It Could Be Worse

Slightly late posting this (I twittered, Flickrd and emailed on the day), but Abigail Emily Beadle was born at 9.25pm on December 30th, 2007, weighing 7lbs. Mother & baby are mighty fine



Phoebe is delighted to have a little sister, and Kathy is delighted not to have had another Caesarean section and the attendant associated six weeks’ recovery.

Phoebe, in common with many breech babies, was born with a not-fully-formed right hip socket. Thus she has been wearing a plastic splint, which keeps her legs pointing outwards, since day 2 of her life.

Yesterday we took her to the RUH in Bath for her ultrasound scan. Her hip socket is now fine, and our paediatrician checkup tomorrow should confirm that the splint is no longer required. Phoebe will then be able to lie on her side, and the car seat will fit her for a few more weeks!

Phoebe was born at 1:16 PM on Sunday June 19th (Father’s Day!), weighing 7lb 4oz. She was born by emergency Caesarean section after it was discovered, late on in labour, that she was in the breech position. It all went smoothly, however, and mother and baby are mighty fine

Kathy’s bump is pretty large now: our baby is now 5 days overdue. Two other couples in our NCT group have given birth already. Over the weekend we started resorting to some of the reputedly-effective methods of hurrying labour along: gin (with tonic!), curry, pineapple and a drive on a bumpy road. But…nothing. Nada. Zip.

With that Crazy Frog musical carbuncle still at number one in the charts, however, I’d be inclined to say to baby “just wait a bit longer”.

Kathy has complained that I’ve written 22 blog posts since my last baby-related one (back in January), so I’m attempting to redress the balance. Football has been rather distracting…

I’m sure that you’ll know that the Baby Production Unit (Kathy) & I are currently engaged in a Baby-growing project. The milestone for the first public release of Baby has been set as June 8th by our Midwifery Contract Partner.

Anyone fleet of mental foot will work out that this means we have two weeks and two days to go. Anyone knowledgable in the ways of Baby Production will know that babies rarely turn up on time (only 5% arrive on their due date).

We’ve booked a birthing pool, and we’re collecting it from Bristol on Wednesday (in our existing car, unfortunately, as our MEW hasn’t completed yet). We also spent some not-inconsiderable dosh at Born on Saturday, but as yet we do not have a buggy or car seat, two of the most expensive items on the shopping list of any parents-to-be. Thankfully we have been offered an uncrashed car seat on loan, and we’re investigating the possibility of purchasing a second-hand buggy from friends at church.

That’s enough about the “stuff”. What about Kathy? I have to say that this pregnancy has been kind to her: she positively glows with femininity and impending motherhood, and much of the discomfort experienced by others in our NCT group (breathlessness, sickness etc) has passed Kathy by. She gets occasional heartburn but, because she’s so tall, the baby hasn’t squished her insides as much as some mothers’.

What about me? We watched a waterbirth video last night, and I wasn’t as squeamish as I thought I would be (I was even eating at the time!). I do hope that the actual birth, rather than just labour, will take place in water as the baby has more chance of emerging cleaned of goo! It will be Kathy, though, who will have to make that decision at the time, depending on how she’s feeling and how the labour is going.

I’m getting quite excited now. The redecoration of the spare room (*not nursery*) continues apace (though I wish we’d had the time and inclination to use lining paper – never mind) and it may turn into our “zeitgeist room”: the walls are a slightly pinkish mushroom colour, and we’re looking at getting a brown sofabed and curtains. You can’t resist a meme forever.

20-week scan #4

Originally uploaded by t1mmyb.

We had our 20-week scan last Thursday (20th January 2005). I took photos of the prints with the digital camera (we don’t have a scanner that works with our iMac), and here they are!

All four scan photos are at Flickr

Kathy and I felt our unborn baby kicking last night. With a strong kick like that, I expect he/she will be either kicking footballs or doing kung-fu or something. The 20-week scan is on Thursday; it’s all becoming very, very real, very quickly!

This afternoon we’re having a demonstration of all the available ‘real’ nappy options at Born, a relatively new baby equipment shop in Bath & Bristol. They’re not cheap, but everything’s organic etc. – no nasty chemicals in the lotions and potions. So, if anyone’s thinking of buying us stuff: they do vouchers, or you can shop online

Yesterday our solution to the iMac’s storage problem arrived: a 120GB Maxtor hard drive with 8MB cache. Yum. Now I just have to work out how to migrate the data from old to new…

Today my new mobile phone arrived. It’s a Sony Ericsson T630, which I’ve got with (effectively) free line rental for the first 12 months of an 18 month contract. I only wanted it for the Bluetooth facility, so that I can sync with the iMac, but I get to take part in the camera-phone/MMS revolution as well! It should make my Palm redundant, as this phone (unlike the T68) has a full address book facility, rather than just phone numbers and email addresses as, even though this phone doesn’t have postal address support per se, it’s possible to munge it, apparently.

I was watching an Apple Powerbook 15” (550MHz with combo drive) on Ebay, that eventually went for £320. We couldn’t afford it right now (despite the Christmas bonus) but it bodes well for the state of the second-hand Mac market, which until quite recently was overpriced.

But the biggest Christmas present of all (so far) was hearing our baby’s heartbeat at the clinic last Friday! It brought a tear to Kathy’s eye, and put a massive grin on my face. Life changes for ever next June…

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around these parts lately. I’ve been spending my lunch breaks over at Digital Spy Forums and at various other times participating in the Podcasting revolution (!). While I haven’t been doing that, Kathy & I have been telling everyone who’ll listen that we’ll be having a baby next year! W00t! ‘Bump’ was all planned and everything, and occurred on our tour, but we’re not going in for Beckham-style location-based naming. I hear a collective sigh of relief…

In other news:
* Andy needs root canal work, and needs our prayers, big style.
* My Big Bro turned 40 at the weekend, and had a party at his house. He convened his jazz combo (him on guitar, plus other peeps on keys, trumpet and bass). An enjoyable time was had by all.
* I’ve done my first bit of recording with my Archos Jukebox. Nothing fancy: just Cinematic Orchestra’s Motion album.
* I’ve found someone else who’s upgrading an iMac G3. The Christmas bonus means that I have more chance of Kathy aquiescing to my request to buy a new hard drive. 7GB is not enough, I tell you!

That’s all, folks! See you in the, erm, "podcastosphere". Maybe now I can easily record straight to MP3, I’ll do a DJ mix podcast and get in there myself.