Her First Halloween

There were no tricker-treaters, there was no candy, but there was plenty of food, family, love and fun!

8 Months and a day!

I keep missing the month check-ins by a day! I got pretty darn close this time, it's only 20 minutes past midnight at the moment. Jessie was not interested in sleeping, despite yawning and rubbing her eyes she was determined to keep playing.

[You know what? I've only written 3 sentences but I've lot my train of thought at least 5 times already so I'm calling it a night and me and Jessie will try to do the update together tomorrow.]

~~Next Day~~

So after a good night's sleep and a mini photo shoot in the garden, we're back to finish up this post. However, Babybear decided to fall asleep on me so I'm attempting this update completely left handed!

At 8 months she has...

gained almost a pound since last month and is just shy of 19lbs

started babbling even more, never thought consonants could be so adorable!

worked out how to stand!! she can balance for almost 10 seconds completely unsupported

figured out how to throw a tantrum and has a completely new "I'm angry" cry

started chasing the cat and giggling when Leeloo comes to her

developed even more of a personality

gotten a bit less freaked by strangers, still doesn't like it if they try to touch her though!

She's crawling like a pro and climb the stairs faster than you'd think possible. She's an absolute joy and I thank God everyday for such an amazing blessing. I also pray for the strength and wisdom to do right by her and for the alertness required to catch her before she tries to eat power cables!

Escape Artist

The bumbocan no longer contain her.



She has decided that shredding paper towels is great fun.

She swims!

Well not really, but she doesn't hate the water and that's a great start! After talking about it and planning to for the past couple weekends, we finally made it to the pool today.

Here she is all prepped and almost ready to go. Of course since it's 51°F (11°C) out there she needed an additional layer or so before we could actually leave the house.

When we arrived the girl at the front desk recognized us, smiled and said "Oh you've had a baby!" Jessica had the good sense to smile at her. I on the other hand was a bit flustered. It's been over a year since we were members there. How did she remember us? How come other people are so much better with faces than I am? I don't remember people I shared classes with every day for 3 years at university. How am I supposed to remember a receptionist? Am I a bad person?

We go down to the pool and it was loud and crowded. (What else can you expect when they offer free swimming for all Inverclyde school kids. Which I'd find pretty darn awesome if I was a school kid! We on the other hand had to pay £8 for the privilege of spending an hour in the pool with a kajillion unsupervised pre-teens. joy.) Jessica is holding it together rather well. We start in the kiddie pool, but the other two moms there with 5 or 6 year olds don't seem to grasp the concept of giving the baby a little space. We keep moving around trying to get away and it feels like they're following us. So we head to the lazy river. As long as you're holding her close and she's not to deep she's happy enough. Not thrilled, but not to upset either. She cries once of twice but if we stand up with her she stops almost immediately. We take her into the wave pool next (while the waves are off of course.) After some singing and some tickling she's actually laughing and having fun. Before we leave we try the lazy river again and what do you know, she actually lets me pull her along in the water. We decide to leave on a high point and get out before she realizes that she just went swimming. :)

7 months, 2 weeks, 3 days...

Wow it's been a while... I love to keep everyone updated and stretch my mind by writing now and then but recently blogging has definitely taken a hit in the priority list.

What's been happening since I last checked in?

• She stands! (well only for about 2 seconds so far but she's definitely on her way to sustained independent standing)
• She babbles! (not much yet but last week she was happily playing with her toys and started in with dadadadadadadadadadadadadada, I think Mark nearly fainted from joy.)
• She's finally starting to move into her 6-9 month clothes. (however what she really needs is a 5-8 month size range that doesn't exist)
• I passed my driving test! (I can finally drive unaccompanied in the UK. For a girl who got her American license at 16 this was long overdue.)

I'm sure there's more but Babybear just woke up from her nap so I'll leave you with this gorgeous picture that Claire took of my beautiful daughter... enjoy.

Peek-A-Boo

Some baby laughter to brighten your day and a little bit of kitty for that added sparkle. :)

>


(I'll fix the margins later...)

ooh look a video!

oh and did I not mention? She stands now.

This is just a fraction of her new skills. She can balance standing with just one hand on someone or something to support herself. She rolls, she crawls, she sits on her own, she climbs, she pulls up and she's soo close to standing on her own. She's everywhere! She gets frustrated if you expect her to just sit, the girl has the exploring itch! It would be a handful chasing after her even if I hadn't just been cut open and dissected.

We love her so much and everyday she manages to do something else that blows our collective parenting minds.

[should be viewable by everyone now - leave me a comment and let me know if it's not showing up for you..]

Recovery

It's been a week since they did after away with my gallbladder. I'm still sore, but I guess that's to be expected. (Did I tell you that I asked if I could see the gallstones after the surgery? One doctor looked at me a little strange and said that, no, they didn't allow that any more. Something about health and safety.. contamination something or other... the other doctor just shook his head and told me I wouldn't want to see it.) Mark was allowed five days of dependant leave to stay home and take care of me and the babybear. Luckily, he has the kind of job that allows him a certain degree of flexibility and he's been able to work from home the rest of this week. We're hoping that if I take it easy this weekend it will be okay for him to go back to work on Monday.

I'm doing pretty well. The pain isn't too bad, so a couple paracetamol every now and then seem to be doing the trick, nothing stronger required. (Which is great because the co-codamol dosage they had me on makes me itch!) It mostly hurts when I've been sitting for a while and I decide to get up... insides getting all squished up and complaining I guess. The bruising is still evident but it's only one set of the stitches that gives me any grief. They checked everything over on Tuesday and I'll be going back to the Treatment Room on Saturday to have them glance over everything again just to make sure things are healing properly. The big reason Mark needs to be home is baby lifting. I can hold her to a degree but I can't pick her up and carrying her up the stairs is a big off-limits. It's frustrating standing at the bottom calling up to him, "We need up the stairs!" but that's why he's home and if I were to try, I'd probably be in a lot more pain. I just have to remember to be patient and give my body time. From pregnancy to post-natal recovery, to gallstones to laparoscopic cholecystectomys, it feels like forever since my body has been whole. I feel squidgy, out of shape, weak and blah. I actually have these mini-fantasies where I'm at the gym. Me. Dreaming of the gym. Yup. Hell has frozen over. :)

I'm sure my liver and and my stomach are both looking at each other now with confused expressions. I don't think they like each other. At least not yet anyway. From what I've read it might take at least three weeks for them to decide to be friends. At least it seems that all the gas they pumped into me during surgery is gone and my midsection doesn't look or feel so much like a balloon!

A Gallbladder eviction.

Bright and early Thursday morning, Mark, Baby and I packed up and headed over to the hospital. I checked in at admissions and up to level H we went. It was nice to see that everyone was expecting me. The nurse at the desk looked up when we came in and asked if I was Rebecca. (Good start!) They'd arranged a single room for me but it wasn't available yet so they put us in a four bed room that was empty. (Works for me.)

The next couple hours were spent with various nurses and doctors coming and going and asking pretty much the same questions over and over again. (That's okay with me too. I'd rather answer the same question 10 times then have someone accidentally amputate my leg.) Around 10am they brought me a gown, stabbed me with an anticoagulant and gave me a few minutes to say goodbye to babybear and hubby.

My paranoid nature made us take a couple pictures incase I didn't come back.

Jessie was a bit fussy at this point but by the time they came to wheel me away she was completely asleep in her Daddy's arms and I knew they were going to be okay without me for a little while. It made it so much eas

ier for me to relax and let them take me away.

Waiting in a bed in pre-op. More repeated questions. I finally meet the anaesthetist. I'd met his nurse earlier but this was the first time I'd gotten to speak to the man in charge of drugging me up. (Can't say I was impressed.) He says he hears that I'm 6 months post-partum and asks if I'm still breastfeeding. I nod. He asks how long I intend to breastfeed for and if I'd like to stop now. (Stop now? Seriously? Yes. I'm going to make the baby go cold-turkey and all these questions about when I can feed her again were just for my amusement.) At first I'm a little dazed but I know my facts and I tell him that we plan on breastfeeding for a year. He looks a little confused and tries telling me that you're only supposed to breastfeed for 6 months. The student doctor next to him nods and faithfully agrees that he thought it was 6 months as well. I stand my ground and tell him that the World Health Organization's guidelines say that you should breastfeed for at least a year. He counters by telling me that the quality of breast milk is pretty rubbish after 6 months. (Where in the world did this man go to medical school? Why, if babies cannot drink cow's milk before a year would breastmilk stop being good enough for them at 6 months. Did formula companies design the intestine of a baby? I don't think so.) I

think it ended with us both passively agreeing that the other was wrong and he told me that I should be fine to breastfeed again within 48 hours. On with the drugging.

They got the cannula in the back of my hand on the first try (yaay!) and then tried to have a conversation with me whilst pumping me full of drugs. I don't think it was a very coherent conversation but I'm sure they're used to that sort of thing. I woke up a couple hours later with all my limbs intact. I was in pain but a nice lady whose face I don't remember kept adding morphine to my drip. I approved.

An unspecified amount of time later (I didn't exactly have a watch) I was wheeled back to the ward. I faintly remember the nurse telling me that they were having a problem with the plumbing in my room so I was going into a room with another lady for a little while but that they'd have me in a single room as soon as they got it fixed. The little old lady in the room sounded so happy when I was wheeled in. She was saying something along the lines of finally having someone to talk to. Sadly I left my oxygen mask and mp3 player on and stayed in my own little world until Mark and Jessica arrived. Despite it not being visiting hours they were shown in and allowed to stay with me. I don't think it was long until the plumbing got sorted and we were shuffled off to our own room. Little old lady was sad to see me (and now adorable baby) leave and said as much.

Another nurse came in and said that they'd been to talk to the midwives and that they were completely happy for me to start breastfeeding again as soon as I wanted. Apparently they give the same general anaesthesia and pain medication to c-section patients who go o

n to breastfeed immediately. Mark and I decided that we'd use the expressed milk in the freezer for the first 24 hours and then go back to breastfeeding - which was a great result all around since we only actually own 3 bottles!

Time moved on in that odd post surgery hazy way it's wont to do and Mark took Jessica home. Every time I fell asleep the hospital staff set their watches and then crashed something, turned on a light or came in for a chat every two hours just to make sure I wasn't getting any sleep. I can't imagine how hard it must be to sleep in a room you have to share with 3 other people.

Eventually morning dawns. A very EARLY morning. Painkillers at 6am (appreciated) breakfast at 7am (not appreciated.) Salty porridge with an extra packet of salt incase it wasn't salty enough. Yum. I had a roll with some butter instead.

Shower. Wound check. More painkillers. Mark and Jessica arrive around 11am. I realize just how much I missed the babybear. Mark sits her on the bed infront of me and I give her my hands. She immediately pulls to standing. The girl is amazing!

Now we wait. I'm clear to go home but we have to wait for the pharmacy to send up my prescription. We were warned days ago that this is often the longest part of the discharge process. My super sweet nurse even hurried them along a few times, actually volunteering to send someone down to collect the pills from them. There's a few other bits some of you might find vaguely interesting like when a smelly doctor I didn't know, showed up and tried to extract some blood from me without knowing who I was or why I was there and only succeeded in putting three more holes in the back of my hand, but it's late. I'm tired. And I'm tired of saving this post to finish later. So... I made it out alive, I'm rather sore, I'm still trying to figure out what I can and can't eat now and I can't quite pick up the babybear yet but we're getting there. I'll see if I can get Mark to write something up about how Daddy and Daughter bonding night went later. :)

6 Months 2 days

Babybear is half a year old!! How did that happen?? I meant to post this exactly on 6 months, but yeah, that didn't happen. :) The picture was taken bang on 6 months if that counts though!

She's more than doubled her birth weight and is now 16.6lbs (7.55kg). I'd tell you how long she is but you try measuring a 6 month old, yeah not simple! And by the time they aren't moving any more you're not going to chance waking them up by measuring them! She's longer than she used to be. nuff said.

• She can sit unaided for ages, however, we still surround her with pillows for that eventual 'plop.'
• She can froggie hop with ease (It's her attempt at crawling. Both back legs come forward at the same time. )
• She's so close to crawling that we're starting the long process of baby-proofing!

What's a Rusk?

~ dedicated to my Mother, who taught me always to be brave enough to ask, "huh?" ~


Generally speaking, it's a baby cookie! Britishly speaking, a much loved biscuit commonly associated with childhood.

Mark remembers Rusks fondly and had to explain to me what they were. He wasn't impressed when I later told him that the Childsmile Dental Visitor imformed me that Rusks were a big no-no, and that Jessie wasn't going to be allowed any. (I caved of course. As long as she's not getting them all the time and only as an occasional dessert food then I can't see the harm, besides it makes both her and her Daddy happy.)

Even before we'd brought home the first box of Rusks, the word itself had taken on a life of its own in our home. The phrase "Bringing home the bacon" has long been replaced with "Earning the Rusks." ie. Daddy has to go to work now to earn the Rusks.

Here's the blurb from the box:
[Heinz Farley's Rusks are a unique food suitable for all ages from weaning through to toddler years and beyond. (They have to say this so parents don't feel so bad about munching on their baby's rusk!) Heinz Farley’s Rusks easily dissolve in the mouth, making them an ideal finger food for babies who are able to start feeding themselves, usually from around 9 to 10 months of age. They can also encourage hand to eye coordination, biting and chewing as your baby develops. Heinz Farley's Rusks are nutritionally tailored for babies and toddlers, as they're enriched with Vitamins A, C and D and with added prebiotic which helps support healthy digestion and immunity.]

And this is a picture of a baby with a Rusk

Here, There, Food Everywhere!

The weaning adventure has begun! We're not really following one school of thought here. We're taking a bit of Baby-Led Weaning and combining it with what we like from traditional weaning and just throwing in a mishmash of whatever seems to work for us as a family. (However, I've recently read that if you're spoon feeding and giving finger foods then that's really just conventional weaning. Meh! Too many terms, we're just doing what feels right for Jessica.)

Saturday Morning: a bit of banana in her net foody thingey (a what? yes. that's why there's a link) went down a hit! We have a little bit of video footage. I'll see if there's anything super adorable to share when we get the video camera hooked up. We were late leaving for Gran and Grandpa's but it was an acceptable delay, everyone agreed.

Saturday Evening: We had dinner at Gran and Grandpa Smith's, they treated us to pizza and Jessie had a bit of pear. She wasn't that impressed. I think eating on her Daddy's knee in a strange place was too much too soon.

Sunday Afternoon: A rusk in the car. Big mistake! No bib, no tray.. rusk everywhere! But she loved it.

Monday Morning: Steamed apples for breakfast!

Monday Afternoon: Apple baby cookie.

Monday Evening: Mushed carrots! Pictures are still on Mark's phone, definitely more messy than the apples. She went straight into the tub post-dinner.

Tuesday Morning Opening a box of baby porridge with a baby in one arm is not recommended. Baby porridge all over the floor. She wasn't even interested in it when I finally got it prepared so breakfast was banana again. The girl adores banana.

Tuesday Afternoon Baby rice cake - apple flavoured. Gummed into submission but not really eaten.

Tuesday Evening Broccoli and mushed potato. Another messy adventure. I'm not sure much went into her belly but she did enjoy the experience and right now that's what matters most. (Straight into a post-dinner bath again!)

Teeth!

I'm sure one day my daughter will look back at these posts and roll her eyes at me.
"A close-up picture of the inside of my mouth? Come on Mom! Was that really necessary?"

It's amazing that she's been in such a good mood recently. (Quick find some wood to knock on!) The teeth just keep on coming and she hasn't showed any signs of distress yet, just lots and lots of chewing on anything she can get her hands on.

As promised: pictures of her very first tooth coming through!



Kinda looks like a mollusk doesn't it?

Dentistry!

Despite a distinct lack of teeth, Babybear had her very first dentist appointment yesterday. why I hear you ask? It's a new governmental program called Childsmile, aimed at preventing childhood tooth decay (apparently we need extra help because there's no fluoride in the water in Scotland.)We had a dental health support worker (what a mouthful!) visit when Jessie was about 4 months old. She gave us some toothpaste, a toothbrush, a tooth-friendly sippy cup and a few other bits an bobs. While she was here she registered Jess with a local dentist, Frederick Dental Practice.

Oddly, the practice Mark and I are already registered with aren't participating in the Childsmile initiative. Or more correctly - they were participating but weren't following through and were thus dropped from the program. I've never been thrilled with our dentist. In and out in less than 10 minutes and that includes a scale, polish and checkup. I always felt a bit like a car in the pit at NASCAR... so after a really nice meeting with Jess's new dentist, Joanne, I switched us all over. She was really friendly and helpful. We'll see how the actual check-ups go next month!

I'm not sure what kind of mystery magic the dentist used, but after examining her mouth and declaring "No signs of teeth yet," Jessica actually has tiny tooth buds showing through her bottom gums today! She's been her normal happy contented self all day despite the new teething progress. Still munching on her hand, my hand, and anything that gets anywhere near her mouth though. The picture we took turned out rather vague. I'll upload it tomorrow so check back then if you feel like seeing an amorphous blob of mouth with a tiny patch coloured ever so slightly different.

5 months and a day

Once again time is acting in that peculiar fashion where it moves fast and slow simultaneously. It feels like Jessica's 4 month vaccinations were ages ago whilst I also feel like she was just born. Perhaps it's the gallbladder. When I'm in pain time always seems to act funny.

I had my consultation with the surgeon today. It was a case of being put on a waiting list to wait for a waiting list. I waited over a month for this appointment only to be told it will be roughly 2 more months before anything is done. He didn't really ask me any questions other than:

"Do you want it out?"
I said yes.
"Okay. Government guidelines say we have to promise you a surgery date within 9 weeks of telling you that you'll have surgery. I'm busy this week and on holiday the next, so it will probably be more than 3 but less than 9."
I quickly attempted to count in my head, "middle of September...noooo! just when I was planning on going home to Florida for a bit... argh!"

It's strange how much doctors vary. I've met a few that discount everything I say and often diagnose without listening to me, but then there are those that seem to let me self-diagnose, nod and ask what I would like to do. This one fell into the latter category. I mentioned how my symptoms seemed to suggest a stone getting lodged in the bile duct- so he's arranging an MRI to scan the area and make sure there's nothing there that would need to be removed. Apparently, they are two different procedures entirely. I like that he listened to me, it just comes as kind of a shock after you deal with so many who don't care what you say. At first he mentioned doing the scan after the surgery but when he realized how far off it would be he decided just to order one now. It was done in a very much "What the heck, there's nothing else to do while you're waiting to get cut open." kind of attitude. Slightly odd, but at least it's getting done.

On the lighter side of life: Tonight Jessabear pooped in the bath. Not before the bath, not right after the bath, but IN the bath. It was oddly akin to yellow play-dough coming out of a play-dough press. Mark wasn't impressed, well maybe he was,but in that strange way where you can't believe something is really happening. I've got to give him credit, he did not run screaming from the room. He held it together and we managed to get her from her bath into the proper tub with no further incident.

Letting us know what she thought about the doctor's office.

Exhausted after choosing a new toy at Tesco

Where have I been?

It was brought to my attention this morning that is officially been more than a month since my last post. I keep meaning to write something but I'm sure as all of you with offspring know... things never go according to plan!

The first big blip was my gallbladder. I told you I'd had my first gallstone attack on the 14th but what you don't know is that over the next few weeks I had at least 12 more attacks, saw the out of hours doctor twice, regular doctor once, had three phone appointments and eventually wound up in the ER. I can't take the strong painkillers because I'm still breastfeeding and they think the ones they did give me made me itch all over. (It was either the codine OR the high bilirubin count in my blood making me want to tear my skin off. They can't really tell me which because I stopped taking the painkillers as the bilirubin count went down because there was no longer a stone lodged in my bile duct!)

I can honestly say I'm being conditioned to HATE the month of June. I spent most of June 2009 throwing up, June 2010 I spent throwing up, doubled over in pain and itching. I preferred 2009 because at least I knew it was for my baby... I feel no such love for my gallbladder.

It's been a week since my last attack and I managed to go a whole week pain free before that one as well so it feels like I'm getting my life back. I have a surgical consult Monday afternoon and they'll tell me what the plan for taking my gallbladder out is. I'm of two minds; I can't wait to have it out ant live in fear of another attack, but it's surgery, I'll be in the hospital away from my baby girl for the first time. I won't be able to feed her because of the drugs in my system, I'll have to pump and dump to keep up my supply, Mark will have to convince her that the bottle can be her friend and figure out someway to get her to sleep. I see it being a very stressful few days. The doctor in the ER said they might be able to make some considerations and arrange for a private room so I can have the baby in more often.

Speaking of the precious little one. She's awake. She's decided that instead of an hour she only wanted a 20 minute nap. *laughs* Hence the reason I haven't updated this blog in a month!

I have lots more stories for you, adventures in real diapers, her first 4th of July, attempts to crawl and more. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to write them up soon. For now, enjoy the new pictures on Picasa.

Finding her feet and other ramblings

She had her 4 month injections today. I was dreading it for days. Instead of just one in each thigh she got 2 in the left thigh and 1 in the right. It was horrible and I hated it. She cried and it took everything I had not to. It's only been about six hours but other than taking a much longer nap than usual she seems to be fine. I'm not looking forward to tonight though. It's already 23°C (73°F) in the bedroom and likely to get warmer as the day goes on. (I know it doesn't sound that warm, but she's used to a room that's normally 19°C (66°F.)

As for the - mostly - in the first paragraph. I've been diagnosed with gallstones. Brilliant. I'd been having a cramping/queasiness in my stomach for the past month or so and when I finally saw the GP she sent me for an ultrasound. Lo and behold.. gallstones. Less than three days later I have my very first gallstone attack. It was unbearable. As they say, worse than childbirth. I had to see an emergency out of hours doctor to get something for the pain. I was completely incoherent with pain but I do remember the doctor asking me if it was worse than childbirth. At the time I was offended. When we left, between gasps of pain, I asked my mother in law what he meant by that. (It felt like he was saying, "If you could handle that, you should be able to handle this.") She assured me that that wasn't what he meant. It turns out that people often say that a gallstone attack is worse than childbirth. It's just the common way of referring to the severity of pain involved. I didn't know that. I do now. And yes. Worse than childbirth because while it feels A LOT like a contraction, contractions fade for a minute or two so you can breathe. This was a constant pain. A constant pain without the knowledge that it's for something wonderful. A trapped stone doesn't invoke the same sense of "I can do this!" that a beautiful baby does. So today we're taking it easy. Lots of naps and no heavy lifting. :) Hopefully we'll both make it through the day without any incidents. I even bought a nifty new Forehead Thermometer so I could keep an eye on her temperature and make sure she gets any meds as soon as she needs them.

Jessica's monthly weigh-in: 6.4kg (14.11 lbs) That's more than a pound since last month. I'll try to get her measured later and see how much longer she is. :)

Roll Over Beethoven

It's official!! The rolling has begun! She's been hovering at "almost" for at least 2 weeks now and yesterday she accomplished it all on her own.

Monday Night
Roll one: I put her in her travel cot downstairs when Mark got home and almost immediately she started the attempt. (Her leopard bear was just out of reach and she was determined to reach him.)

Roll two: she'd gone down for the night and I thought she was asleep, I hear some rustling so I go back to see if she needs settled only to watch her flip over. I reverse her flip explain that for now she needs to sleep on her back. Does it take? No. A new trick is the funnest trick of all and she immediately rolls again.(Roll 3)

Roll four: I decide this is too cute for Mark to miss and tell him to hit the light so he can see (he's already asleep at this point and his eyes fall shut just in time to miss the 4th roll of the night.) He's disappointed and tries to keep his eyes open but apparently she's done rolling for the evening.

I lost count on the rest of the rolls, she continued rolling at random points throughout the night. She would roll and wind up halfway out of her crib and into our bed. Looks like we bought the crib just in time! If she tried rolling in our bed she'd push us both out!

The adorable baby has also found her thumb. She's been sucking on her fingers since around 2 and a half months old but yesterday it clicked and she realized the thumb would be easier and she couldn't gag herself with it. I'll see if we can manage to capture it in action with a photo. :)

plus a day

Just wanted to update you on the little one. She's doing much better today. Sleepier than normal combined with a bit more neediness means I have a baby sleeping on me while I attempt to type but I'm okay with that. We soaked her band-aids off in the tub before bed last night and with that ceremonial end to the day she seemed to put it all behind her.

I've got a question. Teething and drooling. I hear they go hand in hand, but I've also heard that babies can show symptoms of teething months before teeth start to show. How is that fair? Jessica has really stepped up her drooling in the past 2 weeks. I was wondering was I was going to do with all those bibs I'd been given until she started solids. Now I know!! It's all good, she likes playing with them and it keeps her dry. Does this mean she's started teething already? What else should I be looking out for?

I'm not sure what the development milestones are.. I guess I should try looking them up. We think she's a baby genius whenever she does anything. :) She can push up on her arms while laying on her belly now. It's adorable. Imagine if you'd just climbed Mt.Everest... that's the expression she has on her face! She rolled over the other day too - have I said that already? We're not counting it as the official 'first roll' because she was on our bed and if you're laying next to her it gives her a slant to help with the momentum but she's so close to doing it on her own.

Of course she's smiling, cooing, grabbing her toys, my hair, my shirt, Daddy's glasses- anything she can get her hands on really. She even came away with a palm full of Leeloo hair the other day. Leeloo has been amazing with her though. Not a single hiss or aggressive move at all. Impressive considering the fistful hair the baby "borrowed." It's like she knows that the baby belongs here and that she's delicate and needs protecting.

I hope they stay such good friends as Jess grows into a toddler!

Yes... that's Leeloo thinking the baby blanket is hers. Silly kitty.

3 Months Old!

Immunizations round two. Definitely more stressful than the first set.

The waiting room seemed packed with babies and strollers today but it also had a nice sprinkling of the disease ridden just to make things fun. Surely a doctor's office of all places should see the value in "sick" and "healthy" waiting rooms. I've been to that same practice more than a dozen times in the past year and not once have I actually been sick, however I have found myself hovering as far to the edges as possible and visibly wincing every time someone hacks in my direction. Additionally, it was hot. Not Florida hot but definitely Scotland hot. Jessie made her displeasure know almost immediately. Normally she's very content to sit in her car seat and make happy faces at us until it's time to go in and see the doctor, but today she started crying. Actual tears crying! Picking her up and walking around made her much happier but I can't imagine it made her any cooler.

Eventually we're called in. (I say eventually like it took forever. It didn't. I readily admit that it could have been a much longer wait. But in a hot waiting room with an unhappy baby even 15 minutes can seem like a lifetime.) Ethel, Iris [the Health Visitors] and a young blonde woman I don't know are waiting and getting things ready. I look over at the baby scales and Iris asks if I'd like to weigh her before we get started. I do. Jessica now weighs... (hold on yeah like you're going to notice the lapse in time here I need to go weigh the clothes she had on today and see what she actually weighs)12lbs 15oz. [5.88kg]. Iris briefly runs through the same spiel as last time "I know it's unpleasant but there's no reason for her not to get the vaccinations" however, this time it sounded a lot more like a question so I fill in the silence with "She's getting over a stuffy nose." They look at me kinda funny and say, "yeah that's not a problem." Mark is hovering by the door with the stroller I can tell he's not looking forward to this any more than I am. They'd asked who was going to hold her and I could tell he would have stepped up if I needed him to but I decided it would be quicker to nurse her afterwards if I was holding her. Jags simultaneously in both thighs, howling baby, tears. I feed her. It takes a minute or so to calm her down and get her to nurse, at which point Iris says something along the lines of "you can go and get a good feed with Mummy now" obviously trying to get us out the door. I don't move. (My baby is still crying and I know in a minute she'll be calm again.) Then I get a polite nudge of "we'd love to let you stay and feed her but.." I'm going I'm going. Shessh. She thinks she's won because I get up to go - but she hasn't. Not really. Jessica has stopped bawling so I'm happy to move her. Yes I'm being a bit cantankerous, but my baby is upset and there's nothing else I could do, so I'm going to do what I can. I hand her to Daddy while I ask some questions and via the power of Daddy-magic manages to calm her completely.

We leave and Jessie seems happy enough. She falls asleep in her car seat while we stop by the post office to mail off her American citizenship documentation, grab some baby essentials from Boots and pick up a quick lunch at Subway. One of the staff in Subway tells us how tiny she is. We kind of look at each other confused since the medical staff just gushed at how big and long she is. Mark concluded that people who don't see babies all day everyday must forget how small they really are, so must think they're super tiny when they see them. I tend to agree.

Home again and Mark heads off to work to earn the bacon. Jessica is not impressed. She goes from grumpy to angry to inconsolable. I try to give her some Calpol but she refuses and most of it winds up down the bib. (Yes. I was smart enough to realize that this endeavour would probably require a bib.) I finally get her to fall asleep for about 40 minutes.

This is her sleeping it off:


The rest of the day has continued pretty much the same. Content - grumpy - angry - WAHHHHHH! We got a brief play in the garden during one of the short content periods. Leeloo wanted to come out with us but the neighbour's cat wouldn't leave and she was too scared to force the issue. Jessica is taking another nap at the moment, hopefully she'll feel better when she wakes up. Although I hear the day after is sometimes just as bad if not worse than the first....

Happy Mother's Day!

Officially I had my first Mother's Day a couple weeks after Jessica was born, but I'm going to celebrate this one too. Plus this is the one that applies to my mother. Happy Mother's Day Mom, I LOVE YOU! You've taught me so many things about being a great mother and I can only hope that I'll be as good a mother for Jessica as you've been to me. Mark authorized the purchase of a moby wrap for my present. I bought it in an auction on Ebay. Actually the very first auction that I've ever won on ebay when someone was bidding against me. (I was very excited.) I'll take some pictures of me and Mark 'babywearing' when it arrives later this week.

Jess is still growing by leaps and bounds! However, this past week she's had a bit of a cold. At first it was just the snuffles but the other night we decided she had a sore throat so she had her very first bit of Calpol. (That's kinda like baby Tylenol for my Americans out there.) I think it helped; both times we gave her some, she went to sleep and had a really good nap. That's bound to be good for her recovery. She seems to be feeling better today, still a bit sniffly but definitely getting better. She's napping on her Daddy at the moment.

Crib finally purchased!! I didn't get the dark walnut I originally wanted - we went for natural instead because it was 50% cheaper than the walnut or the white. Strange that the colour would affect the price by more than £150? It almost matches the wardrobe and dresser we bought for the nursery. Mark's been busy building furniture recently, but I think we're finally finished. The last big ticket item we need to buy is a baby monitor but we're still trying to figure out which one we want and if there's a way to not spend a fortune to get it!

I hope all the other Mommies out there have a wonderful and blessed day.

Immunizations!

On Tuesday Jess had her first set of shots. [ ] One in each thigh! The poor thing!! However, it does seem that I was more upset by the procedure than she was. It was heartbreaking, she gave the nurses a giant toothless smile before they descended on her with needles. My poor trusting sweetheart! Must keep reminding myself that it's in her best interest and it only hurt for a second. Her eyes welled up with tears and she screamed but as soon as I got her to the breast she was calm again. (Although, when I stood up with her to leave I'm pretty sure that everything she'd just eaten came back up down the front of my shirt.)

Grandma and Grandpa Smith came with us. (Since I don't have my license yet I still need a qualified driver in the car with me and they were happy for an excuse to come see the baby!) It looks like the only reaction she had was feeling overly sleepy the rest of the day and a bit of a queasy tummy the next. Between one of her many naps we went to Ikea to buy her some furniture for all of her precious baby clothes that currently think laying on the bed is a form of storage. She slept through most of the store and woke up near the end to create a poop storm! She was happy enough sitting in it but actually cried more when I went to change her than she did when she got her injections that morning! (You never know what a baby's going to complain about.) She settled and happily played with Grandma while Grandpa and I tried to figure out how to get a flat-packed wardrobe and dresser set in the back of their car. Eventually it all went in. We've still to build it though. Mark has promised help tonight. I'll post some pictures when we get it all up. :)

She's 2 months and 4 days old and smiling all the time now. Her hair is still growing (there was a couple weeks there where it was falling out faster than it was growing but we seem to be back on track now) and her eye colour changes daily. It all depends on what light you see them in. Today they look blue, yesterday they seemed green and the day before they were flecked with brown. So who knows!! :D

Check up - check in.

Jessica will be 7 weeks old tomorrow!!

Last Monday I went in for my 6 week postnatal check up with Dr. Nalini, everything was good and she was happy with everything. (Jessica had stayed in the car with Mark since we didn't want to expose her to a germ ridden doctor's office unless we absolutely had to.) She asked about Jessica and I said I'd been sent an appointment card for next Tuesday. Nalini shook her head and asked if we could bring her in tomorrow instead. Apparently Nalini would be off next Tuesday and wanted to see Jessica herself instead of a random doctor who would be covering for her.

As a matter of course.. it snowed the next morning! Not enough to trap us in but amusing since it hadn't actually snowed since my parents left. Jessica was perfect. Nalini was very impressed and said that she looked older than 6 weeks, was so alert and attentive! The raised swelling on her chest has completely gone away and like I said eariler.. she's perfect!

Currently she's sleeping peacefully in the Peanut Shell baby sling (no not the ones in the recall!) my parents sent me from America. I wasn't sure if it was going to work and when I first tried to put her in it she started fussing, but now she seems to love it, which is excellent! I was even able to make myself some toast without putting her down. :) Being able to type with both hands while holding her is just an unexpected perk!!

Jessie had her second big outing this weekend. We went to the mall and to Babies R Us. She took everything in her stride!! We were even able to go to Pizza Hut for dinner afterwards. (Luckily we were the only people in the restaurant because she did start to get a bit fussy and we were able to take turns walking with her. It was completely understandable though. If I smelled pizza and wasn't allowed any, I'd be fussy too.)

5 Weeks Old!

My amazing baby is 5 weeks today and getting so big and so beautiful! The health visitor came yesterday morning to do her 6 week check (she's going to be on vacation for the next 2 weeks so she wanted to get it done before she left). Jessica now weighs 9lbs 12oz and is 21 inches long. That up from her birth weight of 8lbs (which fell to 7lbs 5oz after she came home) and 19 inches. Her muscle tone is great and she's starting to lift her head like a pro! She's growing so well and we're still exclusively breast feeding. I feel so blessed that it actually works for us. I hear and read so many stories of women who have incredible problems with breast feeding. Either baby won't latch correctly or they have supply issues... other than some soreness (to be expected!) and getting the hang of things, it's gone brilliantly for us!

She's starting to outgrow her newborn clothes (which is fine by us since those are the ones she had the fewest of!) It's amazing to watch her start to develop a little personality. Her eyes follow you and she's so much more alert now.

I made life difficult for myself the other day though. I went to make some coffee and accidentally grabbed the normal coffee rather than the decaffeinated. I had no idea why my normally calm baby refused to nap at all and was crying her head off if I tried to put her down at all. After 24 hours of very little sleep for either of us, I finally realized what I had done... oops. I won't be making that mistake again!

She's been sleeping on my chest making little baby snoring noises as I write but it looks like she's waking up, so I'd better go! If I don't get a chance to update sooner then you'll definitely be hearing from me around April 6th when she goes to the doctor for her 6 week medical checkup.

One Month Today!

It's amazing how fast time has flown by. When I was pregnant a month seemed to last a year, every day a week, but now that she's here the days blur together and it seems like only yesterday that we brought her home. It barely feels like my parents were here at all. I guess the pain induced haze that I lived in for a week or so helped blur my conception of reality a bit.

I just uploaded a few more pictures of her to the Picasa Album album and only then did I realize how much she's really grown! (I don't notice it as much since we're attached pretty much 24 hours a day.)But it's easily apparent to others. After Mark's first full day back at work he came home and asked me if she was bigger. She's growing by leaps and bounds!

I'll have to cut this post short as Jessica is demanding my attention and her Daddy even more so.

18 Days Later

I haven't posted anything for a while but I'm sure you'll forgive me. :) Jessica is simply amazing. She's an absolutely wonderful baby (but would you expect me to say anything else?) She's sitting in her swing at the moment alternating between asleep and awake and squeaking. The new mother in me says "go pick her up and hold her!" despite her being perfectly content where she is, while my more rational side says I should use this time to DO SOMETHING! I seem to have compromised and am writing a post about her. :) Not really the most productive use of my time but it doesn't require me to switch my focus away from the beautiful baby.

My parents came to visit on the 22nd and stayed for 8 days. It was wonderful. I really wish they could have stayed longer. Now that they're gone it almost feels like they were never here. I don't think Mark, Jess, and I would have had any clean clothes or dishes if they hadn't come. I miss them already!

POOPSPOLISION!!!

...back to typing with one hand... Gotta love diapers! She was in her swing but the poop decided to come out sideways from her diaper. Luckily she was in a blanket so I don't have to figure out how to wash the swing. Sadly, my british washing machine isn't capable of adjusting for load size, so I had to run around finding enough of the same colour to wash so the super powerful staining baby poo didn't have time to set. She of course decided that it was an ideal time to be hungry, so I had to carry her around while finding clothes. [Stairs are SUCH a hassle when you have a baby. So scared we're just going to tumble down them everytime I get near them.]

I've started an album of Jessica pictures at Jessica MacKenzie - Picasa

More to say but baby demands my attention. I'll try to post again before another month passes.

Construction Complete

Hello baby-fans. I (Mark) will be guest posting for Rebecca as she's currently still stuck at the hospital tonight. I'm hoping to get her home tomorrow.

In case the info-wave somehow hasn't reached you yet, our beautiful daughter Jessica Mackenzie Smith was born at 6:06pm on the 18th of February 2010, weighing 8.0 lbs exactly.
But that's the end of the story, so let me tell you how we got there :)

6:39 am (18/2/10): Rebecca decides she needs to drag herself from bed once again to visit the bathroom. 90% of the way there, her water breaks. Having heard lots of talk in the antenatal classes about how you have lots of time at home before you're supposed to come in, she's not unduly concerned and has a shower and her first (pain-free) contractions.

7:00 am: I'm woken by my alarm for work and Rebecca tells me she thinks we're having a baby today. Having been fed the same propaganda at the antenatal classes, I'm not too worried either, so get in the shower.

7:30 am: Her contractions are getting a bit shorter and the hospital tells her to have some breakfast and come in since it sounded like there might be some Meconium in the fliud.

8:00am: Her contractions have quickly gone down to first 5 and then just 2 minutes apart and really hurt. Since we've been loading up the car with everything she'll need, we've not had any breakfast but decide we'd better get going.

8:17am: The 30 minute drive to the hospital is completed in record time and we head upstairs, where they put us in a birthing suite. We're joined by midwife Adele and student midwife Gillian, who were both really nice. Having a student midwife also had the dual benefit of causing lots of things to be explained and there always being someone around, even when the main midwives are switching out for breaks etc. Rebecca is set up with "gas & air", which takes the edge off the contractions a bit, but is mostly a distraction (according to Rebecca).

8:40 pm: A small doctor tells Rebecca that she'll have to have a cannula in her hand, something she has dreaded ever since having to get one when getting her tonsils out when she was younger. The doctor puts a tourniquet on her wrist, but then waits on a contraction and gets distracted talking to a midwife - Rebecca's hand hurts a lot from the cut-off circulation in her rapidly purpling hand (it wouldn't be a genuine baby blog post without a made-up word!). The doctor finally turns back (what seemed like a long time later), only to fail to get it inserted! Rebecca is rewarded with a painful hole in the back of her hand and the doctor switches to the other hand, this time with more success. They also put the blood pressure monitoring cuff on the hand with the cannula, so when it inflates every 10 minutes the change in pressure causes her hand to hurt afresh. Rebecca is at least relieved to learn that her consultant, Dr. Ellison, is the main doctor on duty and will be checking in every so often.

9:30am: The cervix is dilated to 6cm already, could it really be this easy?

9:30am -> 12:30pm: No, it could not.
Many painful contractions and baby has decided to rotate the wrong way, so she is facing up towards Rebecca's belly instead of her back (an angle of about 2 o'clock if you were looking at the belly in cross-section from Rebecca's head). At least she's not breech.
A midwife firmly points out to Rebecca that crying "OOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!" really loudly and insistently is just a waste of her energy, which she'll need for pushing later. Plus, she'll be scaring the other patients. Rebecca is nonplussed.
The identify of this nurse is a mystery due to the midwives doing the usual trick of sharing the same small pool of names, having two different Gillians during various breaks and a 3rd midwife later claiming she was the one that said it when they were joking about it later in the day (Rebecca remains unconvinced).

12:30 pm: Cervix is now at 8cm, but they're still running Oxytocin in order to get things moving faster due to the worry of Meconium in the amniotic fluid.

1:30 pm: Rebecca decides she would like to go for the epidural offered to her. The main things putting her off before were that she would have to have a pressure cuff on her arm, a (very painful) cannula in her hand and be wired up to a machine to monitor the baby's heartbeat and basically be stuck in the bed due to all the wires, tubes and drips. Since she now has all this anyway (due to baby being at risk), she sees no point in avoiding it any more.

2:15 pm: Rebecca likes "the nice drugs lady" and says she's welcome back in the room any time :) Rebecca is now able to hold a conversation with the midwives, previously she only said about two words at a time. We discuss with them how much our car sucks and Adele said she had the same problem when she test drove the same model.

3:00 pm: The epidural has mostly worked, but there's a region on her left where it hasn't taken, so still hurts a lot. Unfortunately, to even it out she'd have to lie on that side, but that's opposite to way she needs to lean to try to get baby to rotate.

3:40 pm: The cervix is fully dilated at 10cm, but they still want to wait about an hour so that baby can come down more before beginning pushing.

4:00 pm: Jack Bauer is framed as a terrorist for the 15th time and is on the run from his own governm. . . oh wait, that's a different story ;)

4:40pm: It's time to start pushing. The one good thing about the pain from the area where the epidural isn't working is that it helps her know when to push. I can tell that this is Not Fun™.

5:10 pm: A parade of various doctors and other people examine baby's heartbeat trace, which is slowing down some after the pushes, causing concern.

5:30 pm: Baby still hasn't turned and the periodic deceleration of baby's heartbeat makes Dr. Ellison decide that it's time to help baby along. I'm taken away to change into scrubs while they prepare the operating theater. I change into a blue outfit and take a seat by the operating room door, waiting to be called in. What I perceive to be about a couple of hours go past as I wait, worrying that I've been forgotten and will have missed everything.

5:50 pm: Rebecca is wheeled into the operating room doors past me and about 5 minutes/another hour later I finally get to come in. I'm told if they have to switch to a c-section then I'll have to leave and they'll need to give Rebecca general anesthetic as the epidural and (stronger) nitrous she's currently on wouldn't be enough.

6:00 pm: Things run together a bit here due to the high emotion and, although I'm sure it's not true, my faulty memory of the forceps Dr Ellison was manipulating inside Rebecca had the handles looking about the same size as those of giant garden sheers. I was also concerned by the apparent roughness to the baby as she was turned. There are about a dozen people packed into the room, and I have a little space by Rebecca's left shoulder to holder her hand. I do my best to reassure her. Holding her hand, time seems to go both really fast and slow at the same time. Now that the baby's turned, the head comes out in a single push, then her body in another.

6:06 pm: Jessica is born. She looks a bit purple but cries for a second as she's taken to the resuscitation area in the corer to be checked over. The group of 3 or 4 people around her block my view. Time ticks by very slowly as we listen for any kind of sound from Jessica to indicate she's ok. I'm later told that she was having trouble with her breathing at this point and that they were checking her throat for meconium.

6:? pm: I'm called over to the corner to see Jessica, while Dr. Ellison continues to work on Rebecca. We look at each other as I reluctantly let go of her hand.
I see my daughter properly for the first time. She looks a bit worse-for-wear, with bruises on her head from the forceps and heart monitor (and is in good need of a bath too), but she's absolutely perfect. Gillian (the student midwife one) swaddles her up and gives her to me to hold. I carry her over to Rebecca to let her see. She's relieved and happy all at once. I put baby on top of her so they can get some skin-to-skin contact, but they don't let her start breast feeding for some reason.

6:30 pm: They finally finish Rebecca's stitches (it turned out they had to do something called an episiotomy). They have me put baby into a clear plastic crib thing so they can wheel Rebecca and her to Recovery. When I put Jessica down she cries. Seeing tears in her little eyes for the first time, I have to try hard to blink away a few myself. I stroke her face and make shushing noises and she seems to settle down.

6:35am: Recovery is a large, dark ward with lots of beds but we're the only ones there. We cuddle our little girl and try to get our heads around the fact that she's really real and that this is our baby.

7/8? pm: Rebecca's anesthesia wears off and she starts to discover just how much an Episiotomy sucks. Lots and lots of pain. When we talk to the midwife (who's been coming and going in our ward) we discover that there had only been pain relief prescribed for the next day for some reason, they had forgotten about the night. The "nice old lady midwife" took care of it and got her a prescription for something to help (Voltron? Sounds suspiciously like a transformer to me, maybe it was something else. . .)

8:00 pm: I learn that there's no working pay phones in the hospital, so we can't use the Planet Talk free-phone number to call the people in America (it doesn't work from mobile phones). I call my family members to share our news. My parents kindly agree to call people for us as well, but Rebecca was only able to grab a few numbers when we first left for the hospital.

8:00 pm -> 2:00 am (19/2/10): I stay with Rebecca and Jessica in Recovery. Rebecca has the fun of a catheter and can't have anything to eat until she's produced a certain amount. Every time the midwife comes by we ask if Rebecca can get something to eat, since she's not been allowed anything but water all day (I at least had the odd nibble here and there). Sadly, she just keeps hanging up another bag of Hartmann's Solution and says "maybe when this bag is done". Much cuddling of baby takes place.
Baby manages to properly breast feed for the first time at 11:15 pm.

2:00 am: Finally, Rebecca is allowed some food. We get "tea and toast" (which was actually coffee and some slices of buttered toast). I'm sure Rebecca would say it was very British :) Strangely, despite being a maternity ward, they didn't normally have decaff, so the midwife had to break into the staff supply for Rebecca. I had 'regular' to reduce the chance of crashing on the way home.

2:45 am: Rebecca is transferred to the actual maternity ward, which I'm not even allowed in the corridor of at that hour. Happy that she's going to go to sleep, I head home.

3:15 am: I get home, crop and resize some pictures and post to facebook to let people know what's happening (you probably joined our story about here dear reader). I decide other stuff can wait until the morning.

3:30 am: I fall asleep as a dad for the first time.

9 days overdue

I had my last appointment with the consultant on Monday. We had to wait an hour to get in but everything looks fine. She did a membrane sweep in hopes that it would encourage labour to start, however it's now been 2 days and I still have no signs of an impending baby.

They did schedule an induction though. First Dr. Ellison suggested the Monday the 22nd, but that's the day my parents arrive so I was kinda hoping for something before that. I mentioned this but the midwife had already gone away to phone the hospital. Luckily, when she got back she told us that the ward was full on the 22nd so she'd gone ahead and scheduled it for the 20th instead of waiting longer. (Yay!) So, I go in on Friday the 19th at 1:30pm to be admitted and given a dose of prostin. Then we wait to see if that encourages labour to begin. Mark will be allowed to stay with me until 9pm, at which point they'll send him home and I have to stay by myself. The next morning they'll dose me with more drugs, break my waters and generally start the induction in full. I'm still hoping that baby decides to come on her own before then! We've got 2 and half more days... come on baby girl!!!

As much as I'd rather not have medical intervention to get things started it's really nice to know that by Sunday there WILL be a baby and the waiting will be over.

So yeah: that's me, completely egg shaped and full of baby. I braided my hair in hopes that she'd get the hint and come out, but it was completely ignored.

40+6!!!

It'll be 41 weeks in less than a hour and she'll be officially a week late. Seriously. Who thought it was going to last this long? Even the guesstimates from the baby shower all ended by the 14th. (Not including Sarah's - but she was hoping the baby would share her baby's birthday!) I should have know this little one was going to be late. I thought she was a boy... she was a girl. I thought she'd be early, so of course she'd be late. Can't let me get anything right! :D So much for a mother's intuition.

I have my last scheduled appointment with the consultant tomorrow at 1:50pm. So by the end of tomorrow I should at least have an induction scheduled. (Not that I particularly want to be induced. I hear it's more painful than labour starting naturally. It'll just be nice to know when she'll be here by.)

The house is far from perfect, but at least the upstairs is coming along. The hall has finally been cleared of oodles of junk. (I can walk through it without tripping over anything now!) The study is still super cluttered, but that cluttered has been forced into something resembling order and you can now walk un-accosted through the study as well! Our bedroom is almost finished... just need to find a home for a few more tripping hazards. Downstairs isn't as promising. It's not as bad as it was a few weeks ago, but there's definitely still some work to be done. Really I wouldn't worry so much about it, but under the system here, a midwife will be coming out to the house at least once a week for a while and totally judging me by my bad housekeeping.

I'm kinda hoping that I can tidy up the downstairs, finish the laundry and then go into labour.. all tonight. That way I don't have to go to the doctor's appointment tomorrow. Plus, baby totally isn't letting me sleep anymore so I feel like I might as well have her here to entertain me while I'm not sleeping. *grins*

Astrology and other fun
Today marks the official start of the Year of the Tiger.
She has 5 more days left to be born under the air sign Aquarius.
If she's born on the 19th or later she'll join her Mommy as a Pisces.

ps. Happy Valentines!! I hope everyone had a very loved up kind of day! <3<3<3

Still Waiting

Just a quick update since I know a lot of you are on the edge of your seats. No baby yet. Not even any signs of an impending baby yet. I guess she's just planning on taking her sweet time. Less than punctual... definitely her daddy's daughter. ;) (actually she still has one day left to be considered on time, so who knows!)

The swelling is getting really fun now though. I have pregnancy induced carpal tunnel, which basically means from the point I lay down in bed till about 30 minutes after I wake up in the morning I can't use my hands. The extra fluid puts pressure on the median nerve in my wrist that leads to hand, if my wrists stays stationary for any amount of time my hands start to go numb, tingle, and ache like crazy. Two night ago when I woke up with an itchy belly I couldn't even press the nozzle on the spray bottle to get any lotion out. Last night, I couldn't get a grip on the blanket to pull it higher. I really hope I don't have arthritis when I'm older because this is unbearable!! I think between the heartburn, the itchy belly, and now the carpal tunnel I can get maybe an hours sleep before I'm woken up. I'm actually looking forward to being woken up by a crying baby rather than by pain!

Snow has completely cleared, the kitchen is finished and put back together (bar the painting of a bit of wood they put in front of the door instead of actual flooring), however the upstairs is now a death trap. There's only one way into our bed and you have to crawl across it to get to the other side of the room. We've been painting the nursery - finally! George and Maureen came over on Saturday and helped Mark paint it white. Today Mark and I chose some colors and started on that. I of course wasn't much help and after a while my feet hurt, my back hurt and I was too pooped to move. *laughs* So here I am writing this while my lovely husbands tapes and paints and paints and tapes. I just popped my head in a few minutes ago and it looks like he's getting really close to done. (He'll sleep well tonight!!) Hopefully we'll be able to start moving everything back into the room tomorrow so the upstairs isn't such an impassable maze.

Snow.

We successfully made it to our citizenship appointment and home again yesterday despite the fun new addition of Snow! Baby remained in place the entire time, seemed to worry the lady filling in our paperwork though. It's amazing how nervous people get when they think you could have a baby at any minute. They watch too much tv - babies take hours to be born, it's not like she's just going to pop out and say hi! :)

However, the weather continues to conspire against us. Around 3:30 this afternoon it started snowing again. Light fluffy stuff. I wasn't that worried. Last time snow hit the country we got very little out our way. I was wrong. It's now 11pm, the flurries are still coming, there's a car crashed into a fence at the bottom of the hill, and about four inches of snow laying outside.

To make matters worse, about half an hour ago a gas man knocked on our door to tell us that they'd be shutting off the gas to most of our neighborhood. Apparently there's water in the gas line. (How does water get into the gas line?) All I know is that it's 31°F and we have to go another night without heating or hot water. (At least our shower is electric so I can have a hot shower before bed.)

I'm not sure why things keep breaking... Update on broken things: Mark connected a new hose to the dishwasher and as soon as the hot water works again we'll be able to use that.

Let's just hope baby decides to stay put for a little while longer because there's definitely no way we're getting out of this street tonight!

Week 39 ~ 7 more days?

Today brings us up to week 39. I've been having a ton of Braxton Hicks the past few days and now I'm getting sharp pains which I've been told can easily be baby engaging. She was 4/5ths engaged at my check up on Saturday, so she's still headed in the right direction! Baby's heart rate, my blood pressure and everything else were all excellent as well.

Sleeping, walking, getting up, moving... it's all getting even more complicated than it has been, and these stretch marks?! They're killing me. I wake up in the middle of the night scratching. Apparently I need baby scratch mitts too! (However, I also wake up in the middle of the night with heartburn, to pee, with contractions, because I can't breathe out my nose, the list continues.. *laughs* Pregnancy is so glamorous!)

We have our citizenship application appointment tomorrow. We pay someone and they look at all our paperwork, make sure we've filled it in correctly, certify and copy our documents like passports so we can keep the originals and mails everything off for us. However, the fee was non-refundable, so now I'm a slight bit paranoid that baby will choose tomorrow to make an appearance! Oh well, she's worth it! On the other hand, if she doesn't come tomorrow I can see her being really stubborn and holding out for the next 3 weeks just to drive me to the brink!

Weather forecast is for more snow Thursday and Friday and then a couple days next week... just hoping we don't get snowed in. I do not want to have this baby at home! I'm not a home-birth kinda gal! I like my labour room sterilized!! :D

We will keep you updated!

~* Baby Shower *~

Kinda late (okay really late) posting. On the 9th of January my fabulous mother in law and brand new sister in law threw me a wonderful baby shower. I'd always wanted one but it's not really the done thing in the United Kingdom so it was really sweet of them to throw one for me.

We played some cute games, one of which was a 'predict the date of birth and weight of baby' game. I thought it would be amusing to post everyone's guesses on here and we could see who gets the closest. (If you want to add your own predictions, either send me an email or leave a comment and I'll update the list with your predictions!)

February 2nd 7lbs 10oz (Rebecca)I've decided this is a bad choice as I have a non-refundable appointment for my citizenship application on the 2nd!
February 5th 7lbs 7oz (Pamela)
February 6th 8lbs 10oz (Jennifer)
February 7th 8lbs 11oz (Jilly)
February 8th 7lbs 12oz (Kathryn)
February 9th 9lbs 2oz (Lucy)
February 10th 8lbs 2oz (Christy)
February 11th 8lbs 2oz (Mark)
February 11th 7lbs 11oz (Maureen)
February 11th 9lbs 8oz (Dad)
February 12th 8lbs 4oz (Julie)
February 12th 8lbs 11oz (Mom)
February 14th 8lbs 0oz (Kirsty)
February 22nd 9lbs 7oz (Sarah)if baby waits till the 22nd to get here I think I might have exploded first!

Everyone also got a babygrow and drew on them.. they were adorable! (Once again the pictures are on the other computer so I'll update this post when I'm next upstairs.)

I had a wonderful time and I hope everyone else did as well!! We got some wonderful presents and I was so happy to be able to see so many of my friends again. (It's hard now that we're all so spread out.) Everyone is welcome over to ours when the baby arrives. Tip: bring food and we're more likely to let you in the house! *grins*

The Itchy and Scratchy Show.

Argh!! It itches! Stupid skin is stretching to contain my giant baby and itching like a beast! (I guess it's better that it stretches and itches than just bursting open like an overfull water-balloon right?) Me and the bio oil/ cocoa butter lotion have become best of pals, yet despite copious amounts slathered on my belly I have still fallen victim to the dreaded stretch marks. I wouldn't mind so much... it's not like I can see them, they're on the underside of the bump, but they're sore as well as itchy. Kind of like I've been burned. I've got approximately 18 more days of this... I will concede: itching is way better than nausea so I should just count my blessings that I'm not scratching AND puking. :)

We had a very brief scan at the hospital this morning. (Just a quick check of the fluid levels and blood flow.) From what the technician said everything sounded pretty much the same as before. I have a consultant appointment on Monday afternoon and she should go into more detail about exactly what all the numbers and measurements mean. We got another picture but this one is even blurrier than the others. I looked at the photo and said "aww we're having a little blurry baby." The midwife/technician who was in the room looked at me, laughed and said, "you mean a BIG blurry baby." .... yeah this is going to be a simple labour.. lol really.

Good news though!! While I was at the hospital I asked if the results from my Glucose Tolerance test were back yet. They're normal!! I officially do not have gestational diabetes!! As far as I can piece together, I'm having a big baby simply because our combined genetics demanded it rather than there being any underlying medical reason causing it. I'll know more after Monday, but I wanted to share. :)

Hospital Tour - Take 2

I don't think I mentioned it, but at the antenatal class they passed around a sign up sheet for a tour of the Royal Alexandria Hospital. I know we had a tour back at some point in June but I just remember being ill. Mark's been wanting to practice the drive out to the hospital again so we decided doing the tour was as good an excuse as any to drive out there. So sign up we did. :)

The tour was much shorter this time, but when I combine what I learned from the first tour with information gleaned this time around I think I'm pretty happy with my final knowledge content. The midwife leading the tour was named.... Allison! (but was she was a completely different Allison than the Allison who glared daggers through the first tour. I think the midwives all have about 4 names between them and just share.)

The big plus this time? I managed to get pictures of one of the labour suites this time! (It's much easier to surreptitiously (I totally had to look up how to spell that word... the spelling of it is completely beyond me.) take photos when your camera actually works and doesn't die on you after one picture. Yaay for the new camera!)

That was fun... OW.

I had my Glucose Tolerance Test this morning. (They said the results should be back by my Thursday scan appointment.) Everything started out really rather smoothly. Mark dropped me off at the hospital around 8:50am and I headed up to the Day Care unit. Ann saw me come in (friendly midwife from the past few appointments- her name IS Ann!) came over to say hi and make sure I understood what was going on. I nodded, explained that I'd been reading up on it most of the weekend and then she introduced me to Trisha and Jenny the midwife and nurse who were working in the unit today.

Moving on swiftly to the blood portion of the test. (They take blood 3 times. Once when you arrive, an hour after you finish 400ml of Lucozade, and then again an hour after that.) Trisha hit a vein on her very first shot. I was impressed. I was less impressed with the Lucozade I had to drink. It was the first time I'd ever had one and it was not nice. I don't even know how to describe it. It's orange coloured and carbonated but without an identifiable taste. I finished it by 9:20 and was promptly taken away to the scan room to measure the fluid around baby while they weren't busy.

Blood flow was good and fluid was at the same level as Thursday. I asked if there was a problem with the fluid level being above average. The scan technician said that it was always better to have too much than too little, and that having too much in itself wasn't an issue, it's underlying problems that might cause an increase in fluid that they get concerned about. She added that it's entirely possible that I'm just going to have a big baby, nothing is wrong, and that the fluid level is perfectly normal for my baby. They would have to look at the results from the blood tests to know. I got another picture of baby... those ultrasound pictures are always so odd looking! and then sent back to the Day Care Unit. (Day Care just sounds so silly doesn't it? Couldn't they call it something like out patient? instead?)

Time passes rather quickly and suddenly it's 10:20 and time to poke at my other arm for some more blood. Success again! She hits it on the first try. The vein really doesn't want to give her much blood - (Well would you? I hadn't had anything to eat for almost 12 hours now.)but she got enough for what she needed. I knit a bit. I finish the square I was working on and realize that I've forgotten how to cast off yet AGAIN, so I switch to reading. 11:20! Whoo! We're almost done here... or so I thought. This is where things get a bit rough. Trisha tries for another vein. No joy. She tries in the other arm. Nothing. Back to the first arm... wiggle it around... still nadda. It's getting quite unpleasant by this point. There's blood in there somewhere, I can tell because it's leaking out around the needle. It's just not going in the vial!! After a few attempts she decides to get a doctor in.

Doctor arrives. He seems confident. Stabs left arm - strike one. Stabs right arm - strike two. Now he's getting desperate and starts looking at the back of my hand. (Nooo!! Not the hand! I remember having blood taken from the back of my hand when I was 16. It was not an experience I care to repeat. I mention this.) He's about to attack my hand when his eyes light up. He has spied a vein crossing over my bicep. It's not one you can feel but because of my increased blood volume you can actually see it. (Good thing I wore a sleeveless top today!) He pounces. Blood flows. It barely hurts. Yaay! hmmmm bruising already. Oh well, at least it's over!

I finally get to eat! Trisha brings me tea and buttered toast which I devour. mmmm fooood.

It's almost noon now. That last attempt at blood collection took almost 40 minutes. Not something I wish to go through again anytime soon! Time to find a taxi home. I call Mark who in turn calls me a cab. I then realize there are taxis lined up outside already... duuuhh.. oops. Oh well. Get in taxi. Go home. Hospital is apparently £8.00 from the house. Joy.

My arms look horrible. Like I tripped into a pin cushion. At least it's over! I'm next up at the hospital Thursday morning for another scan. Results from today should be in by then.

ps. I watched a video clip when I got home and successfully cast off my stitches. :)