I've Got a Good Job,

Ok, so now that the risk of miscarriage was minimised and scans had revealed that all seemed to be well with the baby, the families has been told and close friends were in the loop, it was finally time to go public at work.

As I have only been in my job for 8 months I kind of expected my bosses to be displeased but as it happened they had previously speculated to each other that I would probably have anothe rbaby in the next year. Turns out that one has children who are 18 months apart and the other has them 19 months apart and so they probably thought that with a 21 month age gap I was kind of dragging my heels!

So I was fretting over nothing and they were both very pleased for me.

Tell All Your Family, Tell All Your Friends

Now F_'s parents were with the programme it was time to go live with my folks. We had chosen Sunday dinner as an opportunity to tell my parents and sisters all at once. Our cunning plan was to present them with an ordinary photo wallet and ask who wanted to see some cute baby photos. This worked like a charm and everyone gathered round expecting to see new photos of O_. The scan photos were met with squeals of delight. Both my sisters claimed that they had suspected for sometime that I was pregola but strangely neither of them had mentioned it to each other or Mum - hmmmm me thinks a bit of hindsight at work there :) Congratulations were offered all round and everyone was very excited by the news.

So with the family over it was time to move to the rest of our nearest and dearest, our closest friends. This was a bit tricker because as we have previously mentioned one of the people on the email list we use to keep in touch with mates recently suffered a miscarriage. Considerate of her feelings we decided to take the initial announcement and subsequent congratulatory email offlist and approach her individually. An email to our chums and one to the couple who lost their own baby was met with many kind congratulations.

Now there was just work to tell...

I Took a Picture of You

So, they next day it was off for another scan. As with my previous pregnancy we decided to go for a Nuchal Scan to determine the risk of Downs Syndrome. This is something we are particularly concerned about as my Uncle had Downs and we know just what the implications are would want to be pre-warned about the chances of our child being affected. Last time we got tested we were living in Essex and working in London and so London seemed to be the obvious place to go when this test wasn't available locally on the
NHS. As I am not over 35 I did not qualify to have the test done on the NHS so again it was a case of paying to go privately.

Having shopped around we decided that the Fetal Medicine Centre in Harley Street, where we had the tests last pregnancy, was the place for us again. Scanning is big business these days with increasing numbers of providers offering services such as 4D scans. Although there was several places in our new region offering scans, it seemed to us that these were just profit making businesses. The Fetal Medicine Centre ploughs profits back into research via the Fetal Medicine Foundation. Data collected from blood tests, scans and patient pregnancy outcome forms goes towards ongoing research to identify markers for Downs in pregnancy. We felt that by going there we would still be paying the same amount for private scans but that future parents might benefit from our data.

Anyway off we went to Harley Street. The risk of Downs increases with maternal age and so before I even walked in the door I already had a higher base rate risk. Blood tests for certain chemicals and scanning for markers such as fetal blood flow, presence of the nasal bone, angle of the face and nuchal fold fluid combine to generate a risk figure. With O_ the risk came out as 1 in 15000.

So after just few pages of Marie Claire in the waiting room I was called in for the blood tests. I'm not good with needles but it was soon over. Another few pages of magazine back in the waiting room and we were called in to the scanning room. We were very excited to see the baby again, particularly as the resolution of the nuchal scans is so much better than that of the bog standard NHS ones. Unfortunately getting that level of details involves some pretty accurate scanning. To get this accurate scanning to get the measurements she needed the sonographer got pretty hardcore on my stomach. I have worried in the past about the dangers of baby O_ wacking me in the tummy but turned out that I needed have worried as the sonographer was merrily applying what felt like her body weight behind the scanner, to the extent where at one point I pretty much yelped in pain. F_ later asked me to show him how hard it was but was soon squirming away from my fist applied to his gut in demonstration.

Anyway half an hour of staring misty eyed at our gorgeous baby made up for the discomfort. The sonographer was able to reassure us that all the things that should be there were there and all the things that shouldn't be weren't. Eventually she left us gazing as some photos from the session and went off to get the blood results. Combining all the scan and bloods data together she was able to confirm a 1 in 12,500 risk, a pleasing result.

Here is M2






























The sonographer also took a punt on the sex of the baby but we're not telling so there...

Oh and the due date has been pushed forward to 28th October.

My Eyes Remain, Hovering. Witnessing.

So, it's Wednesday, 16th April, 2008. Olivia is fifteen months old to the day. I have a dentist's appointment at midday, which I'm really not looking forward to. Nothing special going on otherwise.

Oh - unless you count the 12 week scan at the local hospital. Yeah, I should probably write about that.

We turned up in good time. I haven't been nervous. I've been very calm about the whole thing, but on the short drive down, the butterflies kicked in. Not big ones, but they were there.

The parking meter at the hospital is stupid. Or I am. It's completely counter-intuitive. I know how to get a parking ticket from the machine. You read the rates, insert the groats, hit the tit and wait for the ticket, right? You certainly do not read the instructions, but after a couple of goes, this is what I am forced to do. I know; my 'bloke rating' has plummeted.

You have to 'enter your car registration'. There is a numeric keypad. My registration contains alpha characters. The keypad does not, like a telephone keypad, also have numbers on it. I decide to try entering just the numerals. It seems to like them. I get a ticket. Normally, I would walk away moaning about the stupidity of the machine. Today, I throw my hands up as I walk back to K___, and mention it's stupid, but keep it to just that.

The maternity unit is the brick version of a Borg cube. Minus the scary hive-mind androids and super-advanced tech everywhere. Actually, it's just a rather featureless cuboid, but that doesn't sound as poetic. Inside, it's a pretty run-of-the-mill NHS hospital unit. Bland paint on the walls, lots of faintly terrifying health-related notifications and posters on the walls.

While signing in, a wonderfully quick process, it was pointed out to us that we would need to purchase a card from a machine on the wall to exchange for copies of the scans. Only problem? It takes five pounds in coins. I'm not having a good time with machines. We didn't have five pounds in coins, so I borrow a tenner from K___ and leg it to the other side of the building and up a fight of stairs, buy a packet of crisps purely for the change and run back.

Unlike the first time we did this, nearly two years ago now, luck decides to play nicely, and I'm back in time to buy the card and sit down for a couple of minutes getting my breath back before we get called into the scan room. K___ lies down on the couch and pulls her skirt below the bottom of the baby bump. Having done this before, she knows that an elasticated waistband is an essential. She's also had enough to drink to ensure the best picture - a three quarter's full bladder greatly increases the clarity. The scan operator, a surly human/potato hybrid with terrible highlights, squirts gel onto K___'s stomach and places the ultrasound on her belly.

Here we go...

Of course, there's a momentary pang of terror. What if the baby has no head or three legs or something? These things do happen, after all. The fear's stupid and statistically irrational and it's gone before you quite know what it is you're scared about, but it is there until the moment the scan goes sufficiently deeply inside K___'s belly for a baby to appear. It's lying louchly on it's back, facing left, arms waving theatrically. All of a sudden, I'm an expert. Everything is in it's right place. It's fine. I don't know this, but from the perspective of someone with fuck all training in reading an ultrasound scan, it is immediately apparent that everything is fine. Eventually, Mrs Potato-head will get around to confirming my obviously-correctly medical opinion by doing some measurements. She will sound entirely bored when she does indeed confirm my diagnosis. Everything is fine. We have a healthy baby, and an active one too, by the looks of things.

My eyes prick with tears.

After this, we have to sit for forty minutes waiting for a nurse to take a urine sample and some blood (not at the same time, don't be ridiculous!) from K___. We gaze at the grainy snaps before us and smile.

She's Cold

Since I've been pregnant I have been constantly frozen. At first I thought winter was just going on a bit long but then I realised that everyone else was fine and it is just me that is cold. At work my staff sit there with fans on and windows open while I sit shivering in my office with a heater on. Having had a bit of a scout about on the Internet is seems that it is not uncommon to feel cold, particularly during the first trimester. With O_ I was roasting hot from day one. F_ used to ask if we could have the heating on and I would just tell the poor man to put another jumper on! Oh well, the 'hotter than the fire of a thousand suns' thing will kick in soon enough.

So Sorry

We found out recently that someone we know recently had a miscarriage. It is quite likely that their baby would have been born at around the same time as ours. We know how lucky we are and really appreciate all our blessings. We are in a bit of a quandry as how to approach breaking our news to our friends. Our dating scan and nuchal scan are finally coming up tomorrow and the day after and once it is confirmed that everything is ok we are ready to start telling people. We had planned to announce it on the Yahoo group we share with our group of friends but the bereaved friend is on there and we just don't want to upset her while she is so fragile. We have decided instead to send an offlist email and seek advice from one of her close friends as to how it is best to approach relating the news to her.

Strangely when I was at around the same stage in my last pregnancy a friend had an ectopic pregnancy and lost dangerous amounts of blood. You realise how fragile life is and how lucky you are.

Drilling Holes

Thought I'd better a) take advantage of being preggola to get free treatment and b) set a good example to my darling girl and actually go to the dentist for the first time in more than a decade. I don't ahve my exemption card yet but they noted down my pregnancy and told me to just bring it in when I have it.

I got off fairly lightly having not been for about 11 years and just needed 1 filling, my first ever. I was a bit of a girl about having it drilled - more from the anticipation of the noise than from pain - but it worked out ok and is the tiniest white filling ever in the back of one of my molars.

As a teenager I had a bite rest to stop me grinding my teeth at night which led to arthritic pain in my jaw. I no longer have pain but do have a very clicky jaw which clicks everytime I eat anything chewy and the dentist wants me to have anither bite rest so I have to go back at some point for an impression to be done. The being preggo came in even more handy here as even as an NHS patient this would have cost me £200 otherwise and I simply wouldn't have had it. Must get around to making that other appointment.

You Can Start Over Again at Any Moment

I've finally got round to sitting down and telling you about what happened at our booking in visit a few weeks ago. A very nice midwife called Deb (funnily enough our daughter was delivered by a midwife called Deb) came round to our house to book me in for antenatal care. The day started with a bit of confusion. It was my niece's birthday that day and we were due at her party that afternoon and so wanted to get the appointment out of the way early in the day.

When it was booked we were just told a date and when I asked about clarification on time we were told to phone after 7.30am that morning and someone would tell us who was coming and when. So we duly phoned at 8am only to be told 'the midwives don't start till 9 so you will have to phone after 10'. So, waiting to phone back at 10 I took the opportunity to dash into town (just the other end of the street) to grab a card and wrapping paper for my niece's present. Of course the best laid plans... At about 9.45 I remember that my mobile is on silent and grab it out of my bag to switch it over to ring only to find a message at 9.20 from a midwife asking if she can come in 10 mins and then 4 frantic messages from F_ trying to find me. I turn up at home at 9.50 to a relieved F_. Turns out the midwife had turned up at 9.30 at the house but luckily there was a newborn baby over the road she also needed to visit to she went there and then would come back.

So at least she came back and we got started. She hadn't been sure if we were first timers so brought a mountain of leaflets for us, many of which were old hat but she did also bring something useful that either we hadn't been given or which wasn't around the first time, the Pregnancy Book. The appointment was much quicker that our appointment had been with baby O. She didn't seem at all surprised when we said we wanted a home birth, although she was a little surprised when we said our daughter had been born at home - in our new home town they are not keen on first time homebirthers.

We explained that we had a nuchal scan booked in London and that we would appreciate it if she could expedite our dating scan appointment to fall before that date and she said she would see what she could do but didn't think it would be a problem.

As I had been having short cycles of 23 days for the few months before getting pregnant my due date is likely to be a little earlier than would be calculated by the standrad wheels and charts which are based on a 28 day cycle. I was, however, a bit surprised to find that she had just noted 'Mid to Late October' on my notes as the Estimated Due Date. I guess we will find out more at the dating scan.

As the visit was taking place on Easter Saturday she didn't do any bloods as the labs weren't open to process them and instead she made me an appointment to visit the hospital instead. This is in work time and as work still don't know I am pregnant I got it as near lunchtime as possible to allow me to take an early lunch and get back without any questions asked.

And Let the Blood Flow

So...following in from the Booking in appointment I duly attended at the Maternity ward at the local hospital for the blood appointment. Mum gave me a lift up there and it was all a bit cloak and dagger hoping we didn't see anyone we know up there but I managed to get to the ward unseen. A midwife went through a few questions about my pregnancies and then took some blood. I am a bit of a girl when it comes to having the required 'practically an armful removed so had to look the other way but it was ok.

What Deb at the booking in test hasn't told me was that I would also be required to produce a urine sample. Of course I had just gone before setting out for the appointment and could barely manage a tiny dribble, let alone the huge pot she told me I had to fill completely. The midwife looked a bit exasperated but tested it for protein and sugar, gace me a special pot and lab test bag told me I would have to do another specimen to be sent off to a lab when I was next seen. She also gave me another pot to bring to appointments with my regular sample. I had forgotten the joy of spending half your life carrying wee around in your handbag :)

The dating scan appointment has come through and is the day before the nuchal scan. So we now have the dating scan on 16th and nuchal on the 17th. So it won't be long before I get confirmation that there actually is a baby in there somewhere!

I Lie Awake at Night

Baby O has finally started to sleep a little better having run her poor Mummy ragged for the last few weeks. Unfortunately my insomnia, which has been on and off for years, has decided to rear it's ugly head and so here I am sitting wide awake for different reasons. I have lots to catch you up on, including our booking in visit with the midwife but I think I will leave that for a more civilized time of day. For now I will reflect on some of the stuff I had forgotten from the last time.

I had forgotten just HOW tired you get. I am constantly exhausted. My staff at work, who do not know I am pregnant, keep telling me how tired I look and I just have to blame baby O keeping me up at night, which to be fair has pretty much been true. I have been doing a 10 week teaching City and Guilds qualification, which I signed up for before I knew I was pregnant. I just have 2 classes left but it cannot come soon enough as I long to just come home on a Tuesday and flop down on the sofa rather than having to go to night school for 3 hours.

Even after my cold has finished I STILL have a blocked up nose. The other day, while reading the excellent What to Expect When You're Expecting I came across a section that mentioned how a blocked nose and sinuses can be an ongoing symptom on pregnancy. As soon as I read it I remembered that I had not only read this but also suffered from it during my last pregnancy.

Just have to lie, A LOT! I went to my niece's birthday party at the weekend which was at a play barn. Normally I am the first to be crawling around the ball pit with baby O but this time had to make an excuse about having a splitting headache and sat back and watched Daddy and Auntie A taking O on the play equipment. At work I also had to use an old knee injury as an excuse to get me out of doing staff circuit training which was put on as part of a 'fit for life' week. I've had to tell my sisters all sorts of porkies and fed them diversions to keep the pregnancy a secret until after we have had the scans and know that all is well.

You have to change your plans. My sisters and I clubbed together and got my Mum a hot air balloon flight for her birthday in November. As I knew she wouldn't want to go on her own I also paid for myself to go with her. We have vouchers we can use to book a flight once the weather improves and the flying season starts. The vouchers are valid for a year from November but as I am expecting a baby at the end of October I don't know exactly when I am going to be able to go as pregnant women are, quite sensibly, not allowed to participate. Luckily, having checked the small print on the vouchers there is a clause that allows pregnant women to extend the validity of their vouchers by 9 months. As both vouchers are in my name we will be able to postpone them but it does mean than poor Mum will not be able to take her birthday flight until summer 2009! Luckily as she is the only person other than F who knows I am pregnant she is cool with this.

Anyway it is now almost 4 and I am going back to bed to see if I can grab any more sleep.

Now She Won't Believe Me

Yesterday, I sat opposite my friend L___ and stuck labels onto envelopes for the band fan club I help out with. We nattered about various things over the course of the day and one of them was babies. Specifically baby number 2.

This is an apology to L___ for the fact that I lied my head off yesterday.

It's an apology for the fact that when I was asked whether we'd want to have a second baby anytime soon, I forgot to mention that K___ was pregnant again.

This is also an apology for the fact that I said I didn't know if we'd do a blog for baby 2. I do know, and if you've read it, L___, you'll even know I practically quoted some of it at you.

So, basically, I'm a bad man whose word isn't to be trusted. Luckily, I don't believe in hell, so no chances of eternal punishment. Just have to watch out for the lady I lied to.

She's Cold

Have had a stinking cold all week. Oh, how I would love some lovely cold and flu remedy, the yummy blackcurrant sherbet that kind of reminds me of the space dust sweets we had as kids. I hate colds.

We'll Party Til Dawn

...or maybe we will be tucked up in bed at 7pm! Sooooooooooo very tired...yes, I remember this from last time. You get so tired you hardly have the energy to finish yourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And Rest Your Heavy Head My Love

Well, there's no sleep for the wicked...or those with sicky one year olds. Baby O was leaking at both ends this weekend and constantly crying and grizzling and so Mummy didn't get much rest. Period is now 9 days overdue and symptoms are starting. I start to remember just how much I hated being pregnant the first time :)

Will You Sleep at Night

This isn't going to be as easy (!?!) as it was the first time. Last time I was pregnant I could roll in from work and collapse on the sofa. Now I have an active 13 month old who DOES NOT want to sleep in her own bed. Between my starfish hubbie and my starfish baby (like father like daughter) I get about a square inch of bed to sleep in. It still hasn't really sunk in that I am pregnant again but as I think about it abstractly I realise that this is going to be a lot more demanding, given the hectic family and work life we have now. There are plus points though; this time there will be no 80 mile round trips to work, standing up on public transport because the larger I got the more invisible I became to business men.

We were chatting about it earlier and one reason I think it all feels different is that last time we were soooooo ridiculously over-excited that from day 1 we were reading books and looking things up on the Internet to find out everything about the pregnancy. This time we are kind of at a loss of what to do at this point as I am fairly sure things haven't changed THAT much in the 13 months since we had O_. I think this time I will have to wait till I physically start feeling pregnant until it really sinks in. I only just remembered this evening to look up when the due date will be - 30th October as it happens. Maybe I should hang on that extra day and then take B2 'trick or treating' :)