21 weeks - over half way there now!

Bless God for our wonderful experience on Friday. We had so much fun over the weekend, telling the grandparents, siblings and great-grandparents about the scan and revealing whether our little one was a boy or a girl. Almost, the best bit was hearing and seeing their reactions - it really was marvellous!

We took the doppler over to both sets of parents this weekend so they could hear the heartbeat of their grandchild. However, when Daddy John first found the heartbeat of Flump at Hardcourts Close (chez Stevens Snr), the baby gave the doppler a very large boot which made a very funny squeaky sound. Apparently, the baby felt we were disturbing his evening. Some people!

We've been blessed with lots of baby bits, including the brilliant Bumbo, which have been forwarded from John's sister, Sarah and an Ikea bag full of clothes which we had a look through, and put into piles of clothes we fancied and clothes that could be passed around. Grandma Judy was rooting through my old books (John was delighted when he found Peter & Jane books and started to read all fifty pages of Peter & Jane Went to the Park, just for the baby! EDIT: apparently it was Peter & Jane Went to The Farm - apologies there) and Auntie TJ also read some nursery stories to Flump - some of which are actually really scary!

This week, Flump is about 26cm, about 10ins. Up until now baby has been measured from crown to rump but from this point on the measurement will be from crown to heel. Flumps' eyebrows and eyelids are fully developed, and they can now blink. The baby can now hear our conversations which means we probably need to watch what we say! We are purposely singing and reading to the baby though. The amazing thing is, some studies have found that newborns will suck more vigorously when read to from a book they heard frequently in the womb.

Getting more and more impatient in the residence at Glanville Road. But we are making the most of our time together and having plenty of laughs, watching Titanic and blubbing together, eating Mexican and helping my mum cook her first curry tonight for dad's birthday!