Anastasia’s pregnancy diary - weeks 34-36

Lugging my hippo frame around is just too difficult, and I collapse in our new flat, unable to speak.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nick asks, genuinely concerned.
‘Nothing. I am FINE!’ I snap with the only energy I have left. When you’re eight months pregnant and you ‘over-do’ it, it takes more than one night of normal sleep to recover. For days I feel tired and lack energy and enthusiasm for anything but rest. But, of course, this state of being has coincided with our moving into an unfamiliar flat, which needs some help to make it homey, and the first twinges of nesting instinct are beginning to kick in. Make no mistake, I have absolutely no desire to clean, but I do feel a dire need to buy some baby stuff and make a temporary baby room, at last. I also feel the desire to wade through the things friends have loaned me.

One of my dear friends is moving back to Australia, and we planned a ‘girlie’ dinner for her, last Tuesday night. As I left the house, I yelled over my shoulder to Nick, ‘There’s some laundry in the machine, if you think of it, put it in the dryer…’ Since it was only our second day in the flat, I was pretty sure Nick hadn’t even located the washing machine, but it didn’t really matter. I’ve received tons of baby clothes from my friends and, at 7pm, I had an uncontrollable urge to wash every single vest and sock, just in case this baby came tonight and its feet were cold. So I threw a mound of baby clothes in the laundry with my newly purchased non-biological laundry soap, and then ran out of the house to go to dinner. When I got home a few hours later, Nick looked excited and proud of himself and said, ‘Come here.’