With just three weeks to go until our due date, Hayley is coping extremely well with her pregnant state. However, things haven’t been particularly easy for her over the past seven days. She started getting a pain at the bottom of her spine at the end of last week, around the coccyx area, which slowly got worse and worse. It went from a slight sore area to a full blown abscess complete with puss and blood (I’ll save you the gore of posting a photo, but it did look pretty horrible!).

It was causing her severe pain, dizziness and nausea which isn’t great at the best of times, let alone considering the fact that she’s with child. It was getting so bad that we contemplated going to A&E, however we instead rang the NHS 111 phone number to get their advice first. They were really helpful and booked us in for an appointment straight away at a nearby out of hours surgery. I didn’t even know this existed!

After hanging about for a bit with the missus struggling to get in and out of the car and to sit in the waiting room, we saw a doctor who prescribed her antibiotics and pain killers. After popping these pills for the past few days, she’s not been in as much pain and the abscess looks to be going down, although it is still pretty nasty. Fingers crossed it goes completely and doesn’t reappear during labour – there can’t be anything worse than experiencing the pain of childbirth whilst resting on an abscess!

Having the boo boo (that’s what parents call it, right?) and being pregnant at the same time has meant that she’s really struggled to get comfortable. She’s been switching between sitting on the birthing ball to being on all fours hunched over it, to attempting to sit or lay down on the settee.  If she does manage to find a spot where she’s not in pain from the Bump or abscess, she normally has to get up and go to the toilet. The joys of pregnancy, eh?

All of this has meant that she’s been pretty tuckered out, and although she doesn’t want to nap, she has been finding herself unable to avoid drifting into the Land of Nod. This has been great for me, not only because I get full control of the TV, but because it means I’ve created a new game where I chronicle her different sleeping positions. Here are some of my favourite photos of her weird sleeping positions over the past week (Note: I am not a voyeur, I don’t think):

The ‘On Holiday’

Napping on the floor in the sun as Dax keeps watch…

The ‘Pile On’

Asleep on my knee as Dax uses her as a pillow…

The ‘Sun Bed’

Afternoon nap on the settee whilst on her back…

The ‘Doggy-Style’

Catching some z’s whilst hunched over a birthing ball (wouldn’t think she was asleep but she made herself jump as she dozed)…

The ‘Double Foetus’

Having a curled-up kip on the settee as the dog follows suit…

The ‘Circus Performer’

Balancing on a birthing ball whilst asleep on the settee…

Did you ever find yourself / partner asleep in a weird position? How did you / your partner find your tiredness levels as you approached the due date?