Misery and milestones

Clichés are dull. No one wants to see 'predictable' or 'routine' really, do they?

Unless you're talking pregnancy.

Up to the start of this week, ET was flying along on the side-effect scale. A few bouts of tiredness and a bit more cleavage were the most she had to deal with.

Then along comes this week.

The woman is pissing like a racehorse. Not in the middle of a field, or with a nosebag tied around her head, or anything like that, but frequently.

Four times a night frequently.

I'm wholeheartedly in favour of this outward indication of her blossoming condition, I'd just prefer less nocturnal manifestations. I really can't afford to be losing beauty sleep.

That aside, I hit the jackpot yesterday. The lotto of pregnancy symptoms.

I received a phone call from my walking talking incubator to inform me she was on the verge of puking her guts up.

Bingo!

It seems empty stomachs, mutating foetuses, and 45 minute bus rides in the morning do not mix very well. The result is one very pale, clammy and nauseous wife, and one sadistically happy husband.

I just wonder how much longer she'll allow me to be outwardly delighted when she says she's on the verge of vomiting up a kidney.

That centimetre long urine generating, puke prompting, exhaustion creating creature growing happily inside her, is a whole (recalculated) 8 weeks old tomorrow.

Some cake petal?

Sacred excrement

It always kind of bothered me.

No matter how much explaining people did, wherever they pointed to, regardless of what they said to make it clearer, I have never been able to make head nor rump of ultrasound pictures.

I usually end up nodding and agreeing out of politeness, I was certain this would be no different.

ET pattered over to the examination chair, daintily pulling downwards on the hem of her top in an amusing attempt to preserve modesty in front of the male nurse, before spreading her legs in his face for the third or fourth time.

Off up went the dildo-cam into what is familiar TV territory for us.

Wow.

There. See that? Fuck. Right there.

Before he could point out anything, before he had a chance to say a word, there it was.

Like a torch being switched on and off in super fast forward mode. Bright, fast, and very very alive.

He didn't need to tell us it was a heartbeat, but he'd have had a tough job finding mine right there and then.

The shape was clear, to me at least, with head to rump measuring just over a centimetre.

Seriously, a bloody centimetre.

The poor bugger was carrying around a yolk sac as big as itself while still measuring a day ahead of the recalculated 7 weeks and 2 day old pregnancy.

Given the parents the wee fella has, this may well be the first and last time it will ever measure ahead on any size chart in its life.

Having a picture to look at is nothing short of amazing. There he/she is. Really there.

Freaky internet people, say hello.

Give us a wave

She has a wee belly you know.

Not much, and no one other than us would ever notice. We know that all it really is is a little swelling or bloating, but that doesn't seem to matter. It's so much more than that.

It really is one of the nicest sites you could ever see.

Speaking of which, in a couple of days we hope to see an even better one. On Friday we have our first scan, 7 weeks and 5 days into the pregnancy.

The as of yet unnamed bugger has now turned from an embryo into a foetus, (or a fetus, if you like to spare vowels,) its nervous system is developing rapidly, including its brain, and wee eyes are starting to show under its skin.

Last week's bud-limbs are growing still and looking more like real arms and legs. It might wave.

All this is happening, we are certain of it, ET is tired on and off, she has turned from some foods, and there's breast activity going on that can only be described as a very fitting tribute to the late Farrah Fawcett.

We have nothing but positive signs, no reason to think anything is other than perfectly fine, and we are very content with the idea of the wee thing being tucked up nice and safe in its bedwomb.

Still, in the corner of my mind somewhere there is a pinhole sized fear, so atomic, so magnetic, so concentrated, and potentially full of horrors that I can't bring myself to think of.

I don't know why it's there, there is no reason for it. None whatsoever.

Then why is it there?

Roll on Friday.