Surprise!

Baby Katherine made a surprise early appearance, born on November 21, a squalling 4lbs, 2oz.  She's small but mighty and so tiny that she charms every one she meets.

Week 21, Photo Op

20 week scan

I was a bit disappointed that the photo from the 20 week scan didn't really show Baby Beanie's facial profile.  As if the fact that we can't really see his or her little nose made me feel less connected somehow.  So on Friday I put the photo away and didn't really think much about it as I tried to process my feelings about the other things I learned at the scan.

But today I pulled the picture out again to scan it when a co-worker mentioned that the ink on the facsimile-type paper will degrade over time.

And for some reason, my eye was drawn not to the missing profile, but to the exquisite detail of the little baby fist.  I wondered what moment had been captured here.  Is Baby Beanie winding up to give me one of those unfelt punches?  Has its little thumb just popped out of its mouth?  Is it about to launch into its own version of mama's signature karaoke performance anthem - Prince's "Kiss?"  Suddenly, it struck me that there is a tiny little person in there with 10 fingers and 10 toes and rapidly connecting neurons that are increasing its ability to perceive and react to its environment more and more every day.

And then I knew - this was the moment that little one reached out and grabbed my heart in its teeny, tiny hand.

Read more of my pregnancy journey here.

Keenie Beanie's Olympic Moment

I do love watching the Olympics, getting sucked into the stirring back stories, learning (or feigning to know) more than I ever though possible about a variety of sports, watching the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.

Yet, here I find myself living mere miles from the centre of this year's Summer Games, and I feel completely uninspired.  In fact, I'm rather dreading it.  I have a beastly commute already, and in a few short weeks, precious travel lanes are going to be placed off limits to the proletariat for the convenience of those involved in the Games.  There are signs and warnings everywhere about the coming travel snarls.  There are companies encouraging their employees to take holiday or stay at home for the duration.  It hasn't stopped raining for months; Britain has chalked up the wettest spring EVAH and the London Games could be, quite literally, a washout.

Signs placed all along my 25 mile commute warned about coming traffic difficulties for the Olympic torch relay scheduled last Tuesday to start in Oxford, visit the Queen in Windsor and wrap up in Reading.  Monday night, I googled the torch route to find out just how much my commute would be impacted.  To my surprise, it was scheduled to pass right through Egham, in which my office is set.

Egham is a nondescript little English town with no particular claim to fame.  It blends seamlessly into Staines, the larger town down the road made famous by Sasha Baron Cohen's Ali G (to Staines' collective embarrassment).  Yet the torch was going to come through unremarkable little Egham a mere 15 minutes' walk from the office.  I decided that this was a moment not to be missed.

There were two schools of thought in the office: those who wanted to go be a part of Olympic history and those who were "bah, humbug!" about it all.  The morning passed, as it so often does lately, with alternating showers and sun.  When the time came to set off, the sun was shining and the torch-seeking contingent recruited a few bah-humbuggers to our cause.

Photo: Surrey County Council News

Within minutes of our departure, grey clouds gathered ominously and by the time we joined the crowd lining the route, a proper downpour was underway.  I had ventured out in a designer raincoat more stylish than functional and a wool felt bucket hat that is absolutely impervious to rain.  With the exception of the meager protection offered by that hat, I was soaked through to the skin.

Between the brolleys and the five-row-deep crowd, there was precious little view of the route.  A lady near me in the crowd expressed surprise that the rain hadn't kept more of the spectators away.  In a classic observation, another woman exclaimed - "Of course not, we're British!"

However, proving that old adage "if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes - it'll change," in short order the rain had stopped, the brolleys were stowed and the sun was shining brightly again.  As the crowd and the road started steaming in the sun, we waited expectantly for the torch to arrive.  Soon enough, it came into view - union jacks were waved, a cheer was raised, photos were snapped, and a bit of Olympic history passed by.

Photo: Surrey County Council News

In a quick moment, it was all over.  We all headed back to the places of which we were from, and I imagine in 20 minutes there was little left to indicate the crowd had been there at all.

Our bedraggled group returned to the office, to the bah-humbuggers' self-satisfaction about the wisdom of giving the event a miss.  One of my soaked co-workers rustled up a vendor's promo T-shirt reading "I'm too EXSI for this T-shirt" and got a fair amount of ribbing for donning it in place of her soggy blouse.

However, as another one of my co-workers observed: "From now on, there will always be two groups of people.  Those who were there, and those who were not."  Soaking wet and all, I'm very glad to say I was one of those who were there.

Some news

Although I haven't been posting, I have been writing, and it's time to go public now.  Even though I found out 11 weeks ago today, I still can't quite believe it's true: D & I are going to have a baby and Baby Beanie is due on Christmas Eve!

So, more for my own benefit than anything else, I've been keeping a weekly pregnancy journal, which can be found in all its neurotic glory here: Baby Beanie, week by week

But in case you, understandably, don't want to immerse yourself in the tedious details of my gestation, I've excerpted the first and last couple posts to share with you below.

__________________________________

St. George's Day, April 23 - Week 4 +3

Looking back, the signs were there, but I dismissed them.  I didn't want to get my hopes up.

The previous Friday, we had simultaneously closed the sale of our house in the U.S. and found a new (smaller - uh, oh!) place to rent in Britain in order to escape the rat hole.  Then on Sunday evening, D and I were watching a property search show, and the featured couple announced midway through their home search that they were expecting a baby.  As we had recently noticed how often that seemed to happen on these shows, D remarked on it once again.  I said, "Do you know what else is strange? We just sold one house and rented another and I'm a few days late."

D looked at me with a surprised little smile.  I said, "Perhaps I should wait until Tuesday and then take a pregnancy test."  He nodded eagerly and we spoke no more of it.

I woke up the next morning and took a look at the calendar.  Yep, officially as late as I'd ever been.  So I decided not to wait anymore.  A few minutes later, the pink line appeared.

I crept upstairs, woke D with a cup of tea and quietly told him, "We made a little baby!"


July 2, Week 15 - Nothing to see here, folks

Though I'm not showing at all and have only gained 4 lbs (3 in the first three weeks after that positive test!), there are visible signs that both D and I can see of Baby Beanie's growth.  When I first wake up, before I'm up and about and gravity tucks everything back down below, we can see an actual tiny bump - and baby still has a definite preference for the right side of my tummy.  My uterus has grown enough that some mornings its top has migrated nearly up to my belly button, though it is usually about 3-4 fingers lower.

On Sunday morning, Baby Beanie had uncharacteristically wandered over to my left side and nearly up to my belly button and there was a sharply visible protrusion that, had it been later in pregnancy, I would have sworn was an elbow.  As I chilled out in bed for a few hours, that same sharp bump wandered around my tummy until Baby Beanie settled back into the customary lower-right-side location.  I started to wonder if I was feeling some sort of cyst, but later on Baby Beanie must have changed position, and the bump returned to its normal taut, smooth and round shape.  Maybe it was Baby Beanie's bottom?

Baby Beanie is supposed to be about 10 cm now (almost 4").  When I think about the rate of growth, its astounding - that's nearly 30% since the scan.  I do want to document progress of the bump in photos, and that wouldn't be complete without a "before" picture for reference.  I'd best get that taken soon, before Baby Beanie catches me out and makes a surprise appearance on my waistline.  Might be any day now... or it might be months.  I do have my fingers crossed for one of those discreet "basketball up the sweater" pregnancies that can't be detected from behind.

July 9, Week 16 - The Wanderer

Ever since last week, when the mysterious "bump on the bump" appeared, I've been visited more and more frequently by this odd phenomenon.  It moves about from down near my bikini line to more than halfway to my belly button.  Sometimes it's very easy to trace its dimensions, which are roughly baby-sized (about 12 cm now, a little shy of 5 inches, after another burst of growth last week), and sometimes the thing isn't perceptible at all.  A very scientific search of google reveals that I'm not the only one to experience this, and the general consensus is that it's baby.  Baby Beanie, if indeed it is, nearly always makes an appearance when I wake up.  So I lay there for a few minutes with my hand over the taut little lump, trying to connect with the little one and detect any movement. (Nothing yet.)

I had my 16-week appointment with the midwife today.  She measured my still outwardly invisible uterus at 15 cm and then had me lay back so we could listen to the baby's heartbeat.  She warned me it might be a bit difficult to find and not to panic if so... but as soon as she set the doppler wand on my tummy we could hear it, galloping away at 147 bpm.  She even heard the baby kick, though I didn't realize what I was hearing until the moment was already past.  It was so reassuring to hear the little ticker beating away.

I described the "bump on a bump" to her and asked what she thought it was.  Unfortunately, the thing was in hiding, so she couldn't actually feel it at the time.  To my disappointment, she guessed it might be a fibroid or maybe even a part of my bowel.  Which means all this time, I might have been communing with lumps of poo.

Hot and Cold

A bit of our lovely new garden

I'm writing this whilst blissfully enjoying a patch of warm sunshine on the lawn.  It's about time.  British weather, ever a topic of conversation amongst the locals, has truly challenged me this spring.  Coming from Portland, where the rains close in sometime around the end of October and don't let up again until, say, June - I thought I was prepared for British weather.  I'm not one to complain much anyway.

After a crisp dry February and truly lovely and unseasonably warm March, the Southeast of England had to declare a drought condition and instill a hosepipe ban.  The irony is, about 10 days later it began to rain and it didn't stop for about 6 weeks.  I follow the Thames to work and each morning it got a little higher until it threatened to overspill the bank.  The nearby public footpath became a nearly impassable bog, and yet I still can't rinse my car with a hose. Worse than the rain, it was just so. damn. cold.

Let me first say, I'm generally not even sure, officially, how warm or cold it is around here.  I don't know how to judge temperatures stated in Celsius.  I'm confounded by a country that measures its distance in miles and its beer in pints, but goes all metric when it comes to stating the temperature.  I think it's some kind of conspiracy.  A conspiracy happily joined by my husband, who is perennially hot-blooded and gleefully took the opportunity to declare that 15 degrees is a perfectly legitimate maximum for the thermostat.  I had to look it up, but that is only 59 degrees!!

For weeks temperatures (outside) struggled to reach the mid-50s and I was in a semi-hypothermic state.  Having lived through a couple of Oregon winters with only a woodstove for heat - and that only making one room in the house truly comfortable, I'm no stranger to cold.  But I was completely caught off guard by frigid depth of the bone-chilling cold that crept into me and refused to be dislodged.  I ran a space heater under my desk at work, showered twice a day to try to drive the chill away and spent most of my time at home huddled under blankets and cradling a hot water bottle.

Last week, I'd had my fill and decided it was finally time to start bitching in earnest about the weather.  As the lovely Helen pointed out, at least that meant I was officially becoming a Brit.  And then two days ago (cue the chorus of angels and shining beams of light) the sun not only came out, but the temperatures suddenly soared to the upper 20s (that's low to mid 80s in real money).  I've been lovely and warm through and through.

Brits celebrated for all of about half an hour.  And then promptly began complaining that it was too hot.  Well, at least they're never short of something to talk about.

Ease on down the road? Not so much.

Do you know what the hardest thing about moving to England has been for me?  It's not the rat hole, or the fact that we're moving this weekend (again!) and have to load and unload (again!) all our worldly possessions,* it's not even $8/gallon gasoline.  It's driving.  The simple act of getting in a car and conveying myself from point A to point B - something I've been doing, even enjoying for over two decades.  When I had a convertible, there were few things I relished more than dropping the top, cranking the tunes, and carving up the lanes on a sunny day.  Road trips were an adventure - the journey was the destination.

* and by we, I of course mean D.  The man is a moving machine.

But now, the car is my nemesis.  If had only to learn the rules of British roads, it would be fine.  If I had only to learn to shift the transmission with my left hand instead of my right, it would be fine.  But the act of trying to do both, it stymies me.  The sheer concentration required to ensure that I'm shifting into the right gear and not jamming it into reverse or 2nd rather than 4th whilst monitoring the pertinent traffic approaching the roundabouts.  As D reminds me, I have to not only get comfortable on the roads, I have to pass a driving test.  So I need to develop good driving habits - not just get by.  And now, I question and second guess every little decision.  Did I shift up too soon? Shift down too late? Brake too hard? Signal too early? Turn too hastily in front of oncoming traffic? Block traffic for too long waiting to turn? Pull out at the roundabout too aggressively? Too timidly? Push the accelerator too hard to achieve optimum fuel economy? (The car, the tattling little brat, has a computer that reports on my sins in that area.)  The required concentration and resulting stress of a journey in the car is enough to make me want to abandon the effort entirely.

For those that have done this before with little concern or effort, my frustration probably sounds trite or silly.  "How hard can it be?" these fortunate souls ask, to which I can only answer, "You have no idea."

"Learning to drive" again after two decades of doing it as second nature is bad enough.  Not having the ability to jump in the car and just go is so much worse now than it was when I was peering over the precipice of adulthood, chafing at a lack freedom and independence before I'd ever really tasted it.

I need to stone up and just do this already before it develops into a full fledged phobia - but I never dreamt it would be so hard.

Finding my voice

If ever there was a time to blog, when you might have something engaging and interesting to say, when those you love are far, far away and really want to hear it, one might think it would be when you embark upon the adventure of an overseas move.  I was determined to chronicle the Long Journey - and recounted the story to up until the point we checked in to our hotel for a few days stopover in Iceland.  And then nothing.

I wanted to do that little bit of heaven justice - with photos and descriptions of how marvelous our time in Iceland was.  To tell of how a jet-lagged walk to the 24 hour supermarket in the wee hours led D to discover one of the most exceptional displays of the Northern Lights, rarely visible from within the bounds of Reykjavik's city lights (and I was fortunate he sprinted back to the room to wake me up to enjoy it too). To convey, with ironic humour, the seriousness with which D mooted the idea of emigrating to Iceland before I'd even set foot on British soil with my newly-minted settlement visa. But the business of settling into the UK took over my energies, and my dogged determination to tell the story with some kind of chronological sense stopped me in my authorial tracks.

So here we are.  There is loads to tell - if only to keep those that care about me in the loop - and I best just get on with it.

England has been amazing and terrible all at once.  We've been here three months this past week and I still feel unsettled due to a rough bit of luck with respect to our living accommodation.  We had rented a cottage, based on the virtue of pictures and a couple of phone conversations with the landlord who claimed it had just been fully renovated.  It appeared ideal.  A semi-rural village on the outskirts of Windsor.  The charming little cottage, set on a 13-acre gated equestrian property, next to a large house with lovely manicured gardens, a swimming pool, and plenty of parking (always a plus in England).

Our landlord seemed kind - concerned that we would be comfortable during the five-week period before the shipping container arrived, when we'd be living there on the floor with nothing but the suitcases permitted by the airline baggage allowance.  He invited us around for a drink and during the course of the evening offered us free access to his apartment in the South of France, should we ever want a holiday there.  He's a very old, very lonely man whose face would light up if we happened to wave to him in passing.

Yes, it seemed ideal, and for the first three weeks, life in England was indeed pleasant.  We explored Windsor, enjoying lovely views of the castle during evening ambles along the Thames, delighting in the knowledge that we weren't mere touristas here, we actually get to enjoy it full time.  The cast iron lion that serves as a door knocker made me smile whenever I arrived back at our new home.

There were a few niggles.  Take, for instance, the fact that the floors we were sleeping, eating, lounging, living on were absolutely covered in a layer of fine dog hair.  The carpets the landlord claimed had been professionally cleaned: upon showing him the problem, did our landlord offer to get the job done right?  No, he did not.  So it took D over two solid, full-time days of painstaking vacuuming to make them passably clean.  Further, the oven didn't work, the fridge compressor leaked, and one of the shelves in the newly fitted kitchen cabinets was missing its mounting pins (halving the storage capacity therein).  To top it all off there was evidence of rodent infestation in the closets.  We patiently submitted a list of items to be addressed, at which point the landlord started giving D the names of contractors and asking him to sort it out.  Having just completed the exhausting renovation of a home we actually owned, the injustice of having to take on the landlord's job in a place we've rented started to feel a bit unfair.

Then came the Sunday morning when the power in the cottage suddenly went out as D was preparing brunch.  After a bunch of diagnostic trips to the fuse box, we determined the water heater was the cause and went next door to inform the landlord.  He asked if he needed to get someone to deal with it that very day.  Magnanimously, we said, "No, that would cost too much - tomorrow is fine."  Loyal readers, we were without hot water for 13 days.  And, ironically, the plumber insisted on doing the work on a weekend, so we were forced to cancel our plans to go away in order to accommodate him because we were so desperate to just effing have it fixed already.

It took a well over month to get the pest controller in to review the rodent problem, and when he did arrive, he pointed out that not only were there mice in the closets, but the attic in the bathroom extension was literally carpeted in rat shit.  (Oh yes, and that the power shower unit up there was leaking, so the landlord had it switched off without telling us.) The exterminator spoke to the landlord about the remedial actions required, and on a return visit when nothing was addressed, he advised us that we were perfectly within our legal rights to move out and strongly recommended that we do so.

Meanwhile, our container had arrived and, unwilling to unpack when we had made the decision to break the lease, we were now living essentially in a storage unit with paths leading through the boxes.  We commenced the soul-destroying effort of finding another place to live, which consumed another month of our weekends.  The halcyon days of our first few weeks were replaced by a frustration, bordering on anger, that life has to be this much effing hassle.

Au revoir, Leo, you're the only thing
I'll miss around here.

But fear not, my faithful friends.  Things are looking up.  Last weekend, after having had a number of promising properties rented out from under us before we could even see them, we secured (through a bit of luck) a detached cottage to rent.  It is set in a picture-postcard village of Tudor houses set around a 12th-century church and we're excited to be moving in next weekend.  We are very much looking forward to beginning what we hope to be a much more settled and content existence.

I've loads more to tell you about my new life in England, but I shall leave that for another time.  Thanks for reading, my lovelies, and for all your support and encouragement.