Hi there.
Just a quick post to show you all a couple more pictures. Enjoy...
So far, having a baby is hard work. It's also awesome.
Both Alison and I are getting less sleep than ever, which is tough, but to be expected. I'm coping with it better - partly because I just do, but mostly because I'm not having to stay up hours at a time with a baby sucking milk out of me. Fortunately, Ali is managing to get some naps during the day, so she's holding up pretty well. Myself, I'm finding the lack of routine a bit harder to deal with! With a demanding baby and demanding wife, I'm having to accept that whatever I'm doing at any given time has to be dropped if needs be. Cups of coffee are microwaved over and over before I finish them; my computer lies open on the floor for days, waiting for me to return to it; and phone calls end abruptly. I'm getting to grips with it by setting myself fewer, more achievable tasks. That way I can get to the end of the day and know I did something, rather than just feeling like I ran from pillar to post trying to keep up with a baby who can't even crawl.
So, it's difficult, but it's also really cool in it's own way. It's amazing to see this little tiny person that we have quite literally made, and who has almost limitless potential to become practically anything. I'm looking forward to seeing her grow and develop and learn everything as she goes. It's really weird to see her at the moment and know she can't do anything but eat and sleep and poop, and even then only do those things by reflex and instinct. Yet in time, she'll learn and her brain will figure out how to move her head and limbs in a controlled fashion, and how to eat and talk, and think and everything. Brilliant!
Thanks to you all for your good wishes and comments and texts and cards and stuff. We're very touched! I'll get some more pics up sometime soon. I've got some really good ones of Beth and Alison. Bye for now.
Ali woke me at 1 in the morning to say she was having abdominal pains, and that she'd called the hospital and they'd told her to come in. We got seen at about 2, and they said she was definitely in labour. Scary stuff! We timed contractions and whatnot until half six, when they said that the baby was ready to start coming out. An extremely harrowing hour followed, but at 7:38am today, Bethany Ruth Urquhart emerged. She weighed in at 7lb 11 1/2oz, which is reasonably hefty, but not huge. She made a bit of a meal of coming out, as she'd got her umbilical cord twisted round her wrist, but she seems fine now. Ali did extremely well, getting through her first labour in under 8 hours with no significant problems, no interventions and no pain relief beyond nitrous oxide. Still, quite the ordeal.
Ali, is now in hospital, and I've come home for a while for a rest. We're both pretty shattered, Ali especially, for obvious reasons. I've had one hour of sleep in the past 36 hours, but I'm holding up OK. I'll be ready to sleep tonight though!
Anyway. Here's a couple of photos of baby Bethany:
Well, house buying is moving along nicely. We've made the offer, got a surveyor and my dad's put us in touch with a solicitor. Once we send the deposit to the solicitor, they can get on with co-ordinating everything. The financial side of things is getting sorted, thanks in large part to my dad who is good at figuring these sorts of things out, which is handy. So, all being well, the house should be ours in a few weeks and we'll be able to move in soon after that. Excellent!
I imagine some of you might be quite curious to see some pictures of the house, so I've found the house at rightmove which has all the details and pictures and stuff for you to look at. It's a bit funny that we'd actually made an offer on the house by the time it appeared on the website, but that's the way these things go. I had been told that some really nice houses get sold before they even make it into the estate agents window, and I think that's what's happened here. So, that's all very nice.
Baby-wise, things are going as well as can be expected, though it's still not appeared on the scene. Alison has about had enough of being pregnant, which I can only imagine to be a huge pain in practically every bit of your body. It's not helped that the early part of this week was unbearably hot and humid. Ick. Still, there don't appear to be any problems at this stage, which is to say the baby is the right way round (by which I mean it's upside down and back to front) and still kicking.
That's about it at the moment really. Things are a bit calmer now that the house is getting sorted, and it was nice to have a weekend when I didn't have to drive up to the Wirral, then over to Manchester to look at houses. Thursday night is video night and we've reserved Walk The Line for tonight, so I'll let you know what I make of that. Neither of us are big Johnny Cash fans (though I must say that his cover of U2's One is amazing) but the film was pretty well lauded at the cinema, so it's probably worth a look. We're also going out for a meal tomorrow night, for probably the last time in a while! Best make the most of it.
Oh, one last thing... 20six, in their rather-less-than-infinite wisdom appear to have "upgraded" their systems in a way that's alienated the bulk of their users. It seems that while HTML and CSS come easy to a geek like me, this is not the case for normal people. Of all the blogs I read there, only one out of about ten appears to actually intend to stick it out there. As such, most of my links are now inaccurate. I'll fix them when I can be bothered to hunt everyone down. What a pain in the neck.
NOTE: Please can someone try to comment on this post? Even if you don't have anything interesting to say. I'm just curious to see if anyone can comment on it, as this is the aforementioned post that I'm having trouble with...
For some reason, if I attempt to publish the post that I have been writing, no one can comment on it, I can't comment on it, I can't login to wordpress from the page it's on, and the theme gets totally screwed up.
Only with that one post, mind you.
I don't know what the hell is going on.
Now, I'm not a football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I am a geek and thus a fan of halfway clever computer related things. With that in mind, I thought I'd draw your attention to a random Excel spreadsheet that a colleague sent me. You put in the results of the games as they happen, and it keeps tabs on who goes where and so on. Simple, but effective. Some, all or none of you should appreciate it. Enjoy.
world_cup_2006.xls
Regular Urban Survivors by Terrorvision is a great, if rather dated, album, which I had a listen to the other day, much to my pleasure. Some good lyrics on there.
I'm stressed as anything. I'm not sleeping right at all. I think it's this whole job/baby/move house thing. Three life changing events in the space of a few months... great. Anyway. Let's not moan.
The baby is due in 10 days, which is pretty scary. It may not actually be here for two weeks after that, at which point they induce labour, but either way that's pretty soon. I think we've got all the gear we need, but I wouldn't say we feel ready in any way. It's quite scary, but in quite an unreal sort of way. As far as I'm concerned so far it's just involved Alison getting bigger and bigger and not feeling very well. I think it'll get a whole lot more real when the baby actually appears, and then the sheer magnitude of what lies before me will probably hit me pretty hard. Still, on the plus side, it can't be that hard, can it? Stay tuned to watch me eat my words...
We've found a house, which is good. Might help relieve the stress. It's in Atherton, just outside Manchester. It's a 3 bedroom semi at the end of a close, and it's very fancy. The people selling it have done loads of work on it and it's really well kitted out. We've made an offer and it's been accepted, so it's just a case of getting the survey and mortgage and all that stuff sorted. Good stuff.
I forgot something in my "thing I like" list the other day... Those new Cadbury's Creme Egg/Dairy Milk bars! They're delicious. Clearly a great idea in the world of chocolate. I salute the Cadbury's person who came up with that one.
That's about it for now... More when I get round to it. I still want to write about scary computer games and books by Chuck Palahniuk. Later people.
Not written for a while. Been very busy with house hunting and work and generally being stressed. Am on pills from doctor for minor stomach problems. Yay. Anyway. Here's a list of things I'm loving at the moment:
- Being married. Alison is away at the moment and it always makes me think of how much I like having her around and having the company. I go nuts on my own, and stop doing much anything useful.
- My friend, Laura. Things are mental at the moment, so it's nice to have a friend I've known for ages. Provides a much needed bit of stability.
- My parents. I'm figuring if I ever turn out to be any good at being a parent it'll be because I had good examples. I'm also very grateful to have my dad to help with stuff, especially with looking for a house at the moment. He seems to know an awful lot about an awful lot, which is handy.
- 24. I borrowed the DVD set of series 2 and have watched it all this week. I'd never seen it before. I remember Colin watching it fanatically at uni, but I never got into it. It's amazing! Really well made and well shot. They pack in so much for something that happens over the course of one day. It's like reading a novel, but in film form, except it actually takes as long to watch as it would to read because of the sheer amount of detail. It's great stuff.
- Radio 1. I have a lot of time for the BBC, and I have absolutely no complaints about the licence fee. Radio 1 is probably worth it on it's own, never mind all the other radio stations, the TV stations, the news, the web presence... Anyway. They've got as good a mix of music as you can hope for when trying to cater to everyone, no adverts, and some very good DJs (with the exception of Sara Cox, and some of Moyles' more egocentric moments). Jo Whiley is a legend. Tangent - is the new Muse single any good? I don't know. I heard it once and thought it was awful, then heard it again and quite liked it. Maybe it's a grower. Oh, and the Pink single is great.
- Cheap computer parts. In between buying and selling on ebay and picking stuff up second hand from people, it's nice to get the high spec parts of yesteryear at minimal cost. I'm looking forward to setting up my TV recording box with some of the kit.
- Talking of which... free software. Never mind your warezed copy of XP Pro, I'm talking properly free stuff. No cost, and I can do anything I like with it. I'm looking forward to getting gentoo and Mythtv set up so I can record TV and do all that Tivo business. Quite a fun project for someone like me who's into all that stuff.
- X Men 3. Amazing film - highly recommended. The plot rolls along nicely and it looks stunning. Dark Phoenix makes a great enemy - genuinely terrifyingly dangerous, much like Doc Ock in Spiderman 2 - which really helps in adding to the urgency of the conflict. The special effects are awesome and the face offs between the mutants and their various powers are very cool. They did well with the trailer to barely reveal any of the final conflict, so it was all fresh and new when you saw it.
- Talking of trailers, we saw new ones for James Bond, Superman and Pirates Of The Caribbean 2, all of which look good. It'll be fun and games getting babysitters so we can go see them, but we'll manage!
- In other film news, I must admit I've been slightly pleased to hear that the Da Vinci Code is getting awful reviews. I thought the book was pretty bland, and the ending diabolical, so I was glad to hear that the deus ex machina was laughed at in Cannes. There we go.
Right. Bit of life news... House hunting is going OK. It's very hard work trying to balance price against what the house is like against where it is against what the schools are like etc etc. It's tough stuff. The web makes it a lot easier to dig up info about what the areas and schools and so on are like, so that's good, but it's still tough stuff. We've got 6 viewings arranged for this saturday, so it'll be a busy day. Let's hope Ali copes OK with all that, as she'll only be two weeks of her expected due date by then! That's also quite scary. I'm going to be a father in, at most, a month. It doesn't feel real yet. I'll bet it'll feel all too real when it happens!
Anyway. That's about it for now. I'll try to write again soon, though it may wind up being about computer games, so I apologise to the uninterested among you! Alternatively I might write about books. Who knows. See you soon.
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