Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2004-10-23 - 2.45pm��previous entry��next entry
38 weeks, 1 day - baby shower and photos
First of all, big congratulations to Megan on the birth of little Alex! Oooh I love it when babies are born at Diaryland!! I can�t believe one of them is finally going to be my own soon!
Sorry I didn�t update yesterday for 38 weeks. I didn�t have a belly pic ready and then I had my baby shower yesterday evening, so I didn�t get round to going online. But Neil took a belly pic today and it�s in the gallery for all to see! :) I am trying to figure out if my shape has changed any, as a clue on whether Arthur has engaged in my pelvis since the last photo? Hmmm. I can�t tell. I will just have to wait till the midwife comes round on Wednesday, then she can tell me for sure.
I had my baby shower last night!! I was so excited to be having a little party! It was thrown for me by some of the ladies at church, and Neil took me round to one of their houses. It was a pretty small gathering because 7 ladies couldn�t make it, as half-term has just started and they were going away with their families. There were nine of us, which turned out to be quite nice as we were able to all fit in the room, and it gave much more opportunity to chat, etc. The theme was a dessert evening � yay!! Everybody brought a dessert. All of them turned out to have chocolate in them, and one had coffee in as well, so we were all buzzing for the evening � we didn�t even notice that it was 11.30pm by the time it seemed like we should be heading home!!! Hehe! I ate profiteroles and chocolate brownies and chocolate tiffin cake and some sort of toffee meringue roulade and tirimasu (sp?!), and ooooh I love desserts!!! I have put on 2 more pounds in the last couple of weeks, which I guess is okay but it does finally take me over 11 stone. Eleven stone!!!! I weighed 7 stone 10lbs at the beginning of my pregnancy!! I can�t believe I have now gained 45lbs overall!! Yikes. I hope lots of it will fall off me after the birth, but I am guessing I�ll need to work at least 10lbs off after my postpartum 6 weeks are up. I don�t know why, that�s just the number that sticks in my head. My thighs and bum are so chunky now that I think I will have to work to get them back to their original shape. That�s okay though � it will do me good to have to exercise when I�m allowed to again after the baby is born. It�s annoying that I haven�t been allowed to during pregnancy, with my SPD pain, etc. I hope I don�t have that problem next pregnancy, because one thing I would definitely want to change next time is more exercise throughout pregnancy. I think I would feel better and healthier that way, and I know it would help my body be more toned and strong for labour. Right now I feel a bit like a slug most of the time (though not as slimy)!!
Anyway, back to the baby shower! It was so much fun, I had a really nice time. Arthur and I got lots of little gifts. He got bibs and burp cloths and rattles and hard books and a cute measuring chart, and a couple of little outfits. We also got a pack of newborn disposable nappies, which the giver was very embarrassed about when she heard that I was using cloth nappies! But I said not to worry, they may well come in handy just the same. I didn�t want her to feel bad, as it was a lovely thought! I don�t intend to use them though :) Arthur also got a cute little fish mobile with a bell on it, and muslin squares, and I got some breast pads (very useful!) and bath stuff, and some gorgeous lavender aromatherapy candles. It was so nice, I wasn�t really sure if it would be a gift-type of baby shower or not, so it was lovely to get presents!! They were all so beautifully wrapped as well :) Everybody watched me open presents, and now I come to think of it, one of the girls was taking my photo like crazy the whole time I was opening them! So maybe I�ll have a photo or two of my baby shower to post here at some point.
Talking of photos, I finally got some pictures of Neil today for you to see! He would like it to be known that he was dressed for painting the kitchen, and is therefore not looking at his best. *sigh* Men. So vain, hehe! Anyway, he wanted you guys to know that before consenting to his photo being posted in my diary! So here is Neil painting the kitchen:
We also took a couple of pictures of the two of us together, but since there�s only two of us, it�s next to impossible to actually have both of us in the picture at the same time as taking the photo! So um, here are a couple of experiments where Neil (who has the longer arm!) is taking the photo and we�re somehow both in the picture! Trust me, there were about a zillion that had to be trashed! Anyway, here we both are about an hour ago:
This next one was taken from a weird angle so we could try to fit Arthur in the picture as well! It kind of turned out weird. But oh well. Don�t Neil and I look alike?! It�s a bit uncanny now I look at the picture! I never really notice it that much till I see pictures of us together. I guess Arthur�s going to look like �us� because we look pretty similar, rather than him looking like one or the other of us. Anyway, photo�.
Of course there will be loooads of photos of Neil with Arthur once he is born, but there are a few just so you can see what he looks like! He wouldn�t let me take any pictures earlier because he said he didn�t look good enough for photos, but I have a really scrummy naked photo of him on my bedside table (!!) and I threatened to use that one, haha! So yeah, surprisingly he changed his mind and let me take new photos! ;) Wicked wife, aren�t I?!
Well, what is there to report? No signs of Arthur arriving yet. I am still having BH contractions a lot, but not regularly or that frequently these days. They are still stronger than before which is normal for this stage. Arthur is putting a little foot on my ribs more and more often now, so I guess he has run out of other places to stick it! Also I wonder if that shows he has dropped even more, because that would change his angle slightly and maybe that�s why he�s suddenly putting his feet up on my ribs more, rather than out to the side so much. He does still push his feet out that way, but there really isn�t room for him to stretch them anymore. His 38 week stats say that on average he now weighs 6lbs 12oz, and is 19.6 inches long. This past week he has been shedding the last of his lanugo (the fine downy hair all over his body), and he is losing most of his vernix at the moment too. He could have a full head of hair though, and it could even be an inch long!! I can�t wait to stroke that fuzzy soft little head! Just the thought makes me all mushy inside somewhere.
He didn�t have any hiccups yesterday, and so far he hasn�t had any today either!!! Wow. That has to be the first time in�. months, I don�t know. He NEVER has a day without hiccups. I was actually worried for a while yesterday! He was pretty quiet most of the day, but after I ate all that chocolate in the evening he was very active, hehe! And today he has been wiggling around in there � he�s attempting to squirm about now actually. So I guess he is fine. Ooh I am having a Braxton Hicks. Which is uncomfy. But yeah. Oh, I started taking raspberry leaf tablets. I think it�s a bit late to be much use, but oh well. I started them 2 days ago and I�m just going to keep taking them till I give birth. I hope they might have just a weeny bit of an effect at least, although I know you�re supposed to take them from like 6 weeks before your due date. Oops. Oh well. I have also started perineal massage to hopefully help prevent tearing during the birth. I am kind of nervous about that, so I want to try to prevent it as best I can. So far just the practise stretching is extremely painful, which isn�t encouraging! But it does get better the more I persevere. Things are pretty swollen in that region at the moment (another clue that Arthur has dropped and is pressing on my pelvic blood vessels?) so maybe that�s why it�s so sore?
Um, what else? I didn�t do much at all yesterday, and felt sluggish and lethargic as a result. I was trying to rest up for the baby shower, but I wish I had got on and done some things during the day instead. I get tired out, but at least I feel less sluggish than if I had lay around all day. I have packed up most of my maternity clothes now, just leaving out the huge ones that I can just about fit into still! I hardly fit anything anymore, which is frustrating. I have some big tops that fit over my bump nicely (like the belly pic one), but trousers and jeans are another matter. They are all too tight over the bump and leave indents on my belly, which isn�t nice. But it�s that or nothing, so there we go. Not much longer to go! I do have maternity dungarees which are great because they don�t have a waistband, but those are also too tight on my bump, and I am finding them annoying because I have to get completely undressed just to use the toilet (which is a fairly frequent event these days!), and there�s just something about the shoulder straps which makes me feel pulled on and like a huge sack of potatoes. I�m kind of flappy about the fact that I will have absolutely nothing that fits me after the birth. I have changed shape soooo much around my thighs and hips and bum that I don�t even come close to fitting any of my pre-pregnancy clothes, even if the bump wasn�t there. I would say I am now 2 clothes sizes bigger on my lower half, without the bump even. And somehow I think that the last of my weight to come off will be the bum/thighs/hips area, so I will be without any clothes that fit me for a while. I have outgrown my early maternity clothes simply because of the aforementioned bum/thighs/hips issue, and the only ones that fit me there are huge to fit a large pregnant bump, which I won�t have after the birth!! So I have nothing suitable to wear. I wish I had a ton of pyjamas, because I would happily live in those for a couple of weeks after the birth, but I only have one pair of maternity-type ones. I do have a few pre-pregnancy ones that might be generous enough to fit me though, I�ll have to try them on and see. Anyway so yeah, no clothes for after the birth. Hmmm.
I set the Moses basket up in our room, and put all the clean bedding back on it! That was exciting! Every time I look at it I just can�t believe there will be a real baby in there soon. If we use it, that is. Which we probably will at some point or other, even if we don�t use it regularly for him to sleep in. I can�t wait to put him in the hug-a-bub sling! It looks so cuddly. Today Neil is painting the kitchen (as you have seen!), and I want to reorganise the changing station, and we need to work on clearing the junk off the spare bed. I have managed to sort nearly all the stuff that had been piled on our bed last weekend, but there are various things that need to go in the loft or to a charity shop, etc. I need to make the last of the birth announcements too, and maybe write some more Christmas cards. I still have quite a bit of sewing to do � more maternity pads, and I just found a PILE of half-sewn nappies and wraps in various sizes. Some of them are only just cut out and pinned, not sewn at all yet. So I would like to zip those off on the machine to get them finished and out of the way. I would say there are about 4 wraps and 5 nappies though, so that will keep me busy for a while. It�s more important to finish making maternity pads though, but those are way more boring to sew! I neeeed to pack a hospital bag!!!! I keep putting it off. I just don�t want to do it. But people are pressurising me all over the place to do it � last night everyone said I HAD to pack a bag, and my mum is bugging me to pack it too, and the ladies at one of my online pregnancy boards. I know, I know, I should pack the darn thing. I guess maybe it�s something that I don�t want to do because it makes me feel like I�m preparing in some way to go into hospital. Which is the last thing I want to do! I would rather not tempt it to happen by preparing for it! But I know that�s silly because packing a bag as a sensible precaution is NOT the same thing as anticipating going into hospital! And it�s wise. So yeah, I should do it. I need to have a bag packed anyway, even for a homebirth, incase a hospital transfer ends up being necessary. I HAVE picked out some things for the homebirth though, like towels and a few things for Arthur. And an old nightie for me to wear if I had to go into hospital. But I just haven�t packed them, or picked out any other things on the �hospital bag� list. I will try to do that today, and then it�s done.
I am feeling crampy right now, just a general crampiness. Not as bad as period pain, but the kind of cramp that I would get in the days before my period was due. I can�t tell how much of that might be my very annoyed bowel though. I am still having the same issues with that which I wrote about last entry � very odd. It must just be my body getting ready for birth I guess. But it�s very uncomfy.
The weirdest thing is that I absolutely can�t believe Arthur is really going to come out and be here. I know I have said that a lot before, but I really really can�t believe I will actually have a baby. Sometimes it�s just a dizzy surrealness, but sometimes it�s a kind of morbid fear. I just can�t honestly believe I will end up with a real live squirmy baby to be mine forevermore. So sometimes I get to wondering if it�s really �meant� to happen. I sometimes get a bit scared that something will go wrong and Arthur won�t survive and that�s why I can�t envisage him really being here, because he won�t be. But that�s just last minute jitters or something, probably. And yeah, I remember when we were TTC, I absolutely could NOT imagine actually being pregnant, so I started to wonder if that was because I was never meant to be. But I am! And I�m sure Arthur will really arrive and be fine. My school friend that I mentioned before, Mary, who was due a month before me, had her baby boy last weekend. That helps me a little, because I remember only last month we were both sitting downstairs on my sofa, talking about how surreal it felt and how we both couldn�t believe we were actually going to have a baby at the end of it all! And she�s evidence that you can feel like that and really really truly end up with a healthy baby. Her little boy is called Luke, and he was 6lbs 12oz, one week after her due date. They are both doing great. So I�m sure everything will be that way for Arthur and me too. I just can�t get my head to believe it right now. In many ways I just wish labour would come and it could all be over and done with, so I don�t have this slightly scary anticipation hanging over me any longer. He is done cooking. I am huge and uncomfy. Things are mostly ready for him to arrive, I just need my mum to be here, which she will be in 8 days. I just want him to come now, because I�m scared that something can still go wrong in the meantime. I just want him in my arms so that I know he�s safe and all the big hurdles are past and over with. I love him too much for anything to go wrong now.
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25