Under pressure, but at least I'm making decisions!

Jaysus I have just under 7 weeks to go and everything is seeming very real. I am getting it on both sides now as my ma and the boyf's mum are asking me loads of questions and pushing me into the decision zone.

"Have you decided on the pushchair?"
"Well you see....."

"And the cot?"
"Mmmm, yes we are going to get one. Just don't know which one yet....."

"Steriliser?"
"I think I'm getting one of those Avent electric sterilisers for about forty quid and I'll get an electric breast pump too."
"Don't they have sterilising tablets anymore?" Cue tumbleweeds as I stare at her blankly.
"Is that something you put in the microwave?"
"Maybe they don't have those anymore....It might be more 1972...."
I of course snickered. "Well a lot of things have changed since then...." I added.

And the questions went on and on and on and on... They mean well but it's booming in like crunch time.

After all of the panic about the pushchair and reading countless reviews and testing and eliminating, I am back to my original first choice, the Quinny Buzz pushchair with Dreami Carrycot and a Mama's and Papa's Pilko Pramette . I'm leaning towards the Quinny but considering all of the pallava I have been through considering that it was my first choice, I will have one last test of the Pilko in the next couple of days. I budgeted for about £500 and the Quinny will be about £375 (It should be £469) and I might be able to get the Pilko for about £250 (RRP 300).

I have also decided on the car seat (Maxi Cosi Cabriofix) plus an Easybase so that we don't f*ck up the installation (all together should cost £170, will probably cost £144). I still have no clue about the cot, but that's my next task....

I have managed to make decisions about nursing bras (trusty Marks and Spencers), which are funny looking things, the baby carrier (Baby Bjorn Active Carrier) and have done at least half of the baby shower list. I set it up with My Registry which enables me to put the list together from lots of stores and people can mark what has been bought like a traditional registry list. I have lied to both of the mothers and said that I have done the guest list for the shower but I will get this done in the next few days as I need to send the invite, and to top everything off, I have put together a budget spreadsheet.

I feel tired just reading what I have typed....

Catch Up

I had this vision that I'd be winding down in the run up to going on maternity leave mid-April but instead I am running around like a blue arsed fly. It's at times like this when I realise that it pays to be one of those anal retentive organised people because the next 8 weeks till the bambino arrives (that's if she doesn't arrive early) are going to be so hectic.

I have 4 weeks left of work so I have lots of meetings to go to (I take the piss about the amount of internal meetings I attend but I actually have lots of external ones too), I need to get up to date with all of my accounts, do handovers and clear my backlog of things that I always intend to do but haven't got around to, otherwise known as a To-Do List.

I've started organising my baby registry list but haven't remembered to sort out the guestlist, but I am meeting with a couple of friends at the weekend and hopefully it can all get sorted. I have had moments where I have gotten pissy about this whole baby shower mallarky. I know it's all well intentioned but combined with the shitload of things I have to do, it feels like Yet Another Thing. When I agreed to one, I just didn't think about what I would need to do in order for it to happen and I wish I had because I would have been more organised... Ah coulda, woulda, shoula....

After thinking that we had made up our minds about our pushchair, I have backtracked and now have to spend almost every day reading reviews and product tests to try to get to grips with what is out there. It is truly mind boggling and it's clear that people buy different pushchairs for different reasons, regardless of whether it's considered to be technically good or sh*t. Our original choice, the Quinny Buzz, we love the look and feel of, but in hindsight there are some potential practicality issues and on this occasion, size does matter. Not only will I be a user of public transport, but we are off to the US at the end of August and need to feel like we can travel with a relatively light pushchair and not have to weigh ourselves down. Some people love the Quinny Buzz, others hate it, and I'm torn on elements of it. But for something that costs almost £500 if you buy the whole frigging lot, I need to love it...

We've changed hospitals as we liked the very positive things that were said about the new place, plus we even brought more baby clothes today. We had a day off and popped up to Peter Jones in Knightsbridge and got lots of basic white stuff for the bambino's arrival. Due to the paranoia about the possibility of the bambino being a boy, we have stuck with neutral stuff.

On top of all of this, we are researching stuff for the new house, dealing with the paperwork and headaches of moving, trying to pack up stuff in the flat so it doesn't creep up on us, decluttering yet again for the charity shop, and trying to ensure that we spend quality time together. Oh and of course I am trying to blog, plus tooling around with a few web projects. Oh and how could I forget reading about breastfeeding and birthplans....

Everyday I feel different about the breastfeeding - some days confident, but since starting to read about it, more often than not, anxious...but that's whole other post.

8 weeks to go.....scary flipping stuff!

The Contented Little Baby Panic

I put off ordering The New Contented Little Baby Book for as long as possible, but what with there being less than 9 weeks to go now, I figured it was safe. I'm sh*tting a break because within 2 pages I realised that 1) we have so much to do 2) we haven't done very much and 3) we are still so frickin clueless!

I am going to sit down and write my own list and prioritise things and set targets. I really don't want it all to pile up on me for my maternity leave and there is always that fear of the bambino arriving early. It seems like we need lists to organise our lives at the moment because between work, selling the flat, buying the house, the bambino and all the life that happens in between, we have a hell of a lot of stuff to do. I know that we'll do it but I don't want us to go into a meltdown afterwards. Jaysus, I haven't even done the stuff for the babyshower that his mum asked me for...

This can't be like the lists that I create that never get looked at though....

I did find a site called Kaboodle.com that lets me create my own baby registry...I just need to find the time to decide what to put on it...Feck...nothing is straightforward...

Oh and we've changed our hospital so I have to go for more appointments...

And the hospital didn't include my summary sheet in my notes which strangely enough is the piece of paper that mentions that I have sarcoidosis. Whilst it's not active, apparently I need to be accessed and plan of care be determined by a consultant...

And I still have to finish reading The New Contented Little Baby Book. I have read the reviews which are mixed because it's all about routines and let's be fair now, most adults can't cope with rigid routines so it must be difficult for them to enforce it on babies, but I also know people who swear by the book, so I'll have to draw my own conclusions.

Now, I'm off to think about what sofa we want for the new house...Oh and the TV here at the flat has decided that its sound should go bust so we'll be getting a new TV sooner than planned...And the bambino is kicking more than ever at the moment. All sorts of body parts have taken to protuding out at strange times and she seems to lift herself up and down as if she's doing press-ups in there. I have my work cut out for me...

False Braxton Hicks and Finally Buying Baby Clothes

I'm starting to wonder who's pregnant here as the boyf falls asleep on the sofa far more often than I do. It's as if his body has said to him that he needs to get his sleep now, whilst he still can...

I've been having lots of weird twinges, which of course had me paranoid that I was experiencing Braxton Hicks (vague labour type thing, but not real labour) but I think the bambino just looks likes to jump up and down in my va-jay-jay and has extended her abilities to being able to kick or punch me in my left side...

Yesterday, I finally did it. I brought some baby clothes and I can't believe how small they are! I'm trying to order more stuff on Gap.com at the moment through a US delivery service Borderlinx, which enables UK residents to order from American sites that don't deliver overseas. The exchange rate is so good, it's be too good to miss. In the meantime though, I got some neutral stuff as our paranoia about the margin of error when it comes to girls means that we've decided to get neutral stuff for now....

The boyf has just woken up on the couch and I called him 'sleepy head'. He let male pride rear its head and announced that he was never going to sleep again. That's quite a promise! Unfortunately he's just dozed off again as I heard a distinct snore...

If one more person asks me if I'm afraid about the labour, I will frigging scream. The joys of being pregnant mean that despite the fact that you're cacking yourself about pushing something the size of a basketball out of something that normally fits penises in it, is overriden by the acceptance that it has to happen and obviously you want to see your baby.

Jaysus a Baby Shower

People have been going on at me for ages about having a baby shower and I have succumbed and agreed. Thing is, I think I am only twigging what it is in the context of myself and I suddenly feel very nervous. I can't imagine playing Baby Charades, or Baby Scrabble or other such word puzzles involving baby words. I love babies and I'm excited about the bambino, but I don't do cheesy. I suddenly thought of Miranda in Sex and the City demanding that there weren't storks all over the place and getting really sh*tty with Charlotte who was stork crazy. I'm not anywhere near as bad as that, but I wonder what I've let myself in for.

I have several friends with kids and lots that don't. What if the one's that don't think that I've been snatched by baby aliens? It's like when I went to my friends hen party a few years back and was expecting a pretty wild night. We had some crazy times back in our 'youth' so it wasn't a leap of imagination to expect a bit of sauciness. It was a very placid affair and whilst I also hate cheesy hen nights, especially L plates, there was nothing even remotely sex associated in sight! I remember wondering where the girl who danced on tables and did the occasional bit of flashing on a girls night out went! I felt like I hardly knew her!

I was going to leave it all to my friend but now that I'm paranoid about a frilly affair, I think I'll do some research on this baby shower stuff...

The Last Stretch

I'm 30 weeks pregnant tomorrow and I have been dreaming about going into labour early for the past few nights. I don't ever get to the point where I even start to have contractions but I wake up feeling panicked about five times a night. If I have palpitations dreaming about the thought of it, God help me if the dream moves on a bit with actual contractions!

Tomorrow, I have decided, will be the day I put together my What to Do in an Emergency list for my crackerjack colleagues. If I leave it in the hands of the God's, I could be having vulture boy, Barry from Eastenders (my boss), and MSlash getting hot water from the tea machine and using the jackets and coats for 'towels'. They would keel over if my waters broke or anything untoward happened. Bless 'em!

Because the boyf sometimes goes abroad for a few days with work, I want to ensure that there is a smooth system for what is to happen if I need to go to hospital as when I had the severe reaction to my Wagamama's salad in January and ended up in hospital, it was like a bad comedy trying to let my family know. Wouldn't you know that the one day that the boyf goes away after almost two months and I end up throwing up repeatedly and collapsing, my mother's mobile is broken, the bro was in Canada, the boyf's mum was in Africa, and lil bro was being a typical 17 year old and screening his calls. The list will have a plan a, b and c, and no doubt it'll get f*cked up....

I am soooo tired at the moment that I think about going to sleep from about an hour after I woke up. This makes for a veeery long day. The bambino is kicking like there is no tomorrow because of the reduced space she has due to the size she is at this stage of the pregnancy. This means that she has taken to manoeuvring what feels like elbows or her feet and ramming them hard against my tummy so that they poke out like funny little bumps. I give her little rubs which then seems to set her off into lots of wriggles. She's a funny little thing!

Someone asked if we are all set for the bambino's arrival. Set? The only thing that the baby has is a pair of Havana sandles which a friend brought for her in Brazil. We've 'chosen' the pushchair, pram and car seat and that's it. Jaysus we have a lot to do.....

The Bambino at 21 weeks

Don't read this if you don't want to know the sex...

This was the scan where we found out the sex...sort of... Unfortunately the bambino is such an active baby that it was difficult to pin down to be sure about the sex. Eventually the midwife said that she was 'pretty certain' that it's a girl...but not to go overboard on pink.

My acupuncturist had done the dousing thing with the pendulum and it said that the baby was a boy and this was when I was about 10 weeks pregnant, so for ages we'd thought it was a boy going nuts in there.

We're very excited about our little girl who is a kicking maniac that doesn't like to rest very often. In the scan pic she is putting her thumb into her mouth. This was after showing off and moving around so much that they couldn't even measure her head initially as she was moving the hands and legs around whilst looking upwards. After a while I had to bounce up and down on the bed so that she eventually moved her head into a measurable position.

Seeing how much she had developed from when we'd seen her at 14 weeks was unbelievable. We saw her little bum, heart, kidneys, feet and all sorts of detail. She also likes to use the umbilical cord as a rattle.... I thought she was blowing bubbles but it turned out that it was the umbilical cord....

Because the sex of the baby is potentially in dispute, everyone we know is speculating about the sex. My ma, who claims to be psychic insists that it's a girl, the boyf is paranoid that it's a boy now (when we thought it was a boy, he became paranoid that it was a girl) and the rest of our friends are divided. Maybe we would have been better off just not asking about the sex but whatever comes out, we can hardly wait!

The Chosen Pushchair - Quinny Buzz

I'm pretty sure we've chosen our pushchair. It's the Quinny Buzz which we'll buy as a travel system with the Dreami Carrycot and a Maxi-Cosi car seat. It comes in a few different colours but we haven't decided what colour we'll go with yet.

I thought it would take us a lot longer to research but because we were looking for a travel system, it narrowed down the search to just a few brands. I'll post about the other travel systems that we looked at (Bugaboo, Mamas and Papas, Micralite) on a separate post.

As we'll be using a mixture of public transport, walking and driving it makes sense for us to buy something that caters to everything and whilst it is slightly bigger than we had hoped at 12.8kg, it has a lot of features that resonate well with us, such as a front and rear facing pushchair (pictured) which can also be angled to different positions. It unfolds automatically at a touch (it can be locked too) and the wheels are gas something-or-other so they're great for when you coming off or going onto trains, although bus drivers may not like it so much! It manouvers really well and it's a very smooth experience. We'll use it from when the bambino is 6 months old.

The pram is really cute and the hood of it has a handle incorporated in it which helps with when you take it off the frame. It comes with adaptors which can be fixed to the frame for when you want to set it up as a pram. When we tried to figure out how to do this without a demonstration, the boyf faffed around for a while with it, not realising that there were adaptors. We were very pleased with ourselves when we saw it attached to the frame but quicklybecame nervous at how wobbly it seemed, and then a woman walked by and it fell off! Fortunately it's not complex to set it up as a pram but it doesn't come off easily either. Apparently people use the carrycot as a moses basket as well, but I don't think we'll do that. It's nice to know that we have the option though!


The Maxi-Cosi car seat will be mostly used in the car but we can use it for taking the bambino on short jaunts in it by using it as a pushchair. Apparently they should only be in it for no more than two hours a day though. Maxi-Cosi is also supposed to be the best car seat brand so we feel we've really lucked out by finding the Quinny Buzz travel system.

It doesn't come cheap though! It's supposed to retail for around £500 (close to $1000) but we will buy ours online or wherever we get the best deal. Annoyingly there was a fantastic deal on where we could have got it for just under £400 on one website, but for the sake of our sanity and space, we aren't planning to get the pushchair till we move/month before baby due. I am monitoring prices because if something really good comes up again, we'll just go for it.