"What's in name?...

... That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

I realised i have not blogged much during this pregnancy, and i feel that the reason for this is quite multi-layered. However the two many reason that i blame for not sharing my thoughts are this -

1. Time (never seem to have it, or it may be energy that i am lacking, not sure)
2. Reality (though in my right thinking mind i know what being pregnant is all about and what one hopes the end result will be, I have found that this time around there have been so many preoccupying thought going on, and so many medical type people overloading me with their opinions and scrutinising everything that is going on that i am focusing so much on getting through the next few months i am finding it hard to remember the greater goal - finding it hard to see the little baby that will be the end result. Does that make sense?)

But anyway, back to today's topic - NAMES

When we were pregnant with Peanut i remember getting a little freaked out at the idea of choosing a name for him. I had thoughts of "What if he doesn't like the name we pick! He will be answering to this name - every single day - for the rest of his life!". Of course i got over myself and within two days of Peanut being born we had given him a name, which he now answers to...

One was for sure though, M34tb4LL and i did not want to commit to a single name for Peanut, or tell people what his name was going to be before he was born. We both felt that we wanted to meet him first, see what he looked like and if any of the names we had picked out suited him. Lucky for us we felt that the name that was right up with top favourite names was perfect for him!

But now i am back here again. Back with the pile of baby name books trying to get a short list of names to pick one from when the time comes (that is, when Bean comes).

I was listening to a podcast the other day that was talking about baby names and how names can go in and out of fashion. It was very interesting, talking about how people might want to give there child an unusual or uncommon name and without knowing it may end up choosing a name that everyone else thinks the same way of - and end up making the name more popular that ever.

One thing that the woman who was running conversation said was that there is a bit of rule of thumb when it comes to putting together a list of name. She said that is the expectant mothers task to put the list together and the expectant fathers job to knock names off the list.

This might be a bit of harsh way of saying it, but it is kind of right... Sorry M34tb4LL. I have put together a list of names that i personally liked and when i shared them with M34tb4LL all but a hand full of names where removed from the list for one reason or another - most of the time for very valid reasons, things that i had not even thought of. Like a name that was very similar to Peanut's name, or the name that sounded too much a fictional cartoon caricature, of the name that was very similar to a villain on a recent TV show (to be honest, that is kind of why i likes that name so much...).

When playing the naming game, it is a good thing that Bean is a girl though. Having used our favourite boy's name with Peanut, if Bean was a boy - he would have been stuck a name that we thought was second best!!!

(: Reggie

Gender Defined

We had our 19 week scan yesterday and we know the gender of our little Bean!!!

But before I give the most important piece of information am going to tell the story of getting to the scan...

I have already mentioned that we have had our 19 week, but I am 21 weeks pregnant! The reason for the initial delay for the scan is that we had planned to get it done at the hospital that we are booked into for Bean's birth. Being a public hospital, I assume that there is a degree of demand on their services and the first appointment they gave us was at 7.30 in the morning and the likely hood of getting to that time AND being able to organise kid wrangling for Peanut were little to none. When I called to change the appointment time (from 7.30) the next time they had available was nearly 2 weeks later!

Anyway, our scan was scheduled for yesterday at 9.00 in the morning and I had organised the day around this time. I had cancelled Peanuts swimming lesson for the morning and had gone to a make-up lesson the day before. And I had organised for my parents to meet us at the hospital to take Peanut for walk while we were getting the scan done.

So yesterday morning came and i started to get ready, watching the clock to make sure that I was completely ready to leave the house at 8.00. At 7.55 I was with Peanut, putting his shoes on when the phone rang. I assumed it was my parents calling to reassure me that they were on their way but the caller ID said it was a private number - my parents do not have a private number... It was the hospital.

The hospital called me - minutes before i was about to leave the house - to say that the person due to do my scan had called in sick and was not coming in, and that they would have to cancel my appointment. They then said that they would call back later to look at rescheduling the appointment but that it would not be happening today. WHEN? When were they going to call back? In half an hour? later in the day? next week? WHEN??? They did not know when they would be able to get back to me.

I called my parents and told them that the scan was not happening, and being the lovely people they are they said that they would come to our house anyway so we could still have spend some time together and they can still have some quality time with their grandson. I then spent some time having a quality cry and looked up the phone number for the place that we had gotten both of Peanut's scans and the first scan for Bean done.

The place we went to for previous scans were able to give us an appointment on Friday or in a couple of Saturdays but I didn't take the time they were offering. I then wen through the list of other locations that the scanning place had and picked one that was close by. They were not able to give me an appointment for a couple of weeks either but they were able to get me an appointment at a third place - still not far from home AND for the afternoon! All I had to do was get a referral from my GP and I was set to go!!!

M34tb4LL had told his work colleagues that he was going to be in late yesterday, seeing as he was going to the scan as well, but he left to go to work at normal time so that he could leave early to come to our new appointment time.

When my parents got to the house I told them about the new appointment time and luckily it fitted into their plans for the day to help out and hang around till the afternoon appointment - fulfilling their role as kid wranglers.

The funniest thing - well I can laugh about it now at least - about half an hour after the parents got our house the hospital rang to say that they were calling to rebook our appointment and that they can see us in three weeks from Saturday. Remembering here that the scan is already two weeks overdue...

The rest of the day went nice and smoothly, we went for a nice relaxing drive in the hills - had some lunch - admired the view - and got back in time to go to the doctors to get my referral. We then went home where M34tb4LL was waiting for us, we left Peanut with the parentals, drove to Mitcham and where there with a few minutes to spare to find where we had to go.

So after a stressful morning and then a de-stressing day it was so fantastic to see our little Bean. The ultra-sound person checked all the necessary measurements that had to be checked. She looked at Beans face, heart, kidneys and I'm glad that she knew what she was looking at.

And the results of the ultra sound were all good! Everything the scanning person check seemed to look good - which was a great relief to us. We told the scanning person that we were very keen to discover the gender of our baby and she was happy to oblige.

Now after the story of how we got there, here is the long awaited answer to the gender question -

Bean is a girl! We are going to be having a little girl!!! Tickle me pink, we will have a daughter!!!!!!

(: Reggie

Three hospitals in two days

So with this pregnancy I seem to be getting a lot more attention that with the last one! I find this a strange thing as i would have thought that being the second time around medical type people would think that I have more of idea of what I'm doing this time around and leave me be a bit more. But no, it seems that they want to keep more of eye on me this time round!

And the reason I am being watched more closely is because of medical kind things that happened last time. I would say that i had a tough pregnancy with Peanut, but there were a few things that occurred that increased the "risk" of that pregnancy. The funny thing is that when I look back at it now, I'm not sure who they thought was more at risk - me or Peanut...

Anyway - with Peanut I did get the gestational diabetes and the blood pressure got more pressured and these are some things that medical people seemed to get concerned about.

Well this time, my doctor has been requesting to see me fortnightly instead of monthly (like he did last time) and I been having appointments with hospital peoples every two to three weeks instead of four to six weeks (like this time last time) and I have had to my GD test at the 18 weeks mark (instead of 26 weeks like last time).

So last week i had leave young Peanut in the care of his Nana, my mother-in-law, M34tb4LL's mother, and go to a hospital a couple of suburbs over to have a blood test - then drink some horrible sweet stuff - wait for an hour - have another blood test - wait another hour - have another blood test -than go home. I would have then had a nap, the sugaring drink had kind of left me with a bit of melt down, but the phone kept ringing! I would have put the phone silent, but I would have had to get out of bed to do that...

One of the phone calls was from the hospital that we are booking into to have Bean, which was not the hospital that i had been to that morning. The phone call was to tell me that my blood test results were in and that I had the dreaded GD, and that i would have to come in for an information session the following day.

After my failed attempt at having a nap, and once Peanut was awake from his highly successful nap, we went to the doctors for my fortnightly check-up. I told him about the GD results and he checked my blood pressure, at least that was good (this time...), and then it was back home to wait for M34tb4LL to get home from work.

The next day Peanut and I went to the second hospital in two days to attend the GD information class. I have to day that even though I have gone through having GD before and this the second lot of information collection, I still have no idea what the hell it all means! how it all works! or how the hell I am supposed to "control" it!!!

Peanut was in fine form, he entertained the information imparters as well of my fellow GD sufferer. He then fell asleep in the car on the way home, but woke up as I tried to get him out of the car and that was it for him and sleep for the day. But that didn't matter - I had plans for him for the rest of the day.

We went over to a friends place who lives not far away and who has a little girl about Peanut's age. After a cup of tea I left Peanut with the afor mentioned friend to travel to yet another hospital - a different one again than I had been to the day before or that morning. This time it was to attend to my "anti-natal" physio appointment. Again this is due to keeping on eye on me due to what had happened with my previous pregnancy and my hip / pelvic bone went out of alignment.

So yer, three hospitals in two days! And this week I only have two hospital appointment over two days - and it is at the same hospital. Just not trying this week!

(: Reggie

Secret first post

Well it is Easter morning and i have just had confirmation on something that i may have suspected since late Thursday...

I'M PREGNANT!!! again (already have a beautiful little 2 year old boy called Logan - aka "Peanut").

I went to the chemist last night and got two parcels, a 12 pack of one thing and a 2 pack of the other. The woman behind the counter gave me the funniest look and said "kind of a contradictory purchase?". I told her that when i get up tomorrow morning i will need to use of one them, just not quite sure which one yet. She just laughed at that and commended me for being prepared for either outcome.

Well this morning came and when i went to the bathroom for my early morning... you know what... i discovered that i did not need to crack open the 12 pack yet so i opened the 2 pack. Well if any of you have used one of those things you will know that one line is nothing and two lines is WhooooHooooo!!!

I got the WhooooHooooo - if the fact that i have already announced that i am pregnant was not overly obvious. And finding this out on Easter morning, kind of apt don't you think?

So the next thing to work out roughly when we will get to meet our new little bean. Every Christmas eve, M34tb4LL's family get together and celebrate. A few times it has been it our house, but it tends to be be at M34tb4LL's brother and sister-in-law's place because SIL can then invite her siblings. Well this year guess what??? We will not be offering our place because we will have a little, one week old baby at that point! If the baby comes on it's due date - which then never do! Peanut was actually two weeks late and had to be induced in the end!!! Little womb camper, i had made it far too comfy for him in there!

So this bub is due 18th December 2009 - or in 251 days. A Christmas baby!

Now this blog post will not be published till we have made an effort to tell people. So it is secret blog for now - shhhhh, don't tell anyone!!!

(: Reggie