Happy New Year, Bump Update and more!

Hello! Happy New Year (a week late I realise). Rather than bombard you with various posts, I thought I would just roll everything in to one!

So first of all, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas. I can't believe how fast it went actually; time flew by and before I knew it I was back at work yesterday. We had a very lovely Christmas; we went to stay with my parents and of course me being pregnant and still on crutches (because of my ankle) meant that I got looked after by the parents! Fab!

I had been a bit concerned about how I would feel about not drinking over Christmas this year, but actually, it wasn't so bad. I think I overdosed on ginger ale at one point, but really it wasn't all that bad. I managed the odd glass of champagne (Christmas Day morning) and a glass of red wine (for medicinal purposes of course) but really I didn't miss it all that much. It made me think, that after the birth I might try and carry it on really and not drink as much as I used to. I've seen a great decrease in our weekly shopping bill as I am not buying wine, so it's definitely going to save us money, which we will need with a new baby.

So, on the topic of baby, I am not just over 32 weeks! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. Back when I was 20 weeks I was really impatient and thought that I would never have this baby, ever! I just couldn't see 40 weeks at all, and yet, D Day is looming and approaching quite fast.
On Saturday the hubby and I attended a course at our hospital for first time mums. It involved topics such as normal labour, induction, pain relief and alternative deliveries (forceps etc eek). The day ended with a tour
of the maternity ward (which I had already seen!) and then the labour ward. As we live on an island, our hospital is naturally quite small. Big enough for what you need, but nowhere near like the ones back on the mainland. The labour ward only had four labour rooms, which I was quite surprised about, especially after being a devout follower of OBEM. I have to say the whole day actually overwhelmed me a little. It suddenly became very real and I realised that very soon, in fact any day from now really, I have to get this little man out of me. Obviously I was aware of that before Saturday, but I had been so focused on nothing going wrong for the last 25 weeks or so, that I really had never considered labour in all that much detail. Anyway, I am feeling a bit better about it now, at least I am prepared and have lots of information.

I also had my consultant appointment and growth scan last week. Growth is all on track and everything was fine at the consultant. The only thing, this little guy is breech at the minute. I have another scan booked for 36 weeks at the end of January, so hopefully by then he will have turned. I have already looked in to manual turning of babies and it is not something I feel very comfortable with. I know that the only option after that is c-section and I know it may seem outrageous to want to go for that without even trying to turn him, but I just really don't want it done. So c-section it would have to be if he hasn't turned. I've been given a leaflet on what little exercises you can do and positions you can get in to to help the baby turn, so I am going to make the effort myself.

The bump has definitely popped out now and there is no mistaking I am pregnant. I can no longer wear any of my jeans, even with the elastic band trick and I am generally uncomfortable in clothes! In fact, I am starting to feel generally uncomfortable full stop. I am not sleeping well due to weird spasms in my thighs which are a pain (literally) and I am waking up feeling really really tired. I have three and a half weeks left at work before maternity leave and I am now eagerly counting down. I think those last two weeks are going to be really hard going. I can feel my body slowing down and I just want to rest.

So it's a new year. I don't really do resolutions, I never stick to them, so I gave up a few years ago. I make plans for various things and I generally stick to those, I am very organised in general, so planning and list making are some of my favourite hobbies! I started to think about this blog and blogging in general. It's about a year since I started blogging and my blog has seen quite a lot of changes. I have had three blogs really! But I am not much more comfortable and  happy with this one and feel this is much more me.
So I had a think about this blog and what I would like to do with it. I am really in to photography and taking pictures. However I am nowhere near an expert or anything even close! But I would like to learn more about it. One fellow blogger at Totally Tates, does some wonderful photography and she seems pretty clued up about various aspects of taking pictures. She has decided that she is going to put some of her tips up on her blog, so I am looking forward to reading those and hopefully learning something. I use my iPhone generally to take pictures, but I also have a camera, and whilst it's nothing high tech, I would like to learn how to use it better. So with photography in mind, I have decided to take part in project 365 again this year. If you've not heard of it (I am sure you have!), it's a photo for every day of the year. I started it last year and because of my blog changing etc, it just got way laid, but I am determined to see it out for the year this time. You can follow my 365 project over on instagram - I am lilamy84.

As this year is going to be the year of change for myself and hubby I wanted to create a way of documenting it too. I want to be able to look back and see what we got up to and how we dealt with our new arrival. With this in mind, I am going to use this blog a bit like a journal and each week (hopefully!) I am going to do a blog post called 'Our Week' where I record what we have been up to. I might do it in pictures or I might do it with words.

Now I can't guarantee it's going to be riveting, page turning stuff, but this blog is really a way of recording our life so I hope you enjoy it! I always like reading what other people get up to!

And I think that's it, my very first 'Our Week' will be coming up shortly so stay tuned...

mummystartingout x