Hels has now officially finished work. She has a little bit of holiday to use up, then her company’s Christmas holiday and then her official maternity leave begins – but, in effect, her maternity leave begins now.
Of course, once the baby arrives, there’ll be no shortage of things to do. But, in the meantime, she’s now engaged in some sort of phoney war preceding the onslaught of the nappy hordes. I give her three days before she is bored rigid.
UPDATE: three days? More like three hours!
To bring you up to date, in the last seven days:
…and I’ve been very busy with work and stuff, hence the continued quiet here.
Carry on.
Married life is one year old today.
If in the futre we live in a paperless society (yeh, right), will first anniversaries be bits or bytes?
I’m off to the Netherlands this afternoon to visit a trade show in Boskoop tomorrow. I’ve got a few meetings lined up with the great and good of European and American horticulture – a real encouragement to find that, after two and a half years of doing this, the biggest companies now make a point of talking to me at these events to see what I have to offer them. When I started out it was more a case of me banging on their doors and saying "hey! talk to me!"
My mum is coming over to keep H company. H is worried about being on her own whilst 18 weeks pregnant. I’m not sure that there is really anything to worry about, as the pregnancy has been running smoothly of late (just the usual tiredness to contend with and the fact that none of Hels’s clothes fit anymore), but if it reassures H then it’s fine by me.
Maybe H needs practical help looking after the cats. We’re cat-sitting for the in-laws at the moment, and it isn’t something that I plan to repeat as she (Kitty, the in-laws’ cat) persistently picks fights with Monty and Treacle who are so soft and mild-mannered that they don’t know what to do (other than be frightened).
I really should mow the lawn before I head to the airport. Nah, it can wait.
More exciting blog entries soon, kids! Blimey, this is getting boring, isn’t it? perhaps it’s time for another one of those long airport rambles?
…as well as providing wedding cake for a famous blogger and his wife.
Well, maybe not famous.
See…?
Today I took Hels to the hospital for a new scan and something called a Nuchal Translucency Test (which definitely merits capital letters). I won’t bore you with too many details about it, nor with another grainy black and white image of the baby (although we could clearly see the arms, legs and nose, as well as the spine, thigh bones and stomach). The test is for Down’s Syndrome and the result gives a probability for the baby suffering that condition. The starting point for a woman of Hels’s age is 1 in 131, but as a result of the test we now have the surprisingly precise figure of 1 in 704 which, apparently, makes her the equivalent of a woman ten years younger. Naturally this went down well with my wife. Anyway, the baby is considered to be at low risk of Down’s and no further testing for it will be required.
Amusingly, as the sonographer tried various angles with the scanner in order to get a clear image of the foetus, the Graysprog decided that he/she was definitely not happy with being pushed about and gave Hels a fairly hefty kick – which we could see clearly on the monitor. That was very cool indeed.
A few people have noticed that things have been generally quieter than normal in these parts lately. One friend even suggested that I was coming across as distracted.
In addition, I’ve alluded to a few sleepless nights that we’ve had lately.
I even had to turn down an invitation for drinks from the Uborka Two and will be writing to the Sevitz to say that we can’t fit into his bra. Or something.
Here’s why:
Hels and I are absolutely delighted to announce that we are to be parents, with a baby due in January. When we’re not being absolutely terrified, we’re smiling like loons. Not everything has run smoothly thus far, as we’ve had a couple of scary moments in the emergency ward at the local maternity unit (where the staff are splendid, I must add). But things seem to be running relatively smoothly at the moment, with just the usual nausea, tiredness and urges to vomit. And that’s just me.
More news as things progress, and feel free to kick me under the table if I turn into a baby bore.
And before you ask, we don’t know yet if we need blue or pink baby clothes. We do intend to find out when the time comes, but we’ll be keeping it to ourselves until the baby is born (and I’ll try ever-so-hard only to refer to "it" or "the baby" and not to "he" or "she". Or "Dave".)
Today is St George’s Day. It is also my wife’s birthday. So expect quiet here as we spend the day doing birthday things.
I’ve been married for exactly six months today. By a strange coincidence, the woman I live with got married on the same day. Fancy that!
As our first anniversary will be paper, half-cards should be sent to the usual address.
