We're expecting!

Dear Family & Friends,

Craig and I are going to be parents! I'm six weeks pregnant and at the end of September, we will hopefully be welcoming a new member into our family. As this will be our first child, needless to say, we've hit the ground running. Our first discovery is that the news has brought nothing but smiles to the faces of our family & friends.

Before visiting my family for Chinese New Year, I was debating what was the best way to break the news. I considered buying a shirt and rocking up with it on. Did you know there are infinite t-shirts with lots of crazy maternity slogans on them? Take for example the following shirt:

 

There are millions more like this but to be honest,  my heart is actually set on one of Hayley's shirts. As soon as my bump shows, I'll be proud to sport Hayley's artwork on my bump!

Anyway, back to the story... so I was trying to figure out a creative way to tell my Mum & siblings that I was expecting. Then I came across this gorgeous Beanie Kid.

 

A few years ago, my Mum started collecting these teddy bears that were dressed up as various animals. She collected them to represent each immediate member of our family and the respective chinese animal zodiac signs that we were born into. As soon as I set eye on "Sizzle, the Chinese Dragon", I knew this was how I'd break the news to my Mum! I was planning to tell my family at breakfast to see who would figure out the puzzle first. However my plans had to change since my family (being typically busy and rarely idle during Chinese New Year) were leaving the house at 4am to do Chinese Lion Dancing at the airport. Therefore, I figured I might as well tell my Mum that night.

My good friend Mel had kindly picked up Craig & myself from our very late flight in from Brisbane. So I let Mel in on the news. We got home and gave Mum lots of hugs, as she rapidly updated us on what was happening during the Chinese Street Festival. That's when I pulled out the Beanie Kid and told her that this year, Craig and I wanted to add a "Dragon" to her collection.

Now my Mum has spent the last two weeks staying up late every night, frantically sewing decorations for Chinese New Year. Naturally, she was a bit sleep deprived and it didn't immediately click. She kinda wasn't overly excited by the Dragon teddy as she'd thought that I'd brought it just because 2012 was the year of the Dragon. The next thing you know, Mum's gone and pulled out the entire collection of beanies and started rattling off which person in the family the Beanie represented and proudly showing it off to Craig & Mel.

"Yes, I've got this collection of teddies... see I'm the Tiger, and Dad's the Goat... and the Monkey is Sharlene, and the Rabbit is Mickey... and oh the rat is Demi and the Horse is Aidan....-" (at this point, Craig, Mel and I are exchanging glances, rolling our eyes, waiting for the penny to drop, as my Mum continues...) "Oh and Erin is the Pig and Siobhan's the Ox!"

She's looking very truimphant as she manages to list everyone in the family, while looking at the Dragon rather indifferently, if a little vexed by its unaccountability. Finally, I said to Mum, "Yes but Mum, whose the Dragon?" I raise my eyebrow, waiting as she still looks confused but then, the cogs begin to turn and she glances at my stomach, glances at the Dragon  -  then erupts into ecstatic screaming. (Meanwhile, Erin has heard this from her room and despite wondering what on earth is going on, decides with typical 16 year old teen logic, that it can't be all that important and rolls over and goes back to sleep!).

My Mum is beaming at the news. She even did a spontaneous jig (I swear I heard a brief playing of fiddles & bagpipes) before following up with an congratulatory & very enthusiastic hand shake for Craig. At this point, Mel and I were mostly pissing ourselves laughing! It's definitely a great story to tell our lil Dragon when he/she enters the world.

Anyway, despite a week of fighting nausea and disgusting fatigue (turns out that Dragon gets first dibs on all the nutritional needs while I just get left overs!) I was rewarded on Friday with my first glimpse of Dragon. My ultrasound shows that all is going well and Dragon is doing fine, with a strong heartbeat of 115 beats per minute. Craig was very relieved to hear that all was going well. I didn't realise it, but he was just as eager to hear that everything was okay. (Duh!) I took a video for him of the flickering heart beat just so he could see that our Dragon bean was settling in with no problems.

On that note, I'll leave the update at that. Although I will add that I've discovered fresh air & water are my new best friends. It's the difference between "I'm okay... I'm okay" rather than *projectile vomit*!

So until next time, it's love & kisses from Craig, Demi and our little Dragon!