week 32 - 8 weeks to go, maybe

Another week passes and I think over the last 3-4 days I have noticed another growth spurt in the bump. It sharply projects out from above the pubic bone now and looks quite odd, in a nice way! I have a faint linea negra as well which seems to have appeared only this week. Sometimes it feels hard to stand up for 5-10 mins as the weight of my tummy is felt on the underside and on my back.

I feel tried today after a few night of lest than restful sleep. Seem to need to go to the loo more frequently and once I wake up at night it is hard to go abck to sleep as I just keep thinking of lots of things to do - getting nursery ready, buying baby clothes, questions to ask at antenatal class. Also, this week is supposed to be the peak of the baby's activity so a couple of nights this week have been disturbed by a full on boxing match taking place in my tummy. The baby is also getting hiccups which is quite sweet - fairly strong, regular movements, as a result of swallowing too much amniotic fluid - yum!

We went round to Jan's last weekend and picked up a changing unit and a baby backpack. We will go back for a cot bed and moses basket. I am looking forward to getting things sorted out in the nursery and getting it looking ready. We have ordered the pramette from Mamas and Papas and hopefully this comes with lots of good instructions as it looks complex to use. We also bought the first baby clothes - just some white babygrows, little hats and mits and a cardigan with a hood - our baby will be a hoodie!

So only 4 weeks of work left I think - unless I decide to extend. But 4 weeks sounds like a good amount left. It means the end is almost here. I am handing over my job bit by bit.

Nick and I are off to Wiltshire for a relaxing weekend. I can't wait. The hotel has a good restaurant and hopefully we can just potter about the countryside or somewhere like Cirencester. The aim is to drop in on Sharon and Sean on the way home as I haven't seen them for ages and have never met their little boy, Charlie who must be 9 months old now.

Big moves for a little thingy - week 31

I am sitting at work at the moment and the little baby is moving around in squirmy type moves. The way it moves has changed in the last two week to slower but seemingly more controlled movements. These are much more forceful and it's possible to see all sorts of body parts being projected from within. Sometimes the movements make me gasp and other times the baby seems to settle into an awkward position meaning it is not comfortable for me to sleep on a certain side. It seems to stick its bum out a lot and now I can feel a hand or foot poking out occassionally. I poke it back and it responds by moving around a bit more.

Sometimes the movements make me feel something like love for the baby which is wierd as it has not appeared yet, but the emotion feels very like love - euphoric, warm, caring, precious, wanting to protect. It would make sense from an evolutionary perspective if this feeling did materialise prior to birth.

Have had a much better week this week - in fact since the last time I posted a week ago, I have had a great time. Lots of sleep and some nice events. Nick and I went for dinner last Friday to a lovely place in High Street Kensington. Bill and Jo came over on Saturday with their youngest daughter Alexia - who we babysat for. Then Helen was over on Sunday with Ben who has grown up into a proper big boy now - 2.5 yrs old! I've had lunch with Jan, Stripey and James this week.

I'm off swimming tonight then Nick is whisking me out for another lovely meal tomorrow night before we pop down to T Wells for the w/e.

the 30th week - need to vent some steam

I'm tired, very uncomfortable and more bored than I have ever been in my life at work. I feel like crying and just want to get out of here and get some fresh air and have some more sleep. I can't even sit at my desk all day without my back getting painful and now I can't sleep through the night without waking due to needing the loo, getting backache or leg cramps and needing to turn over which cannot be done without first waking up.

Work is dreadful - so belittling and so far below what I am capable of that I have lost any small amount of inspiration I had to do this job well. The tasks are very menial and when these are over I find my mind is incapable of stimulating itself to greater things. I seem to spend large parts of the day just doing nothing - I mean, absolutely nothing. Part of this is the difficulty with knowing I am leaving in 6.5 weeks but most of it is just the job itself. There is no future in this job and I really feel things have got so bad that it'll kick me hard enough to sort myself out after the baby and get around to doing something else with my career. I have no career now which feels pretty depressing after having done so well here before we went travelling. I guess the sacrifice of travelling really paid on my career and it will be difficult to get anything like that back again. But just plugging away in a rubbish banking job for the sake of earning some more money may not be worth it because it is deeply affecting my emotions and my sense of self worth. I see other friends progressing onto bigger and better things, and that was what I was doing, but now I have gone backwards and it is not good enough. I'm disappointed and angry that I seem to be wasting my talent and having my talent wasted for me.

I don't know if this is normal to feel like this particularly when pregnant, but I sometimes worry that I have some sort of depression as I just cannot seem to get interested in anything at all. I am so bored at work that this seeps into other aspects of my life. I seem to be incapable of thinking of anything I could possibly do work wise in the future, even if I consider retraining.

I don't even seem to have anyone to talk to about all of this aside from Nick, who is great about this sort of thing always, but I feel like a right old moaning, whinger to keep banging on about this depressing stuff all the time. It hardly makes things nice for him at home if I feel like this and I don't really see why he should have to suffer the same as me. Every time I see Liz I seem to be happy and have nothing to moan about, and I don't seem to be close enough to anyone else to tell them about it either. I hardly want to go to Kate with this as she will think I should be thankful to be pregnant and not worry about the rest - fair point in many ways, but sometimes it is not possible to just skip through life even if some things are wonderful - Nick, pregnancy etc.
My mum is nice to talk to but difficult on the phone and she is not in very often anyway. So I feel quite alone at times.

This is the only time I have written here when I feel bad and it happens once a week or less, but I wanted to put it down so I can have a record of it. Most of the time (outside work) I feel happy and normal, but the work side of things gets me down. Roll on the weekend!

29 weeks - happy then stressed

A bit up and down at times and some weeks are worse than others. I can feel fine for almost a week in a row then get tearful and slightly irrational about things that I really shouldn't. Not sure if this is hormones or just a bit of stress from having so many thoughts whizzing round my head.

Work is abysmally dull at the moment. The job is tedious, way below my capabilities and my heart is not in it at all. I'm not sure what to do about returning to work but I think the best policy is to wait until the baby is a few months old and make a decision then. I certainly don't want to work full time for the first few years though as I feel this is not fair on the baby and I would like to spend a lot of time with them as they grow up.

I have set a date of leaving work for 24 Nov which means 7 more weeks to go. Seems like a long time to me, but will probably go like a flash.

We have been thinking about what to buy for the nursery and the baby. There's a long list which we need to start on, but fortunately some friends are lending us a few things to make it a bit easier. The little clothes are my favourite though - especially the socks - so sweet!

I have seen our new midwife at St Georges twice in the last 2 weeks. She's a very nice, no nonsense, friendly woman who seems under a lot of time pressure. The first time she came round to our house and Nick was able to meet her too. The next time I went to the hospital for her to check the fetal heartbeat - 148 bpm. Good to hear the sound. All else is fine - blood and urine are fine. The only thing is my iron levels are the low end of the average scale so need to eat brocoli and beetroot!! yuk!

Baby movements are going well - regularly most days and sometimes quite strong. Space is getting quite confined now - length is about 27cm from head to rump so getting to be a big thing in there.