#31 A whole load of mini updates... & the worst title for a blog post

9th July 2013

Hi, my name is Paul, I used to be a negative norman. It has now been over a month since I was a insufferably miserable dick. I'm kinda getting addicted to this being happy malarky, Don't get me wrong, there's still an angry beaver within, but anger is healthy sometimes... Apparently

I'm finding this blog quite hard at the minute, because very little is happening right now, i'm finding it hard to be inspired. I've taken to making notes when inspiration hits me. The only problem is, they are all one word notes & I haven't got a clue what half of them refer to!

Today Lib had an appointment to see the Consultant that did our fertility investigations, & she got to hear our baby's heartbeat & I missed it.
When we last saw the midwife at the hospital, we asked her what was the reason behind the appointment we had with the consultant, She said it was just so he could sign us off, So I probably didn't need to be there.
But if had known that he was going to check the heartbeat, I'd have dropped everything to be there.
So yeah, annoyed much!
Anyway He didn't sign us off. He can't be sure that this is an IVF baby or not, so he wants to see us again in November

Preston ... This note means nothing to me & also confused me greatly


24th July 2013

I've just heard the single most amazing thing in my life (so far)
The heartbeat of my unborn child & I nearly cried, & i'm not ashamed to admit it either


25th August 2013 

Yesterday was the first time in seven days that i've seen my wife & our amazing bump, She's been on holiday with her family & I couldn't get time from work to go, this sucks balls on a major scale. Even though its only been a week, the bump seems to have grown so much, & I still find it hard to get my head around the fact that my child is in there somewhere

Amidst various stories of holiday fun & adventure that I missed out on, one thing that arisen upset me quite a bit. The girl we foster has been telling everyone that she's not looking forward to the baby coming into our lives. I kinda get why, because she's been passed around from family member to family member, told that she can't live with her Mum & her Dad can't have her living with him, so maybe she thinks that now we have a child of our own, she'll have to move on again. This couldn't actually be further from the truth.
From the day we started our IVF, we've always told her that no matter what happens, she'll always be able to call our house, her home, we've always tried to involve her in all the decisions & above all be honest with her. Just upsets me that she couldn't be honest with us, & let us find out how she feels from someone else.


27th August 2013

I had a feeling today was going to be a good day, It's my day off work, it's the day of my 3rd driving test (Yes I failed 2 already) & the date of our 20 week scan, well it turns out I only have two of these right, The scan is tomorrow & I should be at work. on the plus side, I passed my driving test! The roads of South Yorkshire are no longer safe


28th August 2013

Sometimes I actually amaze myself, normally when we have a hospital/clinic appointment, I can guarantee something will stop me from getting there with time to spare, I expected today to be pretty much the same as any other, We had to be at the hospital for our scan at 13.45, the problem is, I wouldn't normally finish until 14.15 on a Wednesday, Today I appear to have been possessed by a Red Bull fuelled cheetah! SPEEDY MAIL>>>> GO! 
Predictably because I've managed to get to the hospital early, I'm now sat in the waiting room at least 20 minutes past the actual appointment time... Hmmmph!


The scan was brilliant, the sonographer was so attentive, he showed us our Wiggle & went into loads of detail, explaining all the different bits & pieces, well all of the bits & pieces that aren't, er... y'know 'bit's & pieces' He even managed to show us a face :) Shame we couldn't have got a shot of that.
Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that the new scan shows that we aren't actually expecting a dinosaur. The only thing we now know for certain is that it has the exactly the same head of hair as me

23rd September 2013

It's been a hard slog to try & keep on top of this blog lately, I'm not sure if I've lost interest or not, I just find it a struggle to motivate myself, It was so much easier when I was lost in the midst of a journey that I didn't really understand & trying to make sense of it. But now I don't need the have an outlet for my rants, bitterness & confusion, its a lot more challenging
As I've recently mentioned in a previous post, I've been making lots of  notes as an aid to memory, but because I've been very unmotivated, A lot of them have just built up, and it's taken quite a while to get on top of them, so a lot of the posts are written in hindsight & are a bit sketchy on the details, mainly because I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast this morning, never mind what I thought or did on the 9th of July. But I soldiered on


It's odd what goes through my head sometimes, But I've been feeling quite reflective lately, (light just bounces off me.. I love crap humour) It's occurred to me that I'm the last of a generation of Holden's
My Dad was an only child, he's fathered 4 kids, Me, My two sisters & our half brother, both my sisters are married so the name hasn't carried over to their kids, & the half brother has two girls, so again the name is unlikely to carry over there, So it comes down to me, & If me & Libby have a girl, The name dies with me, because it's highly unlikely that we'll be able to have another child. I'm not sure if I feel sad about that or not.
I think i'd like to attempt to do a family tree, just to see if theres many Holden's on my granddads side of the family

Lately it seems like the entire world & it's dog are pregnant. Whether it's inspired by the birth of Prince William & Kate's (I dunno what her actual title is) baby or It's people getting out of paying bedroom tax  (cynical?... me?) Either way we're clearly in the middle of a full on baby boom
I'm thankful that it's happening now & not 6 months ago otherwise i'd quite possibly have gone nuts.  But it really bugs me, that when people see Libby's bump, they might be thinking we're just part of the trend, Sometimes I just want to scream out at people, even though they're probably not even thinking what I think they're thinking, but still, my mind works in strange ways

On a final note, Libby's Nannan fancies herself as a bit of a psychic, she thinks because of the shape of the bump that we're having a girl, but then again, because there hasn't been any morning sickness, it could be a boy, so I could be either.... yeah, i'd have never have guessed ;)