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 :).