Gingerjo’s Blog

Mark and I have been together six years this month, and I love him more now than ever. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

It’s very easy to take someone for granted, to forget how much richer your life became when you met them. I have a little ritual every morning - I make sure that the last thing I say to him before he goes to work is positive, just in case it’s the day when one of us doesn’t come home. That way, whichever one of us is left behind will always have a good memory to hold on to. It must be heartbreaking if your last words to someone were in anger - you could never take them back.

What a lot of people don’t appreciate is that the last time you saw somone will form the most prominent memory you have of them. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, that image will always be the first one that comes to mind. Growing up with my parents’ menagerie, I’ve lost many pets over the years and it’s always the last image that’s the strongest - Rosie my pony in a lot of pain in the stable at Pen y Parc, Big Bird my gander covered in blood where a german shepherd dog had got him, Hula the chihuahua curled up apparently asleep. I feel desperately sorry for people who have to identify their loved ones for the police. I doubt you ever really recover from it.

I’m not feeling maudlin by the way, just reflective.

Mark wasn’t happy about it, but I felt I ought to tell my boss that I’m pregnant because I have an increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy and I work in an office alone. He was a bit upset that I’d told someone before our families, but once I explained that no-one would find me for hours if I had the door shut and collapsed he was more understanding. It’s only prudent to make sure someone is keeping an eye out for me. I’m sure I’m being paranoid, but better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, my boss seemed genuinely pleased for me although not at all surprised. She knows we’ve been trying for ages and that the news would come eventually. It’s worked out well in many ways because my due date falls nicely between two of my major yearly projects, so I won’t need to drop everything half way through (so long as all goes to plan).

I think the thing that is worrying her the most is having to keep it secret for another six weeks!

Today the extended family on Mark’s mum’s side all went out for a meal to celebrate Mark’s auntie’s birthday. We went to a French restaurant we all go to once or twice a year. I made sure I was driving so no-one would question why I wasn’t drinking.

With it being a French restaurant I had to choose carefully from the menu because a) they don’t do vegetarian and b) they never cook their meat enough. I figured they’d probably cook the pork right through so I had tenderloin. It was delicious but in the centre it was still very slightly pink. Since I grew up next to a pig farm, my mum kept pigs and I eat a lot of pork I reckon if there was anything to catch I’ve probably already had it. I probably ought to have had fish but I just don’t like it that much.

I was sat next to Mark’s cousin’s fiancee. Sh’s always seemed nice but I’ve never really had chance to talk to her properly. It’s difficult to really get to know folk at these big family do’s.

They’ve just set a date and she was asking me what it’s like being married, whether it’s different to not being married. I said it is, but perhaps not like you’d expect. If you’ve been living together beforehand none of the day to day stuff changes. If he doesn’t do the washing up now that isn’t miraculously going to change. You’re not suddenly going to develop a love of football and an in-depth understanding of the offside rule. If your relationship is in trouble, getting married will not save it. However, if you genuinely are committed to eachother and determined to work at it, then that little piece of paper represents a state-of-mind and you do feel different after you’re married - more confident in your commitment. I think too many people get caught up in the glamour of the wedding and forget to consider the actual marriage.

Then she asked me if we wanted kids and if we had any plans. It was difficult not to smirk. I simply said yes, and that you can plan all you like but that it doesn’t mean that’s what’ll happen. This led on to a lengthy discussion about labour pains, which perhaps surprisingly I’m not worried about. At least not yet. Mum says it’s easy - I’ve always trusted her and I’m not about to stop now.

Meanwhile Pip has been quiet today, not much in the way of aches and pains, I’ve been feeling quite perky and my head hasn’t been so wooly. Hopefully it will last all week (she says, living in hope!).

I had my first appointment with the GP yesterday. I’ve only recently joined this new practice so it was my first real visit. My appointment was with a nice young doctor who looks like an Asian David Duchovny (I used to love the X-Files). In an unusual move, he asked if he could video our meeting for training purposes. I said yes.

Since Mark didn’t believe me, the first order of my visit was a quick pregnancy test, which was resoundingly positive. After going through the obligatory chat about diet, smoking, drinking, blood pressure, etc, I told him about the twinges I’ve been having. He looked really quite concerned and after asking me lots of questions about the nature and duration of my twinges, he insisted on my lying on the table so he could have a good feel of my abdomen to look for sore spots. There weren’t any, though at the time I had a pain in my hip. Given my age and family history of endometriosis, the likelihood of my having an ectopic pregnancy are increased, so he explained the symptoms I need to watch out for - specifically pain, particularly on one side, bleeding, light-headedness or even collapse.

After I got home I googled ectopic pregnancy to find out more - only reading reputable websites. Hearsay on forums is no use to anyone. I read all about ruptured fallopian tubes, internal bleeding, shoulder tip pain and the risk of collapse and even death. And the pain in my hip continued for the rest of the afternoon and I started to worry. I generally felt crappy, tired and fuzzy-headed, like I have been all week. Then it suddenly hit me - if Pip is ectopic then we will have to kill him, otherwise he might kill me. There is no way to save an ectopic pregnancy - they can’t be transplanted. The thought filled me with horror and I wept and wept.

By the time Mark got home I’m ashamed to say that I’d worked myself up into a right state. Mark asked me how my appointment went, looking so hopeful. To my shame I burst into tears and shared what I’d been stressing about all afternoon. Obviously he was really upset, and asked me to tell him exactly what the doctor had said. As I explained I realised how badly my imagination had warped what had actually been discussed. Poor Mark. I had to apologise for scaring the hell out of him, for ruining what really ought to be one of the greatest moments of his life.

There is a chance that Pip is ectopic, and I am experiencing a fair amount of pain and discomfort and I do feel fuzzy-headed most of the time. But there’s a much higher probability that Pip is tucked up safe and warm in my uterus exactly where he’s supposed to be, and that I’m just one of those women that suffers from shifting aches and bloating instead of morning sickness. Today it’s been a dull ache just above my belly-button all day, but there’s been no sign of the pain in my hip that I had yesterday. I dare say the discomfort will be somewhere else tomorrow.

Regardless, what I do know is that I would happily give up my own life if I thought it meant that Pip could live. Unfortunately, if my pregnancy is ectopic there’s no sacrifice I could make that could save Pip. I just have to hope that my twinges and discomforts are caused by stretching ligaments, my growing womb, shifting hormones and good old fashioned wind. It’s statistically more probable, and it’s not as if my GP rushed me off to A&E is it?

And I’m sorry Mark for my behaviour yesterday, but when my first scan comes back completely normal we’ll celebrate properly then.

I’m not sure I can believe what Mark’s just told me. I was explaining some of the symptoms I’m experiencing (sore boobs, abdominal twinges, wanting to curl up asleep all the time) and I called him ‘DTB’. ‘Eh?’ says he. ‘Daddy To Be’ says I, to which he replies ‘I think we’d better wait and see what the doctor says tomorrow’.

Stunned silence.

‘The doctors?’ I said, ‘Mark, I’m pregnant, I’ve got 6 positive pregnancy tests to prove it’. ‘Yes, but they might not be accurate. I won’t believe it till the doctor says’.

He obviously doesn’t think I’m capable of peeing on a stick properly, which is a little insulting since I have a PhD in biology and several papers published in well respected peer-reviewed science journals. Still it was a while ago, perhaps I’ve caught the stupid virus since then!

More probably, his reluctance to believe me isn’t because he thinks I’m an idiot. I think he’s a little afraid and wants to cling to his lack of responsibility for as long as he can plausibly deny it to himself. I know he wants a baby, he’s told me, but it’s still going to take him a while to adjust to the idea of being a dad.

Now Pip’s room is well underway I’ve suddenly realised I have no idea what furniture we’re going to need! I guess we’ll need a cot of some description, but being the youngest of a very small family I’ve no idea what I’m looking for, how to arrange it, what clothes Pip will need or anything at all about babies in fact. And I can’t really ask any of my friends for a couple of months yet, not until we’re ready to announce Pip’s existence to everyone.

I know it’s not urgent but I like to be prepared. We need to know how much things will cost so we can save up, hunt out bargains and know a good deal when we see it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not in a mad panic about it, but I’m most certainly curious. I guess the time will fly by, and then I can ask all the questions I want.

While I have no desire to clean the whole house or polish all the furniture, I would very much like to see Pip’s future bedroom ready to go.

Our house is what one would call ‘a project’, i.e. it needs a whole lot of work doing to it. So far we’ve had a new damp-proof course and wall ties, the chimney repointed, the gas boiler replaced, all the gas piping replaced, the electrics tested, lots of new sockets added and we’ve stripped the whole of the upstairs with the intention of replacing all the skirting boards and architraves. We’re trying to do as much as we can ourselves, but aside from taking a few you-can-do-it courses at B&Q (which were excellent by the way) we’re not very handy. Though we have got quite good at patch plastering, skirting and architraving. Mostly we are having to pay people to do it all for us, except the bits I can persuade my poor old dad to do. Obviously, it’s costing us a fortune!

So far we’ve only finished one room - the master bedroom. You need at least one safe haven to come home to of an evening and the view from our window across the park is lovely.

The next room on our list was always the ‘baby bedroom’, so called because it’s the smallest bedroom. It’s a nice square cosy room at the back of the house away from the traffic noise. And it’s finally ready to decorate. In fact, the decorator has started today. We’ve chosen plain vinyl wallpaper which he’s going to paint ‘Baby White’ and all the woodwork will be white. As soon as the decorator has finished, I’ll be putting in a call to the carpet fitters to fit a cheap beige carpet that we can change easily once Pip grows up a bit and starts demanding pink fairies, toy car or football patterns everywhere. Best to stay neutral for now!

Call me superstitious or pagan or just plain mad, but ever since I took my first pregnancy test I feel like I’m being watched. Not in a sinister way by some psycho stalker, but in a good way by my ancestors or perhaps someone else who’s passed over that cares about Pip’s progress.

It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve felt this; there have been a few key periods when I’ve felt that there was someone on the other side looking out for me, guiding me in the right direction. The strongest and perhaps most implausible example was when I was doing my finals in university.

As usual I had left my revision until the last moment when I realised that I had to learn everything I’d studied in the last three years overnight because for the paper I was sitting the next day I would have to choose one of about fifteen essays that could be on anything I’d studied during my course. Since it was the last exam I’d be OK so long as something I’d studied that semester came up, but the paper was notorious for not doing that. I sat and stared at the box files full of notes; I didn’t have a clue where to start. I felt utterly miserable and figured that I was doomed to fail. While I had an excellent ability to absorb detailed information quickly not even I could memorise two-and-half years worth of notes in one night.

And then it happened. It was like a little puppet sat on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. It said ‘protist motility’. Just that, nothing more.

Rummaging through my second year notes I found a series of four lectures on movement in single-celled eukaryotic organisms, primarily ciliates. So I learned them, inside out. Then I learned bacterial motility just in case and a few other things I found interesting. I had a few hours sleep, got up, re-read my notes on motility in protists and headed off to my exam with a bar of chocolate for breakfast.

I sat down in the exam hall feeling very stressed and numb, hoping that the little voice I’d heard was well informed. Then I opened the exam paper and looked down the list of essay titles. Miraculously there it was, about number six on the list - ‘write an essay on the methods of motility found in the kingdom Protista’. That essay got me a first class honours!

And crazy as it sounds, I swear that’s what happened. While I’ve never heard that little voice before or since I know that when I need them, they are out there, whoever they are, looking out for me. And from the feeling I had when I looked at my pregnancy test result they are now keeping an eye on Pip too!

Thank you, whoever you are.

My Dad’s been helping us fix-up the house all this week. In fact, mostly he’s been working on the room that will become Pip’s bedroom. It’s been incredibly difficult not to blurt out ‘you’re going to be a Grandad!’. So very hard. But I don’t want to jump the gun when it’s still early days. Also, I’d like to tell my Mum at the same time. It seems unfair not to tell them together and in person. I think Dad will be delighted. Mum I’m not too sure about; I think she’ll have mixed feelings, not because she doesn’t want to be a Granny/Nanna, but because she thinks the modern world is an awful place. I think she worries about the trials and tribulations her decendants will have to live through.

My sister will be delighted, that much I know. She’s always fancied being an auntie. That way you get all the fun bits of kids, but you can give them back when you’ve had enough!

I think Mark’s family have been wondering for ages why it hasn’t already happened. Mark has a large extended family so there’s already a lot of members of the next generation. Pip will just be another to add to the list and everyone will be very relaxed and take it in their stride. Mark’s Mum and Dad will be pleased though, and especially his Nan - Pip will be their second grandchild and will provide them with a great deal of entertainment, hugs and cuddles I’m sure.

I believe Pip is 5 weeks old today - apparently this means he/she is about the size of a sesame seed and is little more than a neural tube, not even a tadpole yet. Strange that something so tiny is hijacking my body and demanding I pay full attention to its needs.

So far I’m noticing that I’m incredibly tired, I have the odd patch of nausea/dissyness and I can’t stop eating mixed beans. I don’t know if I’m meant to have cravings yet, but I want mixed beans, preferably in mild chilli sauce, at every meal. I’ve never been a big fan of beans particularly, but now I can’t stop eating them. Even when I’m eating something else I’m wishing it was beans. And as for being tired/nauseous/dizzy, well, that’s not really that unusual.

Mostly out of curiosity, but also for a little reassurance, I used another first response pregnancy test stick this morning. I wondered whether the line would be stronger, since it had been so faint last week. Now the test line is much darker than the control line - a bright vibrant beautiful pink line. I was really pleased to see this. I guess I still can’t quite belive it!