This is definitely my last pregnancy update, as if you haven’t heard by now, Honey Nut arrived on Monday night, at 40 weeks + 2!

So I have 2 days of Week 40 that I can tell you about. Saturday 25th June was my due date and nothing happened. I was really wanting her to come this weekend as my sister and husband would be with me, and I was afraid of going into labour when everyone was at work if it was a weekday! Here’s a little video of the last weekend being pregnant:

That day we bought a whole pineapple from Tesco and ingredients for a hot chilli con carne that my husband made that evening. I ate the pineapple through the day, as it has bromelain in it which is thought to soften the cervix and bring on labour.

I had a sudden urge to clean the kitchen and bathroom, like proper clean, put all the laundry away, tidy up the kitchen table.

I drank a cup of raspberry leaf tea. I’ve been drinking a cup since 34 weeks. Raspberry leaf tea is thought to tone the muscles of the uterus so it works better during labour.

In the evening I had the hot chilli con carne. Spicy food is thought to stimulate the tummy, and then trigger the uterus into action.

And we did a bit of reflexology on my ankles, as suggested by my friend from up north. She said she went into labour the day after they tried the tips from this video:

Nothing happened in the night, and on Sunday (40 + 1), I began to accept it wasn’t going to happened this weekend. I woke up wanting to clean and clean. I swept the floor, under the sofa, dusted skirting boards, tops of door frames, photo frames, behind the TV, and then I steam cleaned the floors. I hoovered the bedrooms. I wiped light switches. It was like I was a woman possessed!

That afternoon we went for a long walk around the canal and to the playground. They say walking encourages baby to move down, and put pressure on the cervix and stimulate the release of oxytocin which triggers contractions.

Afterwards we ordered a hot curry to be delivered. And I added hot sauce to my portion. We did a bit more reflexology that evening.

And weirdly my left ear popped. It felt like there was water in my ear, it was so out of the blue. I asked my sister to google if it was a sign of labour, but she couldn’t find anything about it.

In the middle of the night, Tyler woke me to come and sleep next to him, so I got up and felt this awful backache. I assumed I had just slept funny.

Monday morning came (40 + 2), and I woke with the backache, and the weird water in my ear sensation. So we just chilled out in the morning. My husband worked from home as I had told him my worries about being home alone with Tyler if I go into labour. And thank god he was at home.

Tyler randomly wet himself watching trains out of the window. This never happens, he’s completely toilet trained, he must have got too excited or something. So I put him in the bath, it was 11am. And I suddenly got what felt like a constant period pain. I bounced on my ball, and Tyler joined in with his space hopper.

And I’ll leave it there, because from 11am – 5pm, I didn’t realise I was in labour until a text message from my friend. This could so easily had been a home birth if I hadn’t received that text! I’ll write about the rest of the day in Honey Nut’s Birth Story post, as basically she was born 8.44pm on Monday night!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my pregnancy updates. I can’t believe this was my last one, time really flies.

Sabrina x