Baby Blog

Finishing work

Well, here I am putting the finishing touches to my last Sidmouth Herald for a long time – tomorrow is my last day at work!

I was late for work today because I couldn’t find my car keys and these little episodes of dopey behaviour are becoming more and more frequent, so it is just as well that I bow out at work now before I fall from grace.

Had a bit of a fright at last night’s ante natal class when one of the girls in the group calmly announced that her waters had broken that morning! Just over two weeks early! Early?? Unfortunately ‘early’ doesn’t feature in my plans – I am banking on late.

Everyone has assured me that first babies are late – so last night was a bit of a reality shock.

I have progressed slightly from a baby collection that consisted only of three (very lovely) baby clothes hangers and I have bought a few more bits and bobs - but not much more. In fact, I now realise that I have only bought the fun things, a very nice jungle animal border for the (undecorated) nursery, a couple of blankets and baby towels from the same range, a really cute set of baby grows and that is about it.

Sooner or later I am going to have to face buying some of the more practical essentials, car seat, pram etc etc.

I have glanced at the things that I should be packing in my hospital bag (must get around to doing this). There are quite a few shockers on the list – ‘disposable knickers’ sticks in my memory as being particularly worrying, I don’t even want to think about why I might need these, let alone walk into a shop and buy any.

Last night’s class was all about Breast feeding and it was very useful. Steve was conspicuous by his absence – he said he had to work late, but later confessed he had popped in to the pub ‘just to catch the end of the football’. Oh well, the amount of help he can offer in the feeding department is limited anyway. I have been battling my way through Gina Ford’s book – the Contented Little Baby but am finding the complicated and military-like routines for feeding and expressing mind boggling, so I will be taking her advice with a pinch of salt.

It feels very surreal to be preparing to leave work, but I have so much to do at home that I certainly won’t have too much time to put my feet up. At the moment it’s all hands on deck at the house – plumbers, electricians, handyman and (due to a leak which has suddenly become an urgent problem – how timely) roofers. Carpets are due to go down in some of the rooms on December 10 which will mean I can start (well not me personally) moving furniture in. Yippeee! It will be such a luxury to be able to have a bath, instead of a shower in the tiny mouldy bathroom that we have been using for nearly a year now in the annexe.  The end is in sight, but experience has taught me to expect the unexpected as far as building/renovation work is concerned. If there is a chance something will go wrong and cause delays – it will, guaranteed. This house project has made me very cynical, but it has also helped stop me from having many pregnancy related worries, I haven’t had time to think about it too much. This is probably why I get such a shock when I realise how little time I have left until the baby pops out (yes, I am kidding myself that it will just ‘pop’ into the world in a fairly painless way). Six and a half weeks to go and counting……