First Gander

  At 09.43 yestermorn, (made that word up, spread it), Elouise and I first laid eyes on what will be our child. We arrived early thanks to Laura, Elouise's mum who drove us to Tameside Hospital. I've worked in cleaner kitchens. Mid-service... I'm sure it's up to standards and all, but it looks like a 60's office block/high school hybrid. That said, there was an amazing original Cadillac parked up near the pregnant people place. Hopefully get a photo next time. But yeah, it was beautiful and brightened the place up a bit. That and the DB9 round the corner. If it was on The Sims, then my "room" stat would have gone up a bit because of the cars, but that's about it. All credit to the doctors and their taste in motors...

  Anyways, we were seen to a little early which was a bonus. We walked into this darkened room with the curtains drawn. It was nice as I'm not normally up before 3pm and the sunlight had been toasting my eyeballs.

  There was a sort of table thing for El to lie on, and a chair tucked in the corner for me to sit on. I sat down and scooched a little forward to try and see the screen, but the obstetrician wouldn't allow it. She explained that this was so that I wouldn't see anything unusual first and cause a panic, as it had happened before and had been "quite traumatic".

  She then picked up a carton of jelly that was running low and jolted some out. While the scan was taking place it seemed to take forever. I was thinking back over what she had said and worst case scenarios kept crossing my mind. Thankfully the obstetrician said it was all gravy, and we could take a look. You could see its' little arms and legs fidgeting, and it did some sort of somersault. Elouise says it has my big nose, and that it's a boy. For saying that, I hope it's a girl with her fat arse...

   

 (P.s. I'm joking please don't snap my FIFA disc.) 

  After the scan El had to have a couple of mini-appointments. One of these I think was to discuss something about the scan. The little fella was so curled up they couldn't measure the amount of fluid around the neck, which is what they look for when predicting Downs syndrome. Because of this Elouise has to go for blood tests to double check, but it's all routine so no worries.

  The other appointment is to make sure mum-to-be is happy and well looked after, i.e. not being abused, I assure you, she is well and good hence this went swimmingly. 

  I just want to add that during this time waiting (as I wasn't allowed in to these mini-appointments), I was accompanied by Laura. She is amazing. Not only does she dote over Elouise which reassures me of what a great grandmother she'll be, but she looked at things from my point of view and put me at ease, even at a time when her daughter was a greater concern, and that meant a lot. 

  ***

   I took a wander at one point to call my sister and got a little lost outside the antenatal ward. I shit you not, there was a woman around my age not far from popping, sat on the kerb outside with a roll-up.

She saw me looking at her and clearly could not give two.

  I am a smoker myself and plan to quit sooner rather than later, and El quit the day she found out we were pregnant. So I'm not dead against smoking. But the sight of someone sat there being so careless about the life they were responsible for knocked me sick. Especially in an environment where you had women going in and out and had to walk past this. It was disgusting.

  Speaking of all things disgusting, after a long day today we decided to nip to the Aldi that is literally thirty seconds away, to get something for tea. Specially Selected Cod we bought, chip shop style. Bollocks was it. Never again. 

  But yeah. All in all it was a good day, and we should find out the sex on the 18th May, which is ages away. Vote at the top of the page...