Outage.....

[Dorothy rouse]

My younger son is Alexander, has always been Alex tho,and my grandson is Thomas Alexander, good strong name.

His birthday is April 3rd.

[WendyC]

Glad to hear all has worked out in the end.

[Glutton4...]

Congratumalations FB, and Mrs.

[FB.]

Thanks for the kind words, folks.

[FB.]

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Many of you will have seen these before, but here's a scanned copy of a picture from two or three months ago, at the week-12 scan.
Not sure where the Mrs has put the 20wk scan pictures.


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[Tripmeup]

All the best FB...busy but exciting time ahead

[Hazel at the Hill]

Do try and find the 20wk scan to show us, FB, which I am sure will show the little one very clearly.

Admittedly I am not an expert on these things, but - precious as the scan will surely be to you and Mrs FB - that looks like one of those ink spot Rorschach tests to my untrained eye. I'm afraid I have no idea what I am looking at there!

Congratulations and fingers and all else crossed until the little on is safely delivered.

[Feral007]

Good lookin' kid FB Congrats on the new sprog. Sorry to hear about the earlier miscarriage, hard to take at the time.
Looking forward to the news when he turn up!

[Bigmallly]

Best wishes Mr & Mrs FB plus "Pip" of course....................good to see you back.

[Feral007]

Good one BM - I was going to mention that a girl down the road was called Pippin, but then thought it might not suit a boy so well

[FB.]

Do try and find the 20wk scan to show us, FB, which I am sure will show the little one very clearly.

Admittedly I am not an expert on these things, but - precious as the scan will surely be to you and Mrs FB - that looks like one of those ink spot Rorschach tests to my untrained eye. I'm afraid I have no idea what I am looking at there!

Congratulations and fingers and all else crossed until the little on is safely delivered.

I still can't find the 20wk pictures (I'll ask my wife when she gets home) but I added some labels to the earlier scan picture.

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[FB.]

While on the subject of babies and conception, and as someone who speaks as they find, I'll speak about another "taboo" topic: getting pregnant.

Although it wasn't difficult for us to conceive, it can be difficult for some people and I wish that things could be as easy as possible for anyone who wants a baby. It can be an especially anxious time as people wonder whether everything works as it should.

After the spring miscarriage my wife's usually-regular periods became unpredictable; no doubt the residual effects of hormones from the failed pregnancy and her body taking a few months "resetting" itself.

So with several lost months due to the miscarriage and her messed-up cycle in the few months after, we decided to try a shortcut using a bit of science (unlike the one which miscarried which happened completely naturally).
So my wife charted her temperature each morning with a digital thermometer (about £10*) as soon as she got up.
She also used an Ovulation Prediction Kit ("OPK") (about £10-15* for a month's supply) which is a wee-on-a-stick test performed each lunchtime in the middle of the month (unlike a pregnancy test which is performed at getting-up time) to detect the presence of a hormone which triggers the release of an egg, usually the egg is released the day after the hormone appears and the "fertile window" is only a few days each month.

*Considering the cost of raising a child, a few tens of Pounds is a small price to pay.

It's all rather scientific, but she got pregnant easily and immediately.

I've attached her daily temperature chart, and it has OPK and other notes along the bottom.
You can see her temperature dip a little for a few days in the middle of the month, then the OPK signals positive, then a couple of days after the OPK her temperature spikes higher to indicate that the fertile window ended the previous day (so either the egg was fertilised or if not it will die about a day after it was released from the ovary).
The red cross shows the probable day of egg release and conception, and also highlights the mid-point of her temperature range for the first half of the month which helps to show the temperature shift after the egg is released (temperature rises after egg release regardless of whether the egg is fertilised or not, although if the temperature remains in the higher range for two-and-a-half weeks it often signals pregnancy).

It's a bit "personal" but this topic is already a bit personal with talk of miscarriage and conception, so it may be of interest to others wanting to try to reduce their time taken to conceive.

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[julesapple]

I'm so glad you & Mrs FB have a bump cogitating nicely. The BH and I have stood where you both stood, and it's not a good place to be. First conceptions often don't 'take', but they end spontaneously before you realise you've even conceived. It doesn't mean things won't go smoothly another time - often nature knows best, as Binley said. We have four now, and probably heading towards grandchildren in the next year or two (but there's no rush, kids, ok?)

One of the nice bits of cogitating a bump is picking names; have you chosen any yet? I was never officially told what sex our bumps were, but I knew #1 was a boy and that the DD was going to be a girl - just as well I was right, didn't pick any names for opposites! The younger two are boys too, but I had girls' names picked out for both.

[Hans Mum]

Congratulations & as others have said its often natures way.......

Do be careful though....my best friend miscarried her 1st baby, fell on again everything went fine so much so 2nd baby came along 11 months later......

[marchogaeth]

Good to have you back. I was looking at my fruit trees and thinking about pruning and wishing you were handier only the other day!