Rubbish, rubbish, rubbishness...

Bad mood alert.

Well, The Other Half was meant to start his new job today. Meant to. Except he had a joyful phone call over the weekend to say that the company has been taken over and he's effectively been made redundant before he starts. Wonderful. So, he's back to square one. And I can see he's trying not to worry but it must be awful. And doubly worse because he's telling me not to worry for fear something happens to the baby through stress.

Oh, I can't be bothered to write anything else. And since this is almost past my new bedtime, I'm going to bed in a huff. Goodnight.

The vampire attacks...

The Other Half and I have a rare long weekend off together this weekend - ahead of him starting his new job on Tuesday. Normally we'd go out for sushi but that's gone out of the bloody window now. Sigh. Ah well. It was also my first appointment with the community midwife today. My gawd. Now, I'm not normally funny about needles and the like, but flamin' Nora did she take a lot of blood from me! It was one of those little tap things they spike your arm with and keep filling up many, many vials from...eight, to be exact. Eight vials of blood! I'm positive she took them home to drink, there can't be that many nasty blood disorder things to test for, surely?!

Anyway, aside from the stream of blood leaking from my arm and supplying the local vampire shack with their supper, we filled in lots of forms. LOTS. They covered everything from my job and health records to screening tests and what I had for breakfast. Well, perhaps not the latter- but we may as well have covered that because it felt like we touched upon everything else. For some odd reason, this first appointment with the midwife is called a 'booking in' appointment. Not sure why. Maybe all the form-filling means you're officially booked in to give birth at some point.

The midwife gave me a knowing smile when I told her I hadn't had any sickness. "Oh, give it a bit longer. It usually starts around 8-9 weeks." Fantastic. So now I've got puking to look forward to, along with excessive tiredness and wanting to go to bed at 7pm. How delightful.

Noooo! Please don't take my goat's cheese...

Today I printed off a list of food stuffs to check I'm not eating anything I really shouldn't be, especially as every food label I seem to read says things like 'contains raw eggs' or 'may be unsuitable for pregnant women'. May be? That's just not good enough - I need a definite answer! 'May be' is neither use nor ornament when I'm ransacking the fridge in a hunger rage. You might have gathered that I'd like to consider myself a bit of a foodie, so I'm not really looking forward to cutting out nice things I would normally eat without a second thought. So, here we go, the no-no list. Let's see what it says:

Raw/undercooked eggs
I hate mayo anyway, so no loss there. And I don't like dippy eggs and soldiers. But I suppose I'll have to read up on labels such as uncooked cheesecakes, mousse and lemon curd. Not so bad, as long as I can still have chocolate.

Pate and liver products
Ewww. Not something I would choose to eat anyway. So far so good. Apparently it's the vitamin A content in them or something that does something nasty.

Soft ice cream
That's fine. I'm not a fan of Mr. Whippy and listeria doesn't sound too pleasant a side effect, so we'll give this a miss.

Meat
Avoid undercooked meat - bye bye rare steaks! Ah well. I'm sure I can live without Parma ham and the like for a few months, too.

Fish
Limit intake of oily fish like salmon, mackerel etc. to two per week to cut the risk of pollutants, also tuna due to the mercury content. OK, that's doable. I will miss smoked salmon, however. But can't say I've ever eaten shark or swordfish so am unlikely to miss those.

Seafood
Only eat cooked seafood - no raw prawns etc. Which means no sushi - arrrrrgh! The Other Half better treat me to some sushi when I've de-sprogged, I tell you.

Unpasteurised dairy products
Avoid goat's and sheep's milk. Fair enough. And blue and soft cheese. Which means...horror of horror - I can't have goat's cheese, noooooo! I love goat's cheese.

The fridge better be stocked when I come home from hospital.

Meet the parents...

Well, we decided to tell the parents our little secret today as we'd be seeing both sets. (And it's becoming increasingly difficult to answer questions honestly when they ask what's new and how things are going...plus I can't always remember which white lies I've told them so things could potentially get a tad confused.) Anyway, they were all delighted. Although my dad didn't say much at first, and did look The Other Half up and down in a suspicious 'what have you been doing to my daughter?' manner. Yes, Dad - we've been married for almost three years, did you not see this coming eventually?

In other news, I'm very proud of The Other Half. 'Twas his last day at work on Friday but he starts his new job in just over a week. Good on ya, lad.

The cat's out of the bag (sort of)...

The Other Half's tireless networking away seems to be paying off, and he's had some very productive days of late. He's already had some interviews which he feels quite positive about, so fingers crossed he should hear something by the end of the week one way or another. Yay! Speaking of work - well, the cat's out of the bag and my work know that I'm knocked up now.

Actually - only a select and necessary few know, as I've had to be risk assessed due to the nature of elements of my role. (Namely lugging about five million boxes of marketing print about the building to find a home for it on a giant warehouse trolley and climbing up ladders in all weathers to change horrid concert posters. Oh yes. You can see now what my MA is for.) I think I scared my line manager - am pretty sure by the panic-stricken look in her eyes that she thought I'd called a meeting with her and HR to announce that I was either a) leaving or b) making a formal complaint. But it's good to scare them sometimes.

I also managed to raise a few eyebrows at my parents' pad over the weekend as I didn't have any wine when the family were round for tea. Should have said I was on antibiotics or something. Instead, I muttered something incoherent about not feeling very well. Damn. Can't wait until this cloak and dagger business is over.

And now for the good news...

Which brings me now to the good news - as you have to follow such tidings of bad news on a more positive note. And I'm happy to say the good news is something we're very happy about. Now, I'm in the future writing this as if it's the present - so pay attention. (It's wearing thin on me already, don't worry. I don't plan on doing this retrospective lark much longer - not sure how much of this mix of tenses my head can take!)

Okaaaay. I've been feeling poorly all week, you'll know because I've harped on about it enough. But certain things started to ring alarm bells in my head. Tiredness. Thirsty all the time. Not hungry. Funny sicky feelings. Headaches. And, to top it off - I was late. (But that says nothing as I'm about as on time as relying on catching a bus when you're in a hurry.) So, I decided to take a test. You can see where I'm going with this, I'm sure. Yes, ladies and gents - I am now a pregnant lady. And the doctor is prepared to take my word for it and booked me in to see the midwife as soon as possible as I've taken four positive tests (just to be sure!).

We're absolutely delighted - we'd talked about trying previously over Christmas, then just sort of forgot about it then remembered and decided to go for it in March. Who knew that'd be all it took?! We'd decided not to mention the good news to anyone (parents included) until the bad news had sorted itself out. Hence the retrospective blogging. Bit rubbish on the old timing front, but hey. So there you go. There'll be an ankle biter in the house by New Year's Eve, hopefully!

The bad news...

Well, you may have realised that there's been a little break in my posting recently - and you may be wondering why I'm now blogging retrospectively to fill in the wee gaps. All will become clear, I hope. You see, it all started this weekend when The Other Half and I experienced good news and then bad news to the extreme. It was a bit of a rollercoaster, to say the least. I'll start with the bad news first to get it out of the way; and the good news is the sort of good news that really merits its own post.

Okay, bad news. We've just found out that The Other Half's job is going to be made redundant. Poo bums indeed. That was delightful news for him to walk into this morning after a long weekend of loveliness - he came to meet me at work on my lunch break to fill me in - where I proceeded to have a semi panic attack - again, for reasons which are about to become clear later on! He has a two-week consultation period, and then that's it. And he knows that will be it as the alternative jobs they can offer are all based at least a few hundred miles away and are completely unrealistic options. Sigh.

But, being the proactive positive thing he is, he's already been in touch with all his clients and contacts to put the feelers out for any jobs going in and around his field, and has some good leads to chase. Not the most ideal situation in the world to find yourself in, but he's making progress already and I'm sure he'll be fine. (And apart from the fact that I'm a few weeks into the future already - so I know how this pans out! It's a very rocky road with more than a few bumps, to say the least.) And trying to remember details weeks after they've happened is not something I've ever been great at, so I'll be over the moon when my posts have caught up with real-time. Best get typing...