We have a date, people!

I actually wasn’t expecting to be told this for another couple of weeks or so, but on Tuesday morning I had a appointment with my midwife, who told me she’d just checked the system, and my elective c-section has been booked for…

December 29th!

This is, as you can probably imagine, is both really, really scary, and really, really exciting, in equal measures. On the one hand, I just can’t WAIT to meet this baby, and the thought of having to wait another 6 whole weeks seems absolutely excruciating to me. On the other hand, though, my health anxiety now has Buddy Holly’s ‘That’ll Be The Day (That I Die)’ running through my head on a loop, and, in that context,  December 29th seems terrifyingly close. I mean, I haven’t done even HALF of the things I wanted to do with my life. I never did get round to finishing the second draft of that book, for instance. I have yet to travel the world. And, to be honest, my sock drawer could be doing with a good clear-out, too. So much to do, so little time!

Still, all being well (and, obviously, the caveat to that is that I could technically go into labour at any time, so that date is far from set in stone), I at least have a set date to count down to, and that goes a long way towards helping me manage my anxiety.  And, with that said, here’s what happened in Week 32…

Week 32 Pregnancy Appointments

As well as the aforementioned midwife appointment (We have these every two weeks now, and it’s really reassuring for me to get to hear baby’s heartbeat and be told everything sounds fine!), I also had a meeting with an anaesthetist this week, at the hospital. I think this was supposed to help calm some of my anaesthetic-related fears (context: my phobia of general anaesthetic), but, unfortunately, it just served to make it a bit worse.

I really should have expected this, to be honest, because exactly the same thing happened at my first doctor’s appointment, to discuss the possibility of a c-section: so, basically, while I wasn’t told anything I didn’t already know (It mostly centred around how they can’t guarantee that nothing will go wrong, or that I won’t end up needing a general – which I obviously knew already…), somehow hearing someone actually TELL me that, hey, I may well end up facing my fear, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to avoid it, just really freaks me out, so I left the hospital feeling a bit upset again.

On the plus side, the anaesthetist DID reassure me that as I’m slim (I mean, God knows how she could tell at this point…), in good health, and haven’t had any previous c-sections, I’m a good candidate for this procedure, which is normally straightforward. She also said that, while I can never eliminate the risks completely, a planned c-section will give me the smallest possible risk of having to be knocked unconscious (Everyone seems to be in general agreement that there’s a good chance I’d end up needing a c-section even if I had chosen a vaginal birth), and that’s one of the main reasons I’m doing this, so I guess that part was helpful.

I’m pretty much back to just wanting to keep the baby in there forever again, though. Even although he just kicked me really hard in the bladder as I wrote that sentence…

Week 32 Pregnancy Symptoms

Symptom-wise, it’s just the same old, same old really: insomnia, constipation, being really, really tired and irritable all the time… I seriously pity everyone who has to be around me right now, I really do. I am SO sorry, guys…

Week 32 Pregnancy Preparations

In better news, yesterday afternoon our nursery furniture was delivered (and also assembled, which was awesome, as Terry has SO much work on right now that I feel like I hardly see him…) by Kidsmill. We’re now just waiting for a couple of things (mattress and changing pad, mainly) to finish it off: oh, and we also ordered this giant ruler, which should be arriving today:

When I was a little girl I had a rag doll I used to be allowed to mark my height on the inside of the closet door in my bedroom every year. I remember when my parents sold that house, I was really sad at the idea of something so personal being covered up by the next owners of the house, so Terry had the idea of getting a giant ruler instead, that we can record the baby’s height on at different ages, and then take with us if we ever move. Terry WAS actually going to try and just make one of these himself, because most of the ones we found were basically just planks of wood with numbers on them, but then we found this one, which is bevelled to look like an actual ruler, and which was therefore deemed to fit his very strict criteria.

So, as I said, that’ll be arriving today, then we just need to get the mattress and changing pad, and I think we’ll be pretty much all set, so look out for a nursery reveal next week sometime!

Aaaand, I think that’s all the news from Week 32, really! I feel like I have less and less to report in these diary entries as time goes on: I’m basically just stuck in a holding pattern of counting down the days until he arrives, (And wondering how the hell I’m going to keep dressing myself in the meantime, because the number of wearable items in my closet seems to be shrinking on the daily right now!) right now, which is a little bit frustrating, although, at the same time, I’m just grateful that everything still seems to be going relatively smoothly.

With that said, I have another scan booked for next week, and I’m already starting to worry about that: it would be nice to think that the worry would all have ended with the booking of the c-section, but LOL, nope! It just keeps on coming…

[My Pregnancy Diary]