You know how, back in ye olden days, women who were about to give birth would basically just withdraw from society for a few weeks, and stay in bed, attended only by their ladies-in-waiting, or whatever?

(Er, now that I actually write that down, I’m thinking it was maybe just queens that did this? Like, the “ladies-in-waiting” bit kind of gives it away, doesn’t it? Oh whatever: I’m sure I saw it on The Tudors, so it HAS to be true, right?)

Who do I speak to about that, do you think? Because, guys, I pretty much just want to retire from society now – and I think society would probably thank me for it, given that I am one grumpy biatch right now. Like, the next person to touch my belly while going, “OMG, it’s HYYUUGGE!” gets it, not even joking.

Seriously, though: not only am I permanently exhausted, and not exactly bringing my A-game right now, I also suspect I’m not the greatest company, on account of the fact that the approaching birth, and everything that comes with it, has started to occupy my every waking thought. So, Terry will say something like, “Hey, did you see the news about ?” and I’ll just be all, “BREAST PADS. I need to buy breast pads!”

Cute, Amber: real cute. Also, I apologise in advance to the friends who are coming round for dinner tomorrow, although luckily one of them is currently even MORE pregnant than I am, so I’m sure they’ll understand if I start muttering about breast pads before falling asleep standing up or something.

Here’s what week 33 has looked like…

Week 33 Pregnancy Appointments

The big event of this week was what will hopefully be my final scan, which I had yesterday morning. This was just a routine growth scan, which I’m getting on account of my “advanced maternal age,” and I’m happy to report that baby boy is measuring just fine: well, I mean, the sonographer actually said, “completely average,” and I was a bit, “How dare you call my son “AVERAGE?!” but no, average is totally fine by me.

Because I’m at a relatively late stage in the pregnancy now (I was 33 weeks 6 days when the scan was done), there’s actually not much to see: the baby’s head is so far down that I thought I was going to have to whip my jeans off at one point, to let the sonographer get a good look, and he’s also big enough now (Around 4 pounds 11, apparently…) that his head alone takes up the full screen of the ultrasound, so we didn’t get a photo this time, or even a really good look at anything other than his little hands and feet (“He looks like a puppy lying on its back,” was Terry’s observation…), but they were very cute little hands and feet, so it’s all good.

(Or, at least, I THINK it is: this particular sonographer was very quiet, and didn’t really have much to say other than that she was happy with the measurements: which is exactly what we wanted to hear, obviously, but all of the other sonographers we’ve seen have talked us through everything they were doing/looking at, so I found the silence pretty unnerving, although it did give me ample time to consider the radiator hanging at ceiling level in the room we were in. Like, how did it get there? How do you change the temperature controls on it? So many questions…)

This week I also had another counselling appointment, and started doing some hypnobirthing. Honestly? I’m a little bit scared to admit it, because most people seem to present hypnobirthing as some kind of miracle cure for anxiety, but…I’m not really loving it. I don’t know… Terry reckons I’m just too much of a cynic for this kind of thing to work for me, but I find all of the positive affirmations etc really cringey, and I’ve always found that TELLING myself I feel calm doesn’t ACTUALLY make me feel calm, so I think I’m failing at hypnobirthing, guys – only me, right?

With that said, I also have to admit that I find it really, really hard to concentrate on stuff like this: to be totally honest, I just get so bored with any kind of “mindfulness” technique that I struggle to stay focused on it, and end up thinking about whatever it is I was trying to stop myself worrying about in the first place. I’m pretty sure that’s NOT what I’m supposed to be doing, though, so, yeah – must try harder, I guess.

Week 33 Pregnancy Symptoms

Honestly, I’ve been feeling pretty OK this week: yes, I’m still so uncomfortable at night (restless legs, mainly: GOD) that I’m not really sleeping very well (Which is good preparation for what’s to come, I guess, although every time I wake up at 5am and can’t get back to sleep, all of those, “BETTER SLEEP WHILE YOU CAN!” comments start circling through my mind, and make me hate myself a little bit for being SO! WIDE! AWAKE!) but if being uncomfortable is the worst the 3rd trimester has to throw at me, I’ll be very happy with that.

(I am REALLY uncomfortable a lot of the time, though: people are very kind, and are always offering me their seats etc, but the truth is that I can’t really sit ANYWHERE for any length of time without wanting to weep…)

Oh, and also? THE CLUMSY. As in, I AM SO CLUMSY. I wasn’t actually sure if I could reasonably describe this as a “pregnancy symptom” as such, given that I’m ALWAYS pretty clumsy, really, but this week I’ve dropped almost everything I’ve tried to pick up, which is bad even for me. This does not bode well for life with a newborn…

Week 33 Pregnancy Preparations:

Biggest news first here: WE BOUGHT A NEW CAR. FINALLY.

(If you’re new here, and are wondering what the hell this has to do with my pregnancy: our existing car is a 2-seater, so, as much as we love it, it’s not going to be much use to us with a baby, really.)

This is good news, because, at one point last week, I found myself saying to Terry, “You know, if the baby came NOW, I think we’d actually be pretty well prepared, really!” and then I had to remind myself that, actually, if the baby came NOW, we wouldn’t even be able to bring him home from the hospital: whoops.

Assuming that this doesn’t turn into yet another ‘Shed Man’ scenario, the new car is hopefully being delivered tomorrow, at which point all we’ll need is the car seat to go in it (Which has been “on its way” for a while now, apparently…), and I think we’ll be good to go. We haven’t actually sold the old car yet (It needs some work before we can do that), but we decided we couldn’t really wait any longer to cross this one off the list, so at least it’s one less thing to think about.

(I’m not-so-secretly hoping that we NEVER sell the old car, because God, I love that car. Maybe we’ll win the lottery, though, and not have to sell it to pay for the new one? Note to self: start playing the lottery…)

In other news, now that the nursery is finally finished, I spent a chunk of Sunday afternoon unpacking all of the baby clothes/blankets etc, and putting them into the closet and dresser:

(Yes, the Ikea drawer units are very securely attached to the wall, so no, he can’t pull them down on top of himself!)

I actually found this really emotional: I’m finding that, the further I get through this pregnancy, the more anxious I get – I guess I just feel like there’s so much to lose at this point, and when I look at all of the little baby clothes hanging there, they kind of make me want to cry. I just can’t even imagine having a real little baby to dress in those clothes, and I worry so much about something happening to him that I sometimes find it hard looking into the nursery, or handling the little clothes and toys. Anxiety is a bitch, huh?

Still, my need to be organised meant that I had to get this done, emotional or not, and, while I was at it, I also filled the changing bag with the things I’ll be taking to hospital for the baby. I suspect I’ve probably done this ridiculously early, but people will insist on telling me that I could go into labour at ANY SECOND, really, and it’s freaked me out to the point that I just wanted to be prepared.

So, now I am. Hey, I wonder what I’ll do with myself for the next FIVE WEEKS?

[My pregnancy diary: week 8 onwards]