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2009-07-08 - 10.02pm��previous entry��next entry
40 weeks pregnant - it's my due date!!!
Wow, that magic date has finally arrived! It's July 8th 2009 - the date that's been foremost in my mind since last year! My baby boy is "due" today! It's very surreal to be here, but I feel more excited and happy and blessed than impatient and restless, so that's good! :) Still loving being pregnant!
So now I truly am just waiting for the baby to arrive. Also I'm sort of happy to see that I was wrong about those two occasions where I prayed and THOUGHT I maybe heard from God about the timing of Benjamin's arrival - the first time I just felt that he would come sooner than we thought. And the second time I just had this date in my head - June 30th. So I wondered if that would be his birthday. Wrong on both counts! ;) I did pray that God would confirm those things through other sources if they were really things that He was saying to me, but I never had any sort of confirmation so I put them out of my head for the most part. I did try to get a bit more ready as a result though, which can never be a bad thing! ;)
It seems like Nathan was a big exception (which, obviously, he was, with my waters breaking spontaneously so early on) in my pattern. Other than Nathan, I always go past my due date. So far I have never gone beyond 41 weeks exactly, and I was already contracting when I woke up on the morning I turned 41 weeks. I sooooooo don't want to wait into next week, because as much as I really really LOVE being pregnant, I am getting eager to meet Benjamin, and also it is definitely getting more uncomfortable and exhausting with every DAY that's passing now, rather than every week that's passing. I can't think how I'll feel this time next week if I still haven't given birth!
Today I have absolutely no signs of impending labour whatsoever. I have the usual frequent Braxton Hicks that I'm starting to feel very much as a NORM for me every evening. They don't hurt, they're just very uncomfortable and pretty strong, and they come every 2-3 minutes for a while and then don't any more! ;) I have stopped paying much attention to them, because I know it's just what I do in the evenings and it doesn't have any effect on anything. I'm purposely not doing a single thing to try to bring labour on. I'm not eating differently, following any old wives' tales, going near my husband with a barge pole (haha!), or taking walks. I'm tooooo exhausted to take walks anyway, and it's ever so uncomfortable in my pelvis and back and hips and bump to walk even around the house. I am happy to sit and wait! :) I will not be getting a cervical sweep (membrane sweep, whatever it's called where you are!) this time around like I finally did at 40+6 with Matthew, because it's contra-indicated with Group B Strep. With Matthew I feel sure the heatwave breaking THAT DAY had something to do with him arriving then and not before, although I did have the sweep the day before he was born too. Right now our horrible heatwave has ended, and we've had 2 full days of heavy rain and strong cool winds. I am loving it! Yesterday there was such a terrific thunderstorm in the middle of the day (we had two seperate ones actually, during yesterday) and it rained torrentially. I sat on the armchair while the boys were occupied and Nathan was napping, with my hand on my bump, feeling Benjamin doing a few little movements. I watched the thunderstorm through the window and suddenly the irony of it really hit me! People say thunderstorms bring on labour. It was full moon THAT VERY DAY (yesterday). My due date was the very next day - in fact if you go by my ovulation date, my due date WAS yesterday, not today. It's only the scans that said today. And how ironic it felt that my womb was the quietest muscle in my whole body, and my baby was happily hiccupping away inside me, hehe! It struck me as funny for a moment there! ;)
So, noooo, the full moon did nowt for me whatsoever. It never has before though, so maybe I'm not the "tuned-in" type anyways. We haven't had thunderstorms today, just light rain most of the day. Even with the cool cool breeze blowing through the windows continually, I'm still SO HOT and sweating at the slightest thing! I guess that's the whole pregnancy thing, not so much anything else.
Neil has been to work yesterday and today (after Monday off). I'm so longing for him to have another day off work this week, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I have done okay (surprisingly!) today and yesterday, but have definitely been more exhausted today than yesterday, and I had a really good early night last night too. I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed than I have in ages, despite the 2-hourly loo trips that are my norm these days (almost exactly 2-hourly as well! My bladder is always full enough (or should I say squashed enough!) to wake me up by the 2-hour point!). And I got up thinking, "This is a GOOD start!" Literally 30 minutes later, by the time Neil was leaving for work, ALL my energy had fizzled away! I was so exhausted and breathless, and just had to keep sitting or lying down. Yesterday I used a previously cooked and frozen spaghetti bolognese sauce for dinner, so that was easy enough, and today I did pork in the crockpot, which was also pretty easy. This time we are SO unprepared for a new baby, meal-wise. I haven't got a single meal in the freezer! :S I hope this isn't going to be a really big problem after he's born! I don't think we'll get meals from church this time either, like we have always done in the past (they cater for us for 1-2 weeks after a new baby), because we have not been since November (oh dear!). So that could be a bit difficult, but hopefully we'll get by okay without resorting to unhealthy convenience meals too often. I'm frustrated that I haven't had time or energy to prepare meals ahead of time but oh well. We'll just have to make do! At least I have my crockpot this time! :)
I'm stressing about my doula's availability. I can't seem to relax about it, and that's annoying, and also super exasperating because the whole point in a doula is to RELIEVE stress for the mother! :S I haven't contacted her since she phoned me a couple of days ago, because all I want to know is, has the other lady had her baby yet, or is she currently in labour?! I feel like if the answer is NO to those things, then it's a big stress to me, and I just don't want to have that kind of stress. I feel like every day that passes now hugely increases the risk of both of us calling Heather out at the same time. I mean, her due date was yesterday, mine is today. We're just waiting, waiting. There's only a matter of days now where we will BOTH end up delivering, and surely it's getting more and more likely every day that we'll coincide (unless the other lady is super fast, but she's a first-timer, so not necessarily that likely...). I wish she would have her baby already, and then I know I can relax and not have somebody else as a higher priority than me for Heather, and go into labour when I am ready without worrying about it. Urgh. I have tried praying about it, and that was good to do, but I then went to sleep and had dreams about Heather casually saying to me that she's going away for the week this week, and it's sure to be okay because I'll probably not go into labour until she's back!!! Urgh. I just feel stressed about it, and that's annoying, because I don't need it!
I'm also a little anxious about Neil being an hour's drive away at work every day. The what-ifs come into my head, which I am TRYING to block and pray about. But the ones that are there are things like, what if my waters break and they're meconium stained? I don't want him taking an hour or so to get home from the moment I call him in a panic and NEED to get myself to hospital fast without a) any childcare, b) a car to get anywhere! His car is in the garage right now because the engine light came on, and it is going to be expensive to fix so we might not bother. We have to figure out what to do about cars. But meanwhile I am not up to going out, so he's using the minivan to go to work. Which is fine - we're not using it. But still, the what-ifs. And also, if I'm already going on 3cm dilated (which I don't know, I'm just thinking I was a good 1-2 at 33 weeks and have had a lot of activity in my uterus since then, including that day or two of proper contractions and then the little bit of mucus plug coming away last week, so that could easily mean I've dilated a little further) then labour could go pretty fast when it starts. My pattern so far is that once I hit 3cm things go fast. Even with Arthur that's what happened, but much more so since then. Matthew was born 1 hour and 45 minutes after I was found to be 3cm dilated, and the labour in between was HARD and I could not have managed a since minute of it without major support from a birth partner and children OUT of my way. So, if I start out at 3cm and labour starts up quickly, and I have 3 small and rather difficult children on my own, and Neil is at least an hour away.... It just makes me nervous, you know?! I wish he worked nearer to home, or was able to work from home this week, but he isn't unfortunately.
Neil thinks this baby will come at the weekend. He is betting on the 12th or 13th. No particular reason attached, just that he feels like that's when it will happen. Maybe. I'm still kind of hoping it happens before then, as that still feels like a way off to me! I feel so ambivalent! I am in no hurry to finish being pregnant because I LOVE it and will be sad that it's over and miss it almost straight away. But on the other hand I also long to get to the part where I have my tiny new boy in my arms and don't have the anticipation and anxieties hanging over me, and the exhaustion. Of course, the exhaustion is about to hike itself to that OFF-THE-PLANET level, I know that! ;) But each day that I haven't had the baby yet is just prolonging that inevitable part, and I would rather get on with recovering already!
One of my weird personal statistics is that regardless of my due date or how early or late my babies arrive, so far they are ALWAYS born in a 5-day window of the month, between the 9th and 14th. So, I guess I figured that this baby would come in that window too, especially considering that he was due on the 8th of the month - that made it even more likely! So yay, the window starts tomorrow! :) I sort of hope he gets his "own" date there though. We have the 9th, 12th and 14th covered already! So I hope he gets his own number of the month! ;) Some people are saying they're betting on Friday, and that's the 10th. I like that date! :) I hope he comes on Friday too! My mum has been saying all along that I should give birth on a Friday because that's the BEST day of the week to have a baby as far as paternity leave goes. Because then you have a weekend right after it, and THEN two weeks of paternity leave, followed by another weekend - that almost takes it to 3 straight weeks off for the daddy! Which would be very good!
Well, I'm having a gentle bounce on my birth ball by the bed right now, as I'm typing this (laptop on the edge of the bed) and I can definitely feel a lot of pressure from the baby's head as I bounce, almost in my bowel actually, as well as low near my cervix. I have a midwife appointment at home tomorrow for my 40-week check, so I am curious to see whether he has dropped any lower than 3/5 palpable, which he was for the first time last week.
I am thinking Benjamin probably weighs around 8lbs on his due date, eek! I hope he's not much bigger than that! My heaviest baby was Arthur at 8lbs 1.5oz. Maybe he'll be a bit more like Matthew, who weighed 7lbs 11oz at 41 weeks? I hope so! Nathan would have been at least Arthur's weight (somewhere just under 8.5lbs) if he had gone to his due date. I had him weighed on his due date (he was nearly 5 weeks old) and he weighed 8lbs 8oz, which they said was an accurate prediction of what his birth weight would have been if he'd come around his due date! I'm so little! I really feel better with a baby 8lbs or less, ideally! I hope he comes soon...
I finally got the 39 week belly pic uploaded and in the gallery from last week, but I didn't realise it's really blurry until I uploaded it! Oh well. Also, Neil took a belly pic for me this evening, for 40 weeks, and that's in the gallery too. I'm not sure what is up with the colour tones on all the belly pics, even with the new camera! The light in our living room is never good, and for some reason everything seems the same colour in the 40 week photo - my face is the same colour as the walls, etc!
I am doing fine. I have put on a ton of weight (not sure exactly what - maybe I'll remember to weigh myself in the morning?), but have had no trouble with swelling at all. I can't wear my wedding ring but that's more weight-gain related than water retention. Still NO pubic bone pain, and I still marvel over that on a regular basis! :) I feel queasy quite a lot, but sometimes that is just plain old indigestion that can't resolve too easily due to total lack of space!
Benjamin has been much quieter than usual today and yesterday and it got me a little worried this morning, but he's still moving throughout the day. His movements are just much more quiet and slight, instead of huge vigor. He has had hiccups twice today, and I think twice yesterday too, so I know he's still doing his thing in there, just not as active as he used to be. I hope that's okay. I will ask the midwife about it tomorrow. I think he has just run RIGHT out of room. But I'll ask to be sure.
Okay I need to go to bed! I'm so tired out. I will update again with any news as it occurs! Thanks so much for the comments! I love reading them! Anyone want to guess at when Benjamin will arrive (day/date/time?) and what he'll weigh? I don't know what to guess at ALL! But I'm hoping for Friday 10th July, and I'm randomly guessing 11pm, and that he'll weigh 8lbs exactly (I hope!).
Back soon! :)
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