Thirty-four weeks and back in hospital

This weeks Flo's been much better. She's obviously pregnant and therefore gets tired in the afternoon and heads off to bed for a quick snooze, but other than that she's been quite perky. She managed a couple of light yoga sessions this week and we've been on some small grocery shopping outings and went to the cinema for a matinee on Monday.

Today we returned to the hospital for a routine check up with the midwife. Flo's weight and blood pressure were fine, but when it came to measuring the baby's heart rate, it was a bit on the high side at around 190 bpm (beats per minute). This concerned the midwife a little so she rang the gynaecology ward where Flo was once again hooked up to the cardiotocograph machine. One and a half hours later, a trainee gynaecologist came and interviewed Flo and after the proper one came and had a look Flo had some blood taken to test for infections (again). An appointment with one of the hospitals senior and specialist gynaecologists has also been made so that he can take a closer look at the baby's heart on the ultrasound scanner.

During the one and a half hours of monitoring, the baby's heart rate returned to a normal 150 bpm and Flo and I are both pretty confident that the elevated heart rate is simply a function of the baby being so active, since she was kicking and thumping around quite a bit all morning. However, it's better to be safe than sorry so, despite being a bit frustrated with having to spend another couple of hours in the hospital today (although we did get a free hospital lunch out of it!) I suppose it's worth it just to ensure that the baby is fit and healthy.

Flo received a phone call from the gynaecologist late this afternoon to confirm the appointment with the specialist next Friday and also informed that the results from the blood tests were negative, so nothing has been identified wrong with Flo at least. So now we sit tight 'til Friday...

Otherwise, things seemed to be going well. If you can ignore the sensors in the picture here, you can see that Flo's belly is developing nicely and is now a lovely, full bulge. It's funny watching it in the evening and seeing movement inside of it... a bit alien-esqué. Our little girl can certainly be pretty active... this morning when we were waking up, Flo pulled my hand onto her belly and within thirty seconds I felt a little limb moving around inside her... which made me smile as I still find it a bit unnerving! It's such a weird idea, the thought of a little human inside another.

It's not all been babies this week though. We've recently noticed a wet patch emerging under the paving stones in the back garden after using the bathroom and/or toilet upstairs. When I initially saw it I was feeling pretty proud of myself, since I'd done an enormous poo (I blame the healthy food that Flo's been feeding me) and thought I might have plugged up the plumbing. Anyway, Flo gave the builder a call and to his credit he was pretty efficient at getting a plumber to come 'round and have a look and give the house a colonoscopy. Turns out our one hundred year old plumbing had finally had its day and a section of it needed replacing with some modern PVC stuff. So, that's another thing sorted on the house!


Boris and Boika seem to be very happy that we've been spending so much time at home. In fact, I think they're getting a bit too used to it and starting to take a few liberties... like expecting food and water from the tap on demand and copious amounts of attention (only when they want it of course). Boika seems to be struggling to adapt to our more leisurely morning rise, not failing to wake us up at 7 a.m. every morning for her biscuit breakfast with a barrage of meowing at our bedroom door. But they still like to indulge in each others company occasionally and snuggle up together on the sofa. In fact this fleece blanket that my mum gave us has become Boris' comfort blanket... he gets upset if he can't find it to lie on since he loves to cuddle up to it! Anyway, in the picture above you can see him giving a mighty kitty raw after I woke them up returning home yesterday afternoon. Don't you just want to give them a big hug!