Week 40 and Allison is no where to be seen!

It is technically 2 more days to week 40. I did not expect to still be pregnant today because I had experienced contractions and cervical dilation since week 37 and the doctor said we can expect baby to be early. But by the looks of it, it seems we will need to induce labour this coming Wednesday, 12 March, which is the estimated delivery date anyway.

I had expected my third trimester to be tiring so I had prepped for baby things to be done by second trimester. So now I spend my days wondering what else is there to prep. For the sake of remembering what Joel and I have done to prep for baby, I shall list down the home improvement projects we've embarked on and who have given us what.
 

Things we bought in sequence:

• Baby cot on Shopee.
  
• Stroller and infant seat from Mothercare.
• Attended baby fair and bought cot mattress, mattress cover, syringe feeder, maternity bras, toys from bubble, bottle sterilizer, and got a bunch of freebies.
• Maternity insurance by GE from grace
• Savings plan by GE from grace 

Classes we attended:

• Gentle birthing workshop by Parkway Health at Mount Elizabeth. If we have to induce labour on 12 March, it is really quite far from gentle birthing but oh well.
  
• Antenatal class by KKH. Here I learnt how to bathe baby and change diapers, and more in depth knowledge on labour and breast feeding.

Gifts received in sequence (And probaby more that I can't rmb):

• Philips Avent Breast Pump from Deborah.
• Baby powder, wet wipes, and diaper cream from Nelson. 
  
• Collected items from Abigail, Wei Hong, and Jesher all within a day. Father-in-law drove us around from Yuan Ching to Tampines and back to Bukit Batok. Joel did the heavy lifting and I did the liaising. I also baked cookies to thank these friends
• In-laws bought a bunch of baby towels, toys, and 1 month old clothes for Allison. 
• Derek and danette gave clothes and baby bath tub.
• Claire and Jian with peepod and night lights. 
  
• Ee Han gave diaper changing station and clothes.
• Kenneth and Gail gave clothes, books, soaps.   
• Ruth bought baby thermometer from registry.
• Aunty adeline bought baby cutlery, bib, bath tub thermometer, and a whole bunch of other things from baby registry.
• Mom bought assure pads and diaper pail from registry, herbal bath for confinement, and confinement soups. She's also been delivering lunch to me in the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy.
• Dad has been coming along with lots of fruits. 
  
• Small aunty bought bottles and other things from registry, gave us cute cat pillows and hand towel.
• Karen Jie Jie gave clothes, shoes, portable diaper changing bag, and suction plates.
• Shar gave shoes, clothes, travel mattress, etc.
  
• Neighbour gave us a bunch of diapers, breast milk storage bags. 

Home improvement projects:

• Cleared some parts of guest room.
  
• Set up baby cot.
• Rearranged Joel's study using nitori shelves.
• Rearranged vinyls in the living room. 
• Joel threw away some shoes so I could rearrange the storeroom and shoe area.
• Patched up holes in walls and ceiling.
• Repainted the walls 
• Finally got around to washing our main door area, including outdoor floor mats. We should really do that more often. 

It really is a lot of things to do, because with every batch of gifts and items bought, we needed to sort and rearrange things. It also took me awhile to figure out how to lay things out in the house. 

When I had reached week 37, I started to express colostrum. It is a pale yellowish liquid that is a precursor to breast milk. I've been harvesting them since Week 37 because it wasn't safe to do so prior as it could trigger premature contractions. It is quite a lot of hard work because when I first started, 1 hour of expressing yields around 0.5ml of colostrum. A few days ago, an hour of expressing yielded 2ml. So all together, 10 sessions of expressing probably gave me enough for 2-3 feeds. That sounds very minimal but it would help if baby doesn't latch well in the first few days, because it means she can still have a little bit of good antibodies and what not. 

I am glad to have cut back on ministry and part-time commitments so I could do these things over the weekends, it has been a really fulfilling few months.  Just two more days, and we will be parents. I will have a child to call my own - how crazy is that? See you guys on the other side!