Dr Who?

"BUGGER!?! %$@*!!!!" --- delightful language for a young mother-to-be, admittedly - but I honestly didn't expect SUCH heavy traffic at 9 in the morning - especially when I was only just on time too! A long line of blinking, winking red brake lights stretched as far as the eye could along that pin straight road into Northampton, while visions of me doing arm-wrenching three-point-turns out of too-full hospital parking lots made me shudder and, I'm ashamed to admit, swear a little more.

Either the time-angels or the traffic-angels were on my side that morning, because we arrived with plenty of time to spare - AND finding a parking spot right in front of the antenatal clinic itself! Voila!
A petite orange lady (her stiff hairsprayed bob matched her orange blouse EXACTLY - a bit odd, really) took my maternity notes from me, and when I reached into my folder to retrieve my still warm wee-sample for her (she'd asked for it!!) she recoiled in matronly horror! I felt like saying in a bit of hormone-aggravated indignation, "Listen lady - then why did you ask me: 'And do you have your urine sample for me?'" Honestly...
Craig settled down with a magazine into the much more homely, warm waiting room compared to the cold sanitisation of the scan department's. The proliferation of 'Mommy & Baby' magazines sprawled endlessly over the tables irritated me somehow. Did they think that just because you're pregnant that's all you're interested in? That your brain has shrunk to a decrepit, useless walnut?! Anyway, it didn't matter because I was called soon enough by a waddling sweetie of a nurse with eyes that twinkled kindly. She showed me into a neat little room that was NOT what I expected at all!

Little Diversion: This is another aspect of what I've called The Soutpiel Phenomenon: the dysjunction between your South African expectations and the English reality. You see, our expectations are naturally based on our past experience and knowledge gained from heresay, newspapers, television etc - and my experience of visiting a gynaecologist and what my friends have told me about their visits just did NOT coincide with what happened in that Northampton antenatal clinic! What did I expect? To be seen, solely, by a snazzily dressed gynaecologist in a plush, modern office, including a thorough physical examination and open chat. What happened instead? Well...

Sweet nurse Julie had me sit on the paper-covered examination table, and took my blood pressure - smiling at the very healthy reading. Next she checked my urine sample - also nice 'n healthy. "Please lie back on the bed so we can listen to baby's heartbeat!" Now THIS was a surprise! Once again in a state of utter maternal ecstasy, I strained to hear my baby's sprinting-stallion heartbeat - and then suddenly remembered Craig was out in the waiting room - still bereft of this experience... "Could I call my fiance? He hasn't heard our baby yet!"
"Of course, love!" and Nurse Julie beamed proudly as though she were my own mom!

Like an unembarassed schoolgirl with the best news in the world, I ran into the waiting room to grab an unsuspecting Craig by the hand - literally dragging him into the nurse's cubicle. Craig's face lit up with a light I can only describe as brandnew daddy-love when our baby's heartbeat eventually made its sonic appearance (after hiding almost deliberatelt away down in the deepest dark depths of his home! Oops - did I say 'his'?)
Nurse Julie slipped out to call Dr Aldritch -- and with that kind of name, I was rather taken aback when in walked a stocky, smiling Nigerian man! Very quickly and politely he explained he was the new registrar under Dr Aldritch and would be talking to me about my pregnancy's progress and the medication I'm on. No qualms there - he did a fabulous job though was interrupted by a cellphone call about a delivery ---- not the the kind of delivery you'd expect from a gynae: a delivery to his house! He then said he'd briefly consulting Dr Aldritch before we were free to go. Dr Aldritch appeared a few short minutes later alongside his African protogee - in a pink shirt and an even pinker tie nogal spotted with little daisies! Casually leaning against the doorway, he reassured us with a grand sort of proficiency my pregnancy and baby were progressing wonderfully and that he honestly felt no concern regarding my meds -- but that he'd let 'the paediatrician' know about it anyway. Righty-ho! Next appointment: only on the 22nd of December. What a relief!

Though the experience didn't nearly begin match my expectations, I can't say I was specifically disappointed, nor was the experience a bad one. After all, we both left smiling like happy, reassured parents-to-be! March can arrive now - I am relieved and pleased as punch I chose Northampton hospital (despite its naughty nurse posing topless on Facebook and its random shootings! Curious - see "Health & Safety?!" at http://thesoutpielphenomenon.blogspot.com )

British Wintriness (is there such a word??)

Never before has this British wintriness affected me in the way I am struggling with it at the moment. Perhaps I can blame it on my perpetual homesickness, compounded by these raging pregnancy hormones? Even our summer up north here in the Midlands was hardly worthy of being called 'summer' compared to the gentle sunniness of Hampshire and West Berkshire, with probably a grand equivalent of 7 days that justify being called 'sunny'. I remember how my one sister struggled deeply with the English winter, literally sinking into what they call 'seasonal depression' - but even then, I figured it was her living in grey, concrete London that caused her to feel so low and frustrated.
And so, I have turned the heating on since yesterday despite the constant talk about everyone being able to afford their gas bills. I just could not bear the cold eating into my bones, day in and day out - where the only relief could be found in bed under piles of duvet or in a scaldingly hot bath. The trick is to have the heating on, not to turn the house into a hot air balloon, but to merely take that dreadful biting chill off the air - whereas the trend here seems to be to blast the building with hot air so that when you walk in off the icy street, you are hit by a solid wall of claustrophobic heat which has you clawing frantically at your woollen coat!
However, when the baby is born, we will need to keep the ambient temperature quite warm. Newborns' little bodies haven't developed the ability to regulate their body temperature, and their circulation is still quite primitive. Our nurse/midwife at Gymboree explained one day, when I moaned about how stuffy and warm her office was, that babies can easily catch a cold or develop pneumonia if exposed to a cold draught. (And she's a 'modern' woman who blatantly negates most old wives' tales -- so I think I'll definitely take her advice!)

Engrossed in a telephone conversation with a very dear friend, I didn't hear the sounds of escape - until Max was right next to me in the lounge looking at me with proud defiance: "See, you can't keep me locked up!" Flabbergasted, I had to retract my previous statement that bunnies aren't that bright... Needless to say, his cage is now rigged to keep him firmly locked in his straw-strewn, bunny-poo home!
As I am becoming more and more pregnant, I am finding running around after this cheeky little bunny more of a chore which leaves me cussing and puffing (and, I'm ashamed to admit, wondering if there is a nice little girl in the village who would like a bunny!!) Someone rightly advised me to stick him outside in the garden where he'll probably be happier, but I just can't bring myself to do it! I imagine him shivering in the winter nights, wondering sadly why I kicked him out the house. Also, I know for a FACT, that I will neglect to play with him as much as I do with him being indoors: it's seeing him looking at me with those big, brown eyes that makes me open his hutch and cuddle him for a bit before letting him run around the house (and eat all my wallpaper - or, shall I say, the landlord's?!)

GUESS WHAT????? At the midwife on Wednesday, I heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time!! The exquisite miraculousness of it hasn't yet reached the realms of my conscious, rational brain - I can't find the words to express the sound of such a tiny little heart beating like a running wild horse's hooves so deep inside me, and consciously being able to understand that THIS is my child... Prostrate on that examining table covered in stiff blue paper towel, I fell victim to something I felt before at the 12 week scan... I can only think that this overpowering emotion and deep awareness is 'mother's love'... In a few weeks' time, we'll be back at the hospital's dark ultrasound room, for our 20 week scan --- Craig is almost obsessed about this scan: then he'll be able to know if it is a boy or a girl. It's not such a crucial thing for me - maybe because I have the sore boobs, growing belly ETC (!!!) to make the baby more real for me, whereas Craig needs everything he can to be able to relate to this first child of his. There's a private clinic down the road that will do an hour's appointment with ultrasound and a 4D scan -- for 175 Great British Pounds! And despite our meagre earnings, this is something I think he would go without food for!!

Oh, I could write and write all day - but I need to do some research into how to get more traffic to my two blogs. (My dream? To be a full-time blogger and get paid for it. Unrealistic? There are plenty of bloggers out there who have stopped work to become full time writers - so why can't I? It's just that I've found my current attempts at publicity rather useless -- so I need to push myself a bit and get involved in forums and various other groups. Any ideas from you would be WELCOME!)