Say hello to the peanut

I’ve had a good few weeks break from blogging, mainly because I’ve been away on our Summer hols but also because having the three children at home all day is definitely proving to be more time consuming than I thought.  The housework and study for the next year of my degree have also been neglected while I struggle to entertain the nippers pretending to be Skelator or He-Man throughout the long and mainly wet days. 

9 Week Scan

I went for my first scan three weeks ago and it turned out that I was 9 weeks pregnant so had to go back yesterday for another scan and to have the NT test for Downs Syndrome.  I have been put under the care of a consultant at the hospital rather than a midwife.  Initially it was a shock to see the words ‘high risk’ written on my file but now I am comfortable with it and believe I am getting the best care that they can offer.

The first scan was good, we took the two younger children with us who were fascinated seeing their baby brother or sister doing acrobatics inside my tummy.  This excitement lasted all of two minutes before they decided to tear around the radiographers room and cause havoc.  This havoc then spread into the corridors while I was talking to the consultant so my husband took them for a walk.  Sometimes it is nice to involve the younger children but sometimes it is also nice to be able to listen to what the medical staff are saying to you.

What did worry me was that for the second time I had to give the dates of birth and birth weights of my three children.  I was struggling to recall the precise weights because I was so stressed with the noise of my kiddies and from being on the spot wondering why they didn’t already have this on file.  After all, I’d gone through all the births and miscarriages at the booking-in appointment but also the fact that all three of my children were born at the same hospital made me worry slightly.  The consultant was concerned that my three previous children were low birth weight for a person of my height (6ft).  My first child was 9lb, second was 7lb 8 and the third was 8lb 7, for me these are plenty big enough, I don’t want to be churning out 10lb plus babies thank you very much.

12 Week Scan

At the second scan yesterday, baby peanut had grown quite a lot and was rather more relaxed.  It was just lying in my stomach and kicking me now and then whenever the scan equipment was pressed down quite hard.  We hadn’t taken the children with us today so it was a lot more relaxed and while she took the measurements of the baby’s neck we had a good chance to sit and look at our little peanut.  I won’t lie, I cried.

After the scan we waited for a further hour to see the consultant.  During this time we couldn’t escape the BabyTV DVD that seemed to be on a loop in the waiting room.  All was going well until they were showing Ann Diamond and her cot death warnings followed by a short clip about not leaving a child in the bath alone. 

Eventually we got seen to, apparently there had been some mix up with my files and it was showing that I only had one child (my 14 year old).  We had to go through all my previous history yet again while they blamed the computer for misplacing the information.  Whatever happened to the good old pen and paper, we never had such problems back then.  Out of the blue I burst out crying uncontrollably, the images of that child going underwater in the bath while it’s mother was on the phone really scared me and I was just sobbing my eyes out.  I felt rather stupid when I calmed down and explained that videos like that always upset me.

Eventually we filled in all the missing information and proceeded to have the blood test taken for the NT test.  It’s rather crazy to think that the size of the baby’s neck from the scan and a blood test can determine the chances of the baby having Downs Syndrome.  I have another meeting with the consultant in a few weeks and a Community Midwife appointment after I return from Norway in September followed by a scan early October.  Busy bee from now on.

Summer Boot Camp For The Impatient

Yet another wet and dismal day and I fear that the next seven weeks will be a nightmare if the weather continues like this.  I am the type of mum to dress the kids up in waterproofs and wellies and send them outside in the rain but today they didn’t fancy it and to be honest, I didn’t feel up to sitting out there getting wet myself with them.  The problem that I now face is finding them things to keep them occupied inside the house for the whole day. I am living on student finance so don’t get any money through till September now, days out and holiday fun will have to be to a very strict budget indeed.

My eldest is fourteen and is rather easy compared to the younger two.  He emerged from his room first thing to eat, fart and grumble at being asked to vacuum upstairs for me then he returned to his beloved Xbox for the remainder of the morning.  I think I saw him at lunchtime, well he made a guest appearance to grab his lunch, fart and grumble at having to stack the dishwasher then he ascended the stairs back to his pit of a room to twiddle his knobs and yell ‘fire in the hole’ at his friends online.

My other two children are totally the opposite.  Yes they are younger and at the age of four and six years old it is totally understandable that as a Mother I have to occupy them, suggest things for them to do and generally watch over them most of the day.  If I don’t keep vigilant watch over them I pay the price dearly and usually spend my evening scrubbing pencil off the walls or fixing broken toys and items from around the house.  They can’t seem to play with one things for longer than two minutes and they are also incapable of tidying up before getting out more toys to play with.  Yesterday the contents of the dressing up box remained on the conservatory floor until my husband got home and we threatened no food until everything was away nicely.  Even this threat didn’t work fully as we both ended up helping them to tidy up just so we could sit down without clutter around us.

So far today the children seem to have been more thoughtful and are putting things away as they go along.  Maybe the large supply of custard creams as bribery has helped a little but it’s working so I won’t grumble.  What I do need to tackle though is their constant whinging and whining of they can’t have something or can’t find a toy that they want.  The more a child jumps up and down on the spot repeating ‘mummy mummy’ whilst flailing their arms about and emanating a type of wail and half scream, the more I want to join in myself and just scream back.  I have been known to shout ‘grow up’ to them which often results in fits of laughter from myself as the realisation dawns that I’ve just told little children to become adults rather quickly.  I have resisted such urges today but what I have found easier to do is ignore them until they speak to me in normal voices.  In theory it sounds good but these two little ‘darlings’ have developed an art of shouting at me, and I mean sergeant major type shouting at me until I give them what they want, do what they were asking or find what they were looking for.  These two will definitely be learning the art of patience by the time school starts in September if it kills me.

It does worry me how they are going to behave when the baby is born.  Splitting oneself into four so that each child can have a bit of mummy at the same time isn’t going to be easy and something which I don’t fancy trying to manage on a daily basis.  They will have to get used to waiting their turn and doing so quietly.  My eldest son must hate having to wait the longest usually because he understands patience and that he will get more quality time if he isn’t screaming ‘now now now’ at me.  I don’t give any of the children more attention or time that the others because when they do demand more from me and become needy and clingy it does tend to push me away more because they need to learn to become independent and not rely on me for absolutely everything.  In my eyes if a four year old can dress himself in a morning he can certainly put the dressing up outfits on without creating a scene and screaming at me until I do it.

The children think that the school holidays have begun, not for me; I’m calling it boot camp.  They will be begging for school by September.