Morning all. I am a lurker and occasional poster, but thought I'd pop up to say hello:)
Congratulations to those who've had their babies. I am 39 weeks today and still can't connect my moving belly to an actual baby in my head- an actual person! I suppose I will be forced to confront it in the next couple of weeks. :) Your babies are all so beautiful! Glad to hear of some smooth, non-traumatic birth stories as well (I know not all of them have been so straight-forward).
I am so glad to make it this far: I've had an exhausting, and stressful couple of weeks moving house, and while there are boxes still piled up in the living room and still loads to be done, we're in, the old house is cleaned and I can finally relax (unpacking can wait if necessary). I just need a few days to recover, as am just exhausted beyond belief (not helped by random insomnia), to the extent it has reduced me to tears a couple of times in the last few days - 10 hours of cleaning the old house on saturday nearly killed me. I know there's no point in moaning, as when baby arrives this is just going to get worse and worse. I just don't want to be knackered before labour actually starts and the sleeplessness nights kick in for real. :S
Just wondering also, if you know if you have to have braxton hicks contractions? I really have hardly felt anything, maybe once or twice a week in the past few weeks I get a painful spasm in my back, which could be a contraction, or could be just the way I was sitting at the time, and don't know whether that means a) I am having them but not realising b) The baby is never going to come out. Midwives and doctors have been asking me for weeks, but I really havent felt a tightening in my stomach, or anything that seems to be a BH contraction.
I'm going for monitoring at the hospital today to check baby and placenta is all behaving normally, which is just a routine appointment. It always makes me quite anxious as I never know what is normal and worry whether baby is ok. i am looking forward to having it outside of me so I can check it is breathing etc. Wish I had a window into my stomach, or at least the mythical "mother's instinct". Hopefully all is ok!
Good luck to you all, who, like me have yet to pop your babies out. And good luck to those who are sleepwalking though the next few weeks, establishing feeding and succeeding in making it through the day and night. It sounds terrifying!