Another milestone

Since 10th April Julie has been sniffing, swallowing or inserting fertility drugs. (When you do IVF, no orifice is spared.) Now that the placenta has formed she has come off most of them apart from a multivitamin, thyroxine and an iron tonic (delicious Floradix!). Ian feels like he has been living in a re-make of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers since Easter, when the real Julie was taken and replaced with a weepy, chocolate-munching psychopath. Now a slightly sleepier version of the original Julie seems to be back, and she doesn't seem to want to stab Ian all the time.

Baby names

Sir Bob's daughter, Peaches Geldof, was on TV the other day. Now, 20 years down the line, Peaches seems like a perfectly reasonable name. "Peaches Page"? Hmm, not so keen. What if she grows up to be an academic like Mummy and Daddy? "Professor Peaches Page"? Definitely not.

The acupuncturist reckons it's a boy anyway.

Nesting

You have a baby on the way, so you resolve to sort out the house. Where do you start - the spare/soon-to-be-baby's room? Your bedroom? Storage areas? No, if the baby's father is an engineer you start with the garage. Now everything is beautifully tidy with technically exact labels such as "sticky stuff" or "whirly things". Only an engineer (or those who love them) would understand.

The baby waved at us!

Today was our final scan with the fertility clinic. The Bean now measures just over an inch and actually looks like a baby. It kicked its little legs, and Julie cried. It waved its little arms, and Julie cried. Then it did it all over again and Julie cried again. In the top photo you can see the head on the left and the feet on the right, and the arms and hands just below the head. In the bottom photo you get a slightly better view of its feet. We also saw its spine, its fingers, some facial features and the placenta.

Parental development: Julie is eating, drinking, sleeping and has now gone off evaporated milk. During the scan Ian said: "I might have to start believing in it."

Meeting the Midwife

Yesterday we had the first appointment with the midwife. Having a baby seems more to do with bureaucracy than biology. Julie thought it very funny that the midwife made Ian fill in all the forms and blood test cards. Ian thought the 90-minute appointment could have been done in 20 with a decent computer.

Parental development: Julie is still thirsty thirsty thirsty. Ian still can't quite believe it, but he distracts himself by looking at this kind of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4