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Eloise's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 12/2/99 -------------------- 11/28/99 11/24/99 11/20/99 11/17/99 11/10/99 11/3/99 10/26/99 10/20/99 10/13/99 10/6/99 10/4/99 9/28/99 9/15/99 9/9/99 9/2/99 8/26/99 8/19/99 8/5/99 7/30/99 7/16/99 7/6/99 5/14/99 5/14/99 5/7/99 4/27/99 4/15/99 4/8/99 3/25/99 3/20/99 3/19/99 3/18/99 3/12/99 3/9/99 3/4/99 -------------------- Eloise's Introduction

November 3, 1999

37 weeks tomorrow; 3 weeks to go!

Well, it’s finally November – the month I’ve had my eye on since I fell pregnant in March. THE month. It’s here, it’s arrived. Wow.

I’m feeling calm. I’m feeling happy. I’m feeling normal. I’m not tired anymore. I’m not nervous. I’m not bursting with unabated excitement. In fact, if anything, I’d say a strange peace and tranquillity has begun to settle over my days. The calm before the storm perhaps? I keep reading that women usually can’t wait to get the baby out by this stage, that they’re sick of pregnancy and eager to meet their bubs. I don’t feel that way, I feel very content being pregnant at the moment. My life feels organised, easy, and I’m really enjoying this peaceful phase. Although I am eager to meet my baby – I guess I just know it will happen, so I don’t feel any sense of urgency, any need to rush. I’m happy to sit here, calmly, and wait for nature to unfold in its own quiet way.

I know I keep saying this, and it must be getting boring, but I really can’t believe I don’t feel nervous and anxious and scared about “the birth.” If anything what I feel is resigned. It will happen, and it will happen in a way I could probably never imagine, so I’m not really thinking about it at all. Somehow I trust it.

Before I got pregnant I always used to ask pregnant women really difficult questions, like, do you feel you know anything about the personality of the baby just from carrying it through pregnancy? A hard question, hard to answer in words, but yes, I guess I do feel like I know something about this baby by now. It’s a squirming wriggler. At one point I remember worrying that this baby was so active it might be in some kind of distress, as its movements are often very forceful and intense. But when I think of the baby I think of it as serene, and it certainly looks beautifully serene on the ultrasound photo I’ve got – like a sleeping buddha – so if I think about it I guess I think of a serene baby who loves to move, and wiggle, and feel his/her body – probably a self-indulgent, epicurean toe-sucker.

Mind you, the other night s/he had the most intense moving session – as JK watched the belly bounce and jiggle hour after hour he was amazed. It was late at night and I was trying to get to sleep but the baby was in full-on action mode. Its movements were so strong they hurt. I kept muttering, “oww,” “ouch,” “ohh,” as I rolled around on the bed -- it was like being poked really hard from within, and you never knew when the next poke would hit you. Sometimes it felt like I was being turned inside out. JK felt really sorry for me after a while. But since then the baby has been pretty quiet – except for one really painful move yesterday. It makes me wonder what kind of weird positions this bub is getting her/himself into. I know it should be snugly into position by now but I suspect this one is still doing the odd acrobatic leap.

Creeping into the corner of my mind is the thought that one day soon I’d better start cleaning. You know, getting the nest sparkling clean for the new arrival. I need to do a really big dust and clean the windows and get into the grubby corners. It hasn’t hit me as a compulsion yet, just as a thought tickling the edge of my mind. When I get up one morning and start frantically scrubbing I guess I’ll know it’s time. Isn’t it one of the classic signs that you’ll soon go into labour?

It’s just changed to Daylight Savings here in Melbourne which means it’s now light until about 8.30-9 o’clock at night. It’s a wonderful feeling. I always really enjoy it. It reminds me of being a child – when daylight savings starts it means Christmas and school holidays and summer beach holidays are just up around the corner, and it means you can play outside after dinner.

In my blissed-out state I’ve been fantasising about the day JK and I come home with the baby – the start of our “baby-moon” -- which I want to be a week of blissful peace-and-quiet spent mostly in bed, in an organised home with minimal visitors. I want the flat to be sparkling clean and full of sunshine, I want big bunches of flowers (hopefully roses) on every table-top, a huge bowl of exotic, organic fruit (strawberries, lycees, grapes, cherries, mangoes) when I arrive home and a bottle of expensive French champagne on ice. Doesn’t that sound yummy. I’d better let hubby know my wish-list huh?

Anyway, I’m really just rabbiting on today… blah-blah-blah. I’d better go. All the best to everyone reading,

Eloise