31st July 2007 - the first entry

Welcome to the first entry of what I hope is an ongoing thing. The purpose of these diary entries is to let my daughter know a little bit about my life starting from when I learnt we were having a little girl.

It all started yesterday morning when your Mother and I went down to get our (your) 19 week scan. We were to finally find out whether you were a boy or a girl. Now I have to tell you that when we first discovered you were there, I checked the vibrations as I always like to do and asked if you were a boy or girl. I felt a tingling in my right hand which meant boy. I have been very accurate up to this point. I was right about the sex of Jan’s boy Genio, Ryan’s girl Caitlan, Tia’s boy Thom and a teacher at your Mums school. So my confidence was high. However, when you reached about 15 weeks or so I began to doubt this was the case. In the past my convictions on the sex of friend’s babies remained unchanged. Most others also thought you were going to be a boy. Jan and Sadie thought a girl. Your mum kept asking me if I still thought you were a boy and suddenly there was a little voice inside me saying "sorry big fella, you got it wrong this time". However I stuck to my guns saying there was no point in second guessing myself now. In my heart I knew I was wrong and to be honest I have always wanted a little girl, ever since I was a teenager myself. The main reason I thought it would be nice to have a boy was because there aren’t many of us in the family! Grandpa Keith wanted a boy to continue the family name which is kind of old fashioned, a Keith is still a Keith even if they get married and change it. I never subscribed to that kind of patriarchal old fashioned was of viewing a family tree. Lots more women are choosing to keep their names now anyway. So back to the scan. A younger woman was running the price checker over your mum’s tummy and we were finally getting another look at how much bigger our girl had got since the last scan at 14 weeks. You were kicking your legs a lot from the first scan, just like your Dad, couldn’t keep totally still. We got to see all your innards, the kidneys, the livers, the heart and the brain. Because you were that much bigger we were only seeing bits of you at a time. You spine was the most stand out thing, so white and all curved up. Then an older and more experienced woman came in and took over the controls. We noticed you were on your tummy so you were making it extremely difficult to see all four chambers of your little heart (which is the size of a little fingernail). I couldn’t believe how squashed in you were, the walls of the placenta surrounded you like a big doona. You appeared to be either sucking your fingers or just touching your face a lot. I noticed that in other scans too. The week 12 DVD scan was funny. I thought you looked like an elf. It seemed like you had gigantic pointy ears and very pointy chin. I was imagining I would have to find an elvish name for you. There is a website that converts your name to Elvish and Hobbit. And here is where I will make an assumption on your name, I will put in Molly and Maggie and give you both. For Molly they are Linwë Táralómor Lila Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches OR for Maggie they are TáriTáralóm or Tigerlily Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches. Dad is ElessarTáralóm or Till Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches and Mum is EnelyaTáralóm or Pearl Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches. Cool heh. (http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/) The lady was talking through what she was looking at and it wasn’t always easy to know what I was seeing. Half way through the scan your mum asked if she knew what you were. She said oh yes I saw that a while ago but I won’t tell you until the end otherwise you will be too distracted and won’t keep still. My eyes went wide and I was seated on the other side of the bed watching what the lady was watching. Your mum was looking at a TV on the wall in front of her. So the scan was completed, she was happy with everything except the heart as she couldn’t see it all properly but told us that she would say if there was something wrong, which there wasn’t. She then kind of just blurted out that you were a girl and we both went "WHAT?". It was such a surprise as your mum really trusted my method! LOL. So I guess we were both in shock for a bit. We looked at each other with big grins on our faces and the grin did not leave my face all day. Oooh, there it is again! The thing is that we truly did not mind what you would be; we just couldn’t wait to see you in the flesh and hold on to you forever. Writing this is extremely vital for me, as I tend to not invest time visualising the future much. I don’t get excited about upcoming holidays for example. I don’t like that about my brain at all. Part of it is probably fear of something going wrong and not wanting to 100% invest myself in something that may not happen. Like a protection thing. So since we found out you were coming I have not tried to picture you running around the house or imagine what you will look like. My brain is extremely annoying. The solution to this for me is to write. Writing has been my way of opening up and exploring parts of my brain that I normally keep suppressed. When we thought that we may possibly not be able to have children it was a very emotional time. I kept it all inside. Then one day I just started to write a song and suddenly all those suppressed fears came flooding out. It was a cathartic experience as it always is. I wrote about the experience of losing my mum and it was like having my own internal psychiatrist. So the song - How long till you come was my way of letting go the pain, surrendering it to the universe and saying ok I will accept whatever is to be my fate. I played it to your mum and I didn’t quite finish the song before I burst into tears and we both had a good cleansing cry. It wasn’t long after that that you appeared! A girl. A daughter. I still can’t see your face or hear your voice, but you see that’s also part of the reason why I am writing this diary. To allow myself to imagine, to let myself imagine the future. I fear if I let open the floodgates too quickly my heart would burst from happiness. For now I just picture a little girl squirming around with big feet kicking your Mother in the bladder and making her rush to the loo.

I had really great hair yesterday as well. A tremendous hair day.

Reading Leviathan by Paul Austere. Listening to Harry Potter book 2audio and Ed Harcourt.