still..... but not all that *still*

Spent half the afternoon weeping yesterday. In parts because I am so frickin uncomfortable, I mean soooo uncomfortable it makes me cry. I have lost my ribs, they just don't exist, instead I have actual pummelling of my heart. I also have (just let me moan for one minute ok, then I will stop - it's totally allowed when you are one week away from your due date), where was I, oh, also have incredible stretching muscle type pain at either side of my belly, low down just over the pubic bone. Like round ligament pain but worse so that I actually have to breathe through it like labour pain and lie down for half an hour. I just don't know how I could get any bigger than this. It is unreal. I am loving my baby being active and there, I am just soooo over being pregnant. I am not humble or gracious or a smiling Madonna any longer. I am not thrilled to pat my belly and sigh all happily any more. I am just hair pulling and screaming to go into labour. I am sure this is a stage I need to go through, so that I can surrender and be accepting all over again and approach labour more calmly.



Maybe I did before, I cannot remember. I can't remember anything actually, my mind has been erased of all things other than the incredible discomfort of being unable to walk. Or sit, or lie down, or have a bath... for any length of time. I am totally living in the now, and it's sort of tiring. I do not remember yesterday, or can see as far as tomorrow (where I still may be pregnant and not in labour). Imagine going overdue? Shudder. I would be living on nothing but pineapple, curry spices, long walks and be forcing my dh to bed. I'd really like this post to be different, to say how grateful I am, how serenely and peacefully I am approaching labour. And while I do have snippets of time when I feel that way, mostly I just am tired, and desperate to be on the other side of pregnancy. The notion of being able to roll over at night! To lie on my back or belly! Oh my. It's like a distant dream. Phone calls and comments from well wishes are all 'not long now!. Oh you are ready to pop! Are you ready? Do you have everything? Are you excited?' Really???? Really? I'd like to slam the phone down but decorum deems otherwise. Excited? Ready? So been there. Now I am just hungry for labour. One must smile and say all of the right things though... least you seem rottenly ungrateful for your blessed state.



And so I am considering this funky funk of physical intensity part of the build up to labour. Like the contractions that come daily now and with higher intensity, I am accepting that this is how it is for me right now. And it's ok to feel this way. because why torture myself mentally also? Last week I was all giddy with joy about labour, and excited when we set up the birth pool. Now I am just drooping and wilting and wanting to spend half the day in bed. I have read nearly an entire novel per day this last week. I have been downloading so many books on my dh's Kindle that he is sort of mad that he can't get to read his daily newspaper there. He bought me my own yesterday. I have never been interested in e-books before. But you can lie in bed, and with the touch of a button buy a book from amazon and be reading it 60 seconds later. It's sort of amazing. I have found a new way to be frugal and keep our house form accumulating hundreds more books :) Isn't that a good way to look at it?





I do like this funny sign though in my town ('the town of books' it calls it'self). Ho ho.



I am not totally irritated by people. I cannot believe the amazing kind and generous things I am hearing and receiving by post from on line friends. It is over whelming and sweet and just right. When people you don't *see* in your daily life can be so open and sweet it makes you feel better about the world in general I think. And linked to other people despite spending your days at home. I think I have found the 'friends' I know in my regular daily life to have vanished or at least have little interest in keeping much contact when I see them less regularly. It makes me sort of sad. I guess it takes time to build friendships, and effort to keep them going. So it's as much a failure on my part as anything. Pregnancy does keep me quieter anyway. And less involved. I think it's a physical inability to go places but also a sort of protecting of self from the things people speak about and their own issues and energies. Shrug. I suppose life ebbs and flows that way. Pregnancy makes me very family orientated, I see that. They literally become my pared back world.



Special, miraculous and utterly exhausting. Is where I am. Or maybe just that last bit. Really. I am hoping I can look back at this and laugh. Or at least feel huge quantities of empathy the next time I see a large and uncomfortable woman near labour. I will nod at her, yes. I know. And I won't say 'nearly there!' All upbeat with seven exclamation marks, no I will just nod and smile. And be glad I can move and skip and bend over to pick up a pen.



Random unrelated photos from the last few days. Showing that yes, I can still see beauty and other wonders of daily life. I thank the universe for my three children, who make me laugh. Every. Single. Day. They really do force you to stay sane.

38th week

I am still here and pregnant, 38 weeks at the weekend. I have been in such a dreamy faraway state of mind that I am unable to write. Or sound coherent. I remember this from previous pregnancies. Just feeling disconnected from the rest of the world, Olympics? Really? I didn't seem to notice..... The baby has been breech for most of the third trimester and just finally turned head-down last week after an acupuncture session. It is such a wriggler and mover this baby, but now head down and heavy-snug it seems to be resting mostly. I feel lumbering and clumsy and everything is such an effort! I get frustrated with myself for not being able to do the simple things I take for granted when not pregnant - like walk the dog, like bend down..... without superhuman effort and half a day of rest afterwards! I think these last weeks are more about keeping your spirits up and not feeling super useless all of the time. But I am cherishing each and every baby move and hiccup. I really am. And nesting like mad. We have painted the entire upstairs (and cleaned out/re-jigged) since June. It feels like good nesting. We moved my bed into a whole new place and it feels so good; sheltered and protected, before it was right in the line of the door, now it's tucked around a corner. It must be some feng shui thing I didn't know about. But which works! Our room is just say back together and I can't say how out of control everything feels and disorganised when your stuff is spread along the landing and in a bathroom and everything new-baby is dumped in a cardboard box. I literally keep sighing with relief now we are moved back in to our duck-egg blue room. I did all of the woodwork painting myself, and there was a lot. And it all dried super quick and matt, I can't praise this paint enough. Not a whiff of anything, no baddies. My dd has her little peachy painted nook. with a tiny bed and cupboard, but still spends about 1/4 of her nights in bed with me. It's a transition.







I am not nested-out yet even. Is it possible? The boys are away this whole long week (so much energy going into missing them!). So I have been cleaning and sorting their rooms (even though they were just painted and 'done' it's like they are hoarders of the worst sort, every scrap or paper, ticket, and lego model must not be dismantled. So really I am just cleaning around things and airing the beds. But it's enough.





So much talk of cleaning! ha. I would like to be more kitchen orientated and cook loads of freezer meals for later but I don't feel at all inspired to do that right now. Or finish knitting my dd's little hot pink cardigan. But again I don't feel inspired to knit right now. What I am liking doing it reading. Novel after novel. Playing with my dd, making hard little cookies, sucking on elderflower ice lollies (maybe my one true craving this pregnancy, I sat and ate an entire tray of ice cubes the other day, as my dentist can testify too after a chipped a tooth doing so). I read craving non food things like ice can signify a deficiency of some sort. The only thing I know I am deficient in is iron, but I cannot fathom where ice cubes fit into that!

wood delivered for my birthing room fire!




We tested out the birth pool and my dd had it kept up for several days as a den with blankets and cushions. We took it down reluctantly this morning because visitors arrive tomorrow for a day or two. Reluctant because I half hoped whilst it was up I would go into labour. I am so big! I am sure this baby is a good size already. I am hoping to labour quickly at night and not disturb any children. I just can't really get into labour with my children around. Tried it before and couldn't think of anything but them and how they would perceive it all... too much thinking! I really don't need more reasons to think in labour - it's a struggle enough to switch off. It worked last time, I am not a noise maker in labour so as long as I am not in the same room as them it should be ok. I finally spoke to my midwife about my fears regarding this baby. I sort of feel like maybe my luck has been used up. That I have had three healthy children already, surely it's too much to ask for a fourth? That I might birth a live healthy baby seems like a mountain of a thing and I have been secretly afraid of the outcome for such a long time. But it does seem morbid to say out loud - oh yes I am terribly afraid of my baby dying in labour. My midwife said she could not tell me how many women she has seen with multiple children who feel this way: that they feel they have used up their quota of goodness and luck regarding babies and birth outcome. I felt a whole lot better actually just voicing it, with or without any reply. She said it would be good to think of it a bit differently: that having had three healthy children I was more likely to have another, not less. I am not sure if that logic works but I am happy to accept it.



I really have not been drawn to online time, so please excuse any absence! I will def. post as soon as this baby decides to arrive. And I am so looking forward to doing so! Right now all I want to do is lie in bed and read. Every movement brings on contractions, prep ones, not The Real Thing. But tiring all the same. I am surely a rubbish mother right now as all I crave is quiet rest time. This does not knit well together with a 4, 9 and 11 year old. And a bouncy freak dog who wants a daily six hour walk. I can do about 6 minutes. Luckily Isaac is a good dog walker and The Man gets up early.



I totally hope my next post here is when I am 'on the other side' of pregnancy and birth. See? I am getting to that desperate bit where you know it's closer by the minute. Or hope.