A perfect little Baby Peach arrived at 9.31pm PST last night, 8 lb and 20 inches.

Mummy, Daddy and Oliver are all doing very well and can’t wait to get back home to Chester Kitten

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as So…

Although my official due date is today, we actually had the 40 week check yesterday as there’s one midwife in particular to whom I show much favouritism for a very special reason. Of all the places in all of the world, would you believe that she comes from the same little part in England as me (her village was 10 minutes down the road from where I grew up), and she spent a good chunk of time delivering babies in the big hospital in the town, which means that she most definitely delivered the brothers and sisters of a lot of my schoolfriends. They all turned out very nicely indeed, so I feel extremely safe in her care. She’s lovely and I really look forward to my weekly visits. And to hear another British accent, hee hee.

Anywho, everything looks good still so now it’s just a question of being patient. All the systems are continuing to move in the right direction, but depending upon how much longer Baby Peach wants to ripen for he might need a little help off the tree if it goes on for too much longer. Hopefully it won’t get to that stage though. I already think he’s plump and juicy enough.

One of the things my midwife suggested was doing acupuncture as apparently this can greatly help move things along as she’s not keen for me to be induced either. Baby Peach needs to come out on his own if at all possible. There is a very nice and highly regarded Chinese lady down the road who does this and she knew *exactly* what was required: not needles as they wouldn’t do anything apparently, but instead I needed applied pressure and a special blend of herbs to be burnt over a specific acupressure point near my ankles. Unfortunately the herbs make a rather lot of smoke and there wasn’t enough ventilation so she couldn’t do it, but there was another lady at the same place who does a special therapeutic acupressure pregnancy massage which I went to this morning which she considered would do a similar thing. Ho my goodness how lovely do I feel right now. This was a proper theraputic rehabilitation-style massage (as opposed to the fancy spa and scented candles type) and I am considerably more comfortable now. She managed to release a huge amount of tension that I didn’t realise I was holding, particularly in my pelvis and back, so now when the time comes it should be much, much easier to relax and breath through the contractions so that I can work with them and help the baby out, rather than have that pent-up tension make me want to clench everything up further and fight against what my body is doing which will make the whole thing last longer not to mention create unnecessary pain. Plus she also did a lot of stimulation of that acupressure point on my ankles, which she stressed to me is only safe to touch at 40 weeks for the very reason that it’s known to bring on labour. I’m a strong advocate of ‘Eastern methods’, always have been. So let’s see what happens. Come on Baby Peach, I’m just trying to help. Mummy’s just that little bit too uncomfortable now to be smiley and happy.

I suppose I should probably also post this picture of my mahoooosive self at 40 weeks minus one day. So here we go… Baby Peach is looking very plump indeed now.

Hopefully the next picture will be of me posing in my post-partum self, but who knows. That may still be a whole two weeks away.
But hopefully not.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as 40 weeks but no baby yet

Now the other day, my my sweet flickr/Blythe friend Jennifer informed me in the comments section of this post about a Bay Area ‘pregnancy pizza’. It seems that local legend in these parts talks of this here pizza (with 13 toppings plus extra onion and garlic) which practically guarantees to send you into labour, often within hours. Heavily pregnant women drive desperately from all parts the Bay Area to indulge, and her neighbour is among those who swear by it. I was not about to let this one pass.

Earlier this evening, DrMrNin and I climbed into the car and journeyed out there to order a LARGE one. We managed to eat half, the remainder of which is now sitting in the fridge so I can ‘top up’ tomorrow, if required . But if the legend holds true, I should be in labour within a matter of hours… Fingers crossed, eh?!

**** UPDATE ****
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Still experiencing moderate, cumulative discomfort as opposed to intermittent throbs of intense pain. Humph. Grrr. And booooo.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Labour Experiment #4: Legendary Pizza

Yes, I’m still pregnant. Ugh.

Toward the end of yesterday, angry-looking grey clouds started pouring over the hills from San Francisco and sure enough a couple of hours after being rolled getting into bed, the heavens opened and we were treated to the most spectacular light show. Fork lightning was shooting down literally every 20-30 seconds, it was amazing. The weather report this morning suggested that the chance of thunderstorms and showers remains through the weekend which threw me into a bit of a quandry as I’ve been planning to spend every waking hour of the next few days walking the streets to get this baby out, and said baby has made it so that none of my conventional rain gear fits me. But luckily this morning as I was unpacking a box looking for something completely different, I came upon my Cath Kidston cowboy print poncho that I bought a couple of years ago. I *love* this thing, it’s great for camping as you can sit on a chair and make your own little snuggly tent and you can throw it on really quickly over a camera and stuff like that. Not the most flattering of silhouettes given my current state, but it will definitely serve its purpose should the weather require it. Function before style, as they say. And anything to get this baby out…

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Labour Experiment #3: Walking, Walking and More Walking

Crocs are like little buoyancy aids for your feet! Well, it was interesting to me

Little update:
39 weeks today, but still no *news* to speak of. Apparently his head is nicely engaged though. Surely it can’t be that much longer…

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Interesting discovery

The other day, DrMrNin and I suddenly realised that in the whole 39 weeks that I’ve been cooking, we’ve completely forgotten to take any photographs of the two of us together, pregnant. The only one we have is from back in March, and that wasn’t even really a proper shot of us as a couple either. Cue mad scramble for the camera tripod, a LOT of bleatings of persuasion directed toward the father-to-be (he’s not a fan of having his picture taken) and at last we have one. Not only that, but it’s the classic ‘expectant parents shot’ too where I’m standing to the side and he’s got his hands on my belly. Cheesy I know, but definitely one for the memory book.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as One for the memory book

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.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Labour Experiment #2: Raspberry Leaf Tea

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.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Labour Experiment #1: Pineapple

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!!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as 38 weeks

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?!”

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as 37 and a half weeks

Knock, knock, knock… but nobody’s home! That’s why we found it waiting on our doorstep when we got back last night.

Hurrah for online shopping! The fruits of last week’s two day marathon of purchases are beginning to materialise… First thing to arrive, and probably the most important: the carseat. Now we will be allowed to drive home from the hospital with our precious cargo. In the end I decided to go with my instinct and get the one that just stays in the car. After trawling through page after page of (often rather condescending) internet forum discussions debating the merits of various carseats, I finally came to my senses and reasoned that all carseats are manufactured to meet a certain standard above which is deemed SAFE, and as long as it fits properly in the car, it’ll do the job nicely. We don’t have a big car and this one is nice and small so neither of us will have to eat the dashboard once it’s installed.

Add this to our haul from the baby shower on Saturday and my big shopping spree in Babies ‘R’ Us the other day, and we’re mounting up quite a few supplies already. And they all seem to meet with young Chesterfield’s approval too which is good. What we were aiming for in fact.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Nice things come in big packages

What a wonderful weekend! We had our baby party on Saturday and we were absolutely bowled over by the generosity of our friends- thankyou all so much! Everyone was so incredibly kind and thoughtful with their gifts and well wishes and we are so grateful to our friends in San Francisco who hosted it for us in their fabulous apartment. It really was the most perfect day that’s going to be filed away with the rest of life’s special memories.

The weather was typically San Francisco (i.e. foggy and atmospheric; my favourite kind) but it was still warm and dry enough to hang outside. We even got to check on the progress of the wine that our friends are making (we’ve been eagerly following their progress since they picked the grapes in Napa last autumn). For a first time try it’s impressed everyone, but then they are professional chemists so no matter how much they protest that they’re winging it, they know every single chemical reaction taking place, hehe. Hopefully DrMrNin and I might get in on it this year too- but this time the plan is to buy the grapes ready-picked as it’s far less work- it took four people picking for an entire day to get the juice contained in these ‘barrels’.

PS Don’t you love the polka dot mug? It’s from Sur La Table. I’m going to investigate as I think they’d look lovely in our kitchen

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Baby Party!

The weather has gone from bright and sunny to drizzly and overcast, and in the space of 48 hours we’ve gone from owning practically nothing to having ordered the majority of the important baby stuff- the carseat and  nursery furniture should all be arriving at the beginning of next week. I’m of the impression today that the world would stop spinning if it weren’t for Amazon.com.

I would also like to thank each and every one of you for your sweet comments! I will try to drop you all emails to thank you personally during the coming week, but please bear with me if it takes a couple of days as my fingers aren’t as nimble as they should be this week. Just another one of those things that everyone else forgets to mention…

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as What a difference two days make…

“Mommmm” squeaked a tiny, little voice.
“Yes Paige?”
“Eliza says you’ve got a baby growing in your tummy and that’s why you’ve turned into such a fatso. But we all know she’s lying.”
“Why?”
“Because we all know that new sisters come through the mail in boxes.”
“But Paige, you’re having a new brother.”
“WHAT? A BROTHER? So you really HAVE got a baby growing in you?”
“Yes.”
“How is he going to get out?”
“Through my bottom.”
“WHOA. Will he still come in a box?”
“No.”
“When will he get here?”
“Any time after about three weeks.”
“THREE WEEKS?”
“Yes.”
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
“Yes.”
“Mom? Aren’t you supposed to get stuff for babies?”
“Umm…”
“OhMyGosh you SERIOUSLY need to start doing some shopping…“

In three weeks time I will be 37 weeks, by which stage the baby will be classed as full term and aside from some gifts from friends and family we still have yet to get anything ready. Do we have a carseat? No. Nursery furniture? No. What, not even a bassinet? No. Diapers? No. Clothes? A couple, but like I said, we’ve had gifts from friends and family. A pram? YES!!! My parents got us one at Christmas. Lotions and creams? No. Are you joking? No. So really, aside from a couple of clothes and a pram, we have EVERYTHING still to buy. It’s really about time that the shopping should begin…

And yes readers, Baby Peach has plums! We’ve known for quite a while, but wanted to make sure everyone in the family knew before I posted it here.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as The clarification

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as The joys of insomnia