37 weeks {and counting down}

Full term. Technically. The baby could literally arrive any time now. Given that I went early with Reuben (on this exact day of gestation actually) I have this (probably irrational) expectation… and hope…  in my mind that the same thing will happen again. I’m as ready as I can be (I won’t have to go shopping while I’m in labour this time!), and the longer I wait the more I start to make myself nervous about the whole giving birth again thing, and remember how much it bloody hurts!

It’s a weird part of your pregnancy, where you’re uncomfortable and big and hot (dude it’s been 38 degrees this week!!) and just waiting. Every day when I take Mayana to school, her teacher says to me, “You’re still here!” Hopefully it won’t be too many more days of that before it’s my mum or sister dropping her off and telling her teacher that it’s finally happened.

Such a weird thought that any day now our whole family is going to change in the biggest way, although experience reminds me that within mere hours of him being born I won’t be able to imagine life without him. It’s still so abstract at the moment. That wriggling little thing that keeps kicking me in ribs and makes me tummy look all misshapen and poking me in places that shouldn’t be poked is soon going to be my son… a baby in my arms and at my breast and filling up our lives.

This week the midwife told me that she was surprised she hadn’t seen me on the weekend at birthing suite. So that’s got to be a good sign that things will happen soon, right? In the meantime I’ll be here trying to convince myself that it’s more likely that I’ll be overdue, just so that it doesn’t bite too much if it does happen…

Coming to the end…

Today I’m 36 weeks pregnant. *Gulp*!

I am feeling well, enjoying the slight reprieve from the awful heat. I am tired, mostly because sleeping is becoming more and more difficult. To the point that I’m actually looking forward to the newborn days! I am cumbersome and finding it harder to maintain my energy levels, and playing trucks and trains on the floor with Reuben is becoming less possible. I can no longer buckle up my own shoes! The baby seems to have dropped a little in the last few days, which is a nice relief to my lungs, and also to my poor bruised ribs which have had tiny feet hooked around them for the last few weeks… ouch! I’m wondering if this baby is going to be a bit bigger than the others, because I don’t remember that being such a problem before. I am having a huge amount of Braxton Hicks… the plain old tightening ones, and then some that feel suspiciously like early labour pangs, even occurring at a semi-regular pace.

Tadpole, by all accounts, is going well. He is obviously growing, moving, hiccupping (a lot!). He is facing head down and it seems that all systems are go. We are just at the waiting stage really. I know I technically have four weeks until my ‘due date’, but the fact that I went into spontaneous labour at 37+1 weeks with Reuben is heavy on my mind. I am by turns wishing for that to happen again, and then filled with waves of anxiety that I am sooooo not ready. We haven’t even cleaned up the bassinette or washed the teeny-tiny baby clothes yet! Plus there’s that whole giving birth again thing. Youch!

Peter and I have been playing the name game for about the last four months. Over the weekend, we think we have finally found one that will stick. Maybe. We have been known to change our minds. I can’t believe how much we are struggling with this one!

It’s feeling really surreal. This pregnancy was a big surprise… a very happy and welcome one for sure, but it definitely took us a while to adjust to. Then the timing over Christmas and New Years and holidays meant that I didn’t really get into the swing of midwife appointments until the last two months or so. I didn’t even have my glucose test for gestational diabetes until last week! We have been so busy with Mayana starting school and everything that the end of this pregnancy has really snuck up on us. Before we know it, we are going to be parents of three children. Wowzers!