OK, so no news yet.

Karin is still happily chugging along.

Although we've had some positive signs that something is happening: the Braxton Hicks contractions that Karin had been experiencing for the last 3 months have changed to what we think are real contractions – and we even get groups of regular contractions (about 10 mins between them) – but then they disappear.

Still, the first time it happened (last night at about 1am) was enough to have us think that we were in labour!

Interestingly, there are two other women from our ante natal class in the same situation. For all three the question of the moment is: are we in labour yet??

We've spent the last 4 days or so doing housey things. I finished work on Wednesday (two days early) so that I could be around to help Karin a bit more.

We did what we thought was a short walk yesterday (another lovely country walk), but ended up exhausting Karin completely – in fact, Karin was praying that labour wouldn't start last night as she was too tired!

No photos this time – the last 3 walks we've done, I've forgotten to take the camera! Also, the weather has been dismal, so not good photographing conditions anyway.

Two funny little incidents to relate:

When we were in Kingston last week, Karin wanted to rush back in to John Lewis to use the toilet just as they were closing. The doorman said "sorry, we're closed" and wouldn't budge – until another woman who was coming out said, "you stupid man, can't you see she's pregnant?" – at which point he sheepishly let Karin in...!

The other was that Karin discovered that National Rail have an unwritten policy of not charging pregnant women if they forget to buy a ticket on the train, which is a *very* useful thing to know. I wonder if I could apply under the laws of discrimination to get them to change it to pregnant men/women, and then put a balloon down my suit and get free travel. Just a thought...

We went to see the NHS midwife yesterday at the local GP surgery. She was lovely, and was explaining the NHS policy on going over term: apparently they're happy up to 42 weeks, but their policy is to not really support going beyond 42 weeks. Because we have an independent midwife, we can go beyond 42 weeks, but if we do will go in for monitoring of the baby every other day.

The reason for the NHS policy is that there is a slight chance of the placenta breaking down or the baby being stillborn.
The midwife said that although this was a very small chance, the NHS had decided not to risk it: for this reason, if you have an NHS midwife (i.e. a public midwife) you can't go beyond 42 weeks without being artificially induced.

Interesting that in Germany (so we're told) they calculate the due date of a baby as being 42 weeks, not 40 weeks – and that even in the UK, you're not considered over term until you go over 42 weeks.
Which is reassuring.

So there we are – I'll keep you updated with any other news.

In the meantime, Karin and I are off for a posh dinner (flash dinner, for the kiwis) out in town tonight.