Waiting game

After the fairly hellish events of the last few weeks, we all seem to be finally on the mend, feeling pretty good and are just settling in now and waiting for baby 4 to arrive.

Husband and I went to see the doctor for a routine check up of the bump this afternoon. It was a happy and exciting check, with everything being so imminent and baby sounding very happy thru the heart beat monitor. My tummy has started to do some fantastic pointy manouevres in the evenings when I am sitting still enough to notice that the belly is moving around.

The last time I had a baby, we lived in Seoul, South Korea. I was determined to follow my "hypnobirthing-no-drugs-just-breathing" delivery technique. My Korean doctor was pretty much determined that I would have a caesarian section in time for him to get back to his evening dish of bibimbap. This lead to a certain amount of tension in the delivery room, as I continued to labour past the 24 hour point and into the next calendar day!

In the UK, my consultant has a lovely approach to the whole thing. He is totally in favour of natural birth and midwife-supervised delivery. I asked him if I should bring a birth plan with me (since we have not done one yet) and he just said that we could if we wanted to, but no one was going to make me do anything without me wanting to, and no one was going to do anything to me that I didn't want. The whole situation makes me feel incredibly relaxed about going in there, and just having the baby. Since this will be my last baby, I am more or less determined to enjoy it (I understand if this sounds strange to some, since giving birth does not normally feature on most people's "Most fun things to do" lists). With our last baby, although it was pretty grim at the end, the actual process of having the baby myself - properly giving birth to a child without a massive amount of medical fiddling around and with zero drugs - was a completely rewarding, empowering and downright amazing experience. And the recovery afterwards was so quick it was great. So let's hope it goes the same way this time.

I do slightly feel on the brink of a new stage of life. My husband asked me recently if I felt like I was getting old, since we are reaching the end of our years of having kids, my reproductive duties finished. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I almost pissed myself laughing. Was I sad at the thought of never being pregnant again? Umm, NO!! I have not minded being pregnant, but I have done it 4 times. That is enough for most people! I am looking forward to a life of never remembering events by whether or not I was pregnant. Hong Kong Rugby Sevens - been twice, both times pregnant. Holidays in Indonesia, China, trips to Uzbekistan, Russia, Thailand, all over the place - always either pregnant, or breastfeeding! These things are almost over now. I will just be me (and four children) and not pregnant. Woo hoo!