My baby boy :-)

So, I haven’t written anything for months, somehow over a year (!) but once again I have an excuse- it’s a good one though. In December I gave birth to our second son 😍

He has settled into our family wonderfully, our elder son adores him and the feeling is pretty mutual it seems! Although they look quite similar their temperaments are very different. Our elder son has always been quite demanding, he is very active and needs a lot of your attention- so much that we did consider whether we could have a second baby. Prior to having a child we assumed we would have two within a couple of years of one another…it’s easy to make plans but sometimes the reality means plans have to be more flexible. When our son turned 3 he started to ask more questions and a recurring one was, ‘when am I going to have a little brother or sister?’. And it was around then that we started to think about it again, but things kept happening.

Early in 2017 we sold our house and were going through the purchase of another, but for various frustrating reasons it fell through. We were very disappointed and essentially ended up with nowhere to live. Thankfully my in laws offered us a place to stay with them. It was only meant to be for a short time but due to the purchase of the house collapsing it ended up being for months rather than weeks. I think it was the most stressful time in our marriage. We are usually absolutely fine, but the constant scrutiny from my in laws and being undermined about just about everything regarding our political views, our parenting choices, the foods we like to cook…you name it, it all became magnified. When my husband and I did end up having an argument (the only real argument we have EVER had) they kept coming in…! It was horrendous. The pressure meant that we ended up moving into our current house, a house that we really don’t love…but we just had to get out from the in laws!

Anyway, once we got a bit more settled into our home and the scary reality of the fact our boy would be going to school in 2018, we felt the time was right to try for another baby. Like a lot of things it didn’t happen right away and so when we finally took a test that said we were expecting a baby, I took several more to make sure!

I didn’t have the easiest pregnancy, I felt ill for most of it, severe headaches, dizziness and nausea etc and the pregnancy was considered a higher risk for various reasons. The upshot of that was I went for checks at the hospital far more often which meant more scans; this is a lovely side of it as you get to see your little passenger more often! I was expecting the baby to be early as my previous baby had been pretty quick to want to make his appearance. But this little guy was having none of it and as the pregnancy progressed they decided to book me in for induction. I was not keen on this idea and reckon part of them booking me in for an induction was more because they didn’t want so many babies arriving over Christmas! Anyway, I was really hoping that the baby would make an appearance before the induction day but I was also hoping that he would hold on until my elder son performed in his first ever school nativity.

At this point I was quite a lot pregnant and there was a window between the Thursday (night of nativity) and the Tuesday (induction day) which I was hoping would see the baby want to arrive on his own. I had already postponed induction from the day before the nativity and was getting a bit concerned we might end up with 2 babies at the nativity play (one would not be a dolly, and it’s appearance might possibly scar all th children and their parents for many years to come!).  Anyway, as it turned out my baby was very accommodating, he stayed put and we were able to enjoy the nativity! On the Friday just after I got into bed my waters started to break- I managed to dash to the bathroom and told my husband I thought it was time. However, apart from the waters breaking, nothing else was happening. I called the maternity unit who asked us to come in to get monitored. My elder son bless him was such a good boy, we gently woke him up and explained he was going to Nanas. We grabbed our bags and popped our sleepy son in the car, deposited him with his equally sleepy Nana and Grandad before heading to the hospital.

When we arrived it was about 11.30pm and so the hospital was pretty quiet. Once we met the midwives they set up a monitor on my tummy and it was all very relaxed. After monitoring me for about 30 mins nothing else was happening so they sent me home with instructions in case I started to feel unwell. They explained if baby didn’t make an appearance on his own overnight I needed to come in first thing in the morning and be induced. So off we popped at about 12.30am. I got back into bed and about an hour later I started to get pains. On my bit of paper the midwife gave me it said I had to monitor the pains for an hour and once they were less than 5 mins apart, call the hospital again. But my pains started at about 5 mins apart! So I decided to have a shower and while I was in there they were getting closer together each time. So I held on for the hour, by which time the contractions were about 2 minutes apart! I managed to call them and they asked us to come back in. So a very swift drive, and about 3 contractions in the car later, we were back in the hospital. Now one annoying thing about our hospital is that after 9pm the access to the maternity wing is through A&E- which is at the wrong end to the maternity unit! So after waddling through the hospital with my bag and having to stop in the corridor twice for more contractions (!) we were back in the maternity ward. I was really struggling at this point and was not looking very dignified I imagine, kept wanting to go to the bathroom but then not wanting to sit down! The midwife said ‘you look like you’re in a lot of pain’…’mmm’ was about all I could manage to say. So then they tried to get the monitor on me again but I just thought- I am not sure there is time! She checked me again and seemed quite surprised that I was 8cm dialated! She asked if I could get into a wheelchair to go to delivery or did I need to stay on the bed. I did not think I would be able to get off the bed at this point! So rather quickly they wheeled the bed through and I heard her saying to me ‘don’t push yet!’ But to be honest I couldn’t really do anything, the baby was coming and there wasn’t much I could do to stop it! Once I was in the suite she checked again and said I was allowed to push and my goodness… very swiftly, after what was a very hard fast labour, out came my son! My beautiful boy was born on his Daddy’s 40th birthday 😍 I think they were more surprised than I was about the speed of it all 😆 It all happened so fast, we didn’t have time to even put the music on I had prepared for my baby, let alone get in the birthing pool. Ironically one of the midwives said that we would have been great in the birthing pool and I suppose if they hadn’t sent me home (which my family were cross about as my first son was quite speedy coming out too, so they couldn’t understand me being sent home with that and risk of infection etc.) I might have gone in it, but… any birth plans were somewhat out of the window really. They told me that if I have any more babies they would be even faster 😳 but to be honest that was quite fast enough for me and I think our little family is complete now!

So getting on for 6 months now and we are settling happily into our new family unit of 4 and soon will be heading off on our first holiday together. Baby even has his own very sweet passport which I find more amusing than I probably should 😆