Scan update - IT'S A.....

The scan was really straightforward, total answer to prayer. There was a 15 minute delay when we arrived which they let us know right away and apologised, because there was a "problem" which would need 15 more minutes to sort out. Immediately we felt so sombre because we thought it was likely that some poor lady having her scan had discovered something wrong. A tear-stained lady came out about 15 minutes later and was showed to the Early Pregnancy Unit by a member of the reception staff. :( We just felt so sad for her, whatever the issue was, and I felt nervous about whether my own little one would be okay.

A few minutes later we were called in, and the lady commented on the enormity of my file, haha! It contains all my records from all my previous pregnancies and births, as they were made at the time. My file is FOUR INCHES thick with paperwork, and is held together with rubber bands. The funniest thing is that on the front cover it says in huge letters, "VOL. 2" hahaha! ;) That's just the second volume! She said she thinks they ought to start volume 3 because the rest of my pregnancy paperwork will never fit into volume 2! ;) I told her we had had a lot of babies, and she asked how many children we had. I said six, and she made impressed noises! Then she started the scan.

I wore - and I want to note it because I want to remember - I wore a DRESS. Never worn a dress to a scan before, because - how impractical?!! I really wanted to wear my denim pinafore (jumper, in the States) maternity dress because I love it, I feel pretty in it because it is a flattering shape to a baby bump, and because it suited the weather well. I wore it over a very pink maternity T-shirt, and I even wore pink underwear. I have my nails glittery, and my toenails glittered with my summer sandals on. On the way out I wanted to tie my hair back, and the first hairband I grabbed from the bowl was hot pink! ;) I felt REALLY silly for my internal thoughts, but in my heart I was thinking, "I'll feel silly if it's a boy, but impractical or not, I'm wearing this in honour of my DAUGHTER." I felt DAFT, seriously, but the feeling was nice and strong, so I went with it and enjoyed it for however long it was going to last! It was fun anyway! :)

So of course I had to hoist up my dress for the scan. I went with unbuttoning a section of it at first, but the sonographer just said, "Probably best to just lift the whole thing up, if that's okay." lol! So I did - I don't mind anyway. They put a ton of paper tucked into your underwear over your lap anyway.

She asked straight away if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and I said, "Yes please!" She asked what we had already, and I said, "Six boys." She said, "Oh my goodness!" but was very laid-back about it really. We knew from previous scans that they always do all the measurements and checks first, and the gender check last of all. The scan takes at least 20 minutes even if everything is easy to spot and measure, so it's a while to wait to find out! At a couple of points during the scan, I was almost dizzy with anticipation and didn't know how I would bear it another second! Crazy. I am not normally like that at the scans, but then usually I am just waiting for confirmation that it's a boy, and this time is the first time I really thought we might be looking at our first baby girl - definitely exciting and the anticipation was difficult to bear at times!

It was so lovely seeing our little one! Straight away we could see a little heart beating strongly, and the first proper image we got (seconds into the scan) was this profile shot, which was clear enough for the sonographer to take a print of for us straight away:

The baby was so quiet, and as the lady pointed out, chin firmly on the chest! See those little pursed lips with how hard the chin was pressed down! Precious! :) I think the baby was asleep because, right after that the sonographer had to start being a bit more firm with the probey thing to get some head measurements and at that moment, the baby did a huge stretch! Huuuuuuge!! She said, "Baby's stretching its arm riiiight up over its head, can you see?" It was a real proper just-waking-up-from-a-deep-sleep stretch, with the arched spine and twist over to the side with the reaching arm and everything. The other arm was scrunched right in to the chest during that stretch - a proper waking stretch! :) She got a picture of the baby mid-stretch - you can't see the arm over the head though, but it's up there:

After that followed LOTS of very active wiggling, turning over and kicking about! She kept saying, "A right old wiggler!" and started to have a bit of trouble getting the measurements, but thankfully the baby didn't go too crazy for long, and settled down for patches here and there so measurements were easy to get done. The two head measurements (bi-parietal diameter and head circumference) were both dated as 20 weeks and 2 days (I'm 20 weeks and 3 days, so pretty spot on!). We saw the stomach full of fluid, and the baby's little mouth opening and closing sometimes. The baby turned its head this way and that - the lady said it was like the baby was shaking its head in response to her suggestion that we get some head measurements, lol!

She did a close-up on the baby's little face to check the upper lift for a cleft (none there), and OH it was so beautiful! I always love this particular view of my babies in utero. I wish we had a picture, but the alloted number for each person is 2 (cost £5 this time!!! Used to be £3 which was bad enough!), and she was kind enough to give us 3 as it was. The shape of this baby's nose and lips I have seen a LOT of times before. I look at them every day. They are definitely the same nose and lips as some of the big brothers (they look identical to the view of Matthew's which I DID get a picture of, at his scan), and it was lovely and warming to see such visual evidence before birth that this baby is definitely "one of mine"! :)

She showed us the legs and feet, and I was thinking, "I don't want to see any clues, I don't want to see any clues!" I soooo didn't want to accidentally see "something" before it was time to take a proper look. I wanted a full surprise! Then she showed us from underneath, where the umbilical cord joined the baby, and it took only a second to flash through the depth of field from below the baby to a cross-section of the abdomen, higher up. In that second I could have sworn I saw a flash of 3 lines between the legs, and NO protrusion at all, but it was a split second, and I put it out of my head as fast as I could.

Then we went back to an image of the baby, who was back in a relaxing position. The little hand was moving about near the baby's mouth, and she printed out another picture of that for us. I like the slightly open mouth, as though contemplating whether or not to suck those fingers or the thumb! :)

We saw the kidneys, feet (not curly! Yay!), and she measured the abdominal circumference (dated at 20 weeks and 4 days! Great!) and measured the little teeny bones in the arms and legs. The femur length was dated as 20 weeks and FIVE days! This baby is not going to be Arthur/Benjamin-shaped! They have bigger heads than average (2 weeks ahead!) and shorter legs (2 weeks behind!). The other body shape we do (Neil's) is all the measurements pretty much spot on for dates. So this baby seems to be following that pattern. The last baby I birthed with the bigger head pattern (Benjamin) had a FIFTEEN INCH head (I kid you not) at birth - to compare, Elijah's was 12.75 inches, on the small side of average. 15 inches = owch. So that part of the measurements of this particular baby is a nice thing! ;)

Then when all the measurements and things were done, she said, "Right then..." and we knew she was about to check the gender! :) I couldn't really tell what she was doing at first, although I couldn't see the usual evidence of gender that I was used to, so I wasn't sure what I was seeing at first, as she was changing the view quite a bit and I couldn't see the v-shape of the legs either side most of the time, so I wasn't sure if it was the right shot yet. Then she gave a sort of sigh (like a light-hearted one though), and said, "You'll have to have another one after this." I think my heart about stopped and I said slowly, "Whhyyyy?" in a doubtful sort of way, before I realised what she meant - I thought at first that she meant it was a boy and we'd have to have another one if we wanted a chance of a girl! She simply answered, "To keep this one company!" and then I realised what she meant and I went round-eyed and mouthed as she swung the screen that she was looking at around to face me - we were watching the one up just below the ceiling, and hers was right next to my head. She paused the scan at the perfect v-shaped legs shot. I wish I had a picture to show you, it was so clear, I could even draw it from memory, lol! V-shaped legs, NOTHING protruding whatsoever, and a flatness in between, with the classic 3 lines. There was a brief moment of silence and then I said, "It's a GIRL!!!" My voice broke on the word girl - I didn't expect to get tearful, but it suddenly overwhelmed me, all this emotion and joy and excitement. I never thought I would hear my own voice say (of one of my own children!), "It's a girl"!! I didn't cry and cry or anything, though I could have, ohhhhh I could have, lol! I tried not to, and wiped my eyes and blinked a lot and didn't speak for a while because I would have just criiiiieeed. I have been ultra weepy this past week at the slightest thing, so I figured hormones had a lot to do with it too! I didn't want to come out of the room looking all like something was wrong because I had been crying, and I didn't want to look like that when we arrived home either.

I was just flabbergasted, honestly, lost for words for a while as she continued the scan. The first thing I said was, "Are you SURE?!" although it was obvious obvious obvious what I was looking at. She smiled and went back to the live scan (not the paused picture) and we looked again. She changed the angle slightly and zoomed in a bit, and said, "Look, it's really clear - you can even see the labia clearly." Neil was so funny, he sort of went all uncomfortable and averted his eyes a bit, saying, "I don't feel like I should be looking at this!" hehehe! His first disbelieving comment, by the way, was, "How are we going to name her?!" because we've never agreed on girls names easily (or at all!) in the past! I had told him in the waiting area that I wasn't sure about Toby Joseph any more, and I didn't know what to do about it. He just listened and hmmmed and was generally understanding. I guess the wobble about Toby's name was because this baby wasn't a boy! :)

The sonographer had one more check over every part of the baby, while I didn't take much of it in at all from that point, as I felt almost physically giddy with the news we'd just had, and like almost in shock over it, lol! I couldn't concentrate on anything and I just kept saying, "I can't believe it!" if I said anything at all! At the very end of the scan, she said she would let us see again, and showed us the very obvious girly shot for the last time. :) Definitely a girl!

Soooo, since then we have come home, and told the boys and Heather. They all were crowding and jumping up and down, shouting and yelling, "What baby IS it?!!" as we came in the door. Some were at the kitchen table drawing, and Elijah was in the booster seat at the table having a snack and a drink, but Heather got him out straight away so I could give him a cuddle, as he'd got a bit grizzly in the last few minutes before we got home. Other than that, all six boys were fine and well-behaved while we were out, which was a relief! Samuel had seemed upset to see us go when we were about to leave, because he'd just woken from a spontaneous nap, and was a bit groggy, but apparently he was fine. Heather started reading them a story just as we left and they didn't even go to the window to see us leave - very reassuring! And then we weren't long - maybe 90 minutes from leaving the house to getting back there.

Anyway, we waited until we had all the boys around us, and they sat patiently on the sofa to hear the news. Heather sat on the school table, and I held Elijah. I said, "Our baby is.... a... GIRL baby!" and they all started making a lot of squealing and yelling noises (happy ones!) and Heather started whooping and cheering, and came right over to hug me, saying, "I KNEW it!" hehe! I asked her how she knew, and she said because my pregnancy had been different, even if subtly so. Morning sickness starting a bit early, and being a bit worse, etc. It was a happy moment! The boys all seemed thrilled and excited, but quickly went back to their activities they'd been doing before, so that's all good. Nobody was disappointed or anxious-looking. A sister! A sister for my boys! How wonderful! :)

The rest of the day has been filled with usual boy-wrangling, dinner, bedtime, and phoning various family members (and updating Facebook, which has been wonderful fun with all the lovely comments and messages!). I phoned my parents first and they were happy and excited. This baby is their 10th grandchild (they only have two children - never in their wildest dreams would they have expected probably even half the number of grandchildren, haha!), and only their second granddaughter. My brother's eldest, Thea, is six, and she now has two little brothers, ages 3, and 6 months. On Neil's side, his two sisters are the only ones with children. One sister has two daughters, aged nearly 8, and nearly 5. The other has a 2-year-old daughter. It's so nice to have a girl for both sides of the family! :) It's the 10th grandchild for Neil's mum too!

I have already had people saying they'll send their baby girl clothes that they've had in the loft (two lots of girl cousin clothes from different family members, and some offers from friends as well), and I told my mum I thought we might be a bit inundated with girly clothes - which is wonderful because we're on quite a tight budget and it will be a blessing to get nice girly clothes (obviously we have none!) without paying any money for them. She didn't say anything much to that, and I said that of course I still wanted to buy some cute little outfits, to which she said, "Oh YES! Mummy (meaning her) will be going to Monsoon!" lol! I hope she doesn't break the bank! She loves shopping for her granddaughter, and has always said she would love to do the same for a daughter of mine.

Neil's mum was excited, Heather's daughter could be heard squealing for AGES down the phone, which amused the boys no end, lol! And my brother was suitably high-pitched with excitement when I phoned him this evening too! :) This is so. much. lovely fun! I would ABSOLUTELY have been joyful and excited to be having a baby boy as well, and would have enjoyed telling everyone, but I admit (and feel somewhat guilty for doing so) that it's MUCH MORE fun to get to tell everyone that the baby is a girl. I think it's just because we've never done it before though, you know?

So, as far as names go... We didn't have ANY idea. The only name I had in my head up until today was Maisie, and I knew Neil didn't like that one.

This evening we chatted briefly about it and I said that it was going to be really hard to name her! I had no idea, and nor did Neil. I said I would set out to make a shortlist but that he would probably veto everything, and then he'd make a shortlist and I'd veto the lot, lol! That's what we've done in the past! So, while he caught up on his online stuff, I started wading through girl names on various websites. I didn't go through all the letters of the alphabet, but I was able to make a fairly good-sized shortlist of the letters I did look at:

Maisie
Rachel
Rosalie
Sophie
Charlotte
Bella
Elizabeth (Beth)
Isabelle
Johannah
Josie
Lydia

I just wanted something that I found pretty and girly, as well as (preferably) with a nice meaning. I didn't give any of those names much thought, just jotted them down as I saw them. Elizabeth is Neil's mum's middle name and we were not sure what to do about the middle name situation for our baby girl, because we don't want to use two middle names (we just don't), and yet we wanted to name our first baby girl after my mum (Jane) and the second after Neil's mum (Averil) - but what if this is our ONLY baby girl?! We don't want to never use one of our mother's names. I wondered about using Elizabeth as a first name with Jane as the middle one, but we aren't enamoured enough with Elizabeth to do that, I think.

I told Neil my shortlist at the end of the evening, and he listened carefully and then asked me to read them again. He said he liked Sophie, Josie and Lydia, and maybe Elizabeth (we would use a derivative of the name for actual daily use with our little one). He asked me to find and read out the meanings of each of those names, so I did. Sophie means wisdom. Elizabeth is "God is my vow", Josie is listed as the female version of Joseph, which we both lit up to when we read it, and I love that because it means "He will enlarge" (as in, family size - more children). And Lydia means "of noble sort" or it can mean "from Lydia" as in the town.

We talked about girly-ness, and the feel of the various names, and the way they go with our surname and potential middle name choices, and the rest of the children's names when we say them all together, and SUDDENLY we had a certainty about it. One name stood out and we both realised that we loved it! Neil came back in after that decision and said the name again, and then said, "That's the one. It's too pretty." and that is exactly how I feel about it. I feel like we should sleep on it in case we feel differently tomorrow, but for tonight I am SO EXCITED about the name because I love it so much. I am nervous to share in case I change my mind and choose something else, but I'm too excited not to (it's a big deal, choosing and deciding on my first daughter's name!) so I'm going to share here anyway.

Our baby girl is called Lydia Jane. I want to say "for now", lol! It still feels so surreal to think that we have a girl at ALL, so naming a girl feels not real at all. Maybe we will change her name yet, there's plenty of time. But every time I say it out loud or think it in my head, I fall in love with it that little bit more, and something inside me scrunches up with joy and makes me want to squeal a bit! ;)

Lydia. Lydia Jane. It goes with our surname, and the list of boys' names. Neil wondered about Lydia Averil Jane, but then he said, "Lydia Jane.... nah, it's just too pretty like that. Lydia Jane it is!" :) I said, "We'll just have to have some more babies." and he seemed okay with that idea! ;) I said my favourite name to go with Averil is Grace - Grace Averil. I like the idea of calling her Gracie. He likes it too, so maybe God will bless us with another daughter yet and we'll have the opportunity to honour both of our mothers. I hope his mum won't mind, this time... I know mine will be thrilled, but she did say today on the phone that I mustn't feel "required of" to use her name for a middle name, as I'd told her we wanted to years ago. She was worried it would restrict us, and she also didn't want us to leave Neil's mum out.

But I'm so so happy with Lydia Jane. I love the name Lydia, more and more every time I think of it. It's so soft and girly, but simple and short. I immediately know I will end up calling her Lydie a lot. When I put my hand on my bump and whisper, "Lydia", just to get a feel for it, my heart swells so that I might possibly explode. Or implode. Or something pressure-related. It's almost too much to take in, all in one day - one afternoon! Just a few hours. A girl! A name! A million gorgeous happy compliments and messages. Happy family members. The blessing of a healthy baby, growing right on target. The absolute desire of my heart, that God knew I longed for - a daughter. MY daughter. My OWN daughter. I can't comprehend it, this amount of blessing from such a loving and gracious God. I know He is just laughing for joy at my happy disbelieving heart - I can feel it. I love Him so very much! I'm so grateful for my healthy baby girl! I will probably not believe it properly for quite some time to come, and maybe my posts are going to be a bit heavy on the GIRL front for a while as I process it, but oh well! ;)

My head is aching so much, and my cheeks/jaw too, probably from all the overexcitement and smiling a lot (have I been?! I guess I must have!), and it's ridiculously late now, but it's the weekend so it could be worse! ;) I planned to go to bed and update tomorrow, because of my headache, but when it came to it I just COULDN'T without venting the whooooole thing here first! :) I'm glad I did!

I will update again soon! I'm having a GIRL! I just can't believe it! :D

Ultrasound Gallery for Baby #7!

Here's the page where I'll record all the ultrasound pictures for my 7th precious baby! :)

The first scan was at 8 weeks, to check for a reason for some light bleeding. Here's my first glimpse of my sweetie!...




See the little leg extended in the second photo! I love every tiny stumpy detail. Completely in love x7! :)


Next came the first routine scan at 12 weeks (and one day):






The baby was very relaxed! One little hand up in front of the face/nose area - you can see the fingers in the pictures. The other arms was stretched casually up over the baby's head, which you can't really see in the pictures because of the cross-sectioning, but it was so sweet to see! If we're guessing on gender, based on the nub theory (or "angle of the dangle"), the very obvious nub in the pictures looks girly, but it's on the early side to be sure, so we will have to wait and see at the 21 week scan! We will be happy either way! :)

12 weeks, 1 day - scan!

Soooo much to update on - I am slightly aghast (at myself) that it has been over 3 weeks!!! At this quickly-changing stage too! :( So sorry! I'm annoyed with myself too, because it means I haven't got records of how I found weeks 9, 10 and 11. I will try to remember and do a QUICK catch-up. So many milestones have been marked since I last updated.

I heard the baby's heart beating with my doppler at 9 weeks (I can't remember exact gestation - 9w3d?)!! Soooo lovely, and it never gets old to hear that sweet sweet sound for the first time all over again! :) I have only used the doppler once since, and that was a couple of evenings ago, where Neil heard it for the first time. This time, the little one was REALLY wiggly and active, and constantly moving in and out of doppler range! Lots of bumps and splatches on the audio as the baby kicked too! Wiggly little bean! :)

Over the past couple of weeks (maybe 3?) I have been having much more trouble with spots on my face than I remember in my other pregnancies. I have had some skin trouble like this in the past few pregnancies, but this time seems worse to me. I get a good few and they last a few days and then clear up, and I get a day or so free and then a few more start up at once. They're nearly always in the same places, but they're more persistant than I remember from any previous pregnancies anyway, so I'm noting it. Hormones probably!

Still feeling sick - week 9 was yucky, week 10 not so bad, and week 11 really grim again. I'm only 2 days into week 12 but feeling really bleurghy so far! I wonder how long my morning sickness will last this time? I just have to keep on top of eating, but I feel sick regardless. It's not too overwhelming though, like it was in the first couple of weeks. Not this week, at least! It does vary a little from week to week, rather unpredictably.

I hit my second trimester (yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!) yesterday!! I always start my second trimesters at 12 weeks because I use the developmental method of fetal development (and placental development, for that matter), rather than just getting the calculator out and diving 40 weeks by 3 (or the crazy ovulation method - dividing 38 weeks by 3 - that makes the first trimester over 14 weeks long!!). My little baby has all his/her organ systems in place as of 12 weeks, and is now "fine tuning" and growing! :) I am so happy to be in my second trimester - it's always nice to leave the first one behind, especially if I'm feeling sick!

I had my booking appointment with the midwife a couple of weeks ago which went really well. My blood pressure was 110/60, my urine was normal, and I had all the bloods taken, which have since come back normal.

I have been feeling the baby move from just before 10 weeks - just incredibly subtle tickly sensations under my pubic bone or just above it, so that I doubted myself at first. But during week 10 I was much more sure. I had the odd little "stroke" across or "flubble" feeling inside, in the right place. Sometimes there would be a little pressurey surge for a moment, and then it would give way again. So I knew I was feeling my baby! :) At 11 weeks, I had the first really serious baby movement. I was lying on my side breastfeeding Elijah at bedtime, and suddenly felt a quick "puh-doiiing" bounce inside. The "puh" was a sudden (very tiny and lightweight) tap to my cervix, followed within a second (very quick) by a rebound sensation on the top of my womb, about 2 inches above my pubic bone! My little teeny (5cm!) person had literally bounced off my cervix and rebounded off the other end of my womb! Boiiiing! :D I have felt lots of little teeny bumps, flicks and sweeps since then, and I'm LOVING it! I adore the stage of feeling movements, and look forward to hiccups and feeling little parts through my tummy, and so on!

I am showing a bit, though very high - maybe just pushed-up bloat?! I have taken a couple of belly pics so far (first one at 7 weeks) but haven't uploaded any yet - must get to that soon.

Today I went for my 12 week scan! I am only 12w1d, which is the earliest I have had this scan with my other pregnancies (Matthew was 12w2d) - they've otherwise been between 12w3d and 13w exactly. The baby measured 12w3d today though, same amount ahead as the last scan I had, so they've changed my due date to October 20th. I am still going with my original due date of the 22nd though, because well, I just am! It gives me 2 days longer to go into labour before they start harrassing me! ;)

Everything looked wonderful with the baby, and we declined the nuchal/combined test for Downs Syndrome as usual, because it wouldn't alter a thing for us re. the outcome of the pregnancy (ie. we would never. ever. ever. in a million years terminate a pregnancy) and we would joyfully embrace a child with Downs Syndrome anyway. So, no testing. They said that the baby measured 60mm from crown to rump (so weeny, and yet SO perfectly formed!) and all the various anatomy and other measurements were normal.

Because I'm only 12w1d, it's on the early side for the "angle of the dangle" nub theory to be accurate - the closer to 12 weeks, the less accurate, and the closer to 13 weeks, the more accurate. This is because before 12 weeks, all nubs look the same - flat and "girly", parallel to the spine. Boy nubs will start to angle upwards from the spine to varying degrees (Benjamin's was 90 degrees, lol! Samuel's was more like 30 degrees, and more subtle to be sure) somewhere between 12 and 13 weeks. Matthew, at 12w2d, had what looks to me from the picture to be quite a girly nub. It still looks parallel to the spine to me, though not quite flat.

I got dozens and dozens of "shots" of the nub this time. It was REALLY clear and easy to spot, and I saw it many times from lots of different angles during the scan, while the baby was moving, etc. It wasn't the wiggliest of babies at the scan, quite restful really, but got a bit annoyed and moved about quite a bit when they laid the bed flat and tilted my head down and my feet up (I felt yucky after a bit and asked to have it put back up again!) to get the baby in a better position. So I had a lot of chances to see the nub angle clearly. I also got 3 almost identical pictures, all of which clearly show the nub too! So clearly, that I am suddenly a bit shy of posting the pictures on Facebook yet, which is unusual of me.

If I was 3 or 4 days further along, I would ONE HUNDRED PERCENT be expecting to have a GIRL baby in October!! I honestly could not believe what I seeing at the scan. I kept seeing it flash into sight again, and in my head I was saying, "There it is again. It's flat. It's FLAT. There's no angle at ALL!" I have never seen a nub like this before on one of my own babies, but I still can't. believe that I will end up producing a baby girl. Seriously! I am totally unable to grasp that concept, so right now I am thinking, surely it's just too early and the nub is going to angle up? I double checked Nicola's latest 12 week scan pic when she was 11w6d (too early, but still only 2 days before my gestation) and her baby's nub was pretty much exactly like my baby's nub, except that she is having a boy! Soooo..... I don't dare think much more about it (which of course is like not daring to breathe any oxygen for the next couple of days) in case it's just too early. I will rejoice in another son, but I will set myself up for a hard time that is totally unnecessary if I am expecting to maybe see girly bits at the 20 week scan, if this nub is simply looking girly because of the slightly early gestation for calling this kind of thing. That said, here are the pictures - see what you think!







See? Girly nub! I have posted at in-gender about it with the pics (well, the 3rd wouldn't load) and people there are saying it looks girly but it's a bit on the early side to say for sure, like I thought. I will just somehow have to be patient and wait and see! ;) I really don't want to go telling people that it might be a girl, because I might be wrong, and having 6 boys already makes the whole world likely to be EXTREMELY sorrowful on my behalf if there was a smidge of a chance that this baby might be a girl and then it turns out not to be. And I don't want to go there, people! I seriously will be full of joy if it's a boy! Neil says the whole baby looks different to him, especially the head shape (?!), and the nub, obviously. We will probably plan a girl's name, because of the nub in this scan, but also plan for a boy as we always do. We haven't even looked at girl names in the past few pregnancies, lol!

Okay, it's really late and I MUST go to bed. I will TRY to update again soon, as I'm sure I have more to say if I wasn't so nauseated and late for bed! The weeks are whizzing by at a rather scary rate, so I'm sure I'll be 16 weeks or something the next time I blink! ;)

8 weeks, 6 days - ultrasound!

Sorry to take a few days to update on the ultrasound! I went for my early scan at 8w3d, and everything looks wonderful! :) I'm so happy and thankful! There is one sweet stumpy little baby in there - as I watched the baby on the monitor, I had such an urge to change the nickname to "Stumpy"! It seemed so fitting - such darling stumps for little legs and arms, and such a short "stump" of a little person in general, hehe! But Matthew chose Crispy - actually I have written it wrongly all this time, because he meant it like a Rice Krispie, so the spelling should be "Krispie" (cute little piece of cereal, as opposed to dried out 'n' crunchy, as in "crispy duck"!), and I love that. So Krispie it is! Stumpy, in my heart, as well though! :)

The baby measured 2 days ahead, so they have dated my pregnancy as 8w5d and told me to wait until my 12 week scan for confirmation of dates. I'll go with my original dates for now in any case. I will be 9 weeks pregnant tomorrow! I am glad for the nausea part to be passing quickly. I have found that if I COMPLETELY avoid any trace of onion, I have actually quite manageable morning sickness. Nausea all the time, but bearable for sure. Onion? Even in tomato ketchup or stock or gravy? Three days of misery, where I can't function properly. I'm so grateful there's something simple I can do to help myself, but I really really feel silly when I eat something without thinking and then have the sinking feeling knowing that the next few DAYS will be hard to get through. Hopefully I'm learning! ;)

The technician was really nice and gave me two pictures! They're pretty much the same, but see?! My Krispie little stump stretched out a tiny leg! I don't know that it's meant to be possible to do that yet, but it certainly looked like that's what was happening. Those teeny leggies aren't even fully developed yet! The baby's length from crown to rump was 2.1cm - awww!





I love the beautifully round amniotic sac around the baby (the fine white line) in the larger gestational sac (the black part). Such a perfect bubble! I am SO completely in love with this little baby all over again, and yet again sitting here marvelling at the fact that one can fall in love so deeply, equally for multiple multiple children. It never runs out, it just multplies, and it's a wonderful thing to experience.

I had some quite heavy spotting (not flow as such though) later after the scan, and the next day, but it has pretty much faded off now. I asked about the source, but she couldn't see any evidence of a bleed in there. Perhaps I'd had a small bleed and it had pretty much finished bleeding out, I don't know. Anyway she saw nothing to worry about, so that's reassuring. I asked what I should do if I continue to have bleeding or spotting and she said to call the Early Pregnancy Unit and ask the advice of the doctors there. They may check my scan and advise me over the phone, or they may ask me to come back for a re-scan. I hope I just don't have any further bleeding. That would be nice! :)

Well I have now been up and down to Elijah three times since starting this post, and it's getting really late now. I don't know if it's the fact that he had beans for lunch today for the first time, and thus has some wind, or the fact that he cut his 5th tooth yesterday... Anyway he's wakeful! So I had better go and snuggle up next to him and try to get some sleep! Just had to update, because I really should have days ago - sorry!

Will try to update soon! :)

13 weeks, 6 days - ultrasound obsessing... ;)

Has it really been over a week since I updated last?! Oh dear!

Well, I should be in bed right now, though it's still "early" for me yet. Last week I was just so tired and hormonal, I took myself to bed three nights running at 9.30 or 10pm. I wanted to get a grip on things, as the days are just nauseated and basically full of SLUMP, getting nothing achieved except snapping at my children way too much. So I decided to go to bed early, set my alarm to get me up earlier than the boys (5.30am, ouch!) - something I've wanted to do for a LONG time now, but it's against my very nature, being a night owl and all! I really feel like this is about the only way I'm going to ever get a grip on my days, to be up BEFORE they start, you know? I need time to focus on God FIRST, before anyone else, and before anything else happens in the day. Then I start it on the right foot. And I get a head-start on the day physically and mentally. AND I get to finally bless my husband back - he's a total morning person and gets up with the boys at crazy o'clock every. single. morning, including weekends and holidays. I know. He is amaaaazing! :) I have too much of a tendency to be lazy and it's time I denied my flesh it's craving and got TO IT with the task I've been called to. *sigh* Anyway, that was my goal.

So I set my alarm and went to bed at 9.30pm the first night. Sleep finally occurred somewhere shortly before ONE AM. Ugh. Abandoned the alarm clock once it got later than 11pm (it would be bad baaaad news for the whole household if I went trying to get up at 5.30 when I just had not had nearly enough sleep. Baaaaad.) and tried again the following night (9.45pm). Sleep occurred a while after midnight. Boo! So frustrating lying there awake and getting nothing out of it! But I guess I was resting, although I could have been doing similar downstairs on the sofa as I usually do! Oh well. I tried again the following night at 10pm, and didn't get to sleep until midnight or just after. Midnight to 1am is the usual time for me to go to bed/sleep, so maybe it's just ingrained and I need to give it a while to adjust to the new bedtime? Or maybe not make a huge jump of several hours all at once? I don't know. I ended up not doing the early night thing again since then (4 nights now) because I was fed up lying awake all those "wasted" hours with so much to get done. My brain isn't particularly whirring in bed, I just lie there tired but not asleep!

One thing I did notice, which may be a big coincidence, since it's never made a difference in the past, was that my morning sickness was waaaaaaaaay better the days I was having early nights, even though I wasn't sleeping till late. As in, I thought it was all but gone, eventually! I had no nausea at all one day, just a vague bleurghy feeling by the evening which I couldn't even describe as queasiness. I cooked spaghetti bolognese from scratch that day, such was my optimism, with onions! Not been able to do that in a long while! :) I felt yucky while I was chopping the onions and thought it was a BIG mistake, but then it was fine, and I didn't mind the cooking smell OR eating it for dinner! :) I ate a huge portion and really enjoyed it!

I have since become gradually more nauseated again (so I do wonder about it being a coincidence with the early nights - I have had times in my pregnancies where things have improved for a few days and then come back), and feel REALLY sick today and yesterday. Yesterday we had the frozen portion of the spaghetti bolognese (same batch of sauce) and the smell even when it was frozen was awful to me, onion-wise. I could eat it and enjoy it though, but the plates made me feel horrible to clean up later. Nothing is really helping the nausea much at the moment, back to where it was before really. I am more interested in sweet foods, but they are making my IBS flare up horribly if I eat too much of them, and then I feel doubly nauseated the next day. I think part (maybe even a LARGE part) of my bad nausea lately is actually IBS. My whole abdomen is soooo bloated and yucky. I usually find it nauseating when this happens (not pregnant), and there's even more pressure in there with my womb popping up recently. Maybe that bothers my IBS as things adjust, come to think of it? Suddenly it seems a bit familiar from other pregnancies at about womb-popping-up time....

Anyway, so bleurgh. And zzzz, I'm so tired this week! And so USELESS during the day times. We are not getting school done this week at all, and the house is in a horrible state :( Yesterday I got the boys dressed but I didn't manage the same feat. Today I didn't even get that far - I am still in the pyjamas I put on LAST night after my bath! The boys also stayed in PJs and at bedtime I just put them in fresh ones. I find it so hard to feel good about myself when I am being so very slack, reason or not. They watched too many DVDs today, and otherwise played and read and built a ton of Duplo and jigsaws, and that's it really. I pottered around trying to get something DONE but somehow never actually achieving it (although I did clean out the veg compartment in the fridge and scrubbed it out in the sink! Big achievement lately, lol!), and otherwise got Samuel's naps done, nappies changed, and meals made. And lay on the floor mainly tandem nursing, all the other parts of the day (they see me lying on the floor, they toddle/crawl over and smile at me hopefully, and who am I to resist such charm?! Hehe! Happens every single time I lay down!). So I am going to bed after I post this.

All foods taste somewhat bitter a few minutes after I eat them, especially carbs, and especially bread and crackers and such like. Sweet starchy carbs too. I adore Jelly Babies right now, the taste is sublime, like I have never tasted anything so wonderful in all my life, lol! They mess with my stomach though, unfortunately, and make me feel gassy and yucky the next day (hmmm, do I see a pattern emerging?! ;) ). I am having to avoid toast and sandwiches where possible, though I do still eat them. I just know to expect the inevitable bitter taste and watery mouth afterwards, and thus nausea setting in sooner than it would otherwise after eating something.

I am definitely showing now. Starting to TRY to wear maternity jeans but it isn't really working yet! ;) I have a loose pair of normal jeans in size 14 that I had grown out of when I lost weight before this little one, and they're kind of loose still but my tummy fills them out better than maternity jeans. I also wear one pair of my smaller size jeans that fit me well on legs and bum, but which gape ridiculously at the fly - I can't even do the bottom of it up! I only wear those under a LONG top on a day when I'm sure to be at home all day and not expecting any visitors! ;) I used a hairband to loop through the button hole and around the button on the other side of the fly, and that holds them together a bit to be the right fit across my tummy, without them digging in or falling down. Can't wait until I have a bit more bump so I can fit some clothes properly! I love my new little bumpy bit and, as always, keep finding myself smiling down at it fondly and laying my hand on it :) I'm so excited to be having a BABY!!!

I have (of course, who was I kidding?!) been slightly obsessing over the scan pictures, as apparently I can't help myself, lol! I have to say, I felt no need to at all for the first 5 days after the scan, and then started to wonder about juuuust looking about at other baby nubs out there on people's scan pictures, and of course it became rather addictive! I thought there was no nub visible whatsoever on my scan pictures of Sausage, but after obsessing for a couple of days I now think I DO see a nub on two of the three, just verrrry possibly. Even when I point out what I'm seeing, nobody sees it (so I'm probably being craaaazy), but I've red-ringed the thing I'm seeing in two of Sausage's scan pics. I am seeing a line that is forked at the end, which I have seen a lot on nub shots, so I'm thinking that could be the nub. Hard to tell, but I still think it might be:



And the other one:



I think it's flatter and lower than I remember it being in the scan, although not completely flat. It looks more girly to me here, if it's the nub I'm looking at, although not DEFINITELY girly, since there is still a little angling. I'm sure there was some angling as the baby moved about during the scan though, so I am still going with boy.

While I was reading forums and so on about ultrasound gender prediction, I learned about a theory I hadn't heard before - anyone heard of the Ramzi method, EARLY in pregnancy? Here's what someone described it as, at a forum where somebody asked:

"Basically this MD noticed that if the baby's placenta was on the right side, it was 97% a male. If it was on the left, it was 97.5% a girl. All these ultrasound's were done at 6 weeks. The MD said this theory doesnt hold true if it is done later in the pregnancy as the placenta can move."

I was intrigued, so I checked out my scan pictures that I have for my little ones who had early scans between 6 and 8 weeks. Arthur's placenta was on the RIGHT side of him (he was on the left of it, though it was mainly across the bottom) at 7 weeks (boy). I didn't get a scan pic for Matthew at 8 weeks, unfortunately, and I don't remember what I saw on the screen. Nathey was also on the left and the placenta on the right (boy), at his scan at 8 weeks. Benjamin's 6 week placenta is hard to make out, BUT he's squished right up against the LEFT side with his yolk sac, and the border of the right side of the gestational sac looks placenta-ish to me (boy, again!). Samuel is the only baby I didn't get an early scan with, due to no bleeding.

I did not get a picture of Sausage at the 6 week scan, but I remember the baby was squashed up between the yolk sac and the placenta, clear as day, because we took AGES looking at that image zoomed in and out and from all angles, in case there was a baby behind Sausage! And the placenta was completely on the LEFT side, with Sausage to the right, and the yolk sac to the right of Sausage. That's different to the others, and also girly according to the Ramzi method. I did get a picture of Sausage at the 8 week scan. Placenta is mostly over the top of the baby, but slightly to the left. Sausage looks pretty much smack dab in the middle of the gestational sac, but still slightly to the right of the placenta since it's slightly to the left.

Oh the obsessing, haha! ;)

Anyway, so Ramzi would say I'm having a girl this time, and as far as I can tell, proves accurate for the 4 boys I had early scans with as well. Hmmm...

Must stop obsessing, it's a crazy crazy thing to do! Especially as it doesn't matter a JOT whether it's a boy or a girl, lol! I'm just too impatient for my own good. January will roll around soon enough, especially with all the busy-ness in between with Christmas and birthdays, etc.

Okay I really must go to bed now. I am going to try drinking some milk first because I feel sick and am starting to feel heartburny. Hopefully it's mild enough to fix with a glass of milk!

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my scan update post, and the ones on the belly gallery too! I am already due to take another belly pic for 14 weeks, TOMORROW! :D Hopefully not long before the morning sickness is history, and I'll start blooming soon and feel marvellous, haha!

12 weeks, 5 days - SCAN update! :)

Back from my scan, and all is wonderful, hooray! :) It was so lovely to see my sweet little person in there!

Here are the three pictures I got:







The sonographer had a really hard time getting the pictures for us because OH MY GOODNESS I have honestly never carried such a wiggly baby! I love that it's definitely a character trait of this baby, because at only 12 weeks pregnant, this is the THIRD time I've seen (or been told of) excessive wiggling at a scan - even at 6 weeks and 5 days when I didn't even know the embryo (still an EMBRYO!!) had the ability to wiggle, hehe! Sausage has been hard to measure at all three scans (6w5d, 8w1d, and 12w5d - not to mention that kidney scan I had when I saw him/her spread out like a lil starfish, lol!), mainly because of wiggling! ;) I have had me some real wigglers (read: Matthew) in my time, but this baby is more so, I think. So far, anyway!

Sausage was twisting (torso and head), rolling, squirming, and mainly just doing a lot of kicking and generally flinging his/her limbs about all over the place. In these pictures, he/she was relatively still compared with the rest of the scan, but was still kicking and punching about vigorously, and grabbing wildly at his/her feet! You can see two feet in a couple of the pictures, both in odd positions higher up and facing the "camera". In some ways I wish Sausage had been a little less energetic just so that I could get a good clear look at those miraculous little fingers and toes, and so on - I never did get to see those very clearly because they NEVER stopped moving! ;)

It was also hard to see the genital tubercle (nub), although I did see it fairly clearly several times. It kept flashing in and out of view with the wiggling, and it wasn't "straight on" wiggling either, Sausage kept doing some sort of pelvic thrust which effectively flung his/her legs up at the same time, and so the angle of the nub changed dramatically during all of that. It was hard to keep track of it, lol! NONE of the pictures have the nub in them! That's a first for our babies - except with Nathan I think? Or was it Arthur? I can't remember. Anyway, certainly the last two babies I had a very clear view of an obviously angled nub (boy), and it was just as clearly seen on the ultrasound pictures. This time, not so much.

I think the baby is a boy, because once when I saw the nub, it seemed angled quite strongly UP which is a definite boy angle, but then he/she was trying to touch his/her nose with his/her toes for some reason (!!) so the angle would have been compromised a lot by that kind of maneuvre (manouvre? I can't be bothered to spell check, pfthth!). Another time I spotted it, it was pointing much lower but probably still angled somewhat, though it was less than a second and flashing in and out of sight all the time during lots of movement, so I can't be as sure as I was the last two times. We got a good view of the "toilet shot" as they call it, which is not reliable at all at this stage (although we were sure as sure from Arthur's one at 13 weeks that he was DEF a boy). This time I saw three lines and no obvious sticky-outy part, but a) there MUST have been a sticky outy part that I just didn't get the right angle to see because that's what the nub is in both boys and girls at this stage, and b) 3 lines is a girl thing, but not till later.

So I would say it's fairly inconclusive at the moment with a definite leaning towards BOY! :) If so... SIX boys?!?!! :D I did not feel the least bit disappointed, which I am EVER SO glad about, phew! :)

Oh, other things to report - Benjamin stayed at home with Sarah (our friend from church) and the big boys! He was FINE, and I feel so proud of him! :) They build train tracks around the room, had a snack, and started watching Mary Poppins just before we got home - we were only gone just over an hour. So we only had Samuel with us, and he was a perfect angel - I do not boast or kid! ;) He sat in silence without even shifting his position, on Neil's lap leaning against Neil's chest, either with his thumb in his mouth or just watching open-mouthed, bless his sweet tiny heart! :) At the very end, he got so much high-pitched adoring attention from the sonographer that he suddenly leaned towards me with his arms clutching at my arm as I was lying on the bed next to him and Neil, but that was it! He was SOOOOOO good, and I am so proud of my tiny manny! Neil was able to watch and enjoy the whole scan, and listen to the lady. Also it was ever so lovely to be out with my biggest boy, er, MAN (hehe!) and my tiniest. Lovely to walk along not needing a pushchair, just chatting to my hubby while he carried my teeny Samuel in his arms (swoon, by the way - hot man carrying angelic baby, lol!). I'm sure everyone in the waiting area thought this was our complete family unit. The sonographer, when she'd finished the scan, leaned in to talk to him and said, "Are you going to have a little playmate, hey?!" and I said, "Oh he's got a few already - he's our fifth!" hehe! She was more than a little taken-aback ;) And more so at the "all boys" thing - I love that though! :) We got the football team comment again. That is a very familiar one now!

On the way home we were stuck in a bit of traffic for a few minutes, and I said to Neil, "What shall we call him, if he's really a boy?!" because I had no idea really. I had a few names in mind, and my FAVOURITE one, which I absolutely KNEW I would want to use if we ever had a sixth boy, when Samuel was new, was one that Neil had strongly vetoed in previous pregnancies and I could never see him considering it. I still held it in my heart, but have put it to the back burner and considered a few others (Toby, Noah, Josiah, etc) in more recent months. In the car Neil told me a name had come to mind recently but he couldn't remember it. And then suddenly he did - and said, "Elijah" Well, thank goodness I had my seatbelt on because that's the very name he's vetoed and which I longed to name a 6th boy!! :D I couldn't believe it. I kept saying, "Really?! REALLY?!" hehe! He said he just thought of it one day and liked it. I love it because it goes - Arthur, Matthew, Nathan, Benjamin, Samuel and Elijah. And it's a different letter - I think I like the idea of none of the boys sharing a first initial, makes the post easier when they get to be older and get their own letters and packages! I guess I'm the opposite of the Duggars in that respect! ;) I also love love LOVE the meaning: "The LORD is my God" How much more awesome could the meaning of a name possibly get?! :)

The last male person in our families that we have left to honour by using their name for a middle name for one of our boys, is my grandfather. He gave his name to his only son as a middle name, and then apparently seemed a bit upset that my parents didn't pass it on to my brother (who got Robert Edward - my other grandfather who had died, and Edward because my parents just liked it!). There's never been a vibe or anything said about our boys' middle names as far as his name is concerned, but now he has SIX great grandsons (my five and my nephew) with no sign of his name yet! His name is Douglas, which I had thought of potentially using one day but decided against, mainly because it means black river (or dark water at some sources) and I feel strongly about the meanings of names, spiritually. But when paired with Elijah (we talked about this in the car), I like it. "The LORD is my God" trumps "black/dark river/water" any day! ;) The Lord is God over the realms of darkness, and maybe the whole name will stand for that, which I like. I REALLY like the flow, and the way the names go well together - Elijah Douglas, and it sounds fine with our surname tagged on the end. And more than anything else, I LOVE being able to bless my grandfather by using his name (at last!) - I know he will be so moved and touched by it.

So by the time we got home, we were 100% certain on a boy's name for our baby - Elijah Douglas! :) So happy! And I think he IS a boy, so that's his name! I won't refer to it until the next scan when the gender is confirmed, and I'll keep on with Sausage for now - and obviously there's a chance the baby might be a girl still, so I will wait! But I feel so excited to KNOW if it's a boy, he'll be Elijah - can't describe how excited and happy I am to meet him already, knowing his name! :)

I did then tell Neil about the name Rachel for the first time, and he immediately did not want to use that name if we have a girl. He has already chosen a girl's name that he likes (which is actually the same name we had chosen for Matthew if he had been a girl!) - Emma Jane. Jane is my mummy, Emma is a name we have both liked for years, AND my great-grandmother's name - she was my grandfather, Douglas's mother, and died when I was 16. So either way we'd honour Grandoug with names, and we are both happy about that. I am not 100% convinced about Emma Jane for our baby even though I still really like it, but then I have really had Rachel on my heart, so perhaps that's all it is... Either that or it's because the baby is a BOY and I know it in my knower somewhere, lol! ;)

[Edited to add the obvious: NAME A TOTAL SECRET UNTIL BIRTH!!! Thank you! :) ]

My next scan is now booked for January 10th at 2.40pm, so I will find out then! Yay!

I absolutely need to go and eat something now as I'm feeling really sick, bleurgh! WORTH IT though! :) I put the pictures on Sausage's ultrasound gallery which I made yesterday - it seems to have come up as the most recent post even though I made a big long waffly updatey one right afterwards... Anyway, must go! Back soon :)

Ultrasound Gallery for Baby #6!

This is the ultrasound gallery for all of the scan pictures I get for my 6th baby, currently known as 'Sausage' (until we know the gender and the name!) :)

Due to a lot of bleeding from 3 weeks pregnant onwards, I had an early scan at 6 weeks and 5 days, where we saw a sweet little blob with a tiny flickering heartbeat. The baby was squished up against the wall of my uterus, and against the yolk sac on the other side, and we could not 100% clearly see whether there was another baby behind the first one! Sometimes it looked like a mirrored heartbeat next to it as well. So I was booked for a second scan 10 days later. I didn't get a picture at the first one, but here's the picture from the second scan:



The picture above is from my second ultrasound, at 8 weeks and 1 day pregnant. This was mainly to confirm whether there was ONE baby, or another one hiding behind Sausage! ;) Also to check on the subchorionic haematoma. Sausage (only one!) was measuring accurately for dates, and was wiggly, apparently! He/she was standing on his/her head in this photo, with the yolk sac behind the little bottom. Such a sweet little person! :)







Sausage's ultrasound pictures from the scan at 12 weeks and 5 days - measuring spot on for dates (well, a day behind but hardly worth mentioning!). SUCH a wiggly baby that I had a hard time really getting a good look at the genital tubercle. What I did see of it seemed kind of angled to me (sometimes really quite an angle) but he/she was flinging his/her pelvis around, lol! So it was hard to say. Probably a boy though! ;) Sweet little baby! In all the pictures (which the sonographer found hard to take as the little one wouldn't keep still enough!), Sausage was playing with his/her feet and kicking and punching about!  Here are the pictures from Elijah's 20 week scan, where we got good confirmation that he is definitely a boy! ;) 

Little knee-to-face!  Profile - not the best picture, but still happy to have it! :)  My favourite! So darling - his little face straight on! I love the tiny features, his heart-shaped face and tiny chinny!

8 weeks, 1 day - scan!

Great news! :) ONE baby, and looking healthy and strong as far as they can tell! :D

They were ready for me when I arrived 10 minutes early - just three staff members sitting around on chairs looking bored, lol! Never seen the waiting room so empty! They showed me right in - I didn't even need to sit down first!

I told the sonographer (since it was a different one) that I was back to determine whether there was one baby or two babies in there. She read the report on my bleeding. I have had a few days with no real spotting to speak of, but just this afternoon started some brown spotting again.

Anyway she was great. She kept the screen turned towards me the whole time. She started the scan and the black gestational sac came into view. For all the world, I was SURE I saw two babies, and at that same moment, she said, "Oh! It DOES look like two babies!" My heart did not skip a beat. I did not freak out or catch my breath. I was totally at peace, and prepared. God had me held fast :) Then as she zoomed in and got a better view, she said, "Oh. Only one after all." I was relieved because the "two" babies I had seen at the start looked like one strange-shaped symmetrical baby, which had me convinced that there were two babies joined together, for the few seconds it lasted. She checked all around and was sure that it was only one normal baby. She said that she had been confused for a moment because the baby was doing a "handstand", hahaha, my 8-week embryo does not have fully formed hands yet, so the fact that it was doing a handstand makes me laugh so much! Last time, my SIX-week embryo was wiggling almost too much for her to take an accurate measurement of length, lol! I feel SURE we're having another sweet little ball of energy like Matthew! ;)

So the baby measured 8w4d, a few days ahead from last time (and my dates) but she put on the report "consistent with dates" and kept my dates of 8w1d. Sausage is 16mm long from head to bottom - so little but growing so fast! The yolk sac looked so small next to the little one this time, and it's just the same size as it was last time, although the baby was only just a bit bigger than the yolk sac last time!

Here's a picture of my tiny precious:



It's not the best picture because I took a photo of it rather than scanning it in, as it was quicker! :) But it's clear enough. Sausage is standing on his/her head, which is by far the biggest part right now, and sort of folded forwards. The yolk sac is the white circle on the right, behind Sausage's little bottom! :) Sausage has arms, and legs like little paddles, and a tail even! But I didn't get to see much detail of those during the scan. I did see the sweet little heart beating.

As for the brown spotting, the sonographer found several patches of "bleeding" in my womb. I asked if any of them would mean I might experience red bleeding again, and she said it was possible. She showed me all of them, and noted that some were dark grey areas on the screen (black is fluid, on an ultrasound - hence the very black gestational sac, as it's full of fluid for my little one to swim in!). She said dark grey was probably old blood and thus I would notice brown bleeding from that. But one of them was more black than grey, and she suspected that might show up as red bleeding. If it sits around in there for 24 hours without me particularly bleeding it out, it will become old blood and won't show up as red bleeding. But she noted that I have more "bleeding" in there than I even did at my last scan, so I can expect to be bleeding and spotting for a while from now. Ugh! I am tired of bleeding this pregnancy! But very very very glad and grateful that my little one is okay! :) You can see two of the patches on the scan picture - one is sort of triangular shaped next to the gestational sac on the right, and the other is way on the left, almost out of shot, going up to the top of the picture.

She said she is not concerned about the patches of bleeding, and that so long as I'm not bleeding like a period, cramping, etc. then I shouldn't worry. They have seen the heartbeat and that is a great sign. I seem to be prone to bleeds for some reason, so that makes me a tiny bit nervous that I'll "randomly" have a bigger bleed at some point, which COULD threaten the pregnancy? I will try not to think about that sort of thing though.

I'm so glad I got a picture of my tiny one! :) After the boys were in bed, I phoned my parents as they were anxious to hear about it. And then I phoned Heather (my doula). She is SO excited, and we had a good long talk about it now that we know what's what with the scan. She said that she is so excited that I'm having all these babies! :) She wishes SHE had not stopped at two but had had six babies as well, and she thinks it's the right thing to do to trust God and just HAVE BABIES! ;) I could not possibly have ended up with a better doula. Seriously. I just love her soooo! :)

She told me that I should expect to have to see a consultant this pregnancy again, for elevated risk (should be in inverted commas), the same as last time. #1: I am now a grand-multigravida (= woman who has birthed 5 or more babies) - I feel like I need a gold star or some special badge to go with that title, haha! ;) Anyway, thus the alleged increased risk of haemmorhage with the 3rd stage of labour, blah blah blah (NOT supported by studies or real life!!). #2: My ever-existing Group B Strep status. But she said I should not stress about those things, because nothing has changed. I had the same factors last pregnancy, and chose to birth at home, and DID, with no problems. And the time before, I was GBS+ but chose to birth at home, with no problems. So two babies born at home to a GBS+ mother with no problems actually goes in my favour, and puts each subsequent baby at LESS risk for GBS infection due to having siblings born without issues, apparently.

I am also now elderly, haha! Having turned 35 since my last baby was born, I am now officially of "advanced maternal age". Heather told me they should not give me any trouble about that whatsoever - it's more once I've turned 40 that they might start waving that flag, and if they DO, she said she will find me a consultant to see who will not bother me about it! :D

Oh it was so sweet when I came home with the scan picture! The boys were so disappointed last time when I did not bring a picture home, and I told them I would be sure to ask for one this time. They jumped up when I came in and asked if I had had my scan, and when I said yes, they asked, "Is there a picture?!!" So I showed them. They were sooooo excited! Obviously I had to explain what was what in the picture. Arthur understood about the head part and so on, but Matthew just stood holding in in silence, as though he did not get it at all. In the end, he sighed contentedly and said, "Our little baby..." in SUCH a fond tone of voice, and then ran off happily to play! HEART that boy! :)

So now I wait until the end of the first trimester (how is it only a few weeks away?!!) which I will be very excited about! My nausea has been pretty bad this week - hopefully (oh hopefully!) it's just being aggravated by this weird "head cold" lurgy I've got, although I'm not streaming with cold and am feeling better, energy-wise, today, which is good. Tonight I am feeling really sick and Neil is boiling me an egg, which - PROTEIN!! Hopefully it will make me feel better. It's not overwhelming but I would still like to feel better than I do, if something can fix that before I go to bed!

I should get my appointments in the post soon, for my first midwife appointment (the booking in one that takes AAAAGES, lol!) and the 12 week scan! I'll update when I do! I am really looking forward to the next scan. Right now (literally as I type this), primitive germ cells are arriving at the zone for Sausage's genitals to be built from! Nothing more to speak of yet, but by that scan there will be a little something to spot, pointing either up or down, lol! ;) I am looking forward to that! And oh, just the WHOLE pregnancy now! Thank you Lord for one healthy baby. I would have loved two babies, even two poorly babies, but I'm so grateful for fewer complications and a healthy start so far. Yay, I'm so thankful to be pregnant! :D

36 weeks, 6 days

Well I can't believe I've neglected this blog so very much this pregnancy! I just can't seem to find time enough to update. I usually don't think to write small bits and pieces since I always end up writing so much more and spending ages when I didn't plan to. I SHOULD just try writing small bits and pieces, because that's better than nothing at all. Oh well. I will try to catch up a bit now, but really what I should be doing is writing a LITTLE BIT and then going to bed, since it's getting late. We moved Benjamin into the boys' bedroom this evening at bedtime and I am reluctant to go to bed, because HOW I'll miss my sweet little man in my room with me at night :( My room looks so cold and lonely and empty and makes me feel sad, even knowing that Samuel is coming soon to fill it with babyness again. The first night is always the hardest, and I'm just procrastinating downstairs while the rest of the household sleeps.... I love Benjamin so incredibly much, I just can't explain, and just his companionship, even when he's sleeping. Hope he will be okay in the other bedroom and not get upset if he wakes...

Anyway, pregnancy!

I can hardly believe that tomorrow I will be 37 weeks pregnant, and thus FULL TERM!!!! Can you believe that Samuel will be here SO soon?!?! I'm so glad to have made it to full term because now I can have a homebirth if I want to, and he should be fine and dandy. Also I am breathing a big sigh of relief tonight because Heather (my doula) has been running a stall at a Christmas craft fair, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (today), and would not have been available if my waters had broken or something! I know it wasn't likely, but I have really felt anxious about it this weekend, and I'm glad she's finished the craft fair today! :) She officially goes "on call" for me from 38 weeks until December 23rd. I'm sure I won't go that far but if it gets to Christmas Eve she can't be with me :( I'm still thinking Samuel will come right around his due date. So far all my babies have been born between the 9th and 14th of the month, regardless of when they were due:

Arthur: Due Nov 5th, born Nov 9th
Matthew: Due June 7th, born June 14th
Nathan: Due Feb 10th, born Jan 12th
Benjamin: Due July 8th, born July 9th

Samuel is due Dec 13th (or 11th if you're asking the sonographer, which I am not!), and I am pretty much thinking he'll be born in that 9th-14th window, but since he's due on the 13th and (other than Nathan) I give birth after my due date, I think he'll come either on his due date or on the 14th. We shall see! :)

I am feeling huge lately, of course - what 37-weeks-pregnant mama does not?! I think I am gaining weight REALLY fast these last few weeks, but I haven't weighed myself in that time. The last time I weighed myself - I can't remember my gestation, perhaps it was even something I mentioned last entry? - I had suddenly gained 9lbs in 9 days, and I certainly FEEL physically as though I'm continuing the trend, unfortunately! :S I am craving all manner of sweet and sugary things which isn't helping! I've given up bothering about it, and just eating what I enjoy right now. I still fit in my largest maternity jeans and for the first time my wedding ring is STILL on! :) I hope I can keep it on right the way through now. I don't think I have managed to do that before, but then again, I often have some last minute water retention in my hands, and haven't arrived at that stage yet.

Samuel is very wiggly, but just squirms and pushes his legs lately. He changes several times a day in his position from my left side to my right, but he's always head down with his back up against my tummy (one side or the other) which is good. At my last midwife appointment (36 weeks) I finally had my first ever record in my notes of his head in relation to my pelvis - four fifths palpable still, but I like that better than "high and free"! :) He has spent so much time over my pregnancy with his head in my left hip that I'm relieved that 1/5 of it is squarely in my pelvis now! He gets hiccups several times a day, and seems to me to be a very laid-back baby, not agitated in his movements at all. He can get a bit more vigorous during a bout of hiccups, but nothing like some of my other boys did! He doesn't poke or flick or hurt me with little movements like one or two of my other babies have either. He just pushes and squirms with his legs and shoulders most of the time. Sometimes he grinds his head around and it feels very low when he does that, so it makes quite a sharp pain while he's doing it, I guess around my cervical area or my bladder - I can't quite pinpoint where exactly.

At my 36 week appointment (which was done at home, thankfully, and I've asked for home visits only from now on since Neil is now at his new job and I can't fathom hauling all the little ones out to a midwife appointment every week or so at this huge stage of pregnancy!), the midwife asked me about the scan and consultant appointment I had (which I don't think I've even updated about - BAD Alice!) and what my thoughts were on where to give birth.

That appointment was at 34 weeks and 3 days. I went by myself because Heather could not go with me that day, and Neil needed to be at home to look after the boys. I had a scan first to check on my placenta. At first she could not find the lobe at all but it turned out that Samuel was lying on it! ;) He was very happy and calm and content, and did not feel like moving, no matter how she jiggled my poor tummy! In the end she was able to get an angle where she could see it. So it's still the same situation with my succenturiate placenta. It still is a normal placenta with an extra lobe. The main placenta is high and anterior, and the lobe is now lateral (on the side of my uterus) where before it was posterior. It's high, which is the best place for it to be. The blood flow is normal in the lobe and to the main placenta, and Samuel's umbilical cord is inserted into the middle of the main placenta, and the blood flow to him is normal too. Which is all good! All his measurements were fine for 34 weeks apparently. He was sucking calmly at the amniotic fluid some of the time, and just seemed to be quite chilled out in there! It was LOVELY to see him again! I have never had a late scan before, and one thing I noticed was how chubby his little cheeks looked compared with at the 20 week scan! So sweet! It was also lovely to see his sweet little chinny again - ohhh I can't wait to see that for real! It's definitely like Nathan's from what I can see - quite a dip in under his lower lip, and with a cleft/dimple down the centre :) I heart Nathan's little cleft chinny (and Benjamin's is similar but not so deep) so I'm eager to use my little finger to gentle stroke that sweet dimple when I finally have my tiny boy in my arms! :)

He's also definitely still a boy, lol! The first thing we saw when the screen was switched on were his boy bits, and the sonographer moved the image quickly and asked if I knew what I was having! ;) I said yes, and she said that was good because she was not sure how she could hide it, since he was so obviously a boy, hehe! Here's a picture that she kindly gave me of my sweet precious:



Then came the consultant appointment, with my lovely, very open-minded and laid-back consultant. It was almost the end of the day by this time and when he came in he seemed kind of tired and stressed, and that seemed to affect the appointment unfortunately. He said basically the same stuff as last time, but with a slightly more stressy/pessimistic spin on it, which was a bummer. He said I could have a homebirth if the community midwives would agree to take me on with my high risks, and that I should discuss it with them and have them call him and discuss the plan for my case. Well, firstly I can have a homebirth whether or not the midwives think they want to take me on, since it's MY choice, but whatever! ;) Secondly I did not end up getting one of my midwives to call the consultant and discuss me, because I didn't think it was necessary. I'M the decision-maker here, not the midwives or the consultant. But I need to decide carefully, and I have been having terrible trouble doing so.

The midwife asked me at 36 weeks, and I said that my current thinking is to book a homebirth whilst staying open-minded to choosing a hospital birth at the last minute. Heather told me it's much better to book a homebirth and change my mind than the other way around - much easier apparently! So that's what I said, and she didn't bat at eyelid, simply started the process of booking my homebirth there and then! :) I had to go through the risk/transfer list AGAIN, but I asked her if I could take it away and read it in my own time, rather than her verbally take me through it, because all my children were in the room watching and listening and I did not want them made anxious about any aspect of the birth. So I am booked for a homebirth! I have the usual list of stuff I need to accumulate, but I have most of it in a box that we got down from the loft, labelled, "Homebirth/Postnatal", so I need to open that and go through it soon to find out what's in it.

I am still not sure whether to just go ahead and give birth in the hospital. When I was at my appointment, it was downstairs below the labour ward, and just being there made me feel itchy, like I had some sort of constant mild adrenaline and just wanted to get up and run away from there and get home. That made me think I really did want to have a homebirth, if I felt that way in the hospital. Obviously there are childcare issues to consider as well. If I have a hospital birth the likely scenario for us is that Neil will miss it entirely, since we just don't have any childcare help at ALL. We only have my brother, and he looked after the boys overnight when Nathan was born, but he hasn't got back to us about it since I asked him whether he'd mind doing it again if we needed him to a couple of weeks ago. I will probably follow up and call him soon but he has a couple of little kiddies now and it's ever so close to Christmas (they'll probably visit family in the run-up to Christmas and be away from home therefore). We don't really have anyone we can ask, but even so, the boys would probably not be happy with anyone other than Bennie anyway. So far we are thinking that if I have to go into hospital (or choose to), Neil will stay home and I will at least have my doula with me for support. I would so hate for him to miss seeing Samuel being born though.... If I was at home, he would be able to look after the boys but NOT miss the baby being born, just as it worked out at Benjamin's birth - that was wonderful!

I love being in my own home, it's so much more comforting, relaxing and familiar. It requires so much less energy from me, physically and emotionally. I think it's a reason my labour last time was the fastest yet, and pretty smooth and easy (until the last bit!) as well. I would like that again, and I just feel like there are way too many things to complicate the natural process of allowing labour to progress as it should, just getting myself into hospital, let alone being there and not being in my favourite place as I try to go with what my body is doing.

So homebirth is the obvious choice for me. BUT. The big but. I don't want to put myself at risk! Or the baby, for that matter - I had my GBS swab done at my 36 week appointment and I will try to remember to phone the midwife tomorrow to find out the result. It's likely (but not necessarily certain) to be positive, which of course presents a miniscule risk to the baby. In hospital I would get IV antibiotics which would reduce the risk to the baby enormously, and I don't want my baby to be at risk! Last time I was GBS positive and still had a homebirth with no antibiotics. I was careful, I watched for signs of GBS infection, my waters broke right at the very end of labour as he was being born (a GOOD thing with GBS), and I was careful to observe him for the first 24 hours or so to make sure he was staying well. All went fine, and having been there and done that, I would choose the same thing again this time. It's just the risk of bleeding with the type of placenta I've got that makes me anxious and not know what to do.

When I got to 35 weeks and 5 days - the day my waters broke with Nathan - I had a sudden overwhelming urge for my waters to just break again so that the decision could be made for me! If they did, I would automatically be going into hospital, getting IV antibiotics, and being induced, like with Nathan. I would be there already, and that would be that. If I had a heavy bleed after the birth, I would be in a very good place for it. For a few days I hoped and hoped my waters would break, even knowing that was DAFT because it was too early and would not be good for my little one if that happened! *sigh*

Then I got over it a bit, but started to wonder if I should just book a hospital birth after all, since I felt such a sense of relief at the idea of just having another reason to be in the hospital. But CHOOSING to be there is different. Choosing not to be in my own home, choosing to be away from my little ones, and choosing for Neil to miss the birth.... I don't want any of those things. Heather suggested that I pray and ask God to show me where I should give birth. I just can't seem to find any clarity of thought at all lately - all my thoughts are scrambled with the new demands of Neil being out 12 hours a day through the week, and I just have mush for a brain all the time! It's Sunday evening after Neil's second full week at work, and for the first time I am able to think straight! :) Perhaps I'm adjusting at last?! Anyway, Heather suggested I ask God to show me in my dreams if I wasn't able to think about it. I did have a dream the very first night I prayed about it, and it was a bit weird but basically I was in hospital and it did NOT feel nice to be there. I felt anxious and tense and wanted to leave all the time. I am asking God for more, or for confirmation. Meanwhile I am just noticing day by day that I feel more and more relaxed about the idea of just going into labour and staying at home. I don't know why. Perhaps it's answer to prayer?

Anyway, I am still undecided about it all, but so far I am happy to have booked the homebirth and be starting to plan that out, even though part of me is still wondering about the hospital birth idea. I just don't want to bleeeeeed! At all! :S

Well, I'm sure there's more, as always, but it's getting late and I need to go to bed. I'm glad to be relaxing more about the birth over these last few days, because it has FINALLY enabled me to start planning for it - before that I was too anxious to want to go there, and was not getting stuff done in preparation for Samuel to be here.

Now we've moved Benjamin into the boys' room, and my room has a lot of boxes in it which need sorting or putting in the loft. Not much time left, but hopefully we'll get there before Samuel comes! I started packing a hospital bag yesterday which was surprisingly exciting, to my relief! :) So far I have only packed some of my things, no baby things yet. I have written the packing list though - I basically copied Benjamin's, and it was amusing that when I wrote the title of my list at the top of the page, I nearly wrote, "Hospital Bag - 2010", hahaha! Sort of like a Christmas card list, to differentiate it from the lists I've written for the previous years! ;) I do seem to have babies that often lately, hehe! Nathan was born in 2008, Benjamin in 2009, and Samuel will be born in 2010 - so 3 calendar years in a row! I'm almost 100% positive that we'll miss out 2011 though! ;)

Benjamin still needs his cot, and there isn't enough room for the Amby hammock that Benjamin used, in the smaller bedroom with me. We have a Moses basket but those never last more than a few weeks for my babies as they grow so fast. So we bought a bedside crib, which should hopefully last until 5 or so months, as those are bigger than a Moses basket and say "up to 6 months". It's still boxed right now because I haven't had time or space to set it up, but now that Benjamin is in the other bedroom I can get to clearing boxes and then set it up! I can't wait - such a fun project! I bought a crib coverlet from eBay in neutral colours, and can probably get away with using flat Moses basket sheets for the crib mattress instead of having to buy fitted crib-sized sheets. I have plenty of the little flat sheets. I am planning to swaddle Samuel (which we never really managed with the others) so hopefully he'll fit the crib for a good while since he'll be all bundled up! :) We'll see how that pans out.

MUST go to bed! I will probably start to update here more frequently as the due date draws near - I just seem to naturally be drawn to wanting to write my thoughts about things as I get near to giving birth, so that's at least a good thing for my poor neglected pregnancy blog! ;) Thanks for the comments asking if everything is okay - it's usually those that give me the reminder to get another post written at last, and I really appreciate you thinking of me even when I'm quiet for ages here! xxx

[edited to add a note to self: I forgot to write about my Pelvic Girdle Pain - new experience for me this pregnancy! Will try to remember it next post!]

Back from my 20 week scan!!!

Ahhh, the big question! ;) Which I will tell you the answer to in JUST A MINUTE! I have no time to post much, but just to say the scan went well! I can't tell you how relieved I was when all the organs and things were checking out fine as the lady was doing the scan. She took measurements of the heart and kept pausing and freeze-framing things, and I was holding my breath some of the time! When she said it was all fine, I thanked God that the heart was fine, and then she moved onto the next thing to check and I held my breath again! I'm so so so unbelievably thankful that all the various parts of my little baby were normal and healthy looking. Phew! We did not get any glimpses of the gender during the earlier part of the scan, which I am glad about because I wanted to wait (for once! Usually I am itching to find out as early in the scan as possible! Maybe it was the concern this time that everything was okay?) until the end where they usually ask if we want to know and then show us.

So she asked, and I said yes please, and Cornflake was VERY obliging! ;) AND I found the cable to my scanner - woohoo!!!! So even without my laptop, I CAN show you the ultrasound pictures! :)

Soooo, Cornflake's gender!....

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So so so happy! Five boys!!!!! I can't believe it, even though I knew it (that makes no sense, I know, lol!). I have FIVE sons. Fiiiive sons. Amazing. I'm so grateful to God for all the little boys He is blessing me with! :)

Here are the pictures of his profile. I am SO in love. He is so darling and precious, and the instant I saw his dear little pointy chin I cried out, "Oh! Look at his little chinny!" and then apologised for my mushy outburst, hehe! To me - and I'll have to check this, haven't had chance yet - his profile looks JUST like Nathan's and very similar to Benjamin's too. He reminds me ever so much of Nathan.







His name is Samuel Robert. Well done Annie and Beckstar! :D We LOVE his name! Samuel means "heard of God" or "God has heard" - He certainly heard my prayer for more sweet babies and has blessed me incredibly! I love my God! Robert is the last family name that I have really wanted to use. Some of you might remember that I wanted to use it for Benjamin's middle name but Benjamin Robert IS my brother's whole name and we had enough trouble from family for just naming him Benjamin, sooo.... Robert was my grandfather's name, and his daughters (my mum and her sister) used it for their boys - my cousin is named Robert, and my brother of course has it for a middle name. I'm so happy to honour my grandfather who died when I was one, by using his name! I also just love how it sounds with Samuel.

Samuel!!! Wheeee, now I can use his name here all the time! :D

PLEASE DON'T LET ON ABOUT HIS NAME AT FACEBOOK!!!! My many real-life and church friends follow me there and I don't want them to know until we announce his birth, as is our usual thing. Thanks! :)

I have SO much more detail that I want to write about the scan (including a weird thing about my placenta, that the lady said was nothing to worry about - it's high and anterior, but there's a piece totally separate from it on the back wall. What?!?! Will write more about that another time.) but I have run out of time - the boys are eating dinner and I still need to phone family. I will be back soon to fill in the other details. I am just so happy that it's Samuel! I wanted him from the moment we knew his name :)

Been for my scan! :)

I'm back from my scan, and have just put Benjamin down for a late afternoon nap. I should be dashing back downstairs to the other boys in a minute so this will have to be quick! I am writing this bit to save until I get to post the scan pictures with it a bit later. Then I'll post the whole entry - hopefully soon! :)

The scan went fine! We were nearly late because getting all the boys out of the door and dropping Arthur off ran a little later than expected, but thankfully parking was straightforward. I hadn't even checked in (was still in the queue!) when the sonographer called my name! I was panicking because I hadn't therefore paid and got a little ticket to allow me to get some scan pictures, but they said not to worry and that I could pay afterwards (it's £3 for a couple of pictures at my hospital).

They almost didn't allow the boys to come in the room, saying they would need to concentrate and small children would distract them, and that they DID ask people not to bring little ones, etc. *sigh* We said we were sorry but we couldn't do anything about it as we couldn't get child care for them - our eldest was being looked after but that's the best we could do. They said that the hospital would be changing its policy soon and not allow them in the scan room even if they were in the waiting room! That would mean Neil would have to sit out with them and miss the scan! :(

Anyway, they let us all in. The boys were AS GOOD AS GOLD!! I was so proud of them! And afterwards, the same lady came and complimented me on how well behaved they were, and said I shouldn't worry about bringing them to the anomoly scan, even though the sonographer would need to concentrate even more, because they were so good! :) However, we WILL be trying to find someone to look after them for us while we attend that scan! It's longer and more fiddly, and we really want to be able to relax and see our little one properly. The lady was great and told the receptionist to book us into room 1 for the next scan, because it's the biggest room and we'll have the most space to accommodate our tandem pushchair! :) I'm glad/proud that the boys were so good that they completely turned around her attitude towards them being present! :)

Soooo, the scan!!

We have ONE healthy-looking baby in there! :) No twins, which I was expecting at this stage because I am the same size as the other pregnancies. Also this morning I had a quick listen with the doppler for reassurance, and heard one very clear heartbeat. I searched all over at all angles and didn't find another, so I was more sure than ever that there was only one baby in there.

We saw our sweet little peanut looking very relaxed in there. Cornflake was lying face down with little legs curled underneath the tummy at first - so sweet! :) We saw the various little body parts - legs stretching lazily now and then, and arms occasionally lifting up near the head, but otherwise relaxed. The sonographer was a trainee, with the lady I mentioned above as the supervisor. The trainee scared me a bit at first. I declined the nuchal test for Down Syndrome, and they weren't too happy about that, but I insisted. Then the trainee started the scan, and kept looking at the same view over and over. She seemed nervous. Then she looked at me and said, "If I see something, do you want me to let you know?" and I said, "Yes please!" not really knowing what she meant. Her eyes looked back to the screen but her mouth was all grimacing and nervous for a moment, and SUDDENLY I had a panic that she had seen something wrong with the baby and was asking me if I wanted to know. I strained my eyes at the image of the baby, desperate to see the heart beating, but I couldn't see it - I guess it was the angle of the scan at that moment. And for a moment I panicked inside, and prayed desperately that God would let the baby be okay, and be alive. I couldn't tell if it was moving or just still, because it didn't look like it was moving, and the scan was whizzing around a bit so it was hard to tell. In the end, the baby was fine! But I guess she meant did I want to have her tell me when she had a good view of the stomach or something, to show me? I don't know. But phew, anyway! :)

Cornflake measures 2 days ahead, so they have changed my due date to December 11th, and made me 12 weeks and 5 days pregnant today, which I like! :) I am still not sure whether to take that on though, because I KNOW my dates, whatever the baby is measuring, and I don't really want to have a couple of extra days where I feel like I'm past my due date and waiting to go into labour, when I haven't actually reached it yet! ;) So I will think on that. I DO like being 2 days closer to 13 weeks though, for now! :)

We did indeed get an EXCELLENT nub shot, right at the end! :) The nub shot doesn't quite show it exactly as I saw it during the scan though. My eyes were pretty well trained to spot it fairly early on, and every chance I got, I watched out for it. Several times they froze the picture to make a measurement and I could see the angle very clearly. The shot they took for me to take home at the end shows a slightly different angle to the one I was more clearly seeing throughout the scan. This baby is pretty much 95% (according to moi, lol!) a BOY! :) The angle of that little dangle was between 30 and 40 degrees the whole time, but the actual picture that I'll show you in a moment shows it more like 30 or just less. Between 10 and 30 degrees is "inconclusive", as far as telling the gender at this stage. But there was a significant angle - not like Benjamin's was, but significant. DEFINITELY greater than 30 degrees, which means (with about 97% accuracy or something) a boy. It's easier to mis-assign GIRL gender to a boy with the nub, than the other way around. Boy angles can occasionally be quite low, but girl angles are NEVER greater than 30 degrees. This baby's angle is definitely 30 degrees plus, so I would say almost for absolute certain that we are having our FIFTH boy!!! I won't announce as much at Facebook I don't think, because I'd rather wait till the big scan to confirm it, but I can say here that I'm pretty sure, and will definitely continue calling Cornflake "he"! ;)

There are other things to note - he measured 63.2mm long, and there was also a moment of "between-the-legs-ness" where I saw obvious boy bits. I know that shot is less accurate at this stage, but I have seen CLEAR boy bits for 2 of my boys with that shot (Arthur and Benjamin) and I know what I'm seeing! ;) Neil said straight away that he looks different to the others, and I know what he means but can't put my finger on it. His nose looks a little higher to me, but we really didn't get a good crisp image as she had it quite magnified all the time, so it was fuzzy.

Anyway, a good scan! He lay on his back for the latter part, and stretched his legs about now and then, and opened and closed his hands in front of his face. He was lying on his placenta, and looked remarkably like Benjamin did - all laid back on a pillow of a placenta! - at his scan!

Boys are causing trouble downstairs so I must quickly post pics and get this posted! The scanner seems broken so I have had to take a photo of the pictures. Hope they turn out okay! We got 4 pictures, but the first two have a nice loop of my (apparently not empty!) bowel in front of the baby's legs! So here are the OTHER two! ;) First one is more magnified - how we saw the whole scan. The second one is the GREAT nub shot - don't need to explain where it is for you even! :) Look at his little hand opened wide (fingers bent at the tops, thumb scooping across the palm area!) - so sweet! :) And such tiny feeties!





Back soon to write more details as I remember them - I'm sure there was more I wanted to add! But I MUST go downstairs now!