Week 9 : Me and John and Baby = Paperwork!

Today we met the midwife - a very nice happy woman who did her best to not let us have a word in edgewise. She spoke very quickly and didn't really explain things much (for example she went through a list of appointments that we would be having over the next few months and it was only because I asked that I found out that after the first two, which would get letters about, we would have to remember to book the others.

There was tons of paperwork to fill in - most of which she did - and, on top of copies of all that, we also had tons of paperwork to read through - magazines and vouchers and information about scans and tests and paperwork you have to take with you to the hospital and paperwork which you don't and paperwork which you may or may not need and on and on and on...

To add insult to injury, I had forgotten that I would need to give a urine sample and so only managed to squeeze out half a teaspoon, which was luckily enough to test. All in all, everything was ok - I have an appointment next week for a blood test and will have to see a consultant as I am overweight and due to Mum's blood pressure problem during her pregnancies but all in all things look rosy. We should get and appointment in the next few weeks for a scan at frimley (called the dating scan where they give you a definative - in so far as it can be - due date) - probably for sometime in the first week of september. We then can start telling peopole about the pregnancy and put poor mum out of her misery!

After the appointment we headed out to get an expanding folder to hold all the bits and bobs that we have been given and also pick up our freebie packs. Boots don't have any in and John is picky about the folder so we end up going to Reading and picking up one of the packs and a folder. We go to pick up the second pack but they only have ones that expire at the end of the month - not much use to us! I am flagging big time, so we head home and go through the ream of paperwork and open up the pack. I am not dreadfully impressed with the contents - there are vouchers for nappies (but we have decided to use reusable nappies), vouchers for pregnacare cream (which I bought about an hour ago), a pack of nappy wipes which are useful, a pack of Ovaltine (which I feel is stretching the pregnancy theme a little), a cardboard "frame" for a scan picture, baby book, a DVD leading you the stages of your babies development and a CD with the sounds that you baby hears in the womb and suggested music to play to your baby, a magazine and a LOT of advertising bumpf. I was less than excited by the contents, maybe the other one will be better when we pick it up...

Week 8 : I am having a baby!

Yesterday morning, when I went to the loo, I found I had a tiny amount of dried blood. I immediately turned to the Internet and found that bleeding, though not considered "normal" is common and not really anything to worry about unless it is continuous, heavy or fresh. I decided not to panic and there was no more blood during the rest of the day so I put it out of my mind. Next morning, however, more old blood, and what is more, yesterday and today I had no morning sickness at all. I decided to give the doctors receptionist a ring as soon as the office opened and see if she thought I should pop in for a checkup.

They got Dr Newton to give me a ring and, after a quick chat, she concluded that there was probably nothing to worry about but it was policy to send any women in the first trimester who was having bleeding to the early pregnancy unit to have a scan. I rang to make an appointment while she made out the request form and then I gave John a ring to let him know what was going on. As soon as he heard, he decided he would head home to go with me. The appointment wasn't until 2.30, and I did fairly well, stayed quite calm and not too unhappy, but in my heart of hearts I was sure that this was it and kept comforting myself by repeating, well it might have taken some time but we got pregnant once, we can do it again...

John, however, was a mess when he got home - very upset and worried. He arrived in plenty of time but I had been drinking water all morning in order to have a full bladder for the scan and had over done it so was desperate for a wee and it was ages until the scan! I decided to give in, have a wee, then drink loads of water so I would have a full bladder again. We also needed to nip to the doctors and pick up the form that the doctor had completed, so a quick wee and a drink and off we went.

The doctor not only had the form but also John's prescription ready too so we then went on to the chemists to drop it off. When we got back, we didn't have long before leaving so John grabbed some very smelly pizza for his lunch and I got to drink fluids. Half way through the first glass, the combination of smelly pizza and morning sickness hit and so I threw up all I had drunk (almost putting John off his lunch)! So now I had to drink WAY more water so I drank a glass while pouring a bunch of squash into a bottle and we finally set off to the doctors, me sipping all the way.

I was feeling fairly rough by now, but the people at the early pregnancy unit were lovely and soon got us signed in and within 1/2 hour we were asked in for the scan.

Later watching TV, John mentioned that a woman looked like the lady who did the scan but I was so worried and caught up it could have been the incredible hulk welding the unit and I wouldn't have noticed!

Before I knew it, the operator had splooshed warm gel on my tum and was having a good look inside. It seemed ages, but was probably just seconds, before she let us know that the baby was just fine and the cervix was closed and the baby's heart was beating. Having said that, all we could recognise on screen was a small blob in a dome shaped cavity with a small white flicker, which she assured us was a heart beat. For £2, we could have got a picture but at the time were so het up and worried that we didn't ask for one - I do wish we had now but never mind, it was not recognisable as a baby yet anyway.

Before we knew it, I was able to head for the loo and then to meet the doctor who just confirmed that everything was fine and not really to worry. I grinned like a moron all the way down to the car, where I burst into tears of relief and sobbed for about 5 minutes while poor John tried to work out what was wrong.

I was starving, having not eaten since breakfast so we headed off to get lunch but, in revenge for the non-existent morning sickness the day before, it attacked again and before I could eat I had to throw up, as quietly as possible, in loos.

Between lunch and bedtime, I then had to wee 12 times to get rid of all the water I drank and felt awful all day long, but emotionally, I had seen the baby so was over the moon! Up til now, despite the morning sickness, mood swings and being SO tired, it didn't really feel real and I had half convinced myself that I just had a strange tummy bug, but now I have a BLOB (er, baby)!

Errr...

I thought we were keeping this a secret until week 12?

Week 7 : A trying weekend...

This weekend was hard. Morning sickness has really settled in now and Wednesday evening, John's nephew Ryan came to stay with us for a long weekend. He has behaviour problems that I normally cope with fairly easily but fatigue, sickness and mood swings meant I found this weekend very fraught. What is worse, we don't want to tell the kids just yet as they aren't exactly known for their abilty to keep a secret, so I couldn't explain and just had to tell him I had a stomach bug.

To add insult to injury, the weather had been really hot recently and I have found that if I get at all warm, that is when I start to throw up so I really couldn't go out of the house very easily and had to have the air conditioning, which we got to cool down the dog, on almost all the time and have cold baths.

Ryan has the attention span of a typical teenager so needed to be entertained and normally I would do loads of out-and-about type stuff with him so I needed to find stuff to entertain him until John was home at the weekend.

On thursday, luckily he slept late as I was out for the count, and then we played playstation demos while waiting for Kris. Annoyingly, he was really good at Ratchett and Clank and finished the demo completely (I had played it for about 3/4 hour, got about 2 foot into the game before dying each time) but luckily didn't have enough patience for the puzzle solving of the Star Wars Lego game or I may have had to strangle him.

Once Kris arrived, we headed for Toys R Us, the idea being to get Ryan something like an electronics kit that I could help him with to keep him occupied. However, having enjoyed the Ratchett and Clank game, Ryan was angling for that so we wandered round and eventually, to my suprise, he settled on a kitchen chemistry set. Unfortunately the set had instructions and things like beakers but none of the ingredients so we would need to go to the supermarket and pick up any bits I didn't already have.

First we nipped to Hobby craft. I had made Kris a crochet hat to celebrate end of exams and Cath had said she wanted one in pink. Kris doesn't crochet but, as the hats are just made of 5 granny squares, and so very easy to make, I was going to quickly teach her and then she could do it herself, so we bought a hook and some wool and got a free set of knitting needles with it. I was tempted to buy some more wool but as I have it coming out of my ears I managed to resist.

We then spend another £18 on ingredients for the kit and headed home. We were there about 10 minutes when John came home. I started to teach Kris how to crochet granny squares and Ryan watched TV. Kris had to run off to meet friends so we had tea and an early night.
Once John got home we popped out and got a DVD, both of them got annoyed with me as I insisted Ryan could not see anything that he was not old enough to watch and was strict about it. We watched the DVD and headed to bed again quite early - I was feeling yucky so needed it and Ryan was tired and is sleeping in the lounge, not giving us much choice once he headed to bed.

Next day again we both slept in late, had some breakfast around lunch time, and then set up to do some chemistry. We started in the lounge but soon concluded it would be too messy so decamped to the kitchen. I got a stool and told him that it was his experiments and I wouldn't interfere unless he neede me too. First we made salt dough, which took me back to my childhood - my mum used to make loads of it for us to play with instead of buying play dough. We then pushed it round the beaker to make a mountain and filled the beaker with a bicarb mxture to make a volcano. It wasn't very impressive so we shoved more bits in to make a bigger mess but Ryan was unsatisfied and wanted to watch tv instead!

I was feeling worse and worse but persuaded Ryan to at least dye the flowers we bought as a present for his Nan.

Once done he decided to have a nap so I watched Escape from Witch Mountain while he snoozed. I had promised that I would go to my mum's for a singstar evening in the morning and John insisted on driving me as he seems to think I will total the car the moment I get in it. He booked tickets for the new Batman film for him and Ryan and they would pick me up after. They headed off to get something to eat and then see the film but were back fairly early - John had booked tickets in our home cinema instead of the one near Mum's and was quite red faced as he hadn't realised. Instead Ryan and John went ice skating - again not the roaring sucess it should have been as t was "disco" night and John was the eldest there by about 15 -20 years and felt rather out of place. Still he soldiered on and Ryan enjoyed it and Johns bottom was only COMPLETELY soaked when he returned to pick me up.

On Saturday, I had booked John and Ryan into Go Ape - a rope course through the trees in Swinley Forest. I am terrified of heights so was quite glad that pregnant women were advised not to take part and instead took my camera to take photos of the boys. We were booked in for the 8.00 session so had to be up and at 'em early so it was still nice and cool under the trees. Ryan and John both did quite well and certainly enjoyed themselves, particularly on the zip wires.

By the time it was finished, it was quite hot so I was the lovely combination of queasy and hungry. We headed to an early lunch and then Ryan insisted he wanted to go swimming. We headed home for bathing suits but John couldn't find his so we nipped out and bought him a new pair, luckily for just £7. I was getting VERY hot and bothered now and didn't want to go swimming as I thought it was bound to be hot and humid and I would get worse and to add insult to injury, Ryan was insisting he had forgotten his goggles so had to buy some more (what is it with that family?! John is always whining about getting water in his eyes too). We finally got to the pool paid, Ryan tried on goggles and we went in. Even John remarked that when I got in I completely changed - the water was cool not hot and the atmosphere unsteamy - it was perfect. We pootled round enjoying ourselves and for the first time since morning sickness dug in its claws I felt perfectly fine. What is more, te two of us couldn't help but go all gooey eyed over babys having their first swim, Dad's teaching the kids to dive etc. I best bit was the section outside, which was really cool and fairly quiet and I could have stayed their for ages...

We eventually got out and, by the time we got to the car, I was feeling just as bad as I had been earlier but the little respite had improved my mood somewhat.

Next morning it was time for Ryan to go back - we had agreed that we would go to sunday lunch at his Mum's but I was feeling so yucky I sent them on their own and spent the day on the sofa with the air conditioning at full blast feeling sorry for myself. John was supposed to come home after lunch (we had originally agreed to leave the dogs at home as it was too hot to cart them around in the hot car) but then didn't arrive home until the evening but I was feeling so rubbish I didn't have the energy to object.

I spent most of Monday asleep, recuperating...

Week Four? : The next day

So we were VERY tired this morning as John had to go to work but we ended up doing another test (yup, still pregnant) and then chatting babies so that he headed off late. Getting to work, he had to explain why he was late to his boss and only managed "Yeah, about that..." before bursting into tears...

I have arranged a doctors appointment for Monday this morning and then spent the rest of the day pretending to work while my head goes "babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby".

One thing I did during the day was work out my due date. It is calculated by couting 40 weeks from the date of your last period, not fromt he date of ovulation. This means that I am due on the 16th March so I am in week 4 of pregnancy. HOWEVER, my luteal phase (time between one period and the next) is only 24 rather than the average 28 days SO I ovulate 4 days earlier than standard so actually due on the 12th. This means I am just entering week five, so now I can have a look and find what stage Baby Juerss has reached. So I hit hundreds of websites - the best one I found is http://www.askbaby.com/, which seems to update your babys status twice a week.

So askbaby.com says :

You
This week you will be able to take a pregnancy test. You may know you are pregnant if you have done an early test, but will probably not be experiencing morning sickness yet. However you may notice other signs of pregnancy such as changes to your sense of smell. A plug of mucus has sealed your cervix.Your babyBy week five your baby's brain and the rest of the nervous system have started to develop.

Your baby is gently floating in amniotic fluid. The nose, eyes and hands are forming and basic hand 'plates' are present. The heart is now beating strongly at twice your own rate. Blood vessels have formed and a tiny umbilical cord has connected itself to the rapidly developing placenta. Your baby measures around the length of a grain of rice.

According to the picture, it looks like a giant blob...

I had a quick nap finally at about 4 ish and was still asleep when John got home - I was in a fog for pretty much the whole time. It was around this time that I realised "Mummy knows best", "You can't do/say that to a Mummy" and "Good Daddy's don't do that" could be used to me full advantage now and proceeded to make John's life HELL!

After talking we decided to only tell our parents and my sister for the time being, just in case, as John kept on coming up with frightening statistics on miscarriage in the first 3 months. We decided to go see both sets of parents at the weekend and of course Mum promptly phoned for an hours chat and I spent the whole time BITING my lip to stop screaming my news.

Probably a tad premature, but we spent the evening talking baby names and came up with a huge list for girls but only 2 for boys. We have also decided to put off finding out the sex of the baby until it pops out so it is going to make knitting and crochet (i have already started looking for patterns) a lot harder...