The vampires are back!

Well they're definitely humming a different tune now. On the 18th I had a midwife appointment where she was very blase about everything, on the 22nd I had a bloodwork appointment at the hospital where they weren't concerned about anything but were very sweet and helpful. (I'm not sure if I mentioned - the midwife who was supposed to cancel my consultant appointment and make me a new one for later because she couldn't be bothered doing my bloodwork didn't actually do anything! I was listed as a 'did not attend.' Thankfully the much friendlier midwife from the hospital, Joan, sorted it all out for me and let the office know that it wasn't actually my fault that I didn't show up. I was told not to!) Anyway, Joan did all the bloodwork she was supposed to and made me a new appointment to get the results from the consultant. Today, the maternity unit up at the hospital called me to ask me to come back in. Apparently the doctor isn't thrilled with my results and wants another round of bloods done. This time they're adding in liver function, something to check the kidneys, rechecking my thyroid and platelets again. (See silly midwife, my platelet level is something to be concerned about.) So it's back up to the hospital for me Wednesday morning.

Maybe my bloodwork just looked a bit off because I've been recovering from a cold? I have no idea, but at least they're staying on top of things for me. I'd rather go back in for unnecessary bloodwork, then have them miss something important. Other than the heartburn and the occasional crazy hip pain, I'm doing fine. I'm not even getting dizzy as much as I was before! Baby seems happy as well. She's kicking up a storm and a few minutes ago she made an attempt to push her way to freedom via my upper abdomen! She's a handful now, I can't imagine what it's going to be like when she's really here!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, a stress free Boxing Day and then a couple of relaxing do nothing days afterwards.

I spent a lot of Christmas Eve trying to tidy the house. Just one of those things, like needing the house to be clean before you go on a trip. I needed the house to be clean to enjoy Christmas morning. This years tree has been shedding pine needles like a beast! I'm wondering if somehow last year we managed to buy a 'low drop' tree or something of that ilk because while I remember this happening loads in the past, I seem to recall last year being relatively needle free. Oh I also spent part of Christmas Eve watching my family in Kentucky eating an early Christmas dinner via Skype. It was both sweet and depressing at the same time. Hopefully we'll be able to spend it in person with them next year!

We spent Christmas morning at our house and then packed up the car and headed out to Mark's parents' to spend the day there. I have to say, I appreciated having food made for me even more than in the past! His parents had gotten a LOT more snow out their way than we have here, so we were told to bring gloves and boots to make a snowman (which I've been wanting to do since it started snowing!) but with all the super full bellies we wound up staying inside. It started snowing again right before we left their place, but as normal - it wasn't snowing in Greenock so luckily there wasn't an issue getting back up our hill.

Sadly, there is no historical record of Christmas 2009 because I forgot to take ANY pictures. I remembered to charge the camera, bring the camera AND get the camera out once I got there. However, I never did anything with it past that point. So :( I have no pictures to share with you. I'm going to make up for it by taking oodles on New Years Day. (I say oodles.. there will probably be like five I approve of and don't delete.)

Mark's parents, his sister, her boyfriend and his seven year old son are coming to ours for New Years Day. I'm making steak pie (a relatively stress free stew for those americans out there).

This little one has been incredibly active the past couple of days. I think she's complaining about lack of space. It's such an odd feeling but cute at the same time. It makes me feel more connected to her. She's quite high up... I guess she's got a few more weeks (six to be exact) to get her little-self all turned around and more where she should be.

The heartburn has been quite bad recently.. I finished the Maalox a week or so ago that Mom mailed me a few months back and I've eaten every last heartburn tablet that Maggie mailed me back at the beginning. (This is here so Mom remembers that she promised to mail me more Maalox.. *nudge nudge*)

7 more weeks... really?

So Saturday night was Mark's office's Christmas Party/Dinner. It was okay. In past years it's just been his company and the first few times we went it was even held downstairs in his office. This time it was at the Glasgow Science Centre and there were at least another dozen or so companies there as well. I much preferred it when the people I didn't know were at least limited to people that Mark sort of knew! The food was okay and there was another American girl at the table so we spent some time commiserating on how much we missed American foods.

Luckily, the snow and ice hadn't hit our hill yet so we were still able to get there and back without too much winter fuss. The snow started about 6am Sunday morning and has been sporadic since. We still haven't gotten much out our way, but it's been enough to make everything a bit white. Sadly I've still got that cold that Mark passed on to me so I haven't been able to go outside and enjoy any of this snow, but I think it's finally starting to get better. (Which is a good thing considering we have our citizenship test tomorrow morning at 11:30am!) On the bright side it does appear to just be a cold and nothing scary like swine flu!

Today includes laying around the house, recovering from evil sicknesses and trying to cram some last minute facts about "Life in the UK," but I figured I should take a few minutes out of my busy schedule ;) to post a couple bump pictures. Hopefully these will tide some of you over for a few days as I would like to keep your heads from exploding. x



ps. hmm it looks like I may have scaled a couple of the pictures down too small. My excuse. I'm having to work in Linux with a program called GIMP. That should explain it all. Next time I'll return to the proper computer and do things correctly!

pps. Yes I'm wearing heels in that picture. It was the first and last time during the course of this pregnancy!! lol It wasn't too bad as most of my evening was spent sitting, but the time spent waiting for Mark to bring the car around to the front of the building was more than I could take!

32 + 4

Another midwife appointment... another opportunity to be underwhelmed.

I've accepted the fact that they'll always run late. That's just the nature of doctor's appointments, and really, as long as they're running late because they're spending quality time with their patients, that's completely okay.

Today's fun filled experience with the midwife included(but was not limited to):

Toxoplasmosis results? I have no idea what you're talking about. We have no record of them. "It's not my mess, but I'll see what I can do." ((She actually said that at least twice.))

You're experiencing a rapid heart rate off and on and you don't know why? That's normal for all people. It just happens. ((Really? My pulse skyrockets and I feel like falling over but this is normal for everyone, not just pregnant people. Really. ooookay.))

The consultant wants your bloods taken to test your platelets again? Why would he want that? They're barely low! It's nothing to be concerned about at this stage. ((Tell that to the bruises I seem to be acquiring daily.))Besides, it's Friday afternoon. I'm not going to take any bloods. There's no way to get them to the lab now, they'll just sit around all weekend. They'd probably go missing anyway. ((Huh? It's normal for blood to go missing if it's drawn on a Friday afternoon? This doesn't sound like something that should happen on such a regular basis or that they should just be happy to accept.))

You have a consultant appointment on Monday? Why? You called to double check and explained that you had a midwife appointment on the Friday? Well it's wrong. I'll have to call and cancel that for you.

((and one of my personal favourites.)) How does the computer work? *shakes the mouse* ummmm I'm not seeing any record of it here.... Me: "You know you're not looking at my record right?" Her: "Oh! That makes sense!" ((She actually panicked when the screen saver activated and the monitor went black. Impressive.))


So now I'm booked in at 9am on 22nd to have bloodwork done at the hospital. Hopefully it won't go missing yet AGAIN. However, the 22nd is also the day we've booked our Life in the UK citizenship test. So we're hoping that the removal of blood won't affect my ability to answer strange questions about Britain too adversely.

On another fun note, unnamed persons at Mark's office who felt the need to come into work sick, passed their slimy germs on to Mark who in turn brought them home. His first day of vacation was Tuesday and he woke up with a cold. I managed to stay uninfected for almost 3 days, but today I succumbed and am now permanently attached to a box of tissues. So far it seems like it's just been a head cold and nothing more serious. I'm hoping it stays that way... or you know, improves dramatically!

Despite being unable to sleep very well because of the ever increasing bump, heartburn and achy hips, I'm going to try to call it an early night and see if I can't fight off some of these vile germy things. G'night!

We have a Pram!!

.. stroller, baby buggy, baby carriage, perambulator, pushchair, or whatever it is your particular region of the world refers to it as! After tons of fuss we finally have a pram! Don't remember the story? That's okay, I'll refresh your memory. ;)

George and Maureen took me out pram shopping one day and even though I fell for a pram more expensive than I originally intended, they were amazing Grandparents-to-be and bought it anyway! (There was a bit of confusion when they had to buy the accessories in store and the pram online because it was substantially cheaper there.But being smart folk they figured it all out!) However, that weekend when Mark and I went back to the PramCentre to make sure it fit in the car we were dismayed to find that it did NOT fit. Seatbelt was too short to belt it in, no isofix points in the car, and we couldn't use the surefix base because of buckle crunch. Long story short, they cancelled the pram order and I began the hunt for a new one. (Which wasn't in the slightest bit fun because now I loved this one, plus carseats in general don't seem to fit in an Astra '03 reg.)

A couple weeks later, after much discussion, Mark and I decided to buy another car. [This is where I need to point out that we aren't actually crazy people who went out and bought another car just to get the pram we wanted. We only had the one car and with a baby in the house we realized we were going to need a second car anyway. The plan was to get one in February- the timetable was just pushed forward so we could get the pram sorted.] Well, we bought a Toyota Yaris '07 with isofix points. It has a small boot but the PRAM does fit in it. (For anyone out there considering the Pliko Pramette; yes it does fit in a Yaris '07 trunk but it's a tight squeeze. Don't listen to the people who tell you it's a comfortable fit, they obviously have a warped idea of the concept 'comfortable.'

After a few more bumps in the road where pram accessories were sold out at the original store and then finding the whole kit and kaboodle cheaper at another store it was finally reordered.

You would think this is where things would get simple. You would be wrong.

Maureen paid extra to choose a delivery date. She checked with us and it was all settled that we'd have the pram delivered on Wednesday. Yesterday (being Tuesday) Mark and I went out to finish Christmas shopping and of course while we were out they tried to deliver the pram! (Typical!) We've ordered quite a few things to be delivered recently and were a bit confused by the different tracking numbers put through the door. We couldn't decide if they'd tried to deliver one product or a couple different things. Eventually everything was figured out, for the most part, and delivery was rearranged for today.

Around 6pm a DHL van pulls up. Eureaka! Amusingly the house begins to fill with boxes. By the time he's finished we have 7 very large boxes sitting in our living room. Apparently they decided to deliver just about everything we'd ordered over the past week on the one day. Success!

Of course we had to immediately open it up and play with it, ie. figure out how in the world it goes together!! Here's what we came up with.



Thank you sooo much George and Maureen!! We love our new pram and we're sure Baby Smith will adore it as well!! It's the most beautiful baby mover ever!! :D

8 more weeks!

Can you believe it?? I only have 8 more weeks (10 if she decides to be stubborn and come late - but we're just going to pretend that she's going to be on time.) We took some bump + Christmas tree pictures the other night, but I hated all of them, so I'm not sharing! *laughs* I'll see how I feel tonight and maybe I'll get at least one decent one to share. :)

We had a blast getting the tree though. I had promised Mark that I would at least consider a fake tree this year, but all the trees we could find were horrible. Either incredibly sparse, metallic red or silver, or tiny. Suffice to say, as soon as we walked out into the garden centre at B&Q I was goner and only a real tree would do.

B&Q have developed a new and confusing system whereby they pre-bag all their Christmas trees. I'm not sure how they expect us to choose the perfect tree when they're all already wrapped up. So Mark and I set about unwrapping trees. We didn't have anything sharp so it was a slightly complicated process. We tried using the car key, but it didn't seem to help much. Eventually we found the perfect tree. It was listed as a 5ft tree but was obviously at least 6ft (which made Mark happy. His tree philosophy is that "you should always have to look up to your tree.") I think it makes him remember Christmas from a child's point of view. :)

Having found our tree it was now time to re-wrap it. The store had signs everywhere promoting their amazing "Bag and carry to car" tree service, however we couldn't find a single employee anywhere so we decided to re-bag it ourselves. So here goes - heavily pregnant lady and husband attempting to shove a 6ft tree through a bagger contraption. So far so good; until I forgot to twist the netting around the stump. Oops. Tree only half bagged! At least the staff had left their sharp cutting tools laying around where anyone could get to them, so we were able to cut the netting at the top. 2nd take- shove tree again, this time remember to twist netting. Success! One bagged tree! Now, how to get it to the checkout. Still no staff. Oh well. Mark throws it over he shoulder (so to speak) and we head to the checkout. Self-checkout? Sure, why not. Helpfully they have the handheld barcode scanners so we can get to the label through the netting.(I was worried we were going to have to un-net the tree to get a good scan of the label.) Beep! All good. Then the little automated voice perks up and says "Please place item on the scale." Pregnant lady laughs. They expect us to do what with the tree? My crazy laughter finally attracts a sales assistant who proceeds to correct the error in judgment made by the machine and we're done. Just need to wedge it into the car. Success. I can't say they impressed me with their superior bag and carry to car tree service this year. :D But we had fun anyway. Last year at some point Mark and I saw a saw on sale and decided to be adults and buy it. (In the past we've been known, come January, to hack an old Christmas tree into manageable pieces with a swiss army knife.) Our shiny new saw came in very handy this year. In December no less! Mark sawed off the bottom of the tree so it was actually level... meaning, it took about an hour less to get the tree to stand up straight than in previous years. (Look we can learn!)

Okay, so not a very baby-centric blog post today, but I felt like sharing our tree story. I promise I'll do my very best to take a bump shot tonight and insert it into the post to make it more babyish. :) Merry Christmas everyone!!

Opinions required!

Okay ladies and gentlemen, it's crib time! (Or cot bed time for all you British folk.) For the longest time I thought we were completely settled on a crib. We saw it in store and for once it was something that we both agreed on immediately. Seeing as how baby won't need an actual crib for the first few months at least, it never seemed like a priority to purchase one. We knew the one we wanted and that seemed good enough. Then Toys R Us started this stress-fest with me. One day the crib would be in stock and everything would be fine, and then it would be out of stock for more than a week and I'd panic thinking I'd missed my chance. Then it would be back for a day and I'd consider buying it, but then think, well it must be a recurring item if it's back... basically I've talked myself into and out of buying it at least a dozen times now. Last time it went out of stock Mark told me to just buy it as soon as it came back in so I'd stop fretting (hehe yes Fretting) about it.

However, to complicate matters.. (matters always have to be complicated you see, it just wouldn't make sense if they weren't.) Mark has discovered another crib that he likes. This new crib is a good £89 cheaper than the current front runner. They are similar yet very different at the same time.

Crib A	Crib B
More expensive	Less expensive
Drop side: No	Drop side: Yes
3 mattress heights	2 mattress heights
Under bed drawer	No drawer

I'm not sure, but I think one of the main selling points for Mark is that when Crib B turns into a bed it looks more like a bed than crib A because the side panels divide and become shorter. (Plus, I like that it's a heck of a lot cheaper.) My brain tells me that I'll want to leave it in sofa bed shape with the back wall on it most of the time anyway so it doesn't really matter. I've heard both good and bad things about drop sides vs. non-drop sides and the drawer is a perk.. but really I could always buy some pretty wicker baskets to put under there couldn't I? I really do love the way Crib A looks but I can see where Mark is coming from and think I could be swayed to Crib B. I'd love to hear your opinions and thoughts on the matter. You all know me... I was indecisive at the best of times and pregnancy brain has just increased that failure exponentially.

Below you'll find pictures of the cribs to ooh and aaah over.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm so thankful for all my wonderful family and friends this year. You guys have really been there for me. I would never have made it through the first two trimesters without you. Only 73 more days to go, I can barely believe it! I'm extra thankful for this baby karate kid who's currently demanding larger living quarters! She does new adorable things everyday and she's not even out and about yet! I hope you've all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are feeling pleasantly full with turkey and pumpkin pie! (I also hope you remembered to eat some for me and Baby Smith!)

The past week has been super busy. Friday, Mark's parents took me out to lunch and then pram shopping. I thought I preferred the Graco but once we got in the store I fell in love with the Pliko Pramette. George and Maureen didn't mind a bit that it was more expensive than the one I originally thought I'd choose (they're buying the pram for us)and agreed that it was lovely and that we should definitely have it. (Aren't they amazing?!) There was a bit of confusion since it was selling substantially cheaper online than in the store, so we had to go home to order it and make sure it was in stock before they went back and bought the car seat + extras from the store itself. Eventually, everything was sorted and I was thrilled that it finally felt like I was getting prepared for this baby. Sadly, when we went back to the shop on Sunday to show Mark the pram and to make sure the car seat would fit in the car, we found that it didn't fit in our Astra.

Not only does our car not have isofix points for an isofix base, the surefix base won't fit because the seat buckles come up too high and would get crushed in an accident, and to top it all off.. our seat belts aren't long enough to strap the car seat in at the basic level! Apparently Vauxhall Astras are not baby compatible cars. I was thoroughly upset. Finding another pram/car seat was going to be a hard task in itself simply because of the model of our car. It was somewhere around this point that Mark and I remembered that we were going to get another car shortly after the baby was born so I wasn't stuck in the house with a baby and no means of transportation.

Eureaka! We'll just buy a new car sooner. Alas, I only want an automatic and 99.9% of the British population seem to be anti-automatic. Which means finding a used automatic isn't exactly easy. After sitting in a dozen cars Wednesday night and being annoyed by a particular Arnold Clark salesman we think we've finally narrowed it down to a couple makes. We're going to test drive a Toyota Yaris on Saturday and see how we like it. We know it has isofix points and I have it on good authority that the Pliko Pramette fits comfortably in the boot! (It's also small enough that it shouldn't be too hard for me to park in British spaces!) However, if you know me and Mark, you know how bad we are at making decisions. So who knows WHEN we'll actually get another car purchased. I'll keep you apprised.

To swine flu or not to...

Last Friday was my 28 week midwife appointment (technically 27+4). Just a general checkup to take more blood. I was impressed though. She got a vein on the very first go! I guess pregnancy really does make your veins easier to find. My blood pressure is still completely normal and I should hear back about my irons levels at my consultant appointment on the 23rd, (unless there's an issue, at which point they're supposed to call me.)

I was a bit miffed because while I got there in plenty of time for my 3pm appointment, another girl swanned in around 3:10 and told the receptionist she was there for a 2:45 appointment. Huh?! Then they still let her in before me! How is that right? At the very least they should have made her wait till after my appointment since the 3pm appointment is the last one of the day.

That Monday I'd received the call saying I should come in to get my swine flu vaccination. I was completely unsure what I wanted to do. Everything official I read seemed to imply it was the safest thing ever and that I should definitely get it. Department of Health BriefHowever, everything non-official basically said, DON'T DO IT!. So to say the very least I was confused. I decided I would wait till Friday and ask the midwife. She told me that the official line was that I should definitely get it, but that if she was in my position she definitely wouldn't. But that I shouldn't quote her. (Too bad, I'm quoting you!!) I guess I'm going to ask the consultant what her opinion is when I go in on Monday... but I still don't know what I want to do. At this point I'm just taking extra vitamin C and avoiding people dense areas... I've asked a lot of people and at this point there's a 50/50 split.

On the bump side of things, Mark reckons I got bigger from the time he left for work in the morning to when he got home last night. Other than an horrible wave of morning sickness that was nice enough to only occur in the morning today, I'm feeling okay. Tired, sore, forgetful but otherwise okay. :)

Yes, I realize you're all clamoring for more pictures. I'll see what we can do. ;)

Welcome to the 3rd Trimester!

Even though I feel like I've been pregnant forever... it also feels as though time is speeding by! Mark and I bought a giraffe for the little one while we were in England. (Originally I bought a bunny since we were in the land of Peter Rabbit. However, the bunny stared at me all night long and became kind of creepy so we took it back the next day and exchanged it for a less beady-eyed looking giraffe. He's actually quite sweet. See?)

Well the lady who ran the small toy store asked if the giraffe was for us and I had to explain about the bunny creeping me out. I told her we now had 2 packs of socks, a pack of onesies and a giraffe for the baby. She seemed a bit shocked. Apparently with only 13 weeks left I should have a lot more prepared! I blame it on being sick for 5 months and generally being tired and/or sore since then. I think the plan is to paint the nursery in December when Mark has a few weeks off work and I'm sure things will start to fall into place after that. I worked on my baby registry today and that made me feel like I was a bit more prepared. :)

Adding items to the list has just created more questions for me though... Newborn/0-3months.. what's the difference... it includes 0 months.. surely that means newborn doesn't it? I've decided to work under the assumption that when in doubt- buy bigger! That way she'll hopefully get to wear the outfit at least once.

Some how I put on 4lbs during our weekend away... here's a recent bump shot, taken on the A592 on the way to Windermere. Yes, my eyes are closed, I'm making a weird face and apparently pregnancy is making my nose spread! Just don't look at it closely and everyone will be happy. ;)

Okay, the heartburn has hit again so I think it's time for a milkshake. :)

26 + 3

Okay, yes. I've been lazy. :) Haven't taken the pictures I know I should have... I'm working under the assumption that we'll have a ton of pictures from our weekend away and I can just post a few of those instead. We leave tomorrow morning and will be back late Sunday night.

Tonight's Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night, or.. excuse to set off fireworks and light things on fire night, however you want to look at it. Never been quite sure why it's celebrated. Is it because Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament or because he failed? The bump is already voicing her opinion on the fireworks. I've got a few large kicks that coincide with the big booms outside. Speaking of her opinion- she was a very angry baby again this morning. Mark needed to get up about an hour and half earlier than usual to take our car in for its MOT. When the alarm went off he was still too asleep to care and let it honk at us for at least a minute. Baby told me ALL ABOUT IT! (and how she was not impressed) It took forever to get her to stop kicking me. Actually it took almost the length of the snooze to get her to calm down at which point it went back off and she got upset again. Mark thought it was cute. I thought it was painful. *laughs* I had to get up and bounce her around to calm her down. Poor thing. If she doesn't get used to it in the next 14 weeks we're definitely going to have to switch to something less annoying when she's born or we're going to have a very grouchy baby to contend with every morning!

Here's a few interesting pregnancy facts for week 26.

* Baby's retina completes the development of its normal layers and the eyes are fully formed this week. By the end of the week she'll be able to open and blink her eyes!

* Baby is about 1 2/3 pounds and is roughly 14 inches long head-to-heel.

* I should brace myself for a growth spurt between now and 29 weeks.

Hiccup!

I realize it's been quite a while since my last post. There hasn't really been much new to report on. Besides feeling tired and a bit faint a lot of the time I'm doing okay.

However, yesterday morning our little one had her first bout of hiccups!! I can honestly say I was scared to death (okay so maybe not scared to death- but definitely concerned) and had no clue what was going on. You hear people say, "oh, she's got hiccups again" but unless you see it happening or have it happen INSIDE of you. Then you really have no clue. It's bizarre!! I was asleep when it started and it filtered into my dreams before I eventually woke up, wondering what in the world was going on inside of my belly. I was still groggy, so I had a very detached sense of confusion and as they stopped, I fell back asleep. It was only when I woke up later that it clicked that perhaps this could be the infamous fetal hiccups people speak of. I immediately googled it and was relived to find that it did indeed match other accounts of hiccups. :) It was much less worrisome when I knew what was going on, and better still, everything seems to say that babies are not distressed by hiccups like their weak willed grown-up counterparts. :)

Tomorrow we're headed into Glasgow so A) I can finally get my hair cut, and B) To avoid tricker-treaters. So if all goes to plan, the next picture you'll see of me will be taken by my shiny new anniversary camera (did I not mention that for our 8 year wedding anniversary in about a week I got a new camera?) and will showcase my new, considerably shorter "do." Wish me luck!

Watch what you say, she can hear you!

If there was ever any question that babies can hear outside of the womb at 24 weeks, all doubt has been erased!

This morning when Mark's alarm went off I was treated to a very powerful kick. She subsided quite quickly and was calm until the snooze went off a few minutes later. More kicks! When the 3rd and final snooze sounded I was the recipient of what seemed like a very angry baby. It was as if the incredible hulk was in there smashing things around! Amazing!! She hates the alarm clock just as much as her parents do. :)

To further prove her amazing hearing talents she has demonstrated a musical preference. Yes, our little girl is a late 80ies early 90ies light rock fan. Specifically, Richard Marx! Two days in a row now she has started bopping around as soon as his album starts. (It's not just the noise, I had classical, country, and mellow music on most of the day but it wasn't until I changed over to my Light Rock selection on Spotify that she got excited.) Either that or she really hates it... but it's easy listening and I'm not getting any negative vibes so I choose to believe she's a fan.

Not even born yet and she's already proving adorable. :)

It's a girl!

Saturday was our long anticipated gender scan at Babybond Glasgow. Our appointment was at 12:40 and because we weren't exactly sure where it was we arrived a bit early: 12:00 to be exact. So we took a walk in Kelvingrove Park. The trees are all starting to change colours and the air was crisp so it was a nice way to spend the time. However, when we went into the office at 12:40 we found out they were running about 30 minutes late. The biggest flaw in their entire setup is the lack of seating. There were 2 two seater sofas and a chair. So we went back outside for while. Eventually, around 1:50ish we were finally called in. The waiting wasn't a big deal for us. We knew they were only running late because babies don't always cooperate and they were doing their best to show the other parents everything they wanted to see. This boded well as it meant they would probably spend additional time with us as well.

The room was lovely and big with a huge flat screen tv on one wall. As an added perk the gel they cover your belly with was even heated! (It's true that you get what you pay for!) On with the scan! Our little one wasn't really cooperating for a nice profile shot but was really keen on showing off her feet!


After getting some adorable foot shots the sonographer decided to get down to business. She asked if we had any ideas and we told her we'd thought it was a boy. She looked a bit concerned and kinda whispered. "I see girl bits." I think she was concerned that we'd be upset! We did our very best to reassure her that we would be thrilled with a girl, just shocked as I'd managed to convince Mark it was a boy. Shows how much I know! She showed us from a few more angles and then went back to trying to get a profile picture. Eventually she suggested that I go for a walk and come back in 15 minutes or so. I knew they were still running late so I suggested that we come back at the end of business because we'd still be in Glasgow. She seemed happy with this and we told her we'd be back after lunch at 4:30.

Off to DiMaggio's for lunch with George and Maureen (Mark's parents). Lunch was yummy and finished up just in time to head back to Babybond. We decided not to tell anyone other than his parents about the gender until after the second scan, just to be doubly sure.

2nd scan! We invited Mark's parents in to watch this one and the sonographer went through and showed them the heartbeat, the stomach, the spine all over again. It was great. She confirmed the gender and tried for another profile picture. Alas our little one was facing my back and making it difficult so I don't have any more pictures of her face. But here's a really cool one of her spine!


So there you have it! It's a girl!! Almost everyone knew it was a girl other than us. We're so excited! We're pretty close to deciding on a name- but we're not going to tell you yet incase we need to change it. ;)

Spurred on by her Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Scott's "Happy Gender Day" purchase for her, Mark and I stopped on the way home and bought a little something pink...


What else would my first purchase be other than SOCKS!! *grins*

23 Weeks.. and a day!

Aah yes.. I am aware I have been neglecting my electronic musings recently. There hasn't been that much to talk about.

I briefly got sick, but it only seems to stick in the morning. If I go back to bed for a couple hours and wake up again I don't feel diseased anymore. Seems like a pretty good deal to me! I'm only coughing a little in morning and some when I go bed... obviously my chest has issues with me moving from or to the horizontal position, but it's not too bad. I was feeling nauseous again yesterday but that's pretty much par for the course now. I'm beginning to get used to it.

I wonder what baby thinks about the coughing... is it like an earth quake?

So Saturday is the big day! (well not the big BIG day, but big regardless) Hopefully we'll be finding out if this little one is a boy or a girl! Try not to get too excited, I have a feeling this is one stubborn little baby- just like his daddy! and that we may have issues finding out and have to go back again later, or something annoying like that.

Oh! I should mention, it looks like I've finally started to put on weight. Time for me to start paying a bit more attention!

Well Kitty-bear is awake and demanding some attention so I'm off to entertain her for a bit.

~* LOVE from Becky and the Baby *~

TUESDAY.

Yes. I’m aware that today is indeed Thursday and not Tuesday at all. The following is an account of the events that occurred on Tuesday.

7:30am – I wake up when Mark’s alarm goes off but he’s been coughing all night and still not feeling well so he’s decided he’s staying home. I on the other hand have planned to go to the Aquanatal class at the gym today and then meet up with the inlaws to do some shopping, which means my mind is racing and surprisingly I can’t go back to sleep. So I lay there for a while until I’m overwhelmed with panic about getting my gym bag together and finding my bathing suit.

8:30am – Out of bed and eating cereal. Very slowly putting things into my gym bag. Do I need two towels? How much will the taxi cost? Take all lose change out of Mark’s wallet ‘just in case.’

9:26am – Call for taxi. I tell the lady on the phone that I’d like to book a cab and she asks for what time, I stutter an say “um, anytime now actually would be fine.” She says okay and I hang up. Mark calls from the room to tell me that you “book” a cab for the future and “order” one for now. I tell him it’s too early to think and to shush.

9:28am – Ready to go, but am feeling as though the one piece suit I have on is trying to kill me to in a burst of panic run upstairs to find my two piece, worried I’ll be the only one there in a two piece.

9:30am – Taxi arrives. Cabby tries to make small talk about the weather. I am unreceptive. Fare costs £5.30 for 2.2miles. I could have gotten all the way to Glasgow for less on the train. He does not get a tip.

9:40ish am – Realize as soon as I get to the locker room that I MUST change out of the one piece and into two piece.

9:45am – Head down to pool. A few pregnant ladies are sitting on the benches waiting. Everyone is in one piece or tank-ini. I am odd one out. Incredibly hot. I’m sweating despite wearing next to nothing. I go to the restroom to try splash cold water on my face. Only hot water comes out of the taps. Return to benches. Sit. Return to bathroom. Puke. Farewell breakfast. First time in three weeks. I am NOT impressed. Very close to calling Mark and telling him to come get me.

9:50am – Feeling a little better, midwives leading class take my name and information. I explain about the vomiting. They are sympathetic and say they’ll keep an eye on me.

10:00am – Class begins. Odd. Céilidh dancing in the water. I think I’ve been to more céilidhs since I’ve gotten pregnant than all of before. All in all enjoyable. Not sure if I’ll go back. Taxi too expensive to go both ways.

As the rest of the day is less epic I won’t subject you to an itemized accounting.

After the class there was something called an “Antenatal Fyre” on in the same building so I decided to go. It was just a few mini lectures on breastfeeding, nutrition, and finances. Nothing I haven’t read plenty about already. Mark’s parents were waiting outside to collect me and we went to the grocery to acquire munchies for lunch.

After lunch off we went to Marks and Spencers, Babykinns, DFS, & B&Q. It was nice being about to shop without Mark fearing his head was going to implode. (he doesn’t do well in stores.) We priced some flooring for the kitchen and I bought a couple new bras which I’m pretty sure I’m going to return. They’re pretty crappy. After much, much walking I was ready to drop and we headed home. While sitting in a major traffic jam Mark’s parents decided we should order out for dinner, their treat. I suggested pizza, we called home to have Mark order it for us. (Thanks again for dinner guys! It was yummy!)

After yummy dinner, George and Maureen headed home. Mark and I watched the new series of Stargate. I can’t say I was that impressed. Hopefully it gets better.

10:30pm – Evil gas bubble attacks! This time I’m prepared. I have pills I can take and I make some chamomile tea immediately. I fight the crippling pains for about 10 minutes before it goes away, but it does go away!!

10:45pm – I start coughing some and my throat is sore. Very paranoid that I’m getting whatever illness Mark is afflicted with. Hopefully throat is simply sore because I’ve been talking all day and I’m not used to that anymore.

11:30pm – SLEEP!

Ps. Woke up feeling better so probably not tainted by malevolent coughing disease. Still not sick 2 days later. I’m in the clear,… for now.

Week 22!

Guess I hit a bit of an apathetic patch there and hadn't felt much like writing recently so time to update!

Friday's midwife appointment was brief but non-enraging. They were a bit over keen with the heating in the waiting room and minutes after we arrived I felt like I was going to pass out. Luckily she wasn't running late and even more fortunately, she'd just had someone open the window in the office for her. I told her that I was feeling a bit woozy, (apparently not a word she hears very often because she seemed confused and I had to clarify that I meant light-headed/dizzy/wanting to pass out.) Here's where she earned her bonus points- she asked if I'd like some cold water to drink and when I said yes she immediately left the office to get me some. Whoo! That's how I expect a medical professional to act. Do whatever you can to keep your patient from passing out: a plus.

She took my blood pressure, which, remarkably wasn't too high or too low. I was worried that it might have been too low and thus the reason for my desire to faint. She asked me a few things and then said she'd check the baby's heartbeat. At this point I actually spoke up and told her that we were really excited because it was going to be the first time we were able to hear it. I went on to explain what had happened at the last appointment, however I was tactful and said the midwife in question must have been having a bad day, rather than calling her a mean cow. Iris, the current midwife, nodded and said she thought she knew who I was talking about. On with the heartbeat,.. she found it almost immediately, checked with me to make sure I'd heard enough and then turned around to Mark to confirm that he'd been able to hear it as well.

Afterwards she scheduled a 25 week appointment for me to get my bloods checked again and although we weren't in there for more than 10 minutes, we both came away feeling satisfied. (However, I did continue to feel faint for a prolonged period of time and wound up taking a two hour nap after we got home.)

Now the bit you've all been waiting for.... The week 22 Bump shot! I really should consider at least brushing my hair before Mark takes these photos, but by the time I remember I'm supposed to take a photo, I really can't be bothered. So here goes!

and it works!!

After much time spent last night it was finally realized that the issue with the graphics could be laid squarely at the feet of picasa web albums and it's finally been sorted! Later Mark helped me for ages understanding some of the code and figuring out how to insert a comment link and find a new due date widget since the last one was refusing to work with the new layout. I'm now pretty darn happy with the way everything turned out. I may still fiddle with the colours a bit until I get them exactly the way I want them, but for now I'm content to leave it as is.

I'd love some feedback on what you think of the new layout. As long as it's constructive- the pregnant lady promises not to beat you for any criticisms. ;)

****************

Baby was kicking up a storm last night! It's amazing! Felt like I was being punched and kicked all at the same time. I'm sure the novelty and adorableness will wear off eventually but right now it still blows my mind every time it happens. There's a REAL-LIVE something in there! Incredible.

I think the house is finally starting to recover from my four month exile into morning sickness land. Hopefully soon we'll be able to start pulling things together to get the new floor and counter-tops for the kitchen in. The rest of this year is going to be busy!

Argh! CSS!!!

You may have noticed and then again, you may not have noticed. It all depends on how quickly I can get things looking correct again. I've been attempting to change the design of the blog using a pre-made template. I've altered graphics and deciphered some code but despite my images saying they're the exact same size as the previous images they're not substituting seamlessly. Plus some of my helpful links have disappeared and not being proficient in CSS, I don't know exactly what's going on. I'm hoping Mark might be able to shed some light on a few things once he gets home.

So this is me explaining why there's a dead scary looking tree on my blog page. :) Be patient, I'll make it work!

Clothes!

Guess who actually found something to wear...?

Yesterday Mark and I headed into Stirling to visit Iain and Clare but decided to make a quick detour into Silverburn since we were already out of the house. Such a large mall for being completely in the middle of nowhere. Very peculiar. However, maternity clothes they did have!

I bought a pair of black jeans and some form of tank top at Debenhams, an adorable little dress thing from Next and some tights from H&M. I officially have more than one pair of pants I can wear out of the house! *laughs* They need a belt to stay up at the moment but that's better than being too tight! Mark refused to let me look at price-tags so that made me a bit nervous, but at least I have something to wear. :)

Just made my 22 week appointment with the midwife for this Friday. Hoping that whoever she is, she's in a good mood! Can't believe it's almost October already...

Week 20 Bump!

Okay this triple shot is far from seamless. The lighting is different, the shades are shut and the distance isn't perfect so you're only getting a vague idea of the growth going on here.. which is why as a special bonus, you get an actual belly shot this week! Try not to be too afraid! ;)





and no witty banter for you tonight because I'm wrecked and ready for bed. G'night!


Positive thought of the day: All those shirts and sweaters that made me self conscious about my belly now cling lovingly to my adorable baby bump!

Less than impressed but still thrilled!

First and foremost... baby looks happy and has all the right organs! No wings! I have no idea what the numbers she wrote in my notes actually mean but everything has a nice little check mark next to it. We're absolutely thrilled to have a little complete baby whose only job now is to pack on the pounds! :)

On the other (Rebecca-needs-to-rant) hand.. ARGH!!!

The sonographer's goal seemed to be to suck all the joy out of the experience. I know for a fact they weren't busy. Mark and I were the ONLY people in the waiting room. She didn't seem to want to answer any of our questions. They were simple questions like "so where does that mean the head is?" or "is that the heart we're looking at?" Those sort of innocent questions. I was treated more or less like an inanimate object that she had to work around in order to get the measurements. For goodness sakes, we're human beings having a baby for the first time, have a little compassion! Although baby was awake, it wasn't in the right position to be able to see the sex so I asked if there was anything I could do to convince the baby to move, she kinda grunted at me and said, "no, it's just your baby." What does that mean?! That makes no sense.

The pictures we got were only close ups of the head even though baby did a ton of cute things and the full body shot with the spine was AMAZING! Definitely one for a frame. We even said how much we liked that view but no.. she didn't get the hint. I have to learn to be braver and speak up for myself. Actually say "Can I have a photo of that please." But noooo I'm too shy. Stupid me. This baby is only going to be inside of me the once!

So now I really want to go to Babybond and get a sexing scan done but it will cost £79. Mark thinks it would be smarter to spend that money actually ON the baby. Diapers, clothes, etc.. and I know he's right. But I just want to start calling my little one by a name!! *sniff* pregnancy hormones and all that. We haven't made a decision yet. I'm going to try to ebay some stuff today and if any of that sells I can put it towards the price of the private scan and then it won't feel like we're out of pocket.

Is it wrong that I want to know so badly? We have a boy's name chosen but can't agree on a girl's name. We don't want to go through all the stress of debating a girl's name if we don't have to. I want to give the baby a name and bond properly.

Here's the newest pictures of the little one:


Stay tuned- 20 week bump pictures should be going up later tonight.

Food on the brain..

There should be entirely new food groups for pregnant woman. First food group: Brownies.

So today Mark and I were going to head out to Silverburn to hunt for maternity clothes... then I decided I didn't want to get out bed and that Silverburn was too far. *laughs* it's mostly because all the stores will shut at 6pm today and I hate it when the sales people stare at you like "why are you still in my store? Leave!" Plus, I hate crowds and weekend shopping in Scotland is like trying to go into Walmart on Christmas Eve. Not recommended. We've decided that we'll try mid-week. Mark's going to come home on time Tuesday which means we should be able to get back out there by 6ish and have a good three hours of non-pressured shopping/wandering around time.

Okay now I'm hungry. I was laying in bed earlier thinking how much I would love to go to Denny's, IHOP, Cracker Barrel, anywhere with an all day breakfast really. (I resent that IHOP call themselbes the International House of Pancakes... because I see no pancake houses over here!! They should rebrand as AmericanHOP) I miss brunch entirely too much and nowhere over here understands brunch at all. I'd love some biscuits and gravy just like Grandma makes... last time I tried, my gravy turned out like some white gelatinous mass. It definitely wasn't the yum I grew up with. Plus Mark won't eat it anyway so it's a lot of effort to go to for one.

Sidenote: (bottom-note?): Either the feature is new or I've just been really blind, but I've finally set it up so blogger will email me when I have a new comment on a post so hopefully you guys won't have to wait weeks for me to respond to something anymore!

Ps. remember to check for tomorrow's post!! New pictures and meatball will get a gender!!

Quote of the day courtesy of Mark: "That's no meatball, that's a beachball!" :D

19 Weeks!

Feeling rather yucky today,.. and I was doing so well! It's been about 2 weeks since my belly decided to call a fire drill... but changed it's mind this morning. I'm not at all sure why either. There was nothing in there! well except for your traditional stomach bile which no one wants to hear about. ;) That coupled with the incredible amount I slept today makes me wonder if the little one is having some kind of growth spurt this week?

Can't wait till next Monday!! It's the 20 Week anomaly scan. Sounds kinda scary... since they'll be checking meatball has all the right organs and spine legos, no rabbit ears, that sort of thing. I'm just ignoring that part and concentrating on the exciting bit, we should be able to find out the big Boy or Girl question!! :)

Yesterday I left the house. *laughs* Can you believe it? Mark took me shopping. The intent: to buy maternity clothes. The result: I bought one sweater thingey. I have no idea where you're supposed to buy maternity clothes. We went to the mall and ONE store had ONE maternity rack. That was it!!! We wound up at Asda on the way home and they had a few things, but their one rack was even smaller. On the plus side the material they used didn't seem to be fashioned from cardboard and glass and was actually comfy. However, all their stuff was obviously for the more heavily pregnant and everything I tried on looked like I would be wearing it as sleepwear. Hopefully I'll find somewhere that sells maternity clothes before I have nothing left to wear! Hanging around the house is just fine cause I can wear pj bottoms all day.. but I really do only have one pair of pants that I can comfortably wear outside of the house and I'm kinda getting sick of them! :)

Week 18: The Bump

Mark was a stickler for details and made sure I found the same outfit I was wearing last time. So, not huge yet.. but baby is definitely growing in there! We definitely need a new camera. Two weeks ago I fully charged the battery to take 5 pictures of the bump. I then uploaded the pictures. Today Mark tries to turn it on and nada. It's dead. So we had to wait another 30 minutes while the batteries charged themselves back up. Whatever you do, don't buy a Kodak EasyShare Camera. They are redonkuclous.



I've got a headache tonight, the fun sort where moving makes every bit of your brain throb. So the plan is limited moving. :) Only 2 more weeks till the next ultrasound! I'm still feeling nauseous, but there hasn't been any more vomiting. (Yaay!)

and knowing is half the battle!

Half a jalapeno is half a jalapeno too many.

Antacids are the other half of the battle.

The dating game.

Okay we're in the 17th week now. (Wait... If I'm 17 weeks already that means we're in the 18th week... so confusing.) Shouldn't all this nausea and queasiness be gone by now? Because it's not, and I'm not impressed! When do I get to glow??

Speaking of dates.. the midwifery staff can't seem to keep things straight. When I went for the 12 week scan I thought I was 11+6 but they dated me at 12+1, so I switched to a conservative 12 weeks even. At my appointment on Monday when I should have been listed as an even 17 weeks Allison *cough cough HACK* wrote my dates as 16+5. I know none of these little dates matter much at all because despite being unable to agree about how far along I am, my due date seems to remain steady at February 8th. (And we all know babies never agree about due dates anyway!)

Mark's taking me out for some nibbles and a movie tonight. Going to see G.I. Joe. (because knowing is half the battle - and if they don't say that somewhere in the movie someone is going to pay.) Just have to remember to take some disinfectant wipes and look like a dork. :) Hey! last time I went to that theater I'd lost most of my voice before we'd even left! It's germ ridden. I do not fancy getting ill again. Being nauseous is enough for me to deal with on its on, thank you very much.

I don't feel like I look that much bigger this week, so the next photos will probably go up on Monday at 18 weeks. :) (Notice I said look bigger, I definitely FEEL bigger.)

Meeting the consultant, kinda.

This did NOT go as well as I'd hoped. It started off well with Mark and I actually finding a parking space at the hospital, (No easy feat.) which was followed by a very short wait. However, that's where the goodness ended. The midwife who walks in is none other than "Allison." She was the surly midwife who showed us around the hospital in Paisley, basically scoffed at questions and generally looked like she was having a bad year.

We went into the little check-up room and she asked me a few questions even though she didn't seem to care what the answers were. Since yesterday I've been getting really intense pelvic pain on one side and it's been making it hard to walk so I definitely wanted to ask someone about it. She shrugged it off saying it was ligament pain. I tried to explain that I know what ligament pain feels like and that this felt completely different. She obviously wasn't going to listen. I'm just a dumb patient who doesn't know anything. When I told her I'd been able to feel the baby moving occasionally she rolled her eyes at me and said it's far too early for that. (Can you believe her? Rudest midwife ever!) After she took my blood pressure, without explaining it to me at all or even saying, "that's okay then." She said she'd pop outside to see if she could find a doctor. A doctor?? A doctor? What happened to the Dr. Ellison that my appointment was scheduled with? No one ever explained where Dr. Ellison was.

The doctor who came in was actually quite nice. At first I was worried because she asked me why I was here and when I said that it was because I had hypothyroidism, she said "ah, overactive thyroid." Um no. Under. It was only when I told her my medication that she looked up at me and said.. "Oh you mean under active." Ahem. That IS what I said. She asked me most of the same questions the midwife had and despite the fact that mean midwife was still standing there I decided to voice my concerns all over again. Mark says I probably teed the midwife off even more doing that but I didn't care. I wanted someone to actually listen to me. The doctor was much nicer when I told her about the pain. She thinks it's just muscle related, but did tell me to see my GP or go into A&E if it gets worse or I get any swelling.

Here comes the bit I was waiting for- time to listen for baby's heartbeat! Doctor is writing something in my notes and midwife pulls out the doppler. She attempts to find the heartbeat but is just getting a lot of static. After about a minute she asks me if I had just put lotion on my belly. Umm a few hours ago. That convinces her. It's all my fault, the lotion is causing interference. uh huh.. Depsite it being all my fault she goes to get a new machine anyway. While she's struggling to find the heartbeat the nice doctor suggests that we just go next door and do a scan. Yaay that would be awesome! Alas.. mean midwife makes an interception. She frowns at the doctor and says "Someone's in there." Like we wouldn't have happily waited to be able to see baby again. Allison decides that she's found something that sounds like a heartbeat to her. She holds it up towards my ear but all I'm hearing is static. She does try to reassure me at one point and says, "I do hear baby moving around." Apparently this is enough for her and we're done. :( I was really looking forward to being able to hear the heartbeat and she couldn't bear to spend 10 minutes with me? Mark says I need to learn to speak up a bit in these situations.

It's all over quicker than any of my appointments thus far. I'm so glad Mark had the day off and didn't have to miss work to take me. Midwife hands me the hospital's folder of my notes and tells me to take it to the receptionist who will make a 28 week appointment for me. We wander back to reception but there's no receptionist so I flick through my notes. They are MY notes after all. Uh oh. Allison comes in and sees me looking at my notes. She actually takes them out of my hands and puts them on the receptionist's desk and says. "We'll put this over here so she can see it." The nerve! They're MY notes lady. I felt like picking them right back up but of course I'm not that brave.

So I have another appointment to see Dr. Ellison on November 23rd, but who knows if she'll be there then either. Hopefully 'Allison the evil' won't be there when I go back for my 20 week scan... and that just maybe she'll be on holiday in February when it's time to actually have the baby!

Evil bubbles of pain!

Managed to go 9 whole days without throwing up! Can you believe it!? I was so excited.. up until the point where I threw up. :) I've still been queasy a lot of the time but it's definitely starting to get to a more bearable level.

Okay and now onto the subject of trapped wind aka. I'VE BEEN BRUTALLY SHOT IN THE GUT BUT CAN'T SEEM TO DIE. Yes. You read that right. That's what I wrote. So, because I don't have the most health conscious diet going my pregnancy-slowed digestive tract decides that pain is the order of the day. It had only happened twice, after cheesy burritos (obviously my own fault) and after some homemade macaroni and cheese, (I'm sure Mom will blame it on some blood type A aversion to cheddar or something) but Thursday night we had fajitas. Simple, healthy, relatively good for you fajitas. The next morning at 6am I woke up with a dull ache in my stomach. "Ah gas." I know this feeling. It's going to hurt for a bit but it'll pass and I'll be fine. Not SO! about 10 minutes later it had progressed to a non-dull ache which steadily increased in pain as the minutes ticked by. By 6:30 I was writhing around, throwing myself to the floor, stumbling around. Basically looking like someone who had completely lost control of their body. I hadn't woken Mark up because I knew there wasn't anything he could do and didn't want to worry him, but by this point the pain was freaking me out and he had to be woken. (Poor guy was subsequently woken by my death moans of pain.) I can honestly say this was the most painful thing I have experienced, EVER. It surpasses having my tonsils out. That's how bad this was. Eventually I was able to breathe again and Mark didn't have to call the ER. Yes. I'm alive and I'm okay now.

So later that day I made a point to research how to make this go away quicker if, heaven forbid, it ever happens again. Chamomile tea apparently should help. Mark's insisting we get some chemical strength tablets from the store as well. I'm not arguing.

Morbid that I am, one thought that popped in my head while I was struggling to breathe was... "I bet this is what being shot feels like, except being shot probably doesn't hurt as much because you're losing blood and eventually you pass out." :D

Tomorrow we're spending the day at the in-laws so we can see everybody before they scamper off on a lovely little holiday to France. (If trains weren't so expensive we'd be going too!) Should be fun. They're cooking for me and I don't have to move. :)

We meet the consultant (aka. actual doctor) on Monday so I'm sure I'll have more interesting and less morbid things to chat about then.

Take care!

16 Weeks!

Okay so ignore the strange look on my face.. my nose or my hair or whatnot looked strange in all the others. Oddly enough the bump looks smallest in this one. With the magic of the crop tool my face is gone in the second one but you get a better view of the bump. I may not look huge but I feel huge.



Baby was doing some weird stuff this morning. When I woke up my stomach looked very odd. There was a large lump on one side and nothing on the other. I poked a bit at it and the left side didn't feel hard at all but the right side felt like a brick. Baby had smooshed itself completely over to one side! It was a bit disconcerting to say the least! Mark asked if I had broken the baby. I assured him that it was normal. It is normal right?

Okay I'm starving, Mark's starving, time to go forage in the kitchen for food. :)

Last week

Sorry I haven't written in a while, the start to last week was really rough. Here, I'll do a flashback... *think warbly lines*

Monday morning I had an appointment to get some blood taken to get my thyroid levels finally tested. (I know they took blood at the scan appointment to check my levels, but when I called for the results the receptionist told me the paperwork from the lab stated that no blood had been provided with the sample... or something odd like that. So someone out there in Greenock is trying to clone me.. erm or just very absent minded. I wasn't thrilled - to say the least, considering how complicated it was to get the last sample of blood from me, not to mention that I really wanted these levels checked WEEKS ago. I think I've mentioned all this but am repeating myself cause I can't remember for sure.) Moving on... I booked in at the treatment centre at my health centre have the blood taken. The nurses on staff pretty much take blood day in and day out so I was hoping they'd be better at it than the practice nurse. When I explained to her that they'd lost my last blood after it was so hard to get it in the first place, she decided it would probably be best if I was laying down. Eureka! Success! and on the first jab too. I was impressed. Treatment room for the win. I also managed to finally have someone take a sample to test for toxoplasmosis too. Finally that's all sorted. This is where it takes a downward turn.

I was feeling a normal level of nausea but it always gets worse if I haven't had enough sleep and waking up at 7:30am to get to my appointment was definitely too early for me and baby. We left the health centre and were in the car less than 2 minutes when that horrible, overwhelming need to throw-up hit me. I fluttered my hands, whimpered, whined and generally looked like a dork but I couldn't make it go away. The little paper bag I've had stashed on the floorboard since I found out I was pregnant was going to finally get its big day. I freaked. I did NOT want to throw-up in the car, who cares if I had a bag? It's still horrible and Mark was right there. Ugh. Yes. I threw up in the car. *sigh* I will have nightmares forever. Mark had to immediately stop because while it was all in a bag, said bag was paper and no way was it going to hold. So me and my bag got out of the car and walked along the road in the rain to find a bin. Get back in car, head home. Lay in bathroom for 10 minutes before my stomach decides that it's not finished with me yet. This goes on intermittently for the next hour. I feel like dying. Finally I fall asleep again. Wake up around 4pm. Eat lunch. Lunch laughs at me and goes to join breakfast.

Tuesday: Another early appointment. This time me and Mark have an appointment at the dentist. Dentist is lazy. He's supposed to do a full scale and polish. He de-scales all the teeth but then only does the brushing bit on the top teeth. Lame. Good thing I'm pregnant and not paying for it or I'd be really angry. I have horrible pregnancy gums though. When he's through with me I look like a vampire after a big meal. He laughs and says it's just my gums having an exaggerated response to plaque because of the new hormones and that it will all go back to normal after I give birth. We get back in the car to head home.. I think I'm going to be okay. Then it hits again. This time though (after much yelling from me at the other traffic for not moving) I make it home before Mt.St.Becky explodes again. More sleeping. More being sick. Life is fun.

I spend the rest of the day in a queasy haze between asleep and moaning. At midnight Mom calls... never a good sign. My parents had taken Indiana to the vet to get him a check-up. He'd only been home a day, but was having trouble walking and his breathing was incredibly laboured. They were hoping to get him on some pain medication but the vet found a whole host of things wrong with the poor guy. Not only did he have multiple tumours, arthritis, larynx problems but cancer as well. The prognosis wasn't good and the vet advised putting him down. It was hard on everyone. I can say that my raging hormones did not make it easy on me but it must have been incredibly hard for my parents. Having him home for only a day before they were forced to make the hardest decision a pet owner ever has to make. At least I was able to see him and talk to him (via Skype) one last time. I want to say that it would have been easier if he had never come home again... but just the thought breaks my heart and I wouldn't have given up that last day for anything. Now we have all three of my beautiful labs together again and my parents are planning to bury their ashes next time I can make it home. For the next few days whenever I tried to tell anyone what had happened I burst into tears. I'm going to miss that puppypotamoose so much. It's the end of an era. I can't believe our labs are all gone.

I'll catch you up with the rest of week and baby baking process later.

It's ALIVE!!

Baby Meatball is making his presence known!! I wasn't expecting to feel any movement till closer to 17 weeks and since today is just 14+6 I was a bit surprised. (What am I saying, I was completely shocked!)

It was the middle of the night and I woke up feeling a bit strange, definitely nothing new there. At first I thought my belly was just making the traditional, "feed me" or "I'm digesting a cow" kind of noises, but then I realized there was definitely something different going on. My lower ab area would start to feel really heavy and then there was some swooshing. Like something was rolling around. I discounted it and went back to sleep, then I woke up again with the same feeling. Someone was definitely moving around down there. The house was quiet, I was quiet,.. so I laid there for ages and tracked it. The heavy feeling would disappear and the come back immediately before the swooshing feeling. Made me wonder if the little one was doing back-flips. The next time I woke up it was around 9:30 so I figured I could wake Mark up and tell him. He was definitely excited. I told him not to get his hopes up though because I was only feeling it on the inside, I wasn't making anything out with my hands. But I decided that if he laid his head on my belly he might be able to hear a swishing noise when the baby moved. It worked!! He heard the swishing! and then amazing enough he said it felt like tiny faint kicks!

For being so early on this baby must be HUGE! Hopefully the growth will slow down to a normal speed and I'm not faced with the prospect of a 13 lb baby or anything crazy like that.

So excited!! It was amazing to feel the little one moving around and know that it's still there! I'm still feeling queasy all day but it seems a bit less intense.

I need a hug.

Ugh. Today has been bad. Okay well, yesterday AND today have been bad. As soon as I think things are getting better, they get worse. It was just the residual effects from the magic pills that kept me feeling okay on Tuesday. The wretchedness is back with a vengeance. It's worse than before. Nothing I'm eating is staying down. Well, I take that back. I had a granola bar at 7:30am when I got up with Mark but went back to sleep afterwards for a few more hours, so that stayed down. Can't exactly vomit if you're asleep now can you! :) I should just sleep all the time.

Mark talked to a few of his friends who have kids and they've all said that their wives didn't stop feeling ill until 16 weeks... (so why did so many people tell me that it would go away at 3 months?) So the countdown starts again. 1 week and 4 days then it'll magically disappear. Right?

and now the world knows!

You will all be thrilled to hear that my allergies have calmed down again. I seriously have no idea what it could be. (Well I guess it could just be an overdose of cat hair - but you'd think if it was that, with my housekeeping skills, I'd be suffering all the time.) Either way I'm just happy they've disappeared again for a while. :)

Mark and I had another wedding to attend this past weekend. You can really tell that we're getting to be a certain age now because this was our third wedding of the year and before now I'd only ever been to two weddings, mine and Maggie's! I took my magic prescription pills and while the morning we were supposed to leave for the wedding was horrible the rest of the weekend was actually bearable! As long as I had something to munch on and could sit down every 5 minutes or so I was okay. It was a lovely wedding reception AND we managed to squeeze in some quality time with some friends we rarely get to see anymore. PLUS I got to visit another castle. Always a plus.

So today's big news is that I've finally announced the pregnancy to my Facebook world. There's been a lot of great replies and it thrills me to death that I have so many friends who are interested and care despite how bad I am at keeping in touch! So it's official! The world now knows about the growing meatball, which is a good thing but otherwise people would just start thinking that I'd eaten a LOT of meatballs. Yes. The bump is starting to become a tad obvious.

Oh and more blood-taking issues have arisen. Some of the bloodwork that they were supposed to take at 10 weeks but couldn't and wound up taking at 12 weeks didn't actually make it to the lab. I have no idea what happened. I called my GP today to ask about my thyroid function results and the receptionist kindly informed me that the paperwork they got back from the lab said "sample not received" so apparently, the little vial of blood she was supposed to put in the little envelope bit of paper never arrived. Which means... yes. More blood needed. I have an appointment bright and early Monday morning to get my thyroid checked AND the toxoplasmosis test that I've been wanting to get since I found out I was pregnant. Hopefully all my blood winds up in the right place this time. Then Tuesday morning it's off to the dentist.

Morning sickness has been considerably kinder today, especially taking into account how abysmal the end of last week was. I managed to do two loads of laundry, make dinner, AND take a bath. Can you believe it? No, me neither. ;)

Allergies..

I was reading over my last post and the amount of word repetition, inverted word order, or instances of just plain using the wrong word was incredible! I really should try re-reading these things first. Well at least I explained that I was exhausted right? I use that as justification for my less than stellar literary attempt.

Not to much change in my morning sickness the past few days except that it seems to be a little tamer during the day and more intense at night. Morning sickness my foot! I've never seen anything so inappropriately named.

When we first decided that we'd try this baby thing out my biggest concern for the following nine months was my allergies. I'm not exactly sure what I'm allergic too. I'm pretty sure it's a mix of dust mites, cat hair and mold. My doctor prescribed me some lovely tablets that totally did the trick. My head wasn't even stuffy when I was trying to fall asleep. But he most vehemently explained that I would not be allowed to take these pills while pregnant and that actually, I should just go ahead and stop right now if we were trying. My thoughts = "Eegads!! I won't be able to breathe for 9 months and we'll have to buy stock in Kleenex!" Long story short, I had apparently developed a bit of a dependency on the allergy pills and the longer I took them the harder it was to stop. I could go three days before it got so bad that I needed to take another one... but magically one day (this was before I even got pregnant) I managed to get through an entire week without taking a pill and suddenly everything was okay. Don't get me wrong.. that was one HORRIBLE week. But afterwards I was fine. So strange.. like withdrawal or something. (Okay that was a lot of back story just to get to the next sentence.) 2 days ago my allergies have fired back up and I have no idea why. I've had no issues at all for a good 2 months and now they resurface? How is that fair? Isn't morning sickness enough?

I'm going to try burning the sheets tomorrow (ahem, I mean washing them at the hottest temperature my weak washing machine can handle) and hopefully that will help a bit. It's always worse when I'm laying in bed so I'm thinking the cat invited some friends over and had a party on my pillow case.. or it's MardiGras for dust mites. Either way something needs to be rectified here.

I've made it 13 weeks! Can you believe it? I was sure my body would have self-destructed by now leaving an oddly colored pile of goo on the living room floor.

Oh and my super happy fact of they day? (because obviously there's been a fact of the day before now) Indiana is moving home!! I can't wait to see him again and am thrilled to bits that my baby is going to be able to meet my puppy one day.

Sugar Puffs = Bad

Reminder to myself. Don't eat Sugar Puffs. I've done it at least three times now and you'd think I would have learned by now. Every time I've had the cereal it hasn't stayed down and I've felt rotten the rest of the entire day. When I was discussing it yesterday with Mark and he was commenting on my daftness for eating them yet again, I realized that cereal in general seems to be having the same effect on me. No matter how much my mouth wants to eat it my stomach gets really mad if I cave in. So for a least a few weeks, no cereal for me. Luckily my stomach still seems to be happy with chocolate milk.

Another food low: I realized a few days ago that I had some Tropical Punch Koolaid packets stored away that friends and family had mailed me from America. I was very excited. I'd been wanting Tropical Punch. (Actually I have been finding it really hard to find anything I want to drink. Anything citrus and I get heartburn, most juice is too sweetly thick, water has to be ice cold, and anything carbonated makes me burp for ages.) So finding the koolaid was awesome... until Mark read the ingredients that is... as soon as he saw Red 40 on there I was promptly banned from the koolaid and not even allowed to finish the pitcher in the fridge. :( Just because it was banned from food products in the UK this year... *sniff* The koolaid incident was followed briefly by me remembering that I squirreled away a tub of Tang in the cabinet somewhere to make my Grandmother's spiced tea recipe with. I was excited. It's like koolaid but healthier. Surely it wouldn't have any scary additives. It was expired. Like over a year expired. I still made a jug and tried to drink it but it tasted powdery. I can't remember if that's HOW Tang tastes or a by product of it being so old. Anyhow, as soon as Mark realized I'd tried to drink out of date Tang.. away the Tang went too. Drink nazi. *laughs* At least he's looking out for me.

I dreamed about Mountain Dew last night. mmmmmmmmm dream mountain dew was so yummy.

I'm not feeling as nauseous today as I was yesterday... (of course yesterday would be hard to beat I think I met my vomiting record.) But it's so nice not to have my head in the toilet today. However, to make up for the lack of vomiting I've been exhausted. I woke up around 1pm then fell asleep from 3:30 to 7pm. Even for me that's a crazy amount of sleeping. Little baby must be growing something fierce in there! (Don't worry baby, I'll sleep as much as you need me to! Just stop making me puke and all will be well.)

Magic jumping bean!

So after spending 2 hours at the hospital I'm finally home again. :) All in all it wasn't a bad experience though! Everyone took their time, I wasn't rushed around and I didn't have to wait very long at all!

First we went through to a scanning room. There was a monitor for the nurse and Mark to see and then a nice little flat screen above the examination table that I could look at without having to bend around to see the one the midwife was looking at. Baby was totally awake, bouncing all over the screen! Mark has renamed it "the jumping bean." It took a while for the baby to decide to lay in the correct position for the midwife to get some of the measurements she was after but that was completely okay with me because it meant we got to look at the little one for longer! It was so awesome! It's crazy to think that there's an actual baby in there! While she was scanning I think I said "gosh it's so baby shaped! it doesn't look like a rabbit at all!" She must have thought I was a bit insane.

Here's some photos for your viewing pleasure... Just click on each one for a bigger view.





After the scan I went to another room with a new midwife who attempted to take my bloods... she stabbed me three times before deciding that she needed to get a doctor in. In came the doctor who, thankfully, managed to get it on the first go. Afterwards I guess I was looking a bit pale and slightly like I was going to vomit so after asking if I needed a bowl to be sick in (which I declined) she offered to get me some cookies and juice which I happily accepted. I munched away on these while she went about booking further appointments for me and collecting some paperwork I needed so I wouldn't have to.

My next scan will be September 21st when I'll be 20 weeks. Oh! And they've moved up my due date. It's sitting at February 8th 2010 now. She said I'm 12 weeks 1 day and the baby is actually measuring bigger than that! Can you believe it?! I lose 8lbs and the baby is totally happy. One of the midwives said not to worry "because babies are total parasites and will take whatever they need."

I'm still in awe and I don't think Mark wanted to go into work today. :)