So I’m 30 weeks pregnant and three-quarters of the way through! It’s been a fairly eventful week with falls, arguments, deranged cleaning and much more besides.
The nesting instinct has definitely kicked in and I’ve been busy redistributing clutter throughout the house. I’ve also turned into the ultimate slave-driver and am regularly demanding Craig get on his hands and knees with the floor wipes. There’s a snagging list of small jobs to do and a further list of what is still needed for Mini Madam, which are helpfully displayed next to the list of potential names in the downstairs loo. With all three lists on A3 paper blu-tac’ed to the wall, the loo now resembles Cameron’s reputation management team’s office.
Speaking of Craig… well he’s been doing my brain in this week. Irritatingly, his pregnancy app of choice is Bump Watch. Yesterday he came running into the bedroom brandishing his iPhone “Gem, Gem, Gem! Great news. Read this. Explains why you’ve been such a moody cow!” - thrusting it in my hands to read. With a massive grin on his face he watched me read the following:
“… For many women, as your due date approaches, it’s a common and very normal time to feel more emotional than usual. You’ll experience more frequent mood-swings, and very likely some anxiety over the baby and the new responsibilities that lie ahead”
Great. The love of my life now feels he has unbridled justification for getting on my wick, watching my temples pulse, then excusing the whole thing by putting my subsequent outburst ‘down to my hormones’. All this, thanks to the pregnancy app that I insisted he download in the first place.
Honestly. Some men experience ‘Couvade Syndrome’ (sympathy pains) when their partners fall pregnant, but my man seems to have taken on a more ambitious role - he’s regressed to the mental age of a 5-year-old. He’ll sing ridiculous songs, laugh hysterically at his own jokes, and whimper at me constantly. It’s like having two children at home at the moment! I’m seriously repressing the urge to slam his head in the fridge door over and over again.
On a more serious note, I also had a nasty fall this week. Having walked into the lounge and found my little dare-devil dancing on the dining room table, I scooped him up and attempted to deposit him on the comparative safety of the sofa. Tripping over his toy garage, I managed to fling Dexter onto the sofa before landing pretty awkwardly on Bump. It hurt like hell.
For the next hour I did nothing short of panic. I got all the emergency numbers out, crawled into bed and waited for something dramatic to happen. But aside from some strong (but not painful) contractions and lots of kicking, Mini Madam seemed fine. The only strange thing was a tumbling sensation as though the fall had rejigged things in there and given her the freedom to break on through to the other side of my belly. I can’t be sure but I have a strange feeling she might have turned around! Imagine that. If so, we’ll find out in the first week of March and we could be in for the much-wanted natural birth plan after all.
Physically, I’ve also been getting incredibly short of breath this week. Just climbing the stairs leaves me panting like Paula Radcliffe. This is apparently normal as my uterus is pushing upwards into my diaphragm, and in turn into my lungs, but it doesn’t make it any less irritating knowing there’s a reason for it. I can also really feel baby bearing down in-between my legs which is making my waddle ten times more pronounced than it already is. Whoever said that all pregnant women possess a sense of beauty is very wrong, very wrong indeed.
