On Thursday I am going to London for 5 days with my girlfriends. We are going to see McBusted at the O2 and then having a few days of shopping and seeing London.
I am worried.
We booked to see McBusted back before I was even pregnant, and as soon as I found out I was, I worked out how pregnant I would be at this time. Answer: more pregnant than I got to be last time. In the back of my mind I assumed I wouldn’t be pregnant by now, that everything would have gone wrong again, but it hasn’t. Jackson is a little fighter and with everything thrown at him he is still here and kicking away. I am now 24 weeks 5 days and Jacksons ears are fully developed and he can hear, meaning he will hear the concert. I am assured by midwives and internet research that the sound will be muffled by both me and the fluid around him, that he won’t hear the same as me – like being underwater in a swimming pool, sound will be muffled and that sound only becomes damaging to the unborns ears after long and constant exposure to incredibly loud noise. That’s reassured me about that.
I also don’t know how busy the concert will be in terms of getting to our seats, I can’t obviously push through crowds so I am hoping it will be fairly organised, if not I shall either have to beat the rush or wait until everyone else is in. Luckily we have seats or I wouldn’t have even considered going – standing in a crowd of rowdy music fans would not have been safe for Jackson, not to mention that standing, even for 10 minutes, puts my back out at the moment.
And that brings me onto the rest of the time in London. If I walk around my local city for a few hours at the moment, as I have had to do to buy a few extra maternity clothes for this trip, my back lets me know about it, and that evening is incredibly stiff, how it will cope with walking around London for a few days I don’t know – I fear it may involve regular stops and potential difficulty getting up in the mornings, causing irritation to my friends.
My mum has spent the last few weeks trying to talk me out of going at all. I reassure her by referencing that the midwife said it would be ok, to which she responds with the fact I should come home straight after the concert. The way I look at it is I will give it a go, and I can always spend a day at my friends flat or sitting in a cafe while the others head out if I need it. I can’t sit at home for another 3 months like I have been for the rest of this pregnancy. I will eventually need to head out and buy some things for this baby! I can’t become a recluse from my friends either, I’ve never been the most social person in the world, but I know it will only get harder and harder to see them once little ones here.
I have assessed this all from a risk point of view and from a pain point of view and I think I can manage. I will definitely not do anything to put my little man at risk – we have been through too much to risk it all for something so trivial, on the other hand, I won’t put my life on hold for the rest of these 9 months. I haven’t done much the first 4 months because I had terrible morning sickness, and now I’m feeling better I have things to do to get my house ready for the new arrival (sealing the bath and unexciting things like that – I haven’t even dared start in the nursery yet!) but I won’t let that stop me making the most of these last few months. I’m loving being pregnant and I want to share that with my friends (not least to make them all broody so Jackson will have lots of little playmates!)