This pregnancy thing is taking ages, even longer than it takes to cook a sticky toffee pudding and that’s a very long time indeed. What I can do is limited to the little brain power I have left and the little energy I have. This boils down to reading chick lit (my local library are saving crappy novels for me as my attention span has gone), sunbathing and sleeping. I really shouldn’t be complaining, it’s like a long holiday, but there are things I want to be able to do, or rather, should be doing, like sandpapering skirtingboards. I am further limited this week by a bruised coccyx, caused by bumping down the stairs on it when I misjudged where my feet were. I can’t actually see my feet unless I look over the bump. I popped in to see the midwife who was great and supplied me with an extra large tissue for an extra large hormonal woman’s tears, and checked the baby’s heartbeat. All is fine, nothing to worry about unless I landed on the bump itself and even then it is pretty cushioned, unlike my coccyx that lurks strangely unprotected between hills of fat.

My placenta is on the front, which apparently means that I have a greater chance of a posterior presentation, where the baby comes out face up instead of face down. This is known as back labour, can take ages and be more painful so I am keen to try to encourage the foetus to turn around. The midwife told me that there is nothing I can do about it and it will probably be ok in the end. However, I have a doula friend who suggested a few things that I am trying now. One is lying on my front with the aid of carefully positioned cushions to create a space for the bump, another is to do things on all fours, so the kitchen floor is looking a bit better than usual. I also asked my lovely shiatsu lady if she could help and she is very positive that there are pressure points that will work if need be. I know someone who’s engaged posterior baby was rotated and she swears that shiatsu did the trick, so I am quite reassured that all will be well, but I’d rather take an active approach to it than the midwifes wait and see.

I braved evil Mothercare again to check out mattresses and picked up their catalogue, which is actually very useful, if you can bear references to ‘Baby’s this and Baby’s that’. I also got a free guide to pregnancy and babies from Boots which is good for planning what I actually need rather than what I am told I need by Boots and Mothercare.

People often ask me if I want a boy or a girl, I don’t mind either way but I think that I would worry less about a boy and could dress a girl up. My boyfriend says that I could dress a boy up too but we agree only with consent. ‘Come on Tarquin, put your nice fairy princess outfit on for mummy’, ‘but mum, I want to play with my riot police action figures with realistic spring loaded batons’….