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2006-06-05 - 9.41pm��previous entry��next entry
39 weeks, 5 days pregnant - almost there!
Two days till my due date!!!! The day after tomorrow! That's crazy close. But of course it doesn't mean anything about WHEN Matthew will actually arrive.
So, I'm still here. This will be a short entry because a) I have hardly anything to report, and b) I am so so so SO bone tired tonight. I feel like I took a sleeping pill today, honestly. I could have literally just slept and slept at any given moment, all day long! But Neil was at work and although my mum offered to let me nap and she would look after Arthur, I knew I wouldn't get a wink of sleep without earplugs in (Arthur plays noisily in our small house!) and I felt a bit funny about blocking off all sound and leaving my mum unable to shout for me if she needed me urgently for any reason. So I just didn't do much, and got through the day with my eyes boggling from sleepiness! Tonight Arthur was tired out early from an active day with Nana, and he was asleep in bed at 6.45pm. I could have just gone to bed right then, I was so drowsy and my whole body felt limp and tired. But I needed to eat dinner.
Right now it's 9pm and I am heading to bed. I can't believe I even made it this late, to be honest! I just ate dinner and now I am soooo ready to sleep. I feel so tired that breathing is achy and a big effort, and my fingers feel sluggish like they don't want to type. I just wanted to write a quick update though, before falling into bed. My teeth are brushed and I have my glass of water for the night and everything. I just need to hit "done!" at the bottom of my entry and switch the computer off, and then I HOPE blissful sleep will take over until many hours later!
Last night I was in bed for 10pm, which sounds very normal and sensible, but is actually about 2-3 hours early for me these days. I was just soooo tired. I couldn't sleep for an hour or so though. It was warm and muggy and my feet feel like they are burning and throbbing and swollen all the time in the evenings. I can't bear that feeling in bed, plus I had the most awful Restless Leg Syndrome last night too, so I tried raising my feet on pillows. But that didn't make any difference. I tried washing them in cold water and leaving them wet to cool them off in bed, but they still felt hot and jumpy. In the end, all I could think of was getting my feet waaaay up in the air, so I lay at the other end of my bed and propped my feet up on the wall so that they were almost completely vertical!!! Hehe! I meant to just lay like that till they stopped feeling so swollen and hot, and in any case, it's not the greatest idea to lay on your back for any length of time when you're this pregnant. But the next thing I knew, I was waking up with like NO blood in my legs whatsoever, hehehe! I couldn't believe it when I looked at the clock and saw it was 3am!!!! So I had been asleep like that for almost four hours!! No wonder my legs were all drained of blood and cold and numb! But they felt soooo much better for it, even with the yucky numbness. I felt anxious about the fact that I'd been on my back all that time, but Matthew gave me a little wiggle and I turned onto my side right away and didn't feel dreadful or anything, so I guess it was okay. I had no trouble going back to sleep after I went for a wee. I did wake at 5.30 though, as Arthur woke at that time (urgh!) and couldn't go back to sleep after that.
My feet are already burning and swollen so I think I'll have to do something similar tonight if I want to get to sleep anytime soon. Tomorrow Neil is at work as normal, although he's working in London in the morning - much less accessible for an urgent call from home about his wife being in labour! But oh well. It's just for the morning, and then he thinks he might ask to come home after that, if there is nothing pressing. He has booked Wednesday (my due date) off, because he wants to search the loft properly for those cot fittings, and tie up any loose ends that me and Mummy can't manage on our own. He talked to his boss about it today and the guy was so nice and suggested he take Wednesday and put it down as paternity leave. But Neil pointed out that he can't really do that, as it's too complicated to account for, and he has a set number of days for paternity leave anyway, so he'd rather keep them all for after the baby is born. But it's so nice that his boss is such a great understanding person! So yay, Neil is off work on Wednesday, and hopefully we'll find those darn cot bits!
The midwife and her student are coming tomorrow for my "due date" appointment - though it's a day early. They are busy with clinics on Wednesdays, so it had to be Tuesday or Friday, and I chose Tuesday. No doubt she'll tell me I need to book a 41 week appt with the consultant to discuss induction, pfthth. But oh well. I won't. Or if I HAVE to, then I'll smile and nod, have her make the appt, and then cancel it by phone. I'll consider discussing it nearer 42 weeks, but I will be absolutely amazed if I get that far without giving birth so it's not even relevant really.
Neil couldn't believe he was going to work this morning. He kept saying he didn't know what to say to people at work today, because he just felt like he shouldn't BE there! We were so convinced, deep down, that I would have Matthew over the weekend. Even Neil didn't realize how much he felt that would be the case, until he realized it was Monday and nothing had happened so he had to go to work as normal!
Today I have had quite a lot of period-type pains and cramps and general low down discomfort. Sometimes Mummy would be chatting to me and I'd just feel so yucky and periody all of a sudden that I just had to say to her that I felt periody and gross. It was the same kind of crampy dragging sensation that I would get on the first day of my period, and sometimes it made me feel kind of queasy in the muscles that were cramping, if that makes any sense! It was even a bit distracting from things I was doing, but my womb felt soft when I put my hand on my tummy, so it can't have been actual contractions. Sometimes it felt like a wave of period pain, and other times it just sat there dragging away. I have some of that feeling right now actually. It's just very low down across the front - about where I would normally experience period pain. Once or twice I felt achy in my lower back at the same time, and then once or twice I ached up my sides with it, but that's when I started to wonder if it might not be so much to do with my uterus as with my bowel. Maybe it's just constipation or something? I feel like I haven't been able to go very easily for a while, and now that Matthew feels THIS low, it is causing me some difficulty in that department! I can't go much at any one time, and I feel like maybe I'm getting a bit, well, backed-up, shall we say?! Anyway, I was thinking maybe that could account for the discomfort today? I don't know. I'd hate to start getting excited over constipation, lol!
But otherwise it's encouraging! I did check my cervix again today and wouldn't you know, I can't find the darn thing again!! So I don't know. I am now checking daily more as a curious research type of thing, rather than something to pin my hopes on. I know I'll be interested to see if I really DO notice cervical changes the day before I go into labour, or whether I go into labour regardless of what I find my cervix doing in the 24 hours before. I know I'll be interested next pregnancy and will really wish I had made note of what my cervix was doing every day leading up to labour and birth, to compare with next time. So that's why I'm continuing. Plus I'm just interested. But nothing to report there today, as I can't find it! Maybe that means labour is ages off again, but who knows. I like this periodyness, it's encouraging :) I have had some strong BH contractions today but that's pretty normal.
Okay this was meant to be short, and it's nearly 9.30 now, so I'm going to stop and go to bed. Daddy went back to France this evening and Mummy is now staying with my brother. Arthur and I are going to drive and pick her up (it's about a 20 minute drive) tomorrow morning around 9am, just to get us out of the house. If I still fit behind the steering wheel, that is! Then she'll be with us the whole day :) Arthur is just LOVING Nana and he wakes up every morning all smiley, saying, "Nana! Nana!" He is just so excited to have her come round and play with him :) It's lovely. I should write this in my other diary really, but who knows WHEN I'll ever get to update that again - Arthur loves to point at everyone in the room and name them, and then the high point of that game is pointing at himself proudly and saying his name :) He points at each of us in turn and says, "Nana.... GaGa (Grandy).... Dada.... Mama....(and then, pointing at himself)... Ahhh-ya!!" He says his name (he pronounces it "Ahhh-ya!") soooo proudly and with the biggest smile, and points both his forefingers into his tummy soooo hard as he says it. He seems so proud to declare his newly-realized position in the family, and it's the sweetest thing :) He said Matthew today but I can't remember how he pronounced it. I'll have to ask him again tomorrow and make a note of how he first pronounced his baby brother's name.
Daddy took that TV set that we were trying to get rid of to a charity shop today, and Neil took the four bin bags of stuff to another charity shop before work this morning. Daddy took TONS of boxes and stuff to the rubbish tip for us, and also fixed the drawer full of Matthew's clothes. Things are coming together! I wish the living room was tidier for giving birth in, and I WISH we could do something with that blooming armchair that the charity let us down over! I waited 3 weeks for the date when they were meant to come and pick it up, and then the day arrived and they didn't turn up, so I phoned them and they said, "Oh, we don't cover your area anymore"!!!!!! Tsk. So we are stuck with a huge armchair in the way, and we don't know what to do with it in a short enough time to get it out of the way for when Matthew is born. There's just no time left, so I think we'll have to make do.
Okay I am definitely going now! Thanks so much once again for the messages :) I meant to comment on them more but I have run out of time and neeeed to go to bed before it's 10pm again! Maybe my body is telling me to get sleep in preparation for labour? I should definitely try to go with it. If only my feet weren't so hot and swollen right now.... It's still almost light, how weird to go to bed before it's fully dark! I'm glad of it though. Hopefully it will be a good night's sleep, and it won't be too long now till I really do go into labour. I'm feeling good and cheerful today again, so that's great :) I'll update again tomorrow probably!
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