A Big Announcement!

To all my lovely blog readers. I've been on a small break from this blog, and this time I've a very good reason why, I promise... I'm having a baby!

The Husband and I are so delighted about it all. I am now just over four months pregnant, and it's been an adventure already - lots of feeling terrible, feeling wonderful, feeling exhausted and feeling excited. Now I know why Ireland's baby/parenting website is called rollercoaster.ie - I sure feel like I'm on one already!

The first twelve weeks were spent trying to keep our little secret very secret - we told no one - and getting used to the idea of our future together including a baby. I quickly learnt about morning sickness (yeugh) - and how to beat it (plain biscuits beside the bed) - and then marvelled at the overwhelming exhaustion that ensued. Wow. Growing a tiny baby is major work!

Keeping our secret was tough - there were SO many times I wanted to tell my mom and my best friends. I was bursting to tell someone. It was, however, lovely for the Husband and I to have this special little secret to ourselves for a while too. During the first few weeks I kept myself busy reading The Day-by-Day Pregnancy Book and all the other new mum's' posts in the BabyCentre My Pregnancy App - it was great to read what other women at the same stage of their pregnancies were feeling.

I had a couple of weekends spent mostly on the couch - I struggled a bit with several migraines that lasted a few days (no pain medication allowed!) and a lot of tiredness. Downton Abbey and the Food Network channel kept me entertained and I learnt that an ice pack on the head and putting your head under the shower can help a migraine feel a lot better!

Although I tried very hard to keep our secret to myself, I found out later that the girls I work with had all spotted little signs way before I told them (oops). I had a super sensitive sense of smell (a symptom of pregnancy) and had remarked on a few strong odours around the office... I also couldn't drink a glass of wine in front of me at a work dinner - a sure giveaway as the girls know how much I like a glass of wine. I also started eating more healthily than usual, and all the time, grazing on fruit and nuts and crackers and bottles and bottles of water at my desk in between meals.

Once we were just at the 12 week mark, we told our family and close friends - and how wonderful that was! It really was just the best bit of news to share and everyone's extremely lovely reactions really made it feel real and even more exciting. Our parents are all so pleased, especially my mom - and that has been so much fun already. The photo above is of two tiny, beautiful baby suits (baby grows?) my mom bought for the baby in M&S. 

During our twelfth week, we made our first trip to the hospital (the Coombe in Dublin) for a scan. I couldn't quite believe we were there and we were about to see our baby for the first time! The sonographer landed straight in on our baby with her little handheld machine and suddenly we could see a very baby-like shape floating quite comfortably inside my tummy and wiggling it's tiny arms and legs. It was incredible. I think we had been expecting to see strange shapes and nothing really clear, but this was very obviously a tiny baby!

Over the last four weeks I have very slowly started to get some of my pre-pregnancy energy back and the house back into some sort of order. The news is out at work and on Facebook (more lovely reactions!) and now we're getting the house ready for Christmas.

It's going to be a fun filled few months now till we meet our tiny baby for real. I am due on the 20th of May, four days before Derek's 36th birthday. I keep telling him I'm already working on his present!

So, if you'll have me, this blog will be filled with all things baby as well as the usual posts, going forward!