OH CRAP!

Just looked at rotating 3D baby over there and noticed that I have less than 100 days until my due date now.

Panic is setting in.

Baby did well on trip to UK, although kicking has increased significantly in the time I was gone. The plane definitely upped the ante with almost constant movement for the 10hour flight out. But otherwise, baby seemed happy to be in Momma's home town. Actually, my digestion and er... (well there's no other way to tell it) constipation completely calmed down when I was back there and my hair seemed to become much more manageable. I guess you can take the girl out of Britain but you can't take the Brit out of the girl! It was almost tempting to suggest staying on in England to give birth on the NHS (National Health Service), which would actually save us up to $2k on our hospital stay. Didn't think Hubby would buy it, though, so I kept my mouth shut.

Whereas I was only getting poked and prodded in the evenings and a bit in the morning, now its pretty much an all day affair. I woke up this morning to find that baby had figured out how to operate hands and feet in unison, meaning I was being poked on both sides of my stomach at the same time. This may also explain why my bump is so W-I-I-I-I-D-E - baby appears to be laying width-ways for the most part.

Girth has definitely increased at a faster rate recently, some of which is as a result of Christmas over-indulgences (and will reduce in the next week or so as my eating gets back to normal) but a lot of which is definitely baby, as evidenced by the changing shape of the bump itself. Where before it was a gentle slope out from my groin, now it's definitely a round, beach-ball type protrusion. It's amazing how much faster the growth happens after the fourth month at least from the outside. Everything seems to speed up, with more noticeable gains and changes week-by-week now, versus month-by-month.

Maternity pants refuse to stay up for longer than half a second now, meaning I walk around constantly hitching up my pants. My parents think I need braces but I have not yet lost all fashion sense (I'm saving that for my sleep-deprived maternity leave), so I plan to stick it out.

Christmas without martinis or Baileys sort of sucked. I'm very much looking forward to having a gurgling baby in one arm and a lemon-drop martini in the other in 2009.

That's it for Monday after Chrimbo. Shall report back again soon.