39 weeks and 5 days - nearly there! :)

Here I am again for a general update! :) Still pregnant, of course! The full moon finished yesterday and had no effect on me as usual! ;)

A couple of nights ago I asked people on Facebook to send me links to really lovely positive birth stories, preferably homebirths. I know there are a zillion positive hospital birth stories out there, and ones with interventions, pain relief, etc. But I really need to read stories that are all about totally 100% natural birth, the way it was meant to be, you know? No hospitals, no machines, no pain relief, just getting in tune with your body, going with it without anyone intervening or interrupting the process, and being somewhere familiar (ideally) like home. That's how I do birth, and I was nervous about how I do birth (!) so I wanted to read some soothing stories to get my mindset right again. I really wasn't enjoying NOT looking forward to labour and birth, and wanted to get to that place of feeling eager and excited to give birth. I didn't want to go into labour with a sense of dread.

Well, I got a lovely link from an online friend which took me to a blog written by a professional photographer/videographer. She does all sorts, but especially births, and there are some lovely births on her website (under "clients"). I ended up watching them all, and it was so lovely! Most were home waterbirths. Some were just photos, but there were several videos. The link I was sent was to a video titled "Welcoming Theodore", which is SO GORGEOUS that everyone must watch it! Anyway, the end result is that I went to bed that night feeling much more at peace and soothed over the thought of birth - hooray! :) I kept thinking of those pictures and videos the next day (yesterday), planning to watch them again if I needed to come the evening, but I didn't. Tonight I went to church on my own, for the evening service. I haven't been in a few weeks and have missed it - we're trying to avoid germs these last few weeks! Samuel STILL has a cough from the last cold, but everyone else seems finally well. I really wanted to go and make sure my focus was freshly on God for the week ahead, and worship God with others, and receive some prayer. The bonus was that Heather was going, so it was nice to be with her, more so than usual - comforting somehow, because of the stage I've got to, maybe? Anyway, I had a lovely time and really felt God pouring peace into me during the worship time. I went forward for prayer, actually the whole church did tonight! Everyone was prayed for, and the lady who prayed for me said she had a picture in her mind when she prayed, of my house. She didn't know my house at all, but she saw Jesus standing in the centre of my home, in the kitchen or living room (the centre of my home is right between those two rooms). She saw the activities of our days as a sort of sped-up time-lapse type video, high speed blurs of children's antics, meals, activities, discipline issues, bedtimes, etc. All whizzing about, but with Jesus standing still right there in the centre of it all. She said she felt it was about the fact that Jesus was RIGHT THERE with me in my home at all times. That he is always there to call upon for whatever is going on in my home at any time. I told her (she didn't know, apart from that I was obviously very pregnant!) that I was due to have my baby at home in just a few days, and I had been really really anxious about the birth. I am so thankful for that image, as I will try to hold onto it when I'm in labour, and hopefully it will be really helpful to me.

This weekend has been pretty good for getting things checked off the to-do list. We are finally down to a list that's about 2/3 of an A4 sheet of paper long! :) That feels good, considering the length of the lists I've written every weekend back to the middle of September!

This weekend we have worked mainly on cleaning. The weather has been soooo damp and cold and rainy, and the humidity in the house so high with the tumble dryer NEVER STOPPING, and my room (where I'm planning to have a baby) hasn't been actually CLEANED in absolutely ages. So I noticed that it was starting to smell mildewy, ew! :/ Neil cleaned the walls from top to bottom with a specialist mould/mildew cleaner which we have since aired out with the window wide open! I had allergies sleeping in there last night, so today Neil rinsed the walls down again today. It smells normal in there now! :) I've cleaned all the furniture and washed the curtains hot enough to kill dust mites. They need hanging still, but I don't mind sleeping without curtains tonight. I polyfilled the holes in the wall from shelves that were taken down YEARS ago, and the ones in the bathroom that certain children have been digging with pencils (sigh), and then I painted over the dry, sanded polyfilla this afternoon. It feels great to get that done! :)

My "in case" hospital bag is packed, the homebirth supplies are piled in two bags and a washing up tub (!) by the radiator at the foot of my bed, and Lydia's clothes are neatly folded into the chest of drawers by my bed. Yesterday I took a bath when the boys were at the park with Neil. I rarely get chance to do any sort of pampering, but yesterday I had such an urge to get myself ready for birth in a pampering sort of way. I shaved my legs (gasp!) and underarms, and exfoliated my feet. I cut my toenails, removed the old nail polish, and applied two coats of soft pearlescent pink. It seemed appropriate, and just exactly the colour I felt like wearing on my toes for my baby girl's arrival! :) I didn't feel like adding sparkles, unlike last time round with Elijah. Pearly pink is perfect this time!

I used cocoa butter silk moisturiser from my knees down and paid particular attention to my feet, as they get neglected and are usually all dry and rough! I had so much fun! :) I really want to cut my hair, because it has got SO long suddenly, and it looks straggly and out of condition (because it is), but I don't think I will get time to do that. The poor boys are a higher priority for their haircuts, and I am not sure if I'll get to theirs either! The shaggiest boys are Arthur, Matthew, and Nathan. Samuel just had a haircut, and Benjamin's was only a few weeks ago. Elijah's was cut a few weeks ago too, but could do with another as it's getting longer in the back now. I know it will be many weeks before I am able to get around to haircuts again after Lydia is born, so I really want to fit it in before she's born... but I'm doubtful about it right now. I've lost the clippers so using scissors only is going to make it a much longer job!

I freecycled a pushchair that we no longer need today, and that felt good too! Neil cleared the landing at the top of the stairs (there were some things waiting to go in the loft), and cleaned cobwebs from high places, and did wonders in the kitchen with the cluttered surfaces! :) The only things I need to do before having a baby are to clear the small piles of clutter at the corner bend in the stairs. The midwives get fidgetty about stuff there, in case I need to be "stretchered out" in case of emergency, from upstairs. I also want to declutter the surfaces in the living room, just because it looks messy and I hate it looking messy, especially when lots of people are going to be in and out of our house pretty soon!

There are a few more things I want to freecycle, to get rid of them quickly. I am freecycling our old bouncy chair as it's a bit tired and old now, and - slightly embarrassed to admit this in public! - it's dark blue with animals on. I am tempted by a pink replacement, but I am going to be sensible and replace it with a gender neutral bouncy chair, which is light in colour and has a vibrate function (apparently vital for my babies, especially if colicky!). Then I have somewhere to put my sweetie down in the early months when I have to attend to something and a big brother can watch her. I don't do at all well with baby wearing, much as I love the idea. I have washed the carriers and wraps that I have all the same, but I am not expecting to use them much, if at all. The Hug-a-Bub is the most likely, but I find it so frustrating when I'm wearing a baby, to be restricted from cuddling and breastfeeding my other littlest children on the spur of the moment, and also it's just much less comfy for me. It's less convenient to have to do things with one arm (constantly holding or carrying my baby in the other), but I prefer it anyway, and like the option to put the baby down instantly if I need to for a moment (hence the bouncy chair). I hope Lydia is happy with it - I always worry that they won't, and that they'll be the kind of baby who isn't happy unless attached to me in a sling, but so far I've not had any babies like that. I have had two (or three?) who hated being worn actually! ;) Anyway, bouncy chair - bidding on eBay currently! :) It's not urgent until Neil goes back to work after Lydia is born (he gets 2 weeks paternity leave), because for that time I will be blissfully occupied in my bed with my baby permanently against my front! I can't wait! How I look forward to that precious two weeks every time now! Neil is so wonderful to allow me to do it, as he has a BIG job of taking on full responsibility for 6 little boys - we started it when Benjamin was born and have done it with every baby since. I recover more quickly that way, and am way better off at 6 weeks than if I hadn't spent the first two mostly in bed with my new baby. The boys come upstairs any time, of course, and in the second week - near the end of it - I begin to venture downstairs more to ease back into things before Neil goes back to work. But Neil is fantastic. He brings me my meals in bed. He takes the boys out. He maintains the housework, to the best of his ability. He deals with bedtime for the first few nights on his own until I am up to joining in again (depends on the birth experience - last time I think I was back nursing the littlest on the 2nd night after Elijah was born). I sleep, breastfeed, eat, drink, rest, read a lot of books (I get a pile of books ready in advance, and look forward to my annual (haha!) opportunity to read for most of my pregnancy!), and do things online. Neil and I eat together in the evenings on the bed, with the sleeping baby on my front. It's such a precious time, and I am so excited to have the privilege of doing it again soon! :)

Well, tonight I am feeling very much at peace with the thought of giving birth this week. I don't TRULY trust it, but have a calm gut-feeling that it WILL be this week. Tomorrow is my midwife appointment, and I have decided to get the sweep after all. I also decided to check my own cervix after my bath yesterday, and was encouraged to actually FIND it, lol! Often I've checked my cervix at the end of pregnancy and found it discouraging because I couldn't even find it - meaning it was waaaaay up at the top or posterior (not pre-labourish, because it moves anterior for labour and birth). I couldn't reach all of it, so I couldn't ascertain dilation. I'm sure I am dilated somewhat - I can't not be, having had six babies already. The great news was that it's anterior, and very soft. Quite thick, but the softness is a very good sign. Mandi will check it anyway tomorrow before doing the sweep, as it has to be a "favourable cervix" to make it worth bothering with a sweep in the first place. 2-3cm dilated is the ideal, and soft. So I am thinking it probably IS favourable for a sweep right now. I know the sweep may well not work anyway, but I feel quietly optimistic if my cervix is ripe for it. My three previous sweeps resulted in three new babies within 24 hours, so I am hopeful. My due date is Tuesday 22nd, and since I will have a sweep at my "due date" appointment on the Monday, it's possible that I might actually have a due date baby this time! :) Wouldn't that be fun?! According to the scans I've had, TODAY is my due date, but yeah. I'm going with my own dates anyway! ;)

I have had a very quiet womb since I last updated, but today I have had more Braxton Hicks than usual, and during the church service this evening I noticed I was having uncomfortable BHs about every 10 minutes, quite regular for me. Maybe it was just that I was quiet and still for an extended period of time, so I was more able to notice them? I never have that opportunity otherwise, so that could be it. Lydia has been quieter than usual yesterday and the first part of today. She has moved enough but it hasn't been her norm. I started to get a bit concerned yesterday evening, but she started moving about as I got to that stage of thinking, so that was reassuring. Tonight she is back to more of her normal activity levels, shovelling about energetically and hurting my sides and cervix! :)

I weighed myself today as I looked in the mirror and realised I look much more "weighty" than I did a couple of weeks ago, mostly in the face. That's always a good sign that I've had a growth spurt! ;) Sure enough I now weigh 12 stone exactly, which I think is a total of 36lbs (if my starting weight was 9st 7lbs like I *think* it was). Up 8lbs from my last weigh-in, whenever that was (33 weeks??). I'm glad to be at the end of my pregnancy now, as I don't really want to gain any more after this!

I am wondering if Lydia will weigh about 8lbs? Going by the growth scan at 38 weeks (approx 6lbs 12oz), I am guessing that she has gained another half pound each week since, which would put her approaching the 8lb mark now, maybe? I can't wait to find out! :)

I had a visit from an old school friend on Friday, who has two little girls, aged 3, and 12 weeks. She brought the girls, and handed her baby girl to me straight away, saying that I needed some practice cuddling a baby girl! ;) The boys were very taken with her, and Arthur whispered to me that she was so cute that he almost wanted to keep her, and he was very glad that we were about to have a baby girl of our own! Bless his sweet heart! :) The funniest part was when my friend changed the baby's nappy on the living room floor. All six of my children crowded round and stared in amazement (the variety of expressions was hysterical!) as she had her nappy changed, even Elijah! They all know about the physical differences between girls and boys, and the proper names for those bits, etc. They've not actually SEEN the difference though, as they've only got brothers! ;) Benjamin came to me looking quite bothered, while the nappy change was still going on, whispering, "She hasn't got a willy!!" I reminded him why, but he still seemed perturbed by the actual evidence, lol! Nathan came to me later and said that he noticed she didn't have a willy, as well, but he told me he knew it was because she was a girl. Samuel and Elijah didn't say or do anything, but both wore a very disturbed expression as they watched the nappy change, lol! It was so funny to watch them! ;) Willies are very important to little boys, and it must be a TERRIBLE thing as far as they are concerned, if you don't have one! It'll soon become normal for them, I'm sure! ;)

I can't think what else... I have slept badly most nights recently. My restless leg syndrome is back to really bothersome and I have had a hard time falling asleep before 2.30am most nights. It's so QUIET without the fan on now that Elijah is in with the boys. I don't put it on because he's not there to need the white noise in case of being disturbed by his brothers (since he's in there with them now!), and also I want to hear if he needs me in the night. By 2.30am if I am still not able to sleep, I put it on the quietest setting and that seems to help me get to sleep. I guess I am too accustomed to the white noise to manage when it's properly quiet now! Shame, because going to sleep in a silent house is lovely!

Then I wake several times a night, usually because of sharp ligament pains, needing a wee, or some other random thing. Allergy bothered me all night last night, and the last two nights, Elijah has woken and cried, and not settled for Neil on one occasion each night, so I have been through to him and given him a breastfeed to settle him. He slept through the night for the TWO nights in a row before that, which is amazing for Elijah! :) He has already woken this evening and been very upset with Neil trying to settle him, so I've already breastfed him back to sleep tonight. Hopefully he'll get used to not feeding at night pretty quickly, and settling with Neil's efforts quickly too, as I can't go to him in the first few nights at least, after having a baby.

I have had a couple of nights of AWFUL trapped wind over the top of my bump, and I can't shift it for anything, so it just sits there sharp and awful, and invades my dreams if I sleep, and wakes me frequently. My bump is so big and full of baby that there isn't much room for air to shift if it's trapped - I seem to recall this from the end of previous pregnancies. Urgh. I hope and pray that I don't have that going on during labour, because it's such a sharp pain that sometimes I am not sure how to deal with it, and if I had contractions on top of it I am pretty sure I would find it unbearable! Hopefully it won't happen again tonight.

It's so hard to get up from anywhere, especially snuggling with my little ones in their beds at bedtime. The ligament pains in my sides, running round to the underside of my bump, are awful, and it's hard to shift position to get up, even if I'm reeeeally careful, without searing pain which doesn't fade away fast enough once I'm up! I still have lingering ligament pain right now from getting up from Elijah's bed 10 minutes ago. It's definitely time for my little miss to arrive! :)

Well it's late now that I've been to Elijah, so I need to go to bed (and hopefully to sleep) to be ready for tomorrow. I'm so thankful that Neil has decided to stay home from work tomorrow. He is going to take the boys out, as we were so busy cleaning today, and it absolutely poured with sideways rain as well (with thunder and lightning!) so the boys didn't go out today. I don't know what time my midwife appointment will be until she rings me in the morning to confirm - it's usually after she finishes her antenatal clinic in the afternoon, from 2 or 3pm, that she comes to do home visits, but last time she had a good window around 11am, so she came then. I am going to ask if she would mind coming in the afternoon though (after talking to Heather at church tonight) because in the past, when I've had my sweeps, they've been in the afternoons. With Matthew, I had the opportunity for a fairly good night's sleep that night before contractions started in the morning. With Samuel, contractions started within 20 minutes of the sweep, and I had a bad bad bad night of almost no sleep, painful cervix and erratic contractions, and diarrhoea and nausea all night long. The good thing was that proper labour got going from first thing in the morning and so I laboured and birthed during the day. With Elijah, I had a good night after my sweep, no contractions in the morning until I breastfed Samuel for his morning nap, and so I laboured and birthed quickly after a good rest and some breakfast. I much prefer to get a good night's sleep before dealing with labour! So I wonder - IF the sweep works - if I have a sweep in the morning, might labour be kicking in during the night and then I'll have to deal with that when my body really needs to be sleeping or resting. I would rather the sweep later in the day and the chance of some sleep that night before all the action starts, if possible. I hope it DOES work now, even though I feel apprehensive with how REALISTIC and SOON that is!!! Eep!

I have a painful contraction going on at this moment, and I had one like this about 10 minutes ago as well. Painful in that it's tight enough to feel vice-like and sore under my bump and into my groin while it's going on. That is encouraging, but I know the odd one or two don't mean anything much, on their own. I am going to bed now, and will try to update however briefly if I do go into labour before the appointment tomorrow. If I don't, I'll try to update anyway about the appointment, in the evening. I'm not sure how much I'll feel up to blogging though, so we'll see. I'll try, if there's anything to report! :)

39 weeks and 1 day!

Six days until my due date! I have finally reached 39 weeks, which is sooooo nearly there!

I've had an interesting few days. My headache continued for several days - not terrible but still a bother. The midwives have been looking after me so well! Friday, Sunday and Tuesday, a midwife has come out to me and taken my blood pressure, and my urine was checked for protein on Friday and Tuesday as well. It's fine - my blood pressure was 116/70 (great!) yesterday, and not a trace of anything untoward in my urine. I woke up yesterday with NO headache for the first time in a few days, which was lovely! Also no visual disturbances, but those hadn't continued anyway after the first day or so. About half an hour after getting up for the day yesterday, I started to have HORRIBLE back pain, low down on my left side. It went right through to the front of my bump, and I wasn't sure what to do, it was so sore! I took paracetamol which didn't do anything, and just carried on as normal, as much as I could. It didn't feel like joint pain, but it was so generalised that I couldn't be 100% sure if it was my uterus or my bowel complaining. Any time Lydia moved it hurt soooo much!

The midwife (my favourite, Mandi!) came to check my blood pressure at 11am-ish, and I asked if she'd mind checking the baby's position in case the pain could be put down to a change of lie or something. But no, she was still head down, 3/5 palpable (not quite engaged - 2/5 or less of her little head available to feel above my pubic bone is "engaged") like last time, and still with her back to my left side and feet to my right - although she does sometimes change sides. I had a bit of a show on Monday (the day before), which wasn't bloody so I did not get excited about it, but it was - sorry for the TMI - thick mucus, and enough to, um, hang somewhat when I went to the toilet (sorry, sorry!). Not my usual CM for sure! :) Nothing after that though, just normal CM, which is generally mucus-plug-y in the last few weeks for me anyway.

I told Mandi about the little "show" and about the pain in my back/front, and she said it sounded like "early signs" and that she reckoned it would be sometime in the next few days. I am not so sure! I am still only 39 weeks, and my others have all been after 40 weeks. Nathan doesn't count, at 35 weeks, because my waters broke - my body didn't go into labour and so I was induced.

So that was encouraging, if a little scary! I have been feeling SO anxious and somewhat filled with dread at the prospect of going through labour and birth again! It's just so painful, and overwhelming! There are wonderful parts to it though, and the reward is like nothing else, most especially when I have done it all by myself, so to speak - which I finally did last time! :) Awesome feeling, and so worth every second of the pain and trauma! I'm trying to fix my eyes on that, but the anxiety feeling is pretty strong. I need to pray through my prayers that Heather laminated for me when I was pregnant with Benjamin. Those are SO helpful to pray out loud, as often as possible! :)

After Mandi left, I had to put Elijah to bed for his nap. I took him upstairs and breastfed him, and while I was nursing him, the painful feeling in my back and lower bump became more wave-like, and made me think, "Hmmm!" because that's how it started with Elijah's labour and birth! I was breastfeeding Samuel to sleep, having had no contractions or signs of labour (the day after a sweep), and started contractions while breastfeeding - I had 4 or 5 in the 15-20 minutes I was breastfeeding, and they got stronger after I got up and left him asleep, and you know, 5 hours later I had a baby! ;) Pretty much. So I wondered. After I came downstairs from putting Elijah to bed, I had some strong-ish Braxton Hicks contractions in the kitchen while sitting down to make lunch for the boys, which was also encouraging. Elijah woke early and I went up and breastfed him again to try to settle him back to sleep for a bit longer (no joy), and noticed the pain becoming wave-like again.

The rest of that day I was so fidgetty! I wanted space, I didn't want the boys around me all the time. I wanted to hurry them up eating lunch because there was a box of cooking apples from my grandparents' apple tree on the kitchen floor which I was suddenly agitated about! I needed to process those apples so they didn't just sit and rot and get thrown away because I went and had a baby before getting around to it! I kept myself in check and didn't hurry the boys with lunch, but the urge was there. They watched movies a lot during the afternoon on my laptop while I, slightly hormonally crazed, made an apple and rhubarb crumble (with Heather's rhurbarb from her allotment!) and an apple and cinnamon crumble for the freezer, and then peeled, cored, sliced, and froze (on trays, then bagged them) 17 apples! It took me aaaaaaages, and it wasn't a rose-tinted experience, it was more grim determination to get the things DONE, lol! I did feel increasingly relieved as the day wore on and the apple box got emptier and emptier, and the boys were thrilled to have apple crumble for pudding that night! :)

I phoned Heather a couple of times during the day, and updated her with how I was doing. She felt that the signs were pretty good, and stayed "on standby" throughout the day and evening, half expecting me to call her to come over. I felt nauseous a lot during the day as well, and the evening too. Everyone had told me to get an early night, but I felt so grim and yucky that I couldn't stand to lie down just yet. I ended up staying up to almost midnight, but I am so glad that I did. Yes, I'm more tired for it, but the difference between 10.30pm and midnight was huge for me. By midnight I felt totally settled in my stomach and no longer nauseated, and my back and front pain was easing off. I felt calm in my thoughts and emotions, and tired and ready for sleep. I know if I'd have gone to bed at 10.30pm I would have felt sick and bloated and in pain, and anxious to boot. I don't know how long it would have taken me to get to sleep, but from past experience I would likely have woken in the night several times with tummy ache or nausea. I get IBS a lot, and usually if I stay up really late, it resolves. Not so if I go to bed before I've reached that point. Anyway, glad to have gone to bed feeling better. I did wake loads in the night anyway. It was Night Two of Elijah being in the boys' bedroom, and I'm not sleeping brilliantly without him! :(

He is doing fine in there. Last night, he slept through the night from bedtime to morning, for the second time ever! The first time was random, and months ago. He is happy in there, but can't really settle to sleep in there yet with all the distraction. He has a breastfeed on his new "floor" bed , and then Neil takes him downstairs and walks him to country music like he's done since he was tiny. Always works. The only thing I didn't anticipate is Samuel. He isn't taking to the bedroom change so well. It's his old bed that Elijah is moving into, and Samuel is moving up to take Benjamin's place, top-and-tailing with Nathan in the longer-than-standard-length bottom bunk bed. Benjamin has the toddler bed, which we haven't used since Nathan was 3 or 4, and he's very happy about it! :) But Samuel doesn't want to be in Benjamin's place after all. He wants HIS bed back, and he won't go to bed anywhere else! :( Not sure how that will pan out, and I really don't want to cause him any upset, because he's only 2, and there's a big upheaval coming with a new baby arriving soon. So we're still thinking on that. Right now, when Elijah goes downstairs to be walked to sleep, Samuel has his usual snuggles with me (he won't breastfeed any more, even though he occasionally asks and latches on for like two sucks, because he says it takes "too lucky" (that's yucky, by the way, lol!)) in his old bed, and falls asleep there. Elijah is put into my bed in the other bedroom when he has gone to sleep, and somewhere during the evening we lift Samuel into his new place, and Elijah into Samuel's old bed. Elijah hasn't done much waking or stirring so far in their room, though I've woken to every little bit with my door open, so tuned am I to his every need still! But Samuel wakes or stirs quite often still, and he has wanted to get back in his old bed at night once or twice, and refused to go back into the new one... It's worse when he falls out of the new bed since it's off the floor (we pad the floor heavily with pillows and such), so today we got a bed guard to put on the side. There wasn't time to do it tonight, but we'll fix it on tomorrow and see if that helps. He has a never-ending chesty cough at the moment (the only boy who got that after the cold we all had) and he wakes and coughs a lot, so he's more likely to come round at night and get annoyed about the sleep situation!

Anyway. So far it's going okay... If Samuel doesn't get used to the new situation, I think we'll have to let him keep his old bed, and find a way to make the bottom bunk safe for Elijah, maybe. With a bed guard it should be okay, especially since he doesn't care which bed he's in - he is just so happy to be in there! And Nathan told me he would SO like to share his bed with Elijah - 'Lijah would love that too. We'll see...

When I woke last night, I seemed to wake RIGHT UP each time, and then get restless legs which stopped me going back to sleep for a while, every time I woke. Frustrating!

Today my pain issues seem to have resolved for the most part. I feel much more calm in my womb - only one Braxton Hicks during the day at all! I wanted to take a bath, and also to bake lemon fairy cakes, and cut some boys' hair. I never got the haircuts done - the older 3 are in desperate need right now, so I am hoping to find time to get their hair cut before having a baby, or they won't be able to see by the time I get around to it again, lol!

I had a bath this morning while Elijah napped and the boys all played a dinosaur game together. Just a quick bath, but I like to keep myself clean when I'm nearing labour and birth! I always get in the shower anyway when I'm in early labour, but still. I like to keep clean more often than usual at this stage. Also, any backache I still had would be helped by a bath. I did feel so much better after the bath, just relaxed and more physically comfortable, even though I hadn't felt all that bad to begin with this morning. I decided to check my cervix after the bath. I don't normally like to any more, but I just got curious! I couldn't reach all of it, so I couldn't determine dilation at all, but my cervix was anterior (great sign!) and very soft, but thick. I think that's pretty good for me at 39 weeks - I know I've checked it in previous pregnancies around my due date or later and not been able to find it anywhere, or else it's been central or posterior, even if it was soft. Anterior and soft is great news!

Even so, I have suddenly hit that feeling this afternoon and evening where I "give up". I suddenly feel like, "Oh what's the point? I'm never going to go into labour anyway?!" and though I can hear myself saying it and KNOW it's daft, it feels so true all the same! I just got to thinking that I won't go into labour this week anyway, because I'm not even DUE this week! I have never gone into labour before my due date! Then, Mandi is coming back for my "due date" appointment on Monday, so that's actually the day before my due date. Going by my scan dates, I'll be a day AFTER my due date that day, and various midwives are going by that, whilst others are hanging with me on my own dates! ;) Anyway, because Heather suggested I might want to have a sweep at my due date appointment, to minimise the stress over not going into labour before she's unavailable to be my doula - she's only available up to the Sunday after my due date! :( - I have asked Mandi if she'll do a sweep on Monday, and she said yes that's fine. Only thing is, now I'm starting to waver on that decision. I have had 3 sweeps before. Twice when I was 41 weeks, and both times I had a baby the following day (so the sweep essentially "worked"), and the other time was when I was 40 weeks and 3 days, and my waters had broken the day before with Elijah, so it was time to get things going or else induction was on the cards. I did go into labour the next day, but it seemed to me more likely to be breastfeeding that started it, as I woke with a very quiet womb that next day, so I'm not sure about putting it down to the sweep. Anyway, statistically, sweeps seem to have worked for me, but I'm well aware they don't work all the time, or even a lot of the time! And my body has to be ready. It hasn't been at 39w6d before, so why would it make a difference this time? And if it does make anything happen, it's usually particularly sore in my cervix during early contractions (not to mention before any sort of contractions start!) due to the poking I've had! That part isn't fun. I started to feel sort of resentful of the fact that I would only be agreeing to have a sweep on Monday to work around Heather. When otherwise I wouldn't choose to have one. I would prefer to wait and let my body do its own thing - now, granted, I will change my mind as I approach 41 weeks anyway, lol! But before my due date has even arrived quite yet?... Although, to contradict myself again, I wonder what's the matter with starting things off if my body is ready anyway?! If I go into labour, it can only happen if my body was ready to respond to a sweep. So what's wrong with that? *sigh* I feel torn over it, and I can't decide. I have time, and it's totally up to me, so that's fine.

But in thinking all this, I started to be like, "Well, I won't go into labour this week because I'm not due yet. And next week I'll say no to the sweep, and then wait and wait and Heather will go off to her craft fair for 8 days, and heck, I might as well just not bother going into labour at all past that point!" So yes, a bit of a defeatist and pessimistic attitude, but I'm not particularly moping about it, just feeling that sense of absolute acceptance that I'll just stay pregnant, then! :P I thought about how Arthur's birthday is only a few weeks away, and then before I know it, I need to prepare Samuel's birthday in December, and then Christmas is right on top of that, and a few weeks later it's Nathan's birthday in January. And I thought, well, I'll probably still be pregnant then, and it's probably for the best! ;)

I do remember getting to this stage of thinking with previous pregnancies, but I think it was later - more around or past my due date? There is a definite sense of, "I will NEVER go into labour!!!" with it, and I recognise it. I am slightly optimistic that it's early this time... But not optimistic enough to cancel out the general "I'll be pregnant forever" vibe. I did bake those lemon fairy cakes though! :)

Tonight I am not nauseous - first night in ages! :) And I've eaten well. I feel heavily sleepy, like I took something to help me sleep (I didn't!), and Lydia has been active as usual during the evening which has been surprisingly painful/uncomfortable. When Mandi was feeling for her head, it hurt SO much, like my uterus itself was just plain SORE. It feels like that when Lydia moves vigorously. Her head on my cervix when she turns it about it like sharp pins, it's not a nice sensation, and always makes me wince out loud or takes my breath away. I have back pain again now, and am looking forward to lying down and sleeeeeping. I will still leave my door open in case Elijah does have a distressed waking during the night and needs me. I want to be sure to go to him when he is upset at night at this stage. But hopefully I'll sleep a bit better and get some good rest.

Tomorrow I would love to have Lydia because it's my sweet friend Megan's daughter's birthday. She will be 9, a few weeks ahead of Arthur turning 9, and I know Megan through being pregnant with her and blogging together at the time! :) So, oh, it would be so special! But otherwise I don't see it happening. I know that there's a full moon on both Friday and Saturday (and someone said there's an eclipse too?!) which WOULD fill me with hope, except that I have had full moons around my due dates before, and even when I've been past my due date, but they have had zero effect on me, personally. So yeah. Pregnant forever! ;)

I will be sure to update again soon! Thanks for being on the ride with me! :)

38 weeks, 3 days - weirdness and a video clip!

Well, I know I only updated yesterday and that I'm really just talking to myself, BUT I wanted to write about today anyway, just to make note of it before I forget. [ETA: apparently some people are having trouble leaving comments, so I've changed the settings to allow anyone to comment (not just members of this or that place, or whatever it was set to before!) but kept the word verification thingy. Let me know if it's still hard to leave comments, please!]

I had a really bad night's sleep last night. Elijah is STILL dealing with a cold (2 weeks later - most of the other boys are over theirs, except Samuel who has a horrible cough and wakes a lot at night coughing still), and last night he was really congested, but not the goopy kind that I can suck out with one of those magical devices (!). It meant that he woke a lot (8 times, I think!) and was miserable but I couldn't breastfeed him back to sleep because he couldn't breathe through his nose - so he was more miserable still. Poor baby! :( He does settle off in the end by himself if he's snuggled into the crook of my arm (HOW I am going to miss this tiny treasure in my bed in a mere matter of days from now! *sniffle*), but it was a bit hit and miss because he usually closed his mouth as he went to sleep and then woke up unable to breathe pretty quick. Apart from that, I woke three times with awful ligament pains in my side(s), and changing positions didn't shift the pain - it's so sharp and searing that it wakes me out of sleep pretty easily. I also woke once to go to the loo. All in all, I had a pretty bad night and was exhausted when Elijah woke for the day at 6.45am. Neil usually takes him and starts breakfast and I take my GERD medication (which I have to take 30 minutes before eating), and go back to bed, and then Neil wakes me again about that much time later to say he's going to work. That's currently how I get as much sleep as I possibly can squeeeeeze! Neil usually leaves around 7.30am but today he had to leave at 7am, so I didn't get to go back to bed. He had a training day with work, including an evening dinner thingy, and had to drive 2 hours into Kent for it. He still isn't home and it's 10.50pm - I don't expect him home until nearer midnight really. The weather is awful - windy and rainy, so I will breathe easy again once he's home. I don't like him driving in that kind of weather at night! :/

Anyway, I was trying (semi-successfully) to get the boys to do their chores at around 9.30am, and joining in tidying the living room, when I noticed something looked a bit weird. I looked up at Arthur (sitting on the sofa instead of doing his chores) and it looked like one of his nostrils was squashed shut while the other one was open. I turned my head to look more clearly and saw that both of them were open - weird. I noticed a couple of odd things like that before I went into the kitchen (where Matthew was mixing baking powder and orange juice for fun instead of sweeping the floor like he was supposed to be doing!) and my eye fell on a milk container which said, "Whole milk" (we only drink whole milk - why would you mess with something that's a) natural, b) yummy, and c) already 96% fat-free?!?!) and I could only see the letters "ole" in "Whole". The "wh" were just blanked out, like a little piece of my vision was missing. I noticed it much more after that, and realised over about 15 minutes that it was gradually getting worse. Within another 15 minutes I noticed that I didn't have any peripheral vision with my left eye - I couldn't see anything to the side of me when I looked ahead. It was like a blank over that way. Another 15 minutes later, I went to the loo, and that's when I noticed that left eye had a shimmery haze around the peripheral area. It was getting worse pretty quickly, every few minutes I noticed something that was worse than before, and it was making me anxious. I have never had any sort of visual disturbance that I can recall, pregnant or not.

By the time I decided to phone Heather about it (maybe 5-10 minutes later), almost the whole of my left eye was covered in a shimmering silvery haze and I really couldn't see very well to walk downstairs even. Scary. I wasn't panicking, but I didn't like it one bit. I went and told the boys that I didn't feel very well and that for some reason I couldn't see too well, and I was going to phone Heather to see what she thought I should do. They didn't seem that concerned (which has remained the theme of the day, sadly!) but Arthur said, "Oh yes, Heather knows about EVERYTHING!" :) They think the world of Heather! :)

So I went upstairs and lay on my bed for a few minutes while the boys played in the living room - I can trust Arthur and Matthew to watch Elijah for me for short periods of time like that, and I kept my door open to hear everything that was going on. There was slight improvement in my vision from lying down, and I decided to take my blood pressure (because I knew that would be the thing they'd be concerned about - pre-eclampsia - with visual disturbances). My sphygmomanometer is kind of old now, and I never get it serviced, so when I got a reading of 145/60 (!!) I thought it was too weird to be accurate - the high top number wasn't great news but it didn't make sense to me to have such a low bottom number with it. I tried the other arm and got 135/70. Hmmm. So I figured I couldn't trust my equipment and phoned Heather. She, of course, said I needed to be checked straight away. I told her Neil was away so I wouldn't be able to go into hospital to be assessed, as I was sure they'd want me to. She said I should tell them I have six children at home and my husband is away today, and I need a community midwife to come and check me at home. She's so assertive like that, and I'm completely the opposite, but if I don't follow her instructions then I have her to answer to, which is almost as bad, haha! ;) So I phoned the hospital, and finally managed to get a community midwife to come out to see me after an hour or so of trying various ways! I haven't met her before (she's not on my local midwifery team) but she's LOVELY and I wish she could be my midwife for Lydia's birth! She came in and saw Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin and Samuel watching 'Robin Hood' on my laptop, and said, "Wow, I have two boys, and I really respect you for managing four!" ;) She just stood open-mouthed when I said, "Actually, I have six - there are two more upstairs." hehe! She has twin 3-year-old boys, so I have a lot of respect for her too!

She took my blood pressure and it was 110/80 - "perfectly normal", she said. I asked if that ruled out pre-eclampsia, and she said maybe. She had been on a morning-full of postnatal visits so she wasn't carrying a doppler or urine test sticks. But she had me do a urine sample so she could take it to the hospital and check it for protein. I have no swelling at all - my rings are actually comfortably "loose" still, as they were at the start of my pregnancy. It's the best they've ever fit me at 39 weeks before! Most of my pregnancies I have had to take them off by now, but I didn't have to last time. Anyway, she asked about the baby's movements and since Lydia is usually really quiet in the mornings, she hadn't moved much at all yet. The midwife was a bit concerned about that, and said I should keep a close eye on her movements. I told her she usually moves more in the afternoons and then is REALLY active in the evenings, so she was okay with it. She said that she'd need to take some blood to check for markers for pre-eclampsia, and also a full blood count. Arthur ran upstairs for that, because he's ever so squeamish, but the others stayed to watch.

By the time she got here, my vision was improving quite a bit. I had tried to lie down and rest as much as possible, and put a movie on for the boys to watch once I got Elijah down for his morning nap, and Arthur was happy playing a board game thingy in their bedroom, so I was able to rest a bit. Maybe that helped? I started to think I had been daft and that it was just a case of being over-tired, but Heather assured me that it was really important to get everything checked out with something like this. I had a headache by then. I have never had a migraine before, even though it did occur to me that visual disturbances can be the start of migraines. I just figured if I don't get them, then surely it couldn't be that? Heather said it COULD be, because sometimes pregnancy can trigger a random migraine which you might never have again, just because. So I was a bit worried about being hit by an AWFUL headache after the vision issues settled down. My headache was (and still is) in my eyes and temples, and felt hot and pressurey. Weird, for me anyway.

The midwife marked my blood test as urgent, so that the results would be back within 2 hours (so quick!!! I was really pleased at how well they were taking care of me!), and then she phoned before that time to say that my urine was fine - there was a trace of protein in it, but they don't act on a trace, only if there's a + or more. She had discussed me with one of the doctors and the doctor thought that it didn't sound obstetric in nature, and that it was likely some form of migraine, but that to be on the safe side, he wanted her to come back and take more blood from me to run a more detailed panel on liver and kidney function and a few other things. So she came back, did another blood test (this was after lunch, by which time my headache was pretty horrid), and since Lydia still hadn't moved much, she concurred with Heather, who had just told me over the phone to drink a tall glass of COLD Ribena and lie on my left side to see if the baby would move. She said that if the baby didn't move much during the afternoon I should call Day Assessment and go in for monitoring.

I finally ate lunch (later than the boys) and had a cup of tea, and a bit of Ribena (didn't feel like sweet yucky cold stuff at all!), and Lydia was kicking about while I was still eating, so that was reassuring, but it didn't surprise me because I knew she'd get going eventually! ;) Maybe she's not going to be a morning person, just like her mummy?!

I phoned Neil twice at his training day, once in the morning because Heather suggested I give him a heads-up in case he needed to come home if they wanted me to go into hospital. And then again in the afternoon to update him. I had to phone the Day Assessment Unit for my blood results at 5pm, and when I did, they told me that my liver and kidney function was normal, and all the levels were healthy and fine - phew! No markers for early pre-eclampsia at all, and for an added bonus, my iron levels were up from 10.9 at 36 weeks, to 11.3 - yay! :) So pleasing to hear!

So I guess it's a migraine of sorts. The headache has hung around and it's still here, fairly bothersome but nothing debilitating. I haven't managed the end of the day with the boys too well, as I've had a headache and felt weird in my eyes again - just fuzzy and pressurey, and a little bit "whited-out" but not particularly a loss of vision or shimmery effects. They've watched too much TV (videos on YouTube - we don't have a TV right now), and have been a bit wild as a result, but I couldn't think of another way to occupy them today. They've done jigsaw puzzles and board games, and tidied a bit, but the noise level has been unbearable, and I've done too much shouting which hasn't helped my own synptoms, just to be heard over the constant din. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm glad that it's nothing to worry about, and that my little one is fine.

Neil is home now - nearly midnight - yay! So relieved to have arrived at the other side of Friday - a day on the calendar that I'd been dreading for a long time, knowing how pregnant I'd be when he was required to be away from 7am to midnight, and not locally either! Now the boys just need to stay healthy (and not come down with anything viral from the various things we've done during the week) for the next 24 hours! It's WEEKEND!!! I'm so relieved. I know Neil will let me rest plenty tomorrow, even though I'm slightly frustrated that I'll need to, because there's still stuff to be done and literally no time left after this weekend, if we don't. On Sunday we are meeting up with my family (sans parents who are in France) to visit a miniature railway - the boys don't know where we're going, or who we're meeting up with! :) That's why I'm sooooo hoping we're all still well by Sunday morning, for that event. My 88-year-old grandparents will be there, and even if we come down with just a cold, we can't go because a cold can be serious for them at their age. And I so don't want to miss it! Once we're on the other side of Sunday, I will be 39 weeks pregnant and counting the days (who am I kidding?! I'm counting now!! ELEVEN to go!!!!) until my due date, and HOPING that I will go into labour BY or ON or even BEFORE that date, so that I don't have to stress about Heather's time running out... I am fairly sure I'll want to have a sweep at my due date appointment (probably 39 weeks and 6 days, on the Monday), even though I would never usually want to do that at my due date. If my body is ready to respond to a sweep, then it would be good to get it over and down with so that I won't have the stress of Heather not being with me if I wait and wait and wonder when on earth, and then her time is up and she's unavailable.

Anyway. I may still change my mind. I am not keen on intervention of any sort at (or fractionally before) 40 weeks...

Of course, this evening, Lydia has done her usual thing of being very active. It's like she gets her exercise in the evenings! Yesterday she was hurting me with her legs, doing some hard shoves like karate kicks or something - stretching her legs full length but very suddenly, and my whole tummy was morphing into different shapes in quick succession. I wanted to take a video but our camera with the video capabilities had a "wash" (thanks to Matthew) a while ago and takes only very blurry images now. We have the smartphone but Neil had it with him. So I finally managed to use the webcam (which I'd never used before!) on the laptop to take a little clip of my tummy lurching about to some music I had on. Lydia seems to really like music, and Elijah has always preferred country music (a radio station with no commentary or adverts) to help him get to sleep if he is being walked by Neil. It works MUCH faster than no music. Anyway so we often have that on in the background by the time the boys have gone to bed, and after a year of it, I've come to LOVE country music, so sometimes I put it on just for me! :) This evening I had Keith Urban playing, and Lydia was getting her exercise in, so I used the webcam to capture a little bit of it! It's really poor quality - the lighting is awful, but at least it's recorded for prosperity, and I love that I'll have it to look back on after she's born (and after she's turned 1, or lost her first tooth, or left home, or got married - sniffle!). I put it on Facebook but I don't think anyone can see it, and I wanted it here anyway in my pregnancy blog, so here it is:

I'll post again soon. I always enjoy reading back the last few weeks and days of my pregnancies in particular, especially when I'm nearing the end of another one! So I'm happy to be getting some updates done at last. Lydia has hiccups! She has had several bouts of those today. I can't wait to meet her, I am just so excited and it feels so wonderfully surreal that it will really happen soon! I can't imagine how I will feel, holding my first baby girl after the hard work is all done. I don't think there will be words to describe it. :)

38 weeks pregnant!!

HOW I've been longing to update here! Finally I have a moment, but it's late and I will waste no time!

So I have reached TERM!! Wheee! As of last week I can have a homebirth any old time I feel like it! ;) It feels very surreal to be 38 weeks, more so than 37 weeks even. That's REALLY pregnant, isn't it?! And that's sooooo surreal. Surely not me, that pregnant already?! And it's really beginning to hit home that I'm about to have a baby girl. A baby GIRL! How will I ever wrap my head around that? I still can't grasp it, and feel giddy with excitement when I try. :)

I had a midwife appointment the day before yesterday for 38 weeks, and Mandi (my favourite midwife, who delivered Benjamin and Samuel) came. I have ended up requesting not to see one of the midwives on the team, which is reeeeeeally awkward and waaaaay out of my comfort zone, but I was strongly urged to by Heather (who has no such qualms or discomforts!) because this midwife isn't one I "gel" with at all. She seems unconfident about my choices and uses negative tones and it's frustrating, so yeah. I contacted Jackie who is the head of clinical midwifery at the hospital (my very important link - it's great knowing people in high places!) and who delivered Elijah and arranged for me to see NO consultants at all this pregnancy! :) It has been so lovely not to have that this time! Anyway, she was wonderful and has arranged for home-only appointments for me, and the midwife in question isn't seeing me any more, and nor will she attend my birth even if she's on duty. I feel better about that, but you still never know who you'll get... There could be worse midwives to attend me, so I'm just praying over it! Mandi is just back from maternity leave, and only works Mondays and Tuesdays, so I'm hoping things will be well-timed for her to be with me again.

Anyway, on Monday she did my blood pressure (120/84 - up a bit from my usual low norm, but still fine), and my urine (clear), and then went to feel my tummy. She immediately said, "Do you feel that the baby has grown much?" and I said I didn't know, because on thinking about it, I couldn't say that I had noticed much growth. She felt her position - head down, back on my right side and feet on my left (she's usually the other way: back on the left, feet on my right), head not engaged yet - and then measured my bump. She said that I was measuring 36 weeks, which is what I measured 2 weeks ago (at 36 weeks). She remeasured a few times, but got the same. And then she said that the first thing she had noticed was that the baby felt the same size as last time she came round. Because it was her doing the feeling and measuring both times, and because I have been measuring spot on or a week ahead throughout this pregnancy, she decided it would be best to send me for a quick scan to check that Lydia's growth rate is okay. I was happy enough with that, and amazingly, when she made the phone call from my house at 11.45am, she arranged a 1.30pm scan the same day! What a quick result! :) I made a couple of phone calls, and Neil came home from work to work from home the rest of the day, so he could be with the boys while I went for the scan. Heather dropped everything and came with me to the scan - she's "on call" for me officially now that I'm 38 weeks pregnant! :) That means there's nothing, day or night, that she won't drop to be with me if I need her for anything pregnancy or labour related. Very reassuring! :)

So I got to have another peek at my darling baby girl! :) So unexpectedly too! I didn't have time to get worried about her, though I was a little nervous that she'd have some bizarre placenta or cord problem that was slowing her down. I didn't get any pictures from the scan, and I didn't get to double (triple!) check that she's definitely a girl, either. But I caught a flash of her legs from underneath and didn't see anything sticking out, so that's something! ;) I did have a momentary paranoia that she'd have grown boy bits or something, hehe! I just don't think I can believe she's really a girl until she is in my arms and I get to take an actual LOOK and know for sure!

She looked very squashed and folded up in there, but I guess that's usual at 38 weeks! I forget already what Elijah was like in the two scans I had done at 37 and 39 weeks for his growth checks. Squished up, at the 39 week scan, if I remember rightly! We saw Lydia's heart beating merrily, and her little stomach, kidneys and bladder were round dark circles full of fluid, so she's been busy drinking her amniotic fluid! I know she's been practising breathing as well, because I've seen my tummy going softly up and down where her back is. Earlier it was very jerky and arrhythmic, but now it's smooth and rhythmic all the time, and at a slower rate like a newborn's breathing, which is pleasing to see! :)

Anyway, they measured her abdomen and I saw on the screen that the measurement was 38 weeks and 4 days, so I relaxed immediately! The lady said, "Normal tummy size!" Then they measured her femur which was... I can't remember exactly now - either 38.1 weeks, or 37.8 weeks something like that. Pretty much spot on to the day anyway. Neil's body shape, by the way - my leggies (and Arthur's, and Benjamin's) are short and the boys who have inherited them were always 2 full weeks behind in femur length, bless their hearts! ;) Their heads were bigger than dates (apparently this is my gene as well - Neil has a little head!). Her head measurements gave a date of 37.1 weeks - aww! :) Definitely Neil's daughter! ;)

They were obviously satisfied with her measurements, so they didn't go on to check placental function and umbilical cord blood flow like they did with Elijah (whose growth they were not happy with). They had me wait in the waiting room until they brought out the report for my notes. They came out and showed me the graphs with her measurements marked on them, SMACK on the average line, and they were really nice and reassuring. They estimated her weight that day to be 3071g, and since I have no idea what grams mean (!), I asked what that was in pounds and ounces. The lady seemed pretty confident that it was somewhere around 7 and a half pounds, and I was like, "WHAT?!?! She's still got 2 more weeks!!" lol! I did not expect her to be that heavy already, and for some reason I had really hoped she would be quite a little baby. I love having little babies! I have loved my big hefty babies too, of course, but there's something so gorgeous about a 6-or-7lb-something baby. All those teeny tiny clothes fit up to 7.5lbs, and I have some things that I'm desperately hoping she'll fit into at birth! Such a silly reason, but hey ho. I still hope! :) If she's as big as 8lbs she should still fit her tiny newborn clothes for the first few days maybe... Anyway, I knew she would be a good 8 and a half pounds if she was 7 and a half now.

Heather was tut-tutting about my minor freak-out, because she kept saying how inaccurate those estimations are, and also her focus was on the fact that it doesn't make any difference to BIRTH, big baby or little baby, despite what  people believe. It's true for me - my 9lbs 9oz and 8lbs 11oz babies were no harder to birth than 5lbs 13oz Nathey or 6lbs 8oz Elijah - I think Elijah was my easiest, but NOT because he was small. Because he was sixth, and I had a very smooth labour and was completely in control of my own second stage rather than having any sort of coaching or instructions. Not a piece of cake by any means, but easier!

Well, when I got home I looked up 3071g and was thrilled to discover that it equates to 6.77lbs!!! Yay! At first I didn't engage my brain and thought she was 6lbs 8oz, but of course it's 6-POINT-77lbs, so that is more like 6lbs 12 or 6lbs 13oz. Anyway, yay for still being under 7lbs! ;) Hopefully if she is born around her due date she will still be under 8lbs, but we'll see. And I mustn't forget that those scans can be out by half to a full pound in their estimation! At Elijah's 39 week scan he was estimated to be 6lbs 4oz and he was born 11 days later weighing 6lbs 8oz, so I think he must have weighed less than 6lbs 4oz at 39 weeks - they gain roughly half a pound per week at the end of pregnancy.

I am thrilled that Lydia is doing just fine in there! It was good to get that reassurance, whether or not my tummy measures up for the number of weeks pregnant I am. I know she's growing still, and measuring right on target for her gestation.

Mandi is coming back again for my next appointment, which is my - gulp! - DUE DATE appointment!! 40 weeks!!! Can't believe it's right around the corner!

We've done quite a lot to get ready since I last updated. We've put a ton of boxes in the loft to clear my room. That's all the baby boy clothes which have been piling up as Elijah has grown out of various sizes. There were still 0-3 month baby boy clothes in the baby clothes drawers!!! lol! I had given up with drawers months ago and we were pretty much just using the boxes as his clothes storage - *sigh* MUST get more organised and tidy this time around! They're not delapidated cardboard boxes, just to say! Clear plastic crates with flap lids on hinges - one box for each clothing size, which is helpful for me so that I don't allow the clothing to get out of hand!

I sorted through all the tiny baby, newborn, 0-3 month, 3-6 month, and 6-9 month baby boy clothes boxes to get out all the whites and neutral stuff for Lydia. I was surprised to find that sorting the tiny baby boy clothes made me feel kind of... a pang of sadness that for the first time, I am not using them. The very first time! After all these babies! I've never not used them before... It made me wonder if that's the end of using them - if there will be no more baby boys to use those clothes, and no more baby boys to grow into some of my favourite clothes that Elijah grows out of. I don't think I could ever feel like I have "enough" sons! I so love having little boys! To think of having another baby boy one day makes my heart sing! But how lovely it would be to have another baby girl so that Lydia has a sister one day! I just hope I have time for more babies yet, and that God will bless us again...

We still haven't moved Elijah to the boys' bedroom - he is still nursing on demand at night by my side! Eek! I'm slightly reassured by reading my blog and discovering that Samuel was still in my bed at this stage with Elijah's pregnancy too. Two things have delayed us - one is that we need to set up the toddler bed for Benjamin, and we discovered that we haven't got all the bolts and screws to put it together! I don't know where on earth they are - I have eventually found all the screws, and two of the bolts, but the bolts are essential and there are two more missing, so we can't set it up. We also had no mattress for it! I remembered after a while, that I think there was a yucky spill on the old toddler bed mattress when we last used it, and we tossed it, intending to replace it when we next needed the bed. Anyway, I ordered one and it's here now, so maybe we'll just have to put the mattress down where the bed is meant to go for a temporary measure? We'll try to source the bolts at B&Q this weekend but they might need ordering from the bed manufacturer. *sigh*

The other thing in the way was the 2nd cold in a month, which had poor Elijah so stuffed up and sad at night, and I don't want to move him when he's unwell. Samuel has had a horrible cough with it as well, and coughs a lot in the night for ages, which would undoubtedly wake Elijah up if he was newly in the room. Samuel is STILL coughing, but Elijah is almost better now, and I'm PRAYING (desperately!) that we don't catch anything else before Lydia is born. I feel so paranoid about it now, with the time of year, every time the boys go anywhere, urgh. People just don't take care to keep their kids home when they're infectious with stuff, so I know they're at risk - run of the mill for any child, but something that could be really really awful for us as a family just as we're about to have a new baby. :( Of course parents who don't take that care, don't actually think about things like that. It has always bugged me so much. Bleh. Today several of the boys played with toys in a waiting room, while the other several went out to a playground with Heather - both have me slightly hyperventilating in my hormonal paranoia, and praying hard that they haven't been exposed to ANYTHING. Tomorrow the boys are going out to a big event for children in London and I'm struggling to stay at peace about it. I absolutely want them to have the experience (Heather is taking them), and they are definitely GOING, but I know people are going to go with kids who are still infectious with various things, and it scares me. I don't want to be dealing with vomiting children for 2 straight weeks (yes, it takes that long with 6 young children!) up to and beyond my due date, or dealing with the same myself at this point in my pregnancy - and I would be heartbroken if I or my kiddies were infectious with anything viral when Lydia was born, so that I had to be paranoid about them being near her or even ME holding and snuggling my own precious baby - it would ruin her arrival, and I think that's a big enough deal for it to be reasonable to have frustrations and worries over infectious kids everywhere at this stage of my pregnancy! :/ I'm just hoping so so so much that the boys will stay well now.... Please pray for our health! We went to church last Sunday for the last time until after Lydia is born, for that very reason. It's just not worth the risk (both our colds have been from Sunday school groups that the boys go to), and we're off this Sunday to a miniature railway with my family - who we only see twice a year, and which is ANOTHER reason that I'll be gutted if we have to cancel because someone has taken their infectious child somewhere and infected my children! And then the following Sunday is almost on top of my due date, so we won't go anywhere that weekend.

So hopefully we'll be well this weekend and can move Elijah in with the boys. If we can't, then we're a bit scuppered, because I'll be 39 weeks pregnant!! Neil is home so late from work that it has to be a weekend to move Elijah, for both of us to be present with enough time at bedtime to do something that big a deal. I'd hate to move him out literally because his baby sister has taken his place in "his" bed! :( And I can't fathom co-sleeping with two littles. Elijah would be disturbed a lot (I keep the lamp on at night for the first few weeks to deal with the newborn explosive poo, and establishing breastfeeding), and he would be really cross not to have immediate milky and snuggles to get back to sleep every time, which I am sure I would not be able to do for him! Anyway, hopefully we'll be well, and the move will happen in the next 4 or 5 days and go well.

I MUST go to bed, but I still have so much that I wanted to write!!

I had an evening of painful tightenings and Braxton Hicks contractions with low backache at the weekend. I think I had done too much on Saturday - I was clearing space in the boys' bedroom for the toddler bed, and searching for the fittings for it. I took care not to do lifting and stuff, but maybe I overdid it anyway? I had constant discomfort from about 6.30pm and it was distracting enough so that I couldn't focus on anything else. I had tight BHs with it, but it was the constant pain in my lower bump and back that was the most bothersome. I was also pretty nauseous. I phoned Heather and she said it sounded a lot like pre-labour, but that it could also just be me "limbering up", which can obviously take weeks. I hadn't had a show or anything, so I just ate something in the end and felt a bit better. The next day I wasn't in pain or discomfort anymore, except that I'm fairly constantly uncomfortable in my bump, hips and lower back now. Sometimes it's properly painful, but not contractions or anything. Ligament pains that won't shift easily are bothering me a lot again, in the lower sides of my bump, both at night and in the day. Those are searing and impossible to move against, but they're really hard to get rid of! The back of my pelvis hurts a lot, especially when I lie on my back for even a short time, and I can hear and feel little bones grinding and clicking when I try to move from my back to my sides or to sit up. Yeurgh! Everything is loose in there (thanks, relaxin!), and ready to move about for my baby to be born, which is good news I guess! Just uncomfy right now.

Sunday I did more sorting and clearing, but tried to be careful again. I had similar discomfort in the evening but nowhere NEAR as bad as Saturday evening, and since then I have just had the occasional BH contraction - those are tight and very uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, but nothing regular or labour-ish at all yet.

I finally got Neil to take a belly pic this evening! Yay, finally a belly pic at 38 weeks - I think that's 10 weeks since my last one! :( Not including the family pic at 32 weeks which I posted last entry. I went to look at my belly gallery for Lydia's pregnancy and was dismayed to find that there were only two photos in it - 6 weeks and 12 weeks, I think! :( But when I went to photobucket to see what I had there, I was happy to find that I DID take two photos which I never got around to posting - 20 weeks, and 22 weeks. So I have now updated my belly gallery (that link takes you to a big page with ALL my belly galleries, except Arthur's, and Lydia's is at the top), with new photos for 20 weeks, 22 weeks, 28 weeks, 32 weeks, and tonight's 38-week belly picture. Now it looks much better and less sad and empty! Also, I notice that I look MUCH smaller than 38 weeks with ANY of my boys. At least I think so anyway. I didn't get as far as 38 weeks with Nathan, and I didn't get belly pictures beyond 36 weeks with Elijah either, but I still think I am looking more compact and small this time around than with the boys. Also I haven't gained nearly as much weight! It HAS to be a girly thing, because I've had six pregnancies before this and have gained a ton by this stage with all of them. Last time I weighed myself was at 34 weeks (I think??) or around that stage, and I had gained 28lbs. Normally I have gained about a lb per week until around the early 30s, and then I start gaining more than a lb per week (hence the 45-55lb weight gains each pregnancy!). So I knew I was already lighter at that stage than ever before, having gained only 28lbs so far. I know I will gain faster now, and I haven't weighed myself since, but I can tell from the photos that I am not as humongous in the thigh, face or upper arm departments (!) as with my boy pregnancies. I am stuffing myself with sugary treats just as always, so it can't be that! :p

I am utterly addicted to extra strong mints this pregnancy. I mean, I crunch my way through a pack or two every day. I know it's awful! I feel yucky for it sometimes. But it's a proper craving and I can't run out of them or else I'm literally wringing my hands until Neil gets home with more, lol! I have always liked mints in my 3rd trimesters, but nothing like this. The boys are quite amused every time they see me frantically pulling the mints out of the kitchen cupboard and crunching away, hehe!

So much more to say, but I'm tired out of my brains (feeling generally better, anaemia-wise, but still so tired these days) and must go to bed.

Oh, but all of Lydia's baby clothes are present and correct! :) I have been given, or bought on eBay (nothing brand new, budget won't allow for it, but I love browsing eBay anyway so it's okay!) EVERYTHING she needs in size "tiny baby - up to 7.5lbs", newborn (up to 10lbs), and 0-3 months! I have quite a bit of 3-6 month clothing and some bigger sizes too, but almost all hand-me-downs - I haven't really shopped for those sizes yet. I have now had the absolute pleasure of washing ALL the newborn clothing and folding it - here's a photo which I couldn't resist taking a couple of weekends ago when I did it all (I actually did squeal quite a bit, lol! The boys were all at the park so it was okay, hehe!):



This is most of her stuff, minus a few dresses which were not washed with the light/white loads - all size tiny baby or newborn. I had SO MUCH FUN washing and sorting! :) They are all tucked neatly into her drawers ready for her to wear, and I admit, I do open them and hug myself with glee from time to time, just seeing all the PINK in there! :) I don't care if I'm going to tire of pink eventually - right now I am absolutely LOVING it!!! :D

Tonight a Tesco order was delivered, which contained loads of cotton wool (newborn nappy changes), packs of maternity pads, and some breast pads, although I don't leak much now after the first few babies - Heather says this is more to do with my body being efficient at storing milk with the greater number of babies, than producing less (which I was concerned about at first). I'm glad anyway! I always used to leak like crazy and soak the bed at night, and breast pads never held all the milk I leaked out, etc. Now I just have a pack of slim breastpads handy so that I can pop one in if I'm going out somewhere and don't want to leave a random patch on my clothes when my milk lets down. It doesn't last more than 6 months-ish so I don't use them after that. Also a travel pack of toothbrush/toothpaste/floss, etc. to put in my hospital bag - which is almost completely packed and ready, by the way! :) Getting the Tesco order made it really hit home for some reason, that she's really coming, and SOON! The clothes did too, but something as random as a pack of maternity pads is really hitting home with me tonight - I'm going to have a baby really really soon! She's coming out! Soooon! I can't believe it!!! :D I'm so excited, and so terrified, haha! NOT feeling warm and fuzzy about impending labour and delivery yet, but hopefully my anxiety will die down as it gets nearer, not the other way around. I just hope she doesn't come any later than my due date... I want to be well in time for Heather (with her craft fair starting 6 days after my due date). I met the back up doula who is lovely, but I still want Heather with me!

A friend at our old church had her baby in the small hours of the morning today, and that was another reality check for me, as we've been exactly 2 weeks apart in our pregnancies this time around. That seems very close, and here she is having had her baby (and not before her due date either!) today! They didn't know what they were having, and this morning before I heard the news (I knew she was in labour last night) Neil and I suddenly got anxious that they'd have a baby girl and call her Lydia! ;) Neil started to say that we'd have to think of a different name because it was just "too close" otherwise. I checked on the smartphone while we were in the waiting room with the boys this morning (Matthew had a play assessment) and discovered that they had a baby boy, and named him Daniel! :) I wonder what their girl choice was, because funnily enough we had come to the point where if Lydia turned out to be a boy, our name of choice would have been Daniel. We both love the name now - maybe next baby?! ;)

Anyway, reality checks left, right, and centre. Really actually going to give birth to a baby soon, and then  - even more surreal - will actually (really!) have a newborn baby in my arms of my very own to snuggle and feed and love - and this time, to dress in pinks and florals and little ribbony things!!! Wheee! :) I'm so unable to believe it, and it's so exciting!

Okay, Elijah is waking! Back soon! :)

36 weeks, 3 days

Oh it's been tooooo long!!! I keep wanting and meaning to update, but there's so much to doooooo! I have no energy! It never gets done. I know I will regret the big gap when I look back on my blog entries for this pregnancy, but I just can't seem to get time or energy to do it. :( Usually I increase my posting frequency quite a bit in the final month (especially the final week or two) of pregnancy, as it's foremost on my mind and I just have this URGE to blog everything I'm thinking and feeling, so I should be posting more soon. Just a shame about the lack of posts (and belly pics, for that matter!).

I didn't take any belly pics since I last posted one, BUT we did have a family holiday week in the last week of August, and while we were out and about, two days running we had a complete stranger come up to us and ask if they could take our picture for us (we got a lot of stares, lol!). This was taken the day before I turned 32 weeks pregnant, and since I'm standing pretty much sideways on, I can get away with using it for a belly picture! ;) Look at my brood of little boys! :)

So that will do as my 32 week belly pic! :) At least there's something of a photo record between now and the last one (28 weeks?). I REALLY intend to take a photo for 36 weeks, but I've been saying that quite a lot for previous weeks and still never got around to it. :/

I haven't got time to really think about how the past month has been - I'm sure there's a lot to report, but I am doing this update in the only time I will have - instead of the evening (when I can think a bit more clearly), I'm trying to whiz off an update while the boys finish their chores before we start school this morning, which ISN'T working as Samuel is fighting with Nathan right now, and then turning to take out his bad mood on Elijah, Benjamin has just gone for a poo which I will need to wipe in a minute, Matthew is mixing experiments in the kitchen instead of sweeping the floor like he's supposed to, and I think Elijah has filled his nappy which I should change! Soooo, that's about it for my update.

I will bullet-point the most important stuff, just incase I don't get chance in the next few days:

* I've been breathlessly exhausted lately. I asked the midwife to test my iron levels at my 36 week appointment on Monday this week, and the results came back with low iron - not TERRIBLY low (10.9) but not ideal. My norm in pregnancy is 12. something, and I started out at 13.1 this pregnancy, so 10.9 is low for me, even with the normal haemodilution during pregnancy. I have GERD and am already constipated, thank you very much (!), so I do not want to take iron tablets. I am on Floradix and hoping it works along with trying to eat more iron-rich foods.

* Trying to get ready for Lydia! Still sooooo much to do!

* LOVING all the little pink and floral clothes around the house!

* The boys now know her name and love it - they refer to her by name constantly, and it's lovely to hear! They are all SO excited that she's coming soon!

* She's SUPER active! Head down at every appointment so far - very thankful! And back usually to my left side, feet pushing on the right. She's very easy to feel, and I could even grasp her little foot through my tummy the other day! :)

Battery about to die and I have to deal with poo, so I'll have to stop. Back soon!!

31 weeks!

TERRIBLY long gap there, sorry! I am too tired to do much justice to a proper entry tonight, and my legs are jumping all over the place (RLS) and very uncomfortable, but I must just say SOMETHING so that I have made a blog post at last!

I am behind with my belly pics! The weeks are going too fast and the last time I looked up, I was 28 weeks (seriously!). I set my camera to take a 28 week belly picture of me with the boys all around me, because I did that last time with Elijah's pregnancy and it turned out to be a sweet thing to do! :) So here is my 28 week belly picture - I will post Elijah's for comparison below it:

Here's my 28 week belly picture from Elijah's pregnancy - I was surprised to see how much less my bump stuck out last time, than this time! Mind you, Elijah WAS small for dates. And I'm carrying just as low as ever with this baby girl, so that's that old wives' tale out of the window then! ;)

I don't think I am any different at ALL in terms of the pregnancy, how I'm carrying, etc. Nothing much is different, it's just "pregnancy" as usual. I have craved (bizarrely) classical music this time - I wish I could describe that better, but it's just that. I HAVE to listen to it. Not always, but I get times where the urge is overpowering like a pregnancy food craving (which is a STRONG pull). Sweet foods also, are a big thing right now, but then I think that's pretty normal for me at this stage of pregnancy anyway.

I expected to maybe carry higher, or a different shape, or put weight on differently (so many people have been telling me these things over the years), but really none of the above has been true for me at all. I'm carrying low (super low, sometimes), round like a ball on my front, and with no particular difference in weight gain. At 27 weeks I weighed myself and I was 11st 2lbs I think (I can't remember the exact lbs now). I haven't worked it out, because I am fairly disinterested in weight gain during pregnancy (You're pregnant. You gain weight. You give birth. You lose weight. Time scale matters not. End of!) and can't remember my starting weight exactly (9st 5lbs? 9st 7lbs? Not sure). In previous pregnancies at this stage of my 3rd trimester, I have usually gained a lb per week of pregnancy, so if my lower estimate was correct for my starting weight, then I had gained 25lbs at 27 weeks (or 23lbs if not), which is a little less than usual maybe? But I always end up gaining more than a lb per week from around the middle of my 3rd trimester onwards - sometimes several! :S

Anyway, it's all the same really, and that's quite nice! I have spent all these years and pregnancies slightly apprehensive about "what might happen" to my body should I ever be carrying a baby girl! ;) It's, well, just.... a baby really, as far as my body is concerned! ;)

In the last week or so, I have started to really feel more big and pregnant than before. I feel uncomfy quite a bit of the time now, but still able to enjoy being pregnant! I love it! :) I have restless legs like crazy at night which disturb my sleep quite a bit. Not as bad as last time yet, but bad enough. I have tried the liquid magnesium (run out now) and didn't notice any difference, unfortunately. I haven't had much trouble with leg/foot cramps for a while, so I will try going back on the magnesium if that starts up again.

I feel very big around the tummy! ;) I can't bend down to get things while sitting, or I get a horrible sharp piercing pain under my bump at the very front. I am having a LOT of trouble with ligament pains this pregnancy - sharp searing pain in the sides/underside of my bump, which is normal in pregnancy. I think I noticed more of that last time too. I wonder if that comes with the territory having had this many babies? I have ligament pains every pregnancy, sometimes quite a bit, but the first 5 had nothing on the 6th and 7th. It wakes me at night sometimes, and is so searing that I'm not sure what to do with myself. I am usually doing something really contorted or awkward like, ohhh, lying on my back! ;) Or my side. Something innocent and un-stressful for my ligaments like that - it's very perplexing! Changing position used to fix it pretty quick in my earlier pregnancies, but it's not doing much this time. It's as though just carrying a baby in there is stressing my ligaments out constantly. I am not sure if it has to do with her position, but I can't tell if there's a correlation.

I had my 28 week midwife appointment, and that went well. My urine was clear of any troubles, and I had my blood taken for antibodies (routine) and iron levels. They said they'd call me if my iron was low, and I haven't heard from them so I assume it's fine - it always always is during my pregnancies, so it's not a surprise to me. I went through a tired patch a while back and was pale, so Heather suspected low iron and had me take Floradix liquid iron for a while. I never finished it - I was just so sure it was a pregnancy/growth-spurt thing, and that my iron was fine, so I stopped taking it eventually. And sure enough, it seems to be fine! :)

Lydia was head down at my 28 week appointment but very high up, curled in a ball - nowhere near engaging her head in my pelvis, which is to be expected. She has plenty of room to turn about all over the place since she's my 7th baby! She is SO active!! I got worried a couple of weeks ago that there was something wrong because she seemed TOO active one evening! Evenings were her busiest time and one evening she just started kicking about like crazy. I mean, you're supposed to have 10 kicks every hour, and she was kicking more than 10 times in every MINUTE, for over an hour and a half straight!! I got concerned after half an hour and got my doppler out. My catastrophic imagination was picturing her entangled in her cord and frantically struggling to get free before she ran out of oxygen, or something like that. *sigh*

Her heartrate was around 130 (just as it was at my 28 week appointment), and it went up into the 150s range when she was particularly excited, but otherwise stayed pretty steady. No big dips. I listened in for about 20 minutes straight, and even found her umbilical cord pulse, which was pipping away nice and strongly. That reassured me somewhat that she was getting good blood flow and that (hopefully) her cord didn't have a bloomin' great knot in it or something like that (slightly more paranoid now, after Elijah was born with a true knot in his cord!). She kept it up for a long time and then went quieter for only about 20 minutes before starting with the frantic exercises again. My uterus got tired of it after a while and felt sore and crampy, and I had a lot of sore Braxton Hicks contractions! But I went to bed and she seemed more calm the next day - busy again in the evening though. Lately she isn't quite so predictable in the evenings. She is still awake and kicky and busy, but not always for very long. She is very active at various times throughout the day, evening, and night, at the moment. She kicks and pummels, and doesn't do many slow movements that I've noticed, like a long lazy stretch of her leg across me (some of my boys did that!), or slow squirms. On the other hand, she isn't at Matthew's level of strength and vigor in there either! Not many babies are, mind you! ;)

Lately I am feeling tired and breathless and pregnant. Normal 3rd trimester-ness, but it has really just started in the past week or so. I just feel under a lot of demand, physically, that's all. Not tired as in sleep-deprived, although I am that too, but just tired with the effort of growing and carrying a baby. She seems big to me, but I'm hoping I'm wrong! ;) My bump measured 29 weeks at my 28 week appointment, and she kicked about against the midwife trying to feel her position a lot! She also kicked (hard) the doppler directly at various times when I was listening to her, like she didn't want it poking her space! She is easily woken up by Elijah banging my tummy with his little hands or headbutting (he does this a LOT - like Arthur and Matthew did as babies/toddlers). I correct him all the time for it, and he has also learnt the word "gentle", and he strokes or "apologises" when he has whacked my tummy (or anywhere else on me) and I've said, "Ow! That hurts Mummy!" I have been working with him on it for a few months, because I could see the kind of baby he is (bit of a hitter) and wanted him to be clear on "gentle" and making someone better after hurting them, for when Lydia arrives. He isn't aggressive/mean, he is probably on the autistic spectrum like the other brother(s) who acted that way at that age. It's sensory in nature, for Elijah, not aggressive. I understand him. :) Anyway, he wakes her up a lot when he does that, as does Samuel or Benjamin doing loooouuuud tantrummy screaming right next to me on occasion. Hopefully she's being conditioned now to the kind of world she'll be born into, haha! ;)

We still haven't told the boys her name, but they are BEGGING to know, and we've told them that we'll let them know in September at some point, so that's quite close now. My scan dating says that my due date is October 20th (my dates by my chart say the 22nd, which I'm personally sticking with), and it's the 20th today, so that's exactly TWO MONTHS to go until my due date!!! Only 2 months!!!! That's sooooooooooo soon!! I'm exactly 31 weeks pregnant today, so only 9 weeks to go! I can't believe how fast it is going, and how close I am getting to holding my very own actual baby daughter in my arms for the first time (ever!)!! I'm so excited! To see her, and find out what she looks like - who she looks like. To put her in girly clothes - I just have that tight-throat feeling of squashing a squeal EVERY SINGLE TIME I think of that, even though that seems a really trivial or "shallow" thing to consider!

Elijah is starting to need his first haircut pretty soon, and the boys were talking about it today. Nathan said that the new baby would probably need her hair cutting when she got to be Elijah's age, and I said noooooooo, I would not cut it! I would let it grow and grow and grow, and only tidy the ends occasionally! :) They were all open-mouthed asking me WHY, lol! So I explained that I wanted my little girl to have long hair because I liked long hair on little girls. They paused to consider that, and then Arthur agreed, "Yes, I do too!" :) I hadn't thought about that before. We found the photo of Nathan from when he was about 15 months old, right before his first haircut, where I had used pink floral hairbands to put his hair into bunches - ohh he DID look sweet, hehe! But I knew it was a quick silly "thing" to do before cutting his hair. Suddenly today I realised I would be able to do that EVERY DAY with Lydia's hair and it would not be silly in the least if I did!!! Joy!! :)

I haven't started to even think about a "to do" list to get ready for her arrival yet! Normally I have by now, I think? I have so much else going on that it hasn't occurred to me, plus I have really genuinely been taken by surprise at the speed of the last few weeks passing by. I am currently in the midst of a new discipline/reward system for the boys, to get a handle on the trickiest part of my days (their behaviour and general stuff like that), and this week we began a new chores system for the first time, to help me as I get more pregnant, and in the postnatal period, and also to enable me in any case to have time to manage (read: not burn out, which would be the alternative, I assure you!), homeschool, and meet their needs, etc. Next week, Neil is off work and we are doing a "staycation", going on day trips but returning home at the end of each day. So that takes planning too. The week after is our first week back in formal schooling for the best part of a year. We've been unschooling all this time, and I am keen to start back with some formal lessons in the basics at least, and continue the "free-range" learning the rest of the time. More planning (lots and lots!) needed for a new year of homeschooling! Then suddenly I have 6 or 7 weeks to go, and yet I've only just started school with the boys for the year, so that will take my full focus for a few weeks as we get into a rhythm. I hope we'll get going well and manage to keep going up until the very end of my pregnancy, so that it's not too stop-start-y for the boys when we stop to have a baby for a bit. We'll probably stop until pretty much the end of the year - at least, I'm not expecting anything of myself until the New Year, but if Lydia is colic-free (!) and an "easy" baby like Samuel was, I can see us starting back in early December if not before, especially if we were off to a good start in the autumn. We shall see. Colicky baby girl? No plans for school until Next Year (ie. off my radar for a while!)! Love the flexibility homeschooling allows us! :)

I am getting rather excited about giving birth, although I'm sure the natural anxieties will return nearer the time when it feels more real! Last time felt like a GOOD birth experience for me (yay, at last!), not scary or unmanageable, and so for the first time I am looking forward to the next one! I know they're all different, but I'm hoping hoping hoping that the trend will continue. So far my labours are getting shorter - the last one was about 4 or 5 hours from 1st contraction to birth - and I am able to manage so much better because I feel very used to the sensations and remember, even in the moment, how I coped with that kind of pain last time, etc. Heather makes a big difference on the few occasions when I "lose it" and start freaking out or panicking - she brings me gently back to earth very quickly, and reminds me to go with my body, which I did 100% last time (again, for the first time), and which might well have been the reason I didn't tear (again, first time!) enough to require stitches. My recovery in the hours after Elijah's birth was SO much different to all the previous times, and I think it had to have something to do with the no tearing/stitches thing. Anyway, I hope Lydia's birth will be quick and straightforward and uncomplicated. And no stitches would be a marvellous bonus too! ;)

Okay, glad to have managed a decent update, but soooooo tired now - must go to bed. As always, I know there's plenty of stuff that I will have missed, but never mind. I'll really try not to leave it so many weeks this time! I want a belly picture for 32 weeks for sure, so I'll hopefully update with that. My next midwife appointment isn't until 34 weeks. I asked them to visit me at home for that, which they've agreed to do, and that makes it much easier! :) I'll update when I can! Thanks for hanging in there with this blog if you're still there! ;)

26 weeks, 2 days!

26 weeks pregnant already! Only 5 days to go until I start my 3rd and final trimester! I can barely catch my breath over how fast this pregnancy is whizzing by, and I am so rushed in mind and body all the time that I am sadly not getting much chance to stop and THINK about it each week and savour the pregnant weeks passing by. When I wrote the title of this post, I actually wasn't sure if I was still 26 weeks or if the past couple of days had been another week (they've been reeeeeally long days and busy ones too), so maybe I had forgotten that I'd turned 27 weeks already?! But no - definitely 26 weeks still! ;) That's the first time I've ever not been 100% tuned in to my pregnancy, week-by-week, though, which makes me feel a bit sad. I wish I could slow time down a bit and just... be able to stop my head whirling enough to take note of where I am and what's going on. Life is busier and more hectic than ever right now. Neil's old "work car" that used to be our family car back when we had just Arthur and Matthew (!) finally bit the dust and we can't afford to replace it, so he is getting to work via public transport. This instantly turns his commute into 2 hours on the way to work, and at least 2 hours (sometimes 3, ugh!) on the way home, which in turn makes my day actually painfully long. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE my job, and wouldn't have it any other way! But 13 hours alone raising 6 small children and incubating another is really really really hard work. I'm also supposed to be homeschooling and coping with very impossible autistic and crazy ADHD type behaviour, but I am currently doing a really bad job at those two things along with the rest of it. Some of the boys are not awake when Neil leaves for work (but enough of them always are, that I have to be up early too), and then I can't (actually can't) do bedtime on my own so they are tired and cranky and hyper and late for bed every evening, because of waiting for Neil to get home. They should be sleeping by the time he gets home, but I can't get Elijah to sleep at the moment (Neil walks with him and he is out like a light in minutes, but he won't breastfeed to sleep right now), and the other boys' bedtime on a good night takes 60-90 minutes all told. If Elijah is awake during any of that time, he is SCREAMING, and I do mean that literally! Sometimes I've tried to do it, but it has been so awful, and 2 hours of working at it still ended up with Neil finally arriving home (like the night the buses were dreadful and he took over 3 hours getting home) and the kids are still up, and Elijah has been so distraught that he's still sleep-sobbing an HOUR after going to sleep in Neil's arms (which of course only took seconds).

Anyway, it's too much, and I can't manage it, but hopefully it's temporary. I don't know why it would be (house move? somehow another car?) but that's what I'm clinging to in order to stay vaguely sane. I am doing the best I can, and some days are better than others, but it's just too much to manage day after day. I don't know how single mothers manage, but on the other hand, I might not be a single mother in general, but there is something to be said for the sheer number of children I have, at the ages they are, with the specific issues some of them have...

I am not sleeping well. My RLS (restless leg syndrome) is at its worst again - I have it always, pregnant or not, but it's particularly bad during the latter part of pregnancy for me. This time I am taking liquid magnesium but it's not apparently making any difference. Or to the cramps in the sides of my lower legs, above the ankle. I am waking with those a lot at night, and I always need a wee in the night now too. I have trouble getting to sleep for an hour or so most nights, and once I wake for any reason, the RLS kicks in ('scuse the pun!) instantly. I also have the worst hayfever I've ever had, this year, since March. Thankfully it doesn't wake me, but it starts within about 2 minutes of being awake, with a vengeance, sneezing and itching and prickling and streaming. Unless I fall asleep pinching my nose HARD, I can't get back to sleep because of it! I have learned to prop my hand against the pillow in a certain way so I can maintain a hard pinch with finger and thumb on my nose, lol! It sounds crazy but it's the only thing that lets the itching and sneezing ease off enough for me to drop off again after a while. Elijah has been sleeping very badly this past week, I'm not sure why. I've learned that his sleep cycle is currently 50 minutes long, almost to the exact minute (I check the clock). Some nights he has woken every single 50 minutes, all night long, and needed resettling each time, or feeding. Most nights, though, he's done a few night wakings (which he always has done) and had a breastfeed to settle him back off, but woken between 2.30 and 3.15 somewhere, and then fussed and sat up and screeched and so on for 90 minutes or so before finally going back to sleep. I can't even describe in words how exhausted I am right now. And yet it's late, and here I am updating my blog. I am tired of never getting life "recorded" for prosperity here, to look back on. And I only got chance to eat dinner somewhere after 10pm tonight (that's happening too often lately as well), so I needed to stay up to digest for a while before going to bed anyway. I am having a lot more trouble with reflux this week - maybe the late dinners or stress are connected? So anyway, I try to stay up a bit longer to combat that. Vicious cycle? Hmmm.

Tomorrow Neil has to be out the door at 6.50am and he has a work function straight after work, so he won't be home until after midnight. Being Friday, I am already toast for the week, so I am DREADING it. Especially the impossible bedtime. And just surviving. Never mind the heatwave added to the mix - I'm actually tolerating the heat uncharacteristically well! :) Maybe I'm just too pressed in too many other areas to be able to give it enough focus?! I cannot WAIT for Saturday, because then Friday will be done.

What a negative post so far. I didn't mean to moan, just to honestly describe life at the moment. That's just a basic summary really.

Pregnancy-wise, Lydia is kicking around a lot, and her kicks are getting bigger and bigger all the time! I just cannot WAIT to meet her and hold her in my arms! I am so relieved to be into the "viable" stage, but I am still nervous when I do too much and have a ton of Braxton Hicks that hurt a bit, or lose what looks for all the world like mucus plug (have had a lot of that in the past couple of weeks, and almost asked Heather about the mucus plug at one point, but decided she would just tell me to go and get checked out by the midwife and I didn't have time or energy to do that, so I didn't mention it in the end!). 26 weeks is great, but still way too early for my baby girl to be arriving! I need her NOT to come too long after my actual due date (although I know for me, it's a possibility that she will anyway), because Heather's commitments mean that she is unavailable to me in any way, shape, or form, from when I am 40 weeks and 6 days onwards. :( Please please please be a due date baby, little one! The stress will be much greater as the time approaches this time around, because of Heather's plans.

My bump is growing fast, and the boys are loving it! I am getting crazy comments like, "Are there triplets in there?!" and round wide eyes when I answer that I'm due in October, etc. Apparently I'm big, but I don't actually think I am, certainly not for me anyway. I MUST take another belly pic - I've missed 24 weeks which I'm annoyed about, and STILL haven't taken one at 26 weeks! I don't seem to see Neil much at the moment, and when he's home (like right now), he is working on his work laptop (like he is right now) because he has a lot on at work. So he isn't taking my picture, and I don't have time to set the camera up and take one myself. :(

Last week (25 weeks) I weighed myself randomly, and I was 10 stone and 9lbs. That's really just a note for myself, so I don't forget, because I have no idea how that relates in any way, lol! I can't remember my starting weight, nor do I have time to look it up or figure out how many lbs I've gained so far. But here, at least I've made note of my weight, so that in 20 years when life has slowed down, I can sit down and work it out! ;) It's just for stats anyway, I do not care how much I gain. I am pregnant, I gain weight. End of. How much is just like how long a piece of string is. The string all gets cut to the same length after a certain amount of months anyway, so it doesn't matter how long it gets to.

Okay, I'm sure there's TONS more to say, but my brain is fried and I have to get some sleep. Sorry it's not the "best" of entries. I am happy!!! I love being pregnant and the joys that come with the demands of parenting lots of little ones with their own unique challenges! It's hard, but I'm blessed, and I know it. That's all it boils down to really, even when I complain - which I hope I don't do too often! :) Hopefully I'll do a more normal update soon.