Pregnancy: 38 weeks 1 day
Total weight gain: 16.5kg (36.37lbs)
Baby size (approx) head to foot: 49.8cm (19.6in) although all the websites and books differ a bit on the baby size and weight guesstimate
Baby weight (approx): 3.1kg (6.8lbs)

38 weeks, almost there!!!!!!!!! I've now had a taste of the hospital after spending 3 hours there on Friday night. I had a bright red bleed (not a whole lot of blood), so I called the hospital straight away. Anytime you are bleeding they want you to come in (unless it is old blood with lots of mucus which at this late in pregnancy, would be the mucus plug. Eww...). Hmmm...should we bring the hospital bag? We decided that we should, just in case. Oh, and the bag with all the snacks and drinks (very important!). We did have to add some things to it first, as it wasn't quite finished. The bag now lives in the car so it will always be ready. We arrived at 10pm, and they took me to a room which seemed to be used as some sort of check up/recovery/waiting for the doctor room that held 4 beds with curtains around each one (Aaron was parking the car). I was hooked up to a fetal heartbeat monitor and contraction monitor by a midwife as soon as I got there. We found the fetal heartbeat monitor is kinda like a campfire, you just can't stop watching it. Then the questions started. "Is the bleed from high in your vagina, or low." Um...if I knew that, I wouldn't need to be here now would I? "When was your last anti-d shot (because I have a negative blood type)?" Hmmm... week before last? You have my chart right there in your hand, why don't you open it?? "Why did you get your last anti-d shot?" Because they told me to. I certainly didn't invite a shot in my butt. What kind of a question is that? How am I supposed to answer that? "Where is your placenta." Now the only reason I knew the answer to that question is because I had an ultrasound to find out if it was too low still. I'm quite sure that normally, people don't know that. Seriously lady, have a gander at my file that is in your hot little hands, all this info and more is contained there. "What were you doing when you started bleeding." Oh the embarrassing question... I had just finished using the epi-no. I figured this is why I was bleeding, just a bit of over zealous inflation resulting in a little tear, but they have to be sure.... She said the baby is doing great, it seems like i've just had a small tear low down, not anything to do with the baby or my cervix, but I would need to wait for the doctor for the final "you can go home now." And so we waited.... And waited.... Apparently the ward was busy that night. Lots of babies being born. A couple of times I heard faint screaming followed closely by little baby cries. The rooms are mostly soundproof at least. Meanwhile, the person to the left of me (only separated by a curtain) was also attached to a fetal heart rate monitor, only her baby's heart rate was going crazy and kept setting off an alarm (which was driving us nuts, it was so loud, and continuously going off). Seems she can't go home until her baby's heart rate settles down into a normal range. A bit later, they wheeled someone in who had just had a baby and then gone into theatre for a small surgery. Some of her placenta did not come out and was stuck inside. She had to have it removed surgically and then they inflated a balloon inside her uterus to prevent it from collapsing (or something along those lines. Your only separated by a curtain, so you can hear everything, but at the same time, do you try actively not to hear, to you just casually listen, do you actively listen to find out what sort of problems you can have in your own labour, what do you do? I didn't hear every single work, so I'm not 100% sure about why the balloon was there, or when it would be removed. We could hear her baby crying, so it too was there with her. Every time Mushi moved around, his heart rate would go up, then back down again when he stopped. That is normal though. We were also amused watching the contraction monitor. It was usually quite low, between 10 and 20 (not that we know what those numbers meant), but then it climbed all the way to 80 for a little bit, then went back down. I didn't feel any pain or anything, my belly just felt a bit tight if you touched it. Hello Braxton Hicks. I thought I'd only had one of those (because I had one that was quite painful), but I've been proven wrong. I just didn't know that I was having them. Good uterus, try not to cause me too much pain.

Finally, 3 hours after coming in, we finally saw the doctor. I had to remove my clothing from my lower half to have an invasive exam. In goes Mr. Speculum, another person is there to shine a torch into my nether region, and the doc checks my cervix. No sign of trauma, cervix hasn't started softening or dilating yet, and all is well. I just tore myself a little tiny bit with my epi-no (I got it pretty big, but I got it the same size the day before. It really does feel like giving birth when you push it out when it's fairly big. Only it's not as big as a baby's head, so it gives you that feeling without all the pain. I feel much more empowered knowing the kind of feeling there will be though. It's not so scary anymore). Doctors orders "No sex or epi-no for a few days to let yourself heal, then you will be fine." We gathered all of our stuff (I brought water and a magazine, had taken off my shoes and coat), and then Aaron went to go get the car. Just when I thought we were free, the nurse came up and said to wait a couple of minutes, I may need a blood test. Awesome. Blood test at 1am while Aaron has already left to go get the car. Sure enough, they did want to take my blood. Wanted to make sure I had enough antibodies for the rh factor (you get them from the anti-d shot). I thought maybe I'd have to wait ages again for the doctor, but they were all about to perform a c-section, so they got to me right away so they could then go operate. And finally we got to go home. I think I will be more comfortable in the delivery room now after spending 3 hours in the hospital bed though, so it wasn't all bad.

We had a very busy day the next day. We woke up late, had an hour and 15 minutes to shower, eat, get ready, grocery shop, get some weight plates and weight bench, then get to our friends house for lunch. Needless to say, we were 45 minutes late, but that was still a really good effort I thought. Next up was a manicure party for another friends birthday (for me, Aaron stayed at the other friends house and played wii with the boys). We gave ourselves lots of time to get there, but it was pouring down rain and Sydney drivers are not so used to that, so traffic was crawling. Then we discovered none of us had the unit number we needed to go to and we couldn't get a hold of the boys to find out for us. Eventually we did though. We entered an apartment building, but oddly it didn't say it's address anywhere (helpful, I know). We decided chances are this is probably the right place, so we buzzed the unit number. Some man answered and didn't seem to speak a lot of english, or just had no idea what was going on, but buzzed us up. Hmmm.... We got in the lift where we finally found the address of the building (on a little plaque thing in the lift), and found we were not in the right place. We're not quite sure why he buzzed randoms like us up, but whatever floats your boat. We didn't go up though, so he was probably very confused after that. We did find the right place, and had a good time at the party.

As soon as I got home, Aaron and I were going to visit Grandma and The Jess for dinner. It was still raining out, and I was nervous, but it was time for me to drive all the way to Penrith (I'm learning to drive our manual car). I successfully got us there in one piece (after missing the entrance to the motorway and having to turn around). Long day, but good. Yesterday we had a good rest.

I have been studying the "Becoming an Australian Citizen" guide this week as I take the test tomorrow. Australians don't even know the answers to a lot of the questions. I don't really know why I need to know which Australian's over the years have won the nobel prize, why and what year, in order to be a citizen. Wouldn't speaking english fluently be more useful since Australia is an english speaking country? Some of the questions and info is good, especially if you come from a completely different culture and have no idea what would be expected of you as a citizen, but then some of it is just ridiculous. Oh well, I have to take the test to become a citizen, so wish me luck! FYI, the national flower is the golden wattle, and Australia's constitution came into effect 1 Jan 1901.