Nesting, nine months pregnant

[halojedha]

It's 5am. I'm in my bed with camomile tea and the laptop, and Niamh nuzzled up next to me. She's been very cuddly lately - perhaps she understands at some level that everything is about to change. The sun is coming up - there are pearly grey cloudy skies glimpsed through the open curtains, wood pigeons hooting, and enough pollen in the air to make me sniffle.

At 9 months pregnant my sleep is variable. When I manage "unbroken" sleep (apart from the inevitable 3-5 pees) I'm pleased with myself. I have a system of support cushions which keeps evolving, and is currently working well for me: one flat one horizontal at the top; one smooshy one vertically with one end under my head, the other against my chest, one arm underneath it and the other draped over it; a third vertically with one end between my knees and the other under my top foot. When I turn over in the night, I have to shuftie both the vertical pillows over to the other side.

About a third of the time, I wake up after a few hours and can't get back to sleep. First I need to pee. Then, back in bed, something keeps me awake: heartburn, perhaps, or particularly vigorous baby kicks, or perhaps just thinking about all the things that need doing. What works best, rather than lying there for an hour or more, is giving it 20-30 minutes and then getting up, making a hot drink, and reading or finding something restful to do until I feel sleepy again, then going back to bed. Sometimes when I go back to bed, Leo wakes up enough to cuddle me back to sleep. I like it when that happens. There have been a few times though where I've been awake for three hours or more - or just not got back to sleep at all - which puts a real dent in the following day, inevitably leading to a long afternoon nap.

I've got a swim date with Dot today and have had four hours sleep so far. I'm hoping that once I've drunk my tea I'll be able to catch a few more zzzs so I'm a bit better rested before heading out.

A lot has been going on! I have a catch-up post in the works sharing all the stuff from the last two months - there's been a lot. Suddenly I'm 38+5 and my baby is "due" in just over a week. Although since due dates are bollocks, as far as I'm concerned I was due nearly a week ago, and I'll stay due for another three weeks at least - 38-42 weeks is the normal window, and the "date" they give you is just the arbitrary midpoint of that. Only 5% of babies are born on their "due date". In the UK they decide you're due at 40 weeks, but in France you're due at 42 weeks, and I doubt our bodies are any different, so go figure. And in the UK you're considered to be at term and allowed to have a home birth from 37 weeks, so for the last fortnight as far as Leo and I are concerned, it really might have happened any day.

Nesting

We got back from our last festival of the season, which I went to 36 weeks pregnant and had an amazing time, and realised that I could literally have a home birth in three days time. Suddenly, we realised how many things were still on the to do list. We started a programme of hardcore nesting.

I feel incredibly lucky that both of us have been able to take time off to focus on getting ready for the birth. Leo has been pretty much nesting fulltime, and I've been doing a mixture of nesting, working from home, and resting. We've got so much done:

• I Marie Kondo'd my clothes, and freed up a bunch of clothes storage for baby stuff. All my clothes are now neatly folded, visible and accessible, and I have 1 binbag of stuff to sell and 2 binbags of stuff for the charity shop. There are baby clothes in four of my small drawers, and another three empty drawers available for whatever needs arise over the next few weeks and months.


• After procrastinating for ages, I finally packed my hospital bag in case of emergency transfer. I was resistant to doing it - it's not the plan, damnit - but it is now done.


• We sorted through bags and bags of donated clothes and items, organised and folded all the baby clothes by age and category, moved the newborn/0-3 months stuff upstairs, and put the older baby stuff in storage.


• We evened out the pink/blue balance of our baby's wardrobe, which was leaning heavily in the pink direction, by dying a washload of 0-3 baby clothes purple. They are now even more adorable and I am totally cuted out. Tiny purple dungarees! Tiny purple onesie with a space cat and space mouse! We're going to buy more dye and do a bunch of the 3-6 month items too. Between the remaining pink stuff, the blue stuff and the purple stuff, our baby is going to be dressed like the bisexual flag.


• We've inventoried all the stuff we were given, driven around London to pick up more donations, made a spreadsheet, and bought all the things we needed that we hadn't been given. We've managed to make do with spending remarkably little money, and have been given a lot of the big ticket items (car seat, cots and cribs, buggy etc).


• Leo sorted out a bunch of stuff in their room too, and freed up loads of cupboard space. We now have a whole two rows of cubes of baby/post-partum stuff in their IKEA cabinet in the big bedroom - muslins, washable wipes, reusable nappies, disposable nappies for just after the birth, breast pads, breast pump, steam steriliser, feeding bottles and nipple cream, post-partum care of me, baby bedding, slings and carriers, etc. We even have labels on the doors so we can remember which cupboard is which in our sleep-deprived haze. It feels very organised!


• We've hoovered cat fur off the donated moses basket which had been claimed a cat bed (thank you aiwendel!), got out the donated side cot and put it together (thank you beeswing!), washed all the bedding and figured out what fits what


• I've got a new waterproof mattress protector for my bed, which is probably going to end up primarily as a baby changing station over the first few weeks


• I've got over my dysphoria and bought some motherfucking nursing bras. I spent ages fretting over which Molke size to get, not knowing what size my boobs would end up while feeding, and in the end on the recommendation of people in my wonderful Facebook parenting group - which I created so I'd have somewhere to ask questions, and has already turned into a fab little community - just got some cheapo sleep nursing bras from H&M and Amazon. They have big soft bands, crossover cups, are soft jersey cotton, feel kind of plain and sporty, and are the first bras I've ever worn that are actually comfortable. I'm wearing them most days because I've got big enough that I feel like I want some support for the first time in my life, and unlike every other bra I've ever worn they don't make me feel dysphoric! Fucking win.


• We've made and put up two new rows of shelves in the living room, which look amazing. Leo cut, sanded and varnished some truly solid lengths of construction timber, so they're real wood and nice and thick. They unpacked the three boxes of books which were taking up floorspace in the big bedroom, and together we re-categorised and alphabetised all our books across the new shelf system. We debated whether or not it was worth labelling the books so we knew which was whose in the event that we stopped living together, and decided we couldn't be bothered - we can basically remember, and in the event that we can't, Leo says I can have whatever I want because they are less attached to owning physical books than me. So now we're basically married, right?


• As well as sorting out the books, we also organised the DVDs and games. The living room looks so much tidier and we have two empty shelves still! I want to empty the various stuff out of the compartments under the side table, which are so deep that stuff goes in there, gets forgotten and never comes out, and put it in some nice boxes on the shelves. But that is honestly not a top priority. If it doesn't get done before the birth, we'll be fine.


• We researched and bought a birth pool - they're cheap enough to buy that it makes sense to buy one rather than hire one if we want to use it twice, which we hopefully do as we're planning a two child family, and inbetween we can loan it to friends. Our doula may also go halves with us on it, but she hasn't decided yet. It's arrived and is in a box in our living room next to the birth box the midwives brought round. We need to get it out and check it came with all the bits, so we don't have any unpleasant surprises after labour has started.


• I wrote up my birth plan and gave it to the home birth team; we had our second (and final!) doula visit before the birth. I feel so happy about my birth partners. Shiri is fierce as fuck and between her and Leo I feel incredibly well supported.


• We've done a bunch of tidying and organising downstairs, and reorganised the shed so that things a) actually fit in it and b) can be actually got out of it


• We've bought new laundry baskets for dirty/clean items, a second airer, and have done approximately one million loads of laundry - a foreshadowing of things to come.


• We've both sorted out our deed polls and got new driving licences with our new names on - Halo Dawn and Leo Dawn - so we can have the same name as our baby on the birth certificate. We're totally queering the married/not-married binary. I've also changed my name on my NHS records, but still need to change my name with everyone else (bank, passport, utilities).


• We've changed energy supplier (from Ecotricity to Bulb, which is just as green and lots cheaper - if you want to switch to green energy, you can use this referral code so we both get £50), got the roof of our conservatory fixed so it doesn't leak any more, got the garden fence fixed so we now have more privacy and a fence that doesn't flap around in high winds any more, and deep cleaned the hot tub and kept it scrubbed and refilled, which has been so welcome as I've got heavier.


• We've been to antenatal classes, started two Whatsapp groups for post-birth support (one of existing friends who are having babies the same month as me - there are actually five of us and it's already very chatty - and one of people from our antenatal class, which has been mostly quiet so far), chosen our Oddparents, and generally done as much as we can to collect supportive humans, other new parents, and more experienced parents around us. It's been particularly affirming to connect with other queer, polyam families, other people who have had home births, single mums who are my absolute heroines and make me feel like it's going to be fine, other people doing consent-based, child-led parenting, and other unschoolers/home educators (which is our current intention). It's been lovely reconnecting with old friends on a new level, finding new things in common with people, and having people to talk to about this great unknown adventure. I've found it so valuable, and I actually - gasp - feel pretty well prepared, inasmuch as it's possible to be.

Body

Being nine months pregnant is a trip. My body is unrecognisable! Body stuff:

• My proprioception hasn't caught up with my bump yet and I keep scraping it on door handles and furniture corners.


• I finally got round to swapping out my belly piercing for a silicone retainer, and it's much happier now, although still pink at the top where the hole has been stretched out. Initially I had the ball from the titanium jewellery screwed onto the retainer, as it didn't have its own fixing, but then that fell off and got lost, so now it has a blob of hot glue pretending to be a little opal or something. It's kind of cute.


• I'm so heavy. Fatigue is a bitch. Like the first trimester, I'm back to taking the stairs one at a time again, leaning heavily on the banisters, and planning my trips around the house so I need to climb them as infrequently as possible.


• The baby is head down, pressing against my cervix. The head's been engaged for a couple of weeks now. It feels so weird: a pressure in my pelvis, restricting my movements. My walking is limited to tiny waddling steps. I can't walk any real distance any more, my mobility is seriously impaired. No more public transport for me! I can only travel places now if I can drive to them and park close by. So no Pride weekend, no parties, no going to see my friends perform in drag shows, no activist meetings, no trips to central London. Sigh.


• I had to miss 5 weeks of Tai Chi due to a sprained ankle and then being away for a fortnight, so I've been determinedly going again for the last month, being gentle with myself and discovering new limitations. On Monday I had to half ass it so much that I decided enough was enough. No more Tai Chi now til I'm ready to go back after the birth.


• I fucked up my shoulder in my sleep somehow and it was agony for three weeks. Had a couple of physio appointments, which helped. If I can do some gentle chi gung at home that will help too, but I haven't been doing it so far. Had to take paracetamol every night to sleep for a while, which sucked, but it's better now.


• My organs feel squished, my ribs and back get sore, I can't really sit up or lean back very comfortably. Sitting on the birth ball is comfortable in terms of torso position, but not exactly restful. I can't do it for very long. I'm better off either walking around (slowly) or lying on my side than sitting. (Actually I'm surprised I've been able to sit up in bed long enough to write this post. I am using like 6 pillows.)


• I'm so unfit! I mean, I'm not. I'm just doing the cardiovascular work of two bodies with limited lung capacity. But it's so weird to be out of puff so quickly. Apparently my heart is currently twice its usual size. Pregnancy is so cool.


• The baby has got big enough that they don't really move around any more, just kick a bit and squirm a bit. There's a spot to the left and above my navel which feels like it has a permanent foot imprint. Even when the baby is sleeping, you can often feel a little hard foot sticking out. So cool.


• Bending over is hard. So is putting on shoes. Leo's helped me with it a bunch of times. My feet are about 10% swollen most of the time, so my normal shoes fit OK, but on the really hot days, especially if I've been sitting at my desk for a while, they've swollen up dramatically and that feels really weird. I don't like it.


• <TMI> Having a baby pressing into your pelvis sure does make you need to poop a lot. </TMI>

Otherwise, I'm well! I don't feel like I get much done each day - everything takes longer than usual. But that's OK. I have a few more business handover tasks to do, I want to get ahead with my 18-19 accounts so they aren't hanging over me after we have a baby, and otherwise my main job is resting.

I got my haircut in a short style that will hopefully grow out gracefully and be low maintenance. I'm living in baggy tshirts and hippy pants.

I'm a bit nervous about whether or not the birth will go the way I want, but excited about the challenge, and so excited to meet my baby. I want to hold them in my arms! I want to give them to Leo and let them carry them for a change! I want to dress them in tiny purple adorable clothes!

I have no idea how the birth is going to go, whether I'm going to get the natural home water birth I want or not, but one way or another, in a month's time, we'll have a baby!