Matt, Ruby & Michael

Ruby's come back with 6 items of baby clothing, and I found myself frozen for a while, contemplating it all. Analysis paralysis, as pundits would say.

Little things like this can almost freak me out. Just when you think you've got the whole concept, something comes along and hooks into an emotion you've never felt before. This is our first, remember, so a lot of this is quite a surprise.

I had softended up a little. Last week, I took Ruby to a few baby/maternity shops just to get used to the whole scene. Good research, looking at relative pricing, thinking how long bump would be utilising things.

There is a big, powerful industry behind all of this. We're not totally sure if we like everything we see, but nevertheless it is very easy to slip into the flow.

A rapid tour of bump's anatomy, and confirmation of what we kinda guessed...

Cue Rolf Harris voice: "Can you tell what it is, yet?"

The first scan was much easier to identify (though at the time, I would have doubted that). Now that bump is getting bigger, there's less 'dark matter' around him (yes, him - it's pretty much confirmed). Bones and other bits are showing up, more organs are available to gawp at, and there's just so much more going on.

This scan is all about organ examination, measuring heart valves, finding kidneys and so on. Whilst it's all very nice to know that there's a full complement of giblets, there wasn't much in the way of actually getting a good look at him. Fair enough, the majority of our scan was once again performed by a trainee under the constant gaze of a specialist, and therefore it was less of a tour of Ruby's internal scenery and more of a mad dash to find a parking space. Ultrasound scanning is very tricky as it's so 3-d, and the subject is moving - watching it all is like watching someone trying to parallel park a submarine in a fast moving river.

So please excuse the non-understandability of the pic [as yet not scanned in].

Suffice to say that all is well. Everything looks fine and normal. There is a small case of the Davis's tendencies towards a broad pate, for which I apologise to Ruby in advance, as come June she's bound to curse me for that.

Okay, so it's an ultrasound, which means it's like one of those stereogram things that you can stare for ages at and see only noise.



To make matters worse, it's a *printout* of an ultrasound scan from a severely overworked printer. Thus, without computer trickery, it looks even more like a smudge. Can't quite tell if it answers the burning '10 fingers 10 toes' question, but we've got proof that there's two arms and two legs - and a head of course.

Right, for those of you who don't see it yet, this is Bump in profile, reclined with head to left, feet to right (which you can't see very well). The white streak is the spine, below which is a dark area of amneotic fluid, a.k.a. foetus-pee.

Bump is currently the size of your thumb, bouncing around in a waterbed the size of an orange.

So we're all clear at 11 weeks 3 days. We're told that Bump has a 'really great placenta' (apparently - does this mean it'll make it to the centrefold of 'Midwives Only' magazine?), and is bang on average size. It's also a real wriggler. It settled down after a bit but settled in the corner. It wasn't until Ruby had a good giggle that Bump gently floated up a bit so we could grab a look at the all important neck bit.

It's probably the kind of picture only a parent would love, but at least we had the benefit of the 'motion picture' version - though this was a sort of bacon-slicer's view of a pop video - all wierd angles and 'guess the body-part' - all this whilst watching Bump rolling over in true Duvet-Thief style, jiving to unheard music or simply giving a 'Ciao' wave of the hand. That and the little heart pumping away like a couple of amorous jellyfishes.

You had to be there.

Well, today it's become very obvious that this isn't a theoretical situation - there really is somebody in there that likes Chili Con Carne and Tonic water with lime. It's not just a curious bag of chemicals sloshing around in Ruby's system. We can't wait until the next photo session which will be 10th February. The ultrasound analysis software puts the due date forward to 22 June, but I hear the first one's always late. 26th at the earliest, and I still reckon it will be 1-2 July.

Isn't the web wonderful?

We're struck by one of those big lifetime waypoints and we're gasping for information. Luckily, we've got access to the web. However, for folks like us, it's like finding a fire hydrant in the middle of the sahara. You can't just take a little sip...

As we've forsaken some consumer durables for geek stuff like wireless ADSL and his'n'hers laptops, we've created a lovely Douglas Copeland scene today, the two of us nesting under the duvet with our lappies like breakfast-in-bed trays. We surf the baby sites, ohh-ing and ahh-ing over the sage advice.

We learned a lot today. I think this is a trend starting. But lest we forget, lessons from the web can be good, they can be bad, and they can be indifferent. It all happens so fast, sometimes you can't tell which kind of lesson you're getting. Trouble is, you're duty bound to balance every bad or indifferent lesson with a good one, and so you enter this info-cocaine cycle. And we browse on until our lappies blink into narcolepsy.

Now that we're used to the fact, let the circus commence!

Right, I think I've come to terms with this, and wife is working on it. We always knew what would be on the cards when this happened. An end to spontaneous life, unplanned excursions, hedonistic jaunts into the unknown. However, quite frankly, our home life wasn't quite the chandelier-swinging orgy that our depression told us it should be...

So perhaps this is all for the good.

But there's so much to take in.

- Finish major work to house
- Take precautions for lead based paint under 30 years of glosswork
- Room full of our collected junk needs to be cleared for nursery
- So many little DIY jobs to do
- Central Heating needs to be sorted once and for all
- House needs to be made toddler-safe

But first

- Switch doctors to someone good and local
- Organise scans, midwife, hospital visits
- Find out what's going on
- Don't tell anyone, cause it's too early

> blurk<<br />
It's interesting how all this reminds me of first exams. Suddenly, life has deadlines - after which things will take one path or another. There is a definite lack of control in the air. It's a long time since we felt like this.

Easiest thing is to just kick back and make a revision timetable. Nice diversionary tactic. I've patiently drawn up the LMP chart with waypoints. At some point, though, we've got to start doing stuff. It just doesn't quite feel real.

Wife has tiredness, nausea, cramps, sudden passion for Golden Wonder ready-salted crisps, chocolate, and is late on her period. Yesterday I persuaded her to take a test, and it was positive. Today, my wife thinks there's something wrong with the testing kit. Today I am an expectant father...

Yesterday (Sunday) I went out shopping for food as my parents were dropping in. My wife had been feeling under the weather all week - longer in fact. Her leg cramps were getting worse, she's been feeling sick, and I had a funny feeling about it all.

We've been trying for about a year and a half now. In our mid 30s, we had settled into the 'Dinky' lifestyle and didn't really believe that we were going to have kids without medical intervention. However, a drive to go 'low carb' since Spring has bought dividends - we've lost weight (though are still 'heavy'), and feel much healthier.

However, a string of coincidences has made life very interesting all of a sudden.

I went out shopping for the dinner I was to cook for my parents, surreptitiously purchasing a pregnancy kit first (two tests). If only to stop my own wondering at the wifely condition. On shopping for the rest, I virtually bumped into my mother-in-law (both of us trying to find the Balsamic Vinegar). Although she lives close by, we haven't seen each other in ages. As we chat, I try to cover the pregnancy test in my basket, and also feel a little embarrassed that we haven't invited her over - but then, with my parents, I wanted to discuss a big career step...

So, having left an open invitation, I return home and wife and I engage in boistrous banter over the test, to which she decides to take there and then. I pretend to water the plants as she 'performs', and I wonder about how I'd react if it were positive. As if. Time goes by.

'Matt?' she murmurs from the bathroom. Oh god, I'll have to fish out the instructions and explain every last point. 'How long's it been?' she continues. Three, maybe four minutes. Test should be done by now. I go for a tactful 'two minutes'. A little later, she needs the instructions. Two dots. Not one, not none, but two dots, one paler than the other. The instructions state quite clearly that there's a 99% chance that there's a bun in her oven.

She refuses to believe or trust the test, but needs crisps now - oh yes, she asked about that. Why did I not get crisps at the supermarket? We are on a low-carb thing, so I kinda 'skirted round' the crisp department hoping she'd forget.

She orders me to go out and get her some crisps - ready salted, Golden Wonder brand, not Gourmet Kettle Chips (too oily) or Walkers (no reason given). So I drive the 0.7 miles (no time to waste) to the local shops to buy crisps. Images of the Elephant Man start looming. Scenes from Alien. I can picture my wife, wasted by aeons of effort, jolt into one last fit of pushing as every last organ is squeezed like toothpaste from her groin, before collapsing in a wet mess of tissue.

An overactive imagination can be useful at times, but at that point, a lobotomy would have been nice.

I get low-carb cracker things that sound really nice and almost fit our diet, whilst a huge imaginary klaxon hoots 'baby alert' in my ears. I'm going to be a dad.

On my return, I realise I've got it wrong.

'What are these?' she asks. Healthy. Well, as healthy as fried carbohydrate-rich snacks can be. It's not good enough, and she grabs her car keys whilst I return to cleaning duties in preparation for the evening. She returns with crisps, scotch eggs, chocolate and a whole lot of other stuff, which get filed under 'comfort food' in the larder. And half a dozen limes.

Definitely. These are cravings. Years of a low salt diet, and all of a sudden, blood supply for two ain't going to work without Sodium. Carbs, so she can eat for two. Limes? Sure - vitamin C. Bless mother nature - she knows best.

Now what?