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August 15, 2003
40 Weeks, 4 Days
I have decided to do this entry today, Friday, because I might, just might, go into labour this weekend. If that is the case, then at least I will have recorded all the things that happened this week, and I can just go right into the birth story. We will see! :-)
So, my due date, or rather, the Little One’s due date has arrived, I have officially spent 40 weeks growing this amazing person inside of me :-) I have calmed down somewhat from the excitement of last week, with everyone in Simon’s family thinking that I was going to go into labour and deliver on his birthday. My true sense has returned to me, thankfully, as I had felt throughout the pregnancy that I would go over, and statistically, I was supported in this belief as well. The stats say that 7 of 10 women will deliver in the ten days following their due date, with just less than 3 of 10 before the due date and just less than 1 on the actual due date. So, I am comforted by these statistics, because I can then quote them to the people who keep phoning in and saying, “No baby yet?” Yes, no baby yet. Not anywhere in sight. And I am COMPLETELY fine with that! :-) I am really enjoying this last bit of pregnancy, partially because it is my first one, partially because the end is really so very near now. So, I am looking forward to this week, just being quiet, not doing much, not because I am afraid of going into labour while I am out somewhere, but rather, just spending some quiet time with Simon at our house, before our lives are changed forever.
We drove out to visit Jeanette this week in her family’s home on the Bay of Fundy. She was slightly concerned with me coming out, but then again, a watched pot never boils is a term I think she used, so out we went. It is about an hour out of the city, and therefore, the hospital, but it was my intention to labour at home anyway, so if I went into labour, at lease Jeanette wouldn’t have to get a ride into the city from her family, she could just come with us! We brought along Brook, because she hadn’t gone for a ride in a while, and had a wonderful visit with Jeanette, her sister, her mum and her grandmother, among various other family members and friends that dropped by throughout the day. We just stayed at the house and I sat with my feet sort of up for the visit, I didn’t feel much like walking that day, and so we just vegged out :-) It was an absolutely wonderful afternoon actually, we talked about all sorts of things baby related, including stories from Jeanette’s mum and grandmum about their labours. Such a wonderful way to wax away a summer’s afternoon. Besides, the weather has really been atrocious this summer, and I certainly didn’t want to sit at the house for another day looking outside and wishing that it was sunny. Better rather to sit with wonderful women (and Simon of course) and chat, chat, chat. We headed out late in the afternoon, after declining the invitation for dinner, we had to get home what with Brook with us and Miss Scarlett waiting for us :-)
One thing that happened during the drive out and during the visit was I was feeling some contractions. Or at least, I think they were contractions, not having done this before! I felt a couple of, I would say, fairly strong ones (I mean in context of not feeling anything before, and then having them) on the drive out, and then a couple during the day, but none on the drive home. They were strong in the sense that they made me take notice of them, is what I am trying to say here. But it just goes to show that my body, slowly and surely is getting ready to have this baby. The Little One is going to make its appearance soon enough! Pretty exciting just the same! I told Simon about the ones on the drive out, but decided not to tell Jeanette, as they weren’t really regular or strong enough to have everyone get excited about just yet…
Oh, we got a phone call from my mum early this week as well, asking what we would like for our anniversary gift and joint birthday gift for Simon. She was thinking of a king-size bed. WOW! Big gift! Huge gift! I was completely taken aback at this and said to her that I would talk it over with Simon and that we would measure our bedroom to see if it would fit. I also said that we would talk about what else we might like as the gift, if we didn’t want the bed. Upon measuring our bedroom, we have determined that there is no way in heck that a king size bed is going to fit in there and me still be able to *get* to my side of the bed :-) No matter which way we orient the bed. So, we came up with a list of other possibilities as a gift. However, to do that we had to cost out how much my mum was looking at spending, so we looked up a decent mattress set, frame and headboard, and don’t forget the sheets on which you need to sleep. It added up to a lot. Way more than we expected. The hard part about us is that we budget in little projects and things around the house, and make lists as to what we would like to purchase at certain points in our lives. Well, one of those purchases was a bedroom set. A real one, for grown ups, as we call it. We had found an amazing company who build really nice furniture, with nice dovetail joints and the whole deal, at a store here, and after emailing my mum the list of possible gifts, we had a talk later this week. She said that she really appreciated the way that I had laid out all the options in the email and thought that the bedroom set was in the spirit of her original gift, and to go out and get whatever we wanted, she would reimburse us. So, we made up a list of what we wanted, made sure that it was going to fit in the room and we’re going to go in this weekend to buy it! :-)
It was our anniversary on Wednesday, August 13th, our third and final one as just a couple. From now on, we will be celebrating with dinners out courtesy of a baby-sitter. Wow! We were a little anxious actually about the Little One arriving the day before or the day after our anniversary, because when special events like that start to stack up, sometimes one or another begins to be overlooked. So, no Little One yet, and so I got all dressed up in one of my pretty summer dresses and we went out to dinner. Now, I have to preface this next bit of the entry with a disclaimer. For every anniversary that we have had so far, the restaurants have been atrocious. I mean horrid. Absolutely awful :-( And the worst part is that they are not bad restaurants! We have been to two of them previously and had just wonderful meals! Simon and I think that we are actually cursed when it comes to anniversary dinners now. And when we got home, we actually decided that from then on, I was going to cook an amazing meal at home rather than go out and be served from a terrible rude waiter, awful food. So, anyway, it started off on good feet, I went into one of our restaurant choices to see about the table wait, which was 35 minutes, so we went to the second choice and were seated in 10 minutes. I ordered a milk shake as a special treat and therein the trouble started. They make their milk shakes with ice, not ice cream, so it tastes all watery – yuck, yuck, yuck! Suffice to say that from that point onward, our choices were fraught at every turn with disastrous results. We left, without eating dessert, in favour of returning home and having something here.
One fun thing that we did was use our new camera with a little tripod, to take our anniversary photo. We do one each year on our anniversary, and I hope that they turn out this year! They were the last two pictures on the role of film, and who knows when it will be developed, but if they come out well, we know that the tripod and delay feature of the camera work well! :-)
When we did get home, on the message machine was a message from my mum that they were booking Christmas vacation and wanted to know if the dates were alright with the two of us. Now, my mum has taken to doing really big family vacations, and we particularly notice her spending has increased this year in regards to getting the family together, what with both her brother and her mother passing away. The location this year was to be Mexico, either Puerto Vallarta or Cabo san Lucas. When we talked to her next, we told her our intentions not to fly with the Little One within the first year of their life, because of the correlation of plane oxygen levels and SIDS rates. She still tried to get us to come out, even offering to fly us out to visit with Simon’s family, but we are a no-go on that. First of all, it is Christmas, so everyone is flying. Second, it is Canada, at Christmas, so there is BOUND to be a blizzard somewhere to hold us up. Thirdly, it is a 12 hour flight/day, WAY too long to do with a 4 month old, and Mexico is just about as far as we can fly, what with going all the way over and then all the way down. So, we will be having our holiday’s here, at our house, with whomever would like to join us here. So, that was the end of that. We did tell her that we would be coming out for a long visit in the spring, driving out actually, and so she was pleased about that.
Okay, onward with other news of this week. A couple of weeks ago we got a phone call from my mum’s assistant (yeah, she’s got an assistant, and she doesn’t work, it’s just a personal assistant to do things for her…as if her day was really that busy) who had been assigned the task of buying items for the Little One. So, I gave her a huge wish-list essentially, not really thinking that we would receive half of the items that I listed. This week, we got a phone call from Sears saying that we had a number of items in for us to pick up. A number? So, we head on over and low and behold, my mum had bought us a ton of stuff! A megasaucer, a playmat, a jolly jumper with stand, a play yard and a high chair. Holy smokes! Our first concern was where we were going to store all of this stuff before it can be used, because all our storage under the stairs (and actually our only storage area) was already completely full! We set up the highchair and put it in its home in the dining area, right next to the kitchen counter. I think that we are going to use this a lot actually. It has all the bells and whistles a high chair could have, but we chose it for those very reasons. With potentially four kids using it, I am sure that I will use ALL of the features! :-) The seat has four positions, from upright to almost fully reclined, and the entire seat can slide up and down on the supports so that it can fit under the table lip with the child is older, and they can eat at the table then. Oh, and the other cool thing is that there is a removable tray with partitions on the eating tray part of the seat. Neat, huh? So, easy clean up when those food days start…
All the other items were stored where we were able to find space, except for the play yard, which was not the one we wanted, so I went in and exchanged it on Thursday. Which was something in itself, because of all the fuss that the ladies were giving me at the catalogue counter. I carried the box in by myself, it wasn’t that heavy, and put it on the counter. When she saw my belly, she asked me how far along I was and I replied that I was three days over. Well, the look of shock on her face said it all basically. As if I was risking my life and my baby’s life by carrying in this not-really-that-heavy-box in from the car! Priceless expression. Another lady came out and saw me and the first one told her what I had done. Oh no, was I EVER going to get out of there? I just wanted to return the darn thing and buy the one we wanted! LOL I finally managed to extract myself, went to the baby department and bought the one we had wanted. Bonus, it was on sale too! The play yard we had received was just the plain yard, we had wanted the one with the bassinet and change table with it, because we intend to go camping and travelling with it, and so it will see use in a whole variety of tasks. When we got home, Simon took it out of the box and set it up while I made dinner. After dinner, he instructed me to dismantle it, to which I replied that I hadn’t seen him take it out of the box, or set it up, so how did I know how to do that? He just grinned and said that I would figure it out, I was smart. And yes, I did eventually figure it out. Except that not all the parts fit back into the box… Oh well. It went up into the nursery closet until such time as we needed it.
We also found out that I am officially the last pregnant woman on the cul-de-sac. The second August baby was born, I think on August 10th, we will confirm that later. We also think that they had a boy. They had family over and I think I heard them say that it was a boy… I guess we will see about that later as well! So, just me left now, but it’s not as if we all hung out together during our pregnancies, so I’m not missing anything now. I wonder how much we will get together when all the babies are here?
Oh yes, and I had my doctor’s appointment on Thursday as well. There was some fall-out from the birth plan discussion we had at the last appointment, but I think that the terms we have come to are fine. I am getting most of my wishes, it is just semantics for a couple of the things that we have had to adjust, and really, it is fine with both Simon and I. One of the things is that my doctor is not really comfortable not giving me the pitocin shot after the first shoulder is delivered, that was really the biggest change in the plan, and both Simon and I think that because she is really being so open about so many other things about my labour and delivery wishes, that this one thing will be okay. I showed her that I had been able to *get* my wedding rings off. She had mentioned last visit that they may have to cut them off. Except that our rings are titanium, the material that they actually USE to cut rings off, and that it just wouldn’t work :-) So, on Tuesday night, we tried and tried and tried to get them off. Icing my finger, lathering it up with cream, wrapping it with tape, finally a combination of it all I managed to get them off. But BOY did it HURT! I had blood blisters on my finger from it! Anyway, she was pleased that we were able to get them off, as were Simon and I :-)
I told her about the contractions on Tuesday and explained what they felt like to me. She did another exam, no internal, I am measuring 42 Weeks, blood pressure still good, weight steady this week, heartrate is wonderful! One more thing, I have had loose bowels all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and I am steady like clockwork usually, before and during this pregnancy. Dum deed dum dum! My body is definitely getting ready for the Little One’s appearance, hmm? The last thing is that my pelvis is REALLY flexing now. Getting really quite uncomfortable actually, particularly around the end of the day, regardless of how much activity that I do that day. Going up the stairs to bed is getting really hard! We talked a bit about doing a semi-invasive medical intervention to perhaps try to get labour going if I hadn’t already started this weekend. We made a tentative appointment for Monday, when we would come in and talk about perhaps stripping my membranes, and doing a non-stress test of the Little One to assess how it was fairing in me. She is willing to let me go the full 10-14 days after my due date, but both Simon, our doula and I tell that she is getting just the littlest bit nervous. Which is fine, because she is quite young, and as long as the rest of us keep up our belief that everything will be fine, we can carry her along.
One more thing about this week? Phone calls from Simon’s family. We had told them that we will do the Sunday night phone call, as always, and then phone them when the Little One arrived. We were not going to phone them when I started labour, because his mum is obsessive-compulsive (has been diagnosed it actually) and I KNEW she would be just pacing away for my entire labour and most likely trying to contact us every couple of hours if we gave them any indication that I was in labour. So, we told them the plan. And then she started phoning. And leaving messages, like, she was going to go for a walk, and that it was a gorgeous day, and so on. As if we really cared! Seriously, she was just trying to be subtle in a really unsubtle way. Simon finally talked to her about it as much as he could, and she relented about phoning us. Instead, she started emailing me! ARGH!! I have been getting these really annoying emails from her saying that she is going to organize her kitchen cupboards (seriously, she was) and such, when I couldn’t give a rat’s behind! And I am really trying to not be rude or mean here, but she knew what we were going to do, and is spitefully trying to ignore our requests. Frustrating, very frustrating.
Tonight, we are going to go for a walk at the huge park in our city. It is just beautiful and hopefully it will stimulate labour… I will say now that we have been trying *ahem* some more natural techniques of starting labour, but it has not worked to date. So, hopefully the walk will convince the Little One to make its appearance? We will see…
Symptoms: Alright, so I have already talked about the contractions, if that is what they were… The other thing is the loose bowels, which I again have already mentioned. What else? My poor, grotesquely swollen feet, ankles and legs… oh and hands and wrists too, don’t forget those! And my pelvis has REALLY started to flex. If I had thought that it was flexing before, whoa, that was nothing compared to what it is doing now, I can tell you. Actually, I think that that is about it. Sleeping has been interesting of late, I feel really, really huge now. Like my belly is its own separate entity and that it enters the room way before I do! LOL And Simon has had to help push me up and out of bed quite a bit lately. It is more that I need to get up momentum, and when I do, I am fine after that! Still only having to go pee twice a night, thankfully, because it is such a process now, it’s really a pain to have to go more :-)
**Talk to Me**
Did you do anything special on your Due Date to celebrate it? Or did you just treat it like another day in the pregnancy?
When did you feel your first contractions, and did you realize it at the time that they were the real deal, or did you second guess yourself?
Did the phone calls or emails increase with the proximity of the due date, or after the due date had passed, and what did you do about the invasion of them all?
Namaste, Laura and the Little One
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