30 weeks!
Which means it is 10 weeks today until the due date. Eek! Never mind my friend Cath who keeps scaring me with tales of her daughter who turned up at 32 weeks, 10 weeks doesn't sound anything like long enough. (Cameron says it's ages, like two summer holidays - or one whole term - when we were kids, and you know how long they were.) To celebrate I have found my first stretch mark. And I was doing so well!
Actually I am feeling quite celebratory as we are on holiday now until Monday and the sun is shining! We are going to Shop today. Or rather, I'm going to watch Cameron attempt to buy some new clothes and shoes while bemoaning the fact that I can't buy myself anything nice. (Shoes! I can still have shoes. My feet haven't expanded yet.)
Lisa at 1:07 pm
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Another visit to the midwife clinic on Saturday saw me having my circumference measured (do they do this anywhere else? I know one girl here who reached over a metre before her baby arrived!) and all the usual checks were fine. We were then shown a 'model' baby - by which I mean a real one, the 4-month-old daughter of one of the clinic's midwives, who is perfect in every way and brought out as an Example of what happens if you Eat the Right Food while breastfeeding (once again: no dairy, no cookies or cakes, no fruit. Lots of small fish, seaweed and rice). She was very cute and smiley it has to be said and Cameron was quite a hit! I then had a lovely back and foot massage (she asked Cameron "and do you do this every day?" to which he could only reply "not every day, no") and she told me once again how I will have a good labour, strong pains (she is very keen on strong pains) and that I have beautiful hips (?!) before she set fire to some herbal twigs attached to various points on my ankles and feet - I'm supposed to do that every day too (although I don't have the twigs. Where would one buy such things?).
I know I laugh: but I do feel very happy and confident with her, I promise you! I do wonder at times if this is a slightly odd point in my life to start messing with alternative therapies, having never had much truck with them before - but it is very entertaining and, as Cameron says, he has more time for the idea of interacting with nerves and energy meridians than the whole 'rocks with frequencies' routine. And massage isn't 'alternative' any more, is it.
Lisa at 3:55 pm
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And once again, I said I wouldn't but you asked so nicely!
This is me about to go out for a nice Christmas dinner (hence looking relatively scrubbed and tidy - I'm even wearing high heels though you can't see them! - and note the careful placement of Christmas bauble). 29 weeks and 2 days. Cameron is now calling me 'fatty' - he is such a charmer - but will revise it on correction (it's not fat it's fluid and your child) to 'watery'. Great.

Lisa at 12:00 pm
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Oh where am I now...29 weeks and 1 day, or thereabouts. Well into the third trimester anyway, as evidenced by the catalogue of aches and pains I'm developing. Some of which are doubtless due to spending most of the past week lounging in the sun on wooden seats then a night trying to sleep on a very hard economy air seat. There was a rocking chair at our house which was fantastic but the sun loungers were less good. Swimming was wonderful, I felt so buoyant! So. Sore hips, aching back (mid or lower, depending), pain in my pubic bone and an ouchy tailbone to boot.
Never mind, but. The baby loved the sun, somersaulting about whenever my belly was in direct sunlight, and luckily the delicious but spicy Thai food had no bad effects. And I got to be a real celebrity; people even smiled at me on the streets, pointed and said 'baby'!
I don't think I told you about the monster shop I had before going away. I put aside my superstitions for the sake of a car - a friend was driving to one of the only proper baby shops in Tokyo so I tagged along and filled her boot. All I need now is something for it to sleep in, something to put dirty nappies in, a sling thing, some more nappies, erm and oh god probably loads of stuff that I didn't buy because I didn't know about. And I want a mobile.
Lisa at 5:08 pm
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27 weeks
Trimester three, here we go. Three months today the baby is due - of course it won't turn up on time but still, a sobering thought. Is it too late to start that healthy diet and exercise regime? Speaking of which I did go to yoga today (so can feel smug) but now feel very very tired as I barely slept last night. The baby is now big enough to alternate pounding on my pelvis with a rhythm on my ribs: what on earth was it doing last night, learning to samba? Developmentally it's still just getting bigger - think that's all it (and I!) will do for the next few months - but it should be thinking about starting a regular sleep/wake cycle. Does that mean I have to tiptoe around when it's asleep?
Lisa at 4:43 pm
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26 weeks (and 1 day)
Up and down and up and down...the pregnancy group meeting yesterday left me down as usual (only because I want to make friends and am a failure. Why don't they like me?! Cameron says it's because I am horrible but what does he know) then a visit to the doctor today picked me right back up again. It's always nice to be assured by a pro that you are healthy! I have put on 3 kg in 4 weeks though, which is going some - but a normal weight gain so I'd better just get used to those scales rocketing up now.
I then nipped to the secondhand bookshop to check their baby book section - lots of new stock so I bought a couple.
This afternoon I went to our ward's antenatal class (the ward is kind of like the borough at home I suppose - like the local council). They had kindly laid on a translator only unfortunately it was her first time at such a class so we ended up teaching her all sorts of interesting new words (episiotomy, amniotic fluid...) What with the two old ladies sitting and chatting loudly at the back of the hall, the toddler running about in mummy's noisy shoes and shouting and the two indian girls whispering next to me I found it extremely hard to hear - so the translator was a blessing. I feel sure some of the odder things I've learnt today are down to her transation though: for example I find it very hard to believe that the nurse teaching the class did actually say to stop moving if you are having a Braxton-Hicks contraction else the baby might come out. If only it were that easy! She produced several other slightly odd turn-of-phrases (turns-of phrase?): apparently when the baby is nearly born you feel the need to 'go to the bathroom and poopoo'. And she was clearly trying to save us from fear and kept saying not to worry or that it wouldn't be that bad - or that we didn't want to hear about it really (which begs the question why we were there I suppose)! Oh and once or twice she got so engrossed she forgot all about translating...
I bonded with an American girl there when we exchanged glances over the minute flat-tummied Japanese lady claiming to be 25 weeks gone! How was it possible?
So. We watched the nurse push a very sick-looking plastic baby through a plastic pelvis and then wave around a beautifully made, apparently hand-embroidered placenta. We practised holding a plastic baby (I didn't like that bit at all, dolls are horrid) and guessed its weight. We looked at some baby clothes. We did some stretching exercises. We all lay down in a heap on the floor (not much space) and took our minds to a beautiful place - or I would have, had aforementioned toddler not stood on me twice! And then we applauded the clever girls who had attended all three sessions and earnt their certificates.
I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it but am relieved not to be reliant on these classes. We are attending a nice childbirth class with a nice American lady next year and I feel sure it will be much more useful.
Lisa at 4:45 pm
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Finally
I have decided where to have the thing: the Matsugaoka Josanin. (What on earth is that woman blowing (sucking?) in the picture on the front page there?) That is, assuming I'm allowed to: it isn't late, early or breech, I don't develop any nasties and the wind is blowing in the right direction.
I visited a couple of clinics and a hospital, for contrast, and feel quite happy that I've made the right choice for me. Next thing to decide is a back-up hospital (in case of any of the above or an emergency).
Yay!
Lisa at 11:56 am
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