Not Long Now...

Today I'm 30 weeks pregnant. This means that in 10 weeks I may have my baby! (I say 'may' cos my Mum went overdue with me and all my brothers, so I expect the same to happen to me so it might still be 12 weeks before we get to see Beanie in the flesh.)

The picture on the left is how I look now. I feel huge and awkward; I'm finding it hard to get up out of chairs. I walk slower; Jamie is often a few feet ahead of me before he realises I'm not there and I waddle a bit. It's all a sign that things are progressing.

Right now, our baby weighs about 2.5 pounds. Average birth weight for babies is 6 - 8 pounds or so. This means that our baby has to more than double in weight in the next 10 weeks. This puts the picture of my bump into perspective; I have ALOT of growing to do!

This also explains the constant tiredness - I've been feeling like a right lazy lump for the last week but now I think I'm going to start taking afternoon naps :-)

Some sort of review

The start of a new year/era/episode should come with a review of the one gone previously. I saw this on another site (yes, I'm stealing ideas, there is no limit to how low I will stoop to appear interesting) and decided that a review of my travel would be the most interesting thing to do, since I spent most of my time travelling anyway. Here is my year by places visited:

Prague, Czech Republic (x2)
Hungary, Budapest (also x2)
Sczcecin, Poznan and Warsaw, Poland (1 day in each city so not as interesting as it first sounds)
Barcelona, Spain (and I even had spare time to visit a tourist attraction!)
Southampton, UK (x11)
Zagreb, Croatia (x2)
Hannover, Germany (as ever not interesting)
St. Petersburg, Russia
Zilina, Slovakia
Olathe, KA, USA
Athens, Greece
Ljubljana, Slovenia (x2, also visited briefly Izola and Lake Bled)
Roscommon, Ireland
Tobago, Caribbean
Moscow, Russia
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Actually, this year wasn't that boring since we moved from UK to Ireland (Cork), I managed to keep my job and work from home, settled into a new house, Jamie got a job, we bought lots of furniture for our new house, and we're having a baby.

2008 is going to be a good one. Happy New Year to all.

Christmas hospital trips and not alot else

Well, I can definitely say that this Christmas was different.

While at J's parents place on Christmas day, killing time before the serving of the traditional turkey and trimmings, I was struck with a bout of (what I thought was) indigestion pain. J's Mum, being a clever nursey type, said that's not indigestion. It's apparently not supposed to be that bad. So following two calls to South Doc and one visit to South Doc, I found myself sitting in the A&E department of CUH.

After 3.5 hours, the nice American/Canadian doctor said 'I can't provide pain relief cos you're pregnant' and sent me on a wheelchair ride over to the maternity hospital.

After another round of poking, peeing into bottles and answering the same questions, they decided they liked the look of me and kept me for the night. So after missing my turkey and trimmings, I got a bed and tea & toast at 1:30am, 26th Dec. And why? It's most likely I have gallstones. I spent St Stephen's night in hospital too - as they were about to discharge me that morning, my body decided that bourbon creams with tea (recently consumed for elevenses) were a good reason to attack and the pain came back. I got Pethidine for that :-)

Since leaving hospital I have had 1 bout of the extremely severe and horrible pain from gallstones and as long as I stay away from chocolate and rich or fatty foods I should be fine (so far so good).

That's about the most interesting thing that happened over Xmas. I do have to thank J's mum who provided us with leftover turkey, so I got my seasonal fix. We didn't travel anywhere for fear of getting struck down in gallstone induced agony.

I have a scan booked so they can confirm the presence of gallstones, as long as Beanie keeps his big head out of the way. But even so, nothing can be done until Beanie has made his exit/entrance (really depends on your point of view there, doesn't it?). I have normal liver functions - how many of you can say that!

I will keep you posted, although, gallstones aren't that interesting.