Tonight’s experiment comes recommended to me by my friend Fiona, whom I’ve known since I was five and because she is one of my oldest friends I believe her. She *swears* that it (accidentally) put her into labour at 7 months (at which point she stopped drinking it) so hopefully it will have the same effect on me. I bought this box this afternoon and thus far have partaken of one (strong) cup, but Google tells me that people have felt its effects after drinking more like three. So I’m about to brew my second of the night, and shall indulge in another before bedtime.

Results shall be updated in the morning.

***UPDATE***
Had a few nice Braxton Hicks contractions before bedtime, but here I am over 12 hours later and I am still very pregnant. Too pregnant. All that’s different is that I had another bad night’s sleep which probably explains my headache and mild nauseated feeling and general feeling of grumpiness. Or maybe that’s all hormonal. Whatever. Main point is that I’m still with child, UGH! FOR MY OWN SANITY I WANT HIM OUT.

On Friday morning I experienced my first Beached Whale Moment. Although I’ve felt quite humongous for quite some time, this was the first moment that I’ve actually got genuinely stuck, arms and legs flailing like a turtle. I had to summon DrMrNin for assistance. It wasn’t pretty, and I wasn’t pleased. Needless to say this marked a turning point in the whole 40 week gestation thing as being comfortable enough to sleep is now not happening, and I’d rather have two hour bursts of snooze between hungry baby moments than no snooze at all.

As of last night, I have now decided that I would like Baby Peach to come out. I still have just over a week to go (or just under a week depending if you count by 40 weeks, or 266 days) so thought there would be no harm in trying out some of these Old Wives’ Tales.

At 10pm yesterday evening, I ate a whole fresh pineapple. This morning I awoke still with child, nothing changed except for a mild case of acid indigestion. Hence the TUMS (which are not part of the Old Wives Tale per se, but sensible to have on hand). Dissapointing result.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been a fan of Pick Your Own. I remember summers growing up in England spent  filling up buckets and buckets of apples from the local orchard, and as soon as I passed my driving test I was puttering up the road in the car to the strawberry patches to pick my own. What did it matter that I was supposed to be revising for my exams at the time?! One summer a few years ago I picked so many raspberries that we ended up eating home made raspberry jam every day for the next three months. Yes, I’m a big fan of PYO. So imagine my joy last week when I decided to try out a new road to drive to the local town here in California and came upon field after field after FIELD of U-Pick! Orchards and orchards of cherries, peaches, plums, berries, apricots and all sorts of other fruity goodness. Resistance was futile. Besides it would save me a trip to Safeway later that night. HOW COULD I RESIST?? There was even a sweet kitty which made it all the more better. (Sidenote: the U-picks and farm stands around here are actually cheaper than the grocery store… not to mention fresher! I shall definitely be going there again.)

The next morning I made a fresh fruit pavlova (strawberries, apricots and peaches) and a cherry, peach and apricot pie that oozed sweet, fruity juices all over the bottom of my AGA. Yummy.  I seriously have not made bakey treats that tasted so good. Maybe next time I’ll remember to take some photos before all the goodness ends up in my tummy, tee hee!

*edited to add*
I really wanted to get hold of some sour cherries too, but they told me that they wouldn’t be ready for another 10 days. That was a week ago, which means by Monday…… EEEPS!

I took this photo last weekend, two days before I turned 38 weeks which now means I’m almost 38 and a half weeks. EEEEPS! Where is all the time going? Everybody told me that these last few weeks were going to drag on and on, but they are all LIARS!

On Tuesday I went to visit the midwives and everything still looks good and I’m showing all the signs of nearly being ready to pop. They told me it could be any day now, so for that reason I’m going to spend the rest of this week with my feet up, relaxing, just in case. I’m actually beginning to look forward to it now, squippee!!

Memorial Day 2009 will be memorable for a number of reasons:

• My first Memorial Day as an official US Permanent Resident.
• Our first Memorial Day spent as a married couple (I was still in England for last year’s).
• Our first Memorial Day in our very own house.
• Our last Memorial Day before The Birth. I would have said ‘our last before we are a family’ but we are already that with Chester Kitten…
• So it’s also our first Memorial Day with Chesterfield too

I will also remember it for the HUGE amount of fun we had. Friends came to visit and stay for the weekend from all over the Bay Area, and we even had some friends come up from Southern California too.  It was so much fun to get everyone together. There was of course the obligatory visit to some of the local wineries (it’s rapidly becoming tradition), followed by lots of messing about on the river (also rapidly becoming tradition).

A quick dip of our toes revealed that we had bathwater at the bottom of our garden and a quick decision was made (in addition to deciding that we really need to clear out the weed).

Not for me though. Aside from not liking to swim with fishies, I wouldn’t be able to get back out again. I’m like a beached whale at the moment. I even get stuck trying to roll over in bed.

And then the fun *really* began, hee hee!

It was a good way to find out how deep the water was. We then had nice a nice barbeque and lots and lots and LOTS of home-made pies, cakes and meringues  (I was a *flurry* of baking activity for two days). All in all it was a lovely holiday weekend, and we can’t wait to have our friends come up to visit us again xx

It’s taken literally eight and a half months but *finally* I have got into the swing of pregnancy. I still don’t exactly have that whole glow thing going on, but I have come to accept my ever-expanding waistline and all that comes with it, and have settled into the reality that soon I am going to be the mother of a child. I’m going to be a mummy. Yikes. OK, maybe I still need a bit more time to get used to that bit.

I took this photo a couple of days ago when I was 37 weeks exactly but here we are a few days on, and I’m also a few more inches around the middle. The day-by-day changes in me are truly astonishing right now. I’m officially considered Full Term so could apparently pop at any moment but I’m actually happy for him to take his time if he wants to. Until then I’m enjoying the last few weeks of still having time to myself, the luxury of being able to sleep through the night, and generally taking things easy before I’ll be on call 24/7 and uttering the words “Free time?What’s that?!”