Paternity leave

When Jr is born Sean will get 2 days off. At the moment the Dutch cabinet is deciding on an extension of this leave. One of the parties suggested 2 weeks, but this got rejected. Now they will debate about a 1 week leave. I hope they decide fast, it would be sweet if Sean got a couple of extra days!

What are the odds?

Lately I have been getting emails from some ladies in my aerobics class who already had their baby. This morning I started to notice the boy to girl ratio so far. One woman had a boy and seven had a girl (incl. one set of twins) so far. Also all my friends who had a baby recently or already know what gender the baby is that they are expecting soon after me had/will have girls.....
Does this mean we will indeed have a baby boy to beat the trend or is there just a big girl wave going on?

The other night by the way I dreamed again that we will have a boy. So boy to girl dreams is also 2 to 1 I think.... We'll know for sure soon!!!

Check up

Today we had a check up at the hospital. Nothing changed since my last appointment, my BP is still great (110/75), Jr's heart beat is too and still (s)he didn't drop yet. I was for sure that had happened because I felt something going on and seemed to have more space in my stomach again.... it was probably just wishful thinking.
So we have another appointment next week July 1st (no, not another week!), so it could very well be that Jr will be a July instead of a June baby.

As for now I am thinking of new projects. I have to start keeping myself more busy, because I start to sleep bad at night, I am just not tired enough. But on the other hand it can't be anything to elaborate because I am not allowed to after my bleedings. I think I will go get some fabric and do some crafting. Any suggestions on what to make?

Today is Jr's due date.....

.... without a baby..... but still with a big belly! It is not that unexpected since only 4% of deliveries take place on the due date and 90% of first born babies come in the week after the due date. But with our recent adventures and my liking of tight planning we would have hoped to beat the odds.
Any day now.










This is my last belly gallery of the last 9 months. I almost made a circumference of 1 meter (100 cm), as of yesterday it is 99 cm.

Maternity leave lasts too long when....

....you are happily willing to participate in a 15 minute phone telemarketing interview about pollution of the national airport. Everything at this point to kill time I guess!

Hospital sleep over.....take 3

Before Jr is born (s)he already takes over our complete schedule. Thursday morning at 3 am I woke up with yet another bleeding (take 3) which was pretty heavy. So another field trip in the middle of the night to the hospital was the result, and even though everything looked ok, like Jr's heart beat etc I had to stay in the hospital this time. Bummer... but because this had already been the third bleeding and because I had mild contractions and a high blood pressure the Dr figured it was time to keep me for observation.
Then the long waiting started since Thursday I wasn't allowed to do anything but stay in bed. Sean came to visit me a couple of times in between taking Clover out and taking care of other household things, but that was my only distraction the whole day. I had hoped to go home in the evening, b/c the bleeding stopped, but no.. I had to stay overnight.
This morning I was really sick of staying around with no activity going on besides Jr playing around all happy not indicating any sign of labor. By noon the Dr came and I was ready to go home. At first they wanted to keep me a little longer so I could mobilize and they could observe me during it, but I had my bags packed and was ready to go, so they released me under the condition of taking it very easy.
Hopefully tonight the bleeding will not start again.... it is getting old by now!

Midwife checkup at 39 weeks

One more week till our due date, but no baby yet. Everything seems to have calmed down and I am starting to wonder now if we will be one of the "lucky" ones who go till 41+ weeks. Junior seems to still have a great time in my belly and doesn't show any signs to want to come out soon. (S)he still didn't drop yet, my BP is still great (110/80) and Jr's heartbeat is steady and strong.
Jr is also still growing so (s)he can handle to cold outside world with a nice fat layer, but this makes the space very limited. My belly stays pretty much the same size, but my intestines aren't to happy and at night when I lay down I get reflux because Jr's butt is pushing into my stomach.

On the other hand we should be happy that everything is continuing to go so good and that Jr will be nice and strong to great the world around 40 weeks instead of being premature. We are just sooooooo curious by now!!!