Pram's arrived - here are some pics of our actual pram!

Had an antenatal appointment this morning, it was good to hear the baby's heartbeat again and his head is still down in the right position which is good news. Husband has decided he wants to cut the umbilical cord which is cute!
My husband has been fantastic throughout this whole pregnancy, he's been there for me all the way through - never once complained and always does his best to make me happy. This December will be our 11th wedding anniversary and I'm really proud of him as a person and as my husband, everyone who knows him thinks he'll make a brilliant father and I know he will be. In his blog (stalk-like-an-apache) he has outlined ten things he wants to teach or encourage our son to do and has challenged me to do the same so here goes...

(1) To bring him up to understand what it is to have a relationship with God as our heavenly father and to know what Jesus did for him.
(2) To respect and value other peoples and cultures
(3) To value the study of history and understand the roots of modern civilisation
(4) To love animals, appreciate the natural world and be able to make his own fun in the outdoors
(5) To be equally healthily competitive in academia and sport
(6) To appreciate good poetry
(7) To learn to play a musical instrument
(8) To be polite and well mannered
(9) To have a kind and generous heart
(10) To have a strong and independent nature

I hope I don't come across as one of those pushy kind of parents!!

It's been a busy week in the house - the spare room has had all 6 bookcases, a wardrobe, 2 sets of drawers and the huge pile of junk that everyone stores in their spare room all spread out over the rest of the house while we painted a lovely lemon-white over the previous funky red and purple paint that seemed a good idea ten years ago, and also ripped out the carpet and put down a new one. Now we are in the middle of painting our bedroom, the rest of the house is once again clogged up with furniture while we paint the room a variety of shades of 'Nutmeg' to give it a warm, luxurious feel!

Whilst this is happening husband has come down with bronchitus and I managed to crack a tooth while crunching ice-cubes - I guess it was bound to happen. So while I was sitting at the dentist this morning waiting for an emergency appointment husband was sitting in the doctor's surgery waiting to be seen - what a pair we make!
I'm gutted that I can't now eat ice-cubes but making up for it with sucking on ice-poles instead!

This week I've started to feel the odd Braxton Hicks (womb contractions that go on unnoticed from around 12 weeks), at first I thought it was indigestion from a curry but it soon became clear that this was not the case!
Our super pram, pictured, has been ordered (Mountain Buggy Terrain pro - i.e. we should be able to climb Everest with it!) and will arrive tomorrow, the cradle will arrive next week - so it really feels like all is finally falling into place.

Well I didn't realise I was so controversial!

At today's local radio interview the sound producer cut me off in mid-flow whilst reading a poem that I had won an Edwin Morgan poetry competition with and had been published in the Glasgow Herald - he said it was too controversial and didn't want to loose his radio license because of it! Mind you it is a poem about a female Palestinian suicide bomber but I never thought for one minute that it would require censoring - here is the poem:

Daughter of Ishmael

Home-sewn armour.
Her body is a column of cloth
fortified, a one woman garrison
larger than life

and the army. This lady
may be no rolling tank with tracks
sunk into decomposed homes;
yet her heart is a valley of clocks.

It's the count down to a bus stop,
a marketplace, a wedding dance.
It is the sum of her days, a chance
to break the sky

into a rush of splitting glitter.
Metal confetti, shrapnel, body, hair.
Daughter of Ishmael
shower this land. An eye for an eye.

Furthermore, after examining the other poems I'd brought to read I wasn't allowed to read this one either which I think was maybe being a little too cautious -

Isaiah was a Prophet (In the form of Emily Dickinson)

Isaiah was a prophet
Three years he was a nude -
To show our Father's judgement
On the sons of Cush.

Isaiah had thick skin -
Especially on his feet
A wonder and a sign
He was to all he met.

Isaiah proclaimed our Saviour -
His virgin and lowly birth
Isaiah is still remembered -
for his birthday suit's wide girth.

Besides from all that I did enjoy myself, I got to read my Sorley poem which was special and I was asked to bring in some song tracks to play so I got to talk a little about them and have them played.

Well not only did I get to appear on the local radio but I was even live on tv last night! My uncle won the highest points for his category in the competition for traditional singing so we all went along to the hotel afterwards where they were filming live for BBC 2 coverage of the MOD as he was singing there. The cameras scanned around the room several times catching me, my husband, my mum and step-dad all on tv! At one point the tv presenter, Cathy MacDonald, was presenting while sitting next to me so I got my two minutes of fame!
Today we are going to see my uncle singing in the finals and are going to the big final dance tomorrow night - so it has been some week!

Ooh just over 5 weeks to go and this baby gets the hiccups all the time - I mean at least twice a day!
From my last hospital visit it seems that he has already turned head down in preparation for his arrival! This week the house has been pulled apart while we paint and decorate and generally get prepared for baby.

I've been asked to be interviewed on our local radio tomorrow for 'poetry hour' as part of the MOD week, so it looks like I'll get to bore the local masses (ok maybe about 3 listeners including my mum!) who'll tune in at ten in the morning to our local radio with reading some of my poems and generally being interviewed about poetry. The funny thing is that my mum was interviewed on BBC radio earlier on this week about being a gaelic speaker in the local area so it looks like, for this week anyway, we're a family of radio stars! Tonight I'm going to hear my uncle who has come down from Stornoway to sing in one of the MOD competitions.

Had my anti-D injection at the hospital this morning which all negative blood-type pregnant women get - got the jag in ma bum and it was sore, hopefully thats the last one I'll need to get. I had no aches and pains to complain of last night but I still barely slept, I don't think the curry I had for dinner last night helped though it was lovely (lamb bhoona mmm). I've started making up my pregnancy scrapbook which has been fun, but mostly I spent my time cross-stitching - it's what everyone's getting for Christmas this year!
I've not been getting any kind of mad pregnancy dreams that people talk about but I think that's maybe because I'm not in the slightest nervous about giving birth - I'm just looking forward to getting this baby outta my body and very excited about seeing him, no pain no gain as they say...though when the time comes I'll probaby be yelling for the pain relief!!

Me and my bump - week 34!

Tonight I was all dressed up in the only dress that will fit me because I'd been invited to the opening night of the Royal National MOD -

"Scotland's premier festival of the Gaelic language, arts and culture and is held annually in October at a different location in Scotland. The Mod is a competition-based festival which celebrates the Gaelic language and culture through music, dance, drama, arts and literature"

This year the MOD is being held in my home town and the President of the MOD is my great uncle which means I get VIP tickets to all the events! I'm hoping to expose Sorley through this to our national culture and his gaelic heritage through my mum's side of the family who are all teuchters from the highlands and islands!

The tomato cravings have died down a little but I can't get enough of ice at the moment - for the last couple of weeks I've been crunching my way through trays of ice-cubes and my teeth are starting to hurt. I'm also eating ice-poles by the dozen, I was at a mall that has an ice-rink the other day and I was practically drooling looking at all that ice - I'm sure if I was actually on the ice-rink I wouldn't have been able to resist chipping some ice off at the edge to crunch into!

The lovely flowers I got at my baby shower and some of the balloons whose colours just so happen to match the decor of our living room!

33 weeks and counting

Nightime has become a nightmare for me - I feel every ache and pain emphasised 10 times, I didn't know the meaning of uncomfortable until now and a good night's sleep has become a distant memory.

I got the surprise of my life on Friday night: I went to church expecting to attend a ladies fellowship meeting at which I had been asked to give my testimony of how I became a Christian. When I turned up I was a little confused as to why all the women were sitting in the front lounge of the church in the dark, on entering the room I walked into a big baby shower all organised for me.
I was so utterly gobsmacked that I thought I might go into labour! It was so sweet that so many people made such an effort for me and baby that I nearly started greetin! I had such a nice time - the room was beautifully decorated with balloons, the minister's wife , who had organised most of it, led a whole lot of fun party games in the middle of which I opened all the gifts that people had brought which seemed to take forever! A beautiful buffet had been organised and even a dear friend had travelled down from Glasgow to be there. It was all such a lovely surprise and I'm amazed, if not a little worried, that my hubby managed to keep it all a secret from me so well!! I was really touched that so many people as well as some of the older ladies that don't really know me so well all made the effort to come along and all brought lovely gifts with them.

This unborn child has now got so many beautiful clothes that I don't know where to put them all, I got lots of nappies, wipes and practical things as well as cute cuddly toys, talking teddies and beautiful flowers which blogger won't allow me to post pictures of for some reason. Also everyone wrote a personal message on little cards to myself, husband and baby which were all gathered in a keepsake box, it was so lovely to read them all and to have them to keep.
Now I need to organise a scrapbook for all the keepsakes I've gathered.
One of the party games was to get everyone to draw a picture of how they think my unborn child will look when he's born, some of the pics are hilarious and will be funny embarrass Sorley with when he's older!

I've done pretty well for someone who had never heard of a baby shower to now have had two in the one pregnancy!