No, really, I’m having a lovely day. I’ve given myself the day off and I’m just puddling around - eating apple and walnut loaf and drinking dandelion tea by the fire, reading a new book I bought myself with birthday money earlier today (Bella Tuscany, by Frances Mayes), listening to the birthday CD my husband gave me (Tim Buckley’s live double album), and generally taking it easy. Friends and family have been calling on the phone all day so - so far, so good. But the season has finally turned down under… the chill of winter is in the air. I needed a coat on when I walked to the shops earlier, and I had the heater on by 3 o’clock. Yes, officially it’s still autumn but winter’s quietly encroaching.

No news on the pregnancy front. And that’s good news I guess. Except I realised today that I haven’t mentioned something very important that I’ve been thinking for a while now: I’m quietly feeling convinced it’s a boy. This feeling has - I guess - been creeping up on me slowly, until recently when I can’t envision anything else. Not that I particularly want a boy -- I don’t have any strong preference -- although, if anything, I do get on better with little girls. But I keep finding little boys clothes at the op shop and buying them - lovely little Peter Rabbit suits in pale blue and white. And when I dare let myself ponder names -- which isn’t very often at all -- I prefer girls names but keep thinking of boys. And every now and then my husband will walk in the room, or smile at me a certain way, and wham, bam, it’s our little boy I see in his face, in his look. I can’t think of any other sensible reason why I feel this way, I just do. And I feel quite sure about it -- it’s a very strong, very real hunch. So I’m laying my bets early.

I have decided that when I get the ultrasound at 18 weeks I want to know the baby’s gender. I feel quite strongly about this -- better to know and make plans -- and it’s a way of being able to visualise and get closer to this invisible baby in my belly. I need that -- the sooner, the better. Until then I feel a little as though this pregnancy-baby-thing will remain a little weird and unreal to me.

Until next time, all the best with whatever you’re doing in life,

Eloise