Marmite and Toast

We both find ourselves constantly occupied with thoughts about the big news. Our minds are brimming half with excitement, half with anxiety. To be honest, it still hasn’t sunk in. To help, I thought I should actually gen up asap on information, so off I trawled to the internet.

Well, apparently, Cat needed to have taken Folic Acid at least a month before conception. Something about preventing neural tubes abnormalities. Damn I thought, we’ve missed out on a crucial stage so I sent her out to immediately buy some tablets. Then I read that Marmite is fortified with extra Folic Acid. Now I felt guilty – all those months she happily snacked away with copious amounts of the black stuff on her toast while I spitted disgust at the foul tasting spread. With any luck, the Marmite will count towards her pre-conception dosage of folic acid.

The BBC website has a handy pregnancy calculator. Here was something else we did not know – pregnancy duration is calculated from the date of her last period, not from the moment of conception. That means that Cat is already five weeks pregnant. And the egg is already a dividing little ball of cells implanted into the womb. Fascinating. Like a real live biology class that will, cross fingers, last 9 months. The predictor suggests 8th November. Very close to my Mum’s own birthday. Now what are the chances of a birth falling on the same day as one of our parents? It’s happened before – Malcolm was born on the same day as his father’s father.

We are both very aware that it is still incredibly early days so the urge to tell all and sundry must be suppressed. But there is careful optimism already. Cat even suggested we take regular photos to chart her body as it changes. I went one further by suggesting a video diary. We’ll see how much cooperation I get when the mood swings set in a few weeks down the line!
Over the next few weeks. That small bundle of cells growing inside Cat will develop at a furious pace. We hope and pray that everything goes according to plan.