So, finally something to report health-wise. No, no weight gain. No rise in blood pressure. No diabetes, so no further sticky sweet gak consumption required. But I have reached a new low where iron is concerned. I started out at 40, which is lower than ideal but apparently no cause for concern. Since then I have managed to drop to 12. Oops. It explains a LOT actually; the eternal exhaustion, the breathlessness, the inability to stay awake past 11am or to concentrate on… pretty much anything. YAY there’s a reason! The cause would be a combination of diluted blood, not eating enough, and very rarely wanting to take up valuable stomach real estate with red meat, which I’m not overly fond of anyway.

So to pay for this lack of respect for my carnivorous roots, I now get to take iron supplements for the remainder of the incubation period. Apparently they may cause constipation and will make my poo black. Oh the new levels of excitement we are reaching.

Speaking of excitement, Sam and I attended our first antenatal class this week. It was, as expected, not my cup of tea. Our ‘educator’ is a little too adversarial for my liking, and one wonders how she of the ‘challenge everything you are told’ mantra will deal with being challenged herself. Still, she seems nice enough, and definitely not boring. BIG class though, most of whom are foreigners – we had representatives from India, China, Poland, South Africa, and a handful of Brits. I suppose if we were taking classes in Parnell the group makeup would be somewhat different: less ethnically diverse and probably wearing more expensive clothing.

Next week we get the labour and birth class, with the first birthing video HOORAH. Apparently she won’t force anyone to watch it, but I will sit on Sam and pry his eyes open if he tries to wuss out. I do hope my aggressively relaxed attitude to the birthing process won’t cause any lectures to come my way. Basically, as long as the thing comes out alive, and I come out alive, I don’t give a rat’s how it’s achieved. Sounds reasonable to me!

Other stuff this week: mother showed up with a sack of clothing. She’s been on a Trademe spree and effectively tripled our haul of pink clothing in a single visit. So much pink. I think we’re beyond set for the first few months now. Clothes-wise anyway. Definitely pink-clothes-wise.

Sam started clearing out the spare room last weekend. He got as far as moving a bookcase and sorting out half the books. I pointed out to him he only has a handful of weekends left where he’s not working (and fewer where I’ll be in any state to help), so hopefully he will get everything done in time. Or, you know, wrath of Karen.

This week we also got the border / decals for the room. Since we can’t paint, we’re just sticking removable / repositionable crap on the walls. While I love the decals from Blik, we went with a cheaper option, being cheap as we are. We eventually settled on an animal theme that is unnervingly cute and does not involve any princesses or unicorns. I figure any spawn of mine will have to love animals from day 1 in order to survive, so might as well start off SURROUNDED by them. Mother says “what if the kid has an allergy to cats?” and I say “there are shots you can have”. Me Best Mother Ever.

In summary:

Me = keeping well.

Spawn = wiggly.