Instead, the husband decided to get out of Christmas lunch with the inlaws and opening/assembling any further craptastic plastic toys by developing pancreatitis and, rather scarily, drivibg himself to the hospital at 7am.  Leaving a certain heavily pregnant wife to deal with Santa present opening, car packing, getting the troops ready and doing the hour long drive to my parents’ place solo.  No mean feat.

I do not apologise for the fact that my children had chocolate and lollies for breakfast, nor for the fact that getting out of the house necessitated a lot of screaming and some tears on my part.

Anyway.

Long story short, mr hissychick’s gallbladder was found to be the cause of the pancreatitis (much, much less scary than the other possible causes), the kids survived and enjoyed Christmas Day blah blah blah fishpaste.

The husband was discharged yesterday morning after a three night stay….and his gallbladder removal surgery scheduled for next Tuesday.  The day before my due date.

Fast forward to today.  I woke at 5:50 am this morning after another totally relaxing late pregnancy night’s sleep (think waking three times between 10 pm and 12 am to go to the toilet, 1 am with night sweats, and everytime I needed to pee or roll over thereafter) and I felt….like I had dropped my bundle.

After a shower and managiing to nick my pink bits when I stupidly decided to give the ladygarden a tidy up sight unseen I sat on the edge of my bed and cried with exhaustion and frustration.  Perhaps it’s was the last of the adrenaline of the last few days leaving my body…but I don’t think it’s that.

Yes people, I’ve reached that point where abject fear of childbirth is outweighed by the desire to feel semi human again.

And it seems Bertramina is sympathetic to my cause.  OB checkup this morning revealed she is well engaged and good to go, with the lovely and calm Dr J reassuring me all was well and that he would be seeing me before the husband’s little surgical jaunt.

My feeling is soon, very soon. 

So on that note I am off to eat fresh pineapple and watch as many episodes of Mad Men as I can.

Until next time….smooches.  Scared smooches.

And the dreadful realisation that I am no longer entirely sure just who my husband is anymore.

Words cannot describe how vulnerable I am feeling right now.  This. Is. Not. Happening.

“Irritable is an understatement, and I’m not ready for this” I replied.

“And why would you be ready, you’re not quite 35 weeks!” he grinned.

“Well unless I’m going crazy I’m sure I felt her drop yesterday. I had the wierdest back pain….” I ventured.

“Let’s take a look shall we?”

Cue palpation, my doctor’s expert hands doing the telltale headlock check low on my abdomen.

“OK let’s do a quick ultrasound…would look at that, she is down low, her head is on the brim.  What are your plans for Christmas?”

“Hahahahahahahahahahaha…(oh fuck)”.

And so after a BP check and urine sample check I was on my merry way…in denial and disbelief.

“See you in two weeks…I think you’ll still be pregnant then. Maybe”.

Although I profess surprise, I really shouldn’t given my non existent fuse and panicked final Christmas shopping of late, as well as last night’s frantic attempted fitting of a baby seat in our car.

Guess I really should start washing some baby clothes and packing a hospital bag then. You know. Just. In. Case.

Gulp.

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.

~T.S Eliot ‘Marina’~

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but being the queen of slack tarts and sadly addicted to the non time consuming or undivided attention requiring farcebook I just haven’t felt the creative juices flow in the way required for a blog post worthy of your attention.

It gives me the guilts really, seeing as I should be:
a) recording precious details of my third bun in the oven (what am I, about sixteen and a half weeks? yes it’s that bad)
b) regaling you with amusing anecdotes about the cheekier than ever total two year old miss E
c) sharing the latest profound and/or profoundly funny sayings to emanate from my fourteen four year old sage’s rosebud mouth.
d) giving you an update on the MIA blogger that is mr hissychick (although he is busily repainting the interior of our house as we speak after getting the colour wrong in my absence last time. Painful story folks who don;t yet know it, painful).

However I find myself awash in the happy hormones of the second trimester, where I have the attention span of a gnat and I struggle with keeping my attention on anything….ohhh new baby smell!  Teeny tiny singlets! If you get my drift.  Combine that with working, house managing and trying to keep up with and at least somewhat engaged with my two delicious daughters, the youngest of whom will only take a daytime nap if we are in the car and you get the drift.

So. If you’d still like to play in between my sporadic posts email me or search for me hissychick[at]msn[dot]com and you too can kill nanoseconds of your day with me on the old book with a face.

Peace out.

Risk of Down Syndrome using combined ultrasound and blood test results is 1:7602.
Trisonomy 13 and 18 is 1:13365.

Quite simply it doesn’t get any better than this:

So lovely to share the sneaky peak of our little one with A, E and my Mum- even if the boisterous behaviour of my two biggest ‘uns was enough to visibly pale the complexion of the first time mother to be in the waiting room.  All that aside…it’s time to start sharing our news with the world outside of the computer (yes there is such a place).

And how exactly did I answer A’s tricky question of the century- “Mummy how did the baby get in your tummy when I wasn’t looking?”  That can definitely wait!

Twelve weeks.

To mark this auspicious date I will be having my NT scan done by a specialist and will be informed of the risk of down syndrome and other such chromosomal quirks, having already done the necessary blood tests.

Both A and E will accompany me to the scan along with my Mum.  A is currently fascinated with all things baby, having already tagged along to my first midwife and OB appointment, marvelling at the ten week scan that was done then and totally delighted by the chance to listen to the heartbeat.

She has ensured that I get to the toilet promptly when I’ve been ill, have had chewing gum on hand and even purchased my some chuckies for the train journey to work.

Best of all, she has already gravely informed my mother in law that “Mummy’s baby is going to come out of her vagina, and that Mummy will probably yell when that happens”.

Ahem.

I too share my daughter’s excitement, but also a degree of trepidation.  You may recall that a couple of months ago I referred obliquely in a post about a friend going through a tough time?

I’m here to tell you that that tough time was diagnosis of mosaic down syndrome via an amniocentesis, and her subsequent decision to terminate the pregnancy at around 17 weeks.

I am not here to judge. I am pro choice.  But I also saw the photo of her beautiful little girl, delivered after an induction.  I’ve held the tiny hat that was placed on her head, the miniscule booties that sheathed her feet.  I know how much she weighed, and how long she was from the details on her birth and mortuary cards.

And my dog, I am terrified of having to face the same situation, of having to make the decision of whether to proceed or not with a pregnancy outside of the so called norm.

Tomorrow I want to know the risks.  But I don’t want to consider the possibiiity that everything might not be perfect.  I’m not sure that even makes sense given that I have requested the test.

For now I hold onto hope, that this (to me) miraculous pregnancy will continue to be textbook normal, and that the most I will have to worry about tomorrow afternoon is choosing which picture of bub I will use to share our news with the world.

Doesn’t mean I am going to be able to sleep well tonight.

OK this sounds far too depressing.  Fingers crossed that the next lot posts will be far more shiny happy, with good news tomorrow, a belated E birthday post and the usual sassy comments from the clever clogs A.  Not to mention celebration at the gradual demise of my nemesis nausea.

Positive thoughts…calm blue ocean…and stuff.

You’ve been warned.

Hoping my first* OB’s appointment on Friday will bring some relief (ideally in a pharmaceutical form), because right now I’m not feeling all that fresh and happy lala and able to write posts of any interest whatsoever.  Please excuse me if I don’t comment on your blogs until then.  I am reading and thinking of you all, honest and for…gahhh..

Bleurgh.

* The appointment I managed to miss last Friday, what with the fully sick miss E and an inability to write the correct date on the calendar and all.  I am so the clichéd mum to be of number three.

I’d like see a fat chick book that deals with that.

Off I go to worship the porcelain god again….