Now with "W00t!"

I feel better about realizing we're getting a little girl, I have to give it to the Viking, he helped by being more emotionally nimble... just this morning when I woke up he had been awake for a while staring at my belly with a dumb smile on his face. He claims he was thinking of when we need to buy her first laptop and how he'll teach her to work Linux shells on an obscure distribution. He was late for work as this prompted me to settle who's in charge of what school subject as I can't do Maths or Physics but can compensate by watching Disney cartoons with her, but no other kind, I hate cartoons in general, if she's a Pokemon kinda gal it's her dad she'll need. We then decided she will be a lawyer or a doctor and were happy she's not a boy as they would be more difficult to steer, that she will swim (DUH considering where she will live) and play (her pink) guitar and take ballroom dancing lessons and will have weekly girly shopping days -I was kind enough to offer my help for that-. He promised he will not utter a word about his passion for ladies' soccer to her as between the hard rock and the programming, adding soccer would rob us of any chance of having a heterosexual child and then grandchildren. I then realized I have plenty of models, I know every episode of the Gilmore Girls by heart! We'll be like that. Minus the teen pregnancy. At least on my part

We also threw in some day dreaming about how sweet she will be taking care of Adam, her baby brother and how he'll take over taking care of her as soon as he hits 12. Then we realized how late he was and I ushered him out the door.

So in essence, there was more of the fluffy mushy stuff and less of the "OMG it's so much longer till V day, what if something happens now?!?" these days.

So "w00t!"

How do we feel?

To be honest right about now all I am feeling is guilty that I am not more picture-perfect-excited if that makes any sense? I'm trying to process it but it's a bit much for now I guess, it's just like it's a new person I have to picture in my head than the one I have done so far, IYKWIM?

Another thing that became crystal clear to us both the second she said "girl" was that we will be trying for another IVF as soon as we can. I didn't think we would and I think that if we would have had a boy I'd be slower to think that way but this way it feels wrong to leave a girl alone in the world. All part of the irrational thought brigade

I figure much of my apprehension stems from how I only raised my brother, he is my only model for this, I haven't even been around babies and children of friends, much less around little girls so I have very little in the way of idea of what I am meant to do with her... I know how to be motherly and friendly and this and that with a boy, is it the same thing? Would another level of closeness and friendship be required, the proverbial mother-daughter tie? See I never had one with my mother and so I wouldn't know... If anything I have been her mother and hence my only reference of parenting a female is disastrous LOL

The Viking is ok, he looked disappointed the first minute or so but then his face beamed and he was all hurt when I implied that maybe he didn't want a girl. He's now making plans for rifles and rocking chairs on porches and just a minute ago sent me this, saying he needs to buy it for her:

http://www.daisyrock.com/products/sh...videos64999164

Our LHB is a Girl!

I thought I was gonna die of a heart attack this morning, I have been in board rooms with the biggest hot shots of the international telecom arena and never been as nervous as I have been in that waiting room. Not so much for the gender but for all other possible nasty news!

Me: They are now 3, count them THREE minutes late!!!
Viking: 2 and a half but ok.
Me: This is not gonna end well, I'm gonna kill them today.
Viking: Then we'll have free food for you for a while.
Me: Ummm am I meant to eat them?
Viking: No, food in prison.
Me: Ah.
Me: My alternative was better. I'd even share with you.
Viking: Right, I'll see what the hold up is!

And then we entered and she counted the kidneys, toes, parts of the heart and brains and they were amazingly all there! The bones were long enough, the cooking was 2 days ahead and then she turned her attention to her lower half and showed us her legs were crossed. Seeing how that made us draw a sharply disappointed breath she insisted and pushed the probe in all directions possible.

Her: What do you think it is?
Me: I don't know...
Her: What's your gut feeling?
Me: Oh I am pretty sure we're having a boy.
Her: I'm not.
Me: No?
Her: No, I'd rather think a girl.

This left our respective brows curled with uncertainty but before we could phrase a "WTF mate?!?" in a proper way she called us over to see the medical record and there, after it said our baby was properly formed, had enough liquid and all the right parts it said "Flicka". No "probable" no "IMO", no quantifier.

Me: So if you were to tell us a percentage, are you 70% convinced it's a girl or 90%?
Her: Oh I'm not uncertain at all, it's a girl, just can't give it in writing. Well not to you. Congratulations on the little miss.

Here's a picture of our LHB which, to be fair must be a play of light and shades to be this clear of a profile because it looks like an adult's face so it's not right but nonetheless may give us some idea of her tiny fingers is nothing else

Pink or Blue?

Is there such a thing as online diary writer's block and why do I have one? I'm gonna be so sorry for being so lazy/depressed/in a phunk when the baby comes and I realize I never bothered to write in time, I never documented things.

I check them and obsess about everything extensively, I just don't write them for some reason, it almost feels like all my online time should be spent looking for work so any emailing, forums or FB are a waste and I ought to feel ashamed. I know, bizarre but there you have it.

In the obsession realm I now know I am 41 inches (106 cm!) around my belly when I was 27.5 (70 cm) which is just shocking and I haven't even measured my arse for fear I'd faint in particular since that one doesn't also contain a baby!!!

We were given some bits and some we bought from fleamarkets and cheapo stores and we've spent nearly nothing and yet we now have a Moses basket, a (somewhat unstable but pretty) changing table, a baby gym, an eclectic collection of fluffy toys and quite some baby clothes. I ought to take pictures soon. We're missing a large amount of items though, so very many it's daunting in particular with our financial situation.... It's scary to even think of the tens of types of wipes and nappies and cloths one needs, leave alone major purchases such as cots, prams, baby sitters, car seats, electric pumps to name just a few of the essentials we don't own!

This will be tight.... The Viking keeps muttering every day how "normal people who haven't spent their last dime on IVF" take our a large loan or max out a credit card and have fun buying all the things the baby needs. I'm not bothered about them not being new as long as they are pretty and functional and, most importantly, existent :)

One other thing the Viking shockingly spoke about was fertility clinics in Perth :O and even, if there isn't enough time to squeeze one more try here before we move down under. Say what?!? I managed to temper his enthusiasm by saying I'm willing to discuss this in Feb or Mar 2011 at the earliest :))

Speaking of moving down under.... we threw a few days of super human effort at it and we managed to get our Cambrige language places secured for the 20th of August and we ran around like headless chicken and notarized, copied, begged and stole papers till we had the file complete and we now sent the Viking's qualifications to the Computer Specialists Association or such to wait for their acknowledgement in his field. We're going to Romania to sort my passport on the 25th of this month and when we come back -incidentally close to the all important Viability day and a day before another u/s- I'll have a new passport and we can then gather the rest of the documents and lodge the visa application. It's not easy and it's scary but we're beyond ecstatic every time we think of what our new life there will be like.

Back to LHB business, I am in SO much pain!!! Back pain in various places that kills me and heels pain every time I stand for more than 3 minutes that reduces me to tears are the most prominent but the internal pulls and pushes and hurt haven't stopped. What hasn't started though is him moving! It's starting to worry me.... beyond the flutters weeks ago, nothing and yes, we've turned 18 weeks on Friday.... I'll ask on Tuesday if my placenta is still anterior as they said at the last one.

Speaking of Tuesday, shouldn't I be counting minutes? I'm excited to see LHB indeed but I am not dieing to know what s/he is if that makes any sense? Consider yourself polled on here or FB and tell me what you think LHB will be:)!

Here are some more pics of hugeness. It doesn't seem like it grew much, did it?

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9193/18weeks063.jpg

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2729/18weeks070.jpg

Much love to everyone and thanks so much for stopping by even when I crawl into my hole :)

Gather 'round all, mammouth pictures to ensue!

So LHB is 4 months today. For some reason it feels like a true milestone. Never said he's "3 months", seemed like a bit of "Gah so the 1st trimester, so who knows" sorta stamps, this one sounds far more respectable and lasting so yoohoo!!!

I haven't updated in a while, I know, I can't shake the no-work-depression so I'm no fun to read but sometimes there are glimmers of hope and giddiness. Like today.

Boy am I huge.... as the song goes "it's getting harder and harder to breath" and to turn! And to move or stand from chairs! This feels unreasonably fast for this type of complaints! My bump also seems unreasonably huge. I know it's fat cushioned but it's now in the "what the heck could I possibly wear to disguise this" realm.

Speaking of boys :) I've been giving this gender business some thought, no less prompted by how excited my wonderful friend 2016 is to find out tomorrow (fingers crossed for your girl discovery, babes!) and for some reason I am not bothered that I am still over 2 weeks away from finding out. A big part of that is that I am feeling so positive this is a boy but part is because over the last two weeks, in front of raised HB, looking huge, the cravings and so on, I have entertained the thought I may be wrong too. It would be no big deal, people may have presumed I wanted a boy when I said that's what LHB is, not so, I didn't want a boy more than a girl, I just knew that's what he is. Now with that all said, I'll be glad to know finally just so that I can start more clearly picturing it.

I was shocked by a friend's generosity the other day, we're none too close, have barely spoken a few times over my years in Sweden and yet she was all excited to hear I'm expecting and when she heard that I didn't think I would have a baby shower because most of my friends don't live here, she offered -in principle- to host it at her house and even said she'd organize a way that my friends from the UK and the States could join online by Skype or YM! That moved me greatly. Then again I cry for nearly everything.

Know what else I do? Wake up at 5. And have M/S all over again only nastier at dinner time, and can't stand the sight of any food, and have hugely vivid dreams! And cramps of all sorts possible, low, high, in the cervix, in the ovaries, in the foofoo you name it.

And last but not least know what I don't? Feel him! Nope.... I can hear him on the Doppler and he very clearly moves about in there but I can't feel it. :( this could have something to do with the fact that at the last u/s (okay maybe I did have one last attempt at getting that Progesterone by going to the hospital and telling them about the cramps!!!) she said the placenta has moved to be anterior?!? She also said not to freak out as it will reposition at least once more when baby goes above my belly button. Sounds all strange but considering I can only hear his HB on my belly button now, it can't be too long from hereon, right?

And now for the hugely shocking me! The first one is in the same series as all the rest of them and the next two are in the most "Goddungit you're like a ball" dress I have, including, as you can see, one that looks like a swallowed an extraterrestrial cocoon.

http://yfrog.com/6f16weeks043j

http://yfrog.com/jd16weeks054j

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/8427/16weeks055.jpg

Tuna and Coke Make Me Cry

Second Trimester is well and truly under way but despite what everyone expects, I am not magically more relaxed, no, and heck no it has not flown by, it snailed by! It felt like forever to get to this stage and it's even slower now! Have no fear, I felt exactly the same about everyone else's present and past pregnancies, I couldn't believe how fast they were going hehe.

The crying and MS have been replaced by violent headaches, is that normal?

As for the movement, I know you'll all think I'm mad and lovely Vicky already kinda alluded to that on FB but I had a definite light pop from the inside on the middle of belly, bellow my bellybutton. Felt just like the flicker kids do to each other by putting their two fingers together and releasing one fast, what's the name for that? Anyhow, that's what it felt like and I just KNOW it was not gas. Guess we'll know it if was LHB in a few weeks when and if it happens again.

Tuna and Coke can make me cry with desire these days. I can't believe it how MUCH I can crave the two. I have them both around -the kids drink it and the mister eats my tuna salads with his eyes- so they are staples but they cripple me, I am not joking, it's shocking how in tears I am wanting just a bite or just a glass... I know what you're thinking, they are not that bad, can have some in moderation, I just can't afford risking anything still... What with the progesterone being one in the evening only I am scared stiff something would go wrong and I would rather I don't feel guilty for the Coke if something should!

Anyone else felt they were doing stuff they shouldn't in their dreams? Last night I dreamed a quarter of a bottle of vodka before I realized it and someone pointed my big belly out and then I freaked and begged random strangers on the street to take me to the hospital to have my stomach contents emptied! That was fun. NAWT.

Other topics wise.... no good news presently, with the exception of those few interviews -of which two said "no thanks" because I'm not having the Swedish for one of them and the other two jobs won't happen at all!- none of the other ones have answered in any fashion except, some of them to say that they will not look over any applications till late August or September!!!

My consulting business is going nowhere fast, it's astounding how stuck it is. My other business enterprises are moving somewhat but they would not replace the level of income I need, in particular since we need to start saving like mad for the Australia move.

I'm going to have to go see if my union can offer any uneployment help but it's unlikely due to how I was not a member long enough and I am so opposed to even going to ask but as of the 15th of July I am unemployed, no two ways about it. Utterly depressing.

I'll keep trying, we need me getting a position so that we can survive on our new trimmed budget and then set aside a boatload a month so that we're poised and ready when Down Under calls the Viking over. It's mad how energized by this future move we are. There are many loops to jump through, the perfect score in the Cambridge course we have coming up this month, getting formally hitched real fast, getting our certifications -his in particular, my profession is no longer on the list-, getting our medicals -including mom's so that will be scary considering she's a walking illness-, changing my passport and finally applying before November because the Viking becomes 36 and consequently destroys 5 points.

It's a long shot but we're confident we can make it and daydreaming about our house with a pool by the beach has become our ritual of every evening and keeping us smiling.

We're mad. And so are you for reading this much of my crazy ride! Loves you all much!

21st of June, Nuchal Scan

So we're back. This was an anti-climax after all that wait.... the woman doing it was well and truly out of it and couldn't take a decent picture to save her life!

We saw his digits at some point FFS! He was stretching and jerking and moving about a lot it felt like he was bothered we kept bugging him. I'm sorry we didn't take a video but then again they probably wouldn't have allowed it.

My results are a whooping 1 in 20000 so that's really great for my weight and my age, she said it was very rare that they would be as low at nearly 32. So we're out of the woods with that.

I think this experience convinced us to try and organize a 4D one for 16 weeks or such to confirm LHB is a boy. At least we'd get some decent images...

12+2 she said and the 31st of December, which means that he hasn't caught up with the proverbial one day behind but hey ho, he implanted late, that's all, he's right on track ever since!

Oh and the Viking mentioned the Doppler and she raised a big stink shaking her head "oh no, no no no, very bad to use it on small baby" to which I say: "Bah, piss off!"

Here is the bad picture.... however, his tiny button nose is clearly there (his right hand is up against his face too) and cute and extraordinary and so unbelievable.... we made this, the button nose, we made it out of nothing, we've been seeing the nothing so many times and then we saw a little better than nothing, a sac but that too contained not a trace of a nose! And then we had a dot and that doesn't have a nose! And then a snowman and everyone knows snowmen don't have noses! Now we have a baby! A baby that moves and looks like he sneezed and waves his little toes and fingers at the end of his feet and hands AND HAS A NOSE!

Astounding.