Stuff

I see I managed to post my last post before falling asleep in my chair, which is good.  I did have vague memories of barely summoning up the energy to hit the ‘Publish Now’ key before the grey mists of exhaustion dragged me down into a state of near-coma, but I was glad to find that it hadn’t just been a dream and that I had, indeed, managed to get the post up there (and, for bonus points, it even consisted of coherent sentences).

Anyway, Monday (37 weeks) was my last day, complete with a very nice send-off from the other doctors (flowers, chocolate eclairs, and a pink fuzzy bunny with a jingly bell inside), and now I can finally catch up on some sleep, as well as getting on with the rest of my to-do list.  By the time I’d written down all the things I needed to do to get ready for the baby, all the things I needed to do to get ready for Christmas and Jamie’s birthday, and all the things that I’d like to do before the baby arrived while I still have the chance (get a haircut, catch up on blogging, reconcile my credit card statements, read and summarise the existing research on exclusive vs. mixed breastfeeding…) the list ran to a second page.  Well, that was with double spacing, but you can see why I rolled my eyes somewhat when my colleagues told me I’d have the chance to put my feet up for a bit.  However, while I’m not exactly a lady of leisure now, it does make an incredible difference to be able to sleep an extra few hours in the morning and get a proper nap in the middle of the day and not have to spend the time in between on lengthy commutes or struggles to figure out what the hell is wrong with each of a succession of people and what exactly I can do about it.  I’m rediscovering what it feels like to have some energy, and I am, slowly but surely, working my way through the things that need doing.  There is even a remote chance that I may manage to report on the last two NCT classes at some point, if this baby can hold off long enough.

Another reason for hoping this baby hangs on for a bit longer before putting in an appearance is that next week Barry is going to be replacing our banisters.  If you’re thinking that this is perhaps not the optimum time for us to be embarking on a home improvement project of such magnitude then I will not argue with such self-evident truth, but the problem is that our current banisters are not safety-proof against crawling babies and, although we have admittedly managed to raise one baby through at least the latter part of the crawling stage without mishap while living in this house, we would prefer not to chance it a second time.  Between now and the time when we actually have a crawling baby, now seems like our best bet for getting the job done – at least there’s a fair chance that Barry can get it finished before I have a second child around to distract me from the project of keeping the first out of his way.  However, there is the inevitable risk that I will add to the chaos of next week by going into labour at a point when half our banisters are missing.  I am swallowing so much fish oil that the poor tyke is probably glued into the amniotic sac by a sea of it and will come out with gills and fins, and avoiding pineapple and sex in case there’s any truth to the old wives’ tales, but ultimately it’s all in the hands of Fate.  We shall see.