Three Months Old

I know everyone says it, but I honestly have no idea where the last three months went. Sure, at the time some days felt like they would never end, particularly in the first 6 weeks, but overall the last 90 days seem to have flown by.

Daisy is holding her head up for significant periods now, so a couple of days ago we broke out the Bumbo and she loves it.


I found a load of clothes on Sunday in one of the drawers in Daisy's room that I didn't know were there. I thought that drawer was full of 3-6 months clothes but there's quite a lot marked newborn or 0-3 months, so I'm trying to put all the outfits on her over the next few weeks before she's too big for them. It's a good job she's small for her age!

Talking of small, we went to the weigh clinic this morning and she's 10lbs 7oz, which is small but she's roughly following the 5th centile line on the growth chart. That's to be expected for a 3-week-early baby. I actually like the fact that she was small - it means we got to experience her as a tiny baby. I've lost count of the number of babies I've heard of being born in the past three months at 8 or 9lbs - makes me glad Daisy was small; I thought delivering a 6-pound baby was painful enough!

Night times are getting much easier. I bought a blogging app for my iPhone so that I could blog while I was up in the night, but she only usually wakes up once a night now (although when she wakes up for the second time around 7am we go back to bed for a couple of hours) and only then for about half an hour, so by the time I've checked Facebook, Twitter and my RSS Feed there isn't usually time for blogging as well :). For the past few weeks we've got into a routine of bath at 17:30, then a feed, then bed at 18:00 and a bottle at 23:00. This will send her through to anytime from 03:00 to 06:00 - usually closer to 04:30 - then we get into a 3-hour cycle during the day. I'm happy with that; much happier than if she was insisting on being fed every three hours at night. She has got the idea that the day is for being awake and the night is for sleeping, which is great, but she hasn't realised that she still needs to sleep a good portion of the day, and she only really sleeps if she's on the move - in the car, in the buggy or being carried. Unfortunately all of those things require me to be awake, but as I'm getting a lot more sleep at night I rarely need a nap during the day.

Every morning when she gets up I see a load of hairs on the sheets, but I guess that's to be expected. She sleeps on her side, switching from one side to the other each time she feeds, and during the day when I'm not holding her she's on her back, so she's losing hair all around her head. She looks like a monk in reverse ;-).

Another picture? OK. Here she is in her favourite place.

A Matter of Black and White

I had a day off parenting duties on Saturday so Clare and I went to the theatre to see the new touring production of Chess. Clare had never heard of it (born in the 80s, you see) and the only time I saw it was more than 20 years ago so I didn't remember much of it, other than the action revolves around the World Chess Championships in 1979 and 1980 (racy, I know) and its most famous song is I Know Him So Well.

I have good memories of it the first time round, but having seen it again I'm not entirely sure why. I remember the song One Night in Bangkok at the beginning of the second half, but I'm fairly sure that most of the plot must have passed me by the first time I saw it. It relies on a certain amount of understanding of what conditions in Soviet Russia were like at the time, and at least a passing knowledge of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against Soviet-imposed policies. Which obviously we all had before we arrived.

Actually, the reason this particular rendition of this particular show isn't up there among my all-time favourites is precisely because it required a knowledge of those things, and the reason knowledge was a prerequisite was that the singers were, as ever, largely drowned out by the music and it was extremely difficult to hear what they singing. If it weren't for the fact that the female lead was almost always understandable, I would have blamed the sound desk entirely, but as she was much clearer, my conclusion is that the other actors were simply not enunciating. Which was a real shame, because I'm pretty sure we missed a lot of what was going on, and came away feeling a bit underwhelmed.

This production was choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood of Strictly fame, and this side of the performance was very well done. A lot of the instruments were played on-stage by the supporting cast, which was very unusual and worked really well, but all in all, my impressions were that one of the male leads behaved like a spoilt child, the other was totally flaky and it didn't take much to turn his head, and the female lead, whilst a great singer, was just a bit of a cow. I'm sure if I had been able to hear the words being sung I would have come away with a lot more than that...

A Week at Nanna & Grandpa's

Daisy and I just got back from a lovely week at my Mum & Dad's. We left last Thursday and drove to Manchester - the journey was fine; she slept all the way and when she woke up I pulled into the nearest service station and fed her, then we got on our way again - and we spent the afternoon with Grandma & Grandad (aka Rob's Mum & Dad), Auntie Kath and Uncle Tom, then we went round to stay the night with my friends Catherine and Ben, their dog Betsy, cat Chester and as-yet-unnamed 24-week-old foetus. The following day we drove up to Mum & Dad's, and Jen arrived after work for the weekend. Mum had arranged to have people round for a meal that evening before I decided to come, so there were 8 of us for dinner. I got Daisy up at 23:00 for her bottle and everyone cooed over her.

Saturday was my birthday, and I got the best present from Daisy - she didn't wake up till 06:20! Saturday was also the day that my old recorder teacher, Jane, was in town from her home in Peebles with her husband and son. I haven't seen her since her wedding day over 7 years ago so we arranged for them to come round for lunch. We also invited the four girls I used to play in music groups with - first I was in a trio with Lisa and Anna, then Anna and I joined Laura and Louise in a quartet. Lisa and Laura couldn't make it, but Louise and Anna came round with their girls - Anna has Tamsyn and Louise has Eden and Saffron. I haven't seen Anna for 10 years and Louise for 15, since I left for university, but neither of them has changed all that much, except that Louise has done what I've done and ditched the high-maintenance blonde highlights in favour of chocolate brown :).

We made a few attempts to have a group photo, but with 5 kids aged 6, 4, nearly 3, 9 months and 11 weeks, it wasn't all that easy :). This is the best we could do - there's another reasonably good one but Eden is mid-fidget and has come out very blurry ;).

Back: Jane, Timothy, Louise, Saffron
Front: Me, Daisy, Tamsyn, Eden, Anna

Later on my uncle, aunt and cousin arrived from Huddersfield, so there were 7 of us for dinner that night, and again for lunch the following day.

Sunday morning we went to church, thereby killing lots of birds with one stone as we saw quite a few people who wanted to see Daisy. On Sunday evening Mum & Dad babysat while Sarah, Jen and I went to the cinema to see a recording of the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables, which took place at the beginning of October at the O2 Arena. It was fantastic - Jen bought me the DVD for my birthday but it isn't released for another couple of weeks; can't wait to get it and watch it again!

On Monday my Godmother and Aunt came round for dinner (that's 6 for dinner that day, for those keeping count - Mum did a wonderful job feeding everyone!), on Tuesday morning Suzanne came round, Tuesday afternoon Jen and I went to visit Carlie and her boys (Noah is 2 and Ben is a couple of weeks younger than Daisy), and on Wednesday we went round to see my friend Sue and her son Theo, who's just turned 1. Jen went back home on Wednesday evening as she had to go back to work on Thursday, while Mum, Daisy and I went up to Durham to see Susie, who I worked with last year in Winchester and who is now at the university studying Music. So not exactly a quiet week, but we had a really lovely time and are looking forward to seeing Nanna, Grandpa and Auntie Jen again in a month.

I took this photo while we were there; makes me laugh every time I see it ;).

Ten Things I Didn't Know Before I Had A Baby

1. I'm not too proud to leave the house with no make-up on and baby sick on my clothes and in my hair.
2. The first few weeks are really not rewarding at all.
3. Mums never catch up on lost sleep - they just learn to live with less of it.
4. Poo consistency really is a legitimate conversation topic, but only with close family/other parents/health professionals/friends who know you really well and love you regardless. Don't try and talk dirty with just anyone.
5. There's no such thing as too many muslins.
6. It's not just boys who can pee directionally when having their nappy changed.
7. 'Sleep when baby sleeps' is absolutely essential but much easier said than done when there's laundry to be done, dinner to be eaten, bath time stuff and toys to clear away, milk to be expressed, bottles to be washed and sterilised, groceries to be bought...
8. When I breastfeed, my feet tingle.
9. My stomach muscles ache every time I stand up, and have done since she was born.
10. The world is a much better place after a hot shower.

A Day in the Life

One of my Twitter friends (she's an IRL friend as well) brought my attention to the fact that Greater Manchester Police are tweeting general information about every phone call they get for 24 hours from 05:00 today. They are highlighting the fact that they have to deal with a broad range of calls, most of which take up considerable time and energy but are not the kind of incidents included in crime statistics, so the work goes largely unnoticed by the public and, more importantly, the politicians.

I've been following them for an hour now and have seen about 150 calls logged, some serious ones like a 3-car accident in Wigan and various street robberies (mostly in Salford, where I used to live), some unexpected ones like 'calling to inform us that door-to-door sales will be taking place' (it looks like it's a requirement for the police to be informed if you're going to do this), and some bizarre ones like 'man shouts "you're gorgeous" to woman' and 'man locked out of house, wants police to break in for him'. Plus there have been 25 or so prank calls or silent calls - either children playing with the phone or people making inadvertent 'pocket calls' from their mobiles. And there were 39 arrests between 09:00 and 11:30.

It's only a quarter of the way through the day and it's had the desired effect on me - made me realise just how much the police gets involved in. And how little we give them credit for.

A Month of Numbers

Daisy is one month old already. Here's a numerical summary of her first month.

Weight lost in first 3 days: 9oz (down to 5lbs 4oz from 5lbs 13oz)
Weight gained since then: 1lb 14oz (now 7lbs 2oz)
Net weight gained: 1lb 5oz
Inches grown: 1 (19.5 from 18.5)
Days before umbilical cord fell off: 8
Visitors to the house: 38
Midwives/health visitors seen since being home: 6
Bunches of flowers received: 7
Teddy bears received: 5
Balloons received: 7
Cards received: 54
Baby-gros received: 67
Baby-gros that are still a bit big: 66
Nights spent in own room: 6
Hours' sleep at a time: 2
Average dirty nappies per day: 10
Feeds per day: 8
Cotton wool balls used: 100s
Loads of baby laundry done: 18
Trips to Hedge End: 6
Trips to Southampton: 1
Trips to Winchester: 2
Sundays we made it to church on time: 1
Sundays we made it to church, albeit a little late (OK, a lot late): 1
Trips to the swimming pool: 1
Days Mummy hasn't cried in the last month: 2
Times people have said 'She's so tiny!': lost count

Here's a picture of her in the only baby-gro that currently fits her :)

Pregnancy Perks and Pitfalls

In no particular order, here are some observations on the highs and lows of my pregnancy: -

1. Morning sickness isn't just reserved for the mornings
I had a pretty textbook first trimester. From the day before my doctor's appointment to confirm that I was actually pregnant until my 14th week, I felt sick in the mornings and the evenings. Not every morning and evening, but enough to notice a pattern. I didn't realise that the sickness comes in the form of lightheadedness, rather than a stomach ache. I had a fairly unpleasant flight to the US in February, and I had some degree of morning sickness every day throughout the 5-week trip - its abatement coinciding with coming home, actually :-(. I found out that it was worse if I didn't eat within about half an hour of getting up in the morning, so I developed a routine of having half a packet of ready salted crisps first thing while waiting for Rob to wake up so we could go to breakfast.

I have to say, I don't know how women manage morning sickness during subsequent pregnancies, when they already have a child (or children) to look after and all they want to do is lie in bed. Medals all round.

2. Great skin and hair!
Actually, I didn't notice the hair all that much as mine is really thick anyway, but I LOVED the fact that I no longer had teenage skin. Unfortunately it's come back with a vengeance now :-(.

3. Back pain like never before
I'm no stranger to back pain. I've had it in some form or another for 20 years, but around my 30th week I developed a pain under my right shoulder blade which became almost excruciating at times. I was quite worried about driving 5 hours up to my parents' house at 34 weeks, and even more worried about driving back home again at 36 weeks. I won't lie to you, it wasn't pleasant, but I managed to find a seating position that wasn't ridiculously painful. Thank goodness I was driving an automatic, though - my seating position involved putting my right hand behind my head at times, and I couldn't have done that if I'd needed one hand for the gear stick and one for the steering wheel...

4. I've got a secret...
I've always thought that parents can sometimes come across as a little smug when talking to non-parents - 'until you've had a child, you don't know...' - and I'm afraid I've now joined those ranks, although I do try to keep my advice to myself unless asked for it. But I honestly did feel while I was pregnant that I had a secret that no one else knew. I know women have been having babies since the dawn of time, but being pregnant made me feel very special.

5. No charcoal or gherkins!
I was looking forward to seeing what kind of food cravings I would get. But apart from eating everything in sight during my first trimester (only in the afternoons though; mornings and evenings were reserved for throwing up), I didn't have any food-related oddities. Shame.

6. So that's what the inside of my belly button looks like...
I've had an inny for as long as I can remember. At around 28 weeks, my inny became an outy, and it looked weird ;-). I bought a silicon belly button bar from a place online, which said it would move with the shape of my belly, so I thought for £3 I would give it a try. If it didn't work, well I can't remember the last time I knowingly bared my stomach in public, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to take my belly button ring out. I'm not 18 any more, after all - and even then, I didn't have a flat stomach so my belly button rarely saw the light of day. Anyway, the silicon bar did work, and my once-outy is now back to being an inny again.

I thought of loads more while I was pregnant, and kept thinking I must write them down before I forget them... If I think of them I'll do another post.

Pregnancy Photos

Keri gave me the idea to take photos of myself regularly throughout my pregnancy. I not only did that, but I also ripped off the style of picture that she used when she was pregnant, standing in front of a window and turning the flash off to create a silhouette. Good for me she doesn't mind ;-).

I usually took the pictures on a Thursday or Friday, although this became more difficult after I no longer lived at the house I was using to take the pictures, so I just took them when I could. I'm really pleased I persevered with this: I think it will be a nice reminder in years to come.

I need to work out how to make a collage of these pictures, but in the meantime, you can view them here.

Surprise!

I had a blog post for today all planned out in my head. It was going to be called 'Fully Cooked!' and I was going to talk about how I'm 37 weeks' pregnant today and therefore technically full term. Then I was going to go on to say that despite being full term, if she decides to show her face before next Wednesday, we'll be having words, as it means she'll be an August birthday and one of the youngest in her school year, rather than a September birthday and one of the oldest in the year below. I was going to say that I had planned a loads of things to do this week so I wouldn't be as bored as I was last week, including going into town to pick up a wallpaper border, lamp shade and pictures for the nursery, waiting in for a delivery of nursery furniture on Friday, dinner with Ben & Jill tomorrow evening, even a trip to the theatre on Thursday afternoon to see Les Mis (I know I've seen it a gazillion times but I thought £20 was a fair price to pay for something to do for a whole afternoon).

Then my waters broke at 06:30 this morning.

I ran to the bathroom and while I was there I looked back at my alarm clock which was taunting me with today's date. 24 August 2010. I sat on the toilet thinking 'This isn't what we planned!' Not only because I never anticipated her coming early but also because, as I mentioned above, I don't have any nursery furniture yet.

Because it was first thing in the morning, I persuaded myself that maybe my waters hadn't broken and I just needed the loo after a night's sleep, as normal. I had a midwife appointment booked in for 09:30 this morning anyway, and nothing else was happening, so I followed my normal morning routine and got showered and dressed - I even had time to straighten my hair! I drove round to Rob's and told him what had happened, then we both went up to the midwife and told her. She checked and confirmed that my waters had broken, and that one way or another we would have a baby by this weekend. She told me that 86% of women go into labour naturally within 24 hours of their waters breaking, and a further 7% of women go into labour within 48 hours, so I should just keep an eye on things.

We came away from the midwife's and went back to Rob's house so he could pack a bag and come and stay at my house until we went to the hospital, whenever that might be. I started having mild period pain-type cramps at the midwife appointment and they carried on while we were at Rob's, but they weren't painful or frequent, which were the two criteria the midwife told me they had to be before ringing the hospital or the birth centre. On the way to my house we stopped at a pharmacy and bought a Tens machine, which I put on almost as soon as we got back.

Rob had planned to go to the gym and do a workout, and ask Ben to fit the car seat while he was there, then go to Sainsbury's on the way home to buy drinks and snacks for the labour. He left the house at 12:40 having already decided not to do a workout but still to get Ben to fit the car seat and stop at Sainsbury's. He didn't get to do either of those things; when he left I went upstairs to check my hospital bag (I'd been throwing things into it for about 10 days but was pretty sure I was missing stuff) and by 13:00 I was having painful contractions lasting about 50 seconds, about 3 minutes apart. I rang Rob and told him to come straight back, then he rang the birth centre when he got here. My midwife happened to be there at the time, and when she heard the noises I was making at the other end of the phone, she told us to come in straight away.

Rob ran upstairs and threw everything that was on my bed back into my hospital bag (I was still convinced there were things missing, and I was right) then we had a mad dash along the motorway to the birth centre. We got there just after 13:30 and went into one of the delivery rooms, stopping a couple of times on the way to have a contraction. I told them I wanted to get in the pool, if possible, so they started filling it while I went to the loo. I was examined at 13:45 and was already fully dilated, so as soon as the pool was full and the right temperature (which took what seemed like forever, but was actually only about 20 minutes), I took the Tens machine off and got in.

I had been using the gas & air while waiting for the pool to fill, but once I got in the pool the midwife (not my pre-natal midwife; a different one) told me not to use the gas & air but instead to concentrate on pushing. I pushed for an hour and a half but each time I had a contraction her head came half out but then went back in again as the contraction faded. A supervising midwife came in and said that she thought I should get out of the pool as much more of the same would cause the baby to get distressed. I think that was the impetus I needed, because there was no way I was getting out of the pool, so I begged her to let me have one more try. She said yes, and told me not to forget to use the gas & air. What?? I thought I wasn't allowed to! I'd been pushing hard for 90 minutes with no pain relief, and now she tells me I can use it??? So I did. A lot.

One huge push and a few seconds of the most excruciating pain later, her head was out, then it was no time at all before we were pulling her up out of the water and laying her on my chest. Daisy Rebecca, born at 15:36 on Tuesday 24 August 2010.


I know it sounds corny, but for the rest of the day, nothing else mattered.

I stayed in the pool with her for about 25 minutes, then Rob took her while I delivered the placenta (easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen). Then we had some skin to skin time and we tried feeding her. She didn't seem all that interested but she did then feed about an hour later.

Rob went into Southampton at 17:45 to buy a Moses basket (no furniture, remember?) while I was stitched up - I used more gas & air during that hour than I had during the labour. Rob came back at 19:00 with Ben & Ryan for a visit. It wasn't until then that we actually got round to weighing her - 5lb 13oz! I knew she looked tiny but I didn't know she was that small. Although she didn't seem that small when she was coming out of me ;).


Ben had bought today's paper for us to keep as a memento of the day Daisy was born. It was a shame that the paper he chose was the Sun, but he said he picked it because there was an article about Manchester City on the front :). Clare also visited, bringing with her a much appreciated bar of chocolate and a not-quite-so-well-appreciated trashy magazine (seriously, I got to page 72 and still hadn't read an 'article' that was either remotely newsworthy or that concerned any 'celebrity' worth caring about - but Clare knows me well enough to know that's what I would think), then they left when Ben & Jill arrived, armed with a beautiful swaddling blanket and a 'Learn the Alphabet' book in Italian :).

Rob left around 21:30 and for the first time, it was just me and Daisy. I knew I should sleep, but I stayed up till long after midnight just staring at her :).

It's Starting To Feel Much More Real Now...

Nesting, or Necessity, or Boredom?

I mowed the lawn on Monday night. It hadn't been done for almost a month, and bearing in mind it's the summer, it really needed doing. I'd seen the weather forecast for Tuesday, which was that it would rain that day and on and off the rest of the week, so I took the opportunity to mow the lawn while the grass was dry - particularly as the drainage in my garden isn't all that good and when it rains, the grass stays wet for longer than it should.

It was relatively hard work, but no more so than for a non-pregnant me, I think. Having said that, I remarked on Facebook and Twitter that I won't be rushing to do it again until after I've stopped being pregnant. A few people commented that I should be putting my feet up, or saying it's nice to see that I've started nesting. Except I don't see it as nesting. The lawn needed mowing, so I did it. Monday was the last day for a while that I knew I'd be able to do it, so I did it out of necessity. But I took the advice given and have been putting my feet up for the rest of the week. And man, am I bored.

On Tuesday, I had nothing to do until ante-natal at 18:30. I watched a bit of TV (am working my way through House Season 5 at the moment), and was so bored by mid-afternoon that I had a nap. On Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment at noon and went to the theatre in the evening, but apart from that, nothing to do between getting up at 08:00 and going out at 19:00. So I had another nap in the afternoon to break up the boredom. Today I got up at 08:30 and went back to bed again at 09:30 for a few hours, just so I would have something to do until lunchtime. I showered at 13:00 and watched TV for the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, after a morning of - you guessed it - doing nothing, Rob and I went nursery furniture shopping. I already have a chest of drawers in her room and am waiting for a chair to be delivered, so I picked out the cot bed I wanted and ordered it online today. Is that nesting? Or is it just the reality of having a baby? She's going to need somewhere to sleep, so I'd better get her something, right?

Don't get me wrong, I know that soon enough I'm going to wish I could re-live these days of endless sleep and no responsibility, but it's going to be hard work just sitting here for a month or more, waiting for her to be born.

In conclusion, I find the idea of nesting a weird one. I'm not mowing lawns and putting up curtains because I want to make the place nice for the baby. I'm doing those things because they need doing, pregnant or not, and I might lose the will to live sitting round all day.

Must go. The downstairs toilet's not going to unblock itself.

4D Scan

We went for our 4D Scan today. The sonographer said she was confident enough to confirm that it's definitely a girl. Something about a hamburger rather than a turtle, which freaked us both out enough never to want to hear it referred to as that again ;). We took away a 25-minute DVD, plus 120 stills taken from that DVD, plus half a dozen hard copy photographs that we chose from the 120.

Lots of the 120 photographs are more or less the same image, just taken from slightly different angles, but here is a handful of them. The sonographer spent a long time trying to get the baby to move her hand away from her face, but the ones where you can see the detail of her hand are some of my favourites.
















I like to think she's saying 'Come on, enough now, Mum' at that last one :).

Anyone for Tennis?

I happened to be in the right place at the right time last Sunday evening, and got invited to go to the middle Saturday of Wimbledon yesterday with Susie. Our colleague Dave has been stewarding there for years and had a couple of ground tickets to give away.

Getting there and back was easy: the regular Southampton to London train goes through Wimbledon station, although it doesn't stop, but for the tennis fortnight they add Wimbledon as a stop so we could get off there and walk to the ground without having to go into London and out again.

Ground tickets allow you to go anywhere in the ground and to find an available seat on any of the 17 or so courts except Centre Court, Court One and Court Two; you have to pay extra for allocated seats in those courts. We soon found out that for the most part, anyone you've heard of will be playing on those three courts :), but we had a wander round to get our bearings then took Dave's advice and sat in the first couple of spare seats we could find and watched whatever happened to be on that court. Turns out it was showing junior matches (hence we could get a seat) but we watched some really great tennis, particularly from Oliver Golding, a British 16-year-old who knocked out his American opponent with ease and went on to get as far as the semi-finals - will be keeping an eye on him for the future.

After we'd been watching that court for a couple of hours - in the middle of the day, and it was really hot, so our legs were sticking to the plastic chairs - we left to go and find some shade for a while, and we found it next to the ice cream stand, so we thought it would be rude not to buy one ;). We sat on the hill in front of the big screen and ate our ice creams, but we left to find another court as soon as we'd finished, for two reasons: firstly, we thought it was silly to watch Nadal on a TV screen when we could have stayed at home and done that; and secondly, the hill was really uncomfortable! It looks like a gentle slope with some flat areas when you see it on TV, but in reality anything that isn't flat slopes at a 40 degree angle. The place was packed and the only place we found to sit was on one of the slopes - we had to put our bags underneath our bums to stop ourselves from sliding down the hill ;). So we went off and stood in a queue to get on the court that was showing Paul-Henri Mathieu play Thiemo de Bakker, the guy who had knocked out John Isner in the previous round, Isner having played that match against Nicolas Mahut before that. The courts that don't have reserved seating work on a first come, first served basis, and that seat is yours until you leave it. We noticed that the match was at the tie-break stage in the second set and at the end of the set, enough people left to enable us to get on the court. We watched a couple of sets of that (it went to 5 sets in the end), but then we left to meet Dave when he went on his break. He got us strawberries and cream and cups of tea in the stewards' private lounge :).


If anyone with a ticket for one of the three main courts leaves before the end of the day, they can choose to give their ticket in and it will be re-sold for £5 and the money given to charity. We went to look at the resales queue just after 17:00 but it was massive: Andy Murray was playing on Centre Court that evening, and we concluded that because of that, not many people were likely to leave early, and even if they did there were hundreds of people already in the queue waiting to get their hands on the tickets. We decided that rather than spend the next two hours standing in line with no guarantee that we'd get tickets to Centre Court, we would take Dave's advice and find him at his post on gate 13 of Number One Court, where he sneaked us in :). There were plenty of spare seats - the resales thing only works up to the point where people who are leaving early can be bothered to hand in their tickets. If they don't, the resales team doesn't know that there are empty seats that could be filled by people waiting. We had to move seats twice because people turned up with valid tickets for the seats we were in, but we had no problem finding other empty seats, and ended up spending a couple of hours on that court as well, watching Sam Querrey beat Xavier Malisse (Querrey was then knocked out by Murray in the next round).


We had an incredible day: the atmosphere was amazing, and we were both astounded at the professionalism of all the ball boys and girls, line judges, umpires etc. We made a quick stop at the gift shop on the way out to buy ridiculously overpriced keyrings as souvenirs of our visit, walked back to the station and were home by 22:00. Must do it again sometime :).

Champagne and Chrysanthemums

We got invited to go to the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday. Rob didn't want to go so I took Clare, who enjoyed it a lot better than Rob would have ;).


We only had evening tickets so we couldn't get in before 17:30, but it turned out to be just the right amount of time to spend there for a couple of people who like flowers enough, but not too much. It took us about 2 hours to walk round the entire site and look at all the show gardens - much less time than it would have taken if we were there in the middle of the day, as the crowds had thinned considerably by the time we arrived - then we went to a reception at the Cancer Research UK Garden (who we'd got the invitation from). We didn't take any pictures of that garden as it was full of people by the time we got there, but it won a Gold Award and you can see pictures here.

Below are a couple of the other gardens:

Lights and Colours of the Alps

The Global Stone Bee Friendly Plants Garden

The Waterless Water Garden (I'm not making these names up, I promise)

The Ace of Diamonds Garden.
This garden was in the media a lot because it featured a ridiculously large and expensive diamond, and whilst it wasn't on display all the time, when it was there were security guards all over the place. When we got there, there were no security guards, so I guess we just had to make do with the plastic replica in the middle of the picture...

And finally, an indication of the lengths to which some people will go to indulge their gardening obsession...

A lovely way to spend an evening. I'm not sure I would pay to go in future, but if you're really into gardening I can see the attraction :).

The Great Gender Debate

We went for our 20-week scan earlier today. The sonographer said everything looks great from a medical point of view - heartbeat strong, stomach working fine so digestion good, bladder working so kidneys are functioning well, etc etc - which meant we could concentrate on finding out the gender :).

I must say, people do have very strong opinions when it comes to deciding whether or not to find out the gender. Rob said the other day that it seems that people who would choose to find out if they're having a boy or a girl are respectful of others' decisions not to find out, but people who would rather wait until the birth are less likely to be as open-minded about those who choose not to wait. I certainly would agree with that assessment.

I wonder why people who've always waited until the birth to find out the gender say that it's 'better' that way? How would they know? I can certainly appreciate that it keeps you going through a long labour, but really, am I likely to be less inclined to push just because I know what it's going to be? And again, I can see that finding out and announcing a likely name before the birth makes it somewhat less exciting for others: rather than the usual 'oooh, what did they have?' 'what name have they chosen?' questions, you'll get 'oh, the baby's been born now.' But to be honest, I'm not having a baby just so that you can be excited on the day it's born. And Rob's opinion as a father is that if all you're waiting for on the day of the birth is to find out whether it's a boy or a girl, you've kind of missed the point.

A former colleague of mine had a baby last week. They knew it was going to be a girl, and they named her Emily months ago. When I found out she'd been born (2 weeks overdue and after a 3-day labour even though she was induced - well done Kirsty!), obviously there was no need for the 'what did they have?' questions, but I was still really pleased for them. I guess part of the reasoning behind my opinion on the matter could be that, without wishing to make this political or stir up a huge backlash, I don't believe that life begins on the day a child is born. The fact that one day Emily was in utero and the next day (or in this case, a few days later) she was outside the womb didn't make a whole lot of difference; she didn't suddenly become a baby girl the day she was born. She already was a baby girl, and if she had been born a day, a week, or a month earlier she would still have been a baby girl. And I'm pretty sure that Kirsty and Mark couldn't care less whether or not I approved of their decision to find out Emily's gender beforehand, and I'm equally sure that they didn't care what impact that decision had on my reaction to news of her birth.

I had a lovely message this morning from another friend who's due a week or so after me, saying they chose to find out their son's gender a couple of years ago and are really looking forward to finding out the gender of their second child next week. In her opinion, it means you can start to get to know them before they're born. I'd agree with that, but quite simply, the main impetus for our choosing to find out the gender is the fact that Rob is far too impatient to want to wait another 4.5 months... Plus we'd like to do some preparation - decorating the baby's room etc - and knowing the baby's gender makes that a whole lot easier. Although I'm quite keen on the idea of a neutral-coloured nursery, after all that!


Oh, and by the way, the sonographer said that whilst they never predict with 100% certainty because there's always someone who will sue them if they get it wrong, she's pretty sure it's a girl. Which means the discussion we put on hold last weekend will now need to be taken up again :).

All About Blood

I had a call from the GP's surgery this morning - my blood results from the sample the midwife took last Thursday came back with a white blood count that's in the normal range, so they won't need to refer me to a haematologist.

What I forgot to mention last week, though, is that my blood type came back A-negative. Which is interesting, given the conversation I had with a doctor from the Blood Donor Service a couple of years ago, saying that I was A-positive but my positive antigens were so weak that it was difficult to tell whether I was positive or negative. I mentioned this to the midwife and she said she'd never heard of that before, but there was no doubt in their eyes that I was A-negative, so I'd be receiving Anti-D injections later in the pregnancy.

16-Week Midwife Appointment

Rob and I went to my 16-week check-up with the midwife today. I'm over 18 weeks now, but I had my 12-week appointment 2 weeks late, so at least I'm consistent...

Everything looks fine, although she did say that the blood test she took last time came back with a slightly low white blood count. She took some more blood today and said they'll see what the result comes back with this time. It might come back normal, but if it's still low, she'll ask my GP to refer me to a haematologist.

She put the Doppler Monitor on me again, and immediately we heard 3 quick heartbeats, but then the baby moved and she had to find the heartbeat again. It took AGES, at least a couple of minutes, and by the time she eventually did find it again Rob was close to having kittens, but it was all OK in the end. She said there is sometimes truth to the rumour that girls' heartbeats are quicker than boys', but it doesn't always work out that way, and she said that a heartbeat around 135-140bpm is very middle of the road and it would be impossible to tell the gender. True to form, the heartbeat was 138bpm so we're none the wiser, although my 20-week fetal anomaly (and gender) scan is only 2 weeks away. I have no hunches either way about the gender, and can quite honestly say that I have no preference (I wouldn't have said that 6 months ago; I wasn't keen on the idea of a boy at all until I spent a week with Keri, Annabelle and Corgan and found out that boys can be just as awesome as girls), but I'm looking forward to finding out!

The midwife will ring me when she gets my new blood results back, and I'll next see her at 24 weeks. Hope it will actually be 24 weeks this time, and not 26 :).

Ingredients: Cake Mix, Dowel Rods, Duct Tape...

We were having dinner with Ben & Jill, Andy & Cathy sometime last year, discussing Andy & Cathy's wedding, which was yesterday. Before I go on to the main topic of this blog post, I'll just stop and say that the wedding was wonderful, Cathy looked beautiful and apart from Rob nearly making someone on our table seriously ill with his talk of exactly how laser eye surgery is performed, we had a fabulous time.

During that dinner last year, Ben mentioned the concept of a groom's cake, which is a tradition we don't have over here. Suffice to say that within 90 seconds, Rob and Ben had taken it upon themselves to provide Andy with such a cake.

Every so often, Rob would think of a new idea for the cake. Things like a carrot chocolate vanilla sponge cake, that sort of idea. While we were on holiday in March we discussed the possibility of them making a cake in the shape of a computer keyboard, and by the time we got back from holiday Rob was keen to get practising.

Turns out Ben & Jill were having similar discussions, and they even got as far as arranging for Ben pick up boxes and boxes of cake mix, frosting mix, food colouring and flavouring on one of his trips to the States. Ultimately the decision was taken to make a cake in the shape of a Zoom lollipop, which looks like this:


Once Cathy, who was making her own wedding cake (she also made our cake last year), found out that the boys were serious about making a groom's cake, she told them that she wouldn't bake a sponge cake as well as a fruit cake. Which meant that if anyone didn't like fruit cake, the groom's cake was the only alternative. Which meant that it actually had to taste good.

Here's a shot of the boys in action on practice day:


The practice session went well, in that it didn't all work but decisions were then made on how to modify the plan so that it would all come together for the real thing. And it did! Well, almost:


OK, so it's a little wonky, but it wouldn't be recognisable as the boys' handiwork if it were perfect; this was the first cake either of them had made outside of Home Economics class at school, after all.

Not only is each layer the right colour, but they were also flavoured accordingly: strawberry for the red layer, lemon for the yellow and lime for the green. Although the lime one was very strong, despite the fact that Ben put exactly the same amount of flavouring in than he had for the lemon and strawberry ones. In the end they decided to ask the kitchen not to serve the lime layer for fear of damaging people's tastebuds.

Jill was concerned about the top layers sinking into the bottom layers, so I made a quick dash to the shops on the way round to their place to buy cake bases and dowel rod. And as I couldn't find our hacksaw and didn't know if Ben & Jill owned one, I bought one of those as well, to cut the dowel to length. What kind of cake necessitates the purchasing of a hacksaw??? I could only find large cake bases so we had to cut them down to size, and in doing that we exposed the compressed cardboard on two sides of the base, so we covered the exposed edges with duct tape. Because no cake is complete without adding a couple of lengths of duct tape.

It was all a bit of a laugh (although I won't deny that the boys did start feeling the pressure a little), and in the end it actually tasted really good. What's next, boys?

Progress

After almost 4 months, most of the rooms in the new house are starting to look the way they're supposed to. There are still a couple that haven't been unpacked, but we can just close the doors to those rooms for a few weeks :). I took these pictures right in the middle of the day so the light from the windows is a bit bright, but here goes.

Here's the family room:


The dining room:


The view of the piano from the other side of the dining room:


The main guest room:


The second guest room:


Another view of the second guest room, to show the cupboards we had built into the eaves:


And finally, for now, the last guest room (it's a sofa bed):


We've got one more bedroom to decorate, but we won't do that until we find out if the room's occupant is going to be a boy or a girl. Then we're having the office furnished the first week of May, and I still have to take pictures of our bedroom, which is finished but not particularly tidy today :).

Welcome to My World

Today is the last day before we both go back to work. I had a load of things I wanted to get done, namely:

• Go to the old house in Hedge End to pick up the piano stool and leave a bag of instructions/guarantees relating to appliances in that house (yes, that's right, the photograph of the piano posted to last Wednesday was only actually taken and posted today)
  
• Get a picture frame from Hobbycraft to replace one that got broken in the move;
  
• Buy some bed linens from John Lewis in Southampton, using the gift vouchers we got from Mum & Dad for Christmas (we must have shopped there a dozen times in the last four months and haven't once remembered to take the vouchers with us);
  
• Get a new pair of jeans;
  
• Buy rawl plugs, light bulbs and a toilet seat from B&Q in Hedge End;
  
• Get a new chain for my necklace - the one that came with it is the kind that pinches the hairs on the back of my neck every time I turn my head;
  

And seeing as I was going to the old house and there's a household waste centre close by and we have a house filled with junk, I added: -

• Take a car load of rubbish to the waste centre;
  

Then Rob said he would like sausage and mash for lunch so I also added: -

• Buy sausages, potatoes, onions & Yorkshire puddings from Sainsbury's in Hedge End;
  

Because my brain is terrible at remembering things at the best of times, I made a list on my phone in the order I would do everything, which was: load car up with rubbish; waste centre; B&Q; old house for piano stool; Sainsbury's; into town for John Lewis, jeans and necklace chain; back home via Hobbycraft for picture frame.

It took me well over half an hour and at least a dozen trips up and down stairs to fill the Jaguar up with stuff to take to the waste centre. I was almost finished loading the car when I checked the washing in the machine and saw that it only had 8 minutes to go, so I decided to wait till it had finished and put it in the dryer before I left. I made the last couple of trips out to the car, put the bag of instructions/guarantees in the car, picked up my handbag and even remembered to grab the folder of fabric swatches for the bedrooms so I can match the bed linens with what we've already got (I forgot to take it when I went on Friday so I had to wing it). AND I took my necklace with me and put a sample piece of wood in my handbag that's the colour of the cabinets in the piano room, where I want the picture frame to go, so I could match that up too. I couldn't believe I was so organised!

The first part was fine. I unloaded the car at the waste centre and got what I needed from B&Q, plus some nice light shades for the top bedroom. Then I went round to the house to get the piano stool and it wasn't until I was pulling into the drive that I realised I hadn't actually checked that I had the key with me. I didn't. Then I remembered that I hadn't picked up the John Lewis vouchers. And I hadn't put the washing in the dryer before leaving the house.

It was 12:30 so I decided to go to Sainsbury's, get the groceries, fill the car up as it was close to empty, go home and cook lunch then make a second trip out this afternoon with the old house keys and the John Lewis vouchers to do the other jobs on the list. Sainsbury's wasn't too bad, especially for a Sunday, but the petrol station was chaos; they were queuing out on to the road so I decided I would come back another time.

I got home, made lunch, burned the apple crumble because I still don't know how to work our oven, picked up the old house keys and John Lewis vouchers (finally!), put the washing in the dryer and set out again, only this time I decided to take the Audi as the petrol stations will be busy all day today - I'll fill up the Jaguar tomorrow. By some miracle I remembered to go into the Jag and get the swatch folder from the front seat, and I set out again for the old house. When I got there I realised I hadn't brought the bag of guarantees out of the Jaguar.

I got the piano stool and picked up the mail that had accumulated over the past few days, then went into town, got the stuff I wanted from John Lewis, bought a pair of jeans and a new chain for my necklace, then I drove to Hobbycraft for a picture frame, armed with my sample piece of wood for comparison. Then I realised that it's all very well knowing what colour frame to pick, but if you don't know what size the picture is, choosing a frame is going to be difficult...

Sigh.

Apparently we're having an alien...

I had my first scan this morning. I was given a due date of 14 September, making me 14 weeks and 4 days today, and I was told that everything was in the normal range. The baby seemed very energetic and did lots of moving round while we were in there, but the one thing it didn't do was face the camera :). In fact the sonographer told me to go and walk around while she saw the next lady and then she'd bring me back in to see if we could get a better shot.

The baby still wasn't facing the right way (my opinion is that it turned round then turned back again in the time I was walking round, just to be awkward) but the sonographer took a couple of shots anyway. Here they are.

Although they're separate shots, the top two are more or less close-ups of the bottom two. The ones on the left show the baby on its tummy, with its spine at the top and a leg on the left, and the ones on the right show a fairly scary-looking shot of the best we could see of its face.

If you click on the picture you can zoom in for a closer look.

Here's hoping it won't burst out of my stomach like it did with Sigourney Weaver...

It's So Shiny...

At the end of November, we went up to London for the weekend and bought a piano. It wasn't one of those 'went out for a loaf of bread and ended up with a piano' moments; we actually went to London with the intention of buying a piano, as the shop was having a pre-VAT increase, pre-2010 price increase sale. We bought a beautiful Model A, 6' 2" black grand piano, and arranged to have it delivered to the new house in early January.

We planned to have it delivered in the first week of January, but then we got snowed in so had to postpone the delivery. Then we decided to have the piano room decorated, including new carpets, so we postponed the delivery again until today.

So, almost 4 months after we paid for it, it's finally here.


There was a bit of a cock-up with the stool: this is the one from our upright piano that's still at the old house; we're selling it to a friend. The delivery men said the stool would be coming separately by courier, and after watching them lug a grand piano up a flight of stairs I didn't have the heart to complain about that, but when I contacted the shop about when the stool would be delivered, the lady told me it should have come with the piano... They are going to arrange to have a stool sent to me but the old one will do for now.

I love this piano. I didn't intend to get one as big as this; we had in mind when we went to the shop that we would get a Model M (5' 7") or a Model O (5' 10 3/4"), but when I tried this one it sounded so much better than the others. Just need to spend some time practising now!

First Midwife Appointment

I spoke to the midwife while we were in Bora Bora and arranged to go for my booking appointment this afternoon, after we arrived back this morning. Rob didn't sleep at all on the flight, which is unusual for him, and it even took me a couple of hours to get off to sleep but I did manage to get about 4 hours, which was better than nothing, even for plane sleep.

We got back to the house around 12:30 and checked out our newly decorated bedrooms - pictures later. We had to re-assemble our bed once the guys had finished putting up the curtains in there, and as soon as we'd done that Rob just collapsed onto it :). It was 15:00 by this time and my appointment was at 16:00. I told him not to worry about coming with me; it was only a booking appointment after all. We would just be going through family medical history etc to establish whether I was going to be a 'risky' pregnancy and therefore whether my obstetric care should be handled by a doctor or whether it could be done by the midwife. It was also going to take up to 90 minutes so I told him not to come; he should get some sleep and come to the scan on Saturday and he wouldn't miss anything.

What I didn't know was that the midwife had a Doppler Monitor and was going to check the baby's heartbeat at this appointment. The rest of the appointment was exactly as I thought it would be - I'm a low-risk pregnancy so my care will be midwife-led - but I almost cried when I heard the heartbeat, not just because it was incredible but also because I knew Rob would be gutted he'd missed it. And that's when I remembered about the wonder that is the Voice Memo app on the iPhone...

I only had about 4% battery left on my phone as I hadn't been able to charge it up overnight on the flight, but it was just enough to get this recorded.

I played it to Rob when I got home, and then I cried ;). Hearing the heartbeat made it all seem real for the first time - even the weeks of morning sickness, weird metallic taste in my mouth and ridiculously heightened sense of smell didn't 'prove' to me that I'm pregnant; they're all symptoms that can be explained by other things. But this? Wow.

Plus, it's Rob's birthday today, and I think I'd have to try hard to top the sound of your first child's heartbeat as the best birthday present :).

Southampton to Santa Barbara in 20 hours

Flying miles: 5,471
Driving miles: 160; 64 from home to Heathrow, 96 from LAX to Santa Barbara

Woke up 07:00, car picked us up 10:00, arrived LHR 11:00 to make the most of lounge access. Saw Jason Statham at airport. Had Thai chicken wrap for lunch, boarded plane at 14:45, took off almost an hour late at 16:00, watched An Education (very good), threw up chicken wrap, had tomato soup, threw up tomato soup. Declined main course and dessert on account of previous record with food so far today. Slept on and off for 6 hours, threw up bile, had 3 sips of water and ginger biscuit, threw up water and ginger biscuit. Had to sit in seat for landing so threw up rest of ginger biscuit, water and bile into sick bag. Got through baggage claim and customs without having to find a loo: good, because there weren't any. Waited outside Hertz office in fresh air while Rob sorted out paperwork for rental car, left LAX in Volvo C70 just after 20:00, arrived at the Upham Hotel in Santa Barbara just before 22:00, with a quick stop at Camarillo to throw up stomach lining at side of road. Straight to bed at 22:30.

Got another 6 flights this trip - hope they're not all like this one...

Knocked Up

[NB As ever, this post is dated 18 January but was actually published two months later, but as this is my 'diary' and I want to record things as they happened, I'm posting to the correct day.]

I took a pregnancy test on Wednesday morning as, despite the fact that I'd had a negative test a week ago, I hadn't started my period.

It was positive.

So I took another test. I guess there's more than one way to pee on a stick right because that one came back with an error, so I took a third. That was positive too, so just to be sure, I took a fourth. And a fifth.

By the time I had taken the fifth test, even the one that had an error was showing as positive, albeit faintly.


By this point I was cautiously optimistic, but did still think that because I had bought all the tests at the same time, maybe I had just bought from a faulty batch. I showed Rob, who was very excited, and I rang the doctor to make an appointment, but the snow havoc meant that they didn't have all their staff in and the earliest they could offer me an appointment was this morning at 09:20.

The next opportunity I had to go to the supermarket to buy a different brand of test was Friday, but I had a PT session at the gym first thing. So I got up, peed in a plastic cup with a sealable lid, put said cup in my £450 handbag, went to my PT session, went to Sainsbury's to buy more tests (bought a two-pack), then went to the old house to pick up the mail. While I was there, I dunked one of my new tests in the cup, and voila:


This time around I was pretty sure it was accurate, and seeing as I had another test left, I did it on Saturday morning and got another positive ;). If I needed any further confirmation, last night I started feeling quite nauseous. As it turned out, the doctor didn't re-test me this morning when I saw her, presumably because home pregnancy tests are as accurate as any test the doctor can do at this stage. If I had been less sure, I would have asked the doctor for another test, but I think 7 positive tests and sudden onset nausea are pretty conclusive...

So, I've been referred to the midwife for a booking appointment and a 12-week scan, although it didn't occur to me until after I left the doctor's that I won't actually be here at 12 weeks - we're going on holiday from 9 weeks to 14 weeks. I need to change GP anyway, as we no longer live in the right area for that one since we moved, so I'll arrange to register with a GP near the new house and let the new doctor know about the holiday.