Last Week - Tired baby, Todmas and Man-Flu

This post is a bit late because I've not been able to get much done as I have a little girl that suddenly needs lots and lots of sleep during the day, most of the time on me!!

Well, last week we did the usual, yoga on tuesday, massage on thursday. WJ had suddenly started needing lots of sleep though. She was asleep when we were setting off to baby massage, and I had to get her changed before we left so ended up waking her up. We got there 10 minutes early so she had a feed. I undressed her for her massage, lied her down on the mat and she started crying. We ended up not participating, but just sitting at the side feeding and sleeping and more feeding, all in the nude. She'd finally calmed down when everyone was leaving so I dressed her, then I put her on the floor to get my things in my bag and she was smiling and looking at me as if to say, "Can I have my massage now please mummy?"

On friday my mum, her husband and my sister and nephew came up. As usual my mum was just wanting everyone to pose for photographs while they were there.

Saturday was the Christmas Light Switch on day. They also had a lot of things going on in the day, which was the First Day of Todmas, including stalls, raffles, snow and a Polish day event. I decided I wanted a break from carrying WJ, so we put her in her pram when we went out in the morning, then she went in K's sling in the afternoon. K doesn't use his sling much because it means he can't smoke!! It was her first time out in the pram. She was a bit unsure at first, but then fell asleep, which was good because I've been having trouble getting her to sleep, even though she needs it so much!!

K was supposed to be coming up on sunday but he had man-flu so he stayed at the boat!

Last Week - Nappies, Great Grandparents, BF Group

On Moday I took WJ to my hometown where she met a few of my old schoolfriends. I mentioned last week that someone's mum had passed away. I didn't go to the funeral, just the wake. It was nice to see my old friends. My friends were coping very well, and my thoughts are with them.

Tuesday is Baby Yoga day, so we went to that and had fun. WJ was quite hungry at the end bit where we lie down and relax, so I laid down on my side and let her feed. Then I met K at the train station and we got the train to the next town, walked up a massive hill and picked up some nappies I'd got through Freecycle. They're Little Lamb's, in great condition. I'm not sure whether they're bamboo or organic cotton though. I've basically been given the £300 set (mix of size 1 and 2) plus an extra bucket and extra wraps!! They are easier than the terry squares I'm using, and they're "Daddy friendly!" They don't dry as quick though, which is actually the main reason I bought terries. I washed a few at the laundrette with my terries, then put £2 in the drier. The terries were totally dry, but the 'Lambs could do with another £2. So it looks like I'll be using the squares, especially in these colder, damper months. It's great that K can feel confident changing her though ;)

On Wednesday my grandparents, sister and nephew came over. They'd not seen WJ for quite a while. T, my nephew, will be 2 in December. He was funny because he was jumping and running around, but he kept falling over. He didn't seem bothered by it though, just got up and carried on. My sister parents a totally different way to the way I will though. She's using a reward chart to control his tantrums, and she has a naughty step. It makes me sad, but I don't want to criticize her when she has more experience than I. When she mentioned his "paddying," I said to T, "awww, it's because you can't express your emotions isn't it..." but my sister said she has to do something about it because he hits smaller children. She's obviously doing what's best for them, it just doesn't seem right.

Thursday was Baby Massage day. We massaged bellys this time to help the digestive system. This meant no nappies. Towards the end, WJ provided me with more encouragement to try EC properly. More on this in a separate post over the next few days.

On Friday I went to the Breastfeeding group, I haven't been for a while so it was nice to catch up with people!

Big Catchup!!

Yes I've been AWOL again. I haven't really felt like blogging. A few days after K's dad passed away, we found out our friend had died. We're still not really sure of the consequenses as he didn't have many friends around here and his family live in another county. K had asked his ex girlfriend about the funeral and she was supposed to be informing us of the details. She didn't, and I ended up finding out about the funeral online, a few hours after he'd been burried. I was gutted. And then my Grandma's brother died. I didn't know him, but it's not nice when my grandma's upset.

I didn't want to blog until I felt ready to post regularly again though. So anyway, onto more positive things. What have we been up to?

-Meeting "The Family". Me and WJ didn't go to K's dad's funeral as we didn't know him so K didn't feel it was appropriate. We met him afterwards at the wake and got to meet all his family, including all the cousins he didn't know he had. A lot of people kept coming over to meet "G's Granddaughter". Unfortunately they were met with half her face and half my boob as she was just starting her growth spurt. WJ's Great Auntie J and Great Uncle R were really excited to see her. They gave us their address so we'll definitely keep in touch with them.

-Watching films. We watch Four Lions, a comedy about Islamic terrorists. It was funny but had a sad ending. We don't usually watch comedies though so was a nice change. Then we watched Grave of the Fireflies, a Studio Ghibli film. This was really sad about a boy who loses his parents in the war and is left looking after his sister, who dies of malnutrition. I found out afterwards that is was based on a semi-autobiographical book. It's not as imaginitive (read "crazy") as the other Studio Ghibli films, but we really enjoyed it. Then we watched Chrysallis, based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. K wanted something thought provoking and has read some of Ray Bradbury's books so chose this. But it was awful. The acting was really poor and there wasn't any depth to the story, apart from a Christian undertone. The only good thing about it was that it wasn't too long!!

-Shopping. We all went to Manchester. I bought some yarns to make a christmas present for my nephew, I bought a gorgeous hat and gloves for WJ, and I bought a Christmas tree.

-Yoga. Baby yoga with WJ, we loved it! I get my stretches while entertaining her, then she gets to do some stretches. Then we both relax together. It's such a relaxed atmosphere, and it's ok if your baby wants to stop for a feed, needs changing, starts crying, talking or giggling. Then we all stay and have herbal tea and a chat.

-Massage. WJ got invited to a course of 4 baby massage classes. Today was the first. There were just under 10 mother-and-baby pairs (including a double pair of grandmother-mother-twins) and a health visitor talked us through giving our baby a leg and foot massage. I can't wait to go back last week. Now I just need to teach WJ how to massage me.

-Crochet. More details to come soon ;)

-eBay. I decided to buy another knitting machine. I don't know why!! I also taught K how to use eBay, so now my watch list is full of guitars!!

Our very dramatic bith story with no exaggerations

A little late but I had to share:

9^th Aug – K's birthday – 39weeks + 3days – Growth scan at hospital. I'd been measuring quite small. My bump was measuring below the 10^th centile but fluid level was fine and her estimated weight was measuring just on the 10^th centile so I was having weekly scans towards the end of my pregnancy. Today the growth had slowed though and her estimated weight had dropped below the 10^th centile. They booked me in for an induction on 15^th Aug, but also gave me a stretch and sweep where it was discovered that I was 3cm dilated.

K decided he was going to stay out that night, and if I went into labour he'd meet me at the hospital. I had this odd feeling I was going to go into labour that night and felt I needed him there. After lots of crying and arguing on the phone he got the last train back to mine.

10^th Aug – I'd not gone into labour overnight. In fact I woke up feeling like the stretch and sweep wasn't going to work. I was tempted to tell K to go home to the boat. I felt like he didn't want to be here.

6:15-6:30pm – K had just spent ages cooking lots of food. I picked up the gravy and had a really bad pain. I went to the toilet, my mucus plug is hanging out, then had another pain. I was having quite strong 20-30second contractions every 6-7 minutes.

6:50pm – called the hospital. I have bad signal in my flat so was stood outside in the rain. I was told someone would ring me back in 10 mins as they were changing shifts.

7:10pm – I called them back as no one called back. They told me I needed to take paracetamol and have a bath, that I needed to stay at home a few hours. I took paracetamol thinking they weren't strong enough and put my boiler on so I could have a bath.

7:30pm – I called the hospital again, the contractions were now 30seconds long and coming every 5 minutes. I told them I had a 12mile journey and was scared I wouldn't make it. I was told that it was very unlikely I was in established labour so quick with my first, and that the paracetamol hadn't had enough time to work, they'd just be pains. My boiler was still heating the water up so I was told to have a shower.

8:00pm – I got out of the shower with pains so strong I could hardly walk. I was crawling around on my hands and knees trying to get dressed.

8:15pm – called the hospital again, they finally agreed I might be ready to set off!

8:30pm – I got in the taxi, sat on a towel in case my waters broke on the way. The driver was new, it was his dad's taxi. He didn't know the way to the hospital.

8:45pm – We're half way there, then suddenly we get to a queue of traffic. The road's closed. We drive around the queue to speak to the police. She tells us there's no way we can get through the road, we'll have to drive round, through this tiny village on country roads only wide enough for one car. We get to a fork, naturally we take the direction that we need to be going. We end up at a dead end with 2 houses, one being Paddy from Emmerdale's. (Our friend S is friends with him and once S took K up there) Someone came out and directed us the right way. Back to the fork and the driver scratches both sides of the car.

9:00pm and we're finally on a road back down to the main road, but there's another queue. The contractions change, my waters explode, I can feel the head coming out. I pass K my phone, tell him to call 999. He does, they start asking loads of questions, they're clearly not taking us seriously. He hangs up. The driver goes around the queue, 999 call us back, we're with the police at the other side of the diversion, K gets out, a police-man tells me to lie down and K passes him my phone. All the neighbours are looking out of their windows to try find out about the road accident, so luckily the policeman just happens to be outside a midwife's house when he says, “we need a midwife urgently”. She obviously heard and runs outside. I'm really confused for a minute over why there's a midwife here now. She tells me that there's an ambulance on the way so I should try to stop pushing, I tell her that I'm not choosing to push. She removes my trousers and underwear, shouts to someone, “This baby isn't going to wait, get me some gloves and some towels.” She gets gloves from the police and sends someone into her house where there's a suitcase full of towels in the front room as she'd just got back from her holiday. A few pushes and our little one's out, wiped with a Man Utd towel (which K keeps as a souvenir), and placed on my chest. I'm so glad she's ok as the ambulance still isn't here.

9:20pm – someone asks if we got a time of birth. No one had so we decided on 9:15pm, although I'm sure it could have been 9:10pm. An ambulance arrives with gas and air, I have some anyway.

9:40pm – the cord is cut and the placenta is birthed. We keep the placenta for K to bury on the full moon (13^th Aug, our due date)

I got carried into the ambulance, checked for shock and taken to the hospital.

I was in shock and I was very frustrated that no one was believing me when I was in labour.

I stayed in hospital 2 nights just so I was confident with breastfeeding.

The road was closed as there had been a big crash, a 29 year old had died, an 18 year old was critical but stable. A few days later we find out that the 29 year old was K's cousin's boyfriend and the 18 year is another friend of our friend S.

I can still smile :)

I had planned on blogging more frequently than this, but due to pregnancy aches and pains and financial issues etc etc I've not really had anything interesting and positive to post.

But today someone very special made me smile...

Basically, my pregnancy wasn't planned and K and I hardly knew each other. A relationship was never on the cards, it wasn't what either of us wanted, and K was due to go travelling, and then he was going to live elsewhere in the country. But then I found out I was pregnant. He ended up coming back to the area to support me after only 2 weeks of travelling, but he was homeless and jobless. The past 7 months has been really difficult because we've both had our lives turned upside down. He's been doing his best to support me though, which can't be easy because I've been hormonally emotional quite a lot and he hasn't known me long enough to decipher whether my moods are just hormonal, or if there's something we do need to work out. He's also had lots to deal with, and after so many years of believing he couldn't have children, he's struggling to come to terms with things. Especially as the baby isn't here yet, she's not real to him, and he said it won't sink in properly until he sees her. While he's doing everything he can to support me; the cooking, washing up, tea and hot-chocolate duty, carrying my shopping, making hot water bottles for my bad back etc, he can sometimes be quite cold with me when I need emotional support, and it means we're still going through lots of ups and downs.

But today he came back from a job interview and told me that he was asked what his greatest achievement is, and he told them it was that he's expecting a baby in August :D