Happy event

Fantastically, we are expecting a brand new bouncing baby wassock in late October. Whilst Helen is very pleased, being pregnant hasn't been the walk in the park it was last time, with daily morning sickness from four in the afternoon onwards meaning she's now been grumpy for fifteen straight years weeks. It hasn't been helped by (unrelated to the pregnancy) her also suffering from another bout of D&V and currently a sore throat (Helen says 'a massively swollen tonsil causing constant earache, actually') so bad that we've had a conversation about my theoretical ability to perform a tracheotomy. She would like to report that she is thoroughly fed up with feeling under the weather, although Dom cutely wishing that she should 'Get well soon, Mummy' or giving 'Aaaah, it's alright' cuddles has taken the edge off.

Back to baby #2, we've had two episodes of unnecessary anxiety this time around. Firstly, we found out that Helen was expecting whilst Dom was in full-on chickenpox mode, leading to some frantic googling on our part, consulting yer Stoppard and lastly (merely as confirmation, you understand) the doctor. There was, it transpires, nothing to really worry about given that Helen has had chickenpox before.

Secondly, the same doctor at the next check-up threw doubt upon Helen's cast-iron certainty that she was (at that point) eleven weeks pregnant by declaring that she felt more like fifteen weeks. Helen, as flexible in argument as ever, put her straight. The doctor then suggested that perhaps we should be checking that it wasn't twins and booked us in for a dating scan the following week (you normally only get a twenty week scan here). Panic ensued. Whilst we'd born the chickenpox anxiety alone, this time the world and his wife knew what the scan was about. There followed an insomniac week of back of the envelope financial calculations, shaking our heads in disbelief at estate agents windows, squabbling over who would get to give up work and quietly thinking that, actually, it would be kinda great. I hadn't realised how worried I was until the scan revealed just one beautiful, thumbsucking, legkicking, hiccuping baby wassock and I felt all the tension lift from me.

We used Dom to stand people down from twin alert, and his Aunty Jobley managed to save his answerphone message (tiny .mov audio file). So very cute, our boy.