Gilberts' Fridge

The Midwife...

Well, Martin and I did our birth plan with the midwife yesterday. I wish it had been one of the nice ones, but at least it wasn't Ann the horrible witch who hates me. It was Rose, who is very business-like and proficient, but not very friendly. At least she didn't try to change my mind when I said that for pain relief I would use gas and air for as long as possible, but that I would go straight from that to an epidural if the pain was too much. They usually give you morphine in an IV first over here. That seems crazy to me!

I was actually showing a few symptoms of pre-eclampsia at the appointment, but my blood pressure seems ok, so it may just be a coincidence. They told me to call if I got any bad headaches or started seeing stars. Other than that, still head down and heart beating strongly. This is one healthy baby.

Martin helped our neighbor chop down one of the sycamore trees out back yesterday. It was kind of funny to see them both up the tree with hand saws. We had a few branches land in our garden and knock over some of my plants, but the damage was minimal. I did some weeding out there and finally tied my nasturtiums up to the tripod I planted them around. The garden doesn't look brilliant, but it looks pretty darn good. Plus, we got to bond a little bit with our neighbors. She's having a baby, too. Did I already mention that? Anyway, she's due August 10 so we will have babies that are the same age. That will be nice.

It was another sleepless night for me--I am now getting, on average, 5 hours of sleep a night. It was more like 3 1/2 last night--just depends on my hips, pelvis, and back. That would be OK though still hard if it was 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. But I am waking up every hour to 90 minutes, and it makes coming to work really difficult. I want to start my maternity leave so bad, but we need the money to continue with the house remodeling and the car needs a little work. Every day that I am able to drag my sorry self out of bed and come to work means more can be done, but I am so tired!

Speaking of the house, Martin and his dad are working on the electrics today. Hopefully I will come home to a re-wired house. Once they have everything done there, Martin can get the ceiling put up. He has asked Lewis to come over tomorrow night to help him with that, which I'm thrilled about. The walls are nearly all plastered, and the ceiling will make the front room look like a living room rather than a disaster area. Once the front room is livable, we can really start to concentrate on the nursery.

All of my baby laundry is done, and the bathing/changing area is mostly set up. I need to get a changing mat and one more pack of diapers. Everybody says that you shouldn't get too many newborn size since you have no idea how long the baby will be wearing that size, so I've only got one pack. One more, I think, and a pack of size 1 (I guess?) and I should be ready to bring this kid home--sort of. And I am looking for a rocking chair or a glider on e-Bay at the minute so I can have a feeding area in the nursery. That way whoever gets up to feed the baby can go in the other room and let the other person sleep a little bit more. So basically, what I have to get done in the nursery is patch a hole in the floor from where the central heating was installed, paint the floorboards, ceiling, and one wall, and set up the cradle we are getting from the Mundays (the crib will come later). The rest is cosmetic.

Things are really starting to come together on the house, even though it is a giant mess right now. We're nearly ready for baby Gilbert's arrival. Good thing, too, since I only have 25 days until my due date!