Saturday, December 31, 2005


Helen on the morning of 31 December 2005, contemplating going to hospital to be induced. Posted by Picasa

T minus 1 hour and 20 mins and counting

Just getting ready to go to the hospital.

I will try to leave some audio blogs from the hospital.

I am typically both excited and very anxious at the same time.

I think I may just have to pop to the loo once more before we go.....

T minus 7 hours 50 minutes and counting...

OK, so now I have discovered audio blogging.

This will allow me to update this blog with audio files from the hospital - if I can find somewhere where I can use my mobile.

So watch out for audio posts.

The wonders of modern technology eh ?

T minus 10 hours and counting...

Well, the curry did not work.

I have brewed up a supersaturated raspberry leaf tea solution this morning and reduced it down to an almost black liquor which smelled so awful that I offered to inject it intravenously, but Helen thought that 28 weeks of heparin injections in her tummy and thighs was enough injections for one pregnancy.

Thanks for the anonymous comment yesterday, we have been using your suggestion too and while that isn't working, it is making the waiting more pleasurable ! You might like to check out the the very first post in this blog for an interesting note on how this subject is best approached.

So today's the day it all kicks off, one way or the other and I am not talking about events this afternoon at the Walkers Stadium. Although if we are not at the hospital by then, at least I can listen to the Radio Norfolk commentary on the internet. I really enjoy listening to a wholly biased account of the proceedings. Not quite the same as being there, of course. But meanwhile, back at the baby...it seems incredible to think that by this time tomorrow it is highly likely that we will have a new baby. My almost irrepressible excitement is for once tempered by anxiety at the process that moves us 'from here to maternity'. After all that we have been through and especially all that Helen has been through, I so want her to have a straightforward delivery without too much intervention. Please keep all appropriate parts of your anatomies appropriately crossed for us today and tomorrow.

More later....

Friday, December 30, 2005

T Minus 22 hours 40 mins and counting...

No further developments of note to report.

The pineapples are nearly all gone and the raspberry leaf tea is now so strong you can stand a spoon up in it. Helen has been 'walking like an elephant' as instructed by the midwife and bouncing on her giant ball - the one we bought and inflated not the one she seems to have stuffed up her jumper. The world's hottest curry is being prepared by Uddin at the Bucks Tandoori for tonight - maybe that will make a difference. He seems more confident of that than I am.

I have been trying to get some of my admin done today. I have managed to tax the car, pay a couple of cheques in at the bank, pick up my shoes that were re-heeled before Christmas and collect some flea and worming solution for the puppies from the vets, but my mind has mostly been elsewhere. My attempts to get my VAT return done have amounted to no more than piling up all of the invoices which are now staring at me accusingly from the desk. I have done no work for a whole week (whooppee!) - the first time since skiing at the end of March and even then I took a couple of calls on the piste !

The sense of anticipation is dreadful, and not just for us, apparently. Friends keep phoning and e-mailing, purportedly to find out how we are, but in reality to check that they have not been missed out in the baby news round robin. If I do miss you out, please do not read anything adverse into it - it is possible that I will not be thinking clearly.

Part of me would like to be at the Walkers Stadium tomorrow afternoon to watch Norwich beat Leicester. We could just about get back in time to report for baby delivery duty at Stoke Mandeville at 7pm, but somehow I think that would be tempting fate too much. I hope they win. They seem to do better when I am not there at the moment, so perhaps staying away is a sound idea for more than one reason.

At least the space we are all watching is getting smaller, unlike Helen's tummy. I am going to take another photo of her tomorrow before we go to the hospital. Hopefully, she will let me publish it here.

Curry beckons....

Thursday, December 29, 2005

T minus 37 hours 15 mins and counting. Timing is everything...

Obviously this is about to become a very difficult time for us domestically. The baby is likely to occupy us in one way or another for the next few months at least. Time for keeping the house clean and tidy is going to be very short.

So.... I just sacked the cleaner.

OK, we sacked the cleaner. It was a joint decision, but I actually did the deed. I spend much of my professional life saying difficult things to people and telling other people how they should dismiss their workers and contractors, but actually having to do it is always awful.

She did give us good grounds though - she has broken a number of things of late: a couple of pieces of scuplture and a very beautiful ceramic umbrella stand. Her worst trait (apart from having an obvious aversion to cleaning away cobwebs) is that she used to spend a good part of her time when she was supposed to be working, texting and calling on one of her 4 (yes 4 !) mobile phones. We never did get to the bottom of why she needed so many nor why she should ask us to receive £10,000 for her through our bank account, but suffice it to say we were more than a little concerned as to what her activities entailed. Needless to say, we declined the opportunity to allow the money to come anywhere near our account - not least because it would have gone gloop into our overdraft and we might not have been in a position to pay it on to her !

So anyone know a good reliable cleaner whose laundering skills might extend to ironing, but not to money ?

No sign of the baby today although there have been some strong contractions. I am slowly making the raspberry leaf tea stronger and putting more and more tabasco in the food, but no noticeable effect is being achieved.

T minus 2 days and counting...

Despite all of the early signs and all of Helen's attempts to speed things up (raspberry leaf tea, pineapple, spicy curry, walking and sex), Molly (97.3% chance it's Molly not Thomas and larger probability that it's Molly not Anna) is still not with us. The hospital will begin the process to induce her arrival at 7pm on New Year's Eve.

I have always loathed New Year celebrations with a passion. For the first time I have the perfect excuse not to participate.

Although I have done this twice before, it is Helen's first time. Nevertheless, I confess to being anxious as well as excited. It has been a long time coming. To be precise 5 and a half years, 7 miscarriages, numerous inconclusive tests and procedures, 2 subchorionic haemorrhages, 28 weeks of daily heparin injections and more tears and sleepless nights than you could ever shake a stick at.

The bag has been packed by the door for several weeks and the car seat is in. I still need to add a spare t-shirt for me in case we are there for a while and the camera and camcorder and no doubt a few extra things that Helen will think of at the last minute. The few extra things that I will think of will only be thought of several miles up the A413 on the way to the hospital.

Helen is huge. I have never seen such a large bump. Nor has anyone else who has seen it. You would not believe it is just one baby. However, having had scans every week from week 5 to week 15 and about a further 10 scans and various periods of monitoring since, it would be a pretty poor show if the 3 different hospitals that have scanned Helen's tummy had missed the extra baby or babies.

I knew that sex was recommended in the latter stages of pregnancy as a means of causing the cervix to thin in readiness for the birth and that this was something to do with the chemical constituents of semen. However, Helen tells me that while penetrative sex is effective in this regard, the chemical is even more effective when the semen is ingested. Now that piece of research has to have been undertaken and published by a man, it should also be widely disseminated (pardon the pun) to all men as quickly as possible ! One swallow may not make a summer, but it will apparently prepare your pregnant partner's cervix for birth. Obviously, the chemical should be ingested liberally and as frequently as possible.

Despite the time which is posted by the site (which is presumably US time) it is almost 1.17am on 29 December 2005. I guess I had better go to bed, there will be enough sleepless nights in the future.

Molly Sendall: coming soon to a maternity ward near us.

Watch this space...