Preparations!

And just like that, we've hit 37 weeks. What a whirlwind of a pregnancy this has been... it has flown by - the busyness of life juggling four children, Dave's new job and my work, I suppose. I'm not complaining... though now am starting to feel like I should be more prepared than I am. The bag was half packed and that was about as far as I'd got until yesterday!

So yesterday we had a productive little day. I packed my bag, washed all the nappies (we are entering a whole new world of cloth nappies this time round, thanks to a very generous instagram friend - thank you Laura!), made room for the Moses basket, ordered some essentials, folded and sorted the baby clothes and got the car seat ready. I feel much better for it. 

Preparations have been a gradual process... we began with "the big room swap" in October half term, where we all, bar the little boys, played "musical bedrooms". What I thought would be a bit of a nightmare has turned out to be a massive blessing. The girls are loving having their own floor, I am loving the fact that they have taken complete ownership of cleaning it (bathroom and all!), and Dave and I are loving the fact that a smaller bedroom means it can no longer become a dumping ground for everything! We also got the bonus of inheriting Heidi's newly decorated birthday bedroom... oops! Still, she's so thrilled about the prospect of a baby joining us, that she actually gave it up happily. I'm just glad the girl has excellent taste and a good eye for interior design, because we've actually inherited a lovely room!

I wound down and finished work the week before Christmas, though my maternity leave doesn't officially start until January, and now its just the post-christmas haze, and opportunity to make sure we are really, truly ready for the massive change we're about to undergo again!

It doesn't matter how many times you do it, the intensity of the early weeks still catches me by surprise every time!

So these last couple of weeks are all about final preparations, and also preparing the big kids for what the next few weeks might look like. The girls have enjoyed attending midwife appointments with me, and Heidi, who currently wants to be a midwife, has been firing questions a mile a minute at the midwife who is wonderful at answering them - "what's rhesus negative?" "What happens if one parent is negative and one positive?" "Can you tell whether the baby is a boy or a girl by the heart rate?" It' s been fun to see her curiosity grow with it.

The girls have been here before, and have some vague recollections of Elias as a baby, but for the boys this is new territory. It suddenly dawned on me the other day that I hadn't warned them I might be in hospital for a while, or that they might not get to meet the baby on the day its born... all conversations to be had over the course of the next few days.

In the meantime, they all love the kicks and the rolls as they place hands on my bump and ask how long we have to go.

Excitement all around!

So preparations are well underway, but there is still a few things to happen before we're quite ready.

We'll get there!