Whoops, I’d planned to try and get up to date with my pregnancy diaries before the end of the year so that I wouldn’t end up with a few weeks at the end of it all where I needed to publish after her birth, but that plan might have failed – 27 weeks going live when I’m actually 30 weeks now! Mostly because I’m trying to keep up with life that just gets busy in December in general right now, plus pregnancy on top of that. We work on a month to month basis at work, meaning December is a short month – we’re actually finished at lunch time today for Christmas (woop!) and not back until 2nd January – and on top of that, I’m still trying to get ahead with maternity leave prep. Anyway! Here’s how week 27 went!
On Thursday, my pelvis was still painful meaning another day working at home. I’m starting to struggle with getting bored at home so feeling a little bit worried about maternity leave and what I’ll be feeling if it drags on before birth, but I also want a little break before she’s born – timing is tricking! On the positive side to working at home though, I’ve been playing old episodes of Friends in the background to working and managed to get some videos of her kicking along to Friends theme tune!
To counter the pelvic pain, I also bought a birth ball (which is really just an exercise ball) to sit on while watching TV and a support belt – fun times!
On Friday evening, I went out for tea with a couple of friends. By this point, I was feeling HUGE some days and tiny on others. She had a big growth spurt at the beginning of week 27 I think though, or at least, she shifted into a different position. Apparently she’s “winter squash” or “bunch of bananas” sized now and over 2lbs – it feels like a long way to go until the normal birth weight, so I’m a little concerned with how heavy my tummy is going to feel soon!
Saturday meant time for Christmas shopping in the morning (…where I also bought shoes for my Christmas party). We planned a route around a few shops on the outskirts of York to save us from having to do anything too much, but it was getting really hard work by the time we reached the end – even though it was only a few hours! This was totally not helped by having to queue at Waitrose’s customer service desk for 20 minutes – we were picking up a John Lewis click & collect delivery (a Forest Friends baby changing mat – SO cute!) which took all of 2 minutes – it was the 2 people in front of us that took SO long. First we had a man who’d ordered a box of tonic over the phone, so there was a bit of confusion while they tried to find evidence of this before ultimately deciding, 15 minutes later, that it was just easier for a staff member to pick it up off the shelf. When they arrived back with it, it turned out he still needed to pay and wasn’t willing to go to a check out desk since he’d ordered on the phone, so that was another 5 minutes. All of which time, I was trying to stand out the way of the door – because obviously it was a good place to put the customer service desk – and avoid being bumped by trolleys, argh.
Anyway, shopping complete, we made leftover soup for lunch, got on with our usual Saturday clean, and put up Christmas decorations, which I managed to do while sat on the birth ball – win! We had a Waitrose dine-in for tea but I felt pretty rubbish in the evening, probably overdid it a bit, boo. I did have a random craving for peppermint creams though, so made some of those which sustained me throughout the week!
On Sunday morning I was SO TIRED. Ben almost cancelled us going to the hypnobirthing class because I felt broken, but we made it and REALLY enjoyed it again. As I’ve said before, whole posts coming up soon about that! When we got home, I had a chance to relax though so had a bath basically all afternoon and finished reading my hypnobirthing book. Now a lot more informed, Ben and I spent a lot of time that evening discussing some new options we hadn’t even considered before for birth and post-birth – fortunately we’re very much on the same page and are both really excited.
One thing I’ve been struggling with though is names. I love ALL THE NAMES and can’t make a decision. I’ve had a list of names for as long as I can remember that I love – I’ve always loved collecting names, I’m weird! – which is now a spreadsheet of various combinations and favourites. But a few weeks ago, I started to doubt my favourites and started panicking. It just feels like such a big decision to make for her identity for a human being for her whole life! We fell onto a name we both liked while we were driving home from hypnobirthing which was a big positive – as Ben often thinks my name ideas are…let’s say “fanciful” – but still, I think she’s not going to be named until she’s here!
Monday was another sore day – I think this is just my life now! – after a bad night’s sleep, warnings of what’s to come! I took a cushion and heat pad to work and these helped somewhat. I’m trying not to cross my legs while sat at my desk now and wearing trainers basically all the time as I feel like they’ll have better support than boots, but it’s hard!
