Whoops didn’t tag these puppies

So, birth pool is in the lounge (well, originally it turned up at my work and sat in the middle of my open plan office, all massive and logo’d up for three days that I was away = mortifying) 43 hand me down baby grows are washed and I had my last day at work yesterday. At 38 weeks this little bun is pretty much just getting a good crust on. I am still loving pregnancy, it is all pros and no cons- i.e still able to ride my bike but get the joy of people’s double takes, hehe.

I am having a luxurious day reading the paper, listening to my lovely new Brooke Fraser album, watching the odd delicious youtube video while Tim gets on with painting the halls. In the last week we have had all our halls plastered, hoping to paint and get Carpet Derek in before this baby checks out.

I just saw this image and love it – thanks Juliet.

Tomorrow we have our first Make in our lounge. Make is a monthly craft afternoon, tomorrow we are crafting up social justice patches for the Craftivist Collective’s social justice quilt. Exciting!

From one mum to be to another…

This week I am halfway through my pregnancy, it is hard to believe that in November I will be snuggling up to a tiny, slimy, startled new born. I have loved the last few months of growing into motherhood as a life swells within me. I have never felt more confident or empowered as I do right now- I have had a bit of a transformation of sorts. Prior to March I was ambivalent about pregnancy and birth, I saw it just as something to swat out the way before you get the prize. But through a bit of reading and talking to friends I have come to see it all as a mystical joy and am beginning to feel proper pleasure in my pregnancy and even in the idea of pushing a human being through a certain passageway. It has got to the stage where I am even a little cynical of hospitals, I feel as if every bit of prodding they do takes away a little bit of my new found power, so much that I am even considering turning down my big scan next week.

What a luxury this is! To be able to give or take medical care. You see, I know my odds are good. I know within seconds of anything going a bit wrong with my living room labour I will hear the wail of an ambulance siren and that within minutes I will be in a crisp, clean ward with many attendants. This knowledge gives me real freedom and has allowed me to get to this place of feeling utter trust in my body.

Last week I went to the launch of Mums Matter- a campaign mounted by Oxfam and the Women’s Institute. I saw a video there that gave a small insight into the lives of expectant mothers in Malawi, lives that would be very much like yours I imagine. It really simply outlined some of the tangled issues leading to the awful fact that 1000 women a day die in childbirth, across the world. This is just completely overwhelming.

I can imagine that for you, the normal anxieties around pregnancy are doubled, trebled, blown sky high, as you think of all the women you know who haven’t made it.

It seems tremendously unfair that I am defending my pregnancy from over-medicalisation while literally millions of expectant mums around the globe can’t even access the barest minimum of care.

You may know that just a few days ago our jolly Prime Minister and his gang at the G20 announced a commitment to maternal health and contributed more money to meet this very important Millennium Development Goal. This is all very nice but there is a serious possibility that this cash will just be taken from other areas of need which would be slightly ridiculous. As Dorothy Ngoma, director of the National Organisation of Midwives and Nurses of Malawi puts it; “This money for maternal mortality will mean nothing if it is simply recycled from aid for food or education.”

I want you to know that I will spend the next half of my pregnancy encouraging people to join the Mums matter campaign. Although we are miles away, over here we do have power and we can each take a couple of seconds to do the smallest thing to make sure maternal health becomes a genuine priority, and not one at the expense of other aid areas and Millennium Development Goals. People can just click through here you to send an email to our Prime minister and join thousands of people looking out for mums across the world.

Meanwhile my ‘dilemma’ over whether to take that trip to the scan next week continues…

So, the entanglement of bureaucracy that has held up our purchase of our Camberwell house seems to be nearing the end. Last night we popped over and met the vendor there, a lovely woman, who seemed confident that all would be finalised within weeks. We even have draft contracts! We are getting very excited once again, although when I saw the garden I got palpitations. I had in mind that we would move in and lay out our seedlings but in the three months since we put the offer in it has turned into the Little Shop of Horrors! It’s a jungle out there and definitely not ready for an instant BBQ.

Also, here is the latest bump picture, yes, there is actually a bump there! Can you see it?! I had many formal complaints at the last two pictures being so unbumpus. I have felt Wrigglewriggle (named by my three year old nephew) moving around and even Tim felt it the other morning. Yikes! Very exciting. Here is Wrigglewriggle: 17 weeks today! (Or so they say!)

Well, it is Friday, I am off to enjoy some beautiful evening sun. Have a delicious weekend!

I am pretty lucky with my job (community and activism campaigner with an international development charity) in that it involves as much creativity as I can handle. I get to work with loads of inspirational people- like the Craftivist Collective who are just subversively, cross stitchingly fabulous.

But one of the other top bits of my job is the team I work with who are so crafty and creative, and, as I type, are in the corner of the office baking chocolate cakes in the microwave. Yes, we may have a brand new government, cabinet ministers may be being declared every half an hour, the future of the political landscape shifting every moment, but hey, you know what? Baking is important too.