Month: November 2005

Things I miss….

….
Pate
Cheese (as in proper cheese with blue veins in it)
Rare steak
Alcohol
Dancing/Running/Walking – in fact any exercise above a waddle
Sleeping through the night (without extra pillows left, right and centre)
Sleeping on my front
Sleeping on my back
My waist!
My clothes
Heels
Being able to put my socks/tights/boots on

Having said all that, I think it’ll also be very strange to not have Baby Houghton jiggling around in my tum and I may well find that I miss it more than all these things once it’s out in the real world. We shall see.

The Hennessey

Sitting at home, replete after a rather scrumptious pheasant casserole a la Constance Spry after a weekend spent at the races. Sue and Jim came down with a friend who owned one of the horses, so a great day was had by all swanning around the owners enclosure and feeling very important indeed. Didn’t do too badly in terms of picking winners, but somehow still managed to come home severely out of pocket. Headed up to the pub for a game of darts and a few pints (of lime and soda in my case – God I’m sick of that stuff) followed by one of The Greenham Tandoori’s finest.

Alas I paid the price today, feeling absolutely exhausted and back aching like you wouldn’t believe. Eventually passed out in the sitting room for an hour and I still feel wiped out. Will heave my bulk up to bed shortly and attempt to catch up on some rest. Finding sleeping very hard now, not just because I’m the size of the Titanic, but my brain races away at around 4am thinking about the baby, birth, parenthood, the universe – you name it.

Porridge Days

It’s another beautiful, sunny, frosty day, I love it when the weather’s like this. If Christmas could be like this – wherever we happen to be – I’ll be happy. Eddie’s off for a bike ride with Richard, clad in his swanky new gel-pad shorts, roll on the days I’ll be back in the saddle (horse or bike come to think of it) again.

It’s great having Eddie at home in the week, if only we could win the lottery and pootle like this every day. Must go and check my numbers just in case.

Went to see Annie Smith yesterday which was lovely, we put the world to rights over Covent Garden soup and Waitrose’s finest chocolate and pecan muffins. Feeling very reassured about the whole baby thing, and not so alone with it all.

Off into town later to replace the horrible lampshade I bought for the nursery in a fit of madness, and some large pants. The glamour never ends….

Ante-Natal Marathon

Back from yet another weekend’s worth of classes. I’m beginning to get so full up with bumf about meconium, colostrum, prostoglandin etc, that I’m forgetting the fact I’ll actually have a baby to go with it all.

This week’s NCT was fun, although Eddie scored tickets to see England vs the All Blacks at Twickenham so abandoned me for the day. We talked induction and then attempted to change the nappy of a biro-encrusted doll with varying degrees of success.

Then this afternoon I went back for a talk on breastfeeding, where the basic message seemed to be ‘Breastfeed or Else’. The woman who gave the talk was an enormous Earth Mother and clearly I’ll be condemned for life if I fail. I’ll give it my best shot, but at the end of the day if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. I wasn’t breastfed and look at me – I turned out fine!!

Eddie’s still frantically finishing the house, it seems to have taken him weeks to sort out the two doors in our spare room, a tortuous process. I know nothing about DIY and so am absolutely useless in any capacity other than that which involves procuring him some form of refreshment.

We’ve also ordered the carpet so hopefully in a few weeks time everything will be ready. I’m already panicking the baby will come early and we won’t be ready. No doubt it’ll be the opposite and I’ll still be sitting here in January eating vindaloo and praying for it to be over…..Please, please let this not be the case.

Let the sleepless nights begin

Slept for about 2 hours at a time last night (or at least that’s how it felt), constantly having to get up for a wee and then horrendous heartburn both contributed to the general discomfort. Not to mention the fact it takes me about 2 minutes to turn over in bed (or heave to as Eddie kindly puts it). Urgh.

Brain on overdrive worrying about childbirth, but I have a plan and hopefully it’ll work for me. As Lowly said this morning, it’s all about your pain threshold, and I’m no woose so with a bit of luck I’ll get through it relatively unscathed. Much as I enjoy all the classes, I’m at the information saturation point now. A girl at Wednesday’s class said the same – you get to a stage where you just know too much.

Just one more marathon NCT to go now on Saturday, but I’ll be on my own as Eddie has tickets to NZ vs England at Twickers. Suspect he’s going to be the envy of every other Father-to-Be at the class!