Respect.

Hi All.

Firstly, this isn't a post about the baby, Not in any direct way.

Gem and I have had an evening in front of the TV tonight and We watched
Honey, We're Killing the Kids. If you've not seen this basically they take a
family which needs often dietary and behavioural help and give them a set of
guidelines on how to improve.

Normally I get really frustrated at the parents on this sort of program,
Probably a little unfairly as for another 4 weeks or so I've not been in
their shoes.

Tonight they had a chap on who was a single dad, His wife died two years ago
and he was bringing up 7 kids on his own.

I've got a lot of respect for this guy as in 3 weeks he turned his house and
family around and had so much love for his kids. Its a bit hard to explain
but I've never seen anyone do as well on the program as he did.

Graham Burnley, Respect to you, we hope we can do just as well as you when
our little one comes along.

That's it,
Take care all.
Nick.

Babies cry how loud???

Hi All.

Sorry for not updating the blog in the last week or so but everything's
a bit quiet.

We're now in to week 35 and everything seems to be going fine.

I managed to scare my self a little this week, I've been doing research
on the Web and found an article which mentioned in passing that babies
can cry up to 97 DB. Trust me this is LOUD! To compare a pneumatic drill
is normally about 93 DB. WOW! I'm sure our neighbours are going to love
us!

I've also been reading up on children's bedtimes. I didn't realise that
the recommended amount of sleep for a 2 year old is 13 hours a night.
Does this mean that because I work from about half 8 in the morning to
about 5 (On a good day) that I'll hardly ever be home when the little
ones awake?

In other news Gem is getting totally frustrated with the bump. Next week
is her last week at work which hopefully means she won't be as tired all
the time.

A little tip that know one tells you when your going to become a dad is
that some of your jobs during the latter part of the pregnancy includes:
1. Shaving her legs,
2. putting her socks on for her.
3. drying her feet after a bath or shower.

I think normally that painting toe nails would also be in there but for
some reason Gem gets her mum to do that for her. I've got no idea why!

Right, back to work for me.
Take Care.
Nick.

Packing the hospital bag

Hi all.

Last night we packed most of the hospital bag. We should have done it a
couple of weeks ago but haven't gotten round it until now.

The amount of stuff we're taking we don't need a bag, we need an articulated
truck. We've got baby clothes, nappies, and clothes for Gem, Clothes for me and
food like chocolate and crisps to keep Gem going through the labour.

The only thing left to pack is a couple of tops for Gem and a couple of
T-Shirts for me.

The Birthing Centre where we're going let me stay while Gems in.

I've got to tell you that this is feeling a little unreal. I mentally know
that some time in the next 2 months I'll be a dad but it's hard to really
comprehend that. We're all ready but I don't think this will really be real
to me until once I hold my daughter in my arms.

I have no idea how I'll feel when that happens.

Take care.

Nick.

Today's midwife visit.

Hi All.

Just a quick one to tell you about today's midwife visit.
We're now at week 33. As I blogged about at the weekend Gems bump was a
bit on the big side. There is a chart we have which specifies upper and
lower limits on how big the bump is. The midwife last time told us that
Gem was just above the upper limit and that if she came again and was
still a bit big then we'd have to go for a scan to check everything's
OK.

Luckily Gem was just under the upper limit for week 33 this time and the
midwife was able to get a good strong heartbeat from the little one.

The baby is head down but not engaged. This means that she is the write
way up but has not moved down in to the position for birth just yet. The
midwife says that should happen in the next couple of weeks or so.

Gem and the midwife also put together a short birthing plan. Gem had to
make a couple of decision.
1.
Q: who did she want at the birth.
A: just me. She doesn't want to make a big deal about it so she can keep
as calm as possible. Family are welcome once little one is out and there
more than welcome to come to the hospital once she's been born.

2.
Q: how is Gem planning on feeding?
A: Brest feeding for at leased the first 6 months if she can.

3.
Q: does Gem want an injection to speed up the afterbirth?
A: Yes. They can give you an injection so that the afterbirth comes out
around 5 minutes after the baby does. If you don't have it can be
anything from 20 Minutes to an hour.

4.
Q: Does Gem want to give the little one vitamin K with a one shot
injection or a course of 3 pills over the first month.
A: Injection.

We' were also expecting Gem to have a blood test today to find out if
the Iron tablets had worked. The midwife decided to do the test some
time between week 36 / 38.

The conclusion, both Mum and Baby are fine.
The next midwife checkup is in 3 weeks time, week 36.

Take care.
Nick.

The things we do for our children

Evening all.

Again it's a bit of a late blog but this one won't get too depressing.

I'm blogging quite late tonight as it's taken me all evening to build the
toy box we've just gotten. Officially our best buy from EBay so far at only
£0.99 but truly a pig to build.

Over the last two years or so since Gem and I bought the house we've been
getting pretty good at putting flat packs together. Even to the point where
I can even get wardrobe doors to hang strait, no mean feet I know. We've
even got a system. Gem sits and reads the instructions to me and once I've
finished getting excited about using power tools again I actually put the
bits together. (An electric screw driver and cordless drill do count as
power tools.)

As an aside note, I've not yet managed to drill any part of my anatomy but
some how I did end up in casualty after getting to close to a hand mixer a
few months ago. No, I don't get it either.

Anyway, back to the story.

The toy box arrived this morning before we went off to work and I got a
little concerned to tell you the truth. I was expecting the toy box to me
made up of wooden panels you can just screw together so I was expecting the
box to be at leased 70 CM by 45 CM, (the biggest side.

Well what turned up was a box about 70 CM high by about 15 CM square.

Well I opened it tonight to find about 40 strips of wood of different
lengths. Yes you guest it, you had to make the panels out of these strips.
Imagine a log cabin but in miniature.

The instructions weren't that clear and not all the screws were there and we've
still ended up with 4 screws that don't seem to go any ware! But after 3 and
a half hours we now have a toy box at the end of the cot. We just need to
paint it.

The moral of the story, if there's a toy box on EBay that costs £0.99 what
ever you do don't buy it!

It's all good fun, Honest.

Today I also got more proof that I should never have left university. I've
been working for 2 and half years now and this year decided that with a
little one on the way I should probably join the works pension scheme. Well
I've had my first statement through and there was a lovely little line that
said:

"Expected retirement date: December 2046."

That's just scary!

Write well off to get some sleep.

Take care all.

Nick.

Maternity and Paternity Leave

Hi All.

Eventually we've managed to get Gem's maternity leave sorted out. She is employed as a casual by Caerphilly County Counsel. She's on a casual contract because the day centre where she works need the staff but are to cheep to pay for permanent members of staff. Gems been on a casual contract for 9 months and one of the people she works with had been on one for 2 and a half years. Seems a bit funny when in the paperwork we got did state that the maximum time that a person could be on a single casual contract was 13 weeks.

Anyway that's not the point, The point is that after telling work about the baby 5 months ago they have eventually told us what she's entitled to.

The Counsel will pay Gem 90% of her weekly wage for 6 weeks and then statutory maternity pay for 33 weeks after that. We've also come to the decision that Gem will start her maternity leave from the 31st of this month.

She doesn't plan on returning to full time work once the little one is born. I'd like to say we could live on just the money I bring in but that's not possible and based on Gems current wages if Gem worked full time and we put the little one in to a nursery we would get about £10 a week extra because child care is so expensive. We're not really sure that's what is best for the little one or Gem.

At the moment it looks like once the maternity pay has finished Gem will get a job she can do in the evening or one where she can work from home. We're looking in to delivery jobs. The way it works is for parcel companies to deliver a hole bunch of parcels for our local area to Gem and then Gem would distribute them. She'd be able to do this with the Baby.

As for me I get 2 weeks of paternity leave, 1 at full pay and 1 at statutory paternity pay. My plan is to use up to a week of my annual leave so I go back on the second Monday after the birth.

It's getting closer, only 7 weeks to go now.

Write back to work for me.
Take care.
Nick.

We want to get on with it!

A little while ago I blogged about the perception of time.

For the last 7 months or so we've been so busy trying to get everything in
place for the baby that now we're nearly ready we just want to get on with
the birth and meeting our little one.

There's only a couple of jobs left to do, Gem has to pack her hospital bag,
There's the toy box to build and the blackout blind and curtains to put up.
That's it.

I have a feeling that in one way the next 8 weeks are going to go incredibly
slowly, but in another way they'll be here before we know it.

Gem did manage to freak me out a bit tonight.

We have spent the last couple of days down with my folks. It's a 2 and a
half hour drive from our house to their's.

Every so often Gem said on the way home that she had back pain and at one
point we pulled over for her to stretch her legs and see if she could
relieve the pain a bit.

What was freaking me out a bit was the fact that it was starting to get
about half an hour intervals between complaints and back pain is one of the
signs to look out for the onset of labour.

We think it was just normal back pain though as once we stopped driving and
I gave Gem a rub it has stopped.

I have to tell you at one point I thought I'd be seeing our little one a bit
sooner than we thought!

Cheers.
Nick.

Music to have babies by

Its one of those times again on the Adamson Baby Blog.

Its time to open the comments and get your views and ideas.

At the birthing Centre in the room with the Birthing pool there's a CD
player so Gem can have some relaxing music in the background to help keep
her calm.

We don't have a lot of CD's with relaxing music on, between the two of us we
have an incredible eclectic music collection. Anything from the feeling (12
stops and home has to be my best album of last year) to muse, From Disney
CDs to Big band.

So I'm going to be making a CD up of relaxing music. Probably mostly
instrumental but maybe some vocals.

So I'm after your ideas of what I can put on the CD and what I should really
avoid.
Here are some ideas to start you off.

Possible tracks:
Acoustic guitar version of Time After Time I've got.
From the film Mr. Holland's Opus - Rowena's Song
Barber's Adagio for Strings (if you've never heard this Pease of music, stop
what you're doing, get a copy, put it on some fantastic speakers and listen
to a truly inspiring Piece of music.)

Not so great choices:
I want to break free, queen
I want to get out of this place.
The drugs don't work, The Verve.
Anything by nirvana.

(All of which I have somewhere in my MP3 or CD collection.)

So come on then, in the comments some suggestions of what I should and
shouldn't put on this CD.

Cheers.
Nick.

The nursery

Hi again everyone.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the progress in the nursery.

Well we're really starting to get there now. Once it's finished we'll post
some pictures but until then allow me to give you a guided tour.

The room is about 12 foot by 9. The window is on the 12 foot wall and the
door is opposite it.

At the moment when you come in to the room there's about 2 foot of wall
directly to your left and then an alcove which is the perfect size for a
single bed. Under the bed we've got a travel cot and play pen all folded up
along with my flat pack drum kit.

To the side of the bed, (directly opposite you when you walk in the door) is
a table with a nappy bin, a night light type of thing and a bottle cooler
and warmer. Gem is planning to Brest feed but if I'm on the night shift then
Gem would express in to a bottle and I could then use the warmer and feed
the little one with out having to wake up Gem.

Then you've got the radiator and window.

In the far right corner of the room there's a big chair, futon, type of
thing facing in to the room.

Along the right hand wall next to the chair is the cot. We've got it so it
sticks out in to the room.

Next to the cot is a canvas covered wardrobe which was a real pain to build.
Not hard but took a long time.

Now on the wall with the door, directly to your right, is the changing table
come baby bath thing we've got.

It's probably easier to see in the pictures but this blog is an fully
accessible blog don't you know.

The plan is that at the end of the cot will be a toy box with the baby
monitor on. We managed to get one of the camera ones cheep on EBay.

Actually the baby monitors are pretty great because they work on the same
frequency as the thing we've got so we can have sky TV upstairs. The upshot
is that we can watch the TV on the baby monitor or watch the baby on the
proper TV if we want.

Yes, yes, I know I'm a geek!

Once gems got all the decorations up then we'll post some pictures. Although
if you want to see some of the stuff we've gone for take a look at the I
Love My Bear range at toys r us.

Take care.

Nick.

Did you know we're having a horse?

Hi all.

Firstly sorry for not posting a blog entry for ages, Life's been a bit
hectic.

So to bring you all up to speed with what's happening here's the first post
of a few for tonight.

Last Friday, (the 27th) we had the week 31 midwife checkup.

George, our normal midwife, was on holiday and we saw someone else. She was
lovely and both Mum and little one are doing well. Gems bump is a bit on the
big side so if it carries on they might send her for a scan just as a safety
precaution. Gem is also a little anaemic and is on iron tablets which she
hates with a passion.

The midwife asked if we knew if we were having a boy or girl. When we said
that the scanner said it was probably a girl the midwife let us in to a bit
of a secret.

Apparently if the baby's heartbeat sounds like a train it's a boy, if it
sounds like a horse then it's a girl. To quote the midwife,

"You've got a horse in there!"

We've got another appointment at the midwifes this week, (on Friday). They
want to do another blood test to see if the iron tablets are working and I
guess they'll measure the bump.

Gem and I actually think that our due date maybe wrong.

Back right at the beginning of the pregnancy we went for what we thought was
the 12 week scan but they said that we had only just reached week 9. We
think they might have gone a bit mad so if Gems still big and they do a scan
we think the due date may just change.

That's it for this post.

See you all soon.

Nick.