It's not nesting ! It's simply making the most of Woody being home and getting on with all those pesky jobs around the house.
I have a list taped to the fridge and am crossing things off with great satisfaction as I go.
Just having a tea and much needed chocolate break.
This is a pin board I whipped up for India's room, which I decorated a while ago now, but has only been tidy enough for me to actually open the door and hang this board for about 30 minutes ever since.
I hung the bunting I made too.
Now it's back to painting Eden's room, the tiniest room in the house and it's taking far longer than anticipated painting pale green over dark crazy coloured walls.
Just quickly want to say thank you so much to you all for the comments left on my last couple of posts, knowing you are all willing me and baby boy on is a great comfort. I can't promise my posts here are going to be terribly sane over the coming weeks, but I'm trying.
I cast on this matinee coat yesterday, I'm knitting it in size 3-6 mths, thinking of cooler weather come September, all very practical for a normal pregnant Mama, but a minefield of emotions for this one.
Knitting has never really been my forte.I usually enjoy it,but get frustrated with my lack of skill. This pregnancy however, keeping my fingers busy in the repetitive click clack of the needles has been calming. I don't understand it,but it works.
I had thought perhaps I'd knitted enough for baby boy, but having nothiing on the needles was disconcerting. A new knitting book and an expensive trip to the yarn store, and I'm feeling..well not better, but calmer.
I still cried as I cast this on yesterday.
I said in my last post how I'd only really started to just think of myself as pregnant, and I think the realisation that sometime fairly soon I'm going to deliver a baby, and he's either going to live or he's going to die is hitting me full force.
I'm distracted, and I'm exhausted and I'm scared.
I really just want to be normal again, to rub my belly in public and glow with anticipation. I used to love pregnancy, I was confident in my pregnant body.
I want to say to Eden that the dinosaur she's making for baby boy is lovely without pondering silently that it's actually too big to fit in a coffin.
I want to not wonder how or where I'll store all of the baby things if we don't need them.
I want to pull the bedside crib out of storage without thinking it might only have to go back again.
I want to not be afraid of going to the baby store to order a pram.
I want to not have to sit on my hands whenever I see a comment on a forum from a normal happy preggo, about normal happy preggo stuff.
I want to not look up and catch women in the playground glancing in my direction in pity, then looking away.
I want to believe everything will be ok, but I don't want people who barely know me to tell me it will all be ok this time. They don't know, they didn't hold their child in their arms as she took her last breath, as her heart stopped beating....
I just want baby boy here, safe and sound x
Baby boy is big, currently estimated at 3lbs 6oz, I know those estimates are not terribly reliable, but he feels about that. And he's still a he. I double checked yesterday at my scan.The sonographer was very patient with my paranoid questions.
I also saw my consultant yesterday, and we are on track to induce sometime after 37 weeks, so hey maybe I've only another 7 weeks to go...we'll see.
I'm still telling everyone 10, and telling myself the same, while focusing on getting through the next minute,hour,or day depending on how emotional I am at the time, and these days I'm very emotional.
My consultant is a very lovely man, and yesterday in the process of explaining something to me he used an example of a woman who had two babies die. Now my logical brain understood the whole of what he was telling me, but my crazy babylost brain just picked out "again" it happened "again" and that word has been whirring around in my head ever since.
I've tried not to imagine baby boy in my arms,but sometimes I admit I do, just for a second.
I don't have the same feelings I had when I was pregnant with Florence, I do believe he'll make it, but then I know like any other babylost parent does that it can happen.
I often have that old Smiths song in my head, just begging the universe to please please please...
Today was Sports day for Sid. Thankfully, the venue had changed,I really don't think I could've gone had it been held as usual in the vicarage garden, too many memories of excited conversations looking forward to birthing Florence.
This morning I found a spot to put down my picnic rug and sat quietly waiting for the children to arrive, and yes trying really hard not to cry. I watched babies that were born last summer crawl off with tired parents chasing after them, and couldn't imagine Florence ten months old and doing the same.
Just when I thought I might leave early a friendly voice said "there you are". A lovely friend came and sat with me, and we chatted, and despite still feeling kinda shakey inside I knew with her there I could stay.
Only two more sports days this week, maybe now I've done one,I'll cope better at the next two.
How is it possible to miss someone so much when they were here for such a short time?
We miss you sweetheart.x
Then she looked at my large bump and asked when I was due, cue more exclamations at my size and how much bigger I'm going to get by August. (sigh)
By now I was trying to avoid her,but she lives on the next street to me, and we were going the same way.
"Do you know what you are having?" She asked.
"Yes a boy" says me
"Oh, well I guess you have some girls too?"
"Yes" and I start to shake, and glance over at my friend who has now caught up with us.
We cross the road and I scurry away feeling like shit, and leaving her with the impression I have five living children, and no doubt next time I see her I'll have to pop her bubble and tell her one of them is infact dead.
Shit shit shit!!!
Is that what I will look like if I make this dress in these fabrics? Especially considering my bump is already, at 29 weeks too large for the largest size, and I'm going to have to alter the pattern.
I think my indecision is probably my answer.
What seems like forever after it's US release, Anna Maria Horners new book arrived today. I've had this on pre order forever.
Owning this book means more to me than it probably should, for reasons I can't quite make sense of myself, other than I am so grateful to get a chance to make some of the items in the book for baby boy, and so sad that I never got to make any for Florence as I'd imagined , knowing the book was being put together last year.
Anna shared the introduction to this book on her blog a little while back, and she describes so perfectly how lovely it is to prepare for a new baby by making.
I don't regret one second of all the making and preparing I did for Florence, and I know the making I've done during this pregnancy has kept me sane, or at least on a fairly even keel, sometimes...
I've been bootie knitting.
First Picot Trim Booties, from a pattern in Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. I used some sock yarn I happened to have in my stash. Love these, and have put them in my hospital bag.
Next Saartje Booties, knitted in Jacobs sheep yarn. I posted a pic of these the other day,but a couple of people asked for the link to the pattern,so here it is.
And lastly, some simple garter stitch booties, pattern from Quick Baby Knits again, and using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.
Cooking tonights dinner, and look what was in my can of tomatoes....
It's a crushed plastic coke bottle lid...bleurghh!
I have already phoned Tesco, and now we have to take the can back to the store, for a "foreign body investigation".
Kinda put me off my dinner , despite spotting it before using any of the tomatoes.
These are so quick, and so cute and use hardly any yarn, so good for all the leftovers. These ones came out quite big,but I do tend to have babies with big feet and hands.
Another quick knit. I love this yarn, it's Jacob Sheep yarn, so the colour is the colour of the sheep, and it smells so divinely woolly.
Well meaning people keep asking me every day how I am. I'm not sure what reply they want to hear.
When I tell them that physically everything is fine, they look relieved, and I say quietly in my head "but everything was fine with Florence". I think most people still don't get that. In fact I know some people think that having her at home somehow caused her death. No one wants to think that sometimes babies just die and no one knows why.
People are reassured when I tell them I have a consultant, and I'm going to hospital this time, they just don't get it.
Sid's teacher asked me yesterday if I was having a c section this time. While it's a possibility, my consultant has already stated quite clearly that had Florence been born by c section, she still would have died.
Physically I am fine, and as far as we know so is baby boy. Inside my head though, well that's quite a different story. Sometimes I wish I was like Worzel Gummidge, and could take off this head,swap it with another for a while, just for a break.
Can't do that though, so I'll just keep on keeping on, and even though I cried while sewing the buttons on this little vest,I'll just keep on hoping baby boy gets to wear it, and wishing Florence were here to get under my feet and stop me having so much time to knit.
Finished this little soaker last night with the left over yarn from the Milo Vest.
I used the Little Seedlings pattern, which knitted up very easily and very quickly. I do think it's very cute, but I know despite having knitted the size small (10-16lbs) it's never going to fit baby boy, at least not over any of his fitted cloth nappies. I might get away with a muslin, but I think it's more likely I'll use it over a disposable, just to look pretty. (We are taking disposable nappies to hospital)
I'll probably knit this up again in a larger size, and possibly add more to the rise.
Meanwhile, I justsorted through my modest yarn stash and found just enough (I hope) of some Jacobs Sheep yarn to knit the pebble vest. So that really is next on my list.
(Oh and yeah, the colour is a bit off in this pic, the light in here today is very bright, but it seems blocking some of it out has made everything a bit yellow.)
Just finished this Milo Vest with Owl cable this morning.
Next on the baby knitting list is The Pebble Vest.
Despite the fuzzy head I still needed to tidy up my work space, and while putting things away I remembered I wanted to make a new cover for this cot quilt.
I know baby boy can't use a quilt (duvet really) until he's a year old, but the bedside cot will go up in our room eventually, and it'll be nice to have bedding that suits the current decor.
I used some of my Blue Dahlia fabrics, printed by Spoonflower on lovely soft interlock. The reverse is killington flannel, and I've used resin snaps for the closure.
I've got three out of four children off school today with head colds, and I'm feeling rather fuzzy in the head myself.
Maybe it's a cold, maybe it's pregnancy, and maybe my head is just fuzzy from the constant spinning of grief. I think it's likely all three.
This little brooch has been the highlight of my week, made by my friend and left in a little parcel on my doorstep. Thank you Jayne, it's beautiful. x
I finished the blanket I've been working on for baby boy. I started knitting this in the early weeks of pregnancy when everything was so unsure. I thought if I could just knit and keep my hands busy...
So, I kept on knitting until I ran out of yarn, then inspired by the Bunny Blanket in Vintage Baby Knits, I added three little bunnies in this lovely floral cotton, and bound the edges of the blanket with Killington Flannel.
Lots of hand stitching, which I always find therapeutic, and I'm really happy with the "homespun" finish.
There is a lot of love in this blanket, and I think it's going to the hospital with us.
Click on the link in my sidebar for more details.
