Dakota

Newcastle looks beautiful in the sunshine at the moment. This is a rarity. Usually Newcastle has clouds and is grey (although not usually wet, it doesn’t rain up here as much you may have been led to believe). Anyway, it’s all quite beautiful, the way the sun catches the Sage building on the way to work in the morning. If I could be bothered (which I can’t) I’d take photos but there you go. And everyone’s in a good mood. Well, mostly. There’ll always be really grumpy people about but most people are smiling, which is nice to see.

So there are good things about the weather. I desperately need to focus on them before I turn into whingey whiny pregnant lady. Like my washing, I love hanging my washing out on the line to dry. It looks nice and smells good. Little things like that are having to please me at the moment, to make up for the fact that I don’t have a pair of shoes I can properly fit into (I have elephant feet so bad that Duncan now sings "Shelley the elephant" which is charming.) I don’t seem to have enough pregnancy tops for this weather and I can’t sleep very well cos it’s so warm and I’m so damn uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m especially huge (although I may be, who knows? I still haven’t gotten round to taking a photo of me with bump) but still, it sucks being pregnant in this weather and I get no sympathy from people. My mum last night just said, "Well, you chose to be pregnant in this heat." No, I didn’t. I got pregnant and it coincided that my last few months were summer but still, it’s the UK! What the hell is up with the weather? It’s not supposed to be this hot! It makes it harder to convince people that global warming is a bad thing as well, cos all they think is "We’ll get summers like this every year."

Apart from the heat, I am OK. I have to go to the hospital tomorrow morning for a glucose tolerance test – which is what you get when you spend Wednesday morning last week stuffing your face with ice cream and sausage rolls before your blood tests at ante natal clinic. Fingers crossed that the increased blood sugar was a one-off not the onset of gestational diabetes. I think I might cry if they tell me no more ice cream tomorrow. Preparations for bump’s arrival are coming on nicely. Nursery still isn’t finished but they’ll be sleeping in our room for 6 months or so, so there’s no rush for it. We’ve nearly bought everything as well – off to the MetroCentre on Saturday to buy our pushchair and carseat. I’m so organised. We’ve even come up with (almost certainly) final name choices. I think the only thing that would change our mind now is seeing the baby and thinking they’re not that name. For a girl we’ve gone with Zoe Rose and for a boy Daniel Charles, although we’ll almost definitely shorten Daniel to Dan. I’ve also sorted out my maternity leave (finish work on August 31st) and my part time hours when I return – 4 days a week with every Wednesday off, which I am very much looking forward to. Work is a complete struggle at the moment because I’m so tired and it’s summer which means less work and more boredom.

I think that covers everything. I’ve probably bored you half to death with pregnancy/baby stuff over the past few months, for which I apologise but, rather depressingly, there is nothing else going on in my life at the moment. Just about everything we do is focussed on bump and the now imminent arrival of baby. At least I’ve stopped freaking out about the birth.

Until there is a next time…

xx