I don’t need to fill you in on how the year started out, because you already know it started badly, so let’s just fast forward to the here and now.

Work has been really busy, which is not a bad thing. There have been music festivals and touring artists and a few key album releases that have managed to keep me exhausted enough to not bother with the housework.

Actually, come to think of it, do you remember when I had that dilemma of trying to figure out if we could justify getting in a cleaner? I felt my spare time was precious and I didn’t want to spend it scrubbing skirting boards with a toothbrush, and moreover I have a touch of the lazies when it comes to doing housework. Anyway, at the time you guys were all “go guuuurrrl, get yourself a cleaner and spend your weekends sipping margaritas by the poolside” – except that I don’t drink and we don’t have a pool, but in terms of the general gist of things, you were spot on.

So we got a cleaner in (actually, there were two of them) and they did a consistently crappy job. Each week I gave them another shot in the hope they were just getting used to what it was that needed doing in the house (yes! we would like the soap scum wiped from the soap holder in the shower please). Alas, every time I came home on cleaning day and found another grubby surface un-wiped, my patience wore further thin – but perhaps there was too much to clean and not enough time?

(In retrospect I’m starting to think I was too lazy to fire them)

THEN! Joel’s brother in law was doing some landscaping work for us when the cleaners came, and he noticed they were there for far less time than what we were paying them for. So it wasn’t that there was too much work to get through in the allotted time after all! They were just taking us for a ride!

So I steeled myself for the difficult conversation ahead… and asked Joel to relieve them from their duties. The plan was to find a new cleaner, but I guess laziness stuck its oar in there too. Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I still want a cleaner, but now we’re going down to one income (baby, maternity leave, blah blah) we can’t afford one.

I know there are bigger problems in the world, but for some reason the idea of looking after a newborn, all strung out on no sleep, while also facing a seemingly insurmountable list of household chores is my pre-baby freakout of the moment.

If I can’t be arsed keeping the house in check now, how will I cope when there’s a baby in town?

And then there’s the impending renovations… that’s all a bit too much for my brain right now, and somehow I suspect there will be a few entries devoted to this highly-exciting topic in the weeks to come.

In the last entry I promised you a bump photo, and because you’ve been so patient, I’m going to give you three, okay?

First up, 22 weeks:

And 24 weeks:

And finally, 27 weeks:

In the first week of this year we lost a much-adored family member. I don’t feel I should go into details, for the reason explained above, except to say that it was sudden and therefore no one was prepared to deal with the grief that followed.

And so I haven’t written anything here. I knew I couldn’t just pretend everything is fine (it’s not), but I also didn’t know how to put things into words. I still don’t think I know how to, and even now as I type I am aware I’m not doing a very good job, but I just wanted to let you know why I’ve been absent, and then I just want to carry on.

Thank you for being patient with me (you always are) and I promise I’ll be back soon. And I’ll even share a bump photo with you so you can see just how fat full of baby I’m getting.

Let me set the scene for you. I’m sitting in a purpose built nursing chair that I bought on TradeMe. The chair rocks, and so does the little accompanying ottoman. It will be great for nursing I’m sure, but in the meantime it’s getting a work out as a telly-watching chair – and I can assure you it’s up to that task.

Joel has just switched off the Playstation, he’s been playing an NBA game I got him for Christmas.

It’s raining outside. It’s miserable and has been for days. The forecasters are promising wet weather for as far ahead as they can predict. Basically until I’m due back at work. Arse.

Due to the grim state of things outdoors, Stella is curled up on the couch and Sunday is curled up on an armchair. Long gone are the days of us trying to keep the animals off the furniture – just quietly, there’s something rather nice about having a little furry creature cuddle up next to you while you’re watching the telly.

Speaking of the telly, the Playstation has just gone back on. He gave it a break of around three minutes.

My little sit-down has come after an hour of sorting through letters, bills, statements and receipts that have built up in a pile over the last six months or so. We’re trying to clear out the study so that we can move in some new shelves that Joel made, and also the spare bed, which is currently in the baby’s room. We have a lot of stuff to sort through. My spidey senses tell me there’s a tiny bit of hoarder in both of us, but we keep that in check by having these huge annual clear-outs, and this year we’re being particularly ruthless. I’m even getting rid of my Tori Spelling biographies and Twilight books. Yes, I’m that serious about the de-cluttering process.

You guys, this is my New Year’s Eve. I know, I need to stop partying so hard; I am embarrassing my loved ones with my outrageous drug and alcohol-fuelled benders.

The news gets even sadder. I am not even sure I’ll be going out tonight. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the last few days (oh ha ha) and the idea of being the sober pregnant one surrounded by a bunch of boozed-up friends with cabin fever doesn’t make me reach for my party shoes in a hurry.

I just read over that last paragraph and have now decided I probably will go out tonight after all. I am pregnant, not eighty-six.

Happy New Year you guys, if 2011 was a good one for you I hope that 2012 continues the upward trend. If this year sucked arse, then woo! Time to say goodbye to the suckiness and helllooooo to a brand new year.

A year that is going to see this little guy make his grand entrance… I leave you with a shot of our son (!!!) from my twenty-week scan. See you next year!

Merry Christmas my wonderful Picnic By The Motorway friends! When I threw in the Girls’ Guide towel earlier this year I didn’t know if any of you would join me here, and while I know the majority of readers dropped off, there’s still YOU. Thank you for sticking with me, I’m hoping all my time at home with the baby next year will mean you and I will have more opportunities to hang out online.

This year has been good to me, I hope it’s been good to you too. My excellent year was also reflected in an excellent Christmas – filled with food, family and good times. It lacked the dramatics of previous years, but er, that’s not exactly a problem.

This Christmas was particularly special because on Wednesday we found out the gender of our baby, but we decided to torture our family and friends by holding out on telling them until today – because what better day to make the big reveal than Christmas Day?! Now the family and friends have been informed, so it’s your turn…

Joel made this amazing little animation for us to play on the telly at each of our family Christmas do’s. For each reveal we split the room so that everyone who thought it was a girl sat on one side, and everyone who thought it was a boy sat on the other. Then, we pressed play

You guys, in May we’re having a little:

It’s that time of the year again, when I dust off the annual end-of-year meme and fill it out, then invite you to do the same. I’m sorry there are no interesting photos to add some colour to this entry. Pregnancy is exhausting, and quite frankly, posting photos is just too much effort for this grumpypants.  Enough small talk, let’s crack into it…

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Got pregnant – that’s pretty significant, right?

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
At the end of last year I was determined to finish that interval training programme that would end with me being able to run continuously for 30 minutes, and I’m pleased to say I reached that goal.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My friends Djeisan and Emily had a little baby girl in October called Nina

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I went to one funeral this year – Gareth was tragically hit by a bus in August, it was (as you can imagine) incredibly sad. I feel that I should point out we weren’t close friends and I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but he was a friend nonetheless.

5. What countries did you visit?
The United States (LA and New York) and Australia (Sydney to see Pulp play)

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A baby (feeling pretty confident about that one). But in all seriousness, I’d like to adopt a healthier lifestyle and more consistent routines. That whole running and gymming thing went out the window (as these things tend to do… if you’re me) and with it went any semblance of a healthy diet. Why is eating right such a massive struggle for me?

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
31st August – the day I found out I was pregnant

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Winning Best Blog at the Canon Media Awards!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not being particularly smart or motivated when it came to nutrition. Again.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The running led to shin splints, and so I started swimming which led to me twisting something in my back and I ended up needing physio treatment. No majors though.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A rocking chair for nursing le bebe. I found it on TradeMe, picked it up on Saturday and have been watching Christmas movies in it. Oh, and it will be good for when the baby comes along too.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Everyone involved on the frontline of rescue and recovery in the Christchurch Earthquake, both in terms of people’s lives but also people’s properties and livelihoods.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
It makes me really sad to say that someone close to me displayed some fairly appalling behaviour this year. For their own privacy I won’t name names, but basically someone I love (and will always love) let a few of us down.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, renovations, food

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
That little blue line on the pregnancy test. And all the subsequent little blue lines that followed over the next few days. It took some time before I realised YES, IT’S REAL you see.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
‘Roman’s Revenge’ – Nicki Minaj

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder?
Happier
b) Thinner or fatter?
Well, fatter I guess, but c’mon – there’s another human inside me!
c) Richer or poorer?
Less in debt, so richer I suppose

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Eating right, exercising, reading books, blogging

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sweating the small stuff

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With family, as always

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
I am kinda falling in love with this little guy or gal that’s taken residence in my belly

22. What was your favourite TV programme?
Modern Family, Downton Abbey, Work of Art, Gossip Girl, Shortland Street, The X Factor (US)

23. Do you dislike anyone now that you didn’t dislike this time last year?
No, but I’ve lost a little respect for a few

24. What was the best book you read?
Didn’t read any books. Shut up, leave me alone.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Frank Ocean

26. What did you want and get?
To see Pulp play just one more time thanksverymuch!

27. What did you want and not get?
Wardrobe doors. Joel, why don’t we have wardrobe doors yet?

28. What was your favourite film of this year?
Bridesmaids

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned thirty-two this year, and when you get old your memory starts to go, so please bear that in mind when I say I think I worked on my birthday this year (I usually try to take it off), and then Joel took me out to an amazing fancypants dinner at the French Cafe

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Honestly, it’s been a pretty good year. I would’ve liked to have achieved a bit more around the house in terms of renovations/landscaping etc (wardrobe doors!), but meh, not a biggie.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Less and less “fashionable” by the day

32. What kept you sane?
Joel

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Gosh, I think I might have fallen for Ryan Gosling a little bit after seeing Crazy Stupid Love. I know, very late on the train and all that, but better late than never right?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The General Election. I watched the debates on the telly and everything

35. Who did you miss?
My sister moved to the other side of the city which means I don’t see her or my niece and nephew as often as I used to, so I find myself missing them quite a bit

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Hayden Abercrombie! Okay, that’s a cheat because technically I met him last year, but I didn’t get to know him until this year.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011
I can’t actually fix everyone else’s problems

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year
“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon” – Neil Diamond

Now if you could be so kind as to fill out this wee meme with your answers (either in the comments below, or by providing a link to a post on your own blog) that would be great.

Finally… we find out if it’s a boy or a girl baby tomorrow. According to the the majority of you lot on the last entry’s guess-poll thingo we’re looking down the barrel of a boy baby (boy edged out girl by only a very small margin). Unfortunately, even though Joel and I will be finding out tomorrow, you guys are going to have to wait until Christmas Day – because that’s when we’re telling the family. Sorry about that!

To help pass the time between now and when we find out what flavour baby we’re having, I thought I’d set up a crude poll widget thing. I know I’ve already asked you what you think we’re having, and you obligingly offered your input via the comments of a previous post, but that didn’t conveniently present a nice visual representation of the results. You all know how impatient I am, I couldn’t be bothered counting the boy and girl votes from the comments, so here we go again!

Just for the record, I think it’s a boy. For absolutely no reason at all. The weird thing is, when I imagine the baby I see a girl (perhaps because I’m more used to girl-babies), but deep down I think it’s a boy. I hope it’s one or the other and not somewhere in between…

Anyway, let’s get this show on the road. Ready, steady, poll!

On Thursday we’ll be hitting the 18-week milestone, and when I think back to where my head was at around 5-6 weeks along, 18 weeks seemed like a million light-years away, and yet – here we are. We’re staring down the barrel of 15cm from head to bum, which seems quite big to me – that’s half a Taurus ruler!

More on Baby in a moment, but first I want to tell you about our escapade to Wellington over the weekend. We were in the capital for Joel’s cousin’s wedding, and Wellington I have to say, you turned on some stunning weather for us (and the bride and groom of course). Aside from the wedding itself there were several other highlights.

The first highlight was our visit to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen on Friday for an early dinner – if you are a fan of Mexican food, you have to go there next time you’re in Wellington (if you live in Wellington I’m just gonna go ahead and assume you already know how great this place is). I played it boring and had nachoes, which were delicious, and Joel had ribs with curly fries and coleslaw, also very yum. We didn’t try one, but I have it on good authority their peanut-butter milkshakes are amazing.

Another highlight was the earthquake we experienced while at the wedding reception (the very wedding reception mentioned in this news story). I know it wasn’t remotely a patch on anything Christchurch has been subjected to, but it was the first time I’ve felt the ground shake under my feet, and it was definitely an odd sensation. We were just sat there chatting away with folks at our table when everything started rattling. I thought it was the younger boys seated near us being rascals and shaking the table. But it grew stronger, the rattling grew louder and everyone stopped talking. That’s when I looked up and saw that the roof seemed to be sort of swaying. It wasn’t until then I fully realised what was happening, and just as I was saying “OH MY…” it stopped.

So what did we all do during the earthquake? We all froze. Aside from a couple of folks who were visiting from Christchurch and knew exactly what was going on from the word go. They ran out of the building. I’m hoping that if I’m ever in an earthquake again I’ll have the presence of mind to do something other than just sit there like an idiot, waiting for something to fall on me.

The final highlight of our trip to Wellington was my fight with the jets in the bath at our hotel, of course. Probably more a highlight for Joel, because it was actually just hugely embarrassing for me, but because I love you I will share the story for your own enjoyment.

So as a special treat we stayed at the Museum Hotel, which is really awesome by the way, and I made Joel book us a room with a bath – because I really love having baths when I’m staying at hotels. The tub in our room was huge and had jets and I pretty much fell in love with it the moment I laid eyes on it. It was quite deep, so I ran the water and waited for it to fill up. Naturally I grew impatient and just clambered on in when it was about a quarter full, letting the water continue to run as I sat back and relaxed. Now, there is no point having a soak in a tub that has jets if you’re not going to use the jets right? So I kept an eye on the water level because I was ready to turn on those jets just as soon as they were submerged.

Except it turns out I was a little hasty.

Most of the jets were pointing downwards, but there was this one evil little jet at the other end of the bath that was different from the others, and it was not prepared to play ball. Even though this jet seemed to be as submerged as the others, when activated it started turning and the holes popped above the waterline and spewed forth a forceful jet of water at speed. In my face. And beyond.

It was like in the movies when a pipe bursts and the person involved can’t find the tap to stem the rush of water because HIGH PRESSURE WATER IN FACE. I was fumbling around, arms outstretched, desperately trying to find the off-button. After a few seconds of flailing about like an lunatic I called out to Joel to help. At the exact moment he walked into the bathroom, I managed to find the button, and with the sound of the gushing water now gone I could clearly hear his peals of laughter. Apparently, through the doorway all he could see was water flying all over the bathroom, and as he got closer he was greeted by my flailing limbs and some sort of crazed contorted look on my face.

One side of the bathroom was completely covered in puddles. Water had sprayed up onto the mirror, over our dry towels, onto the toilet paper and tissues… everything was dripping wet, and I felt like a little drowned (shamed-out) rat.

And those, my friends, are the memories I will cherish from this particular visit to Wellington!

I promised you I’d get back to Baby, so let’s do that. I have an appointment with my midwife on Friday morning and I’ll be getting a form off her to take to my anatomy scan, so I texted her yesterday to ask if it would be okay for me to book the scan for Friday afternoon (I’ve read that an anatomy scan can be performed successfully anywhere between 18-20 weeks). She told me I should wait until I’m 20 weeks, which is extremely frustrating because I’m dying to know if it’s a boy or a girl. Though of course the anatomy scan is actually to make sure that everything is okay with Baby, finding out the gender is very much an aside.  Still… I really want to know what it is. Mind you, look what happened last time I got impatient. WATER EVERYWHERE.

I’m going to leave you with a bump shot because, well, it’s there now. This was taken this morning – please excuse the lack of composition/focus skills. iPhone self-portrait in a grubby mirror blah blah. Please also excuse the pointy belly thing. What’s that about? It normally looks roundy, but for some reason it looks pointy in this dress/photo. Gah.

You can't tell from this picture, but Baby is waving to you

Still, despite this lack of anything interesting at all, I might as well give you an update on the State Of Things, seeing as we’ve all made the effort to gather here.

The pregnancy is going well, thanks very much. As far as I can tell at least, because without being able to see inside my belly to make sure all is progressing as it should be, I can only assume things are fine. The sickness is still lingering around a bit, but it’s certainly not as bad as it was a few weeks ago. There have been days where I’ve worn jandals to work because I have felt too ill to contend with the logistics of doing up my shoelaces, but those days are becoming fewer and farther between. Still, there’s enough queasiness there (and an ongoing lack of appetite) to remind me that yes, I am indeed still pregnant.

There’s also a growing belly to remind me. I’m not prepared to show you pictures yet as it’s not quite big enough to be a discernibly pregnant bump – at least I don’t think it is. Put it this way, if I were a stranger in a casual conversation with myself, I wouldn’t take the risk of asking when I was due lest it just be that I’ve eaten too many burgers lately. That said, those who know I’m pregnant have definitely noticed and it’s certainly a more roundy than flabsy look. I’m poking out enough that I’m having to do that thing with my jeans where I loop a hairtie around the button, like so:

This is not me, by the way (in case you were curious)

I would just like to take this opportunity to congratulate myself on not turning into a big emotional mess with wild mood swings. This is apparently quite common in the first trimester (which I am no longer in) and looking back, I really don’t think there were too many moments of unjustified tears or extreme changes in demeanour. Now before writing this I did double-check this with Joel to ensure I’m not being a bit one-eyed, but he has agreed that I have been no crazier than usual. Take that as you will.

I’m now (just about) sixteen weeks along. That means the baby is probably a little over 10cm long from head to bum (avocado!) – its legs are all curled up in front you see, so they aren’t really counted in the length-measurement. I know that sounds quite small, but considering it was the size of a poppy seed at four weeks, I think 10cm sounds quite big. Let’s talk again when we get to PUMPKIN shall we? I can’t feel it moving around in there yet, but I have been assured by the many websites I trawl on a daily basis that it is very active and sometime in the next month I should start feeling its little limbs doing gymnastics.

I know it’s a bit annoying for you that I haven’t grown enough belly to justify posting a photo, so I’m going to try to make it up to you by posting an image from our 12-week ultrasound. This is probably not all that exciting for you as I’ve realised that pretty much all 12-week ultrasounds look just the same, and if you googled 12-week ultrasound you’d be bombarded with images that look just like the one below. The difference is, of course, that the one below is MY baby. And one day you’ll get to see photos of it when it’s outside of me.

In a few weeks we’ll be able to find out if that little thing up there is a boy or a girl, and I would like to run a wee poll – just for fun of course.

So, close your eyes, rub your temples, and try to visualise… what flavour do you reckon this baby is? Boy or girl? Answers below!

*Does anyone actually shampoo their hair twice? Personally, I’m waaaay too lazy

But fate has now dealt me a cruel blow, because the sickness returned on the weekend and has been tormenting me since.

I am all WTF.

Anyway, I just popped in to feel sorry for myself on the internet. Let’s all hope I’m feeling a lot better soon so I can fill you in on all the fun bits, like how big my belly is getting.

I do still love you, promise.

Hang on, has this just turned into a pregnancy blog? I mean, the latest three entries (this one included), have been all about being in the family way. Argh, I’m sorry, but being pregnant is a crazy new world that is full of strange things that are way more interesting than my usual day-to-day. Like this evening I discovered a little rash on my belly, and I’m all well that’s worth blogging about!

It isn’t, of course, but my normal sense of logic seems to have taken a leave of absence. Crazy pregnant lady in the house y’all. (See? I would never usually just drop a “y’all” in a blog post. Who am I?)

I won’t go into detail about the rash – but I do want to tell you that it had me googling “pregnant rash on belly”, and you guys, some of the things you find yourself googling when you are pregnant are just downright bizarre. And a word to the wise, think twice before image-searching anything to do with pregnancy.

**Note: 31, 400, 000 results. So nice to know there has been many a paranoid pregnant lady before me.

Aside from the morning sickness, which I’m not going to complain about again in this particular entry, your body starts doing some really strange stuff when you’re pregnant. I’m not even showing yet, but still I feel like the baby is already pulling rank and calling the shots. This seven centimetre (half a banana!) sergeant major is all “right, I’m in charge now, let’s give you a taste of things to come, time to stir things up!”.

Um, it feels weird to say this, but things are moving around in there. Well think about it, I’m not really any fatter yet, but the baby and all the carry-on it’s swimming around in has been getting bigger week by week. It is taking up the space where other parts of my insides have been residing quite happily for years. So those things are now on the move – upwards it seems. Being aware of my internal organs shifting north to make room for sergeant major is not a normal feeling, not normal at all. I can only imagine it gets worse, and I find it difficult to envisage myself ever getting used to the idea of my body parts relocating. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

I can’t tell you about a lot of the other weird stuff that happens when you are pregnant, because it’s too gross and quite frankly you’re better off not knowing. I am doing you a favour right now.

There’s no reason for me to be oversharing alone here. Please, tell us all about the times your body has given you a bit of a fright and started doing odd things that made you feel like you don’t even know yourself anymore…