Week 34 of pregnancy was, for me, the week I finally cracked and started changing into my PJs right after dinner.

Now, I’ve never been a “PJs-in-the-house” kind of person, really. Which is not to say that I wear my PJs OUT of the house, obviously, it’s just… you know how women are always going on about how, as soon as they come home from work or whatever, their bra comes off and the PJs go on? I’ve never understood that. In fact, to be totally honest, I’ve always wondered why they don’t just buy a bra that fits them properly, because why would it be so uncomfortable that you’d need to rip it off as soon as you were through the door? Oh, the sweet innocence of youth earlier this year, huh?

Well, this week I finally realised what that’s all about, when it got to around 6pm and I was so uncomfortable in my clothes that I could have cried. (And they were all maternity clothes, too: I mean, it’s not like I was trying to cram myself into stuff that obviously didn’t fit. ) The upshot is that I’ve bought myself some sleep bras, and am counting down to what my parents have dubbed ‘Jammie Time’ (STOP! JAMMIE TIME!) every night now. I also can’t even fathom being any bigger than I currently am. It just doesn’t seem possible to me, but then I look back at some of my early maternity outfit shots, and I remember thinking the same thing in all of them – even when I was, like, 12 weeks, or something, and just looked like I’d had a bowl of pasta for dinner. Then I want to go back in time, and just SLAP myself, seriously. Like, look at this idiot:

Today the baby is apparently the size of a peach, but thanks to all the bloating, my belly is the size of a baby ?? 14 weeks today, and my 13 week update is up on the blog! . . . #14weekspregnant #14weeks #bumpshot #babybump #pregnant #pregancyphoto #pregnantlife #pregnancystyle #maternityfashion #maternitystye #maternitydress #maternityselfie #pregnantdress #pregnantdress #2ndtrimester #

A post shared by Amber McNaught (@foreveramberblog) on Jul 6, 2017 at 8:50am PDT

14 weeks, thought I was GIGANTIC. Now I swear to God, my FACE is bigger than my belly is in this photo, which explains the lack of photos of me lately…

Anyway!

To be completely honest, as I mentioned in last week’s diary (and probably the one before that, too…), I seem to have entered a stage of pregnancy where not much is really changing from week to week – well, other than the size of belly (and my face, and my thighs…) obviously. I’m quite content with that state of affairs, too: sure, I’m uncomfortable most of the time, and I wanted to cry when I was getting dressed this morning, purely because absolutely NOTHING looks even remotely good on me any more, but I know a lot of people who have it much worse at this stage of pregnancy, so I’m not going to complain. Or not on the internet, anyway: in private, I will complain AAAALLLL day long, but that doesn’t count, does it? Like, does ANYTHING count if it’s not on the internet? Didn’t think so.

With that in mind, for this week’s diary, I thought I might just abandon my usual format and have a quick recap of my “Things I Have to Do Before the Baby Arrives” post – as much for myself, as for anyone else. So, here’s how we’ve been getting on with that list of tasks, which included…

(Miffy nightlight from here)

01.
Clear out the cupboard under the stairs

Check! This was done a few weeks ago, and, for the first time since we moved into this house, we now have a cupboard we can actually walk into, and which doesn’t spew its contents into the hall every time the door opens. It’s now home to the stroller/pram, which is why we needed this done, so we’ll be forced to keep it relatively neat, so we can get the thing in and out of it as required.

02.
Build a garden shed

Well, it took way, waaaay longer than anticipated, but last month we finally got someone to build us that shed, which now holds all of the stuff that used to live in the cupboard under the stairs. It was a kind of miracle, really.

03.
Clear out and re-fit linen closet, bedroom closet & nursery closet

Done, done and done! Seriously, this house is now so organised that even Terry has been forced to admit how much better it feels, and I feel like I breathe freely again. Aaaaannd breeeaaathe….

04.
Clear out the nursery

Yup: I’m still kind of gutted about the loss of my treadmill, to be honest, but it’s not like we could’ve just left it there, could we?

05.
Decorate the nursery

Ta da!
I talked about this at great length last week, so I won’t bore you with it again, but it’s now my favourite room in the house: such a relief to have it done!

06.
Buy everything a newborn could possibly need for the first few weeks of life

Everything but the car seat, which is actually becoming a bit of a Shed Man type situation, and it looks like we might have to abandon our original plan and buy something else. If worst comes to worst, though, there are plenty of stores near the hospital that sell them, so while I’m hoping to get this piece of the puzzle in place long before that, I’m not too worried about it, either. Which is unusual for me, isn’t it?

07.
Sell our car

NOPE: in fact I’m still trying to convince Terry that we can TOTALLY afford to just keep it. But the less said about that, the better…

08.
Buy a new car

Yup, it arrived last Friday, and we both love it, although please don’t tell the existing car I said that, or it’ll get jealous.

09.
Write blog posts for after the birth

Hmmm. I mean, sort of. As in, I’ve written some, but it’s pretty tricky, really, to write posts for a personal blog that far in advance, so it’s a bit of a struggle, really. In this respect, I’m actually quite glad that the baby will (hopefully) be arriving during the holidays, as there’s less people reading around that time, anyway, and there are some seasonal posts that aren’t too hard to write in advance. I wrote about why I need to do this here, though, and I’d feel happier if I had a few more posts in the bag, so to speak, so that’s a project for December, I guess.

10.
Pack hospital bags

Two for me, one for the baby: because this girl does NOT travel light, let me tell you. Luckily for me, my doctor has now told me that she’s been able to make arrangements for Terry to stay with me throughout my ordeal the hospital stay (Our hospital normally kicks partners out as soon as they can, but they’re making an exception for us, which I’m really, really grateful for: I honestly don’t think I’d have coped if I’d just been handed a new baby minutes after major surgery, and then left to look after it on my own, while freaking out about the surgery, hospital, etc…), so now I’m nagging encouraging him to pack some things for himself, too. So far on his list: the camera, the charger for the camera, and… that’s it, really.

11.
Buy and wrap approximately 5,000 Christmas gifts

I’m normally a Christmas Eve kind of shopper, so I’m amazed to be able to report that we’ve bought approximately 4,500 of the gifts on our list, which isn’t bad considering that it’s still November – just. I sat down to start wrapping them on Sunday evening, only to discover we’d run out of tape, so that part of proceedings has had to be put on hold for now. Still, Christmas had been stressing me out even more than usual this year, so I’m really glad to have this part of it under control – and early, too!

So, yeah, I think we’re actually pretty organised now, all things considered, which goes a long way towards keeping me calm, although does also give me some extra time in which to worry about the c-section (I still haven’t recovered yet from my meeting with the anaesthetist, which scared the crap out of me, to be totally blunt), worry about the baby, and worry about… just everything, really.

Because I’ve been so focused on surviving the pregnancy itself, and worrying about the birth, I actually haven’t really allowed myself to think about what life will be like afterwards (This is mostly a self-protection mechanism: I feel like I daren’t let myself be too hopeful about it…), but this week it really started to hit me that I’m getting closer and closer to the end of this pregnancy, and that, all being well, I’ll have an ACTUAL BABY soon.

And, of course, I’m sure most women have the full 9 months to get used to this concept, but, like I said, it’s only now that I’m allowing myself to even entertain the notion that it might all work out, and, honestly, it’s pretty freaky to realise that, once this pregnancy is over, things aren’t just going to revert back to normal again. I wouldn’t say I was worried about it, exactly (People tend to be quite surprised when I say this, but it’s true: almost all of my worries are centred around getting the baby here safely, and not dying in the process. To me, these are real, life-or-death kind of concerns, and I feel like, if I can get past them, I can deal with anything: so, while I’m sure it’s going to be hard, it’s – hopefully – not going to be life-or-death hard, and we have so much support from family and friends, that I’m sure we’ll cope, however hard it gets…), but it’s … well, it’s an adjustment, isn’t it?

It’s an adjustment I’m going to be making pretty damn soon, too: I’m 35 weeks pregnant today, after all, with just four weeks to go – excuse me while I go and have another quick check of those hospital bags…

[My Pregnancy Diary]