A wobble

If Erin hadn't gone into her chosen profession I think she could have been in the FBI - remember she is American - or just been a plain and simple spy.  She's ridiculously intelligent, calm under pressure, good at learning languages and is very discrete. For me on the other hand it's a different story.  Being a bit thick and freaking out at tiny things are just two reasons why not. So it came as a surprise to me when Erin had a slight wobble on Sunday night, which caused more than a tremor of a wobble in our place.  

I could see something happening when she was on the phone with her dad.  Erin's mum wasn't in when she made the weekly phone call home but her dad was.  They talked together about a few things then she asked how quickly it took for the kids to appear after the waters broke - conversations like these are popping up all over the place at the moment. 

She wanted to hear about the first born but he told a story about the third instead. He said: 'Originally when we got to the hospital with Robyn, we were told we would be waiting a while, adding it could even be up to 2 days when she would enter the world.  You're mum was told that she wasn't ready yet.'  

That information wasn't quite correct, however.  10 minutes later the third of the De Vos clan was all cuddled up and making her presence know.

(We haven't got her mum's account to verify this yet but as soon as we do I'll let you know.)

We don't have a car and our baby could be born on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Eve or Day. And we've been told by a paediatrician friend that you should listen to your parents' stories as they are the closest you are going to get to retrospective advice.  Erin put these two thoughts together and quietly started the panic machine ticking.  Later, after obviously mulling it over while we were watching The Tudors, we started talking.

The following questions and statements were then asked by the both of us, not sure by who though for most of them:

What if the baby's born on Christmas day? 

What will we do?

What if there are no taxis?  

Could we take an ambulance? 

It could be born in the ambulance! 

Or worse, taxi! 

'I may have to deliver it!', I definitely said this, not Erin.

I continued, 'I'll have to take a class on how to deliver babies!'

We don't have any friends with cars here to help us! 

What are we going to do? 

We're not ready! 

We haven't planned enough!  

We haven't done anything! 

There was more and it took a lot shorter for us to say it all than you took reading it.

We eventually calmed down and Erin said: 'Up until now it's been easy, now it's just going to get more difficult. I'm about to get a lot bigger and this fluttery feeling I keep having is going to start kicking and moving.  (It really is.) But we'll be all right.'

We breathed and hugged.

It was a major reality check for us.  We are planning and will be ready. But sometimes doubts rise to the surface.   

I now have a list of taxi firms at hand and a list of questions - including can we call an ambulance if we think the arrival is imminent? - for the midwife when we see her next week.

Half way point

When I was training for my marathon, halfway through my runs, a very welcome little voice appeared in my Ipod saying half way point after which the young lady counted down the miles then meters to the end.

Well this is where we're at with Erin's pregnancy. We've had the warm up, muscles are now getting used to the exercise and Erin is in full swing, ready for the tougher more energy sapping part heading to the finish line.

She's now almost 20 weeks in and according to our emails from gurgle.com she's about to get more fluttering sensations, which Erin is talking about getting a little at the moment. These feel a little weird but worse aches and pains are apparently going to begin soon (Oh no, but this really does sound like marathon training).

The baby should now have a cream film over it called vernix. It protects him from becoming waterlogged by the amniotic fluid. Premature babies have this over them when they come out but if our little one arrives at the right time the film will have gone. The arms and legs should be in the correct proportion and he's developing a layer of fat to keep him warm. If he's a girl she is now carrying half her eggs, which will help her, eventually, make Erin a grandma - not too soon though, hopefully.

From now on we are going to shoot a video each week of Erin - reluctantly might I add - walking around to show her state of pregnancy. Some weeks I'll put it up on the blog, others I won't. At the end though, I'll thread it together and we'll have a film of Erin walking through London, different parts of England and bits of Europe, but more importantly through her pregnancy. It's got a working title of Not Quite A Walk In The Park. Here's the first...