Sweetheart,
You're more than welcome to arrive any time now.
You are now officially cooked and we're all eagerly waiting your grand appearance.
Your bassinet is made up - at night I lie awake and look at it and try to make myself believe that in a few short days you'll be lying in it.
Your 'corner' is decorated, bar a few minor tweaks.
Your slings are hanging in the hallway, your pram sits on the verandah.
Your towel is on it's hook in the bathroom, your change-table is all prepared and the hospital bags are sitting ready to go - although I keep raiding mine, I might move them into the car to make them less accessible!
Your tiny feet keep kicking under my right rib, your head keeps butting up against my left hip - I love knowing that soon I'll see those tiny feet and the head that keeps nudging at me.
Yesterday was your due date and although I wasn't particularly hopeful that you would arrive on time I was a little hopeful. Although in the end I tried to get so much done that I told your daddy you just couldn't arrive, as I was way too tired to get you out! He said it doesn't work like that, but I like to believe you listened to me. Just for the record, today is a much better day! Just think, a May Day baby and I'm sure that 1/4/14 is a very auspicious birthdate. Not that I believe in the auspiciousness of numbers but it is a very neat date! Of course, I presently half-think that you'll arrive four days after your due date, as your brother was eight days late and your sister six… so four would be the logical progression. Oddly, I suspect you have no interest in the logical progression of numbers...
It is vaguely amusing now as I waddle to see peoples faces when they ask when you're due and I say 'yesterday'. I think about seven people have asked so far and it's not yet lunchtime.
From memory it is not so amusing saying 'last week' or 'the week before last.'
It is also not quite so amusing when they point out that I haven't dropped yet. I know! But I like how interested everyone is, how so many people have an opinion. 'It's a girl, isn't it,' 'You're still carrying high,' 'Is it your first'? Is it one or two? 'Are you sure it's not twins?' I think for many people it's a bit like asking about the weather, just idle chit-chat ('Let us address the elephant in the room', as one drunk guy said, not so tactfully during one of my last shifts at work - I'm big, but not that big) to pass the time, but many are genuinely interested, and it's nice how happy they are for us.
The weather is now truly autumnal and lovely. Each day the world is splashed with more reds and golds - and lovely shades of pink and orange as well. Some days are high and blue-skied and others are gentle days of rain and grey. None are too hot or too cold and I am revelling in them. It is the type of weather that encourages cooking, big lentil soups and apple crumbles are my present favourite. I recently fell in love with a pumpkin that was a particularly autumnal size and shape (and no, I didn't realise that it was possible either) and we'll soon be souping it.
My gardenia is in bloom, as is one little pink climbing rose, pansies and viola (chosen by your brother and sister) surround the fairy house, and the camellias, for the first time in the three years since we planted them, finally have flowers.
Do hurry, Little one, we're so impatient to meet you.
