The one with the hilarious blog rating

Just had to post this - my blog rating. Apparently based on the fact that the word 'sexy' appears once. ONCE.

Never mind all the 'f' words, 's' words, 'b' words and countless others that were uttered by my adolescent self in the realms of 2002 and beyond. Bizarre!

The one where I'm 27 weeks and (almost) 4 days haha!

So I'm sat here eating my yummy microwave chicken balti, all alone as my husband has abandoned me in favour of his allotment (lol). I thought it'd be as good a time as any to write an update, not while I'm at work for once!!

I've had a disgusting lurgy cold thing for the last 4 days or so, thankfully I'm at the tail end of it now but still pretty snotty and coughing! Pip doesn't appear to mind in the slightest and has been partying in there as usual which is nice. I was off work on Monday and Tuesday (I started feeling rough on Sunday afternoon) and then went in today but left at lunchtime, mainly due to everyone's insistence that I "take myself and my germs home!" and let's face it, you don't have to tell me twice! Well, actually it was said about five times by various people before I chose to listen but still. So I've had quite a 'nice', lazy week so far alternating between sleeping, drinking lots of fluids and watching episodes of CSI.

The main pregnancy news I have - Pip's room is FINISHED! Cot and all! It's only missing a few last finishing touches, like some pictures to go on the wall and a couple of hammocks for all 'his' (our!) cuddly toys to go in. The first one is from before the cot arrived so we stuck the Moses basket in there which is now back in our room where it belongs!










I wish these photos showed how cute it actually is but it just doesn't at all.... still you get the idea!! (It's not half as empty as it looks). All his clothes are washed and put away in his little drawers - although I know that nearer the time I'm going to want to wash them again!

Ooh and I am booked into antenatal classes for September (as of this morning - I finally remembered to make the call!) so I am expecting info through for those sometime soon. I have seven more hours of driving lessons (SEVEN!!!) before my test on the 25th. I am so nervous and not feeling ready at all. I had to miss my first lesson ever today thanks to my lurgy so I will just have to make sure I practice lots with David this week to keep up! Anyway, all being well I will be able to drive myself to my antenatal classes in September if they are not ones for the dads to go to - that way David won't have to miss more work which is good.

Sooooo..... 12 weeks and 3 days (ish!) to go.....

The one with the best breakfast ever

Oh. My. Goodness. I have suddenly reached some kind of new level in the discomfort I am feeling. Although I don’t look hugely different to how I did two weeks or so ago, I suddenly feel much more cumbersome. Like I groan every time I get up from, or out of anything (the car is the worst haha) and if I hunch over for more than a few seconds, I get pains around my ribs that kind of feel like when you’ve eaten or drunk something too quickly (I guess I squished my stomach or something!). I get back ache, bump ache, all kinds of aches now! Shoes are getting to be a bit of a chore but still manageable but I can foresee a time in the not to distant future where the luxury of putting on my own shoes will be a thing of the past and when knickers and trousers start to become more of a challenge as well. Oh the joys of pregnancy!

On the bright side, I just had homemade cake for breakfast (well, a pre breakfast snack)… hooray for office birthdays! On the whole though, I wouldn’t say I’m eating hugely more than normal and it tends to be pretty healthy stuff (lucky me I guess that I’m naturally drawn towards those foods) so I still don’t appear to have put on much, if any weight, anywhere except my ballooning football of a stomach which is nice. Still there’s 13 weeks to go that could easily change all that and I guess I don’t mind, if it means Pip is healthy. It’d be nice if he could still be healthy without me turning into a cow though ;-)

One other thing of note – I think my fingers are starting to swell slightly (still with all this time to go… noooooooooo!) as I have trouble getting my wedding and engagement rings on and off over my knuckle. The weird thing is, the rings themselves still fit fine when they’re on, it’s just my poor darn knuckle swelling up (although none of my fingers look particularly swelled so it can’t be that bad anyway). The thing is, I don’t want to keep wearing them and then find that one day I can’t get them off and that the rest of my finger is swelling as well so I end up getting the rings cut off me or something! I could wear them on a chain around my neck to be safe but I don’t want to be not wearing my wedding rings for 13 weeks (or longer). Decisions decisions…..

Anyway, I feel the nutrition of my pre breakfast snack wearing off (I am actually becoming a hobbit with these bizarre ‘between meals’ meals) so I’m going to go and get some proper breakfast. Or, you know, get myself a coffee and then help myself to more cake.

The one with 100 days to go....

Just a quickie - ONE HUNDRED DAYS TO GO! Tomorrow we are in double figures only! This means I have been pregnant for 180 days today (give or take), which is just amazing. I feel so thankful for the reasonably stress free and uncomplicated pregnancy I have enjoyed so far and I really hope it continues this way so I can hopefully, pretty please have my water birth!

I had my 25 week midwife appointment yesterday - my bump is measuring 27cm so I'm about a week ahead of my dates (1 cm for every week pregnant is the 'average')... funny how I was writing last time about my suspicion of Pip being a nice big baby! So she was happy with that and his heart rate (which was difficult to find as the little munchkin was hiding right near my placenta which was masking the noise) was 145 bpm. My blood pressure, despite being extremely stressed and having had a little hormonal cry right before my appointment (long, boring, work related story!), was 110/60 so the same as it has been throughout pregnancy except at my booking in where it was 100/50 so a little lower for some reason. Anyway so all good.

I have another appointment in two weeks for blood tests etc. just more routine stuff, I think my appointments start to get more frequent now as we edge towards the thirties (ARG!) so I hope work won't start getting funny about it as I have NO control whatsoever over when they book my appointments for! I haven't had any problems so far but every two/three weeks is quite an increase in appointments. Anyway it's for my baby so I don't care hehe!

Last thing - the nursery is being decorated my David and his brother and sister-in-law today... they're doing a fab job (my job was/is to make breakfast, lunch, dinner and provide drinks throughout the day - as well as bring things to painty people so they don't trail through the rest of the flat!) The rest of my time has been spent on the computer which has been nice - I have facebook stalked lots of people today :-) Pip's room looks beautiful, the blue I chose is even more perfect than I could have imagined! It's the exact right combination of 'baby' blue and 'big boy' blue so it won't need redecorating until we move really. I can't wait to get all his stuff in there and post pictures!!!

The one with discussion about names and other bits

So….recent celebrity baby names include Harper Seven, Willow Sage, Tate, Morrocan and Monroe. Methinks I’ll be going with something a bit more traditional. In case you wondered, Oliver is still definitely our name of choice – however the middle name(s!) have changed in light of recent events. David’s grandfather is very poorly (although now recovering nicely thank goodness) and has been in intensive care since last Thursday. Anyway, I think it kind of made David realise that he would really like his grandfather’s name in there somewhere. I am completely fine with this (his name is Richard which I really like), however I insisted that we couldn’t use only Richard with our surname being Ralph because I don’t like two ‘R’ names together. So we decided that choosing two middle names was the way around that! However someone (picky old me!) decided that Oliver Richard Joseph was too many syllables and didn’t sound nice, so the final name needed to be a short one. We’ve now chosen (being big fans of the letter J haha!) one of our original middle names and are going with Oliver Richard James. Funnily enough, James also has meaning for David – his mum lost a baby at 28 weeks (an older brother for David) who was christened Jamie which was why it was one of our original choices.

Anyway enough of the sad, depressing name stories. So Pip will almost certainly be given the full name of Oliver Richard James Ralph or possibly Oliver Richard Joseph Ralph (now that I’m saying it out loud, it actually sounds quite nice! Any votes?). Either way I love them, they sound pretty (is that wrong for a boys name?? Haha!) and I guess the important thing is, they both make me smile when I say them so I’m sure that one of them is the right name for him. Imagine all of your surprise when he’s born and I announce his name to be California Raindrop or something!

I have midwife on Thursday (25 weeks 4 days), I think it’ll just be the usual wee and heartbeat checks… not sure if she’ll measure my bump at this stage or not, I guess I’ll wait and see! I generally seem to be reading that bloods are taken at the 28 week appointment so I don’t have that to ‘look forward’ to just yet.

Until next time….. (probably around the time I give birth, the rate I’m keeping up with this place!)

PS- I do have a few bits I want to write about, one being my ever increasing terror of actually giving birth and a lot of things surrounding it but I’m not really wanting to write about them now so I thought I’d make a note to remind me to do it another time when I have longer to reflect on it properly.

The one where I'm 24 weeks and 3 days

I just needed to share a hilarious TMI thing that happened the other day. David, being male, has always been fascinated with breasts but now he has the added interest of knowing they’re (hopefully if all goes according to plan!) going to feed his son and he read in our pregnancy book that women can start leaking colostrum any time from about 20 weeks. Anyway so ever since then he’s been..ermm.. jokingly squeezing them (in the privacy of our own home obviously!) and asking me if there’s anything in there yet. Imagine his surprise when a few days ago, a small amount of the stuff actually came out! It was extremely weird for both of us I think (a bit like “Omg there’s something coming out of your nipple”) but very amazing all the same. So my body is making food for Pip… who incidentally will be here in around FIFTEEN WEEKS! I go on maternity leave in 14 weeks can you believe it? Unless of course he decides he’s coming earlier!

I have this idea in my head (much the same as the ‘idea’ that he was a boy) that I can’t shift – I’m sure he’s gonna be an 8/9lb baby. I have absolutely nothing to base this on except that my brother and I weighed 9 and 8 lbs respectively. David and his brother and sister were all quite small… but I just feel it in my bones lol! I mean I am quite tall, as are the rest of my family but I know that doesn’t have to have any bearing at all. It’ll be interesting to see if I’m right about this too anyway.

Nothing else new to report except that I can’t wait for our little sweetie pie to be here – we were watching this programme last night about the first sextuplets to be born in the UK for 17 years…. They were born at 26 weeks which is scarily close to where Pip is now and to actually think I have a baby who almost looks like that inside my tummy right now is just bizarre. Sadly two of the babies died but four of them are doing fine, which for multiples at 26 weeks gestation is pretty amazing really. Obviously Pip would have a better chance as he’s only one baby stealing all my resources :-) but I still want him to hang out in there for an absolute minimum of another 10 weeks please!