Latest scan

Latest scan pics:







Whilst these are obviously fantastic, and the baby is healthy, it was a tad disappointing.

As you may recall, last time we paid for a private scan. This one was on the NHS. We turned up at reception and the woman there was quite friendly (in amongst taking an obscene amount of money for each photo).

Then we were called by a foreign woman who took us to the scan room.

"Is this the first time you've been here" she grunted. We replied yes. She followed up with "is this your first baby?" with no emotion. Again, we said yes.

Lu laid down on the couch and she went to work silently. She didn't even describe what we were seeing. One minute you're looking at the head, and before you can comprehend it, she's moved away and is looking at the feet. Then she's checking out the spine. Then checking the skull. You are desperately trying to keep up with her.

"Do you want to know the sex?" is the next thing she says. No, we reply. More silence.

Then she zooms in for a detailed look at the heart. It all seems OK, it's beating away and you can see two chambers... I think that's right. But you're not a trained sonographer! Then she changes the image so that you can see the blood moving, with fresh and oxygenated blood and used and blue blood swilling around. Should they be mixing like that? Is that normal?

No word from the lady.

She zooms back out again and looks around again. The spine looks OK, but is it too curved? I don't know!

Suddenly she removes the scanning device, says "all is fine" in a low voice and gets up and walks away. I check my watch, it's 12.28pm and the scan started at 12.20pm. The whole time she's said only four or five sentences to us. We're left there as she writes something at her desk then hands Lucie her notes back. Somebody knocks on the door. "Come in" she says. A nurse walks in saying that the previous person wasn't given their notes back. A short conversation ensues where she denies this before they both leave the room.

We remain there, motionless. Are we still meant to be there? A couple of minutes later she walks back in, and looks surprised that we're still sat there.

"Did I give you back your notes and your photos?" she asks. We reply yes. "Well, all is well and the baby is healthy. Good luck for the rest of the pregnancy"... and she sits back down at her desk with her back to us.

Nice to see that customer service isn't dead!

Pip waking up

I don't know about you, but I could watch this all day:


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8qSQ5MKE5w


(Yes, I'm going to be one of those annoying fathers)

Please all say hello...

Everyone, meet Pip....

Only five days to go until the scan.......

Lu has decided it's a girl, "woman's intuition". And her morning sickness subsided but has now come back with a vengeance in the last two days. Her jeans are awfully tight but it's not Pip's fault (the uterus is about the size of a hen's egg at the moment) it's the water retention.

It's all becoming more real, although I'm not any less worried.

By the tenth week of pregnancy, you may find yourself riding pregnancy's emotional roller coaster, feeling moody one day and joyful the next. Disturbing as this is to some women who pride themselves on being in control, what you're going through is normal and will probably continue throughout your pregnancy. Up-and-down emotions are partly caused by raging hormones.

At week's end, your fetus measures approximately 0.9 inches / 2.3 centimetres long. In both shape and size, it resembles a peapod and weighs less than a tenth of an ounce / 2 grams. The eyelids are fused and won't open until week 27. The wrists are more developed, ankles have formed, and the fingers and toes are clearly visible. Arms are growing longer and bend at the elbows. By week's end, the inner workings of the ears are complete. Though you can't yet identify the sex of the fetus by ultrasound, its genitals have begun to form. By now the placenta has developed enough to support most of the critical job of producing hormones.

Just been down the pub for an end-of-week drink with my work colleagues and my boss. Was exceptionally hard not to blurt out about Lucie, especially when one of my colleagues was saying that by December Lu and I could have saved at least five grand towards a house. I was trying to say "other expensive things might come along before then", he thought I was talking about unexpected bills and just said that now we were settled and Christmas was out of the way things would be easier for us.

I just wanted to say "but Lucie is pregnant and if all goes to plan I will be a father by September and I need a bigger car and we need clothes and baby stuff like a pram and a car seat as well as a cot and all the other things that you need for babies I'm sure that all of that will get in the way of buying a house which we would love to do but we also want our own kids and I can't wait to be a dad oh my god are you happy for us we're going to be a family!!!!!!"

But I held myself back :-p

In the now obligatory Pip update, Lucie is over 7 weeks pregnant... it feels like it's going so slowly at the moment.

- - - - - -

Now about half an inch / 1.25 centimetres long, the size of a grape, the embryo has distinct, slightly webbed fingers and toes. It's a jumping bean, moving in fits and starts. The liver is churning out large amounts of red blood cells until the bone marrow forms and takes over this role.

The eighth week marks the beginning of a very busy developmental stage. Between now and 20 weeks, your baby will be growing rapidly, and body parts that formed in the first few weeks of life (such as the heart and brain) will become more specialised and complicated. Right now, the teeth and palate are forming, while the ears continue to develop. The fetus' skin is paper thin, and veins are clearly visible.

You're in the throes of the first trimester, when many women complain of common pregnancy aches and pains. Keeping food down may be next to impossible, thanks to morning sickness, caused in part by the pregnancy hormones in your body. You may also need to urinate a lot more often than usual -- your growing uterus is pressing on your bladder, and hormones are affecting the balance of fluid in your body. All will diminish as your pregnancy continues.

Today we booked Lucie in for a private dating scan. As I mentioned the other day, in Hampshire they don't do scans at 12 weeks, even though the government recommends them as they can pick up certain problems as well as ensure that the lady is still pregnant.

We're actually quite lucky. There was meant to be a clinic that offers this opening up in Basingstoke this month. I called them today but unfortunately the building work is running behind schedule and they won't open until March. That scan from them cost £95.

On the plus side, it meant that I had to get back on the internet and find another clinic nearby, most offer the service for around £100 but I found one just outside Portsmouth that offer it for £50.

My original plan was to book Lu in myself and not tell her until a bit closer to the day. My great idea was to book it for Tuesday 12th February, the same day that we go and see the midwife. However, when I rang up to ask a few questions they needed to know a load of stuff about her that I didn't know (such as date of last period) and I knew that she would get suspicious about if I started reeling them off with a notepad in my hand.

So at lunch today I told her that I had decided what I wanted for my birthday and told her. She got really excited and tearful as we originally planned not to bother with paying for a scan. She called them up today and whilst they don't do private scans on Tuesdays (ironically, they only do NHS referrals on Tuesdays) we have booked in for the day after in the evening after work. I can't wait. We get some old fashioned thermal prints but also a CD with pictures. They'll be the ones I'll be showing you lot when we go public with the news!

And to finish, Pip is the size of a lentil!

The embryo is the size of a lentil this week. If you could see inside yourself, you'd find the fetus has an oversized head in proportion to its body. The embryo's facial features are forming with dark spots where the eyes are, openings where the nostrils will be, and pits to mark the ears.

Protruding buds that will become the arms and legs are even more noticeable now. The embryo's hands and feet look like paddles. Other developments include the growth of the pituitary gland and muscle fibres. You can't hear it yet, but the heart (which has divided into the right and left chambers) is beating at about 150 beats a minute -- twice the rate of yours.

Halfway through this week, the embryo makes its first movements. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until sometime in the second trimester before you get to enjoy feeling your baby's exercise sessions.

Lucie's boss apologised for her comments the other day today, so that's a start. Like I said to Lucie, we're both more than aware of the risks and possibilities of a miscarriage, the best we can do is try to keep positive.

On the plus side, Lu had really bad morning sickness this morning. That might sound like an odd thing to say, but it's actually a good sign as it shows that she still has a bunch of hormones buzzing around her body.

I've now booked the whole day off work when we go to see the midwife on the 12th, it'll only be a half hour job but I think that it will be better to be around to help settle Lucie's nerves... as well as mine.

I almost walked out of the house in anger last night. In the end, I only walked into the kitchen, slammed the door and cooked dinner.

But basically Lu's boss told her "not to get her hopes up" as it is very likely that she will miscarry yet. This is the reason that she hasn't done the pregnant worker risk assessments yet - she doesn't see the point.

I thought that it was the most spiteful thing to say. We are both well aware that the chances of a miscarriage at the moment are very high. But we're trying to put that to the back of our minds. And I want Lucie to stay positive right now.

If something similar happens again I might not be able to stop myself and head to Lucie's work to have a go myself. The problem with Lu is that when it comes to work she, in her own words, "doesn't want to rock the boat". I told her that THEY capsized it already.

Another baby dream last night. I hope I don't get one of these a night for the next nine months, as they're very vivid and as I said yesterday, you have this gut wrenching feeling when you realise you were dreaming.

We've also found out that they don't do 12 week scans in Hampshire, which is often when you tell the world about the pregnancy and get to show off pictures. It's also the time when the risk of miscarriage substantially reduces. In my head that was a major milestone and I was really looking forward to it, and of course seeing Pip for the first time.

That isn't going to happen now, but we can get a device that allows you to listen to the baby's heart, which scientific research say as long as you only use it a couple of times a week it is fine. One of our friends used one as well. That will be a relief and take a lot of weight off my shoulders.

Today I was really miserable at work, it was really hard to focus. I think the reason is because all this is really on my mind. We're five weeks in now, and it feels like an awfully long time until 12 weeks. We've only actually known for about one and a half of those five weeks, and that feels like ages ago now. I wish that I could just jump to 12 weeks.

Lucie gets maternal

What made Lucie buy a feather duster? I'm blaming the hormones. She's never been inclined to buy a feather duster before, or to dust. But suddenly she's "seeing dust" around the house and it's "driving her mad".

In other news, I had my first baby dream last night. I dreamt that I was at the birth, and then my sister visited and we were playing with the baby. There was this awful feeling when I woke up and realised that it was a dream - there is still a long long way to go and I won't calm down a bit until 12 weeks in... which isn't until the end of February.

Lucie has had a couple of nosebleeds now, which is supposedly a good sign. Her trousers are getting a fair bit tighter, and all this when pip is still barely bigger than an apple pip.

Flat tyre

I apologise profusely to the guy in the sports car who I called a "fecking berk" in my rear view mirror this morning.

OK, so I shouldn't have assumed that just because you were in a sporty car, driving right up to my boot and waving like a loon (it looked like he was motioning "I need to go around you") you were a tosser.

I think my words were "it's a bloody narrow country lane you fecking berk, you can't overtake no matter how urgent your journey is!"

For your information, it wasn't until I got to work, parked up and then went to the toilet two hours later that I noticed that I had a deflated rear tyre.

On the plus side, I don't think you would have realised that I was saying stuff about you, you would have just thought that I was an ignorant driver that wasn't looking in his rear view mirror to see your helpful attempt to inform me that I was driving with a flat tyre.

On a side note, my car drove fine today. It didn't feel like anything was wrong with it at all. I was in a rush as I was running late and didn't even see that the tyre was flat.

Remember this? Well, foolishly I've never got that damaged tyre replaced. It's one of those jobs that involves spending money that I've kept putting off and off and off. And now it came back to bite me in the ass as it was my spare that was flat.

I had to call a mobile tyre fitter to come out and fit a new one, costing me £130. On the plus side the mobile tyre fitters (Kwik Fit) originally said that couldn't fit me in today, but when I explained my situation (I work in the middle of nowhere and would be there all night if they couldn't do them today) they made me an emergency case as I was classed as "stranded".

Or maybe it was because I told the chap on the phone "just tell them I'm a busty blonde".

Naming an unborn baby

We had a conversation and we've gone for 'pip' - Lucie fancied 'bump' but I argued that it was too impersonal.

She went to the doctors today and has been told that aside from being a bit overweight is otherwise fine. I misheard her and her first midwife appointment isn't until 12th February, so I'm not going to tell work just yet.

I've read many a time about hormones and mood swings during pregnancy but nothing prepared me for the truth. Seriously, it's scary. One moment she's OK, the next she in tears about the smallest thing. Or getting wound up. The weirdest thing can set her off crying at the moment. I never thought it would be this extreme. And it can only get worse.....

Lu also told her dad today, contrary to what we thought would happen he was really pleased and excited. Life can be funny sometimes.....

Lucie had the "oh my god how on earth are we going to afford a baby?" panic last night. So at least we've both had it and got it over and done with.

We need a name to call the baby. We already know what we are going to call him or her after the birth, but we need something to refer to him or her whilst in the womb. For example, one of my nieces was always "titch", Andy and Chrystal used "squidge". I am thinking "pip" because I still can't get my head around the fact that at the moment he or she is the size of an apple pip, but by the time the first scan is due in a couple of weeks will be over an inch tall. I have to run it by Lucie and come to a consensus.

In the biggest news of the day, Lu's mum text her at a stupid hour this morning to say that she is very happy for us both, we'll make great parents and she is really looking forward to becoming a grandmother. I knew that she'd come around eventually. But we still haven't told her dad...

Telling the parents

I told my parents today. My mum wasn't given the message by my brother (obviously, saying that it is 'urgent' means nothing in his world).

As expected, they took it rather well. My mum, who I know desperately wants to become a grandmother again acknowledged that it is still early days so wasn't getting too wound up yet. She also agreed with our decision to keep it quiet until the first scan.

She has also already offered us lots of stuff that they bought for Neal and Claire's babies, saying that they always intended them to be used by all of us. So that's a moses basket, cot, pram etc. etc. etc. etc. already sorted. Why was I worried about finances? Hell, I was even telling Lucie not to worry about money as others buy lots of stuff for you anyway.

Anyway, if people on a much lower income than us can survive I'm sure we can.

(This still doesn't stop me thinking about it though.... before I've always just had to worry about feeding myself. Even when I moved in with Lu she had her own job so technically I wasn't the sole breadwinner. But with a baby he or she will just have me, especially with Lucie on maternity leave)

The middle of February (when Lucie should be due a scan) seems so far away right now.

I've been hassling Lu to get to the doctors. She has got an appointment booked in for Tuesday to see the GP. She also has an appointment with the midwife the Tuesday after.

We've agreed that I will tell my boss in the coming week because she is really nervous about going to see the midwife for the first time (a huge book to fill out, lots of questions etc.). I'm hoping that if I tell him he will be good enough to give me some time off work to go with her. I have an hours lunch but I don't want to be late back without an excuse.

It's all quite surreal still at the moment, supposedly the baby is the size of an apple pip at this stage. Lucie feels a bit funny or achy sometimes but other than that you wouldn't guess she had a new life growing inside of her.

In a bizarre wish, Lucie actually wants to feel ill. She read somewhere that feeling ill is good as it means that you have more of the hormones bouncing around your body, which in turn means that there is less chance of a miscarriage. I'm attempting to banish that thought from my head.

I've just read that supposedly the embryo has a fully functioning placenta and umbilical cord at this stage. Like I said, surreal.

I could tell that a few things were troubling Lucie and I knew what it was - telling her mother. So I grabbed the phone and gave it to her, telling her to get it over and done with. I only heard one end of the conversation, but I think that her mother had a mixture of shock, uncertainty, confusion and maybe a small amount of happiness. I think over time she'll get used to it. She did tell Lucie that she was too young, but I pointed out that you can be a great mother at 16 and a crap one at 30.

I was also going to tell my mum but she was out, I left a message for her to ring me back but she hasn't, so I'll tell her tomorrow. I know that her reaction will be different to Lucie's mum's.

I've also had my first bouts of panic. It hit me like a train all at once in a huge wave earlier tonight. Lucie was looking at maternity clothes and then buggies. Suddenly my brain went into overdrive. We have to pay for this. Clothes, pushchairs, car seats. God, I'm going to need a car, we can't drive a newborn and Lucie around in my coupe. How on earth am I going to sell my car? What can I afford? We wanted to really try and buy a house in the next 12 months, how is that going to happen now?

I'm sure that I will have many more bouts of that to come.

Best news I've ever received

The day we found out that Lucie was pregnant.

She has now taken three pregnancy tests using two different brands. So that should be fairly conclusive!

She told me when I rang her from work after taking the first one. She took a further one later in the afternoon and another one this evening.

I really can't get my head around it. We've been trying but as the months go on you begin to expect it not to happen - you never realise before you start trying how difficult it is to conceive.

Now all my thoughts are going towards praying that everything will go smoothly.

Lucie has registered with the local GP surgery today and will hopefully be able to see him or her in the next couple of days.