Introducing our Beautiful Baby

I'm starting to feel a little more human, which is a cause for celebration! I therefore hope that I will be back a little more regularly from now on, so I can keep you all filled in on how things are going.

We went for our 12 week scan yesterday, and I'm relieved to say all is looking good.

We had a bit of a chaotic time getting to the hospital, because unbeknownst to us they had closed the usual car park, meaning cars were at a stand still trying to find a parking space. I was worried I would totally miss the appointment, so I went ahead leaving Hubby to park the car.

He actually ended up missing the first half of the appointment, and I felt really guilty being able to see the baby kicking around; but thankfully the sonographer was happy to repeat the scan for him when he did arrive. She did all the measurements before he got there, so he was just able to see the baby moving about happily.

His face lit up as soon as he saw the baby, which was lovely to see. He was grinning from ear to ear afterwards!

It might sound strange, but when she put the scanner on my belly, it was weird to actually see a baby in there! Of course I know I'm pregnant, but I was sitting there thinking "what's that doing in there?!"

The baby was still at first but bouncing around happily afterwards. He/she had a strong heartbeat of 164bpm, which we hadn't been expecting to hear until 16 weeks.

The baby is currently measuring 5.5cm crown to rump, and the chances of Downs Syndrome are 1 in 221,817, which is very low. The estimated due date remains 2nd May 2010, and I'm currently 12 weeks and 2 days.

Up until now it was like a dream. Now I''ve seen him/her I'm overcome with love for this little baby. I can't explain it, and it feels like such a cliche, but my entire world has just got 5.5cm bigger!

The Best Gift in the World

I literally can't believe it! I woke up early and went straight to the bathroom to test. I wear my contact lenses to bed, and when I get up, I'm bleary eyed for a moment until the sleep clears. But today I wasn't prepared to wait. I took the test and headed into the lounge, turned the TV on and waited. I looked at the test before the allotted time, and still bleary eyed, I saw the line emerging. I frowned, thought nothing of it; my contact lenses must be dirty.

But looking back at it, the line was there, plain to see. I couldn't believe it; I couldn't be that lucky...


Well, I didn't wait until the evening to tell Hubby, because I couldn't hold in my joy. I was jumping around the lounge squealing; I had to tell someone. I boiled the kettle and poured him a coffee in a mug decorated with lots of "No 1 Daddy" script, (after all, 8am is too early for beer...) and went to wake him up...

Me: "Honey, honey, wake up"
Him: "Mmph, go away"
Me: "Do you want some coffee?"
Him: "No, leave me alone" (he's not a morning person)
Me: "No, I think you want this coffee, it's in a special mug!"
He opened his eyes, looked at it and laughed slightly, closing them again and trying to go back to sleep. He thought I was being silly.
Me: "no, you don't understand", and waved the test around in front of his face.
He looked at it, frowned and sighed. "I need to pee".
Me: "is that all you can say?"
Him: "I need a pee!"

I wait in the lounge, he comes in and looks at the test again, this time comparing it with the diagrams on the box. He too realises it's a positive. He shrugs, "well, I had no doubt; I am amazing", and then he smirks and tells me his coffee isn't strong enough. Well, not after that shock, no

Yeah, he's not a morning person, but when I left he was smiling, so that's a good sign!

Good News!

I have two bits of good news to share today.

I mentioned in May that there may have been an offer for a house in Hubby's Homeland, but that we wouldn't know for certain for a few weeks. Well, weeks turned to months, and we had almost given up on the idea until yesterday. The house is ours whenever we're ready to move over there. The conditions are different to what they were, in that we won't be buying the house, but renting it from my father-in-law. It's only a one badroom apartment though, so we would only need it while our first child is young enough to sleep in with us; and afterwards, we can look for something else.

It's such a weight off my mind. I don't know about you, but I've spent my adult years struggling just to make it through to the next pay day. I see friends buying houses and I wish I could be like them, but the reality is we've never made enough money to be able to put anything into savings, and the money we spend on rent is effectively money down the drain. But even before the recession it was near impossible for us to get a mortgage, even though the payments would be less than our rent.

Anyway, I'm not the only person in this situation, and I'm sure that if you're not in the boat; you know someone who is. But we're now lucky enough to have been offered a get-out clause, and it pretty much changes everything, and it means we can start thinking about the family we want to start so much.

Which leads me onto my next piece of news...

I don't know what the etiquette is on this one, but Hubby and I have agreed to start trying for a baby on our honeymoon. I'm so excited! I've been broody for so long now, and it finally seems that things are working in our favour.

Now that we're married, and now that the house is agreed; it just seems like the right time to be thinking about children. So we've set the start of our Hawaiian honeymoon as the point at which we start trying to conceive.

I know I'm jumping the gun here, but if it happens straight away, we could be parents in June. I'm not naïve, I know it might take a while, and I know we may face problems - My mother had trouble conceiving, and went through lengths just to have my brother; so she's always made it known that I might have trouble too. But they never did tests on me, so I won't know until we start actively trying to conceive. I think that's part of the reason we're not holding out much longer to have children... that and the fact that Hubby wants them before he's 30 (in 2011).

So we have six weeks to go, and I'm going to take this opportunity to get my body into shape for then. I'm going to concentrate on my diet and getting to my goal weight, and then it will just be a case of toning up and eating healthily. I've been taking pre-natal vitamins for about a month already. I just need to start reading up on the science of it all...

Phew - getting married, travelling further than I've ever been before, getting a house and trying for a baby... 2009's turning into a great year for us.

The Best Weekend EVER!

Where to start?! I haven't posted in 6 days, so I guess in order to update you; I'm going to need to start at the beginning.

Thursday and Friday were spent in a bit of a blur. I caught an awful cough and cold, and was like the living dead towards the end of the working week. I was sitting at my desk like a zombie, but unable to take time off sick. But my runny nose was more or less gone by Saturday (that's the kind of sickness I like!), leaving only a silly throaty cough behind, which I'm still trying to fight off. I suppose the good thing though is that I now have a husky voice, haha!

But the weekend is the thing I wanted to update you on the most. I've been so busy, but had such a nice time, and we received some incredible news - which I shall keep until the end.

I took the train to my dad’s house on Saturday morning, in time for a second hair consultation with a second stylist. This guy has been recommended to me, and he's been a stylist for over 30 years; so I had more faith in this consultation than I had in the first. He was running late, so he had to see to me in between his other clients, meaning it took over two hours to get the consultation.

He started off by suggesting hot rollers in a bid to get some nice curls going in my hair. My hair is naturally curly, but they’re quite small curls, and not very pronounced. So I was sat under one of those helmet-like blow dryers (and actually my head was being burned to a crisp, leaving me with a burnt forehead for a couple of hours!), only to find that the curls didn’t take. In the end he blew dry it straight and tonged curls into it, pinning it up into what was the spitting image of the example I’d shown him.

He didn’t put any mousse or hairspray in it, but assured me he would put so much in it on the day; it wouldn’t come free. That’s what I like to hear! Unfortunately there was no time to get any photos, as he took the pins out straight away. I also didn’t have time to quibble, because now I was running late myself, and my poor dad had already been waiting for me for two hours. Anyway, I’m confident he can do it, and have booked him to do my hair on the wedding day.

On Saturday afternoon, I went into town with my dad to run an errand, and ended up spending four hours wandering around with him, which was really nice. We stopped for coffee, and he showed me a few hidden gems where we might be able to have wedding photos done. I loved being able to spend time with my dad; as it’s rarely possible these days. I actually remembered how alike we are, so it was really nice.

On Sunday I spent the day with him, my stepmum and little brother, and went back home that evening. The weather over the weekend was incredible; not a single cloud in the sky and sooo warm. The only negative was that when I’d packed my bag to go to my dad’s, I hadn’t packed any skirts/shorts, so I was going around in black trousers for two days: ouch!

When I got back on Sunday night, Hubby had the night off. He greeted me with huge enthusiasm to have a picnic the following day (a national holiday, during which he had also managed to get a day off). So we spent the evening talking about where we could go, what we could take, etc.

On Monday morning I woke to see that it was dreary and wet outside. Hmmm. Unfortunately one thing about living in England is that you can NEVER plan ahead on the weather. So we went for breakfast at a "greasy spoon" (if ever you visit England, you have to visit one).


Hubby and I seem to go for breakfast here whenever we have a day off together. Before you question this, we've only had about 3 days off together in the past year, so it's not often enough to increase anyone's cholesterol!

Then went into town and went to the cinema. We saw “Night at the Museum 2” and I thought it was even funnier than the first. However when we got back to the car, we found we’d been lumbered with a parking ticket! £25 lighter, and somewhat deflated; we headed home.

Nearly done, I promise…

When we got home, we received a call from Hubby’s mother in Hubby’s Homeland. Hubby’s step-grandmother (you following?) has been offered the chance to buy her flat from the government for an incredible £35,000 (about US$55,000). However, she doesn’t want it, so Hubby’s stepdad has offered to buy it initially, and sign the mortgage over to us afterwards (since we’re not blood related, we can’t buy it straight out ourselves).


Which means, if all goes to plan (i.e. if nobody blood-related wants the flat) we have a house ready for when we move over!!! The mortgage would be so low (about £180/US$280 per month), we could even afford to pay our current renting costs in the UK as well as the mortgage on the flat in Hubby’s Homeland.

The reason we can't go immediately is because we're already signed up to a leasing agreement, the wedding, the honeymoon, our jobs and my annual leave year, which finishes in January. If I leave before January, I have to pay money back to them to make up for the leave I'm taking for the honeymoon = not worth leaving until 2010. I also wanted to give my family a heads up and not leave straight away.

The flat is on the ground floor, and has only one bedroom, but it will be fine for the first couple of years at least. Even when we have a baby, it will be okay for the first year or so while the baby can sleep in our room, and then we can look into getting another place.

Eek, how exciting! It’s beyond belief. This stuff just doesn’t happen to us! We normally have such bad luck with everything house-related (being chucked out of numerous houses - not our fault I hasten to add, and having flatmates who stab us in the back); but here we are being offered such a good deal. It’s our key to having a family, and it seems to be coming together. I’m sooo happy :)

And one part of final news; I have my first dress fitting this afternoon. To save the dress from sitting in the car crumpled for seven hours, I’ve had to bring it to work with me today! Something I never thought I’d have to do, but I managed to sneak it through without many people seeing it, into a very rarely used little storage room.

Cue the music from "Mission: Impossible"...

Nobody Ever Warned Me About...

It occurred to me today that adulthood is never how you expect it to be. When you're a kid, you ache to be older, but when you are older, it seems childhood was so much easier. I never hated school, but I grew sick of writing essays about things that didn't interest me. I love being an adult... most of the time. But this morning I had to sign over 75% of my paycheque to rent, council tax, gas, electricity and water; and I found myself wishing I was back in school, being herded around by the teachers. It just seemed easier back then. So today, my post is going to be focused on "nobody ever warned me about..."

Nobody ever warned me about:

* Chocolate's tendency to camp out on my hips
* Credit cards, and the mess you can cause getting into debt (and the mess I'm still in)
* Relationships, and how they can hurt
* Friends betraying you
* Politics
* Stress in general
* Reaching a certain age and having to act responsibly (I must not have reached the magic number yet!)
* Having to spend four years working two jobs just to pay the rent

Then again, nobody ever told me about:

* How wonderfully amazing junk food can be when you reward yourself for being good
* How great shopping sprees feel (haha)
* How incredible it can feel to be in love with someone, and have them love you back
* How one good friendship can make up for all the false friendships in your life, and how that friend can help you through anything - if you let them
* How chuffed you can feel when you can get involved in a political conversation, and actually understand what they're saying
* How a massage can help relieve all your problems; if only for five minutes
* How good it can feel to cut loose and go crazy once in a while
* How you can meet the most amazing people through work, that they can be like a second family to you, and you can have such a blast that working 70 hours a week just doesn't even matter. You're tired, but you're having the time of your life

There's a positive and a negative to each point; and I've realised that finding the positive can make you feel so much better. I'm still working on trying to find a positive for my lack of money this month though, but hey; perhaps it will encourage me to diet, since I won't be able to afford food! Well; it's not that bad yet...

Hooray for Hubby!

I'm continuously surprised how fast a weekend can pass; and this weekend was one of those that you just don't seem to feel you've had. I'm back at work on this rainy Monday afternoon and wishing I was tucked up in bed watching reruns of "Friends".

Hubby has found himself a Sous Chef, so much to our relief, he will begin to have days off again in the next month or so. He's really worn out at the moment, so I'm glad he'll finally be able to relax a little, and have some time to himself.

We celebrated with a glass of Pimms (which, if you haven't tried yet; I strongly recommend). Anyway, it's been about 10 months since I made my last Pimms, and I accidentally made it too strong, meaning Hubby went off it completely. I'm hardly one to waste a good drink, so I revelled in being able to drink both, ha ha!

I emailed my stepmum yesterday, giving her the details of our wedding guest list. She's very intricate in the organisation, because we're having the reception at their house, so she wants to be able to sort everything out. She's asked to know final numbers, as well as approximate ages of everyone so that we can plan entertainment etc. It's all go, it seems. I've got to discuss flowers with my colleague, who has offered to help us, and I've got to go for a hair trail on 9th May.

This weekend I'm taking advantage of the bank holiday (Saturday-Monday) and going to Homeland #2. To aid you here; and for the sake of protecting identities:

* Homeland #1 is where I was born and raised (1/2 my heritage)
* Homeland #2 is where my mother was raised (1/4 of my heritage)
* Homeland #3 is where my grandmother grew up (1/4 of my heritage)

It's safe to say I'm a bit of a mongrel, but I'm proud of it. I have family in each country, so they will be mentioned a fair few times, which is why I thought I'd explain them now. We're going to meet up with family, and it will be my last trip abroad before the wedding; so when I get back I will need to surrender my current passport while I apply for a new one in my married name (very exciting!). However, it also means that I can't go to Hubby's Homeland until after the wedding, so if Hubby's grandfather doesn't make it, I won't be able to attend the funeral. It's funny how they penalise you for getting married...

Anyway; here's to another week. It's set to be a busy one, which is good, but it means there's less time to daydream!