Patience is a virtue

Happy New Year!

I was really hoping to have some lovely, baby-related news to share at this point.

Unfortunately instead of entering the new year as a new mum, I find myself half way through January and 41 weeks pregnant. Yep still pregnant.

As my lovely friend told me yesterday, there have been no reported cases of women being pregnant forever but at the moment it feels like the little bugger is never going to come out.

In my last post I was pretty adamant I would be having an early baby. The B&H (that's Braxton Hicks- not Benson & Hedges) were coming thick and fast and I'd been dropping bits of mucus (sorry for the overshare) for about a week.

Fast forward nearly a month and literally nothing has changed, except for the state of my feet, I'm experiencing about 8 hours worth of definitely-not-imaginary contractions a day and feel rubbish the rest of the time.

I don't feel I can go anywhere on my own as I'm a bit scared of spontaneously going into labour, plus last week I had a fall which would have been quite nasty had J not been there. This leaves me needed to be taken for a walk, like a dog, which is always nice.

I'm now fairly anxious about the birth- not about the pain but about the logistics. I've asked my mum to be there, which would be lovely if she didn't live 177 miles (3 and a half hours) away.  I obviously don't want her, run out of work and embark on the journey too soon and arrive here, only for me to say 'sorry, false alarm' but I also don't want her to be too late and miss the main event.

Then there's the getting to the hospital.  Neither J or I drive (the public transport network in Brighton is too good and parking is terrible!) so the exact mode of getting the hospital is an uncertain. It's either going to be a lift from one of the in-laws, a taxi or negotiating my mother (who is not a confident driver) through Brighton's network of daft roads to an even dafter car park, whilst in labour. None of these options sound like much fun and I get really stressy when important things aren't planned to the letter. I have no idea how I managed to get married and keep all my hair!

I think this anxiety, coupled with excitement about meeting my baby might preventing me from going into fully fledged labour. I think I've managed to feel my cervix (not sure if this is wise) and it feels puckered- like it's trying to stay closed on purpose, like when you try to hold in a fart.

Tomorrow, I'm booked in for my membrane sweep to try and kick things off. I've never had a smeer test ( I became pregnant almost exactly as I turned 25) or anything similar so I'm not looking forward to it.  Each visit to the midwife feels a little bit worse, it hurts more when she feels my swollen belly, she makes the same comment about my stretch marks and every time I hope I'll go into labour before having to go again.

41 weeks may sound early to start the induction process, but I'm going a mad and I it may sound crazy but I can the feel the baby started to get frustrated as well. Today he tried to make a break through my tightly closed cervix and it was not nice at all.

I'm really hoping my next post is about the birth but I've learned, over the last few weeks, not to assume anything. Watch this space.