We had a delicious meal on Luca’s birthday and it was a lovely evening out for us as a couple. It was a rare chance for us to be together in a stress free environment where we could sort out all of the important things we needed to attend to, and I could test out my new Prada handbag instead my usual Mary Poppins trunk filled with wet wipes and Millie’s toys. So after plying Luca with wine and garlic bread (the well know kryptonite of all Italians! Whilst I sipped my orange) I had firm ground to discuss baby names! Now I know this may sound a little premature, but I can’t help but want to associate our *ahem* SECOND TRIMESTER *ahem* bump with an identity as we reach the higher grounds of safety.
But the problem is we know so many people and I don’t like choosing names for pets or children if you already know somebody with the same name; as in my mind you’ll always think of that person who shares the same name instead, or if you tell somebody the babies name they’ll all say “Oh, was that after so and so’s kid?” But on the other hand, if you’re naming a child after a grandparent then I think that’s lovely. But on this occasion we wanted a new name that we’d never heard of but also something that wasn’t too new-age or out there. So in between our steak and stuffed butternut squash we went through a few ideas. I would really like a name that could stand alongside Millisent without being out of place, and as she’s our little angel I always say she is “Millie Sent From Heaven” which brought us onto the thinking of an old fashioned somewhat religious name. We also wanted to give the baby a middle name from our parents which is a task in itself considering my family are Hungarian and Luca’s are Italian! But by the time we tucked into our apple crumble and chocolate brownie we had it sussed! SO we are excited to announce our bumps name/s:
If the bump is a boy we will have: Gabriele Angelo (after Luca’s father) Tivadar (after my father) Di-Zenobia – Kiss If the bump is a girl we will have: Gabriella Luciana (after Luca’s mother) Teresa (after my mother) Di-Zenobia – Kiss; taking into account our little four year old is Millisent Teresa Grace Kiss so I think they would fit quite nicely!
…. Little bit of a mouthful I admit but I’m hoping the birth certificate will have a few extra boxes for exceptionally lengthy names! Hmmm… We’ll see!
On the 28th of October we had our 12week scan to check for abnormalities and from the word go I woke up feeling like something would go wrong. Luca tells me that I grind my teeth at night and make chewing noises while I sleep, which I’ve been told is due to stress and also I can account the chewing noises to the fact I keep dreaming about eating cakes and ice cream most nights! I think the worst part which stresses me out, is having nightmares about the baby, which I’m sure every woman has when pregnant, but they seem to get darker and longer each night. During the day I know that I worry about everything being ok and I’m perhaps overly cautious to make sure that nothing that I do could trigger another miscarriage, but I don’t think I’m obsessive about it. It just seems when at night my mind is given free reign to fill my dreams with scenarios it always chooses the worst possible outcome for our little one and I often wake up thinking it is actually happening. But it doesn’t seem to be something that I can control, I stay positive and upbeat during the day but my mind must be bottling it up for the early hours.
So we went to our scan and I drank a jug of water camel style as advised one hour before the appointment and every bump in the car on the way to the hospital threatened to pop me! There were so many parents in the waiting room it felt like forever that we waited to be seen so I busied myself by looking at fetus development images on the wall and it did little to help me hold my water when it recalled my memories of childbirth. When the sonographer called my name I jumped up in front of everyone and shouted YES! with my fine-tuned bingo skills courtesy of many a game with Mum and Nan at Gala Bingo across the years. Luca and I were so excited walking to the room I felt like we were receiving a reward from the head teacher at school. The sonographer asked how things were going as I lay on the bed grinning with the biggest cheesy smile ever trying to hold my bursting bladder. She squirted the gel onto my stomach and it was a close call to coaxing my aggressive bladder into submission. But somehow I knew it was too good to be true as when she turned on the screen she pulled it away from us to study it closer. My heart stopped when I couldn’t hear a heartbeat despite her poking her hand piece hard into my stomach. But a few moments later she pushed the screen back round to us and showed us this tiny little person with a moving bag where its heart would be – it really did have a heart beat, our baby is alive and well!
Our First Scan Picture
But all wasn’t exactly straight forward, as she dug the hand piece about into my stomach trying to find different angles I was in such pain I so desperately wanted her to stop so that I could go to the toilet but knew if I did she might not get the pictures she needed for measurements as you’re supposed to have a full bladder so I dug my nails into my hand and bit my lip. After a lot of pondering and note taking she told us the problem, my womb is in the wrong position, somehow? Instead of the baby lying on its back hip-to-hip across my stomach it was sitting on its head kicking its legs in the air as my womb was standing upright? She said that emptying my bladder might allow the womb to move down and the baby to settle where it should so I ran to the toilet like I was queuing for the Next sale! When I lay back down she tried again but still the baby was in the wrong position meaning that she couldn’t measure the spine or limbs properly and the baby would have to be turned. We were then told to go and walk about in the car park and if I could manage it, to go and eat chocolate because it sends babies crazy and makes them move about. Hmmm… would I mind eating chocolate for the baby? Well, I suppose if I have to! So there I was lapping the hospital car park for fifteen minutes eating a twirl hoping to rearrange my insides, and when we went back in she tried to scan again but unfortunately it was the same problem. I tried going to the toilet again and a few digging techniques to encourage the baby to move along politely but all attempts failed so they had to rebook us for another scan in a week’s time, which is now two days away.
We’re hoping by the time of our next scan my womb may have dropped or moved enough so that the baby doesn’t have the ability to hide, or most worryingly sit on its head!? I’m sure babies should prefer to lie down and snuggle up if given the choice. We have our upside down baby scan picture on the fridge, which I’m hoping we have a nice normal scan picture this week to accompany it.
Aside from that all else is well, I’m still a worry pot but not as bad now that we know the baby is fit and well.
Until next time, sleep well and get down off of your head our little egg-sized angel. x x x x x x x x
