Good to go
I’m at 36 weeks today, with less than a month until the due date. If I went into labour now, Louisette would be premature (and delivered in hospital rather than the birthing centre), but the staff wouldn’t try to stop the labour. In one week, she’ll no longer be premature.
CJ and his brother were both born at around this stage in the pregnancy, so we always promised each other to be good to go by now – and we are. The labour bag is as packed as it can be; CJ has moved his computer out of the study/baby’s room; the bassinet and cot are both set up; the car seat is installed in the car.
It is great for me to see everything in order, and it’s a nice way to remind myself that I’ll soon be able to brush my teeth twice a day, EVERY day! and so much more. Oh, and I’ll get to meet my daughter too.
For the last week, my nausea has increased again, including cramps every day and just general silliness from my digestive system. It turns out there is a very good reason: Louisette has begun heading for the exit!
There are five “stations” between a normal baby locale and the “fully descended” position. Louisette is at the first station. Some babies don’t descend at all until partway through labour (others are positioned the wrong way up for ages, sometimes leading to an extra painful breech birth). Louisette, however, is perfectly positioned for labour. The fact that she’s partly descended means two wonderful things:
1) Unlike my mother, I will probably not need to be induced due to extreme lateness.
2) I probably won’t have to push as long when I am in labour.
It is hugely encouraging to know that things are genuinely happening in a giving-birth direction.
Community Christmas Carols
Every year, Woden Valley Alliance Church (or WVAC, which sounds like a new hoover in an infomercial) holds a free all-welcome BBQ and fun day, with face painting, a jumping castle (which adults aren’t allowed on – how unfair is that?), and of course Christmas carols and Santa and lollies (who arrived in a jeep this year, barely making it onto the scene before a massive storm erupted overhead – usually he rides a Harley Davidson). CJ and I never miss it.
It’s so good when a church manages to do something that is well organised and genuinely enjoyable for absolutely anyone who shows up.
CJ offered to play his bass with the carols this year, so I took my chance and stole a paparazzi shot of him.
Christmas on the interwebs
Christmas and New Year’s Day are two of the slowest and dullest days on the internet each year, so I’ve prepared three special blog entries just for you.
Christmas Eve: Something special from the watery depths (tentacles most definitely included).
Christmas Day: Top ten awesomenesses of 2011 (it turns out my year wasn’t nearly as dull as I remember).
New Year’s Day: Sarcastic Christmas letter.
You’re welcome, internet! You deserve love after giving us this:
Steampunk motorcycle
Need I say more? There are plenty to choose from, right here. Unfortunately the pictures don’t want to load today, so here’s a picture of a cat instead (for those of you too tired to click on the link).
How good are your chances?
I’m a big fan of US agent Kristin Nelson’s blog, and one of the things I love is her transparency. If you look here and here, you can get a good idea of how many queries, samples, and full manuscripts get to the next stage at her agency. She is a successful agent with a strong web presence, so I imagine she gets more queries than the norm – but I also think she has the capacity to accept more books than a tiny agency. Therefore, I think the rate of these statistics gives a good general idea of how difficult it is to get an agent in the USA.
Getting an agent is not at all the same thing as getting published, but I think your chances of getting published with an agent are about 80% – more for someone of Kristin’s calibre. Which is a huge amount compared to the 1 in 10,000 shot of the average unpublished novel.
“Clockwork Angel” by Cassandra Clare
Some of you will know Cassandra by the last name Claire, from when she wrote the Secret Diaries of the Lord of the Rings. (Very rude, very funny.)
When I read her original trilogy (very very quickly), my reaction was, “If only Twilight was like this!”
“Clockwork Angel” is the first book in a prequel series called “The Infernal Devices”.
The rest of this review has been moved to Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
That Christmas Feeling
All of us know one: the friend who really, seriously loves Christmas. Mine makes dozens of gingerbread cookies, starts his pudding in June, and owns more decorations than some malls. His party is the one I’d never miss.
See that Christmas tree on the table? It’s made out of gingerbread and is over a foot high (it was his way of apologising for not making individual gingerbread houses this year – he finished his degree three days before the party). Our host is the one in the Christmas hat and apron over the Christmas T-shirt (like you couldn’t figure that out yourselves).
Kids, this is what Christmas spirit looks like.
Pregnancy Outfits
NB: I’ve had to do this post in two parts, due to all the pics. I posted part two first, so you can read from the top of the page downwards in order to get the photos in the right order.
The beginning and end of pregnancy carry the same dilemma: to show off the belly or to hide it? Since I look about four months pregnant on a normal day, my initial goal was to make sure people knew that THIS time, I really was pregnant. Hence the usefulness of this top, which unzips from either top or bottom (or indeed both). I figured everyone would know that only a pregnant woman would deliberately draw attention to a suspicious belly bulge.
The above and below photos were taken in week 20.
Since I’m not Elvis, I never thought I’d wear a jumpsuit. But a giant belly does its best to cast off clothing in both directions (tops roll up; pants roll down) so I saw potential and took advantage. It worked very well for most of second trimester, and because it was held up mainly by elastic at the very top, it was more comfortable than any other item (in my experience, even elastic below the bust was soon uncomfortable).
My various long skirts were useful for a while, as they simply sat higher and higher on my belly – but this (at 21 weeks) was the last time I was able to wear this particular skirt.
At 22 weeks, I was barely able to get in and out of this dress, despite the adjustable sides (which, though helpful, aren’t an attractive way to dress in pregnancy – in my opinion):
This is a dress I inherited from my grandmother (several fashions of the past or the third world make great maternity wear). Other than my bare arms, it gives me no shape at all – but if you want to conceal a pregnancy, this kind of thing works (only in the sense that it makes absolutely everyone look pregnant). Very comfortable. 24 weeks.
These three photos were all taken at 25 weeks. The corset-style front lacing looked excellent about two weeks before this photo was taken – giving me back the illusion of an hourglass figure. I’d deliberately bought a jumpsuit in a larger size, but it still had a thin line of waist elastic, which meant this was the last time I was able to wear it (because of nausea – it still fit, but I kept automatically pushing the waistband higher, which wasn’t a good look). The golden dress is useful shape-wise in that it bares my arms and legs (which at this stage of the pregnancy were still roughly as they were) and is tight across the chest (unfortunately too tight, in this case, but the theory was good):
26 weeks. The pattern on this skirt (and the viscosity of the artificial material) made me look much more pregnant instantly. This was the last of my long skirts to still fit, and it did mean that it wasn’t ankle-length any more (always sad – the reason I made my own skirts is that shops never get my length right. Fie on three-quarter length!) At this point, the brown top was the only good top for me to wear, because all other tops just rode up my belly and bunched unnattractively below my bust. Because any trace of elastic (or worse, non-elastic binding) made me sick, this was the last time I wore anything that wasn’t a dress.
27 weeks. I made a surprising and pleasant discovery when I added this jacket to this dress. Suddenly the dress had shape, and so did I. The jacket buttons across the chest, which brought attention to the one body part improved by pregnancy. It fell away beautifully, framing my belly in an inverted triangle. The moral here is that every pregnant lady should have a three-quarter length jacket with a single fastening at chest height.
Part Two is here.
Pregnancy Outfits (part two)
Part one is here.
29 weeks. This dress was just cute. It gives shape in three ways – showing arms, showing legs, and giving a “waist” just below the bust. I wore heels just for the photo. Most pregnant women can’t wear heels, because they become extremely uncomfortable – and because fatigue + major centre of gravity changes = falling over.
32 weeks. This dress was made of stretchy fabric, which was great until it became rapidly baggier. It was slightly too wide under the bust, which was perfect for me because the slightest hint of elastic anywhere hurt me (but it was close enough to my actual shape to preserve the “high waist” look).
The “hide your belly” school of pregnancy tends to go for all-black outfits (which at least match everything, but they certainly don’t hide one’s belly for long). The down side of black is that it picks up every hint of dust, cat hair, or food in the room and displays it proudly (usually on one’s newly-expanded bum).
At 33 weeks, this was my first and only actual maternity dress. It has a generous amount of fabric (much of it gathered handily just above the belly, with a conveniently adjustable tie at the high-waist line) and is even long enough that I don’t have to shave my legs to wear it (an increasingly difficult task). The adjustable tie made it my most comfortable outfit, and the gathered fabric meant that, although it was stretchy fabric, it didn’t get baggy.
34 weeks. This dress and the above both had rather low-cut necks which I fixed with strategic stitches in the right spot (which only works when the neckline is made up of two pieces of fabric folded over in a V). Just because my breasts have grown doesn’t mean I want them running around the neighbourhood making new friends.
The blue dress had extremely light, comfortable fabric. It felt great, but/and exaggerated every curve (not all of which are attractive, even if you like the pregnant shape). Also, the fabric was so light it was a little see-through – and there was no way I was wearing another layer underneath – so I had to wear it cautiously (eg indoors).
35 weeks. This dress was also amazingly low-cut, and Mum suggested I wear a singlet. A singlet would definitely ride up and bunch somewhere unfortunate, so instead I wore a crop top (grey). Crop tops are made to be tight, so I had to find and buy one that was four sizes larger than my bra size.
But if I wanted to take more belly shots (without the belly being covered by clothing, I mean), the crop top would be very handy in its own right. It will probably come into play when I’m in labour.
Since I’m at 35 weeks today, that’s the lot!
I never did get into the horizontal stripes favoured by the “show off your belly” school, but there’s always next pregnancy 🙂
Annual Shopping Spree
Every year for Christmas, my mum takes me clothes shopping. It’s always one of my best Christmas presents, since I almost never buy clothes for myself. This year it was particularly exciting. I bought maternity bras in first trimester (correctly guessing that my cup size couldn’t possibly grow any more), but since then my internal organs have been pushed upwards to make room for Louisette, so those bras have become painfully tight.
The other unusual thing about this year’s shopping spree was that we hired a wheelchair. It has become clear lately that if I walk more than about fifty metres at what I now call “medium pace” but most people would call “zombie speed”, my hips give me trouble for 2-4 days afterwards. So a wheelchair was a cunning plan – one that also had the benefit of being both luxurious and novel. It was heavenly (and privately amusing to see young shop assistants fall over themselves to help me, and older assistants not care a bit). I even ran into a wheelchair-bound friend from college, who enjoyed being at the same level as me for once.
Mum and I successfully found a better maternity bra almost immediately. I’d planned to buy masseur sandals and a bikini top (in case I spend some of my labour in the bath for pain relief), but it became rapidly clear that masseur sandals are harder to find than they used to be. So much for that.
The swimsuit experience was epic. I have absolutely no idea how larger women find swimsuits – I suppose they all buy one-piece styles – but it was virtually impossible to find anything above a size 16, which was instantly and alarmingly inadequate (even bikini tops are meant to cover at least 50% of the breast area). It was kind of flattering, until mum and I tried the strapless styles in a desperate attempt to find something that worked. In the end, we did find one that technically fit: a hot pink frilly number that accentuated my broad shoulders and made me look exactly like a footballer in drag.
So we didn’t buy swimmers or shoes, but my mum (who is always trying to get me to buy new clothes rather than make my own or wear second-hand items) managed to get me to try on a few dresses. I ended up with two new maternity dresses and a crop top (one of them has a rather low neck, so this was my solution), which was excellent since I had exactly one wearable dress left, and it’s stretching out of shape in an alarmingly saggy manner.
So, altogether, after several hours being wheeled around the mall, I ended up with two full outfits which mum gave me immediately, and which I’ve been wearing ever since. A good haul, and a timely one.
This dress is actually a proper maternity dress, designed to be adjustable:
Felicity Banks 