Belle and Sebastian

Bella was very excited to meet her "petit frere" Sebastian. She spent lots of time patting and kissing him, and singing Baa Baa Black Sheep. I wonder what she'll think when she finds out Belle was Sebastien's dog in the novel by Cecile Aubry.

Now he's home we'll see how things go, fingers crossed.

The Delivery (only for those interested in this stuff)

So we got to the hospital in the middle of the night. Everything was very quiet. The night porter tooks us to the maternity ward, hidden in the back of the hospital but newly refurbished. Contractions every 3 minutes but bearable. The head midwife checked me out, and told us, I was pretty much ready to deliver, fully dilated etc. Not sure why but I was surprised. I'd heard the stories about second babies coming much quicker but didn't quite believe this. I'd planned an epidural. She said I could still have one, but that the baby would be out in 30-45 minutes so did I still want one? With Isabella they stopped the epidural for the actual pushing/delivery, so I would feel the pain to help things along, so we figured it would be the same as last time, and passed on the epidural. This was a decision I have to admit I questioned later, wimp that I am, but I had committed. It was longer than 30-45 minutes, as she had to call my OB with it being the middle of the night. He was pretty quick to get there. Transpired actually that the baby was still quite high, despite everything else being ready to go, so neeed some pushing to get him down and in position (as I said maybe an epidural after all..). Well they did a good job. Imagine all of this is taking place in French, despite this being the American hospital all the staff are French. Allegedly they all speak English but you wouldn't know it. I'm not sure my French degree teacher would've been particularly impressed with my French under pressure, oh and the occasional English swear word. Anyway it became apparent that he could be born at the same time as Isabella (2:45am) so we had a neat deadline we narrowly missed as he arrived at 2:47am.

He came out all fit, healthy and crying. Another blondie - no surprise there. The midwife was desperate to find a tape measure so she could measure his apparently huge head. Same size as his chest she gleefully told us, and the hat they provided wouldn't fit. Well thank you for that. It's actually the same size as his sister's was and it didn't seem to cause such a stir in the US. Ha.ha. He weighed 3.825 kg which is just over 8.4lbs, and 54 cm (21.25 in), so not a giant in my World, certainly healthy, although apparently top of the French scales.

Old Wives Tale or True #2 - Curry

huge and waiting...

So with the possibility of a planned induction, I did some research on natural methods. Won't go in to them all, but chose the indian spicy food option. Friday we went out to the local Indian restaurant (actually not everyone has one of these in Paris), this the eve of the UK due date. I rolled up, looking every bit 9 months pregnant, squeezed in as people gave me knowing glances. Ordered chicken jalfrezi, extra spicy, and Malc ordered a lamb madras. Yum yum. Topped it off with a lassi for some extra calcium and headed home 10:30pm. 11:30pm I headed off to bed, but as I got in to bed I got that strangely familiar feeling of a contraction. Not sure whether I had imagined it I decided to ignore it. Hmmm, not for long did I ignore it. I went down stairs and gave Malc the early warning assuming things may not settle. However they came every 10 minutes and then were coming evey 5 minutes, within half an hour. The doctor had said to come to the hospital when the contractions were 15 minutes apart. Ooooops. We called Genevieve Bella's nanny to come over. By the time she got here 1pm, contractions were 3 minutes apart. Luckily the hospital only 10 minutes drive away.

So back to the original question old wives tale or not? Who knows, maybe it would've happened any way.

Let them eat Cake

Bella wasn't in creche yesterday, as she stays out one day a week now for some extra family time (the other days she's in 8-3). So as it was Malc's birthday we baked him a cake. Bella did most of the making, I did most of the cleaning up. We used some princess candles left over from Bella's birthday (as she only needed 2), Malcolm didn't seem to mind. As a reward for her hard work she got to blow the candles out too, and eat some ofcourse.

Old Wives' Tale or True? - the BUMP

By popular demand (well Jane at least), here we have a picture of the bump, and a comparison with last time, same stage. Can you spot the difference ? As the old wives' tale says, bump to the front is a boy, wide bump is a girl.

A Drive in the Country

Went out to Parc St Cloud for a kick about in the leaves this weekend. Bella took a truck for a spin, and collected a few leaves. Lovely Autumn weather at the moment, fresh but sunny.

Bump is getting particularly huge as am now in my 39th week of pregnancy. Have set a date of the 30th of October to induce him out if he doesn't come before...hopefully he'll put in an appearance of his own accord.

General News

So what's new. Since we got back from holidays, we moved Bella in to a different bedroom (downstairs). She has a proper bed (albeit toddler size) and all her toys. She has a bedside light which she can switch on off for hours and she can also open the door in to the rest of the house. So she now has the freedom of the downstairs. Apart from one night she doesn't insist on coming out, although she does shout for us at the top of her voice when she wants us. Good thing is, now her toys are all in there, the rest of the house looks less like a creche. She know the cot and her old room is for the baby and seems OK with this. Hopefully this will continue.

After a rough couple of days she's settled back in to creche just fine. Runs off happily in the morning to play with her friends. Her French has come back again, and she seems pretty bilingual to the extent that a 2 year old can be. She likes to sing songs and say nursery rhymes, although they are normally a special abridged version. e.g. "rock a bye baby,..tree.. baby fall down, bang.." as she drops her doll on the floor. And her favourite "baa baa black sheep, any smelly socks?" this one she learnt from Maddy on holiday. Hours of fun.

I finish work this Friday. Hurrah. I had a 3rd trimestre scan and was told the baby was very big and I might need to consider my options. Considered crash diet option or taking up smoking, but think it is too late for that. Not entirely sure what this means, but am seeing my OB this weekend so will see what my options might be, hoping to avoid anything involving knives or scissors. The official French due date is November the 2nd (41 weeks), the official UK/US due date is one week earlier (40 weeks). Apparently all the other countries in the World got it wrong??? Anyway I feel huge and am hoping not to wait another month. Malc gets 6 weeks paternity leave off (Pfizer US policy) so we are looking forward to that.

Pretty much set-up now, just a few admin things to sort out - like how to get the baby a birth certificate and a name chosen by ourselves and not one approved by the French government. Oh and we haven't actually chosen a name yet.

Anyway enough blah blah. More news soon.

Scooting along

Bella got a scooter for her birthday. A bit big for her really but never mind. Here she is at Parc Citroen having a go, starts off well, with a pose, pushes it herself, decide that walking next to it is easier and actually getting pushed is even better!