timandfee

For someone who normally sleeps like a baby, insomnia is a very unpleasant reality during later stages of pregnancy. Sitting here, at 4.45am having been awake for 3 hours is a right pain in the a**. I am particularly jealous of my peacefully snoring husband beside me (I confess I have poked him a bit harder then necessary to get him to stop snoring!). I’ve been in to check on Alina at least 4 times -  it’s cold and our little daughter kicks off her blankets during the night. So am currently propped up in the dark bedroom, with my chamomile tea and 3 biscuits, having plenty of time to reflect on why i am sitting up awake!!

I have less then 3 weeks to go to met my new son or daughter. Firstly I have to admit I found it very stressful thinking about what day the baby should come. I knew from the beginning I would need to have another cesarean, and was happy enough with that. However my doc recommended to have it as soon as the baby was full term i.e. 38 weeks. This would have been a full 4 weeks and 2 days before Alina made an appearance and that really scared me! I love my doc, and I’ll do what he says, but I really want to keep the baby inside as long as I can! I don’t for a second think I’ll go into labour naturally - having done everything possible to get alina out naturally, I believe I’m like my mum who for all 7 of us was induced at 41 weeks. Now the doc and I have agreed a date of the 28th of January, which is when i get to 39 weeks. I won’t have confirmation of that until next week when I have another scan, but all going well (which I really believe it will), the baby will be born on that day. While I personally would love to push it to february 1st, I think my doc, and more importantly Tim, would not have the patience :-). Of course in an ideal world I would love this baby to decide when they would like to join us, but the “rules” are quite specific here in relation to 2nd cesareans, in particular when there is not 2 years between deliveries and the baby is big (which is my case). I can tell you it’s weird thinking about what date you would like your child born…and it has definitely contributed to my sleepless nights.

I also find myself waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the baby’s name, or lack of it! I have questioned our decision not to find out the sex in the past weeks!! While we have now started looking at names, and indeed have some names for a girl, we have nothing for a boy. And maybe more importantly, I don’t feel we have got the “perfect” name yet. Of course in my case I won’t feel we have the perfect name until I have our baby in my arms and try it out for size, but I want to be a bit more prepared then the last time - when literally I took one look at Alina and knew no name on the list was suitable, but I had no idea what was. (Thanks again to Johanna for giving us the name. I still love it and think it’s suits our little Princess perfectly.) Hopefully we’ll be as happy with whatever name we decide for no.2. And before that I’m crossing fingers that we’ll at least have a list of boys and girls names that both of us love.

This time around I am also a lot busier at work, and have not had time to buy the needed baby “equipment”.  I finish work next Friday and will have just over one week to spend time with Alina, connect with this baby, catch up on missed sleep and shop for everything we need. I have not even looked at the shops for clothes - as Alina was born in July we really don’t have much for this little one to wear…plus what we have is pink which may or may not be suitable!  We still need to get the double pram, some blankets and all the new born baby stuff (nappies, creams etc) - luckily I’m going to have my mum and Ailbhe here for a few days before the birth, and I’m sure they’ll be dying to help with the shopping.

Another thing on my mind is the flat.  And how we’ll fit.  We need to clear out “stuff” and organise our place better fast! I have been bugging Tim a lot to help organise thnigs, but he is a guy, and in the end will only do specific jobs based on specific instructions.  Even then he’ll probably “get it wrong” in my hormonal pre pregnancy brain!!

Apart from all the things to do and decide, i have the normal pre-baby-arrival nerves.  Will my baby be healthy? is the main question i often find floating through my dreams.  Will he/she be as good as Alina was?  Will i cope?  These questions don’t have answers, but keep me awake none the less.

Speaking of which, I really should attempt to sleep, a task made harder now as the baby is moving around a lot. Guess I should not have eaten those damn biscuits!!