Excitement!!

I have started to get really, really excited now! There is so much going on and so much still left to do but I have started to allow myself to really get excited now. I say 'allow myself' because most of the time during the pregnancy I have put the stoppers on the excitement. Firstly, I wanted to get to 12 weeks before I could get excited, then I wanted to get to 20 weeks because that seemed like a good milestone. Then I was aiming for 29 weeks because 90% of babies survive if they are born at this point, now I am 31 weeks and I feel like I can finally get excited about our little JBB.

Alot of this is because of a conversation that I had with another contractor at work, his wife is 4 weeks behind me and last week he was very happy that they had reached the 3rd trimester. He also said that he realised that the worrying doesn't stop about the baby for the rest of his life now and that really set a light bulb off in my head. I am never going to stop worrying that something may happen to our JBB but I am now not going to stop me getting excited about meeting him and taking care of him. I am sure that most of you are thinking '**sigh**, about time!!' and I wouldn't blame you, gosh, I have been doom and gloom alot throughout this pregnancy - grateful - yes, cautiously optimistic - yes but happy and excited - well, that has just kicked in now - better late than never hey!! I am going to have to make the most of every minute over the next 6 and a half weeks until our precious little bundle is born!

In other news, we are still living at my Mum and Dad's place, we are back in our own place tomorrow (yay!!). It hasn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be but all the same - I will be happy to have my own space back again! It has been pretty restful not thinking 'I have to do this and this and this' every minute of the day and the weekend was pretty cruisy, thank goodness. There is still quite a bit to do at our house, though most of the big things have been done - the backyard is a bit of a bugger though - I have to see what we can do there quite quickly. I am hoping to get the painting in the kitchen done by the end of this week and hopefully the kitchen floating floors and the last few items can be finished by the end of next week, that would be fabulous! I only have 2 weeks of work left and I am looking forward to finishing up. I have the baby shower this Saturday, I am not really looking forward to it that much but I am sure that it will be nice on the day.

Well, best be off - hope you all are well, I have alot of blog reading to catch up on!!

Overwhelmed....

I have been a bad, bad blogger. Time seems to be slipping away without me even knowing it and the crazy part of it is, I have badly needed to blog to get some of the emotional turmoil from me but just haven't had a chance to sit down and do it.

Firstly, let me just update you on where everything is at with the various areas of our lives.

JourneyBabyBoy - is going very, very well. He is growing gangbusters though I only know from the feel of him because the weekly scans are over and done. Last Friday felt a bit weird cos I didn't have to get up and go to see my little man. He is moving around quite alot and I have heard of some pregnant ladies complaining that their little one keeps them up at night with movement, I love each and every move as it provides me with assurance that he is all well and good. That being said, it is getting harder and harder to sleep so I do understand where these mums-to-be are coming from but for me, if I have to be woken at night, that is a reason that I am happy with (an example of a reason why I have trouble sleeping at night is that JM and I watched Paranormal on pay TV the other week and I woke up in fear a few times the night after - der, I mean how dumb can I be?!?!). Anyway, the upshot is that JBB is going well and my stomach seems to be doubling in size on a weekly basis which is great!! I have an appointment with the OB on Monday (I am on appointments every 3 weeks at the moment) and so I am hoping to continue on in the good books! Oh and I forgot - my second gestational diabetes test came up negative - whoo hooo!

At home the renovations continue apace and the laundry is done (waiting for it to dry and the kitchen is almost done, we just have the painting and floors left to go and I am hoping that the much longed for dishwasher is installed by the time I get home tonight. We have the electrician coming tomorrow to finish off the electrical work and over the weekend we need to move all of the house into the kitchen, bathroom, garage and laundry so that we can get the floorboards polished and we are going to be living with my Mum and Dad for at least a week. I am not really looking forward to this because I just have had a run in with my Dad today because of his agressive shouting at my Mum, he was being extremely bullying and blaming her for his situation and even though I know that the sickness contributes to this, I cannot have him bullying my Mum in my presence - it's not on. After they left for awhile, I was so shaken that I cried for awhile. Anyway, moving in with them for a week is not going to be really fun - I am pretty much dreading it but we don't have anywhere else to go.

So, onto my emotions - as you can see from the above - the rollercoaster continues. I am finding everything extremely overwhelming at the moment and am finding that the smallest thing will cause me to overreact hugely. The main way that I deal with emotionality is to remove myself from people as I am extremely afraid of yelling at the them, saying something that I regret, reacting to something that they said or crying in front of them. It makes me very happy that I have a flexible work environment and can work from home alot of the time so that I can avoid being in situations where I will get emotional around people. The trouble is that for the past few weeks I have had people in the house pretty much the whole time so I have not had an escape and things have happened - especially today. I had the run in with my Dad but also had a run in with one of my bosses - I apologised for it but am very unimpressed with my behaviour. I feel like I am drowning in emotions!

The other reason that I am feeling overwhelmed is that JM and I went to a Post Natal, Early Childhood class on Monday night and honestly, they must have packed 8 hours worth of information into the 3 1/2 hour class - my head was absolutely spinning. This class really brought out the fear in me - What if I can't cope? What if I have waiting all this time and gone through all of these things and am a terrible mother? What if I wreck this little JBB's life? Honestly, I guess it is not just about being overwhelmed and hormones but it is just straight out and out fear. Hopefully I will get myself together soon.

I will try to update again in the next couple days but with having to pack and move practically the whole house, I think it will be after the OB's appointment on Monday. I will also endeavour to catch up on where you are all at - I haven't had a chance to read any blogs - hope you are all going well!!

Lots of information...

It has been a tough, tough week. I don't think I have ever been so exhausted in all of my life. Let's start with the work front:

JourneyMan has started his new job and is going well, sounds like he is enjoying it though of course there is a steep learning curve in those first few weeks! My work is going okay though I only have around 5-6 weeks left and I have absolutely stacks to do!

On the home front, the renovations are in full swing. We had all of the new appliances delivered on Tuesday (except for the long awaited dishwasher which is on back order - doh!). On Wednesday we had the plumber and electrician come by to do the rough in for the kitchen and on Thursday, the installer put in all of the cabinetry. My goodness, I am blown away by how fantastic it is - we have gone from tiny 1970 kitchen to huge, functional 2010 kitchen - fabulous!! Friday, the electrician came back to put in all of the new powerpoints and a saftey switch (very important!) but he still has a couple of days work still to do. We still need to tile the splash back, paint, get the gas cooktop and dishwasher connected by the plumber and put in the new floating floorboards so this week will be more of people coming and going in the house all week.

I am finding that very difficult as I wasn't able to have an afternoon sleep any day except Friday last week which made me get tireder and tireder as the week wore on. This brings me to my next update.

Pregnancy update. I had my 28 week visit with the OB and everything went swimmingly - JourneyBaby is growing nicely, the cervix is behaving well and we are booked in for the ceaserean on the 19th August - yay!! This is also my older sisters birthday and she is chuffed to be sharing her birthday with her new nephew!! On the same day, I had the glucose tolerance test to see if I am at risk of gestational diabetes and I got the result on Thurday - unfortunately, yes I am at risk. This meant that I had to have another test, a fasting one that would take my glucose levels over 2 hours which I did on Friday. I don't have the result of that test as yet. I am really hoping that I don't have GD as I am worried about my one kidney and hoping that it won't damage it. I feel a bit put upon testing high in the glucose because my glucose levels have always been good before so it was one thing that I wasn't particularly worried about and considering the high risk nature of this pregnancy and all of the additional monitoring, tests and additional drugs and injections I have had to have, I was really hoping to be spared this. I will most likely find out tomorrow.

I also caught JourneyMan's cold during the week so this didn't help matters. I am absolutely exhausted but there is a very real positive side to everything. If I have to go on a special diet for the GD, it will be healthier for JBB. The more the people are coming in and out of the house, the sooner the house will be ready and done! I am hoping that this week will be a better week - hopefully I will throw off this cold and gets some extra sleep so that I can feel a bit better!

Emotions run rife amid renovation chaos!!

My emotions have gone crazy. I am sad, then happy, then angry - boy there is a lot of angry happening - I am up, down all over the place. Honestly, I am really trying to control things but I am finding it almost impossible. Add to that the renovations have started in earnest. JourneyMan and I have spent the weekend ripping out the kitchen, ripping up the revolting lino and getting quotes for everything else that we need done.

When we ripped out the lino in the kitchen, we found that it was covered with a black rubber paper like underlay that had heaps of glue and staples in it. We spent most of today trying to scrape the black crap up and pull out all of the staples. Thankfully all of the staples are out but the black stuff is as stubborn as all get out. Add to this the fact that I have hurt my back doing the scraping and JourneyMan has cold or some sort of sinus thing going on and it is misery city at our house.

We have soooo much to do this week, we need to repair some of the plasterboard because a hole was put in it when the rip out happened, we need to finish the floor in the kitchen. The appliances get delivered on Tuesday, the plumber and electrician come for the fit out on Wednesday and the kitchen is due to be installed on Thurday. I really hope that we get everything done!! JourneyMan starts his new job tomorrow and since he is not feeling well, it is going to be a bit tough for him.

The next 6 weeks are going to be pretty hideous getting the kitchen finished off, finishing all of the painting details, getting the splashback and laundry tiled and then the floorboards polished (we need to move out for around 10 days when this happens) but the great thing will be that the house will then be completely done!! I am hoping to have all of it done by the 15th July, then JourneyMan and I have a Baby Moon planned for the weekend of the 16-17 of July and I will be finished work by then too - I am hoping that we can have a really nice relaxing weekend with everything done in the house!!

In JBB news, he is very active lately which makes me very happy!! I had the second last scan last Friday and the cervix was down to 30mm - they didn't seem worried so I am trying not to as well. I have an appointment with the OB this Wednesday where I will have the gestational diabetes screening - hopefully I will be all clear!

Oh well, I am off for an early night and work and more scaping tomorrow.....

JourneyMan in the house.

While waiting to start my new job, I was watching a episode of '16 and pregnant'. As JG has mentioned, I'm pretty low key and I don't feel much anticipation of coming events. JG would have liked me to have been more active in eagerly anticipating JBB's arrival. I did find, while watching a 16 y.o. attending to her newborn son, that I felt a rush of adrenalin and was quite excited about the arrival of my son in the next few months.

I know I will be an interested parent because my youngest sister was born when I was 10, so I was around little ones early. I've baby sat for my two friends, that each have multiple daughter's. Also my exposure to this, tells me that I will e wrestnjoy his company and be able to look after him.

While looking at baby car seats the other day with JG, I discovered some tops with motorbike/rockstar/cars on them, so once he's born I think I will buy him some cool clothes to roll around in.

I am looking forward to playing games with JBB like peek-a-boo and soft toy wrestling. I am hoping that I can soothe him when he is grumpy by playing some guitar or with some other types of music.

It will be really cute when he's wearing little jumpsuits and swaddling rugs. Once he's older, I'm looking forward to playing ball games and running with him. Most of all I'm looking forward to the multiplication of fun and love between our little family.

Great News!!

Firstly, let me say to all of you - thank you for your comments about my last post about the baby shower - it really helped. So also did having a vent to my mum and then working through the options with my bestie again. Basically I have now vented all of my anger and angst over the whole thing and I am almost finished getting the list of names and addresses together, I am then going to have a break about thinking it and then enjoy the day!! I have realised that my aunt is throwing the shower for me out of the goodness of her heart and whilst there are people coming who I probably wouldn't have invited, I now think - whatever! So, thank you all to allowing me to vent out this prob and to my bestie, who is the best bestie in the world, thanks for always being there - you are fabulous!

In other news, JourneyMan got himself a job - whoo hooo!! SOOOOOOO very happy, relieved and excited!! It sounds like a pretty good one too which is great. I think that it will be a really good development role for him. We went out to dinner tonight to celebrate. It was also 5 years since we met today and it is also 8 years since I have been sober. The 25th of May is a really good day for us!!

Just to catch you up on the news from last week's scan. JourneyMan and my mum came along to this one and all was great until they measured the cervix, which they measured at 29mm, this was 4mm down from last week and only 4mm away from the trouble zone. JourneyMan and I started freaking (my Mum was pretty oblivious because she has trouble hearing and couldn't hear what was going on). The sonographer went and got the doctor and he said that there was a part of the cervix that was hidden that she hadn't measured, so it ended up being 35mm which was a little bit higher than last week so we breathed a huge sigh of relief.

In other news, we have started the ball rolling on getting our kitchen done. This is such great news because we have a kitchen that was done in the 70's and is completely not functional. We will be getting a dishwasher - a hugely coveted item of JourneyMan's and mine - we are very, very excited. We are also looking to get a decking put out in our backyard and getting the floorboards polished all before our little JourneyBabyBoy comes along - it is going to be a busy few months but very rewarding!!

I am SOOOO happy right now - I feel like a huge weight has lifted off me with JourneyMan getting his job (I think that he feels the same way as well). I feel like I can now really enjoy the next few months which is a great relief!!

Thanks again for all of your support, gang!!!

Baby Shower Blues....

I have been away from ICLW for a couple of months and it is great to be back in amongst it. Sorry all, I am not doing an ICLW post this month but welcome aboard and I hope that you stay and read a few posts to see where this blog is at. Sorry, this was not my ideal ICLW post but I really need to get this out.

**Disclaimer: Firstly, I just want to let you know that I am extremely grateful to be in the position of being able to plan a baby shower. I know I am having a whinge but I want you to know that I absolutely realise that there are many of you out there who are at various stages of TTC and running the gauntlet of friends and families baby showers - with your hearts yearning to have your own. My heart is with you gals as I do understand the difficult situation a baby shower is for the IF woman. I am begging you to forgive the self indulgence of the following vent.

Now, I need to have a bit of a vent because being an IF survivor, the baby shower has been very fraught for me over the years. I cannot count how many I have gone to and sobbed all the way home or felt physically sick trying to make myself get ready to go. So, when I found out that I was pregnant, after awhile I started to dream about my own shower and how lovely it would be. To be the one who was having the shower, who was having the baby, who was cooing over tiny little clothes and preparing for a baby to enter my life. It is a beautiful dream.

A couple of months ago, my Aunty very kindly asked if she could throw the baby shower for me and considering the situation that my mum is in at the moment, I thought that this would be a really good thing. After awhile (making sure that everything was going well) I picked out a date and left it at that.

In the meantime, I realised that there was a little issue with my friends. It seems that assimilation back into my group of friends was going to be harder than I thought and why did I need to assimiliate? Of course because of the journey through IF - as my journey progressed, I withdrew further and further into myself - I found it very hard to be in any social situations. The upshot being that because I didn't go to many gatherings last year, I was left off the list of invitees. Very disappointing and certainly of my own making. I have spoken about this before that I thought that once I was pregnant, I would go back to being myself. This was not really the case. I continued to worry all through the pregnancy and I still found it hard to be in social groups, though I did catch up with quite a few friends one on one.

The fact that I was being left off the list of invitees to any social gathering made me throw a bit of a childish tantrum - "I'm not having a baby shower" - mainly because deep down I was afraid that noone would come. I also must mention here - I am not a giver of parties, I have never been, I really don't like them and I do find them stressful, I find I am good with people one on one but a group scares the hell out of me basically. Anyway, I got over that and then last week, I started to think about the guest list. I realised that if I invited children to the shower it would be 26 adults and 28 children coming. Now, call me a selfish, diva, princess but I did not want my baby shower to be a children's party. This guest list was gotten to by thinking - if I ask this person, then this one has to be invited and even though I am not close to this person, I will invite them so that I won't hurt this person - in itself, just getting the list together was an arduous task because I don't want to hurt or offend anyone.

My Aunt had told me that her best friend was coming (I have met this woman about twice) and my MIL is inviting her best friend and I knew my mum would want to invite a couple of her friends. My aunt had said that her best friend wanted to do the invitations for me and honestly, I am not an invitation person, I was just going to send around an email. It seemed to me that more and more, the shower was becoming less about me and more about everyone else.

I discussed my dilemma with my bestie last week end and after a couple of hours of tossing the situation around with all sorts of different options, we hit on a plan of having 2 events, one at my Aunt's place with only close family (including my two nieces and my 3 nephews if my sister wanted to bring the boys) and then go to a cafe with my girlfriends on another day. It wasn't a perfect solution but I felt bad about asking people not to bring their kids.

I then had lunch with my older sister during the week. She has 3 boys and I thought she would be able to give some good advice about how offended people would be if I asked them not to bring their kids. She was excellent and provided wonderful advice. She basically said that 'it's my party and I can ask who the hell I want to'. That made me feel better, better that is until last night.

I went to the footy with my Aunty as usual last night and I was telling her the whole story about how I didn't want it to become a kids party and she was agreeing and everything (I am sure a lot because she didn't really want her house over run with kids), she also seemed a bit put out when I told that there would be about 28 people coming, to which I said no worries because Mum had said that she would have it if there were any problems. Now that was all fine but then she told me she had invited her son's fiance and two granddaughters and honestly I was floored. Mainly because this would mean that I am telling all of my friends and some family not to bring kids but there will be kids there which I think is not fair to them. It also means that I am being unfair to my aunt on the other side of the family and now have to invite my cousin's wife so as not to hurt my aunt. Honestly, I could have screamed (and poor old JourneyMan got vented on a treat when I got home - he has been extremely supportive in this and has not tried to make me feel guilty about inviting or not inviting anyone on his side of the family - he just let me choose).

The fact of the matter is now the shower has the gloss taken off it. It just does not seem to be about me anymore and the intimate, fun shower that I had imagined now will be filled with people who I barely know and me worrying that people are resenting me for being inconsistent on my invitation policy. I don't necessarily think that everything should be about me but I thought that this was one thing that pretty much should be. Now I don't even know for what purpose I would even be having it. My original purpose was just to celebrate quietly becoming a mum but at last count there are more than 30 people coming so it is certainly not intimate anymore. I am tasked with getting all the snail mail addresses of people and honestly, I can't be bothered, I feel like I have enough on my plate at the moment. I never wanted it to be a big deal, just an afternoon tea chatting with my mates.

Now I wonder if I cancel the shower altogether, would I regret it? Or should I just deal with the situation, grit my teeth and endure what the shower has become? I seem to change my mind in every minute. I barely slept last night and I am absolutely exhausted today. I know that there are so many other hardships in the world, I know that many of you girls are going through horrors that I cannot even imagine and I realise that this is not a huge problem. It is just annoying and disappointing because my dream of what my shower was supposed to be is not to be. In a fit of venting last night I said to JourneyMan that I might take my bestie out to a cafe for lunch and call it the baby shower. Maybe that's what I will do.

Ceasarean Birth Class - Yikes!

So, JourneyMan and I went to the Ceasarean birth class yesterday and it really brought everything clearly into focus. I am not allowed to drive for 6 weeks. I can't lift anything over 4-5kg's for 12 weeks (yikes!). Recovery is going to take a while. They went through the whole day of surgery plus the next 48 hours and whilst is scared the hell out of me, it also allowed me to visualise how and when I will see JBB for the first time and what will happen from then on. JourneyMan takes it all his stride, nothing seems to phase him though I do note that he is not the one who will be having major abdominal surgery. I have had operations before but this will be the most major and with the longest recovery time but thankfully I will have little JBB to take care of and take the focus!!

I think I mainly felt scared because I am not prepared yet. The house has not been finished, the house hasn't been baby proofed, we haven't bought hardly anything and what we have been given, I am not sure of whether it complies with Australian standards. I sat down today and started making some lists, so now I feel a little better though there is a lot to do and only a little bit of time left, we are going to need to get our skates on!!

I heard JourneyMan talking on the phone to a prospective employer yesterday (before the class!) and he was talking about what time he would need to take off for the birth of the baby and said one day - holy moly, I said I would need him home for at least a week - I think that he realised that though after the class. Luckily, my mum only lives around the corner and my MIL is not too far away either and both of them have offered their help (which I am sure I will be availing myself of!). I had lunch with my older sister today (who has 3 boys) and she has advised me that if anyone asks if they can do anything to help, let them!! I think that is good advice but it will also take some practice I believe.

Every day I get more excited (and nervous) - time seems to have sped up like you wouldn't believe - so much to do, so little time!!

Cripes!

Over the past week I have realised that I don't have much longer of work left. This has left me excited, worried and a little non-plussed. How it came about was from the OB appointment last week. All was good and I asked when we would most likely be booking in for the ceasarean - which he responded would be the second or third week of August - and of course, being the counter that I am, I realised that is only 12-13 weeks away - holy moly!! I am hoping to have about a month off before the birth to relax and get ready which put me at 8-9 weeks of work left!! That threw me quite a bit. It also threw one of my bosses when I mentioned it today as I have a second tier project that he was saying he thought we should get done by end of July - I said to him that if he wanted me to manage it, it would need to be a go live date of mid-July because I was likely going to be finishing around then. He had a bit of a small heart attack then I think - though I did say it was negotiable. They have been really good about me working from home so much during the pregnancy and being very flexible that I may help them out with some work from home in the 4 weeks if they really need it. Plus if JourneyMan doesn't get a job soon, we will most likely need the money.

I haven't had the heart to tell my other manager as yet - the project I am working on for him will most likely happen whilst I am not available so he is going to be in a bit of trouble. I did show him a lot of the planning that I have been doing for him that will hopefully help him out enormously whilst I am away.

The hard thing is that I don't know if they are going to want me back and I don't know how long I want to take off or anything like that. I am going to have to think of a proposal for them to see if there are ways for me to help them out and in turn they can save some work for me for when I am ready to get back. I really like working for them all (I do work for 3 people and they are all fabulous to work for) and they are really flexible and in turn, I try to make their lives as easy as possible. Anyway, I am going to trust that it is all going to work out. JourneyMan has some prospects that I am hoping are pretty solid and if he can get in to a good role, we will be in a really good position.

JourneyBabyBoy update: Well, this little man is kicking like crazy lately and I am just loving it!! He is measuring well and his heartbeat was perfect last week - big yay!! The scan on Friday was lovely. My MIL came with me to the scan and we had breakfast together and a good chat, it was really lovely - she was very excited to see little JBB. She is very happy right now because she has her first two grandchildren on the way and she is offering all sorts of help and support - she is absolutely wonderful - I am very lucky to have such a wonderful MIL. The scan also went well with my cervix only reducing a small amount however, I asked the OB about it last week and also the ultrasonographer and they both said that it is well within normal limits - a huge relief!!

Belly update: The past couple of weeks has seen a huge amount of growth in the belly stakes. I am absolutely loving it and am checking myself out in the mirror lots. I have got a few pairs of good maternity pants (I prefer the over the belly style) and went and bought some large size long sleeve t-shirts that I wear with thick cardigans which is my main uniform. The weather has been cool but sunny this past week which I am still loving and an update on the central heating - it is divine!!

Symptoms update: I had a really busy day on Friday without my normal afternoon sleep and had a pretty late night so Saturday and Sunday the cramps came back with a vengeance - I have to remember not to push things too far. So, symptoms wise, I am still having the cramps and am really tired - that's about it so that's pretty good. Oh - I forgot, I have had a couple of dizzy spells as well - one on Friday and one at work today. Pretty good overall though.

Well that's about it from me - I have some serious catching up of reading to do - My reader runneth over. Have a great week everybody!!

My Dad

Okay, so the past few weeks have been very stressful as you know, with the cramping, the shortening of the cervix and the deterioration of my dad's dementia and hydrocephallus. My mum and dad went away last week which made the week that little bit more stressful because she has always been my rock. I think unfortunately it is their last trip away together. It is such a hard disease to cope with, he has changed so much over the past few years, he is hardly recognisable as my dad anymore. He is paranoid and agressive and in complete denial about everything. He used to be one of the funniest people that I know, always with a self depracating story and one of the things that I always respected about him was his ability to admit when he was wrong, he's not like that anymore.

One of the great things that happened though over Christmas is that he really held on to the pregnancy in his memory (it is his short term memory that is damaged), he always remembered JBB's name (yes, already picked out ready to go) and would ask how we were going all the time. Since they got back though, it seems like that has gone into the damaged part of his memory and now he doesn't ask anymore. I am hoping against hope that will change again.

One of the hardest things is facing the fact that JBB will not know his Pop the way I knew him, in fact JourneyMan didn't even meet the dad who I grew up with. It makes me very sad.

In my mind I have to separate out the person my dad used to be from the person that he is now because of the hurtful things that he can say and do, especially to my mum. I have to keep them separated because my image of how he was feels like it is being chipped away piece by piece. I have to remember the man who made me laugh, the one who took me to the footy every week, the man who never missed an opportunity to tell me that he is proud of me. I miss him and sometimes the small glimpses of what he used to be hurts even more so.

Fortunately and unfortunately for me, my mum confides in me a lot and even though most of the time now I have a handle on knowing she just needs to vent because her life is certainly not what she thought it woud be, sometimes I want to stick my head in the sand and not hear about what is happening. I won't do that though because she really needs the opportunity to vent - I have suggested that she see a counsellor so she doesn't have to hold back and she went once but never went back.

It is hard when someone you love is disappearing before your eyes. In my family, I am the mediator, the person everyone confides in, the strong one with lots of advice. At the moment, I don't feel strong, I don't have any advice and really, I miss my dad. I am having trouble dealing with the situation.

Better news!

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and support.

Okay, after a pretty horrible week of stress and worry, I got a little sunshine yesterday when the scan was all clear - JBB is going great guns and put on a show for my sister who came with me to the scan yesterday as he was moving around wriggling like no tomorrow. The cervix has also stayed the same - cue big sigh of relief!!

The cramps have been a little better yesterday and today which I am extremly thankful for and am hoping that they go further away again in the next couple of days. We are off to the OB again this week so I think I will discuss the cramps with him further to make sure that all is okay.

On the home front, we have just had gas ducted heating put in - hurrah!!! Last year we went through the whole winter without proper heating, all we had was a little electric heater and I had an electric throw rug that I had on me when on the couch though sometimes I was so cold, I hugged the little electric heater outright. Now, we don't really have very cold winters in Melbourne, it never snows here and compared to may places it is pretty mild but you do need heating so I am very, very happy to have the central heating in and ready for JBB - there was no way we could go without proper heating once his precious little bottom comes along!!

The weather has turned cooler now and I am definitely loving it, though poor old JourneyMan sat through the footy last night in the pouring rain. We love rain here in Melbourne - we have been in drought so long, we relish every drop that comes our way (though I don't think that there was much relishing last night for JM!!) - JourneyDog and I were tucked up on the couch in the toasty warmth of our new heater. It is absolutely perfect weather today, my favourite time of year, quite warm and sunny but cool at night, lovely.

I am trying very hard to focus on the positives right now!! Happy weekend everyone!