Buying Stuff!

After finding out we were expecting our first little one I wanted to do the sensible thing and try and get as many things paid off as possible. With quite a few short, low credits and a few that were a bit high but shouldn't take an age to sort, I started paying things off every time I got paid and also saved a little more each week from my refereeing.

So far, since finding out about the pregnancy I have paid off my credit card (£1,300), my iPad (£430), cancelled my old phone contract (£15 a month), and tightened up in a few other areas too. Before the birth I hope to get our sofa paid for (£1,100), the Ikea furniture (£400), a photoshoot CD we had done (£100), and another few bits.

Saving has been going really well in fact, as you can see above, and so whilst Milly was busy scouring the virtual and retail world for the perfect... everything baby, I was at first a little hesitant to start spending heavily on baby until I had paid a few more bits off. After all, there's plenty of time, isn't there..?!

However, we both had set our sights on a great Mamas and Paps 9 in 1 travel set. Milly had seen it a few weeks ago and so I had gone to look at it recently too and thought that it did look great and was very practical. It retailed at about £700 or more but I was then offered one almost new and in superb condition for just over £300 and with a few extras too and snapped it up. The design wasn't Milly's preferred but I loved it from the moment I saw it and Milly still really liked it.

So that's one thing of about a million things sorted! We've also found our furniture range that we want to get. Again, Milly found it first and shown me and I agreed that it suits what we were looking for perfectly. Again, it retails for just over £700 but I have found it at a different seller online for £560 and it is still brand new. We are now saving up for this and hope to get it in the next couple of months. It's a really great set, in a sort of pine wood that we prefer over any dark stain or white. It is a 4 piece, including cotbed with under storage drawer, wardrobe, and chest of drawers with a changing unit on top. Looks ideal for the nursery as we want it but will also last for a great number of years whilst the little one grows up, although we'll probably have another in the next few years so it will be still in great condition for that one too :). And the others ;).

Soon the football season will be over and I can make a start on decorating the nursery, which I am very much looking to. Picked up quite a few other things too including a few clothes, toys, bits and bobs etc. Going well so far. 20 week scan soon too! Can't wait.

Best feeling ever!

Seen our little baby for the first time after having our 12 week scan today - albeit a week later than it should have been. It was fantastic, the nurse found it as soon as she put the scanner to her stomach. It was such a surprise to say how long it took to find it when we had a scan at 6 weeks and then to find the heartbeat on Tuesday.

It was a lot more developed than I expected, especially when the view went to pretty much full screen. We could clearly see everything pretty much, it's little button nose, fingers, little arms, it was amazing! Just after we started looking at it we saw the little arm raise and it looked like baby was waving at us! It was certainly Doing a lot of wriggling about. It probably won't be long before Milly starts feeling it inside her.

We were then taken aback as the legs came into view. They were so long! After all of the scans I've seen before, I've never even seen any legs on them, not at this stage at least. I thought they were just stump type things curled under the main part of the body so you can imagine my surprise when we were shown two clear, fully formed and very long legs, complete with what look like very large feet and tiny little toes!

Of course, Milly's tears flowed right from the first moment she saw it! I was too excited to start getting all emotional! We then watched as baby rolled onto it's side and away from us but luckily we'd already got the pictures we needed to print. We got 6 altogether.

Next appointment has been made for Wednesday 14th April, that's for the 20 week scan and it can't come soon enough! Oh yeah, now it's definitely confirmed that there is actually just the one baby in there so that's ok then, not that we would have been against multiple!

Exciting day ahead!

Tuesday this week was fantastic, hearing the heartbeat of our new baby for the very first time. The appointment with the midwife went well, but was pretty standard really. She asked how Amelia was feeling etc and took a few notes and booked her in again for a few weeks afetr our scan today before asking if we wanted to hear the heartbeat. Of course we did!

She did warn us that it may be difficult at this stage to actually pick it up and so we shouldn't worry if she couldn't find it but that didn't stop the tense moments when there was nothing but a deathly silence for what felt like an eternity. 2 or 3 times she picked up Amelia's pulse and it looked like we were out of luck, which would have been a disaster. There was no way we would have left that room in a clear state of mind had we not heard the heart beat. It would have made the next 3 days unbearable.

However, just as we were beginning to worry, and I could see Amelia's eyes welling up with fear, there was a much faster beat over the device and we were told there it was, our baby's heartbeat! It was brilliant hearing it for the first time!

Now we can't wait for the scan. Seeing it for the first time is going to be absolutely amazing! I hope, and I'm sure it is, that everything is perfect and this is a huge stage for us.

x

First Scan

We had our first sneak preview of junior today, though there were some slight disappointment as we didn't really see much. Having gone with Kelly a couple of weeks ago to hers, I expected Milly to be as far along as she was then so the scan to be just as clear. Add to that how large she has already got in such a short space of time, we were thinking she could be much further along than say 5-6 weeks.

Mill started to get really nervous before going but I told her she didn't need to be. We got there on time and went in for the scan about 9:20am. The nurse found the 'sac' quickly and zoomed into it and said that there was a little heartbeat but you couldn't see much else. I couldn't even see the heartbeat. I remember seeing the one at Kelly's scan and it was a clear beating spec but this time I couldn't make anything out. It was quite a disappointment.

She confirmed that we were only 5-6 weeks still and that she was just carrying a lot of water. She had a look around the rest of her stomach and said everything looked good and there was nothing to worry about. We didn't even get a prinout of it, though there was nothing really to see anyway.

Never mind, only another 6 weeks to the next one! We've got our first midwife appointment next Tuesday at 9:30am too. Really looking forward to it.

6 Weeks? 10 Weeks? Twins???

Just over a week of knowing now and already it seems like it's been a lifetime! That's not a bad thing, it just feels like we've known for much longer. Already Milly and her mum are picking bits and bobs up!

Although we decided not to tell anyone outside of the family before the 12 week scan, I think it's safe to say that all family, most friends and all work colleagues know, but we're still not making it officially 'public' just yet.

Milly's bump has really taken off over the past few days. I wouldn't expect her to have one for many weeks yet but she's developed a massive one in such a short space of time that it leaves us wondering whether she really is only 6 weeks!? We had a midwife appointment booked for 26th January but she's now had this changed to 18th and booked into Bassetlaw for a scan next Monday (10th), I can't wait! AT least this will give us an idea if she is further along, maybe there is more than one in there, or maybe she's just doing a great impression of a camel and holding a lot of water!

I was on top of the world when we first found out but over the last few days haven't been as buzzing as I initially was. Again, not in a bad way, but I couldn't be like Milly will be for the next 8 months or so, constantly on cloud 9 etc but it's more to the fact that I'm really trying hard now to get things ready for it. Financially more than anything. I'm gonna work so hard to pay off all our credits so that we can chill out and spend money on it when it comes, or is near. I don't feel like I can start spending for it yet this early, which is why I'm not fully in the air about it all, but last night we went to Asda and just looking at the childrens clothes in George made me feel funny, like I'm gonna be buying my little girl / boy a cute little outfit soon! I really can't wait and I know I'm incredibly excited about it but just keeping my feet on the ground for now, otherwise it's going to be a long pregnancy!!!

Decisions, Decisions

Well, it's been just over a week since we found out about the little one. It's gone so quickly already, I bet the next 8 or 9 months will go just as fast. Milly's already looking for anything and everything that we need and has bought a few bits and bobs, including a Christmas pudding outfit for next Xmas! Milly's mum has also been picking things up for her house and some maternity clothes for Milly.

We've had a couple of trips out to places too including Meadowhall to look for ideas for the nursery etc. We've both decided that we don't want to find out the sex and so everything we're looking at needs to be neutral. I never really liked that idea much as I didn't want to be stuck with just a load of beige clothes etc but a lot of the things that we're looking at such as push chairs, nursery furniture and even clothes, are what we'd probably look at if we knew we were having a boy or girl anyway as it suits both and is nice.

Milly has sorted a midwife but has to wait till 26th January to meet her. She is desperate for a scan just to make sure everything is ok and also to find out how far along she is. We've worked it out that she's about 5 and a half weeks now but it could be a little longer than that really. I think that sounds about right though. It will be good to see how close our baby and my sisters baby are born as she went for a scan last week and was told she was only about 7 weeks when we thought she was much further along. That means there may only be about 2 weeks between them and that gap could be reduced depending on when they are both born. That would be good for them to be very similar ages growing up together - although that is going to be the case now anyway as even if there ends up being 3 or 4 weeks between them being born, that's still very close! It would be weird for them though if they don't end up being in the same school year as each other, which they won't be if Kelly's is born in August and ours September. 

We're having to decide what is best for the house situation too. For the past couple of years we have rented our spare room to various people as an extra required income and it has helped us out immensely. These range from old work mates, to my brother and sister, to a few people we have only met when advertising the room. We've never really made the most of the money though, such as putting it towards paying things off but it has made living in general a lot better as we've had money to do more than we had before. We always said that by the time we had children we didn't want to have anyone renting the room though so we could just be our family. I certainly wouldn't want strangers in though and so when my sister got pregnant and needed to find somewhere to live, we thought it would be good for them to come here.

At this point though we didn't know we were pregnant and although i was against it at first, as I wanted to rent both spare rooms for the next year and get extra money in and spend the next year paying everything off, did come around to the idea of having them here. We ended up asking them when we found out we were expecting and the thought of us all being under one roof with both babies was quite fun. However, a lot of people are surprised by it and now trying to convince us it's not really for the best. There's going to be a lot of hormones in the run up to the births and a lot of stressed ladies! There'd be fights for the bathroom when the morning sickness kicks in and plans for the nursery may not be agreed.

We need to talk together and with them to decide what is best for us all.

Happy 21st!!

We took plenty of precaution in the build up to our wedding in May 2010 as not to fall pregnant shortly before the big day and send the whole planning to cock. However, we both knew (as did many others) that after the wedding it would only be a matter of time before the pitter patter of little feet arrived in our home.

We discussed it on Honeymoon in Italy when the time would be right to start our family and we both felt ready. Many factors in our lives would prevent others from trying so soon, such as finances, risk of job loss, age, experience etc but these could all be factors in 10 years time in this world (probably not the age thing!) and so it was felt that we would start trying straight away. Even on our Honeymoon we were hoping to fall pregnant. Names such as Verona, Roma and Florence became discussed as part of our plans but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

We continued to 'try' upon our return, perhaps not as much as someone ever-keen on becoming pregnant but the closer to the end of the year it got, the more the focus was on the need to be pregnant as not to affect next years wedding of Amelia's sister, Abi, who will be marrying Paul in November. We'd set November as the final month that we would hope to fall pregnant, but when this didn't happen, we were both quite upet and agreed that one more month of trying would still be safe.

We did everything right this month, working out the best dates to conceive and hoped that our well prepared month would bare the fruits. A couple of negative tests brought disappointment as Amelia's period due date approached and the news around us that my sister had become pregnant during this time, not to mention our beautiful niece Elysia's arrival on 31st October, and even a pregnancy scare from Amelia's mum could only add to our disappointment.

Amelia had been given a 'Lucky Test' for Secret Santa from one of her work colleagues who was set to go on maternity leave herself and told her to do it on Christmas morning. As this date approached and coincided with her due date, period pains had already begun and so we weren't holding our breath. We were that convinced that we didn't do the test around Christmas as we didn't want it to upset our celebrations.

I discussed with Milly (now I'll drop the Sunday name!) that I had been feeling like I didn't want to wait until after Abi's wedding to start trying again due to my age and felt we were ready now and Abi would understand if we ended up pregnant during her day. It would just mean a bigger dress for Milly! I was going to speak to Abi to check she was totally ok with this, whilst Milly, who had however been having a few signs of pregnancy, was becoming frustrated at yet another late period, This was nothing new so we didn't see it as a clue to being pregnant.

On Boxing Day, Milly celebrated her 21st birthday. We spent most of the day with various family members and at a Pantomime before heading home later in the eveing to collect some things for a family party at my mums. Milly had decided to take the test to just get it out of the way so we could get on wit our Christmas. Suddenly, a shout from upstairs; "ADAM! It's Positive!" I dashed upstairs to see her confirming this with her test as tears rolled down her face (and pants round her knees!). I checked the test and then felt the delight sweep across my body as I hugged her.

We wet to my mum's for the party and told my sister Kelly and her partner Craig, before telling everyone else know. They were all delighted for us, as were Milly's family when we went to surprise them with the news.

It was certainly the best present either of us could have wished for and has made it a birthday never to forget!