Pete’s holding him.

Thank you for all your messages. There are lots of people who I wanted to tell by email or text, who have read it here first, for which I do apologise. There may also be unanswered emails or texts, which I will probably get round to in a year or so. Babies take a lot of attention.

We are now a household with a single purpose, which is to get food into Bernard. He has not been the most champion feeder ever, and we are currently expressing and cup feeding, which is time consuming on the one hand, and is pushing us into a Gina-esque schedule; but demand feeding has stalled due to the disinclination of one party to open his mouth sufficiently wide. At least Pete can get involved this way; it’s not all bad.

Every nappy is a major achievement.

Baby 3 days overdue

04:45 Woke up feeling crampy, and got up to go to the bathroom. Warm, wet gush. Sat on a towel on the bed for a bit, then woke Pete. He’s getting my cold. I’m having his baby.

05:15 Phoned the hospital and was advised to come in around 8am. Went back to bed and tried to sleep.

06:30 Got up and had a shower, put in laundry, washed up and tidied kitchen. Pete and I had some breakfast and gathered the vast quantity of stuff that is apparently necessary for giving birth. Feeling the occasional cramp, but nothing regular or severe.

07:40 Drove to Ascot. The traffic isn’t too bad yet and Pete has found a quicker route. The racecourse is right opposite the hospital, and they’re setting up already; looks like it’s going to be a lovely day at the races.

A student midwife checks my vitals, and confirms that there are no contractions yet. After a wait, the non-student midwife comes to poke and prod me, and have a listen to the heartbeat. I report some movements lower down, so they give me a scan to see if the baby is breech. It isn’t, but it is now lying back to back, but slightly diagonal, which is just what I thought! A further midwife is brought in to confirm the scan, and the registrar looks in as well. They all seem very excited by it, although apparently it’s not a particularly unusual position. Our original midwife says that the day she stops being excited by seeing a baby’s face on the screen, she will retire.

We are sent home to wait for contractions to start; this should normally happen within about 24 hours, but if not, we are to go back on Sunday morning. At this point, they will encourage us to start induction within the following 24 hours, but we can’t do this at Ascot, so will probably end up back in Reading. Let’s hope Bernard feels the same way I do about intervention, and shows his face before then.

09:30 Set off home; traffic still not too bad. Such a bad cramp that I think we are going to have to turn round, but it passes after a few moments.

10:00 Pete goes back to work. Hg has sent me a dvd, which I hope will distract me for the rest of the day. I send a few emails and texts, and settle down with the duvet and large quantities of pillows in the sitting room. Cramps are still coming, quite painful, and very irregular. Updates will follow.

And indeed they do, here – Pete

Baby 2 days overdue

I didn’t want you all to get excited, so I didn’t write about yesterday’s contractions, in case nothing happened.

Nothing did happen.

I was up and about early, doing chores like taking documents up to the mortgage man’s office, and I think the unusual level of activity caused the Braxton Hicks to be stronger than usual. Dull achey contractions came intermittently from around 9am until after lunch, and from 3pm they regulated at every ten minutes.

They feel like a clawing tightness, low down and central, and last for varying amounts of time. They hurt, but not much. I can walk and talk through them. They aren’t severe enough for me to concentrate on them, and there is certainly no need for the TENS machine yet.

Pete was home between 3 and 4 to sign some papers, and went back to work fully expecting to be driving me to the hospital in the evening, but in fact they tailed off completely when I went for my nap.

There was absolutely nothing until 10pm, when there was an extremely painful one; and then more nothing.

Today? More nothing.

Baby 1 day overdue

An email from Pete’s gran yesterday advised me that, today is the day you will learn that Bernard will do what he wants, when he wants to. Meanwhile, a friend expressed hope that I wasn’t going to become a due date freak, and my colleagues started sending frantic is he here yet? text messages.

Yes, we were counting towards June 20th, but no, we were not fixating on it. One hopes to get it over with as soon as possible, for a number of reasons: excitement and impatience to meet him after all this time; to alleviate discomfort and SLEEP (if ever) ON MY RIGHT (I can’t over-emphasise how important this has become to me); because the later he is, the bigger he gets, and the more likely we are to be bullied into induction and other unwanted interference. On the other hand, as was mentioned in commentses earlier in the week, at least now he is quiet (apart from the hiccups) and doesn’t need nappies; and I think I will miss him in bump format. I know it’s strange to sit around stroking your own belly and talking to it, but after doing this for months, it will be just as strange not to.

I woke up in the early hours of yesterday morning with a quite strong pain, and realised with some surprise that, as it was the Due Date, I might actually go into labour sometime soon. It is no longer a vague, distant abstract, but an imminent and definite event, and it’s quite hard to get used to that idea.

Absolutely nothing to get excited about yet. Watch this space.