Yesterday was an amazing day with our first real scan, we saw 10 week old baby Miller (just the one much to hubby’s relief), heart beating strong, growing like a weed and all is well. 
The “big” scan is on 12 August when we will be just over 12 weeks and we will get the final sign off on a healthy bouncy baby “boy/girl”. We cannot WAIT for that! We could not wait a second longer to share our news with the world though, so baby Miller made the first appearance on social media today and has been enveloped in love and happiness already – I am so very blessed by the number of wonderful people in my life. I am always surprised at which of my friends leave deep heart-felt messages on these kinds of posts or pictures, the big life moments; more often than not they are friends that I grew up with or went to school or Varsity with and my heart is warmed and saddened at the same time at how far away people get from you and yet are still there for the big moments.
The past week or so has been particularly rough; probably because I dared say I had been so lucky with only few pregnancy symptoms. The pregnancy exhaustion has hit me like a ton of bricks and along with the feeling is near constant nausea and now joint pain has joined the party. I am incredibly grateful now that I am no longer working full time, I have no idea how full time working pregnant mommies cope! I imagine I would be a puddle of hysterical tears under my desk all day every day. When I first open my eyes in the morning I feel like the world is spinning like a top and I instantly roll over and go back to sleep! The second time I wake up, even if it is only an hour later the world seems more manageable. And for the first time since I partied in the late teens/early twenties I can nap in the day – why is it that I can struggle all night to sleep because of nausea or heartburn or joint pain, but if my head hits the pillow in the light of day I sleep as if I have been tranquilised! Perhaps it is that child-like part of the brain that makes you feel like you are sneaking away and doing something you shouldn’t; whatever it is, I am learning to embrace it.
Saturday was a busy day in our household; we are doing minor cosmetic renovations that were originally planned for “when we returned from honeymoon” and have now become “quickly, before the baby comes and we are broke forever”. Of course, while my husband and father insist that the lounge and bathrooms (& other boring rooms) are the priority, I am obsessed with the baby’s room. And so, the work has begun. The walls are the palest dove gray and the skirting and cornices are a pale powder yellow; this coming Saturday the cupboards, ceilings, window frames and doors will all be painted pure white. And then I have to wait… Until after we know whether we are having a boy or a girl, when I will add touches of pale blue or pink throughout the room – yes, I am boring and traditional and I am so excited I could burst. I still need to find the perfect furniture though, I know what I want and I got 2 cards from the Baba Indaba on Sunday that may come in handy, but so far nothing I have seen has matched my expectations.
And so… the Baba Indaba on Sunday. I was largely underwhelmed. I am not sure what I was expecting, but the best thing there was the candyfloss. There were a few beautiful items on display, but for a baby fair I expected a lot more beautiful and a lot less random. From a purely marketing point of view, surely some of the pregnancy/baby magazines or big baby stores should have attended?! But, I could give them the benefit of the doubt by saying, I was there on a Sunday, so perhaps by then things were winding down… Anyway, I collected a few cards for some unique items and ran from the high-pitched “children’s entertainment” echoing ear-piercingly throughout the room from the main stage (this of course convinced me I was going to be the worst mother ever as surely my kids will also want to watch the ear-piercing lady squealing about how chips are bad for you – I suspect my child will just have to miss out on that particular learning).
And that is all of it for today… We are still working on building the perfect forum and I am hoping that baby is going to settle and give me at least a few good hours a day to start adding my research to the resources page. I will be beginning by adding the local maternity hospitals and I am hoping the forum is up by then so that I can get conversations going on each of them. It is no use knowing who they are if we don’t know what experiences people have had with them!