Pregnancy poorliness

So, following my sicky episode yesterday morning, I declared that I felt too ill to do the weekly Sainsbury's shop. Thankfully, my heroic husband volunteered to face the Ladbroke Grove supermarket hordes solus. I crawled weakly to the garden, hoping the sun would revive my spirits. And funnily enough, no sooner had Matt slammed the door shut, I suddenly felt well enough to don my new bikini and indulge in a spot of proper sunbathing, happy in the knowledge that the chores were in safe hands...

6 weeks gone

Half way through our critical first 3 months.

We read this morning that NVP (Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy) is a good thing and women who suffer from it are statistically proven to have a 'healthier pregnancy'.

On reading this, Kate jumped out of bed and started wretching.

Mmmmm.

(Still waiting to find out whether or not it'll get us out of having to go to Bikram Yoga this morning).

The twins fight back

No sooner had Dr. Milne all but guaranteed that we weren't having twins because Kate simply wasn't poorly enough, she goes and gets morning sickness.

She woke up yesterday feeling grotty and nauseous and spent all day, stoicly battling on through like a real trooper, not a whinge or a whine all day [cough].

But then she was so much better this morning that we thought it could well have all been a hangover from Wedensday night's very pink calves liver.

Either way, I'm still holding out for two for the price of one.

Twinned with...

Kate had her first face-to-face with the doctor today:

Due date of Friday 19th March has been confirmed.

We're going to be dealing with St. Mary's in Paddington.

She can travel at 3 months, which we'd figured given he'd already given us the all clear for Thailand at 7 months, but Phil (Kate's Dad) had told us to check just in case. Thank goodness.

She needs to be careful about doing any exercise that raises her core temperature (which I think both Body Pump and Bikram Yoga, but I've been shouted down).

She's allowed one glass of wine a day.

And Dr. Milne said he could guarantee that it isn't twins, as Kate isn't sick enough.

I'm in mourning.

The cold hard stats

Kate found this site over the weekend (www.amazingpregnancy.com/duedate/setdate.php) which calculates all those fantastically helpful stats that every expectant mum wants to be able to drop into coversation, like "There are 241 days until my due date" and "I'm 9% into my pregnancy".

Just where would we be without such a helpful web tool?

Headline news

Is it just me or now that we've got pregnancy on the brain, does every newspaper you pick up have some article or other about having (or not having) babies?

This is the second Sunday in a row and this time it's front page news:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/19/row-swine-flu-women-babies

Conflicting advice over whether or not couples should wait until the swine flu pandemic is over (which could be how long exactly?) before trying to get pregnant.

Looks like we've timed things brilliantly, as ever...

What's in a name?

We've set the cat amongst the pigeons with the prospective grandparents on the subject of who’s going to be called what.

We’ve set both Roskills and Harrises a target of the August Bank Holiday weekend (when the 8 of us will be down at Heatherfield) to come to us with suggestions for what they'd like to be called.

‘Grannie’ is out (my maternal grandmother has that one) and ‘Granama’ is what we call my paternal grandmother.

The final call will of course rest with the parents.

The pram

Mum is into full grandmotherly overdrive and is getting an ancient 1950s pram upholstered, that’s been around since my Dad and his sisters were babes in arms.

Not for day-to-day use, you understand, (totally impractical and not enough modcons) but for us to put the twins in when they come down to Heatherfield.

Not a bad response from Mum, less than 24 hours after having been told.

Photo of the pram in its current state to follow.

Telling Mama & Papa Roskill

The burglar alarm decided to start playing up while I was on the phone to my Dad.

And then it started reset itself, which involved it dialling out on the same phoneline we were on.

An abrupt end to an otherwise joyous call.

The first call to the doc

Dr Milne said 'congratulations' to Kate.

Which was nice and has started to renew my faith in the NHS, which took a bit of a battering last night while I was reading a couple of mums' posts on some pregnancy forums. They'd have killed for a 'congratulations'.

Apparently we’re 4 ½ weeks pregnant, so we were only a week out. Although Kate forgot to ask what the due date is (but we think it's 19^th March 2010).

He’s also okay’d our trip to Thailand over Christmas when Kate will be 7 months pregnant. Apparently she’ll be feeling better then than at any other time during the 9 months. Watch this space...

Look after the three of you

It’s an easy wind-up, but twins are in the family.

Kate’s dreading the possibility, but I think it'd would be fantastic (although to be fair, I haven't really thought through the repercussions).

Weird leaving Kate to go to work, for the first time since this momentous news. We’ve both been itching to tell someone all day, but know we can’t (or rather, shouldn't).

Let me guess – he’s a man

Kate not best pleased about me shoving an article in this morning's papers under her nose about the pain of birth being a ‘good’ thing for mothers to go through:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/12/pregnancy-pain-natural-birth-yoga

Then I made a pot of filter coffee, but only allowed her to have the one cup.

Maybe I’m being a little over-exuberant.

Thank god I’ve got my Miu Miu

Kate’s scarily quick-witted response to the result of the second pregnancy test confirming that yes, she is pregnant.

[Under no circumstances am I ever allowed to say that 'we' are pregnant. That was made very clear. Very early on.]

It wasn't exactly planned. Not at all planned in fact, but we did spent much of Friday and Saturday (which involved two 4 hour car journeys to and from a wedding in Wales) talking about starting to try and start a family.

Oh, the irony.

But apparently I'm still grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Needless to say we were straight onto the internet to try and work out due date (Friday 12th March 2010), the size of our now blastocyst (8 – 10mm) and how much alcohol Kate is allowed to drink every week (nothing, if I have my way).

We have a number of significantly boozy events / lunches / nights out coming up over the next few weeks, so there'll be some serious fudging going on to explain why Kate isn't drinking. And it's all made that much more difficult by Kate's constant cries of "But I've got a few parties left in me yet!".

I don't think she's come round to the idea just yet.