When I was little...

...apparently my grandmother told my mum that I was "her comeuppance".

I suspect that this wee thing may be mine.

I had my anomaly scan on the 7th of February, and got to see lots of a very cute wiggly baby. Lovely close-up view of its mouth and nose (while the sonographer was doing the cleft palate checks), and watching it trying to grab at its feet was very sweet.

But since it was in a breech position, spine to my spine, and very low in my pelvis, the sonographer was unable to get a good shot of the length of its spine and its coccyx. After all the angles I'd been holding myself at in order to try to get a clear shot, it also was no longer in a great position for photographs so we decided not to get any taken.

My second anomaly scan was yesterday, and this time the obliging little bugger was lying head to my left, feet to my right and lying on its stomach.

Perfect spinal viewing. The final check shot took seconds to get.

Then the fun of trying to spot the sex and get a decent picture started.

Thanks to the umbilical cord running down between its legs, and it helpfully squashing the cord against itself while doing a can-can high kick, the sonographer made a guess as to the sex, but couldn't tell for sure.

As for the pictures, the first one was obtained by me rolling onto my left and the sonographer getting a quick screengrab before the little bugger rolled back over. In fact she got it just as it was rolling, hence the slightly strange head! The second shot is a blurry one that she captured just in case - which was a good job as baby really didn't want to pose.

I've got another scan at the beginning of April, when I also have my first Anti-d shot, so hopefully baba will want to pose and let us know if we need to keep on trying to choose a girls name!

Gosh...

...so much for saying I'd be blogging more.

To be fair, I've got a pretty good excuse.

This picture was taken on the 15th of November.

Then these pictures were taken on the 13th of December.

So I'd say that's a pretty good excuse really. ;-)

What with my dreadful past history and all (2, 3, 4), the doctor signed me off work as soon as I went in there with my positive test. This was a very good thing, as apart from all the pre-planned pills I needed a course of antibiotics that basically led to me sleeping right through November. Seriously. For five weeks I was awake for about three hours a day and either asleep or dozing the rest of the time. Thank goodness for audiobooks!

But since I'm 14 weeks and two days pregnant today, oh and cos it's my birthday, I thought I'd spread a little bit of sunshine into the post-Christmas gloom. (I'm back at work tomorrow too!)

I also want to say a massive THANK YOU!!! to the lovely folks who have been aware from the start and kept me going through my paranoid days. You lot are real blessings.

(I won't finish this post by saying I'm going to blog more, cos that'll just jinx it...again.)

No news...

...is good news. Right?

Well in terms of me not blogging it is. I have been actually busy having actual adventures... a whole two of them.

Plus after phoning the hospital every day for a week following @SarahAnnGreen's totally fabulous news, I was finally told that although I wouldn't be getting an appointment to see the consultant, I did have a letter in the post.

Cue four days of worriting (our post is crap).

The letter arrived, was hastily ripped open...and then I burst into tears.

Good tears, as you will know if you were on Twitter about 10 minutes later to read my joyous tweetlings.

I need to start taking folic acid and low-dose asprin as soon as I start trying to conceive again, then as soon as I get a positive test it's off to the doctors for a course of progesterone.

I get to choose between this and this.

I'm choosing the second one, I bruise far too easily even without the aspirin!

I'll keep you informed better in future... promise ;-)

Blood, blood...

...glorious blood. (with apologies to Flanders & Swann)

Today was appointment day to see the consultant at New Cross about my miscarriages. Unfortunately we didn't get to see him this time, but it wasn't as bad as last time.

We got a lovely nursing sister who talked me right through my entire history and picked out a few things to focus on. Then she took another armful of blood (note to self, right arm has better veins) for testing.

I will get to see the actual consultant in "probably August but possibly July, he's running some extra clinics". But "if you get an appointment in the next 10 days, well done but the blood tests won't be back by then".

Meh.

But I have enquired about progesterone and oestrogen testing and she has flagged this up in my notes for the consultant to review when I see him "as he knows more about that than I do".

Essentially no answers again, but when I do get to see him I will get a PLAN that will be passed on to my GP and will also be for me to keep and will potentially include things in it like no lifting of any sort, daily aspirin, etc etc.

Fingers very much crossed that I get an appointment in...oooh, 12 days maybe!

Plus much much love to all my darling darling twitter-folk for their support, hugs, kisses and virtual cake this morning, just what the doctor ordered ;-)

Seriously...

...prodding buttock.

I may have just found the perfect motivational tool for 99% of my days.

I've just managed to spend an entire hour on the cross-trainer (assisted by the wondrous Lady Gaga), my legs now feel like jelly and I'm worried I may faint in the shower, but I did it.

My motivational tool is below:

This is the baby jacket that my darling sister brought me back from Canada in 2005. In fact she brought it back exactly six years ago last Monday (20th). Unfortunately that makes tomorrow exactly six years since I had my first miscarriage.

We've got an appointment with the specialist at New Cross next Tuesday. Hopefully we'll get a few questions answered and get a few pointers for the future.

But I'm thinking that making myself sad and angry so that I blast it with the cross-trainer until I fall over will be an excellent coping technique.

As for the other 1% of the time when it just makes me want to eat chocolate, hopefully the 99% will help counteract it!

History might just...

...repeat itself.

33 years ago, on the 14th of March 1978, a little football team called Leyton Orient won a sixth round FA Cup replay 2-1 against Middlesborough to get through to the semi-final of the FA Cup.

They had defeated Norwich City (1-1, replay 1-0), Blackburn Rovers (3-1), and Chelsea (0-0, replay 2-1) to get to the sixth round.

In the semi-final they unfortunately lost 3-0 to Arsenal.

But in winning against Middlesborough, the damage had already been done. I was born 9 months later.

In this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient have defeated Dagenham & Redbridge (1-1, replay 3-2), Droylesden (1-1, replay 8-2 aet), Norwich City (1-0) and Swansea City (2-1).

In the fifth round of this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient will be playing Arsenal for the first time since that 1978 match.

Here's hoping that allowing for prevailing winds and good luck and all that jazz, I can be embarrassing a child of mine with this story. Not quite in 9 months time (cos not pregnant yet, plus also, you can't embarrass a newborn) but hopefully within the next year.

Fingers crossed eh.

This week I was supposed to have...

...four days at work before then having nine days off.

Then I got a letter from the hospital informing me that my appointment time had been changed AGAIN!

So I phoned them up and ranted a bit (and cried quite a lot) and the end result was that I could either take the new appointment time or wait until July for a new one.

So I then had long confabs with Anthony and with RichieFingers (who is a Rota God, seriously) and the end result is that Anthony and I will be at the hospital for our appointment time of 10.55.

I am stupidly scared and nervous. Although I know that it is very unlikely, my mind is already running through all of the worst-case scenarios that it can think of. The stupid thing is, even if one of them happens it won't have prepared me for it.

But we are prepared.

Anthony has Series 6 of Pokemon, I have Ashes to Ashes, Numb3rs, CSI:NY and Eleventh Hour (which I haven't seen any of yet, but it's got Rufus Sewell in it!) on the V+ box. Of course, we both have WoW for when the other one is watching TV.

I also have this:


It was in the Thornton's sale for £10 (from £30) and I couldn't just leave it sitting there...

Update: Home now. Got to see consultant a mere hour and 15 minutes after appointment time. Then she made me cry when she demanded to know why I wasn't currently taking folic acid.
Her - "But if you're trying to get pregnant you need to be taking it."
Me - "I'm not trying bloody anything til I know what went wrong last time, and that's what this appointment is for!"

The blood tests were all fine, the chromosome tests were also all fine. The only one that was slightly iffy was the blood protein one and so off I trooped to have some blood taken.

So basically, no idea what went wrong. But at the same time it's not a case of "give up, there's no chance".

Now I am going for chocolate egg and beer (the sun's past the yardarm) and since it's sunny I shall probably sit in the garden too.

It's been...

...a very strange two weeks.

Center Parcs was bloody brilliant. Lots of chilling out in the spa, lots of reading, far too much wine consumed on a couple of occasions - thoroughly good fun.

Anthony spent quite a lot of time playing with his new fancy camera, Brychan liberated Paris (Blazing Angels on the Wii), Emily had an argument with Professor Layton ("I put in 5 AGES ago and it told me it was wrong, BLOODY GAME!") and Mum got us all hooked on Tyrrell's crisps.

This week I have had a migraine. And that's about it. It started as a headache on Monday afternoon and progressed on Wednesday to me not being able to see out of my left eye and being sent home from work. Yesterday I slept pretty much all day and then today I've alternated between dozing on the sofa and sharing various woes with my lovely Twitter peeps.

The only thing that's been a constant for both weeks was an attack of the green eyed monster.

Well not really a monster, more a stab in the heart and lots of tears kind of monster.

The only problem with going to Center Parcs when it's not a school holiday is the other people who take that opportunity. Like the 17 million couples with babies/toddlers who seemed to make up the rest of the guests there. Oh there were a few older couples there too...but they all seemed to be there with their kids and grandchildren.

Babies are bloody everywhere at the moment and it's really bloody hard.

I was supposed to have had a doctors appointment last Tuesday to discuss my miscarriage. About a week after I got the original letter I got another one to say they had to change the appointment to April instead. At the time I was just glad that I was getting seen, now I'm sad that this means no baby for me in 2009.

I am looking after myself though. Any blogs I've been reading that have unbelievably adorable new babies on I have deleted from Google reader (not you Keris, for some reason reading about Joe is ok), I'm trying to avoid the updates on Facebook from the 8-9 old school friends who are either expecting or have just produced, and I've been avoiding watching anything on TV that could get to me.

CSI:NY clobbered me though. I knew there was an episode coming up where Lindsay told Danny she was pregnant, I didn't expect her to whip out an ultrasound photo to prove it.

My brain seems determined to protect me by making me feel that it didn't really happen. Same as with my dad I guess. Silly coping mechanisms. The one thing I wish I had done was get the ultrasound photo. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it would be proof that I got to that point for the first time.

Gonna stop now cos none of this is making any sense. Thank you for listening.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

...oh look, it did.

Reading through my Google Reader I notice an awful lot of people who have been off work/college today because of the snow.

Jammy buggers.

I must admit that work was ok today because it was so flipping quiet as anyone with any sense has stayed at home/gone sledding. This did mean that the customers we did have were as mad as a bag of snakes. Oh, and Gavin popped in. But it was his birthday (25) so we'll let him off.

Today I wished I was between the ages of 6-11 again. In fact we could stretch that slightly to 6-18 as my senior school would have shut due to the snow too.

But my memories of playing in the snow are from 6-11. Building igloos in Melanie and Lauren's back garden (proper high walls and everything). Building forts in the front garden and engaging in snowball fights with Calvin and Martin.

Instead I pulled a few returns, informed people that the cookery book published by "someone named Marjorie, used to live next door to me, it was about Black Country recipes" was out of print ("so how long will it take you to order it?") and was generally rather bored.

Sometimes I wish I lived further away from work so I could say I couldn't get in. Sometimes I wish I was 6-11 again. Sometimes I wish I had kids so that they'd be off school so I couldn't go in.

Here's hoping for two out of three (since I ain't gonna get younger).

One Day.