A New Family

He was born at home on the 30th January 2008 at 08:25 hrs weighing 8lbs. He had to be rushed to hospital as soon as he was born because he had inhaled lots of fluid and had breathing difficulties. But after 5 days in hospital he was allowed home where we can now enjoy and get to know our little son!

Well we're just playing the waiting game now. As you can see there's not long to go now until we meet our son. Ripley is keen on getting things started as she's fed up with all the many aches and pains and sleepless nights (although I'm sure these won't stop just yet!). We have everything ready now, the pool and all it's equipment, plenty of food in the freezer etc etc, now we're waiting on the big day. We were watching a home birthing programme that we had recorded from the tv last night, and it was really cool. The woman giving birth to her first baby was so strong and confident & it only took her 7 hours from start to finish. The only thing was that she was 3 weeks overdue which must have been quite distressing for her, and she got a girl when she thought she was having a boy!! Hope that doesn't happen to us as I'm quite attached to the idea of having a boy now. Oh well as long as baby is healthy I don't mind either.

Hello to those of you that still read this, sorry we haven't updated for a while! Well, what's happening since we last wrote? Everything is just going fine. Ripley is just over 6 months pregnant & she's OK, apart from a few aches & pains & terrible indigestion! Her belly is really huge now, & it's jumping around all over the place. She still cycles to & from work everyday, although obviously not at the speed she used to! She'll be finishing work on the 7th December for maternity leave, which is great as I won't have to worry if she got to work safely everyday. I am quiting work on the 19th December so I can look after her & baby once it's here. I'm so excited about that. Money will be a bit tight, but there's more to life than money, me thinks. I plan to get a part time job once I know Ripley has recovered & Ripley will be back full time next October. We've decided to have a home birth as the hospital that is local to us is absolutely disgusting. We had a tour of the hospital one weekend, & the room they showed us was awful ie rust stains all around the plug hole of the birthing pool, lino that had ripped & they hadn't stuck back down, stains on the walls & ceiling, need I go on!!! So we feel it'll be better to have home comforts. We will have our own midwife that will come to our home to do Ripley's anti natal check ups & will be there for the birth, well we hope!! We've also hired a "doula" which is a non-medical assistant who provides physical, emotional and informational support in prenatal care, during childbirth and during the postpartum period. We've met her once & we both liked her instantly, & she'll be coming to visit us on Monday evening........Anyway that's enough for now. I'll write more on another day.

Well we had the scan & everythings going well. The scan picture isn't that great & they only gave us one picture but least we can see it's got a spine!

We've got an appointment for our 20 week scan tomorrow. I can't wait to see the little one, & we should get to know if it's a boy or a girl. Although we've been hearing rumours that our hospital may not tell us the sex, so if they don't then we'll have to look really hard!! Ripley has been experiencing some pain since yesterday, I really hope everything is OK. I'm hoping it's just things growing & stretching. At least the scan will show us if it is. Sorry we haven't been posting very much lately but we just haven't had the time of late. We'll post some scan pictures if all being well. Fingers crossed.

1. Telling people is more awkward than I'd expected - some just don't care (mainly those who've never had babies and never thought about wanting them), some get really excited (mainly those who are already parents and happy to be so). But because I don't know who is having/has had difficulties trying to conceive, and because I remember how painful it was to hear people at work discussing the various pregnancies in the office around the time of Cagney's miscarriage, I'm always worried about how to present the news, without seeming too excited or expecting a positive reaction.
2. Only one person has responded with "can I ask how?". Most people find it perfectly normal that a lesbian should get pregnant. What a progressive society we live in!
3. Many people (mainly men) drop their eyes direct to my belly, looking for a bump. Telling them it's only 6cm or 10cm long only means they keep sneaking glances over the next few weeks, and commenting "still not showing then?"
4. Once told, many people take it as a cue to recall all the horror stories they've heard about giving birth:

   "my friend ripped all the way to her arsehole, couldn't sit down for weeks, hasn't ad a decent sex life since..."

   This is always from people who have never given birth themselves. And it is always unsolicited, unwanted advice. PLEASE STOP!
5. Others take it as the cue to tell me how I'll change:

   "You'll get all emotional and start hugging complete strangers"
   "I don't think so"
   "Yes you will! My cousin..."
   "No - really - I don't see that my boundaries will undergo some tectonic shift such that I want to start rubbing my flesh against that of complete strangers"
   "Oh. Well, let's just wait and see" (knowing wink)

   (I'm not a particularly tactile person)
6. Being pregnant is much harder work physically than I had ever imagined in the early stages.
7. You can be 16 weeks pregnant, not showing, and still have outgrown all your clothes (I've found this really upsetting, which is odd, given how little attention I generally give my appearance).
8. I think all maternity bra designers are men. How else would many styles stop at sizes smaller than I was pre-pregnancy? Why do they worry more about bragging that their bras are "100% cotton" and not whether they offer expanding and overly sensitive bosoms any support at all? Tip: if you weren't flat chested before pregnancy, find a comfortable sports bra and ignore the horrible maternity range with their pink bows, total lack of support and skinny shoulder straps that leave welts across your shoulders.
9. All the books assume your parter is a man. Looks like authors/editors live outside that progressive society my friends/work colleagues inhabit.
10. Um, there should be a number 10 here. But I can't think any more. Those pregnancy hormones mean I keep forgetting everything... Cagney, help me out?

Heres a scan picture of baby at 12 weeks and 4 days. Hope you can all see it clearly!!