BABY NEWS!!! Xavier Alec Connor was born 2 Saturdays ago in the morning after 8 1/2 hours of serious labour. On Friday I started having regular Braxton Hicks contractions, so (having read a fabulous little orange book on dealing with pain and fear in labour) we very calmly waited till the contractions were 7 minutes apart, then toddled cool as cucumbers up to the hospital.

They put me on the foetal monitor, and the contractions petered out and disappeared. We decided to go home, feeling very foolish (like, how stupid do you feel now that you've gone all the way to hospital with FALSE labour, especially after already experiencing REAL labour once before???). I was so upset, I spent the next 2 hours crying in bed - Elsa would be so disappointed, because she was convinced her little brother would arrive by morning...

SO. Cried for 2 hours, because I was still having somewhat-painful contractions but they didn't MEAN anything and weren't GOING aywhere. Then, having finally dozed off for 15 minutes, in the middle of a particularly painful "fake" contraction BAM!!! I felt his head smash into my cervix with an audible POP and I called out into the night, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???"

I ran to the toilet, then the bathroom, trailing a slick of amniotic fluid all over the floor and yelling at Stephen to get out of bed. By the time I'd had a shower contractions were 4 minutes apart and painful. Of course they hadn't become PAINFUL painful yet, but they seemed pretty darn serious so we scampered up to the hospital.

At the end of a labour which seemed much, much harder than Elsa's (even though it was half as long), Xavier turned out to be a

10 POUND BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!

As in 10lbs EXACTLY, 4.555kg which is 1.45kgs heavier than Elsa was. When he was born they looked at his chubbiness and said "at least 8 pounds", but even the midwives were stunned at just how big he was. I mean, I'm a small woman, internally.

Midwife [in awe] : "Are you the woman who had the 10 lb baby?"

Annette [cockily]: "Why yes, yes I am."

(Instant celebrity on the maternity ward - I could hear people passing my room door whispering "The woman in that room had a ten pound baby!". The midwives would peer in the peephole, I think expecting some 6 foot behemoth with a massive pelvis...)

Not only did I birth an enormous monster baby (no stitches! that bit of the little orange book was definitely worth reading!), complete with almost 1kg of placenta, apparently I also carried him in an unusually large amount of amniotic fluid. Which explains my massive discomfort in the final 3 months and the massive watermelon-sized belly that most people thought was harbouring twins (see photo in my album). It also explains why he was able to move so much throughout the pregnancy, and even during contractions - he had heaps of room in there. He came out EXTREMELY chubby, not wrinkled or anything - like a 1 month old, not a 1 minute out!

Xavier has been dubbed the little piggy pork chop, because he eats so much. Breastfeeding is going extremely well, except that I just don't have enough milk for such a monster! For the first week he just screamed any time he was awake and not eating (I guess he thought he needed to get some attention), but he's really started to take an interest in what's going on around him now. He does beautiful smiles for Mummy, especially when he's asleep... he even laughs in his sleep!

He looks like a fat 3-month-old hairy version of Elsa, with exactly the same colour hair, eyebrows, lashes and eyes, they are scarily alike. Except that Xavier is STRONG like bull. Elsa held her head up straight away, but Xavier is something else... he seems to think he can support his whole weight on his legs already (not that we'd let him, 'cause that'd be bad for his spine). And we are all hard pressed to pull his arms anywhere he doesn't want them, including the men of our family. Xavier is big and boxy and fat and hairy and just beautiful. His cheeks are ridiculously chubby.

Since birth (4 weeks ago - his 1 month birthday is tomorrow) Xavier has gained over 1 kilo. A kilo! His head seems enormous (FYI - it was a nice, normal size when he came out thank goodness). And HAIRY - he has fur on his upper back, legs and even the outsides of his upper arms - what a MAN. Thankfully he's lost the mono-brow he was born with...

All our other family news can wait for the next blog.

First, all the good news. Solar Steve is taking a regular 8am-5pm, Monday to Friday job with Aqua Pumping and Solar, as of tomorrow! We are both very relieved to have a REGULAR source of income and NO OVERHEADS, where Stephen can still do work he believes in. For now we keep the Solar Steve kombivan for him to trip around in, and if it gets de-commissioned (possibly will have an AP&S vehicle in the future) we paint flowers on it and go camping!

Elsa got to meet her class and see her classroom for next year last Thursday. She's very excited about school now, even though (for now) it has to take a back seat to Christmas and Xavier's arrival. Yes, Elsa is a very happy little chappy at the moment. Post a photo of her new hair in my album...

My belly is ENORMOUS and protuberant and heavy, way too large to be mistaken for a basketball anymore. A week ago I had this wierd dream - me, my mother and my daughter were all on a massive Russion warship, a hospital ship, which was full of women. All of a sudden I realized the baby wasn't inside me anymore - the baby was inside my mother, she had a caesarean and 'she' was born. A girl. Blonde, curly hair, blue eyes and very VERY chubby, like she'd grown too fast. She could talk already, and had all her teeth, and the teeth were jagged and chipped, like they'd grown in too fast. Then we all tried to get on a train. And i woke up.

And when I woke up I felt so light, so UN-PREGNANT that I had to look down to check my belly was still there! The antenatal nurse told me "His head's jammed WAY down in there!" (in my pelvis), so he's dropped - at least that's progress. For 4 days I could breathe again - a brief reprieve, as now his legs have grown back into my lungs and ribs again. I'm at 37 weeks now, and the hospital nurses want Xavier to stay in their till at least 38 - but I am so damn uncomfortable, I wish he'd come RIGHT NOW.

The Joy of Pregnancy

I can't sit. I can't stand. I can't lie down.
I can't sleep. I can't stay awake.
I can't bend over. I can't stand up straight.
I cannot breathe, I cannot eat.
Water goes straight through me.
Dry heat makes me itch.
Humidity makes me curse.
And worst of all -
I can't have a drink to make it all go away...


Animal news... Deer shooters have done their job (TOO well, in our opinion) and scared all the deer back up into the mountains. We had a bushfire come down to just behind our hill the week before last (though it never got out of hand - but the roaring sound was still incredible!), and haven't seen a deer since. Some recent rain has brought on a frog and bird EXPLOSION, though we don't get many cane toads at all around here. Lucky for us! Elsa's tadpoles are growing nice and fat - surely they should get legs soon?

Snake count - we're up to 3 baby browns killed this season. Dad had an enormous rock wall built along (what will be) the driveway into our blocks - yes another wall, but this Great Wall of Carlo is enormously long, made of enormous rocks with an enormous 'dam' wall halfway along the gully, and had to built by excavators instead of by hand. In the process of digging/building, another little snake lost it's head. So that makes 3.

If the wonderous happens and I get this baby OUT before christmas, most likely I won't blog till after then. So if I don't - have a happy Christmas, and I'll talk to you soon.

Nette.