Well, you may have guessed. Having to look after a newborn baby isn't perfectly compatible with blogging. Mostly, I have both hands on cubling, sometimes one hand is free to do other things. But typing? Oh no.

For those of you who sent me emails and are awaiting a reply: I'm fine, really, all is very well, I was so overwhelmed with all your good wishes and I'm trying to respond. It just ain't working at the mo! Back to the good old phone, I can do that one handed you see!

Updates on everything from labour to week one of being a mum will follow.

When I attended the parentcraft classes offered by the hospital where I was to give birth, the "teacher", promoting breastfeeding, enthused why anyone would not opt for breastfeeding. It's cheaper, more convenient, better for baby and mum. She did ask for anyone who had any doubts but didn't really await an answer, and I didn't feel like recounting second hand stories. However, I had been warned. Not by the NCT breastfeeding councillor, who also maintained that breast feeding is easy with the right support. The real warning came through the experiences of those who had their babies before me. Thanks ...   more »

Apparently, I'm in labour. Not that I feel much (yet) but the midwife said so. I shall try and get some sleep now in case this is going to be a long night. Maybe I should pack my hospital bag first. And phone a few people. And hang the washing up. Have a bath. Go for a walk. Read a book.

Oh gosh, I'm so glad the boredom is over.

In between waiting and willing Cubling to leave my tummy, I'm trying to do useful things. Not very successfully I have to admit. Strange things happen to your mind at times like this and I find it almost impossible to focus or concentrate on anything not pregnancy or baby related. It's sad, it annoys me, it angers me even. Above all, it's not me. I've got a pile of REALLY GOOD BOOKS I long to read, but my mind simply meanders to other places. So I try the simpler stuff, things that don't take much time and can be done in between.

For example, we've got a new gadget. A HD camcorder. Apparently, this is a really special camcorder (I don't know about these things so don't ask me for details) and it needs to be figured out. So, I can record on it, playback, and now even transfer files to my computer. They are VERY large, just as well I have an external hard disk, because my computer wouldn't be able to cope with many clips. Now, because this High Definition format is so cool and futuristic, it's also not yet compatible with computers or file formats that play videos. To me, this sounds a bit daft, but hej, what do I know. I do know that this means files have to be converted. So I'm trying to figure that bit out.

To share clips of our darling cubling (once she actually comes out of mummy's tummy), I've set up a youtube account. I could now enter a rant about youtube, but suffice to say that it is anything but intuitive and I can already see severe difficulties ahead of me, trying to explain to my non-English speaking dad how to register so he can actually watch the videos. I guess you're not allowed to complain if something is for free, but I need to be convinced that if someone like me who is reasonably computer literate and a semi geek is struggling, it will be an impossibility to navigate your way around for someone who is not so keen with computers.

Anyway, on the pregnancy side again I have to say that I'm very pleased with the midwives at the Southern General Hospital who really managed to calm me down and give me back my sleep last night. I'm 41+6 today, and after checking that baby is doing fine and things are moving, if slowly, along, they assured me that induction wasn't necessary at all but they would do it if I asked for it. They are happy for me go over 42 weeks even and assured me that I will go into labour naturally. Soon. And it looks like all is set for a natural delivery as well. I'm both impatient now and overwhelmed that cubling will be with us in the next few days most likely. I can't wait to experience birth and I'm trying to sleep as much during the day and at night to gather energy for this. Thanks to the hypnosis CDs I can actually go asleep for a surreal part of the day. It is getting hard though to stay patient and calm. My hormones are playing havoc with my mood, I feel utterly confined to the house because of SPD pain (i.e. can't walk) and my inability to concentrate on things I usually love to do makes me quite irritable. Butbutbut, only a little while longer (even though I think I've said this for the past 8 weeks or so by now....).

Sigh.

It's a good cause. Really. All profits (even profits Lulu make) will go to UK charity Comic Relief who fund an awful lot of worthy projects home and abroad. And are funny. I tried to be funny to contribute but admittedly, I'm not a particularly funny blogger as you may have noticed, so there you go, you'll have a book full of much funnier posts to read when you buy this which is probably a very good thing indeed. Buy it for yourselves, for your friends, your mum, your dad, your sister, your colleagues, your hamster and your loo, so your visitors have some entertainment during quiet moments.

I'm amazed by the determination of Troubled Diva's Mike to put it all together in just a week, and can't wait for it to arrive.

Oh, and I still haven't popped no mother's day for me then, boo.

While I was appalled by the patronising tone of the BBC Scotland televised coverage of the Gateway resettlement programme for Congolese refugees in Scotland's North Lanarkshire, I'm also very intrigued by it.

It's a new and old approach to enable small numbers of refugees to resettle in the UK. It's been done before with Kosovar refugees in 1999/2000. This time, the programme is called Gateway and only one council is involved, namely North Lanarkshire, who provide housing and support for 77 individuals, all from the Congo, all resettled from dire circumstances in refugee camps, and all very deserving in being given a second chance.

It's a drop on a hot stone of course, and won't really affect the human tragedy of refugee camps in the Congo or other places. What was even more disconcerting for me was that this comes at the very same time, just 10 days or so, after the forceful removal of a whole plane load of Congolese refugees from the UK who were found not to be worthy of being granted asylum. I can't help but think that it would have been easier and more humane to allow those who were already here for years, some up to 6 years waiting for a final decision on their case, and who all also fled the same disastrous situation in the war torn Congo, had been given leave to remain on humanitarian grounds.

While both groups of people, those now resettled through the Gateway project, and those already in the UK, have fled from the same situation, with similar experiences, one group is villanised as "bogus" because they were able to made the journey on their own, while the other is welcomed with open arms, Christian charity and smug "we're doing some good humanitarian work here in Motherwell".

Then the TV coverage went on to show a woman struggle with opening a tin and using a tin opener, a tool unknown to her, and her resignation to using a massive and dangerous looking knife to get the beans out for the toast. I felt like writing to the complaints department of the BBC.

In spite of my reservations though, I'm delighted for those lucky few who have made it onto the programme, who will be given a warm welcome rather than the racial harrassment that asylum seekers in Glasgow have had to experience, and who will receive very focused support for integration such as English lessons and guidance to life in Scotland thanks to the perfect size of the group and relative homogeneity, as well as the location in one small local authority of Scotland, with their immigration status sorted even prior to their arrival. Add to this the sympathetic, if condescending and patronising, news coverage, they will have a much easier path to integration than the 5,000 Glasgow asylum seekers. And that in itself is not a bad thing at all.

My maternity record no longer shows a week count. Instead it has a letter. Curious. Anyway, not knowing what this letter means, and quite happy with a pretty straight forward week count, I'll stick to that one.

I was so full of energy yesterday that I definitely overdid my plant care and then crashed out within seconds in my bed, book on lap, specs on nose, lights on, birth affirmations unrepeated because I couldn't even stay awake for that. I didn't even manage to lie down ... When I woke up in the morning, I had positively exiled hubby thanks to pregnancy induced snoring. So sorry. I did have a fabulous sleep though (and feel awfully guilty about it for all those mums to be who suffer from months of insomnia).

This reminded me of the hospital consultant's notes in my maternity record. When he asked how I was, I said I felt very tired and slept a lot, at least 9 hours at night plus an hour's nap during the day. He translated that to "lethargic". I'm still, almost 10 days later, tempted to tippex that word out. I'm not lethargic. I know what lethargic feels like, however, what I am is tired. Being tired isn't anything to worry about, after all, my body is feeding a fully grown baby 24 hours a day. How would I not be tired?

Anyway. On the bright side I had the big appointment with day care at the hospital. I only saw midwives and my nerves were increasingly calmed as the appointment went on. There was not a mention of the word "induction", it was all about checking that baby and I are doing fine (which we were), and to see if anything had changed. Lo and behold, cubling is now fully engaged and ready to roll, but my cervix isn't. The attempted sweep (definitely unpleasant, but also definitely bearable) failed and shall be repeated on Tuesday.

In the meantime then, it's off to even more raspberry leaf tea, curries (not a single food ghost from that, not to mention bowel movements to trick uterus into sympathetic mood), harrassment of my poor beloved. I've heard that evening primrose oil is also good.

The extra special treat they gave me was that of a scan. Cubling has shown her true face and stuck out her tongue to mummy. The feeling was beyond words, there she was, a real, absolutely real, baby. In my tummy. Wow.

I'm still with bump. But strangely, I feel better than I have in a few weeks. My water retention has gone down even if still there, my appetite has returned, I'm even able to be reasonably active. Apart from walking that is, although with the help of my friend's pram, I managed a decent walk yesterday. I could be tempted to escort an empty pram to get another walk in, because for some reason beyond my understanding, putting a trolley or pram in front of me makes the back and pelvic pain bearable and my usual 5 minute limit to ...   more »

It can be interesting to occasional analyse traffic to one's own blog and there may be a surprise in store. Today, after noticing that traffic had increased threefold, I investigated and didn't only find out I was quoted on another, obviously more influential blog, but also found out shocking changes to the training of doctors on the NHS. But there are experts on this, and I am not, so suffice a link.

It did prompt me to expand on my thoughts triggered by my first visit to the hospital after changing from community care to consultant care. The change of ...   more »

Tomorrow is the start of Real Nappy Week.

And I'm not blogging this because all I can think of these days is baby (although that's not entirely wrong either). It's more a case of something that you never thought of much coming to visit you in different shapes and forms all over the place. Not the nappies or their contents mind you, rather the idea of real nappies.

Of course there's the personal choice issue which we went through in the past two weeks. Initially, real nappies meant extra work to me and the environmental benefit had a big question mark attached to it, after all, laundring soiled nappies has an environmental effect too. Add to that convenience and I never really gave it a proper thought. Then it all changed. Parentcraft classes, without being pushy at all, suggested immense cost savings of real nappies, and gave figures to the environmental damage: 2.5% of UK household waste are disposable nappies, 90% of which which end up in landfills, taking years to decompose. Still, there's the laundry issue. But with new systems of nappies, laundry can be done at lower temperatures and in effect, they actually just go in with the general extra baby wash. Plus we don't have a drier anyway.

Then, a fellow attender at the parentcraft class claimed that nurseries will not use real nappies for some sort of health and safety reason. And if you have to stop using them at 6 months when maternity leave stops, well, it's hardly worth the expense. But in fact, she was wrong: all the nurseries I spoke to do accept real nappies.

And convenience? Well, first I researched real nappy systems and gave up. It all sounded way too complicated to make sense before baby arrived. Thankfully, help was at hand and I had them shown to me by friends using them: it was actually all very easy and straight forward. I am convinced enough to give it a shot and the trial packs are sitting ready for baby to have fun with.

However, there's the issue of initial cost associated with real nappies, and that's where it goes horribly wrong here in Glasgow. While adjacent councils offer cash incentives which would help families on lower incomes, in the city with the greatest number of low income families, no incentives are offered. According to the Scottish Green Party, who issued a press release on the topic, Glasgow is one of the local authorities who doesn't even take the opportunity to join in or contribute to Real Nappy Week this year.

A shame really, and it makes you wonder. Just today, we received a glossy leaflet, with a letter signed by Glasgow City Council's big man Stephen Purcell, about tackling litter issues in the city. It asks us to use recycling bins, to report fly tipping, to encourage youngsters and those they learn it from to use bins rather than drop their litter. The message comes with a focus on the local community, and nice pictures of our own neighbourhood, trying to bring it home to us.

It's all very nice and commendable, but there is a bigger picture and I wonder whether Glasgow is missing out on something that could make a real difference. Cash incentives are an easy way to encourage people to change their behaviour, and publicity opportunities shouldn't be wasted like this.