Week 32, Day 5 (Calling Project Jonah!)

I'm becoming alarmed at the speed of expansion of my middle.

I was joking last month when I referred to myself as a beached whale, but now it's no joke and even Wayne can't help comparing me to a stranded sea mammal. So far he reckons I'm about the size of a Minke, but thinks within a month I'll be giving a Humpback a run for its money.

Round about the time I'm competing with a Blue whale, I think the bed will give out, if not my spine or knees.

Seriously though, this kid is growing like gangbusters! Remember how he used to be in 'birth position' each night (ie head tucked into pelvis, bum up by ribs, feet tucked in)? Not any more. Now he'd rather lie transverse (from hip to hip), although he still flips around and changes position many times a day. I think he's finding it a bit too cramped to like south - north very often, and considering he's got seven weeks of accelerated growth ahead of him, that's a bit scary.

I can get maybe another week out of the most roomy of my non-preggie clothes before I have to cry uncle and run up a marquee or two on the sewing machine. Each night I pour lashings of Vitamin E creme on my abdomen, in the fear that if I don't the skin will fail completely and I'll split up the middle like an overstuffed rubbish bag.

And hourly I wonder how the hell something this big is supposed to fit ... "there". Wayne's being a bit flip about the mechanics of it all, which is all right for HIM, eh. He's not the one contemplating the passage of a camel through the eye of a needle ;-)

Yeah, it's very easy to be flip if you're not the flippin' needle!

Last night? At antenatal? (sorry.. couldn't help myself) was again quite good. Only one silly game involving bits of paper and splitting into teams, but as it turned out, the exercise illustrated that Kiwi blokes may need some lashings of maturity after all.

Such a shame, when we've come so far!

We were given strips of paper with activities on them (blue for boy's team, pink for the girl's), and had to prioritise them.

We girls had ours all sorted within two minutes, with caring for ourselves and our babies at the top, and everyone else could go hang as far as we were concerned (although 'feed pets' did rate much higher than 'make dinner').

The boys did pretty good, but let themselves down by not wanting to lose priority for two things: sports, and social/pub time with mates. (Btw, Wayne has never liked ball sports, is a tee-totaller, and considers me his best mate so he sat back and watched the guys drop the ball on this one with as much amazement as we women).

The guys were sent away at one point on a make-work task so that the instructor could talk frankly to the women about the ickier areas of birth etc. It was interesting to note how the women suddenly relaxed into companionship mode the moment the guys left, and how we bonded more in 20 minutes discussion than we had over the preceeding five weeks.

What's with that?

Btw, it seems that in our group we're the only ones taking home the placenta, and the only ones planning to use cloth nappies. An English girl in our group expressed great surprise at this custom (placenta), so it was explained about the cultural thing of returning/linking back to the earth, and how many Kiwis liked to plant a special tree to celebrate the birth of a baby.

This baby's tree will be next to his parent's handfasting tree (a NZ native Rowan), which is why we wanted to call the baby Rowan/Rowyn. Not entirely sure what species the baby's tree will be, but it will be a NZ native, and something hardy and strong. His tree will overlook his bedroom window, and they can grow up together - linked to mother earth, and heralded by the birds who come to feast on the berries of the Rowan tree next door.