7 months. Home straight...

Somehow it's Monday again. Really? This time last week we were being eaten by mosquitoes while we waited for our (AWESOME!) tour of the Observatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens to begin. Wow, those old buildings are cool. We saw the moon through a really old, really huge telescope, and the sky through a porthole in a wooden dome that groaned around on cannon balls and made me feel for a moment that the earth was turning in the wrong direction. So worth staying up late for.

I'm not sure I remember the rest of the week. Except for the part where I washed the curtains and vacuumed the bed. Ahem. Yes. Extreme nesting. I stand by my crazy.

T'was the wedding anniversary this weekend. Hurrah! What a year it's been. We stayed the night at the Lindrum on Friday, in the same room, and it was so lovely to sleep on fancy sheets and have a bath and not be woken up by the kitty at 7 am. (Ha! Imagine the sleeplessness we'll be ready to escape from this time next year!) Dinner at the Mess Hall and breakfast at the European and almond Magnums from the sevs in between. We eat like damn hell ass kings. A weird thing... someone had written the girl's name we've chosen on the note paper that was in the drawer of the desk. A sign? It's a girl bean? Who can say...

We went to the farm on Saturday and managed to feed the goats in the brief window of blue sky before it bucketed down again. 78 ml this week. Way more than this time last year. And then we slept again, for 12 hours, which I haven't done in YEARS. (I did get up to wee, and eat, and let the cat out, but I went back to bed, and more importantly, to sleep!)

I seem to have acclimatised to not quite sleeping through the night anymore, and it doesn't seem so taxing to wake up however many times to do the three-point turn that rolling over requires. The sciatica comes and goes, but mostly it goes. My back aches a little, but not enough to really bother me. There are a million little things that pull and stretch and slow me down, but man, I'm building a tiny human. It's freaking incredible.

12 weeks to go, which seems both an eternity and the blink of an eye. See you soon, little bean!

If it's a boy, we call it Lars.

The Boy went with his mum, his brother M and M's girlfriend to see Metallica on Sunday night. Such a shame the pregnant lady had to go home to sleep. I drove the four of them from the boy's mum's house to Rod Laver, and M is the white Australian version of Tracey Jordan. (Although that makes him sound like Pauline Hanson. He's not. He's just barking mad.)

Also, The Boy's tendancy to live inside his own slightly Aspy, philosophy-filled head brought him undone before we left...

M's girlfriend (talking about the baby): 'So, are you excited?'
The Boy (talking about Metallica): 'Not overly. I'm setting myself up to be disappointed. I kind of feel like if I'd done it right, I should have done it when I was 16...'
Everyone: What the?
Hilarity ensued.

27 weeks, in pictures.

 

Montage! It which it becomes clear that I wear the same clothes every weekend and don't put stuff away in my living room very often. The shape of the grid doesn't allowed for my head to be in the shots, so you miss out on the evidence of the fact that my hair mostly looks like I just crawled out of bed.

27 down, 13 or so to go. I still can't sleep. Something is amiss with my esophagus. The heat kills me and I have nothing to wear, but it's still all pretty good! The bean sometimes pokes back now when I give it a nudge. We're closing in on girl names, but still don't really have a boy choice sorted. The spare room is still a mess, but I have a plan, and less than 40 days left of work before the adventure begins...

Everybody dance now.

The Boy, who is the sweetest in the land, told me this morning that pregnancy suited me. Bless his cotton socks.  Maybe he was just trying to get me to stop doing the Pregnant Lady Dance for attention. (It's something of a cross between Elaine and Jill from Nighty Night. It scares the cat.)

The Vivian girls are visited in the night by St Dargarius and his squadron of benevolent butterflies. I get a moth up my shirt.

Yoga last night was hardcore. Today I am a cripple. He pounded the dragon crawl, which is somehow one of those poses I could always kind of do without trying (and without knowing how, which probably means it doesn't count). The rest of the class got a 'The pregnant woman is doing it better than all of you! Stop complaining!' for their troubles. Lucky he wasn't watching my half-arsed ardha bhujangasanas later on. The pregnant lady was definitely doing some cheating trickery there. Water aerobics tonight was a nice recovery, except the downside of 45 weightless minutes seems to be 4 very freaking heavy hours. I feel like I weigh a ton in comparison to pool-me. The bean seems to like it, though. Then again, the bean seems to like pretty much everything, if we're taking somersaults as enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, another installment of weird shit that happens to me... Yesterday I was walking back to my desk from the bathroom, rubbing my belly as I am prone to doing, when I felt a hard little nugget in the shelf under my heaving bosom. I thought maybe it was bits of clothing not sitting right, but when I hoicked up my t-shirt in order to see what was going on, a GREAT DIRTY MOTH flapped off the top of my skirt and skittered away. What the fuck? How did it get there? How had I not noticed it in the three hours (and at least that many toilet trips) since I got dressed? Either someone's pulling a Silence of the Lambs number on me, or the baby brain has reached new lows. I spent all Sunday hanging up clothes that had previously been living on the floor as well, so it's not like mothy had time to get settled in the wardrobe. At least I managed to keep the jittery flapping panic to a minimum and there were no corridor witnesses that I am aware of. WEIRD SHIT.

I bought Sufjan Stevens tickets today for Jan 31. Optimistic? First babies are usually late, right? It'll be fine. And if I do go into labour at the State Theatre, at least I'll have a story to tell.

26. The number of kilos I feel like I have gained.

I had something of a meltdown this week (and it seems I'm not the only one). The weather changed, finally, to something closely resembling summer, and it turns out I have only one ensemble suitable for work in my wardrobe. Even the dresses I'm squeezing into and convincing myself are ok for weekend wear are not going to last much longer. The last straw was going in to Big W (of all places) to try and find a maternity singlet that could potentially double my wardrobe choices, and being mortified by their hideously lit changing rooms with mirrors at angles previously unutilised. Ugh.

I am totally ok with the belly. It's there for a reason and it's bizarre, for sure, but kind of cool as well. Likewise the knockers. But... 'She's got a fat back an' all, ain't she? She's got a fat... back, the woman! Great, big, fat, dirty, 'airy, sweating, back.' That is very unfeminine on a woman.

But even that isn't the worst part. The thing that had me wailing on the bed in a fit of hormonal self-pity when I got home is, well, THE THING. It wasn't until afterwards when I was reading Week 26 in Up the Duff that I realised it was bang on cue: 'I am becoming a stately pregnant lady and am now so considerably fattened up that THE THING has happened. THE THING where your thighs rub together up the top. If I wore corduroy trousers while I was walking, I'd sound like a sword fight.' Quite. Except that it's 30 degrees, and there is not even corduroy to keep my upper thighs from sticking sweatily together on the train. Wail! I do not like it. And I tremble at the thought of another 14 weeks of this... expansion. (Oh. Tremble. Like all those bits of me that continue to move momentarily after the rest of me has stopped. Hilarious.)

I love you, bean, and I will come to forgive you for the extra kilos you are burdening my body with, but right now, all they make me want to do is eat potato cakes. Nice going, psyche. Very helpful. (Shut up, Miranda Kerr. Shut up, shut up, shut up!)

To the fridge!

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly... and discovered she was 25 weeks pregnant.

Seriously. 'Wriggles and jiggles and tickles inside her' is an understatement. I read somewhere that babies of about this gestation can sleep up to 95% of the time. Ha! This little monkey is AWAKE 95% of the time. I don't think I've had a complete night's sleep for about a month. This isn't meant to happen now! I need all the precious shut-eye I can get before I have to really deal with a sleepless ADHD newborn. C'mon, little bean. Quit yo jibber-jabber and sleep once in a while, eh? Preferably while I'm sleeping too.

In other daylight-hour news this past week, I have been at a shack in Foster, celebrating D's 30th and Halloween. (Incidentally, this D is another one. I seem to have a great many friends and relations whose names begin with D.) I ate the baby's weight in sugar and walked in the rain and played charades with boozehounds until the ungodly hour of 11pm.

I worked that weird Monday before Cup Day that most people skip, and then we dashed off to the farm to see the tiny babies again and attempt to fix the goats' leaking water tank. We failed. But we did have a lovely lunch with the boys the next day of miscellaneous mystery quiche that baked while we played with tiny goats, and spent the afternoon lazing on the couch and talking shit.

A three-day week that felt like 12 ensued, and then at last it was Friday night again. An ill-fated visit to the chronically under-staffed Little Creatures Dining Hall for dinner on the way out to the farm meant that we didn't get there until after 11, and had to traipse down to the goat paddock in the dark to empty the water tank out in preparation for The Fixing Part II. Oh my goodness, the STARS! Not a cloud in the sky, no torch needed to light our way down the hill.

Once upon a time I may have indulged in substance abuse to escape the mess and drudgery of everyday life. Things are much better now, of course, but that place, even with its falling down fences and blackberry infestation, is all the escape I need these days. I sat and watched The Boy do his ladder trick with the bushes to get more feed at goat-height yesterday afternoon, and the sun warmed my back and the birds warmed my brain as they twittered away, and I felt the exhaustion and frustration of our 9-5 city life slip right off my shoulders.

We did fix the water tank, for real this time, it seems. Not without me abandoning my post as helper and dashing inside to get the camera, for obvious reasons.

 
We spent the afternoon at the Whittlesea Show, spilling jam down our pregnant bellies eating jam donuts and discovering that the dog is morbidly afraid of kids with bubble guns. I laughed like a goon at the egg-throwing competition, and was most impressed at the craft shed and its very clearly defined categories. (Best sponge, two tins, no filling, max. 4 eggs.) Well done Beryl Driver. The combined churches stall with free tea and coffee was placed, by some hilarious twist of logistics, just in front of the 'youth' tent, which had a makeshift skate ramp and blared death metal over the speakers to attract the kiddies. I do love a good country show.

We fell into bed, and so far today I have managed to do almost nothing at all. The list of things to do 'before the baby' grows ever longer, and the house grows ever filthier, and I think perhaps I need another nap.

6 months down, 3 to go. Oh, wait...

First of all, this whole thing about pregnancy going for 9 months? Lies. Bastards. 40 weeks is 10 months. Given that for the first two weeks of what counts as being 'pregnant', you potentially haven't even done the deed yet, this seems kind of understandable. But having made it to 6 months and suddenly been hit by a wall of heartburn and sleeplessness and myriad other forms of discomfort and bullshit, goddammit, I'm pissed that the countdown just got a month longer.

On the other hand, we could probably do with an extra few weeks to get our shit a little more together. Progress on the spare room has stalled, and the idea of going pram shopping just paralyses me with... well, indifference, really. Put it on the list. Like the cloth nappies bizzo and the car seat and the moses basket vs. bassinet (vs. cot vs. co-sleeping) decision. I'm not so good without a little bit of heat behind me, and clearly things have not yet got to the stage where the pressure forces a result. Let's hope the bean has no funny ideas about arriving 6 weeks early or anything. Stay put, little one! (Although, actually, if you could remove yourself from the particular sweet spot right on top of my bladder, that would be great.)

I bit the bullet and bought maternity jeans on the weekend. Two pairs, in fact. Given that Melbourne's weather shows no signs of heading into summer any time soon, it seemed like something that could no longer be avoided. The single day last week over 25 did make me realise that my wardrobe for that weather is somewhat limited, but for the time being, there's an apparently never-ending run of 17 degree days ahead, and I'm all over that get-up.

What I am not OK with, is sleep deprivation. Oh boy. The Sydney launch was lovely, and we found ourselves at a delightfully la-di-da (or maybe just kind of Melbourne) Italian restaurant for dinner on the corporate credit card. But that went for rather a long time, and our flight was at stupid o'clock the next day. Combine the limited sleep window with an overheated hotel room for three and a whole lot of traffic noise (plus HEARTBURN), and I was knackered. Had to leave work early on Friday, and as I stumbled into bed at 4.30pm fully clothed and moaning about my aching back and my swollen feet, etc., etc., I suddenly realised that this state of desperate exhaustion is what a lot of people are in when labour starts. Holy crap. I've been doing all the reading and intellectually, logically, I understand the process, and the things I need to concentrate on and be aware of in order to increase the chances of things going smoothly. But applying those intellectual concepts and summoning the inner strength to deal with the whole saga while utterly bollocksed? That's an entirely different kettle of fish. I'm fucked.