Today is our first wedding anniversary 
It’s scary how quickly the year has gone and difficult to believe that a year ago we were in Vegas. I’ve dug out our wedding video and put it somewhere we can find it so we can cringe at it in later years
We’re off out this evening to Cafe de China with our families to celebrate this and our birthdays (slightly belatedly ) which should be good fun and a good excuse to have some excellent food
We had our second baby scan today and everything is fine which is obviously good news We’ve another scan in a few weeks as they couldn’t get good enough imaging of the babies heart to check the chambers etc. and though they don’t think there is a problem they want to be sure. I’ve put up our scan images which you may or may not be able to make out
The first set is here and the second here. The pictures probably need a little explanation as it isn’t obvious what’s going on
The first picture is a side on view, babies head to the right and arm (or possibly leg??) up in front. Second is a top down view of the skull and the third is a view of the spine. Both of the second set pictures are from the side, babies head to the right.
Claire was discharged from hospital yesterday as she is much better than she was. She is taking tablets to control the sickness which will hopefully do the job and allow her to eat and drink fairly normally. She’s been signed off work for the rest of the week to allow her to recover some more and adjust to the tablets. It’s really nice to have her home again as the house was feeling kind of empty
Went and saw Claire again this afternoon and was delighted to see she was pretty much back to her old self. She’s still on the drip to rehydrate her and having injections for the sickness but they seem to be working really well as she only has sickness spells infrequently now. She even managed breakfast and lunch today which is the most she has eaten for a long time!
The Doctor is hopeful that she can be released tomorrow if she continues to make good progress which is obviously excellent news. I suspect she’ll be given pills to continue to treat the sickness at home and hopefully that should keep it under control for the rest of the pregnancy.
In related news, I’m still unimpressed at the cleanliness of the ward. I managed to spill some coke on the floor today so borrowed some tissue to mop it up. The tissue was totally black by the time I’d mopped it up so the floor must be filthy. The hospital seem to be spending more money on signs everywhere warning that cleanliness is important rather than actually spending it doing something about it…
Went to see Claire today in hospital, thankfully she is doing much better than she was yesterday. She’s been through 3 bags of saline so far to get her hydrated and was on the fourth whilst I was there. She has also been given injections to try and stop the sickness and heartburn, which seem to work fairly well though the sickness was starting to come back at the end of the visit.
As we thought, she has been diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which is basically extreme morning sickness. This can be pretty serious as it’s easy to get very dehydrated as you can’t keep fluids down.
The doctors seem to think Claire is likely to be in for two or three days whilst they monitor her condition and try and stabilise the sickness. She’ll probably them be prescribed some strong anti-sickness drugs before being released, which reading up on the condition seem to help most people have a fairly normal pregnancy. I’m back off to see her tomorrow so hopefully she’ll keep on improving and be allowed home soon.
It was quite interesting being in a hospital as I haven’t been near one for ages (thankfully!). I was quite interested to see what was happening with regard to infection control (MRSA always being in the news). When entering the department everyone is meant to use some antiseptic gel to clean their hands. I’ve yet to see a single person use this, including medical staff. Also you’d think general cleanliness would be important. Today Claire found a bedpan in her bedside cupboard full of some moldy and quite frankly scary looking gunk, probably left over from a previous patient. The lady next to her found a moldy sandwich in hers. I fail to see how hospitals are ever going to beat MRSA and other bugs if basic things like this are missed.
On the plus side the staff seem friendly and efficient, if very busy and Claire was checked on a few times whilst I was there. We’ll see how things go tomorrow
Following our good news on Wednesday things have unfortunately gone a little downhill. As I mentioned before, Claire has had really bad morning sickness since about week 7. Things were fairly stable, though not a lot of fun for her, until the beginning of this week when the sickness got much much worse. It became so bad she was unable to even keep water down, or even the anti-sickness pills prescribed by the doctor. The midwife called today and after hearing her condition said she needed to head to A&E straight away.
Claire’s Mum and Lucie kindly gave us a lift there after I finished work (thankfully the hospital is only round the corner from our house) and after the usual 3 hour wait we finally got to see a Doctor. After taking some blood (poor Claire looks like a pincushion as she’s had blood taken 3 days this week!) she has been admitted to Kingsgate ward at QEQM.
They started her on a saline drip straight away as she was quite badly dehydrated and it’s likely she will be in for a couple of days whilst they pump her full of fluids and try and stop the sickness.
I’m off to see her tomorrow during visiting hours, in the meantime I have the house to myself (well, apart from the cats) which feels really odd as it’s the first time it’s happened since we moved here.
Fingers crossed that Claire feels better tomorrow as pregnancy really hasn’t been that great for her so far.
A 4.1cm one to be exact If you haven’t guessed, Claire is just under 12 weeks pregnant
We had our first ultrasound today and everything was fine so now seems the right time to make the news public. Claire is suffering really badly from morning (afternoon, evening) sickness which is why she may not have said a lot when you’ve seen her about, she wasn’t being rude It seems I relearned to drive at just the right time!
I guess this means we’ll need to get a move on with finding another house as well, as all the stairs in our current place mean it isn’t exactly baby friendly!
We’ve also been putting together a wedding list as a number of people have been asking for one.
You can find it here. You will need to create an account by clicking the link on the login page. After you have an account, login and add “Wedding Gift List” to the people you shop for. You can then click on the list to view it. You can reserve gifts you want to get or mark them bought. This stops people ending up buying the same things If you have any problems, drop us an email.
It looks like she has managed to find a decent size place in St Nicholas at Wade and the tentative date is 17th June, so pencil the date in your diaries. Probably best not to use your JES diary though as the calendar will probably crash and lose it 
In February we’re off to the US for a few weeks. As we’ve been to Orlando a couple of times (April 2005 being the most recent) we thought we’d go to some other places. We’ve both talked about going to Las Vegas and San Francisco, so that’s where we’re headed!
It occurred to us that it might be pretty cool to get married out there as well, so that’s what we’re going to do!
Since we got engaged in April we’ve been looking about for somewhere different to get married. Neither of us are particularly religious so we weren’t really looking at a church wedding. This leaves civil venues but we weren’t really taken by any venue we looked at. Another factor was the price, we were looking at something like five or six thousand pounds to get married here. In Vegas we’re looking at five or six hundred! The downside is that we can’t afford to fly family and friends out with us, which will make it a pretty quiet ceremony though everyone has given us their blessings. We plan to have a big party when we get back so everyone is invited to that
Given the huge range of venues for marriage in Vegas it’s taken some whittling down. We weren’t over keen on the usual chapels as they do tend to be a little tacky (no Elvis for us!). We finally decided on one of the chapels at the first hotel we’re staying at, the Stratosphere. The chapel is 800 feet up, with the opportunity to have pictures taken at the top of the tower (1,149 feet) which is pretty funky and totally different to what we can do in the UK.
The marriage is going to be webcast either live or with a couple of hours delay so everyone that’s interested back here can tune in and watch me fluff my lines I’ll post the link when I know it for those that have nothing better to do with half an hour
After the marriage we’re staying for another couple of nights at the Stratosphere before heading to the Flamingo for a few days. After that we’re off to San Francisco for a week.
Should be fun, and suggestions of what to do in either city are appreciated
It’s kind of funny that we’ve been ribbing James about a Vegas wedding and it turns out I’m going to have one
