Well, lovely day off again, to relax and take it easy. So far so good. Tob, Tob's dad and our neighbour, James got rid of the sofa and brought down our lovely futon sofa from up stairs last night so i'm finally sitting on a sofa I can actually get out of without resorting to rolling onto hands and knees or human assistance.
I put on a cup of coffee from my posh Senseo Machine while doing this and that, you know emptying the dishwasher sorts of things. I'd managed to make a perfect cup of coffee, just forgot to put a mug under the spouts.Now to watch Angel, drink the second attempt at a cup of coffee and enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.

Snoozing

Work today, by 11.30am I really felt like a sleep. Not like the afternoon sugar crash, far more exhausted. I'd been offered use of the first aid room earlier in the pregnancy if I needed a snooze and i thought this would be the time to take advantage. I waited until after midday and made myself comfy for what I thought would be 45mins. I got woken up at twenty to two by Sally saying my interviewee had been here for 20 mins and they'd been looking for me! whoops. Maybe if I do that again I should take my phone and set an alarm...It was a good snooze. It's 9pm and I'm off to bed now before I find something interesting to do/watch/read.

The Midwife's just left, she's fab!I told her the plan and she's well up for it. She said lots of homebirths happen in Ely and she hopes she'll be on call for mine. We went through where the pool will be, what I need to put in place and what here role will be. Sounds like they are pretty hands off and will do whatever we say. She also went through the types of things, like baby passing muconium early on which might mean I'd need to go into hospital - some of the situations Tob could drive me in, if there were emergency circumstances, there are Ambulances in Ely so that minimises the wait.I'm so excited! she wasn't at all phased, she said I right for a home birth and that I had a healthy confidence in my own body.On the statistical side, I'm measuring 38cm at 36 weeks so he's on the big side and he's head down and not engaged but in the right sort of direction for the time, so heading down but not all the way there yet. BP was on the low side of normal which she was happy about.Result! Bbob is happily kicking and wriggling as I type and I'm so relieved to get the midwives blessing and not have to resort to snotty letters.

Allergic to cats?

US hypoallergenic cats go on sale

They still poo in other people's gardens.

Back to interviewing

My replacement for my job handed in her notice on friday. She said we were all very nice but the job had too much admin for her. Funny really, as she didn't really take even the initiative to pick up a phone. Her previous job she said she had a harem of girls under her, in my job, I work along side Product Managers and Engineers doing stuff with and for them - a bunch of old techies. I suppose I'm married to one so I find it much easier than chatting to a bunch of girls talking about big brother, heat magazine and how much the fake nails cost. I knew she wasn't right but it wasn't my decision. If that's her idea of too much admin she's not getting into the products or the projects. Her loss. This job was better paid too.
Maybe this time round, now that they only have 2-3 weeks with me only working 2-3 days a week they might listen to me. Interviewing from Wednesday.

Timewaster

If you think you know your dark, horror and sci fi and you have a couple of hours and access to the Internet Movie Data Base you might enjoy this, Tob and I did with some clues and help from other fellow movie lovers from the Goth Film club on Live Journal and I looked up a couple on IMDB.
If you need any clues, just ask!

Dark Movie timewaster

Home Birth?

We just had the 2nd half of the antinatal classes which covered homebirths. I was initially not keen, partly because we are a half and hour to an hour depending on the traffic from the hospital and partly I wasn't keen on the idea of a birthing pool at home.
Well that's all changed now and we are looking at birthing pools, aromatherapy and who knows what else will crop up.
I'm actually quite relieved, my biggest fear seems to be more along the lines of being in hospital and railroaded into having stuff done I don't want.
Having had Sarah the Goth round on Friday with her beautiful bundle of newborn boy, her sharing her homebirth experience has made me feel better about it too. It was good to see her anyway, as it had been a while and I was glad I was able to off load some of the abundance of new born boys clothes we've been given - I still have enough for at least 2 or 3, maybe more!
I'm actually looking forward to the birth a bit more now, without the hospital bit (unless of course it all goes pearshaped - the bags are packed anyway).

Corr excellent cd...

I've been buying various CDs mainly for Bbob to listen to while I go to sleep - he gets his fair share of Ska, Metal, punk, Goth and and alternative during the day either on 6music or in the Car but I wanted to give him the benefit of a bit of Mozart and Bach among other things so I bought a few of the obvious bits of organ music, cantatas I've always liked but never got round to getting, I guess my parents had them cos they were inprinted on my brain anyway along with the Archers theme tune.

In the process of searching for the bits I wanted, I've come accross some fab Cello music, Yo Yo Ma, for one. I got a double album of peices performed by him on his cello with everything from The good the bad and the ugly, to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to my favorite Bach thing but done on a cello rather than as a cantata with choir. I do love a bit of cello.

Then theres Arvo Part, a russian composer I've descovered on the Freak Zone on BBC6, also quite a find. It's like depeche mode meets stravinsky played on everything from just violin and piano to dirty great church organs - just not the sort of thing you expect from a church organ. He's been around for decades.

The corr excellent was something completly different though, when I got home today there was a 'new' Kraftwerk CD - Tour de France Soundtracks on the doormat. It's recent for them - 2003 and absolutley fantastic. I have some remixes on Spin Tapes I used to use for teaching indoor cycling and this is more and better. Believe it or not, I got it because it's good endurance music I might find useful in labour. Ok sounds mad but the breathing in it might just work. Even if I don't go near it in labour, I plan to find a way to combine it with anything vaguely with 2 wheels and headphones as soon as I've been signed off by the doctor to exercise.

New job!

I started a new job today!
It's a company called The Automation Partnership, in Royston, who make robots for the life sciences (cell storage, cultures, that sort of thing, not animal testing or GM).
I'm going to be doing software support for two of their existing products - bit of coding, bit of solving user's problems. Should be fun :)
Went by train, which went very well, 10min walk from the station and I arrived bang on 9am. Lots of people to meet, forms to fill in, documents to read! I was impressed that they had a PC up and running for me, the org chart already had me on it, and my photo, that they took as I stepped in the door, was up on the intranet by lunchtime!
Everyone seemed genuinely pleased to see me, and I've even got a 'buddy' - someone whom I can ask questions without feeling I'm interfering.
It's a nice bright office, and I get on well with my boss, so so far I'm very pleased and I think I'm going to like it there :)

antinatal

We've been to our first antinatal class today. Whew, exhausting!
But well worth it as we discussed everything from what to put in the bags and what the partner's role is, to the stages of labour and pain relief. We also covered where to park :)
And we had a video of a birth, which, once the head was out, was over with a plop, which I wasn't expecting. Good to know what's going to happen.
Next Saturday is what to do with the baby once we've got him! :)

Sleep...

Sleep is a bugger, especially with last nights thunder storm. I now wake up early hours hungry, starving hungry. I've been getting loads of braxton hicks during the night which make me hot and sweaty and are usually accompanied by cramps in most of the muscles in my feet and legs depending on how I try to reposition myself. Like a ginormous woodlouse...

Head down and healthy at 34 weeks

We had the 34 week scan today to check he's growing according to schedule and to see which way he's facing. They measured his head, his tum, his leg bone and the gaps where there is no baby (not much!), calculated his weight now and estimated his birth weight if he goes full term. The measurements were all average so they were happy with his growth, he weighs approx 2.2kg/4lbs and 15 oz which, if he puts on about half a pound a week puts him between 7 and 8lbs, same as Toby and I were so that's a good size.
He's head down and on his side - not back bone to my back bone (causes complications if he was apparently). The conclusion being he's a good size, positioned as he should be and I'm in good health (did the usual wee and BP tests). So they wont see me until I go into labour now, I'll have the usual midwife visits. We have booked a tour the end of Sept to have a look around the delivery bits of the Rosie.

33 week bump!

 

quick personality meme

My Personality

Neuroticism	13
Extraversion	71
Openness To Experience	77
Agreeableness	4
Conscientiousness	45

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report MySpace Surveys, Bebo and MySpace Codes by Pulseware Survey Software

WoW video

An excellent music video of WoW characters set to Weird Al's Hardware Store:

Just superb :)

A Scanner, Darkly

Last night, Ozzy, Christine and myself met at the Arts cinema in Cambridge and had a delicious crepe, then headed into 'A Scanner, Darkly'.



Well, I'd not read the book, so didn't know quite what to expect. Visually it's a bit like an animated graphic novel as the film has been pained over. Interesting, but not as artistic as Renaissance. There was a lot of well studied character mannerisms of addicts, very well done, and a bit of a looping plot, but as it was Philip K Dick, I was expecting it to be more SF, to be honest (according to wikipedia, the SF aspects that do exist were intoduced to make the book sell, as it wasn't like his normal output).
There was one interesting effect however; the undercover cops have suits that hide their identity and shimmer, switching between millions of people - one scene with two of these suits talking to each other made my brain go into meltdown - suddenly I lost my grasp on who was who and had a moment of panic - I assume that's what a 'bad trip' would be like, so that was interesting... but not something I'd like to repeat, thank you!

On the way home in the car, Chris and I had a discussion on our awareness of our existence - what's the tipping point between when a baby is born (with built-in processes, such as how to learn, but without self-knowledge, memory or reasoning) and when it becomes aware? If 'awareness' is just the application of built-in processes, is free-will a mirrage?

Cheers to Ozzy for organising :)

Bach, purple nasties and visualisation

Found a really nice knee legnth purple shirt dress yesterday, I've been after one for ages. I thought with black trousers and a black long sleeved t-shirt it would look really cool. I look like I'm about to go painting or throw a pot or two. Either that or a non-conformist nurse. Looks like it will come in handy with the old messy play with toddlers in a couple of years. Oh well.

I've been going through my Yehudi Gordon Natural Birth book and making notes in what has now become our birth note book (really beautiful note book we got for our first aniversary from my Maid of Honour, Kari). I've only covered the first stage and I'm knakkered already. I like the visualisation stuff, that sort of thing works for me, it got me through the London Triathlon anyway.

Listening to Bach, which is very nice :)