Hey zeebird, what's up?

I got a belated birthday card from your mamma last night, and she'd signed your name.

She wrote, "lots of love, X, Y & Zebedee." And it kind of made it all seem so much more real. I opened it in the elevator on the way up to my apartment [all 21 floors in painfully slow elevators, I had a lot of time] and I couldn't stop grinning.


I can't wait to meet you.

xo

First Hospital Trip

Tuesday 21st March 2006 was the date of our first hospital trip. Off we trundled to get there for 9am and I was knackered after only 8 hours of sleep (I need at least 9 or 10 hours these days). Parked the car in the hospital car park, nicely located next to one of the walls of Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Superb. Then found out that it was £1.80 per hour...they do rake the money in there seeing as there is no where close to park. Went into the antenatal dept where we sat for over half an hour and were eventually called over by a nice african midwife called Thelma who took us into a booking room to take all my details. Unfortunately, she had a very strong accent and both she and I had trouble understanding what the other was saying...I am slightly worried about what she may have misinterpreted and put on my forms! She also seemed very keen on convincing me to use the Birth Centre which has no pain relief and I can give birth naturally like she "did back home in Africa". Slightly scary thought seeing as I was already getting scared about having a blood test later that morning. Complete wimp that I am.

From there we went to the next part of the booking in process - the scan. After another half hour wait (don't you just love the NHS). Was poked very hard in the tummy with the scanner but was completely worth it to see the tiny little baby wiggling around fully equipped with heartbeat. And it's in me!!! Still can't get over the chock of that and I couldn't stop giggling which doesn't help when you're meant to be keeping still. Was one of the most amazing things ever. Paid £3.50 to get these pics and to be honest, I think I would have paid about £20.

After that it was over to "Parent Information" where we booked sessions 2 and 3 which are breathing and labour classes as well as session 4 - breastfeeding sessions. I have to call up to book session 1 which is a session just for the mums to relax and teach certain things too...didn't read the leaflet too closely as I was still too busy looking at the scan pics.

Then it was to the worst bit for me - the blood test. Another half hour or so later, my number was and I sat down very nervously. The doctor then tried to persuade me to take part in some medical research where they were planning to examine the blood of 50 pregnant women who were expected to have normal pregnancies and have normal medical histories. They wanted to locate a certain protein responsible for clotting the blood and find out why pregnant women's blood forms clots more than non-pregnant women and when this protein changes. I am all for medical research and although he assured me that no medication needed to be taken the following words set my mind in stone "The only difference will be that we will take 5 bottles of blood instead of 4". Er, hello - I wasn't planning on agreeing to them taking 4 bottles let alone have an extra one! Here's me thinking it would only be a normal blood test. He found a vein, stuck a needle with a pipe and tap on it in my arm and proceeded to take all my blood. Which admittedly wasn't as bad as I had feared.

Back to the reception where we booked the next appointment and then home to show the pics of our little Zebedee to anyone who would look at them.

Escalators and Antibiotics

Life sure has been eventful over the past week. Last Friday I got up for work as normal, got ready and went on my way for the usual commute in. At Hammersmith station I got on the Piccadilly line to go to Earls Court but as I got off the tube I suddenly felt hot and sweaty. Must be the good ventilation on the underground...then my head started to feel a bit woozy. So I took off my hat, scarf and gloves, undid my coat but my head carried on getting woozier. Strange spots of light flashed in front of my eyes so I thought I would try to get up to the outside platform where there is some fresh air (as fresh as it gets in London anyway). I swayed past a bank of seats on the underground platform, considered sitting down for a minute but then decided to battle on upstairs. This I think was probably a bad move. Managed to make it to the escalator when part way up my vision flashed with light and then completely went. As in I couldn't see a bloody thing. I gripped onto the handrail praying I wouldn't fall back down from where I had come from and that I would realise when the escalator ended. I somehow managed to get to the end without falling and staggered over to the wall where I was slowly sinking down it (thinking - for god's sake i must look like my mum) and desperately and blindly searching in my bag for a bottle of water. I considered sitting down where I was but as it was only one more flight of stairs to the platform, I struggled on. Still with no vision apart from bright flashes of light. I felt my way along the corridor and up the stairs where I suddenly panicked about falling onto the track. So I sat down where I was, right in the middle of the platform. Slowly my vision came back but I was still very disoriented and having hot sweats. I realised that my train was pulling in so i stumbled onto it - as I did so I saw a London Underground employee next to where I had collapsed and a large amount of other commuters, none of whom had offered to help or even asked if I was ok. And I was on my way to work so was relatively smartly dressed and didn't really look that crazy. I was pretty disgusted about their behaviour but I guess it's just the city that I live in. Anyway, I got to work without any further trauma but called the doctor as soon as I got in to the office. She asked me to go in asap and I booked an appt for that afternoon. When I went in she ran some tests and found out that I had quite a bad urine infection (apparently common during pregnancy) so prescribed anitbiotics. Told me to take it easy and go back to see her on Monday morning, before my hospital appt the following Tues. Thankfully the medication seemed to work and there were no more episodes but now I'm drinking cranberry juice daily to try to ward off the bad bacteria.

Thirteen Weeks part 2

It's mood swinging mama here...although I have to say I haven't been too bad today - I seem to have passed it over the ocean to mon amie.

It is so gloomy and rainy in London today - I've spent a large part of the day looking at holidays in June to hot and sunny places where we can go for our last holiday as a single couple (although you will obviously be accompanying us in an indirect way). Daddy (ha ha - i don't think I'm going to get used to that one) just got soaked out in the rain...poor thing. He was feeling fluey earlier as well.

Quite a few people know about you now...and on the whole everyone is very excited about meeting you. I've had several wonderings from people about what you will look like...Auntie "I" thinks you will be dark, tall and beautiful - or ginger with freckles. And beautiful then too of course...She thinks you are going to be a girl. H has already started window shopping for you - i think you are going to be very spoiled by everyone.

Got the first hospital appointment on Tues 21st which is exciting and scary - i have a needle phobia which I guess I'm going to have to get over now. I have a noticeable belly bump which is oddly shaped...taking a bit of getting used to. And you're only going to get bigger now. I only hope you won't be as big as i was when i was born (8lb 6oz - big old baby).

Time to do some work now. Hasta manana xxx

Thirteen Weeks

This isn't you either, but till we get some actual pictures of you, I have to nick 'em off googleimagesearch.

Well hello there "li'l peanut." Hah. Okay, we banned that name a week ago.

So now we're at thirteen weeks and according to one website, you're "roughly the size of a jumbo shrimp". Kind of made me laugh. You're probably about seven cm long or so and weigh about ounce, maybe a teensy bit more. Gosh. Vocal cords are developing, although you have teething to look forward to [ahem], all twenty teeth have formed and are waiting, and you've apparently developed many reflexes and will squirm inside if we poked your mamma in the tummy.

Your own unique fingerprints have even already formed. Doesn't that seem incredible?

Apparently this is also the time when "mothers feel their best. They are "over" the joys of early pregnancy and have more energy." You might want to tell your mamma that, because boy howdy, hello to the mood swings! Lucky for me, I'm 3000 miles away in NY so just experience them through our emails, but, well, I wonder how your daddy is enduring them?

What else is new... NY is still pretty cold, but not as bad. I managed to hang out with friends finally over the weekend. I'm off to Texas next week which I can't wait for. Oh, it was the Oscars [Academy Awards] on Sunday. I more or less avoided them, wasn't too interested - or rather, I couldn't be bothered to sit through the whole thing, I was happy just to find out on Monday morning who won. 'Crash' won Best Picture, which I was pretty surprised about, but in a good way. There's been so much hype about all these Brokeback shenanigans. I'm glad it was more of an outsider film that won it. I can't actually remember who won what else. Reese Witherspoon got Best Actress for Walk The Line [great film]. Ummm Clooney - Best Supporting. Meh, whatever, not that interesting.

I'm going to try and get your ma hooked up to this site so she can post too, as I'm sure you'd find that much more interesting. Since last week she told her boss the news and luckily he took it well. She just emailed me to say she's got to pee again - you've got a lot to answer for...

Twelve Weeks

Hey Zebedee, it's me, future babysitter, present-giver, and your mamma's friend since we were 11 years old.

So we're at twelve weeks, more or less the safety stage. People are going to know about you soon enough.

This isn't you, but more or less what you'd look like:

Apparently, you weigh about 14 grams and are approximately 3.54 inches in total length. But your Mamma and Daddy are both pretty tall, so maybe you're bigger.

So I guess you want to know what's been going on in the world... well, it was Mardi Gras yesterday. Big parades 'n stuff. Pancake day back in the UK. No pancakes for me though - I got home late from class and couldn't be bothered to cook. Today is the first of March, which means we're drawing ever nearer to spring [hurrah] but also to my having to leave NY [boo].

NY has been pretty cold lately - what am I talking about, it's been effing freezing [see, I'm even trying to cut down on the swearing for you], and I got really bad windburn from walking in Central Park over the weekend. We went to the zoo which was great. We saw them feeding the sealions and penguins. It was the walk up to the Guggenheim that killed me though - my friend had to return something. I've never been that cold or windblown.

The world is as crazy and messy as ever, and as a result I've been avoiding the news [ostrich-syndrome, I bury my head and hope it'll all go away...] so I'm not too sure what's going beyond what I see on the front pages... nothing good to report, I'm afraid.

So, avoiding the horrors of modern life [you're just too little, you don't need to know]: the Winter Olympics just finished, Pete Doherty was arrested again, Kate Moss's career seems to be picking up again after... er, some unwise choices shall we say, and I'm eating a banana yogurt for breakfast. Even though it's five to midday.

Welcome to the World version 2006.