We're having a gayby!

OK, so there's no sign of Pip making his/her entrance into the world quite yet, but here's a pic of my latest baby sewing project; a fleece snuggle for our pushchair. I'm really pleased with how it turned out; it doesn't look home-made at all, even though I was just sort of making it up as I went along (having sketched a "pattern" of one I saw in a baby store at the weekend). Our pushchair is a very dull grey (it only comes in this colour or a dark slate grey, but it's brilliantly designed and easy to use), so I wanted to brighten it up, and when I saw the rainbow fleece fabric on sale in January, I knew exactly what the answer was! The lower section unzips so that you can remove it if the baby/child is too warm, but still have the bright liner in place. And I love the cute pocket for holding a toy/snacks/crumbs/whatever. After I'd taken the photo I also made a matching hat and mittens from the leftover fabric - although the hat turned out smaller than I meant it to!

Oh, and by the way, this is the pushchair in its most upright position; the back goes all the way down to a lie-flat position for newborns. You can also clip our carseat onto the pushchair (so that it faces the current handle position, which can flip back and forth so the baby can face you or face out), which will be very handy I think. It'll be interesting to see how much I use the pushchair in comparison to babywearing though - I plan for the Hugabub wrap to get plenty of use.

ETA: there are 2 more babies amongst our antenatal group as of today; Sonia, who was due to be induced on Wednesday went into labour naturally late on Monday night, and had her daughter Abbey within 12 hrs. And Sai who was feeling too "unwell" yesterday to come to coffee (she thought she had a cold, but we were all speculating as to whether it was actually a sign of imminent labour), had another girl, called Rose, this morning after a quick, pain-relief-free labour.

Awwww, babies arriving at last!

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!

Homeopathy rocks!

I got a remedy (Nat Mur) from the lovely Natasha at my local alternative health shop, after consulting both my "Mother & Baby" homeopathy book, and Natasha who is a homeopath herself, but not practising currently due to running the shop and having a gorgeous almost-1yr-old daughter. My legs feel so much better, and it's actually possible to sleep! In fact, I've been sleeping better for the last couple of nights than I have done for some time. The only bore is that, as with all homeopathic remedies, you have to take them in a "clean" mouth i.e. no food/drink for 15 mins either side of taking the remedy; as I'm drinking water like it's going out of fashion at the moment, I have to "plan" when to take the tablets. I'm also making much more of an effort to spend time with my feet elevated above my head, which probably helps too. All in all, I feel much more able to cope with the prospect of waiting longer for Pip to arrive.

Had a lovely and relaxing day yesterday; apart from spending 2hrs doing all the ironing when I got up early yesterday morning! Still, at least it's out of the way, and the wardrobes and linen cupboard are full of fresh, pressed clothes and sheets. Karen went to have her hair coloured yesterday morning, so I took the time to have a nap, and then to listen to my hypno CD. We drove to the coast for lunch, to a pub owned by someone I used to work with, and I stuffed myself silly with a huge plate of fabulous locally sourced ham, egg and chips (home fries for my US readers!). Could hardly move afterwards, and it was raining, so we didn't bother with the planned walk. We went to a couple of baby shops on the way back (we had the sun parasol for the pushchair to pick up, and I also wanted to nick the measurements of a buggy snuggle, so that I can copy it and make one from some lovely rainbow-striped fleece I've bought, to "gay up" our grey/white pushchair). Had another nap when we got home, after some lovely organic hot chocolate, and then we spent some time doing birth prep, discussing what to put our birth wish list, and also how I hope to use the different birthing strategies/aids that I've been working on, as previously I hadn't talked to Karen in great detail about stuff like the yoga/hypnotherapy. I still need to do some "cue cards", summarising stuff from all my different books for the different stages of labour, and using prompts from the hypnotherapy etc. but other than that, we feel pretty ready. Karen has requested that Pip doesn't arrive before Thursday though, as she gets to hand over responsibility for one of her studios on Wednesday, and she hasn't finished the handover notes yet! I think that Pip will be fairly happy to oblige ;o)