ailbhe | Pregnancy

OK, with only 23 days left to go, I am willing to say that I'm tired now. I'm tired of needing 4 pillows to prop me into a possible sleeping position. I'm tired of waking hourly to turn over to alleviate the pain in my hips. I'm tired of Braxton-Hicks contractions that are just widely-spaced enough not to be early labour (four hours is the longest gap I've had since Friday; 25 minutes is the shortest). I'm tired of not being able to wear my wedding amd engagement rings, of having to have someone else lace up my boots, of spending minutes getting each sock on, of laundering underwear every day because there's no point buying more than three sets of expensive maternity underwear.

I'm dreading shopping for nursing bras. I'll have to do that tomorrow, and I don't want to.

I want to curl into a ball and sleep until labour actually starts, and not sit around wondering whether this contraction is important, or maybe the pain in my back is back labour, and the books say that this stomach upset might be an early labour symptom, and... It doesn't help that my mother always gave birth early, and Rob was 10 days early, and my niblings were early, but I may still be typical and go the full 40 weeks and 3 days that's apparently "average". I can't tell whether I'm being practical and cautious, given family history, or paranoid, given my natural tendency to plan for the worst.

It doesn't help that contractions woke me at 4:30 and I didn't get back to sleep and now we have people working in the attic and I can't crawl back into bed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not sure if this would work for you, everyone's different, but I gave up wearing underwear most days when I got to this stage. It really was much more comfortable that way, and saves your laundry problem. :-)

Nursing bras - if I did this again I wouldn't buy more than one now, really, since there can still be quite a variation in size afterwards. The books etc do say that you can gauge from your size now but honestly, you can't be sure. Find a style/price you like now, and go/send someone to Mothercare (or wherever) on day 8 or thereabouts, when things are starting to settle and you can make a slightly more accurate measurement.

Good luck.

Maternity support pants are about the only thing making waking life bearable at the moment. I sometimes wear them to sleep in too, if I can face the extra laundry. I can't support this belly unaided.

I could live without bras, but they're much less of an issue than the pants anyway. I will go and buy some tomorrow - probably two, since I hate wearing the same underwear two days running if I can avoid it. But I'm not going to shop around - I'm going to go straight to the place that fitted me for the bras I wear now, and if they can't help me, I will sit down at the side of the road and cry. Mothercare bra-fitting staff around here are dumb.

Ah, there's the difference - I had a maternity belt for the bump. (And some days a tubigrip but that was for the SPD.) Or I wore lycra tops that held it up somewhat.

Forgot: I skipped the bra-fitting, too (for the same reason). A husband can hold a tape measure just as well as some bint who can't count and suggests sleep bras when you want nursing ones... :-)

"Sleep bra"?

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