Christmas 2011.

Here are some photos from our Christmas.

I am on the social committee at work, and we planned the company Christmas lunch this year. The committee decided to dress up this year, so I was one of four elves:

This is lunch on Christmas Day. The guy on the far right is Sarah's friend Fabio, a half Italian Brazillian, who lives in Dublin, who she met in Nepal (naturally), who came for Christmas (his family is all in Sao Paulo, so I think he only goes back for Christmas from time to time. Like with coming back to the States, flights are just so expensive during the holidays that it's just better to visit at other times of the year). He was nice. He's recently gone back to university and majoring in film studies and English literature, so of course I thought he was great.

Here are the traditional Boxing Day desserts - Christmas cake, Yule Log (Buche du Noel) - which I made - and trifle (in the foreground).

Mark opening a present:

In the background you can see Mark's mum's new multifuel stove, which was installed right before Christmas. Unfortunately it was really mild weather the whole time, so it wasn't really necessary. But since it was new, she kept it going the whole time - it was really warm in that room!

It was a really nice Christmas and Boxing Day; I can't believe it's already all over!

Vallentiny update number four: 38 weeks, with a reminder of predictions.

I had my 38-week midwife appointment on Friday (the 30th). Everything is still fine - no real changes. 

My belly measurement was 39cm, so just a centimeter larger than the average measurement. Last visit's measurement (at 36 weeks) was also a centimeter above average, and all the other times before that were bang on the money, so I guess it just shows consistent growth, with maybe a little spurt previously. 

Vallentiny's heartbeat is still strong and healthy sounding. 

Vallentiny is still head down and 3/5 engaged - same as the last two visits, so no further dropping down has happened. Vallentiny seemed to be inbetween spine-to-spine and looking left, so not the most ideal position (facing my spine), but not too bad and there's still time. 

The midwife did say that it felt like it was a long baby - it seems to be taking up all the available space. That's why I'm including a reminder of everyone's predictions below, since we're now starting to get some new pertinent information!

My next appointment is in two weeks - on my revised due date, Friday, 13 January (though in my maternity notes the due date is still listed as the 14th, and the predictions below are based on the 12th - whichever way, it's all close!). 

In general, I'm still sleeping relatively well, getting up 2-3 times a night to pee, but falling back asleep quickly.  I am having to sleep a bit on my right side some because my hips hurt a bit after a while; I think it must be the relaxing of tendons and things that everyone keeps talking about. I have started having noticeable Braxton Hicks "contractions," from time to time, so I'm starting to get the early sense of what's coming. Oh man.

The hospital bag is now pretty much all packed, all except a few last minute things. I think we're pretty set on other necessary items, too (except for curtains for Vallentiny's room). Thanks to Mom and Dad we have the car seat and base, and a place for the baby to sleep and thanks to Jenny and others we have clothes for the baby to wear. The car seat base is now installed in the car. We still haven't decided on a stroller thing yet, but that's ok. I think we're finally at the stage where it's just a matter of waiting for Vallentiny to decide when it's time to come out!

Vallentiny update number three: 32 weeks.

Also note the new glasses!

I had a midwife visit last Friday, and an ultrasound on Wednesday.

The midwife visit went well. I had had my anti-D injection last time, plus some blood taken for tests, so I got the results back from those. All was fine, and I'm not anaemic, which is all good.

By the way, the anti-D injection was fine. It was a bit uncomfortable because there was a decent amount of fluid to go in, but I chatted with the midwife through it (we talked about boots, naturally), so was fairly relaxed and it didn't hurt. I followed mom's advice of applying a cold compress after, so didn't have any soreness or bruising.

The midwife did the regular belly measurement and prodding, plus we listened to Vallentiny's heartbeat which was strong and regular. Measurements are all normal, and since last time Vallentiny has moved into a head down position.

At the ultrasound on Wednesday, I first had a scan by a midwife who is training to be a sonographer. She was fine, though I think still gaining experience and confidence in her own abilities (she kept saying, quietly to herself and somewhat sadly, "they make it look so EASY"). She took measurements of the head (which she had a bit of trouble with, since Vallentiny's head was way down), the belly and the femur. Then the established sonographer (who was the same one we had last time) came in and did it all again to check the trainee's work, which was pretty good. All three of her measurements came out a little larger than the experienced sonographer's, but it was all within a millimetre or two, everyone was happy with that. Again, everything was bang in the middle of average, so all is looking good.

After experiencing the trainee sonographer, it was insane how fast and assured the experienced sonographer was. She really did only take about ten seconds to get in position and take a picture, which she then measured. It was very impressive.

We saw a quick glimpse of Vallentiny's face, which looked like every other sonogram baby face, but it was nice to see. It is a lot harder to see what's going on at 32 weeks since everything is really squished up together. The trainee midwife did manage to get one picture of Vallentiny's profile.

Vallentiny at 32 weeks

She also was able to tell us that Vallentiny's estimated weight is 4 lbs 8 ounces (2.044 kg). I think that might be a little above average at this point of time, which of course is encouraging, yet slightly dismaying, if Vallentiny continues on an upward trend.

Mom and Dad's recent visit means that we're a bit more prepared in terms of the necessities, like diapers, wipes and all that good stuff. We also now have a pack 'n' play, (with the bassinet and "newborn napper" attachment) which means that Vallentiny will have someplace to sleep other than a drawer! Vallentiny is very grateful for Pa and Mimi.

As for the day-to-day, I'm feeling a lot more of Vallentiny's movements, which of course is expected. I have also started seeing more visible movement, though I've also realized that Vallentiny is like those ghosts in Super Mario that freeze when you look at them, but then start moving around as soon as your back is turned. I'll feel a lot of movement but as soon as I look down to see it, or call someone else's attention to it, Vallentiny freezes. Mark has been able to feel movement regularly though, which is nice.

So all is well. I have my next appointment with the midwife on December 2nd, and I think in the meantime we're going to look into taking a tour of the delivery units at the hospital. We also have our antenatal classes which also run over two Saturdays in December. We only really have the car seat left to get, and the rest we'll buy once we know what kinds of things we really need and want.

All that I really need to do at this moment, it seems, is sleep as much as possible!

Mark's birthday at the seaside

Mark here, just a quick photo or two of me, Jess and Vallentiny enjoying the unseasonably warm weekend down on the south coast today. Fish and chips and opening presents on the beach - I think that has to be a first for my mid-October birthday!

I spied a motorcycle

With my mum

Harbour

With ever-so-subtle bump

I need opinions!

It's time to buy new glasses. I've discovered a web site that sells frames online, which is meant to be a bit cheaper than in-stores, which may or may not be the case, depending on which frames you end up with. But I've discovered that the best thing they do is "home trials." You select up to four frames you want to try and they mail them to you to try out for a week. And once they receive them back, you can ask for four more, and so on, as many times you want. Postage is all paid for, and you only have to pay a one-time fee of £5, regardless of how many times you end up getting sets of four sent to you. And if you end up buying your glasses from them, you get your £5 back. It's great - I really don't know why more places do this for lazy people like me who don't want to schlep around a bunch of stores trying stuff on.

And it means it's easier taking photographs to share with people far and near, so we thought we'd open up the options to everyone, to see what people think.

You can see that I pretty consistently pick the same kind of frames; I tend not to go too "wacky." They also do a "buy one, get one free" deal, so I need to have two pairs that I like. I'm leaning toward a pair of black and/or tortoiseshell, in terms of the color, just since it's the black frames that I have currently that are worn out.

Of the options below - which two do you like best?

Option A

Option B

Option C

Option D

Option E

Seventh anniversary overnight trip: Exmoor.

This year, Mark and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Because there's some other stuff going on, we wanted to take a least a little bit of time for just the two of us. But we didn't want to go far, so we ended up on an overnight stay in Exmoor.

It's only a couple of hours from Bristol, and since one of the traditional 'themes' for year seven is wool, we thought it was an appropriate destination:


We visited Tarr Steps, which is a medieval (or earlier) stone bridge.





There's a nice walk along the river, along both sides, and there are some other, smaller stone bridges along the way. We stopped and took a picture which ends up showing how round I'm becoming:



After the walk, we stopped at a hotel/cafe overlooking the steps.



There we had the joy of a cream tea, a tradition in both Devon and Cornwall (scones, jam, clotted cream, tea) - the main difference between the two types of cream tea apparently being what order you apply the jam and clotted cream. But whichever order, it's really good, so I of course was pleased.


We stayed overnight at the Exmoor Forest Inn in Simonsbath, inland from The Hunter's Inn, which is where we usually stay when we go to Devon/Exmoor (which Mom and Dad have also experienced). It was OK - the food wasn't as good as all the reviewers suggested, but it wasn't bad and the room was comfortable. (And they had satellite TV - woo woo - which we don't have at home).

The next day we visited Lynmouth - again, which Mom and Dad should recognize!



The weather was pretty bad, with a lot of rain, so we didn't hang around too much. It really felt more like autumn than the end of summer. It was still nice to visit, though, especially since Lynmouth was one of the places Mark took me on our first visit to England, when we were both still living in Slovakia.

Here's to a great seven years and looking forward to the next!

Vallentiny update number two: 20 weeks (aka alien dinosaur baby)

So it seems like Vallentiny had a bit of a growth spurt recently because, to me at least, the bump is looking a bit bigger.



On Wednesday I had my 20 week ultrasound. It went really well - brain, heart, kidneys, bladder, spine, hands, legs, stomach and everything else all looked good. We were very, very pleased, despite the fact that of course we couldn't really "see" much of anything our very nice ultrasound lady (nurse? doctor? technician?) was pointing out. We could see/understand the brain and heart (it was pretty cool to see the four chambers clearly), and of course the skeletal structure. Everything else was blobs and grey patches. She did a color overlay at a couple of angles to look at blood flow; to me it just looked like some kind of 70s experimental film. But she was pleased with what she saw, which is the important thing. She was really pleased with Vallentiny's feet. So get the baby sandals ready, people.

At the end, we did find out the gender, but we've decided to keep that information to ourselves. Our plan is to use both pronouns interchangeably, so if I refer to Vallentiny as "he" or "she," know that it's all part of the plan to try to keep that bit a surprise for everyone. I'll probably also keep using "it" for a time as well - "it" just still kind of fits. Especially while Vallentiny still looks like an alien.








I'm next booked in for an ultrasound at 32 weeks, on November 16th. We may still do one of those "4D" scans - we haven't really talked about it - but I guess that's typically done around 28-30 weeks.

I'm still not feeling any movement (that I can distinguish) and the ultrasound lady explained why. Apparently, the placenta is at the back, which means that it's in-between Vallentiny and my tummy, which of course is where you start to feel any movement. So Vallentiny's going to need to be a bit bigger (or really rambunctious) before I really start to feel anything. I wasn't concerned about it, but it was interesting to hear the explanation.

All's well with Team Vallentine!