Everything is going okay

So I had my latest scan yesterday and, as far as they can tell, all is okay which is a relief. We also found out the sex but we're going to wait a while before we share that news with everyone, we're enjoying it as a family at the moment.

I have the another scan in three and a half weeks which is to check the heart in more detail but the sonographer said that as far as she can see all is okay so I'm a bit less stressed about that now. It's all much more real now we're over half way and we know that things are okay in there - we're starting to plan the bedroom now and come the new year it'll be all systems go to get organised.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers (yes I know it's a day late but yesterday was Thanksgiving for my little family too) and have a great weekend all of you

Personal Space

Okay, I am now going to rant please feel free to not bother reading but I need to get this out of my system LOL.

It has started already, people assuming that me being pregnant gives them rights to invade my personal space. I have a faux bump - no idea why but my weight has shifted around (I'm 7lb lighter now than I was when I found out I was pregnant) and I have a noticable bump between my waist and my boobs. But it means that much earlier than last time I'm having to deal with idiots who think they have the right to touch me.

My body, and in particular, my stomach, is mine, nobody elses. The list of people who have permission to touch it is a short one - DH, Lia and, if necessary, doctors. Now that I happen to be pregnant that list has expanded to include midwives. Nobody else.

Me having a baby does not mean that anybody who wishes to can come up and pat my stomach and yes I do include family and friends in that. I have no idea why anyone would assume that it is acceptable just to wander up and touch me. It's still me, it's not the baby, and I am not a touchy feely kind of girl at the best of times so now when I'm uncomfortable, a bit stressed and generally tired it certainly isn't a good idea for you to try it. If you're lucky I'll just move away, get me on a really bad day and it's likely to be a verbal warning or I may just lash out.

Obviously the majority of people don't feel the need to pat my stomach and also I am fully aware that there are some women who absolutely don't mind if you do wander up and touch them, but it really, really bothers me. A woman who works in the same building as me does this pretty much every time she sees me and she did so when I was pregnant with Lia too so now I find myself turning on my heel every time I see her heading towards me.

There, I've got that off my chest now and feel a little bit better for it - at least until the next time someone heads towards me with their hand out...

Thanks

Thanks for all your congratulations, they are much appreciated.

Sharon, in answer to your comment re will we find out the flavour of the baby, yes we will. We found out when we were having Lia and I will have around five or six scans after the time they are able to tell you so we should be pretty sure. With Lia we had five different sonographers tell us it was a girl so we figured we were okay to go with pink stuff.

The main reason for finding out for me is that DH and I have to have a huge name discussion should this be a boy. If it's a girl we've pretty much got the name chosen and have had for about three years but a boy will be much more of an issue.

As you probably know DH is Greek and the tradition there is to name after the Grandfather. I have a problem with this because I don't like 'juniors', I think that a child should have it's own name and it's own identity and in my family we have always given a middle name as a 'family' name and first names are whatever name we like. In fact, judging by my mates this is pretty much the tradition in the UK.

So for that reason I don't want a child named after my father-in-law. Any more than I wanted Lia named after my mother-in-law - she has my MIL's name as a middle name and there are certain members of the family who still insist on calling her 'Little Zoe' rather than Lia or her full first name. Believe me that was a tough battle on my part - I see the fact that 1) I am prepared to choose a Greek name and 2) I am prepared to not insist on naming the child from my side enough of a compromise that DH has to accept the middle name option as his compromise.

However, there is also another reason why I don't want my child named after my father-in-law and that is because his name is Achilles. Now I guess some of you out there are going 'and? What's wrong with that?' and to you I say, go ahead, feel free to name your child after my father-in-law, just don't expect me to.

I just don't like the name.

I also don't think it'd be very fair to give a kid that name and send it to school. It's not like I grew up thinking 'one day I'll have a son and I'll call him Achilles'... If I remember correctly it was going to be Michael, Peter and Connor.

I think DH has agreed that Achilles will be the middle name but the bigger battle now is getting him to agree on any other name as a first name. Everything I've tried has had a negative response so we've put all discussions on hold till we know that we need to have them. And trust me, I'd much rather have that discussion part way through the pregnancy than in the delivery room LOL.

My 104th post of 2009

If there is anyone out there still reading after my weeks of not posting very much and moaning about being tired and having no real inclination to craft, well done.

There is a reason for the fug that I've been under and, if you haven't guessed, it's the fact that I'm pregnant!

Yep, 12 weeks (or 10 weeks if you go by the American method of counting). It wasn't a surprise as we had been trying, but we'd been trying for a long time - so long in fact I was just starting to think that maybe it wasn't going to happen. I never imagined I'd have an almost five year gap between kids but that's just the way these things work out sometimes and of course there are lots of advantages to Lia being so much older as she'll be able to help out and understand when Mummy is very tired and can't play as much as she'd like to.

Due to other health problems I'm a high risk pregnancy so it's all a bit stressful (lots of extra scans and tests and consultant visits) but we're doing okay for now. I won't be able to relax fully till Christmas when all the health scans will be completed and hopefully okay. After that it's just the stress of the birth plan as the baby has to come out at least a week early which means induction (which was totally awful last time due to me having a bad reaction to the drugs used) or an elective caesarian. Of course there is a teeny tiny chance junior would decide to come early and start the show themselves but given last time was an emergency caesarian at midnight after 30 hours of , not to put too finer point on it, hell, I think I need to just accept the elective and try not to think about it for the next 26 weeks.

I've been really lucky as apart from being shattered for the last two and a half months I've had no icky symptoms at all other than vague stomach aches which equate to TOTM pains. I wasn't sick with Lia either so I've definitely gotten off lightly.

There also seems to be a bit of a baby boom around me now (isn't it always the way?) DH's sister is also pregnant with her second as our other friends of ours who are about two weeks ahead of us. Not only that two of the other Mums that I have got friendly with are also pregnant with their second (and third as one is having twins!) so I've got lots of company.

I'm hoping that now I'm into the second trimester the tiredness will ease a bit - I think some of it is stress though as all the extra tests I have to have are a worry. Still, time flies along and it certainly won't be long before Christmas is here - Lia has so much going on at school between now and then that I have plenty to take my mind off it all.

We've only just explained things to Lia - I didn't want to tell her in the early stages in case there were any issues - and she's really pleased. She's been asking for a baby brother for about six months now so it's nice to be finally able to tell her there's a chance she's getting one, apart from the small issue that she's determined she wants a baby brother and a baby sister will not do. I'm not sure how we can get around that one but given a while ago she told me she'd rather have a cat than a baby brother I think she should be easily convinced to be happy about either. LOL.

See, if only I'd have planned this a bit better this would have been a great 100th post of the year...