Now I’m feeling ready!!

PC Diary @ 36 weeks 2 days… R-26 days

What a whirlwind of a past ten days or so.  It may have been crazy, but every minute was worth it!

First of all, I owe a few people some passwords for my last blog.  I forgot that with almost 200 followers on wordpress and a few more  who follow from instagram and facebook that maybe they would like to read my password protected blog and I would need to reply to every email request – whoopsie  (embarrassed face!)

Here is why it has been a whirlwind…

Doulas!  We met our two Doulas, they work in pairs to make sure that one of them is available when the time comes to meet Rocky.  We have hired them for the birth and 50 hours of post-partum support.  They are perfect for us.  We left it very late to finally select who we wanted, we meet them again later this week to go through our birthing plan and any other questions we have.

Thanksgiving.  I hope you all had a lovely thanksgiving!  It is a holiday that doesn’t mean anything particularly special to us, so it is a little bit strange to celebrate.  But we were kindly invited to join our friends for a fabulous Turkey dinner.  Nom nom nom…

Boudoir Maternity Shoot.  Chris and I researched, prepared and then did my maternity shoot, boudoir style.  Although I won’t be showing any of the more risque pics, I will definitely share some of them with you on a separate post!  Chris did a fantastic job, and he really enjoyed it too.  I was nervous we would fight about it, but nope it was just fun!  Like it should be too ;-p

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One of my faves!

Infant care class.  We thought we had better educate ourselves on how to actually look after a newborn baby!  Although much of it we mostly knew already, we did learn some handy little hints and tips.  Also it was helpful to know things we might expect to see as soon as the baby is born, what is normal and what is not normal.  We also got a neat little book too ‘The Joy of parenthood – your personal journey through newborn care’.

Transatlantic visitors.  A friend of ours was visiting the US for work, so we did the proper thing and took him and his colleague to a Southern style restaurant, and of course ate fried chicken skins, pickles, chicken coated fried bacon, burgers and meatloaf! It was so good to catch up.  I felt a bit homesick talking about our friends back in the UK and how everyone is doing 😦

Breastfeeding class.  We had to go to another hospital for this class because all the ones being run at our hospital were full.  Within the first five minutes the consultant told us that ‘you may have difficulties breastfeeding if you had difficulties getting pregnant’.  What the?!?! I had never heard this before.  I was a little bit surprised and it threw me off concentrating on the beginning of the class.  I didn’t question the consultant and thought I may ask her afterwards more about what she had said, but when it came to the end of the evening I was exhausted and just wanted to go home.  This class threw a lot of new terms and info at us in the space of three hours.  The consultant barely stopped to breathe let alone let us poor preggers people go pee!  But it was really useful and very glad we both went.  Another free book and some free nursing goodies to go.  The group of doulas we went with have a lactation consultant who will come to my house if we need to, so that is handy.

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Weekend Child birthing class.  Another intense education session!  We had a very passionate nurse who was excellent at making the class practical and interesting.  It really helped us firm up our birth plan together and worth every minute.  I practically cried at every film where they showed the actual birth!!!!

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Birthing positivity board

Housewarming, baby and birthday party.  This was our big party to celebrate our new home, semi-baby shower-esque style celebrations, and both our birthdays.  We have been preparing the past few weeks, knowing how chaotic the past week would be.  We were expecting about 80 or so people, fortunately they didn’t all arrive at once, and at one point we probably had about 20 kids running around!  It was so much fun to have everyone there.  I was truly overwhelmed with all the gifts and cards we received.  I’m kind of glad I didn’t have a baby shower after all, I think I would have just blubbered my way through it.

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Haha someone guessed 14th Jan!!!!

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The post party chaos 🙂

Maternity leave.  It was my last week at work, so I tried to wrap things up as best I could.  It was a little strange because not all of my branch was in the office, so there wasn’t really a formal goodbye.  Technically my maternity leave started today!!! Although I will be going back for the plethora of Christmas parties that are happening, assuming Rocky doesn’t arrive early.  And I will be going back in to the office every other week for a lunchtime toastmasters club meet whenever I can to keep up my public speaking skills!  When the baby comes, Chris will work from home those days and I will get to escape the baby for a few hours.  I started my leave off to a good start by getting up at the same time as Chris as he got ready for work, then after I showered I accidentally fell asleep for 1.5hrs!  I did some relaxing yoga (it felt soooooo good to stretch), adult colouring in, an episode of scandal, ate left over party food, washed all of Rocky’s new clothes and did some shopping.  Will I keep up this good balance of chillaxing with productivity?!?! I have my suspicions not….!

Pregnancy symptoms.  Lower back pain is plaguing me along with my hemorrhoids getting a whole lot worse.  They are now super big 😦  I am on my weekly obstetric appointments now so I’ll see what the doc says tomorrow, but I fear there will be little that can be done.  I think that when I go into labour they are almost certain to burst.  And I still haven’t put any more weight on, I’m sticking around the 140-141lbs mark.  I don’t understand how it is possible, my tummy is getting bigger and I’m eating plenty!

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36 weeks and feeling prepared!

Phew…..it has been crazy, but I am feeling really ready for Rocky to arrive now.  Not much longer til she is considered full term! Wooohoooo!!!!

 

 

 

17 thoughts on “Now I’m feeling ready!!”

    • thegreatpuddingclubhunt says:
      Reply

      Yes a complete surprise about the breastfeeding thing, although when I posted this on my local IF support group, a few people said it was mostly about women with PCOS…but I’ll write more about this later because it is really interesting!

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  3. Amy M. says:
    Reply

    Glad things are coming together for you. Can’t believe it’s almost time already!! It’s gone so fast. Of course everyone said that to me as well lol. I’m really curious as to why they said that people who have trouble conceiving also have trouble breastfeeding…never heard that before. I’ve definitely had my share of issues, thankfully they’re settling down finally. Hopefully things will go well for you! I almost didn’t take some of our classes, but SOOO glad we did because we learned a lot! Enjoy your time before baby comes. Everyone told me to relax and enjoy my week off…I didn’t truly listen to them. You should!! Believe me! 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    • thegreatpuddingclubhunt says:
      Reply

      Yes, I had lots of questions running round my head after she said that about breastfeeding. I found out that it is mostly about women with PCOS, but I’ll write another post about this because it’s v interesting! Rocky might be coming a bit sooner than expected after our appt this afternoon 😳 but I’ll post an update soon!

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  7. ourgreatestdesire says:
    Reply

    So happy to see an update and that you are doing well! Love the maternity pic you shared! Also glad to hear you haven’t gotten the password out yet to several people because I was wondering if I’d gotten your email address wrong, lol. I’m betting there’s an oil for hemorrhoids if you want me to look it up! 🙂

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  8. Erin says:
    Reply

    I unfortunately struggled with breastfeeding, and my LA linked it to our difficulty conceiving. My milk didn’t come in for a while so baby wasn’t getting much for a week and lost way too much weight. I continually had issues with supply even with feeding and pumping every 2 hours. If I could go back I would start pumping before he was born to start the process or at least pump in the hospital to make sure he was getting some colostrum. Your doulas will be a great resource!

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  9. Nara says:
    Reply

    You look amazing in both pics! So glad you got to have a great party and it sounds like you are super prepared with classes etc. We have NCT once a week but haven’t signed up for any others, although I’m coming round to the idea of hypnobirthing. I guess Rocky could come any day!! So exciting!

    Liked by 1 person

    • thegreatpuddingclubhunt says:
      Reply

      I wanted to look more into hypnobirthing, but I’m struggling to just keep up with the basic info!!!!! I looked for classes but couldn’t find anything timely 😩 It’s so amazing how you have changed your mind about child birth 😊

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      • Nara says:

        I haven’t signed up for a class but I read a book which was quite an easy read and although I don’t think I’ll really go in for the full self-hypnosis thing, I think I find the relaxation and visualisation stuff useful. It’s mainly about feeling positive and relaxed about birth, rather than afraid. The book I read was here:
        http://amzn.to/2gkGdfF and I downloaded it on kindle for iPhone so just read it on the tube. I’m undecided about whether I’ll listen to the tracks! But I did buy a paper copy for T so hopefully he can repeat some of the affirmations to me whilst I’m freaking out! (I have a sort of hope that I’ll be all zen and whatnot but I probably won’t! 😂)

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