Wednesday 24 July 2013

The Nursery

I've been wanting to get started on the nursery ever since we moved into the new house, but we have been using it as a storage room. Most of my things are still in boxes and don't need to be unpacked and put on display but I have a lot of boxes of books and am looking for a nice black bookcase to put them in. Dad did some rearranging today and moved some of the boxes out of the top of the wardrobe so boxes from the office could go in there and the bigger boxes from the room could go into the office. Slowly getting it sorted. Then hopefully next weekend Geoff will get in there and start sanding and painting the walls.

This is what the room currently looks like:






Tuesday 23 July 2013

Jellybean's First Photoshoot (19+4 Weeks)

So we went and had our 19-20 week scans today at 3pm.

Jellybean was face down for a while and then decided to scoot all over the place. Very active little thing! Then when it was time for head measurements and face shots it didn't want to co-operate. Cheeky! It opened its mouth quite a bit, like it was singing and we got a photo of it yawning. Looks a bit like an alien in that pic. Everything measured well and all the things they check for were there, like major arteries and organs. No Down Syndrome, which I knew from not hearing back anything after my 15 week blood test. Heartbeat of 143bpm. Head circumference of 17 cms. Measuring at 21 weeks - not worried by this like some people are, I'm still going by the date of my last period and know that babies can come earlier or later than expected anyway.

Only got 12 photos on a disc and most of them were a bit scary looking, but here is our Jellybean:


I think I'll definitely get some 3D/4D scans done at about 32-34 weeks.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

First Bump Pic @ 18+4 Weeks

I should have been taking photos every week to see the changes, but then I thought that I'd rather just take a photo when there was something to take a photo of - and now there is. For some reason I am pushing it out just a little bit to make it look bigger haha.


The Name Game

Choosing a boys name was easy. We've had that one locked away for a while. Choosing a name for a girl is so much harder. I have names that I like, but my boyfriend doesn't like them. I want something that sounds pretty and is unique but not too outrageous. A name that can be shortened to something that doesn't sound horrible. I've probably been thinking about names since I was 16 and have always favoured boys names because I've wanted to have a boy. So if this Jellybean is a girl, then perhaps it will have to have a boys name! I've searched many websites for inspiration but nothing has jumped out at me. Some names I like have already been used by people I know and I want to be different. I know there are 5 months to go, but I want to be prepared so I hope we can come up with a name we both agree on soon.

Sunday 14 July 2013

Some Thoughts

I'm not the type of person that has many strong opinions on things. I definitely do not push my opinions on other people or think they are stupid for having opinions of their own. Well, maybe it depends on the subject.

On this blog, I will not be posting photos of me breastfeeding. The Internet doesn't need to see that. Those photos will be for me, my boyfriend and my close family only. While on the topic of breastfeeding, my intention is to do it but if it doesn't work out and the baby doesn't want to then I will not feel like a failure if I have to use formula. I do not care how my baby gets its food as long as it is healthy and grows properly.

I don't have a Birth Plan. All I know is I will deliver a baby. If it happens to be naturally, then that's all good. If I have to have an epidural, that's fine. If I have to have a caesarean, I have no problem with that either. Because I know that plans never work out the way you want them to. Again, I do not care as long as my baby is healthy and happy when it arrives.

We are not finding out the gender until it is born. I don't think it's necessary and would rather it be a surprise at the very end. We will have the nursery in neutral colours and have a couple of neutral outfits for the first few days. It will be a summer baby so will not need many clothes to start off with.

One topic I do have an opinion on though, is finance and living situations. I am a big believer in doing things yourself. I have been saving ever since I started work and it was easy at the beginning because I was 17 and still living at home. The only thing I had to pay for was my phone bill. Then my parents split up and Mum moved out, so I started paying her rent and had to pay the bills. Then Mum wanted to sell the house so Dad and I had to move out and I had to pay even more rent and the bills were a lot more. I was paying all by myself, the rent and bills were not shared. Luckily I really didn't go out that much so I could still save as well. When the house was sold, I received some of the money. I always wanted to buy a big house, not a small unit or apartment and wanted as much deposit as possible so the loan wouldn't have to be huge. I thought I would have to do it on my own and that was going to be impossible to buy in the area that I wanted.

At the beginning of this year, I was made redundant and received a large payout. Then I found out I was pregnant. Well, I had to buy a house then, there was no room for us all in the place I was renting and it's hard to come by a 4 bedroom house to rent in a good area for a decent price, especially one that allows pets. I had a decent deposit and as I didn't have a job anymore, it didn't matter to me if I lived a bit further out than what I originally wanted. Luckily I have a wonderful boyfriend who has a well paying job and can pay the mortgage and support us all. Unfortunately, I broke my lease and still have to pay rent until they find new tenants.

My point is, life is hard for most of us. Living is expensive. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices and go without something so we can have something else. You can't rent, leave your job for any reason, have a baby AND expect to save for a house at the same time. You may have to put off buying a house for a bit and unfortunately use your savings for the rent and the baby. I don't believe you should move in with your parents. You are 2 adults starting your own family. And if you're also planning a wedding? Well that doesn't make any sense to me either. If you can't afford to rent your own place on one wage, have a baby and save for a house deposit, then you can't afford to pay for a wedding either. You can't afford holidays. You can't afford meals out all the time. You can't afford expensive clothes for yourself or the baby. That's not how saving works. You don't move in with your parents to afford every single little thing that you want. That isn't being a grown up. That is not living in the real world.

It's been a long day and I must go to bed.
Goodnight! =)

Weeks 1 - 18

Not much to report about these last 18 weeks.

I took 3 early home pregnancy tests. I didn't think I would be pregnant, but one night I did eat cookies & cream icecream with sour cream & onion Pringles crushed into it. I did the first test a day before my period was due and it was positive. I was so excited I couldn't stop shaking. My boyfriend and I were going out for dinner that night and I had to wait until he got to my house so I could tell him in person. I took another test a couple of days after that and the 3rd a couple of days after that. They were positive too. When I went to my GP, he didn't even bother checking with a blood test, my 3 positive tests were good enough for him.

I've been very lucky and haven't had morning sickness. I make sure I have some dry biscuits or a piece of bread as soon as I wake up. If I don't, then I feel a bit queasy. Constantly snacking throughout the day also helps. I haven't rid caffeine out completely, I still have 2 cups of tea a day and I do drink a LOT of iced coffee and coke.

I missed having a scan at 12 weeks due to not knowing when settlement would be on our new house and then moving, but had my first antenatal appointment at 15 weeks. We didn't get to see the baby or get any measurements but got to hear the heartbeat. That was amazing to hear that there was actually something alive in there. Now I have to make my 19-20 week scan and antenatal appointment and we will finally see our Jellybean!

Introduction

Hi and welcome to my blog.

I probably should have started this 18 weeks ago. In fact, I did create the blog around that time and just never started writing anything. I have started many blogs in my life and eventually I abandon them all. They are still out there somewhere in the Internet world.

I recently watched a vlog on Youtube of someone I knew - about her pregnancy, birth and beyond. She definitely should have been an actress because the person in the videos was definitely not the same person as the one in real life and in my opinion she just shared way too much information about personal things.

Anyway, after watching the vlog I decided that I should get started on my written blog. There was no way I was going to video myself every week (no one wants to see that) but I still wanted to document my first pregnancy for myself and for my family. If anyone else was interested to read it, that would be fine but I wouldn't imagine anyone would want to.

So, this is my first pregnancy. I'm 30 years old and have been with my boyfriend for 4 months. I've wanted a baby since I was 16 and had an ectopic pregnancy. I had hoped to have a baby before 30, but it didn't happen. I never met the right guy who wanted the same as me. It never even happened accidentally, although I tried. Before my current relationship, I was with a guy for over a year. It was my longest relationship and I thought "this is it, I'm going to get my baby at 30". His sister accidentally fell pregnant and although I was upset about that, I hoped that it would make him want to have a baby too. He knew how much it meant to me, how I didn't want to be "old", how my previous ectopic could affect my chances of falling pregnant or having it happen again, how I didn't want to "plan" to have a baby and just wanted it to happen when it happened. He didn't understand any of that. Or he didn't care about my feelings. He was too focused on himself and his guitar and his computer equipment and weirdly, his sister. It started to all fall apart a week before my 30th birthday but I tried to hold it all together. Then I got really sick over Christmas and missed a lot of work. I tried to manage Christmas Eve with my family without painkillers, but it was no fun for me. I couldn't spend Christmas with his family, because I needed to take the painkillers but they made me fall asleep. He was upset and angry that I wasn't there. He got drunk and acted erratically at my house on New Years Eve. I was still unwell but got no emotional support from him just a lot of disrespect. I started to see a physio and a psychologist. I tried to hold on to the relationship. I don't know why, I could see that it wasn't what I wanted anymore. Then in February I was made redundant from my job of 13 years. Again, there was no support from him. He didn't ask how I was feeling or tell me he'd be there for me. Basically it was "oh well, you'll find something else". A couple of weeks later, he broke up with me. I was angry. We had talked about things, I thought we were sorting things out. Turns out he was just giving up. I should have done that a long time ago.

About 2 weeks after that I met my current boyfriend. I wasn't really looking, but had signed up on a dating site just to see what was out there. I had already seen him a couple of times at parties but we had never spoken and we were "friends" on Facebook, but there hadn't been contact. When he saw that I was newly single and had joined the dating site, he used information from my status updates to find me on there and contact me. I didn't have a profile photo, so he searched through a lot of other profiles before he found me! I was shocked when I got his first message and wrote back "this is kinda freaky, but you actually sort of know me!" I didn't hear back from him that night and it got me worried! I shouldn't have been though. We messaged back and forth and then switched to texting and I arranged for him to meet me in the city on Friday night at drinks I was having with people from work. I had already booked a hotel room for the night before inviting him out as I was planning on having a big one. But I couldn't wait that long to see him and invited him to my house on the Wednesday night. So we met up, got along and fell in love. A couple of weeks later on 3rd April, we found out I was pregnant. I'm now 18 weeks and we are living together in a lovely 4 bedroom home we bought. Yes, things moved pretty fast, but that's just the way we like it!