Having just redesigned the layout on Odd-Fish.net and included a link to this blog I guess I’m obliged to make the occasional entry.
So over the next few days I’ll make a few posts about Odd-Fish, the ongoing progress of Mrs Nobody’s pregnancy and life in general. Stay tuned.
Today Mrs Nobody and I went to get another scan of our work in progress.
Unlike previous scans which were free and routine NHS proceedures to check for problems and to gauge the growth of the baby, the one we had today was by our choice and cost over £100. (Mother-in-law paid for it, her ‘baby shower’ gift to us.)
What made this scan even more different to the NHS ones we had before was the technology used. Rather than the flat monochrome ’slice’ through the baby’s body showing internal organs and an x-ray-like vaugeness of image, today’s scan showed a fully formed real-time three dimentional image of our wriggling baby in his bag of juice with his lifeline attached to his placenta.
The images aren’t perfect because there isn’t a lot of room in there and there’re plenty of things to get in the way of the imaging ‘lens’- the placenta, the cord, baby’s own hands and feet, Mum’s organs and so on. But with a little perseverance and an ice cream for Mrs Nobody to get him wriggling we got some lovely shots of his face, hands, feet and yes, confirmation that we have a son on the way!
We also got a DVD of the whole session. About 20 minutes of our son punching and wriggling, smiling, hiccuping and pulling at his umbilical cord. Bloody marvellous.
Today we had an appointment at the maternity unit for a routine ultrasound scan. The scan is so the development of all the the baby’s organs can be checked, any annomalies can be spotted and to just check that everything is generally OK.
The sonographer went through all the routine stuff; two hands, ten fingers, two kidneys, one brain in two lobes, one stomach, one liver, two legs with ten toes, one spine and so on. While she was doing all this with speedy efficiency she asked us if we wanted to know the gender of the baby.
We’d already discussed this and decided we did. Knowing ahead of the birth meant we could shop for clothes, decorate the nursery and chose a name at our leasure.
Mrs Nobody particulaly wanted to give the baby a name while its still cooking because she feels it helps with bonding, makes the baby more ‘real’ and less abstract.
So we told the sonographer our wishes and she quickly positioned the ultrasound probe to reveal the baby’s bits. It was such a fleeting glimpse the Mrs Nobody completely missed it but I saw clearly, for a split second what the sonographer referered to as a shape like a snail indicating that in all probability our child is a boy.
At this age and with ordinary ultrasound and with such a fleeting glimpse, there’s no way to be one hundred percent sure, but it’s still very good odds. We’re going to have a son.
Later on we’re hoping to have one of those new-fangled 3D scans which should show us without doubt if he has an innie or an outie (so to speak) but for now we feel confident enough to buy a few blue outfits to go with all the yellow stuff we have already.
I have the terrible urge to buy stuff. Stuff for the baby, stuff for Mrs Nobody, stuff for me and just stuff. It must be the instinct for the male of the species to provide for his offspring kicking in.
I am Man, hear me enter my PIN.
I mustn’t give in to the urge too often because we really have to watch the pennies at the moment, what with hoping to move house before the spawn makes its appearance. Of course the house move also means it’s not a good idea to clutter the place up with stuff that just becomes more things to pack.
Also, being realistic, it’s still very early days and it’s still a very real possibility that this little bean won’t stick.
Maybe when we hit the magic twelve weeks I’ll be a bit more relaxed about splashing the cash on baby paraphernalia.
Having said all that, we’ve started a ‘bottom drawer’ box which is becoming populated with a few little things for the baby.
Mrs Nobody has already blogged about the iCandy buggy and the MaxiCosi car seat we bought from eBay in a moment of weakness (they were bargains though.)
Anyway. Today for the box we bought a little blankie. It’s got a giraffe on it and it’s soft and snuggly. Hardly a priority purchase we know, but it’s one less thing to buy later on and one more thing that makes this whole experience just that little bit more real to us.
The box now also contains some babygrows we got on sale from Asda last week, (£4 for seven! Bargain!) a very nice maternity top from Mamas & Papas and a little top for the baby. The top turned out to be a learning experience about sizes and will be far too big for a newborn but no matter, one thing that babies can be trusted to do is g-r-o-w!
Any stuff we buy pre-knowing the gender is going to be either yellow, or as neutral as possible and personally, I’d like to avoid the whole blue-for-boys / pink-for-girls thing even when we do know the gender. In fact I’d like to avoid the whole gender stereotype reinforcement thing altogether. If my little boy wants a ‘my first kitchen’ playset or my little girl wants a Thomas the Tank Engine train set, that’s fine by me. Let them play with what engages their interest, I say.
We’ve also bought some non-underwired bras for Mrs Nobody because she’s rather tender in the boobicle regions to say the least and has already pretty much outgrown all her usual bras.
Honestly, the trouble we had finding non-underwired bras in large cups sized but with small backs you would not believe. But finally we found a two-pack (one black, one flesh) in 32E in Debenhams Department Store in the town centre. Mrs Nobody didn’t try them on in the shop (she hates doing that, and I can’t say I blame her) but once home they fitted snugly, possibly toosnugly. It won’t be long before she has to up-size again!
Earlier we were in B&Q (a hardware superstore) and we just happened to notice some ‘Baby on Board’ signs on a rack. Now personally, I hate seeing the things in the back of cars. I can’t see the point. “Oh I was going to ram your car from behind, but now that I see you’ve got a baby on board I’ll pick on someone else instead. Maybe they only have a worthless adult in their car and won’t mind me ramming them”
Anyway, I digress. Baby on Board signs are pretty ubiquitous, you see them everywhere, everyone knows what they look like. So we thought it might be quite fun to have a maternity tee with the sign on the ‘bump’ so as soon as I got home I made it so and ordered one.
Groovy, no?
No not the cheesy feel-good movie about nature v nurture staring Arnold Wotzisknockers and Danny DeVito, I’m talking about the very real possibility that the new life, the little bundle of rapidly differentiating cells growing inside my lovely Missus is not a bean but beans. Plural.
It’s a possibility that only occurred to me a couple of days ago but has really got me thinking. Twins would mean we’d have to come up with two names. One is hard enough (see my previous post) but two? Oh dear. What if they’re both boys? Two boy’s names? Nightmare.
Of course, with twins, the names are the least of the worries. Poor Mrs Nobody is only five foot one and very petite, carrying one baby is going to be a real trial for her let alone two and then there’s the birth, having to force two little squirming bodies out of her Super Special Sphincter would be no walk in the park.
Later of course there’s having to have two of everything. Luckily Mrs Nobody has two boobs so feeding then should be too much of problem but we’ll also need to double up up cots, car seats, clothes, toys… well you get the picture, the list is endless.
Would we dress them alike? If they’re identical twins would we be able to tell them apart? How do you avoid favouritism?
Twins. Oh my. It would be fantastic if it were, but I just hope we could cope! I guess we’ll know in about seven or eight weeks when we have our first scan!
