Project Baby Week 31: Getting Things Done

Kinderzimmer Phase 1

We are getting into the thick of Baby Preparations.

All major items have been purchased or ordered: baby cot, stroller, car-seat, breast pump, curtains for the kinderzimmer, portable changing table, electronic devices. We read Dr Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham as well as a book of Chinese animal nursery rhymes every night to the baby - well, almost. Daniel is not very enthusiastic about Green Eggs And Ham, but it's the only English book we have, so he is rather bored with reading it over and over.


We are officially into the third trimester and I could not be more uncomfortable at this stage!  I have ballooned to 66.7kg. The downside of having hippo proportions are the frequent backaches (I can't walk for longer than 10 minutes) and squeezing in between two cars. Nowadays I wake up every night between 2 and 4am because my bladder needs voiding. Baby is 1.5 kg now and kicking more profusely than ever. Again, no picture of his face during our checkup last Saturday. He is now head-down, facing inwards.

We visited our friends last weekend, they just had their German-Chinese boy a week prior and had a lot of interesting things to tell us. The baby was small and quiet with huge feet! He's going to be Julien's friend, we hope. His Mum had to have an energency C-section after 12 hours of labour as she couldn't dilate far enough. I sure hope I can avoid this fate, if it means walking every day from now on for 20 minutes, I will do it. So far, I haven't found any conclusive evidence linking proper cervical dilation with any one factor. I already know of a few women who couldn't dilate and had to get the C-section. My mother had fast labours with me and my sister, no dilation problems and she recommended I walk a lot prior to labour. We will just have to see if this works out.

Daniel and I are getting a little closer to the Big Day. Sometimes, it can be quite a wonder to imagine the new addition actually here with us, in our house. After all, it's only been the two of us for the last 3 years. On the one hand, we're looking forward to this new chapter of our lives; at the same time, we will have to bid farewell to the life of Just The Two Of Us. I wonder how we would feel about that, but I reckon we won't have much time to ponder for the next half a year!