Wednesday 22 February 2012

Olga update

Olga had a routine trip to the midwife today, who thought she detected a slightly irregular heartbeat in junior, and sent Olga off to Stoke Mandeville for some proper monitoring. They confirmed junior has an "ectopic  heartbeat", which is quite common and nothing to worry about, and often sorts itself out before birth. It just skips a beat now and then. Olga has to go back for another monitoring session next week, then a scan at Wycombe in 10 days time, to check on Junior's size. The bump is quite big, and junior's estimated weight is over 3kg already (Lara was 3 1/2 weeks early and weighed in at 2.84kg). He's in a good position now, his head's in the right place, and it seems Olga's been having Braxton Hicks contractions for 2 weeks, and today they were measured at 4 minute intervals! They had to check that she actually hadn't started labour "quietly" already!
So, we're pretty confident he'll be here before the 27th March, and wouldn't rule out a February 29th birth!

Viva Espana (and Morocco) & Baba Luda's return

We've booked our family summer holiday - we're going back on the same cruise boat we went on last summer, the Island Escape, only on a different itinerary this time. It will leave Palma and go to Tangier in Morocco, then Gibraltar, Malaga, Cartagena and Valencia. As an added bonus, my mum will come with us, so it'll be a real family trip. We've had to add Junior as Master X Armstrong to the booking, and will change it once he's arrived.
On another happy family note, we've booked Olga's mum's flight over from Russia, she'll arrive on 3rd June, just in time for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations on the 4th.

Monday 20 February 2012

Winter Fun

3 weeks since my last post, woah, sorry about that.
OK, so, February. What's been happening?
We had our first snow of the winter on the evening of Saturday 4th, which was good timing, as Grandma had come down from Radcliffe to visit for the weekend. I'd bought Olga tickets for the State Ballet of Siberia's production of Swan Lake at the Wycombe Swan Theatre, my first visit to the ballet. Olga had explained the plot to me in advance, which helped, thought I will admit to napping for a couple of moments in the first half! It was very good, though. A good 5cm of snow had fallen by the time we left the theatre, and I dropped Olga at home and set out to put some petrol in the car - if the snow hung around for a few days, the roads would get blocked here for all that time, and we'd struggle to get about, so we figured I'd better get some petrol while I could. Our 4x4 was fine on the main roads, but there were plenty who weren't, and some roads were blocked already and the snow was still falling.  While I was away Olga grabbed our new snow shovel and cleared the driveway like any 31-week pregnant woman would do. Those Russians are tough, you know.
It did mean we had some great fun on the Sunday, and one benefit of our large, sloping garden is it's good for sledging, although from the videos we took, we need more practise!



What else is happening? 
We are persevering with Lara and keeping her out of nappies at night, it's a slow process, she's had only a handful of dry nights, and that's with us lifting her out of bed and onto the potty every couple of hours. She's such a deep sleeper that she just doesn't notice when she's done a wee, never when one is about to come. Having said that, she's had three dry nights on the trot since Saturday, but this is more to do with the very bad chest infection she seems to have. It gives her a terrible cough at night, but this does wake her and we can get her on the potty in time. Especially as I slept on the floor in her room on Friday and Saturday night so Olga could get as undisturbed a night's sleep as possible. Last night I had to bring Lara downstairs at midnight, her coughing was so bad it was  keeping us awake, and she seemed more comfortable sleeping in an armchair in the lounge, until I took her back to bed just before 4am.  She stayed at home today of course, and probably will tomorrow, although she's not been coughing for the last couple of hours, which is promising.
Famous last words?

Olga is coping OK. She'll be 35 weeks on Tuesday 21st. She gets very tired in the evenings, and Junior gives her a damn good kicking before bedtime.  We had our first test drive to Stoke Mandeville hospital on Saturday afternoon, it took 30 minutes, and now we know which car park to use, and where the birth centre is.

I can hear spluttering from upstairs now, so I think Dr Papa is back on duty...