Anniversary & Baby Moon

Lawyer and I decided that to mark our 4th Wedding Anniversary and celebrate our impending leap into parenthood that we’d get away and have some pampering. We got away to a fantastic little gay friendly B&B in the middle of the wine region that also has a lot of good produce.

There are very few words to describe how relaxing it was to get away and do nothing much, so here are the photos.

Lunch at the Blessed Cheese cafe, corn fritters and a spinach and feta tart.

Warming our toes by the open log fire

Spa bath with sparkling dark grape juice

Looking out at the Alexandrina Cheese Co and all their cows

Lunch at the Cheese Co with some Gouda with caraway seeds, Cheddar, Feta and some pickled items

At the breakfast table in our room

26 week belly

And I’ve updated the belly shots and a few more Emby scan photos over on the Photographic Timeline page.

 

Busy

I feel like I’ve been such a bad blogger. It’s been over a week since my last post, but life has just been so busy. I’ve got some half started posts sitting waiting for me to find time to finish them and hit post.

We’re finally getting our bathroom renovated. It’s been needed ever since we moved in and last Wednesday the tiles finally came up. We’ve been showering at my parents place, and the last two nights we’ve been glad that we have a big backyard, because we’ve been without a toilet and have had try and use our work facilities where possible, or a dig in the back yard.

I got a small pay rise, which couldn’t have come at a better time. Although I’ve finally set my last work date and I’m surprised by how soon it is. June 10th and I’m on maternity leave for 12 months!

Roller Derby, more roller derby, and a bit more. This year’s season is condensed down so much that the grand final is 4 days before my due date. Which means that even thought we’re just at half way through the season, we’ve got 14 weeks left until the finals. But having a few nights at the training venue when I’m not needed means that I can go for a swim with the other preggo derby girls. From the 4 of us there is one boy, one girl, one not finding out and us.

I got a cold the other week which made me miserable as all hell, and left me with a wracking cough that finally had me turning to the pharmacy for something safe to ease it. Lawyer got it 4 days after me, so we’ve both been off work at various times.

There was a big baby expo that Lawyer and I spent two days investigating. We took my mum along on the first day and I’m so glad we did. We all learnt a lot of things and mum got a lot of information on how much things have changed since I was a baby. We spent a bit of time getting some information about vaccinations and how important it is for close relatives (grandparents, aunties, etc) to be vaccinated against whooping-cough. Along with the free samples (6 disposable nappies, a bag full of breast pads and some creams)  we got a lot of information to digest on cloth nappies, breast pumps, car seats, prams, and playgroups. The second day we went back on our own and bought an electric breast pump, spent some time talking to a breastfeeding counsellor on Lawyer being able to breastfeed too (I think it’s fantastic that we’ll hopefully both get to option to feed), and a few cloth nappies. We now have a few more things to add to the cot and the random clothes we have.

But the best part of the last few weeks has been organising tomorrow. It’s our 4 year wedding anniversary, and we’re getting away for an extended weekend baby moon and anniversary celebration. Massages, spa bath, log fire and great local food. I can’t wait to put my feet up!

 

Another Milestone

Today we hit 24 weeks, which means that should the worst happen and I go into labour Emby will receive medical care and has half a hope of surviving. Not that I’ve had any signs of labour, or even Braxton Hicks contractions yet, but it’s good to know that we’ve passed another milestone and are getting closer to our little baby being born.

And with that we get another OB’s appointment and hopefully another lot of scan photos. I’ll edit them into this post this evening.

Emby seems fine and healthy, with lots of kicking. However I’ve come down with some kind of cold/sore throat that has me off work today, lying back with the cat on my belly watching TV. Emby also hasn’t been liking the coughing, which means after a coughing fit and I’m trying to recover my breath, I’m getting rocked from the inside by my little tennant telling me to cut it out. Cute, but not helpful!

 

Bedtime Routine

Lawyer and I are developing a bit of a bedtime routine with Emby now. Just as I lay down on the bed, I start feeling a little bit of a rumble in my stomach, and we’ll lie on the bed together with my hand on my stomach waiting for a kick or two. Lawyer will get close to my belly and starting talking or singing to it (I’m not sure if this also helps wake him/her up, but it’s really cute).

Last week when holding my belly and asking ‘did you feel that?’ Lawyer actually felt a flutter or a bit of a roll of something under her hand. But last night she got a few strong whacks to the hand, unmistakable as a kick and we’re both laughing and grinning at how strong our baby is getting. Not as much fun when I’m at work and someone is tap dancing on my bladder and I’m wondering if I should run to the toilet just in case!

Last Thursday we also had our first prenatal class at the hospital. It was an early pregnancy class, so not so much on the labour and scary side of things, but more on enjoying pregnancy, nesting and buying stuff, and a reminder about pelvic floor muscles. I learnt that 70% of repair work done could be avoided by doing pelvic floor exercises. Even writing this reminded me to do them again.

As we bought a cot last week, which is the first piece of big baby furniture we’ve bought. We realised that while a big co-sleeper cot would be nice, we could probably get away with having the smaller portable one we can put against the bed for the first few months, and take with us when travelling to visit Lawyer’s family, and also have a nursery cot. Perfect timing to go to Ikea and discover that the baby cot we’ve been mooning over for the last two years is on clearance at half price!!! Saturday we hope to get stuck into the nursery, pull out the single bed and mattress, pack it away in the garage for a few years and start trying to work out how we’re going to make this baby room work.

Been meaning to get back on track with our photographic timeline. About 7 weeks out now, so here’s a quick update of my belly shot.

20 Weeks

 

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Boy or Girl?

Saturday we finally get to have our big anatomy scan. Lawyer is really excited that we finally get to find out the sex of Emby, I’m not too fussed, I just want to have a look see again and make sure he/she is doing okay.

Actually it will be good to know the sex just so we don’t have to keep saying he/she. We’d started defaulting to saying he because its easier and we have a feeling it’s a boy. Of course this made my mum paranoid that we knew the sex and weren’t telling her.

We’ve done some of the usual tests to find out if we’re having a boy or girl. Here’s what we’ve got so far, tell us what you think we’re having:

Boy

• We bought a pink bouncer from a Second Hand store
• Lots of hiccups
• Active baby
• Nauseous but I never threw up

Girl

• I still have pimples
• Chinese gender chart
• Heart rate above 140

Undecided

• Wedding ring test swung side to side in circles

 

 

We’re the Parents

I love our knitting group. They are a fantastic group of women who have become people I would consider friends. We meet up once a week at a local cafe in the city centre for dinner, drinks and to sit and knit. Lawyer and I are by no means the youngest, and the oldest in the groups is um… possibly around mid 40s. It’s not an old nannas group sitting around complaining of the youngsters of today while making doilies and coat hanger covers.

Lawyer and I have always been open about who we are and everyone has been really supportive, a few came along to our wedding and one new person who started talking politics and saying how gay marriage should not be a priority was very quickly made feel she wasn’t welcome back by the rest of the group. They’ve known for a while we’ve been on the baby making journey and were very excited when we were finally able to tell them we’re pregnant.

To understand this tale a bit better, Lawyer and I are not gifted with great height. I’m 161cm and Lawyer 163cm. The other week we were talking about the baby and some of the scans we’d had. Lawyer mentioned how during the scans the OB told us Emby had very long legs. One of the ladies looked at both of us and asked “where would the baby get that height from given both of your heights?” It wasn’t until we mentioned that our donor is quite tall that they remembered that genetically there is another person involved. I love how these friends see that this child is truly Lawyer’s and mine.  I hope they realise we think that it’s a fantastic mistake they made.

 

Overalls made from Lawyer's handspun yarn- made by Lawyer

Top with the logo of Lawyer's football team- made by Lawyer

Rainbow jacket- made by Geek

A new friend for Blaze made by one of the girls from Roller Derby

 

 

 

Labour- The Soundtrack

So I’m stuck here on my own working the late shift again. The last phone call was an hour ago and I’m not expecting another during the last two hours. I’m getting paid to catch up on paperwork, read news and tech websites, and use my phone to access Facebook. Okay, I should be working, but I’ve run out of things to do.

This afternoon I decided to go through my MP3 player and look for suitable songs for labour. Lawyer was reading one of my pregnancy magazines I’d left beside the toilet and laughing at a dad who was advising to check the music selection before going to hospital, otherwise you may end up listening to hip hop with inappropriate lyrics at the wrong time.

So far all I’ve come up with is Muse and Jose Gonzalez. I might get a few 80s power ballads for earlier on, since we love listening to some of the dodgy offerings from that decade. Some of Ani DiFranco’s slower music might be good, although prehaps not the songs with f**k or c**t in the lyrics 😉

Help me break the boredom of another slow afternoon and give me some musical suggestions.

 

Movement

I think I felt Emby last night and it was so cool. I was laying on my back for a moment and I had my hand on my belly trying to work out where my uterus was and how high. I pressed down a little and felt something that felt a bit like gas, but didn’t roll around my stomach or shift position like gas normally does. This went on for about a minute or so. Of course the feeling is so delicate and fine that other movement in the bed from when I told Lawyer (who got really excited- she’s so sweet) meant I lost the feeling and had to wait for her to be still again before I could find it again. After the excitement died down and we settled back to sleep I told Lawyer that it must have been Emby because I still hadn’t farted yet 😉

One thing I’ve noticed so far with pregnancy is that its all about the bodily functions. Every doctor I see what’s to ask me about my bladder and my bowels (even the physio!) But even when talking to the other preggo girls at Roller Derby (there are 3 others joining me on the sidelines so far) we discuss how many times a night we have to pee, talk about our gas (okay, the whole league is very open about women burping and farting in public- it’s very refreshing) and discuss the best way to get rid of constipation. Last week I had the worst constipation, and got to the point of posting about it on facebook. Everyone had a solution or a story to share. I guess there is no limit to decency. For me I found that powdered fibre drink, and then eating half a packet of prunes got things moving again!

Although the constipation is probably related to me not having much of an apetitite. Normally I want to eat anything I can, food is my constant friend, and with a nice metabolism I can pack it away. But ever since I got pregnant and the morning sickness has cleared I haven’t really wanted to eat. Some days I’m hungry, but most of the time I don’t know what I want to eat and end up forcing myself to eat something. But when I do think of food the one thing that I’ve constantly been thinking about is Asian food. Spring rolls, dumplings, noodles loaded with vegetables, fried rice and rice paper rolls. Lawyer and I went to the most fantastic little Vietnamese restaurant around the corner from Roller Derby training and the smells and the foods bought me back to primary school, where there were at least 5-8 vietnamese children in each year level, and their parents always made the best food for our school fetes. My stomach wants to go back again. In the  mean time I’ve learnt how to make gyozas and gone through a packet of wonton wrappers already.

As promised I’ve got some photos too. I finally set up my scanner and old laptop (I’m too cheap to buy a new scanner when the old one works with my Windows 98 laptop) and scanned in all the US photos. I’ve updated the Photographic Timeline page too with belly shots.

Emby 14 weeks and sucking his/her thumb

16 Weeks

And with Lawyer’s sister turning up soon for a visit we had to clean up the guest room for it to be used the last time as a guest room before it becomes a nursery. Of course all the cute little outfits we’ve made so far got photographed and packed into a box. Here are just some of them (we are creating a whole wardrobe for our winter baby):

Jenny Dolly modelling the Zebra baby jacket- made by Lawyer

Gumnut beanie made from hand dyed wool- made by Geek

Bunny Baby Onesie- made by Lawyer

Baby Kicking Sack- made by Geek

 

Hello Second Trimester

Made it through the first 12 weeks. Awaiting appetite and energy levels to return to normal!

13 Week Belly