Baby Morris is here!

It gives Rob and I much pride and joy to announce that on June 24th, 2014 at 2:59pm London time, at St. Mary's Hospital in London, we met our son, Aleksander Thomas Morris, for the first time! Aleksander is a healthy 3.18kg/7 lb baby boy, who took one good look around the room before proving how strong his lungs are. He quickly found comfort on Mummy's chest and is doing great! We are both overwhelmed with the events and emotions of the day - no matter how many times you hear what a special day it will be it doesn't prepare you for the feelings of love, and sense of purpose that it brings out. We are so happy to share this news with all of you, and hope to have you meet little Aleksander soon!

39 Weeks

39 weeks and 5 days! Feeling good, energetic, excited, nervous and absolutely don't know what to expect. Lil Bobs will be here so soon. This will probably be my last pregnancy update - the last time you see this watermelon in place of my tummy, which I will miss dearly. Look out for baby updates coming soon :))))))))

38 Weeks

38 weeks and 5 days in this picture - almost 39 weeks and almost there! Bags are packed, nursery is set up, classes are finished and books read: we are all ready to go, but still have no idea what we are getting ourselves into :)

Lil Bobs is still not cooperating and remaining in a breech position, sometimes I think that his head is just glued to my upper abdomen, it makes no sense! I'm still not losing hope and continuing with all of the things to turn the baby. I've done lots of swimming lately and going for a hypnosis session on Friday. The research shows very high success rates, but then again it did for the other 65459876 methods I've tried.

I'm still working until next week, but planning to take a few extra days off before the due date, although most people think I'm quite hard core to work all the way up to the last days. I don't mind it, I'm actually feeling good and still quite mobile. I do walk sloooooooooowly, but other than that - no complaints.



Here is me what I do at the gym these days. I'm doing all of these crazy tilts to confuse the baby where up and down is! The decline bench is in the middle of the weight lifting area, so I get a lot of surprised looks from men pumping iron when I walk in.

And here is what our "nursery corner" looks like ;) Lil Bobs will sleep in our room for a little while, and hopefully he will feel cozy here!

37 Weeks - Turn baby, turn!

37 weeks on the dot! The fantastic news is that the baby is full term, which means that he should be fully baked by now and ready for the outside world, although there are 3 more weeks to go. We took this picture at midnight, exactly at the point when the new week started, so this is my excitement about Lil Bobs being full term :)

The not so fantastic news is that Lil Bobs is still breech, with his head up in my ribs and his bum down low. In this past week I've tried absolutely everything to turn him: acupuncture, exercises which involved inversions, tilts, hand stands, swiss ball exercises, hot/cold therapy, swimming, hand stands and flips in the water, hypnosis, tried talking to the baby begging him to move, Moxibustion (chineese medicine, involves burning Moxa close to my toes, supposed to have up to 90% success rate of turning breech babies). Even  the most ridiculous methods - playing music and shining a light near the bottom of my belly, because babies are naturally curious and are supposed to turn towards it (crazy!). Well, none of it really worked, he is just a little stubborn Bobs.

We also tried a procedure called ECV - External Cephalic Version, is when the doctors try to turn the baby manually by applying pressure on the belly externally. I was a but nervous about it, since there are risks. After looking at the scan, the doctor said there is only a 10-20% chance of it working based on the position lil Bobs is in, he gave it a go for a few minutes - ouchie! - and it didn't work. So...we are most likely looking at a c-section, unless a miracle happens before that! Really not thrilled at the prospect of it, because we were gearing up for a completely natural hypnobirth, but that's one of the first examples that kids are so unpredictable and throw your plans off! :) This is the position he is in at the moment.

35 Weeks

Getting and felling big, Big, BIG!!! Exactly 35 weeks in this picture. This week we have accomplished a few things, we toured the birthing centre and were very happy with what we saw. The rooms are well equipped for natural, "relaxing" birth, and don't have much of a hospital feel to them. The staff is very friendly, so I'm looking forward to having our baby there...with a caveat, as long as the little booger turns! We saw the midwife, who couldn't determine his position, so we are seeing the doctor next week for a scan. For now, I am visualizing and trying to turn him with hypnosis, and Rob keeps asking the baby to cooperate :)

We are also starting to get *LOTS* of deliveries of gifts and baby stuff. Here is the first glimpse of what that looks like! I'm so in love with our "Make a wish" Moses Basket, and we can't wait to use it!

33 Weeks

I'm 33 weeks and 5 days in this picture! Can't believe there are only around 6 weeks left until Lil Bobs is here!

Well, today we went for a private scan, as we wanted to make sure that the baby is growing well. We had future Grandmum Phyllis join us. The good news - the baby has average/textbook measurements, he is estimated to be around 5 pounds/2271 grams, and is healthy! Oh and once again, it IS a boy :) And he is already up to a bit of a mischief however and is in a breech position (bottom down), so he must have turned at some point last week. I'm not too worried because there is still some time for him to turn around and there are a few exercises that I can try - lots of "bum in the air on all fours". He is already causing some trouble :) And here is his alien looking face, which still looks super cute to me.

I also had a baby shower on May 11th, which happened to be Mother's day too. We had a wonderful time sipping tea from vintage cups, eating cucumber sandwiches and clotted cream scones and playing cheesy games on a Sunday afternoon and the baby got showered with lots of gifts, toys, cutest outfits etc. Special thank you to all of my friends who came and also to Liz for traveling from Birmingham for a few hours (and from Australia of course)

31 weeks

31 weeks and 5 days in this pictures, so almost 32 weeks!

This week we saw the midwife, because I was worried about lack of significant weight gain, they measured my belly and listened to the baby's heartbeat and told us there was nothing to be concerned about, so that's good. As long as everything is good, I can't complain about keeping the pounds off :)

I also celebrated my 31st birthday on my 31st week of pregnancy (that's a Happy Birthday card in my pocket)! We had a very low key pizza making party with our friends, I got lots of amazing and mostly "domestic" presents - apron, kitchen tools, potted flowers, baby stuff etc :) I guess we are entering a different phase of life! Compared to crazy limo/clubbing party last year - a big change!

We also had our first Hypnobirthing class session with Stina Richardson, and I am very interested in seeing how the techniques she teaches would make labor magically painless and wonderful :)
http://www.calmbirthcalmbaby.com/what-we-do-and-where/west-london/stina/