21 weeks, 2 days - feeling kicks!

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about the scan last week! I'm just so excited to be having my fourth baby boy!!! I haven't had a single moment of anything else, which is wonderful. He still does not have a name, and I know there's like almost half a pregnancy to go, but it's "late" for us to still have no name for him, hehe! I'm not actually feeling stressed about it at all. Right now I am still ALL about Noah Benjamin, but Neil is apparently not so much. Every few days he'll say, out of the blue, "How about Jonathan?" or "How about James?" and I say, "Umm.... no." ;) I like Jonathan, but we have a Nathan already, and there's just a Jo tacked onto the front there to make it different. There's nothing wrong with James per se, but it just doesn't do much for me and I like the names I'm choosing for my babies to leave me sort of sighing and clutching at my chest (in a healthsome manner, of course! ;) ). We did consider Jamie for Arthur, but it was REALLY clear at the scan that he was definitely not a Jamie. I remember a couple of people suggested Benedict (thanks for suggesting!), but I don't like the name really, although it is similar to Benjamin. I like Toby and Micah, but Neil isn't crazy about Toby at all, and Micah is the other most recent baby at church. I think if we have another son after this one (!!) I would personally be choosing between Toby and Micah. Neil really likes Micah but we both feel it's not THIS baby's name. I adore the meaning - "Who is like God?" Just those 4 words make me want to stop what I'm doing and praise him right away! So I love everything about the name. Next time, though! ;)

Well baby-boy-bean is getting much more wiggly and active in there! I am feeling kicks and bumps and movements all day long now, and especially during the evenings. Arthur felt the baby kick this week - before Neil even! I was so tired (I have been so tired for a few weeks now) and when Nathan went down for a nap one day early in the week (so 20 weeks and 5/6 days or something) I built the boys a HUGE railway with their wooden track and flaked out on the sofa while they played blissfully for ages. While I was reclining there, the little tiny one started to kick. Usually there aren't that many in a row so I can't call someone over and have them wait for the next kick - there usually isn't one, hence why Neil hadn't felt the baby up till this week! But this time I felt quite a few kicks and after 30 seconds or so they hadn't stopped, so I said, "Our tiny baby is kicking Mummy's tummy!" Arthur DROPPED his train and came running! I lifted my top over my tummy and he instantly laid his cheek on my bump, smiling excitedly. He's such a sweetie! Almost straight away, he got a direct kick to his cheek! He lifted his face in absolute awe, it was so precious!! He kept saying, "It kicked my cheek!" and then he laid his face back there again. He got a little pop to his chin this time, and that made him giggle. He was so excited to feel the baby kick, and he told Neil when he got home from work.

He's SO excited about my bump growing bigger. Literally every other day (or every day sometimes) he puts his hands on my tummy and does a sort of squeally excited sound, and then says, "Your tummy's getting BIGGER!!!" like it's the most exciting thing he's ever seen happen. He always says how the baby must be getting so much bigger than before, which is so cute when he says it every day with the same new excitement :) He calls other people's attention to it, usually Neil, saying, "Daddy! Mummy's tummy is getting BIGGER!!!! Come and seeee!" and he jumps up and down excitedly. Matthew doesn't appear to have taken much in about my pregnancy yet, though he does acknowledge that there's a baby in my tummy. He seems happy enough and busy doing other things most of the time, like it's not interesting enough to distract him right now, which is fine.

So Neil felt the baby kick last night, or it might have been the night before (21 weeks), I can't remember exactly. I was getting a few good kicks lying on the sofa, and called him over. The baby seemed to actually turn to his hand and kick it directly. I can't really explain how I feel it but I could tell that there was intent and purpose in the aim of the kicks - I just could feel the difference when the baby was kicking Neil's hand so specifically. Neil likes to feel the baby kick but also gets kind of squeamish (sigh) about the whole "alien being moving about in your body" thing that he has going on in his head. Oh well. *I'm* enjoying every little kick and wiggle! :)

I've also discovered these last few days that this baby likes to play poke-and-kick! I love this stage! One of my babies at least (I can't remember who, but not Arthur) had not much interest in that game, and the kicks back were a bit random so that I wasn't always sure if they were in response to my pokes or not. This baby is very responsive! I poke, there's a very short pause, and I get kicked - a quick sharp pop - in the exact same spot. I wait, poke again, and get a pause and then a kick in the same spot. One time a little hand reached out and bumped me where I had poked, lower down.

I forgot a few things last entry, but then I hadn't read the sonographer's report when I wrote the entry about the scan. The baby is measuring exactly on the 50th percentile for ALL measurements! This baby is definitely not Arthur-shaped, and not likely Nathan-shaped either. Arthur had short legs (2 weeks behind!) and a large head (1.5 weeks ahead) and his abdomen was 1 week ahead. Matthew was pretty much spot on his dates for legs, abdomen and head, though his head was a few days behind. Both of them are exactly that way to this day - it was an absolutely accurate prediction of their body shapes, so we had a good heads-up that they would be very different from each other in build before Matthew was even born. Nathan was a little ahead of dates for head, pretty much spot on for abdomen, and a little behind for his leggies, so we thought he must be a cross between the older boys, and maybe more like Arthur's build? He's still only tiny but so far seems to be a perfect mix of the two older boys in build.

I am therefore expecting this little one to be very like Matthew in build, and nothing like Arthur's build. So that's exciting! Matthew was so different, and I wonder if this baby will be the closest to Matthew in resemblence? I can't wait to see his little face and find out who he'll look most like!

Also, my placenta is HIGH and POSTERIOR! So, no anterior placenta for me after all. I guess this baby is just a much quieter one than I'm used to, so far, and it wasn't that I was having things muffled by an anterior placenta. I still find it so odd that it was SO many weeks later than usual that I felt movements. But oh well! I feeling them now, so that's fine!

I'm trying to think what else? I have had some moderate not-so-fun pubic bone pain since my last entry, pretty much RIGHT after that entry continuously. So that's a shame! But I get it every time. I'm just glad to have had the first 20 weeks without it! I don't always get that. Hopefully it's going to settle down again for a good while before coming back a bit at the end. It's pretty sore at the moment to walk and lie on my side. It's just a nasty clutching pain in my groin that radiates. It feels ever so familiar now. Everything does really, about pregnancy, and I LOVE that feeling! :)

Today is the first time I have really taken all of the boys out on my own whilst looking obviously pregnant. Until now I have been bundled up in a huge winter coat so nobody would have seen anyway, but today it was so mild and I forgot Nathan's coat so I wrapped mine around him in the pushchair. So my bump was WELL on display. As was my "Pregnant and Proud!" top! ;) I would not have worn that if I'd have known it would have been on display to the public, haha! I don't like attracting attention, and I didn't want anyone to think I'd worn it on purpose to show off or something! ;)

So, I walked down the high street with the tandem pushchair - Nathan and Matthew in it, and Arthur on the buggy board behind. Me and my little bumpy boy followed behind Arthur! :) People turned their heads alllll the way down the high street, and it made me ever so uncomfortable. I am anxious about encountering negativity, because I know I hate confrontation like that, and also I have always been super sensitive to other people being mean to me, especially face-to-face. I have no idea how I'll handle it! I'm anxious because I have heard that it's to be expected when you have 3 or 4 closely spaced children - the more children, the more comments, and the worse they can be. I so don't want that!!!! It's really bothering me right now. I don't know how I'll handle it and I'm worried that I'll just do as I did when bullied at school and CRY or something embarrassing like that! I don't want to respond inappropriately in front of my little ones either, especially if they hear negative comments (which would upset me all the more), and I want to stand up for myself too, you know?

Today I got lots of not-exactly-positive looks, especially when I was huffing and puffing with the pushchair laden with children and bags for the charity shop! Thankfully once we'd taken all the charity bags to the shop, it was surprisingly easy to push all 3 on the way back and we seemed to get a lot more interested looks and even some smiles. I just want to walk with my head down all the time, but how rubbish is that?!?! I should be PROUD to have all these little children and another on the way! And I am, truly. I just know that I'm in a teeny tiny minority and the rest of the world thinks I'm likely selfish, stupid or irresponsible, and I can't stand the idea of people thinking that of me or saying anything of the sort to me. I find it upsetting already without anyone having said anything!!! I really need to pray about this and find some peace from God about it, and have him equip me to deal with it effectively. That's the whole idea with trusting God with my womb and thus our family size and spacing of our children - that he'll provide ALL that we need to effectively manage the blessings he bestows upon us, including this kind of detail. I just sooooo don't want to get upset and flustered and shaky and tearful if anyone says something nasty to me when I'm out with the children, and the way I "am" is suggesting to me that this is how I would react. Bleh.

Anyway!

What else? Oh the baby was noted as cephalic (head down) at the scan. She was having the hardest time checking the face for a hare lip because the head was RIGHT down. She really ground that scan probe into my hip and pubic bone for like 15 minutes straight, trying to see. The baby's head was turned at a tricky angle and with it so low, she had to try to dig in under my pubic bone or into my hip, and then grind it round in the direction of the baby! Ow. Maybe that could account for some of the pubic bone pain I've had since?! I even had to have a pillow under my hips and roll onto my side slightly, with the bed tipped head down (!!!) to attempt to rotate the baby a little for a better view! It was not comfortable! But worth it for the lonnnng look at my tiny sweetie :)

I keep wondering if I feel hiccups lately, but then I stop still to check and it's not, or at least, if it was it was very short-lived. So I can't confirm having felt this baby hiccup yet. I know it will be soon! I love feeling hiccups and all these lovely things! I'm so excited about every little thing with this pregnancy! I'm eager to meet my little one but the one thing I'm NOT looking forward to is the process by which he ends up in my arms and not in my tummy! I MUST write Nathan's birth story for my diary, properly. I know I will get further detached from it the further along with this next pregnancy I get, and eventually if I leave it too late I'll probably get the two births confused in parts or something, which will be sad for me. I want to remember all the details of each birth as unique, even if they're not comfortable memories!

Well, there's probably loads more, but my mind has gone blank for now. OH! But I have had some seriously wacky hormones this past week. MUCH more settled this end of the week, but last weekend was just crazy. I have been more irritable and feeling tearful at the slightest things for a few weeks now, but Neil was poorly at the weekend with a migraine (he throws up with these), and I just did not manage well. I clung to my children for security (however daft that sounds!) - at least that's how it felt when they had gone to bed at the end of the day. They just kept me busy and the noise level helped me to block out Neil's throwing-uppy-ness, and so on. When they had all gone to sleep that evening I just fell apart and cried for like 2 hours straight! I missed them so painfully and looking at their toys and things just made me long for them, and I absolutely could not stop crying for anything. I had the WORST sinus headache all night that night, and into the next day as a result, urgh! The next couple of days were also "delicately balanced" (!!), hormonally, and I felt tearful and overwhelmed a lot, but it settled down in the week. This end of the week has been great - my energy is good even though I'm really tired (if that makes sense?!) with Nathan's multiple night-wakings and so on, and I'm spending all my time doing LOTS more housework than I've ever done, playing with little ones, disciplining little ones, keeping vital parts of the daily routine going (naps, nappies, meals, etc) and feeling good about it all. We are not getting out of the house much at all, but it's the most settled things have been for a long time. I have seen a LOT of advice for mothers of many very young little ones (especially when pregnant as well) to just STAY HOME as much as possible, because that's the only sane thing to do and it makes a huge difference to how frazzled both the mama and the children are. I'm finding it to be true, and very helpful advice! I wish the boys could get more run-out-in-the-open-air time every day, but that's the main drawback. If we had moved house by now, we'd have a big garden (we're going to be super picky about that part) for them to run in every day. They do get out in the garden but it's SO TINY now that we've sold the end piece to the neighbour! They have long long walks at the park with Daddy at the weekends, so that's something I suppose. Not ideal, but most definitely advice I'd pass on to any other mother-of-3 very small people with another on the way. Definitely. Probably one of the first pieces of advice, actually!

Anyway, we're getting into stuff that should go in my blog, so I'll stop for now. I will be due to put another belly pic in the gallery in just FIVE DAYS!!! It's going so fast! Right now I am going to go to bed. I have actually had 3 early nights this week! I'm so tired and sleepy in the evenings and I resist going to bed even so, because I just want to enjoy the quiet house for a few hours first, but then I'm just adding to the tiredness. This week I have had a rare burst (!) of early nights, and I'm so glad I did. It meant I really did not check online at all those few days, because evenings are my only online time really - I try not to use the computer at all in the day time when the boys are up (week days). I was still about as tired with the early nights as I had been before, so I'm just glad I wasn't making the sleep debt worse!

I'll try to update again soon! :)

20 weeks pregnant - Back from my scan!!

Ohhh I'm so sorry it's 10.20pm already!! I had very little chance to phone family before the boys were in bed, and then family were CHATTY this evening on the phone, hehe! THEN I had to scan the pictures from the scan and upload them, get Neil to take my 20 week belly picture (I'm 20 weeks, I'm 20 weeks!!!!) and upload that too. Phew! This is the earliest I've managed to get here, which is craaaazy! I'm glad to have it all ready to post at last though :) I could have updated Facebook but I feel so loyal to my pregnancy diary that this is the first place I wanted any sort of online announcement, plus not many people who read me here know me at Facebook.

Soooo! :)

The scan went great! We prayed last night for no delays (we have had long waits in the past), baby in easy-to-measure positions, and gender visible! Also for the boys to do well with Sarah (our friend from church who graciously agreed to come and watch them while we went to the scan, phew!), and for Nathan to be okay at the scan (despite being due a nap!).

God was so faithful! The scan was at 2.30pm, we arrived at 2.25 and were called in the INSTANT I left the check-in desk! :) Never had that before! Nathan was as good as gold, I was so proud of him! He was tired but Neil held him and he just did not make a peep. Well, a few peeps, literally! He just said, "Doh?" every now and then, and otherwise sat still the whoooole time! He did have a garibaldi biscuit for a snack at one point though, that helped!

Anyway! The baby was in mostly good positions for measurements, though some of it was uncomfortable as she had to really press into awkward places with the scan thingy to get the visual she wanted.

We told the sonographer before she started that we really wanted to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, and that we'd love a gender shot if she could get one, because our 4-year-old was desperate to see evidence that our baby has got a willy, haha! ;) Seriously, he was adamant! Hehe!

She was great and zoomed around like crazy looking at various flashes of the baby's anatomy, and then looked carefully for a gender shot, which was niiiice and clear. We are having a baby boy - again! ;) No surprise to me whatsoever! I actually saw the whole bunch of boy bits clearly as she was whizzing around from the start. He is a very obvious boy! ;) This was the nicest gender reveal, for me, other than Arthur's, because I really did have NOT ONE JOT of expectation that the baby just might be a girl. I was waiting to see the boy bits that I KNEW were there. I looked at the 12 week scan picture again last night and compared it to the "gender nub" shots online that I've seen, and that showed me 100% (pretty much) that there was no doubt this baby was SEEN to be a boy at 12 weeks by the angle of the dangle, as it's known! So, it wasn't like, "Oh maaayyybe it's a girl?!", it was actually like I had already been to a gender scan and had visible evidence, so it was a no-brainer that it would be a confirmation today. That probably helped my mindset a TON today! I was so excited when I saw for sure that the baby is a boy. I just grinned for basically the next 30 minutes, and was so incredibly happy to know he's a boy! I had no sense of disappointment whatsoever about not having a daughter (again!). I'm SO happy about that!

So, we can't decide on his name. When I looked at the moving images as the scan was being done, and just watched him in there, his name did not seem to be Reuben OR Benjamin, to me. It COULD have been Benjamin, and could still be. Not so much Reuben. But Noah.... ohhhh, Noah! It went so well, and thinking the name while looking at him gave me such a warm feeling inside. I am strongly leaning towards naming him Noah Benjamin, and hoping that Neil eventually comments (he is so far not saying much about it, just thinking on it!) and says he is thinking the same! I'm still happy to use the other two name choices, but I love Noah for this baby. It doesn't feel as 100% set in my heart as the other boys' names did by this stage, but it's by far the closest thing yet. I'm TRYING not to think of the baby as "Noah" in case it's not what we end up using! I'll keep you posted on that.

I can't believe how in love I am already!!!! Seriously. My baby boy.... it's like it's the first time, all over again! He's only 2D and grainy to my eye, but I just felt like a puddle of goo watching him, and all my comments to things the sonographer was telling me were, "Oh he's so sweet!" or "So lovely!" and so on. I felt slightly daft for it after a while, but I just couldn't seem to switch it off. The ultrasound seemed NEWLY amazing to me, the technology and what we were seeing, even though we've been there and done that a lot of times now, and recently too.

We watched his little heart chambers and the valves opening and shutting. She took a long long time taking still shots of that, and re-did it over and over, and that started to make us nervous, but she moved on in the end and said everything looked fine and normal. Phew! Everything with the baby was very healthy and normal, from what they can see - yayness! I'm so relieved! I feel more nervous with each pregnancy that something could be wrong, I don't know why. So I'm really thrilled and relieved and grateful to God that he's okay.

He had his hands by his head the whole time. He wiggled and moved and raised and lowered his limbs all the time! He wasn't frantic in his movements at all (not like Arthur was, haha! He's the same way today!), and seemed pretty easy-going for a wiggly baby! He had his chin firmly squashed onto his chest when the scan started, and after the first few measurements, he arched his back riiiight up and tipped his head back, and then just stayed there for ever! She couldn't get some important measurements, but he was refusing to budge from that strange position! She did all sorts of uncomfortable things to my tummy, put a pillow under my hips, lowered the bed so that my head was lower than my legs (!), etc, and still he stayed like that! Eventually he moved and curved his back a bit more, but at the end she said I would have to go and wait outside while she did another person's scan, because then maybe the baby would have moved so she could carefully check the spine. It was the last thing she needed to do and she couldn't see it all properly for his position. Then her machine died on her, and after fiddling about and calling in another sonographer, I was moved into the next ultrasound room to finish the scan. When I lay down and the scan started, the baby was in a perfect position for checking the spine, yay! So we didn't have to wait. I also saw one of his feet clearly at that bit, and it was very straight (big relief - that's 3 out of 4 kiddies so far with straight feet! Neil's mum had 4 too, and 3 out of 4 of hers had the deformed foot gene thingy that Arthur inherited).

She checked his face carefully for hare lip, and it was fine. It was lovely to see his face! His top lip protrudes over his bottom lip quite a bit, and that's SO like Nathan - less so the other two. His nose from underneath looked like a precious pointy little triangle, which they have all looked like at their scans. I feel like I know him already, because of having had 3 babies already who I know well, and I actually recognise this 2D little grainy being because his features are already familiar to me from his brothers. I love that!

So, I am (or soon will be!) Mummy to FOUR boys!!!!! How incredible that sounds to me! I feel so proud, and so blessed, and so lost for words, and I just want to laugh out loud every time I think of it! Four boys. Wow. Who'd have thought it?! All my little boys will be able to say they have three brothers, that's quite something! :)

Arthur is ecstatic about the baby being a boy. We got two scan pictures - one is a sort of profile shot, and the other is too except that the baby's torso is twisted by the scan angle in a weird way so that you can just about see the pelvis and little boy part poking out of the middle of it. I was disappointed not to get a proper gender shot for Arthur like I'd asked, but the sonographer was kind of scatty (although nice) and thought she already took one when she hadn't (even though I thought as much near the end of the scan and reminded her! Tsk!).

Never mind. When we got home, the boys were having a great time with Sarah, and Arthur saw the scan pictures on the sofa arm and grabbed them. He took one look at them and yelled, "WILLY!!!" in great triumph, haha! I don't see how he could have seen what the pictures were of, but he was sure he saw a boy bit and he was so thrilled! I said, "Yes, the baby in Mummy's tummy DOES have a willy - it's a boy!" and he jumped about shouting, "Yaaaaaaaaaay!" and squealing! :) He's so pleased. He wouldn't be convinced that a sister might be nice too, when we were chatting last night. He just hopes the baby won't be too cheeky. I'm pretty sure his hopes are in vain! ;)

He wants us to name the baby Justin, like nothing else! I gave him our shortlist of 3 names and asked him which he preferred. He said, "Justin" (which isn't on our shortlist, by the way!), and wouldn't budge on the matter. He eventually said he had a list too, and the choices were Jesus, Justin, Ruby and Small. And those were the only names we would be allowed to choose from!!! ;)

Okay, here are our scan photos!

In the first one the baby his his legs splinted right up over his head! He got into various positions when she was first prodding him about to take measurements, starting off lying verrry casually with one (very long-looking!) leg stretched right out and the other bent at the knee, and ended up doing this yoga position and various others before the "I'm not budging!" arched-back position! You can see his knee joint in front of his chin/nose area, and the rest of his leg up to his foot is less clear beyond it.

In the second photo you can see his little black-hole of a full bladder! :) I love that! He had a full stomach and bladder the whole scan, so it made them nice and clear and easy to see from the start. Next to his forehead in the second photo is a white blob, which is his little hand. His hands were up there most of the time, just relaxed at the sides of his head. He didn't cover his face like the other boys did at all. See his precious little top lip, looking so much bigger than the bottom one!! I'm so in love with that because I'm possibly-unhealthily besotted (?!) with Nathan these days and want to implode with his cuteness at all moments of the day (pretty much), and Nathan has that same top lip. I loooovvve when Nathan smiles, how his top lip curves so sweetly, and I'm so eager to see something similar and already precious to me, in this next baby boy!

Lastly on the second photo, see how at the other end of the baby, his back curves around at the bottom? The scan angle is weeiird in this picture. You can see his full bladder (the black circle) and then just up and to the right a little is the middle of his pelvis, the front of it. Sticking out of that is his little boy bit! ;) The sonographer had to point that out to me, so I could show it to Arthur.

So there's my sweet baby boy! Another boy! What joy! I'm so happy and thrilled and excited! I'll have a ton more to say about it, but it's getting late and I still haven't updated anywhere online, so I want to hurry and post this and then update Facebook and my arthursmummy blog and so on, before falling into bed! I'm so tired today. Nathan was up a lot in the night. I think he had some trapped wind. So tired and breathless today.

My bump seems way bigger just these last 3 days, and Neil has noticed the same. I'm 20 weeks today so we took a belly pic. I remembered at the last minute that the 20 week pictures is always a comparison picture, wearing the same clothes every pregnancy and standing in front of the same door (pretty much). Sadly I couldn't find the trousers I wore the last 3 times, but I wore the top, just with some maternity jeans instead. Here are the comparison photos, in chronological order - Arthur's pregnancy first, then Matthew's, then Nathan's, and then this sweet baby's! I'll post it in the belly gallery too, but maybe not tonight. I want to hurry and update other places now!

Bigger, aren't I? I think! Than all the other three. Still very samey though - obviously my BOY thing! Or else just how I carry my babies! This theory still has not been tested with a girl pregnancy! ;)

Okay, I must post this to put you out of your misery! Thanks for being excited for me! :) I'm so thankful for my FOURTH baby boy!!!

Benjamin's Ultrasound Gallery!

My ultrasound scan pictures during my fourth pregnancy.

This is Babydot at 6 weeks and 3 days. Babydot is the little grey blobby peanut at the bottom of the black gestational sac, and the yolk sac is the little grey blobby thing above Babydot in there. Babydot measured right on for dates, and I saw the heart beating so clearly! You can just make out a tiny white-ish dot in the middle of Babydot, which is part of the heart in mid-pulsate :)

Here is sweet Babydot at 12 weeks and 5 days, at the nuchal scan! We got such a clear picture, I'm so pleased! It's the first time we've got a really clear view of the "angle of the dangle" with the genital nub there (it's the little bright white protrusion alongside Babydot's leg, sticking up!). It's an absolutely 100% totally classic BOY nub, seriously. Girl nubs are angled at less than 30 degrees from the spine, and most will lie actually parallel to the spine! Babydot is a BOY, but we'll wait for the big scan to be totally sure! ;) "He" was the most incredibly laid-back little baby person in there - see how he's using the placenta as a pillow?!

These two scan pictures are from the 20 week scan, where we found out for sure that Babydot is indeed a boy! :) We don't have a name for him yet though, unlike other pregnancies at this stage! He was laid-back still, but pretty wiggly. He had his little hand up for these pictures, and with the weird angle of the picture, you can see his little boy bits sticking out of his pelvis in the picture where his hand is clearly visible by his forehead! He has Nathan's sticky-outy top lip. I am completely besotted and can't wait to meet him!

Benjamin's Belly Gallery!

My belly pictures for my fourth pregnancy, Benjamin, who was born on July 9th 2009.

I missed my usual 5 week belly picture this time. We travelled to France that day and then I started bleeding, so never caught up with it, unfortunately!

10 weeks pregnant

15 weeks pregnant (missed 14, sadly!)

16 weeks pregnant (on track at last, hoorah!)

20 weeks pregnant

22 weeks pregnant

24 weeks pregnant

26 (and a half!) weeks pregnant

28 weeks pregnant

30 weeks pregnant

32 weeks pregnant

I missed 34 weeks!! :(

36 weeks pregnant

39 weeks pregnant (I missed 38 weeks)

40 weeks pregnant - taken on my due date! This was taken last thing before bed, and Benjamin was born the very next day! It's so surreal to think that he was in my arms less than 24 hours after taking this photo - I had no signs of labour starting at all!

15 days old already!

Nathan is two weeks old! I am writing this one-handed, as he is in my other arm, breastfeeding. It's slooooow for me to type one-handed, and once he's finished nursing I will stop to burp him (this can take AGES!) and it's already 11.45pm so basically this needs to be a quick entry.

I got my new camera! Hooray! I have taken fifty thousand photos with it but still haven't uploaded the software onto the computer, so I can't share the photos yet. I must get around to that! There seems to be no time to do anything at ALL these days!

Okay, he's off the breast and he burped IMMEDIATELY! So now he is back on Neil's chest while he watches something-or-other on TV :)

Still want to make this a quick-ish entry (though that never normally pans out!) because I don't want to be up crazy late. Going to bed takes HOURS these days, seriously. I start going to bed, and in the process Nathan wakes and nurses, and then needs burping, and a nappy change, and then needs to nurse on the other side, and be burped again. And then I try to put him down to finish getting ready for bed, but he cries and fusses (and often wakes a small boy). Somehow the whole process takes hours. If I start "going to bed" around midnight, for example, I am actually going to sleep somewhere around 3.30am. Not kidding. I'm so tired! But, indescribably thankful that Neil is out of work right now! Because after the boys are all up in the morning and Nathan has nursed again and been changed, etc, and I've eaten breakfast, I can go back to bed with Nathan upstairs for as long as he'll let me sleep, to catch up a bit.

Sleep is going pretty badly. Nathan still won't sleep much anywhere except on me. I got so anxious about it, but in the end the need for sleep won out and I just put him on my tummy and covered us with a sheet and 2 blankets and we slept fine. After a couple more days/nights, Nathan was getting more mobile in his sleep. He stretches and stuff, and ends up in a slightly different position from his stretching, but still asleep. One morning I woke to odd little skwawking sounds, and looked down and saw Nathan's legs and bottom still on my tummy, but his head hanging right over the side of me to the mattress!! It scared me silly! The next time we slept like that it happened again, and the next time. After that, I told Neil I couldn't risk sleeping with him on me anymore.

So the next night we got NO sleep till 4am, either of us, because we were back to square one with Nathan not sleeping for any length of time unless he was on one of us. Neil eventually sat up with Nathan on his front and slept that way till the boys woke at 6.30am. Nathan didn't fall off him - Neil's arms were propped well and he held onto Nathan while he slept.

Matthew and Arthur are being disturbed by Nathan more than ever now, at night. I don't know why! I thought they would get MORE used to it with each passing night, not less so. It's difficult. Matthew cries and cries and is so distressed when he wakes at night, for some reason. He won't go back to sleep without one of us in his sight, and gets hysterical about it (for a LONG time) otherwise. So in the end we decided I would move downstairs with Nathan, until we reach the stage where we can move the older boys into a shared bedroom (not till a couple of months after Nathan arrived). That way, Matthew is less disturbed as we're further away. Arthur is less disturbed too, as we're not in his room. Neil gets to sleep on the bed next to Arthur where they're both used to being, and another bonus for him is that he doesn't have to sleep on the floor any more! Poor guy!

I sleep on the sofa with the Moses basket right up next to me on its stand (though I just put the basket on the floor last night next to the sofa, not on the stand). Then I can have some low light on (in the kitchen, so it shines through but we are still in an unlit room as such), to see him and get him latched on the breast easily, etc. I can do his nappy changes in the kitchen which is the furthest away from the sleeping boys upstairs (Nathan cries LOUDLY when having a nappy change!), and also the nappies are kept in the kitchen above the tumble dryer, so it's straightforward.

The first night it worked really well. I put him down in his Moses basket every time he'd nursed fully, and then I'd been holding him for at least 10 minutes FAST asleep. Once I put him down after that, he stayed asleep for the next couple of hours till he woke for a feed again. I was so encouraged!

But that was it. The next night he slept the first block okay, and woke up around 4am to feed, and that was it. He didn't stay asleep when back in the Moses basket after that, so I didn't get any more sleep that night. Last night he wouldn't go down in the basket at all. Even if he was FAST asleep, he would stir and fuss straight away when I put him down. I know he CAN sleep well in there on his back, he just doesn't want to at the moment for some reason. Anyway, so by 3.30am last night I was too tired to do it any longer, and I knew he could keep it up ALL night if he needed to! So I lay down slightly propped up on the sofa, put cushions under my arms so that my arms were like raised "walls" either side of my body, and lay Nathan on my tummy as before. That way he couldn't roll off or get his face in bedlinen or a cushion or something. He slept till 5.30 and then woke fussing, so I picked him up to nurse him, but he settled right down again, so I put him back on my tummy and went back to sleep till the boys came down at 6.50am! Yay! He really does sleep great on me.

I just love him so much! Slightly random sentence, but it just suddenly occurred to me with force, just like that :) His little face and features are becoming so familiar to me already, like it's a face I've always known somehow. I cherish his differences from his brothers. I always used to think it would be so cute to have children that looked very similar, like peas in a pod. I still think that's cute! :) But I love my children as individuals so I particularly love the things that make them different from each other, that make each of them unique. Equally, I LOVE seeing the features that are identical to one of the others - it just makes my heart melt to see Nathan scrunch his little face up and think, "Wow, he looked JUST like Arthur/Matthew when he was a tiny baby!"

Nathan has had a slightly goopy right eye for a day or two. I have been squirting breastmilk in it :) That will fix it, I hope. Breastmilk is amazing stuff! Today the right eye is much better than yesterday, but the left eye is juuuust starting to be goopy too. I squirted milk in it this evening so hopefully it won't get really yucky before it gets better. My aim is rather poor though! ;) It takes me a few squirts before I get one in his eye! He doesn't mind at all, and doesn't even flinch when he gets milk shot in his eye! It's a very fine soft spray though, and it's gentle stuff. He does end up with that fine spray all up his forehead and over his nose and cheeks in the process though, haha!

Oh, oh, guess what?!!! We found the baby clothes!!!! Yaaaaay! We sat down and prayed, and then Neil went up in the loft and found them within the hour! Thank you Lord! They were in a box labelled "clothes age 4-5" *sigh*

Anyway now we have a huuuuge overabundance of teeny tiny clothes, and I'm so so happy to see all the clothes I bought when broody and childless a few years back, and which my other babies didn't even fit in because they were over 7.5lbs (which is what the tiny/early baby clothing goes up to!). Nathan fits it ALL soooo well! I'm actually worried that he won't have time to wear all the cute little outfits before he outgrows them! Thankfully he pees or pukes on an outfit a couple of times a day, so we're getting through the cute outfits after all ;) He still has more than 50% of them to wear for the first time yet though!

Thank you Jemma for being ready to send more baby clothes! I am pretty sure we won't need them now, as we have so many now we've found the box! Nathan has outgrown a couple of the very tiny things he wore at first, so he must be growing a little bit. He's getting longer in the body I think, as the popper vests aren't quite doing up on the early baby size now. He is wearing newborn popper vests, but still the early baby sleepsuits (except the Tesco ones we bought for him when he was born and used in the hospital. Either he has grown or they have shrunk a bit in the wash). I have something like 20 tiny (and oh-so-cute!) sleepsuits and maybe 15 vests, so even if we're behind with the laundry (not hard to do these days!), there is still plenty for him to wear. Yay! I'm so pleased!!

He's wearing all sorts of nappies, except for disposables. Neil keeps suggesting to just put him in a disposable when it comes time to change him, but I refuse to let him, haha! He still has that sore bottom, but it seems better today than it was. I use that as my excuse! But really I just want him to be in cloth nappies. I love them, they are so cute! And better for his bottom :) At the moment the other boys are wearing disposables quite a lot - I don't like it! It's SO much easier, but I don't like it. I pretty much refuse to let Nathan's new little bottom sit in paper and plastic though. He is wearing XS Fuzzis (still rather large on him!), size 0 Kissaluvs, lots of newborn homemade nappies (he fits the Honeyboys really well), and right now he's in his first size 0 Tots Bot! He is wearing mostly newborn Proraps and newborn Bummis Super Whisper Wraps. If we have lots of them waiting to be washed, he'll wear a size small BSWW but they are too big on him really.

I'm doing okay. My bleeding is fairly light now, and brown, not pink or red any more. I can't WAIT till that part is ALL GONE! I always hate the messy after-bit. Yuck! This time I haven't got round to using my cloth pads at all. There's so much we never got round to doing or preparing because we weren't ready for him to arrive so soon! Next time I will be better prepared, even though it's unlikely to happen again this early.

The boys (Arthur and Matthew) are being incredibly difficult to handle at the moment still - Arthur especially. He is having some difficulty adjusting. He is feeling threatened, I think, as far as his "place" in the family goes. His behaviour is so aggressive and manic most of the time. He is so sensitive and highly strung and goes out of his way to do the opposite of what we're asking, and screams like crazy over the tiniest thing, like "It's time to change your nappy/put your bib on/get ready for bed." He runs away screaming and makes a HUGE fuss about doing anything we ask him to. His behaviour is driving. me. crazy. I'm so glad Neil's at home doing a lot with the boys, because I do not know how I'd manage it otherwise. I mean, I think I would lose my temper and be too rough with him a lot. I just seem to have a very short fuse at the moment, and he is being absolutely horrible to be with a lot of the time, going out of his way to disobey, or destroy something, or hurt somebody, and then laughing or singing mocking songs while I'm trying to explain why he mustn't do such-and-such, or discipline him for something. I can't BEAR the laughing/mocking thing, it makes me want to explode! Urgh.

Anyway. I am trying to encourage him to talk about how he's feeling about things at bedtime, when we have some good alone time together and he's in a more wound-down state. The other night I prayed aloud with him (like I do every night), and prayed that God would help him feel happy and secure, and that he wouldn't find it so difficult to have Nathan in the family, etc. He listened quietly while I prayed and looked sad afterwards. I asked him if there were things worrying him, and he said yes, several things!

The things were a bit non-sensical though, so I wondered at first if he was making them up. But I listened and sympathised, and talked with him about the way he was feeling and hugged and kissed him a lot, etc. He said the first thing was, "What if Nathan and Matthew and Daddy laugh at me?" I told him that he was Nathan and Matthew's BIG brother and they would think he's wonderful, and not laugh at him. And Daddy would never laugh at him because he loves Arthur as much as Mummy does, and we love him too much to ever want to laugh at him.

Then the next thing was that "some people say I look like a high wire" (very sad face after this was revealed). After much talking, this turns out to be something he overheard - I don't even know who it was saying it. He overheard somebody saying to Neil or I that Arthur is a real live wire (or something like that) - you know how it would sound, sort of with the rolling eyes and the "oh my gosh you've got your hands full!" tone. He knew it meant that the person thought he was making life hard for Mummy and Daddy because he was a "high wire" as he calls it, and he didn't know what it meant but he felt that it was a bad thing to be, poor little love.

I explained to him that being a "live wire" meant that he had lots of energy, that's all, that he was lively and busy and energetic, and that it was NOT a bad thing at all. He just shook his head and looked sad :( I explained that an energetic little boy might mean that his mummy and daddy had to run around after him a bit more, and maybe that might make them a bit tired! But not a BAD thing! I told him that I love his energy and liveliness!

Then he said, "Mummy, there are two more things worrying me..." and told me that some people said he looked like a painting (??) and the other one was that some people called him "dirty mud". I didn't know what to make of those - maybe he was making them up by then?! But I went with it and hugged him and said how that must have made him feel sad, and sometimes people say mean things, and we KNOW they're not true because he isn't dirty OR muddy! So it's best to try to ignore people who say mean things. *sigh* Poor baby. Right after that I sang to him and patted his back and told him to think of all his favourite happy things. He then said, "Mummy, those were all the things from my bad dreams." Ah-HA! So he has been dreaming about people calling him mean things and his brothers and his daddy laughing at him, and worrying about what somebody said about him being hard work for his mummy and daddy. Poor Arthur. That definitely tells me he feels threatened and unsure about things right now. I need to help him with that, but I feel clueless as to how! Advice, anyone? I should have written all this at my other diary as it's not really pregnancy/baby related, but hey ho. Maybe I'll copy and paste this part in there, in case there are people reading there but not here, who might be able to give some advice?

Anyway. I am not sure how to parent my kids right now. It's all new, the issues and challenges, and I have no CLUE what I'm doing! And no arms free or energy or time for anything at all, quite apart from that.

My Coorie sling arrived in the post and it's beautiful! I love it! I have worn Nathan in it 3 times so far around the house, and it's fine, but I'm not sure if I'm wearing it quite right. I'm doing what the instructions say, and it does seem to be the right size too, but somehow Nathan seems kind of squished up wrong in there, in the cradle position, or there isn't enough of the fabric up behind his head to support it if he's in the tummy-to-tummy position (upright). And the sling seems to slide after a while so that he's no longer centred on my front (or rather, the sling isn't centred any more), and it slips off my shoulder a little. I wore him for the longest time so far today, only about 45 minutes, and he slept soundly the whole time (though noisily as his chin was squashed onto his chest making him snortle a bit!), but it seemed to slide a bit (shoulder) and after about 30 minutes my back was aching a little. So hmmm. I guess I can't be wearing him quite right, but I can't see what I'm doing wrong, if anything. I don't seem to get on very well with slings! I WAS able to put the lamb casserole on to thaw/cook, switch the laundry from the washing machine to the tumble dryer, and look online for a little while, all with Nathan in the sling! If it works, it makes life so much easier! If only my back didn't ache with every sling I try. And Nathan's so tiny and light so far too! I even needed to go to the loo, and managed to do that with Nathan in the sling! :)

Okay it's really late now and Nathan has nursed again on the other side, burped, and is now sucking Neil's little finger. He really seems to need to suck, beyond when he's filled his tummy (he's started possetting tons of milk after he's full now, the very day that I told the health visitor and Neil (and this diary??) that he ISN'T the possetty type, haha! That very evening he brought up huge swathes of milk after a big feed! My milk supply is up in response to his first growth-spurt marathon. The let-down is more forceful since a couple of days after that, and he is getting a fuller tummy too.

All three of my boys have had a huge need to suck. The doctor told me (when Arthur was tiny) that one in three babies will NEED to suck for comfort, rather than just enjoying sucking for comfort. Otherwise they'll get distressed and root and so on, for many hours if needed! Arthur sucked our fingers for hours at a time, for months on end till he seemed to outgrow the need for it so much. Then Matthew was the same way! We had a little one to attend to as well as a tiny baby, so he couldn't suck our fingers around the clock so easily. We used a dummy for Matthew and that soothed him wonderfully. He gave them up himself by around 6 months old. We didn't have to wean him off them at all.

Now Nathan shows signs that he NEEDS to suck too. So much for one-in-three babies! THREE-in-three, in our case! I think we'll go the dummy route with Nathan too, but he is so tiny still, I'm not sure if the dummies would gag him with his tiny mouth and palate. We have two in the cupboard that are still in their packaging, left over from Matthew's time, so we can use those when we get around to it. If they soothe him and he'll take them, it will make things a lot easier, as he'll be happier for us to put him down (I hope!) to attend to one of the other boys or get something done, and we'll also be more hands-free in the evenings if he isn't sucking our fingers to soothe himself to sleep.

Oh! I almost forgot (how could I?!)! Today I won a CAR at eBay!!!! A car!!! I can't believe we bought a car at eBay, it seems such a craaaazy thing to have done, lol! We can't go anywhere as a family at the moment. We have a Ford Mondeo and it only fits two toddler car seats in it, with no room for another. So no room for Nathan. We had always intended to sell the Ford in January and buy a bigger car (an MPV - we basically need a 7-seater vehicle, especially if we're going to have another baby before we're "done") with whatever money we got for the Ford. We knew it might mean we could only afford a VERY second-hand MPV right now, but we were prepared to accept that. We just need a car big enough to seat us all (preferably with luggage space for the pushchairs), even if it's old and flagging! We can't afford anything outside of what we get for the Ford anyway, as we have NO other money or income right now.

So of course Nathan came before we got around to that! We really want to go to church! But we can't go anywhere as a family at all. Neil continues to take the older boys to the park, shops, etc, every day in the Ford, and I haven't wanted to go out in the first couple of weeks postpartum anyway, so it hasn't mattered. But we're really missing church now, and want to take our tiny boy out and show him off a bit! It would be nice to be ABLE to go out, all of us together as well, in our car.

So we were just looking on eBay for an idea of what things were selling for. And somehow ended up bidding on a Chrysler Grand Voyager! It's old (1998) but the milage isn't awful, and it's in great condition with recent new parts and nobody has ever smoked in it (important to me!). It's a vile colour inside and out, but oh well! We did our research and found that the Voyager has the best luggage space at the back out of all the MPVs. And captain's chairs. So we have four seats that can take infant or toddler car seats, and another seat with just a lap belt in the back row. That will suit us well! I hope it lasts on us!

We are pretty sure from our research that we can get £3000 plus for our Ford, and that's pretty much what we were expecting to pay for a Chrysler, from what we'd seen. We were just hoping we wouldn't have to pay anything extra on top of what we get for the Ford, to buy a Chrysler. This one I bid on had to sell and be picked up this week, because the family have a new car coming on Tuesday and need rid of the old one asap. So they had a low starting price and a low reserve. I won it for under £2000!!! Here's hoping it will all work out okay and we won't be diddled or anything - I do hear of these things happening, but we checked the details out carefully and it seems pretty legitimate - even had tax and MOT till NEXT January! Actually it's getting MOT'd tomorrow, so if it happens to fail, we'll have the option of saying we don't want it any more. I think we MIGHT say no thanks if that happens. There are others we can bid on, though I'm not sure we'd get quite as good a buy. But if it doesn't fail the MOT, Neil will go and pick it up this week! We will pay them with our groaning credit card, and sell the Ford (for as much as we can!) as fast as we can - Neil will get it cleaned as soon as the car seats are transferred to the Chrysler and then put it up for sale straight away. Then when we get the money for the Ford, we'll put it back on the credit card, and hopefully even have a profit to take the credit card debt down a bit more, or put in the bank to help us pay our next mortgage payment - those are getting kind of scary now!

Anyway. Another load of stuff that should have been in the other diary! But oh well.

Nathan is stirring and fussing, and rooting now that I look at him and see what he's doing! More milk, already?! Well, I will nurse him again and see what he wants to do. Then try to go to bed, it's soooo late. I'll try to get the camera stuff up soon, and hopefully post new photos next entry.

Thank you for the messages - Meg, I can't believe we're a family of 5! It really made me think, "What?!" when I saw your message, hehe! I really appreciate everyone's support and comments. I have been a bit weepy and feeling down today, so hopefully not getting a bit bluesy like I did from around this time (for the next few MONTHS!) with my other babies. I reeeally hope not.

Okay, got to go - Nathan crying.

Ten days old, and photos of my three boys again!

Nathan is 10 days old! I can't believe he's 10 days old already, it's crazy. It feels like the FASTEST 10 days, but also the lonnnngest in existence, like each day has been a week long. I can't imagine he was ever NOT here, but at the same time I'm amazed that he's already been here for as long as TEN days!

And - ding! - right on time, from about 5pm yesterday, Nathan started nursing like NEVER before. I know the growth spurt times are roughly 10 days (my other boys were a few days early for this, both of them having a non-stop nursing marathon from about 7 days old), 3 weeks, 6 weeks, and so on. I thought that mayyybe he might not really have very noticable growth spurts because my supply is high for several nurslings. I don't think I noticed Matthew's growth spurts as much as Arthur's, and I put that down to tandem nursing. Anyway, NOTICABLE this time! ;)

By late evening he was going, ooh, about 30 minutes between feeds! I didn't get to lie down in bed till 3.30am because if I lay down even with him on my tummy, he stirred and ultimately woke all upset and rooting, even if he'd only just dozed off on the breast 15 minutes earlier.

Did I mention, I have a concern with Nathan's feeding? If I lie down to nurse him tummy-to-tummy in bed, at the end of the feed there's always a HUGE soaking wet patch under his head (about the size of his head, and through a towel folded into quarters, to the mattress!). I also noticed that sometimes I could hear liquid in his nose, like he was breathing watery fluid back and forth. Sometimes he would "nose-choke" on it, and it made me anxious, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I put the big wet patches down to me being leaky, or Nathan loosening his latch when he got sleepy, or something.

He also did this when I breastfed him across my body, holding him horizontal (the traditional position, you know the one?), but NOT with the "rugby" hold (under arm). Finally I stayed awake to watch him nurse while we lay tummy-to-tummy in bed, and saw that milk was dripping from his nose! He was nursing happily, and I guess his angle at that moment meant that he wasn't bothered by the milk in his nose - there was no sound of it rattling back and forth for the moment - but it was dripping heavily out of the nostril nearest the mattress, about 1 drip per second or maybe a bit faster. That's NOT GOOD, is it? I can't think why it's happening but it makes me worried, in case there's something wrong with him to allow milk through his nose like that.

It also made me wonder (in hindsight) if it had anything to do with the not-much-weight-gain thing. It was the day he was weighed and hadn't gained much that I saw the milk dripping from his nose, which scared me into NEVER nursing him horizontally since, and thus he hasn't "lost" any more milk while feeding. It was a significant amount of his feed I think, each time I nursed him in that position.

But also, thank you for the wise advice in my notes about maybe giving him hindmilk (after nursing one of the older boys) instead of the foremilk! I did this as well, after the midwife visit, hoping it might make a difference.

Anyway, anybody have a clue about the leaky nose thing?! It worries me a bit, because I did the same things with my other two babies and NEVER had that issue with them. His palette is intact and all that, so I don't know why the milk is escaping through his nose in such VAST quantities.

Sooo it is KILLING my back to nurse him constantly around the clock, sitting upright all the time holding him underarm! Also my wrists are not happy tonight, especially the right one, from supporting his head at my breast. I have to twist my wrist to do it and hold it for YEARS (slight exaggeration) without a break, with all this constant nursing! Last night I had to keep giving Nathan to Neil to hold for a few minutes at a time so I could lie down and rest my back before Nathan got irate and screechy and I had to sit up to nurse him again! By about 3.30am I finally figured that I could lie on my side, prop Nathan's head on my lower arm, and nurse him side-lying from the opposite breast. Dead arm, but YAY - sleep while nursing!! And no leaky nose :) I'll be doing the same tonight. I got so scared to nurse him lying down before because I knew I would go to sleep and not hear if he drowned on breastmilk or something.

Anyway, his super frequent nursing has continued all day today and I am feeling really drained and tired out. Also a bit headachy, so I'm probably not drinking enough, though I'm trying! I'm snacking and eating okay too. I love breastfeeding him, so it's all good! And my nipples are not falling off yet, so it's okay! ;)

The midwife came today and weighed him again, and he weighs 5lbs 15oz - a gain of 6oz since the last weigh-in 3 days ago, and finally above his birth weight, yay! I would have eaten somebody's hat if he hadn't gained weight, even if it was all piled on during last night alone, hehe! I'm so glad he's gained weight and the pressure is off. I mentioned the leaky nose thing to the midwife but she hadn't encountered it before, so couldn't help. She suggested I ask my GP, but I'm soooo not going to the (germy) GP surgery with my pre-term newborn! The health visitor is coming for our first appt tomorrow so I'll ask her too. Failing that, maybe I can phone the doctor and talk to her?

A midwife will come to us the day after tomorrow and weigh Nathan again, and do our full discharge if they're still happy with him, yay!

Nathan is on Neil's chest at the moment, and has been there maybe 45 minutes (quite a good break today!) but he is stirring and squeaking and making scrunchy faces, so I think I will have to leave this entry for a bit - maybe I can set the laptop up next to me and continue one-handed for a while? But that would probably drive me CRAZY with how sloooowww it is (I usually touch-type at speed with both hands!), so maybe not. Anyway, off to nurse my sweet tiny! Back if there's a break, later!

Back, but maybe not for long. Poor baby has a red bottom :( It looks so sore. He has been in disposables a few times today so maybe that’s it? We don’t normally have awful trouble with sore bottoms with cloth. We just put him in an XS fuzzi bunz (which is enormous on him!). I think we have run out of newborn disposables now so it’s cloth all the way (unless Neil caves and buys some more!), yay! Nathan is sucking Neil’s little finger at the moment, while Neil watches CSI and stuff that I don’t want to see! If he is cross about that I will put him back to the breast, but he’s had 3 sides so far, and my breasts are hoping for a lil break, just a little one. I am thinking it will be another long night for nursing, so I’m trying to drink plenty of water at the moment!

I have started looking at newborn sleepsuits on eBay. *sigh* I won a lot of 3 Next sleepsuits for 99p yesterday. We’ll never find that darn box in the loft because Neil isn’t going in the loft to look for it. Mind you, he has a lot on his plate at the moment, and very little time or energy! But still, I’m so frustrated about it. I can’t look, it’s too much exertion for me right now to go in the loft and sort and shift stuff. So if Neil doesn’t, the clothes won’t get found, till long after Nathan has outgrown them. It is SO daft to have to buy a load more clothes when I already HAVE a huge overabundance of them in the loft! Especially with the zero £ that we currently have. So daft. But hey ho. He must have things to wear, especially sleepsuits/vests – they are just WONDERFUL and so easy.

I bought a Coorie sling yesterday!!!! Yay! I have lots of slings, and I know I said last entry that I don’t do well with slings, but right now it would just be GREAT if I could have something easy peasy to put on in an instant, comfy to wear and comfy for the little one, and easy to take off again when I want to sit down. Nathan is in my arms all the time, alllll the time, which I actually LOVE and don’t want to change as such. But yesterday I was sitting on the sofa looking at the hideous mess that is our living room (no visible carpet, NONE, for all the toys, laundry, nappies, etc strewn over the whole room) and feeling kind of depressed that I had to sit and LOOK at it, and my kids had to play in it, and I couldn’t just put the baby down for a moment to clean it up at all. And right at that moment, Arthur surveyed the room and said to me, “Mummy, this room is really messy. I think we need to do a Five Room Rescue!” (that’s the 5-minute Room Rescue from FlyLady!) and then he started picking things up, and said to me, “Can you help me with the Five Room Rescue, Mummy?” and I couldn’t :( I hated that I couldn’t. Maybe in hindsight I could/should have sat myself down on the floor with Nathan in one arm and just tidied the bit next to me with the other arm. Arthur loves to have company when he wants to do housework, and I hated that I couldn’t really do that for him, OR remedy the horrible mess. If I had a sling that I could literally pop on and put the baby into in seconds, I would have been able to use it and say, “Yes, Arthur! I would love to help you!” and get up and TIDY right away. So I realised a sling like that would be useful to have. I do have a Hotsling but didn’t get on with it too well when I bought it for Matthew before he was born. He lay WAY too low in it as a newborn and needed significant boosting with rolled up towels and all sorts. And it wasn’t comfy for very long. It also seemed kind of stiff fabric compared with the soft stretchy fleece of a Coorie pouch.

Sarah’s mum (Sarah’s my brother’s fiancée) sent us £20 in a “congratulations on your new baby” card this week, and so I went to the Coorie website and found that if you buy a “seconds” sling, it costs £20 including postage! The seconds items have a mistake on the seam so that there’s a bit of raw edge showing on the outside of the sling, but it doesn’t affect the use of it at all. I got one in Earl Stripe – multicoloured! I can’t wait for it to arrive! I measured myself to be a size 2. I know I’ll get smaller but not for a while, and it’s really when I have a newborn that I’ll want to use it, and I’ll always be at least a size 2 then! ;) Anyway so that’s good!

Also, remember last entry I mentioned that I thought the camera had been left on because the batteries were dead? Well, no. It wasn’t the batteries. New batteries were put in, and what do you know? The CAMERA is dead. As a Dodo. No life in it at all. I have no idea what happened to it, because it doesn’t look like it’s been bashed or spilled on, or anything. But I have no camera! And I have a new baby!! I MUST HAVE A CAMERA!!! Or else I will lose what sanity currently remains. So Neil and I remembered that my grandparents gave us £50 each for Christmas! We were going to pool it and spend it on a crockpot – I had the very one picked out and everything, but then Neil’s brother gave us a GREAT crockpot for Christmas!!! So we didn’t spend G&G’s money. Yesterday I bought a Kodak camera online for almost all of our pooled money. I would love a GREAT camera but I don’t really care what it’s like right now, so long as it takes photos of my beautiful boy(s) and it’s here asap! Ideally I wanted one that was slightly better than my old one (since it WAS very old), and this one should definitely be better :) So I’m excited about that too! I have loved spending money on big things without actually spending any of our own non-existent money! Yay!

So when the new camera turns up and I have loaded the software and figured out how to use it, I’ll start taking pictures again and post them here. I hate that there’s a gap where I can’t photograph Nathan! I have been using the camcorder a bit here and there, but it’s not the same! Thankfully for my diary, I still have some photos (uploaded from my camera just before it snuffed it, thank goodness!) that I haven’t posted here! I only posted up to Nathan’s “3-days-old” photos, and I have two from when he was 5 days old, and then a bunch from 6 days old of all 3 boys together.

Here are two photos from when he was 5 days old, both taken during the evening. Neil and I take turns to hold him on us so the other one can type/play a computer game/pee, etc. Here he is on Daddy (look at his wittle face! All scrunched up and it reminds me so much of a certain type of cute lil doggie but I can’t think what type (is that bad to have compared my newborn to a dog?!)), and on (very tired) Mummy:





I think I mentioned last entry that Arthur suddenly wanted to hold Nathan one evening for the first time – that was when Nathan was 6 days old. Since then he has held him a lot, and asks to all the time :) Anyway, so he asked, and we put Nathan on him while he sat on the sofa, and Matthew was instantly eager to climb up and sit with them, so I whipped out the camera and took a bunch of photos! I can’t figure out which to post and which not, so here they all are:

















My sweet little boys!! I am so blessed to have THREE BOYS! I know I have said it already, but hey, you’ll have to get used to it because I feel pretty sure I’ll be saying it a lot from now on! I hope I get lots of good photos of the three of them together (when the new camera arrives) because I just love photos of my three boys! Looking at them just makes me feel so BOWLED OVER with sort of surreal disbelief that I even HAVE three children, and that they are all boys, but also just sooooooo proud and so thankful for them.

And, d’you know? Call me crazy but I am missing pregnancy (these last couple of days – about the same as when it started after my other two as well!), and reeeeally looking forward to doing it all again! *sigh* I just love it.

One day old!

Thank you for all the lovely messages and congrats! I am still in hospital with Nathan so it's a lovely bright patch in my day to come and read your messages! Jemma, thanks SO much for the package you've sent! It's so lovely of you and will make all the difference - can't wait for it to arrive. Neil looked and looked but somehow can't find the box of tiny baby and newborn sized clothes in the loft, which is a bit of a concern! He had to go to Tesco in the end and buy some short-sleeved vests and sleepsuits in size "early baby" (5lbs - 7.5lbs) because Nathan was temporarily wearing a premature (up to 5lbs!) sleepsuit from the neonatal unit as we had only 1 sleepsuit for him. Now he has 6 cute little sleepsuits and 6 tiny white vests, which Neil stayed up late for last night, to get them all pre-washed and tumble-dried for this morning - what a sweet love he is! Neil also couldn't resist a lovely fleece dungarees outfit which will be ideal for Nathan to wear home when we go as I hear the weather is horrible and reeeally cold - I have no idea about these things because I left planet earth on Friday (!) and my little 3-bed ward has NO windows! It's an internal room (not nice!) and anyway the beds are screened off from each other by curtains, which have always been drawn closed since I arrived. I kind of miss the outside world but I'm busy enough not to mind about it too much at the moment!! Windows would have been nice though.

Neil also bought a little padded snowsuit type thing with a hood in size "early baby" for the journey home. It's still just tooooo surreal - I can't believe I have an early baby! I can't believe he's here sometimes (it just hits me, esp when reading back my last couple of diary entries before Jan 11th, casually chatting about how I'll be 36 weeks on Sunday (the day after he was born!) and I'll post another belly pic, and I can't believe I'll be 36 weeks pregnant, etc, etc! But most of the time, being isolated in this little hospital world with no windows, it just seems matter-of-fact - he's here, of course he's here, was there really ever a time when he wasn't?

I have felt really fine since the middle of last night, about staying in till Monday (tomorrow, the day they had said would be the earliest we might go home). I don't know why. Jeannie's message helped. I also got to feeling like, well, its been a couple of days already, what's one more now? The boys are doing well at home, and I'm actually really beginning to enjoy the extended one-on-one bonding time with Nathan. I am entering that babymoon zone and just feel completely besotted with him at all times.

He's just so GORGEOUS!! When he popped out of me onto the bed , I had my back to him as I'd given birth on my knees leaning against the raised top end of the bed. I instantly tried to twist/crane round to see him, but couldn't see him properly. I was saying, "I can't see him, I can't see him!" and then when I could - "Ohhh, he's so beautiful! He's so gorgeous!!" I have never gushed like that the instant I saw my own newborn before, but I was just completely BOWLED OVER by Nathan from the moment I saw him - not that I didnt love my other children from before they were even born, but it has just seemed so strong this time around.

I am getting nervous that the system will time out and I'll lose this entry so I'm going to post it now. I'm GAGGING to post photos, and I amtaking them, but will need to wait till I can upload them onto the computer when I get home. Will update again when I can.