Well, we’ve done it again. Weeks without an entry posted. We do have an excuse, though.
We’ve moved house (almost). On the 22nd, we moved a big van load of our stuff including a piano and sofa bed from Devon to Reading and unloaded it into 2 rooms. After a lot of shuffling things around, we moved another smaller (but still pretty big) van load of stuff and I have today been depositing it in sheds, loft and cellar for safe keeping until such time as we can have our own abode again.
Hannah ended up having her wrist put in a cast (festive red), which will be taken off on the 8th January. Obviously, that has kind of caused problems with the packing for the big move and just about every other thing she does. I’ve had to help her with washing her hair and the like and take over washing up duties.
We’ve had fun and games with the baby, too. Over Christmas, Hannah managed to pick up something nasty and stomach related. On the 29th, we were back at the house in Devon packing up some last things (I was working). Hannah was worried because she hadn’t been feeling well for the last couple of days (lots of diarrhoea) and the baby had decided that it was an appropriate time to stop kicking or moving about for an extended period. She’d also had some contraction in the night and had one bout of abdominal pain that morning. As he’s normally pretty active a lot of the time, I decided it was wise to at least speak to a midwife….
We got told to speak directly to the maternity unit at Heavitree hospital. They told us to come in for her to be checked out, so off we toddled. They took some blood, poked and prodded, did a trace for a while and, Hannah’s favourite, a little meeting with Mr. Speculum. They were concerned that she might be dehydrated due to her diarrhoea and decided to put her on a ward to monitor her for a few hours. They were considering keeping her in over night. She was eventually let out in the evening after I had gone back to the house and put together an overnight bag. So we left for Reading rather later than we had intended.
Of course, around Bristol, the pain came back worse. We were almost exactly halfway between Heavitree and Royal Berks hospitals, it was raining with a fury and they had closed the M4. I am ashamed to say that the stress of it all did not bring out my cuddliest side. I couldn’t do much but glower at the road and drive as fast and as safely as I could through the dark, the incredible rain and spray and the “damaging” winds and get us all to Reading. Hannah was in a bad way by the time we got here, exhausted, feeling sick and in pain. She couldn’t face going to Royal Berks hospital to have the same tests (I was pretty tired by this time, too) so we decided to wait until morning to decide further unless she felt worse. Fortunately, the pain subsided and the baby started making his presence known again.
Hannah behaved herself during the next day (while I was driving another van load of our stuff through the wind and rain) and just rested in bed or on the sofa all day. She was feeling better until the evening, and has been better again today.
I’m sure we’ve done more baby-related things too, but I can’t remember them all. I guess that the biggest news is that we have made the name we’ve chosen public. We have agreed on *Oscar James Zoltan Wrigley*
Hannah has liked Oscar for a while, and I’ve finally come round to the idea and now really like it. I saw a name badge on a guy at a service station that said Zoltan and I thought it was a very cool name. As a bit of a joke, when Hannah was pestering me about names, I suggested it. We then started referring to the baby as Zoltan and it’s kind of stuck. Neither of us could justify using it as a first name, though. There are limits 🙂 We’ve both liked James for ages, but it’s way too high on the popularity chart at the moment but it seemed to fit nicely as his second name. Regardless of what we choose he’ll probably hate it, so it’s final. (I hope).
The other news is that we visited [Carl](http://carl.ebrey.net) and [Susie](http://susie.ebrey.net) and their now one-year-old [Bethan](http://www.speakingasamother.co.uk) and all I can say is:
[Hannah was right](http://www.speakingasamother.co.uk/archives/2006/12/28/the-announcements)