OK, let’s take a look at what’s been happening with the old bod for the last few weeks. Because man have I been tired. I don’t remember being quite this physically exhausted last time at this stage – and I’m not talking about that hangover-style fatigue that plagues you for the first trimester, I’m talking about the sort of tiredness I’d expect you’d have if you walked a marathon with a five-man tent strapped to your back. I feel heavy – almost too heavy to climb the stairs, sometimes – and my bump feels a lot less robust than it did last time. Perhaps because I’m always having to pick up a toddler and the strain is taking its toll…

Read the diary entry for Pregnancy Week 30…

It has just occurred to me that when I was pregnant with Angelica, we resided in single-storey holiday barns for almost the whole third trimester, so maybe I didn’t notice quite how cumbersome and huge I was? It tends to be going up hills or staircases that really gets me out of breath – I feel so unfit! Just getting dressed after a shower has me short of breath and when I had to hold the Christmas tree lights above my head so that The Decorations Boss could wind them around the tree I could only last thirty seconds or so before having to have a little break. I’m sure that in my last pregnancy I was still speed-walking about at 40+ weeks, because I remember trying to get labour started by sprinting up a hill. Good God, the thought of that now!

So yes. Large. Tired. Shooting pains, now and then, down the side of the bump and into the groin area – all very normal, apparently, and nothing to worry about. An almost uncontrollable addiction to sugar, which I did have last time in the end weeks, but actually this time I’m managing to get to grips with it and quell cravings with things like apples and – er – chocolate Yule Log. Ha!

Not a lot else to report other than I feel as though I might have made a decision with my VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) dilemma. Though I still have a few ponderous posts to knock out about it because I have done so much reading and thinking and it would be a shame not to share. I went to see a consultant last week who said that (without any kind of measuring of any sort) I wasn’t carrying a big baby (I think he must have x-ray vision) and that I should try for a VBAC. “At least try.” He really got up my nose for many reasons, but mostly for being so very dismissive of all of the (very rational, thoughtful, valid) points that I raised. It actually forced me to think even harder about what I really wanted, and not what I thought I should do because it’s what other people wanted me to do, and I’m almost 100% sure now that it’s an elective section I’ll request. Mainly because the stats for successful VBAC at the hospital are so unconvincing and I’m not overly enamoured with the idea of another emergency situation (“but we would try with forceps before resorting to another c section!” Oh good….) but also because the odds seem very stacked against having a straightforward VBAC. The baby has flipped from breech but is now back-to-back, I carried a very large baby for my size last time, I went two weeks overdue last time… I don’t know. I’ve thought about it for so long now that I can’t tell whether I’m making excuses for myself or genuinely concerned about these things. It’s the most confused I’ve ever been since A Level Chemistry.

Stay tuned for more VBAC thoughts – and, as always, thank you so much for your comments that keep appearing on the previous posts! You can read my ponderings on the VBAC issue here and here.

Read the 34 week diary from my previous pregnancy…