Waiting for baby

I am now halfway through my third week of maternity leave and have to admit to severe boredom and impatience. I’m not officially due until Monday, which also happens not only to be Norway’s national day, but also both Chris’ and my late grandfathers’ birthdays. So of course everyone is hoping that our little Blobbette chooses to arrive that day, but personally I’d be pretty happy to see her before that. The waiting around is a killer.

If one more person says any of the following unhelpful comments, I’m going to smack them:

• “First babies are always late”
• “Not long to go now, eh?”
• “Enjoy the quiet while you still can!”
• “You should get lots of sleep. You won’t get any for the next five years!”
• “Wow, you’re getting big!”

You get the idea. A little advice for anyone thinking of making any of these comments or similar variants to a 9-months-pregnant woman: Keep it to yourself. We don’t want to hear it! Seriously.This is a topic much discussed in the chatroom I visit, which is for women who are due this month, so I know I’m not alone in this. We all hate those smug comments from people who already have kids about what we’re supposedly in for. Let us enjoy the fantasy for the short time we have left!

And for those who don’t have kids, or have never been 9 months pregnant, imagine having a medicine ball strapped to your stomach which constantly pokes you in the ribs, pancreas, lungs, bladder or any other thing you don’t want to be poked in, plus all your joints hurting, none of your clothes fitting properly, taking several minutes to get up from sitting and facing one of the biggest life changes anyone ever goes through (not to mention the impending joy of labour). Now when you imagine all of that, think how unpleasant it is when some well-meaning person makes a thoughtless, throwaway comment about how much longer it’s going to last. Mmm, not fun.

Now that I have vented all that crankiness, I can talk about the fun parts of waiting for the big day. After the long search for a new apartment, and the moving in, unpacking, cleaning and tidying up, we finally have our little nest pretty much ready for its newest resident. The nursery is 99% finished, we (and by “we” I mean Chris) just need to put up some shelves and somehow fit the gigantic rocking chair that arrived today through the door. It is currently sitting in our back garden in a massive box because the delivery men couldn’t even fit it through the door to the building, and supposedly aren’t allowed to take it out of the box. So we have some extra muscle coming over this afternoon to see if it can be gotten in once out of the box. I sure hope so!

I was lucky enough to find some wall stickers of the original E. H. Shepard Winne the Pooh characters on Amazon, right around the time one of my friends from work was in the States and could bring them back over for me. I am SO happy with the way they look on the walls. Unless you lean right in, in the exact right kind of light, they look like they’ve been painted on. We decided to decorate mainly in white, just in case the ultrasound doctor made a mistake and the baby turns out to be a boy. But that went right out the window when Chris decided we should get a pink chest of drawers. So here’s hoping!

I’ve been doing as much reading as possible on both the birth/delivery and on what we need to do the first couple of weeks. The books that have been the most helpful are:

• Juju Sundin’s Birth Skills by Juju Sundin and Sarah Murdoch
• The New Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford
• Your Baby Week by Week by Simone Cave and Dr Caroline Fertleman

I’ll let you know if any of them worked in a practical sense later, but so far the theory all seems pretty sound.  Apparently the Gina Ford baby routines are quite controversial and are considered by some to be too rigid and some even say “cruel”. I did some research about whether the routines actually worked for real people and found some very vocal opinions on both sides. However, it seemed that most of the loudest detractors didn’t actually read the book, or started reading and didn’t finish. I admit that Gina could do herself a lot of favours if she adjusted the tone of the book, which comes across a bit like the stereotypical harsh British nanny. But if you can get past that and really read the content, this book is not about letting babies cry until they pass out, it’s about anticipating their needs so that they don’t get into a crying fit in the first place.

Someone in one forum I visited even claimed that because Gina Ford never had a child of her own, she worked out her routines on dogs. I had to laugh at that one. Personally, it doesn’t bother me if a child-rearing expert doesn’t have children. Not all oncologists have had cancer, not all midwives or ob/gyns have children of their own. As long as they have professional experience and evidence of success, that’s enough for me. And if we try these methods and they don’t work for us, we will either adjust them to suit us, or drop them altogether and try something else. No harm done.

Thankfully tomorrow is a public holiday, as is Monday, so I won’t be going insane on my own for much longer. With a little luck I won’t be too far into my 41st week before something happens.

Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while after this post… I’m not the most consistent blogger at the best of times, and unless the wait stretches on for another week or more, I guess I’ll have my mind on other things for a while.

But I hope to at least get a spare moment to make an announcement and post some photos of the nursery and its new little resident. There has been considerable curiosity around the name we have chosen, since we have decided not to tell anyone until it has been given. So I’ll be posting that here too. Stay tuned!