Problems in the bedroom

I don't know what you're thinking that titles means, particularly after admitting about cheating recently but I'm talking about mould.

Yes folks, we have a mouldy bedroom. We noticed it the first winter after we moved in and I became very familiar with the use of Ronseal's Mould Remover. However, it always seemed to come back. We'd been thinking about redecorating with some bathroom anti-mould paint but never quite seemed to get round to it.

Then, after the success with the Thermalmix in the nursery we decided it would be a good idea to paint the walls with the insulation paint before doing a top coat of bathroom paint.

The job had been lingering on my 'to do' list for a while until one day I bought the Thermalmix on Amazon and trundled off to B&Q to buy paint, because what else do you really want to be doing when you're 35 weeks pregnant other than squeezing behind the bed to strip and paint the bedroom wall?

I practically soaked the wall with mould remover before setting to work with the insulating paint.

I'd painted almost all of the wall when I noticed a tiny little flake in the last unpainted corner. I picked at it.

So, yeah. I ended up peeling off quite a bit of the old paint I'd just painted over. I was a little afraid of what SBB would say, but he didn't seem to mind too much. The good thing about peeling off the old paint was that it showed that it was riddled with mould - which could have meant regrowth - but the plaster itself was mould-free. So it turned out to be a good thing!

I ended up doing three coats. The instructions call for two but I wanted to be sure the wall was completely covered and covered well.

When it came to choosing colour I was struck with a small problem. I wanted to buy the Dulux bathroom paint as it came with a 5 year anti-mould guarantee, but they didn't have any in a similar sunny shade of yellow that I'd painted the room previously. They did have a yellow in the B&Q 'every room' paint - suitable for kitchens and bathrooms - but I wasn't sure about the anti-mould properties. I went with 'magnolia' in the Dulux bathroom paint. On the walls it looks more peach than magnolia, but I don't really mind. The room feels lovely and bright, so I'd call it a success!

34 weeks pregnant - Pelvic Girdle Pain

This was the week that Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP) made an appearance. Essentially it occurs because the spongey bits in the pelvis become too loose due to an excess of relaxin. Or, in my case, it's likely due to relaxin mixed with my hypermobility.

For me it tends to manifest first as heavy pain 'down below' - which gets sharper if I stand on one leg (to climb stairs, or put trousers on etc.) - and then progresses to shooting pain in my right buttocks and then on to shooting pains down my right leg. If I get to the shooting pain stage, I know I've been on my feet too much during the day and it continues through the night - making it difficult to  turn over in bed and get up to go to the bathroom.

It makes walking around a little awkward.

Baby has seemed to be mostly in position, although the bum sticks out to the left of the bump (as I'm looking at it). It seems to get hiccups at least once a day, although there isn't any particular time of day.

Have I mentioned the nicknames we have for baby? As we already call Cillian our baby, it was causing some confusion. So I started calling the baby 'Uby' - short for 'unborn baby' but it never really took on. Then I started to call it 'Monkey Nut' which SBB declared it was one he could 'really get behind'. So, there it is.

Baby likes to have fingers gently tapped over the belly and loves having the shower sprayed against my belly.

33 weeks pregnant - Electronic Fetal Monitoring

Not a great week this week as Easter Monday we had to go to hospital. I hadn't felt baby move all Sunday night - usually it has a bit of a kick about whenever I get up to go to the bathroom or feed Cillian at 5:30am, but there was nothing.

By about 10am I was concerned. Nothing seemed to make baby move. I tried hunching down in positions that the baby had previously complained about, I poked it, I ate, I drank cold water and I asked SBB to talk to it. Nothing worked.

I was unloading the dishwasher, crying, afraid of what had happened to our baby. I managed to keep myself together enough to phone the hospital and they told me to come in. The lack of movement would have been scary enough but all SBB and I could think about was something that had happened the night before: his back was aching so he asked me to rub ibuprofen gel on his lower back before he headed out to football. I was massaging it in for about a minute before it struck me that it was ibuprofen. I washed my hands 4 times after I realised but by the next morning when the baby wasn't moving I began to get worried that I'd been affected by it.

We got onto the ward and were shown to a bed. I was asked to give a urine sample (not in the bed!) which thankfully was in a dish and not the teeny tube such as the one I was given at my first scan. The midwife got out the fetal heart monitor and there it was - baby's heartbeat. Doing well.
She suggested that it had probably turned and was kicking at my back, which was why I couldn't feel it. She also suggested it was a boy as it was being difficult. A flattering attitude towards men, yet again.

I was doing fine - holding myself together - until she said "it's okay to burst into tears now" - and I promptly did.

The next day I was uncomfortable - I felt something like stitch but it was in the side of my bump, not my side - so it was uncomfortable to move, or sit down, or walk. However baby was moving well - lots of movement throughout the rest of the week.

Confession time...

I cheated on my husband.

Welllllll......

Actually I cheated on a promise I made him not to buy any more cloth nappies.

I bought more nappies.

And lied about it.

It stemmed from my sudden bout of nappy panic. After a bit of thinking I decided that to buy a Flip wrap with some disposable inserts would solve both the problems of needing more nappies and cutting down on washing. I'd read/seen a bit about Flip nappies and it was one of those brands I just wanted, so that worked out very nicely. I ended up getting them from The Changing Mat (which I've since learnt is closing down - sad face). They got sent with a free gift of refresher type sweets which I thought was a lovely touch. I don't eat them, but SBB happily gobbled sensibly ate them.

As I was looking around for the best deal for the Flip and inserts I was perusing The Nappy Stash website and came across the mystery bundles that they sell. I was intrigued. I was curious. I was clicking 'add to my basket'....

Then, I was hit with the guilt but couldn't quite face telling SBB the truth about caving in and buying more nappies. Of course, I rationalised it to myself by saying that 'other women' do it all the time with shoes or handbags. Then I compounded the problem by lying about it.

So, to those at The Nappy Stash; if my husband asks I won the mystery bundle as part of a competition, and very generous it was of you too!

(I also bought a couple of pots of CJ's Butter as The Nappy Stash has the best price - I didn't lie to SBB about buying these...)

32 weeks pregnant - Whooping Cough vaccine and nappy panic

Nappy panic is not unknown to me - I've experienced it before. Does it seem like a strange term? I'm not sure if mothers-to-be that are planning on using disposables suffer from this - or even if anyone else apart from me has experienced this, I may be utterly unique in my panic!

We're planning on using cloth nappies. I came across the concept before we even started trying for a baby, so I've had a good amount of time to research it. However. This week I had a sudden panic that I didn't have enough nappies suitable for a newborn. While I'm confident that we have enough nappies at home, I started to worry about how many we needed to take to hospital. There's surprisingly little official on the internet, or perhaps that's not so surprising as it's cloth. All the pages I read mentioned taking a pack of nappies - and quite a few of the forums were the same. Cloth nappy forums had varying answers. I began to become concerned about the washing factor - if I'm kept in for a  long time SBB would have to wash the nappies and I didn't want to have to make him worry about that. I'm sure he'll learn how to do it in time, but if I'm in hospital he'll have to worry about.

Anyway, the first time I packed the nappies I just packed muslins and boosters. I pre-folded the muslins to make my life easier, but with 10 of them in the bag they were REALLY bulky - which also contributed to my nappy panic.

I had my Whooping Cough vaccine this week. I had it in my left arm as I'm right handed but didn't realise until the next morning that, because I'm pregnant, what side do I sleep on? My left. So my shoulder's really been aching for the last couple of days. It really hurts to do anything with my arm - like lift it or drive.

31 weeks pregnant - Hospital Bag

So, my hospital bag is packed. My 'extra stay' bag is also done and the nappy/baby bag is mostly packed, but I think I might have to move the  baby clothes into my bag as it's a bit of a squeeze with all the nappies.

I've bought some disposable breast pads - I'm fully intending to use re-usables at home but as I don't know how long I'll be in hospital I'm thinking 'convenience' as much as possible.

Finding somewhere that sold breast pads was a bit of a pain - I looked in Superdrug and Sainsburys but couldn't find any (although later I did find some in Sainsburys, just not where I expected) - so bought some from Boots. They were quite expensive, I thought at about £6. I'm hoping I haven't wasted my money. I also bought some maternity pads from there and then later from Superdrug online.

Baby is still loving the exercise and I managed to take a couple of long walks this week, although I was so hot by the end I needed to take my coat off.

30 weeks pregnant - Braxton Hicks

So I felt the first Braxton Hicks this week. I was sat up in bed because I couldn't sleep due to my cold and felt an odd sensation. I put my hands on my belly and felt it again. I described it to SBB as it feeling like one of those storage bags that you suck the air out of. It didn't hurt and it wasn't uncomfortable. If I hadn't been awake I wouldn't have felt it and if I'd been otherwise occupied rather than just sitting in the dark, able to put my hands on my belly, I probably would have just assumed baby was head/bum butting me or having a big stretch.

29 weeks pregnant - Feeling grotty

I took a swim in my new maternity swimsuit this week. It was a good swim apart from being joined in the lane by a woman who wasn't following the rules - i.e. going too fast (I was in the slow lane) and not swimming anti-clockwise like you're supposed to.
Anyway. I did forty minutes. No idea how many lengths that was, I was just pootling along just enjoying the swim - as much as I could with the 'medium' lane people splashing me in the face every so often.

I've managed to be very organised this week - getting and wrapping my mum's Mother's Day gift and a card for SBB's mum, and sorting my sister-in-law's birthday present two weeks early.

I also bought a bag to take to hospital. I'd been planning on buying a gym bag, although I've never found them useful - I'm more of a backpack person. SBB and I went into Sports Direct because I'd seen a couple on their website that I thought would be good, but as we were standing there looking at the bags SBB pointed out several things:

• I don't get on with gym bags
• Every gym bag he's ever bought has fallen apart within weeks
• We're going to have enough to carry - with the baby and the birthing pool and the nappy bag - without having another bag to carry too
• The only ones on the shelves that would actually be big enough to be useful were more money than I'd said I was willing to spend

He'd pointed out the suitcases, but I didn't really want to spend £20-£30 on a small cabin-sized case that I'd be unlikely to ever use again. He went off to have another look at the gym bags and that's when I spotted a small cabin-sized red Dunlop case for £13.99. Bargain. I also had a £5 voucher for having had an order delivered to the store previously, which technically meant the suitcase was only £9!

This week I came down with another cold - my second in two months - the second morning I had it I got out of bed after a restless night and promptly almost collapsed, my legs were so weak.
Obviously, I can't take anything because I'm pregnant so I've really been suffering and feeling quite sorry for myself.