Contradictions

Today I'm 31 + 6. We have a room full of baby stuff. We have two boxes of newborn nappies. I'm thinking that I need to wash the baby clothes soon before I get really big and uncomfortable. I've put the ob appointments for the rest of my pregnancy into our calendar (have been doing them one at time until now). Yesterday we went to a breastfeeding class.

To everyone else, I look like a soon to be Mum getting ready. And sometimes for brief moments, I feel like one. Like there might actually be a baby to breastfeed in less than 9 weeks. That our lives might be about to change again in ways we can't imagine.

But then there's other things that only someone who's lost a baby is going to have running through my head. The fact I'm worried that we don't have anything really special to dress him in when he's born - I'm not worried about clothes normally but then I worry 'what if we only get to dress him once, then he needs something special'. I haven't even told DH this, I know it would make him cry so instead I talk about the fact we need a 'coming home outfit' for him.

I'm going to start cooking frozen meals so we'll have food that just needs heating up when he arrives. But equally I remember how I didn't feel like cooking for months and months after Matilda died so I figure they'll be useful whatever happens.

It's DH's birthday today and I bought him two newborn outfits. I haven't spent a lot of time looking at baby things - I find it hard but on Friday I was wandering around the baby department looking at clothes. I feel like an imposter - like someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and ask what I'm doing there. There was another pregnant women there with her Mum walking around looking at things like she had every right to be there.

And yesterday as I sat in the breastfeeding class I realised just how desperate I am for this happy ending and to actually use the things we have and parent a living child. The sheer terror that we might not get that and be thrown back into the overwhelming grief that our life has been since Matilda died. The realisation that that's just what all the other pregnant couples in the room are expecting. That that's how pregnancy is for most people. But not us.

We have a scan tomorrow morning. I'm trying not to think about it.

On 2 Metformin tablets a night now to try and bring my fasting levels down. So far it's working - fingers crossed it remains that way.

It seems like a long way to go in this pregnancy but at this stage with Matilda, my pregnancy was almost over. Her movements slowed dramatically at 33+6, stopped at 34+0, and she was delivered that night. I'm assuming that I'll feel more anxious as we approach that point.

The sun is out and the days are beautiful at the moment. It's helping. And I'm about to go out for my (slow) walk.