Christmas Vomit and a Wriggly Baby

It's been Christmas time! No eagerly anticipated phone calls but quite a lot has happened since the last post. We had our 20 week scan on 15 December. It was amazing to see all the bits and pieces of our baby. We saw its alien face, its heart, the compartments of the heart, bladder and kidneys (which are working nicely), the pelvis, thigh bone, two little thumping feet and best of all the wave of a bony hand. But we didn't find out the gender. The sonographer was an absolute witch. She got my back up right away by starting the consultation by saying 'so what can I do for you then?'. Grrr

'Just a short back and sides today I think, Blackadder'. Or maybe my 20 WEEK SCAN. FFS.

So I admit I went into stroppy teenage mode and said 'I don't know' and it just got worse from there. Got to love a medical professional with no bedside manner. Silly moo.
D can now feel the baby! I learned at the scan that my placenta is in an anterior position, so at the front of my uterus. This is probably why it took me so long to feel the baby. The upside is that it wasn't too much longer before the movements were big enough to be felt from the outside. The bigger movements he can feel with his hands. But his preferred method is to 'listen' to the baby. So I've had him semi-permanently clamped by the ear to my belly. But of course I don't mind. The baby seems to like it too as he definitely moves more when D's listening.

The continuing saga of the 'Extreme Snow' pretty much blighted the run up to Christmas. Christmas shopping involved risking life and limbs at the shops or hanging around your front window, biting your nails wondering if your Amazon order was going to turn up on time. Of course it all turned out okay in the end.

Christmas was pretty quiet. The family dropped around for a while which was lovely but not long after they'd gone I started to feel pretty unwell. By 8pm I was vomiting legendary amounts. As usual with sickness bugs, I felt amazing for the next 2 hours before the build up to the next bout began. Luckily I was sick just once more at midnight. I'm a dab hand at puking these days so that didn't bother me nearly as much as it would have done a year ago. But I did worry about the effect on the baby and I had no appetite and no energy for a few days. That's what I get for assuring Dro on Christmas morning that I was 'done with vomiting'.

We are beginning to accumulate baby stuff now. D bought the baby a Christmas present of a wee outfit. Awwww. And C has given us lots of clothes I need to go through. I met H for lunch today and she said I could go round one evening and have my pick of some things she's happy to give away so I'm really excited about that. Don't suppose she has an oceanic plane mobile though.

Yesterday I was at the midwife and I continue to be normal. My belly is the right size. My blood pressure is perfect. There is nothing suspect in my wee. I heard the heart beat again too. I also got the MATB1 form that means my work has to be super good to me and treat me like a princess.

Today I bought some quite expensive wool to make a small blanket. This is as much as my crocheting skills will allow and even then I am really pushing it. No mummy made booties for this child :( I will update on progress or lack thereof.
In other developments:

• We bought a LUDICROUSLY huge Christmas tree on line by mistake. It's supposed to be 6 foot tall but is, in fact, more like 6 foot wide. If we already had the baby, we could lose it for days in there.
  
• The perception of time when sober at the work Christmas lunch might be (is) different than the time experienced when drunk at the work Christmas lunch.
  
• my weight today is 9 stone and 12.25 pounds. This is still 11.25 pounds less than my pre-weightwatchers weight in 2008. Just love watching the scales edge up the way again after all that hard work.

Can you feel it?

We are fed up of icy weather. Most of the snow melted on Friday but there so much ice left on the pavements out of town that I still can't walk to work. I need exercise and I'm going mad. I'm sick of the bus. Literally. Two days last week I've been very near to vomiting on Edinburgh's historic Royal Mile on the way to work. I've had to spit up some 'pre-vomit saliva' in various closes on the way down the road. Hahahahaha - nice. If I have to live it, you have to know about it. But no actual vomit for 15 days and counting.

We got most of our Christmas shopping done on Saturday and bought some maternity clothes for me. This is good because I've been reduced to wearing my stretchier dresses to work. They were pretty short to begin with and, with a bump using up more fabric than usual, they are now very close to indecent - more appropriate for a tropical island than sub-arctic Edinburgh. Still, I aim to be one of those irritating women who stay thin except for the bump. So long live the short dress wearing!

On Friday I felt the baby move for the first time. D is jealous and says 'You get all the good stuff'. At first of course I wasn't sure what I was feeling. It's a bit like a bubble bursting under your skin, or like a tiny muscle spasm.

On Wednesday we go for our 20 week scan which is pretty exciting. If it all goes well then, we have to assume the baby is fine. Now I just need to worry about it being ugly. I was being teased at work about how many ugly babies there are. And how some have cone shaped heads because they've been suctioned out. Was totally traumatised. Today someone mentioned the words 'facial birth marks'.

Although I'd quite like to know if the baby is a boy or a girl, D isn't keen so we are going to wait. We'll know soon enough I suppose.

Finally in a week without much to say, I'm 9st, 11.5 pounds. I am getting really quite big.

"We're stuck in a bloody snow globe!"

There has been thick snow on the ground for 8 days now. The most snow there has been in Edinburgh for 50 years. There must be 30-40cm lying outside which is A LOT for us. We think 5cm is something to spend every waking minute thinking about. There was a good deal of snow last weekend and I had a stinking cold and was not impressed that I couldn't go out and play in it. On Sunday night it snowed the biggest amount and I had to venture out to work on Monday. I have never seen so much of the stuff in suburbia. I ended up walking the nearly 3 miles to work and it was lots of fun but took 80minutes when it usually takes 50. And I was absolutely exhausted afterwards.

That first day wasn't dangerous underfoot because it was all fresh snow. The biggest risk was not knowing where the kerb was under it all. But in the days after, as it got trampled down, I started to get seriously worried about Squirrel Baby. D had to walk me home from the shops on Tuesday and met me outside work on Wednesday. I'm convinced I'm going to fall getting to or from work. AND because of my funny blood, if I fall and don't manage to damage SB, then I still have to have an injection in case there's any bleeding inside.

Once at work, there was still no respite from the snow. I was dealing with its consequences all day every day I was in. Writing messages for staff about the snow and whether they were allowed time off for not getting in, thanking those who did get in etc etc.

I was off work on Thurs and Fri luckily. Usually those days off are for Christmas shopping or getting deliveries. But none of my deliveries turned up. I got a serious case of cabin fever.

So we ventured out today into town. I got stud things for my shoes and then we headed to Brunstfield and had lunch there. (Weight today - 9st, 9.5 pounds) As a treat, I had my first full fat, full caffeine cola since 23 August (sorry SB). It was out a bottle and not draft and the best thing I have ever tasted. Then we walked home. It took twice as long as usual. Another 80 min walk. But that's what I need. SB needs fresh air and exercise and so do I. It was freeeeezing and we counted and named at least 6 different types of snow. Most prevalent - sand snow and falsandsnow (snow that looks like sand snow, and you think you'll sink into it but you don't - hehehehehe). Yup - we are chumps.

So I have a week of fear and trepidation ahead of me. Colleagues are fed up of me whining on about it because, baby or no, no one wants to risk limbs just trying to get to work. Normally in Edinburgh, it snows for two days max, then it rains and it all melts. Not this time folks. We have 12 more days of freeeeezing weather forecast. My sinuses have taken against me and my head hurts, and more recently my teeth. C has emailed me to say 'YOU SHOULD NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE FOR 2 WEEKS BECAUSE YOU ARE PREGNANT AND ESPECIALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE RHESUS NEGATIVE'. Arrghhhh. The roads and pavements are only going to get worse. Soon there will be 'cobbled' ice everywhere. I'm doomed. DOOMED.