Telling

So we told the in-laws a few days ago. The wife did manage to give a slight sense of dread by asking for her niece (still at her grandparents' for American Thanksgiving) to leave the room. Though once she was gone we quickly announced we were expecting before they could imagine what horrible things it could have been.

Today we got the letter from UCH giving us the appointment date. No preliminary appointment this time, just straight to the 12 week scan in 3 weeks. L and I discussed if we should take the girl, since she'll be on school holidays by then. L was inclined to do so, which I can understand. Keeping the huge secret from the girl is not particularly nice. On the other hand, I don't want to involve her and get her hopes up until we're sure the pregnancy is all good. I suppose, in part, I'm falling back to my role in the last pregnancy of being paranoid and looking for anything which can possibly go wrong.

Unsurprisingly, we've taken down most of the childproofing and given away all the tiny baby reusable nappies, and the drawer of bottles and pumping equipment is now the girl's craft drawer. Can we get back all the stuff we gave away? When R was 6 months old I honestly thought I'd never be doing this again, so passing these along was the best way to get rid of the clutter. Will the people we gave it to still have it? Do we have to buy it afresh? For that matter, where in the bloody house are we going to put this stuff?

Right, time to start the ebaying and throwing out of stuff we know we don't need (see above to see how comfortable I am with that idea).

So this happened

Gestation begins anew!

Well, not really begins. Began. Not quite sure when though. L is either 4 or 8 weeks pregnant. Which puts us at expecting a baby sometime in July 2017. So far, all I can say is second child is very different. Where the first pregnancy was a life changingly shocking in a I've got make some tea. Wait I don't drink tea kind of way. This one was more of a Take it in stride. Take it in stride. OMFG are we doing the right thing? feeling.

L had been feeling pregnancy symptoms for a several days now, but the timing was off. Then again, she'd been feeling symptoms off and on for a few months. So clearly her body was up to something, but that something was not incubation. Twice so far the signs were there, but the tests said no. But this time the signs were stronger, with a bladder the size of a thimble being the most telling. So yesterday morning before the school run L did a pregnancy test.

I knew keeping R in the dark about trying for another child would be challenging. But being that we'd been keeping it from friends, coworkers and family, I didn't think much about it. It just makes it harder to have all the conversations L and I need to have. And in terms of the test, unlike last time where we looked at the results together, L just came out of the loo and subtly told me to take a look on the counter.

It was positive.

But we couldn't talk about it. Just a quick discussion while over breakfast while R got dressed. L made an appointment the GP for after R's school run, and I… well, not much I could do at this point. I went to work.

We spoke on the phone after the doctor’s appointment. They told L It's your second child, and you did a test, and you said you feel pregnant, so we believe you. Expect a letter in the next few days to set up your first midwife appointment. So that's the effect of the Tory cuts then. At least last time they did their own test to reconfirm things. Now, we weren't sure how far along things were. The timing of the symptoms implied she was pregnant before this cycle's fertile period. But she'd had a period, albeit a relatively mild one. So either the symptoms where phantom and the pregnancy started about 3 weeks ago, or the period was phantom (which can happen) and it started a month before that. The GP told us to plan for the latter since it's easier to slow down the whole midwifery process than to speed it up. So I guess that means our first appointment in a week or so, and the 12 week scan late next month.

So, last night, after R was in bed we finally got a chance to talk about it. Not that there's much we can do now. Beyond We really need to clean the house and Damn, I was hoping I could finally put our nice rugs back down without risk of someone peeing on them. A new bed for R. Got to decide if we're up for a home birth or not. Clothes and nappies. But there is time.

We're doing the usual not telling people til the week 20 scan and we're sure everything is going ok. We’ve told some of the immediate family. L told her sister while R was at school. We also caught my parents and brother on Skype between American Thanksgiving dinner and dessert. I made sure the nieces and nephews were out of the room when we told them since children couldn't keep a secret if they were in a secret making factory and were given easy-attach leashes to keep their secrets from getting away.

We've not had a chance to tell L’s parents yet. That’ll be tomorrow I guess.