Labour day weekend...

For the last two to three weeks we've been in a holding pattern waiting for that moment when Eli says to me "I think it's starting". We're still here and Pip's time is up.

She won't come out voluntarily (displaying the stubborn streak again - she gets that from her mom!) so we're going in there to get her!

Today we go for the euphemistically titled "induction". Pip gets her marching orders and one way or another she's coming out some time in the next day or so.

It's hard to describe my physical and emotional reaction to this... For the past two weeks I've been relatively calm and laid back about the prospect of a late night "get up you B**tard who did this to me and take me to the drugs... er... hospital!" but as that failed to surface and this day approached I got more and more nervous.

Yesterday I was a wreck! Giggling nervously like a little girl... sweaty palms... butterflies in the tummy. The works!

Today... I'm calm again! What's up with that? I can rationalise the calmness for the last few weeks (we're ready, it's gonna happen, save energy for the emergency) and I can also rationalise why I was increasingly nervous over the last few days (a hard deadline to look forward to rather than something which might happen) but I can't for the life of me figure out why I'm now calm again instead of more nervous (since the deadline is not yet passed).

The human body and mind are a strange fellowship.

The Waiting Game

These days, of course, we're sitting here waiting for the little miss who is late. I hope that won't be the story of her life..... The rest of the pregnancy was much the same: walking the dog with a bump that got heavier and heavier, heartburn of astronomic dimensions and ankles the size of footballs.
We had one little hickup. I got a craving for Kellogg's Frosties and ate them by the kilo. When I went for my check up I had sugar in my urine twice which meant I had to go and take a Glucose Tolerance Test. The fact that it was during the week my mum was here was just idiotic. I had to be at the hospital at 9am to have some blood taken, then I had to drink 500ml of Lucozade (why would anyone actually pay for that?), wait for three hours and then have some more blood taken. It's a good thing I had a good book with me as it was boring as hell. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything else, so the cafeteria was out and going home would just have taken too long.
The result of all of this was that everything was normal and I didn't have to worry about it.

A couple of weeks later I got a telephone call from the surgery in Brampton. Could I please come and pick up a prescription as I was slightly anaemic. Good girl that I am I did, went to the pharmacy and took my iron tablets: they wreaked havoc on my digestive system and when I complained to the midwife she couldn't understand why I got them in the first place. I don't think they were ever intended for me. It's a good thing they were "only" iron tablets.

Last week, we were back at the midwife's clinic where she performed a "sweep and stretch" (or as Joe calls it: a scratch and sniff) to hopefully start off labour in the next few days. It was incredibly painful and I don't think my reaction was quite what Leila and Donna expected: I was laughing my head off. That is my way of dealing with pain, so I think labour will be a very interesting and funny time for us....

What's this ear then?

First impressions, they say, are always the most lasting and and are one of the key determining factors in your relationship with that person for the future.

My first real encounter Pip therefore should probably ring a plethora of alarm bells.

For some days, Eli had been experiencing proper kicks and bumps from the rambunctious little rascal inside her tummy... I was largely unaware of these as there were (at those early stages) no external signs of it.

One evening while she was being kicked, Eli asked me to place my hand on her tummy. I did and nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen for a bit and it seemed that Pip had gone to sleep again.

I put my ear to the bump to hear what was going on inside... Very little. Some gurgling and swishing sounds. Next thing I know, I get a kick... a proper kick... into the ear! My little tiny baby (less than a Kilo at that stage) had decided, in utero, to kick her Dad in the head, had spun herself around and given me an almighty (for her size at the time) thump with her foot right into the ear!

It was a mixture of pride and trepidation that I felt. Pride that she'd been clever enough and aware of external stimulus enough to locate me, move around and give me a kick to say "Get off my bump!" and trepidation as to how our relationship is likely to progress for the future if that's how she treats me now :)

Incidentally, she repeated this performance a few days later at the next midwife session when they attempted to listen for her heartbeat with the heartbeat monitor. They tried dilligently to hear her heartbeat but every time they pressed the monitor into Eli's bump, Pip span around and gave it an almight kick with her foot. She kept this up for about 10 minutes before the midwife gave it up as a bad job.

We can learn three important things about Pip's personality from this...

First: She's very clever and aware of her surroundings.
Second: she's very very stubborn and pig headed.
Third: She's not adverse to using physical violence to get what she wants.

I'm not sure if any or all of the above are good things or bad... time (and bruises) will tell...

What's in a name?

As do many parents, we have named the "bump". Some people use the term "bump", some call it "chicken", some call it "the goldfish" etc. etc. etc. If you've ever had a child, you'll know what I mean...

In our case, the name "Pip" came about when we bought our first "Your Pregnancy" book and researched the current state of the foetus (about 3 weeks in I think, but I could be wrong... Eli will correct me if I am!) and the text told us that at this point, it is the size of an apple pip.

The name just presented itself! Pip she's been since then.

If you're wondering why I always say "She" that's because I've been sure, since the very first that she's a girl... don't know why. We've since had that gender confirmed at a scan but of course it's possible (the sexing is only 98% accurate) that it could be a boy.

If so, I hope he likes pink... he's going to be wearing a lot of it for the first 2 years of his life :)

The Gentle Giant

There is already a very special bond between Pip and our cat, Flokati. It started early in the pregnancy when Flokati first discovered my bump. I thought he simply enjoyed the fact that there was a "built-in pillow" for him when he lay on my lap. Now, I believe I was wrong. He always positions himself in such a way that he can have his head on my bump and purrs. As soon as the purring starts the kicking stops. Flokati will squeeze himself into the smallest spaces to be close to my bump and I often wake up with him lying on top of me purring like mad. This isn't very comfortable as he is a very big cat (and, to be honest, rather fat).

However, this isn't the first time he has displayed his love for babies. Before he came to us he belonged to our neighbours in Switzerland. Alexandra and Roel had a lovely baby daughter called Tiziana and Flokati was her babysitter. The tiniest noise from the baby and he would go running to her and just sit next to her purring. Sadly, Tiziana was allergic to him and developed terrible eczema. As I had fallen in love with him the first time I saw him, he came to us on the 17. Mai two years ago. Coincidence? The 17. Mai is our due date!

I've told Joe to record Flokati's purring so that we can calm the baby down once she's born. I'm very sure that she will remember that sound and, hopefully, it will send her off to sleep.

A Squirming Worm

The third trimester has started and I still am not able to sleep. This, of course, gives me a great excuse to take it easy and lie down for a snooze every day after lunch. Funnily enough it's like everyone knows when I'm snoozing as most days the door bell or the telephone will ring. I don't mind, though, as I probably would sleep away all afternoon and then not be able to sleep at all at night (again).
Joe and I have also attended antenatal classes and taken a tour of the hospital's delivery suite. The classes (now called parent craft classes) were good as the midwives did not embellish anything. Some of the couples looked quite pale after our first afternoon when we were told what to expect at the birth. Pain, mainly. "Contractions have to hurt", "we're happy to wait on the phone until the contraction is over and you can speak again", "would you like an epidural to relieve the pain?" were just a few sentences that were thrown at us. Basically, giving birth is like shoving a chair up you nostril: not a pleasant experience. Forget all about dignity, you're going to scream, poo, bleed and be inspected from all angles, even unsavoury ones.

The kicking has turned into a squirming, with the occasional kick (always aimed at my ribcage) thrown in for good measures. It's really funny to see how my bump changes shape depending on how the baby is positioned. Sometimes my bump shifts to one side, sometimes I look square. And when you watch her shifting positon it looks as if there is a squirming worm in my tummy.

A Scan and some Flutterings

After the nausea left me for good I started feeling really good. Now I was just waiting for the first flutterings. In our book it said that in a first pregnancy the baby could be felt for the first time between week 20 and 24. A friend of mine invited me to a cinema organ concert when I was about 17 or 18 weeks. Well, the music must have activated the alien in me: almost at the end of the concert I could feel something in my tummy that I had never felt before. It think it must have been the first flutterings but I can't be sure.

The flutterings and kicks started for good at about week 22. It was such an exciting time as they were few and far between. I kept calling Joe to come and feel but invariably the kicks stopped as soon as he put his hand on my tummy.

We had our second scan at 24 weeks (which is quite late but that's England for you). It was a cold, wet Monday in January and we were very excited. This was going to be the day that would confirm our feelings (girl) or Bren and Rachel's hopes (boy). The names had been chosen ages ago and we were not really worried about the sex of the baby. A boy was as welcome as a girl and vice versa. The funny thing, though, was that Joe and I both had the feeling that it was a girl. Our feelings were confirmed, we're expecting a little girl. Now, there's still a 2% chance that the lady doing the scan is wrong and it is a little boy. All I can say is that he is just as welcome as a girl but I do hope that he likes pink!

As soon as people knew that a girl was "in the pipeline" we received lots and lots of clothes and they're all pink! We got tiny pink socks, lovely flowery dresses, frilly jeans and pijamas with pink fluffy rabbits.

At the end of February we went to Switzerland. It was my last chance to fly without a medical certificate and I was desperate to go "home". It was a really good time and the start of the next phase in our baby's development: the "kick the sh.. out of your mum" phase and I can tell you it's no fun. Sleep became a word that I heard about, not something I experienced and I was so tired I was desperate. On the positive side, I was spoilt rotten by my mum and we went shopping for the first time. As we had received so many clothes and things we hadn't bought anything ourselves. Now we went out and bought a little bodysuit with lions and giraffes on and a yellow sleepsuit with bears. We also bought some bibs and cloths and none of these things are pink!

In the end the second trimester ended quietly with no big dramas just a very tired pregnant lady!

The first trimester in fast forward

It's probably pretty clear that these first few posts are us doing catch-up. We are currently in the 3rd Trimester and getting ready for the big day... but we wanted to backtrack to capture those first 6 heady months to make the record complete.

I'm sure Eli will post on this topic as well, but I thought I'd write a few words about the first two trimesters. For obvious reasons it won't be blow-for-blow as we might have hoped but hopefully we'll capture the most important bits.

For me, in a physical sense, of course the first trimester was a breeze since I don't have to bear the burden of the physical pregnancy.

That doesn't make it easy however. Eli was quite ill throughout most the the first trimester and the constant nausea and general malaise she was feeling brought back unhappy memories of when she had to endure treatment for her cancer for both of us. The emotional toil at this was pretty heavy but, as always, we battled through it.

For the observer, as I largely was, not a lot is happening in the first trimester but of course, "under the hood", if I'm permitted such a crude simile, there is a lot happening. There were some small signs of change, a rounding of the tummy, some small weight gain but nothing really "in your face".

Of course, like all expectant parents in the early pregnancy, we were on tenderhooks! We've had a rough couple of years for the last few and my instinct was not to hope for too much in case that hope got dashed. Eli is generally a calm person and she never really betrayed any worry to me about how things were going but I'm a born worrier and I was in hyper-stress mode all through the first trimester dreading that something would go wrong.

One of the first things I learned, and I hope this is a piece of wisdom that any expectant or potential parents who read this take to heart, is that all of the literature you read about early pregnancy is doom and gloom! Don't believe it!

I swear, people, books, TV, everything starts off telling you "You're Pregnant! It's a wonderful thing!" and then proceeds to prophesy every form of negativity you can imagine as if the only possible outcome is bad.

In point of fact, most pregnancies are normal... there is a tiny percentage (less than 1%) in which something goes wrong with the baby or the mother... These books always front up with this ("You're pregnant! It's a wonderful thing! 99.9% of all pregnancies have no problems but...") and then spend almost the entire rest of the book telling you every bloody thing which can go wrong!

You'd think that medical staff would go to some pains therefore to redress the balance for the health of mum-to-be, dad-to-be and of course, baby.. You go to them full to the brim with all this knowledge about the thousands and thousands of things you're completely convinced *will* go wrong with your pregnancy and baby and what you really really need is someone to re-assure you that these things are the minorty, not the majority of cases as it seems... but no.. this being "riskless Britian" they have to be 100% certain that they tell you about everything that can possibly go wrong so that, in the unlikely event that it does, you can't say they didn't warn you.

I thought these people took a hippocratic oath to "do nothing to harm the patient" for **** sake. Isn't it about time they were reminded of it and the Government in this country stop trying to turn the medical staff of its health-service into anti-litigation civil servants instead of carers and physicians!

Well, rant over, let's move on :)

One of the big worries of course (so we were taught to think) is Downs Syndrome. I'm not sure why people are so terrified of having a Downs child. I realise that they take more effort on the part of the parents to rear, and they can have health difficulties but why does that matter? Your child is your child! Why is it so important to single out this one thing. People don't spend hours worrying if their child will be short, blind, deaf, dumb, bow-legged, ugly as a pigs behind... or any other "defect" or attribute they might have which could in some way be construed as negative... yet we should get all bent out of shape worrying about Downs Syndrome... I just doesn't make sense.

I have to admit, I was the one pushing to know at the time what our risk factor was... and I rationalised it at the time as simply to know "what we were letting ourselves in for" but the more I think about it now, I think that was an excuse to myself. In reality I was caught up in that whole mindset... Now, thankfully, I've seen the light and I truly believe if Pip comes out as a Downs child (after all, there's still a risk!), I'll love her not one single bit less than I would if she were "normal".

After all of the emotional turmoil of the first trimester, next of course comes the first scan.

Let me tell you... if you're going to be a Dad.. and you're in the early stages, this event more than makes up for the emotional turmoil and the stress you're going through in the early stages.

To date, for me, it's the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. (Yes, I fully expect the birth to eclipse it - but "to date") We were on complete tenderhooks for the appointment. This is a big day! When we were called in to the room to do the scan, my whole body was, quite literally, rigid with tension.

After exchanging some pleasantries with the lady doing the scan, it was down to business...

First she had to check that there was only one baby in there (Eli gave thanks when it was declared that there was only one!) and then it was down to the main business of the scan.


It's almost impossible to put into words the wave of emotion which came over me when we saw the first proper pictures. It was the strangest feeling I have ever had. When pictures of Pip started showing up on screen, my entire body reacted involuntarily. I was overcome, as I said, with a sensation I can only describe as Awe. My mouth fell open, my eyes watered and I felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness and love for a picture on the screen.

Incredible! I expected that I'd have some feelings like this when she's born but not when she's a few centimeters long, weighing a handful of grammes and the only visible sign of her existence is a slight swelling and a black-and-white vaguely human image on a TV screen. Nature truly is a marvel.

The lasting impression that day has made on me will never leave.
What a way to cap off the first Trimester!

How not to tell your man......

There are various ways of telling your man that he's going to be a father, some more romantic than others. You can cook him a nice meal and slip him a little box with baby booties, you can leave him a little message.... Or you can do it my way and give him a heart attack.

I had an inkling that something was afoot; I was late and I'm never late. Having told Joe that I was late and him joking about the possibility of me being pregnant, I virtually ran to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. As I did not for one moment believe that it would be positive, I didn't tell Joe about it but just waited for him to go to work the following morning. I then dutifully peed on the stick and watched it turn pink in about 0.3 seconds. The next few minutes saw me wandering around the house aimlessly, pick up the test stick and comparing it to the positive one in the instructions again and again muttering "oh my God, oh my God". I then went to the computer and sent Joe a message to call me as soon as he got to the office.

He did; and as he didn't know what it was about his exact words were: "Yes, what do you want?" My reply was, of course, really sensitive and considerate: "I'm pregnant!" Well the silence following that statement was quite something. This was followed by him muttering "I don't know what to say" a few times before hanging up. Three minutes later the phone rang again: "Are you joking?" Well, no, I wasn't.

Joe recovered from the shock nicely with numerous cups of tea, a hot water bottle and some TLC.

Our little miracle...

To put things in context, a little history...

In March 2004, Eli found a lump in one of her breasts which was subsequently diagnose as malignant. She had a lumpectomy, an operation to remove some lymph nodes (which killed her - literally - she had to be recussitated on the operating table) and then 7 months of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy.

This treatment triggered a premature menopause which was, thankfully, temporary.

Roll forward 4 years and we're expecting a baby! Given Eli's age (I aint telling!) and our history, the odds of this are pretty darned miniscule, so as you can imagine we view Pip as a little miracle!

I've been trying to find some hard statistics on this but it's difficult to find something which gives me a very clear percentage chance.

At best odds, extrapolating numbers from one study (Breast Cancer in Young Women : Effect of Chemotherapy on Ovarian Function, Fertility, and Birth Defects - Bonnie S. Reichman, Karen B. Green)It seems to be about an 8% chance of having a full term pregnancy (19 children from a study of 227 women - I know it's not an exact ratio but it's close enough for a layman)

On the other end of the scale is the fact that Eli is over 35 (don't tell her I told you that! She's 21... again...) has had at least temporary amenorrhea and therefore 96% likely to have abnormal ovulation (post chemotherapy) putting her in a 4% bracket for ovulation and therefore given a 60% pregnancy probability rate (Parenthood probability and pregnancy outcome in patients with a cancer diagnosis during adolescence and young adulthood H. Magelssen, K.K. Melve3, R. Skjærven, and S.D. Fosså) the overall probability goes down to about 2.4%

Even though it's starting to sound like a dissertation, don't get me wrong, this isn't science... I've quoted some numbers from some articles I've read on the subject but they could be entirely the wrong articles or I may well have jumped to the wrong conclusions.

All of the doctors and midwives we've met keep telling us that it's a little miracle that Eli is pregnant with no problems whatsoever for her and baby (touch wood!) I'm just trying to figure out if they're blowing smoke up our asses :)

Given that, near as I can figure, disregarding any other factors, from the above there is somewhere between an 2% and 8% chance of Eli even conceiving! If you start to add in other factors like the probability of my fertility, doing stuff at the right time ;) etc. etc. etc. then it starts to become a more and more remote possibility...

As you can imagine, this makes us feel even more lucky to be where we are right now.

I know every parent feels blessed and every child is a miracle but in this case given the remote possibility, it's actually true :) - My fervent wish is that she continue this streak of good fortune throughout the rest of her gestation, birth and life!

What's going on here then?

Recently Eli and I have been looking at these Baby Album thingies where you record all the details of your baby's life.

We both love the idea but so many of them are just so... mushy... some are downright tacky and all are just not exactly what we want.

So, this being the 21st century and all, we resolved to embrace the present and use a blog as this form of journal instead of the printed one. That way we can build it as it fits us, rather than as dreamed up by some Hallmark suit. We can always turn it into print later should we wish.

This then, is our journal for the artist currently known as Pip. She's already one part gymnast, one part mule, one part kick-boxer and one part genius... and she's not even out of the womb yet!