I'll be back...

Well, not really normal service but a quick update. In a nutshell: scooter crash 11 days ago, shattered tibia, major complications, 4 ops, morphine, good scan, new EDD 6th Jan, leg in brace...

Normal service will resume soon!

Announcement Countdown

5 days to gooooooo!!!!!!!!!

So close, so exciting!

Bump Watch @ BBC 17 June 09

"The foetus is growing in length much more quickly – by now it is about eight centimetres long, and weighs about 60 grams or two ounces."

Pregnant women are smug...

Garfunkel and Oates are awesome - so I felt like cheering myself up with this! Am I smug? I don't care, I LOVE this song and these guys...



"you think that you're glowing, but you'd been hoeing and now you're pregnant!"

Oh, and Kate (the brunette) plays a mean ukulele... check them out here

Bump Watch @ BBC 16 June 09

"Muscle development in your foetus' arms and legs mean a lot more movement – but you still won't feel it for a while yet."

A boxer or a ballet dancer I wonder?

Bump Watch - Week 11

I thought I' start keeping track of my belly. Not really a bump yet, more a bumpette? Anyway, it's week 11, day 0 - let's see how this mama grows!

Announcement Countdown

7 days to goooo!!!

Whoop!

Bump Watch @ BBC 15 June 09

"Twins are formed when two eggs are fertilised by two sperm, or when the fertilised egg splits into two. If you're expecting twins, you'll feel 'more' pregnant – bigger in size, possibly more sick, and more tired. You will probably have a small 'bump' by now."



Let's hope not, we'd be bankrupt!

Bump Watch @ BBC 14 June 09

"Extend your little finger. That's about the size of the foetus now. The weight is approximately 10 grams, or about a third of an ounce"

That's huge! Eeeek (I really must stop eeeking, but... eeeeek!)

A lady that lunches...

Had a wonderful lunch yesterday with some very old friends. I say lunch, we got there at 1.30, didn't eat until after 2.30 and didn't leave until 5.30! Now THAT'S how you do lunch! Amongst my friends, the lovely Aileen debuted her bump to the 'London massive'. I'm very jealous (in a pleased for her kind of way,) as she has the neatest, 24-week bump I've ever seen (you can so tell she's having a boy.) She seems so well, despite life being quite stressful for her and the very picture of maternal. I'm so pleased for her, it's been so long in coming - and I hope I can be half the mum I know she's going to be.

If her pregnancy is anything to go by, maybe I'm worrying too much? I'm not going to look like an elephant and I won't look like a fashion disaster. It is possible to look like a normal, well turned out human being! lol

It was also nice to be able to talk about it. Everyone there knew, unlike the wider world. It felt so nice not keeping it a secret and not having to hide the podge!

Speaking of podge, here it as of yesterday morning... I look so top heavy!!!

Bump Watch @ BBC 13 June 09

" The foetus looks like a small human now. Eyes and ears are completely formed, inside and out."

Can't wait to see him/her a week on Monday

Alex's Tuppence Worth @ 12th June 2009

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. It really is 5:46am. I started writing this at 4:36am. And I've been wide awake since approx 3:30am. According to my Facebook friends list this puts me in the insomniac company of my friend Matthew (film critic who's probably catching up on reviews or enjoying a 'Lost' marathon), Helen Brock (currently living in Korea - who knows what time it is there...) and Duncan (lives in Norwich where they have strange ways). Not to mention Elsie the cat, currently sitting on my desk with a "I know it's not breakfast time yet, but if I stare at you hard enough then who knows" expression on her face. Oh, and she's just sneezed in my face. Charming. Like THAT'S going positively affect my inclination to feed you! Little bugger...

This is a fairly extreme example of my occasional inability to sleep the full standard 8 hours demanded by most humans, although I did get to bed at a fairly unusual 10:30pm last night - I'm normally unable to hit the hay until at least midnight - giving me at least 5 hours of slumber. This was probably helped by the half bottle of wine at Pizza Express where me and Helen met our friends Caz and Pablo for dinner, not to mention the Irish coffee that the lovely waitress forgot to add to our bill, although the Joe is probably what caused me to be up this early. Sod it - Churchill and Thatcher rarely got more than 3 hours of kip each night and still managed to run the country, the former with the aid of cocaine lozenges admittedly.

Late night/early morning internet sessions were not an unusual occurrence for me a few years ago, usually in my frequent bouts of singledom and even more frequent bouts of employment weirdness (jumping from peculiar job to even more peculiar job pretty much typified my life from 2000-2007). This fortunately doesn't make me all that unique - the quantities of interesting people littering the chatrooms, social networking sites, live news blogs and electronic dens of sexual deviancy located in cyberspace in the middle of the night has always brought comfort and reassurance that I'm not too weird.

But it now strikes me that a great many of these people can probably thank their young offspring for their unsociable internet hours; late night sessions of cradling a noisily unhappy baby are, after all, a well documented feature of parenting. This is something that my own mother recalls with a haunted look of pain in her eyes whenever I've asked what I was like as a nipper, and her answers have made me

1. in awe of my parents ability to get by on basically NO sleep until I was about 12 months old, and
2. thankful that I wasn't the victim of what would have probably been fully justifiable infanticide.

My little brother proved to be my complete contrast in terms of undisturbed sleep - the little sod retains to this day the ability to peacefully nod off as, where and when he feels like (a useful talent for a policeman who used to work some pretty horrendous shifts) and I'm hoping our child inherits these characteristics. Preferably leaving out DC Davis's occasional habit of sleep-walking. Sadly this is probably too much to hope for - my Mother will undoubtedly gain some well-earned revenge for her year of insomnia via the strategic, high-volume, tactical biological weapon that will surely be her grandchild.

All I can say is thank heavens for all the practise that my natural insomnia has given me throughout my '20s. And if anyone needs to chat with me about anything important in 2010 then around 3am on MSN is likely to be a good time and place. So long as you show me the respect I deserve for being able to type this well with a cat sitting on one of my hands...

Alex aka Babydaddy

Bump band

My first bump band arrived today (thanks Melon boy!). It's perfect! It means I don't have an unsightly gap between my ever-retreating t shirts and my very low slung jeans! It'll also mean as I, er, expand, that I can continue wearing my jeans unbuttoned, as it'll hold them up. Check this out for schhhhexy! Once again, a bloody awful picture - also, don't get excited, it's not a bump, just bags and bags of bloat! I'm only 10+3! (Well, I think it's bloat...)



God, it takes me back to wearing skirts over trousers at college! Can't wait for my piratey stripy one to come! Arg!

Alex's Tuppence Worth @ 11th June 2009

Re Helen's "Hungry hungry hippo" post yesterday - we're not the sort of people to let a good melon carcass go to waste...

Alex aka Baby Daddy (aka 'Melonboy')

Hungry, hungry hippo...

I feel like that hungry, hungry hippos game. The past few days all I want to do is eat. If I don't eat, I get horrible hunger pains. I'm grazing like a cow. I've just eaten an entire melon in one sitting and I'm STILL hungry. How!?! I'm going to be the size of Belgium the way things are going :-(

Bump Watch @ BBC 10 June 09

"You may be offered a scan between 10 and 14 weeks. The sonographer will check for twins, confirm the date of the pregnancy and possibly look at the nuchal pad of skin , which can screen for Down's syndrome."

12 days to go! Yeeeeeehaaaaa!

Obsession?

Well, I've just got out of the shower. Not wildly unusual, thought it is 7.30pm. However, I only had a shower to ease a craving, a craving to have a bath. I've been obsessed with having baths since I conceived. It started out as a way to ease my stomach pains. Then it became a good way of making sure I fell asleep when I go to bed (baths make me sleeepy!) now I'm obsessed with them. I start thinking about the bath from the minute I've finished my tea. It's the highlight of my night, and seemingly essential in order to get to sleep. Not bad for someone who used to have a bath phobia (don't ask!)

So, I've had a shower to tide me over until my bath... it's 7.33... will have to wait until at least 9pm... *sigh*

Oh God...

...the itchy nipples are back. Great.

Announcement Countdown

Some say 13 is unlucky... not me, as it's...

13 days to go!

Woo hoo! Can't wait to tell the woooooorld!!!

Bump Watch @BBC 09 June 09

"The umbilical cord is fully formed around now, and is taking nourishment to the developing foetus, as well as taking waste products away"

Eeeeee! Exciting!

Bump Watch @ BBC 08 June 09

"You may have gained a little weight already. Average weight gain during pregnancy is about 28lb(13kg), but most of that is gained in the second and third trimesters."

A little?!? A little!?! I'm the size of a house already! I look like a beached whale and feel like it too :-(

The bloat

Oh God, my bloating has got so bad now that it looks like a bump! Apologies for my awful appearance - my fringe is tied up in a band as I haven't got round to drying it yet!


I normally carry all my weight on the front, so I'm hoping it's a combination of weight gain and bloat rather than bump, as it's miles too early to be showing. It's weird though, my belly has noticeably shifted upward. These pics are three days ago and today (again, dreadful pictures - a fat girl showing her naked podge is NEVER good - sorry! Tee hee)

Weird eh?

Bump Watch @ BBC 06 June 09

"The external genitals of the foetus are visible. Until now, there has been no clear difference between boys and girls. The foetus can now urinate and the urine is discharged into the amniotic fluid."

That is so weird. I wonder if he/she goes when I do lol!? If so, he/she'd be going ALL the bloody time!. But hey, at least it doesn't require expensive nappies yet!

New obsession

I havea new obsession, it's posting on a pregnancy forum called 'Baby and Bump'. It's brilliant, I've learnt I'm not a freak and much I'm going through others are, and often worse. However, it is consuming vast tracts of my day - it's so compelling though!

It's very cool meeting people due the same day as me though!

My first maternity dress...

I know I don't need maternity clothes,but I saw this dress on ebay and had to buy it (sorry about the rubbish pic - I've nicked it off the auction!)


I just had to buy it when I could, and I'm massively chuffed with it. Looks even cooler in real life, very 1940s! And, it was only £14 inc postage - whoop! Very please and I can't wait to start wearing it - only a couple of months odd to go - aaaargh, I hate waiting!

Bump Watch @ BBC 05 June 09

"The outlines of tiny fingers and toes are just visible, though there are no fully-formed nails yet, and the digits are still fused."

Cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

Announcement Countdown

17 days to go....

unless something goes wrong.... fingers crossed! I don't even mind the morning sickness and exhaustion if it means a healthy bean with a heartbeat on 22nd!

Anxiety

Well, I've had the mother of all stressful days today. Work was horrendous and the CCCS (Consumer Credit Counselling Service) decided to keep me waiting a month for an appointment then waste my time. I'm just not coping well with stress. As my mother would say, I'm prone to "flying off the handle" (then she's blame it on my artistic temperament in all likelihood!) It doesn't help that then I get stresses that I'm passing all that stress onto the bean.

I think the bump shrink can't come too soon!

Bump Watch @ BBC 04 June 09

"The foetus makes plenty of movements and can wave its arms and legs, but you won't feel anything for several weeks yet."

Mexican wave! Mexican wave! (especially apt as I had Mexican last night and BOY did the bean not like it! Indigestion and bloating aside, it was worth it!)

Bump Watch @ BBC 03 June 09

Right, I've decided I'm not going to bother doing bump watch on a strictly daily basis anymore, as sometimes it's not relevant, like today:

"You may be offered a booking appointment around now. That means you see a midwife, sometimes at home, usually at the antenatal clinic if you plan to have your baby in hospital."

Nope, been there done that! I'm just going to post when there's cool stuff. Actually, the rest of the week looks pretty exciting...! :-D

Bump Watch @ 02 June 09

"Start thinking about your choices for antenatal care and for the birth. Nothing needs to be set in stone, though... you have plenty of time to change your mind. Some women choose home births or give birth in a birthing centre, in which case they may follow a slightly different schedule or pattern of care."

Just give me a hospital (for my liability-ousness), lots of drugs (I'm a wimp) and a paddling pool (I'm a big kid)... and maybe one of those balls, they look fun! Whatever, just make sure I'm NOT in Lewisham sodding hospital!

Why do I need to start thinking about this? It wasn't even raised by the midwife, who I won't see again until the end of July? Am I missing something?

Development Update - Weeks 10 and 11

Well, good old Wikipedia has stopped with the weekly updates, as the foetus has grown most major organs, they just need to grow and move into position over the next 30 weeks it seem! Anyway, the next two weeks seem still very hectic!

Gestational age: 9-11 weeks old.
Embryonic age: Weeks nr 8-10. 7-9 weeks old.

* Embryo measures 30 mm-8 cm (1.2-3.2 inches) in length.
* Intestines rotate.
* Facial features continue to develop.
* the eyelids are more developed.
* the external features of the ear begin to take their final shape.
* The head comprises nearly half of the foetus' size.
* The face is well formed
* The eyelids close and will not reopen until about the 28th week.
* Tooth buds, which will form the baby teeth, appear.
* The limbs are long and thin.
* The foetus can make a fist with its fingers. [Boxer bean!]
* Genitals appear well differentiated.
* Red blood cells are produced in the liver.

Bump Watch @ 1st June 09

"The foetus has its head tucked into the chest. Its length is about five centimetres."

Wow, it was only 3cm last week - yikes! Check out that growth spurt! Go bean!