Am I the only one here?

There are times in your life when you do something ordinary for a not very ordinary reason - sometimes not a very good reason.

You wonder if you are the only person doing this for that reason.

Am I the only person having an ultrasound to find out if my baby is dead?

Am I the only person having blood taken to find out if the ERPC worked?

Am I the only person who gets to talk about prenatal brain development to my students, while wondering how far my baby's development got?

Am I the only person asking my employer for annual leave not to sit on a beach, but to go to a frankly not massively exciting adoption preparation course?

Am I the only person sitting in this conference seminar on the latest research on prenatal drug exposure, wondering if I will need to know this for my child?

Are we the only parents with their baby in hospital who didn't give birth to the baby?

Am I the only person picking up prints of their nearly-7-month-old baby to send to his birth mother?

And are we the only family planning next year's holiday to visit their child's birth family.

But I'm happy about the last two. Though, as this will be our last set of monthly photos, I won't miss desperately trying to find the right number of suitable photos at the last minute. We take far too many arty (read: blurred, back view, naked) photos.

Someone has been reading the baby book

And it's not me.

Baby Spouse chose yesterday to roll all the way over for the first time. Today he's 6 months corrected. He's also decided that not all solids are truly disgusting - banana is particularly nice, as are rice cakes.

We were given What To Expect In The First Year, but it scared us so we gave it to the charity shop. It has about 1 million diseases in it. My friend whose baby was 8 weeks early said the other day they looked in it to find out what she should be doing, and immediately decided they shouldn't look in it any more.

So, when you forget to blog...

Too much happens, and you can't blog, or you forget it all.

The News in Brief (not all good):

Baby Spouse is now six months and some transitions are happening (in his own room, holding and mouthing objects, banging), some kind of (rolling, which he did when tiny, but he got heavy, has partly come back, he is rocking on his tummy and arms), and some NOT - Mummy what is this horrible stuff you've put in my mouth Eewwww give me some MILK!

We had a monthly phone call with Nella and she did not sound as keen to talk as previously. We were due to cut down the frequency and I don't feel that she will object. This is a bit of a relief. Actually, it sounded like she was talking about someone else's child, which it hasn't before.

My mother has been in a major strop. She often sees things very negatively, but now is dragging up perceived slights from years ago. I think she has calmed down a bit, but both I and Mr Spouse are a bit bemused.

I still have bits and pieces of work to do, but unfortunately this is interpreted by some colleagues as meaning I can do anything they want as well. This is annoying me. I will book a babysitter (not always the free paternal one) for an important meeting, but not for an hour to create someone a reading list.

A former colleague - one of those people you click with after a short while, and keep up with on the Book of Face, had a baby boy about 2 weeks before Baby Spouse was born. On Wednesday he died, probably a cot death (SIDS). I am not sure I should even email her to offer support - I have a baby the same age as hers.

Sorry, I did say it wasn't all good.