Master Oh Waily's Arrival

"Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear."
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

That's the idea anyway.  Or so the Emperor would have us believe.
I'm hoping he's right.

I am now testing my mettle in the world of parenting multiple children.  Are my knees quaking at the thought of entire days where I juggle the needs of my bright, beautiful toddler daughter and my sweet, relaxed, new baby boy?

"Oh yes !", as my lovely little daughter has taken to saying.

Still, I'm sure it won't be all that bad.  Other people do it, and some of them with more than two kids.  Good grief, what is there to be afraid of?
Perhaps it's the ability of my dear toddler to wander off to any room in the house and potentially create varying forms of havoc on unsuspecting walls with her marker pens, crayons or chalk.  Thankfully the chalk masterpieces that have previously adorned our various walls have been very easily removed from display.  We have yet to witness similar marker or crayon art, but I suspect it is only a matter of time and inclination.

In the meantime, what has Master Oh Waily's arrival meant for the Oh Waily family?

The main change has been sleep.  Everyone's ability to get some, the quality of it and the longevity of it.

The OWW parents are living in the land of sleep deprivation and are currently working on an evil master plan to counteract that particular side-effect of having a new infant in the house.  Currently it mostly revolves around the toddler and the timeshare use of a grandparent and spare bedroom.

The most obvious change for Miss Oh Waily has been the alterations in her normally good sleep pattern.
Perhaps the disappearance of Mum & Dad in the middle of the night* and the non-appearance of Mum for a couple of days** spooked young Miss Oh Waily.  We no longer seem to have a happy-to-go-to-bed daughter and have received a stupendous number of "curtain calls" some nights before she finally gives in and falls asleep.  That would, in itself, be almost livable but for the fact that during Master Oh Waily's first two weeks she also made an irregular habit of waking up some time around 2am and doing the same sort of thing - only instead of going back to the living room it became our bedroom.
Fortunately over the last week and a bit (fingers crossed, touch wood, throw that pinch of salt over the shoulder...) she seems to have settled out of the middle-of-the-night visits and the evening curtain calls have become intermittent.

I'm just hazarding a guess, but I am inclined to put this down to the often touted "regression" that toddlers go through when a new member of the family arrives.  On top of that Miss Oh Waily appears to have been cutting all four of her back molars during this time - and that's also interfering with her usually lovely temper.

Other than that, Ms Oh Waily is learning that she needs to add at least another half an hour to her prep-them-to-go-out-anywhere time.  And even that may be a tad close when attempting to make an appointment time.
She also notes that there are only two choices with regards to everything else that isn't directly baby or toddler related - you either keep working while the children are having synchronised sleeps until "stuff" is done, including using that precious little amount of time that belongs to you to wash the poopy nappies, or; you ignore it.   Personally I find I can ignore quite a bit of stuff, for quite a bit of time.  Then I find that ignoring it for quite a bit of time makes it even harder to catch up with and worse yet, to live with.  So ignoring it is now a non-option in Ms Oh Waily's daily life.
What that means in practice is - this blog entry is going be an even rarer species than it's stablemates already are (unless my non-ignorance of "stuff" means I catch up and overtake myself); my "fun" reading time is cut to about 30 minutes once a week; my eyes occasionally take on the look of a panda's and I may tragically find myself becoming a Mummy-Bore***.

As a result of this alteration in my daily life a little part of me is looking forward to and admiring this stage of motherhood where reading books while drinking good coffee is a possibility.  I am particularly relishing the opportunity to indulge in such glorious in-and-on-the-bed reading sessions with both of my kids.  Little Miss has had some of that - Hairy Maclary surely counts as much as Harry Potter for a toddler. ;-)
This has to be the ultimate in family time.

So the upshot is - we're tired, but we're adjusting and getting used to the new rhythm of our family life.
And yes, I will become a bit of a Mummy-Bore with my blog entries.  Mostly because I don't get enough reading time.  Honest.

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* why did both of my children decide that getting down to the nitty-gritty of arrival should occur some time between midnight and sunrise ??
** despite visits to Birthcare (the very nice place our actual hospital shunts you off to within 3-4 hours of giving birth, complicated or caesarian births excluded) to see Mum and new baby.
*** these are the women you previously crossed the road to avoid.  No conversation can be held about anything except children - their children specifically, and just how great they are and what they are doing that will astound and amaze you. ;-)

Master OhWaily joins the Family

Just a quick note that Master OhWaily joined our family on Tuesday 1st September, at 8:06 am.

It was a lovely spring morning, and he was greeted by the sunrise over Rangitoto.  Yes, we had a delivery room with a view.
We have been getting to know each other this week, and big sister has been happily giving out kisses and cuddles as she feels like it.

However, after having two and a bit weeks of home help in the form of my Mum, I am about to move on to the fraught* topic of juggling a hugely energetic toddler who requires much attention with the needs of a newborn and his, primarily, hunger.

* credit goes to "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" and Rabbit for re-introducing the word fraught into my lexicon.

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The silence is broken

Where has the time gone?
Sorry to have deserted you all for the past couple of months.

I have two months of books to write about and I have also started the intermittent cross stitching once again so there will be pictures as well. But the main news to share, and one of the reasons for the prolonged absence, is that we will be having a Master Oh Waily joining the Oh Waily family later this year.

Anyone with more than one child in the family is welcome to send advice on coping with multiple menaces and sleep deprivation. :shock:

Now that this mini announcement is done, I will work on contributing actual content to the blog.  So if you will excuse me I will move on to the book review posts.
[Shuffles off to open MindManager as an ever-increasingly needed memory aide.]

Mother's Memory Aides

A little while ago I mentioned that I would post about some simple memory aides for the sleep-deprived and memory challenged new mother. Well here you go, take a look and see what you think.

The first of these is for pre-natal use and is very basic.

It's the Kick Chart recorder.

Then there is the newborn feeding and sleeping recorder.
If you aren't planning on using a bracelet or similar as a memory aide for breastfeeding, this may be a useful alternative. I have put in an imaginary entry at the top for you to see how I would use the form.

The originals of each of these were created in MS Excel, but WP doesn't support the format. If you are so inclined, drop me an email and I can send through the spreadsheet for you to alter as you see fit.

My experience.
I found recording feeding times, lengths and sleeping times to be extremely useful for when our midwife asked about the baby's patterns. Prior to writing things down I was pretty much guessing at what we were actually doing. So it should be no surprise that as soon as Miss OWW had a week of next-to-no weight gain shortly after joining us I began to write everything down. It gave very quick clarity to the fact that she was sleeping for long periods and therefore was not feeding as often as she needed to for optimal growth.

There is no need to panic about these things, but being forearmed allows you to see clearly and without the memory haze that can accompany a new baby. It also allows for patterns to be viewed clearly and for you to track alterations in behaviour that may be the cause of difficulties. While I never needed to show my scribblings to our midwife, I always had them available for her expert eye if things had not improved.

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If you have other resources or links to similar ideas or a story to share, please feel free to leave a comment.

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The Power of the Pram

Let me introduce you to one of my pet peeves.

I hate walking in crowded or semi-crowded areas. Places like busy shopping malls or shopping streets are the bane of my life. If I want to get anything new to wear or to purchase gifts, then I grit my teeth and ready my "Om" mantra for the journey.

What do I hate about these areas, you ask?

My fellow pedestrians.

Or to be more accurate, the local chapter of "MeFirstites".
I'm sure you know who I mean. These are the shoppers who appear to have an unshakeable belief that they have full rights to the footpath and that you should step aside for them. They also appear in groups, sometimes two or three wide ensuring that the only place left for walking is going to be the shop doorway or the road.

You may now be asking yourself why I feel the need to mention this peeve.
Well, I've spent the last nine months being pregnant. Towards the end I figured that the fat belly would be an indication to other pedestrians that I was an expectant mother. I was rather hopeful that having the extra passenger on board would mean that there would be a improvement in the MeFirstites vision and that I would no longer have to engage in repeated speedy sideways shuffles.
As it turns out, pregnancy matters not a jot to the MeFirstites.

I have spoken about manners before, or rather the lack of them, so this whole dodgems thing is just another one of those things that gets my goat as a manners freak.

The question that this lack of awareness of pregnant women walking down the road raises for me, and it has only been raised over the past two days, is why does pushing a pram make a difference to people?

We have taken a stroll down to our local shopping street two days in a row now. This is to enable me to get out of the house and get a bit of very gentle exercise.
We have two roundabouts along the main street, neither of which has a pedestrian crossing anywhere within 500 metres. They have little traffic islands on each entry road into which pedestrians can walk and huddle for protection as they attempt to cross the roads.

These streets are reasonably busy, as both roundabouts link to commercial areas or lead to a motorway on/off ramp. Normally it takes a bit of timing and patience to cross, since Auckland drivers are not known for their courtesy or care.
Apparently waving a green pram in front of them does something strange to even the most die hard of Auckland drivers. I kid you not. I feel that someone at a university should set up a study about this phenomenon. Green Pram = Brain Explosions in Auckland Drivers.

What do the drivers do that is so unusual?

They stop.

Yes. I said, they stop.

In the middle of the roundabout.

With traffic behind them.

With traffic waiting for them to move on through.

With no regard whatsoever for the other road users who might not have Green Pram visions.

Personally I think they're all mad. It's not like I'm standing there waving them down or anything. Is it possible that green prams work on driver's brains in the same way as waving a red cape at a bull works for a Matador?
Mr OhWaily doesn't care, he thinks that it's a bloody good thing and that we should take advantage of it at all opportunities. In fact, he has mentioned that it does seem a shame that we did not know that this was the case earlier. Somehow he feels we could have been pushing the Green Pram around with a soft toy (or the grocery shopping) for some time and gaining all of these unexpected benefits. Yes, I can see us now...

Innocent Bystander: "Oh, how lovely, do you have a boy or a girl?"
Mr OhWaily: "Actually it's a pound of steak, but a great traffic stopper, thanks."

I have no idea why this works, but it does. And it goes some way to making up for my pregnant pedestrian dodgems, so all I can say to you is...

"Beware the Power of the Pram."

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P.S.

The Green Pram also seems to bring out the best manners in prepubescent boys riding scooters. They appear to remember that scootering through people in a narrow space is not in the spirit of Good Manners. Now if only I could bottle this phenomenon, I'm sure I could become a millionaire.

Miss OhWaily joins the Family

Just a quick note that Miss OhWaily joined our family on Friday 17th August, at 7:35am in the morning.

We have been having a week of getting to know each other, and have only just arrived home from the hospital/Birthcare yesterday afternoon.
When I get the hang of the eating and sleeping routines, I will try to stop by and bring you up to date.

In the meantime here is an early photograph of the young madam.

Patience is a Virtue

Or so they tell me.

Maybe I'm getting to be a bit more virtuous under the guidance of the youngest member of the OhWaily family. You know, the one who hasn't actually been born yet.

In her defence, her due date was only yesterday, and we all know that small children have an entirely separate system of time and space from the rest of us. And I do know that the 40 week thing is a *guideline*. Still, after 40 weeks things do start to wear thin.

Mr OhWaily would just like to actually meet her, so he is impatient. Personally, I'd like to get more than an hour between bathroom visits at night and perhaps not have heartburn anymore too. But like your mother always told you: "You don't always get everything you want in life." So here I am, semi-patiently waiting for Miss OhWaily's Grand Entrance. I have to wonder if I have made life indoors just too comfortable for her.

Just so you know, I will be away from internet access for a little bit over a week once the Grand Entrance has been staged. After that, who knows when I will have enough matchsticks available to keep my eyes open long enough to type another entry. So, please be patient, I will return and no doubt with a few stories to tell. I promise no gory stories, honest. ;)

The Baby: Insomnia

Ouch, here's a statistic to give you nightmares.

78% of women suffer from some form of insomnia while pregnant.
Personally I have had issues with all four versions of insomnia listed in this article, but the main one for me has been number two on the list:

• Waking up frequently during the night

As you would expect, insomnia was much harder to deal with while I was still at work. The three o'clock blood sugar plunge became a large chasm to fall down that had little or nothing to do with my daily diet. It was becoming a little ridiculous towards the end. I took at least one day off mid-week, just to catch up on the lack of sleep that had been taking its toll for the previous seven days. Boy, did I feel better for it and my ability to do a full day of work returned too.

As I have finished work now it has become less of an issue for me. If I don't manage to sleep through the night it doesn't matter, as I can sleep as late into the morning as my body wants to. No alarms to wait for, and even the other half getting up for work is only a minor blip in my otherwise warm morning oblivion of sleep.

I have tried, and still use, the relaxing routine idea that is often recommended for settling young babies. I run a warm bath, have a hot milky drink, sit in bed and read for a while (actually this usually includes doing at least one crossword to completion) and then, when I am feeling appropriately sleepy, turning the light off and drifting off to sleep.

To a greater or lesser extent this works for nodding off.
Around midnight or 1 a.m. and all the routine in the world makes no difference. I'm awake, and I'm taking a trip to the bathroom. If I'm really lucky and it is a good night, this will only be a 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. ritual. If I'm not, then this could go on the hour, every hour for four hours in a row.

Good nights, at the moment, involve a final trip between 2 and 3 a.m., followed by a glorious three to four hour sleep.

That three to four hour stretch seems to be enough to keep me sane most days. Any less than that and I am the archetypal haggard pregnant woman. Jobs around the house get ignored, small tasks are magnified into the proverbial mountains, and the general impression you would get if you visited me would be one of a walking zombie.
I now completely understand how it is possible to end up suffering as one of the 10 - 15% of women with post-natal depression. As this article indicates, it can be tough to see the wood for the trees:

"A lot of the early symptoms of depression can be very similar to those of sleep deprivation, which we know is very normal in early mothering, in early parenting," says parenting expert Jane Barry.

I'm fairly certain that if I end up living on four or five hours sleep a day I could see myself heading down this path too. Scary thought, possum.

The Baby: 36 week update

We met our midwife's practice partner about a fortnight ago, just on the off chance she has the on-duty weekend around the time that our Miss is due to arrive.
It is fair to say that there is a considerable difference in personality and approach.

Our midwife, Sue, is bubbly, perky, positive, funny and chirpy to a point just short of nutty. Her partner, Jocelyn, is subdued, quiet, and softly spoken. She also appears to be more cautious and not averse to using the technology available.

Jocelyn suggested we have a presentation scan this week after she had palpated for the baby. Her words were: "I'm not saying its breech, but..." and a little later..."if the baby is breech, you will be able to have a caesarean courtesy of the New Zealand government."
No. Those are not the words to say to someone just over a month out from the arrival of their first child, who has been diligently trying to encourage not only a head-down arrival, but a baby that takes up the OFP. (See my previous entry regarding this.)

Sue had already, about a month or two earlier, palpated and suggested that Miss OhWaily was already head down in the left-sided anterior position. But that didn't stop me worrying about the possibility that she had sneakily moved herself around and was now head butting my ribcage instead of sticking me with her knees and feet.

We caught up with Sue on Friday for our regular appointment, and she was surprised that we were being sent for a scan. When she palpated, her assessment was "definitely head down, spine on the left and she has begun to descend".
Apparently babies heads have a distinct shape, whereas their bums don't; and that it is not too difficult to tell which is which once they are this big.

Anyway, on Tuesday morning we headed off to the ultrasound people and prepared to see what we would see. Personally I was feeling a lot more heartened after Sue's prediction of her position.

The results were great.

• Head down


• Spine on the left


• Key indicators are right on the average for her gestation

For those who like numbers, here are the important ones:

Approximate weight is 2919 grams (just under 6.5 lbs).
Head diameter was about 9 cm.

Staying At Home

I am currently on Day Two of my new life.
That is - a life away from the workplace.

It has been on my mind for some time what this was going to be like. Would my mind be turned to mush by the company of two dogs and (eventually) a small baby?

Well so far I have:

• WOF-ed the car;


• Cleaned the car (actually to be fair, I took it to Car-fe and they cleaned it while I had a coffee and magazine read);


• Went to the library (such luxury mid-day) for yet more books about babies and the general back-up moral support of reading material;


• Slept;


• Have done the week's grocery shopping;


• Dropped off a whole load of old clothes to the local Thrift Shop;


• Slept some more;


• Attempted briefly to watch daytime television and managed about a whole two minutes of channel flicking;


• Have done half a week's laundry (in the midst of some nasty wet weather);


• Have begun blogging about this whole process of change.

So, while it may not be high finance or business cut and thrust, it is fair to say that my days are not completely empty and barren of things to do.

In preparation for this transition I have been reading an interesting book I found in the library a few weeks ago. It is The Smart Woman's Guide to Staying at Home.

I am enjoying the read so far. The author has some interesting, and useful, advice for the transition from "working woman" to "housewife".

Yes, I know, I used the H-word. Never in a million years did I picture myself going down this path. However, in saying that, I do find the ego's need to flash up the title a bit ridiculous. After all, domestic engineer, domestic manager, domestic executive all smack a little bit too much of ouch my ego has just been flushed down the dunny and I need a quick fix title to plunger it back up to some level of respectability.

I am also not fond of the interweb's standard shorthand for the H-word, that of SAHM. It seems to suggest that you are hiding stuff from all but those in the internet know. SAHM, for those who aren't in the know = Stay At Home Mom (usually an American idiom in my experience).

What I am finally getting around to is, what do you call yourself in a society that places a fair amount of pressure on its citizens to have an identity linked to their working life?
In some people's estimation I have taken a backward step off the ladder of purpose and meaning (work) in order to revert to pre-feminist days when the wife stayed home and the husband went out to earn the family's income.

I am not even taking the compromise road of having it all, by remaining at work in my guise as Superwoman.
For a while there I did think that I might look good in red lycra pyjamas, with baby in one hand and Palm Pilot in the other. But as I've taken a longer look in the mirror, it seems to me that no one needs to see me in skin-tight lycra and that perhaps there are mists of propaganda surrounding this ideal.
I am now thinking that "have it all" means "knacker yourself trying to be all things to all people with more stress than anyone actually needs in their lives and try to smile politely while having the associated nervous breakdown".

Blow me down, I do appear to be moving into the pre-emancipation role of Housewife without so much as a blink. That, of course, isn't quite true.
Like everyone else, I have vested ego in being a "[insert important job title]", and it takes a bit of wrestling with the part of you that doesn't really want to relinquish the social status that goes with saying "I'm a [very important title]".
However, I am through the other side of this wrestling match and have come to terms with my new title.

Here ends Day Two of life as a Housewife. ;-)

Movement Matters

It is the end of Week 32 of my 40 week journey.

Part of the things you learn about having a small, living human as a co-resident of your body is that they like to move just as much as you do. And when you get to the point where you can actually feel them moving about, it becomes of interest to note how often they are nudging, prodding, kicking and generally elbowing.

Specifically it becomes important that they are continuing to move. To make sure that they are, your midwife may provide a simple kick chart for you to note the 10 movements per day that seems to be the baseline measurement.

In our case there is very little chance of a mellow 10 movements per day.
Miss OhWaily is destined to be a sports person of some kind. We are debating whether it is likely to be tennis, golf or some sort of sport requiring great hand-foot co-ordination. Even with all this activity I thought I would do the kick chart to keep the midwife happy and for my own curiosity.

Not surprisingly the most activity seems to happen early in the morning or later in the evening when I am lying down and there is plenty of elbowing space.
During the day she makes her views known about the upright, working mother mode and chooses to show that through some serious foot-in-rib pushing combined with elbow prodding directly on or around the bladder. Apparently we are truly in competition for the space that I once fondly called my own insides.

I have chosen to rub, push and use the force of gravity to try and remove the offending foot and/or feet from my ribs. Sometimes it works, sometimes she is stubborn (must get that from her Dad - yeah right!) and keeps right on pushing.
I can vouch for the fact that it is not fun to have a baby stubbornly pressing their feet into your ribcage. It makes for tender spots and constant aches.
Fortunately Miss OhWaily appears to have shuffled into a new position and has become much less inclined to express her need for space through vertical stretching.

I made up my own chart for doing this as the one provided only covered the hours of 9 am to 9 pm and this didn't match my movement patterns. It's a simple thing to create in Excel, but as Wordpress only allows images or document files I have uploaded it as a table in a word document. Feel free to download it if it meets your needs.

OhWailyWaily's Kick Chart

Mother's Day

Mothers Day has long been and gone in this part of the world, (May 13th for those who need to know), and I am so far behind in my blogging that this post seems a little out of place.

But please bear with me as I do some overdue catching up with my commentary. This is just a little observation that I would like to share with you all.

Being an expectant person with only 8 weeks or so to go now I thought that perhaps I could share an idea with you all. Back in May, on Mother's Day, I was just coming up on 6 months pregnant. And yet, it would seem, I didn't qualify for the title "Mother".
Now, let me clarify a few things before I go on. The other half of the OhWailyWaily couple has been nothing less than superb, wonderful and amazing for the entire being pregnant time. Our families are wonderful, loving and caring people who would do anything for us and the about to arrive addition.

But they all shared one trait on this past Mother's Day - not one person recognized that being pregnant meant that I already considered myself to be a Mother. In fact a couple of small comments explicitly indicated at least one person clearly thought that until Miss OhWailyWaily is actually out on her own that I didn't qualify for the title!

Please remember, these are genuinely nice and caring people. Not one of them could be considered for the part of nasty in-law, nor annoying family member.

My personal view is that "you are pregnant, you are a mother". This may not be everyone's viewpoint, of course, but if you have a partner, wife, family member or friend who is at the beginning of motherhood (pregnant) when Mother's Day rolls around please take a little bit of time to acknowledge her.
If in doubt, I would say err on the side of celebrating her mothering achievements to date - surviving morning sickness, putting up with huge hormonal rushes that steal parts of the adult human brain, and generally putting a heck of a lot of effort into creating yet another little human life.

If you think there might be a little bit of sensitivity (and/or superstition) regarding celebrating her motherhood prior to the physical arrival of her child, then by all means go gently about having a conversation with her and what she would or wouldn't like you to do for Mother's Day. If she's not comfortable and doesn't share my opinion about being a mother, then go with that.
But for goodness sakes, don't presume and don't ignore it !

Personally I have had what I consider a very lucky experience to date, with only a bit of insomnia and acid reflux to make any real noise about. Many other mums-to-be may not have had it so good and a bit of cheer leading on Mother's Day may go a long way to help her keep feeling positive. For the rest of us lucky souls, it just feels like a validation of the work done to date and that we aren't actually a non-entity stuck somewhere between single-person-dom and motherhood.

Just something for you all to think about.

OFP - do you have an opinion?

OFP is something I have come across in my quest for greater knowledge about what will be happening to me in about 2 and a half months time.

The book Sit Up and Take Notice! by Pauline Scott was spotted in Epsom library the other day and I devoured it in one night. Now I am looking for feedback on the concepts that it promotes.

If you have personal or professional comments to make on the idea of Optimal Foetal Positioning, then I would really appreciate hearing them. My reason for asking is a purely selfish one - will this make labour quicker/easier/less stressful for me? And will it help to reduce undue stress on Miss OhWailyWaily too?

I'm not much of a hook or needle sort of person outside of my craft hobbies, so I'd really rather avoid the need for any of these (presumably) metallic instruments to be deployed during my daughter's debut.

So briefly, the idea is for the baby to be not only head down, but also in the anterior position to allow for the path of least resistance into the world. The best side being the left side, also.

It all seems to be fairly sensible, but then I don't have a medical background in human physiology. If it gives us a good start to the process, then I am all for encouraging a left-sided baby.

If I can transform myself into a side-lying sleeper to avoid the possibility of constricted blood flow, then I can certainly transform into a left-sided sleeper to encourage the young Miss to be a lefty. And if the statistical possibility of going from a 12-36 hour labour to a 2-12 hour labour is even remotely the case, I'm all for better sleeping and sitting positions over the remaining weeks.

Comments, if you have them, please. Thanks in advance.

Noah's Ark

This is the latest project into my life (as though I didn't have enough to be doing at the moment).
It is Teresa Wentzler's Noah's Ark.

I am hoping to alter it to become something of a birth sampler for Miss OhWailyWaily when she makes her debut appearance.
So far I have done this much of it...



And I keep thinking that I will have a few spare hours to spend on it, then find I have reading to do (schoolwork - yuk), an assignment to do, housework that needs to be addressed or some sleep to catch up on. And if I was to be brutally honest with you, about the only one of those alternative activities getting serious attention is the sleeping.

I guess there is always the idea that it can't be finished until she actually arrives anyway. I think that excuse might get a bit of mileage over the next little while. I'll keep you posted on progress or lack thereof.

A page for the baby

I have added a new page to the blog about baby stuff for those who may be interested.

I found a ticker for the countdown to arrival date for Miss Ohwailywaily that I like, so have put that on this page. It should update the count every day and the developmental details once a week.

As I have more *permanent* stuff to say, I will add it there.
So look out for comments and links to what we chose on the equipment front, and also some still images from the Anatomy scan DVD that we went to a few weeks back now.

Have you ever been a pincushion?

No?

Well you can't have been pregnant then!
Gush all you want at the concept of "oooh, the baby's kicking" until you have stray elbows, knees, feet, head and hands prodding, poking and generally stabbing at you from the inside. Then lets see how cutesy it is!

Okay, so it is cutesy. But not all the time and not just when you thought you had managed to get into a comfortable sleeping position.

For those first timers (like me) it becomes an interesting intellectual challenge to actually spot the first obvious movement. Was that gas? Is that just my lunch moving along?
Ooops, sorry. I should have warned you. Becoming pregnant has pretty much disintegrated any barrier to discussing bodily function, of any kind. I didn't think I'd end up being like this - can I blame the hormones please?

Anyway, back to the stray elbows...
Our first sighting of Miss OhWailyWaily was at about 12 to 13 weeks, where I christened her "Bounce". I know it's not a gushy motherly nickname for a baby, but it was very, very descriptive. When you are that tiny, with that much space, it is very easy to put on a miniature Cirque du Soleil performance for the ultrasound. And she did.
Now as space is getting tighter, she still feels the need to perform acrobatics while she can. Unfortunately for me this often occurs around bedtime, and she is apparently not quite as agile in a smaller environment - hence the elbow to my side and the foot to my bladder.

I am also becoming convinced that the odd poke and prod is designed specifically to get me to change my position so that she can have more room. Either that or she is practicing her trampoline routine using my insides for the purpose.

I am reliably informed that this will only get worse as she gets bigger. Oh Joy!
And, being the bookworm that I am, I have also read that an energetic baby can manage to crack your ribs with a well timed and placed kick.
Did I mention that Madam is energetic and proddy? Hmm, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my innards to make it through in one piece.

So the next time someone tells you their baby is kicking, feel free to be gushy but keep a faded and slightly ghostly image of the Alien trying to emerge from John Hurt's stomach in the back of your mind.

Welcome to the Motherhood !

;)

Life changes

I've been absent for a couple of months, but that hasn't meant a quiet life.
No, it hasn't been work that has taken over the chunk of my life that had been otherwise devoted to self-indulgence in trying out the blog experience.
It is something smaller, but immensely more important.

And now that we are officially half-way to completion, it seems fair enough to mention on a public blog.

There will be a little Ohwailywaily joining the family, and I am hoping that there will be no living up to her Mum's chosen nom de plume.

So if things remain a little quiet around here for a bit, you will at least know it is because big old life changes are happening that interfere with mere fun like this.

And maybe I will find enough interesting tidbits to set up a new category of entry, but I promise not to become a baby-bore !