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2004-11-01 - 11.43am��previous entry��next entry
39 weeks, 3 days
It's Monday. It's November today. Arthur is not due for another four days, but I am now absolutely convinced he is NEVER coming out. I guess I am just having a bad day, mood-wise. I'm trying not to mope and complain because I have nothing to complain about! I am soooo blessed. I am about to have the baby that I have longed for for years. He is healthy (as far as we know) and I am healthy. Everything is actually going just as it should. But I feel fed up today.
I hurt everywhere. I bounced on my birth ball again for a while yesterday, several times through the day, and I'm so sure Arthur is deeply engaged now. My belly looks a different shape, and it hurts on the underside of the bump as though the angle of the baby has changed so that there's a huge strain on the underside of my bump. It sticks out a little more down there I think. Also OH MY GOODNESS I thought my pelvis hurt before, but yowzer it really hurts now. When I try to move in bed at night I sometimes can't help crying out in pain, it just hurts so much. I am not feeling despairing over that though, because it must be because he's nice and low, which means he's ready for birth, and also there surely isn't that much longer that I have to put up with it. So I just get on with it, pain and all. But yeah, it really hurts. Getting up from bed is so so painful. I can't walk without wincing for a while, but it does settle a little. It's the same every time I get up from a chair.
I want to have a baby already!!!! Please? I don't want to wait any longer.
I am getting used to the pain in my hands so that isn't bothering me so much, which is good. Neil and I have been fairly busy this weekend sorting and clearing a bit more around the house. Neil put a ton of things up in the loft, and I cleared out some clutter from the living room. We cleared the stuff that was all over the spare bed. I really need to re-organise the changing station. Today I need to start cooking a huge batch of spaghetti bolognese sauce for freezing - we have enough ingredients for four meals! We also have the ingredients for 2 meals of sausage casserole, and when Neil has bought some braising steak I will make four meals-worth of good old-fashioned stew. We chose these kinds of meals to freeze for the early days with Arthur because they are a full nutritious meal in one pot, and we won't have to cook anything to go with it, to complete the meal. Just thaw and heat and eat! Yum. Plus I love those meals. And they are meaty. I need meat.
My parents are here! They arrived last night, and my mum is coming round later today to see me. She is bringing the old sheets and things that Granny has set aside for us. I can't wait to see her! I hope I will feel in a better mood by then though, because I don't want to be all mopey when it's so rare that I get to spend time with my lovely mummy! She hasn't been to England for over a year!!! I didn't realise that. We last went to see them in July, so I'm excited to see my parents again. I can't wait for her to see Arthur's feet shoving around in my side - they are soooo much bigger and stronger than the last time she saw him move, when I was 26 weeks pregnant. I think she will be amazed! :)
Arthur is feeling so big to me these days. Not just in terms of how huge I am or how heavy he feels in my pelvis, but just to have my hand on my belly when he moves - he is just feeling huuuge! It makes me feel tired just to think how big he's getting - I don't know why that should be, but I just feel that way!
I have started to have another weird irrational anxiety this last day or two. I only admitted it to Neil last night because I feel kind of ashamed to say I'm worried about it. It's this - I keep getting scared that I'm not going to love Arthur when I see him. I mean, I love him to bits and I keep daydreaming about when he comes out and the first moment I clap eyes on him, how I'll be overwhelmed with love for him and think how beautiful he is. But what if I don't? What if the feelings don't come? What if I look at him and think what an unattractive baby he is?! I know what newborns look like, and it's not the whole newborn-with-moulded-head-and-blue-skin thing, it's his actual features. I look at the photos of Neil when he was a newborn, and I know this is soooo horrible of me, but I don't feel attracted to him as a baby at ALL. Infact I look at the photos and think what a weird-looking unattractive newborn he was! How awful of me :( But that's the honest truth. He had really long hair that made his head look really weird, and little scrunched up facial features, none of which looked cute and buttony. The ones of him a couple of weeks old were worse. I just got absolutely no cutesy mushy feelings when I looked at his newborn photos. He was a bit of a weird-looking baby! BUT, I'm about to give birth to his son, and he could look just like his daddy. Or certainly bear a strong resemblence. So I'm scared. What if Arthur looks just like Neil did? If he does, I already have some insight into how I feel looking at him. I feel no mushiness, and worse, I think how unappealing he looks. I would hate to have those feelings towards my own little baby, but I'm scared that it might be that way. A lady at church told me she read that newborns most commonly look like their daddies at birth, even if they end up looking more like their mothers later on. What if I don't love him? I can't imagine living with myself if I don't fall in love with my baby immediately. Urrrgh.
When I talked to Neil about it, I obviously didn't tell him how I felt looking at his own baby pictures! I wouldn't want him to know that in case it hurt his feelings. But he was the cutest little boy and of course I think he's scrummy as an adult! :) It's just the newborn/young baby thing. But I did tell him how I was worried I wouldn't find Arthur appealing to look at, or that I wouldn't feel love for him. Neil said he thinks that is normal to worry about with the birth right around the corner. He said there must be lots of mothers-to-be out there worrying about that. I don't know. I feel horrid for even worrying about it. I want so much to love him and to be on Cloud 9 from the moment he is in my arms. I'm expecting it. So how on earth could I live with myself if I didn't feel that way? I'm noticing that since I started having this concern, I have felt more distant towards Arthur when he moves around. I keep picturing him in my womb looking exactly as Neil did in his baby pictures, and - ugh I'm so awful - it puts me off him. My own child! I'm having a bad day :(
I didn't write about this yesterday because I was ashamed to admit it. But today I figure I might as well write it. This diary is meant to hopefully help me relate to things next time I'm pregnant, and realise how things turned out even when I felt in a certain way about something. Also maybe it might help other people feeling the same way? I don't know. Anyway, I've always thought that there's no point hiding things that you're ashamed of from others. They may as well know you, warts and all. God helps me change when I suck at something, and I like to have that on display so people can see how he works in my life. I hope he will bless me with immense love for Arthur, like I already feel, but more so when I actually see him, and not less, or a sense of anti-climax or disappointment. I'm scared this all makes me a bad mother before I'm even holding my baby, but I am trying to bear in mind that this is a huge adjustment I'm about to embark on, and I have a lot of hormones working against my mood and thoughts!
Anyway, poxy note to finish on, but there we are. I don't think I have anything else to report today. I bounced on my ball a bit this morning but it hurt my pelvis so I stopped after a while. I have had several BH contractions but nothing of any consequence. Everything today feels like it's all boiling down to "nothing of any consequence" and I feel blue. The midwife phoned to see how my blood pressure was (I took it this morning after resting for 20 minutes and it was 130/80 just as it always was when I took it last week. So I guess I should ignore it, since it was normal on the hospital machine at the same time). She is coming to do my 40 week (sigh) antenatal appointment on Wednesday. Maybe my mummy could be here for that? That would be nice.
I woke up at 7.15 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I was sleepy but I kept thinking how it's November and Arthur could be here any time, even later today labour could start, any time. This was my mum's exact gestation when my brother was born. And I was too excited/nervous to get back to sleep, so I got up. I feel really tired out now it's late morning and I just want to go to sleep, but I don't want to miss a call from my mum to say she's coming over. I am halfway through reading "Three in a Bed" again, and already I am completely reassured about co-sleeping :) So that's good. I am having a Braxton Hicks. I feel cross and snappy today with my uterus. I just want it to stop faffing about with piddly practise contractions and just get ON with it already!! I guess I am hormonal and moody today. Sucky. But I hope to be in a better mood for the next update! I'm sorry that I'm not replying to emails much at the moment. There is just too much going on for me right now, but I will try to reply eventually!
Will update again tomorrow, or as soon as anything starts happening (if it ever does). Sorry about the mood.
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