Another Queenslander!

So, our news, instalment two. Not in order of importance. Though there's probably not much bigger news than buying a house. Unless it's a baby.

It's a baby!

We are thrilled to announce that in late February (oh baby, please PLEASE P-L-E-A-S-E don't come in any other month, unless it's March, which would be pretty damn excellent in my books), Master E will have a brother or sister!

So, rapidly calculating brains of the blogosphere, that makes me 20 weeks pregnant!

I am a bit late in posting this because, well, I have been rather exhausted and opting to spend my newfound free time at night in bed, albeit with knitting needles and phone.

We also had an early scare - thankfully baby is fine. And an admission to hospital following our 20 week scan (where I am writing this from) for preterm risk factors, whereupon our day trip to the mainland turned into me staying there under observation for two nights - my longest time away from E.

Baby is fine, and I am escaping tomorrow, but I have a slightly higher than the general population risk of another spontaneous early labour. Hence the heat was on to find lodgings in Brisbane, and we'd been looking to buy for a while.

Having said that, naturally we are doing everything we can to encourage a fully cooked baby!

Our meticulously planned logistics for the next month have been pushed forward by events of recent days. I may or may not return to the island for a few days before decamping to our new house (after it settles next week) with E until baby arrives. Sadly we must leave K island bound for work, but he'll get to come stay with us for five days every fortnight, and is able to tweak his work days to commandeer the rapid move-and-furnish process.

My head boggles and boggles and fails to compute the logistics (and the finances) of this month. Buy a house, get a mortgage, move house across the sea, move bus from storage to house, antenatal care, toddlering, work, buy a new city car (chronically overdue). And we must fully furnish and kit out the house in a handful of days, bringing limited stuff with us from the island as we'll be returning there in March next year. With a new baby!

It's a little bit deja vu, harking back to when we packed up our city apartment in two weeks and moved most of our worldy possessions to the island. With a new (just out of neonatal care) baby!

Naturally my nesting has gone into turbo overdrive, about five months early!

I've been ebaying and sorting and space bagging and plotting and purging like a rabid spring cleaning hen.

My belly is expanding like a wilted rubber band. I've felt this kid move since about 15 weeks, a week earlier than with E. This one's a little dancer, and has been doing the fandango and waving at us in the many scans we've already had. I had hoped to include a picture from the scan, but that will have to wait.

I have had no inkling of the sex, although my first trimester with E was awash with dreams of small blond boys. Plural. Despite the lure, we have declined to find out.

E is just the cutest thing ever when he talks to my belly, telling the baby 'aww, cuddle cuddle pat pat' and 'it's a great day!' Melt.

I think he will make a wonderful big brother.

My hopes and dreams for the birth centre (the only place to have a water birth in a hospital with neonatal care facilities in Queensland - necessary for us) kind of fell to the side with all the early hoo-ha and worry about this pregnancy. And in light of recent days, seem quite obliterated. So it's full scale tertiary care, for now anyway.

My big hope is that we get to welcome this kid in a beautiful way. No neonatal care, no separation, just a big fat healthy term baby!

But over the past couple of days I've come to realise that the story of this pregnancy, as it was with E's birth, is one of letting go, of acceptance, and surrendering to whatever will be.

Because that is the gentlest, and the only, way forward.