Girls’ Night & Olivia Returns*

We made it!

When I finished work on January 31st, several of my coworkers joked that I would likely go into labor before the weekend was through. While I am perfectly happy to welcome our little peanut into our family whenever he chooses to arrive, I was secretly willing him to stay put until today.

You see, today is the day that my favourite midwife returns from her month-long leave.

When I first contacted her office after learning I was pregnant, I was notified of her scheduled leave. The administrators were a bit puzzled with what to do with me–I knew unequivocally that I wanted Olivia at the birth (if possible), and she really wanted to take me on as a client, despite the five day window to my due date. Going so far past my due date with Ruby ended up working in my favor, and a special arrangement was created for me.

I would have two primary midwives, as well as the customary secondary midwife.

Typically you are matched with two midwives–a primary and a secondary. You spend most of your prenatal visits with your primary midwife, which gives you an opportunity to develop a relationship with them. You also meet with your secondary midwife a few times so that in the odd chance something happens that prevents your primary midwife from being with you at your whole birth (aka: someone else going into labor first) then you have a rapport with them as well. It’s a good system.

(The secondary midwife also attends the birth, but cares for the baby while your primary midwife attends to you.)

Because my due date was so close to Olivia’s leave, I was given a “back-up” primary midwife named Corrie. We’ve met several times, and she is very nice… but there is just something about Olivia that I love. We get along very well and her calm personality and quirky sense of humor work for me. At the end of every day of her leave, I thanked this little peanut for waiting. We would have made it through the birth with Corrie just fine–but I already feel calmer about everything knowing that Olivia can be there.

Anyway.

It’s been a busyish couple of days. Monday was our Family Day holiday, and it was awesome having the Hubster home for an extra day. He has been working so hard to get our home ready for the baby… he spent most of the day cooped up in the baby’s new room, patching up the walls to get them ready to paint. I was anxious to see the new colour up on the walls, so as soon as we were able we lined the ceiling to see what it looked like.

I am in love.

We chose a soft green as I wanted to stay in a neutral family, and we wanted something that was appropriate for a baby boy’s room, without being crazy gender specific. I am never confident when choosing paint, so I was thrilled that the color was exactly what I had pictured.

That evening I had plans to go out for dinner with a few of my girlfriends. We’ve tried to get together a few times in recent weeks, but as most of us have kids and/or jobs, it’s been hard to find a time that worked. I figured I would go out for an hour then call it a night, but it was so nice to just sit and chat that before we knew it the restaurant staff were putting chairs up on the tables all around us.

It just felt really good to go out and do something just for me. I know I will have precious little time to myself for a while after the baby comes, and it felt amazing to just sit, talk and laugh for hours with good friends. I’m so grateful that the Hubster lovingly encouraged me to go, and spent the evening hanging out with our little bean so I could go out without worry.

I even put on jeans for the occasion. It’s a bit of a miracle that I can still get them on. haha

Yesterday was a bit harder for me–every good day I have seems to be followed by a rough one. I felt pretty awful on Sunday, so, like clockwork, yesterday was fraught with more episodes with my vision and a nasty headache. I spent most of the evening laying down or curled up on the couch. For the first time I had cramps that didn’t begin after I had been asleep and immobile for several hours. I have an appointment with Olivia tomorrow, and I’m hoping she can give me an idea of how things are progressing.

Well, this turned out to be more of a novel than I expected! I really need to get back into the kitchen–my goal for today is to prep several crockpot freezer meals that we can just “grab and go” after this peanut arrives. I found some new recipes that look rather exciting… I’ll keep you posted. ;)