Full term tomorrow! Argh! You’ll be pleased to know that I’m starting to get myself organised with baby stuff. I have vests. I have a nappy. (One. It came free in this weird NHS pack I got handed at my last appointment. But one is better than none, surely?) I have breast pads, maternity pads, swaddle blankets, cellular blankets, babygrows (two) and a pram. So, y’know, it’s a start. It all takes up a hell of a lot of room, doesn’t it? And we haven’t even got to car seat, crib, bathing things, changing things… We move to Saffron Walden (or near to) on Friday, for a month, and can only take one carload of stuff, so I think that we will be cutting it fine and getting the rest of our baby list once we have moved. Otherwise there’ll be no room in the car for me!

Baby matters continue to take a backseat, however, because the house renovations (and various associated problems and catastrophes) require all of our attentions. I’m also trying to get as much work done as possible pre-baby so that I have content to schedule for A Model Recommends; I have four or five videos backed up and ready to go, but want to get some posts under my belt too. I’m familiar with this story, because every time I’ve taken a holiday for the past five years I’ve had to do the same thing. I usually end up being so knackered by the time I get on holiday that I need two holidays! But this time I’m not going on holiday, I’m having a baby, which is a totally different kettle of fish. Had I planned this last month better, I would have worked in a couple of weeks’ holiday before the due date just to do absolutely nothing, but I actually get the feeling that I’d be a bit bored. I’m not an avid television watcher and it’s not as though I can go on ten mile hikes at the moment – sitting eating biscuits watching daytime tv appeals to me about as much as pulling out my own fingernails with a pair of pliers.

So, full steam ahead! Baby makes him/herself known at regular intervals throughout the day; huge churning movements where my whole stomach moves from one side to the other. Now and then an egg-sized bump will appear (a foot, I assume!) and then slide its way across somewhere else, and there are constant little flutterings and gurglings lower down, as though I have a large fish trapped in my pelvis. (Now that would be a surprise.) I find the movements absolutely joyous; there’s not a moment I don’t appreciate them. After the anxiety of the first few months where there are no movements and then the weirdness of the next couple, when movement can be sporadic and lack of it can completely freak you out, it’s incredible to be able to just sit or lie still and press on your tummy and have an almost instant reassurance – “I’m here! Don’t you worry about me!”

I keep thinking to myself, how kind this baby is! He/she almost seems to sense when I’m anxious and make an extra effort to have a wriggle about, just to let me know that everything is fine. Silly to think that, I know, but I like the idea that we are already somehow connected and “in tune”. It bodes well for a good few years down the line when I can telepathically ask for silence/chocolate/wine and these things will magically materialise. Ha.

Main physical development of the week: a slight “heaviness” downstairs and the feeling that the world might fall through the old ladyparts at any given moment. It’s time to practice those Kegals, methinks…

 *dress in photo is from Next here.