Hello my baby,
Well, we have had a busy week, haven’t we!

Last week Thursday Daddy and I went to a ‘Finding out about homebirth’ session at the hospital. It was really good and very encouraging to hear other people talk about their homebirths, the good and bad and so on.  I am really excited about having you at home, where I can be relaxed and comfortable.  And just think – your first night can be in your very own bed!

I haven’t decided yet whether we’re going to do it in a pool or just on the bed/floor/ wherever else is comfortable, but  I have a few weeks yet to make that decision. Actually, it’s not so much a decision as I think I’m going to be ready for either option on the day! So I’m getting a birthpool some time in the next few weeks, and I already have a yoga ball for if I used the bed. I just need to get plastic sheets still. One thing I will say for birthing a baby – it is a very messy business. I’m not sure why it’s not just like kangaroos where you come out really small and then sit in a pouch for a few weeks to grow! But oh well, no changing the system now!Pregnancy Week 26

On Monday I stayed at home because the midwife was scheduled to drop by to see the house and so on. Her name was Hariet and she was a lovely lady from Ghana, who has been a midwife for about 17 years. She didn’t actually look round the house or say anything at all about it, now I think about it, but she listened to your heart, prodded you with her fingers a bit and after a quick urine test, said everything looks fine.

We had still not had the results from the blood test (because at the midwife visit about two months ago someone had spelt my name wrong on the  vial of blood, so they wouldn’t release the result in case I wasn’t the same person. Cause adding an ‘e’ to my name really makes it sound that much more like all the other ‘Luschke’ s out there!) Anyway, after she left, she got hold of my blood test results and gave me a call.  Apparently I am Rhesus O Negative.  Now, that has something to do with monkey blood and rat or rabbit tests or something like that, which I don’t really remember, but what it means is that if your Daddy has a Positive blood group, then it’s likely that you’ll have a positive blood group and if our blood should get in contact while you’re still inside me (like if there’s a tear in my placenta) or during labour or birth, my blood will attack your blood and make you very sick.

I think that’s a simply dreadful thing anyway, but it’s apparently my body’s way of protecting itself.  Well, my Baby, as your great granny said the other day “If something CAN happen to you (me), it WILL”.  So not only do I have quite a low lying placenta, but I’m RH O- too!  But it’s okay – all these things just work together to make sure that when you come out, you’ll be a really strong baby, I think!

So we’re now 14 weeks away from your birth – I just hit 6 months pregnant this week.  It’s quite daunting to think about sometimes, you know? I am so excited about having you, and so happy to finally have you to share our lives and I’ve been waiting for you for so long.  But in a way, I’m going to miss my bump. I’m going to miss your kicks and wriggles. I think about all the things that happen in life, and Baby, it’s not always pretty and it’s not always good and I wonder how I’m going to protect you, if I am going to be able. I don’t want to protect you from everything, because without pain there is no pleasure and without suffering there is no joy, and to be honest, I’d rather have you go through some of life’s losses and pains early on so that you can be prepared for the real world.

I don’t want to raise you in too much of a bubble, but there are so many what if’s. I’m human myself and I make mistakes, and what if I make, or worse, repeat, mistakes with you?  I look around me and I see so many ways a parent can mess up a child’s life and it terrifies me. At least where you are now, I can sort of keep you safe, but I think we both agree, you can’t stay there for ever!

Baby at 26 weeks - getting a bit tight in there
Baby at 26 weeks – getting a bit tight in there

I think about you as a teenager or a young man/woman and I wonder what our relationship will be.  I have broken every family curse I can think of, but life still happens. I always have a plan, Baby, since I was a child with a bomb shelter on my veranda.  I always have a way out, a quickest route to safety. I know that if I have to get out my room quickly, I’ll wrap my duvet around myself and throw myself out the window.  Or if I have to walk on my own at night, I’ll have my keys ready in one hand and the hand with the longest nails ready in a clawing position.

I always hold on to a wall or railing when I walk down stairs, and if I have to sit with my back to an open room, I’ll generally try do so where there’s a reflection so I can see if someone comes up behind me.  I planned how I would react if someone tried to hijack me, and when someone did, I reacted in just the way I had planned – calmly and with deliberate intention.

I always have a plan, but for this there is no plan – it’s just a big, wide, huge question mark. I have no idea what it’s going to be like, raising you. And in part, I’m okay with that because it means, I think, that I will be able to let who YOU are inform the way we raise you, rather than just raising you on who I am, and trying to make you be the same.

But as these 14 weeks wane into 13 and down in to single figures, the mix of fear and excitement is astonishing. I’m not afraid of YOU, Baby, you’re very much the exciting part. It’s just a whole massive life change, which I am ready for, but you’ll see as you get older – even for someone like me who has faced many, many changes in life, sometimes, just sometimes, those changes can still be scary.

0 Comments

Pregnancy Week 26 – Deciding On Homebirthing

  1. good wholesome advise Andrea…and re the united front.My children understood from early years I could always have more children but I could not have another husband…….that is a united front supreme!!!

  2. 🙂 You always make me smile! In regards to the plan… Even if you have one, it doesn’t matter anyway! Babies tend to have their own plans, in my experience. Some of the best new parent advice I ever got was to never get a one night movie rental! I figured that summed it up perfectly! As far as our plans go… The one thing you can plan to do for your children is to love your spouse. It’s the biggest gift you can ever give them. Also to be a united front as parents, they can smell weakness and will prey on it! Even if you don’t agree with what your husband just did, go along with it, and back him up in front of the kids and then talk to him about it later! That’s about it as far as planning goes!

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