Whoops! I’ve been a little late in coming in here and showing off the latest addition to our crazy family, but… After 5 years of contemplating, 41 weeks in the baking, and a 12+ hour labour, THE WORZEL can now be unveiled!

Born on 4 Feb, seven excruitatingly long days late, and now nearly three months old… here’s Breaca! (aka Bree, Lily Bug, Boo, Bug-a-Lugs, it goes on…)

Week One

Week Five & Six

Week Nine

That’s all for now, the little sproggin has woken, and is making grunty hungry noises through the monitor.  Speaking of hungry, I could really go a cheese toastie right now…

Btw, I really was convinced in those last couple weeks of pregnancy that I was simply full of gas and no baby at all.  In fact, with the way the Lily Bug farts, I still wonder if I was really full of gas all along, and am now proud mother to a baby-shaped gas bubble.

Yeah, it was a false alarm.

Have decided that now is a good time to renew layout, but in the midst of this I’m experiencing some of the worst pain I’ve ever had since giving birth to Char.

I think The Worzel is trying to kill me.

Periodically, someone in the household dares to ask if I’m in labour. Yes. No. Maybe? I can’t feel contactions because all I can feel is intense lower back pain, with alarming twinges of sharp piercing agony that radiates through me whenever The Worzel wriggles. Maybe this is labour. Or maybe this child inside of me has grabbed a fistful of spinal nerve and is twisting it around and around her fingers…

Then again, perhaps I just need to do a good poo?

One thing that seems to be for sure, is that there’s no point timing anything because the pain is contant.
Well, we’ll find out one way or another, at some point through the night/weekend/rest of the month.

Yup, I’m still carting around this little Worzel inside me, and despite how much I’ve quacked on about hoping she’ll come a tad early, I’m now keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll hold off on arriving until after Monday.  I have plans to go to the pools on Monday.  The craving to submerge myself in water is stronger than my cravings for fruit and frozen ice.  Of course, knowing my luck this will now work as reverse psychology and I’ll find the only pool I’ll get to splash about in on Monday is a birthing one!

 Well, a pool’s a pool I guess.  Except one will also be accompanied by contractions.

Had a cool day at Cheltenham beach on Monday, but this heat has now sapped away my will to do much else except to sit around and play Monopoly with Char.  Now that the bedrooms are re-arranged and whatnot, I’ve burnt out like an old rock has-been and have now become rather sloth-like.  Which is probably why The Worzel is now lying in a wonderful posterior position which strikes pain into my lower back each time she moves.  It’s like she’s resting against a nerve.  Hmm.  Getting on my nerves already huh? *rolls eyes at pathetic wit*

 In other news - and I’m surprised I haven’t let this cat out of the bag already - we have a name for the sproggin!  After months of deliberating, we’ve collectively settled on a name which went straight to number one as soon as it made it’s debut on the charts. 

 Breaca.

 There’s a double meaning to this one.  Originally it was Brekka, which was J’s choice of a middle name (inspired by a speedway midget chassis).  Then he bought me the last of Manda Scott’s ‘Boudica’ series and the name Breaca fell out of the page.  Brekka.  Breaca.  Similar. Right?  And according to Manda Scott at least, Breaca is a derivative of Boudica, whose name is in turn a derivative of the war goddess Boudig which relates in turn to the great goddess Briga (Bridget).  Or something upon those lines.  Celtic.  Lovely.  And not entirely in relation to the framework of a car.

And now, because I’ve never been so keen to flaunt myself about as I am now that I have a big fat pregnant belly, here’s the latest Buddah Belly update at 38 weeks…

It’s 12am, hot and stuffy as hell and my feet are so swollen they feel like great puffy clubs. My feet are usually kinda long and bony, and my toes long and skinny. Now, even my ankle bones have well and truly disappeared and my toes are like chubs.

Meh. Pregnancy. I’m stalling on going to bed because I can’t stand the restlessness. As mentioned in the previous post, it’s been hard sleeping with all this baby inside of me, digging limbs into my lungs. Sitting up every few minutes to try and draw in that elusive deep breath, and thus disturbing Jarrod’s sleep. The poor lad wakes each time I move, asking if I’m alright. I’m looking forward to the time when I can answer that with “actually I think I’m in labour” so I can get this pregnancy dealio over and done with and have my body back already! Might still not be able to sleep, but at least I should be able to breathe!

Or maybe it’s the heat that’s making me wake gasping every time I drift off? Last night I managed to sleep because the weather was refreshingly cool, but I doubt I’ll be so lucky tonight.  *grumble grumble*

Anyhoo I figured I’d take this moment to post some of the pics Char took of my nephew and I on New Years Eve.  He’s going through an emo moment which his parents hate, but aw, it’s so cuuute…

There we go, nothing much, just an excuse to write up a post (two days in a row. Wow.) and say “look I still have my Bauhaus t-shirt!” which I might add, did a reasonable job of minimising the 36 week baby belly?

Now if only I could find something that could minimse my 37 week feet…

We’re a family who are fantastic for doing things at the last minute.  For months I’ve griped about getting The Worzel’s room ready, and yet until a week ago we’ve done nothing much about it.  Up until a week ago, the spare room remained filled with Jarrod’s speedway memorabilia and his lifetime’s supply of odds and ends.  I began having nightmares about trying to find a space to put the bassinet while in the midst of labour.

 Then the weekend before Christmas, a start was finally made (after I stressed to Jarrod “mum will come over on Christmas day and ask to see the baby’s room, and there won’t be one!”)  It looked as if I might be able to start shifting the baby gear our of our room at last! 

Following Christmas I had a sudden epiphany.  Why not move Char into what was to be The Worzel’s room, and shift The Worzel into her old room?  It makes for twice the last-minute workload, but what the hell - if a back must be broken and a disc slipped, why not do it good and proper?!

Jarrod was sceptical.  And for good reason.  Two thirds of Char’s room was still filled with toys she outgrown years ago.  Dig down deep enough into that wardrobe, and we’d probably find a well-preserved mammoth, half a dozen lost lunch boxes and the library book I was billed for two years back.

But being pig-headed and adamant that this was a fantastic idea, I hauled Char into her room and forced her to help me decide what she could give away, and pack up the rest for transferral down the hall.  

Two hours later, I sat head in hands, despairing over how I could ever be so stupid and ‘how the hell will we ever get to the bottom of it all?  I think it was the “I told you so” expression on Jarrod’s face that forced me to continue plodding on.  ( And perhaps the realisation of “if I could get through all that pricing in the containers at work each week, I can get through this!  Damn it!”)

 After a week of chipping through the many layers of our excavation site, a breakthrough was made.   By me.  Char had long deserted me in favour of hanging out with her cousin who had come to stay.  Eurika.  Everything was bagged, tagged, and ready for burial.  Eh, removal.

Now Char is in her new room, The Worzel’s bassinet is set up in her room, and I at last can stop with the re-occuring nightmare of going into labour without having a room to bring the little sproggin home to.  (Actually the bad dreams have stopped mainly because I can no longer SLEEP!  There’s so much baby in my belly I can barely breathe.  And thus each time I manage to drift off through the night, I wake gasping for air.  Urggh…) 

Now then, this pregnancy dealio is really un-fun.  I know there’s still three weeks until DD, but damn it, it’s time for this Worzel to GET THE HELL OUT OF ME ALREADY!  

PS: This was the last photo our camera will ever take, as it has now decided to f*@! out on us. Now, I’m once again uttering “okay little Worzel, you can’t come out yet. We’re not ready…”

I can’t go into labour without a camera!!

DAMN IT!

Wait, I didn’t mean to imply we’ll  be using the camera while I’m in labour.  No one wants to see that… I meant afterwards; when The Worzel is all pink and glowing and looking human and all.  Not all wet and slimey and half hanging out of my…

Yeah.  You get it already.  I’ll shut up now.

I.  Am.  Sore.  Today was the shop’s stock change, and if I thought packing up the hall after our monthly sale was becoming a challenge, the humble fortnightly stock change may well be the straw which will break this camel’s back.

Every last inch of me feels as if it’s been through the tumble dryer twice over.  Imagine mowing your lawns, going on a long hike through the length and breadth of the Waitakere Ranges then coming home to mow the lawns again.  By lunch time.  Now you have an inkling of my pain.

Oh blah blah woof woof, I know what a whinge bag I am, but I’m not exaggerating! I am a pregnant hippo in pain!  I came home from work today and blubbered on to the family about how I can’t bear another day of this.  (Tears and all!)  My pelvis feels as if it is splitting, if ripping out my spine could stop my back from aching I’d fillet myself now, my sciatic nerve almost stops me in my tracks every time I take a step, my legs are stiff from the muscle cramps that I wake to each night…

… But every time I walk past my boss I tell myself to suck it up and stop waddling like a penguin, least I give her the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”.  (Anything but that!)

And then there’s the rapid pulse and heart palpatations that kick in for no apparent reason and make me feel as if I’m spacing out, the shortness of breath that likes to strike when I’m trying to sleep, the heartburn, the… did I mention leg cramps?

Urgh, I really want to enjoy this pregnancy, and for the most part, I am. Really, I am.  Most days, I can handle the aches and pains, knowing it’s all ‘pain with a purpose’ and the baby’s ‘reality kick’ to the ribs reminds me of the aspects of this pregnancy that I enjoy.

But some days (like today), it just hurts so much.  And I can only grin and bear it for so long before I realise the grin is actually a grimace and the continual aches and pains are for the moment, not so bearable after all.  Especially when I grizzle to J and he says “oh dear” in his best sympathetic voice, but in reality has absolutely no idea. He tries to get it, but I don’t think he can really grasp just how exhausted I feel when I say “I can’t endure this anymore”, knowing that I must.  Sometimes the realisation of this almost defeats me.

But there are some fantastic aspects to being pregnant. Like, the weird alien feeling of having the shit kicked out of you from the inside.  :P  Nothing like a good swift boot to the bowels to remind you you’re not alone!

Last night I dreamt my mother was pregnant.  My mother, at the grand old age of ANCIENT, was hugely pregnant and gloating about how much smaller she was through her pregnancy than me.  It’s a dream that has continued to disturb me throughout the day.  And probably always will. *shudder*

In other exceptionally mundane news: Today I finally admitted my size 10 jeans are too tight, and hauled my sorry ass into a comfortable, spacious 12.  Dear Gods.  I’m only touching upon the 15 week point and already I’m shedding sizes like a snake that’s over-indulged on too much hippo.  I’m not sure if it’s really a baby I have in there or a pair of conjoined taniwhas?  Or maybe (and most likely) it’s all the damn-it-I’m-now-30 comfort eating I’ve been doing since, like, two months ago (gotta start these celebrations early y’know).  Whatever.  I want to die.

Tomorrow I will go to Mitre10 and buy a tarpaulin.  Give me another month and I’ll be fitting it quite nicely.

A night or so ago J said, “Mum suggested that when we move to Marton, you can go along to Mainly Music one morning and meet other mums.”

The scary thing is, he seemed really enthused by this notion.

Dumbfounded, I replied,  “yeah I dunno. I don’t do the ‘other mums’ thing. I don’t do the ‘Mainly Music’ thing either.”

He suggested it would be a great way to “network” and “make new friends” and that our wee little Wurzel would “benefit greatly from the activity and social stimulation”. I suggested - through gritted teeth - that he organise a day off during the week so HE can take the sproggin to all those mumsy bubsy activity groups he’s so intent upon.

The thought of trying to ‘fit in’ to such a scene, quite frankly, horrifies me.

What ever happened to the blossoming glow of pregnancy?  I’ve been looking forward to experiencing all those happy clucky feelings I never experienced the first time around (too busy being an angst teenager) but so far the only parts of me which are blossoming are my boobs and my belly!

I figured I’d defeat morning sickness and tiredness with a positive attitude.  Yup.  The good old mind-over-matter.  Somehow I had completely forgotten that I am a really negative person.  Heh… Kinda threw me out there when I was trying to summon a bit of positivity. Pfft.

And talking myself out of the good old 1st trimester tiredness? Right!  I wake each day feeling like Sisyphus.  Groaning at the eternal task of pushing shit uphill.  Clawing through each day on my hands and knees. Planning little nesting corners where I can sleep through my lunch breaks, and near-crying with the sheer frustration of making every blunder imaginable on the til as I battle to keep my eyes open and my mind and body connected.  Struggling not to throw up all over each approaching customer…

Wait, I’m describing every working day here.  Perhaps with a tad more in the way of tiredness.

I was twice checked over by co-workers for a ‘baby belly’ yesterday.  Donna kept glancing at my stomach with a grin, and as icing to the cake, Mike (who, in a DOOL moment, has returned from the dead) asked if I’d named the “baby-bump” yet.

“Eh? Oh no, this isn’t a baby-bump.  It’s just my belly.”

He spent a moment apologising and trying to backtrack, but it was all good. I’ve been carting around that lil’ pot-belly for my entire life, and I guess no one’s really been that conscious of it before until now.

Though, it does make me think: Maybe I have developed a baby-bump already? After all, I saw a regular customer in the supermarket tonight and as we stopped to chat she was sneaking glances at the belly too.  (Should I be calling it The Belly?) J later agreed my ‘natural pot’ seems to have well, altered shape somewhat.

Good gods, I’m only closing in on eight weeks! Kill me now…

No, I think it’s just that I’ve dumped cravings for fresh fruit salad & spirilina smoothies in favour of chocolate-self saucing pudding and peanut slabs (they’re not really cravings, that’s just my excuse.)

On a plus side, I don’t think my boobs have been this big in a long, long time.