Pregnancy update: 40+1

Now that I am officially 'overdue' (by all of one day!), the frequency of 'how much longer till Thumper arrives' speculation has increased exponentially! (Including DesignerSis and CutLuce announcing their ponderings on Facebook.)

StompyDad, on the other hand, seems to have no capacity to keep the due date in mind. He has been asking me for months if Thumper is going to come soon, and every time when I answer "not due for another x months/weeks", he seems surprised. Anyway, today he tells me he is heading up to the mountains for more skiing on Tuesday and will be gone for the rest of the week. Then he was surprised when I mentioned that Thumper will most likely arrive while he is away! "Oh, well I might come back early if Thumper is born during the week then... maybe on Friday."

Gran and GrandPaul are much more date-aware, but are not quite bursting over with enthusiasm for the impending grandchild... at least not as much as they were when I was pregnant with BallFiend. I think they think we are a bit insane for having a second child, when they stopped (at what, in their opinion, is sensible!) at one. Plus, for GrandPaul, birthdays at this time of year interfere with the footy finals.

At the complete other end of the spectrum, CutLuce, DesignerSis and of course VolubleK are incredibly excited and hanging out to meet Thumper! Oh, and BallFiend too seems to be increasingly excited about his baby coming out soon.

Measurements at 40 weeks pregnant:

• Waist: 121 cm
  
• Hips: 112 cm
  
• Weight gain: 12.5 kg
  

Current aches and pains:

• Pelvic instability - still present but not so bad. Main issue is pain in pubis symphosis joint
  
• Deep muscle soreness in my right gluteal muscle and sore sacroiliac joint.
• Very occasional sciatica - very mild (compared to my pregnancy with BallFiend)
  
• movements by Thumper - especially when pushing upwards against the top of my uterus.
  
• Sore skin above my belly button where it is stretched to bursting point.
  
• More strong 'pre-labour' symptoms: cramps (that feel like period pains), low back ache, nausea and braxton hicks contractions... on and off every few days now. Last week, I even had about an hour and a half of contractions that were 5 minutes apart... thought it might be the real deal for a while there.
• Moving my huge carcass anywhere, and especially rolling over in bed! I have no abdominal strength so turning over, sitting up from a lying position, getting in and out of the car, etc. are just about impossible!
  

How to dislodge the lodger? (or 'my superstitious practices for stalling and then inducing labour')

With the due date officially past, I no longer need to keep my legs so tightly crossed. All the worry of a premature birth a few weeks ago seems ridiculous now! Now it is time to turn my mind to enticing Thumper out naturally, rather than focussing on keeping Thumper in. (Especially before hospital protocols kick in and they start on about a 'medical induction'. Ho hum.)

However, I am sure that my state of mind has a lot to do with it. I realised some time ago that 9 September would be a cool birth-date (09/09/2009!) and being only a few days past my official due date, I thought it might be a possibility. As each day passes, I have become more and more 'decided' on this date. To the point where I have now written it on the wall calendar, in my diary, and have added to my 'to do' list "Give birth to our baby!" for tasks due on 9 September. Of course I am going to be really annoyed if Thumper leaves it any longer than this. I will have put up with the discomforts of late pregnancy for nuttin'! (I don't really mean 'for nothing', but we would rather not end up with September 11th as Thumper's birthday.)

I have also been doing some other things to stall labour... including letting some silly superstitions take hold:

• Avoided baking cakes. To entice BallFiend out when he was nine days overdue, I made a very yummy, rich chocolate cake (using Donna Hay recipe) and told everyone it was 'the baby's birthday cake, so the baby will have to be born now'. My hind-waters broke 10 hours later. I now feel confident to get back to baking again. Yum!
  
• Avoided using a particular set of flannelette sheets throughout Winter because they were the sheets we had on our bed when my hind-waters broke at the outset of BallFiend's labour. I am now planning to put these sheets on the bed on 8th September. (Aw, c'mon, they've been washed!)
  
• When practicing our hypnosis script from the hypnobirthing classes, DeepSpice has been including a message that "Thumper will not arrive prematurely".
  

And now, I am doing some things to actively encourage labour...

• Reading as many books as I can manage, because if Thumper arrives, I know I won't get to finish what I start! So every few days, when I start on a new novel and wonder if I am going to get to read the end. Even went to the Library today and borrowed a whole lot more books, knowing that I will most likely be returning them in three weeks time, unread.
  
• Finishing off those last few things on my 'to do before Thumper is born' list, including finishing off my tax return!
  

And of course, simply telling everyone and writing down on calendars and diaries that I will be busy having a baby on Wednesday!
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