I haven’t deliberately delayed writing this post, I was just pretty frustrated that my 36th week carrying this huge sack of baby and water was so painfully uneventful. This, despite me spending several hours embarrassing myself on a birthing ball, watching television with my hand down my bra, and conducting painful massages on bits of my body that I wouldn’t even expect Craig to touch. I even went against last week’s promise that I would never put myself through another bite of pineapple scoffing 3 LARGE fresh ones from Tesco in 2 days.

Most of this week’s endeavours have been physical. I’m pretty sure my treatment of Craig could have earned me a segment on some crappy Channel 5 programme - maybe The Bad Wives Club, or Abused Husbands. When I’m not demanding he whip me up strange concoctions of food in the kitchen, I’m dragging him upstairs in the most unromantic way possible.

I’m not stupid. I realise that most of my experiments will come to nothing. I know full well that most of these tricks were either disproved some 100 years ago, or would need to be eaten / performed on a much grander scale than it would be possible (or even safe) for one person to achieve in one day. But still, I had hoped that Mini Madam would have at least given me a few little signs she was listening to her mummy.

The slightest change in her position or bit of pressure on my bladder and I’m ringing Craig and screaming that she’s gearing up and he had better come home from work (did I mention he’s often 100 miles away?). I seem to have reworked the morality tale The Boy that Cried Wolf for a modern day audience. When my water’s do finally break or I do get a contraction I can already see him rolling his eyes and deliberately taking the scenic route on the way home.

In truth, nothing has happened this week.

Nothing at all.

She’s still kicking away. I’m still producing pathetic amounts of wee every 10 minutes. I’m still crying at adverts with ‘sad’ music. I’m still exhausted after a single hour of parenting Dexter in the morning. None of this is new, and none of it is exciting.

I’m now thinking she’s planning on saying hello on April Fool’s Day as some form of punishment at having been evicted from the little den she’s made inside of me.

So keeping it brief - here’s the results of Operation #GetBabyOut this week. WARNING: This is not suitable reading for the faint-hearted… or for anyone really.

Sex

Don’t bother ladies. Seriously, you’re beyond the stage that you can derive any pleasure from a quick fumble now, and unfortunately the chances are this is also the case for your other half. 99.9% of Kama Sutra positions are now impossible or would have the unwanted side effect of turning off your partner for life. Spooning is your only safe option and you’ll probably find yourself inspecting the chaos on your bedside table rather than any meaningful attempt to participate in the activity at hand.

There is the merest smidgen of science that supports the fact that sex can help bring on labour. Semen may help to ripen, or soften, the neck of your uterus (cervix) ready for it to dilate when labour starts. Semen contains a high number of prostaglandins, which are chemicals that can help to relax tissues (high concentrates of this are used in induction pessaries given to overdue women in hospital - not sperm obviously, but prostaglandins).

Sounds good right? Well no. You’d need few pints of sperm to match the concentration found in just this one active ingredient in a pessary. Given the average man manages a tablespoon per session, even holing him up in a room with a naughty magazine wouldn’t be enough to get a sufficient quantity.

Tweaking your nipples

I can probably manage a quick 30 seconds before I begin to feel prudish / stupid / desperate. The sensation goes from ticklish to sore quickly, and I’d be lying if I said the thought of expelling a sudden burst of milk doesn’t put the fear of God in me. In truth, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to view my breasts as Objets de Désir ever again. They serve one basic function and that is is to feed my child. It has even got to the stage where I find myself physically cringing when I go for a night out and see women forcibly spilling out of their underwear.

Unfortunately for me, there is some scientific justification for using nipple stimulation to evoke labour. The act of tweaking releases the hormone oxytocin which can help your labour progress. This hormone controls the contractions of your uterus (womb) during labour and can be administered by midwives (in synthetic form) to induce you. According to an uncited source BabyCentre claim (and I’m not suggesting this should become any sane woman’s pregnancy reference) in a study, 37% of women who had tried nipple stimulation went into labour within 72 hours.

This is certainly appealing but you’d need to stimulate your breasts for an hour, three times a day which is easier said than done when you have a curious two-year-old hanging off your arm from 8am - 8pm. Will it scar him? I’m saying yes, even if I’m just making excuses so as not to try it.

So that’s it from me. I’m now well into my 37th week so will report back soon.