38 weeks, 4 days...

No 38 week belly picture yet! I just haven't got around to it, but hopefully I'll still get one taken before 39 weeks. Or maybe just do a 39 week one? It's so HOT and horrid and humid, and I know we're blessed because we have a plug-in A/C unit that lives in my bedroom (since the last time we had hot weather when Matthew was born!), but it's not cooling me down very much really. It's definitely better than the fan, but we don't have the A/C on at night because I don't like to have the window open with the hose hanging out at night (have a thing about spiders strolling in while I'm sleeping as my bed is against the wall under the window!), just the fan. It doesn't do a good job of cooling the rest of the house during the day, just the bedroom (which is all it's meant to do really, but anyway!) and I'm soooooo bad with hot or humid weather. It's so exhausting, and much more so when you're 9 months pregnant! Anyway, I am not actually wearing enough clothes in the evenings for a belly photo! ;) And feel too hot and tired to put more clothes on just for a photo, so that's partly why I haven't got one taken yet for 38 weeks. Tooooo hot!

It's Sunday evening and Neil took Friday off last week to make a long weekend for getting some serious "baby prep" done, but alas (as I so pessimistically predicted!) even with the extra day we've still accomplished next to NOTHING over the whole weekend, and it's stressing me out so much at the moment. The little boys take up basically all our energies and time, and there's just nothing left! :S But we HAVE to get things ready, and now the weekend is over once again - a long one at that! Aaargh! Neil is hoping his boss will let him take another day or so of holiday time at the end of this week or the beginning of next, but I don't know if I'll have that long or not, hence the stress-factor. I can't believe I can now say my due date is NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow.

Neil did bring down the newborn cloth nappies from the loft, and my birth ball, this weekend. I have sorted through the nappies today and decided which I want to keep down. I have to say, I don't plan on using cloth nappies for this baby, and Nathan only wore cloth nappies for the first couple of months. I can't believe how I've changed over the whole nappy thing, seriously! I was the biggest DIE HARD cloth nappy fan ever, before having babies! Arthur and Matthew only ever wore cloth, even from their very first nappy after birth. I REFUSED to put a single disposable on them, and never purchased any ever. When Nathan was born, they were both still totally un-potty-trained (we hadn't even started with Arthur), and my brother bought disposables for them and put them in them while Neil and I were in the hospital having Nathan. Then it was hard work keeping 3 in cloth nappies full-time when we came home, and the left-over disposables kept whispering to me from the corner, hehe! Neil finally decided we would put them in disposables during the day to make things easier, and cloth at night. It wasn't long before they were in disposables all the time, and then Arthur potty-trained himself, and Nathan started to wear disposables at night because we couldn't find any cloth ones he didn't wee through (which was the case with ALL of them as tiny babies, actually). He wore the newborn (size 0) and then size 1 cloth nappies, and that was it. Before he outgrew the size 1 nappies, he ended up in disposables full time. And I honestly can't believe I'm sitting here typing this, but I have never looked back. I don't miss a THING about cloth nappies! Well, you know, I miss that they're better for the boys than disposables, and I miss the variety and the cute-factor. But I LOVE the slimmer bums and the clothes they fit better, and the EASE, and the throwing-away-of-yucky-stuff. There were a couple of size XL fuzzi bunz in with the newborn nappies for some reason, and I randomly put one of them to my nose and RECOILED. I had forgotten about the stink issues we were having with the cloth nappies, even when clean. Urgh. I HEART not having to dispose of poo. I like not having to deal with boosters and wraps and foldy bits and elastic or velcro that is past its best, and cute fabric going annoyingly stiff or holey after a million washes.

I actually can NOT believe I'm even of this mindset, and I was so unhappy about switching to disposables when we did, but I honestly would not go back to cloth. I loved it at the time, and now I just DON'T like the idea at all. Even looking nostalgically through my nappy stash (which we still won't pass on till we're SURE we're not using them any more - you never know!) and fastening and unfastening my favourites (and there ARE some gorgeous nappies in there!), I still would rather use disposables. We use Tesco's own brand. At first we used the basic economy ones, because they were the cheapest and we had no income. And then we switched to the SuperFit ones that are still very cheap compared with name brands. The boys have no issues whatsoever, no nappy rashes, no discomfort. They don't sag, NEVER leak, and don't leave horrible gel balls on their bits (the basic economy ones DID though). They are soft and elastic and yes, papery and rustly in a not-so-lovely way, but very slim-fitting and barely noticable under clothing. I can't imagine choosing to put them in cloth, really! I'm sure some of my readers will be AGHAST because of my huge cloth addiction and desperation to convert everyone to cloth, in the past, haha! And because you might be a huge cloth nappy fan yourself and can't believe a long term cloth user would convert to disposables and never want to go back! ;) But there it is. I haven't written about that at my diaries in all this time because of how I felt somewhat sheepish about it! I don't want to put anyone OFF using cloth nappies - they're better for the baby, the environment, basically EVERYTHING. They're soft and gorgeous and incredibly cute, and you can find them in so many designs and varieties. The options are endless. They save you incredible amounts of money, are EASY to use and wash, and just make you feel good to use! :) But this clothie is an ex-clothie, folks. I'm happy with disposables, truly!

BUT! Tradition has it that my babies wear a size 0 Kissaluv (almost the cutest thing in existance) as the very first nappy they wear. And actually, I LOVE Kissaluvs. I would prefer to use those than disposables. They are soft, suuuuper-cute, so easy to use, tiny and slim-fitting on a teeny tiny new baby, and do a marvellous job with the meconium and newborn poo. The meconium washes out in a flash with no staining, although there is still some yellow staining in mine from the later breastmilk poo that I should try to sun out while it's hot and sunny! They need a wrap over them, and I like Proraps (I have 4) and Bummis Super Whisper Wraps (I have 2 in newborn size). Arthur never fitted the Proraps well due to his chunky shape, but Matthew and Nathan did, and I think Benjamin will too. I have 12 size 0 Kissaluvs. I also have various homemade wraps that I found better than the ones I bought, for the early weeks. And some homemade soft soft soft towelling "outer" and microfleece "inner" nappes that fit a new baby beautifully. And a few Very Baby homemade nappies, and some newborn Honeyboys. Oh, and 4x XS Fuzzi Bunz! So, I'm washing all of those to use on Benjamin when he's born. It will take him (in my experience!) about a week or less to pee through those in one single urination once my milk really gets going, and after that I will probably switch him to disposables. It has always been a real issue finding things that my baby boys won't wee through within an hour or so, especially at night! I THINK it has to do with oversupply (milk-wise, that is), because I just haven't had any "light wetters" and it always co-incides with the huge increase in milk at a certain point. Nathan did wet through disposables at night occasionally, in the early months, until we figured that going up a size was in order at that time! That helped. Anyway, that is the plan!

I'm excited to use cloth nappies on Benjamin to start with, because I love the teeny tiny cute nappies, and most of all I love carrying on the tradition and seeing my new little boy person in the same nappies that his brothers have worn before him! I don't mind doing nappy washes frequently either, at all. But I'm looking forward to disposables too, because they're so easy and help soooo much with the wetting-through issue, which we've found really trying in the past. I know there are some ever-so-cute outfits that he won't fit well while he's in cloth nappies, and that's another reason that I'm looking forward to when he's in disposables because he can wear them comfortably then! :)

So I'm glad Neil got the cloth nappies down, and have had a LOVELY time stroking and folding them, and sorting them ready for the wash! I'll wash them tomorrow and put them away ready for Benjamin! I also have 2 packs of 24 newborn disposables ready for him too, one of which is in the hospital bag.

My birth ball is down, yay! BUT, I can't find the little piece that stops up the hole! Oops! So it's basically unusable! :( I hope I can find it yet. I really feel like sitting and rocking on it lately. It's so hard to get comfortable now, whatever I'm doing, even sitting or resting or lying down. My pelvis hurts (STILL no pubic bone pain this pregnancy!!! How awesome!!!) at the back and in my hips and my actual bump hurts easily too depending on the position I try to rest in.

I had my 38 week midwife appointment at home on Thursday. It went fine. I had met the midwife once before (there are 10 on the team and I have not met all of them yet) and she's lovely. The boys were all around us but I put something on TV for them to watch to try and distract them a bit while the midwife was here! They just talk incessantly to whoever is visiting and I literally cannot get a word in edgeways! Which is okay, but not when it's an appointment and the focus is me and the baby, and I NEED to talk to the midwife, or her to me! So, the TV. It kept Matthew fairly distracted, but Arthur just chatted away all the same to the midwife. She sat down next to him and opened my notes, and there was a moment of silence, and then Arthur said, "Do YOU believe in Jesus?" and just waited for her response! Hehehe! She said, "Actually yes, I do believe in Jesus!" :) He said, "My mum's mummy and daddy who are called Nana and Grandy and live in France, THEY don't believe in Jesus." and looked very serious, holding eye contact with her. She said, "Oh." and he gave her a moment more and then turned back to the TV, just like that! He's so funny :) He chatted about all sorts after that and generally wanted to know everything about what she was doing or saying, as always!

My blood pressure was 118/70 - fine for me. I was careful to provide a "clean" urine sample this time and not just on a stick! I wanted to see for sure if there were any leukocytes this time (there were the last 2 times) or whether it was just contamination. So I was careful to do a proper mid-stream sample, and it was clean as a whistle! Yay! Nothing at all, no sugar, protein, blood, leukocytes, nothing! :) So that made me feel better! Benjamin was wiggly again, though he's definitely running out of space in there. His heartrate was good and strong, and she put his head as 4/5 palpable again. She said he's definitely not "free" as she can't wiggle his head, and that's what I've been finding when I check him. But he hasn't engaged like I wondered. He is also still high and free in the mornings when I wake up - I can wiggle his head about freely above my pelvis then! I have no idea when he'll finally engage. Maybe not till labour is underway like they say?

My Bartholin's Cyst is still there, urgh. I googled it and feel more reassured about it. It's not an abcess because it isn't painful as such. I'm a little uneasy about the fact that I have Group B Strep present there, for when it does pop during delivery, as I don't want a GBS infection there, and I think there will be a little risk of that. If it doesn't pop during delivery (and I don't need stitches, in which case they'll apparently have to pop it then anyway), I think I will have to get the doctor to pop it at my 6-week postnatal check. I read that they can stay for ages and ages, though they're harmless, and I know from checking mine that there will be no possibility of uhm, conceiving another baby, shall we say (!), unless the cyst is taken care of. I wish it would go away!! So annoying that it's there at all. But oh well.

Talking of the Group B Strep situation, I have actually made a decision at last. I prayed before I went to bed last Tuesday about it, and felt like I need to trust God and not be anxious. In the morning when I woke up, I did not see a reason why I should not pray that God would protect Benjamin from GBS and go ahead with a natural homebirth, and trust God to protect my baby. I got too nervous about having antibiotics at home because of the slight risk of anaphylactic shock (1 in 10000, basically the same risk of GBS to the baby in the first place! A tiny risk - it's higher in the States, for some reason, but that is the statistic for the UK), so I didn't want to do that option any more. That left choosing a hospital birth with antibiotics, or a homebirth without. I researched carefully, and found significant enough risk factors to both myself and Benjamin if I DID have antibiotics. The deaths associated with antibiotics actually balance out the deaths associated with GBS (in the UK), and so I have chosen to decline antibiotics and have a homebirth, if all goes well. I phoned the midwives that very morning and informed them of my decision, and then texted the doula to tell her the same. She's obviously super supportive. The midwife on the phone asked me which senior midwife I had spoken to, to clear this with. I said I hadn't, and that this was my decision. So, she said she would let everyone know. And that is that!

NOW I feel better, because it felt like I was going to have trouble choosing a homebirth at the last minute if I hadn't "prepared" everyone for one beforehand. Whereas I can choose to have a hospital birth at any point from here on. Which I still might, depending on how things go. If my waters break before labour starts, I think I will be highly likely to feel like heading for the hospital for my antibiotics and labour and birth. Otherwise I will see how things go. If I get a fever during labour, or if my waters do break early-ish in the whole process, I will feel uneasy about staying at home, and probably choose to go in (for definite if I get a fever). I'm praying that my waters will not break till he is being born, like with Matthew, and that the labour itself is quick and doesn't drag on. The midwife who came on Thursday knew of my decision and told me I will have to monitor the baby's condition for 48 hours after his birth, like they would do in hospital if I hadn't had antibiotics. I have to check his temperature, respiration, tone and heartrate every 2 hours. I think that will make me a bag of nerves and interfere with me enjoying him and getting the rest I need, which is a bit of a problem, but Heather (my doula) told me I should pray about the anxiety and trust God, and that if the midwives tell me about that again, I should ask them not to discuss it with me any more, because I know what to do now (they've already told me) and discussing it further is just making me anxious. I don't want to feel that I'm making a dangerous decision for Benjamin and then just hoping God will bail me out! I want to feel that I am putting Benjamin in God's very capable hands, and asking him to keep Benjamin utterly safe from even picking up GBS on his way out (let alone developing GBS disease) and then TRUSTING HIM in faith.

The Group B Strep Support website says this:

"About half of the babies born to mothers colonised with GBS at the time of delivery will become colonised themselves and, of these, only around 1 in 200 will develop GBS disease, even without any preventative medicine during labour. Carrying GBS during labour and delivery does not mean necessarily that you or your baby will become ill."

There is still part of me that's anxious about choosing not to have antibiotics, and if I take my eyes off God on this one, that's where I go, and start to think I ought to opt for the hospital birth and antibiotics. So sometimes I still don't know what to do! As far as the midwives are concerned, I am set on a homebirth. I don't plan to tell them I'm wavering and haven't really finished deciding yet! ;) It's just so much easier to have a BOOKED homebirth and to decide to change my mind at the last minute than the other way around. One of the biggest reasons for having a homebirth is still the boys. Neil and I keep discussing it and just can NOT see a way around the childcare issue. Even now that we have a doula. Unless Neil misses the birth completely. Which we don't want! Even if he does, the boys likely won't do well with me gone for a couple of days and nights, and for Nathan it could make the difference between him accepting his new baby brother or not, which is a major consideration for me. It's a very high priority to me, to have the boys ease into this transition well, and a homebirth will totally facilitate that, whereas a hospital birth will NOT, seriously. Also, I don't want to have to "come home" - it's so exhausting and such an "occasion" in a way that I don't like, it's so unhelpful! I will get no rest in hospital and the effect of that carries on for WEEKS once I'm home. There are so so many reasons to stay at home, and also reasons why a hospital birth will cause us undue problems and inconveniences as we try to adjust as a family - each one of us. So I really want to stay at home. But I will go into hospital in a heartbeat if I have any concerns over Benjamin's safety, or if I just change my mind about the whole thing, I suppose. If it weren't for the boys at home, I would probably not be concerned about going into hospital to give birth at all. But I'd rather be at home, and the fact that we DO have the boys at home makes an enormous difference, one that we can't resolve at all in terms of having someone to look after them, and their stress over not having Mummy and Daddy around.

Anyway. I'm back to wavering now that I've written all this! Urrrgh.

I have my 39-week appointment on Thursday this week. The midwife yet again said it would be at the clinic, and I (yet again) had to ask her if it was possible for it to be a home visit, and then get asked why! Tsk! Each time (only in the last month though - I went to clinic before then!) I tell them that it's so much easier for me if it's a home visit (duh!) because I have to bring all three of my under-5-year-olds with me and if I go out with them at ALL these days, I find it exhausting and just basically totally traumatic (they are not well behaved, sadly), and feel ILL for the rest of the day. Hello?! I am 38 weeks pregnant and huge, with 3 very small (and somewhat unruly) children. Isn't it obvious that they shouldn't really be suggesting I haul all of our butts to the clinic every week?! So, she booked me for a home visit, thankfully! She wrote in my notes though, that I said I was unable to go to the clinic, as though that was a bit off of me, tsk! She said that she couldn't tell me what time of day a midwife might come to do the appointment, because it depended on their postnatal visits. I feel like she was being a bit unnecessarily something-or-other with me, just to make a point. They've always managed to give me a time before now for home visits, and actually that's a bit off to say that they can't tell me what time of day they'll come anyway! It's not true for a start. Tsk. I felt like she was subtley saying, "Well, if you're going to be that difficult, you'll have to put up with the consequences - we can't be arranging ourselves around one pregnant woman who can't be bothered to get to clinic! It's inconvenient to US!" I didn't like that. But I just said, "It doesn't matter to me what time - like I said, I don't go out with the children any more because I feel ill for the rest of the day if I do. So I'll be home all day anyway. It's just nice to have a home visit!" and left it at that. But it bugged me.

I had a good chat with Heather on the phone this weekend and she's going to come round on Thursday at 1pm just to chat for a bit and see me and the boys. She knows we won't get much chatting done with the boys around, so we talked on the phone about any anxieties I have and things with the midwife and so on. Arthur has still been saying he doesn't want to hear my "fuss" when Benjamin is born, and I told Heather about this. She suggested I pray with him, and so I did, last night before bed! We talked for a while about it, and then I prayed with him that he wouldn't be anxious, and that baby Benjamin would be born at night-time and the boys would all sleep right through it, whatever noise I ended up making, and not be worried. I said he could pray too if he wanted to, but he said not. Then he changed his mind and closed his eyes and prayed, "Lord, I just want to pray that baby Benjamin will be born at night and we won't hear Mummy's fuss. And please don't let Mummy have bleeding and don't let Babydot die. Amen." Aw :) He was asking recently about "Babydot" dying, because he remembered it from early in my pregnancy, when I was bleeding and told him that Babydot had died (I was so sure he had!). He said he didn't want Babydot to die, and I said he was big and strong now, and would be born very soon and was not likely to die. He asked me what made me think that Babydot had died all that time ago, and he wasn't satisfied with my previous answer at the time of the bleeding, which was that I felt that "God had shown Mummy" that Babydot had died. So this time I told him that Mummy had some bleeding and that usually means that the baby has died, so that's why I thought it. But the bleeding went away and we had a special scan and it showed that Babydot HADN'T died at all, and now he's nearly ready to be born! :) So I guess that's where his prayer came from. Yesterday I found that children's story about home births called "Hello Baby" (can't remember the author) that I bought when Matthew was on the way, and read it with the two older boys. They loved it, and both gasped in amazement when I turned to the page where there's an illustration of the baby being born. They were both pointing at the baby's little head and saying, "Look! Look!" like it was the most amazing thing - which of course it IS! :) I managed to read it all without choking up toooo much, hehe! I can never read that aloud without having to control a wobble in my voice, I find it so moving and lovely! So that's good, and I'll read that with them plenty more times over the next week. It's helpful because it talks in a very relaxed manner about the mother making lots of noise, and how normal it is, and how the children present were not anxious about it at all.

Okay, it's getting late and I have been so tired lately, so I MUST go to bed! Neil is back at work tomorrow. He's hoping to get Friday off again and maaaaybe Thursday (I'm so hoping!!!). Tomorrow evening he is going to take some of the boxes cluttering the bedroom over to his brother's to store in his garage for a while, and that will help (my stress levels!) a lot. I bought a good quality futon mattress for Neil to use while he's temporarily in the boys' bedroom, so we can get rid of the huge mattress permanently on the floor in there, filling the room. The futon will be rolled up every day and just stored under the bunk bed ladder, which is soooo much better. Also I think a futon will be endlessly useful for many many years to come, in all sorts of situations. I bought a narrow single, so it's even more versatile, and I bought and washed sheets for it recently, so it will be all ready for him tomorrow night! :) The boys are still somewhat wakeful at night and it's much easier to have one of us in there to settle them right now. Neil will stay in there to get the best night's sleep that he can after Benjamin is born, at least until Benjamin is past night-time nappy changes and the boys are sleeping through his crying at night too.

I have felt really weird and "jangly" this evening, like underneath my skin is itching all over, but not an ACTUAL physical itch. I just feel restless and uncomfortable, and like I can't settle mentally or physically to anything. Heather printed and laminated some prayers and declarations from the Supernatural Childbirth book (and some that we wrote specifically about me and about Benjamin), which I have stuck to the side of my chest of drawers by my bed, and also our prayer list (for the various things I am asking of God for the birth, like no tearing, less pain, more control and slowness in the second stage, boys not being afraid of my noise, etc, etc - it's a long list!). I pray those out loud every night before I go to sleep, and again in the morning when I wake up. There's a specific one about anxiety and fear, and physical tension, and that is one I seem to need ALL the time lately, but it helps SOOOOO much to pray it out loud. I feel very different after praying it. If I am ever in the bedroom during the day and lie down on the bed for a few minutes (sometimes I am starting to do this right after putting Nathan down for a nap, before going back down to the other boys), I pray them then too. It's really helping me, and it keeps me focused on God and not my anxieties, which is the best thing.

Okay, I could write a ton more about physical this-and-that, but it's too late to continue now, and this is long enough! I do not have any signs of impending labour so far, suffice to say! ;) Braxton Hicks are strong and sometimes frequent, sometimes not. Benjamin still gets hiccups (he has just started some as I write this actually!) but not as frequently as he used to - maybe only a couple of times a day now. He now weighs over 7lbs (!!!) and is at least 19.5 inches long - about time to be born, don't you think?! I am eager to meet him but recently have started feeling this weird ambivalence, where I suddenly don't want things to change around here, because it feels hard enough as it is! :S I know that's a normal way to feel though.

I am not losing my mucus plug as such, but I have a lot more mucus-plug-type CM this past week, sometimes quite a lot, and sometimes just the usual amount. So I guess things are vaguely beginning to gear up. I am probably at least 2cm dilated already anyway (since I was a good 1-2 when I checked at 34 weeks) so that's not too surprising.

That is all! Except that I love feeling baby hiccups and will miss them ever so much in a few short weeks! :( Benjamin's pushes and shovings when he moves his legs "assertively" are really starting to hurt me now, and the same when he turns his head. I'm getting eager to hold those little feet in my hands as they push about, instead of having a slight panic about how there's surely no way the amniotic sac can hold up much longer with the kind of strong pushing and shoving he's doing in there, and then what will I do?! That sort of thing! ;) Not long now!

38 weeks tomorrow - yikes!!

I really have NO time to update, but felt I must all the same!

I am 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow, it is just unbelieveable!! Just two weeks till my due date. Fourteen days. Sooooo little time, and we're SO NOT READY!!!! Aaaargh!

I had a midwife appointment last week at 37 weeks and 2 days which went well. The midwife was one I hadn't met yet, and turned out to be someone from my brother's class at infants' school!! I recognised her name and asked her, and once she was told my maiden name, she knew I was "Bennie's sister", hehe! How funny! She's ever so nice and SUCH a competent midwife! I feel quite proud of her, in an odd way!

Anyway, my blood pressure was fine and lowish, which is normal for me. I had two + of leukocytes in my urine which I actually had at the consultant appointment the previous Friday as well, hmmm. Unfortunately I peed directly on the stick for the midwife so she didn't have a sample to send away for testing. I have no particular symptoms of a bladder infection so I'm hoping it's nothing, or just contamination. I have a lot more CM lately, a LOT more, so I guess it could be. I have no protein, blood, or sugar though, which is good! :)

Baby Benjamin Bean was wiggly and active, with a good healthy heartrate. She said he felt somewhat posterior because most of his limbs were facing my tummy, but she could feel part of his back so he's not totally back-to-back. Also she recorded his head as 4/5 palpable again. I am just not settled with the idea of him floating freely so high up out of my pelvis all the time at this stage, so I am glad that at least the TIP of his head wasn't palpable due to it being in my pelvis! ;)

The midwife talked to me a little about the Group B Strep thing, and said they would presume I will be going into hospital to the midwife-led unit to give birth, UNLESS I phone them to tell them I have definitely decided to have a homebirth. She was so nice. She said obviously it's what they must recommend, but they'll support me in whatever decision I make.

And I just can't make it!!! Aaaaargh! I still can't decide, and time is ticking by. I feel a bit frantic about it, to be honest, but I seem to be having a time of feeling anxious and a bit frantic and unsettled and vulnerable at the moment, which is not so fun. I just don't feel comfortable at all with being this pregnant, or with labour around the corner, or anything. I feel quite anxious about the whole thing, and don't know how to calm myself down. It bothers me at night and during the day, and I'm just NOT looking forward to going into labour, and feeling fidgetty about when that might be. Which isn't like me really, when it comes to getting ready for my babies to be born. But yeah. I'm praying such a lot about it, but I guess even that is in a sort of anxious and frantic way, and I am really not feeling God's presence or hearing his voice when I pray, which is making for yet more flappery! *sigh* I need to just have some peace, and I can't seem to find it.

The boys are extremeably difficult at the moment, and very exhausting, and the house is in a DREADFUL state, and the to-do list is so long and so very UN-checked-off, and we just have no time left to do it! Weekends melt away into nothingness, in a blur of noise and stress and exhaustion re. the small boys we are responsible for (!!), and we just have nothing left to DO anything in preparation! I stayed up late on Sunday night getting as much sorting and packing done in my bedroom as I could, to make it a little bit clearer for potentially giving birth in, and for bringing Benjamin home to otherwise, but I felt really ill afterwards and got overheated and nauseous, and have been so exhausted since. And it's still not in ANY sort of state for the whole giving birth/bringing a baby home to thing!!! It's stressing me out.

I keep thinking this next weekend coming up might be our LAST one to prepare, and we just can't seem to get things done, such is the demand on our time and energy from the little ones, and my need to REST when I have somebody else available to watch the boys. I'm so very very exhausted all the time lately. I spend quite a bit of time just flaked out on the sofa while the boys play or watch a movie, or play in the garden even, and my eyes just won't stay open. I have to get up or snap out of it VERY frequently (like every 30 seconds sometimes) to settle disputes or discipline somebody for behaviour that is just WAY out of line. They are so very trying at the moment, and I just feel too exhausted to deal with it most of the time. I worry a bit about how on earth to cope if it continues (as it's sure to, really) after Benjamin's arrival when my exhaustion will take on a whooooole new depth and consistency! ;) And I'll have the hormones on top, and I just worry about postnatal depression, since I have a little history. I can't fathom how to cope with the way they're behaving lately, and recovering from birth, sleep deprivation, and hormones on top :S It is making me anxious.

I'm also worried I will not have the energy I need for actual labouring and giving birth at this rate! Urgh.

So much to stress over. I'm trying not to but it's just defeating me lately, for some reason.

This morning when I woke up, I did what I usually do and checked Benjamin's position, lying on my back. I can always feel his head VERY high in the morning, usually even above hip level sometimes!!! He's always higher in the morning after a night of lying in bed, than after I've got up for the day. THIS morning I could not feel the tip of his head - I would say he was 4/5 palpable like when the midwife felt his position last week, but that surprised me given that it was first thing after a night's sleep. So I was telling Neil about that this evening and right then and there decided to lie down on the sofa and check where his head is now. I can feel his back to my right side, and a knee sticking out at the front on my left, so I guess he's lateral rather than posterior right now (lying with his back to my side, not his back to my back). But, I could not feel his head for a good while. At all! I started to wonder if he had somehow flipped around, but it was definitely his bottom at the top, so I felt a little more deeply like the midwives tend to (uncomfortable!). I think I can feel a bit of a little hard head very low, but there's no roundness to it, and I can only feel like a couple of cm at best before I can't prod any further into my pelvis. Sooooo, I wondered aloud (in disbelief!) if maybe he has gone down into my pelvis today or something. Neil asked me to stand up and said that my belly DOES look different, like it's smaller or something. I don't have a full-length mirror to look in any more because we took down ours when we moved furniture recently, in case the boys pulled it off the wall and got injured. So I can't really say. I will check upstairs in the mirror when I go to bed - I can see my bump better in that one. And I'll check where his head is again in the morning.

But it makes me NERVOUS if he's suddenly engaged at last! When I would only ever have been EXCITED about that in the past. I'm nervous. Because it means things are moving along, and he's getting ready to be born. I was an easy 1-2cm at 35 weeks when I checked, and my cervix was soft and stretchy, with no hint of a head anywhere near it. With his head on that kind of a cervix, I could get dilating and effacing pretty quickly, who knows! I'm not checking my cervix again, much as I'm curious, because I don't want to risk introducing GBS to my cervix or uterus.

Anyway. Benjamin should be getting on for 7lbs in weight around now! Or between 6.5lbs and 7lbs anyway, but probably nearer 7lbs if he is like 2 out of his 3 brothers! ;) Neil got down the boxes of baby clothes from the loft, and we found the hooded towels and grobags and terry towels, which was a BIG relief to my type-A self to get sorted! I have been going through the clothes (sooooo tiny and cute!!!!) and sorting them since the weekend. We have way too many so I'm giving the few I can part with away, and have put all the wintery clothes back in the boxes to be stored away. There's no point in those in July! ;) The rest I have washed (all but a few that are waiting for a dark wash) and dried and folded. I picked the sleepsuits and hats for the "labour" bag, and I've put some of the rest away but there isn't enough storage space for Benjamin's clothes yet, as we haven't put into place the storage that we planned yet. Another thing I MUST get done before he arrives, and can't see a way to do it in time!!

I washed all the terries (more than 2 dozen!) which we use as burp cloths. We quickly discovered that our babies bring up WAY more milk than can be dealt with using a flimsy little muslin cloth! ;) Terries are GREAT, and I seem to recall we easily go through a dozen just in one evening and night together, never mind the day time, in the first 5 or 6 months! Anyway, so those are washed and dried and piled in the bedroom. Grobags are also washed and ready, because that's apparantly the easiest thing to use with the Amby Hammock, though I'm not sure if we'll just use little sheets and blankets well tucked-in instead. We'll see. It might be too warm for either of those things too.

I packed my "hospital bag" which I prefer to call the labour bag in case I'm actually not going to hospital at all! ;) I did some of it on Sunday, and a little more on Monday. I have almost everything in it that I need, except for things we're still using like mobile phone, money, camera, etc. And I haven't packed any snacks or drinks, or any clothes for Benjamin yet. I have packed disposable nappies, but I want Neil to get the newborn cloth nappies down from the loft (if he can find them!) too. I have picked out some of the clothes to pack for the baby, but haven't actually packed them in the bag yet. I've checked my TENS machine and put new batteries in, and packed that! And all the toiletries and clothes for me, etc. Which is another big relief to have done! If I have a homebirth, the bag will be just as useful because Neil or Heather can just go and get whatever I need and find it all in one place, ready. So I always have a bag packed even if I have a homebirth planned. If I end up having to transfer then it's ready to go with us, with everything I need as well. So I'm glad to have that nearly complete too!

I weighed myself at 37 weeks and I weighed 11 stone and 13lbs which surprised me. That puts my total weight gain at about 42lbs, give or take a lb, for 37 weeks. I usually gain 55lbs (give or take a lb, but that's all!) by the time I give birth, so I think this is less than usual for me. Of course, I did have the 5 days of diarrhoea and didn't eat much in that time, so maybe it's just that I haven't picked up what I lost yet from that? Or maybe I will have 3 weeks of heavy weight gain to come?! ;) Anyway, I feel happy about the fact that I haven't gained as much. 42lbs is still plenty, but I never felt comfortable about getting near 13 stone by the end of pregnancy. It's waaaaay too heavy for my frame and I struggle with it physically. I've done 12 stone before and that's much more manageable I think! Still heavy for my frame, but better! I reckon I'll get to 50lbs total weight-gain though, unless Benjamin comes soon.

Neil and I did pray about when Benjamin might be born. As we started to pray I felt absolutely convinced about the date, June 30th, which surprised me. I prayed that if that was of God, he will give me clear confirmation, because otherwise I could so easily have manufactured that in my own thoughts and I really don't know if it's true or not. It surprised me because I'd be 38 weeks and 6 days on June 30th, and that's not my usual time to go into labour. We've had no confirmation of it since, so I'm not hanging onto that at all, but we are keeping the date in mind and trying to make sure we're more ready by then! June 30th is NEXT TUESDAY people!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaargh!!!!! Even if he doesn't come till my due date or thereafter, that's still only THE WEEK AFTER NEXT!!!!!! Yipes! I feel so unprepared, and so not ready, and so weirdly anxious about the first sensation that my body is contracting and going into labour. I feel a sense of dread about the whole process of labouring and the PAIN and the anxiety and so on. I wish I could shake it. It's so not like me really, and it feels such a shame that I'm now feeling this way about labour and birth towards the end of my pregnancy, when I never used to feel that way in previous pregnancies. I so want to be FRIENDS with labour and birth, and look forward to it excitedly like I used to.

Anyway. This has turned into the usual long waffle (quelle surprise!), so I must go to bed now! I need to get a belly picture tomorrow for 38 weeks - I still can't believe I've reached 38 weeks!!! That's sooooooooo pregnant! ;)

What else, just before I go?? I have no new stretch marks. My front-of-bump ones from Matthew are stretched to the max or near enough, as they were with Nathan. My hip and side ones from Arthur are really not looking much stretched out at all, weirdly. That was the same last time too, with Nathan. I have a few behind my thighs just above my knees (so pretty), but those are not stretched out either, which is good! It's mostly the front of my bump that is stretched this time, like the last 2 pregnancies. Hopefully I won't get any new ones! This boy is bigger already than the last little person to occupy my womb!

I told Arthur that Benjamin can hear his voice through my tummy and will recognise his voice after he's born. Arthur looked delighted and has been talking to Benjamin an inch or so from my bump ever since! He talks A LOT and is doing no less for Benjamin! ;) Tonight at bedtime he told Benjamin that we've got a car seat for him that's going in the aqua C8 car, and that the weather is hot but we've got an air conditioner that will keep him cool, but that he hopes Benjamin likes being warm better than being cold, because he likes that and he wants Benjamin to be like him :) He went on for ages about all manner of random stuff until I had to actually interrupt and tell him it was time for sleep! He's so sweet. He loves his little brothers. He said that he thinks Benjamin will be like Nathan to him, which I presume to mean that he'll be a little brother that Arthur loves and wants to look after and "squidge" (cuddle!) a lot, and talk to. He is so very sweet towards Nathan and loves to cuddle him even when Nathan is feeling way too active for a cuddle! He's excited about Benjamin's arrival, and asks often when he's coming - will he come this week?!?! Today?!?! Tomorrow?!?! Etc! ;)

Matthew pronounces Benjamin's name differently all the time, as though he's trying to get to grips with it. It has been Beh-min, Beh-ma-mim, and Beh-jim-jim recently! I guess it's more of a mouthful than the two-syllabled names we've had so far for our children! He seems less clear about Benjamin, in terms of understanding that he's in there and he'll be here soon, and when he's coming, etc. I hope he'll be okay. He was FINE with Nathan's arrival, absolutely wonderful. But so was Arthur when Matthew was born, and yet Arthur had difficulties when Nathan arrived. So Matthew may be that way now that it's his turn to be 3 and have a new sibling! It's so easy when they're still one and become a big brother, seriously. I think Nathan will be fine, and have high hopes for Arthur now he's older than 4 and a half, but I have some nagging worries about little Matthew-Binks. I hope all will go well!

Okay, that's definitely all! I will update again soon. I have a midwife appointment on Thursday (at home, phew!) at 38w1d, and no plans to meet up with my doula again yet, but we should be arranging that soon or at least talking on the phone to discuss stuff. I NEED TO DECIDE on the whole antibiotics/birthplace thing!!! I have read a very interesting and well-researched article that Heather gave me when she came round, that has got me thinking I might actually refuse antibiotics altogether and just stay at home and give birth, and watch for other risk factors on the way (like fever during labour). I don't know. I wish I could decide CLEARLY and have peace about it!!! I'm running out of time! :S

Will update soon, and add a belly photo when I get one done!

36 weeks, 6 days - full-term tomorrow!!

Nearly there, nearly there, nearly there!!!! It's getting so exciting! I mean, there are still weeks till my due date, and let's face it, I'm likely to go beyond that, but STILL! Tomorrow I reach full-term - my little man is fully cooked! ;) It amazes me that I'm at this stage of pregnancy already!

I'm naughtily updating here while the boys are playing trains in the other room and Nathan naps (or makes growling noises in his cot and has hiccups, instead of actually napping as yet!), when normally I have a rule that I don't even switch the laptop on during the day when the boys are up. They are playing really happily and I'm at the kitchen table so it's okay for now, but I think I will have to go all of a sudden at some point soon. Thankfully Blogger will save this as I go along and I'll be able to just pick it up later.

I keep wanting to update but not having the chance, and tonight Heather (my doula) is coming round to chat and pray for me, after the boys are asleep, so I won't get chance to update tonight I don't think. We usually chat for a couple of hours so then I'll be tired out and ready for bed!

I'm so tiiiiiired lately! My night sleep isn't too bad, about 5 or 6 or so hours with a couple of wakings. That sounds pretty bad now that I read it back, haha! But it has been the norm for such a long time with little ones who only start to sleep through just before another baby is born. The boys are all fully adjusted to sleeping together in their shared bedroom, and Neil is still in there for now too. This means if any of them wake in the night, he deals with them. This is just the way it works best for us, having babies frequently and lots of little ones close together who still wake now and then at night. Neil sleeps with them, and attends to their needs, and I do all the night-wakings with the tiny baby due to having the appropriate equipment! ;) I will get waaaay too little sleep in a short while, so I'm hoping to sleep better for these last few weeks to prepare. I have to get up to go to the loo a couple of times each night so it's not the unbroken night's sleep I've been longing for since before having children!! But it works. And my body is used to it, for better or worse.

So my appointment at the hospital antenatal clinic on Friday went okay. I didn't see a consultant after all, but a very nice registrar and an even more junior doctor who took all my basic stats and so on before the reg saw me. She was very nice too. They kept saying how lovely it was to see someone who is actually HAPPY to be pregnant at that clinic! The registrar said that every pregnant woman who goes there moans, complains or cries about being pregnant, and wants them to do something about it!! Yikes! I suppose it's a clinic for pregnant women who have some sort of reason to be there, like, not a normal antental check-up clinic, so that makes a difference. But still, I found that really sad. They asked how many babies I was going to have, and I said as many as my husband will let me, hehe! I'm quite serious, as you know! I told them I love being pregnant - it's fantastic! I'm blessed to have pretty straight-forward pregnancies though, just the usual morning sickness and the annoyance of bleeding, but that's it really. This particular pregnancy has been the smoothest so far out of all of them I think, and that's a lovely blessing! I know women who have found their 4th pregnancies really hard on their bodies, and I'm relieved to have found that's not the case for me. And surprised that it has been easier than pregnancies 1, 2 and 3 when it seemed likely that it would become more tiring or difficult the more times my body had been through it already!

So anyway, the appointment. Well, they wouldn't even look at the cyst. They asked me where it was and when I told them, they said, "Oh, we wouldn't touch that now! It will probably pop during delivery." And that was that! Oh well. It's uncomfy but not too bad. I really really really hope it just shrinks and goes away all by itself in the meantime. If I have GBS that I'm wondering if a popped cyst will have a tendency to get a GBS infection and cause me much more bother...

Re. the homebirth thing, the doctor asked me where I was having my baby. I said I was planning a homebirth, but that I was waiting on my GBS status. She said she would look it up right away, although I had only had it done a couple of days before and it takes a week for the results to come through. On the hospital computer it had a record of the test but nothing written by it. So she said maybe that meant it was negative. Oh how I hoped she was right! She said just to be sure, she would call the lab right then and there, and find out. When she did, they had to go and look it up because they hadn't realised I was pregnant (?!) and they don't automatically put GBS status on a lab report unless the patient is pregnant (can't think why not though?!). Anyway there was a pause while I waited with baited (hopeful!) breath, and then the doctor who had the phone to her ear said, "Ohh, she IS GBS positive...." Bummer. So, I am, and there it is. I got my private swabs in the post, ironically when I returned from my appointment! But I'm not sure about using them now because an NHS positive result is 84% accurate for GBS status at the birth, and the private tests are 87% accurate if positive. So it won't make much difference and I would have to pay for the private test of course.

The doctor was so nice and business-like that I'm not really sure what happened next! She put the phone down, and said, "I'm sorry sweetheart. Come and have your baby in the midwife-led unit here - we're all very nice!" and I said, "Um, okay!" (without really thinking about it) and she quickly wrote in my notes "Will have hospital birth" and smiled and said nice things about my attitude to pregnancy, and showed me out the door! I was left kind of reeling in the waiting room, lol! I was a bit deflated about it to be honest, and the rest of that day I couldn't get my head to think about what to do, or what I felt, or what I wanted. I did re-read the entire GBS Suppport website again (link last entry) that afternoon while the boys played and Nathan napped. I would have waited till evening but it was really distracting me and I thought it would be good to do some reading on the stats and outcomes and risks and treatments, and so on and so on, just to get them fresh in my head with the new perspective (the fact that I definitely am carrying GBS). It was helpful, I think.

I did come to the conclusion that however tiny the risk to Benjamin, I would not cope well if he turned out to be that one baby who DID develop GBS disease and die from it. Even if he developed it and made a full recovery, I would still struggle with that reality probably for ever, because I knew about my status and chose not to protect him. So that made me realise that I do need to do what I can to protect him - that has to be my personal choice.

That means a hospital birth, OR some sort of rather radical alternative at home, which my hospital and midwives won't support. Urgh. I emailed all my thoughts to my doula, who has been really helpful since. She was at the hospital that very afternoon helping somebody establish breastfeeding, and went to see the Supervisor of Midwives and talked to her about me. The S of M said that she is happy to communicate with Heather's midwife friend in Cambridge about the intramuscular antibiotics at home!! Wow. So, Heather will set that up and see what they say. Heather also said that it might be a good idea for me to meet with either the S of M or the Deputy Head of Midwifery at the hospital, armed with research on IM antibiotics during labour (there's a small study where pregnant women carrying GBS were given one large injection of IM antibiotics late in pregnancy, and this effectively eradicated GBS for up to 6 weeks! The downside is it's a painful injection). Heather knows them both and is on good terms with them, so can arrange this for me if need be. It makes me a bit nervous! But at least it sounds like there just might be an option. I think if I could have IM antibiotics I would happily relax and have my homebirth without stressing about the GBS any longer.

I will update here about that as it goes along! No plans to meet with anyone yet, except that Heather is coming round tonight to discuss it all and pray. I told her that I am struggling to feel God's presence when I pray at the moment, and am starting to feel slightly frantic about finding him when I pray, because I know I NEED to cling to him during labour itself and I'm worried I won't be able to! I am also starting to have the odd bad dream about labour and birth. *sigh* So she wants to come and pray with me - how wonderful! :)

I really want to be starting perineal massage by now, but I'm squeamish/nervous about the cyst in the way and whether I'll even be able to. I also have my red raspberry leaf tea but the weather is so hot that I don't want to drink it! I seem to be dealing better with the hot and humid weather than I usually do, which is quite something for me, especially whilst hugely pregnant. So that's good! It IS too hot for me though. I am sweating way too much and finding it hard to keep cool, but thankfully there is generally a breeze with the hot weather, AND hotter days are interspersed with rainy cooler ones (I love this!). We even had a cracking thunderstorm yesterday just before the boys' bedtime! They were most impressed! :)

Okay it is now after 11pm and I wish I had posted what I'd written as an entry of its own earlier in the day! Tsk. Oh well. Heather has been round and spent almost two hours here. We talked for maybe the first 45 minutes and then spent the rest of that time praying - it was AWESOME!!!! I am just amazed at God's provision, with Heather. Just amazed. She is so completely on our wavelength in terms of exactly what we believe, how we do stuff, etc, in our walk with God. I emailed her my birth stories, copied and pasted from this diary, and she had read them all in preparation for this evening and said they gave her good insight into some anxieties I have, and things we should pray about. She laid hands on me and prayed, and we broke curses spoken over me that may interfere with the birth, or which have become strongholds. She's so excited to have a Christian client who is happy for her to pray like this! :) We prayed into the source of the fear I have from transition to after the baby is born (from the last two births), and asked God to reveal that to me. I want to pray about that some more because I felt that there was a definite "something" that wasn't nice to think about, but I don't really clearly know what it is. I'm slightly not too thrilled about delving into it more because I *think* it has to do with sexual abuse as a child, ugh. But God wants that revealed and dealt with, and to see me free of it, and I love him for it! I want to be free of something tying me down to pain and panic too, so I will pray more.

Heather laid her hands on my tummy and prayed over Benjamin, which was soooooo lovely! And some of the declarations from the 'Supernatural Childbirth' book, which she has also asked Neil to read for "homework" - yay! He never reads books that are about stuff we need to read about! Or any books really. So I love that she's specifically asked him to read it. She has ordered the Prayers and Promises book that has recently been published that goes along with it, and is going to print out a lot of helpful prayers and Bible verses for me to stick around the house! I love my doula! I love my God way more, because he has totally designed this.

As a result of the prayer time, I now feel way different about giving birth. Waaaay different. I have so much to write about it, but it's so late and I need to go to bed. I will try to write again really soon to catch up on that, as it's all so relevant! Also I need to make a decision about the antibiotics. We are praying that I will have my baby at home. Also Heather encouraged me to ask God if he would tell me when Benjamin's birthday will be! I love that! :) I can't believe I never thought to do that before! So I will pray about that too. Wouldn't that be so cool?! He has already certainly revealed this baby's name to me, so I guess it's entirely reasonable to expect that he may share Benjamin's birthday with me too. This evening while we prayed, I had a real "ah-HA!" moment as his name came to mind. It suddenly seemed to be a description of what I WANT for his birth, and hopefully prophetic in that sense too (that's what I'm now praying anyway) - Benjamin has a couple of similar meanings, one of which is "son of strength", and Isaac means "laughter". I want to know God's strength poured into me during my labour and to display that too throughout the process. Also I want a JOYFUL birth! I want to be able to laugh and cherish it and experience it, not just get it over and done with, fear it, or just "bear" it. I want to enjoy it. So I'm excited all over again about his name, which God has chosen in the first place! :)

Okay, that is all for tonight! I am feeling really upbeat, and so much closer to God than I have felt for a long time. I just spent a good while singing and worshipping after Neil left to drop Heather home this evening. It was wonderful! :)

I'm excited to be 37 weeks in the morning! Yay! Neil has nearly finished handing over work to his team and other colleagues so that at any point he can start paternity leave, and that is a big relief for him, and for me as well. His workload should start decreasing now too, which is another relief, since he's been working evenings and weekends MOST weeks since January! Soooo glad!

Back soon!

36 weeks pregnant!!

Wowee! I'm actually 36 weeks pregnant! Yesterday and the day before were very surreal days, because my waters broke with Nathan at 35 weeks and 5 days, and he was born the next day at 35 weeks and 6 days. I never made it to 36 weeks last time, so it feels really strange that I'm here now, and I wasn't last time - even though I have done the whole 40+ weeks thing twice before in any case! It still feels surreal, now that I've had that experience last time. I know that my baby boy is now 5lbs 13oz or more, since that is what Nathan weighed. I know that no two babies are the same, and Benjamin is probably not going to weigh exactly what Nathan did, but still, I'm not expecting him to weigh LESS than 5lbs 13oz at that gestation, so I guess I can assume he is hitting the 6lb (SIX POUND!!!) mark right about the time I'm typing this! Amaaaazing, and again, so surreal. He is also probably somewhere near 19 inches long, which is what two of my babies have measured at birth, so that's a crazy thought too! He's so nearly ready to be born, I can't believe it! I just can't picture him, so it's weird to think of all these stats that make him so "HERE" in my head, but yet he ISN'T here yet and I can't imagine what he'll actually look like. I know what a baby at this gestation feels like in my arms though :) Sweetness! I can't wait to meet him!

I missed my 34 week belly picture in the end, but Neil took one tonight for 36 weeks, so it's in the gallery. It is coming up too big at the moment for some reason, even though I've since resized it at Photobucket, but hopefully that'll fix itself soon. I can't really see much change in the last FOUR photos in the belly gallery, it's so odd! I seem about as big each time, and things don't really look much different to me. I'm sure I had more obvious changes in my bump every time I had a belly picture in my other pregnancies?! What do you think? I know that every time my bump is measured by the midwife, it is bigger, so it's definitely GETTING bigger, and I can assure you of that myself anyway! ;) But it's strange to me how the photos don't seem to be showing that...

Anyway! So, only ONE WEEK to go till I reach full-term, and four weeks today until my due date. It's June 10th today (happy birthday Meg!) and he's due on July 8th, so less than a month to go now! :) Matthew was born almost exactly 3 years ago (his birthday is in 4 days on the 14th!) and so I have been reading loads of entries here from around that time, when I was waiting for him to arrive. He was due on the 7th, and it was soooooooooo hot and humid, urgh. I hope not to have a repeat of that this time around (the heat/humidity OR the 41 weeks!)!

I wanted to update yesterday but I was just too tired and had to go to bed. I seem to have been so BUSY lately. I had a weird diarrhoea thing over the weekend, and I wanted to note that here too, but again I just didn't get chance in the end. I did mention it at my arthursmummy blog though. People kept saying it sounded like a pre-labour "clear out" thing, but that hasn't ever been my experience and I was only 35 weeks, so I didn't really think that was the case. It turned out not to be (I think!). I have NO idea what was up, but I had stomach cramps and diarrhoea for FIVE days straight, and couldn't really eat much in that time. I had a lot of nausea the first 24 hours, but after that just the cramps and diarrhoea. It was hard to get enough fluids and food so I was worried (drinking water sent me running to the loo the first couple of days), but amazingly my uterus was very calm the whole time. I was definitely pretty dehydrated a lot of that time, though I was able to keep drinking and nibbling on bland stuff (salty and sugary especially, to be sure to keep my electrolytes balanced), and yet I had no contractions really. I had the usual Braxton Hicks contractions, but really those were on the quiet side too - nowhere near as bad as when I have had a lot of very uncomfortable ones rather frequently due to not having enough to drink that day! So that was reassuring, and I'm so glad of it. Benjamin was extremely active over the whole time, and he seems to have turned posterior because ALL his limbs are directly facing my tummy, so that when he moves my tummy morphs vigorously into all manner of shapes and forms! ;) It's quite alarming at times, seriously. I feel like he's going to break right through when he's doing really strong stuff, and Neil can't really look at my tummy "doing that" for long. Even the midwives were surprised at the crazy shapes going on with my tummy at my appointment yesterday! His feet and knees and so on can push out several inches (I told you it was alarming!) with a good shove, and this happens so fast and just ALL OVER my bump in quick succession when he's really active so it looks very bizarre! ;)

Anyway. I was basically in bed for 4 of the 5 days - I just felt really exhausted and achy and wiped out from all the cramping and loo-dashes day after day. Neil had to take Friday, Monday AND Tuesday off work to watch the boys because I just wasn't up to it. If I got up, I had to sit down and then pretty soon, sitting down was too much work so I had to lie down. If I tried to get myself anything then I was breathing hard and feeling shaky. So I was not able to look after the little ones on my own. I can't imagine what I'd have done if he wasn't able to be at home! He had to work from home on his laptop which was hard for him because he's under a lot of stress at work (tons and tons on his plate) and he had 3 small boys being rather difficult around him all that time. Thankfully (in a way!) his work connection kept failing and so he was able to just have blocks of time where he could put work to the back of his mind and do normal things with the boys, without it being his fault and his boss was therefore okay with that.

On Tuesday he was home from work again, though I was actually better that day, in that I had no more diarrhoea. I was tired and crampy (stomach, not uterus!) still and had not got my strength back up, and I had my big 36-week midwife appointment in the afternoon, complete with GBS test, etc, that Neil had planned to be here for to take the boys out. Otherwise I don't know how I could have done the GBS test or the long-and-drawn-out "birth discussion" that it entailed, with the boys darting all around me and talking incessantly! So he took the day at home, but worked properly while I did more of a normal day looking after the little ones. He did make the dinner though :)

Since last time I updated, I seem to have done a lot of thought-processing and so on, due to a lot of email contact with my lovely doula. It's stuff I WISH I had been updating about as I went along, but I haven't had chance/energy. So I will try to catch up now (though it's late and I shouldn't be TOO long-winded!).

Heather, my doula, has been so informative and helpful re. the GBS issue. She has also been contacting other doulas and midwives who are friends with a lot of knowledge and experience about it, and sending me emails with their thoughts on the matter. Soooo helpful! :) I basically read the whole of the UK GBS Support website that they recommended, which completely INFORMED me about everything I needed to know! Excellent place to go for GBS-related info in case you are ever needing somewhere like that! Heather suggested that we pray about whether or not to have a test, and also just to pray that I would not be carrying GBS this time in any case. She also recommended the garlic-up-the-hoohah thing (not her words, lol!) which honestly? I am so repulsed by, even though it's super natural and healthy and effective a lot of the time. I just can't bring myself to do it, even with the possible benefits! Yeurgh! I am NOT a garlic fan even taken at the usual end! ;)

Anyway, I had requested an NHS test at my 36 week appointment, but then read on the website that NHS tests are basically just high vaginal swabs that are notoriously completely inaccurate! What's the point of that?!?! Positive results are fairly accurate (84% or something), but a negative result is only FIFTY PERCENT accurate!!! That's 50% completely INaccurate!!! So, I can't trust a negative result for a second. I decided to get a private test done. You can't really do that easily in the UK (the more effective tests, that is), but you can order them by post, do them yourself (they're double swabs - vaginal/rectal) or ask your midwife to do it if she will, and then post it to the lab and pay for the processing of it (the actual test is sent to you free). The cost is £32 and I decided to take that option. I ordered one on Sunday but it hasn't arrived yet (annoying since it's supposedly 1st class post and should have been here for my appt on Tuesday therefore, but it wasn't, and it still hasn't arrived today either). I thought I would also get the NHS test done, just out of interest to see if the results were different (and thus an interesting test to prove the NHS tests inaccurate myself, possibly!), since they were planning to do it anyway and it was free - I might as well!

Heather came round a little while before the midwife was due to arrive, which was nice. She played with the boys and was soooo good with them! They really took to her, and Arthur seems a bit put out that she is going to be spending her time with MUMMY when baby Benjamin is born, and not him! ;) I tell him that it's so that Mummy has someone to help her while she is having Benjamin, so that Daddy can look after the boys if needed. He says things like, "Well, Daddy could be with you while Heather plays with us!" hehe! Neil took the boys out just as the midwife and her student arrived. I haven't met either of them yet, but this midwife, Becky, was about the loveliest midwife I think I have met yet! Heather was equally impressed. She was so supportive, eager for me to have a homebirth, and yet very informed and careful for the sake of Benjamin and me, about the various factors and options involved. She has four girls (older than my littles by quite a way) and had homebirths for all four! It was a really long appointment, maybe over an hour, because we just talked at length about all sorts of things. Heather had written on my behalf to the supervisor of midwives (I love my doula!!) during the week about my desires re. having a homebirth and Group B Strep. She enquired about intramuscular antibiotics at home (KNOWING that it has been done because one of her midwife friends in Cambridgeshire has given IM antibiotics to GBS ladies at home before), and also IV antibiotics. So Becky came equipped with the answers to those questions. I did not have to do a thing! I so totally love having a well-informed doula who is passionate for what I'm passionate for, on my behalf!

So Becky said they absolutely do NOT do IV antibiotics at home because of the risk of anaphylactic shock. And IM antibiotics was against policy and not done. She said that it would basically be a case of, if I test positive, I have to decide whether to have the antibiotics or not. If I do, I need to go into hospital to have my baby and get the antibiotics there. If I want to have a homebirth, I need to decline the antibiotics, against medical advice. But she said she would support me in that if I chose to do it. A lot depends on the various risk factors at the time. The whole decision would make me nervous and I'm still not sure what I'll do if I test positive. I'm just praying and praying that I DON'T!! That would be such a big relief. If I go into labour or my waters break before 37 weeks, I would not hesitate to go straight to hospital and get my IV antibiotics, that much I am sure about. There's increased risk before 37 weeks (like last time).

Anyway. She asked if I wanted her to go ahead with the GBS test or not, and I was suddenly not sure if I wanted to. I asked if it involved a speculum and told her I did not feel much like a speculum today! ;) I have been so sore lately there. So she said she would just do a low swab instead if I wanted, which was better. We went upstairs to do that, and when she went to do it, she found (TMI but relevant to my pregnancy records!) a fluid-filled cyst pretty much in the way! Yikes! It was very sore and she said she was not surprised in the least that I was feeling so sore. She was surprised that I hadn't noticed it myself. I felt a bit alarmed by the idea, and have felt so squeamish about it for some reason, since then. She told me it was small and not to worry about it, but that she'd recommend I see my GP and get her to pop it (WHAT?!?! Yikes!!!). She said she could have done it herself, but she felt at 36 weeks I should get it checked first and be sure it wouldn't be an infection risk so close to labour. When she was telling the student about it downstairs afterwards, she held up her hands to show the student how big it was, and that's when I realised it is NOT a small cyst!!! I said, "That's MASSIVE! You said small!" ;) Ewweewwwewww. I don't like it! I just can't bear the thought of something like that in such a.... vulnerable place at this stage of things, not being dealt with RIGHT THIS SECOND and being made to disappear! Yeurgh.

She eventually phoned the antenatal clinic and arranged for me to go to see the consultant on Friday (day after tomorrow) to have it looked at. She told me to beg them to pop it, haha! If I need stitches after the birth and it's still there, she will have to pop it anyway, apparently. It's in the way. Yucko. She said it's normal and not an infection or anything, but yeah. Yucko. I can't believe I write this stuff for the world to read! *blush* But it's relevant for my own personal records, and I just don't keep any of those, other than here at my pregnancy diary!

I also "have" to talk to said consultant about my homebirth/GBS thing at the appointment, as per "policy". I am so not looking forward to that. Heather can't come with me as she's running an antenatal class that morning. She told me to just be a broken record and say I was not ready to make a decision or that I didn't want to discuss it right now, and not be pushed over. She said she thought this particular consultant might be pretty heavy-going about it (in a negative way, that is) and want to have me listed as "not suitable for homebirth", so she said I must be non-committal and not discuss it if I wanted to avoid being worn down! :S Doesn't sound like much fun, the whole appointment really! I'm not looking forward to it.

My GBS test results will take a week or so to come back apparently. I received the other stuff I ordered from the place where I ordered the private GBS test (seperate orders) - some raspberry leaf tea (first time I've tried doing that!) and some perineal massage oil (again, first time! But can't use it till the cyst is fixed, urrrgh!), but still no GBS test.... I hope it comes soon, because I want to get it done and sent so that I can hurry up and get some accurate results. I especially don't want to be waiting ages for them after I receive the NHS results.

So, what else about my appointment yesterday?!

My bumpy-bump measures spot on 36 weeks, so that's good! My blood pressure was the usual healthy low reading. My urine had a bit of protein in it, but hey ho. That often happens whether I'm pregnant or not, and was likely contamination rather than anything worrisome. Benjamin was shoving around in there so hard that the poor student couldn't feel his position! Every time she gently laid her hands on my tummy to start feeling what was inside it, he would do all sorts of martial arts type moves and literally buck her hands off his backside, haha! She kept having to lift her hands off, and wait for him to settle, then put them back on to try again! ;) Everyone was laughing and commenting on it during that time, which was fun. The midwife was much more assertive about feeling his position and his bucking and wriggling didn't put her off! ;) She asked if I had been having back pain, and I said yes because I have had some low backache for a while recently, but nothing too bad. She said with all his limbs forward, he seems to be posterior at the moment (his back to my back - not good for labour and birth!), though she could feel the edge of his back. He is still head-down, and FINALLY they were able to write something other than "free" for his head in my notes! She could not feel the tip of his head (it's into my pelvis) so she put him as "4/5 palpable" - finally a touch lower than all the previous weeks!

I have been having some bad grinding/searing pains in my hips and groin when Benjamin is active and turning his head about and things. I asked why that would be if his head wasn't even in my pelvis yet! I was worried that it would become AWFUL once he did get to be engaged! She said he's heading down so that might be where the pain is coming from. Hmmm, I'm not sure if that accounts for it all. It's not pubic bone type of pain (which I'm AMAZED hasn't really been present this pregnancy, having had it the other times!), it's just stabby and grindy and searing at times with pressure, so I guess soft-tissue pain. Which I can't figure out if he's not anywhere near my cervix yet!

Today I have some very different discomfort and pain, which has surprised me really. Neil went back to work and I've managed fine with the boys, eating normally and only having the occasional stomach cramp (without diarrhoea again, phew!). My energy is returning to normal (sluggish, therefore, haha!), and I did a bit of housework today and the meals, etc. I did also lie down whenever I could on the sofa or on the floor with the boys. I'm trying to lie on my left side and sit upright wherever possible, as per Heather's suggestions on turning Benjamin back to anterior again, but it's soooo hard because those positions are so uncomfortable! I just want to flop back and RECLINE alllll the time now. Anything else is uncomfy (or even painful sometimes), and yet the reclining position is the one position to AVOID in this situation! Crawling or kneeling forward is also ideal, but oh so tiring and uncomfy! I crawled around for a fair bit today tidying the living room floor of a billion toys and books and socks and things like that - not because of Benjamin's position but because that's what I DO, as a Mummy to small boys, haha! And it really hurt to crawl. The small of my back hurts really quite badly today. I don't know if that's to do with Benjamin going lower and being posterior, or what.

Also, this morning I was in the kitchen doing something or other (not strenous) and suddenly became distracted by discomfort. I put my hand where it hurt, and that's when I realised it was PERIOD PAIN, low down in front. There's no other description for it really. Period pain. For sure. And I haven't felt that in maaany months, so it really caught my attention when I realised I was feeling it. My lower back ached in the same kind of way at the same time, and it hung around for a little while. After a while I noticed it had eased off, but it has returned quite a few times today since. Sometimes it has been there for 20 minutes or more, just feeling really crampy/achy and periody - NOT contractions or tightenings in any way, just an ongoing crampiness. I wondered at first if I was confusing it with my poor afflicted/irritated bowel (!), but it definitely wasn't that.

Since then, my lower back has felt sooooo sore this evening and late afternoon. The difference over the afternoon has been really noticeable. I can't get up from anywhere without pain in my back, and when I walk - well, I usually waddle now, as it's more comfortable. The wide type with feet either pointing ahead or slightly out-turned! But since this backache has settled in today, I noticed that I am automatically waddling differently. Much more tenderly and smaller steps, and my knees and feet want to point in towards each other as I walk, just to give the back of my hips a wider berth I suppose. It's ever so uncomfortable. I can walk normally but it hurts more. It's also really sore to lie down in any position (I noticed this last night actually) and turn over at all. My hips and the joints in the back of my pelvis hurt so much when I do that (again, NOT my pubic bone at all! Which is so NEW to me!).

I have no idea when Benjamin will come. Heather asked me what my gut feel was for when he might come, and whether I have felt God saying anything along those lines also. I haven't really answered her question. I can't shake the thought about that time a few weeks ago when Neil and I were praying and I felt pretty clearly as though God was saying to me that this baby is coming sooner than we think. But I tried to dismiss it because I really did not feel confident that I had truly heard from God on that one - more like my own mind churning that one out. I haven't had confirmation of that and so only time will tell. It does not hurt to take it as a possibility though! So I have been very busy getting things checked off my "baby preparation" list since then! I have done so much on that (still SO much left to do though) that it's too hard to list it all here tonight when it's so late and I'm tired out. I will try to get that done next entry, because I do like to keep a record of these things in my pregnancy diary! :)

This week Neil has been saying that he has a fair bit to do at work to prepare his team for his paternity leave. He has a lot to prepare to get to the point of being ready to even start to hand-over to them. For some reason a couple of nights ago, I felt constantly distracted by that, and eventually couldn't rest until I told Neil I felt he needed to make sure that stuff was all done THIS WEEK. I didn't even know why. Maybe it's just me wanting to be ready. But when he asked, the honest answer was that I didn't know if he would have next week to do it. I can't really believe the baby is coming around 37 weeks - it doesn't seem likely for little old me! But there it is. I couldn't explain it, and probably I'll still go to 41 weeks or something exasperating like that, hehe! But I felt compelled to say that he needed to have everything ready this week.

I haven't started packing my hospital/birth bag yet, but at least we've got it down, and it's DUSTY so the first thing I need to do it give it a good shake/bang outside before packing anything into it! We've dismantled a triple wardrobe in the main bedroom (last weekend, the one before the tummy troubles) to make room for a double chest of drawers, which I ordered and subsequently assembled myself for 8 hours straight on the Sunday! The Return of Crazy DIY Pregnant Lady (as Meg would have me known! ;) )!! She always makes her appearance around the end of my pregnancies! Swiftly followed by Crazy Baking Pregnant Lady - with Matthew I feel sure she was actually the REASON he was delayed until 41 weeks! I HAD to bake 3 specific things (banana cake, ginger snap cookies, and chocolate muffins, I think!) and just couldn't get time or energy. It was absolutely all-consuming, and after I finally did bake them, Matthew was born, haha! So, I'm waiting for her at some point! ;)

Oh there's so much other stuff I've been doing to get things ready.. I want to write about it but there's no more time! Except that I keep not getting round to telling you guys what I won at eBay a few weeks ago! Sorry! I just forgot, and didn't actually intend to be all secretive about it! I just ran out of time when I was originally writing about it, and then didn't have chance after that.

Here's what I bought!



Never mind the messy background (which has ALL GONE now, by the way - another sudden crazy nesty-type thing for both myself AND Neil! We were up till 2am two nights ago shifting the living room furniture into all sorts of different arrangements, packing away ALL the children's toys but a few, and dismantling the toy unit (a bit of a sad moment for me, as that was my Crazy DIY Pregnant Lady project a couple of weeks before Matthew was born, exactly 3 years ago!) to put into the loft - the boys have lately been TRASHING the room on a daily basis, emptying everything off that toy unit and being really hard work to get to tidy it up again. That day I literally spent the hours of 8.30am (when they trashed the place) till TWO PM getting them to tidy up. Ugh. I finally had enough, and decided the toys were going. They're in tubs in the storage cupboard in my bedroom, accessible for when the boys want something to play with, but totally under my control as to how much comes out and when. Yay!

Anyway, the picture is of an Amby Baby Hammock which I just happened upon when I was googling crib lengths and stuff like that, trying to figure out whether to use the Moses basket in my room, get the swinging crib down from the loft (which we've never used) for maaaybe a longer use than the Moses basket (which is why I was googling), or buy a new cot for Benjamin, since Nathan is still using his. I just happened to find a mums' forum where they were discussing the duration of use for Moses baskets and swinging cribs, and someone there mentioned the Amby. I followed the link, read the entire website, and had not the slightest doubt in my mind that an Amby hammock was literally the ONLY choice for us! I wish we'd had it from the start (which is apparently what EVERYONE says!). Ohhhh the possibilities for better nights!.... I hope it's really true, though I do LOVE night-time breastfeeding.

Anyway, I looked on eBay, and sure enough there were some for sale there. I found one that was in our local area and in excellent condition, and I bid on it. It had so many extras - it had been used for 2 babies for about 7 months each time, but with all the spares and extras the total value was over £250! I won it for £100 and drove to pick it up to save on the cost of a courier, so I am WELL pleased!! :)

The lady I bought it from was lovely. She couldn't believe my oldest was 4 and I was nearly due with my fourth baby! ;) Her little girl is 3 and her baby boy is 7 months and just moved out of the Amby a few weeks ago. She says they are not having any more children so it's time to let the Amby go, though she's loathed to part with it because of its sentimental value to her. I told her I would look after it well! My heart really went out to her, because I could so empathise with that feeling.

She bought a new mattress and mattress cover for her second baby, and kept the first one as a spare. So I did the same - I bought a new mattress and cover (which arrived today actually!) from the Amby website, and I'll keep the two others as spares - it's a good idea I think. We're sure to need the spares, as I tend to have babies who bring up tons of milk very frequently, and we often change their bedding/clothes 3 or more times in one evening when they're tiny! :) The lady asked if I wanted a demo - she was so nice and helpful! I said yes, and she put the frame together in about 30 seconds, and hung the hammock from it. She took the hammock bit apart to show me all the parts of it, and how to wash it, etc. She said she had just washed it ready to sell, but that I would probably want to wash it again anyway before using it. I'll do that when I wash the baby clothes (when we get them down from the loft - got to do that soon!!).

When I got home with it, I wanted to show it to Neil right away, so I put it up. There are instructions with it, but because of this lady's willingness to give me a demonstration, I was able to just put it together on the spot in about a minute or less! It's sooo easy. And it will take up less space than a cot, and can be used for a baby up to 12 months old. If you still want to use it beyond that age, you can buy a heavy duty spring to attach the hammock to, and that will take a much heavier baby. The testimonials are EXCELLENT, absolutely universally, for this baby bed. I'm really excited to use it, and I'm so happy to have found one and saved a lot of money. Now Nathey can keep his cot as long as he needs to, and we'll have plenty of time before we want to transfer Benjamin to the cot - definitely long enough for Nathan to move into the toddler bed - even a year from now! Also I'm intrigued about the motion aspect of it and the alleged wonderful effects it has on babies being settled, losing their colic (even bad cases) and sleeping through the night quite early on. It all makes sense, reading about the design though. The lady I bought it from said she used it from day one with both her babies, and her cousin had a baby two weeks after her own baby boy. Her cousin's baby was very unsettled and woke very frequently through the night (this at 9 weeks old - seemed awfully early for me to be expecting much else, but anyhoo!), and when she saw that this lady was having success with the Amby, she bought one herself. And literally, from Night One the baby was settled and sleeping long stretches, and never looked back. That's exactly what everyone else is saying, and our experience is that our babies don't do that! So I'm curious to see what happens! She looked absolutely AGHAST when I told her I had just recently got my night-sleep back at 16 months postpartum, haha! ;)

Okay it is SOOOO late, and I must get to bed! I'm glad to have caught up somewhat, although it still feels like there's a ton I have to say still! I must try to update more frequently from now, as things are changing so fast and it all gets kind of newsy from here on out, even if the "news" is a little on the dull side for my readers, being all about lists and tiny details and so on! ;) I need/want to make sure I update about the various purchases I've made in preparation for the baby, and also the to-do list, which has been worked on since I last wrote. I like keeping track of things like that here, even if it's dull for everyone else!

I'll be back in a couple of days. I really don't want to leave it a week even - there's too much to write about, and I want to start noting any physical changes as they happen from 36 weeks really. Also my appointment with the consultant on Friday... maybe I'll have chance to write about it on Friday evening? My next midwife appointment is the 18th (Thursday), but it won't be Becky. I SO want Becky to be the midwife who attends me during labour and for the birth!! She is doing mainly nights so she said she hopes I have the baby at night! She loves a good homebirth and would love to be the midwife who comes out to me! Heather told her we'll be praying that it'll be her! ;) Seriously though, I will be!

Okay, definitely going to bed. Aaaargh, but wouldn't you know! Darn internet has cut out! I'm still writing this in my Blogger box but if I try to post it, it will do that annoying "you are not connected to the internet" message - tsk!! Virgin is NOT impressing me so far. I can't wait up to see if it comes back because it's too late, but if it somehow works then I'll post it tonight, and copy and paste it to my Diaryland pregnancy diary as usual.

And be back soon! :)

35 weeks, 1 day - homebirth, doula thoughts, etc.

Craaazy time to post this as it's actually the day time so the boys are up and about all around me, and I usually have a self-imposed rule of no computer/laptop during their waking day. But, I switched it on to check the weather for today and they're watching TV at the moment, so I found myself here (when I really shouldn't be!). I am sure I will get to maybe the end of this paragraph and they'll make it impossible for me to write any more, but hey ho! I'll just finish later. At least Blogger saves continually so I don't have to worry!

I have so many bits and pieces that I need to write about here, but just haven't had chance to do so since my last entry!

I'm now 35 weeks! Nathan was born only 5 days from this gestation - my waters broke only 4 days from here! So, I know that Benjamin (totally official now, yay!) must now weigh about 5 and a half pounds and might be 18 inches long or so! He must look just as "newborny" as Nathan did when he was born, which just baffles me completely as I look down at my rippling, lurching tummy (he's VERY active lately!) and stroke it and think about him in there. Amazing.

The boys are all used to the idea that their new baby brother will be called Benjamin. Arthur talks to him through my tummy by name ("Don't worry Benjamin, hiccups aren't so bad..." etc), and Matthew pronounces it "Bemmin" or "Benjameeeem" :) Nathey has no clue, of course! ;) I'm less worried with each baby I have, about the previous baby and their adjustment period when they discover there's a new baby in the family! I remember being soooo worried about Arthur when Matthew was on the way, and of course that went SWIMMINGLY, so I then worried about Matthew when Nathan was coming, because I thought that maybe it was just a personality thing for Arthur, transitioning so joyfully, and Matthew would be different and have problems with it. But no! Arthur was the one who had more troubles after Nathan arrived, which surprised me. But I think that might have been more to do with the fact that Nathan was not born at home, and he was troubled by the fact that Mummy and Daddy left for a long while to have Nathan. And perhaps an age thing too?? My 1.5 year olds seem to be at an age where they accept a new sibling very happily, and there aren't any jealousy or insecurity issues (which I've read is the most common scenario, as the insecurity stuff sets in at age 2-3 in general).

Anyway, I'm not worried about Nathan. He likes to be the one being cuddled lately, and if one of his brothers is being cuddled, then he does sometimes stop what he's doing and come over looking slightly put out, and try to push himself into our laps whilst not-so-subtley shoving them off, ending up with HIM having the cuddle! ;) But that's okay. If he does that, I feel confident that most of the time I will be able to just lay Benjamin down for a moment and give him the cuddle he wants instantly, which should help him to realise that Benjamin's arrival won't change the availability of his cuddles (or Mummy in general, I hope!). Or cuddle them both together, which he will need to learn to get used to!

I had my late 34 week appointment with the midwife yesterday, at exactly 35 weeks. I have missed taking my 34 week belly picture, I've just realised!! Oops. Maybe I'll try to get a 35 week one and then another at 36 weeks as usual, even though they'll be close together.

Anyway, the appointment went well. My blood pressure was 104/64 and my urine was completely clean. Benjamin's heartrate was good and he was hiccuping while she was listening with the doppler, which sounded so sweet! He was also wiggly, as he very often is. She said his head is completely free, which it has been at every appointment so far this pregnancy. She said it was very high, and he could swing round to breech quite easily (way to worry a pregnant mama, tsk!), so she wanted to check his position again to be sure she HAD felt his head low down and not his bottom. It was his head though, and he's been head down for a good while now, even being high up and easily swing-able! So that's good. She also said he felt "a good size", which is GOOD but makes me wonder if he's bigger than average therefore! I asked what she meant by that, and she said, "Oh he's not huge" in an attempt to reassure me! If he's 5.5lbs ish like Nathan would have been at this stage, he'd be half a lb over average, so maybe that's all it is - that's what I'm expecting anyway, as all my babies have been (Matthew slightly less so, but still).

My next appointment is only 5 days away, the day before I turn 36 weeks. It's the "Birth Discussion" appointment and (big relief!) it's a home appointment. Neil is still going to ask to take a half day from work so that he can take the boys out to the park or something for the duration of the appointment. I will also have my Group B Strep test at that appointment.

Two BRILLIANT bits of news though!

I booked a homebirth! :) Of course they wouldn't say anything conclusive about it (though they wrote it down), because they were too busy being all negative with me about how I "will be" GBS positive and thus won't be able to have a homebirth if that's the case. *sigh*

Brilliant News #2 requires a big big thank you to Michelle and Jeannie, for the reminder/kick-up-the-backside about the existence of such a person as a doula! ;) I was interested about looking into it after that, as a possible option, but I didn't know how many doulas there even are in the UK, since I haven't really heard about it here, only in the States (and Canada of course, Michelle!).

Sooo, I googled, and found Doula UK! I read basically the whole site, and then used the "Find a Doula" search thingy to see if there were even any in the SE of England! To my surprise, there are loooooooads. Lots in the London area. All were a bit of travel away except for two, who live right here in the same area that I do! The other amazing thing about these ladies is that apart from living STREETS away, they are both Christians who attend a Vineyard church (basically the same kind of church that I do) and are friends, and very experienced doulas - also trainee breastfeeding counsellors!

I phoned the first one a week ago, but she had a message saying she was away till June 1st, so I decided to wait on phoning either of them till then. I called her yesterday (the 3rd, but I kept forgetting or not having time!) and OH MY GOODNESS, I am just in awe of God and his amazing provision. We talked on the phone, then she emailed me two lots of stuff (including a ton of GBS info), and I emailed her back with a million questions. She phoned me back and we chatted, and arranged for her to come round to meet Neil and I that very evening!

When she arrived yesterday evening, I instantly felt at ease with her, like I have known her for a very long time. Her voice is soothing to my ears and she's just lovely. She's excited that we're Christians, and gave me a ton of Bible verses along with the other usual info! She asked if I'd read Spiritual Childbirth and that amazed me too - I have it on my shelf (thanks to Meg!) and was really inspired by it. She is eager to pray with me through labour. She is an extended breastfeeder herself. There's so much more I want to say about her, but I haven't got time right now - boys are doing things that they shouldn't and I need to make lunch. Her name is Heather, and she is so totally HIRED! ;) We paid the deposit and signed the contract last night, and now I am under her care. She will fight my corner re. homebirth with GBS if needed (what a RELIEF!) and I just feel so overwhelmed with gratitude to God for her. At one point she said something about prayer, and I said, "I can't believe we've found you!" sort of as a humourous/happy thing, but was surprised to well up with tears right after I said it.

I'm SO HAPPY to have a doula! Thank you so much to the girls who suggested it here, I really appreciate it so much. I'll write more on it another time, but I have to go for now! Just wanted to say about those lovely things!