I've been a bit busy the last few days.

It seems when I wrote my last post I was already in labour, but didn't realise. I woke up at 4:30am on Friday 20th with a sharp pain, I was half asleep so thought I was just desperate for the loo. When I crawled back into bed 7 minutes again and got another sharp pain I realised what was happening.

I woke Porl and told him to get the last few things for the hospital bag pack while I phoned the labour ward. Even though my contractions were only 7 minutes apart I was concerned because for the past couple of days I'd been leaking, I suspected it was my waters, but because I had no contractions I thought it might also have been that the fall had ruined my pelvic floor muscle and the babies head pushing on my bladder was making me wee all the time. (So embarrassing I felt like an old women!) Thankfully (sort of) it was my waters.

Anyhow the hospital said to come in immediately as if my waters had broken 2 days earlier they'd have to induce me come the morning anyway.

Its a good job we hurried. We were at the hospital by 5am my contractions had gone down to 4-5 minutes apart, and I was 4 cm dilated.

I was using the gas & air, but I'd only had 1.5 hours sleep so they gave me some pethedine too. Unfortunatly I had to be hooked up to monitors the whole time as baby wasn't moving much. At 11:30 they decided that if I hadn't delivered by midday they'd try forceps or ventouse.

I work well with deadlines.

At the stroke of midday I gave birth to a 7lb 1oz baby girl who we have named Bryher, after this place
.

She was whipped away as she had been in a bit of distress due to a knot in her cord, but a bit of suction and she was fine. I had a quick cuddle, then passed her onto Porl while they sorted me out, I was bleeding quite heavily. I got to hold her again at 12:15 and by 12:20 she was breastfeeding.

It feels like she's been feeding ever since. When babies are weighed on their 3rd day they are expected to have lost 10% of their birth weight, she had put on 3ozs!

She's very contented, in the hospital I thought it was due to the pethidine, but she's been the same since she came home, she's feeding brilliantly, sleeping for relatively long periods, and if I manage to shut my brain off a little I might sleep too.

I'm quite sore, and very tired, but that's to be expected.

I've still not quite got over the shock of having a little girl. For 9 months I've been convinced she was a boy.

P.S. It's so good having a friend who's a professional photographer :)

I had an activity pencilled in my diary for today.
It doesn't seem to have come about though... yet.

So in lieu of other news, here's what a very pregnant lady might do in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy to stop herself twiddling her thumbs.

She may decide to knit a toy sheepie. (Which looks very cute from the front but slightly alien like from the side.)

She could spend a day sanding down an old blanket box.

Then spend another day staining and putting several layers of wax polish on it.

Or she could spend a few hours cutting out lots and lots of circles, then many more hours sewing them up with the eventual intention of making a mobile.

I highly recommend this last one as an ongoing project. It takes very little thought, can be picked up and put down easily, and will hopefully replace my need for "magazines" in my hospital bag. Most magazines drive me nuts, and when the time comes I don't think I'll have the ability to concentrate for long enough to read a book.

My top tip for late pregnancy... Don't fall off chairs.

Yesterday afternoon I leant back on my computer chair and the back snapped. I just managed to keep upright but by the end of the day I was in a lot of pain. A decent nights sleep hasn't made it any better. I feel like I've got whiplash. Add that to the pain and discomfort of being 39+6 days pregnant and it makes for one particularly uncomfortable Celeste.
Twitch was very active after my little incident, and I hoped it might prompt it to put in a slightly early appearance. No such luck, and I'm now hoping the back and neck pain disappear before I go into labour.

So that now makes 1 chair, and 1 bed I've broken whilst pregnant... the bed was not my fault though, it hadn't been put together properly so could have fallen apart when anyone sat/slept on it. It was just unfortunate it was me.

We saw the midwife yesterday, (before I fell off the chair) Twitch's head is 2/5ths engaged again and she doesn't expect me to need the hospital appointment on the 26th. I pointed out I hadn't been expected to make this midwife appointment when it was booked a fortnight ago. :/
I'm wondering whether this baby knows that tomorrow (its due date) is also the date its cousin was meant to have been born last year. She decided to hold on for another week until the 26th, which is the date I have to go to the hospital, so maybe this little one is holding out for a shared birthday.
Right now that seems like a good idea. My back should have recovered by then... and I'll have finished reading Harry Potter :)

Does batch cooking count as part of the nesting instinct?
We have 5 Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni's, (made with pancakes instead of pasta.)
6 Vegetable Lasagnes
3 Meat Lasagnes.

Porl and I have made these over the past couple of days. They would have been all made in one day were it not for the fact I had a disaster with the pasta sheets for the cannelloni, which resulted in running out of pasta for the lasagne.
Thankfully Mum reminded me that cannelloni is delicious with pancakes instead of pasta. Although I think she came up with that idea because on the few occasions she's had lasagne she thinks the pasta tastes like pancakes. (?!)

I've spent the last week trying to relax a lot, when I haven't been relaxing Porl has usually been telling me to sit down and relax.
Monday we had our last parent craft class one of the topics which came up was what happens when you get induced. I'm now even more certain I don't want inducing on my 30th.
When we got back on Monday night I started getting period like pains, and back ache. No contractions though.
Tuesday we had a Midwife appointment, I told her about the pains and she seemed quite excited and told me it all sounded good, and she suspected I might not make it to the 19th. She was even confident enough about it that she double booked my next appointment which will be on the 17th.

So we'll see. I'm still getting a lot of period type pains and back ache, but no contractions, I haven't even noticed any Braxton-Hicks contractions (practice ones for those not clued up on pregnancy lingo) but then not all first time Mums notice them.

Twitch is fidgeting a lot, but then it always fidgets a lot so I'm not sure if it's more than normal. For weeks it's been laid sort of sideways, with it's spine towards my right side, so the legs and arms are on my left hand side, bum and feet under my ribs. Every so often it does a big stretch, sticking it's bum out, and trying to straighten its legs and arms at the same time.
My bump isn't very big, (people think I look about 6 months pregnant, not 8.5) but these stretches make my bump go square, and it grows sideways by about a 3rd.

Also... It flipping hurts!

If Twitch does this when Porl is around it gets a telling off, and instructed that the way out is down, not up through my ribs. :)
I've tried poking it to make it stop, but it pokes back. :/