A Little Foppish Idiot?

Remove all ads!

Only just noticed the thread


Congrats Mr and Mrs Aldeth

As to preference, I always knew my first child would be a boy. And I always knew Jack was a boy from the moment I found out I was pregnant

 

Congrats Aldeth...parenthood is wonderful, you will enjoy it I am sure.

As far as:

Only one piece of advise: with a boy you only have one _______ to worry about, when you have a girl, eventually you will have to worry about all of them!!!

Seriously, we always have preferences, but the first time you pick up your baby it really won't matter to you what you had wanted, you only know you love him or her more than you ever thought possible!

 

Oh, I don't doubt that I will love a daughter just as much as a son - I hope I didn't give that impression. I'm just saying, in a perfect world, I'd rather have a boy.

 

Aldeth, been for any scans or anything yet?

 

No, nothing like that yet. In fact, my wife's doctor is not an OB/GYN, so she needs to pick out an OB first. We found a website that allows you to figure out when your due date is, and according to the site, it gave us Aug 21st. That's kind of strange, because it means that my wife has been pregnant for about 1 month, even though we've known for less than 2 weeks. Although now that I think about it, there's no reason to suspect your wife his pregnant until she doesn't get her period, so nevermind, it makes perfect sense.

So now my wife is compiling lists and lists of baby names. I say we should wait a few months until we know whether we're having a boy or a girl, and eliminate half the work automatically. So far, her top choice for a girl's name is Olivia, which is OK by me. Her top choices for a boy's name are all very Italian names - which is odd because while we both have Italian grandparents, neither my wife or I are 100% Italian, nor do we have any parents or grandparents born in Italy or anything like that. Even though we both have Italian grandparents, they were all born in the U.S. So the most recent Italy born relative would be our great grandparents, all of whom are long dead.

 

Not sure if it's the same where you are, but in my experience, pregnancy is dated to start from her last period (not from the date of conception) so the official length of pregnancy is always a couple of weeks longer than you've really been pregnant. So by the time you find out, you're usually at least 5 or 6 weeks. First scan is usually at about 10 or 12 weeks, unless you have any medical conditions that might warrant an earlier one.

 

Here, they actually try to figure out a conception date. Usually it's about 2 weeks after her last period. Actually, there's a very easy way to figure this out whether or not there is a difference in the way they consider when pregnancy starts. In the U.S. they say that the pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. If it's 42 weeks in NZ, then obviously they have a different starting date.

 

No, it's still 40 weeks here, so one of us must be wrong! People are definitely at 5 or 6 weeks when they first find out.

 

But even if you date it from the woman's last period, wouldn't that mean you would be at about 4 weeks, not 5 or 6? I don't know - when she has her first appointment, they'll tell her what week she is, and I'll let you know from there.

It just seems odds that they would date it from the last period, because she obviously wasn't pregnant at the time she got her period. Maybe they just do it for counting purposes. I know from my studies in biology, that a woman is most likely to conceive around day 10-15 of her cycle, counting the first day of her period as day 1.

 

I think they just do it like that for convenience, because the date of conception can be a bit iffy. 4 weeks is only 28 days and many women would have a cycle that might be a few days longer than that, plus might not find out until another few days after that, once they realised that something wasn't quite right. 4 weeks would be the absolute minimum point at which you could find out, I guess.

 

Congratulations, Aldeth! Every newly-enlightened parent-to-be, moms and dads both, that I've ever known, has been stunned, scared, doubtful, and delighted all at once. You sound all-too-normal, perhaps not a normal state for you, eh?

As for names: DO pick one of each. Every now and then the ol' ultrasound gets misinterpreted and the newborn is WHOOPS! the other gender. You'll be a great dad to boy or girl, either one (or more than one, for that matter).

 

@HB - it turns out you are completely correct. Preganancies last 40 weeks starting with the date of the woman's last period. I found this out indirectly in looking through the pregancy book my wife recently purchased. She had it out on the table and she was reading the "8 weeks" chapter. Below the "8 weeks" listed in bold, there was a subtitle "Fetal Age: 6 weeks". So it appears that during a pregnancy, by the way it is counted, you are in fact not pregnant for the first two weeks of the pregnancy.

I should have trusted you from the beginning. Afterall, since you are already a father you obviously have more experience in these things than I do. Still, the whole thing smacks of convention. They probably started counting it from the last period when they didn't have any means of knowing exactly when the woman got pregnant. However, now that we know almost all women conceive around two weeks following their last period, it would just make more sense to list pregnancy duration as the more accurate 38 weeks.

 

Thank you. I don't know much, but what I do know, I usually know is right. Cool, it will soon be time for your first scan. That can be quite exciting.

 

Congrats, Aldeth.

 

Well, it wouldn't be THAT much more accurate, given that the date of ovulation can vary by more than a week between women and even for one woman in different cycles, and then the fertilisation date can be a few days after that so just taking two weeks would be a bit vague as well.

 

Our first scan will be on January 15th, so one week from today. From what I've been reading, at this stage (10th week), you will already be able to hear a heart beat. The fetus also starts to look a bit human at this point, although it's only an inch long. It's also way too early to determine the sex.

 

Do you talk/sing to him/her like Ross in Friends?

 

So, Aldeth, how'd the scan go?

 

It's been rescheduled. We did meet with the OB, but the OB would prefer we wait until the 10th week to do the scan, and technically we are only at 9.5 weeks, so they are going to do it next week.

I can't get over the food cravings the Mrs. is having. All she wants to eat is beef. In the last week, we've had hamburgers, tacos, and steak. I think I've eaten more red meat in the last week than I normally eat in a month.

 

Hope she gets a craving for salad next! All that beef will bang on the old pounds, hah.