The next phase

Today marks the start of the third trimester, so six months down, three to go. The first batch of wedding photos also arrived today so herewith a few pictures of the proud parents.

Parental development:

Julie has expanded visibly since the wedding and can't believe she still has three more months growing time. She's lost the feeling that she's wearing someone else's body and instead feels as though she's wearing a small rucksack strapped to her front.

Ian has a new hobby - watching Julie's stomach as The Bean now kicks so hard he raises the surface of his mummy's tummy sometimes.

Gok Wan felt my bump!

...and very charming he was too.

The Demi Moore Thing

We've been meaning to post some bump porn for a few days, but finally got round to taking a photo after the wedding when we were knackered but very happy.

Julie has visibly expanded in the last week and the dressmakers had to include an extra fitting for the wedding dress.

The Bean had another scan a few days ago with the nice people at the Silver Star unit. Unfortunately no pretty pics this time, but the scan to examine blood flow was absolutely fine. Clever boy.

The Missing Link?

A few days ago Julie was in Turl Street, Oxford with some of her fellow authors from The Turl Street Writers:

http://www.turlstreetwriters.com/

doing a photo shoot for the cover of their next book, the follow-up volume to 'Turl Street Tales'.

Turl Street has a new cafe, The Missing Bean:

http://www.themissingbean.co.uk/

He's not missing! Look - he's in Julie's tummy!

Halloween Bean

The Bean enjoyed his first Halloween tonight. There are two pumpkins in this picture - the one Julie's holding and the one she appears to have swallowed.

Ian and Julie were visited by a procession of (not very) scary fairies, witches, cats, astronauts and superheroes so they could judge the costume competition for neighbour Kelli's annual Halloween party. But next year the Bean will be attending the party too, and Julie and Kelli have already chosen his costume.

Empirical research

The Bean made an early start on a possible research career today by accompanying his mummy to the Pregnancy Biobank research project. He didn't say a lot, but he did kick a few times which probably means, "That would be an epistemological matter." (Apologies to Father Ted for that joke.)

Julie will be giving blood and urine samples at least once a month for the rest of the pregnancy to help researchers investigate further the causes of pre-eclampsia. This is about the fifth or sixth medical research project Ian and Julie have volunteered for.

Bergfest!

Bergfest is the German for a halfway party; it's the celebration you have at the top of the mountain. Today marks the start of the 20th week, exactly halfway through the pregnancy. Hurray! Ian took Julie out for an ice-cream at G & D's to celebrate.

Earlier this week we had the 20-week anomaly scan, and everything was fine. In the top two pictures you can see The Bean's head on the right, with his face in profile looking upwards, and a hand. He had his hand balled into a little fist, but it wasn't clear enough to see if he had his thumb locked across his fingers, crane kung-fu style.

In the bottom photo he's the other way round facing away. After the sonographer had completed the long, very detailed scan a trainee doctor did the same thing all over again, so we think The Bean got fed up with posing for photos.

Parental development:

People keep asking Julie what her cravings are. Food, just food. And plenty of it, please.

Several times a day Ian tries to feel The Bean move. He waits until Julie feels a little kick, then sits her on his lap with his hand clamped to her bump. They sit there for about 20 minutes and The Bean moves not a jot. Eventually they both get bored and give up, and The Bean moves again as soon as Ian removes his hand.