Countdown and botty cream...

For the past 29 weeks Mrs B and I have been monitoring her pregnancy by counting upwards, from kick off to week 29, scaling Mount Baby one trimester at a time. From this week, however, as we pass the 30 week milestone, we are most definitely counting down, abseiling, as it were, towards base camp having long since cast off our crampons and ice picks.

Emotions are, it must be said, mixed.

There is of course huge excitement at the prospect of the parenting journey that lies ahead of us but, it must be said, there is also a great deal of anxiety at the changes and challenges that loom on the horizon.

Our lives will never be the same again, we know that. However, when you're in to a single figure weekly countdown it suddenly becomes very real and, as we lay in bed one night this week, Mrs B and I jointly worried about losing the time we spend together; the spontaneous trips to restaurants, to the pub or the park; running around our neighbourhood together or enduring the occasional gym class (always more enduring for me than Mrs B); nights out at the cinema or theatre; trips to see friends or after-work evenings in town. How will things change and will we ever get time for the two of us ever again?

Of course, I have it easy, I'm also very aware of that. I do not have to contend with birth, post-birth recovery, breastfeeding and all the other physical and psychological after effects that come with motherhood. All I can do is reassure my amazing, baby-producing wife that I will do as much as I possibly can to ease the burden on her, to make sure that we do get some time together (even if it is just to watch Corrie) and that she gets the time to herself that she needs. How hard can that be?

Aside from all the obvious life changing changes, we've also found that one of the strangest things to imagine is actually having a third person in our home. For as long as we can remember it has been the two of us, our house, our stuff, our mess. As of October, however, there will be someone else in our humble home, complete with his or her own noises, smells, clothes, toys, things and mess. As we often struggle to clean up after ourselves (ok, I may be speaking for myself here), how are we going to cope with cleaning up after a third person too?

And then there's the question of all the baby stuff.

I must admit that I have become slightly obsessed with listing everything we need to buy or borrow in preparation for the arrival of Baby B, and fixated inparticular with botty cream. How does one choose a botty cream? And what if the baby is allergic or has exzema? These are questions that I have never had to ask before and, consequently, are now filling my waking hours. Indeed, piggy-backing a routine trip to the doctor with Mrs B yesterday I even asked our GP what he suggested, completley unprepared to hear that he recommended nothing more than plain water and olive oil!

So, normal or extra virgin?

Help!