Author: Louisa Houghton

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….

I am officially a blob. Life has whittled itself down into a cycle of eating, sleeping and watching telly. Urgh.

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.

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!

East End
View from the top of the sheep field

Home!

Back from saying hello to the horses up on the top and breathing in the most beautiful, crisp November morning. Life is good.

At last, Joanne’s beautiful pictuture of the Downs is up and already brightening up the kitchen beautifully. Roll on next Summer and balmy walks up on the top with small child and Eddie followed by several ciders at The Plough. I can’t wait.

…complete with small (and utterly useless) assistant.

It’s official, I am now part of the world you never see when you’re at work. A world of Yummie Mummies, pensioners and the rarely glimpsed, bemused-looking maternity-weeble waddling around wondering what the hell happened to them.

Blimey – I’m on a baby roll these days! Today Eddie and I went round Reading to see what’s what. It’s not the Park Hyatt, but I doubt I’ll care when I’m actually there! The rest of the tour people were a motley bunch, not sure if one pair were a lesbian couple or boy and girl…took a while for us to decide they were one of each! Amoom.

Even better, though, was that we got to say hi to Debs. She literally walked past just as the tour was wrapping up and I managed to grovel to the receptionist sufficiently for her to give us 5 minutes. Little Taylor’s in intensive care upstairs and Debs has a private room which is lovely and full of pressies. Wish I’d thought ahead and got her something, but will definitely go on a mission when she’s home and it’s Ok to visit. She was on good form, if looking tired – not surprising after going through something like that. Roll on the day she can take the baby home and settle down after all the excitement.

One thing’s for sure about all these classes/tours and stuff – whatever the reality of giving birth, the more I know in advance, the less intimidated about the whole thing I feel. Deb looked very chilled and promises even a caesarean isn’t as bad as it sounds. I’m sure if I’d just gone through that I’d be a wreck.

In the meantime I’ve just spent a bomb on yet more baby stuff – Eddie’s going to kill me 🙂 Must make every effort not to turn into a shopaholic now I’m not working.

Back from the World’s longest ante-natal class – 10 til 5!! Really missed Deb, I still can’t believe she went into labour at her own leaving lunch. Hope she’s OK. Will call Cheryl on Monday and see if there is any more news.

The people at the class were really nice and hopefully there are some I’ll see afterwards socially. Just wish the classes were shorter and more spaced out. It’s pretty intense and doesn’t give you an awful lot of time to get to know each other. Next week more of the same, followed by breast feeding techniques. Blimey.