Bump Diary: 36 weeks

Today we had a very important appointment at the hospital marking the 36 week point. A few weeks ago I mentioned that we spoke to a consultant midwife to discuss the possibility of an elective caesarean, following my previous emergency caesarean. The purpose of today’s appointment was to see whether we still wanted to proceed with one and if so to then get us booked in with a date. First of all the midwife freaked me out by telling me that it was now policy to section at 42 weeks, opposed to the 40 weeks that I had been told at the last appointment. After being left for a few moments while the midwife went off to clarify it, we were reassured that it was in fact 40 weeks as initially stated. Apparently if you want to give birth naturally they now let you go to 42 weeks before inducing you, which I think is an awfully long time after a previous section. So we are now booked in with a date for the birth a few days before my due date. It’s a really weird feeling knowing the day our baby will be born, providing that I don’t go into labour earlier or there is a delay with the section on that date. It will put a week between our boys birthdays making the gap more or less 3 years exactly.

I was due to be thrown a baby shower by everyone at work for a colleague and I on Saturday but unfortunately we had to cancel as she went into labour. We were all quite worried about my colleague as she was only 30 weeks pregnant. For now she is out of the woods and they have managed to stop her labour and she has been discharged from hospital to put her feet up for the remaining part of her pregnancy. Her first baby was premature so it’s looking likely that this one will be too, but hopefully after he or she has cooked for a little bit longer! My work have suddenly lost two members of staff to maternity leave so they are feeling the strain a little bit at the moment…

On Saturday we went to The Baby Show at Excel in London courtesy of MAM. After visiting the Earls Court show in October we didn’t expect to want to go again but as this one approached we realised that it would be a good idea to go for a couple of bits we really needed. We bought a lovely Morrck baby hoodie, which we had our eye on last time. Some Grobag swaddle blankets on offer at a fantastic saving, a couple of Fudgy Bear books (for our Fudgy obsessed boy) and a name plaque for our baby boy to match Beastie’s.

 

Gro bag swaddle

 

Baby hoodie

 

Once we finished at the show we decided to pop into Ikea on the way home. We had some essentials that we needed to buy and we thought we would  make the most of being child free for the day. By this point I was suffering terribly with sore feet from my stupid choice of footwear for the day. I was wearing ballet pumps that I have worn many a time before but this time my swollen trotters were paying the price. I hobbled and I winced but I carried on regardless and we ended up having a successful shopping day. We then went to pick up Beastie from my husband’s parents house and collected our newly delivered buggy at the same time. This was seriously too much excitement for one day and I am still paying for it now…

We gave our new Oyster a spin (around the flat) when we got home and Beastie immediately took a shine to it. The baby may well have a fight on his hands. We all love the buggy in fact and we were very impressed by the demonstrations we saw at The Baby Show. This buggy will make our lives so much easier!

 

 

So for now I can start to relax and enjoy these last few weeks before the baby arrives. For the last week I have been busy shopping around for hospital bag bits, supplies and equipment for the baby. I couldn’t settle until I knew everything was in place and now they pretty much are. I want to spend a bit of ‘me’ time as well so I wholeheartedly plan to start reading a book at some point in the next week or so. It truly is a luxury and I always forget how much I love reading and being absorbed in a good book, followed by another maybe. It will probably be another three years until I pick one up again.

It’s hitting home now that we are going to become a family of four soon and our baby will be replaced with a much smaller version. Beastie frequently tells us that he is a ‘big boy’ now, rather matter of factly but none of us know how we are going to feel when the dynamics change.

Here we are making the most of our time with our firstborn…