12 weeks today...

We can't believe how quickly the first trimester has gone! One more week and it's over...

I spent weeks wishing I was further on (all the while being amazed at the progress our brilliant little one was taking on!) just so we could shout it out! And we did, yesterday at church; John wrote a 'praise report' which Rick read out during worship and the announcement gained lots of 'woops!' which was really lovely.

After a fantastic time away in Devon with the Stevens' clan, we came back on the Friday so we could attend my uncles & cousins' 50th & 21st birthday 'do on the Saturday. Bags of fun, and really lovely seeing everyone after so long. We had to try and keep the pregnancy thing a secret the whole day, which Debbie found tough as she had known since 7 weeks and was dying to tell someone! We eventually let loose in the evening which was greeted by even more excitement.

We had plenty of laughs, realising my 38 year old uncle would be a great-uncle to our baby! Grandparents Mutton are still adjusting to the 'great' side of things, we think!

So, twelve weeks today (ignore the 'ticker' on the left hand side - I wrote the wrong due date. Pregnancy brain here we come!) and this is what Flump Stevens is doing:

She is only about 2-2.5 inches long - her eyes, which started out on the sides of the head like a cute little alien, have moved closer together. The ears are almost in their normal position on the side of the head. The liver is making bile and the kidneys are secreting urine in the bladder. The thing that really excited us was that the baby squirms if my abdomen is prodded! Although I can't yet feel anything. This week, he has acquired more reflexes: touching the palms makes the fingers close, touching the soles of the feet makes the toes curl down and touching the eyelids makes the eye muscles clench - what a fabulous little baby!

A very quick update before we go on holiday...

I was getting a little frustrated this week, getting up about 5 times a night to run to the loo. But it pales into the background when I read today that from ten weeks, our baby's kidneys are also starting to work, so the clever little baby can pass urine too!

He or she is currently measuring 2.7-3.5cm and has reached the point this week beyond which most birth defects that can affect major organs would occur, which is great news! From now on our little one's main occupation will be growing and gaining weight. He currently weighs 3-4g - that's all! She can exercise her arms and legs already and all the webbing has gone from her fingers. The eyelids are now formed, although they'll soon fuse shut and remain that way until some time between weeks 25 and 27. All his organs are now complete...it's astonishing really.

Bless God for his protection and care!

We're off now - back in a week!

Coming to a close...

I'm 10 weeks and 3 days and I've really enjoyed being pregnant so far. In 12 days, the first trimester will be over already and we praise God for keeping our little one safe, sound and healthy!

The beginning really wasn't pleasant - all I wanted to do was sleep and be sick then sleep some more while possibly crying. The nausea was like a cross between motion sickness and food poisioning! Horrid. The great thing is, it disappeared around 9 weeks and hasn't come back! The nausea occasionally rears its' very mild head but nothing to write home about.

It's the sleepiness and emotional thing now; I seem to cry at everything (including Night at The Museum - yes I know it's a comedy - and Terminator Salvation) along with the most ridiculous situations! The other day, I made mum a cup of tea and gave her the kettle instead of the mug. I think it's the sleepiness that does that mostly - as lame as it sounds, I have to have a nap when possible in afternoons, otherwise I really am in bed by 8:30pm each night.

All in all, I'm not complaining - it's been fun experiencing all these things and I have plenty of people to call on if I get freaked. It's nice to not worry that people think you're crazy or just a bit stupid, because there was once a time they felt the same! Right at the beginning, I really panicked because I'd been getting strong cramps on and off. But it wasn't accompanied by anything else so we assumed it was all ok. And since we saw a lovely, healthy little one in our scan, we knew the cramps were just down to my insides stretching to twice their size! Thank you all so much for your prayers - watch this space!

Proud Great-Grandparents...

Tonight we tell the great-grandparents!

We arranged dinner with them when I was about 6 weeks with the intention of telling them around this point. We're away next week with the Stevens' clan on a trip to Bideford, Devon, and we realised we wouldn't get time to tell Grandpa & Grandma M before we tell everyone else at a family BBQ in 2 weekends time! So in order to honour them for being brilliant grandparents to me and grandparents-in-law to John, we wanted to tell them first...

Grandma M phoned last night to check we were still ok for dinner tonight and we had a good chat: she announced the menu, and it sounds so delicious...for starters is prawn cocktail, which is my favourite but annoyingly, I can't have uncooked prawns! So I asked her if they were cooked (desperately trying to think of an original thing to say so as not to give anything away!) and Grandma replied, 'well, I haven't just gone and caught them out of the sea if that's what you mean'...

As soon as we arrive, John & I have agreed we will give them the little card I made with this poem I found on the internet including a print out of the scan:

Dear Great-Grandpa & Grandma,
I do not have a face to see, or put inside a frame.
I do not have soft cheeks to kiss, I don't yet have a name.
Not yet can you hold my tiny hands, nor whisper in my ear.
It's still too soon to sing a song, or cuddle me so near.
But all that will change come January 12th 2010; when they say I am due!
I am your first great-grandchild and I can't wait until I meet you!
All I ask between now and then is your love for me to grow,
I promise I'll be worth the wait, just think of all the joy we'll know!
So as you're waiting patiently, please pray lots of prayers for me -
I cannot wait to be a part of this wonderful family! xxx

Hopefully it'll be easy to work out what's going on! Grandma will probably understand why I want to cook my prawns...!!

Thirsty Work...

I am so thirsty right now - nothing seems to quench it!

I wondered about the diabetes thing but my blood sugar is just fine so I spoke to the midwife about it. She just said the body is beginning to produce a load of extra blood for me and the baby, and it needs fluid to do so. The metabolic rate also increases so pregnant ladies lose larger amounts of water.

I suppose it's a good thing in a way, as I'm drinking so much - mostly water but it does increase toilet trips!

Our Dating Scan...

This morning we had a dating scan to determine how old our baby is and how far along I actually am - just in case! The only reason for this was because I was unsure of my dates in the previous months and it was just to be sure. I am 10 weeks and 2 days so I'm just 1 day out on our calculations - our EDD is 12th January 2010.

So we got up nice and early, raring to go (we were so excited!) and John bought me two bottles of water to drink leisurely. We arrived 45 minutes early due to everything running on time so the water that was bought to drink leisurely, actually was drunk very leisurely. By the time the sonographer was ready to see us, I was standing around jigging, with my legs crossed! John couldn't stop laughing and the lady sitting next to us also found something very amusing. I wasn't laughing.

When we got into the room, the sonographer seemed quite short and snappy which we weren't going to let ruin our moment - we just figured she'd be doing ultrasounds all day so, while that's no excuse, we allowed her to be a bit grumpy. Although she was very firm while she told us 'we do NOT give out more than one picture on this scan'. We have to wait for our nuchal one for that!

When she squirted the jelly onto my stomach (which was suprisingly warm!), and waved the doppler over it, I suddenly panicked! What if there wasn't anything there!? But thankfully, there was - a beautiful little flumpy thing, bouncing around very excitedly! John & I gripped each others hands really tightly and couldn't take our eyes off the screen...it's our baby! Below is the first ever photo of our little one - we circled the baby to make it easier to see:




(The sonographer pressed really hard on my bladder so everyone in the room occasionally heard little squeaks from me!)
But what did make me think was, this wonderful blessing of a child is really only a loan from God. We have been chosen to be the best stewards for our baby and He has given this awesome thing to us to nurture and care for - to grow and to cherish. Our friend Olly said to us the other day that he wanted us to know how much he'll be praying that our baby grows up with Christ. And we know each one of our family and friends will be doing that...we can't wait to see what God has in store for our little one!

Bouncing Bean...

I would like all readers to click here, scroll down and look at the clever little baby that is bouncing off the uterus in this video! This isn't our scan but this will be our baby from tomorrow, at ten weeks!

It's so hard to believe how quickly our pregnancy is progressing but we are both really enjoying talking to the baby (we know it can't hear yet but it's still precious and you never know what goes in). We can't wait to show this baby how loved it is!

Booking Appointment...

At 8:30am today (actually, 8:40am because I missed the R7 by seconds and the 261 driver went at a snails pace - God is seriously teaching me patience right now!) I had my booking appointment at the Princess Royal University Hospital.

It felt so funny that I was in the antenatal wing for our pregnancy and our baby!

I was seen really quickly and the midwife was just lovely, putting my mind at ease with any queries I had. She gave me my file which I need to bring with me at every appointment along with loads of freebie pregnancy and new mum stuff (magazines, money-off vouchers - every little helps!).

The least dignified part of this appointment? Peeing in a jug which looked just like the one Grandma Judy uses to make gravy. Nice! But then, I am about to become a mother: I think, from what I've been told, dignity sort of goes out the window in the pregnancy bit.

I then had blood taken; I'm not the best of people in hospitals, let alone having things done to me so I did warn the nurse I might come over all giddy. It didn't help that she couldn't find a vein so had to strap up both arms to see which one brought a vein up first! She told me not to look, so I sat there looking in the opposite direction with my eyes so tightly shut, I was seeing spots. It seemed to take forever but she was so gentle and really lovely, and it didn't hurt one bit. The only gross part was finding out she took six vials of blood, then she told me off for looking.

As I was walking out of the hospital with my file and Bounty pregnancy bits, I saw an old collegue/friend/neighbour from down the street who I've known for years coming into the hospital - then squealed when she realised what was going on! So that secret wasn't kept for long.

All in all, a very exciting start to many more appointments to come! John & I have our dating scan on Wednesday at 8:45am at Orpington Hospital so we can't wait for that.

Nine weeks today...

Well, everything seems to be running along smoothly so far . We have more dates to pray on:

• Our booking appointment: 15 June
• Our dating scan: 17th June
• Our nuchal scan: 6th July

We are trusting all is well and getting really excited about seeing little one at the sonogram. This week, baby is beginning to move her arms and legs. The eyelids are closed tightly over the developing eyes and the face is very human looking and less alien-like! A very beautiful alien obviously. The baby's liver is producing red blood cells which are pumped around the body by the teeny tiny heart and the heart has four chambers and beats twice as fast as the normal person. Muscles are developing so a scan would now show real movement!

Apparently, the baby is now about the size of a jelly baby. Yum!

I am a little bit sad as my waist has suddenly disappeared overnight: I read that you were supposed to notice a 'thickening' of the waist around this time and that's fine. But after gaining some lovely voluptous curves around the hip area around week 6, I was feeling quite good! Then I went to bed on the night of the 8th June and woke up the morning of the 9th with no waist. That sucks. (I'm sure it wasn't overnight but it seemed that way!)

I've been pretty emotional this week too, crying at everything, but that could well be because so much is going on right now, what with the move and such.

The upside is that I have had no morning sickness for the past two days - I'm chuffed as week 7 and 8 was so miserable, poor John had to do literally everything because I didn't want to move for being sick! It was a bit rubbish.

Bless God for wonderful hubbies!

Another new addition...

We found out today there was a fifth pregnancy in the works, can you imagine.

Our best friends, the Widdo's, are expecting their fourth baby! We think it's truly wonderful and we are so excited for them; especially as Leah is a day apart from me. That can't be a coincidence and we thank God for that.

So, this post is a congratulations to the greatest friends in the world! Have fun with your million children...! They just get cuter. xxx

Food glorious food...

Or not as the case may be.

Pre-pregnancy, onions were my 'thing'. Then I got pregnant and it was bacon/meat in general AND onions. Now, it's neither and the smell of both make me want to bow before the porcelain goddess. At the moment, I can only eat specific things at specific times and no day is the same! Which is interesting when you're trying to plan dinner. Poor John has been noticing an absence of the usual foods in the house so he has to deal with getting most of the food right now!

For example, the other day we worked flat out on the flat and were really looking forward to dinner which was salmon wrapped in pancetta with a lovely salad and warm potatoes. So I quickly whipped it up when we got home, sat down...and I could only manage some of the salmon and a few bites of salad.

How extremely annoying.

Congratulations and celebrations...

We just wanted to say a big congratulations to the other three couples who are on the same journey as us - just a bit further along!

Eugene & Corne - I know they're in their 20 something week...I will come back and edit this when I find out!

Louis & Jeanre who are 15 weeks pregnant as we write

Albert & Kerry who are 13/14 weeks pregnant - again, I will have to double check!!

We are thrilled that you've been so blessed with a little one...xxx

Sick as a parrot...

I thought I might have got away with not suffering from morning sickness as I'd only really been suffering from queasiness but the middle of last week got a bit more intense.

Everyone kindly gives me suggestions in how to combat it, but to be honest, I can't face the thought of food and all I want to drink is cold lemonade or water - we read that the acidity and bitterness of lemonade helped nausea and it's been working for about five minutes at a time. Our friend Jeanre has instructed John to feed me Bovril and starchy foods!! But I don't like Bovril so that's ok - thanks for the thought though.

Clearly sickness varies for different people: my mum was sick the whole way with the three of us but my aunt (her sister) AND my sister-in-law had a perfectly nice, bloomingful pregnancy with nothing horrid whatsoever! I do know, however, that this feels like a cross between motion sickness and hangover sickness - which I'm sure not many have experienced!

We're now 8 weeks pregnant and apart from twinges and rubbish sickness, I sometimes forget I'm expecting - but, we don't forget to pray for our little one as we know the 7th & 8th weeks are the most important stages of it's development. I've been religiously taking my folic acid and omega 3 capsules so we expect one brainy baby!

Our little embryo is now called a fetus, which means "offspring" and now measures approximately 0.6 inch / 1.6 centimetres. Previously, our little one looked remarkably like a shrimp so to speak (I am totally taking that from another pregnant mummy but it's the only way to describe it!) Now the embryonic tail is gone making our baby look a little more human. All the organs, muscles, and nerves are beginning to function too. The hands now bend at the wrist, and the feet begin to lose their webbed appearance. Even the eyelids are beginning to cover the eyes - I'm still amazed at the speedy progression and we can't wait to start feeling the baby move!

We have our first scan date: 6th July so if you could remember that in your prayers, that would be wonderful. Watch this space for a first photo of Baby Stevens!