It’s a waiting man’s (or woman’s) game

So, we’re another day down - more names come off the sweepstake list at work but more importantly, we’re still waiting for this baby to even start showing signs of wanting to come out of there.

Claire’s not really feeling any different from yesterday, no more pains, twinges, or anything like that.

My apologies for the short blog-post this evening, but today has been fairly slow. But on the positive side, I've managed to watch 8x episodes of Series 4 of Lost, trying to catch up as Series 5 has already started on Sky One!

Interview with the mum-to-be

Quick update: We’re now nine days overdue - yes, nine whole days and still no signs of the baby coming out. The midwife has been over to the house again, though, for another check-up as normal. She’s done the once-over on Claire for the week and deemed her fit to carry on, which is good.

Well, I’ve done something a little different today and interviewed my wife. Yes, I am a little sad. And this is my first ever interview for blogging purposes! Enjoy.

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Interview with Mrs Rigby at 20:00 on the 30th January 2009.

BR: So, wife. How’s your belly feeling?

CR: Hard – my belly is currently rock solid to touch, and is a little tender in places.

BR: Did you imagine going 9 days overdue?

CR: No – I think I always thought that because my belly was so big, I was going to be nearer the due date (21st January), or even before that. But instead, I’ve had five and half weeks of my maternity leave at home when I would have rather been at work!

BR: How late do you think that you could have stayed at work?

CR: Don’t know. I couldn’t be there full time, as I’m too big. And, the people I work with couldn’t wait to get rid of me!!

BR: I know you’ve been back to visit work whilst you’ve been away – have they changed anything since you’ve been gone?

CR: YES! They’ve rearranged things and made it ‘better’ - that’ll give me something to do when I get back!

BR: When are you planning on going back?

CR: October.

BR: Full-time? Part-time?

CR: I’m planning to do two days a week until Christmas.

BR: What’s your favourite moment of the pregnancy so far?

CR: You feeling the baby kick inside my belly, because he’s our baby and that was the first time that it felt to me that it was real to you, rather than just an photo from a scan, even though you didn’t seem to really realise that you’re having a baby until about December!

BR: Well, it’s a bit different for men! It’s a bit hard to get excited about you throwing up in the mornings and getting up in the night to wee all the time! Anyway... what are your thoughts about the pending birth?

CR: Pain. It’s going to hurt! They’ve told us that Jack is a 9lb baby or thereabouts, but even if he was tiny, it’s got to hurt. Excitement and apprehension too, I suppose.

BR: Have we got everything that we think we’re going to need for the first week or two after the baby is born?

CR: Don’t know - Have we, Brett?

BR: Yes – I think we, namely you, have done a marvellous job in spending large quantities of money! I’m just worried you might be getting a little too used to it!! Ok.. moving swiftly on. What’s the worst bit being pregnant?

CR: The worst thing about being at home waiting to give birth, is not being able to plan ahead. I want to be able to organise myself and say that next week I wanted to do so and so, I can’t. Before, we’d ask friends over, or go to theirs, for a takeaway or go to a restaurant, but not knowing if I’m going give birth at any moment makes it a little different!

BR: Anything else?

CR: Not being able to lie on my tummy at night to go to sleep! It’s so awkward having a big baby strapped to the front of you, especially doing things you take for granted, like rolling over in the night!

BR: Really? Hadn’t noticed...

CR: Hmm.

BR: All bags packed and ready to go at a given moment’s notice?

CR: I’m ready.

BR: Shall we take bets on the time of day that it’ll come out of there?

CR: Well, I think we’ve proved that we can’t even pin down a day, let alone a time!

BR: Ok, good point. We’ll leave that one.

CR: Stretch-marks – that’s another bad thing about being pregnant! I got all the way to my 36th week before getting my first stretch mark! Now I’ve got 40 million of them on the underside of my belly!

BR: Do you think that’s a slight exaggeration?

CR: Well, more than I wanted! I think I ought to have shares in Bio Oil, as I’ve spent a small fortune on it!

BR: Isn’t that supposed to stop you getting stretch marks?

CR: Or you put it on stretch marks and it’s supposed to fade them. It’s just supposed to keep your skin supple really. I’ve been putting it on every night too, and it’s done well really.

BR: Well thank you very much for your thoughts so far. I’d like to say that you’re doing a sterling job of growing our baby. I would say ‘keep it up’, but if you could just squeeze him out now, that would be great.

CR: Ok, I’ll try!

Interview over 21:00!!!

“Why write a blog??”

Yeah, why do I write a blog? I’ve been asked this a couple of times, initially by my wife who soon gave in and just let me get on with it. Simple answer: because I wanted to.

I’ve never kept a diary as a child, or anything like that, so I really don’t know why I felt compelled to start writing something, let alone a public-facing weblog and why I’ve decided to share a few personal moments with you, the reader (all with Claire’s full permission, of course).

Blogging is quite enjoyable though - somehow relaxing almost, allowing you, the writer/author, the time to focus on particular areas of the day/week that you feel you want to write about.

It’s also quite difficult, as there is absolutely no feedback loop – I carry on writing these blog posts but have no (or little) idea as to the reader’s response or reaction to it. The comments on each post are one way, but it is by no means brilliant. But my point is, there’s no real way of me finding out how many people are actually reading the blog as a whole.

I have come to hear of friends and family members who have mentioned that they’ve been following the blog, for which I am a mix of being pleased, surprised and sometimes a little embarrassed too!

Some people have asked about how they go about getting a blog started and what I’d suggest they blog about...! I’m not saying that I am, by any means, a form of authority in the world of blogging, as I’d be the first to admit that I’m still learning about all this too, as writing the posts can be difficult sometimes, especially if you’re short of material! But having something like the pending birth of our first child is my ‘focused topic’ that I’m learning about on the job and something that I thought I’d like to cut my blogging-teeth on. Two birds, one stone, and all that.

But I am pleased that people take the time to read it. Some read it on their computers as and when they can, maybe catching up on a few posts at a time; some, including my mum, have my blog address entered into Outlook 2007 and get notified within minutes of me posting the article; some even get updates sent to their iPhones and Windows Mobile devices (which I tend to do for other blogs I follow).

I’ve been asked if I would write a bit of a techie-post about how this blog system works and where I’ve got this all from. But I’ll hold off on that until I can get a few screen-shots or something to make it interesting as well as informative. And maybe after the baby is born!!

Progress Update

Well, again, I’d like to say that things have started happening and the baby is here, but unfortunately, Jack still hasn’t arrived. He's now 8 days overdue the due-date of the 21st January.

If it were a parcel being delivered, then you can get a tracking number or an estimated delivery date. Even worse, a confirmation that the sender had sent it! But these babies don’t seem to come with any in-built tracking device, or sender confirmation; I suppose we do actually know which ‘depot’ it’s at, and that it’s actually there, as it’s been there a while now, but it’s not clear as to when it’s allowed to be collected.

Maybe he’s in quarantine?

Maybe he has to pass stringent in-bound rules or he's liable to import duty?

Or, maybe, its all just taking a little bit longer than the date that we were told by the doctors and midwives. (This is much more likely the truth and we’re simply guilty of being part of today’s 'I-want-it-now' culture, where patience was forgotten about.)

Either way, he ain’t here!

Claire is getting on ok though – she’s quite bored at home by herself, which I can understand. She’s been off work now for over a month, since 24th December, and getting bigger steadily, whilst the ability and desire to actually do 'stuff' is almost directly in-proportional! Besides... daytime TV is rubbish, as there’s only the like of ‘Quincy’ and ‘Diagnosis Murder’ to keep you occupied, which is great as student-TV, but to have to watch it day in, day out, not knowing when you’re able to stop!!

Needless to say, once baby Jack does make his grand debut into the world, I'll post news and a photo or two on here.

Friends and Family

I wanted to write a post on here about our friends and family, before the nipper arrives.

Claire and I have been a bit overwhelmed recently with friends and family members calling, texting and emailing us to find out if there’s any news to be told about the birth.

Unfortunately, so far, we’ve had a pretty standard reply of ‘no, not yet’, but it’s been nice that people have been thinking about us and wanting to find out the score so far.

Each of the past couple of times I’ve seen my folks (particularly my mum) have muttered words like ‘maybe next we’ll see you, Jack will have been born...’ etc, but I still keep seeing them and still no baby for them to coo over, which is a shame, but it makes me laugh each time they say it.

Anyway, he's now 6 days late, which might have the up-side in proving that he's a Rigby, but also the down-side in that we're getting a bit fed up waiting for him! Not least Claire..!

Fun and Games

Well. It’s been one of those days. You know, one of those ‘random’ days when you’re told that your wife is going to have a caesarean the following day, and then half an hour later, you’re told that she’s not.

Claire originally had an appointment this morning with the midwife for her weekly check-up on the unborn sprog and the midwife has had another rummage around on Claire’s belly and determined that his head is ‘no longer engaged at all’... which is a bit of a disappointment, as last week she said that the head was ‘partially’ engaged. She’s suggested an appointment for Claire at Hinchingbrooke hospital with a consultant to make sure, and if needed, then they can arrange for a caesarean for tomorrow or Wednesday. (Which would have been good for one of the sweepstakers in the office!!)

So, Claire’s gone with her mum, Pat, to the hospital to see the consultant, who’s instantly felt the baby’s head and determined that it is indeed engaged, and felt what the midwife thought was the head and said this was in fact, his shoulder. He’s then scanned her and seen the head in the pelvic cavity and all that. So, all is good.

Because the head is in the right place, they’ve decided that Claire doesn’t need caesarean and that she will probably be ok to give birth as normal. They have booked in an induction appointment for a week today, which is Monday 2nd Feb (Mr. Finn’s day!) but they said that they doubt that she’d make it that far and that she’d probably have given birth by then...!

The midwife then gave Claire a sweep – if you know what that is, great. If you don’t, have a look on your favourite internet search engine yourself.

So, we’re back to waiting again. This isn’t bad, as we at least know that things are good inside there with young Rigby, but it’s the not knowing when he’s going to come out that makes for the interesting part.

Just an observation...

More and more recently, people have been saying that I should get as much sleep as I can, as very soon, I won’t be sleeping much due to a crying poo-machine sharing the bedroom with Claire and myself. Most probably, this is all very sound advice, but I’m yet to learn this first-hand.

I am a really light sleeper – in that, I mean that I wake at the slightest noise or disturbance, so there’s not much chance of me sleeping through a baby’s wailing during the night, nor me trying to pretend to Claire that I didn’t hear it either!

But I’m actually quite shattered now and the baby's not even here yet!

I think that this is possibly because Claire has to get up in the night to use the toilet at random intervals..! No, of course, it’s not Claire’s fault; nor is she doing it intentionally. But I do wake up even if she tries to sneak out of bed, or even if she rolls over in the night. Come to think about it, I used to do this even when she wasn’t pregnant, so it’s definitely a problem with me and my sleeping.

Anyway, what I am trying to say or point-out (badly) is that a pregnant woman does need to use the loo during the night. Therefore, if you happen to be a light-sleeper, like myself, then you’ll probably notice this too.

The more annoying part, is that Claire is NOT but any means a light sleeper, and so when I wake up in the morning and do my best SAS/cat-burglar/‘sneaking-around-the-room-not-trying-to-wake-Claire’ impression, it’s wasted, as she’d sleep through anyway! I even use the dim backlight on my mobile phone to pick a pair of socks out of the draw when she’s still in bed...!