Stuff, Things and Pickle

Haven't posted in a while. And these days, the times when I haven't posted for a bit are not coz nothing's happened... it's coz too much has happened.

We went to the hospital today. They still think the baby has a fat tummy! Or, in other words, they're concerned it's getting a bit too big. Stupid diabetes. I can cope with it doing stuff to me, but to the baby is a different thing entirely. Also, there's now a lot of fluid apparently. At first when the lady doing the scan said this, she made me really worried... I mean, I was reasoning with myself that it'd probably be nothing anyway, that the baby would be fine at this stage, but I still nearly cried when I went to the toilets! Shows how it affects you emotionally... Anyway, later on the consultant and midwife explained that it could be a cause of something problematic, or it could be a "common symptom in diabetic mothers" - implying that if it was the latter, it wasn't actually much of a problem. I have to say I was pretty relieved. I've got the stage now where I don't care if they have to do stuff to me as long as the baby's ok! Of course, I still believe strongly that often there is intervention where there doesn't need to be - and it's clear that intervention leads to more intervention, too.

The midwives today implied that they induce at 38 weeks. That means only SIX weeks to go!!! Scary. Somehow six is much worse/better than eight, coz eight sort of still feels like two months, whereas six feels like just over one. Somehow.

I'm having a scan with the consultant in two weeks time, to check this extra fluid thing. Hoping and praying that it's all going to be ok.

I've been thinking about the latest One Born Every Minute programme... where a mother with twins loses one baby and the second is at death's door for months, then another mother with triplets has two big healthy bouncing babies and the other one is ill. The first mother - she's grateful for her fighting baby and is just happy that she's 'made it this far'. The second - well, she's walking along with her partner, they're each holding a big bouncy baby (twice as much as the normal mother gets!), and all the way through I just got the feeling that they were rather ungrateful.

This is not to say that losing a baby is ever easy. (Neither of the ill children die, by the way.) But they have two fabulous kids, and they seem so ungrateful of these two in a way. The mother with twins, however, seems so unbelieveably grateful that she's still got one - and this is when her surviving baby is the smallest most ill thing you could ever see.

So anyway. Thinking about all this and about getting all worried at the hospital, just makes me think - 'you might not have been able to have kids at all!' There is always someone worse off than you... At the hospital in the scan waiting room, I overheard a lady crying. It made me think... yes, she could have just found out she's lost her baby. I mean, perhaps not, but it's not that unlikely.

There is so much that we must be grateful for.

Unfortunately, these things never come on their own, do they? Everything always comes at once! Coz Simon doesn't know if he's going back to work yet. He's got his meeting tomorrow, and one suspects they'll let him know by letter, so it's probably several days wait yet.

If he doesn't go back to work, I'm not sure what we'll do. I mean, I know, somehow, that everything is going to be ok. I know that God is looking after us, and I truly believe that we will be ok, that things will work out. I know he's got us in the palm of his hand. He's shown us before and he'll show us again, just how good he is at looking after us and our stupid problems.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:25-27)

Not me. I just hope hope hope that we'll be able to look after the baby well enough. More to the point, I hope that I manage to breastfeed ok! Free baby food for at least six months, oh yes. (Free contraception, too, but they tell you not to rely upon it!)

But the baby will be fine. I know if we need anything for the baby, people will give us things. People are so generous - you just have to ask, to reach out. To lose your pride. And for a baby? Well, if they knew you truly needed something I know there are many who would give of themselves or their money until they could give no more.

Never underestimate true generosity. Watch It's a Wonderful Life if you disagree with me, maybe!

But we somehow coped in Brighton, in that daft little flat, with barely any money and few friends. So being here - home again - makes it easier to believe we can do it again.

Simon thinks he might look into childminding with me if he doesn't go back. It wouldn't be the worst choice by any means - although I don't know whether I'd want to work with him all the time, haha!

I'm not complaining. Not really. I know we'll cope with whatever we have to, and that we'll be fine. I know that. Here, despite having few really close friends, I know we have a lot of love surrounding us.