After 9 months of shoving my head firmly in the sand, our new arrival is almost here. Jasmine and Poppy will get to meet their new sibling in two weeks time and I can’t help but wonder how they will react. Poppy is baby mad, she can always be found playing with the little ones at nursery and she has a huge collection of baby dolls (all called either ‘Poppy’ or ‘Baby’, so we can’t look to her for name inspiration!), so I know that she will be pleased to meet her. Jasmine, on the other hand, might not be so pleased. She was none too impressed when we introduced her to Poppy, so I won’t expect a rapturous welcome, but she might surprise us all. Then again, she might launch a toy at her head and bite the midwife. Time will tell.
I have had a few wobbles over the last couple of months about my decision to decline invasive testing this time around. I was so certain in the early days, utterly content with my decision, but as the months went by and things stopped going as smoothly as we would have liked, seeing a look of surprise and dismay on the faces of the obstetric staff upon hearing this snippet of information started to worry me a bit. I was asked if I had any objections to the sonographer double checking the soft markers during a growth scan at 31 weeks, but I was secretly quite relieved when they couldn’t as the baby was too big. As with our other concerns, time will tell. I have already given myself a forehead wrinkle with the constant headaches, I don’t wish to add any more!
Of course, if I wanted to worry, I could get in a flap about my complete lack of nesting instinct, general state of disarray and complete failure to come up with a long list of potential names, let alone a short one. Ideally, I want something that Jasmine can pronounce easily, nothing alliterative and nothing that sounds too similar to either Jasmine or Poppy, so no ‘in’ or ‘ee’ sounds. Don’t ask for much, do I? Suggestions are always welcomed. As are offers to come and organise my house or at least motivate me to do it. Funnily enough, ‘Mummy, up, UUUUPPPPPPPP……….’ is Jasmine’s phrase of the week. She can be remarkably persuasive too. The little tyrant.