Here it comes!

Another month on from my last blog and much has happened! Apart from my ever expanding waistline we have also well and truly begun to skip merrily down the ever winding yellow brick road to parenthood!

So where do I start!? Now at 35 weeks (that is almost 8 months!!) there is now no getting away from it I am well and truly pregnant! After a relatively trouble free first 2 trimesters there has been no ignoring the third trimester with physical changes that seem to spring themselves on me. The bump, while beautiful in some respects, is now also very hard to camouflage discreetly! While in past months my main concern seemed to center around keeping my trousers up as they would no longer fasten; these days it is actually about finding something with enough material to cover the expanse that goes before me everywhere I go!

Just under a month ago I also had a week where things went a little haywire! I would wake from a nights restless sleep to find my hands and knuckles in quite a bit of pain; to the point that I could not close my hand completely, let alone make a fist. My ankles would also swell by the afternoon to resemble that of an elephant! After a week of discomfort and minor concern I decided to see the doctor just to sure this was all normal. Yep, sure enough all part of being an incubator! The only thing she warned me of was that as my fingers were swelling I had best try and get my wedding and engagement rings off while I still could. That night I tried everything, soap, moisturiser, oil, iced water, more soap - Mike even tried to yank it off - but to no avail. I ended up having to get them CUT OFF by the jeweller!!! He has assured me he can put them back together as good as new when I come back down to size!

Apart from waking and feeling like I have a football for a face and watching my ankles double in size throughout the day, all else seems to be travelling well. I finished work 2 weeks ago and up until that point was still managing to put in 12 hour days as usual. My boss, very generously, offered to pay out my maternity leave even though I was technically not eligible (having only been there 8 months) as a thanks for my hard work. As you can guess this was hugely appreciated now faced with the reality of coming down to one salary.
I am now a lady of leisure, well if you can imagine that.... I am managing to relax a little and get my head around the life that is to come. Walks along the beach, prenatal yoga and midday naps are a regular part of the weekly agenda. There is of course a long list of things to do as well ... I wouldn't have it any other way, that I am getting on with.
In other news, we are still waiting on a settlement date on our new dwellings. This looks set to coincide, of course, with my due date. We are hanging in there for another two weeks or so before deciding to possibly set up the nursery in the place we are now and delay the settlement date until a month or so after the birth. Such is life! We have also started Antenatal Classes at the hospital. Six weeks of classes on a Wednesday evening for 2 hours. There are 12 couples all around our age and all local so a nice social group potentially. Meanwhile, we are are all trying to digest as much information as possible that might prepare us for what is to come! Although the main piece of advice we seem to receive is that we need to be prepared for anything and everything! Helpful!
Lastly, we had our final scan last week and despite all of the temptation we decided not to find out the sex.... with only 5 weeks to go until our little baby enters the world we thought we could wait that long for what will be a beautiful surprise. Looking forward to it in a scared and apprehensive sort of a way!

Photos courtesy of my wonderful sister. Thanks Tori.