Dining Room Done

So this weekend we finally finished the dining room. All the painting and decorating was sorted in the early May bank holiday, but this week we got the last of our dining room furniture delivered. J also wired up our gorgeous new pendant lamp from BHS. I think the final result looks so stunning, I'm so happy it's finished! 

This bank holiday we also did A LOT of clearing stuff out. J spent yesterday raking the back lawn with weed and feed, and also cut back all the hedges and the tree in our front garden. We now have a wide open space that we can pave so that we have enough room to get a pram in and out of the house. 

I spent yesterday massacring my wardrobe and throwing out all my beautiful dresses I can sadly no longer fit into. Even H helped by clearing out lots of his old toys. 

J went to the dump and I finished off H's room, organising all his toys and throwing away mountains of empty toy boxes and packets. The end result is H's bedroom incredibly clear and tidy, our bedroom much lighter with 2 massive bags of clothes removed, and the wardrobe in the spare room practically empty. 

So now our house feels so much lighter! I wonder how long it will last?

I'm guessing 4 more months!

Fluttering

This week I have started to feel Peanut move about inside me. It's not very strong and I have to stop what I'm doing to really feel the movement, but it's there! It's a very light sensation at the moment, like a gentle fluttering. It normally starts up as soon as I lay down in bed at night.

Last night Peanut was squirming away and I took J's hand and placed it on my tummy and he could feel the baby move too! It was a magical moment. But then he got worried he would squash the baby with his hand so he stopped :-/ 

I am enjoying the little sensations I'm feeling at the moment. I have also started to talk to the baby sometimes when I'm by myself. Not in a crazy way! Just, when we're alone and I've been quiet for a while, I'll just tell Peanut something or sing a song. It's amazing to think there is a little person inside me hearing my voice! 

16 weeks!

Compare these two photos taken just a few weeks apart...

Heart Beat

I'm 15 weeks pregnant now and on Tuesday I had an antenatal appointment with my doctor. Stupidly, I forgot all my notes, which I don't think my doctor was very pleased about. I will have to put a reminder in my phone to bring them to every appointment in the future.

I thought she was going to ask for a blood test or urine sample, but all she did really was take my blood pressure (fine) and asked me to lay down on the bed so she could feel my tummy. 

She took out this small microphone type contraption from get desk and turned it on. It was a Doppler scanner and made a horrible static noise. But when she put it on my abdomen, I could hear lots of weird gurgling noises. As she moved it lower, we heard a rhythmic rushing noise.

'Thats the placenta' the doctor said. 'We might not be able to pick up the baby's heartbeat yet because the microphone head is so small, but that's a reassuring sound. The baby will be fine if we can hear the placenta push the blood through.'

Still, she moved the microphone again and suddenly, there the heartbeat was. A rapid, but distinct little heartbeat. The doctor looked at me and smiled. 

Hearing my baby's heartbeat for the first time was amazing. My eyes welled up. I thought I was going to cry. Gently, my doctor helped me up and patted my back lightly. 

Leaving the surgery, I eagerly called J to share the experience with him, but I was also disappointed that he wasn't there to hear it for himself. Hopefully he will get a chance later on in the pregnancy. 

I can't wait to see and hear our baby again! 

14 Weeks

I haven't written anything for a while because we've been so busy sorting out the house in preparation for Peanut's arrival. Without listing all the boring intricacies of what needs to happen before November, we basically need to clear out the office before we can transform it into the nursery. This means that all the huge amount of stuff (mostly J's) including the huge desk and chair that's currently cramped in there all needs to come out and find somewhere else to live.

So last weekend, which was the early May Bank Holiday, we spent two days painting and decorating the dining room. The outdated and grimy terracotta walls have finally gone (hooray!) and been replaced with a soft creamy almond on the two smaller walls and a kind of pale brown / almost mauve colour called chocolate milkshake. We are really happy with the results! 

Today, poor J has spent the entire day building an Ikea Hemnes Bureau and add on unit which will house his Mac Pro and files. The reason it took so long was because the bureau had been mislabelled and was too big as it was old stock. So we had to drive back to Ikea and get it exchanged, which, believe me was a painfully long and stressful process. Now it's finally built it looks great, but I feel bad that J has had to do all the hard work without me...

And today we also bought the cot! It is a Lucia Cot / Cotbed from Mamas & Papas. It's a beautiful cot made even lovelier by the price we managed to get it for! Afterwards, we took my mum out for lunch in Pizza Express and she gave us a whole load of bits for the nursery from Mamas & Papas Rosie and Rex range.