The last two stairs are just as important as the first two

Hi all,

This is Robert doing a spot of guest blogging while nellie is typing impaired.

First of all, I should say that the pregnancy still progresses and the baby is fine. Nellie, on the other hand (a somewhat inappropriate statement), has broken the little finger on her left hand.

I shall attempt to recount the story in reverse order.

Today nellie underwent surgery to pull the broken bone back into position and have a wire inserted to hold it into position. The wire will get removed in 4 weeks. The surgery was done using local anaesthetic (specifically a Bier block), as the anaesthetist was not willing to go with general.

The weekend was spent up at my parents' place in Newcastle. I had to drive both ways, and so I am still very tired from the experience.

On Thursday last week, nellie fell over at uni after parking the car at my workplace. I was already at work, having rode in early to get some study done. I was able to run over to see how she was, before collecting the car and taking her to hospital. This happened at a bit before 9am, and after visiting both public hospitals in the ACT. I was back at work not long after 2pm. An injured pregnant woman gets seen to quickly in an emergency department.

Some photos will be posted in the next few days once I get the camera's USB cable back off my sister-in-law.

It's raining - 23wks 1day

It's raining, in fact it's a full on thunderstorm this morning. This is a good thing, it hasn't rained in about a month and with summer comming on, things were getting a bit dry. I wish I could show you what it looks like out the window near the terminal I'm using. I'm on the second floor of the science library at ANU and the window looks into the centre courtyard. There's the very red brick used for the sidewalls of the courtyard, the bold yellow surrounded by white and gray shapes of the front of the library (it's a uni building, therefore it is kinda distinctive), the mottled bright green of the tree out the front of the library and then, above it all, there is the perfect gray of a thunderstorm sky.
Enough of that, on to the news.
I started maternity leave yesterday. "Hang on," I hear you think, "you're only 23 weeks, my aunt/cousin/friend/sister worked well into the 30's of weeks." Well yeah, if I worked nearly any other job or didn't manage to freak into the rairitys of life, so would I. In fact on Monday I put in my application to start maternity leave in late December, all very well and good. Over the past week or so though, part of my left leg would go numb or feel very cold if I stood up for a while. At first it was only after about an hour, but by Monday it was down to twenty minutes and had started to ache faintly if I kept standing. This was really annoying and none of my baby books mention anything like it, so Tuesday I went to the doctor. I have an entraped lateral cutaneous femoral nerve otherwise known as Meralgia Paresthetica. It's made worse by standing for long periods of time. It seems that we've caught it early enough before the nerve gets really grumpy and painful, but since theres almost no job in a supermarket that doesn't involve standing for hours on end, I had to start my maternity leave yesterday.
It was depressingly easy, I went into work, announced that I had to start mat leave immediatly, found the right manager to give my medical certificate to and 30 seconds later, it's all done, clean out my locker and go home. As much as I was looking foward to getting out of there, it was still something of a shock to walk out with my boots and uniform and nobody cared, because they didn't know I was going for good yesterday, it all happened so fast. I realised that I might actually miss the place and the people I had gotten to know there. I didn't really get a chance to say good-bye.
On top of that, I didn't realise how much I was proud of myself everytime my wage came it. I don't earn anywhere near as much as Mr b^3 does, but it was a bit, I was making a contribution. I wasn't a total freeloader. I know that this is silly, and that I do still make a contribution to our family and running our house, and anyway, I'm the one gestating over here. But it's such a small thing to land me out of work, I'm mostly fine, the baby is fine, my blood pressure is good. If I sit down most of the time, I'd never know anything was wrong. Neither of us is in any danger, my leg is just a little numb, but if I didn't stop I'd probably be in agony in a few weeks, and I don't want that.
In knitting news, I've finally found a baby sock pattern that produces something of a size that I think I could give birth to. It's Steph's Newborn Baby Socks, and the pattern is even written for two circular needles, my prefered method of sock knitting. These socks are definitly newborn but I can make a pair in a hair over two hours so I think they're worth it. Most of the other baby sock patterns I've tried make socks that fit 6-12 month olds, which is good, but not what you're after when you want newborn socks. There will be photos, but they'll have to wait for next week. I've got a talk to give in four hours and I'd better finish it.

21wks 6days

I know, I know its been a while, but the upside of that is that I have lots to talk about, in bullet points even.

• Baby: I finally felt the baby move! About two weeks ago, I was sitting down on hold on the phone for a while when I felt something like my heart going flip-flop, but in really the wrong place. It was exactly like I'd read it would be, feeling something that doesn't seem to be heart thumping, lunch or an impending fart, realising it's the baby and then thinking "Hey I've been feeling this for a while". I've been feeling it regularly ever since.
• And on the subject of the baby moving - recipe for lots of pregnant fun: drink a mocktail consisting mostly of red cordial and full suger lemonade, eat some lovely, high suger slices then sit back and feel the baby go completely hyper for the next four hours.
• The belly is really growing now, I'm looking more and more pregnant, instead of just rather fat. I'm really appriciating the mummy tummy my knitting buddies gave me for my birthday now. I have some other bands I got at the markets, but they are so narrow that they're feeling quite skimpy even now. The mummy tummy is as long as my arm and I feel quite confident that it should last until Feburary. I'm going to have to look into getting another one, so I have one to wear when this one is washing.
• The strap-on heater effect has started too. People all around me are forever complaining that they're cold and go shut windows when I'm just fine and feel no need to warm the place up. Summer is going to be so much fun. Really.
• I am so looking foward to the end of classes, three more weeks and I'm done, and hopefully I can graduate in two months. I'm almost finished all the assesment work for one classe, have a major project for another and one more assignment for the last. Then two exams -one easy and one hard. And its all over, finished.
• And when classes are over, I can start on the mound of sewing I have to do. First things up are some summer maternity clothes. I currently have two pairs of trousers and a long skirt. I don't wear the skirt much, so I'm living in the trousers. The maximum on Thursday is expected to be 30 degrees celcius. I really, really need to get to my sewing, but I can't until I'm done with uni. It's a race between the weather and my assesment as to which I can't take first.
• Then, when I have some clothes to wear, it will be time to turn attention to the babies needs. I'm going to be using cloth nappies that I'm sewing myself. I'm going to be making pocket nappies using mamabirds pattern with fabric from nappies covered. The nappies covered store only just re-opened last week and I lasted about an hour and a half after it opened before ordering my fabric. I'm going to be using hemp/cotton fleece for the stuffers that I've ordered through a friend. All I've got left to get is some snaps and I'll have everything I need to make enough nappies to get us through the first 6-8 months. I've calculated that by making and using these nappies it will cost us about $350 from woe to go. Compared to about $3000 for using disposables, and we've made quite a saving. In fact, even if the washing machine carks it and we need a new one, we still will have saved money. There will be pictures of these forthcoming.
• Then when I've sewed nappies, there will be actual clothes to make. I've been stockpiling fabric for a while now, just a meter here and there of the really cute stuff, all to now be turned into real baby clothes and not just dreams.
• Then after that, there are sheets to be made. Yes I really am nuts, if you were wondering. The baby is going to have all brown sheets, but let me explain. About four years ago, I got it into my head that I was going to make a huge Victorian crinoline dress and so went and bought about 20 meters of chocolate brown poplin with which to make it. I never got around to getting the rest of the materials needed and lost interest in making much historical costume, not to mention realising that I would have no where to store a huge Victorian crinoline. And so I've lugged 20 meters of chocolate brown poplin in my stash through at least 3 moves now. No more, it's all going into baby sheets, which I have on good authority that you need a few sets of. Then my sewing will be done and the baby can come.
• Speaking of nuts, I had an almost harlotesque episode of insane deadlines over the weekend. I was going to a baby shower at 2pm on Saturday. I had been a very good knitter and made a nice lace bonnet for the baby a whole week early. Then Saturday morning I got it into my head that a little lace bonnet wasn't much and I should make something else as well, to go with the bonnet. We had to go out anyway so I went to Big W and bought a muslin wrap to give and thought that it would be nice to crotchet a trim around it. I am a big believer in big wraps, all the harder for little escape artists to get out of. So thus I found myself with 3 hours until the party with about 5 meters of trim to make. I still had about 2 meters to go when it was time to go, "no mattter," I thought "I'll just take it with me, I'm pregnant, nobody will mind if I just sit in the corner for a bit and finish this." But I minded, I wanted to mingle, so I still have about 1 meter of trim to go when it's time for gifts to be given, I really wanted to be able to give it to my friend then, so it's crunch time. It's head down time to really go at it, no eating the nibblies, no drinking, minimal oohing and aahing. Two presents to go and I'm still 30cm out, but thank God, her mother has a really big mixed box and everything has to be gotten out and examined. The end, oops no sissors to finish it. Get a pair from the lady of the house, cut ends, fold up and present, right at the end. It turned out pretty well, but I don't have a photo. I'm making another one for a friend whose also is due in the next few weeks, but I think I'll leave myself a bit more time on that one.
• Our next OB appointment is tomorrow. I've got a couple of things to ask about. Firstly I've been hyper-ventalating a fair bit latley and it's not something I'm generally prone to without doing a lot of excersising. These days I'm likly to need as sit down for a bit after putting my trousers on in the morning. I can still walk in to Uni and back fine (a 5km round trip) though. Dr google says that it's normal and will clear up after the baby is born, but I think I should check with my real doctor too.
• Secondly, I'm wanting to join a gym for the summer. I'm not a happy camper in the summer at the best of times and being pregnant in the summer I suspect is going to make me less happy. Joining the gym will mean that I can swim and take my walks on a treadmill in the air-conditioning. Otherwise I'm liable to spend the summer on my butt and loose all the fitness I've gained by walking everyday thus far. I suspect I'll need my doctors permission to join the gym at 6 months pregnant though.
  
• Belly shots, knitting shots and photos of our Ikea haul in the next post, hopefully before the end of the week.