Cravings, Cleaning and Birth Plans - 33 Week Update

I realise I have been neglecting this blog recently and although there are no hard and fast rules about how often you have to blog to legitimately still call yourself a blogger, I’m pretty certain the eleven week gap since my last post puts me in the Shittiest Blogger Ever danger zone. The truth is, despite having greatly missed the typing and sharing of blog posts (undoubtedly my ‘happy place’, particularly when coupled with a hot chocolate and my dressing-gown), I’ve been at a bit of a loss as to what to say. Should I be providing something by way of an update? Does anybody actually care?

But then this evening, as I found myself lining up my cleaning products in an orderly manner after having sprayed today’s favourite cleaner on an already spotless surface (just so I could rub it in with a sponge and sniff it), I realised that all of a sudden I am feeling so very pregnant - proper pregnanty (not a word, but it should be) - and that not recording this stage of the third baby adventure would be stranger than doing so, somehow. I can only apologise in advance if you’re not much interested in hearing about my obsession with all things anti-bacterial, or the trouble I’ve been having sleeping, or the crisis conversations I’ve been having with my husband over the state of things down there, but with just 7 weeks or so to go until D-day (arghhhh!), pregnancy has well and truly taken over.   

I know many of you are already aware that I haven’t been sleeping very well for the last couple of months (I'm wide awake between midnight and 4am, sometimes longer) and I can’t really be arsed to further dwell on it here for two reasons: 1) I’m really fucking bored of saying ‘Nope, still not sleeping!’ and 2) I have tried pretty much everything (reflexology is on this week’s hit list) and I genuinely fear that if one more person suggests Lush sleepy cream, some kind of audio download or an increase in my magnesium intake I might not be able to stop myself from spraying them in the eye with my expensive relaxing pillow spray. You have all been so, so helpful (thank you!) but if it’s legal, I’ve already tried it. Illegal ideas welcome (just kidding, sort of).

There are a great many other pregnancy quirks that have materialised since I last blogged and the biggest two - not my boobs, though they are mahooosive - have been an obsession with cleaning and a love of ice cubes, both of which are repeat behaviours from previous pregnancies. I was told after the ice-cube crunching habit last time that I might have been suffering from an iron deficiency but I’ve just had all that stuff checked and we’re all good, so it’s not that. Whatever it is that is driving me to chomp frozen water it’s really quite bizarre and even as I type this, I am thinking ahead to my next glass where I will add one whole tray of cubes to a third of a glass of water (I’m not really that fussed about the water to be honest but it does lubricate the cubes and stop them from getting stuck to my tongue. I know how to treat myself).

When it comes to the cleaning, I am mainly spraying cleaning products and then scrubbing surfaces (just the thought of spraying and scrubbing with certain products instantly makes me feel calm) but there are also other things I feel compelled to do, like cleaning the shower tiles with an old toothbrush, disinfecting all the door handles in the house and using the tiny hoover attachment to get into the hard-to-reach room edges. I wrote in my first book that the Barry Scott adverts (‘Bang! And the dirt is gone!’) had practically become a turn-on at one point and this pregnancy is much the same. Footage of cleaning is like porn.

Physically, I’m feeling pretty good, though the waddle has set in now. I don’t weigh myself (not ever – we don’t have scales) but I can see that the ‘baby weight’ has spread to unexpected places like my neck, back and chins. In fact, everything has got bigger and I mean everything (even bigger than at the last update). Last week, after a shaving session in the shower, where I was trying to address the Chewbacca state of body hair, I was so alarmed by the swollen appearance of things down below that I ran into the bedroom, dropped the towel and declared, ‘My vagina is a monster!’ to a startled James who then had to try to say all the right things when I begged him to have a look at it. He went with: "It looks fine, babe! If a little puffy. It’s certainly not hideous." IT’S CERTAINLY NOT HIDEOUS?! That's a relief, then. 

All of the above pales into insignificance beside our little boy bump himself, of course, who we had the pleasure of seeing on the screen for a third time this week at our scan to check the progress/update of the low-lying placenta. The good news is the placenta has indeed moved (hurrah!) and the cervix is no longer obstructed. The bad news is that he is now breech, though I have it on good authority that seven weeks is plenty of time for him to assume the head-first position (Jude turned at 36 weeks) so I am not allowing that to worry me. Now that I’m back to Plan A of the lady-garden slide, and noting that my second labour was not the best experience (by ‘not the best’ I mean I completely lost my shit, panicked, shouted a lot and subsequently don’t really allow myself to think about it) I’ve decided I’m going to have a bash at hypnobirthing this time, with my first session on Wednesday. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I’ll be heading into hospital for the birth again (I just feel safest there) and I am still very much hoping that I won’t miss Christmas dinner, though obviously more than anything I just want him to arrive safely … any other day though, buddy, ANY other day (I am having guilty pangs in advance about the possibility of missing Christmas with Henry and Jude)   

And that’s pretty much it by way of an update! I think it’s unlikely that I will do another pregnancy-specific blog before he’s here, but I have got a couple of other half-written posts in my drafts which if I can get my larger-than-usual arse in gear I will finish and publish soon. In the meantime, I will get back to my cleaning and ice-crunching and try my very best to stay calm about the Megafanny.

xx