I'm not sleeping so well anymore. I wake every few hours to go to the toilet then get back into bed and struggle to find a comfortable position and lie awake thinking. About pretty much everything. About work, about you, about me, about Dan. Then all of a sudden, wham, I'm wide awake and I'm thirsty or hungry so have to get up again and so the cycle goes. It's starting to impact on my day and I'm now getting quite tired in the afternoon. It would be great if I could finish work earlier than mid November but maternity leave is so precious and I really want to save it for when you are here.

I bought you your first outfit yesterday. Nothing much, just a white sleepsuit, bib and hat. I got home and laid it out on the kitchen table so that your Daddy could see it when he came home. It gave me such pleasure seeing it there. I kept going back into the kitchen to sneak looks at it, to stroke it, rearrange it and hold it close to me. Just a little sleepsuit. Just a little bib. Just a little hat. But yours now and buying it made me realise that you are truly a little person. A little person with your very own nature, your very own way of doing things, your very own special looks. Thinking this made me cry. I can't begin to imagine what you are like. Will you be just like your Daddy, kind and sensitive, bright and funny? What bits of me will you have? Who will you look like? I have so many questions.

You are 29 weeks today, weigh about 2.5-3 pounds and are rapidly developing all the neurons in your brain. You are now in complete proportion, gaining weight with each week until you are ready to meet us on 3 December, in just 11 weeks.

11 weeks feels like a long time. Time is funny like that. If it was 11 weeks until I was running a marathon or sitting an exam it just wouldn't feel long enough. But 11 weeks, when I have been counting down the days since we found out about you, and when I feel you so clearly each and every day, well, I wish it would come sooner.

The last few weeks have flown by and it feels like we’re now in the homestretch. The summer is drawing to a close, I’ve used up all my holiday and I’ve entered the third trimester. Now all there is to do is to count down the weeks, count the kicks (10 per hour I’m told – surely that can’t be right?) and count the pennies. With a mass of things we need to buy we are feeling somewhat overwhelmed. We have looked at countless catalogues and websites and have narrowed down our choices to what we think is the absolute necessity. Yet so far we have bought nothing at all, a big fat ZERO, because I keep going on holiday and Danny keeps running up huge mobile phone bills, and well, quite frankly we are broke. This is with two incomes and no child to support. God only knows how we’ll manage when you come along.