12 days old!

Time is passing so quickly! I'm sure Arthur never got to 12 days old so incredibly fast!!! The more babies you have, the faster the time seems to fly! At least, that's my experience anyway.

Benjamin is doing great. The midwife who delivered him came on Sunday and discharged us - she was very pleased with him and didn't even feel the need to weigh him again prior to discharging him! She said he hadn't lost much of his birthweight and she could see he has grown already since she weighed him at 5 days old, so she was happy. She also knew the Health Visitor was coming to do her first visit the next day, and he would get weighed then. I found it a bit sad (as I always do!) to be discharged by the midwife, because that's the end of seeing them and and thus the end of the lovely lovely pregnancy/birth/new baby bit which I love so very much! They always say something along the lines of "see you next time!" as they cheerfully wave goodbye! It always feels bittersweet for me, but I love the fact that they are so very accepting of the fact that I hope to be seeing them again sometime in the next year or so every time, hehe! ;)

So on Monday (yesterday) the Health Visitor came round. She's a student HV, and I haven't met her before - she was very nice. She weighed and measured Benjamin, and he now weighs 9lbs 1oz, which puts him at the 75th percentile, as did his birth weight. She gave me his new red healthcare book - I have a drawer full of red books with blue dots on the cover (blue dot for boy), hehe! I'm always excited about getting the red books because I love seeing their measurements on the charts and look forward to filling in the details on the pages where you can write when they first smile and crawl and lift their arms to be picked up, etc. And their teeth - the order they come in and when. I love that stuff! :) I'm still adding to the other boys' red books as their development continues, though Arthur obviously has all his teeth (and Matthew too), and has finished all the developmental stuff in the book.

Benjamin was never measured at birth, length nor head circumference, and I like to know these things, so I was glad she measured him! I know he'll have grown since birth, even in just 12 days, but still it gives an idea of what he might have measured at birth. His length was 54cm (22 inches I think), which also puts him at the 75th percentile (nice and well-balanced!), and I think he must have been my longest newborn yet, as well as my heaviest! The little boys were both 48/49cm at birth (even though Nathan was born 6 weeks earlier than Matthew was!), and Arthur was 51cm at birth. I think Benjamin must have been 52cm long, or maybe a bit more, so 21 inches. His head circumference measured 38cm yesterday, and the HV measured it again just to be sure she had it right (which she did). His head circumference is on the 91st percentile! Nothing like little Matthew, who has the teeniest head of all the brothers! Matthew's head didn't measure 38cm till 7 weeks old, hehe! ;) Arthur has always had the bigger head shape, but even his head was 36.2cm at this age! Benjamin doesn't strike me as having a huge head, but then he's bigger in general than the others, both length and weight, so maybe it's just that he's more in proportion for a larger head?! Anyway, he's a healthy weight and size, and growing nicely :)

His eyes are starting to lighten up, but staying grey. They are a sort of mid-grey now, not light grey yet. I don't know what to think about what his eye colour will settle on in the end! I will just have to watch and see - how fun! :)

Little man is feeding very well indeed! He doesn't go more than a couple of hours between feeds, and often lately he is not going an HOUR between feeds even. He wakes frequently at night, sleeping in blocks of maybe 1-2 hours between waking to feed. It has been a few days in a row that he's been waking so frequently around the clock, so I'm thinking growth spurt. Typically, babies do have a growth spurt at around 10 days old. He started feeding a bit more frequently (he was already going at it before then!) at 7 or 8 days old, which I assumed was the start of his growth spurt because my other babies have had their "10-day" growth spurts at 7/8 days old too. But, he's 12 days old now, and still it continues! He's one hungry boy!

I have a ton of milk, as always. I feel very blessed to have that happen so easily for me, and I know he's getting perlenty. He is weeing and pooing loads, and has only had one blow-out (at night, of course! ;) ). He pees on me/the bed/himself regularly when I'm trying to wipe him during a nappy change, hehe! I think my milk supply has increased these last two days because he's bringing up a lot of milk after each breast today and yesterday. I just have a bunch of terry towels on hand at night - we sleep on them even! I leak like crazy and he brings milk up a lot, and between us we go through half a dozen towels every night, and then a whole load more during burpy times in the day!

He's waking now (he's in the Amby hammock)d so I will pause this for a bit and go and snuggle my tiny love and give him some more milky :)

Okay, sweet lil man is at my breast and I am propped up in bed all comfy with my laptop next to me, and have one arm free! :) So I will continue till he's finished. He does feed quickly, because my milk flows fast. Oh, that reminds me of something I've been meaning to note here - Benjamin is the first of all my babies to be a bit clever with the flow of milk! From 2 days old (when my milk came in), I have had a strong let-down like I have done with my other babies. All three of the older boys have automatically tried to keep up with the flow when it kicks in, and they gasp and swallow as fast as they can while their little eyes get wider and wider, until finally they choke and need consoling! Benjamin hasn't done that at all. I noticed the first time I had a strong let-down (it hurts quite badly for me, when my milk lets down), that he immediately stopped sucking, but didn't take himself off the breast. He waited, really still, with his eyes looking this way and that, all focused. I knew the milk would be filling his mouth up, and when it was full, that's the point at which he swallowed it and then resumed sucking! I was really amazed at that, probably mainly because all my other babies have just frantically tried to keep up until they choked on the milk before it had chance to slow down. It's just that it seemed instinctive with Benjamin somehow, to stop and wait the fast flow out without de-latching. I don't know how he knew to do that! I was really impressed with my tiny boy! :) He does it every single time, just waits out the fast flow, and as it dies down, swallows what milk has filled his mouth and resumes. He has not choked on my fast let-down of milk once! By 12 days old, all the others had done a lot of choking! ;) Eventually they got bigger and seemed more able to cope with the fast flow - maybe Benjamin is coping better with it because he's bigger?? I don't think that's it though - he's not THAT much bigger, and he's actually doing something different to the others which is helping him deal with it really well.

Okay it's much later now - the boys are all in bed and Benjamin is asleep too in the Amby hammock. He seems fine in there. I put him in it once he's well asleep, at the moment, and he stays for the duration of his short-ish blocks of sleep until he wants another feed. He sometimes fusses a little in his sleep, as though he might wake any moment, but then stays asleep after all. I don't know if that's the Amby helping him though, or just how he is during his sleep. At night he sleeps next to me in bed.

Benjamin has had what seems to me like some low wind pain tonight. He has been doing such a sad hurty cry and arching his back and bunching his legs up :( I hate seeing him hurting, and his cry makes ME want to cry! His poor little face goes so pitiful and sad looking as he cries. I have bicycled his legs and rubbed his tummy and held him and cuddled him and jiggled him and breastfed him. He's asleep for now, but I don't think he'll stay asleep for long if he has some wind that he hasn't passed yet. Or maybe it's a big poo that's bothering him? His little bottom is a bit sore too at the moment. I had started using sensitive wipes when changing his nappy, but I'm back on the water and cloth wipes in case it's the non-cloth wipes that are bothering his bum.

He had his first bath today!! Yes, I know he's 12 days old! ;) We don't have a baby bath - well, we do, it's in the loft, but it's HUGE and cumbersome and just a pain to use, so we are not using it this time around. We barely used it at all after Arthur, actually. I think I bathed Matthew in the bathroom sink when he was tiny! And Nathan I used one of the clear plastic tubs that we store toys in! Much easier :) But, we only have one of those boxes left now (the others broke), and it's full of toys in the cupboard, so... I ordered a Tummy Tub for Benjamin and hopefully it will arrive soon. Today I bathed him in the (clean!) bathroom sink. I have washed his hair much earlier on, but just washed him rather than bathed him. His cord stump is totally healed now, having fallen off at 4 days old, and the last little scab came off during his bath. It now looks like a proper tummy button - all healed up and normal skin colour! I can't believe how fast it healed! It's SUCH a cute little inny! I just want to kiss it! :) Arthur is pleased with his brother's new tummy button. He found the cord part a bit ewwy! :)

Benjamin rather surprised me with his bath! He's my very first baby not to cry or scream at ALL during his first bath! What a nice surprise! He just sat there with my arm supporting him while I washed him, looking around and making these fast little breathing sounds and "eh eh eh" noises as though he was somewhat concerned at this new environment, but not outright panicking enough to get upset! He was less "eh eh eh"-y if I talked to him constantly and told him what a GOOD BOY he was being in his first bath! :) What a sweetie pea pie. *sigh* I love him sooooo! After I bathed him I wrapped him up and washed his hair over the sink, and he was very calm for that too. All my other babies have screamed the place down from the first instant they touched the water - no, before that - when they were undressed! They didn't stop screaming till they were dressed again on the other side of the traumatic experience! Benjamin is so different with his baths and that's lovely :)

Let's see, what else? Oh I had a blocked duct! I got a very sore bruised feeling on the underside of one of my breasts and it was really distracting after a while. I phoned Heather to ask her advice, because she's an almost-fully-trained breastfeeding counsellor. I had no redness or hot patches, and felt well, so it didn't seem like mastitis at all, but it was pretty sore to the touch. It also hurt like crazy when my milk let down, and felt "lumpy" although there was no actual isolated lump. Heather thought it was a blocked duct and gave me a ton of things to do. I also researched online about mastitis in case it turned into that, so I'd know about it in advance. I used hot and cold compresses, dunked it in warm water (!), and basically nursed Benjamin as often as I could from that side. I massaged it both when breastfeeding and when not, and I breastfed in as many different positions as I could think of, lol! I spent the whole first night breastfeeding over Benjamin on all fours, every time he woke to feed, haha! It was no better (but no worse) the next day, and during the following night, but when I woke the next morning I had no pain at all, hooray! I'm really glad it cleared up without turning nasty. I have since had some bruisey lumpiness in the other breast in a different place, which cleared up pretty quick, and today I've noticed a little of the same back in the same place. I'm wondering if it's to do with my milk supply increasing dramatically maybe? I do go up MANY cup sizes after my milk comes in, so maybe the breast tissue is just finding that irritating or something?! I don't know.

Well, I can't think of much else right now, but I DO have a few more photos! These were all taken at 5 days old, so they're a week out of date now - oops! I haven't taken photos every day or anything, but I've taken some more in the last few days that I haven't uploaded yet. Still no photos of the boys all together (except for the few I posted last entry). I'll get to that eventually! I'm trying to start thinking about getting some good photos for a birth announcement, but I'm not doing too well so far! Here are the few I took when Benjamin was 5 days old. These first two are sweet but a little odd to me, because he doesn't actually LOOK like that at all! It's so weird how I took these photos of him and they came out looking not much like him, even though they're of HIM! ;) Weird. Anyway, his little face doesn't actually look this way at all, but here he is all the same, hehe!





Another one of Benjamin, with my hand in it this time! I decided that he looked way too big in the photos, like it wasn't too clear that he's actually TEENY TINY, so I took a photo of me stroking his little face for a bit of perspective! See, he's tiny! :) He's making a face that turns my heart mushy - as he feels my hand on his face he scrunches up and starts to turn his face to root for the breast. This is the very start of him doing that. His little face is so soft and tiny. He makes my heart melt!



A bit later on, downstairs this time - I just took these to capture another of Benjamin's favourite expressions - the little 'O' mouth :) He often looks around with his mouth like a teeny little 'O' shape, with his eyes all big, as though the world is just an astounding place to be, hehe! The second photo is where he suddenly looked up at me with the camera. I like it because it's like he's saying, "What you doin'?!" :)





The obligatory "Mr. Bump" sleepsuit photo, hehe! All the boys have worn this little bright green Mr. Bump sleepsuit that I won at eBay before Arthur was born! I just love it. It's size newborn (up to 10lbs) so they outgrow it pretty fast. I will have to dig up photos of the other boys wearing it to compare!



And here is why Mama needs a kingsize bed to herself when she has a new baby, haha! ;)



The baby and I fill it right up, what with all the pillows and nappies and burp cloths and changes of clothes and wipes and rolled up blankets to wedge the boy when I'm breastfeeding him, and so on and so on! I have everything I need right there on the bed, for day time and night time, and it's the best way to do it, BUT there really is no room for Daddy! :) He's sleeping in the boys' room on the futon on the floor right now, to keep everyone settled if Benjamin's crying wakes them, and also to get better sleep without all of Benjamin's night wakings affecting him. By the time the sleep is more settled, we won't need all that stuff on the bed and there will be room for Daddy again :)

Okay that is all! Benjamin has stayed asleep better than I expected, although he has been stirring on and off for a while now. Oh but I just looked through my Photobucket albums and found pics of the other boys in the Mr. Bump sleepsuit! :) Here they are (and Neil and I were really amazed at how much Nathan looks like Benjamin in the one of him with Arthur! Neil thought it WAS Benjamin at first!) - the one of Matthew isn't a good one, but it's the only one with him wearing the sleepsuit. Arthur was zonked after a huge breastfeed in his photo, hehe!

Nathan



Matthew



Arthur



I'll update again soon! Thanks for the comments! I love reading them! :)

Six days old (nearly!)

Well, this is definitely the way to do it! If God blesses us with any more babies, I will definitely be spending the first two weeks pretty much in bed with my new tiny person again. Soooo different to the other times when I haven't done that! It helps that I've had a homebirth though - I find it exhausting and a bit traumatic having to "come home" when I have had a hospital birth.

Heather came round yesterday and brought the notes she wrote during my labour, which she has typed up for me. They were a really interesting read and I'm so glad she wrote them because they'll really pad out my own birth story when I get around to writing it. There's helpful detail in there that I wouldn't have remembered, and also TIMINGS! She wrote exact timings next to everything she wrote - how helpful! I am eager to write my birth story and tell everyone about my birth experience with Benjamin! But as much as I want to, it's not top of my priority list right now, so I will get to that in a while.

Benjamin is doing really well. He's six days old, so he is now at the end of the period for early onset GBS disease. 80% of GBS disease cases occur as early onset GBS so that's reassuring! Late onset is high risk, and can occur anywhere from a week old up to 3 months of age, but is rare after 1 month of age. Benjamin is healthy and all his observations have been normal. I am mainly just "keeping an eye" on him, although I did take his temperature on the first night. He's so alert and hungry, and healthy, so I am not worried. Every day I pray Psalm 91 and Isaiah 43:1-3 over him, and I trust God so I am not anxious about anything GBS-related. I prayed before he was born that he would not even pick up GBS on his way out, and I have no way of knowing whether he did or not, but I am trusting God that he doesn't even have any trace of GBS about his body to give him any potential of GBS disease in the first place. My waters didn't break till his head was coming down in the second stage (2 minutes before he was born, according to Heather's notes!), so that gives him excellent protection against the GBS in any case (exactly as I prayed for! Thank you Lord!).

Benjamin's cord stump came off in the night, the night before last, so he was 4 days old. The midwife came that next day and was surprised that his cord was off already, but it seems to be what my babies do, I am not sure why! Arthur's came off the latest, at 6 days old I think. I can't remember which was which now, but Matthew and Nathan were 4 days old and 5 days old. I love that my babies lose their cord stumps nice and early! The clips get in the way and Benjamin's cord was just beginning to get a little bit stinky the day before it came off. It's healing nicely and I can see he is getting a nice little inny tummy button already :)

He hasn't had any trace of jaundice, but then I'm not surprised with the amount he's feeding! He has started to settle more at night, which I'm so thankful for! I really was not getting ANY sleep at night because he was on the breast or fussing and crying the whole night, and I couldn't get comfy even side-lying with him to breastfeed in bed. We have his Amby baby hammock set up but he isn't as crazy about it as I expected him to be from alllll the reviews that rave about all babies being instantly calmed by being in it! He basically doesn't like being in it if he's awake, lol! He screams and screams till I pick him up, and he prefers to snuggle with me in my bed. If I'm holding him and he has fallen asleep and is completely unconscious, then I can put him in the Amby and he'll sleep an hour or two in there, and not be irate when he wakes up, so long as I get him fairly quickly because he's always ravenous when he wakes up! At the moment I am really happy to co-sleep with him, but I will persevere with the Amby as well, because that will be his bed for the first year and I'm sure he'll get used to it and love it in the end. We won't be buying a cot for him, so that's his bed! It's a sweet little bed too! Here are some photos of Benjamin in his Amby hammock at 5 days old:





I am starting to put a few things in place to make things go more smoothly. Things feel so much more instinctive this time. I feel like I totally know what I'm doing (note: this does not mean I actually DO know what I'm doing, haha!) which is different to the other times. With each baby I am getting more experienced and confident, and feel like I have more knowledge than with the previous baby, and that's a good way to feel. Everything is second nature, and I do much of it on auto-pilot, which seems strange to me when I stop and think how hard it was to do those things or even think of doing them, when it was my first baby! I like that I'm in this place this time, it feels good! :)

I have the lights off at night now, even though I kind of need them on here and there to change nappies or mop up milk, etc. I keep totally quiet at night with Benjamin. He now sleeps between feeds next to me, having breastfed to sleep and burped in between sides. I don't change his nappy unless he's wet through or has pooed. He doesn't go a whole night without wetting through everything, so the night has a nappy change or two, but that's soooo different to how it was with the others! For some reason I was changing them with every feed! I am not sure why now, although I remember needing to change them more at night with the cloth nappies at this stage, until I found a combination that worked better for the heavy wetting they did! Benjamin wore the traditional cute little size 0 Kissaluv cloth nappy after he was born, and has worn a few more since, but otherwise is in disposables. I'm wiping him with cloth wipes though - I much prefer those! He's in size newborn disposables (size 1 Tesco's own!) but the absorbency seems to be a little thin for him today, so I've put him in a size 2 just now, which seems to fit him really well. That has a weight range of 6-12lbs so it's probably just right for him really.

Around 8am (whenever I am awake feeding him nearest that time) I get up and open the curtains to let the daylight in, even if Benjamin continues to sleep. The first time he's awake from around that time, I breastfeed him one side and then after I burp him, I hold him nearer to the window and just engage him, chatting to him and letting him see my face clearly. He goes very calm and still and alert. This usually sparks him to be quite wakeful after that, and I have started to take him downstairs (now that I'm venturing down there!) to see different things and let the boys see him for a while. He is so calm and takes things in. When he starts to root again, I take him back upstairs and let him have the other breast, and then he is tired from being awake for a while (sometimes more than an hour) and zonks right out for a couple of hours again. I encourage him to have a couple of alert times like that during the day time, and otherwise let him nurse to sleep. So, I'm hoping this will help "set his clock", so to speak - to give his days and nights a sense of rhythm which will hopefully help us settle into a good healthy routine quicker.

Oh, I nearly forgot to say! When Benjamin was born, they weighed him on the scales and he weighed 3940g. It always annoys me that they don't weigh in pounds and ounces! I never have a clue what the grams mean! So I asked them what that meant in lbs and oz, and they didn't have their conversion chart with them. They said they'd let me know when they visited the next day - aaaargh!!! A new mama can't rest not knowing the birth weight of her new baby to tell all the relatives! Tsk! So I phoned my parents and told them his weight in grams, and Daddy tried to convert it online for me, and got 8lbs 9oz. So, then I announced to the whole world that my baby boy was born at home weighing 8lbs 9oz, and how surprised I was that he was so big!

It turns out that Daddy's conversion was wrong! I have since looked at Benjamin's notes and they say 8lbs 11oz! So I checked online at various baby weight conversion charts, and he DEFINITELY weighed in at 8lbs 11oz at birth! Wowsers. I mean, I know there are much heavier newborns out there, but I am still boggled to have birthed such a big baby, for me! I never would have imagined he would weigh this much when he was born! I was guessing at 8lbs exactly, and hoping he wouldn't be more. I'm just so glad I didn't know BEFORE giving birth, haha! It would have made me nervous, but I'm feeling even more proud of myself for the birth now that I know how big he was, hehe! I know women give birth to heavier babies every day, but I'm so LITTLE! Really. My frame is definitely petite, and also Arthur was already the heaviest baby on both sides of the family (Neil's too!) for as many generations back as we know baby weights for! So it just all round SURPRISED me to have an 8lb 11oz baby! He's so much bigger than my other babies, and a whole lb heavier than Matthew was. I think Nathan would have been about 8lbs 8oz if he had been born around his due date though. Phew! What a big boy! I still can't believe it. The weird thing is though, he seems such a TEENY TINY little peanut to me! I hold him all scrunched up in a sleeping ball in my arms and my heart turns to mush (it is permanent putty these days) and I just marvel at how TINY he is. So, his weight means nothing to me really.

When the midwife weighed him again yesterday (he had his heel prick test then too), he had lost 100g (down to 8lbs 7.5oz) so that's not bad really. Arthur had lost waaaay more than that at this stage, but he wouldn't feed very well at that age so that's probably why. I have to take him to the baby clinic at the hospital this afternoon (ugh, NOT what I wanted to do!) for his newborn check. In the past my babies have either had that done in the hospital when I've had hospital births, or with Matthew the GP came out for a home visit to do his newborn check. Apparently GPs are doing that less and less now, and there's a new baby clinic set up at the hospital maternity unit for this to be done. It's supposed to be done within the first 72 hours after birth - is that not CRAZY to make a new mother drag herself and her tiny baby to the hospital within 72 hours of giving birth?!?!!? Tsk, it annoys me so much! But anyway, it's only on weekdays, and THANKFULLY he was born close to the weekend, so Monday was the first chance I had. I forgot about it, and subsequently got told off by the midwife, who then booked me an appointment for today right here in my bedroom on her mobile phone! ;) So I have to take him to that. I didn't think I would feel up to going out so soon, but the total rest thing that I've been doing (and total NON-involvement in childcare, except to cuddle and sing to and chat with my little boys) has made a huge difference in how quickly I'm regaining my strength and such. So I feel okay to drive to the hospital and take him for his appointment. I have been noticing a real change in how much stronger I feel each day, since the day after he was born. It's encouraging because before he was born I was expecting to feel pretty wiped out for most of the 2 weeks Neil was off work, and then maybe as the 2 weeks came to an end, I might start to feel stronger (hopefully!). But it has been much better. I think it has a lot to do with having given birth at home, but also the rest thing. I had no intention of doing anything around the house in that time, and Neil was happy with that too. But the other day I put Benjamin into his Amby during the afternoon because he was already asleep, and instead of feeling pooped from just having stood upright holding him for a while, I didn't! And so I could have lay down and rested, but for the first time I looked around the room and saw a ton of mess that I didn't like. So I spent just 5 minutes maybe, pottering slowly around and picking things up. I sorted the dirty laundry on the floor into loads, just sitting down on the floor. And then I tidied the surface of the double chest of drawers, which was looking untidy. That's all I did, but it made such a difference to how the room looked.

My grandparents visited on Day 3 with flowers from their garden in a sweet little vase, and I put that on the chest of drawers and it gave the room such a nice TIDY sophisticated look! ;) I rarely see such pleasures in my very cluttered and untidy house! I need to see it as inspiration and work on getting the whole house in that state (NOT during the postpartum period, don't worry!). Neil says he's decided to try to tidy the whole house while he's on paternity leave. I hope he doesn't set his expectations too high - it's a LOT of work and he has the boys all day too (which is also a lot of work!). He has been feeling down about the state of the house and the boys' behaviour so I think he's feeling motivated now to work on that. I have set myself a little mini goal to gradually pick at the bedroom I'm in over the 2 weeks, picking up a little bit each day or every other day, until it's (hopefully) totally tidy by the time Neil goes back to work. That would be lovely! Although, just now I did clean the bathroom sink. It didn't tax me, the sink was DISGUSTING and I could see Neil was not getting chance to clean it, and it took very little time to do. And now it's shiny and hygenic again! Yay! :) I didn't tell Neil though - he might tell me off! ;)

What else to say? Benjamin has my fingers, exactly! They are little mini versions of my own. Arthur has my fingers as well, but I don't think Matthew does. Nathan seems to have some of mine and some of Neil's! Benjamin's eyes are a dark murky grey, and Heather thinks that means they'll turn brown. I am wondering the same, but I guess it's too early to tell yet. Arthur has been telling me since Benjamin was born that he hopes his new brother has brown eyes like him, because he's feeling left out being the only one in the house with brown eyes! I told him he gets his brown eyes from Nana, so he shares that with her, and he was pleased that he wasn't so alone after all, hehe! But he really hopes Benjamin has brown eyes. We have the full range here - Arthur has brown eyes, Matthew's are now a greyish green, and Nathan's are blue as blue can be - so any babies we have could really have any eye colour. I think that's so exciting, because I love waiting to see what eye colour the new baby will have this time, each time we have a baby! :) I hope Benjamin has brown eyes too. I didn't have a preference at all before, but with Arthur's longings, and looking at Benjamin and thinking how scrummy he'd look with dark eyes, it makes me hope a little that he really might have brown eyes! I love all eye colours so it doesn't matter really. I think Matthew and Nathan DID have dark/slate blue eyes as newborns, and theirs both lightened to blue. Matthew's didn't turn grey till 17 months, and only turned to green a few months ago. But Arthur's eyes were always dark and murky, and never any sort of shade of "newborn blue". They were a dark grey when they lightened up a bit, but turned brown quite quickly I think. Benjamin's seem similar, so I'm thinking they might go brown.

Well, my tiny man will be waking up soon - he's asleep next to me on the bed as I type this, and has been for maybe 1.5 hours or so. I think he has filled his nappy actually so I should go! I have more photos so I need to come back and post those soon. Here are a few to be getting on with:

These two are both grainy and "noisy" as they were taken in next to no light at night time. I knew they wouldn't come out too well, but the cuteness was SO that I couldn't resist anyway! ;) In the first one, Benjamin is clasping his hands in his sleep, and I thought it was so sweet!



I love this photo. I wish cameras would take photographs like my eyes see the scene, because the light was GORGEOUS and made the picture, but the camera wouldn't translate :( Oh well. He just looked sooooo beautiful to me, sleeping there with his little face upturned. I am soooooo completely and utterly besotted. I had a day (Day 3 I think) of feeling weirdly weepy about absolutely nothing - seriously, I am so blessed, I have absolutely nothing to be sad or anxious or emotional about at ALL this time. But I felt like crying all day all the same. I knew it was just the hormones plummetting (!!) or whatever it is they do at that stage, as my milk had just come in full force the day before. So I tried to fix my eyes on God and keep positive and not dwell on the way I was feeling. Buuuut it got the better of me all the same by the evening and I was crying about having to say goodbye to my doula (literally the ONLY negative thing there was to latch onto, lol!)! Turns out my doula loves me and wants to stay in touch and visit and so on, and I'm soooo happy about that! :) But the very next day after the weepy thing, the hormones had swung the other way and I've been in Baby LaLa Land ever since, ridiculously elated, incredibly besotted with my baby, and unable to stop gazing at him or kissing his cheeks. I hope I don't chap them. I seriously kiss him that much! ;) He's just gorgeous and I'm so in love. Here he is looking perfect:



And lastly, here are three photos from my first attempt to capture all 4 (FOUR!!!) of my boys together! They're not great, but they deserve posting anyway because it's a First. Arthur is really in love with his new brother. He wants to see him and stroke him and hold him all the time. He talks in a soppy voice to him, and talks constantly about how he loves his new baby Benjamin. It's so sweet! He's behaving very difficultly (word?!) and seems angry about some stuff, but is adoring of his new brother and very gentle with him. He's at his calmest and happiest when he's with Benjamin, and even obeys me completely (unheard of previously!) when he's around him. Matthew is less interested in general, but he does want to see Benjamin a lot, and always looks at him for a while before saying to me, "He's so cute!" - he says this every time :) He also seems happy WITH Benjamin but is definitely having some issues otherwise, so is adjusting with a little difficulty. The look he gives in one of these photos says it all really. I think out of the three, he's having the least joy over having a new baby brother. But Arthur was the exact same way when HE was three and it was Nathan who was the new baby brother, so I know he'll settle down and be okay eventually. Nathan seems completely unaffected by becoming a big brother (I can't believe my tiny Nathey is a big brother!!), but that's just as it has been for all my one-and-a-half year olds when they become big brothers. It's a GREAT age gap, seriously. Nathan loves to see Benjamin, and is intensely interested in him. He would rather see Benjamin than anything else he was previously doing, even his favourite toys or activities. He stops whatever he's doing and comes over with a huge smile to point (poke!) at all Benjamin's facial features, and to give him kisses. He gives Benjamin sooo many kisses! It's so precious. He even likes to watch him breastfeed, and I'm glad he's so relaxed and happy about it because he self-weaned a couple of months ago and I have never had a new baby where the next sibling up wasn't still breastfeeding, so I didn't know how that would go. But it's fine. Nathan does not want to breastfeed, seeing Benjamin doing it, so I guess he's truly 100% weaned :( I still wish he'd nursed till age 2, but oh well!

So, here are the few photos of the boys (and Neil's arm!):





I have lots more of Benjamin, taken in the last couple of days (mostly yesterday), but I will have to upload those another time. It's evening now and I didn't get chance to finish this post before it was time to take Benjamin to the baby clinic, so I must get it posted now! The baby clinic went great - I wore him in the Baby Bjorn rather than hoist the car seat or pushchair out of the car, and he slept in it until it came time for his examination. He's doing great, everything checked out fine. He peed on the doctor, haha! ;) He has an extensive "stork mark" birth mark on his forehead (which you'll probably have noticed from some of the photos), which extends over his right eyelid, and through his nostrils from inside. That will fade, but it may take a couple of years to do so completely. I also had a stork mark as my birthmark, and it still shows up very occasionally if I get overheated or have an angry outburst or something! Benjamin also has a strawberry mark (another birthmark) on the back of his neck, but it's within his hair so it shouldn't be noticeable. I have another midwife visit on Friday, but I'm not sure if that will be the last one or not.

I'm recovering well, physically. I had a second degree tear and stitches, and those are (as usual for me) healing very quickly without much pain or bother at all. The midwife told me I had a lot of bruising and swelling and that pretty much went away on Day 3. I really haven't had a lot of bother from anything except for the afterpains, which were horrible for 3 days, and then all of a sudden faded right off. I still notice the tiniest shadow of a crampy feeling occasionally when I'm breastfeeding, but it's all but gone. My uterus is well contracted and I can feel it about half way between my tummy button and my pubic bone. I'm always sad when it disappears back where it belongs! :( I do so love being pregnant.

Okay, definitely going! I will try to post again soon, to say how things are going and to post more pics!

Photos of Benjamin!

I soooo wish I had time to update properly with loads of descriptive details like I'm longing to write! But I'm being strict with myself and doing a total REST thing for the 2 weeks that Neil is on paternity leave. I'm staying in my bedroom, even! I came downstairs this evening for a couple of hours, but I'm basically just staying where I get the most rest.

Benjamin is the hungriest baby I have ever produced (and I thought that would be unlikely going by the others, particularly Arthur!) and seems to have rooted continually since he basically started breathing, haha! ;) Seriously, I am only SLIGHTLY exaggerating! He has been on the breast since a few minutes after birth, and when he's not on the breast he's having a RARE sleep, or else crying and rooting, bless his sweet little heart! This means out of the two nights since I gave birth, I have not really had any sleep. The first night I got two 15 minute blocks of sleep when he stayed asleep next to me after he went to sleep breastfeeding. Last night he slept for 2 hours eventually, somewhere after 3.30am, after falling asleep breastfeeding, and so I slept for that time. I'm nursing him lying on my side but I'm still so uncomfortable from giving birth that I can't seem to sleep like that. Also it's so hot and humid in the bedroom, even though it is cooler in general outside. I'm not supposed to use a fan or the A/C unit in the bedroom with Benjamin right there at the moment, so I am too hot to sleep some of the night too. Tonight is the first night we've set up the Amby Hammock and put him in it, so I've put the fan on at last, directed at me on the bed, away from Benjamin. Hopefully the two things combined will get me a better night's sleep!

He's been asleep in there for maybe 30 minutes but he's waking as I type this, so I will have to quickly post the few photos I've got so far and then put him back to the breast. My milk is IN (less than 36 hours!), which is hardly surprising with how Benjamin has been feeding! ;)

Here is a rather dark and grainy photo taken on the evening he was born. I love it because this is how the lighting was for his birth and the next 24 hours after, and this is where he was born too - on my bed right there! :)




These next few were all taken at 1 day old, of Benjamin asleep on my bed. I really haven't had chance to take many photos yet, and none at all yet of the boys with their new brother, but those will come soon. Meanwhile, these few show you a bit better what he looks like. He DOES have Nathan's chin, like I thought from the ultrasound pictures at 20 weeks! And his face shape is similar to Arthur's when he was a newborn, not Matthew or Nathan's shape at all. He has Arthur's eye shape (different from the other two) and some of the same mannerisms that Arthur had as a tiny baby, so overall (so far) I would say he resembles Arthur the closest.







That's all for now, but back soon I hope, with more details! Thanks for all the lovely congrats! xx

He's here!!

Benjamin Isaac, born at home at 7.30pm this evening (July 9th) weighing 8lbs 9oz!!! He's lovely, has breastfed for ost of his life so far (!!) and looks nothing like any of his brothers! I'm so proud of how I managed in labour and can't wait to write more about it but too tired now. Am currently lying in bed with Benjamin skin-to-skin. He's cocooned in my right arm, fast asleep with his little face all smooshed up against my breast (he fell asleep breastfeeding). My doula was wonderous and gave me a footrub before she left about 15 minutes ago. Benjamin seems fine and I am too, except that I had a 2nd degree tear and thus stitches, and the afterpains are pretty terrible, but I'm just so relieved that he's HERE! Praise you Lord!!!

Will update again tomorrow!

Another labour update!

Although, I still can't really get my head around the fact that this might actually really and truly be LABOUR! It's soooo surreal.

I am having some very light bleeding, just occasionally when I wipe and a little on my pad - just pink, not red. Still losing my mucus plug also. About 45 minutes ago I started to have contractions (it's 1.45pm now) and wondered if they were just Braxton Hicks. They didn't hurt as SUCH, just felt very intense and gave me a lot of very uncomfortable pressure in my groin. They gave me a little low back ache and low front ache too, but they only lasted a very short while (30 seconds at best maybe). So I really didn't feel like I could call them contractions.

About 10 minutes later I decided to start timing them using Contraction Master, because I knew if I called anyone they'd want to know how far apart they were and how long they were lasting. So, straight away they were 4 minutes apart - I was surprised they were so regular! They lasted between 30 and 40 seconds, but by the time I'd had 3 or 4 on the timer, they were starting to hurt. At first they just were hurting like an addition to the pressure in my groin, so that it started to feel like a sharp pain up there too.

Ooh midwife is here, go to go!

40w1d - quick update (a show!)

I have to quickly update about this morning. I woke up as usual with Neil getting ready for work, no signs of anything happening at all. I got up and went to the loo, and when I wiped I was losing quite a lot of mucus plug - more than I have so far, but not significantly more. Well the next time I wiped there was more, and that was ever so slightly blood tinged, so that's much more promising! :)

All morning I have been going to the loo and wiping, lol! Every single time I wipe (and I've used half a loo roll, haha!) there is more of the stuff. None blood tinged though, just goop. Since the first time I went on getting up, I immediately started to feel just generally crampy, front and back. It's like that Friday when I had contractions all day and felt a lot of low back and front pain and pressure all day (seperate to the contractions) - that kind of discomfort is back.

So now it's 11.49am and I have just had a bigger amount of mucus plug. It's very, um, WET and that made me concerned that it wasn't just mucus plug. I had to put on a proper pad instead of just a panty liner because it wet through the panty liner I was wearing plus my clothes at one point! I phoned Heather (who is on stand-by and rather excited!) and the midwives to ask about the wetness and they said just to monitor it and if I'm concerned they'll come by and check the pad for me.

I actually had a midwife appt this morning at 9am, just a routine one. I told them about the mucus plug and the discomfort, and the midwife said she would not be at all surprised if it was going to happen today! Eek! :) Everything was fine at my check, b/p, urine etc, but unfortunately Benjamin is completely posterior and STILL 4/5 palpable!!! They said not to be concerned about that, because with it being my 4th baby, as soon as contractions start he will probably rotate and engage pretty fast. They did suggest I spend plenty of time on all fours or leaning forward though, so I have tried to do that since then.

Now, in the last 20 minutes I THINK I am starting to have contractions. I'm not sure.. they don't hurt (but then I'm praying for a pain-free labour!) and it's often when I'm walking so it's hard to tell, but my whole bump goes super solid and tight, and the main thing is the PRESSURE is almost unbearable. I constantly feel like I need to poo, and it's ever so uncomfortable, so I'm guessing that's baby-related. I have tried quite a few times to actually go, and nada. But I'm a little nervous to really give it a good try because I don't want my potentially bulging waters to break before they're ready, you know?!

The last time I went to the loo to try a BM (about 10 mins ago), I had some more mucus plug and then wiped again and found light pink bleeding! Woohoo! I have since had some more light pink/light red spotting on my pad, and several more very uncomfortable pressurey tightenings whilst sitting here typing this. These ones are starting to hurt a little in my lower back and under my bump.

Benjamin hasn't been too active the last couple of days, like I said last night, and when I went to bed last night I lay my hands on my tummy and said, "Lord, I'm a bit anxious about Benjamin's lack of movement..." and INSTANTLY - I mean, I had hardly finished forming the word "movement" - he started writhing about more vigorously than he has for most of the last week! I was so grateful to God! He carried on like that for a few minutes, and I was so reassured, so I went to sleep after that. He is still pretty wiggly today which is also reassuring, but I know it will get very uncomfortable when combined with contractions, so I'm now praying he'll have a nice nap at the most intense part of labour, hehe!

So there it is. I'm definitely thinking labour is about to start, and the midwife warned me that it could go pretty fast once contractions kick in. I'm supposed to phone the midwife and my doula the moment contractions actually start, so I should keep an eye on these ones and maybe ring them pretty soon if they really are contractions! Which is exciting!!! I really really really feel like I just want to go and do a BM right now, so hopefully I can and that might make me a little less uncomfortable? Although, that's slightly suspicious! ;) I remember that feeling from Matthew's birth and he was born pretty much MINUTES later, haha! I was sure I would just feel so much better if only I did a poo! Which, I did, but then you know, he followed right after! ;)

So I will keep updating as long as I can, but I may not be able to. I hope everything will go well. I hope it actually WILL be labour and I won't be updating tonight to say, "Nothing much happening..." or something exasperating like that! I hope Benjamin will be fine, and this labour will be so much more manageable. And that he can be born at home.

Neil is home today, though he was pretty difficult to talk into staying, rather annoyingly! He said he would rather go into work and make sure everyone there is prepared - which, WHAT?!?! I see his point, but urrrrgh! I kept reminding him about the "one hour away" factor, and how fast things could go. He seemed so unconcerned and kept saying how he just didn't get the feeling things would be happening till the weekend, so he wanted to go in to work!!!! Eventually I'm afraid I said it's no longer about how HE feels about what my body is doing! I felt differently, and it's MY body! Of course he could be right and I could still give birth at the weekend, but I begged him to work from home instead, just to see where things were going. Imagine my relief when both Heather and the midwife said to keep close and make sure to call IMMEDIATELY that contractions started, because it could go very fast once they start. He pretty much switched off his laptop and started looking after the boys instead, after that! ;) So I have been able to come upstairs and update here, bounce on my birth ball leaning forwards onto the bed, and do the toilet paper check as often as I have the urge to, hehe! Which is nice. Right now I feel slightly queasy and light-headed, and suddenly very tired, so I am going to try to nap a little bit while the boys eat lunch.

I have just had another "contraction" - maybe I should start timing these? They hurt like bad constipation, very low and behind, and also low at the front of my bump, and they're very tight and solid. But not as I remember painful contractions. I'm not sure whether I should call anyone or not yet. Maybe I should set up Contraction Master online and time them for a bit, see if there's a pattern? I don't know. Right now I am going to try that elusive BM again, haha! And check the spotting. I'm kind of excited!!!! I'll keep you guys posted where possible.

40 weeks pregnant - it's my due date!! :)

Wow, that magic date has finally arrived! It's July 8th 2009 - the date that's been foremost in my mind since last year! My baby boy is "due" today! It's very surreal to be here, but I feel more excited and happy and blessed than impatient and restless, so that's good! :) Still loving being pregnant!

So now I truly am just waiting for the baby to arrive. Also I'm sort of happy to see that I was wrong about those two occasions where I prayed and THOUGHT I maybe heard from God about the timing of Benjamin's arrival - the first time I just felt that he would come sooner than we thought. And the second time I just had this date in my head - June 30th. So I wondered if that would be his birthday. Wrong on both counts! ;) I did pray that God would confirm those things through other sources if they were really things that He was saying to me, but I never had any sort of confirmation so I put them out of my head for the most part. I did try to get a bit more ready as a result though, which can never be a bad thing! ;)

It seems like Nathan was a big exception (which, obviously, he was, with my waters breaking spontaneously so early on) in my pattern. Other than Nathan, I always go past my due date. So far I have never gone beyond 41 weeks exactly, and I was already contracting when I woke up on the morning I turned 41 weeks. I sooooooo don't want to wait into next week, because as much as I really really LOVE being pregnant, I am getting eager to meet Benjamin, and also it is definitely getting more uncomfortable and exhausting with every DAY that's passing now, rather than every week that's passing. I can't think how I'll feel this time next week if I still haven't given birth!

Today I have absolutely no signs of impending labour whatsoever. I have the usual frequent Braxton Hicks that I'm starting to feel very much as a NORM for me every evening. They don't hurt, they're just very uncomfortable and pretty strong, and they come every 2-3 minutes for a while and then don't any more! ;) I have stopped paying much attention to them, because I know it's just what I do in the evenings and it doesn't have any effect on anything. I'm purposely not doing a single thing to try to bring labour on. I'm not eating differently, following any old wives' tales, going near my husband with a barge pole (haha!), or taking walks. I'm tooooo exhausted to take walks anyway, and it's ever so uncomfortable in my pelvis and back and hips and bump to walk even around the house. I am happy to sit and wait! :) I will not be getting a cervical sweep (membrane sweep, whatever it's called where you are!) this time around like I finally did at 40+6 with Matthew, because it's contra-indicated with Group B Strep. With Matthew I feel sure the heatwave breaking THAT DAY had something to do with him arriving then and not before, although I did have the sweep the day before he was born too. Right now our horrible heatwave has ended, and we've had 2 full days of heavy rain and strong cool winds. I am loving it! Yesterday there was such a terrific thunderstorm in the middle of the day (we had two seperate ones actually, during yesterday) and it rained torrentially. I sat on the armchair while the boys were occupied and Nathan was napping, with my hand on my bump, feeling Benjamin doing a few little movements. I watched the thunderstorm through the window and suddenly the irony of it really hit me! People say thunderstorms bring on labour. It was full moon THAT VERY DAY (yesterday). My due date was the very next day - in fact if you go by my ovulation date, my due date WAS yesterday, not today. It's only the scans that said today. And how ironic it felt that my womb was the quietest muscle in my whole body, and my baby was happily hiccupping away inside me, hehe! It struck me as funny for a moment there! ;)

So, noooo, the full moon did nowt for me whatsoever. It never has before though, so maybe I'm not the "tuned-in" type anyways. We haven't had thunderstorms today, just light rain most of the day. Even with the cool cool breeze blowing through the windows continually, I'm still SO HOT and sweating at the slightest thing! I guess that's the whole pregnancy thing, not so much anything else.

Neil has been to work yesterday and today (after Monday off). I'm so longing for him to have another day off work this week, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I have done okay (surprisingly!) today and yesterday, but have definitely been more exhausted today than yesterday, and I had a really good early night last night too. I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed than I have in ages, despite the 2-hourly loo trips that are my norm these days (almost exactly 2-hourly as well! My bladder is always full enough (or should I say squashed enough!) to wake me up by the 2-hour point!). And I got up thinking, "This is a GOOD start!" Literally 30 minutes later, by the time Neil was leaving for work, ALL my energy had fizzled away! I was so exhausted and breathless, and just had to keep sitting or lying down. Yesterday I used a previously cooked and frozen spaghetti bolognese sauce for dinner, so that was easy enough, and today I did pork in the crockpot, which was also pretty easy. This time we are SO unprepared for a new baby, meal-wise. I haven't got a single meal in the freezer! :S I hope this isn't going to be a really big problem after he's born! I don't think we'll get meals from church this time either, like we have always done in the past (they cater for us for 1-2 weeks after a new baby), because we have not been since November (oh dear!). So that could be a bit difficult, but hopefully we'll get by okay without resorting to unhealthy convenience meals too often. I'm frustrated that I haven't had time or energy to prepare meals ahead of time but oh well. We'll just have to make do! At least I have my crockpot this time! :)

I'm stressing about my doula's availability. I can't seem to relax about it, and that's annoying, and also super exasperating because the whole point in a doula is to RELIEVE stress for the mother! :S I haven't contacted her since she phoned me a couple of days ago, because all I want to know is, has the other lady had her baby yet, or is she currently in labour?! I feel like if the answer is NO to those things, then it's a big stress to me, and I just don't want to have that kind of stress. I feel like every day that passes now hugely increases the risk of both of us calling Heather out at the same time. I mean, her due date was yesterday, mine is today. We're just waiting, waiting. There's only a matter of days now where we will BOTH end up delivering, and surely it's getting more and more likely every day that we'll coincide (unless the other lady is super fast, but she's a first-timer, so not necessarily that likely...). I wish she would have her baby already, and then I know I can relax and not have somebody else as a higher priority than me for Heather, and go into labour when I am ready without worrying about it. Urgh. I have tried praying about it, and that was good to do, but I then went to sleep and had dreams about Heather casually saying to me that she's going away for the week this week, and it's sure to be okay because I'll probably not go into labour until she's back!!! Urgh. I just feel stressed about it, and that's annoying, because I don't need it!

I'm also a little anxious about Neil being an hour's drive away at work every day. The what-ifs come into my head, which I am TRYING to block and pray about. But the ones that are there are things like, what if my waters break and they're meconium stained? I don't want him taking an hour or so to get home from the moment I call him in a panic and NEED to get myself to hospital fast without a) any childcare, b) a car to get anywhere! His car is in the garage right now because the engine light came on, and it is going to be expensive to fix so we might not bother. We have to figure out what to do about cars. But meanwhile I am not up to going out, so he's using the minivan to go to work. Which is fine - we're not using it. But still, the what-ifs. And also, if I'm already going on 3cm dilated (which I don't know, I'm just thinking I was a good 1-2 at 33 weeks and have had a lot of activity in my uterus since then, including that day or two of proper contractions and then the little bit of mucus plug coming away last week, so that could easily mean I've dilated a little further) then labour could go pretty fast when it starts. My pattern so far is that once I hit 3cm things go fast. Even with Arthur that's what happened, but much more so since then. Matthew was born 1 hour and 45 minutes after I was found to be 3cm dilated, and the labour in between was HARD and I could not have managed a since minute of it without major support from a birth partner and children OUT of my way. So, if I start out at 3cm and labour starts up quickly, and I have 3 small and rather difficult children on my own, and Neil is at least an hour away.... It just makes me nervous, you know?! I wish he worked nearer to home, or was able to work from home this week, but he isn't unfortunately.

Neil thinks this baby will come at the weekend. He is betting on the 12th or 13th. No particular reason attached, just that he feels like that's when it will happen. Maybe. I'm still kind of hoping it happens before then, as that still feels like a way off to me! I feel so ambivalent! I am in no hurry to finish being pregnant because I LOVE it and will be sad that it's over and miss it almost straight away. But on the other hand I also long to get to the part where I have my tiny new boy in my arms and don't have the anticipation and anxieties hanging over me, and the exhaustion. Of course, the exhaustion is about to hike itself to that OFF-THE-PLANET level, I know that! ;) But each day that I haven't had the baby yet is just prolonging that inevitable part, and I would rather get on with recovering already!

One of my weird personal statistics is that regardless of my due date or how early or late my babies arrive, so far they are ALWAYS born in a 5-day window of the month, between the 9th and 14th. So, I guess I figured that this baby would come in that window too, especially considering that he was due on the 8th of the month - that made it even more likely! So yay, the window starts tomorrow! :) I sort of hope he gets his "own" date there though. We have the 9th, 12th and 14th covered already! So I hope he gets his own number of the month! ;) Some people are saying they're betting on Friday, and that's the 10th. I like that date! :) I hope he comes on Friday too! My mum has been saying all along that I should give birth on a Friday because that's the BEST day of the week to have a baby as far as paternity leave goes. Because then you have a weekend right after it, and THEN two weeks of paternity leave, followed by another weekend - that almost takes it to 3 straight weeks off for the daddy! Which would be very good!

Well, I'm having a gentle bounce on my birth ball by the bed right now, as I'm typing this (laptop on the edge of the bed) and I can definitely feel a lot of pressure from the baby's head as I bounce, almost in my bowel actually, as well as low near my cervix. I have a midwife appointment at home tomorrow for my 40-week check, so I am curious to see whether he has dropped any lower than 3/5 palpable, which he was for the first time last week.

I am thinking Benjamin probably weighs around 8lbs on his due date, eek! I hope he's not much bigger than that! My heaviest baby was Arthur at 8lbs 1.5oz. Maybe he'll be a bit more like Matthew, who weighed 7lbs 11oz at 41 weeks? I hope so! Nathan would have been at least Arthur's weight (somewhere just under 8.5lbs) if he had gone to his due date. I had him weighed on his due date (he was nearly 5 weeks old) and he weighed 8lbs 8oz, which they said was an accurate prediction of what his birth weight would have been if he'd come around his due date! I'm so little! I really feel better with a baby 8lbs or less, ideally! I hope he comes soon...

I finally got the 39 week belly pic uploaded and in the gallery from last week, but I didn't realise it's really blurry until I uploaded it! Oh well. Also, Neil took a belly pic for me this evening, for 40 weeks, and that's in the gallery too. I'm not sure what is up with the colour tones on all the belly pics, even with the new camera! The light in our living room is never good, and for some reason everything seems the same colour in the 40 week photo - my face is the same colour as the walls, etc!

I am doing fine. I have put on a ton of weight (not sure exactly what - maybe I'll remember to weigh myself in the morning?), but have had no trouble with swelling at all. I can't wear my wedding ring but that's more weight-gain related than water retention. Still NO pubic bone pain, and I still marvel over that on a regular basis! :) I feel queasy quite a lot, but sometimes that is just plain old indigestion that can't resolve too easily due to total lack of space!

Benjamin has been much quieter than usual today and yesterday and it got me a little worried this morning, but he's still moving throughout the day. His movements are just much more quiet and slight, instead of huge vigor. He has had hiccups twice today, and I think twice yesterday too, so I know he's still doing his thing in there, just not as active as he used to be. I hope that's okay. I will ask the midwife about it tomorrow. I think he has just run RIGHT out of room. But I'll ask to be sure.

Okay I need to go to bed! I'm so tired out. I will update again with any news as it occurs! Thanks so much for the comments! I love reading them! Anyone want to guess at when Benjamin will arrive (day/date/time?) and what he'll weigh? I don't know what to guess at ALL! But I'm hoping for Friday 10th July, and I'm randomly guessing 11pm, and that he'll weigh 8lbs exactly (I hope!).

Back soon! :)

39 weeks, 5 days - nearly there!

My due date is just the day after tomorrow!!! Sooooo close now. I really can't believe I'm here, this pregnant, honestly. It's so surreal to me a lot of the time. It has gone so fast!

I know I said I would update the next day after my last entry, and maybe even get to daily entries! I would love to have been doing that! But I'm too long-winded for my own good and so I don't really leave myself enough time to write like I want to here before it's time for bed. Also we have annoyingly left soooo much till the last minute to get "done", so that's taking up a lot of my time where I would otherwise be relaxing and waiting for the baby, and updating here more probably! I'm frustrated about that, but what can you do?

So, I did not go into labour after my last post, obviously! ;)

I woke up the next morning with a TOTALLY quiet feeling in my womb! I had barely any Braxton Hicks contractions all that day, and everything felt very calm. Benjamin moved about as normal. The only thing that was different was the continued low back pain and low pressure/pelvic discomfort when walking about. I am guessing Benjamin dropped lower into my pelvis, but I can't be sure he's stayed there since then! They say babies can pop back up again even once they're engaged, especially in women who have had babies before (the more babies she's had, the more likely it is). But I have definitely been much more uncomfortable since then. It's harder to find any comfy position to sit in or lie in any more. It hurts more than it used to when Benjamin moves his head or limbs, or wiggles about in there. Neil says I am definitely looking bigger this week than last week, urrrgh! That boy is still growing in there! I hope he comes out soon. Even though I don't feel "ready" as such, I am getting to feel so ready to meet him and have all this anticipation cut short and over and done with now.

I weighed myself for 39 weeks and was surprised to see that I've gained rather a lot since I weighed myself at 37 weeks! :S At 37 weeks I wrote here that I was surprised to have only gained about 42/43lbs in total, because I usually gain 55lbs by the end of my pregnancies (except I don't know what that would have been with Nathan, since he was early, but I was on track for the same weight gain as the older boys earlier in my pregnancy with him). So I thought maybe I would not be gaining as much weight this time. Wrong, haha! ;) At 39 weeks I have (had - it was a few days ago!) gained 50lbs! Seven or eight pounds in a couple of weeks. So I'm thinking I MUST be nearly there, and will probably (uncannily!) end up weighing EXACTLY what I have weighed at the end of my pregnancies with Arthur and Matthew (Arthur - 54lbs gained; Matthew - 55lbs gained, but Matthew arrived 3 days later than Arthur, gestationally speaking) - isn't that crazy?! It's so weird how it's so exact! I should weigh myself in the morning and see if I've gained another 4 or 5 lbs yet, maybe that will give me the best indication of whether labour is imminent or not?! ;) Only 2lbs gained = baby probably not arriving in the next day or so, hehe! Gotta pack on those extra few lbs in order to call the pregnancy COMPLETE and be able to give birth! ;)

Also Jemma pointed out to me that there's a full moon, the other day, and I looked it up on Google, to discover that the full moon occurs this month TOMORROW (Tuesday) at 9.32am (GMT) or something like that. So, full moon tonight! Now, I know there is a definite correlation between full moons and pregnant women going into labour, and the Supervisor of Midwives was even talking about it for a while with Heather and me while the midwife did my antenatal check last week, but I looked up the past full moon dates and I have NEVER had a baby on a full moon before, even when they were due (or not!). So, maybe it won't affect me at all. But I'm really hoping it somehow does!

So anyway, Saturday was a very quiet day for my uterus, and then Sunday turned out very much the same. I did lose some SMALL bits of my mucus plug on Saturday morning, after the day of contractions on Friday, but that's all that happened, and I'm not paying too much attention to that. If they were bigger pieces or blood-stained (like my doula excitedly asked over the phone, hehe! I told her I'd lost some bits of mucus plug and she said, "Bloody?!!" in such an excited voice, hehe! She has warned me that she's "nutty" about birth! ;) ) then I would have updated here right away and been more interested in what might happen as a result. I think maybe the contractions on Friday might have resulted in me being a tiny bit more dilated by Saturday, hence a little loss of mucus plug. Probably. I'm kind of hoping that might make me 2 or 3cm dilated already, even without being in labour yet! I know I was a good 1-2cm many weeks ago without a baby low in my pelvis or contractions. Things tend to go fast for me after 3cm, so I'm wondering that if I DO end up 3cm dilated before labour even starts (which I never have before), it might be quite a quick labour this time? As always I'm really eager to check for myself, but I won't be doing that again this pregnancy, now that I know I'm definitely GBS positive. I also won't be allowing any internal examinations or a cervical sweep for the same reason. There's added risk with internals when you're GBS positive.

So today is Monday (or has been!), and it's been another quiet day in Benjamin's little world. He hasn't been so wiggly today, but he has moved about now and then throughout the day, so I am not too worried. He seems quiet or sleepy when he moves about, not vigorous like usual. I hope he's just growing again (sort of!) or that he's just having a quieter day, and not that he's having any sort of trouble in there at this late stage. It's so easy to worry about the slightest thing when pregnant and hormonal! Especially when you're nearly there! This evening I have had a bunch of Braxton Hicks that have felt quite strong - coming every 2 or 3 minutes while Neil and I were chatting after the boys were in bed, but they didn't really continue after ate dinner and got up and walked about. Right now I feel like there is a lot of pressure in my butt, or thereabouts, and it's quite uncomfortable. It also feels pinchy and achy low down in front at the same time. It's just THERE, it doesn't come and go.

I'm wondering if I might have a couple of new stretch marks. I'm actually not sure and probably can't ever know if I have or not, since I have so many already! They're not huge or red or anything, but they're quite plentiful! I don't mind them at all. They remind me of being pregnant and make me think of my sweet babies, so I love them! :) Now the ones behind my thighs do NOT make me feel mushy or tender-hearted at all, so I strongly dislike those ones! ;) I don't think those are any worse this pregnancy (yet!), but all my stretch marks everywhere are stretched out fully now, except for the ones on my hips from Arthur. It's weird how those have never been fully stretched out with any of my subsequent pregnancies, but I got new ones on the front of my bump with Matthew that were never there with Arthur, and those have been the ones stretched out and added to with the pregnancies after Matthew.

Neil has been off work today, using up a day of holiday time. We haven't got much done at ALL over the 3-day weekend, which is endlessly frustrating, but oh well! The boys have been out for long walks with Neil and that's important since they don't get to do that with me any more. Also we went to a family birthday bash yesterday - my grandfather's 84th birthday! That was really nice. I wasn't sure if I would be up to going, but I was, and it was good fun. Bennie and Sarah were there (my brother) and so Thea was too, and the little ones had so much fun in my grandparents' BIG garden playing together and running about squealing! Including Thea, the great-grandchildren are aged 4, 3, 2 and 1, with another nearly born! :) When I look at it like that, I can't believe all but one of those are MINE! Yikes! I remember last year at the same birthday bash where the little ones were 3, 2, 1 and 6 months, and I commented that there has been a new baby at Grandoug's birthday bash every year for a while now, and I wondered aloud whether there would be another one next year. I remember there was some eye-rolling and also a rather tight-lipped comment from Granny about waiting a while this time, or something like that! Well, we ALMOST had a new baby again this year, but not quite! ;) Next year the little ones will be 5, 4, 3, 2, and nearly 1. I wonder if there'll be a new baby, or one on the way?? Not necessarily me, I mean - I know Bennie and Sarah are not planning to only have one child. I love seeing lots of little ones playing together! They all had so much fun yesterday, and I was able to sit and relax in the garden a lot while my wonderful brother played races and flying and all sorts of energetic things with my little boys (whose own Mummy and Daddy seem to be too exhausted for such things lately, so it was very nice for them!).

Last night when I went to bed, I felt SO calm and at peace in my uterus that I could honestly say for sure that I would not be going into labour that night. I know things can change, but I really thought I would be amazed to wake up contracting. And I didn't! ;) Today has been quiet as well, except for the increased BHs this evening, but I still don't feel particularly pre-labourish tonight.

Heather phoned me this morning to say that her back-up doula has had a car accident and has whiplash, so she can't back-up for her until at least next weekend. She has searched out another back-up and wanted to tell me about it. She has FIVE ladies due in July! Three are friends from church, and not hiring her as such, so they are lower priority. But there is a lady due the day before me (tomorrow!) who is having her first baby, and she booked Heather before I did, so she has first priority. I have second priority, so that's pretty good, but I feel a little bit unsettled about it now that I'm this close to giving birth and have built up a relationship with Heather. I don't want to have to have a back-up doula if Heather is called to the lady who booked her first! It bothers me now. Heather said that she received a text from her first lady this morning to say she had been having twinges and contractions through the night. It's her first baby and so she might have this go on for a while (or not), and labour might take quite a long time all in all (or not?), so I'm a bit nervous now about going into labour while Heather is with this other lady who might be taking her time :S I really want to get a call from Heather to tell me the other lady has had her baby, and then I know I have moved up to first priority and nothing will get in the way of her being with me. I never thought it would bother me this much, and Heather assured me that it's SO unlikely that we'll both need her for labour at the same time, right back when I hired her. But now we've got to the stage where both our due dates are in the next day or two and we neither of us have given birth yet, the likelihood is increasing day by day that we'll both call Heather at the same time :( I don't know what I want - to hold off and wait, and hope that the other lady is done by the weekend (though I REALLY don't want to still be waiting by the weekend!), or hurry up and go into labour and get my quick-labour thing going on and done with before the other lady calls Heather! It's extra stress that I don't need, and more so with the back-up doula changing and being someone who I haven't met and who isn't a Christian (I REALLY hope to have the benefit of a doula who will pray with me throughout my labour like Heather plans to).

Tomorrow Neil is going back to work and I'm stressing somewhat about how to manage the days this week. I don't seem to be able to do a THING for the boys lately, and even when I put in a ton of effort, I'm completely depleted after about an hour, or 90 minutes at best. I had the luxury of a 2.5 hour nap this afternoon because Neil was home and I was just so exhausted from my busy day of doing, uh, NOTHING. Every single day for the past couple of weeks I have felt like my body is begging me draggingly for a nap in the afternoon, and I'm sure I should be listening to it and doing as it says, because it's obviously what I need as I prepare for giving birth. But I can't, with little ones to care for and keep busy. It's so helpful when Neil is home because then I CAN listen to my body and do as it's telling me, and that makes me feel so much less nervous tension inside, because I feel like I'm better prepared for giving birth if I'm able to do what my body is telling me to. If I am prevented then I continually feel the pull and that makes it a distracting insecure feeling, knowing that I NEED to rest but can't, and wondering what effect that will have on me, not following what my body is telling me that I need to do to be ready to give birth. Urgh.

So I have no idea how I will manage tomorrow, but Heather says I just have to take it half a day at a time, or something like that. I feel bad for the boys being bored and restless because Mummy is lying on the sofa half the day unable to do anything fun or useful :( But I know it's just for a little while longer, and then Neil will be home and family will visit (I hope) and eventually we'll get into a routine and I'll recover and things will get more fun and active for them again. I hope they will not behave too awfully this week. It has been pretty bad lately. I don't really blame them though. They're bored right now, understandably! It's gone very rainy (for which I am eternally grateful!! So much nicer (to me, anyway!) than all the hot sunshine we've been having, and wonderfully fresh too! Not to mention the gorgeous smell!) so it's less easy to just let them run in the garden, but I can put them in waterproofs and welly boots if I need to. At least I don't have to slather what feels like hundreds of reluctant small people in suncream! :)

Well it's getting late and I need to go to bed. I'm so tired today. Oh! I must upload the 39 week belly picture! Tsk. I will try to remember next time.

We did manage to get 4 more boxes from my bedroom taped, labelled and up into the loft today, and I took Matthew's toddler bed apart (sniffle) and Neil put that in the loft too, so there's more space in the bedroom now. Sadly it's still all covered in clutter (which had been piled on the toddler bed or boxes) and I NEED to sort that out before having a baby in this room! But at least it's a start, hey? And we washed the newborn cloth nappies today. I changed Matthew and Nathan's sheets. And put in a complaint about the steam cleaning we had done for our living room carpet a week or two ago (soooo not clean, and stinky to boot!) - they're coming to re-do it on Friday. I hope that won't be hugely inconvenient, birth-wise! :S I do NOT fancy giving birth on a damp living room carpet that stinks horribly!

Okay, definitely going to bed. Will keep updating here with any developments. It can't be long now! I'm getting so excited to meet my newest baby boy! It just NEVER gets old! :)

39 weeks and 1 day!

Well, I'm 39 weeks pregnant! I wrote a post yesterday evening at my main blog with reference to where I am at the moment in this pregnancy, so I am linking it here. It just ended up as a big old vent there, because it was largely to do with stress and difficult children, etc!

Today has been better. I will probably update there again soon, but just to say - today has been better. Neil has been home though, so maybe that helped?! Also bedtime went without a hitch since Matthew nursed to sleep as he usually does. Nice early bedtime for those tired hot boys tonight! They have also been out today with Neil, giving me some space in the house for a little while, which helps too.

[Edited to add: Polly, I just found your message in my Diaryland pregnancy diary as I went to copy and paste this entry there from Blogger, and haven't time to reply tonight, but I love you! Thank you! Will re-read tomorrow when less exhausted!]

So Neil did have Friday and Monday booked off work as holiday, to desperately try to get things ready for Benjamin, and for the birth. But, he now has to go in tomorrow after all, and I feel so frustrated! Work seems to be taking higher priority than family, and to me that is not right. It's not entirely his decision of course, and it's not easy for him either, under pressure from work. He worked on his laptop at home till FOUR IN THE MORNING last night, bless his heart, but still didn't get enough done to feel comfortable taking tomorrow off. He was off today to cover the midwife appointments (I had two scheduled, which I mentioned in my main blog last night but hadn't got around to updating about here since last entry) with the boys, let me rest a little by lying in, and catch up on the sleep he missed working and tidying the house half the night. So we didn't get ANY baby/birth prep done today, even though he was home. Meanwhile I feel like I could go into labour at any time really, and I hate that while his company/boss gets everything perfectly aligned and in order for me to go into labour and Neil to therefore be off work immediately on paternity leave, the house, the children, and me and the baby are distinctly NOT in order at all (annoyingly as a direct result of WORK getting themselves all calm and ready for the birth!! The irritating irony!), and in fact the stress of the total lack of preparation for us could well have longer term consequences than just the couple of weeks that Neil's workplace carry on without him there. Ugh. I'm so fed up about it. Neil wants me to not go into labour till next Wednesday or thereafter, since that will be the most "perfect" situation for work, but I'm so annoyed to even HEAR that kind of thing - as if Benjamin and I should work around his dang workplace and never mind that WE'VE not been given the time and attention to have US practically and emotionally well prepared for the birth and the immediate postnatal period!!! Urrrggghhh. I don't want work to have it all perfect. *I* want to have the same level of importance to make things ready for ME. As it is, it's been left too late to enable anything to be "perfect" for me or for the boys, or for the house, and yet efforts are still all diverted to continue perfecting things at work, to make everything ready for when I go into labour, at the expense of the desperately necessary stuff at home. It just feels so unbalanced and like the priorities are way out of whack. And I feel unhappy and like I don't matter as much as work to Neil, and even if that's not true, it is making me feel a not-so-nice combination of upset, resentful, and angry. Ugh. None of which is helping the whole 39-weeks-pregnant-and-not-ready! thing at all.

Anyway. It's all about the rants these days, isn't it?! ;) Must be the hormones...

So, it's late and I should just hurry and update about today's stuff.

The two appointments ended up being combined into one, which was fine with me! A really lovely midwife came round with the Supervisor of Midwives from the hospital, to discuss my decision to have a homebirth whilst being GBS positive, thus declining intravenous antibiotics. I was nervous about it! Heather, my doula, came too, and Neil put the boys in the car as they were arriving and took them into town to get their feet measured and shoes and sandals purchased (long overdue, especially for the two little ones!). It was too hot today (by far) for the boys to be outside, and the shoes were needing doing, so it seemed the best thing to occupy them for my appointment time by taking them to an air-conditioned shopping centre and sort out the shoes for an hour. They had a blast and came back hugging shoe boxes as they ran into the house, and talking all at once in great excitement to tell me about all their new shoes!

The Supervisor of Midwives is called Jenny, and she was just the NICEST person. I instantly relaxed when she came in, and knew I didn't have to be anxious about that appointment, even though she was basically here to outline the risks and negative points, and make sure I was fully informed. Right away she told me that they would be supporting me in my decision to have a homebirth, and they were not concerned about the birth part at ALL. She is all for homebirths! The only concern they have is for the baby after he's born, even though the risk is minimal. They have to cover everything just in case he is the one in however many thousands who develops GBS disease and gets very poorly. They taught me about GBS disease and the signs and symptoms to watch out for. They showed me how I should be assessing Benjamin and for how long, after he arrives. I have to wake him every 3 hours or so to breastfeed, even from birth if he's sleeping the first 12 hours like many newborns do. At those times I need to check his respiratory rate, temperature, general tone, and so on. I can't check his blood sugar and they're not worried about that. They said I couldn't really check his heartrate either, but I told them I have a stethoscope, so they said that's great and I can use that to check him, but not to worry about doing a regular check with it unless I'm concerned about another symptom he's exhibiting. I can check his heartrate if that happens.

They told me what I need to do if Benjamin does develop any symptoms, even slight ones, except that I shouldn't worry about his temperature being slightly raised, unless it goes over 37.5 - I have no idea what that really is, since I don't speak celsius at all! Oh well, I'm sure the thermometer will, so that's all that matters! If he develops symptoms, or my instinct tells me he's not right, I need to take him straight to A&E, day or night, and not bother with the GP or phoning places for advice, etc. Just take him in, they will assess him, and if he does have an infection then they can immediately start him on IV antibiotics. They kept reminding me that the risk is so minimal, and apologising for focusing on the "scary stuff", but I know they did a great job informing me and preparing me. They're happy to hear that I'm easy when it comes to going into hospital if my waters break before labour starts, or if I get a fever or don't feel well, or even if I just get concerned and change my mind about my birthplace. I'm not gung-ho HAVING a homebirth no matter what or anything like that! I would prefer to be at home, and it will make things waaaay less stressy when it comes to childcare, which I told them. Jenny immediately said she could totally see why I wanted a homebirth and agreed with me. If I go in, I will go to the midwife-led unit, unless all the rooms are full.

They said this would be the last discussion about it, and they'd write in my notes and tell the midwife team that it's a finished discussion, which is a relief!

The midwife then did my normal antenatal check for 39 weeks and it was so nice and relaxed. Jenny sat on the sofa and chatted with me and Heather, and it was just lovely. Benjamin is doing well in there - strong healthy heartrate, lots of shoving around (albeit restricted movements! He has truly run right out of space in there now) and still head down. For the first time they recorded his head as 3/5 palpable! The last few appointments he has been 4/5 palpable, and before that "free". So he's definitely going down at last. He's not considered engaged until he's 1-2 fifths palpable, so getting there, but not engaged yet. I have been noticing that I can no longer "wiggle" his head first thing on waking in the morning, and usually he's higher in the morning than any other time and I have been feeling his head very much FREE in the mornings so far! But things are changing, in the right direction.

This morning Neil woke me around 8am and seconds later, still lying in bed on my left side, I had a definite contraction. Not a Braxton Hicks. But not very strong or long-lasting. A bit sore though. And then I got up and didn't have any more - but nothing like that has happened yet this pregnancy, so it's something a little different. A short while later I noticed some period-like pain low down in front and in the small of my back at the same time, and have had some achy crampiness on and off this morning. By mid-morning I was noticing strong Braxton Hicks, but definitely "just" BHs, not labour contractions or anything like that. I don't usually notice them much during the day, they usually save themselves for the evenings, or else I have a patch of them at some point during the day and then don't notice them much else. Well my Braxton Hicks were very noticeable during my midwife appointment at noon, and were coming every 2 or 3 minutes through most of that, which is unusual for me in the day time. They were strong enough to be quite distracting when I was talking, but not painful at all, just very tight and pressurey and uncomfortable.

Right after the midwife and the SOM left, Heather prayed with me about everything, and just for peace for me right now. I felt sooooooooooooo incredibly at peace, physically, emotionally, spiritually - in every way really, after she prayed for me. It was lovely! We got my Bible and she prayed Psalm 91 over me and Benjamin, and then she sat and wrote out the psalm in big writing on some paper for me while I ate some lunch. She also wanted me to write at least a basic birth plan so that the midwives will see what my desires are re. things like Vitamin K, delivery of the placenta, internal examinations, etc, on a written plan rather than relying on Heather saying stuff on my behalf without any visible evidence that I told her to say it! ;) Knowing about my frequent BHs and earlier crampiness, she asked me to please do it THAT AFTERNOON and not wait, because she thought it was possible that I could go into labour tonight (more so than if I had not had any of those signs today). So I have written the brief birth plan and emailed it to Heather to print out, and I have stuck all the verses she wrote up on my bedroom walls, with Benjamin's scan pictures next to them! That sweet little tiny boy in the pictures reeeeeally motivates me to pray and pray those wonderful verses over him! He looks so precious with his little chin and prominent top lip, and button nose, and I can't wait to meet him, seeing his scan pictures again now! I also have a prayer list up on my wall, of things I'm asking God for in terms of the labour and birth, and the other boys. I have a photo of Matthew as a little baby under that list, to help me remember a normal homebirth without a midwife present, and probably Group B Strep present as well. That helps me! And I have two long prayers of declaration about my upcoming labour, anxiety issues, and Benjamin's wellbeing, taped to the side of my chest of drawers which is right next to my pillow. I pray through all those things every night before I go to sleep, and it's really helpful.

So, since Heather left, the Braxton Hicks contractions have continued. They continue whether I'm resting, reclining, standing, walking, going to the toilet, or dealing with little ones. They seem so frequent, and it's gone on all day, BUT they really are "just" Braxton Hicks still. They are very uncomfortable but not painful. Some have given me an achy feel, and most are difficult to relax through because they are just so TIGHT feeling and uncomfy.

I also feel like I need to go for a BM all day long. It's been quite a nuisance really! I have been 5 times today, but I wouldn't say I'm doing any sort of pre-labour clear-out or anything. I seem to be constipated, and not able to, um, do much at any one time, so the feeling remains and I have to then go back not long after. I have a constant feeling of pressure and discomfort there, and sometimes a BH contraction makes that feeling quite unbearable. I lay on my right side this evening for a bit and that gave me sort of "butt" pressure that radiated down one thigh a bit every time I had a BH. Around 7.30pm the bigger boys were in bed asleep (Nathan had a late nap so stayed up to play with Mummy and Daddy for a bit which was lovely! He's SUCH a delight!!) and I had a moment to lie reclining on the sofa, and happened to have a clock in view, so I was able to see that I was having BHs every 2-3 minutes for the 40 minutes I was lying there. That's about how it has been, though they aren't all that close together. I have had some low back ache this evening too, just on and off, and very low under my bump is feeling sort of "pully" and hurty a lot of the time, especially when I'm standing or walking. When I'm walking tonight, it feels like I can't stand the bearing-down-ish pressure inside my bump. It feels hard to the touch and just hurts, and so I wonder if I'm having a BH contraction whilst walking about when it feels that way? I'm not sure.

Anyway, that is where I'm at. I have no idea if it will lead to anything, or if I'll still be here in 2 weeks! ;) It's definitely a sort of "gearing up" though, if nothing else, because it's different to anything before now. I did have this kind of thing happen for those 3 hours one evening at 33 weeks, but that was only for those 3 hours and then it went away. This has been persistant all day. And I'm 39 weeks now, which makes a difference I guess! ;) Today I also had my first episode of electric shock cervical pain, that made me suddenly raise my behind off the sofa with an "ooohooooh!" sound, due to the sharpness of the pain! So, I'm thinking that could possibly be to do with the baby's head finally being low enough to put pressure on my cervix? D'you think? Maybe that accounts for the pressure during BHs and the BM trouble also?

So I had better get to bed! I will update tomorrow probably, however briefly, and try to keep posting here frequently from now on. I love this part with the daily updates! :) I will also try to update less candidly (haha!) at Facebook, but if you comment there, PLEASE do not mention Benjamin's name. We announce names after our babies are born to "real life" friends, and lots of them follow me at Facebook, so I don't want them to find out his name yet! :) Ditto for the fact that I keep blogs, now I think about it. I don't know if I want everyone I know searching out my blog!!

Here's hoping tomorrow is going to be manageable with the boys while Neil is at work :S I am just thankful that the heat wave is due to break tomorrow - hoorah!!!!! I can't wait for cooler weather!

Oh, I did get a belly picture tonight! But it's on the camera and I haven't had time to upload it. I'll try to do that tomorrow, and post it then.