Busy-ness

It's been a long time since I managed a blog post.  Everything seems a bit hectic at the moment.

Auntie Beth and her best Top Gun impression.

Last Sunday my Dad took me and the sister-in-law flying for her birthday.  The weather had been looking terrible all week but thankfully we got almost completely ideal conditions, which was a bit of luck.  The plan was to drive her back to London afterwards in order to collect her old cot (hers as in her son's not hers as if in she's a bit nuts and sleeps in a cot).  This seemed like a stroke of genius as everyone benefited from it.  Unfortunately there were queues on the M25 (I'm going to blame Thatcher, for convenience), so we decided to chance driving through London, from East to West.  The first problem is the amount of time this takes even when there's only light traffic.  The second problem is that I've got a nauseous wife and a hyperactive sister-in-law on board.  Therefore there was lots of pointing and speculation about the living standards of various parts of East London (all shit, if you were wondering).

Anyway we arrived pretty late and spoke with Annie's mum for a bit before going to collect the cot, by which time it was approaching 10 o'clock.  I don't want to compromise my hardcore, rock n' roll partying image but I'm not confident of being able to drive an hour and 45 minutes on the motorway at 10 o'clock at night without feeling very tired.  With this in mind we decided that we would stay in a Premier Inn (ironic name, I think) for the night and drive home in the morning.  When we get to there the receptionist says it's going to be £81 for the night!  Apparently if you book via the website it's cheaper so she advises that if we have a smart phone it's probably worth popping online and reserving now (not having a smart phone is it's own punishment, so I don't need this).  Unfortunately there's not a whole lot that you can do so we paid up.  Now, the adverts from Premier Inn boast that you are: (1) guaranteed a good night's sleep and (2) everything is premier but the price.  While it wasn't a bad night's sleep it doesn't change the fact that nodding off in the first place is difficult with paper thin walls and a noisy family next door (spose there are worse things you could hear in a hotel).  The price however was pretty premier for what you get.

A sample of the work at WillowsCornerArt.

Fortunately I can't quibble about the price too much as my talented little missus has been earning a few bob by doing portraits and initials/nameplates (http://www.facebook.com/WillowsCornerArt/info).  I'm very proud of her enterprising ways and she's been doing amazingly with it.

We are still trying to get the baby room in shape and the most recent step is to get Vega her own wardrobe for diddy clothes.  I would highly recommend the canvas wardrobe for Dunelm Mill.  It was a steal at £12 although to be honest it takes a few days for the foul smell of the wipe-downable fabric to disappear.

Already got her own wardrobe.

We would also quite like to have a go at co-sleeping with Vega.  I think the plan is to "side-car" the cot to our bed and then she can also sleep in our bed if she falls asleep in feeding or if we bring her in, in the morning.  Now we have had to make some sacrifices for this.  We have got to sacrifice our double bed for a king size and therefore sacrifice our crappy old £100 mattress with horrible springs for a nice new fancy one (don't say we don't do anything for you Vega).  Anyway my ever generous grandparents are coming over to purchase the new mattress for us this weekend and my lovely mum bought us a new bed frame.  This arrived yesterday and we decided to put it together last night.  Needless to say this took a good 2 hours or more and involved a handful of petty flatpack squabbles (we've never had a flatpack that didn't).  It seemed a good idea to assemble the new bed frame before the mattress arrived, so we now have a double mattress on a king-size bed.  Luckily we don't get a lot of visitors so we won't look like morons to anyone but ourselves.

There's not a lot of activities involving Vega at the moment, until the ante-natal classes (I imagine there'll be some content there), I still can't get over how strong her kicking is.  There's nothing more relaxing in the morning when you're half asleep than reaching over and putting a hand on the missus' bump and feeling a massive kick.  However, I think it's probably less relaxing when you're carrying a baby and she's doing her best Vinnie Jones impersonation on your bladder when you're trying to get to sleep.  Annie attempted to stop her ante-emetic medication but it lead to her being sick and feeling nauseous more, so she's back on that.  Other than that, this is the what they call the enjoyable bit of the pregnancy.  I know I'm certainly enjoying it so far.

Vega Rose Swift.

Upon waking on Saturday morning Annie had reconsidered her position on not knowing the sex of the baby to: "I must know the sex of my baby".  I have to agree that when so many people do get to find out the sex of their baby, it is hard to take when someone tells you that you can't.  So given that I was desperate to know (and I'm a sucker for an unhappy wifey), I thought I may as well see if it was possible to get a private scan.

I gave a call to our local private scanning place and asked what sort of notice they normally need for a gender scan.  When told that the normal wait is 2 weeks I was quite worried that: (a) it would be an unbearable amount of tension if waiting 2 weeks and (b) how on earth do you tell an upset pregnant lady that she has to wait that long. Fortunately she said that someone had cancelled at 10:30 on Sunday 27th May (thank you whoever you are).

Unfortunately I get a little apprehensive when I'm in a position where I know something big is going to happen and constantly bombard Annie with "Do you think they'll see on this attempt?",  "What if they can't tell on this attempt, and they can't tell on the next one?", "how likely is it the baby will be in the right position 2 days later?".  I imagine this gets a little testing at times.

Roll on the next morning (and Annie waking me up at 3am and talking to me for half an hour, mostly out of excitement) and my Mum confirms that she'll be able to make it over to Ashford to take advantage of the fact that you're allowed visitors in the scan.  We drove down the scanning studio - nice and early - and sat around waiting outside.  The 2 ladies that run the place turned up nice and promptly and led us upstairs to the studio, which is a nice mix of professional and personal.

We were led into the scanning room and Annie hopped straight up onto the bed, "Dad" and "Nan" were directed to their seats (I get a special one cuz I'm so important :D).  The equipment looked a lot more flash than the NHS stuff (as I suppose it would if your business is to make money out of it).  The technician got going and within about 30-40 seconds announced that it was a girl, producing a huge Cheshire cat grin on Annie's face.  As well as the unabated joy of finding out that I was going to be a father to a baby girl, it was also nice to be shown the bladder, kidneys and heart of the baby as well (which is something we were not afforded in our NHS scan).

The next part was the "4D" scan (which I always thought was misleading; as in my experience 4D is the sort of thing you get at Disneyland where there's a film shown in 3D and when there is an earthquake on the screen, your seat rumbles.  In the world of scanning a 4D scan is basically a moving 3D scan).

When presented with other peoples 3D pictures, I never quite understood the appeal and pretty much thought that it was no more special than a regular 2D scan.  However when they switch the scanner over to 3D and you can see the contours of your baby's face, when they open their eyes and mouth and if they grab their foot with their hands and put it near their head (all of the above), a 3D scan is pretty magic and makes you feel that much closer to your unborn child.

Baby Vega having a yawn and
having a stretch.

So although I am disappointed that we didn't get to find out the sex of our baby at our anomaly scan - despite the fact that you can obviously find out the sex when the baby is in breech position (I think the sonographer was just miserable and didn't make the effort) - it was great to see the baby again, in 3D, and be shown all the body parts, find out the gender and to do it all in a friendly, welcoming and relaxing environment.  I would definitely recommend a gender scan, if you can.  And if you live near Ashford I would definitely recommend Baby Scan Studio.  I should also thank my Mum (again) for volunteering to pay for it as it really has made us very, very happy bunnies.  Thanks Mum.

Our perfect little girl, asleep.

So I give you Baby Vega.  She's my daughter and I love her!