Almost there!

I'm 39w+5d in the photo, and the shape of the bump really makes me smile when I catch sight of myself in the mirror, as it's taken on comedy proportions now. It's due date tomorrow, but I'm still reckoning on birth being at least a week away - I think I'll be rather shocked if I go into labour earlier than that!

I've finally written the birth "wish list", and my prompt cards for the different stages of labour - the latter are mainly for Karen to refer to; reminders about breathing techniques, and suggestions for homeopathic remedies that might be useful at different stages.

I'm doing very little these days; napping quite a lot and wasting time on-line (but mostly can't summon up the energy/creativity to blog or post). I'm taking a long time to make the front door curtain - might manage to finish it today at last! Tomorrow I've got my antenatal group coming round for coffee/cake/chat. Unless anyone goes into labour overnight, there will be 6 of us who are still waiting (only 2 more due dates that haven't already passed), plus Sarah who had her little boy Oliver 4 weeks ago (2 weeks early). The eighth member of our group, Sonia, went in to be induced today, so she won't be coming out of hospital again until she has her baby, one way or another. We were all a bit shocked to hear that she couldn't even have her scheduled membrane sweep last Friday, as her cervix wasn't ripe enough. It sounds stupid now, but it hadn't even occurred to me that your cervix needed to be ripe for a sweep, although it makes perfect sense. I'm hoping that the Evening Primrose Oil and hypno visualisations are getting mine to soften and ripen - I tried to feel it yesterday but simply couldn't reach it!!

I've got a reflexology appointment scheduled for Friday, and acupuncture on Tuesday, so hopefully one or the other (or just Pip being ready) will get labour started before too much longer. It all feels decidedly unreal at this point - I feel like I'm going to carry on being pregnant forever!