33 weeks and a message from Kimberley

hoi allemaal weer een hele mooie foto van Sam. ze ziet er weer stralend uit zoals altijd maar ja je kan ook niet alles hebben he :p.

33 weeks!

This pic was actually taken at 31 weeks. So I'm a little bigger now - as the kids at school like to remind me!! I'll post a new picture very soon. Just decided that I hadn't written in so long that I needed to now. We've had a busy few weeks. Everything is still going well and pj is growing steadily. 'He' (?) has chosen his position and seems to stretch out very often, booting me in the process. I feel a bum pushing out to the left of my belly button and then a foot kicking out on my far right side!! Sometimes it hurts too! It's head is down which always a good thing. It's been there for a few weeks now ( I can't imagine sitting upside down in a confined space for that long.... but it's still got 6 weeks to go!!!)

I've decided to try a home birth for as long as possible. I have ordered a birthing pool as I've read loads of positive things about the effect the water can have on you during labour. I'm also aware that anything can happen as well and strangely for me I seem to have no expectation except that the baby has to come out somehow!! Who knows what it'll be like. The closer it comes the more apprehensive I'm feeling about the pain bit but the more excited I am to meet this little person!

A few weeks ago my friends gave me a surprise baby shower. It was a big surprise and really really appreciated by me. Here are some pics. We tasted baby food and had to guess the flavour....er yuck, and I had some fantastic presents. Thank you ladies!

Time is really going fast now. I finish work next Thursday which is freaky in itself. Plus tonight is my last anti natal class. I'm really glad that I've been to these classes but it's been a struggle for me. As I said before it's all in Dutch and I feel silly asking questions that I know the teacher has just explained to the rest of the group. I'm glad too that J and I have done another course where the teacher came to our home and gave us 2 sessions in English. So I'm able to relate whats said on the Wednesdays to what was said in our other class. Here are some pics of my anti natal group. I have the last due date (31st May) and I thought that my bump was pretty small but seeing these pics suddenly made me realise that it's actually pretty big.

We're standing in order of due date, so I'm at the end. The lady standing in front of me was due on the 28th May and she has already had her baby at 31 weeks! (kind of freaked me out a bit - I suddenly realised that I could have pj any minute!) - The baby is in Hospital still but doing really well. Also the lady with the red band around her bump has also had her baby!! Freaky!!

J and I have also been away for a weekend together - maybe our last for a while! We arranged it ages ago and suddenly it was here! We went down to Limburg (South Holland) for a long weekend over Easter. We stayed right on the Belgium border and in fact on Easter Sunday spent the day at a place called 'Drielandenpunt' (3 country point). We had breakfast in Holland, went for a walk in Germany and had dinner in Belgium!

It was a really good time to talk and catch up after a manic few months. Limburg is Holland most hilly province. Ok so it's not hills to English standards but against the rest of Holland it's really beautiful and felt a little like home.

J and I have decided to hold off on the buying a house thing right now. It was becoming way too stressful especially with J's work being busy, with the baby coming and with the housing market the nightmare that it is. We know that we don't want to be here in the flat for too long either so we haven't closed it off completely, just put it on hold. We're also more open to the possibility of finding a different rental house to live in. We'll see what happens. We both feel really good about this decision, it gives us more time to focus on the coming baby instead of worrying about moving house! We had found somewhere we liked but it needed a HUGE amount of work. It would have been a fab investment..... but now isn't a good time to engage in that.

J has just come home from a really good weekend back in England with his family. His Nana is not so well and he really wanted to go and see her. It was fab for him to be able to catch up with his cousin and her 7 children, that he hasn't seen for years. I decided that flying wasn't something I was comfortable with at this point so I stayed home.

So there you go, a busy few weeks and a very busy few weeks coming! Below is the link for baby's development at 33 weeks.

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/33weeks/