My First Scan

Hello everybody!!

Let me introduce myself, I'm baby Yakici. I'm 13 wks+4 in this picture. These are my first pictures. I think I will love posing like my mum:) Look, I'm already waving my hand, hellooo can you see meee? At the moment, I enjoy moving all around my mum's tummy, there's loads of space, yahoo! My heart beats like a drum, maybe it's beacause I am very excited to meet all of you..

It's enough of you little bunny, we'll listen to you much more later on let's leave some time for your mummy.

Oh, finally:)

Yes, as you can see I finally had my first scan (first and the last according to NHS Glasgow). I tried to not to think much about the scan before it but at some point I was imagining some figures when I closed my eyes at night. I can call the scan as a surreal experience. Despite the test and all of the confirming symptoms, you are not 100% sure that you have a baby inside. When I first saw my baby on the screen I had to check if the midwife had the ultrasound on my tummy. Tears were just there to roll over but realising that they wouldn't wait for me to stop crying and have a clear vision I rolled them back:)

It was a relief to see that there were one head, two legs and two hands. Though you see them, you still don't know if everything is normal or not. Despite knowing that she wouldn't tell a yes or no, I felt obliged to ask if everything was normal. She was quite prepared possibly after a zillion similar questions and told us that she had seen all she was supposed to see. She should go for politics!

The scan lasted for about 15 minutes which was longer than I expected. After the scan started the boring and painful stages. Boring is to fill in your medical history any previous operations, any severe illnesses in the family etc.. Painful is the blood samples. My arm has never hurt that much before. I tried to calm myself down by saying "come on didem, how on earth are you supposed to resist labour pain, if you start complaining just for a needle pain". Anyway, my arm had a 5-6 cm bruise although I pressed on it really long and hard.

Before the scan I was thinking of working from home but with all the excitement, me and my hubby decided to celebrate this event with a lunch out. We went to Wagamama at Silverburn and spent the rest of the day analysing the baby's pictures and checking the new stuff (a bunch of promotional material baby cream, nappy and some more books to read) we were given.

Oh oh, I was just about to forget it. This scan is also called as the dating scan. They say ultrasound scan is much more accurate than your calculation mainly based on LMD. And my due date has changed to 8th of March. So, it moved forward by 2 days. We'll see which one is more accurate:)

Month 3

Time almost flies. When did I learn that I was pregnant?
"The first three month period is the most risky period of your pregnancy. You should take care of yourself pay utmost attention to what you eat and what you do. As you do not feel very pregnant physically, you have to remind yourself."
Phew, the first bit is finally over. Now, some other concerns supersedes the early worries:)
We have been keeping a weekly book for my weight and size. It seems that I have gained only 900 grams (thanks to the digital scale) which is pretty normal. Anyway, they say baby and I will be both growing much faster from now on.
I'm looking forward to hearing the heart beats and feeling the first movements of the baby..
After next week's first scan, I will be telling my friends. Actually I have been dying to tell them right from the start. But when you realise that the chances that everything that can go wrong during the early days of your pregnancy is very high, you think twice and find your feet on the ground again.

Summer Time

Weekends come and go and another "summer(!)" is almost finished. This was the first summer we spent in the UK since I started living here.
In 2007 we were in Turkey for two weeks in July, travelling all around the country with the joy and enthusiasm of meeting our families for the first time after I moved into the UK. Almost 5 major destinations in 14 days.. It was quite exhausting and neither us nor our families enjoyed it fully as we had to plan about our next destination and did not have the time to chillax. (my new favourite combo chill + relax=chillax)
Last year we were away for two weeks in June in Ankara and in southern France (Cote de Azur) for 10 days in August. And I presume these 10 days in France made it possible for us to bear Scottish summer. To tell the truth I was not totally aware that it was a highly memorable holiday.
Towards the end of winter we decided to go somewhere warmer and also make use of the bank holidays. So ended up in Barcelona during the Easter break. Our holiday was enhanced by the existence of our mums travelled all the way up to here.
When you enjoy doing something, you want to do it again and again! That's how we ended up in Paris by the end of May. Oh, it was really fun!.. Paris is a great city (I can say it's my number one currently) but what made our getaway this fun was actually our friends. (Need to plan another one soon!)
So, that's how we managed to survive until now despite "summer". I need to stop checking the weather forecast and be prepared for rain everyday. I need to stop expecting temperatures above 18 C degrees. I need to stop imagining wearing my sandals, shorts and t-shirts at all..
Anyway, although I may sound like I am complaining about the weather, that's not true:p
What if I had to be at 30 somethings with my everyday inflating tummy?!

WEEK 8

"Week Eight: Baby is about 8-11 mm now. "
Felt like the Big Brother prensenter! I should be getting really dull then:(
Four weeks ago when I first found out that I was pregnant, I went through all the 40 weeks at once trying to grasp what's gonna happen next. So now each week all I can do is reading about the week I am in and I can almost read the same thing over and over again:)
As I do not have the opportunity to see a doctor whenever I want unless there is a problem, all I can do is to read about what's normally going on inside there.
As an optimist, I feel lucky to have the opportunity to have access to this enormous size of information. It is kind of an industry: Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting. Numerous forums, images and videos. Sometimes you feel like you can learn everthing online! Sometimes I feel that doctors are not comfortable with this since not every bit of information is correct or how it applies to you. This is how I felt when I see a doctor in Turkey. I wonder if they see medical web pages, online consulting as a competitor?
As far as I can see, in the UK they almost encourage people to do everything online. Check NHS web page, call NHS Direct etc. Well, it's a no brainer, they just want to cut the costs and let doctors to deal with serious stuff as much as possible.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to having my first antenatal visit on 4th of September just by the end of 13th week. Phew, not so much is left:)

Before and After

Our life is about to change irreversibly and irrevocably!

Being married for slightly more than 2 years and at the edge of turning 35 within less than a year's time, it was something we were planning and looking forward to. However, maybe it was me who started to think we would not be among the 66% of people who has a baby within the first three months; I was kind of getting worried about not being able to have a baby for some time. Despite all the positive health checks for both of us, no failed trials, I've started to grow a weird feeling that there was something wrong with us.
Now with all the excitement and joy of pregnancy, I presume those feelings were there just to prevent severe frustration in case of failure. Although I call it failure, I do not call the opposite as "success". Unfortunately, there is not so much you can do to call it a success except the healthy diet and trying for it at the right times obviously!
I'm not hit by all the pregnancy symptoms yet so still not resenting what we have done:p

surprise surprise

Two weeks ago, as a very keen blogger-to-be, I started my very first blog "Didem in Wonderland". Enthusiastic to write the first piece, I realised that I needed to find an attractive title for my blog.

Being married to a software engineer (I think this is just one dimension to the things he does, but it is safer for me to use this title within my limited computer science intelligency!), among the hard core science books, there are some popular books such as "Blogging Heroes" which I had once turned some pages. Although not intended to do something professional, I just wanted to have a title reflecting the concept of the blog and me. The difficult part was that there was no specific concept!!

After spending about almost an hour (not just simple thinking, people have been blogging for so long and more generic ones were not available), I ended up with "Didem in Wonderland". It's not that my life is all exciting and wonderful, but there are things I want to share and want to draw attention and it gives you some kind of hope that there really could be nice and interesting instances in your life.

I remember last time when I started writing, I thought about my friends' blogs, what they were writing about. They are mostly about themselves and their babies!! Having no babies at all, I was a little bit worried if I would ever have the chance of blogging about my little one.

To my worry, as if I just created this blog, something miraculous happened: I realised that I was expecting a baby!

All of a sudden I found myself in brand new feelings mostly wonderful, so I'm pretty pleased with my blog's title and where it's taking me so far:)

Better late than never

I finally managed to open my very own blog "Didem in Wonderland".
Hurrah!!
Why on earth it has taken me so long??
No brainer, I've turned into a couch potato.
Hopefully I will beat myself and be able to write regularly!
Yes, I can :p