This Is The Goo I've Got

She continues to struggle on in a similar sort of vein. She’s got about enough energy for one hour of usefulness per day, the rest of the time she spends lying on the sofa or on the bed or in the bed.

We’ve started making certain preparations. An opportunity arose to acquire a rather spiffing pram/buggy device, which she capitalised on, as well as picking up some other guff too under similar circumstances. Though this will save us a lot of money in the long term, it does mean that the house is now full of crap.

She remarks that she can now feel the weight of the little fella, which must be quite peculiar. She’s very apprehensive about the ordeal which she faces in the not-too-distant future, but there’s no turning back now. I suppose I should probably rein in all this cocky swagger, because I doubt that it will all be meadows and flowers for me either, but I consider that it’s my role to be relatively optimistic. I think that this might help her.

Yesterday was our 12-week scan, and I’m very pleased to report that all signs were good, and it was wonderful to watch baby-to-be moving around. The downside of this is that Karen is now extremely conscious of baby-to-be’s existence, and every time we drive over a speed bump, or she goes to the toilet to be sick, she is worried that it is upsetting the foetus.

I’ve told her that the foetus is perfectly used to vomiting and speed bumps by now, but I’m not sure if this is any help. I guess she’s going to try and stay as still as possible for the next six months.

We’ve decided that having made it through the 12-week scan successfully, we are free to get excited and attached. So we’re telling people when the opportunity arises, and also tossing possible names back and forth.

Six months suddenly doesn’t seem like that long. Which is good, because I’m very eager. I’m also hoping that the baby takes on Karen’s tendency to sleep pretty much all the time, and my tendency to spend all waking hours perma-smiling.

As a general rule, babies don’t make me gooey – I think that they are hideous things, with a propensity to defacate into their own clothing and insert anything that isn’t tied down into their mouths. But this one’s mine. Which, quite frankly, makes it the best one, and it’s obviously not going to do any of these disgusting things.

As we approach the end of the first trimester (in English, we’re nearly a third of the way through), we look forward with relish to all the good things that have been promised us. Apparently the middle third is the easy bit, where the morning sickness goes away and all the cute stuff happens. How can I refuse?

Christmas seems like a sensible time to do all the meeting with the family and telling them all about it. I understand from my research that it is considered rude to wait until after the birth before passing this information on. Never one to buck convention, so it shall be.

Life in general continues to race on at a terribly exciting pace around me, while I fret needlessly about trivial things, and revisit the same thoughts over and over and over again, not really so much in search of answers but just for the exercise. Small things happen that make me ache for fatherhood, and I remind myself that if I just sit tight, it will all come soon.

And I wonder about whether my girlfriend has stumbled across this site, and what its purpose will be in 6 months when the baby is born, and whether I should keep writing it then, and whether I should keep writing it now.

And then I daydream a little, fart, scratch myself, and wish for snow.

She’s still being sick in the morning, and we are now past eight weeks, so the worst of the pressure has passed. Her latest purchase is a pair of acupressure wristabands which she says are quite uncomfortable, but they might be working. Let’s see what happens on Monday when they go up against the 7:30 start and a full day at work – that will be a battle and no mistake.

Myself, I’m settled down, I’d say. There isn’t really much for me to be doing at this stage – I guess that my biggest responsibilities come after the baby is born, and I take on half (or thereabouts) of looking after the little fella. At this early stage, there isn’t really a significant change to our normal daily life, but I expect that towards the later stages of the pregnancy I will be feeling a little left out. Ah well, c’est la vie.

She’s been very low on energy lately – she is going to bed even earlier than before, and the rest of the time she is generally lying down on either the sofa or the bed. She’s a little upset that I will find her unsexy and go hunting for a replacement. I’ve so far failed to come up with a real killer reply to that one, apart from “that won’t happen.” That’s all that I can think of.

I won’t deny that things are changing. But I’m really not in a position to forecast what will happen next – whether things will change back in time, or whether they will just change into something else entirely. It’s clearly a period of transition, so I’m just going to sit tight, hold her close, and we’ll take this ride together. Because I love her, and that’s what we do.