Ready as I'll ever be?!

I'm 35 weeks pregnant today.  That means that in no more than 7 weeks, we will have our baby boy here.  As you may recall, if I get to 41 weeks it's game over and straight into theatre.  I am seriously hoping it doesn't come to that.

I finish work in just over a week now.  In real terms I actually only have 5 full days in the office, by the time I've done a half day Thursday for antenatal classes (more on that later) and another half day on Tuesday for a Consultant appointment.  That's such a lovely feeling, so close, and yet, still so far as I feel I have quite a lot to finish off.  I'm trying to hand quite a lot of stuff over but I'm feeling slightly guilty as the team are already creaking slightly under the pressure.  But anyway, screw work...!

I was lying in bed this morning, feeling bub moving about, thinking about his imminent birth and as I got in the shower, I thought how strange it's going to be in a few weeks time to call myself a mother of two.

Which still feels alien to me.  5 and a half years down the line and I still find it odd to be called 'mummy'.  Which probably sounds like a really horrible, bitchy, selfish thing to say, but I find myself in an odd sort of limbo - half stuck between my uni days (I had only graduated 18 months before I had Scarlett) and half stuck between the generation of mothers at Scarlett's school.  That's not to be rude either, they all seem nice enough, but they grew up in a different time to me and when I'm never at the school gate, I feel quite alienated and distant from being a mum.

I'm hoping next year I can try and lose some weight, have a bit more confidence and generally get out there a bit more.  Maybe I'll feel more like a 'mum'?!  I think being at home, on my own, with bub and having to fend for myself will probably make this all feel a bit more real.  It really is a bit like being a first time mum.  Last time we sort of lived in one room upstairs, and Andy was there all the time as he was caring for his mum.  So it was more like being a couple of teenagers with a baby than it was being 'grown ups' with a baby.

That probably sounds really stupid, but I think that's what I'm so looking forward to this time.  Being a grown up.  Having the whole house to ourselves and our family.  It being 'proper'.  Being a housewife, doing the school run, meeting other mummy friends for coffee (because thankfully this time I have a few, I'll post about it separately).

'Proper' seems such a daft word to use, like my weird ideal of having a family wasn't quite right last time.  Heck, it kinda wasn't in any way, shape or form.  It's why I've been so obsessed this time; having a proper bump, feeling him wriggling, doing antenatal classes, getting a nice new pram all for ourselves.  I feel sure we won't have any more, for various reasons, I feel I'm just going to be happy and blessed with two.  So I guess that has added to the desire of it being 'proper' this time.

It's probably also why a new epithet should be invented for what I've become, Mumzilla, maybe, or a Pregzilla anyway.  Determined to have it my own way and make it all 'just so'.

This time has been so monumentally different.  It really has been like a first pregnancy in some ways.  I've ended up seeing our boy 6 times through various scans, had multiple midwife and consultant appointments (although sometimes I wish I could just go for a coffee with the specialist midwife I see, she's just brilliant, I wish it was her who would be there when I give birth...!), started antenatal classes, fully prepared a space for him, and clothes, and toys and just generally, I feel quite prepared.

Or do I?!