If you follow me on social media you’ll know Baby Silver entered the world on the 18th of July 2019 and turned our world upside down in the best possible way! Complications in my pregnancy occurred at week 34 hence my quietness on social media and lack of pregnancy updates. I decided to publish this post as I wrote it at the time(before I found out about the complications) and I’ll be following up with posts about what happened after week 34 and of course the birth! Today marks baby’s Silver’s actual due date but instead he is three weeks old!
I slid into the third trimester of pregnancy just after my Sicilian babymoon and just like that I was 28 weeks pregnant! The first few weeks of the first trimester went agonisingly slowly, waiting for scans, test results and getting organised with a hospital and doctor. The second trimester felt like carrying on life as normal but as I write this at week 33 the third trimester is speeding by rapidly as I nervously await the actual child-birth, life with a new-born and sleep deprivation.
At 28 weeks I had the test for Gestational Diabetes, this involved fasting over night, going to the doctor’s giving several syringes of blood before drinking a sugary drink (definitely not as tasty as it sounds) before waiting two hours to have my blood tested again. That first hour was not fun and I just lay in bed basically feeling a bit lightheaded and sick but by the second hour I was ok and ready to go back to the hospital for the second part. Fortunately, I didn’t have gestational diabetes or any other problems with my blood, so that was good to know.
At around 30 weeks we opted to have a 4D scan of the baby which would allow us to see his face and also get a DVD of the ultrasound. I was really excited for the 4D scan as so many people I know had very moving experiences and captured some great images of their baby. Unfortunately because of the baby’s position we couldn’t get a great picture, and half the time his face was covered by his arm… I tried walking up and down the corridor and drinking a hot chocolate but that didn’t help much either!
I’ve been very lucky to have a very easy pregnancy [reading this back after the complications we had seems so ironic], my symptoms at the beginning were so mild that I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I was eleven weeks and I spent half the second trimester questioning why I felt so normal and didn’t even have a bump. However, the third trimester is a different story (and I was naive to think it wouldn’t be due to my small bump) and now I’m being effected by serious back pain. Not everyone gets back pain but lots of people do and it’s apparently just a fact of pregnancy life due to weight gain, a new centre of gravity and the hormonal changes causing your ligaments to relax. It’s very difficult to bare and I after a day out I’m dying to lie in bed and rest my back! The best cures have been hot water bottles, exercise, rest and stretching. I also had a dreamy massage at the Ushvani Spa (gifted) which really helped a lot.
The tiredness and nausea come back with a vengeance too, fun times!
In terms of getting ready, we’re nearly there with the nursery and I’m looking forward to doing a reveal! A couple of weeks ago we had a personal shopping trip at Mamas & Papas in Westfield in order to pick up some new-born essentials. I covered the trip extensively on Instagram stories and it was great talking to an expert and being able to see and touch the items that we were considering for baby’s sleep, feeding, travel and play. The shop is beautifully laid out in soft neutral tones and there’s plenty of comfortable seating and you’re provided with rest rooms and lots of snacks to keep you going throughout the experience.
One thing I did find with Mamas & Papas is that they items that they stock have been specially selected and they don’t have a huge choice of things, plus I found that they didn’t have a few things that I had on my list. When we ordered the items at the end it was down to us to remember what we’d seen and what we wanted to put on our order as opposed to logging them as we went along.
Also when we made our final order, there were a few key items that weren’t available for delivery and so the whole order would be shipped only two weeks before my due date [edit we had to cancel some of the items in the end as Baby Silver was early but they came next day delivery on Amazon]. You have to pay in advance for everything in Mamas & Papas though you are free to change your order at any time plus bring things back if you no longer want them. One inconvenience of this though is if you order a big item, you still need to return it to the store. They do offer discounts as you go above particular spending brackets though so spend £1000 and get £75 off, spend £1500 and get £200 off etc.
By comparison the John Lewis appointment was very comprehensive. The experience doesn’t quite have the frills of pretty restrooms, cute interiors and piles of snacks but the department at our local John Lewis (Peter Jones on Sloane Square) encompasses literally every baby item imaginable. The personal shopper was very knowledgeable about what the baby needs and the brands that they stocked. She took us through the selection methodically and scanned each item that we chose so that there was no need to remember in all at the end. Plus we didn’t need to pay in advance, we had the list there on line for us to chop and change as we wished, you can also given the login details of the list to friends and relatives so they know what you still need.
We’d already bought a few things for him but the John Lewis shopping experience was so comprehensive, we more or less finished everything off there. I highly recommend doing it but make sure you book far in advance as it was quite difficult for us to get a weekend appointment, even booking months ahead.
I think I’m slightly addicted to buying cute baby clothes – and I’m in the process of getting everything washed and ready. His nursery is looking gorgeous and I’m planning to write a blog post with a full tour of it!
Another element of getting ready for baby Silver’s imminent arrival has been preparing my hospital bag and his things to take with me. My doctor has given me a checklist but there’s so much information in blog posts and on YouTube, I love getting people’s personal opinion about what was useful and what they took. I’m nearly there with the hospital bag for myself and baby so I’m looking forward to checking that off my list. [Edit – I hardly used any of it! But more of that later!]
It was in these weeks that we started our NCT classes – NCT is UK’s largest parent charity and they offer antenatal courses for new parents. Again I booked these quite far in advance to secure a place. On the website you give your location and due date and you’re allocated a group in your local community whose babies will be about the same age. Mr S came along with me to the classes that took place at the Grosvenor Hotel near Victoria Station and we met with all the other soon-to-be parents in the class. We had two full day classes at the weekend which covered labour and delivery and the early days with the little one plus we had one evening class learning about breast feeding. The classes were really informative but the absolute best thing was meeting the group, we’ve formed a what’s app group together and I’m looking forward to having them as a support network.
Everything’s coming together and we’re nearly ready! I just can’t wait to welcome baby Silver into the world!
