What a whirlwind!

Well here I am quite a few weeks since my last post and I’m really happy to say that I am a couple of days away from being 34 weeks pregnant…..34 weeks pregnant!! How has that happened?!

To say things have been a whirlwind in the last 6-8 weeks is an understatement with the pregnancy, appointments, work, getting prepared, moving house and hosting christmas! Once we hit 28 weeks we thought we were feeling confident enough to go and start looking at baby stuff in the shops, something I have dreamt about doing for the last 3 years. It was nothing like I ever imagined though – I didn’t enjoy it as I wanted to, I felt anxious, like I was tempting fate. I almost felt like a fraud as well – “we won’t need any of this stuff because we’re not going to end up with a baby”. What was meant to be an exciting day out, turned into 30 minutes in one shop and me in tears in a nearby coffee shop unable to deal with it all! We thought maybe it was just too soon and a couple of weeks later, another good scan and lots of movement gave us a sudden wave of confidence to order our nursery furniture, go and look at prams and get all the big stuff that a baby needs. I’ve gone into my OCD organised mindset and am tackling the preparation for the baby like a work project! Even with items arriving at home and seeing clothes, booties, bedding, car seat, I feel sad not to have too much emotion and excitement attached to it all, but rather my practical head on. I know this is purely a defense mechansim and I can only imagine the level of emotion that will flood out and overwhelm me in due course!

This week we went to our first antenatal class which was eye opening and probably the first time we have truly been slapped with reality that a baby is going to arrive and we need to be prepared! I finish work for maternity leave in 4 weeks and suddenly time is flying by – it’s a whirlwind of emotion, and constantly in the back of our mind is “this could all still go wrong” – there’s nothing to suggest that’s going to happen but another default mode. This time would be harder than any other though with how far we have got, getting attached to baby’s movements, seeing baby stuff all over the house. We’ve already agreed we would pack up and head off travelling if the worst happened now – I couldn’t go back to day to day life. That said, we really are trying to be positive and in 6 weeks time we could have everything we’ve ever wanted and one part of our long, emotional journey will be over and a new one will begin.