The last Christmas...

As a family of two!  This time next year baby boo will be with us and everything will be very different!  Lucky for us we made this Christmas pretty low key and stayed in London with Rob's family.  Christmas eve was spent at a local curry house in Upminster followed by Christmas day around Rob's mum and dads.  This year was a smaller than norm affair as Rob's aunt Irene and uncle Nicky were away in New York celebrating the birth of their very first granddaughter, Sophia.  So there were only 9 of us - which by Rob's family standard is small.  But it was lovely, we got a few nice bits for baby boo and a few nice bits for ourselves.  Beofre dinner we enjoyed the annual trip to the pub for a few pints before dinner and i indulged in a small glass of wine.  I don't think I've ever ordered a small glass of wine before in my life?!  But, it was really nice and certainly hit the spot.  I think i even got a buzz from it which was certainly the highlight of the trip :)  Here are a few shots from the day:

Rob + Clare + Mum + Dad opening pressies:

Nan, Steve & Dan:

Rob's mum gave him a shirt with a matching partner for baby boo:

Clare showing her hawkeye pride:

Down at the pub, can you see the bump?

View of the bump from above.  Looks much bigger this way, don't ya think?

SPD

Well, it's been an eventful past week - packed full with a visit to A&E!  Luckily baby boo is ok, just a small issue for me called SPD, better known as symphis publis dysfunction.  Nice name, eh?  In a nutshell, i've been experiencing a lot of pain during my pregnancy but for the most part just assuming it's part of the growing process.  However in the past week it's gotten a fair bit worse and really bothersome when I walk.  Well this past Friday became almost unbearable - and scary when it started to spread to my back and get more intense.  Stupidly I did some online research, as you do, to try and diagnose it and after reading articles and posts that indicated i may be going into pre-term labor (at 24 weeks!) we started to get concerned.  After debating our options for a fair while we ended up going in to A&E about 1230 am.  Lucky we did as they did a lot of tests, listened to the baby's heartbeat for a long time, checked the cervix to make sure it was closed and finally took some swabs to rule out any infection.  After everything came back normal they diagnosed me with the pubis dysfunction.  The symptoms are pretty basic: pelvic and back pain which intensifies when walking or moving.  And apparently it gets worse the bigger you get - some people even require crutches to get around.  Sweet - can't wait for that! 

Luckily, all is well with baby boo - he's happy and healthy - in fact he's moving around quite a bit these days.  Kicking up a storm!  And what's even more exciting is that every night when Rob gets home he's been talking to Boo, telling him about the day and what's happening and i think boo is responding.  Whenever Rob speaks to him he gets really active - lots of kicking.  It's the cutest thing!

We have another scan this Thursday, part of the hypertension clinic requires me to have scans every 4 weeks so looking forward to seeing baby boo.  Will make sure to post a new pic and also get on posting a pic of the bump.  Getting lots of requests for a photo - but pretty scared to take one.  Eeek!  Once i see it in a photo i fear there is no more hiding.  Oh well, at nearly 6 months I think it's time to embrace the bump!