It was lovely to hear the heartbeat for myself, as I've only heard it on video before. It was really strong and sounded a lot like a horse trot and was impressively loud. Unfortunately I could enjoy it fully as the pain in my chest was really bad and I had started to get a nerve pain in my arm. I'm not one for worrying about my health but even I have to concede that that combination of symptoms is usually something pretty bad.
When we returned home, the first thing I did was check on the NHS website about what could be going on, and after a few questions it suggested in no uncertain terms that I should call an ambulance. I would always be wary of calling an ambulance unnecessarily as I know they get their time wasted a lot, but I thought better of driving myself to A&E. As we live about 10 minutes from the hospital, they were here in a jiffy. It was their opinion based on the fact that I didn't look too bad that I was another young man that was paranoid about his heart, after recent tragic events, but they said they'd hook me up to the ECG machine and take my blood pressure anyway.
The paramedics pulled out a pack of those little sticky pads you always see on people on TV and stuck those to my chest and ankles, then they put a blood pressure cuff around my arm, told me to stand up and turned it on. At this point I felt as close to passing out as I ever have and started getting light headed, feel sick and started to cold-sweat and go green. They sat me back down, performed the ECG.
"Well, well, well, well" said one of the Paramedics. "He's alright then?" Annie asked. "No, definitely not!" was the reply. They suspected I had an infection of the heart muscle and that it was causing it to beat softly, leading to low blood pressure, meaning that when I stood up with a cuff on my arm and 3 people crowded round me, I would feel like passing out. So they fetched a chair from the Ambulance and took me off.
Anyway to cut a long story short, the Paramedic was right and that was exactly what was wrong with me, I had/have Pericarditis, which Annie pointed out was almost named after me (a joke relayed via the Paramedic to the A&E nurse;she didn't find it amusing). The long and short of it is, lots of little sticky pads and graphs of my heartbeat, lots of blood pressure tests, some Ibuprophen for the inflammation and a week off work.
Other than that, it's not been a bad week, the electrician came round while I was feeling terrible and proceeded to tell us what an absolute death trap our house was, due to what looked like some DIY electrics from the previous owners, so that's all been put right. We've also had a little time for some more baby shopping. Baby-shopping desire is definitely in full flow now, as you can see by the picture on the right, we already have:
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| Baby purchases so far. |
- Changing table
- Moses basket
- Blankets
- Plenty of clothes
- Some bottles (they were a very good price)
- Plenty of cloth nappies
- A host of other more boring things like disposable nappies, wipes etc.
Having said that, we have managed to do most of these things for little money, the changing table was a fiver on ebay, the Moses basket was a fiver from the charity shop, the nappies were various prices second hand (thanks to the cloth nappy pages on Facebook) and the clothes have either been supermarket, sale or charity shop (got some cute dungarees, every child needs them).
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| Annie starting work on her changing bag project. |
As well as this, Annie is taking up a project to make us a changing bag. She decided that what's on the market is either overpriced or simply not good enough. This is especially the case if you use cloth nappies as they take up a lot more space than your Pampers/Huggies. So far she is doing well, and is certainly impressing herself with her lovely straight seams.
All in all it's been a real mixture of lovely baby-based news/activity and lots of illness and stress, which is hopefully all done now. We now have just over 3 weeks to wait for the next scan, which Annie is awaiting with great patience. We are fairly sure of the names we would pick for a boy and a girl now (although I am sworn to secrecy), but you can never tell whether they'll change. At the moment all that's required is a little bit more patience.
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