor D'Oub is in the house...

So, you know, maybe I should be making that supreme effort and blogging more. In a matter of weeks, when the latest drain on my life force latest wonderful bundle of joy, arrives, I suspect I'll have even less energy to inform you about the minutiae of my mind.

And even though I'm just coming up on 35 weeks preggers, it could be as little as two weeks before this babs 'arrives'.

Y'see, my dodgy liver appears to be acting up. I'm a carrier of a gene for the liver condition Alpha 1 Anti-Trypsin Deficiency. Thankfully, only having the one defective gene I've been spared this awful condition, but, if my liver is under particular strain, like when I'm pregnant, bad things do happen.

The bad things? My dodgy liver causes a pregnancy condition called Obstetric Cholestasis. (I am all about the scrabble 50 point words today...) What does that mean? It means that my entire body itches. And there is no relief. I was diagnosed with this condition when a doctor in the maternity hospital noticed the deep scabbing wounds I had gouged into my legs with my desperate fingernails.

Nice :)

Unfortunately, this isn't the only downside of the condition. It also increases the risk of stillbirth. Even typing that sentence is enough to freak one out. Moving on.

So, what they do is get the baby out at around 37 weeks. Thankfully, as I grow them big and fat, they have usual emerged at that gestation like a five year old with an obesity problem on Jeremy Kyle.

But, hey, this is me, Domestic Oub, even with all this fun, there has to be an extra little complication? Of course. I would hate to disappoint. Over my four pregnancies I've been trying to accumulate the full 'Most Common Pregnancy Complications' collection. Just like baseball cards or novelty teapots...

So, first off we had pre-exclampsia AND Obsetric Cholestasis, Check! Check! Second time around, a little disappointingly only the Obstetric Cholestasis. Check. Third outing I endured Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD for short). Check!

I reckoned that this time I just had to come down with Gestational Diabetes. I was convinced. It was one of the most common complications and I hadn't had it yet. I have all the risk factors - family history, old age, plumpness. And, without me even having to say a thing, my doc sent me for the test.

I couldn't believe it when it came back negative. So disappointing. Was this going to be a bog standard, run of the mill pregnancy?? Of course I always had the Obstetric Cholestasis to fall back on, but, y'know, been there, done that.

Well, can you imagine my delight when doc announced a number of weeks ago that babs was breech. In fact, not only was s/he breech, but was actually in a transverse lie position - which obviously, this happening to me, is worse than breech. At least a breech baby can get out the 'ladies special place' (I had to call it something for the kids..) but no sideways baby is getting out normally without a copy of Houdini's Great Escapes.

Or a c-section.

Of course there is time for the little rotter to get off his/her peachy downy ass and rotate! But, what with him/her already measuring big (less space to move!), and a potential 37 week deadline (less time to move!) we could be looking at an untimely plucking from me belly.

Check! Hurray, I've collected a full set.

But I have an appointment with my nice doctor on Monday, and hopefully he'll tell me that this little munchkin has done us all a favour and made friends with my pelvis.

Sadly, then I won't get my 'Most Common Pregnancy Complications' commemorative plaque. Drat.

And I am NOT going again.

I really mean it this time.

Honest.