Pluto?

Interesting conversation occurred at coffee time in the doctors' room today. There were 4 male GP partners and myself in the room, and 2 of them were having a long and involved conversation about the practice nurses, and problems that keep erupting with them and communication issues. Here is how it went:-

Partner 1: "What you've got to remember is that men are from Mars, women are from Venus..."

Partner 2: (pantomiming a secret nod towards me) "Careful, there's one in the room. And she's got pregnancy hormones...watch out!"

Partner 1: "No that doesn't count; she's a doctor."

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So where am I from? I'm confused.

When I was 26...

I was going to try to do this each year for my birthday. Oh well, I missed that slightly, but may as well fill you in on all the things I did for the first time last year...

...rode my first horse.

...resuscitated a newborn baby for the first time

...took my first trip to America.

...had my first ultrasound scan

...attended a 90th birthday party for the first time.

...had my first day at the races.

...took my first membership exams.

...danced with a soldier for the first time.

...bought my first proper makeup that cost more than £5 per item. In Bloomingdales!

...had my first midwife appointment.

...sanded a floor.

...had my first bout of sciatica.

...took my first yellow cab.

...bought my first tube of eye cream.

...went off chocolate!! (briefly)

...conceived our first child!

a new adventure

I've been thinking about how to write this post for a long long time now. Far too long in fact, and I don't blame everyone if they've given up on me and assumed I've gone back to live entirely in the real world. I have some exciting news that has been rather too long delayed...

I am enceinte, gravid, expectant and fecund. I am with child. I have one in the oven. I am knocked up, in the family way and up the duff. In fact, we are going to have a baby in December.

My reasons for not blogging so far may be poor, but I'll make my excuses anyway. For the first 12 weeks it was not public knowledge, I felt hideous and ill all the time, and I couldn't settle myself to believe I wouldn't have an early miscarriage til I'd seen the 12 week scan and knew everything was fine. If I had been able to blog about it during that time, I think I would have sounded rather morose and depressed about the whole thing. Pregnancy seemed to mainly involve vomiting, having no energy to spare for anything but work, and being told lots of things I shouldn't do. None of it really felt real, even though we'd been wanting a baby for some time.

Since then I don't have such a good excuse, except that suddenly it all became very hard to encapsulate into words. Also I have been going to bed uncommonly early, due to feeling wiped out after a day at work, whereas late at night was when I usually used to blog. However, I had a week of leave last week, during which I slowed down enough to look at clouds, lie in bed feeling my growing bump, and think about things a little bit again. I also felt the baby moving for the first time, like a fluttering inside me, or like the feeling that I've just left my stomach behind on a rollercoaster. The bonding has been a bit slow to get started, but suddenly I'm really genuinely excited, and starting to feel how strong my love is for the tiny scrap of a thing growing inside me. So I thought it was about time I shared my news with you. Forgive me for taking so long.