I’m ready mummy!

At last week’s antenatal appointment we finally got the confirmation that baby is facing the right way for birth. And it took 3 different midwives, no less, to figure this out! It was a bit of a concern when the first midwife told us that baby could be breech (see explanation of breech birth here). She then brought in her colleague who couldn’t tell for sure and they were going to give me a scan. Just as we were getting excited to see our baby again, we were told that the scanner is broken and this more experienced midwife was going to have a feel. So after being prodded and poked by 3 people and feeling like the latest medical experiment, we were finally told that “yes, definitely head down”. Phew!

Another exciting purchase this week was our custom made Crumpler baby nappy bag (see picture). We’ve been big fans of the Crumpler bags for ages and we already have a couple of them. So when we couldn’t find a decent nappy bag we thought a custom made Crumpler would be the perfect way to go. We selected a laptop bag from the range (they don’t exactly specialise in baby products) as it has all the compartments suitable for nappies, wipes, bottles etc. For the design, we turned to our good friend Laura, who is a great graphic designer. She had already designed our baby shower invite so we simply tweaked it for the nappy bag. The design of the cow is inspired by our baby’s birth year – the year of the Ox. We took the design into the store and spoke with their designer, Chabi, who was great help. It only took her 2 days to complete sewing. When we arrived to pick it up we were the envy of everyone there, as our bag had been on display on the front window. So the first piece of art for our baby, he/she is already so spoilt!

During the week I watched a show about parenting and was given an interesting piece of advice that I’d like to share with you all. It’s not a good idea to praise your child by saying ‘you’re very clever’ when they achieve good marks at school or show you one of their drawings. That actually teaches them that ‘cleverness’ instead of ‘hard work’ is your measure of success. Instead, you should say ‘you must’ve worked very hard’ or ‘I like your use of colours’ which shows that the process leading to the achievement is what you value. As the realisation of becoming a parent dawns, there are always concerns about your abilities – what’s the right thing to do/say, how will your choices influence your children, what is the best way to bring up your child? Whilst I don’t believe there is one set of ‘rules’ that you should follow or that there is such a thing as being the ‘perfect’ parent, I hope that we’re equipped with enough life experience and dare I say, wisdom, to be at least ‘ok’ parents.

So we’re now down to the last 4 weeks – 2 more weeks of work, and hopefully 2 weeks at home. I’m less than 4kg lighter than David (yes, all those sweet treats are turning into bits of me) but feeling good in general. I’m starting to have more and more strangers (guy at the convenience store, mailroom guy, people in the lift) ask me questions like ‘how much longer now’ or ‘boy or girl’. Sometimes I’m tempted to reply with ‘what do you mean?’ or ‘I’m just a bit bloated today’ just to see how they’d react, but I’d feel bad to deny our baby’s existence. So I just smile and nod and answer the same question for the 10th time that day. I guess that during late pregnancy is the only time strangers are allowed to openly ask you questions about what's under your clothes.

It's now the final count down - 24 days to go!