Giving in.

It's been a little over a week since the last post, but seems like forever.  I (or we) seem to be in a weird sort of time zone where days or weeks seem to go slow but then in retrospect everything is going really fast and we're up to the 14 week point tomorrow.  It's very strange.

As I said on my previous post we decided that that was the point we could buy our first baby thing.  Our intention has been to slowly add to the things that we need and want over the course of the pregnancy.  It turns out that we decided and what we actually do are slightly different.  My Mum came to stay with us this week (which she likes to do when she can) and which can sometimes result in her and Annie going to do a little shopping.

On this particular occasion they went to the Ashford Outlet - "offering designer labels at discount prices" - and as it turns out my Mum is also holding back a desire to purchase baby stuff.  So after I nipped out on my lunch break to go and see 'The Scream' (probably my favourite painting) I gave Annie a call and she excitedly told me about the baby things they purchased.  As you can see they made a few purchases; two rather natty baby grows from Petit Bateau (still eye-wateringly expensive despite it being an outlet) and a Moses basket from the local charity                                                                                                                                                                                                           shop at the cheap-as-chips price of a fiver, which means all we need to get is a rocking stand, a good mattress and some different blankets.

This spurred Annie and I on to go and look around the shops some more.  The main drawback of getting baby shopping urges at this early stage is the fact that you don't know the sex.  So as lovely and tempting as the clothes may be and no matter how good a bargain something might be, you can't really get the things that you want.  I can only imagine how much time we're going to spend hunting for baby clothes after the twenty week scan (which is scheduled for 25th May, by the way).

As Annie is starting to feel a little more comfortable in terms of sickness now, she let me take a photo (she looks more gorgeous with each passing day to me - she refuses to accept it), which was taken today at 13 weeks 6 days (I'm going to round that up to 14 weeks).  She's been confidently claiming that if she gets a little bit of a belly at the end of the day after a large meal, it's gone again the next morning.  She made such a declaration when my Mum kindly took us out for a slap up meal at a fantastic gastro-pub, called The Wheel near Ashford.  However the bump had not gone down significantly by the next day...or the one after that.  It seems that it's getting to the sort of time when she's going to start showing a real bump, real fast.  Another thing that you might pick up from the picture is an insatiable desire for Fruit Pastille lollies, which are one of the few things that are consistently good at keeping out nausea.



We sat down last night to watch the controversial pilot episode of the "comedy" programme Derek, which we decided wasn't offensive in the slightest, but should definitely contain a warning message to pregnant ladies as it left Annie in fits of tears (it made me cry a bit as well, but Annie's not allowed to see that).

For my part it's been a particularly busy and stressful week at work.  As well as this I am trying to push myself to study for the dreaded CIMA exams I'm going to take in June, which is also very stressful and a bit of a struggle, both in terms of content and motivation.  However, I've got a fantastic stress management tool in Annie and the baby.  I only have to think of them and it instantly calms me down and I remember just how lucky and happy I am at everything that's going on in my life.  I might not enjoy all the work but everything else is going just as I hoped it would, I can't wait to meet the baby and I can't wait to be a Dad.