November 2005

I'm reading a book that says to journal about being pregnant with you my dear child.

I guess that means that I need to write about whatever I need to and I am not too good at this type of excercise.

I notice that you move a lot when I experience the extremes of emotion.

Since I recognised that, from that moment on, I am convinced that I need to try to find ways to reduce stress levels.In my life. THat means meditation and that means perhaps prayer and breathing excercises and maybe yoga and pilates and whatever else I can find that works for me. I want to be disciplined and strong about it. However I have not started, only started reading the books. I don't want it to end there, however. I really want to keep it up and be strong and fit before I go into labour. And before I have to deal with the stuff that I'll have to deal with at the end because we don't know how hard you are going to have to fight for your life little Leon.

If I want to have you full term then I need to work out how to get you healthy and ready for breathing in a calm and non - stressed way!!

I have felt really really tired today - I tried to pray / meditate for 20 minutes and found that 10 was exhausting - well my body just wanted to sleep!

This must be an indication of the fact that my body's energy is really low!

However, I am really going to try to pray / meditate twice a day from now on.

7 DECEMBER 2005

hELLO precious one, you are much bigger than a month ago when I wrote what I did above. It's amazing how much more you kick and how much bigger my tummy is. We have photos from the beach of me when I was as big as I am when I am writing this.

finally we will be signing a lease on the apartment we will be renting for the rest of the time I am pregnant with you and for the first few months of your life. We will move some things in this weekend and we will be able to get things ready for you to come home to us there.

People have offered us so much stuff, baby clothes, and also lounge chairs and all that sort of stuff!

Steve has a job now and it's really good for him - he likes his boss and that's a real bonus. It's not an easy job - and in the summer it's gonna be the hardest for him, because of the heat.

He has to get up early and at least today for the first time he got home at a reasonable time and is able to have a sleep while I am writing. It's a good thing that he is able to have a bit of a sleep because we will get home a bit latish tonight, because I want to go to the French Club meet up. It'll be good because it's something that I really want to be part of.

I am looking forward to seeing you in my arms but to get there, I know I have to eat properly - and also do excercise. I have started to go to 'pregnastics' classes with other pregnant mothers so I can get into good form to give birth. May be I need to do more, perhaps walk every morning or something like that - but at the moment it's a good start - my pilates efforts have not yet got off the ground but I am hopefull to keep it up - and to do some yoga positions.

24 January 200 6

Well right now it's a bit harder to be pregnant with you my lovely one because you are getting bigger and it's harder for me to get up and sit down! I get pain in my lower back and it's not very nice - but there's been some good things that we've done this last month - your daddy plays with you even if you're inside me - when he sees you are moving inside me he tries to catch you and laughs heaps! I have been going to classes called pregnastics which have the excercises I wanted to learn - the pilates. They also teach me how to relax so when I go into labour it will be easier to bear the pain and look at it as natural. HOpefully!

We get to see pictures of you every couple of weeks because I have to have ultra sounds because they are worried about how much fluid I have inside my uterus. You really can kick quite hard now but it's beautiful to see you are definately alive and getting stronger.

At the last ultrasound they took a picture of you as you were just waking up - it is the cutest picture! your hand looks like it's rubbing your eye and you look a bit just a little bit grumpy like a child who's been woken up from their nap! I stared all night at the photo when I got it. I was really already falling in love with you, baby.

The other photo was of you just woken up and you looked more like a baby this time - with a bit more fat on your arms and body. than the last time we saw you! The last time we had a picture of you you were asleep and you looked so much like a little angel! well, just a sleepy little baby boy really! I looked at that picture all night the night after I got the picture of you at the ultrasound. I couldn't help it. I am having trouble sleeping at the moment - just can't get comfortable with heartburn and back ache and all that stuff you start to feel when you get to late pregnancy! In fact, I was thinking I had gotten away with no problems so far and now I can't say that anymore!

Our phone bill is due today - and it's quite a big one because steve your daddy likes me to ring him a fair bit when he's at work. He works alone in most senses because he's driving all day alone - and it's good for him - not too much power play or personality clashes... but he's also not very used to it - doesn't like being alone much. No matter how much I tell him that we are all people and we all come into this world alone - he can't get used to the idea of liking his own company. He's lovely though, and likes to laugh a lot. He is very very excited that you are coming into the world and wants to play with you right now, and not wait! Of course at the moment that only consists of trying to 'grab' your arms and legs if they poke a bit out of my tummy - well not actually your arms and legs, just the 'bump' they make when they move!

27 January.

Last night I had a pretty good sleep! I didn't get much heartburn. It really helps to eat smaller meals and to eat them a bit early so I don't have a full tummy when I go to bed. I'm learning! Hopefully I'll have it 'down pat' just in time for the lightening! (when your head goes down a bit further into my body before I give birth - about three weeks before hopefully, so now, if everything goes to plan the way they think it should, the lightening should happen at about 38 weeks!! well I still have 5 more weeks to go to get used to sleeping well with heartburn!! I got a big long body pillow the other day because it was becoming ridiculous how uncomfortable I was! I think I really do have to watch it - I can get a bit upset if I'm not careful... When I get upset my muscles go really tight and for some reason they stay like that so I have to watch it...

I like it when I have something to plan or to do because it's harder to cope with the uncomfortable feeling when I don't... I guess that's pretty normal. Ines That's the name of a woman I got pretty friendly with only to find that we may not see each other again because she is not doing the classes. I don't know what that means... whether I can get in touch with her through the physio therapy department. I haven't been able to so far.

I've been getting treatment for food allergies and an allergy to hormones so that by the time I give birth to you the allergies won't be there anymore - and that means you won't, hopefully, get them either... I'm going to make sure that eating, for you, is a really nice experience. Even if it's hard to keep food down at first. I think you will grow and eat very well! I hope so anyway! I'm going to try to breastfeed you.

I just rang the lactation clinic and I wanted to know how could I breast feed you if you were going to be in hospital for perhaps a month, being fed with an iv drip and not food. She told me how, I have to express milk 8-10 times a day!! and probably will need to either hire or buy a breast pump!! I will freeze the milk and then if you are still in hospital for a little while I will give the milk to the nurses who will feed it to you in a naso gastric tube. Or I will feed it to you with a bottle - that is, the colostrum. And then I'll feed you by breast. If you can handle it... I hope so. You and I will need to do some serious skin on skin bonding whenever we can - it won't be straight away but as soon as we can we will be touching your little hand and hopefully your face and body - and then when you are getting better we will be able to pick you up and hug you again like when you were first born (that is what I'm hoping to be able to do - give you one beautiful hug before they take you and make you feel better... baby it breaks my heart to know that you'll be so sick when you are first born but I want you to know that we both love you - steve your dad and I, your mum - and we are going to be with you during all your time of suffering hoping that you can make it through and that things aren't going to be too hard for you. We love you and we want to have you as healthy as possible as quickly as possible - and that means we want to hug you as soon as possible because we know how much that means to a baby to be hugged by his parents - of course it means a lot to us to to hug our child - cos we are a family sweetheart and we are there to look after your needs and see that you have a fulfilling happy and safe life while you cannot totally look after yourself - and even when you do and can, we will still be there for you and look after you.

I asked about how the medication I'm on could affect you and they said that I could probably still breast feed you - and just make sure I take the tablet after I breast feed you and then before... and probably that this will mean that I could express milk if you feed every two hours and that way you wouldn't get any of the yucky medication into your system.

I also rang the person who looks after my illness and have an appointment on the 3 February - so many appointments to remember!!

We're going up to Monto today to see your grandparents!! We're hiring an air conditioned car which means I can rest better while we're driving. So you and I can be comfortable on the trip and hopefully get there safer. I am a little worried about being far away from doctors but I just need to know that there is a medical plane in Monto that can take you and me back to brisbane if we need to be there!! and hopefully we won't... You aren't due to arrive for at least 6 weeks still and I'm hoping you will be in there for at least that time and hopefully a bit longer. Lots of love from your mum and I am overjoyed at the idea of being blessed to be your mother!!