Come on baby!

Went to see the gynaecologist the day before yesterday and he was fantastic. They gave me a scan and monitored the baby's heartbeat for a good half an hour. R was with me and he kept tapping my belly, which made a loud sound on the monitor, hoping to scare the nursing staff!

Anyway, the gynae told me my due date is wrong! They initially gave me a due date of 21 June, based on the date of my last period. However, the dating scan gave me a due date of 16 June, so the midwife changed it. The gynae said this is against their protocol and she shouldn't have changed it unless the difference was more than 7 days. So he has now given me a new due date of 20 June, making me 9 days overdue, rather than 13. If I haven't given birth in the meantime, he would like to see me again in a week's time.

I had plenty of fluid, the baby's heartbeat was fine and my blood pressure is great, so he told me to keep going as I am. He's very much opposed to inducing a birth. He said that the most important thing is that mother & baby are doing well and as long as that is so, there is absolutely no reason to help things along. The baby decides when it's ready and the womb is ready - whether that's at 38 weeks or at 43 weeks. If I go very far overdue, they will monitor me closely to make sure the fluid is sufficient and the placenta is still doing its thing, but he will only induce me if absolutely necessary. I could have kissed him!

So, it could still take a while, but at least I'm being monitored well now. I feel very good about the situation as it is.

The greatness of lateness

This baby is now 1 week and 1 day late and I'm starting to get impatient! I know they say the baby will come out when it's ready and it will all happen in God's time. I know this and I realise it is the truth but...I want to meet this child of ours!!! Last weekend I was "officially" due and I spent the whole weekend feeling all kinds of twinges and cramps, but nothing spectacular happened. Since then, every potential 'sign' has me sitting up and taking notice - it's really quite exhausting! I think I will miss my bump though - for one thing, it's very handy for placing your breakfast on.

The last few days I've been feeling some tightening feelings in my lower abdomen which aren't exactly comfortable. Sometimes they come at fairly regular intervals, but then they disappear altogether for hours at a time. This morning I was woken up at some ungodly hour by a massive contraction - my whole womb contracted and stayed that way for a good minute before relaxing again. I was annoyed at being woken up from a really good night's sleep, but also very relieved that something was happening. I had two more smaller contractions at 15-minute intervals and that was it. Most frustrating.

This Tuesday I saw my midwife and she said the baby was not quite fully engaged but very low in my pelvis. She also said that if I'm still pregnant at our appointment next Tuesday, she will refer me to a gynaecologist so we can plan when and how to induce me. I really, really don't want to be induced, so I'm willing the baby to do its thing before Tuesday.

The waiting is getting annoying for R too. The Friday before I was due, he tidied his desk, handed some work over to his colleagues and rounded off several projects he was working on. The next Monday he was at his desk again. He can't start anything that might take longer than 1 day because he might not be at work the next day. Unfortunately, there's only so much work you can do that will only take a day to do. So baby, for your daddy's sake as well as mine - please put in an appearance!

The Waiting Game

So, this baby can come any moment now - my due date is in 3 days' time. Three days!!! It seems like such a short period of time has passed since I was counting the months, then the weeks and now we're talking days. Gulp. Am I ready? Well, how ready can you be? I've stocked up on rompers and nappies and breast pads and sleeping bags. The cradle has been ready & waiting for a good few months, the nursery looks lovely and we've thought of a name. However, I don't feel at all prepared for what is to come.

For the last 39 weeks, a little person has been growing inside me. I've felt it have the hiccups, stamp on my ribs with its little feet, press its head down on my bladder. My belly has grown and grown and grown some more. My breasts are no longer my breasts. I've seen numerous scans on which our baby wriggled around and showed us its 10 fingers and 10 toes. We've seen its little heart beat and watched the blood flow through the umbilical cord. I know a baby is going to come out of me one day soon. I just can't imagine finally holding our child. It's such a monumental thing - to have created a small human being who will be in our lives until the day we die, who will be completely dependent on us for a good few years. Phew.

Right now, I'm in no rush to give birth. I can wait a few more days, or even a week or two if need be. I can still get around perfectly well, can cycle to the shops and I'm enjoying these days of reading, knitting, pottering around the house and doing all kinds of things I never had the time for. We've got the mortgage sorted out for our new house, so now our current house is officially for sale and we have had several people come to view the house already. Two more are planned for tomorrow, so I've told the baby to wait until after that. I was offered the job I wanted at the beginning of last week and I went to HR to sort out the contract this morning. I will start after my maternity leave ends and it's a part-time job with exactly the hours I wanted, so that's a weight off my mind. All we need to do now is sell this house. And have a baby.

A lady of leisure

Here I am on a sunny June morning, with no bigger decision to make than whether or not I should take my cup of tea & book outside or should I stay inside, where it's cooler. I have settled surprisingly quickly into this lady-of-leisure mode and am enjoying it thoroughly! I can still sleep really well, so I'm taking advantage of good nights' sleep and reading in bed in the mornings, propped up on a few pillows until I get too hungry. Last week I bought the last few bits & bobs for the baby, so there is nothing left that has to be done. I've even packed my hospital bag. For the last week, I've been sleeping on a plastic sheet, which is sweltering but will be very necessary if my waters break in bed, as I'm carrying well over a litre in there!

This weekend I had a surprise baby shower. My mum had called me a few weeks ago to tell me to keep Saturday free as she wanted to go out for the day with me and my best friend, S. I thought we were going for an afternoon of shopping in Belgium, so I packed my passport and we went to pick up S. When we got to her house, she told us to come in for a moment as she wasn't quite ready. We walked into the living room and it was completely decorated in pink & blue, with a big circle of my female friends standing there, grinning away. I was completely bowled over! We had (non-alcoholic) champagne and went to sit outside in the sunny garden.

There was a huge table full of yummy food, as everyone had brought something. As a centrepiece, there was a nappy cake, made by the very creative S. She had also prepared all kinds of lists - tips for the birth, how to tell the sex of your baby, what to do if the baby is overdue etc. She gave me an apple tree to plant in the garden of our new house and everyone wrote good wishes on little cards, which were then hung in the tree. They made me do a little sketch, in which I had to hang up the laundry, answer the phone and pick up my crying baby (doll), all at the same time. Then my mum came 'in' and had to change the baby's nappy as practice for later - she was amazed at how easy these modern nappies are! Finally I was handed a huge basket full of presents from everyone, as well as some from people who couldn't make it. I was truly showered in gifts and good wishes and have been spoilt rotten!

Today my parents are coming to help me clean the house. There is only so much you can do with a big bump and scrubbing the bathroom floor is not one of those things. The funny thing is, my bump is big, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Getting dressed and rolling over in bed are now quite time-consuming activities, but that's just part & parcel of being pregnant. The only thing I don't like is that I've suddenly sprouted some stretch marks. I was quite surprised they took this long to appear, but it's a bit of a slap in the face to get them this late on in pregnancy, when I'd thought I would escape unscathed. I suppose I'll have to get my head around thinking of them as a "badge of honour"...

I've made up my mind now - I will retire to the garden with a book and a mug of tea. Ah, decisions, decisions.