Gemma’s Pregnancy - Week 22

Today was a good day for Gemma’s pregnancy.

We had a phone call from the ante-natal clinic, saying that our blood test results were back, and could we pop in and see them.

At our last scan at 18 weeks, the sonographer had spotted a bright area in the bowel of the baby, which is called Hyperechogenic Bowel. This known as a “soft marker” which the sonographer will look for during the scan.

After the scan we had an ante-natal appointment where this condition was discussed. 99% of the time it may not be anything. It could just be that there was a very small bleed within the uterus and the baby has swallowed some of the blood, so this shows up as a bright area. The soft marker could also indicate that there has been some sort of infection, or that there could be a chance that the baby has Cystic Fibrosis (CF).

While we were discussing this, the midwife said that we could do some screening tests to rule out the possibilities. Blood was taken from Gemma and even me (so that they could see if I was a carrier for CF) and sent off for analysis.

Like I’ve already said, we got some good news.

All the tests had come back negative, which was a huge relief to the both of us. So we can carry on looking forward to the birth now. We still have a scan at 32 weeks to double check that everything is progressing as it should.

Apart from the test result there has not been a lot to talk about. The baby is still continuing with his kicking practice in the hope that he’ll be a professional footballer, or something.

Until the next update, bye for now…….

Ellie’s off to School

We got good news today. Ellie has been accepted for a place at the local infants school for a place at their nursery in September.

Ellie will attend the morning session, 9am to 11.30am. This will get her prepared for going to Infants school proper in the following September.

Before she starts we will all go for a pre-visit. This will be to have a tour of the nursery and discuss things with her teacher. Her teacher is a man, which I was surprised at, as its not really a position you expect to find a man in.

I’m sure that it’ll be an emotional day, that first day when we actually have to leave her there, on her own. I’ve no doubt that she’ll be fine as once she gets in there and starts playing etc. then we can relax.

With Ellie going to school, it makes you realise how fast she is growing up.

New Header Image

I’ve uploaded a new header image to my blog.

The original supplied with the “Pool” theme has served me well but I thought it was about time for a change. Give it a different look.

Let me know what you think.

Converting our Garage - Part 3

The garage conversion is taking shape now.

Phase 3 of the project was to add some colour to the walls and ceiling. This was going to take a few coats of paint as we would be initially painting on to the bare brick.

Things didn’t start off too well with my Dad as he started painting the ceiling. With almost his first roller full of paint he dropped a large blob all over his head and face. Seeing him climbing down the step ladder with half of his face covered in white paint was a bit of a comedy moment. Luckily it was only emulsion so it was pretty easy to get off. I just wish I’d got the camera ready to get it on film.

Once cleaned up my Dad and I got going with the first coat of paint. We decided to split the tasks between us. I would go around the room with a paintbrush and do all of the intricate areas, while my Dad got on using the roller.

Getting the paint on the wall was a fairly easy job, the only major drawback being the uneven surface. The surface meant that we would have to get the brush out rather than the roller to get into the nooks and crannies. Another minor obstacle were the central heating pipes and electrical cables, but by using the brushes to get in between and behind them, this was one obstacle that was overcome quickly.

The first coat of white paint went on quite quickly, and in a couple of hours we had managed to cover all the walls and the ceiling. At this point the bricks were still showing through the paint and they looked like they would need one more coat, if not two. We stopped for some lunch while the paint dried.

Once lunch was finished applying the second coat was much the same thing, this time without my Dad’s little accident. Another couple of hours and the second coat was on the walls. At this stage we let the walls and ceiling dry properly overnight so that the next morning we could determine whether we would need another coat of white paint before applying a colour. Here’s what it looked like at that stage:

Next morning after the paint had dried fully the walls still looked patchy, with the colour of the bricks still showing through in places. We decided that another coat would be worth it. It was again another couple of hours of painting to get the final white coat applied, and we again left it to dry over lunch.

Coming back after lunch we found that the paint was still a little damp in places. To fill in the time while it finished drying, we began filling in a few of the little holes in the wall that had been emphasised by the white paint. There weren’t that many but just to give the wall a slightly better finish we filled them in with some polyfilla.

Once that little job was done we pressed on with applying the colour to the walls. Gemma and I were a little undecided about colour, but the decision was easily solved as in the garage was an unopened tub of “Warm Magnolia” emulsion. This had been left over from decorating our bedroom when we bought the house. Better than spending money on something different.

Our plan was to put a couple of coats of the coloured paint on the walls, but when we started it became apparent that we might get away with one. We’d not noticed that the paint was “One-coat”, so it was better at covering the walls.

Sadly, my Dad and I didn’t manage to get all of the walls painted, as we ran out of paint to finish the job. Initially, we did think that we might be able to stretch it but the tub of paint only managed to cover 2 1/2 walls. Dad has kindly agreed to come up in the week with a new tub to finish off the walls for us.

Even though the painting is not completely finished the room is looking really good.

The next tasks will be to put the carpet down and bring in some of the furniture. I also want to put in some electrical trunking to try and make the wiring look a little tidier, and also bring a network cable through from the lounge to hook up the computers.

That’s for next time, and until the next update….

Our little girl is growing up

Yesterday, Gemma took Ellie to an Open Day at the local primary school. This is where we hope to enrol Ellie in nursery next September.

Thinking of our little girl going to school, made me realise that Ellie is growing up. But, she will always be our “little” girl no matter how much she grows up.

Ellie is turning into a cracking little girl. Like every other 2-year-old in the world she has her share of tantrums, but the vast majority of the time she is really good.

Her speech and talking is really coming along, and we can have real conversations now, which is fantastic. She is beginning to recognise the letters of the alphabet and can even tell us something that begins with that letter.

Gemma said that Ellie really enjoyed going to her “new school”, joining in with all of the older children who were drawing and colouring. She was not shy with them at all which was very encouraging. We think she’ll be happy there, we should know in the next couple of weeks whether she has got in.

Soon though, she is going to be “big sister”, and this will be another step along the road of growing up.

Gemma’s Pregnancy - Week 21

Gemma’s pregnancy has now past the half way stage.

Knowing this makes everything seem all that much closer. The time has flown by since we found out that Gemma was pregnant. It really doesn’t seem that long ago at all. That means that its not long to go until all those sleepless nights again!

There is not huge amounts of news to report at the moment. The baby is kicking a lot more, he must be practising his technique for the football team. Gemma’s bump is expanding quite rapidly now, and she is looking really glowing with it.

I’ve finally managed to scan our latest ultrasound picture from our 18-20 week scan, which you can see now on the right. He is looking a lot bigger now, as you’d expect, and here is what he looked like at 12 weeks.

The other day we went to Mothercare to get a few things for the baby’s bedroom. We got a wall border, curtains and a lightshade, plus a Grobag (sleeping bag, for those not in the know) for the baby to sleep in when he’s big enough. Once we’ve finished transforming our garage, we can finish off the bedroom.

Well, that’s it for now, until my next update.

Trip to Knowsley Safari Park

On Saturday we decided that we would take a trip to Knowsley Safari Park. We had not been on a trip together for a while, and it was such a glorious day. The weather was sunny, if a little cold.

When Gemma arrived home from work, Ellie and I gave her enough time to get changed and grab a quick bite to eat before we headed off. In the 30 minutes or so it took us to drive to Knowsley, Ellie managed to fall asleep in her car seat. She was well away and was still fast asleep as we were about to enter the enclosure.

A little encouragement was needed to wake Ellie up, and she stirred not really knowing where she was. Once she came round properly and realised that we were going to see the animals she got very excited.

“Animals” she shouted. “Go see, animals.”

With Ellie now fully awake and eager to see the animals we headed through the gates of the enclosure.

The first animals to be seen was the herd of Fallow Deer, who thought it would be a good idea to congregate across the road, whilst they ate what looked like a tonne of carrots. This did give the opportunity to see the Deer up close.

There was a little drive to see the next animals as it is winter so the deer are not grazing. The next animals to see were the Tigers. Unfortunately for Ellie they were hidden in the grass so that she wasn’t able to see them. It was a shame as she was excited at seeing them.

Next up were the Lions. The lions were very popular, with a large number of cars queueing to get a good look at them. All of the lions were lying next to the road so everyone was able to get a close up view of them. With the large number of people trying to get a view of them, it was difficult to get a really good view. That was until the lions decided it was time to get up and have a walk.

The lions made their way around and in between all of the cars. The photo on the right shows how close we got to them. I was a bit gutted how it turned out. Just as I was tracking the lioness and pressed the button the windscreen wiper came into shot. Aaaaagh! Can’t win them all, I suppose. From the lions we headed amongst the emus, buffalo, more deer, wallabies.

As we came out of the lions enclosure we had a very easy decision to make.

Do we go into the Baboon enclosure and have our car pulled apart? Or, go on the car-friendly route along the edge of the enclosure?

Tough one that!

We took the car-friendly route. And it was a good decision looking at the cars already travelling through the enclosure. The most common items to disappear were the windscreen wipers. It was quite amusing following a car trying to clean the rear window without a wiper blade.

The baboons are always good to watch, climbing over everyone else’s car, and chasing each other. There was a big free for all when the keeper brought them some more food. All of the larger males chasing off the smaller ones who would dare to try and get their food first. No respect for their elders!

From the baboons we then went through to the camels, ostriches and the rhinos. I was surprised by the sight of the baby rhino who was so much bigger than the last time we had seen him (or her - not too sure). I didn’t think that it was that long ago that we’d last seen it. Obviously it must have been. The rhinos were the last stop in the enclosure and we headed out of the gate.

The elephants were our next stop, who have their own separate enclosure. This was only a quick stop, as there was only one of the elephants wandering about, and shortly after getting Ellie out of the car, she wanted to get back in. I couldn’t blame her as it was pretty cold.

We then parked the car and went for a little walk. Ellie wanted to go and see the giraffes, so we walked the short distance to the giraffe house, passing the meerkats and otters on the way.

We then walked back up to the Children’s Farm. Ellie really likes this and you can stroke the animals. She was a little wary of stroking the animals at first, but once she got over her initial nervousness she had a good time. At one point she put her head through the bars on the pen for the pig to get a better look. Luckily she didn’t get stuck!

Ellie really enjoyed seeing all the animals, and also enjoyed her freedom wandering around on her own, giving her that little bit of independence. She looked so cute, trotting about with her little backpack on.

After a good walk around it was time to head home as a certain little girl was getting very tired, and I’m sure that Gemma’s legs were getting tired having to carry her bump around.

We all had a really good afternoon out, sunny weather if a little cold.

Converting our Garage - Part 2

This weekend saw Phase 2 of the garage conversion. The target for this weekend was to finish the partition wall, and also install the electrical sockets.

Day 1

Good progress was made on Saturday, putting up one skin of the plasterboard before lunch-time. It was a little tricky in places, having to cut out small areas to get around obstacles. But all in all, it went on without too much bother. There were a couple of expletives shouted as hammers collided with fingers, but no lasting damage.

Once lunch had been consumed, we set about putting the final skin on the partition wall. Initially we measured up all the boards, cut them to size and checked that they all fitted together, before fixing them to the stud work. This was to allow us to fill in the cavities in the stud work with fibre-glass insulation that we had left over from when we fitted out our loft (details can be found in Part1 and Part2). With all of the insulation filling the cavities, the remaining plasterboard was nailed to the wall creating a completed partition wall.

With the wall now completed we decided to fit the door frame to the wall. The trickiest part of this was making sure that all of the pieces were square to each other and that they were also straight. Once completed we decided to call it a day.

Day 2

With the partition wall completed the previous day, our next target was to install some extra electrical sockets.

This would involve running a wire from the the current electrical supply around the newly created room stopping off along the way to wire in the sockets. In all we needed to install four sockets, three inside the room, and one outside.

Initially the wall sockets were fixed to the wall with the notches cut out to feed the wires through, then the cable was run between the sockets. My Dad then wired in all the sockets. I probably could have done this, but I was not confident that it would be done correctly, so it was left in my Dad’s capable hands.

Whilst Dad wired up the sockets, I set about making the cabling tidy by clipping the cable to the wall. This was not the easiest thing to do, trying to hammer the nails in the clips into the wall, whilst avoiding your fingers. Some of the clips would behave themselves and go in first time, but others would not be so forgiving. Some would fall out because of the texture of the mortar, some would not even go into the mortar so would have to be repositioned. I think I only actually clouted myself on 2 or 3 occasions, which led to a few choice words escaping my lips!

Once all the sockets had been wired in it was time for the critical part. We needed to actually connect them to the main power supply. We turned off the power to the fuse box and connected the new sockets via a junction box, and a fused switch, making sure that all the wires were located in the correct places. After double checking the wiring, the sockets were secured into their housings.

Next came the moment when we would know for sure if all the sockets were wired up correctly.

My Dad flicked the switch on the fuse box. Thankfully there was no loud bang that you’d get if something shorted out. Everything seemed OK. So just to make sure I checked every socket with mains checker.

Everything was OK.

With all the sockets fitted and working we had a quick tidy-up and called it a day. A job well done.

Thanks for all your help Dad.

Next phase will be painting the room to make it a little more liveable, that will be in a couple of weeks. Next week my Dad’s taking Mum away for her birthday.