Avoiding talking about it

Last weekend we went to a wedding. It was fun seeing loads of friend for the first time in ages. Parenting does not lend itself to being social very often. So while most of the parents at R's school know that we're expecting, very few of our friends know.

That became more obvious pretty much every time anyone would see L that night. Almost every meeting went like:

Hi! How’s it going? looks down at L's belly for a moment it's been ages. What's new?

Which was fine. We didn't want to steal the celebration on their wedding day to make it about us and our news. So we were happy to let the topic slide. A few times, though, someone would say Okay, I have to ask... which would lead to OMGs and congratulations and suchlike – which makes for a good icebreaker between friends who've not been in touch lately. But, for the most part, it was just the long pause and carry on with conversation. That's the downside of not seeing people much.

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.

The effect of music.

We went to a festival recently with lots of people we don't see very often. For most of them, this is the first time they've seen us since finding out. For others, this is where they found out. The wife wore tight clothes to especially show off her state.

The best reaction was one person, who, once she realised, stood there, mouth open, pointing and saying Aaaaaaaaaaa!

Most people secretly wondered, but did not ask until we (or someone else) broached the issue. All of them had a story about a time they'd gotten it wrong and are now very reluctant to ask.

We went out to one club night. The music was good, but it might have been too loud. The little one started squirming quite a lot, so we decided to go home. No idea if the music was annoying, uncomfortable, or if the wee one was actually really enjoying it. I can live with a bit of short term resentment on the off chance it was actually enjoying it and dancing – I'm sure foetal grudges aren't too long.

We looked up the effects of loud music online afterwards and came to the conclusion that no one has the slightest idea. Great. There goes the ability to have guilt-free fun on nights out for the next few months. Then again there was little complaining from the little one during the actual gigs we saw – only the club night.

I've decided to make an in utero playlist of music to play up until birth. The genres range from classical to current pop. No children's music. We can play loads of that after the birth. This is all interesting sounding music, that, at best will give the wee one something to listen to and stimulate all those forming neurons. At worst, I’m hoping it'll install an a priori liking for music we like.

I'm still editing and trimming the list down to remove all the really fast music. I don't want it to come out a hyper little bunny.

Another discovery: before, conversation would orbit around baby and baby things. Now conversation pulls over a chair squarely into the middle of baby, sits down and makes itself comfortable, pausing only to fetch a footstool so it can go the long haul. I don't mind talking about the pregnancy, the forthcoming child, or anything of that sort. In fact I rather enjoy it. I've learned that parents seem to love gushing about their offspring, and I'm not an exception (though, to be honest, there's nothing to actually gush about yet, unless you consider the ability to wriggle gushworthy). All that said, I do like talking about other things. I am still me after all.

Now they know

I've finally come clean and have told the world about her pregnancy. Everyone knows except work: mine and hers.

She's keeping it quiet since they might renew her contract, and we could use the extra 3 months income. If they know they might not bother.

I'm looking for a new job. I'm being made redundant in the current job, so there's no point in telling them, unless, of course, I want to make them feel bad. I suppose I could have mentioned it before they made the final decision, but, to be honest, I'm better off leaving. Though it is still tempting to tell them just to guilt my soon-to-be-ex-management.

The question is when to tell the next employer. The law here is that they're not allowed to ask in an interview, so I can only assume there's a reason for it. I suppose I'll just have to wing it and see what kind of feeling I get from them. I do want to try to talk them into giving me paid paternity leave, so I've got to bring it up at some point in the hiring process.

Besides all that, at least the cat is out of the bag. Which good since the number of baby books and pamphlets around the house have reached a critical mass, and I don't think I could possibly hide them all.

Now we have books

The downside of telling people about the forthcoming birth is that we now have like 30,000 books on dealing with pregnancy. Every time we visit someone they give us more books. It does not matter if they're helpful. They'll smile, say I found this useless and hand over a small stack of books.

I, of course, always nod, smile back and graciously accept it.

In the mix of inane and informative, I finally found a book which contains practical advice for partners. It's not quite a Useful Things a Partner Can Do During Gestation book, but it does have a section on How to Deal with an Emergency Birth. That strikes me as something that would be quite helpful for a partner to know: what to do when a baby comes out and there's no one medically trained around. How to get the baby out, draining fluids the lungs, how to dispose of the placenta, etc, etc.

It also has a few tips for during the pregnancy that actually make sense. Like try to start getting along with your in-laws and let your partner sleep late. This is such a welcome change from the keep it quiet that you actually wanted a boy and stop sleeping with other women comments in books I've been getting used to seeing.

Starting to show

She's starting to have actual signs of pregnancy. The bump is starting to show – though you'd not tell if you didn't know her. The one thing that really makes it clear is that her navel is getting shallower. We didn't expect that to happen until near the end, but apparently it's happening now. This is making it obvious she's not just getting fatter – that would just make the navel get deeper. But now it's shallower. I can see the bottom of her navel for the first time. Neat.

One thing I find odd is that the uterus is hard. It's not like palpating the belly, which is soft with firmer muscle underneath. The uterus actually feels like a bit of armour under the skin – which kind of makes sense, since the foetus does need to be protected. I just always assumed before that, if people can feel their child kick, it must be soft. It's definitely not soft.

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In other news, I did what felt to be the weirdest announcement of the pregnancy so far today. We had some friends over for dinner. One of them brought up the difficulty of finding their way in a hospital. I, of course, was immediately reminded of our attempt to find the right department at UCH at our first appointment. It being a fitting anecdote, I wanted to bring it up, but needed to give that essential bit of context. I ended up saying On that note, I have an interesting story. But first, she's pregnant [much congratulations and suchlike follows] So anyway, we were at UCH trying to find the right pre-natal department…

At this point keeping it quiet is actually getting in the way. Having to delete the occasional Facebook wall post, hiding books when people come over, etc. I really do need to make a public announcement, and soon, before someone else lets the cat out of the jar for me.

Telling the family

On Tuesday I made the announcement to the extended family. The parents and siblings already knew, of course, so it was just a question of how to tell the cousins and aunts and uncles and so on. We debated a bit how to tell people, and in the end decide on a short and sweet email. We had thrown around a number of options, which got me thinking about how long distance communication has changed in the past few decades.

Thirty years ago a pregnancy announcement would have all been done almost entirely over the phone, calling on weekends or after 11pm. Phone the parents and siblings and maybe a few key extended family members and let them pass the info on virally. Some people might have even sent letters, or maybe some kind of share our joy mass mailing greeting card. This is just a guess since, as a kid, I wasn't really privy to the we're having a baby announcements.

Twenty years ago would not have been much different. Close family would be told over the phone. The dozen or so people you knew in other countries or states that had email could be told by email. Mass announcements to friends could be done on the more social Usenet groups.

Ten years ago there was a bit more choice. The younger generation of many families had email, plus a few in the older generations. I suppose I would have phoned the immediate family, IM'd those I could find logged on when I was around, and emailed the relatives I could. Then just rely on them to pass it around.

Today I find IM to be fairly useless. There are so many types that everyone seems to have the one you're not on. So it's really hard to find anyone around. I didn't even bother phoning the immediate family to make the announcement in the first place - I just used Skype. A video call is so much better to see the eyebrows raise when you tell them you're expecting. We considered using Facebook, but apparently they limit messages to 20 people max, and I'm not ready for a wall post about this yet. We ended up going with email is that it's so saturated that just about everyone has an account. It's just the easiest way to reach as many people as possible.

So, I managed to pull together about 50 email addresses in an hour or so and I was pretty sure they all worked. I sent off the message in the morning and spent the rest of the day slowly getting congratulations from people who live further and further east from us. It was nice to get all the good wishes. I suppose the you're doomed, doomed, I tell you comments will come from the friends when we tell them :)

On another note, I've decided this blog looks hideous. I need to sit down and figure out the set of bizarre incantations I need to invoke to twist this into something reasonable.

Ultrasound

Monday was the ultrasound scan. We found the place pretty easily this time since it where we accidentally ended up when we first went to UCH. At the reception they asked if we wanted photos from the scan, which would cost £2. The wife asked if they were on CD, to which they replied that the photos were on paper.

At this point a couple of things struck me. First that, really, in 2011, they would just print out the photos? Surely it would be trivial to burn to CDROM. The second was £2? Surely the cost of ink and paper would be only a few pence. I can see how they get away with it. £2 is certainly more than it actually costs to print the scan, but it's just small enough to say well, why not? So they get away with it (though I did overhear that some hospitals don't charge at all.)

We were called back immediately which was nice, especially since we were early (wanted to get to work at a reasonable hour, and the appointment was at 10). The usual height, weight and blood pressure, then we went to the ultrasound room.

The ultrasound machine had a massive CRT monitor. Another thing I'm surprised to see in 2011.

There were two technicians. One was obviously a bit more experienced than the other. However, the less experienced one was chattier and spoke loud enough we could clearly hear her, which was nice. She started the scan by pouring a mass of cold jelly on the wife's belly and moving around the magic sonogram wand. She said this is the bladder (big empty space), and this is your uterus (a smaller empty space), followed by you're definitely not 12 weeks pregnant.

At this point I do a minor very small panic. I mean, I know it's been 12 weeks. She tested positive at 5 weeks, and we couldn't be off by more than 2 weeks, and even a 10 week foetus would certainly be visible, and there was nothing there. One of the worries we'd been having was that there was no real direct sign she's pregnant. What if she's not pregnant? What do we do? Start trying again? Wait til we're more financially stable? What could have gone wrong? There's been no obvious showing or sickness. The only signs were the aching breasts. And lack of periods for 3 months. And oversensitive senses. And two positive tests. And she gets full really easily. And she.........

In the five seconds I'm doing my panic, the other technician comes over and says try looking over here, moves the wand a few cm and there it is on the monitor. A tiny little squirming person painted in little grainy specks.

Wow. It's real.

Still ultrasound pictures just don't prepare you for a real scan. The pictures are just blurry snapshots that you have to wrap your brain around. They never look like a baby. They look like… I don't know… something anatomical.

When it's live on video, it's clearly a baby. Your brain interpolates the video frames into the real picture. It's got the classic baby button nose and face. Hands and toes and it wriggles and sucks its thumb. Gets bored and turns over just when the technician is taking a measurement. All kinds of things a human would do (or a puppy, I'm not being prejudiced).

They measured all kinds of things. The more refined due date is 22 July, adjusted by 1 day from our initial estimates. We also got to hear the heartbeat (and see it). It's really very fast, like a beagle or something. For the nose bone measurement, the technician had to gentle prod the wee one to get it to move its hands out of the way. It was kind of cute watching it move.

I asked if they could tell the sex. The technician responded that it's not very clear this early and they wouldn't know for sure. She looked at the scanner for a bit and told us, saying that she was 70% confident. Given that that's only slightly better than the 50% chance of random guessing, I won't mention it here til we know for sure.

After the first set of scans they handed me the printouts of some of the better shots of the foetus. I flipped through them while the wife was having her BMI taken. They’re small and grainy (and at some point I'll have to find a scanner to get them digitised), but they're they only shots I have of the wee one, so they're kinda special anyway.

There was some more waiting while the test results came in. We hardly had time to slip through the scans before they called us back in for the results. All the blood tests and measurements showed nothing to be concerned about, which was a great relief. So I'm a bit more comfortable telling people now. So I think I'll start telling family and some friends in person (those we can manage to meet in person, it's so hard to meet up with people in January) before making any sort of public announcement.

Happy new year

We're having people over for New Year's Eve tonight. None of them know about the pregnancy, so I'm going through the house trying to find all the baby books and whatnot.

New rules for cleaning house

We agreed that I will take over all cleaning that involves chemicals. That's reasonable and makes sense. She will take over cleaning that doesn't involve chemicals. Which means I now have to clean the oven after years of getting away with not having to do so. She gets to take over... actually we didn't really clarify what tasks I give to her. Well, at least she agreed to empty the Dyson when it fills up.

In a separate note, we're going to gigs while we still can. Two this week. One a week ago. Fortunately, with the chaos of the gig, it's easy to get by without drinking, especially if I don't drink either. It's odd and awkward having to keep it a secret, since it is really interesting news. But I understand why, so I'll keep it quiet til the end of the year.

And now she's ill

So now she has a bit of a cough. Not surprising given how cold it's gotten. They say it'll even snow this weekend, but I really doubt that.

Her illness seems quite minor, just a bit of coughing and stuffiness. But she has to experience it all without any meds. Definitely no sudafed. Just lots of hot water with lemon. Would be honey if I could remember to get to the shops. It's just so cold, when the work day is done I just want to go home.

We've told all the parents and immediate siblings. All done over skype since they're all too far away to tell in person, and phone just seems so impersonal.
I'm not comfortable announcing at large until the new year when we're a bit sure it's taken. So this blog remains anonymous

In "that's interesting" news, I find myself being usually polite to her. Carrying things for her, putting up the kettle, that sort of thing. I'm not quite sure why. She's just a few weeks in and not a delicate flower at all -- she can leg press 2½ of me. I'm wondering if it's some hardcoded male thing: Must provide for woman carrying my spawn. I guess if I'm still taking out all the rubbish in a month, we'll have our answer.

Her superpowers have emerged

The heightened sense of smell and taste has started. She complained to me about the men in the gym last night just smelling bad. Also, I made rice noodles with dinner last night. When it came to seconds she declined the noodles saying they tasted wrong. They were a bit overcooked, but tasted like every rice noodle ever. So I’m guessing she either detected some subtle difference or rice noodles are out for the next 8 months.

No time to tell the parents last night. By the time we were done with dinner we were too knackered to deal with breaking the news. Perhaps today we’ll try