33 weeks 1 day

Oh Chewie my darling. Thou giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. The last 2 nights miraculously I've been able to sleep right through til 6am, not a loo trip in sight and waking up relatively refreshed. Thing is, I think the reason, blissful though this is, is because your knees seem to be wedged right up behind my ribs, and you're a bit higher up than you were, possibly meaning you're not squishing my bladder as much.

But my god does that hurt sometimes. In the mornings I'm mostly relatively comfortable but by about 2pm I can't sit properly without feeling totally constricted around my right ribs; and my upper back just under my right shoulder blade is absolute agony. This goes on for most of the rest of the day, until I can get to have a lie down - and that's not exactly possible at work. So I can imagine the next 2 weeks will be a bit hard to take until I go on leave, when my nesting instinct will apparently kick in (ha!) and I start scrubbing floors and cleaning the oven.

Anyway enough griping. The wriggling Chewie's doing (especially after the spicy pumpkin risotto earlier in the week, funnily enough) always makes me smile and Ali and I are getting more and more excited to meet him or her in 7 weeks or so. Last weekend we went up to Manchester to spend a few days with Stuart, Alison and Archie and also Alison and Liam, and Ali was over the moon to see both nephews at the same time. It was lovely to spend time with the family and see how much both boys have grown - Archie is a wee smiley treasure at about 7 and a half months, and Liam is looking amazingly grown up at 8 years old, especially when he spikes his hair with gel or holds his little cousin gently in his arms.

We loaded up the Golf for the journey home with pram, crib, baby bath, baby gym, and mountains of bags of clothes Archie's too big for. I don't think you can actually see the floor of what will be Chewie's room now. That's going to be a job for the next few weeks, sorting it all and putting it away - though if we ever have more than one child we'll have to bloody move house. Now the only thing I really have left to get sorted is the nappy situation - need to make my choice so the poor nipper has at least something to cover its bum when it comes home from the hospital!