Eight days later…

Today I am officially eight days overdue.

We had our appointment back at the hospital where they have done a sweep and confirmed that my cervix has softened and that, if it comes to induction, they should be able to reach the waters to break them without having to put in a pessary first. All good news!

As for the induction date – it has been set: This Friday, Feb 24, at 3.30pm. I have to ring at 8am in the morning and, if they aren’t busy, they may ask me to go in earlier.

Up until now I haven’t had any false alarms, any promising signs or any encouraging twinges, so I am fully expecting that this will go all the way to induction. But I am ok with that – I was technically induced with Isla (although things were starting off on their own that day anyway) and that experience was positive, so I know that being induced doesn’t have to mean something awful. It also has the major positive of being able to drop the girls off with their Nanna in a nice, planned and calm way, and no midnight dashes to the hospital.

Of course, there is still a chance the baby might put in an appearance on her own before then, but she only has two days in which to do so!

This week we have beeen a little bit up the wall as Isla came down with a really nasty stomach bug on Sunday morning. The girls had been having a practice sleepover at Nanna’s and in the morning when we came to collect her, she had been sick twice. More sick followed throughout the day, and then full blown diarrhea in the afternoon… disaster! We have been washing hands every five minutes and cleaning everything trying to prevent anybody else catching it, and are now desperately hoping we have done enough to avoid it ourselves. Isla has been much better since this morning (last sick being last night) and is now back to her cheeky toddler ways. So far neither me, Tony or Lilly has any symptoms, and we are just hoping it stays that way. I have been trying not to think about suffering norovirus and going into labour, nor too much about what would happen if hubby was ill when I went into labour and he couldn’t be with me. We have now decided to think positive and assume all will be ok… it is time to tell this baby to come out!

In terms of what movement I can feel – this baby is still exceptionally active and moves around a LOT, especially in the evening and at night. She has lots of hiccups too! I have plenty of achey feelings in the right area, but nothing that feels like a contraction, the way they gradually build and fade. These are much more like constant general aches, more like having overdone it than anything else.

Going to the hospital today and having time to think about what is going to happen – and that it is going to happen SOON – has made us both feel really excited about this new arrival and keen to get on with it asap! We will have a baby by the end of the weekend!

I will get off the computer and go and make another raspberry leaf tea, I think…