Getting close

8 days until EDD and M thinks she will go early, she’s been getting contractions the last two nights and not sleeping very well.  I am madly trying to get the house and garden in order enough to be able to neglect the big jobs for a few months, but I am struggling because I have to depend on other people for help (window cleaner, gardner etc) and they are not being reliable.  Also, lots of people want to ‘catch up’ before the big event, so if they come over I put them to work while we have a coffee!  This week I got one friend to snip the tops off the entire parsnip crop, and another yesterday helped me plant 5 beds of garlic.  Awesome!!  

So, garlic is in, broad beans are sown, ten cubic metres of pig/chicken manure has been delivered and the bulk of it spread on the garden, roses and truffle trees.  I’m hoping Mike gets time to put the rest on the orchard today.  Yesterday he was busy finishing the chook house (while also being on call this weekend, so a few interruptions).  Our gardener is taking two months off, so we have had to sub in other people to help out with whippersnippering and pruning etc.  Done is coming back Monday to finish pruning the stone fruit in the orchard and refill the fruit fly baits.  M is going to clean the fish tank for me this afternoon, as I have come to the limit of what my wrists are prepared to offer me after the manic garlic crop effort.  I have just finished off cleaning the outside top northern windows that the window cleaner didn’t get done last week.  I still have to do about an hour of mowing today but since it rained the last couple of days I am waiting for it to dry out a little more- maybe late afternoon.

Car seats are in (one in each car), and our bags are packed for the hospital (2 for baby, one for me but Mike hasn’t done his yet, and a bag of snacks and games) but I have yet to fill up the ipod with birth suite music, – we all have to be home at once to do it together.  Mike is out at the hospital now, and M is over at our friend Jenny’s (who is hosting the family post birth for a week) taking a look around the farm and her accommodation.  I’m enjoying a little bit of silence here.  I think I have reached my limit of having someone (anyone) in my house 24/7, chattering away, and I’m starting to feel very overwhelmed and overstimulated.  Yes, I can sneak away for a break, and have a nap, or whatever, but it is always there to come back to and a few hours break is just not enough to recharge my batteries.  I know I made the right decision billeting M out after the birth, because my level of anxiety would have been so high as to be debilitating and counterproductive to my bonding with the child if she had been in our home for three weeks solid.  It is difficult because I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but at the same time, I am only able to adapt so much and I’ve definitely hit the wall now.

Last week was busier even than usual because M had an appointment every day, and since she hasn’t got her car with her, I had to run in and out of town to collect her and drop her off and pick her up in between my exercise class and shopping etc.  She’s had two physio sessions for pelvic pain, one shiatsu treatment and a GP check up appointment.  Next week scheduled are the OB check up appointment on Tuesday and a reflexology session on Wednesday.  We’ll see if we get that far.

Mike and M have both had colds this week, and are still sniffing and snorting.  My ear hurts and my sinuses were blocked on waking this morning so I’m clearly fighting it off.  I hope I win.

The surgery jobs remain incomplete but I have handed over to the practice manager and she’ll be in charge of making sure they get finalised.  Did the best I could, but you just can’t MAKE people turn up.  Also, the landscapers who last week put in a new retaining wall and laid lovely river rock around the building extensions ripped up ALL the newly laid retic in the course of their project, so that now has to be redone next week.  SIGH.  Oh well, not my problem.  We all had a fun time at the celebratory drinks for the extension on Friday night.  I couldn’t wait until everything was completed, (the child would be six months old by then probably!) so I called it early and everyone brought a plate.  We took M along and all the staff were beside themselves with excitement to meet her and grill her about the surrogacy procedures.  She takes it all with extremely good grace, I must say.  Far, far better than I’d be able to.  That’s the last big meet and greet for now, until maybe the Tribal next Easter (if her family are not sick for the third Easter in a row) when she can meet all my extended clan.

The week before last I begged my friend Shev (whose house recently burnt down) to give me an adjustment as my neck is really out and I hadn’t had regular sessions with her since January.  My mood was terrible and I couldn’t go on.  So Wednesday she treated me and all was bliss until I put it out severely the next day at Body Balance class.  Sigh.  And now she can’t see me until I have no idea when.  I borrowed the adjustment table for that session and have since had to give it back.  Bad timing.  The muscle has had time to calm down and get out of spasm but the vertebrae are not where they should be and I think it is contributing to my intolerant mood.  I’m considering seeing a local chap on Tuesday.  I’ve seen him before and it didn’t really help, but I’m desperate now.

Have to go to Bunbury on Monday (tomorrow) for a passport interview.  I want to renew my British passport before it expires in June, and it requires you to turn up at a ‘registered’ post office for an interview.  Unfortunately I had not realised until late last week that our local post office was unable to do this.  Bah. Now I have to make a special trip to Bunbury (best part of 3 hr round trip) at the last minute to get this done.  M wants to come along ‘for something to do’, so we will have to pack all our hospital bags and take them just in case she goes into labour while we are gone.  What a right pain in the arse.

I swear, organising for a baby is far more work than organising for an international holiday.

I have made ‘announcement/thank you’ cards for the 14 care providers we used during the process, and addressed and stamped the envelopes so there is just the actual card to write when the time comes.  I’ve also made some thank you cards in case we get any gifts for the baby, and a list of who gave what and when I replied, so I can keep track of it when my brain turns to mush.

The home and contents policy remains unchanged at this stage, due to the fact they want us to install security on each window and door that opens, and a ‘monitored’ alarm system- which you cannot even get in this town- if we want to increase the value of our policy (which we do as we are woefully under insured).  A second opinion can do it for less money but still has not said what security measures we need to implement for the price we want, so I can’t make any changes until I have that info.  House probably wont burn down in winter, so as long as I sort it by October I’ll be happy.  Mike’s mate is ordering us security cameras (3) which back up to some external device that runs over the wifi (I think).  Not sure when we will install them but I suspect it will be mandatory for the second insurance mob.  No alarm though.  I hate those things.

Life insurance, trauma cover and income protection insurance is now sorted for both of us, though there may be some blood tests they want us to have done, we are still waiting to hear about that.  I have spoken with my lawyer re changes in terms of the will and guardianship arrangements in case of our joint deaths.  I’ve also informed the executor of our changes.  Once the baby is born, we can get the name into the wills and sign them.  She is also drawing up our parentage order papers and ‘plan’ which is kind of an agreement between us and the birth parents as to how much contact they have, what we are obliged to give them as far as updates go, etc.  That will be signed and filed at 28 days post birth, then we wait for a court date, and at that point the court will inform our lawyer whether we (and or the baby) have to attend court, or she can go alone to represent us.

We also all need a counselling session on the ‘implications’ of the parentage order (legal requirement) so our surrogacy counsellor Jane will include that discussion in our post birth counselling session (required by the RTC) via skype a week or so after the birth.  Then she has to provide documentation (to RTC and the court) that she’s done it.  So I have been busy getting all of those balls rolling now, in order to just tick the boxes at the other end.

So that is where it is all at.  Madness.  Organising central.

What I am looking forward to:  pulling the phone out of the wall, closing my front gate, and hunkering down with Mike and the baby for a month, letting everything slide and not attending to anyone else’s needs but our own.  Not having to be at any appointments, or produce anything for anyone, or make any phone calls to organise people to do shit.  Just us and the kid and no external demands.  (Except M will be dropping in once a day for a visit, and then her husband and kids for a visit to say goodbye at the end when M decides it is time to return home to Perth and her normal life. But we won’t be allowing anyone else in for at least a week maybe more). I think that apart from the broken sleep pattern (which will no doubt create some crankiness) it is actually going to be less stressful than what I am doing right now.

At some point I would hope to get a couple of pics of the baby up on this blog, but I won’t be putting them on facebook (unless maybe feet pics or something, lol) and I will be asking other people not to put photos of our baby on facebook either.  Maybe I will have to go back to using Flickr, or open a picasa account, but I just don’t feel comfortable with the facebook idea.

Gosh, it is SO quiet here.  M has stayed for lunch at Jenny’s and Mike is still not home.  I can hear the quiet hum of the computer and the magpies warbling.  occasionally the frog outside the kitchen window grunts. How’s the serenity!  I think I might just go and enjoy a few moments of that rare peace…

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