7 Months!

Well almost...... in 2 days I will be 7 months pregnant so figured I'd sit down now and get you up to date as Ive been so slack. These 2 pictures are taken of me lounging round like a fat roley poley in the garden today. It was such a beautiful warm day, Ive started wearing summer clothes but unfortunately not looking quite up to par in them but anyhow not long to go now till this giant belly will be gone and replaced with a real life baby! only 12 weeks to go! or less if he decides to come earlier! woo hoo!

Since my last post I have had another midwife visit at 27 weeks and all was on track. I had this visit at the hospital because I had to get my Anti D injection. My blood pressure is fine, baby is fine, measuring well and apparently has good co-ordination as he was following around the heart monitor with his foot. I am now having visits every two weeks. 

I am getting bigger by the second, some days I hate it, others I find it completely fine to deal with, just depends on my mood, which is also very up and down. 

Baby is moving loads still, and watching my tummy move is one of my favourite things! He is definitely in a routine of when hes up and when hes asleep, as for my sleeping its not too bad, I get up alot to pee and am not overly comfortable but not too badly yet. 

I finish work in two and a half weeks! I'm so excited. I know this seems really soon and like I will have loads of time off, which I will, but  I had initially planned to take off 2 weeks over Xmas, then return to work for a few weeks in January. But so it happens my families I care for don't require me for January, thus leaving me with no work. Whats a girl to do. Well nothing! amen to that! I look after 2 boys and both sets of parents want to get them settled into their new care in the new year so they didn't see the point in coming back to me after Xmas. Initially I was panicking about money, but now that me and gardener guy have sorted things out and worked out a few things financially, we don't really care, and I just cant believe I'm almost done working!!!! After 10 or so years of caring for other peoples children I am going to be finishing to care for my own, seriously that is the most awesome feeling ever!. Me and gardener guy had initially also decided that I would get work again when the baby was about 4months old, that I would work 3 days a week, but now upon reassessing everything we have just decided not to put a time on it and just see how we go. If our little boy is sleeping well and through the night and I'm feeling ready to care for another child I will start looking for another contract, but if he is a bad sleeper and I am just not feeling up to it, well then I simply wont go back to work until I am. No stress. Gardener guy has said he would rather it was me getting up to the baby in the middle of the night and not working then us both working and both sharing the night feedings. 

I have made some decisions on a few baby related issues, I will breastfeed, but I will introduce the bottle quite early on, I want to express my milk and give gardener guy the opportunity to feed his son, I want to have a bit of freedom and not be a milking machine and that is it. The baby will be in his own room from day 1, not in ours, at some point I want to introduce the dream feed - being wake him up before we go to bed and feed him, thus giving me a bigger stretch at night. I will be starting back at the playgroups etc that I go to now fairly early on, I want to get out of the house and keep up with these activities. I will not listen to other peoples advice, I know this sounds a bit mental and stupid, but I have been told by many people that you get hurled so much advice from so many people that it can just make you go crazy! I will do what I think is right and what I feel is working well for our family. I respect that what worked for one mother may not work for another. But if I do need help I will ask for it. I will appreciate peoples guidance, but there's a fine line between saying "oh we tried it this way" and "you should do this, we did". I guess as a new mother there is lots of smiling and nodding of the head and then you just go away and pick and choose what you listen too. One thing I will be happy for help on though is breastfeeding, Ive clearly never done that and from what Ive heard its not often as easy as just pushing your baby to your tit and there you go, your meals on wheels. It can involve alot more.

I have been thinking about the birth a wee bit, We have yet to really discuss this with the midwife but I have a few ideas of my own. Nothing too demanding really, my main thing which I have told the midwife is that I don't want to stay in hospital. If me and baby are well and he is feeding well we are going to leave. I don't want to lie around in hospital when I could be lying around in my own bed. I have plenty of support, we have gardener guys parents who are in town for the babies birth and I have a great friend who is a plunket nurse living close by who I will call upon if I need her, and lots of other people to help. I am not staying in hospital! As far as a birth plan, I'm open to anything, if my midwife suggests I get in the bath to help with pain, ill try, If I like it I am even fine with giving birth in the water. I am wanting pain medication, I hope that gas will be enough, I don't really want an epidural, but again if its recommended and I have been going for too long then I will do it if its best, but my preference is not too. Will see how I go. That's it really. Ive been backwards and forwards on who gets to hold him first, I had though that I wanted him handed straight to gardener guy for the first hold, but now I'm not sure, Ive read that first contact with me promotes good feeding, so I don't really know now, perhaps to me first for a quick cuddle, then to gardener guy. I just have no idea how I will feel, people have told me that I just wont believe how over whelmed and full of love I will feel when I see him, so its all a bit hard to comprehend, yes I imagine Ill be so In love with him and happy, but from what people keep saying, unless you have experienced it there is no way you can ever comprehend how amazing it will be, so needless to say I'm looking forward to that!


Ok, enough of me going on, this was meant to be a short post, this should keep you going for awhile, will let you all know how the next midwife visit goes and any new news.