AWOL

It's positively embarrassing how long it has been since I last posted - over 3 months! The original lack of internet access for about 6 weeks was the cause, and when we did get back on-line I just didn't quite know how to catch up on myself (plus I was suffering from pregnancy-induced apathy at the time). I kind of dropped out of the blogosphere for some time, not even reading other blogs for a while. It feels rather rude to suddenly start commenting again after such a long absence! But thanks to those of you who have commented here, expressing concern - we're all doing just fine thanks.

Anyway, I'm not going to worry too much about trying to catch up on the last 3 months happenings, as it would be pretty much impossible. Suffice to say, the pregnancy is progressing in a completely normal, text-book manner, which is highly gratifying! Having seen so many of my friends have difficult pregnancies, I knew that generally pregnancy wasn't plain sailing, but on the whole, I've been really lucky with it all. I'm not saying that it's been symptom free, but I do feel that I've had a pretty good time of it, at least once the major exhaustion lifted around week 16. I started feeling movement at week 18, and Pip hardly seems to stop moving these days! I positively love having a bump, and it's definitely growing fairly significantly at the moment (pic above is at 28 wks). Pip can recognise Karen's voice, and usually starts kicking dramatically in response when she gets home! We love playing with Pip inside my belly, getting him/her to respond to prods/words/music.

I'm now 29 weeks pregnant (which seems semi-impossible), so we're definitely in the 3rd tri countdown. It's gradually feeling more real that we will actually have a baby in the not too distant future; the growth and activity of the bump help a lot with that. Plus we've started making purchases/changes around the house ready for Pip's arrival, although we're not going into top gear on this until after Christmas (as we've got family/friends staying).

Antenatal classes start in January, which I'm looking forward to, but Karen is not. She's worried that we're all going to have to sit around in a circle, "sharing". So not her thing. Hopefully it will be more practically oriented than that. We've got 4 weekly evening classes of 2 hours each, interspersed with 2 x 4hr Saturday morning sessions. Sounds like a lot! We haven't got any really fixed ideas about the birth, as we know that the key to it all is being prepared to be flexible, as anything can happen. In an ideal world, I think that we may try for a waterbirth, but a lot will depend on whether the one pool at the delivery unit is available when needed! And while I'd rather try and do the birth drug-free if it's manageable, I certainly won't hold out if the pain just gets too much. I've been going to antenatal yoga classes for the last 10 weeks or so - it's a tiny group, which is great is it can be quite personalised. I'd never done any yoga before, but I've really been enjoying it, and find it very relaxing. It's helped majorly with the broken sleep patterns of pregnancy! Anyway, I'm really hoping that the yoga positions & breathing, plus some relaxation techniques I've been reading about (and must actually start practising!) will help with it all. It can't hurt anyway.

Right, that's quite enough for now. Not exactly fascinating reading, but at least it's an update at long last.