I’m hoping to move forward with this blog fron a parenting/dad point of view. I’m currently typing one handed as my other hand is supporting the bottom of my three day old son as he lays on my chest. Best feeling ever. Anyway, here I am. Back, blogging, sort of

I think its going to be better to split things up into sections. I’ve got a lot playing on my mind at the moment, making a list might be a good place to start. There aren’t going to be any pictures, sorry.

Leeds 10K

My plans for getting out there and running 3-4 times a week were going really well right up until the day after the 2nd run out where my knees were a bit sore. They were still sore two days after when I was due to go out again, I decided not to push it and wait a few more days. A few more days passed and they still weren’t right. Fast forward to this week and finally my knees feel like they are up to another run. The Leeds 10K is eight and a half weeks away. It’s not going to happen. Even if I get myself fit enough to take part theres a chance that the baby could be here by then, at the moment its an additional stress that I just don’t need at the moment. I’ve cancelled my entry.

I’m disappointed and rather than feeling like it’s a weight lifted, it just feels like a massive failure. Something that I did last year that I wanted to improve on I have failed to do. I was going to be running it with a friend so I also felt bad about letting him down. Anyway, it’s cancelled, I’m not taking part. One less thing on the calendar.

Pregnancy Problems

Sue had a routine midwife check up earlier this week where they tested her blood pressure and checked her urine. Whilst checking her blood pressure they found she had an irregular heartbeat and her BP was up a little, she also had a +1 count of protein in her urine. The midwife arranged for her to go up to the hospital straight away. Sue phoned me, quite upset and told me they were sending her to hospital, I told her to pick me up from work on the way. Work were okay in me going out to the hospital with her and off we went. She had bloods taken and sent for urgent results turnaround, another urine test and had several more BP tests. Several hours later her bloods came back fine, urine was showing only a trace of protein and BP had come down. Still a bit scare. Midwives want to keep a closer eye on her from now on. They asked her to go back in today and have some more urine/BPs done. Urine was showing 1+ again and BP was showing as high. They want her to go see the community midwife every week to keep an eye on it for the foreseeable.

Nobody seems too bothered about the irregular heartbeat, a quick google shows that its a hormonal thing. Fair enough.

The House

The house is a mess. A real state. Having gotten rid of all of the crap last year before we found out we were pregnant we’ve started amassing more crap – except this time its crap that we need for the baby. Dining room is piled high with it. We’ve had the remainder of the windows in the house (that we didn’t have done after we moved in) replaced with shiny new UPVC double glazed ones. This should make a massive difference in the kitchen and bathroom when Winter comes around again later this year along with the gale force winds that hit the house.

The plan is to make the smaller, back bedroom the nursery/the baby’s room. Before we can do this however we have to vacate the back bedroom. Before we can move into the front bedroom, that needs decorating. I started stripping the walls a few weeks ago but its been hard going. Painted wallpaper on top of 2/3 layers of thick lining paper. Nightmare.

Anyway, 3/4 of the walls are stripped now and Sue’s mum and dad are coming over at the weekend to help out with final bits of stripping, sanding, prepping, painting and then finally hopefully wallpapering (walls and ceiling) of that front room and replacing a few strips of wallpaper on the stairwell that I ripped down because next doors bath was leaking causing a damp wall. Once we have that done, we can empty the last few things from the front room, get the old carpet up and get a new carpet put down in the front bedroom and hallway/stairs. Once this is done, new wardrobe needs buying and we move our bed and the other bits and pieces into the front bedroom. One room completely done.

Then we start stripping the back bedroom. There looks to be an airbrick on the wall covered with paper. Will be interesting to see what state this is in when we get it off. We’ll probably need to stick a slidey vent on there. I’m also quite interested in looking at the walls for any holes – we can hear next door talking (thankfully thats all we’ve heard) on a night/using their hairdryer and stuff in a morning. Hopefully there will be a big hole or crack I can fill and sort that out, otherwise they’re going to be finding out what its like getting up for 2am, 4am and 6am feeds.

Once that room is stripped, sort the skirting, paper the walls and ceiling and get a carpet in there along with in the dining room which needs clearing and then painting before we carpet it. Once thats done, the house will be in a much better state than its in at the moment. Sue is also on about replacing the crappy early 80s doors we have with some nice basic £20 ones from B&Q which look a million times better than what we have and won’t need painting because they’re already white. They’ll just need some handles and some holes drilling for fittings and stuff.

Florida

I think we’re about 4 weeks away from when we should have been going to Florida. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that we’re having a baby and I wouldn’t change that for the world, I’m just a little gutted about the holiday we had planned and have had to cancel. We’ve not had a proper holiday away with just me and Sue since we went last year and it just feels a little sad. I know that the future holds many, many more holidays in Florida for us and that we’re going to be in a position where we can hopefully go every 2-3 years (and maybe every year once we’re a little more stable in terms of finances). We went to Disneyland Paris in Feb but that’s never the same and it just wasn’t as good as previous visits for a number of reasons.

Money

Money is a little funny at the moment, just not ha-ha funny. We’ve still got a couple of long term debts that are taking a large chunk out of the monthly incomes, the sofa and chair we bought 2 years ago are almost up so thats £60 a month extra we’ll have in our pockets again soon but the macbooks still have another year to run. The stupidly big loan I took out to cover a load of silly purchases and the camera equipment and a £6k holiday to Disneyworld in 2008 still has a couple of years left to run. Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it?

It’ll be interesting trying to manage this when Sue is on maternity leave but we’ll see how it all goes. If I have to take on a part-time job in the evenings/at the weekends then I’ll do that. If not, we’ll manage somehow. It might just mean making smarter choices and living life a little less to the full. Millions of people out there manage. I’m sure we will too. I can always cut down on the amount of t-shirts I buy, huh?

Work

Work is actually going okay at the moment, I’m enjoying it. This week has been a strange one with it being Easter, most schools have broken up, its quite a bit quieter than usual, it means I’m not working on 15 things at once and only a couple and that’s been a bad thing. When I’ve got things dwelling on my mind they just run around in my head, give me time to think about them and it gets worse. I’m involved in a couple of interesting projects and I feel that I’m a valued member of the team.

Hearing Aid

I got a hearing aid from the audiology department last week and started to use it. It seemed to work quite well – I could hear things out of my left ear. Since the weekend I’ve started suffering with some dizziness and feelings of anxiety, I took the hearing aid out yesterday and the dizziness subsided fairly quickly. I need to get in touch with the hospital and arrange for a proper check with it. Since I had an infection when they were going to fit it, they didn’t carry out the calibration stuff and just let me take it. I need to make sure its set up correctly. If it is then I need to ask them what to do about the feeling ill.

Easter

Sue was that pre-occupied with making sure she got all of the requests in for the upcoming NCT classes we’re attending that she completely forgot it was Easter. As it happens she’s working every single bank holiday and is doing nights across both weekends. Super

That’s not helping my general mood. Knowing I have 8 days off but I don’t get to relax with Sue for any of them. It’s pants, but it can’t be helped. Will be plenty of time for us to sit out and chill out together with the baby (ha).

Gadgets

I know I wrote a blog post about not buying as many gadgets (as I keep being reminded every time I buy anything by my mother) but its something I can’t stop myself doing. I upgraded my new ipad with a bit of overtime money that came in along with the money from selling my original ipad. I finally got a wakemate a couple of weeks ago – something that I pre-ordered nearly 2 years ago. It seemed to work okay for a few nights, except I woke up every morning long before my alarm went off but then the last night I used it, it failed to record any data. I’m currently waiting for them to get back to me in regards to sending it back under their 30 day money back guarantee because I’m not happy.

Also bought a pre-natal listening system from mothercare – its a Summer Clarity one. It’s non-invasive and doesn’t use a doppler – basically its a crappy microphone in a crappy handheld unit. Was meant to be £35, was on sale for £19.99. Great, I thought. It wasn’t until I got home, tried to use it and then found the reviews on amazon that I realised we’d made a mistake. I sent the company an e-mail to tell them what I thought of their product but haven’t heard back yet – strange, that.

Me

I’m in a weird place at the moment. I’ve got a million and one things to do with the house, the garden, a million things to buy for the baby. There’s the constant worry with Sue and the baby and their wellbeing, we’re close to 30 weeks now, anything past the 37 week mark is classed as ‘full term’ which means I could be a dad by the 21st June. Gosh.

This morning I woke up with such a strong feeling of malaise and just your general ‘can’t-be-arsed-ness’ that it scared me. I didn’t want to get up, I didn’t want to make my lunch and I didn’t want to go to work. Something I was waiting on at work wasn’t ready so a planned day of work was postponed. Sue was at the hospital again for more tests and I was struggling to concentrate. I decided to ask if I could book the afternoon off. Decided to go have a look at wallpaper and then come home and just watch some TV with Sue which kinda helped.

By the time we got to 7pm though the feeling returned, she was going to work and I’d be sleeping in a bed on my own, I’ve got nobody to talk to and I feel alone and like I’ve got the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’ve been writing this thing for an hour and I’ve been flicking through my music catalogue and just nothing is sticking at the moment, the amount of variation I have in there and not one type of music feels right. It’s stupid.

I did watch House and Supernatural this evening with Sue and both had parts which made me laugh out loud, it was nice because its been a while since I found something that funny.

I think going to work tomorrow will be easier than today – I’m there 9:30-6:00 and I know that once I’ve done, that’s it till Tuesday. Sure I’ve got a boatload of work to do at home but at least I can put work out of my mind between now and then.

I think all in all, things are just getting on top of me at the moment, plans have been scuppered, ideas have been squashed, reality and the huge trials ahead are hitting home. It seems bleak but I’m sure it will get better. It has to.

Part of the problem is my lack of non-work friends, or any kind of friends really that aren’t too busy with what’s going on in their own lives. When Sue is on nights I find it quite lonely, though I guess there’s only a few months of that left for the next 18 years or so I’ll have some company.

I think the other problem is me turning 30 has hit me fairly hard, I’ve spent time wondering where I am, what I’m doing and why I didn’t do some things better – why aren’t I further on with my career? things like that. None of it is conducive to a healthy frame of mind, is it?

Comments on this post will be turned off. I don’t want your sympathy, I don’t want your lectures, I don’t want your advice. I just needed to get this out of my head.

Still lots to do in the house, though the decorating in the front room is coming on a little bit now, should have the walls stripped and ready for wallpaper by next weekend. Once that’s done we can get a new carpet in there and move our bed in there, empty the back bedroom and get started on making that a nursery.

Weight wise, I’ve put some weight back on. Really can’t get on with ProPoints from Weightwatchers, I’ve been eating crap, and lots of it. I can’t deny that I’ve gotten back into the habit of eating multiple bags of crisps and chocolate on an evening and the weight is working its way back to my face and belly. I’m going to start thinking more about what I eat, concentrate on rice, pasta, tuna and chicken and up my exercise levels.

Over Winter I did nearly zero exercise. Which sucks. The weather is back and I’ve just bought myself some new running shoes. I’ve loaded up runkeeper pro with various routes ranging from 1.5 miles to 6 miles and tomorrow I’m starting couch to 10k. I’m going to ramp up the exercise a bit as I only have 10 weeks to get myself ready for the 10k. It reckons 3 runs a week. I’m looking at probaby 3-4 runs per week, all in the morning. I’m going to start getting up an hour earlier (for now) and heading out at about 6:30am. Starting tomorrow.

Running kit is all ready. I just need to set my alarm and get out there.

Been out all day today on a stag do, took a steam train to haworth, had a nice meal and a walk around. I even turned down a curry at the end of the night and came home and had a bowl of Rice Krispies. My head seems to be in the right mindset at the moment so I’m not going to chance it. I’ll see how the next few weeks go but all in all I’m feeling more positive and happy about things than I have done for a while. I think its definitely linked to the sun and now the short nights are gone for a few months it’s time to ramp things up again before the baby is born.

I’ve only had one meal today which was at lunch, I had a couple of pints of beer and an ice cream and I’ve had the rice krispies. I need to find ways to keep myself occupied and away from boredom, getting the bedrooms sorted out should be the ideal distraction from food at the moment but we’ll see how that goes.

Might I direct your attention to this blog post here, yes that’s right, this one.

Let’s see what I said.

We’re rubbish with money, we get plenty of it coming in, it just seems to get flittered away. We’ve put a plan of action into place that begins this month which will see us using our money much more wisely and will set us up in the long run to be much better off than we currently are.

Did I do this? Yes!

This time last year we weren’t in trouble with money so much as not exactly comfortable. We had no budgets, we were living to our means, whatever our means happened to be at that particular time, saw something you wanted? bought it. That was fun, but obviously a little silly really. One of the things that was causing a problem was things that would only need to be paid for once a year, things you’d forget about until June came along with a letter from the DVLA that said “you owe us £120 for car tax”. Bugger.

Anyway, added all of those costs up, went through the bank statements to make sure I got everything, totted it up and divided it by 12, that money now gets moved to a separate bank account each payday and is transferred out when required to pay for those ‘annual bills’. This has been a huge success and it means that I have £1100 saved up ready to pay for the Disney Vacation Club annual dues that are now due, statement should arrive any day now but – £1100!! at Christmas!, nice isn’t it? Luckily last year I had some premium bonds I could dip into to pay that off. Due to some confusion when we purchased the timeshare I thought it was actually due in June, my fault. Still, it was the main reason for setting this monthly savings thing up and it was a roaring success. Yay me.

Setting up a certain amount of money that was for want of a better term ‘spending money’ that each of us could effectively blow on whatever we wanted also seemed to work quite well. 2011 will see this plan moving forward and the debt that we’ve worked up over the years should be pretty much all gone by the end of the year.

I’m going to write some short stories this year, some creative writing if you will. It’s something thats been on my list for a while, its time to get that sorted.

Did I do this? No.

Damn it. This is still on my list of things I haven’t done yet but really must do. I sort of started writing something and then stopped, I got a few paragraphs in. Must make time for this soon.

The problem with creative writing is as a child it’s so much easier. That sounds silly but it is – back then, you’re pure and untainted by the world. You haven’t read or seen or heard as much as an adult and I feel it would be very difficult to come up with an original story of my own without borrowing from somewhere else. Which might mean I get sued. Or murdered. Either way, that’s an excuse. First resolution for 2011 is to do some creative writing.

I’m going to throw out a load of junk I’ve been hoarding the last few years and give the house a general clean, its time to dump the rubbish.

Did I do this? Yes!

It’s funny – when we had the big clear out in October/November I’d completely forgotten all about the original statement in the blog post. It was completely overdue but at least it was completed. Or mostly completed. The next stages of this involve getting a few rooms carpeted and having some windows replaced. Those are two things that really do need sorting out within the next 7 months. Speaking of 7 months, that’s scary – July is only 7 months away. Arrgh!

I’m going to take stock of what I’ve got, spend more time with the people I love and have as much fun as I can.

Did I do this? Maybe…..

Now this is a difficult one. Did I take stock of what I had? I’m not sure. Have I spent more time with the people that I love? Maybe. Have I had as much fun as I can? Probably not. This one is obviously unattainable in one year and has to be one of those life choices that you carry out throughout the rest of your life.

This year also saw the revelation that my little swimmers do actually work (after 4 years of trying for a baby I was beginning to wonder if there was something amiss) and the news that I’m going to be a dad. I think that was possibly the happiest morning and weekend of my life so far (even including the day we got married, sorry Sue). The comedown afterwards was quite harsh though and realising that I was going to have to wait near enough 9 months for the baby to actually arrive sunk in.

Couple that with the scary couple of weeks when we thought that Sue was possibly miscarrying, gosh what a ride it’s been so far. There’s another 7 months worth of worrying to come followed by another 18+ years too. There must be some rewards though else people wouldn’t bother to procreate.

I’d be happy with a boy or a girl, I think I’d quite like a girl though. I’d relish in raising a geeky girl, bringing her up on Doctor Who, Star Wars. It’d be a challenge. The only downside to that is if she spurns geekdom and would rather play with Barbie dolls. *shudder*.

A boy would be much easier in that respect, there *shouldn’t* be any dolls in play. We could play with lego and whatever the he-man figure equivalent of this strange new era is. There’s nothing to say I can’t play with said he-man toys with a girl though.

Either way, I’ll be happy. As long as its fit and healthy and arrives on time when it’s supposed to with no problems. That would be great.

My mum and dad want a boy to carry on the family line. First born and all that, it’s my duty and it is something that I’ve considered in the past. I know my mum is secretly (and not so secretly) wishing for a girl to spoil though, if it is a girl, we’ll never have to buy it anything :p

Anyway as I say, either is fine by me.

Whether or not we’ll find out at the next scan in February is still up for discussion. I can see reasons both for and against, I think we’ll probably end up finding out what it is though.

Linking the money thing and the baby thing together, I need to set up the mortgage payment holidays so that I can afford to take the 2 weeks paternity leave I’m entitled to. I think I get paid about £125 (but this is subject to tax and national insurance – thieving bastards) so I’ll end up with closer to £90 a week for 2 weeks. That’s just a bit of a decrease on what I’d usually earn. The mortgage payment holidays should allow us to afford my much required time off. I’m going to hopefully bolt 1-2 weeks holiday onto that too to give me a month with Sue and the newborn. I hope at the end of this period of time I will have mastered the art of the nappy change and the getting crying baby to sleep skills that I will require throughout my parenthood.

2010 also saw me take part in the Jane Tomlinson Leeds 10K. I took part and I ran for some of it – finished in just under 90 minutes. I wasn’t as strict in my training and weight loss routine as I should have been and I could have done better. 2011 will see me taking part in the 10K again only this time, I’m going to run all of it and I’m going to finish it in less than an hour.

Hand in hand this will go with my weight loss so that by the time the baby is born, I’ll be a shadow of my current self. Quite literally. I have put weight back on but only to the point of being back at only 3stones lost rather than 4 stones lost – I’m still within half a stone of where I’ve been floating around for the last year. Only now, I have even more of a reason to shift the weight, I need to run around the park and things and play football with the baby.

Since this is turning into a things I want to do in 2011 post, there’s something else that I want to do.

I want to volunteer my time to a worthwhile cause. I should think that I would quite like to help out where I can with an organisation such as Childline or the Samaritans. I’ve always been a good listener. I’ve often listened and offered advice to friends and family with things on their mind. Perhaps I can put that to some use and help other people who are in need of a sympathetic ear.

With a baby on the way perhaps it might be difficult for me to volunteer as much of my time as would be required to help out in a counseling position. If this is the case I might see what else I can do. I don’t know whether I would have the required skills to volunteer. Would I be good enough? Would they want me? I’m not sure. Child Line or the Samaritans?, which one would you apply for? Which one would you choose over the other? Would you apply for both?

So, 2011, I want to do something that doesn’t serve my own ends. I want to volunteer some of my time to help others in any way that I can. Telephone counselling seems like a good option at the moment. I’ll have a think about other things I could possibly do.

Gah, this post went off on a tangent a little bit. I’ve made up my mind whilst writing this post and have applied to the relevant organisation. We’ll see what becomes of it.

So what else did 2010 bring?

I bought an iPad, didn’t bother with the iPhone 4 but did get an Iphone 3GS, they were the new technology additions to the household and I haven’t really bought a lot since the iPad. It is handy for a few bits and pieces but I’ll always use my laptop if it’s within easy reach – after all, typing on a keyboard is much easier than the touch screen.

We went to Florida, had an awesome time, can’t wait to go back there (with a young’un in tow).

Erm, I can’t really think of anything else.

That’s my 2010 in review post. Hope it made for good reading.

I know I touched on this briefly at the end of a blog post a few months ago but I feel this deserves a longer, more thought out post.

I’ve changed.

I am no longer the man I used to be.

I think it all started back when I first started earning money in my first proper day job, admittedly it wasn’t a great deal of money but it was money that belonged all to myself. Aside from the board money I paid to my mum and dad, I could blow the rest on whatever I wanted. I don’t even think back then that I had to pay for my own lunches. I can’t remember. The point is, I had a lot of disposable income.

Anyway, DVDs had just hit the stores around that time and I bought one of the first DVD players to make it to our shores. I think it cost me around £250. Quite a lot of money (especially considering how much Tesco sell them for these days). The Matrix and Blade Runner were two of the first titles I bought and I imported them from Amazon.com. I think it cost me around £80 including customs charges and VAT (that sucked). The next few years saw me amassing a DVD collection the likes of which have never been seen before.

I think it was true of a lot of people in my generation, DVD was a brand new format – there was no wear and tear like with VHS, you watched a film 200 times and it was still as good as new each time. It was the digital revolution, man! DVDs would last forever, they would stand the course of time and building up a collection of them was a really good idea, hundreds of films at your fingertips, taking up less space than their VHS counterparts, lasting ‘forever’, bonus features, directors commentary, collectors editions! It was a dream.

Initially DVDs weren’t cheap. There was a specialist shop in the centre of Leeds who sold imported Region 1 DVDs, no prices on anything but he sold each film for between £30-£40. A lucrative market. I remember buying ex-rental DVDs for £18 from Blockbuster. These were DVDs that people had borrowed and watched hundreds of times, yet they were still selling them at nearly full price.

I bought everything and anything, a film I liked the look of – bought, a film that someone said was worth watching – bought! I still have DVDs to this day that I’ve never watched, never even taken out of their shrink wrap. It’s depressing really.

I think I had close to 1000 individual films at one point. It was like an addiction, I guess all collectors have at least a mild form of addiction. I used to have a special clause on my house insurance for £6500 for DVDs – that’s what I valued my collection at. I wish I’d put it into premium bonds or something instead. A lot of the DVDs I’d bought were on buy two for £3 at the supermarkets these days, brand new. Depressing.

Sadly, like all things – DVDs were superseded, in terms of the physical format we now have Blu-Ray. We also have Video on Demand and digital distribution of movies through services like iTunes. I’ve bought a few Blu’s but generally its reserved for must-have films. Back to the Future, anything Disney (classics or Pixar), things like that.

So, lots of disposable income. I got into photography, spent a load of money on kit for that, a hobby which I freely admit I just don’t put enough time into at the moment. I guess once I have a fairly captive subject in the form of a baby, that might change somewhat. I do recognise that I need to get out there with the camera more often though. The money has already been laid out, provided I stick to public access areas, the only costs involved are fuel and food. I should do that more often. Of course with the weather being like it is at the moment, that’s difficult too.

We moved into our own house, we still had plenty of disposable income, something came about that I wanted, I bought it. Something new and shiny on the horizon? It’s already on the shopping list.

I think I noticed the change coming a while ago. I’d gotten some Amazon vouchers and had nothing to spend them on – there was nothing that I wanted. When you have a shop as big as Amazon with the range of products they sell, that’s a pretty big statement to make.

You get to the latter half of the year and people start asking you what you want for Christmas – truth of the matter is I don’t want anything. There’s nothing I want or need. Even with money I set aside for myself to buy whatever I like with – there’s nothing I want or need.

I’ve fallen out with computer games, mainly buying them on release to only see the price of the software drop to below half price within 2-3 months of release. blu-rays and other similar products also have a habit of doing this. Makes you wonder why you bother and you end up waiting. When you end up waiting you realise that it wasn’t worth buying it anyway and you never end up making the purchase (in a lot of cases). I’ve paid full price for a hyped up 360 game where there hasn’t been a demo and found that it just isn’t my sort of game. (Borderlands, I’m looking at you).

I think I’m reaching that stage in life where I’m just not really that interested in material things anymore (somebody remind me of this blog post when the new iPad/iPhone are coming out). It could just be a phase though. I sometimes browse a couple of news sites on the Internet, look for some gaming news, check the weather and think – “ok, what now?”, I have access to the Internet 24/7, what am I actually using it for?

I’m sure its got something to do with the dark, Winter months, shortest day has been and gone, I spent most of last week unwell too and I’m still not 100% over it (stupid flu). I often get feelings of melancholy this time of year. Christmas is meant to be a time of celebration and spending time in the company of friends and family. Sometimes it feels like that can be lost a bit with the mad scramble for present buying. I’m in no way religious but I do think that there are more important sides to Christmas.

This time next year I’ll be a parent. There’s a whole new raft of stuff to buy, toys too – I’ll have an excuse to play with toys again, that’ll be good. I’m sure that my perspectives are going to be changing a lot over the coming years, I’m going to have to pay attention to parental controls on the Sky box and on the Xbox 360 (I realise its a little early to be thinking about this at the moment). Money will be much tighter and we’ll have another mouth to feed. It’ll also be another person to take into consideration when we’re planning trips away and things.

One thing I can say is that I’m looking forward to it more than anything else in the world.

The weekend came and we did a pregnancy test on the Saturday morning, it was positive.

We did another test Sunday, that was also positive.

Sue still had many symptoms associated with pregnancy so we were hopeful.

We headed down to the EPU on the Monday afternoon and after being sent from pillar to post, back to pillar and then back to post again and then waiting around for a while, we headed in to an ultrasound scan.

The few minutes at the start of that examination were some of the scariest I’ve ever had. The nurse has the monitor turned away from you initially, fearing the worst I attempted to gauge her reaction to the scan but she was unreadable.

My fears lifted when she turned the monitor around and introduced us to baby.

She asked us how many weeks we thought we were – and we told her 7. She said that it was a little further along than that, did some measurements and told us that we were more like 10 weeks gone. We have a new due date of 12th July 2011. We just gained 3 weeks

Everything with the baby looked fine and there was no reason for the bleeding (as far as the baby was concerned) so everything looks to be ok. The midwife recommended that Sue stay off work for another week if she was still having some bleeding.

To say the next few months are going to be filled with worry probably isn’t much of an exaggeration but theres also a big element of looking forward to the future. The future as a family.

That’s a serious blog post title if I ever did see one.

Sue and I have been trying for a baby since not long after we got married. She had been on the contraceptive injection for the best part of 3 or so years and we knew that once she came off it, it’d take up to 2 years for everything to start working as it should and we’d be able to conceive. Four and a half years later we’ve somehow managed to finally get there. I had no idea that it would take this long.

After a while, part of you beings to wonder whether or not everything is working as it should. I mean, as a species, we’re pretty good at procreation, with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, surely it can’t be that hard to make a baby?.

If for some reason life doesn’t hand you a great set of cards here, well, you know…..

This weekend is the first weekend we’ve had as a ‘relaxation’ weekend in about three. We’ve been on a mad de-cluttering mission. Anything we haven’t used for over a year, or at all has gone, either recycled, donated or binned (if it wasn’t of use).

Now we’ve broken the news, people seem to think that the pregnancy was behind this mad de-cluttering exercise. It really wasn’t. We only found out that we are expecting yesterday morning. When we were tidying up we came across a few of the books that I’d bought a few years ago . Pregnancy for dummies. A bloke’s guide to pregnancy. I decided to hold on to them because they would probably come into use at some point. Little did I know that we’d be needing them so soon. I guess the whole tidying exercise was just the right thing to do at the right time.

The de-cluttering is one of a few things that just seems to have slotted into place. The house is a nice and tidy place (still needs some new windows and some new carpets/a lick of paint – yay more expense) and I’ve done a lot of growing up over the last few months. I feel that we’re emotionally ready for this.

So.

How did we get to where we are?

You don’t need to know the details surrounding the whole….making of the baby bit. I’ll leave that out.

Thursday night, we went to see Disney on Ice. I have no idea how we got onto the subject but either on the drive down or the drive back, we started to talk babies. Sue thought she’d started again at the weekend but it was just some light spotting. Nothing else happened. She had a few other symptoms and I suggested she might be pregnant. We started to chat about what we’d do, how great things would be, getting ourselves very excited. We’ve been here before and it amounted to nothing but two very disappointed people. We tried to put a lid on the premature celebrations.

Thinking back, its probably been 2 years since we last did a pregnancy test but we still had a couple of the older style blue lines ones in the bathroom drawer. We decided to wait until the morning as we didn’t know how early we actually were in the cycle. Sleep on Thursday night was very hard to come by and I compare this to many a Christmas Eve when I was growing up into my early teens, excited or what?.

Sue got up at not long after 6am, went to the loo and did a test. It showed a +. She was pregnant.

These tests were still in date and we were over the moon, but we wanted to be sure and do another test though and decided we’d probably like to do the digital ones that say ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’ and also give an indication as to how far on Sue is. I dropped Jamie a text to let him know not to pick me up and we headed down to Tesco for some supplies.

Picked up some pregnancy vitamins (as you do) along with a few other bits and pieces and the pregnancy tests. Again we decided that we would wait until the first ‘visit’ of the day and do the test when we were both together the next morning. Sue dropped me off at work and she went home to prepare for guests arriving later in the day.

I had a smile from ear to ear. All day long, even with a shedload of big problems and pressure at work, I smiled throughout. Nothing was going to put a dampener on my day. The hardest part was not telling everyone. I did tell one or two people because they just wouldn’t let go ‘Is there something you’re not telling us????’ you know who you are :-p

We wanted to wait on telling our parents and the rest of our friends and family until we were 100% sure. Friday night we had laser zone, a handy distraction and a very tiring experience but it was still very, very difficult to keep quiet. Sleep was very hard to come by that night too. Hoping, tossing and turning and just wishing for the test this morning to correlate with the first one that we did.

This morning saw a similar set up to the morning before, not much sleep, early rise, pregnancy test done, tested positive. Tears of joy were shed. Cuddles were had.

Now we just had to figure out what was going on. We knew that it was pretty early. We presumed the spotting the Saturday previous was implantation, we thought that the test would say 1 week, maybe 1-2 weeks. It said 3+ weeks. This is a little confusing but we’ll go with it. It’s based on the level of hormones in the urine stream which double day on day so they say.

Now apparently when the doctors date the pregnancy they basically take the conception date and add two weeks. The baby is then born 2 weeks either side of the conception date. This means that our 3+ weeks becomes a 5+ weeks thing. Due date will be sometime around July/August. It seems like quiet some time away but the way that these weeks have been flying by recently I get the feeling that this will be here before we know it.

We had a couple of friends staying over and we just had to tell them when they got up

We asked my mum and dad to pop in this morning, my mum already knew what we were going to tell her (she’s good like that) but they were both thrilled with the news.

Another couple of really good friends came over with their baby at lunchtime, they’re such lovely people and finally got some good luck with baby Zack being born around 8 months ago. We were some of the first people they told that they were expecting, it was great to be able to reciprocate that news back to them.

We came over to York this evening to pass the news on to Sue’s mum and dad. They weren’t expecting us and we arrived to greet them and her brother. We celebrated with a 39 year old bottle of champagne. It was lovely and everyone was very happy.

My original plan had been to text my brother and sisters but I’ve enjoyed telling people in person so much that I decided to give them a call each. I’ve also phoned a few other close friends and passed on the news. Then came facebook and twitter. Messages of congratulations have been flooding in and I’m feeling very happy and very weepy (it’s okay, I can admit to things like this now and crying at Toy Story 3 without a problem, I’m going to be a dad).

I have a feeling I might be blogging more over the coming months. Could be a good idea to get thoughts and feelings down on ‘paper’ and it gives me something to look back on fondly when I’m up doing early morning feeds and nappy changes.

Now. Onto next year. In particular, Florida.

The 3 night cruise is out. They won’t let you board after 26 weeks. The rest of the holiday I’m not sure about.

It depends on the due date.

Virgin will let you fly up to 28 weeks with no problem. 28-36 weeks you need to have a doctors note which basically says that this is a single, uncomplicated pregnancy. Now until we get the doctor’s due date, we won’t know where we fall but it will be somewhere between 28-34 weeks. I sincerely hope that we have a great pregnancy but I don’t think that this is the only factor at play here. Will Sue be okay to fly long haul at that point? will she be comfortable? It’s a long way to go and it’s going to be hot and busy. Sue wants to go one last time as a couple but I don’t know how feasible this is.

Anyone want to buy a Three week stay at Walt Disney World in Florida next May?

I presume we can get the flights cancelled and refunded, I’d have to phone Virgin and see. The choice with the holiday is as follows – either someone buys the booked holiday from us or we cancel/get the points back and rebook for people who wish to go. Either way we’d get money back which can be used to prepare for baby’s arrival (and sort out some of the financial things that we still need to sort out between now and then. I might need to look into a second job/some weekend work whilst I’ve got the time spare to make some extra cash.

It’s certainly one for discussion. A long, hard discussion where we weigh up the pros and cons and try to come up with some answers for an event that hasn’t even happened yet.

Another thing we’ve talked about a lot over the last 24 hours or so is telling everyone. A lot of people wait for 12 weeks, I struggled waiting for 12 hours. I have nothing negative or positive to say about anyone that waits for 12 weeks to pass before telling people – I think its a decision down to whatever the couple is comfortable with. I know with us It just wasn’t going to happen. As far as I’m concerned, telling people early isn’t going to make anything bad happen. If anything were to happen, we’d be as devastated whether people knew or not. This way, the support network we have access to is huge.

The next few months are going to be an adventure for sure. We’re going to have a lot to sort out, with the house, with our finances. At times it’s going to be very trying but I know we’ll get through this and I know it’ll be worth it in the end.

So there you go. For anyone who came into contact with me yesterday and wondered what was going on, now you know. I apologise if I seemed a little distracted at times, I’ve had a lot running through my mind.

I’m going to try to convince Sue to keep a blog (or a handwritten pregnancy diary if she wants to), I think it’d be good for us both to have somewhere to make a record of what promises to surely be the most important time of our lives so far.

Now the next big responsibility of course is its going to be down to be to educate our child in the ways of the world.

The biggest question I have is viewing order. Do we go for Episodes IV V VI I II III or I II III IV V VI ?

I didn’t realise it was so long since my last post. I’m rubbish, I really am.

I do have an excuse though, I’ve been busy. I haven’t even managed to play WoW for the last fortnight. The last few weekends we’ve been sorting out the house, kind of like a Spring clean, but in Winter. Well, I say Winter, technically it’s Autumn isn’t it? It feels like Winter at the moment though, bloomin’ freezing.

When we moved out of my mum and dads, we’d accumulated a load of rubbish over the course of a few years. This got thrown into boxes when we emptied the bedroom and all got brought up to the house. We had a spare bedroom that we just piled things into.

When we found an issue with the house that meant taking the carpet up in the dining room and stairway, the dining room became a new dumping ground. Amazon boxes, bits and pieces that we needed to keep handy or things that were just cluttering up the living room got thrown in there. Old computers, a disused computer chair, boxes from things we just don’t have any more, things I’d bought because I thought they’d come in useful or just because they were so damn cool. There was all sorts of stuff.

We’ve had clear outs before but always ended up with piles of stuff that we’d keep because ‘it might be useful one day’ (everyone does that) which never really got sorted. This time all of that got binned. We took over 100 books to the British Heart Foundation donation box at the recycling centre, lots of cardboard too. I even found the TV wall stand I took off the bedroom wall pretty much as soon as we moved in – how this stayed in the house for all these years I have no idea. That went in the scrap metal bin.

I also figured out how the heating timer works, rather than having hot water on all the time its now only on in the morning and evening, that should save us some money in gas. Central heating now comes on first thing in a morning so there won’t be any more problems with stepping out from a hot shower into a cold bathroom. Still want to look at getting under floor heating when we eventually get the bathroom done again though :p

The front bedroom is almost completely finished. Just needs one or two things putting away. The bathroom is spotless, the upstairs landing is clear. The living room is completely sorted and feels very homely. The dining room is still to do but isn’t as bad as it has been in the past – a lot of things like the camera kit bags just needs putting away. Kitchen also needs a good clean.

It’s been a standing joke that nobody has seen my house – I didn’t even like letting my parents in because I was so embarrassed at the state of it. I feel that in the last few weeks we’ve really taken some positive steps to improve our living space and to give us some sort of rest and relaxation away from work and the strains of daily life. We’ve also gotten rid of enough that should we ever think about looking for a new house it’ll be easier to move out

We go through life buying all sorts of things that we don’t need. To quote Madonna ‘We live in a material world, and I am a material girl’.

It’s all about keeping up with the Jones’s, there’s also advertising and marketing at play. The last few months I’ve taken steps to curb my materialistic ways. I don’t think I’ll ever stop buying gadgets. I bought a Kinect last week and a few games (I thought I just said I’d stopped buying things. But ahaaa!) – in order to fund (a lot of) this, I sold my Wii. One motion sensing system out, another one in. I’m a lot more frugal in terms of buying games. The Kinect games were all £30 each. I haven’t bought a release Xbox 360 title for months, I’ve been watching the market and 99% of titles that release at £40 are less than £20 inside 2 months. Small developers like Telltale Games I’m still supporting with Pre-Orders (they’re making a Back to the Future game ffs) so I’m not buying games on release.

Playing something like WoW for £8.99 a month during the dark Winter nights is also a fairly good idea, it might not be a good investment of time but in terms of how many hours of entertainment you get out of that it’s a fair bit :p Going to the cinema is just too expensive to do every week. I’d rather go to Laser Zone or something, which in itself is cheaper than the cinema and also better for you. Just going 2-3 times a week is a strain on the wallet. Definitely looking forward to the exclusive event on Friday with my friends. Really can’t wait for that. Should be great. An activity I love surrounded by people I erm love… I use that term loosely :-p

I think this stems from the bottom falling out of my DVD collection, although I’m going to have to keep an eye on my blu rays as they’re starting to mount up. Only added a few titles in the last three months but still there’s not much point in putting money into things as an investment. I’m buying very good blu rays to enjoy them.

That’s not to say I ‘invested’ money in DVDs. I just spent a lot of my disposable income when I was growing up on them. I was buying ex-rental DVDs from Blockbuster for £18 a time, now you can get them for £2-£3 brand new and they’re not just the B-Movie horrors you’ve never heard of at PoundLand.

I would certainly love to be able to pass a message back in time to myself when I was 16 but I do think I’ve grown up a lot in the last 12 months. Not to the point where I’m not as fun loving as I was, I think I’m just turning more into an adult. Less toys, more shiny gadgets. When I buy things I think ‘Do I need it?, Will I use it?’ (thanks Martin Lewis).

I can certainly look through both a Firebox catalogue and an iWoot catalogue and feel uninspired. 99% of the stuff on those sites just doesn’t interest me in the slightest anymore. I think it’s because I’ve ‘wasted’ so much money over the years where I think I’d have been better investing it in something.

Money is a little tight but we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Being more sensible with saving where we can and not buying things we don’t need is going a long way to helping it stretch further. Things should get easier over the next few years when more of the cash we earn is freed up.

I think I’ve rambled on enough for now, time to go jump on the exercise bike.

That last blog post was interesting, especially when it got forwarded around all employees at work. Ah well, it highlighted the hard work that Jen does. I’ve had a couple of people request that I write a blog post about them. I mean come on, I’m a random techie with a reader count of probably less than 10 hardcore followers with other people catching blog posts at chance from facebook/twitter and google. It’s not like I’m some superstar International blogger :p

Needless to say, I work with a lot of talented people. Some of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Work is hard at the moment, but I have no doubts that we will prevail and that will be rewarding in itself. I do get a lot out of my job and I do enjoy it, it can just be very tough at times. Anyway – this wasn’t a blog post about work per se, except to say – awesome people. I work with some. I’ve worked with more awesome people in the past (I don’t want people from my old places of work getting the hump because I said they weren’t awesome either).

I’m currently sat under a slanket in a freezing cold caravan in Flamborough. It’s my mum and dad’s caravan and it’s great. I mean don’t get me wrong – it’s just your bog standard 2 bedroom caravan but its OUR caravan. I say our caravan when I mean it’s my mum and dads caravan but I feel more like a piece of this place is my home than my mum and dads house. It’s weird. I guess its because as soon as I moved out, my brother stole my bedroom so it’s almost like I don’t have an old room I can go and be nostalgic in, there’s none of my old stuff there (there might be in the loft).

The caravan is a sort of sanctuary. A place where I can come and spend the weekend with my mum and dad (and my lovely wife) and really spend some time with them. As you get older you figure out just what is important to you in life and spending time with my parents whilst I can (and they still want me to) is one of the best ways I can think of spending my weekends.

My dad and his funny ‘keep up with whatever Matt buys’ Idiosyncrasy. I mean this thing has been going on since I can remember but it was a toss up as to who bought the latest gadget first. Now that I have my own income stream it’s invariably always me and I knew that when I took my ipad down a few months ago that my dad would have one within a fortnight. I think it was closer to a month but I was still right. I can’t have any piece of tech without my dad getting one of his own. It sometimes works the other way around but a lot of the time he buys rubbish :p

He loves his ipad, he loves downloading the newspaper to it and also playing Angry Birds. I say he loves playing angry birds, he doesn’t pay any attention to the instructions and he got stuck on level 1-12 because he didn’t know about the bluebirds being tappable to turn them into three to give you more ammo. I hadn’t bought Angry Birds HD at this point so did so and decided to show him how it was done. I got stuck on the same level too for about 10 minutes but it was that competitiveness that I love – sort of a loving oneupmanship. It’s fun.

My mum loves her kindle, telling me to buy this book and that book (they’re all girly books) and she sits in the corner quietly reading. It’s good because as soon as she saw my kindle she didn’t shut up about it for a month. Everyone she saw she told them about how good it was, what the battery life was, what you could do with it. She could have been an official Amazon kindle rep. Though my mum doesn’t share my dad’s love for gadgets, she tolerates it. Just. Either that or she’s just given up trying to fight it.

Sue ends up reading too, she’s started on the shopaholic books (due to my mum) and there are a lot of them so no doubt she’ll be doing a lot of reading. I love her to bits and wouldn’t have anyone else to spend the rest of my life with.

I also get to see my grandma and granddad and of course my aunty pat. I have a little surprise for my granddad this time in the shape of a little mp3 player to make it easier for him to listen to music. I don’t know if he’ll take much interest but it will certainly make things easier for my grandma – she won’t have to keep restarting his music cd. He hasn’t been the same since he had his stroke and it breaks my heart every time I see him but I still treasure every minute I get to spend with him and reminisce about times past.

Anyway – back to the topic of the blog post. Relaxation. Relaxation is important to me, especially with work being as hectic as it is at the moment. The weekend is the only proper time to do that and sitting in a cold caravan is a fun way to do that, especially when surrounded with good company. We’ll probably go into town for a bit, grab something to eat, look in some of those shops that you only get at the seaside. Hopefully at some point we’ll find some fruit machines and I can continue my good luck and get some more money out of them. I’ve been saving up pound coins all week.

My relaxation techniques at home generally involve some form of technology, be it the laptop, the tv, my kindle or some gaming apparatus. My kindle allows me to read big books without them being a bugger to hold but apart from that I could do with finding something to do away from the tech. Now I don’t want to take up knitting or cross stitching but I could do with finding something to do. Maybe. I don’t know.

It’s funny – I sat bolt upright at 6:15 this morning and felt more awake than I did at any point yesterday. Crazy that after 6 hours sleep I can feel so awake yet after nearly 8 the other day I felt like poo.

This blog post has gone on so many tangents I can’t even remember what I was going to talk about anymore. No doubt I’ve brain dumped enough and will have missed someone out of the awesome train above.

If you read this blog post, you are awesome and I love you.

Except for you, Adam Hepton. You’re more awesome than the others.

I bet she’s not expecting this blog post to materialise. At least not so soon :p

Anyway.

Jen.

Jen is awesome. She sits next to me at work, she keeps me company, she gets through boatloads of work, often with little thanks from anybody but she’s a busy little bee and I really think she’s fantastic. A lot of people do but they don’t tell her often enough so this post is all about her, how great she is and how fantastic she is at fixing people’s problems. We all love her and life in support wouldn’t be half as good as it is if she wasn’t working with us. I’d write a poem but I don’t think I have the creativity to do a poem justice these days.

So to sum up, Jen, this bud’s for you.

Hang on, wrong advert. Jen, you’re awesome and this blog post is testament to that fact.

The one thing I am jealous of though is that she gets more invites out to dinner from the customers than I do. It’s just because she has a nicer voice than me. I claim unfair advantage.