moving on

I'm going to have to end it here. Just before delivering the baby I delivered a book and so now I have to turn to a different kind of blog so that I have something to contribute to the lovey girls in publicity and marketing at Penguin when they put together their masterplan....

watch this space.

Actually, a totally different space but give me while to get it up and established and then I'll tell you the link (hint:it's not hard to guess)

p.s. Hi Sarah. I'm pretty sure you're the only one reading this. Last one out please turn off the lights.

cut to...two months later

This photograph was taken yesterday. You in your Christmas dress, sent by lovely Lynsey and worn with something approaching a smile. To be perfectly honest it's not often we see you in clothes sweetheart, sleepsuits are more your style. You are downstairs sleeping, my boobs are leaking just thinking about you....

long story short

You were just over an hour away from being born in theback of a minicab. No wonder the driver looked nervous.

Labour was a grind, but giving birth was a trip. A trip and a half. And then there you were...

xxx

look, no picture

I don't know how to upload picture's on daddy's mac, but I can never quite find the energy to hook up to the internet on my PC (as this entails going downstairs) Yep, I'm that lazy. Thought I should write something just in case you come and I don't find time to go on the internet for, I dunno, the next eighteen years? Just four days until due date. I do indeed now have milk inside the fridge that might last longer than you inside me.

I didn't realise how nervous I was until faced with my final midwife appointment today. When she said goodbye and good luck, I had a moment of panic. I can't wait to meet you, honest, but suddenly these last nine months have contracted, as my womb soon will, and suddenly it feels like no time at all since Valentine's Day and finding out you were there. And even though everything is ready for you, I am apprehensive about change. A great old lady once said to me 'change is a good thing, we should never be afraid.' But I am afraid. Not of labour, that's never been a worry for me, it will happen the way it happens, we will survive and then there you will be, but the rest of my life, being a mother, something else to worry that I'm not quite good enough at.

I'll be fine, right?

Kick if you think I'll be a decent mummy.

I'll be FINE.

See you soon.

There was a luscious full moon last night. I could hear Daddy and my friend Hannah watching Heroes downstairs as I looked at it for a while and I wondered, will it be the last full moon I see before you are born? I got some books out of the library yesterday that are due back the day after my due date. Any day now I'll buy a pint of milk that expires after my term is full. According to all the books you are done, you are cooked, you are a ready. And so we wait.

Thanks for being such an easy baby to carry. I hope you are an easy baby to birth. I hope you love us. I hope we have fun, you and I. I hope.

I may have a stretch mark. Or possibly it could just be a scratch.

Claudia Jean, my beauty queen. Things are shaping up nicely here. Your room looks gorgeous, your new pram, bouncy chair, cot, clothes et al make me smile every time I see them.

I never forget that I am pregnant but I often forget what I look like. I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a shop window, sailing by the size of a small boat, and it takes my breath away. Last weekend someone said that soon I will do the same and be surprised to be thin (or thinner) but somehow I doubt it. Nine months isn't long enough to get used to being pregnant. I do however look forward to the day when I can bend over once again. And eat brie.

pleasure pain

It' s been a month, over a month. I have my reasons, none of them convincing.

You kick me all the time now. Hard. Sometimes it hurts, especially when you get me right in the ribs, pow, but I love it more than anything. I think I might even miss it when you're not in there any more, safe from harm. It's easy looking after you right now, isn't it? All I have to do is look after myself and you take what you need without making a sound. Soon, in ten weeks time if you are prompt, everything will change. Maybe I'll hold you close and let you kick me, just for old time's sake. Still no ill effects, not really. A bit of heartburn, the occasional searing cramp in my meaty hockey player's calf, but nothing dramatic, nothing to get upset about. I don't even mind when you press down on my bladder in the middle of the night so I have to try and creep down the creaking stairs in this little cottage to the bathroom. This bodes well for our future together, don't you think?

I read that at 30 weeks you have eyelashes. Cute. I hope you have daddy's, they're lush.