In other baby news

I am now 37 weeks pregnant, and I still look in the mirror every so often and think, How did that happen? It's crazy that it feels unreal at times - I mean, I have this huge protruding belly (not that huge, measuring a few weeks behind my dates, but still, huge) and I can't bend over easily, my legs almost fall off after walking up the stairs and poor M is relegated to the edge of the bed that I'm not taking up, my calves are a mass of thread veins (but not swollen, yay!) etc etc.

I may have to be admitted to hospital next Monday after my antenatal clinic appointment - just a precaution as the baby has not yet 'engaged' - which the internet tells me is not that unusual for a first baby at 37 weeks, so it's a bit annoying that I may have to spend a week in hospital doing nothing when I'm not ill, but I trust my doctor's instincts (a non-engaged baby is at risk of cord prolapse if labour starts). If the baby still hasn't engaged by the end of that week, they will keep me there and induce me - not my ideal scenario, but again, whatever is safest for baby. I am in a flurry of bag-packing, baby-clothes-washing and organising everything in case I only have until Sunday to finish it all.

On men

I've been meaning to write a post about how impressed I've been by all the 'menfolk' I've met at various antenatal classes since becoming pregnant. Maybe I've been labouring under the delusion that husbands and partners are all of my father's generation and not so involved as modern men might want or expect to be, but these guys are great. Of course, M has been wonderful, as I knew he'd be (I'm sure he would be excited to know that I told the internets he was a natural with the baby doll we had to hold through a five-hour NCT class last week), but somehow I didn't expect that every other father-to-be I met along the way would be so keen to know what happens at birth and how they can help their partners most, how to bath a baby and change a nappy etc etc etc.

And yet they are. Bravo men!

Internet housewife

I am a total internet housewife. Here I sit on a Friday night, ordering curtain fabric samples online. And enjoying it.

My life is suddenly so exciting.

Procrastination...

Why, why, why, why, oh why do I have such difficulty picking up the phone to interview the two doulas I've found, hoping to work with one? For goodness sake, I only have 5 weeks til my due date and I can't waste much more time!

I think I may not have to see my midwife again before the birth, (and she won't be at the birth) as it looks like I'll probably just continue to have 2-weekly appointments with my consultant in the antenatal clinic. Which suits me just fine... considering my consultant knows my name and face (and medical history) and the midwife wouldn't know me if she fell over me.

Unconscious

In my sleep last night, I apparently said, 'Ask M, he'll know what to do.'

Way to put the guy under pressure when he's trying to sleep!

Sometimes spam is just too amusing

Attention:Sir/madam, How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?,You may not understand why this mail came to you.

(But wait, I do! It's called phishing!)

We have been having a meeting for the passed 7months which ended 2 days ago with the secretary to the UNITED NATIONS.This email is to all the people that have been scammed and defrauding any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of $600,000 Dollars for each.

(No way! I'm finally going to get back that $600,000 some Nigerian phisher scammed me out of? Sign me up!)

This also includes all the foreign contractors that have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc. So we found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed. So you are advised to contact Mr. Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK OF WEST AFRICA PLC, as he is our representative in West Africa, contact him immediately for your Cheque / International Bank Draft of USD$ 600,000. This compensation funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose OK?

(OK!)

So he will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice or in your bank. Therefore, you should send him your, FULL NAME:....................? FULL CONTACT ADDRESS:.........? MOBILE PHONE NUMBER:..........? OCCUPATION:...................? MARITAL STATUS AND AGE:.......? BANK NAME:....................? Your correct mailing address where you want him to send the Draft to you. Contact Mr. Jim Ovia immediately for your Cheque: Person to Contact Mr. Jim Ovia Email: mr.jimovia75@gmail.com +23480-6017-33-25

(I know! How about I just send you my bank account details and you can deposit the money directly? Wouldn't you prefer that? Or maybe you're going to ask me for those when I'm a bit further into your net.... ok, I can wait.)

Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place Regards, Mr. Koffi Annan. Former Secretary (UNITED NATIONS).

(Who knew that Koffi Annan used gmail!)

Accidental belly shot at 32 weeks

(this baby so wants its photo taken...)

Also!

I do not bake. Although maternity leave (pre- and maybe even post-baby) might see me venturing into the recesses of our new oven with flour and, um, whatever else makes cakes. Don't tell me to call it a cooker, I will beat you. I am Australian and it is a stove with two ovens. Ok?

But! I love looking at pictures of cupcakes! Thank heavens for all the delicious cupcake blogs around. I do miss Chockylits Bakeshop. Just look at this!

I find that shop-bought cupcakes (all cakes for that matter) never taste as good as those which are home-made. Someone prove me wrong.

This entry proudly brought to you by Exclamatory Remarks

Three weeks of work left until late October 2009! They interview for my replacement 5 weeks after I leave!

It felt good to be buying my last-for-a-while monthly Travelcard last week! I might try out bus passes!

I painted three radiators yesterday!

M is listening to a tacky 60's CD on repeat while he paints windows! But it has 'King of the Road' on it! Happy!

Today I am sanding windows and cleaning exterior sills.

The sun is shining!! (this deserves two exclamation points) When it's sunny these days my first thought is that it's a good day to hang the washing outside!

Not to be negative! But Obama is not going to change the world (or the USA's place in it)! IMO!

I am feeling fat! And too tired and breathless to exercise!

Wildlife and epidurals

The squirrel who visits our garden to eat our apples and pears (and brings his own pinecones to dismantle and eat on the little stone seat) leaves us occasional gifts of pears on the patio outside our back door. Up to now I had thought they were fruits he had started and not finished, and just left where he'd been eating, but the presence of a gorgeous, unmarked and un-nibbled pear today makes it clear that he is indeed leaving us gifts. Or, if I want to be more cynical, he's saying OK guys, I'm going to eat most of the fruit on this here tree, but I'll bring you a couple to keep you sweet.

In other news, thanks to ginormous Fred the fibroid, and my rogue antibodies, the birthing centre at the hospital have risked me out of giving birth in their relatively lovely low-intervention midwife-led environment. I'm disappointed, as it means a much more 'hospital' scene, but the labour ward downstairs still has a birthing pool and birth balls, plus doctors for emergencies and uncomplicated access to an epidural if needed. This reinforces my desire to stay away from the hospital until the absolute last moment.

Pregnancy files - 29 weeks

I swear, my belly is a mosh pit at times.

With just one very crazed little human running up and down and jumping and surfing the crowd of itself.

Now I know where all the Waitrose Baby Butter has gone

Waitrose sells out as women buy baby butter for facial moisturiser! *

I'm intrigued and want to try it (not necessarily on my face!) as their vanilla coconut massage oil is divine, and M and I have used it for massage for a couple of years. It's especially lovely on tired feet. But my local Waitrose is consistently sold out.

Enter ebay. There are pots and pots of the stuff for sale, exorbitantly priced as only ebay sellers know how to price in-demand items. Add in postage, and eager bidders, and you could easily pay £10 for what should cost you £2.49.

*NB, not made of real babies...

Little Chico *

That already, at 28 weeks and four days in utero, my baby is a chocoholic.

Don't give me any science about sugar or caffeine, this baby kicks like a donkey after I eat chocolate and I choose to interpret that as 'More Mummy, more!'

(*Chicos are actually kind of gross and probably very politically incorrect, but they are part of the Australian experience. Think chocolate jelly babies.)

Fox files

Our garden is a bit of a wildlife haven, it seems. We have a regular squirrel visitor, and another squirrel who gets beaten up by the other if they happen to visit at the same time. M thinks it's the fruit trees (apple, pear and plum) that attract them. I *cough* also left some nuts out once, but we won't mention that.

The overgrown nature of our garden - we have a strip at the back that we have left for years to go wild - has also attracted foxes, most notably a young pair of siblings, who were cubs when we first saw them rolling around together in the grass early one morning. A few mornings ago, I was surprised to see a large bright pink rubber bone in the middle of what we loosely call our lawn. I figured someone had accidentally thrown it into our garden. The next day it was closer to the house, with extra teethmarks, so we knew the foxes had been playing with it.

Today, M and I finished clearing out the shed, one of the many jobs M has set us in preparation for becoming parents in November. Seriously, we do not have a non-working weekend planned until mid-October, when I've told him I will be too pregnant to do anything (while attempting to drown out his mother's reminiscences about going into labour while she was working in the fields in Italy...) Rooting around in a shed that's full of spiders isn't nearly so daunting in England, where none of the little beasties are poisonous. Man, this country is so tame compared to Australia.

When he went beside the shed to clear what I hadn't even realised was a paved area (that's how overgrown it was) and stood in the cool darkness under the fig tree, he found a little den with more toys in it! A dog's ball, and some kind of plastic soldier toy. The foxes have been pilfering and storing their loot in our garden.

And I really am glad that they chose us. There's something very special about coming downstairs just after dawn (not a regular occurrence for me at the moment, but newborn baby here we come) and seeing rust-coloured beasts bounding around our garden, or hiding in the grass. We might be living in the country. And when, later in the day, the squirrel pops his cheeky head in and tries to get inside the house, then sits on a small concrete seat M made under the pear tree to nibble at fallen fruit, or seed pods, I feel very lucky to live here.

(btw, the paint colour in the nursery? Love it. It was just an initial 'that isn't identical to the swatch' reaction.)

Nursery painting

Um, that colour is way more blue on the walls than in the tin. M doesn't particularly like it. I am determined, however, to love it. Pictures to come.

Doesn't fresh paint make a room look so clean!

MIL wisdom

M's mother said last night that you absolutely cannot dress a baby girl in blue. And omg red must never be seen on babies. Apparently my choice, as we're not finding out the sex before the birth, comes down to pale yellow or pale yellow. Or, as I like to think of it, 'the colour of pus'.

Podlet, you are going to be shocking your grandmother with my choice of clothing for you.

Progress

(nursery-wise)

Today we cleaned and half-painted the spare room aka nursery. Sugarsoaped walls, cupboard and windowframes, painted the ceiling and wall above the picture rail white.

This is the colour I've chosen for the walls. I wanted a pale gum leaf colour, but of course very pale grey-green just looks grey and M vetoed it. So we have Woodland Pearl. It's pretty close, and of course the real colour is not exactly the same as the internet version.

Next weekend, we add the colour!

Such a cliche

At 22 weeks pregnant, I'm finding I 'hit the wall' at about 9pm. I am normally a midnight-and-still-awake person, so this is weird. But then, the last couple of days I have felt like I'm carrying about a ton of weight in my tummy, which is also weird and very tiring, so maybe the two are connected. I'm vaguely bitter about the fact that tiredness is supposed to ease in the second trimester - I wasn't really tired in the first trimester, so I guess this is my particular take on pregnancy.

I am growing a chocoholic, by the way. The only thing that reliably gets the baby bouncing around is chocolate. And maybe blueberries. I've been eating heaps of blueberries to try to be nice to my legs, which are growing thread veins like it's a biological imperative.

I can't believe I haven't been keeping a pregnancy journal! It's not too late to start now though, and I figure I can remember enough, and have enough journal and blog entries to populate the early months and get into a routine from now on.

On that note, I am going 'in bed', as my Italian mother-in-law says.

Narnian adventures

I saw Prince Caspian tonight. Enjoyed it. I still get a thrill when 'good' fights 'evil', when talking animals and centaurs and children best an army of men.

At the door on the way out I was handed an A4 sheet of paper headed '4 Things We Can Learn From Prince Caspian'. It goes on to outline the 'four spiritual lessons we can learn' from the story.

Is it just me who is a bit nonplussed by this? I mean, way to go local churches for doing some targeted direct marketing I guess, but is there an adult who has read the Narnia Chronicles who isn't aware that Lewis wrote them as a Christian allegory? I've only read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and it was obvious to me when I read it again as an adult. I suppose a lot of people see the films only, without reading the books, but how could they have missed this aspect? Once you know it, the 'spiritual lessons' are written plainly on Aslan's furry face.

My critical assessment? Susan's lips were even bigger than in the first film, but I did like this song.

Lazy blogging

Wherein you get the contents of a comment I left on Sarawr's blog, with a bit of editing and some photos:

My week (and a bit)
by Anne

Wednesday 25/6: 4 hours sleep the night before. Fly to Berlin. Walk around all day. Go to some middle-of-nowhere place in East Berlin just for the hell of it and find there is nothing there. Find out from a colleague at work later that its name means 'Mosquito Bridge'. We did actually see some mosquitoes. Wander back into town and stumble across Checkpoint Charlie (bonus!). Get no sleep because Germany won the football and the whole city decides to stay awake outside our hotel window. With fireworks. Note to self - do not stay on the Ku-damm when Germany is playing in the European Cup (I think that was what it was). Actually... Revised note to self - do not go to Germany when Germany (or Turkey) is playing in the European Cup.

Thursday 26/6: Walk around all day in Berlin. Catch a tram to the end of the line in East Berlin and find... huge Soviet-style mega blocks of flats, more flats and... a Chinese restaurant. Play darts and eat kebabs (real ones) in a Turkish pub a bit closer to civilisation. FInd an awesome chocolate shop which sells chilli chocolate so hot I could only manage two small pieces at a time. Get no sleep because Spain won the football and the whole city decides to stay awake outside our hotel window. WithOUT fireworks.

(The Chinese restaurant at the end of the universe)

Friday 27/6: Go to the zoo and subtly distribute M's poem 'The Liberation of Berlin Zoo'. See Knut the famous polar bear cub (not so much cub any more) and discover he is an attention whore, unsurprisingly. Feel sad about zoos in general. Wonder if the elephants are actually suicidal or if dangling their legs into the waterless moat is just exercise. Go to Spandau. Regret it. The Zitadelle is closed for a Kraan concert. They formed in the year I was born. Rock on. At least there is a post office. Post some postcards. Not terribly much sleep. There seems to be a small group of randomly singing men wandering the streets outside our hotel. They go away around 5am.

Saturday 28/6: Relaxing German-language boat tour (we could make up our own commentary!) and a fantastic afternoon and evening in Potsdam, wandering the gardens and biergartens of Sanssoucy (truly Berlin's Versailles, plus windmill). M tries a red Berliner Weisse as the rain buckets down. Almost no sleep because we get on the wrong train (I'm not complaining, I had 4 days of not caring too much where we went and letting M and P make all the travel plans) and we go back from Potsdam to the centre of Berlin via THE AIRPORT late at night and reach the hotel after midnight.

And especially for Sarawr - tomatoes growing in the flower beds at Sanssoucy:

What I learned about Berlin in a very short time:

• Their iced coffees are almost as good as Australian iced coffees, and leave British attempts in the dust.
• I need to go back and do more touristy things - I am fascinated in a very cliched way by the Berlin Wall.
• The Turkish food there is indeed rather wonderful.
• My German is kind of passable.
• The public transport is cheap and excellent.
  
• Pfifferling mushrooms are yummy - in season now.
  

Sunday 29/6: Fly back home. Go to bed too late. Cry in the shower because I am so grumpy.

Monday 30/6: Wake up exhausted and headachey after too much walking for a pregnant person and not enough sleep in Germany for any kind of person. Work.

Tuesday 1/7: Work. Not impressed to be on the early shift this week.

Wednesday 2/7: Work. Go to see a film with friends but I get the day wrong and we miss the film, so eat Indian food together instead. M comes to bed at 3 fricken 30 am despite promising 12.30am at the latest. Not impressed that we no longer have a spare room to which he could be dispatched. (It's now an almost-nursery.)

Thursday 3/7: Almost fall over from tiredness when I get out of bed. Stumble through the day and because I am a perfect wife still go to M's poetry reading in the evening.

Today 4/7: Oh my god, how pregnant do I look now!?! Work. Stood up by MY THERAPIST. (Later find out she had a good excuse.) Bed.