You know, I really thought I’d have more to say at this time, but alas, nothing.

We’ll be welcoming a Junior into our lives. Poor little sprite, 9 months of warm sloshy comfort, and then popped out into a whole big open world.

Well, I think comfort is relative concept now. He really doesn’t have much space in there anymore. I’ve been wondering if he’ll be born with impressions of seams across his face from maternity clothes that are straining to hold me in these days.

The last few weeks have been a flurry of activity, getting everything washed and ready. Well, except for the two days I ended up in hospital for tests and observation – high blood pressure – but nothing untoward was found and I was sent home again and told to take it easy. Which I did. Kinda. As much as the nesting would allow.

Friday I went for a haircut and a pampering session of facial, manicure, pedicure and wax. Yesterday I stocked the fridge with quick meals to add to the bulk cooking Hunny did last weekend. And tonight Hunny and I are going on our last date night as a two-person family. We’re as prepared as we can be now, wish us luck and maybe next time I post I’ll have a sleeping baby in my arms. Or maybe a screaming one. It remains to be seen

Argh! I thought things would get easier now that I had just the baby to focus on. Well, that and some things to wrap up for work. Junior decided he had other plans though.

So it’s Wednesday morning. The room isn’t ready, bags not packed, most stuff still isn’t washed … and I wake up with a terribly uncomfortable abdomen. I’ve had Braxton Hicks for a while now, but that’s usually a handful an hour, not every 4 – 5 minutes. And Junior has moved. He’s been head down and to the left for a while now, but yesterday he moved to the right where it seems there is less space, and turned his back on my belly button. Terribly uncomfortable, and much more difficult to feel his movements.

Concerned and uncomfortable, I spent most of my day counting contractions and trying to figure out with the help of Google how you know when Braxton’s turn into the real thing. By bed time I had decided that this couldn’t possibly be the reel thing because it had been going on all day with no baby dropping out. Still I packed what I had ready into a bag, and started washing the cot linens, just in case.

I went to bed hoping I could sleep it off, but awoke at 3.20 AM with really sore hips again (had that a few weeks back, but it went away) and contractions still on their 4 minutely schedule.

By then I’m thinking: I’m not that hardcore! I couldn’t possibly be in labour and not know it? This must be the false labour thingy that nurses around the world chuckle at, when first time moms and dads arrive at the hospital at 2 AM with bags ready, convinced that this is it! Only to be sent home and told to take a Panado or something.

I’m also wondering what it does to your client relationship if your pregnant business analyst’s waters break in the middle of the review session at the client’s offices.

I go to the meeting anyway. Doc is only in the office from 9.00 AM. Client review session is at 9.00 AM, so I may as well go to that and decide to phone the doc if still feeling crappy at lunchtime. The meeting is quick an uneventful, and by the end of it, Junior has arranged himself back into his old spot and I feel much more comfortable. I still stop at Baby City on my way back to the office and pick up the rest of the stuff I need.

So this is where I sit now. Thinking I was overreacting, but wondering if maybe I wasn’t. Adding to my dilemma is that I’m squeezed into a narrow window of availability with my Gynae. She’s away next week, back the week after (my C date) and then away the week after that also. And she’s not exactly close to home. Man I’ll be pissed if I’ve been driving all that way for 8 months to end up on the table under a different doctor’s knife. Then I may as well have gone to my local hospital! Kid, just stay put for now please?! You’re too little to be out here on your own right now anyway.

So, here’s my promised list of things I’ll miss when I’m no longer pregnant

• No-one looks at you funny if you eat a packet of chocolate chuckles on your own
• No-one looks at you funny if you eat a packet of chocolate chuckles on your own for breakfast
• In fact no-one makes any comments on your eating habits at all (except maybe your mother)
• Hunny is at my car door waiting to carry my bags in as soon as I pull into the garage
• He clears away the dinner plates before I can think of getting out of the chair to do it
• Junior’s movements. Those are pretty cool
• Having a ready excuse for a sleep-in in the morning or afternoon nap
• Having a ready excuse to take the lift up 2 floors
• Having a ready excuse to take the lift down 2 floors

Yup, that’s about it

I don’t know if many of you know the site icanhascheezburger.com it’s dedicated to pictures of cats doing funny things with badly spelt captions attached. I love it. I get a daily email from them of the latest pics added. Some of them are real classics.

I like cats, I have a little old kitty of my own who has appeared on my blog from time to time. Her name is PussyCat, and she is now 11 years old. She has some candid moments of her own, though she’s quite shy so they aren’t to frequent and are difficult to capture on film. As soon as you get up to fetch the camera, she disappears.

I’ve captured a few shots of her recently though, all cell phone camera images, so quality isn’t great, but I’m sharing them with you anyway …

Being a timid cat, she doesn’t go outside much, and when she does she never leaves the patio. This is PCat feeling some earth between her toes:

Getting some greenery:

She kept me company when I was studying for my exam last week:

Keeping an eye on me:

Inside out:

It is finished

Finish lectures – check
Finish work project – check
Write exam – check
Finish ante-natal classes – check
Submit final assignment – check

Have baby – getting there

If you’ve been wondering where I have been the last few weeks, there has been snow in Joburg in autumn. Not widespread snow I might had, just enough to keep me weighed down and working. But that’s all done now, yippee! I handed in my final assignment at 10:00 today and ended what has been one of my most busy times ever. I’m going to go home and celebrate with a non-alcoholic beer.

I’m not usually a beer drinker, but I’ve been craving a drink the last couple weeks, and this is the only think I could find that tastes like alcohol without being alcohol. I feel rebellious drinking it, so it serves its purpose.

Three weeks to the day till Junior makes his entrance, and that’ll be my next task: get room, wardrobe and self ready for that. I don’t even know what goes in the bag, never mind having it packed! I’ve been worried for the last couple of weeks that he might make an early arrival, and then my lecturers would need to score me the draft version of my final assignment that I submitted 2 weeks ago. And well, ‘draft’ was a generous way to describe what I submitted. I would certainly have failed had a lecturer marked that! But Junior behaved himself and stayed put, so all’s well that ends well

I lost my last vestige of femininity a few weeks back when my ankles disappeared. I always had skinny ankles and I was very sad to see them go. I’ve never felt as unattractive as the morning I woke up and they were gone. It’s a funny thing to think, but yeah. The lost ankles were what finally made me feel too large to still be pretty.

No more weird encounters with strangers wielding pee sticks in supermarkets, but I did have a fellow classmate tell me that you don’t bond as well with the baby if you have a C-section. She’s had both, and she didn’t bond as well with the C-section baby. Of course it couldn’t have been that she didn’t bond as well with her second child as she did with her first, or she that she didn’t bond as well with her daughter as she did with her son. It had to be because one was a C-section…

But before I give you all my news at once, I’m going to preserve some topics for another day and leave you with this little list of things I’m looking forward to about not being pregnant anymore

• Getting my ankles back
• Not being in a permanent state of overheating
• Being able to wear my rings again
• A chilled glass of red
• Getting back on my horse (eventually)
• Having two functioning nostrils at least most of the time
• No more nosebleeds
• Not feeling like I need to pee every time I walk up stairs
• Walking up stairs without loosing my breath
• Being able to pick things up of the floor without looking (and feeling) like an idiot
• Pants that don’t slide down off the bump all the time – the bump is bigger than the hips now
• Actually meeting the little guy I’ve been bonding with for the last 8 months

(I’ll do the ‘things I’ll miss about being pregnant’ list next time)