9 Sept 2012

A lovely last weekend before the big day

So Saturday started with Husband getting home from a boys' night away and whisking me off for a sunny dog-walk around a local lake.  He was very keen to get there as soon as possible, which I thought odd, but was probably best as this place gets packed with the buggy brigade and dog-walkers.  







You have to be pretty on the ball on the footpaths as one can very easily get swept up in a tide of 'Buggy Fit' attendee's....you get snippets of passing conversations as they power walk past you; normally revolving around the pros and cons of various nappies, prams and sleeping methods.  I daren't make fun though as I'm fairly sure I shall be one amongst their number before long....I shall probably have bored all my non-sprogged friends to death with talk of nappy disasters fairly soon, so I will be on the hunt for new people to bore! 

Anywayyyy, we had a lovely stroll around the lake and had an ice cream on a bench overlooking the lake, before heading back to the car.  When we got home the reason for Husband's keen time-keeping started to become clear.  I spied balloons tied to the front door.....it was very confusing as I could see no more cars than usual parked on the street or any other sign of a planned gathering....and Husband was not giving anything away, except for a huge grin.  Well, as it turns out my wonderful family and friends had organised a surprise garden tea party for me!! Ten of my favourite ladies were sitting around our garden table with the most incredible spread of sandwiches, cakes, nibbles and jugs of elderflower.  Husband bravely endured about 4 minutes of girly chat then hurried off to play with power-tools in the garage for the rest of the afternoon.  Sensible man. 

Yummy sausages with honey and
mustard - a definite favourite!


Amazing coconut and raspberry cupcakes - apparently
intentionally reminiscent of my previous post here about
the crocheted boobs!


Personally, I am not a fan of the expression 'Baby Shower', as it sort of seems to imply the expectation of gifts and is all a little self-indulgent in my mind.  So I had absolutely no idea that anything had been planned and was certainly even less expecting any gifts - I was very quickly reassured on my arrival that this was a tea party and most definitely not a Baby Shower.  But, despite such clarification, lovely gifts I did receive, both for the baby and indulgent treats for me (and maybe for the husband too, if he behaves!).  I am really a very lucky girl and enjoyed every second of it!! 







After all the lovely girls had departed, husband and I then spent the evening at an impromptu street BBQ (these happen fairly often and are the army-patch-life stereotype in action, with lots of dogs and children going feral on the designated family's lawn, lots of booze and the obligatory men standing around the BBQ, looking all macho with their tongs and beer, and the women huddled around the wine, gossiping....standard).  A really nice evening and a great opportunity to catch up and reassure everyone that I was still going strong and not imminently en-route to the hospital.

Or so I thought........!  After climbing into bed I started feeling a lot of pressure in my back, but just thought I'd over done the walking a bit.  But the pain grew and was accompanied by tightening feelings.....uh oh...is this what a contraction feels like?!  Turns out I spent the next 5 hours pacing the house and doing lots of deep breathing, with contractions coming very regularly indeed.  But oddly enough they went from 3 minutes apart when they started (with me thinking, "is this not the point at which you normally leg it to hospital, rather than starting like this?!") to 10 minutes apart by about 4am. Ha, back-to-front-labour pains!  They must have stopped though, as I then woke up at 6am feeling as good as new.  Bizarre! 

Well, this morning brought absolutely no further signs of anything whatsoever, so we trundled off to London for a Christening, which I'm so glad we managed to get to and had a beautiful afternoon in the city,  enjoying yet another ice cream (hmm.... a pattern emerging here, woops!) and a glass of bubbly afterwards.  I'm still feeling just fine, but it would be pretty amazing if little one becomes one of the 5% of babies who actually arrive on their due date.  

Myself and two of my fellow Army WAG preggers friends.

Ooooh, maybe it's all starting to happen?.....Maybe?



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