Last Official Tick Over Day

I can't believe this will be my last 'full week' post! By this time next week (at the latest) our 3 babies will be here and our lives will again change forever. My wonderful girlfriends took me out to our favourite 'fancy' restaurant last night - Flaxton Gardens. We've had many lunches there with amazing food, beautiful views and lovely wines - with lots of laughter of course. So this was my last 'shindig' with the girls - well, for a very long time anyway! Left to right - Berni, Laurie, Me (obviously), Taryn and Skye. We missed Mel, but she was being a good wife and letting her hubby go to card night.

These wonderful girls are such a central part of my life. I've known Berni for about 2 years, she has a little boy, Henry. We love to laugh at her 'pommy-ness' but she has a complete heart of gold. Still waiting to see her really drunk though! The first time I met Laurie was the day before I went into labour with Amali. Here she was, a couple of months along with her first pregnancy, wearing a sports bra and teeny boardshorts, walking a huge bloody English Bulldog and looking fabulous!  I knew Laurie's hubby back in the old days of school (had a big crush on him back then!) and we've all become firm friends ever since. She has 2 daughters, Zanthe and Jaspa. Skye I met through Laurie, along with her twin sister, Tammin. She recently got married to a great guy, Mick, and she's the sort of person who would do anything for you.

Lastly, my best friend in the whole wide world, Taryn. We've known each other since grade 4, we were 9 years old. I remember not getting invited to her birthday, and we lived across the road from each other, I watched all these girls having fun from my front verandah - needless to say she ended up waving me over. We've been through some really tough times together and it just reaffirms the fact that our friendship is strong, as we've always come out the other side stronger. She was at the birth of my second child, Amali, and will also be there for the birth of the triplets. She's currently 24 weeks along with her second child, a girl! A little sister for big brother Reef. I love her so much.

So as you can imagine, we had a great night, with lots of laughs, great food and of course great company. I could not believe how big I looked in these pics! Daniel said I looked like a tent! Oh well, at least I know my babies are big!
 

Front view, surely people won't say "you're not that big" after looking at this pic?! Looks like I stole the kids beach ball! And the side view - yes, I am wearing tights under my dress (it's could up on the range) and I did take my shoes off as soon as we got there - luckily there were no other diners in the restaurant and all the guests from the wedding in the function room didn't see me!

I knew that at some stage of my pregnancy I would end up feeling some sort of pain. Well, finally it has hit! I have a sciatica type pain running down the front side of my left leg, from my hip downwards about 20cm. Makes it hard to lift that leg to walk, put undies on, go up steps. Ouch! But hey, if that's all I'm going to cop, I'm super lucky!

Really not sleeping much at all due to the itching. I get about 2-3 hours at the start of the night, then scratch for an hour or so, drifting in and out of sleep, then I end up getting up and having a scalding hot shower, usually about 3am. This gives me a bit of relief and I can generally fall back asleep until the kids wake up. This morning I ended up falling asleep on the couch for 45 minutes at 7:30! It was a good cat nap which has gotten me through the day.

I had a lot of responses to my last post. Thank you! There is so much love flowing in from all over the world at the moment, I am truly blessed. I do want to point out though, that the last post wasn't so much about me being hard on myself, it was more about me letting go of being hard on myself. I have fairly high standards of myself, so to let that go was pretty big!

Here are the 34 week belly shots! Taken at 11pm last night after coming home from dinner. Hence the made up face, earrings and very tired look!

I remember when this dress used to touch the floor.........! The belly is definitely getting lower, both from the weight and the babies moving down so much. I actually have a large area at the top which is squishy - no babies in there!
 

 

You can still see the marks on my belly from my brace. It's amazing how small it looks compared to the above photos of me in the blue dress.

Lastly, a comparison shot of 28, 30, 32 and 34 weeks (left to right). I'll only be taking one more shot of me in this dress - when I go into labour (much to my husbands dismay!).

I've also been hand expressing colostrum. No, it alone will not send me into labour, but if I am about to go into labour, it could tip me over the edge. I got 1mL on my first attempt and now getting 1.5mL. I have enough for their first feed if they don't have their suck, breathe, swallow relfex at birth and have to be fed through a nasal gastric tube. Basically I hand express a tiny drop of colostrum, then quickly suck it up into a syringe. Take about 20 minutes to get 1.5mL.

I have a scan on Tuesday - and a bet with the sonographer. If I'm there, she owes me a box of chocolates, if I don't make it because I have gone into labour, I owe her a box of chocolates! From the last scan it appears that they will all be over 5lbs at birth, which is fantastic! (Drinking a protein shake as we speak...)

I'll update after the scan on Tuesday, then on Wednesday we will attempt to bring on the labour naturally, and if that doesn't work, 8am, Thursday 6th September I will begin to be induced. Wahoooooooooo!!!!!