My Joy

Although Ive had nearly a month to wrap my head around it, I still cannot get used to the fact that I have a One year old!

My baby is no longer a baby.

She can walk all by herself and does so all the time. Crawling is for babies apparently!

We had such a brilliant time celebrating our gorgeous girls birthday and Squirt was on top form as always!

Every day that goes by makes me love her just a little bit more, depsite loving her so much that it feels like there isnt room for it to grow any bigger!

And if Im struggling to wrap my head around how grown up my tiny baby now is, what I found out yesterday is positively mind blowing!

Im pregnant again!

I couldnt be happier as we really really hoped for less than a two year age gap.
But with still breastfeeding I wasnt exactly holding my breath that we would have much luck!

If its possible it feels even more surreal than finding out I was pregnant with Squirt.
It just doesnt seem real, that my body is capable of such a miracle once amazed me.
To have it perform this amazing feat twice just blows me away!

Im having a hard time imaging a new baby without imagining Squirts happy little face smiling back at me!
She is the only baby I know, how will this new one be different?!

I guess I mustve had a feeling I was pregnant as I brought the subject of baby number two up with my friends the other day.

How do you love your second child as much as you love your first born?

Squirt is my everything.
She is my Joy.
My Sunshine.
My Happiness.
My Laughter.
My Frustration.
My life

How can another baby possibly measure up?

But then I catch myself daydreaming abouyt my growing belly and that oh so sweet baby bump that I so longed for and finally got with Squirt.

That first flutter and all those subsequent kicks that are a secret between just you and your unborn baby.

That feeling when they take their first breath and snuggle their warm skin into you.

And I realise that I already love this baby with my whole heart and it can only grow stronger each day.

Six Months

My baby girl is 6 months old, 6 whole months!

I cannot believe I have had her in my life for that long, and at the same time I cannot believe it has only been six months.
It feels like she has always been here.
Like my left arm or my legs, and it is impossible to think I ever lived without her!

She is such an amazing little person and everyday she grows and changes.

At the moment she is suffering with a cold but still she cracks a smile and just gets on with it, she is such a little trooper.

In the last 2 weeks I have started with baby led weaning and that in itself is an adventure.
At the moment it is going great, she seems to like everything Ive put in front of her and alot of it gets eaten (alot of it also gets thrown on the floor but thats what dogs are for!)

I am loving all these new things I get to experience with her, the faces she pulls at each new taste, the way she kicks her legs when she really really likes something, she is just so cute!

I am really appreciating just how great my life is right now.
But I wish I wasnt as once again it is for a reason I wish didnt exist.

A friend at work had been trying for a baby since I first got pregnant with Lumpy almost 2 years ago.
Last week she told me she was pregnant and I was so excited and happy for her! She so deserved it!

Yesterday I learnt that she had suffered an early miscarriage and my heart sank.
Life is really fucking unfair sometimes and I hate how cruel it can be.

All those familiar feelings briefly flooded back as I remembered how it felt to be in her shoes.
How it felt to physically ache because I wasnt going to be a mummy anymore.
How it felt to look at other pregnant women and women with babies and hate them.
How it felt to be empty and incomplete.

Because although I still wear those shoes, I dont feel their pain anymore.
Isla is my plaster that protects me from the pain of the blister that those shoes have caused me.

Because of Isla I am a Mummy
Because of Isla I smile when I see a pregnant women or a women with a baby.
Because of Isla I am complete and my life is full.

Luck

How did I get so lucky?

This thought occured to me a few days ago as I was driving along listening to Isla chatting away to herself in her carseat.

I have a beautiful, happy, smiley baby who eats like a machine, sleeps all night and only really cries if she is hungry or lonely!

In that moment I felt like the luckiest Mummy in the world and wondered what Id done to deserve such an amazing baby.

And then I realised, I hadnt done anything, but I still deserved her.

I deserve her because of my two angels who look down on me everyday.
I deserve her because I waited 2 years instead of the usual 9 Months to hold her in my arms.
I deserve her because I have cried more tears than I thought was possible over broken dreams and shattered hopes.

Yet through  all the last 2 years has thrown at P and I and despite knowing I deserve this happiness I still feel incredibly lucky!

To have Isla, my daughter look at me with her huge blue eyes as if I am her whole world fills me with joy!
To be able to say I  have a daughter is mind blowing enough so to see her face light up in a big toothless smile when she recognises my face makes my heart nearly explode with happiness!
To be called Mummy is the most awesome name in the world and now its my name!
.
So yes I do have two angels that I never got the chance to meet but without them I wouldnt have my Isla so I feel so very lucky and I wouldnt change a thing.
Somehow it feels like where I am right now, with Isla sat on my lap smiling at me every now and then and playing with my hands, this is where I was always meant to be.

How things change!

Isla has been here for almost eight weeks now.
Eight whirlwind filled weeks!

The first month I didn't know whether I was coming or going, I was completely overwhelmed and so out of my depth!
But slowly I have been finding my feet and learning how to be her mummy.
I by no means have it all figured out, everyday she still managed to surprise and confuse me, but slowly, together, we are making it!

I never dreamed I would struggle with her.
I thought that because of all we'd been through to have her that once she was here life would be easy and perfect!
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I had everything I'd ever wanted yet I wasn't happy.

I now know that the cause of my struggles was not my inability to be a mummy but extreme soul destroying tiredness!
I felt awful for not feeling like I was on cloud nine because I had my rainbow.
But I was too tired to think straight, let alone feel happy.
I thought I didn't love my longed for baby and so because of that I hated myself.

Then we discovered she had silent reflux and everything made sense!
The not sleeping, the constant crying and fussiness.
I wasnt a terrible mummy, I had a poorly baby!
Once we knew this I felt so much better, I had felt all along something was wrong with Isla and I was right, my mummy instincts were right!

So I started to trust them more.
I put Isla to sleep on her tummy because she hated being on her back.
And she started sleeping, really sleeping!
She will sleep an average of 6-7 hours in one solid stretch at night and so I sleep too!

And I feel like a human again!
 I discovered that new mummy joy!
I love my baby, completely, totally and fiercely!
Of course she still cries and sometimes I still feel unsure but with sleep everything is easier and possible!
 I can't believe how much my beautiful little girl had changed already in her first eight weeks and can't wait to see the changes the next eight weeks bring!

Im a Mummy!!!

Isla Rose Slater is finally here!

She was born on 12th May, like I kind of always knew she would be!

It comforts me that she was born on my Grandmas birthday. I like to think it means that she was sitting up there keeping an eye over Isla for those 9 months and helping to keep her safe for me.

I cannot quite believe Isla is one month and one day old already!
She has kept us so busy that this is the first chance Ive had to write anything in here!

I just read through my last post, the one I wrote 6 days before she was born, before my life changed forever!
I was right about one thing in that post.
That looking back now, now that I know what labour is really like it is laughable that I wouldnt know I was in labour!
It hurt!
Alot!

But I did come close to not knowing if I wa in real labour or not.
If it wasnt for Paul I wouldve stayed at home alot longer.
Although I knew I was in labour I thought it would take hours and hours for me to dilate enough to be allowed into the delivery room.
But I was wrong about that!

Being a mummy is the most surreal, scary and brillaint thing in the world!
The first two weeks were so overwhelming, I felt so out of my depth and like I was doing everything wrong.

I still feel lost and unsure but Isla and I are getting to know each other and slowly I am feeling more confident that I know what is best for her.
After all she is my daughter!
I love her so so much, and when she smiles at me I love her even more and my heart just melts!

Right now she is sleeping and I really should be too!
I dont get much chance for sleep these days!

Within touching distance!

I kind of knew Id be here, still waiting at one day past my due date.
I dont really mind, at least Squirt is happy and content in my belly.

But it makes it very hard to be excited about her arrival, when it could still be as far as 11 days away, or as close as this evening!
Its such an odd feeling, knowing she has to come out sometime soon but having absolutely no idea when it will be!

My gut feeling says between tomorrow (the 7th) and next saturday (the 12th) would be a pretty good bet.
But I dont know if even that is just down to wishful thinking!
I am glad that I do at least have something concrete to count down to, being induced.

But even that is not so much set in stone as set in sand!
The plan would be to induce me at 12 days past my due date, so on the 17th May.
But that  all depends on how busy the hospital is.
Realistically even my induction could get pushed back to 14 days past my due date!

But I dont want to be counting down to an induction!
I want Squirt to come out when she is ready, not when we decide we are ready for her!
I hope its sooner rather than later but even if I have to wait until the day before my induction (whenever that ends up being) I will be happier to go into labour on my own and on her terms!

I have been thinking about what labour will be like alot recently.
I guess thats not really surprising seeing as I am now past my due date and its all very real now!

I had a couple of quite painful braxton hicks the other evening and I was excited and a little bit apprehensive at the same time!
Excited because I thought Squirt might have been on her way.
Apprehensive because they were only the first and if they hurt what the hell was real hard labour going to feel like!
But they werent that painful, just enough for me to wonder if they meant the start of labour or not.
So I am still mostly feeling quite positive about the whole thing.

I actually worry more about whether it will take me ages to realise Im in labour than how much it will hurt!
I can see myself writing an entry laughing at my naiviety once Squirt is here and Ive been through it all!

Aswell as the pain, it goes without saying that as excited I am to meet Squirt I have a few very small worries.

I think its mostly down to just how surreal this all is for me.

I am pregnant (yes that still hits me as a surprise!)
I have carried Squirt safely for 9 months.
I am past my due date and she could be, and more to the point is meant to be, born anyday now.

I really truely am about to become a mummy!
And thats where the small worry starts to creep in.

Is this really happening?
The one thing that I have dreamed of and longed for, for so long is about to come true.
And it just feels like its too good to be true.
But not in a way that makes me sure something will go wrong. There is no sense of dread.
I still have that positive feeling I have had since the beginning with Squirt.

I think its more a protective mechanism.
Up until last August when Squirt came into our lives, me and P had gotten so used to pregnancy being a sad, heartbreaking, soul destroying journey.
And when thats all you ever know you have to pinch yourself extra hard when you dreams really are about to come true.

We have been waiting for our little girl for so long.
So much longer than 9 months like any pregnant lady who hasnt suffered a loss, or multiple losses.
We have been waiting since before Pup and Lumpy were taken away.
We have been waiting since I stopped taking the pill, 23 long months ago.

Squirt is already so so loved.
She is so precious to us, our little rainbow, our little miracle.

I guess its no surprise that everything seems so overwhelming right now.

And another thing that is overwhelming is the size of me! My belly just keeps on growing.
I had forgotten how small I used to be until I looked back!

39 weeks today!

I have been really busy since I last posted, nesting is a powerful thing!
I finished work a week and a half ago and straight away made a start on painting the lounge.
I dont know what it was but it just had to be done, I couldnt leave it.
Somehow I felt that if Squirt arrived before the lounge was done it would be a huge disaster!

Well disaster averted because today E came round and did the wall papering for me.
I had painted the other 3 walls but I have no clue how to wall paper!
It looks lovely and Im so pleased it is now all finished!

I also hung up the 'Sweet Dreams' bunting in Squirts Nursery the other day.
It looks so pretty and I am really happy with it!

P and T also spent the whole day sorting out our en suite.
They got the shower screen fitted, finally!
And plan to do the flooring tomorrow.
I almost dare to hope that I will actually be able to have a shower next week!

So all this has been going on and what has Squirt been up to?
Not alot really!
She is still incredibly comfortable in there.
Too comfortable for her own good!

Aside from increasingly noticeable BHs I havent really had any sign that she is planning on leaving my belly anytime soon!
Obviously I want her to come when she is ready, but at the same time I would like some indication of how much longer I have to wait to meet her.
It already feels like I have been waiting forever because of Lumpy and Pup and I could be waiting up tp 19 more days if she makes me go to be induced!

But having said that she is more than worth the wait.
I have been waiting for her since the first time I found out I was pregnant.
That now seems a lifetime away.
So those 19 more days pale into insignificance when I think how I could still be waiting to even get pregnant.

I am so lucky to have my precious baby girl kicking and rolling around in my belly.
I am so lucky to have the chance to be a mummy.
I am so lucky to have to wait as long as my little girl decides is neccessary for her to be ready to meet me!
After all she is the most important little person in the whole world, so its only fair that she gets to decide on when we meet.