Just waiting

I’m almost 39 weeks pregnant and so I’m officially in the ‘waiting’ phase. If you’d asked me three weeks ago if I thought I’d still be pregnant now I would have said no. At 35 weeks I had the bloody show/lost my mucus plug and baby’s head became engaged. At that point I was told by two midwives that baby would most likely arrive in the next two weeks. This resulted in a bit of a panic when the boy and I realised that we weren’t ready at all. Since then we’ve finished the nursery, packed our hospital bag, fitted the car seat and generally got prepared for our forthcoming arrival. But so far, no baby.

I feel like I’ve had all the signs that the baby will arrive imminently. Bloody show – check; head engaged – check; bump dropped – check; constant need to wee – check; loads of braxton hicks contractions (even when sitting / lying down) – check; loose bowels and increased discharge (sorry for TMI) -check. So for now I’m just waiting. I really, really don’t want to be induced so I hope that our baby makes an appearance in the next few weeks. However, today I have a horrid head cold and feel rubbish so I’d be happy for baby to stay inside for a few more days as I’d rather not labour whilst feeling like this!

I still don’t think it has sunk-in that we are actually going to have a baby but I think that’s because it’s impossible to imagine. From talking to friends I think this is quite normal so I’m just going with the flow and hoping that I’ll discover some inbuilt mummy skills once the baby arrives.

I’ve been trying to stay active and still walk the dogs twice every day (even though it’s now more of a slow waddle). I also go to two yoga classes each week and I’m listening to a natal hypnotherapy CD every few days. I don’t know if these things will help with labour but they are helping me to feel more in control and prepared so I’m going to keep it up as long as I can.

Fingers crossed in my next post I’ll be able to tell you about the safe arrival of our long awaited (lucky number 5) baby (just writing that still feels completely surreal)!