Getting ever closer
We saw our midwife this morning. According to the size of my bump and the personalised growth chart that the hospital worked out for me, this baby now weighs something in the region of 5lb 9 oz. When I was born at 36 weeks, I weighed 5lb 7 oz, so if the charts are accurate, this baby has now outgrown me, in a manner of speaking at least. Our midwife was very relaxed about all this, basically stating that things look so bouncy and health in there that even if this baby was born now, at just shy of 34 weeks, it would do fine. That's good to hear, though I will be surprised if it does pop out much if anything before 40 weeks.
Next Friday we're back to the hospital for the last of our kidney scans, this time with a consultant radiologist who will also be scanning our baby after it's born to check what's going on with them then. After that, we're on holiday for a week and after that our midwife is happy to consider us at full term, or close enough to it for the exact day not to matter too much. That suddenly all feels rather close, although in reality I could still be pregnant for a good six weeks after that too. At present, it feels exciting. I've done a lot of preparation already, and really it just feel like its the practical elements, like buying waterproof sheets for the birth that still need to happen before we're 'ready', or maybe that should be 'ready enough'. I think I've given up waiting for this sense of real readiness to arrive. I have no expectation that when I first hold our baby after the birth I will feel in any way truly 'ready' for it, as amazing as I'm sure that experience will be. But I'm sure we'll cope, and that we'll make our mistakes and realise the gaping holes in our previously 'highly comprehensive' parenting preparation only once that baby is out and in our arms, as probably all new parents do.
Our midwife is a real sweetie though. She's so good at seeing us as joint parents that she keeps accidentally referring to P as the other biological parent. Today, we were discussing the neonatal screen and she was talking about genetic conditions that it can pick up, but that if P and I both had no family history of certain things then the chances would be very slim of any of them affecting our baby. She had to stop herself several times and remember to refer to the donor instead of P. It was rather amusing, in a very sweet way.
Next Friday we're back to the hospital for the last of our kidney scans, this time with a consultant radiologist who will also be scanning our baby after it's born to check what's going on with them then. After that, we're on holiday for a week and after that our midwife is happy to consider us at full term, or close enough to it for the exact day not to matter too much. That suddenly all feels rather close, although in reality I could still be pregnant for a good six weeks after that too. At present, it feels exciting. I've done a lot of preparation already, and really it just feel like its the practical elements, like buying waterproof sheets for the birth that still need to happen before we're 'ready', or maybe that should be 'ready enough'. I think I've given up waiting for this sense of real readiness to arrive. I have no expectation that when I first hold our baby after the birth I will feel in any way truly 'ready' for it, as amazing as I'm sure that experience will be. But I'm sure we'll cope, and that we'll make our mistakes and realise the gaping holes in our previously 'highly comprehensive' parenting preparation only once that baby is out and in our arms, as probably all new parents do.
Our midwife is a real sweetie though. She's so good at seeing us as joint parents that she keeps accidentally referring to P as the other biological parent. Today, we were discussing the neonatal screen and she was talking about genetic conditions that it can pick up, but that if P and I both had no family history of certain things then the chances would be very slim of any of them affecting our baby. She had to stop herself several times and remember to refer to the donor instead of P. It was rather amusing, in a very sweet way.