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.