Labour indeed.

Just about to leave for the hospital for the second time. First time was a bit of an adventure. We live literally like two blocks from the hospital and managed to get a flat tire on the way there, which Jamie valliantly changed in record time with no help from passersby - that's some cold shit! You're on your morning run and you see a pregnant woman bracing herself with contractions in the middle of the sidewalk and a guy trying to jack up a car on his own. What do you do? You give them the side eye and you keep on running is what you do, because fuck that pregnant lady and her husband! It's probably her fault the tire went. Fatty.

ANYWAY. We're on our way back, hopefully they'll let us stay this time. I may try to tweet while this whole thing is going on, or have Jamie do it. My handle is @nerdpro if anyone wants to follow; I may try to connect it to my FB statuses as well.

Come on Cletus, let's go; I'd like a nap.

Labour?????

So, dear readers, I do believe I'm in labour, or at the very least false labour. My baby may be Amy Winehouse reincarnate.

At around 1:30am last night, I had some abdominal pain and thought my water had broken. I called the midwife and it turns out she thinks it was just something else gross called "the bloody show." I'm going to call this Show Business! instead because that's a gross name. Anyway, this Show Business! went on for awhile and I'm still not entirely sure how the novice labourer is supposed to tell the difference between this and water breaking.

I had another spat of abdominal pain here and there for the next few hours, but around 4am they really started to come regularly; they were about every 5-7 minutes and about 30 seconds long. People keep asking if they were "strong,"... I don't know*, they were certainly painful. This lasted through about 9:30 or 10am, every five minutes, then I was able to sleep for 2 hours, mercifully, which meant they had stopped. So after waking up and eating something at noon, here I am, 1pm, waiting for it to kick off again. I've had what feel like few mild contractions in the past half hour or so, but nothing like the intensity of before.

I'm 38 weeks and 3 days, so fair game (it's 40±2 weeks, but I've been told usually + for a first; apparently not...). I tried to google the number for the triage midwife just now to check in, and this came up. Comforting. I'll definitely be wearing those baby catcher harem pants.

*Postpartum Update: They were not; not really, not yet. Though definitely uncomfortable.

The Homestretch

Today marks 35 weeks and 4 days along, just about to enter month 9. I daresay I'm a bit larger, though I think looking at the pictures from around 30 weeks, the difference is mostly in weight rather than size.

Either way, there's no arguing how totally massive I feel. From my perspective, this thing is gigantic.

And yes, those are my toenails, painted, and I painted them myself, which let me tell you, would have probably been comical to watch. The advantage is that the waddle I've been sporting since before I was even showing, due to the wonders of SPD, now at least looks like it makes a little bit of sense. No one is looking at me sideways when I take the elevator instead of one flight of stairs, and people can somehow read my urgent waddle as if it were a run (for example, the bus driver will wait if said urgent waddle is on display*). That being said, it is really hard not to run to do something like catch bus or even answer the door or phone. I have to consciously stop my body from automatically doing it, giving a nice schizophrenic character to the urgent waddle.

Acid reflux has reached a critical level. I am on my third 600ml bottle of Gaviscon (Americans, think liquid Mylanta), which I keep next to the bed and sip like a fine, milky, chalky wine in my sleep. I've also have had a few smaller bottles going for travel etc., meaning that by the time Cletus is actually out, I will probably have consumed over 2 litres of antacid. If you're a medical professional and this sends up a red flag for you, keep your red flag (I won't go as far as telling you where to put it) - unless you also have some magical midnight throat-fire cure coming out with it.  I'm told that 2-4 weeks before Cletus comes s/he will "drop" or "engage" lower in the pelvis and I will have sweet relief from reflux. I'm pretty psyched about this. 

Other than all this wonderful stuff, I've been concerning myself with cross stitching things and with Cletus' positioning. When I went in at 28 weeks, Cletus was in a breech position, which the midwife seemed very keen on telling me was not a problem, which of course made me convinced that it was a problem, so now I've been following it, or trying to. The best way to tell is by the hiccups, which for the past 4 weeks or so have been on the lower left, meaning that's where the head and chest are. Cletus gets the hiccups a lot, and luckily for you I've taken some footage of my grotesque belly during a bout of hiccups for your viewing pleasure. The music works and might even be a little cheesy ("Amazing Life" by Jem), but I promise I really only put it in so you didn't have to listen to Jamie and I discuss the finer points of Quincy's sleeping habits.

The ever-informative and hilariously illustrated What to Expect When You're Expecting, combined with hiccup location, has me thinking Cletus is probably currently in an Oblique position, maybe sort of hopefully verging on the Vertex position, which is more where s/he needs to be to get the hell out of my uterus.

"I can't find the door out of this shithole"

"Get your things, we're leaving."

Either way, I'm fairly sure s/he isn't Footling Breech, because I haven't noticed a foot hanging out of my vagina lately. 

"Just hangin' out."

In general, Cletus has been very active, kicking up a storm and generally moving his or her limbs about and poking in the organs/sides. Most noticeable, and reinforcing the oblique hypothesis, is what must be tiny feet rooting around in my right ribcage. This results in burning/pain sensation that I'm trying my best to find endearing.

Other than that, I've just been trying to wind down and relax a bit before the Artist Formerly Known as Cletus® is kicking me in the face and can make sounds I can actually hear. We had a fourth of July celebration yesterday, complete with some all-American beer pong (I just played with straight vodka; it's just how I roll). 

The weather was fantastically cooperative and we had a delicious cookout, complete with some pie (berry tarts by Keelin and key-lime by Manuela), hot dogs and burgers, coleslaw, and some delicious pork belly with a chilli and blueberry glaze, courtesy of Manuela and Juan.

I've also been trying to get the baby's room together and we've purchased a few last minute things. While we have tons of great hand me downs that I think will be enough for us not to have to make any purchases for awhile, we used some gift money at House of Fraser to get some cute stuff, just a couple pairs of trousers to ensure Cletus' dignity. Now, this may come as a shock to you, but my favourite purchase of all has been a pair of drop-crotch baby harem pants. We're going to be making a valiant attempt at reusable diapers, and I'm told their bulkier so I figured this was a good choice.

And yes, I also have my own harem pants, and let me tell you they are comfortable. They also take the waddle to a whole new level of public awkwardness. I might go as far as to say they are more comfortable than my old sweatpants. Since I've pretty much given up on wearing normal things like jeans, confining myself to the fine, dangerous line between leggings and pants, I figured I might as well throw a pair of well-ventilated harem pants in there. And honestly, it's a safety measure. If Cletus somehow ends up in a Footling Breech position without me noticing, I wouldn't want his/her feet exposed to the elements or met with harsh, rough denim. 

As for the rest of baby prep, the room is pretty much ready. We got a cotbed for a bargain £30 at an NCT sale, and an Ikea changing table/shelf system that might be mildly dangerous as it's not affixed to the wall - but it has some much needed storage.

Now all that's left to do is gear myself up for that whole labour thing, and for becoming part of the coveted "MUM" advertising demographic. I've been noticing lately how horribly things are marketed towards "mum's," the largest problem being the bizzarre assumption that it's some sort of homogenous group.  My favourite so far is the following claim, proudly stamped on a package of toilet paper:

So, apparently, as soon as I become a MOM (I don't think I'll ever be a mum; it's simply too British), I will also become a de-facto expert in ass wipery...or, my ass's opinion of a particular brand of paper is somehow more valuable, because, you know, I'm also wiping someone else's ass sometimes. With baby wipes of course, but that's not the point. I think this advertisement would be more effective if it targeted an even wider demographic. They're really just limiting themselves with the "mum" angle.

*This is probably just because it's mesmerisingly hilarious to watch

Pictures and names

Okay, so first, I realise I haven't given my dear readers a taste of how massive I've become. I'll be 27 weeks on Thursday.

Compare this to 23 weeks...I daresay I've gotten larger:

Lastly, compare that with what must have been about 18-19 weeks or so...

Holy shit I am huge. I probably shouldn't look at pictures of this. If there are two babies I'll regret putting this in writing, but I really hope there's only one in there. My last scan wasn't really crystal clear (to me anyway), but the lady didn't say anything about there being more than one. But I'm just entering month 7. I'm going to get bigger. Dear lord.

Anyway, moving on from that sideshow: names. These are short lists for girls and boys - not all of these have been approved by Jamie yet.

Girls:

First:
Frances (nickname Frankie)
Aoife (pronounced ee-fah)
Naimh (pronounced as Neve)
Nuala
Isolde
Imogen (nickname Immi)
Alba (nickname Al or Ally)
Arwyn
Alwyn (nickname Al or Ally; Winnie is also possible, as with Arwyn, but I kind of hate it)
Delaney (nickname Lane or Laney)

Middle:
Frances (I kind of want to save this for a first)
Christine (only if the first is Frances)
Margaret (Jamie's late great aunt, and my sister)

I like all of these pretty well...I think Nuala and Niamh are actually my least favourite right now, but I was keen on them a few months ago. I really like the idea of Frances with the cool nickname Frankie, but there is a distinct possibility of this person simply not being a Frankie. They may be a Fran. And Fran...meh. Sounds too much like Bran in my accent, and in a posh British accent I kind of can't stand it...FRAAAAAAHHHN.

Onto the boys...

Dolan
Liam
Callum
Aidan
Cormac (nickname: Mack)
Ruaridh (pronounced as Rory)
Jones (I don't think Jamie likes this one; my mother's maiden name)

Middle is most certainly James if it's a boy. While this allows for all sorts of _J nicknames, I'm not that keen on most of them - but an option, I suppose, if my child decides to be a popular jock from a 1980s movie. It's a lifestyle choice; we'll support him.

I'm finding choosing boy's names much harder. I think my favourites are Liam and Aidan, but these are incredibly popular which puts me off. I'm coming around to Cormac, but I have yet to run this by Jamie. I really like Jones, but I think Jamie is lukewarm on it at best.

Aoife and Ruaridh are definitely up there generally - there are those that say the funny Celtic spellings are a terrible idea, but I kind of like it as a quirk. Having (apparently - it's always seemed pretty straightforward to me) a difficult to pronounce last name, I think it's character building for someone to be called the wrong thing at least several times a year. It gets you used to rolling your eyes at people, a highly effective coping mechanism for all manner of things.

Your thoughts?

Also, in case you missed it, there's also a new post below - two in one day - insanity!

March got away from me (so did April).

I'll warn you now, the likelihood of this post having any sort of flow to it is pretty low, but there are a few things I've been meaning to discuss.

1. Science, what the hell have you been doing all these years? Why haven't you invented some sort of external womb? Because you were making viagra, that's why. Well, fuck you. The last thing we need is more hard-ons in this world. I want this:

Luckily, this picture already existed so I didn't have to faff around with my own design. It captures the major features I would like: A womb-like tank to put the fetus in for awhile while mama has a glass of wine, maybe skips for a few feet (dances?) having removed the pressure from her pelvis, and sleeps next door without her masticated and half digested dinner drifting into her throat every few hours. Given time to make one myself, I would probably make it smaller (I believe the real estate term is "cosy") and rounder, perhaps more mobile; maybe put some fake intestines as a backdrop, or a full bladder for it to kick so the baby can feel like it's causing some sort of discomfort to its host. It'll never know the difference. Obviously there'd be some sort of time limit on time spent in the Baby Tank®; we wouldn't want to rob women entirely of the enriching experience of baby hosting.

You're welcome, Science. Get on that as soon as you're done giving people elf ears and curing cancer.

2. Eating is hard. Apparently, I've been dropping food in my lap or somewhere hidden for most of my life, because now that my boobs and belly are rather GINORMOUS, pretty much every meal I have involves me unintentionally installing some of it on either my top shelf (boobs) or my bottom shelf (belly). Eating every few hours as if someone is going to run in and steal my plate doesn't really help this tendency. 

I went out to pizza last week, and we got some free dough balls (they are really just balls of dough) which came with some garlic butter. After we were done, there was some garlic butter left, and I was sort of looking at it thinking, do I put some of that on my finger and lick it off? I think I do. Just as I'm about to go in the waitress snatches that shit off the table. Bitch stole my garlic butter. I was about to eat straight butter laced with garlic, and I was pretty pissed that I was interrupted. It was reflected in her tip. 

3. Maternity clothes. Sweet jesus, this shit pisses me off. Every fucking store has a children's section that covers a full square god damn mile, including inane shit like this. So, you want me to have kids. And you want me to buy them oodles of clothes before they can even process anything more than a few inches outside their immediate visual field. You want me not to put them in a burlap sack, even though they would not know the difference and it would be much easier for me. Let me explain to you how mammals reproduce. I have to actually grow this baby, which means I'll get a little bit bigger than your average lady, and that increase in size will be primarily in my abdomen. I'm not going to cook this kid  naked, because for some fucking reason society still expects me to leave the house and put a smile on my face. 

So maybe, just maybe you should sell some fucking maternity clothes. Take a tiny corner of your children's section - or, GASP - your regular womenswear section, and sell me some shit. Sell me some shit that will fit over my ginormous breasts and outsized belly. And when I ask you if you have maternity clothes, don't tell me about things you have that will fit me while I'm pregnant. I understand you have large sizes and weird mumus that people wear absent being pregnant. You probably also sell blankets and perhaps uncut cloth. I'm not looking for a fucking simulacrum toga. I don't want that shit. I want something that's going to fit me in the belly and the breasts without me having to swim in it everywhere else. 

Oh, what's that? You have maternity clothes online! Well, thank you so much. Because right now, I'm at the lumpiest a human being can possibly be (unless they're more months pregnant than I am now) without being considered sickly and what I want to do is buy things without trying them on. 

Also, let's discuss what qualifies as maternity clothing. These, I'm pretty sure, are just regular jeans on a woman wearing a fake bump:

Asos "Maternity" American vintage jean

Do they look great? Yes, yes they do. Will they push on my bladder? Most certainly. Does making them in "stretch cotton" mean they qualify as maternity clothing. No, no it does not.

Then, there's things like this. 

Sad sack pants

So, if I give birth while wearing these, the baby can just hang out in that pouch until I can find a qualified medical professional? Because I can't think of another reason why a drop crotch is happening in this particular situation (in any situation, really). A few friends have pointed out they look comfortable. Yeah, I guess? But I have sweatpants for that that still fit me just fine. 

Also, the idea that I'd drop £20-30 on either of these without trying them on is simply hilarious.

Lastly:

I've put a bow right in front of where the baby comes out! It's like a PRESENT!

I know, it's been ages...

So, February has been insane. Really, the end of January and all of February. While the morning sickness eased off around the end of Jan, teaching officially set in and oh what a clusterfuck that has been. There are new lecturers all over the shop, for courses I've been tutoring for almost three years, and they have no idea what is going on. No one really bothered to tell them, and while I certainly don't mind running my mouth, they don't want to hear it from me (a lowly tutor, after all). And, of course, we moved in the beginning of February - a process that still isn't quite over.

Anyway, on the pregnancy front, there were a couple of weeks there where I was pretty comfortable, which, of course, made me seriously doubt I was actually pregnant. At any given appointment with the midwife, I'm still fairly certain they're going to be like "LISTEN - little confusion here. Turns out there's just a seriously malignant tumour in your abdomen. OOPS." But with the morning sickness gone, and I hadn't actually gained any weight yet (so my clothes still fit), and the compulsive need for 12 full hours of sleep a night gradually easing, I felt almost normal. Except considerably less drunk than I would normally be. And eating less pâté than I normally would (Apparently this is a thing here, and not in the US. The internet has me scared, but I'm willing to reconsider this and have a full baguette with a nice coarse pâté and some mustard and cornichons, so please, encourage me.). And peeing more.

That lasted for a little over a week. Then, I went for a long, vigorous walk with Keelin to a nursery to drop off consent forms for a stupid "study" I shouldn't even be doing (long story there). Since about late November, I hadn't been out and about much. In fact, I had spent a lot of time horizontally, and not in a remotely sexy way. After the walk, I felt a weird pain in my pelvis area, but a weekend lounging around seemed to make it disappear. Then the following Tuesday I ran to catch a bus, backpack with laptop and all. I made it - to the charming comment of the bus driver that running up to a stationery bus with a closed door was "a good way to get under the wheel." Turns out it's also a good way to catch a bus, so there, Mr. Driver. Something unexpected this activity is also excellent for is royally fucking up your pelvis.

There's this charming little hormone called relaxin which your body releases when you're pregnant. It sounds like a vaguely illicit perscription drug, perhaps in the Valium or Ambien family.

Doesn't that look great? Don't be fooled. It is not that. It's this.

Relaxin does what the name would indicate, but it does so to your ligaments and muscles, rather than your general disposition. It's basically turned my pelvis into a gumby pelvis. The ligaments holding the various parts of the pelvis together are normally taut - simultaneously holding the pelvis together but still keeping all the individual bones from grinding against each other like so many teenagers at homecoming. Relaxin relaxes these ligaments, so your pelvis is free to bump n' grind as it sees fit, which happens to be whenever you walk, sit down, stand up, lie down, get up, put on a shoe/sock/underwear/pants, take of a shoe/sock/underwear/pants, etc. This the anatomy of a normal pelvis:

And this is the anatomy of a pelvis that's O.D.'d on relaxin:

In case my visuals haven't made this point very well, I don't like this. Walking fast, past other people and to interesting places, has long been a past time of mine. Waddling while wincing is really not for me.

So what does one do about this? Pretty much nothing. I went to the physio, and she said the problem is that my pelvis was already relaxed enough and if my body "knew what was good for me" it would not have relaxed it any further. Well shit, someone should tell it next time. Drugs for pain relief are pretty much off the table, with the exception of paracetemol, which does pretty much nothing for me. I do have a very special maternity support belt, however, which is meant to hold together my pelvis from the outside when I'm standing and walking, so hopefully it will increase my mobility a bit.

I can't really explain my face here.

Obviously, it looks really good and is the sort of thing any person would wear for purely aesthetic purposes. It goes under the bump, which is actually starting to make an appearance. I didn't really think so until I actually saw this picture.

My arm only looks this large when my fist is bracing for impact.

However, its location is perplexing to me. My guide on what I should expect now that I am expecting says my uterus is apparently "5cm below my bellybutton"

Which is not where I am bulging.

I know, I know - all women carry differently, I have organs or whatever, etc., etc. But this discrepancy just supports my sneaking feeling that it's a malignant tumour. Perhaps there's a more familiar description in What to expect when you have a malignant tumour that presents much like pregnancy. And now that I see this picture twice, I am rather large. Suspiciously large. This is a potentially aggressive tumour.

There's a major piece of evidence I must consider, however, that goes against this theory, which is my first scan. However, don't forget that this means I could have an aggressive tumour with physical characteristics suspiciously similar to a slightly large tadpole with a human head. Most of you have probably already seen it, but in case you haven't:

Despite appearances, Cletus does not have a protruding hand-like schnozz, but its hand is in fact behind the schnozz, exaggerating it's size. It's all head at this point, which was over a month ago, so I trust it's gone and got itself some more pronounced limbs since. If not that's just lazy. I have another scan at 20 weeks (in the next three or so weeks), so we'll see.

That's all for now. I can't promise I'll really be able to update again soon, but once a month is my minimum aim, so there should be something before the end of March.

SANDWICHES

Since I spend a lot of my time sleeping now, there's a really good likelihood that this blog is going to be dominated by my bizarre dreams. Sadly, the things I spend time doing other than sleeping lately are almost universally boring, like marking. Or reading. Or fretting. Or wishing for sunshine.

This dream was a food dream and a sunshine dream, because I've been waking up around about 5am feeling seriously hungry. This must be related to Cletus (the name of the fetus, for the uninitiated) consuming a lot of energy. I was surprised to be hungry so early this morning (5am) since last night Keelin came over and I made sushi and dumplings and I ate a shedload. I was so full I had trouble getting to sleep.

Anyway, in this particular dream I was on a beach with my family, much like the little beach I was on with them last, on Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond (this past August). Only this beach was right outside my flat (only my flat wasn't my flat, it was another flat) almost like a balcony. And there were baby bear cubs burrowing in the sand by the waterline, obviously.  There were also bunnies living in the sand, but these aren't very interesting when bear cubs are around. Bronwyn (my niece) and my parents and my sister were playing with the bear cubs, and I was trying to warn them this was a bad idea, because clearly the angry mama bear could be around anywhere.

This isn't even the good part. There was a fridge just inside the flat that was filled with AMERICAN SANDWICHES. 

It was awesome. Trust me.

None of this "filled roll" business. Kaiser rolls! KAISER ROLLS. With multiple slices of Boar's head turkey! Tuna salad, with no sweetcorn! Lobster rolls! Hot wings with blue cheese*! I didn't see them specifically, but I'm pretty much totally sure that if I'd had time to look I would have found kosher dill pickles, because after all this is my dream fridge. I was spoiled for choice, I didn't know which to eat first. I chose a chicken sandwich with mozzarella, tomato and basil, oddly. Because that I can get here, or make easily. I was about to dig in when.....

SNORING. Jamie snoring. Woke me up just before my glorious moment of sandwiching. Tragic really. So instead, I got up and and lumbered to the fridge and had a dried fig. Considerably less exciting than the Sandwich/generally unobtainable American food fridge. It was really a ploy to try and get me back to sleep, and back to that sandwich fridge. Sadly, it was not to be. And I was hungry again an hour later, at which point I had a dry piece of bread. YUM. 

I would like to recreate some semblance of dream sandwich fridge, but it's difficult. The primary difficulty is that there are no kaiser rolls, and absolutely no pickles, and what pickles there may be are usually seriously sub-par. Radioactive slimy floppy looking things. No crunch. There's also a cold cut (lunch meat) issue. One, I've never seen anything like delicious Boar's head here. Two, I'm not supposed to have any cured meats or lunch meat unless I thoroughly heat it first, which kind of defeats the point of cold cuts.

Anyway, that's really it. These are things that are exciting these days.

*I know these aren't technically sandwiches, but they are delicious and unobtainable on my current continent.