The start of 31 weeks was pretty chilled – in fact, all of my week 31 was pretty chilled! – as it began the day after Boxing Day, meaning we didn’t have anything we needed to do or anywhere to go. This was pretty awesome, meaning I spent a lot of time catching up on things like reading and doing…well, pretty much nothing.
With all the Christmas joy of my last update though, I forgot to mention one not-so-great thing about week 30 – the cold I caught just in time to finish work for Christmas, argh. Literally, the day we finished work, I started feeling a bit of a sore throat, which developed into a mild cold over Christmas. I was very lucky it was only mild, but even so, a cold on top of pregnancy on top of Christmas was not so much fun. But fortunately the first day of 31 weeks, I was starting to feel better, so that was nice.
This day coincided with my next midwife appointment, and the first one that Ben joined me for. We’d talked about whether he would come to any of them or not, and decided early on that he would come to scans but it really wasn’t necessary for him to be at every other appointment unless I really wanted him there. Luckily most of them are pretty boring with an update on how I’m feeling, a blood pressure and urine test, and nowadays, measuring my growing bump. The fun part though is hearing baby’s heartbeat, so even though I’m pretty sure Ben was bored the rest of the appointment (except when he got to talk about hypnobirthing!), it was exciting that he got to hear her again as he’d only heard the heartbeat at one scan. She couldn’t tell for definite which way she was laying in my uterus, but wasn’t concerned about her getting head down yet which was reassuring. I know there are still many weeks for her to sort herself out in terms of head down, but it’s still something that’s been on my mind lately.
In random pregnancy update news, this was the week we passed what I’ve termed “Baby Fastpass Day” – ie. officially 60 days to due date! It might be a bit weird to note this occasion, but 60 days is when you can book your Disney fast passes if you’re staying on property, so it was a day I waited for with much eagerness before our honeymoon, and considering that one of my apps kept giving me “XX days to go!” notifications, I couldn’t not notice it!
She’s also continued to snuggle up in my right hand side this week, leaving the left hand side looking and feeling strangely empty at times and creating some really funny looking bumps on the right. It’s a very strange sensation because I can sometimes feel basically her whole body from the outside when she pushed there and it reminds me that oh my goodness, this is a real baby!!
On Friday Ben had to return to work after his Christmas break, while I still had loads of time to go. I had plans with my friends that afternoon to come round for Secret Santa and catch ups as we hadn’t all got together in a while, so that morning I made butterfly buns and tidied the house ready for their arrival. That evening, I was sat on the sofa and decided we needed doughnuts – a new craving! We ended up going out to Morrisons – which isn’t really all that close, around 12 miles away – because it was Krispy Kremes I specifically needed and that’s the only place around that sells them!
Saturday was a usual weekend day for us now of tidying, cleaning, and organising the nursery. We also hung some pictures around the house – including the above in our bedroom – and I, of course, had a bath!
On Sunday, we decided to brave the shops – not because we were after any post-Christmas sales, but because I had a list of vaguely baby related things, mostly for my hospital bag and for organisation – we needed storage boxes and baskets all of a sudden! We managed to make it around B&M, Homesense, Hobbycraft and Primark before my pelvis started to give up on me. It felt a lot better over Christmas since I could rest in a more comfortable position than my office chair, but walking around the shops was slightly killer.
That afternoon, I knitted a scarf! We’d picked up this chunky wool at Hobbycraft after I saw a video showing how to knit a blanket out of super chunky wool without needles (I’ve never been able to pick up knitting with needles, no idea why!). I decided to give it a go and had planned to unravel this practice piece, but it ended up being a perfectly usable scarf, even if it does have a few dropped stitches at the beginning!
We made a mushroom cobbler from the Green Roasting Tin for tea – a book I bought for Ben for Christmas – then, of course, I had a bath again. Might as well make use of the extra time over Christmas for the hot water to ease my aching back!
Monday was New Years’ Eve and Ben was at work again during the daytime, so I made sure the house was all clean and tidy – the nesting thing is still going on! – and made breakfast bars as a practice for hospital bag snacks. I’m planning a whole bag of snacks basically, so wanted a nice, healthy version I’d made myself.
We decided on a quiet and calm way into the new year this time as I’m pretty much tired out as it is anyway – not that we usually do a lot different! – so had my sister over, cooked pulled pork enchiladas and watched the Greatest Showman as somehow I hadn’t seen it yet!
As Tuesday was New Years Day, we had another bank holiday and decided to make the most of it around the house. We took down Christmas decorations – boo! Normally we wait until as late as possible in January, doing the full 12 days of Christmas, but with my pelvis as it is and not knowing whether it would get worse on returning to work (spoiler alert: it did!), we wanted to get it sorted earlier rather than later.
We also worked on a fun project this day – chalk painting an old piece of furniture to give it a new lease of life! We’ve owned this sideboard for several years and it’s been through a house move with us. It was originally a fairly cheap piece of wooden furniture – nothing fancy, but it does its job – but I feel like the update makes it look that little bit nicer. It also looks much better with the Christmas fairy lights draped around it now too! It gave us the opportunity to completely empty out the cupboards too and get rid of stuff we’d forgotten was even in there. We’ll be needing all the extra storage space we can get soon, so having some emptier cupboards is a big bonus.
Then finally, Wednesday meant back to work. I was actually a little bit excited about returning to my usual routine – does anyone else find breaks like Christmas kind of tiring as well as wonderful?! Annoyingly, I slept terribly the night before and worried that was it for sleep for me now…until the end of pregnancy? Until the end of the newborn stage? Until she moves out in 20 years’ time?! Amber put it very well in her post, the “just you wait…” people have me believing my life and sleep is over now I’m having a baby…we’ll see!