Nearly there!

My body feels to be officially at capacity.  My lucky trip through pregnancy has been a relatively trouble free adventure and only now is this vessel starting to give way.  Sleep is becoming more difficult as once comfortable positions are now a strain.  My hands and feet are swelling and I have to leave my wedding ring in the jewellery box.

I have been to the hospital every week for months now and at the visit last week, it was decided that due to the position of the babies, their sharing a placenta and my ability to contain them for such a length of time thus far, that a caesarean would be scheduled for 5 January.  Frightening.  Exciting.  Happy.  Nervous.  It is an odd experience to know the day that I would stop being a pregnant lady and start being a mother.

So over the next week the house became evermore ready.  I had a pedicure courtesy of a friend's gift from my lovely baby shower.  And I baked, baked, baked.  Partly for the freezer and the weeks to come, and partly for Christmas.

Christmas was a subdued affair for Thom and I.  My body is just not up for much and after some time with family, we retreated to the sofa where I have taken to spending much of the evening propping up my enormous girth with a scaffolding of pillows at various angles.

Today, back to the hospital.  Being off work for a while longer, Thom tagged along.  We waited for ages, something to which I have become accustomed.  I read the ancient magazines and said hello to the midwives I knew as they bustled past with notes and urine samples.  Thom fidgeted and cringed at the static-plagued radio tunes that tortured his ears.

But finally we were called.  Some chit-chat followed by a thorough feel-up of the bump and a scan to reveal that the little guys had shifted to an awkward position: face-to-face in the middle with their bodies curling around.  One up and over, one down and under.  'Hmm, that's unusual,' the sonographer remarked.  They want to kiss, I said.  They want to scheme, Thom said.

Then the bombshell.  The consultant reviewed the notes and giggled at the way the funny wriggly men like to be face-to-face.  She  explained that waiting until 5 January seemed too long and as certain risks increase past 38 weeks, the c-section would be moved forward to Friday.

Ok, Friday, I said.  Wait, what day is today?  Wednesday!

So once again, Thom and I left the hospital stunned.  In awe that in two days we would be holding our little guys.  So what to do with our last two days?   Tomorrow I plan to clean the bathroom and change the sheets and give Thom a last minute mohawk trim.  But tonight, I'm making extra bread to pack away in the freezer.   And I have submitted myself to be a human mould.  Thom laid out plastic sheets and draped my bump in plaster to immemorialise my shape for the times to come when this stage seems a far away memory.

I must warn you, he said with a sly smile as he smoothed the mess around me, you may find this quite erotic.  Erotic? Maybe.  But it was certainly profound to look down at this massive bump that would very soon be part of the past, and two baby boys becoming part of our life and our future.

How stretchy can a tummy be?

I was able to have a little lie-in today.  An extra half hour because I was going to meet my obstretic consultant for the first time.  I enjoyed raisin bran while watching Muary Povich dish out paternity test results on morning TV, and after a shower had my second breakfast while choosing an outfit that I could still squeeze into.  I dragged an old dress from the 90's time capsule in the back of my closet.  It wasn't my first choice but I hoped that a man of medicine wouldn't worry too much about my lack of fashion sense.

Turned out I needn't have worried.  The waiting room of the ante natal clinic is a cure for all wardrobe worries.  The ladies waiting with me were made up of the most unbelievable shapes and sizes.  None of us looked particularly comfortable.  The chairs in the waiting room of the ante natal clinic are more padded and slightly bigger for our comfort.  But I imagined from the looks of us, that we were all slightly out of our comfort zone being dressed in whatever fit us that day, instead of what we really would like.  Not a high heel in sight. 

A young woman called in ahead of me was dressed in an odd combination of a summertime maxi dress and a huge chunky grey cardigan.  The look on her face was pure agony and she tried to make her way to the consulting room at a decent pace.  As she stood I clocked the size of her belly.  It stood at an almost gravity defying angle.  Straight out, leading the way and throwing her off balance.

As I scanned the room I noticed a beautiful blonde whose proportions grew from the chest down to an amazing girth at the waist that easily took up two chairs.  Across from her a woman dressed in what looked like her husband's XXL t-shirt whose giant round belly seemed to be making her breathing near enough impossible. 

My time with the consultant was fine. Nothing to worry about and he seemed to be a lovely man.  We chatted a little about when I might think about starting materntity leave.   I was keen to stay at work as long as possible.

'Well,' he said, 'in as little as10 weeks you are going to be as big as most women when they are full term. Something to think about.'

As big as some of those ladies of waiting room?  Something to think about, indeed.