To house, or not to house....

.... That is the question.

Do we go for it? Or do we back out? We had our second offer accepted and if we don't pull out we are due to complete on the 9th April.

We had the survey done today and as expected the house is a complete and utter DIY bodge-job. And the two things that we thought we could wait and do later are things that we need to get done sooner, and a couple of other things need doing before we even think about decorating. The attic and roof need sorting out, which we could have waited to do but will need to at least get the basics done now; and we wanted to save up and get proper sash windows put in but as the existing windows need replacing as a priority we'll have to sacrifice other aspects of the work to get them done first too.

How long could I stand to live in a building site? How bad do I think a building site could be? I guess if people can build their own house while living in a caravan - and get pregnant and have baby while living in said caravan - I think I can manage living in a bedroom. That's what we'll have, in reality. A kitchen that functions but is only temporary, a bathroom that functions but is only temporary, and a bedroom for the three of us which will also be our living room and office until other rooms are finished.

I think it will be worth it. It will be hard work and a long hard slog but the prospect of having a family home at the end of it that Ben and hopefully his siblings can grow up in must be worth the effort.

Maybe I'll enter Ben into some "cute baby" competitions, and any prize money can go towards fixing up the house too....!

Our house, in the middle of...

...our street.

Yep, we've been house-hunting again.

We went to look at a couple of places to buy on Saturday, and I ended up falling in love with a house I didn't even want to look at initially, because the garden backed on to the railway line. It's a shell of a house, and a repossession, but what a house. It's a pretty big old Victorian mid-terrace, with a front yard and a back garden bigger than our garden in Wythenshawe was. Two accessible and usable loft spaces, three bedrooms, upststairs bathroom/toilet, downstairs toilet, two reception rooms and a huge kitchen.

Put an offer in last night, it felt like a bit of a cheeky offer considering the asking price but, speaking to the estate agent, it's roughly what they would value the place at in its current condition anyway. And, circumstances being what they are (and my parents having a load of equity in their house) we are in a really good position. If the sellers say yes, we could own the place in a couple of weeks - the thing with my parents means that we don't even need to go through the rigmarole of setting up a mortgage!

Then the process begins of fixing it up. It really is a shell, it needs rewiring and replumbing, the main loft space needs making accessible, the kitchen needs sorting out, plastering and flooring needs doing in all the rooms, and we've said that as long as the kitchen is usable and our bedroom is done, we can move in and do the rest while we live there.

Here's hoping the sellers are amenable to our offer... or if they're not, that they at least give us an idea of how much they would accept!

When the brain takes over.

We've just had a really lovely morning. The one thing that I'd already paid to do, we didn't actually do, but in the end as it turns out the morning was just perfect really!

I've been designing an invitation for work (they won an award at the Sussex Food and Drink Awards!) for a champagne celebration. Nick needed a draft of it for this morning, and only gave me the information last Thursday. I'd emailed him a few draft ideas, and last night at about 10.30pm he emailed back saying I like this one, can you do it like this and can I have a printed draft by 10am in the morning?

Aaargh. The one he'd chosen was the one I'd not actually finished designing! So I spent another hour on it last night and decided I needed to go to sleep as the computer screen was beginning to swim.

This morning, and I still can't get over this, Ben's been so good! He's only been a tiny bit sick, he's not cried, he's been so good and actually really lovely company while I've been frantically trying to get his breakfast, my breakfast, designs finished and drafts printed all before 9.45am so we had enough time to run down to the shop with them.

Nick, bless him, called me a miracle worker again :) It's nice to be appreciated!

We were supposed to go to our mummy and baby yoga group after that, but after chatting to the girls in the shop (and Ben having cuddles) and a nappy change later, we actually set off from Steyning at 10.30am - which is when yoga starts. Ah well. But. Halfway down the Long Furlong (towards Durrington), I suddenly started thinking: Where is it I'm going this morning? Yoga. Yoga's in the Burlington, the Burlington is on the seafront. In Worthing. I'm going towards Durrington, which is where the mums and tots group is...

Half an hour later we parked up in Worthing and I decided that as we were already really late, we'd not try and rush to get there for 15 minutes, we'd have a leisurely wander through Worthing instead and meet up with the girls for coffee after they'd finished yoga. It all worked out - Ben had a 45 minute sleep, I had a 45 minute walkabout, I met the girls for coffee, walked back to the car with Bianca, met Libby halfway back, and got back home before Steve got in for lunch!

A lovely morning, all in all.

AND then Ben fell asleep in the car again on the way home and slept until 2pm. Fabulous.

High Time...

... for an update.

Ben had his final immunisations today, the final set until he's 13 months old. I'm glad they wait until they're 13 months, it would be a pretty rubbish birthday present otherwise. So: today. Three injections, two in one leg and one in the other. By the 3rd injection Ben was mightily displeased, as you might expect, so we had a cuddle and a feed back in the waiting room, and he's now forgiven me (or forgotten it ever happened) and is back on the boob - at home, so mummy can have her cup of tea and her biscuits.

He's 4 months old now, and has finally reached 12lbs - that's about 5.4kg in new money. Still in 0-3 month clothes, but that's good - he got nearly 3 months' wear out of his newborn clothes and although he's filling out his 0-3month clothes lenthways, he's still a skinny lad (sorry, slender) and 3-6month stuff would likely fall straight off. After the worrying fortnight where he only put on 3oz, he then went on to put on 11oz the following fortnight!

I looked at his legs while I held the bits of cotton wool over the punctures, and couldn't help remembering how spindly they were for his first set of jabs. His legs are a lovely shape, he's growing so well. I'm trying to find some decent pictures to put in...





He's really started to enjoy his ladybird spinner that his auntie Ruth bought him, he can rotate all the way round by himself and loves playing with the different colours and textures and things. Crinkle Caterpillar is still a firm favourite though, he keeps Ben company in his car seat and on his bouncer and I'm hoping it's washable as the amount of drool Ben produces is phenomenal.

I attempted to start playing with food with Ben last week, but the "what's this muck?!" face, together with tummy aches, has put me off for a bit. I think I'm going to wait now until he actually shows an interest, trying to grab hold of my food, really trying to put anything and everything into his mouth. We tried banana (too slimy, didn't like it much!), apple and banana puree (same reaction as just banana), carrot (a raw stick - was gummed a lot but wasn't interested really) and toast (the best reaction. Evidently doesn't taste of much and feels nice to gum to death and then spit out with a sneeze). He'll suck soup off my finger quite happily, but not off a spoon, at least, not with the intention of swallowing it! So that's weaning postponed for now. Not that I'm desperate to wean - I'm actually kind of glad that I'm still preferable to anything else!

Other developments are his ability to roll from his front onto his back (I have sort of got video evidence of this, although I didn't get the camera far enough away and apart from Ben knocking his head on my knee there's no proof apart from my word that I didn't roll him over myself!), and he has discovered giggling - what a GORGEOUS sound that is! Looking forward to it being a frequent sound in the coming days.

He's growing so fast, too fast and not fast enough all at the same time.

Life with Ben

I spent today sick in bed, looking after Ben. He was really good for the most part, I think he appreciated being able to feed whenever he wanted. I was really quite glad that I chose to breastfeed him! It was tough though: today he decided that every single nappy would be pooey, and he would also require a change of clothes from poo. Not easy changing nappies when you're getting stomach cramps and throwing up. Took me back to when we first got home with him, when I had The Headache, and how difficult things were then.

I managed 4 biscuits today, and a couple of half cups of tea. Thankfully when Steve came home he did a lot of entertaining Ben, gave me a break, and made tea - I used to HATE chicken kievs, they're still not high on my list of foods I will happily eat, but as Steve loves them we had some in. So, chicken kievs and a bit of pasta for tea, and it stayed down.

Ben has cluster-fed all day, being in bed with me that's not been difficult although it's given me backache from not being able to lie on my back very much! He only stopped at about 9pm when he finally fell asleep on me. Eventually we transferred him to Steve's shoulder where he stayed asleep until gone 11pm, and he's having his bottle as I type. By midnight we'll hopefully have turned in as well.

Today has been tough, not having someone around to help out with Ben, to entertain him, not being able to get up or even sit up much has been really annoying. When Steve was sick a couple of weeks back I looked after Ben but it doesn't really work the other way round - Steve can't just take the day off work to look after us.

I find I suddenly have a lot of respect for those who end up looking after babies and children completely on their own. I feel like I'm struggling a lot of the time, and yet I have a husband who does do a lot for us when he's home from work.

I guess, with this blog entry, I wanted to show that it's not all easy, it's not all wonderful: it's difficult and relentless and you can't just take a day off because you're sick. You can't hand them back when you don't know what you're doing any more. Babies are demanding, needy, helpless Things and even though they're SO annoying a lot of the time ....... I love Ben to bits and honestly sometimes I don't know why. But I do.

Steve's just looked over my shoulder and noted that he - we - would do anything for Ben. And pointed out that I'd probably do more for Ben than I would for him...... I hope he knows how much I love him!

Bedtime. Praise God.

Do we stay or do we go?

Bit of a conundrum, really.

We need to move house, I'm desperate to move really, we're running out of space. I mean, we've been running out of space since we moved in to this cottage but with Benjamin's arrival and all the associated paraphernalia, we're SERIOUSLY short of space. To move around in the front room, we need to put the playmat away. The buggy base now lives permanently in the boot of the car. I've been putting the playmat/babygym out on the bed upstairs with the squeaker-com on, just so I can get some work done.

Anyway.

We've seen a couple of houses to rent in Worthing, in the area we want to move to, but we each don't like some aspects of one of the houses.

Steve doesn't like the fact that the hot water tank is in the main bedroom in the property that I like, and I see his point - he can't stand a hot bedroom, it stops him sleeping well (and me by default as it makes his snoring a lot worse!).

The other property is really close to a level crossing, and has very limited parking - one side of the street is off-limits during the day Monday to Friday. The level crossing beeps VERY frequently and would drive me nuts.

So, do we go for a short-term let? Bearing in mind there are very few of them in the right area as well.

The other things I have to put into consideration are that I'm still trying to get my milk supply back up as I want to continue breastfeeding Ben for as long as possible - I've been doing a little bit of research and realised that to make a good go of it I really need a few weeks straight where we can just let all routine go to pot and just concentrate on demand and supply. So would moving house interfere with this? Probably...

Then there's ..... well, that's it really. I suppose sleep training is another thing that we need to take into consideration, and as our newly discovered free evenings (which have come about by giving Ben another bottle of formula which basically knocks him out) are going to go by the wayside anyway we might as well go all the way and attempt this sleep training thing.

So we are going to be knackered anyway. And trying to move house as well..... well, maybe it is a bit stupid to try and do that right now.

But I so desperately want to move.... I need space, I want to be able to move about freely in my house, I want everything to have its place AND BE IN IT, and for everything to be easily accessible. I want warm rooms that aren't draughty, that I don't have to wrap Ben up like a penguin before leaving him under his babygym. I want to be able to invite friends round and for there to be space for them AND us to sit down - and space for babies and toddlers to not get into too much mischief.

Basically,

I want it all....

And I want it NOW.

So:

Do we stay or do we go? Do we stay and wait, and hope that a better offer turns up? Or do we move and put up with the little things that annoy us, so we are closer to our friends and have a little space to stretch out in?

Answers and thoughts on a postcard, please. Or in a comment if you prefer.

I must be mad...

That's the second time that thought has invaded.

I want to be pregnant again, I want another little one...

The first time was at Jamie and Debs' wedding, just before Christmas. We'd left Ben with his grandparents while we took the photographs and, during the day, being somewhat distracted, I was absolutely fine. There was no chance to miss him! But at the reception, at the Wedding Breakfast, we were able to relax. And there were so many bumps, and so many babies, and I started missing my baby. And then, out of the blue, I starting thinking - I want another one!

This first time the thought was VERY quickly followed by another stream of thoughts yelling STOP THINKING THAT are you inSANE? STOP STOP STOP STOP SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP.....

And so the thought slunk away into a corner, biding its time.

Last night it reappeared. I don't know why - perhaps it was because my world was asleep, Stephen and Ben upstairs all tucked up, me on clean up and tidy up and express duties, looking at photographs of the beautiful and pregnant Hazel H, and my hormones decided to start getting all broody again.

Now let's face it, I didn't have the greatest of pregnancies, I didn't have the nicest of birth experiences, but Ben, when he smiles at me, when he smiles at that other baby in the mirror, when he gets all shy and buries his face in my shoulder, it makes it all worth it. And I'd do it all again without reservation.



Just not yet.

My Prayer

I am so grateful for those moments when my whole world seems to be at peace - or holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. I stood, looking out of my kitchen window, at a frost-bitten world, holding a sleepy Ben in my arms, waiting for him to start the process of crying himself to sleep, enjoying the peacefulness of the moment and the beauty of what I was holding and what I was looking at. I thank God for moments like this.

I started thinking about my wishlist for what I'd like our next house to have, and realised there are more important things to wish for in a house!

I pray for a house that we can grow into, somewhere we can put down roots at last, somewhere Ben can grow up in. I pray that our house is close by to our friends, that we can easily be in and out of each others' houses - without the need for a car journey. I pray that our home becomes part of the community, that people - friends and strangers alike - are comfortable in our home, that they find a welcome rest from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

And now my little boy is asleep in my arms, my husband is asleep in bed, there's coffee in the pot - peace reigns again. If I could reach I'd take this opportunity to cut Ben's nails!

Christmas Chaos

Have I really not blogged for that long??! Shame on me.

Well, where to begin...

We spent Christmas in Manchester. We stayed in 4 different places, slept in 5 different beds, battled flu and coughs and colds, spent a day without Ben, took our 1st set of official wedding photographs, unpacked maybe 7 or 8 boxes of the billions that remain in my old bedroom (Rachel Evans be warned, get those boxes unpacked now or you'll regret it 6 months down the line when you've forgotten what's in them), threw away 3 binbags full of junk, 1 tub full of paper to be recycled, repacked 6 boxes half the size with things we actually want to keep and actually took a boxful back down to Sussex with us.

Before heading off to Manchester a few things of note happened. Ben's weight gain wasn't what it should be and I got given orders to start packing away more calories than I had been getting to improve my milk supply; Ben had his first set of immunisations (that was a traumatic day, for both of us) which later caused a bit of feverishness which then developed into a proper cough and cold, just as the Lurgy hit me and Stephen. And, I took my prescription for my insulin in to the chemist, so it would be ready to collect the day we headed off to Manchester. Only I forgot to collect it. So I had to get the lovely Christine Phillips to write me a private prescription for the insulin that I ran out of (stupid me) and discovered JUST how good it is that I get free prescriptions. Even having to pay for prescriptions is better than paying the full price. My word but medication is expensive when you have to pay full price for it - which is what I had to when I discovered my medical exemption certificate was not valid for private prescriptions.....

Ben and I went off to the baby clinic again this morning for the New Year Weigh-In, to find he's gained a full pound in weight (just under half a kilo) and 3cm in length in the past 3 weeks - despite being poorly!! We've been on a demand-feeding diet yesterday and today to get my milk supply back up after my poorliness, and it seems to be working. He also seems to be teething already, so we've got a gummy teether and some gel to try. It's great seeing the smiles become more frequent, the colic getting less, the sleeping getting easier. I guess because he's been poorly the past couple of weeks, everything has seemed much worse - and now he's getting better, it feels like a massive improvement.

We really need a new house. The rent runs out in August and we won't be renewing it - those of you who've seen our cottage will understand! I can't imagine a crawler crawling around in here, it would be madness. There's nowhere to put anything, and trying to make this place baby-proof would be like trying to push treacle up a hill. I love that analogy... But seriously, we need to move house. Neither of us think it will be too hard finding a house we like and could afford, but it might be a bit harder trying to find someone who will give us a mortgage.

What would I like in my next house?
- a decent sized garden at the back
- off-road parking would be a bonus, but I really don't want another house that opens straight onto the road/pavement.
- 3 bedrooms (one for us, one for Ben, one for guests / the photo studio / music room / office)
- kitchen/diner because we enjoy entertaining
- a living room big enough for my keyboard
- ceilings that you can't touch just by standing on tiptoes and reaching up
- doubleglazing, central heating that works, none of these daft spotlights that heat up the room without the need for a radiator
- room for a tumbledrier as well as the usual washing machine and dishwasher
- lots of space for storage, and an easily accessible loft
- now this might sound daft, but a blue front door.
- and finally, it has to be close to our friends' houses, within easy walking distance! And not just to where they live now, but to where they will move to...

Only a small list. But I think it's important to know what you want, and to be specific in your prayer requests. I could be even more specific than that, but that would be getting silly.

I went into the greengrocers today, asked about the Christmas Veg Boxes they did, and Nick told me they hadn't had as many orders as they'd have liked but they broke even. Almost to the pound! That's a relief, at the very least. I might be starting back working there again in a couple of weeks, wrap me and Ben up in the Moby, and go and get the invoices sorted out on a weekly basis. There's also talk of various bits and pieces I can do at home which is great. Hurrah, I'll be back at work soon!

Right I am going to make the most of Ben being asleep, and do the washing up and get everything ready to make dinner - tonight we will be eating chicken curry pie, with buttered carrots, and a bottle of red wine.

Chicken Curry Pie
ingredients
short pastry, made with 8oz flour
2 diced chicken breasts
jar of sainsburys basics curry sauce (7p, can't beat it!!)

method
make pastry, line pie dish, bake blind
cook chicken, add sauce, heat through, tip into half-cooked pastry case, cover with remaining pastry, bake.

Buttered Carrots
peel and slice carrots
melt 1oz butter in a lidded saucepan
add carrots, cook with lid on for 10 minutes on low heat until softening
take lid off, turn up heat and cook, stirring continuously, for about 5 minutes.

That's it really. Mmmmmmmmmm

Most of the Story - part two

Thought I'd start off by saying I still think epidurals are the way forward :) They certainly have their place. I spent nearly 12 hours just on entonox and TENS, and not dilating particularly quickly. Once I'd got past 6cm the midwife was happy for me to go for an epidural because I just wasn't getting any further dilated, and was reaching the end of what I could endure with the contractions. The consultant came and checked and decided we needed to progress the labour and the only way for that was the oxytocin drip - which would cause contractions far stronger than I could cope with without an epidural.

I was the 1 in 100 case that suffered a double tap during the epidural. This is when the epidural needle punctures the spinal space as well as the epidural space and causes problems. The symptoms are incapacitating headaches - I understand what migraine sufferers go through now. These headaches started the friday morning when I tried to get up and couldn't. They would hit me instantly when I sat up or tried to stand up, and would go away fairly quickly when I lay down again. I managed to go and see Ben in Special Care (SCBU) once, but couldn't hold him because the headaches were crippling me.

Ben was out of SCBU after 24 hours, and on Friday morning the midwife came along just before breakfast and told me Ben was crying for me and that he needed feeding (they'd been feeding him through a tube). I almost cried because of the thought of trying to stand up to go and see him and feed him through the headache was awful. Then they came back trundling him in his little cot and said they thought it was unfair to expect me to get up and come through so they brought him to me :) and THEN they said that I could keep him as he was being discharged from SCBU!

I'd still go for it even knowing what I've been through since. Tell you what though - the best thing has been the caffeine therapy. It's been hilarious. I had 3 cans of coke in quick succession yesterday morning, and not much breakfast, and had caffeine overdose - major shaking, chatterbox, hyper - brilliant!! So once the headaches have finally gone, which we're expecting to take around 5-6 weeks (they do go gradually) I'll have to be treated for caffeine addiction ;)

Small price to pay eh!

We finally got home last night, and today my major achievement has been to get downstairs. It's amazing how much strength in your legs you lose through a week of being pretty much confined to bed.

Ben on the other hand is doing fabulously, he has no problems latching on for breastfeeding, he knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, I'm hardly having to do anything. He's alert and beautiful and only has screaming fits when we change him. Oh and he's a sneaky wee-er. None of this fountain effect that baby boys are supposed to have. Oh no. He waits until you turn your back and just lets it flow all over himself and his clothes and the changing mat and you don't realise until you pick him up and wonder why everything's wet.

Midwife came and checked us both this morning and she's happy with how everything is progressing - she checked through our postnatal notes and apart from being slightly concerned that someone had appeared to have written that I'd lost 7500ml blood during the blood (that's 14 pints, and would have seen me in intensive care.....) - until she realised that actually what they'd written was >500ml. Handwriting. Dangerous thing - especially in the medical profession.....

Anyway apart from all that I'm still smiling, we had a laugh today which nearly went critical - I got stuck on the bed desperate for a wee, and Steve was stuck under the cot trying to plug an extension lead in but his head and shoulders are bigger than the space under the cot and it was going up and down as he was breathing and so he couldn't come and help me and then we both started laughing... and laughing when you are stuck and need of a wee is REALLY not what you want to be doing!!!!

I'll try and update more again tomorrow, but I think that'll do for now. Time for chocolate pudding and changing bottoms and feeding and bedtime.....

Made it home!

We finally made it home last night, and I've just made it back down the stairs after spending ALL DAY feeding a hungry little monkey. Ok so I've not been feeding ALL day but it feels like that.

Ben is now a WHOLE WEEK old and if it weren't for me we'd have been home ages ago!

I'm still a bit sore down below but the midwife assures me that this will be the peak of the discomfort from the stitches and they'll have dissolved by this time next week.

There's loads and loads of pictures on facebook, here's the link to the album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58782&l=08305&id=614291355

The Peace of God that surpasses all understanding.

Today we begin trying to evict baby in earnest. If he doesn't come out willingly by himself this week, the bailiffs are being sent in next Tuesday :) - I'll be induced, what joy.

Been thinking a lot about this whole induction thing. Last Thursday evening's NCT class was mainly on induction, what they do, how it works, pros and cons etc. Painted a pretty grim picture really, not something I'd willingly go for. But on the way home I realised that actually, my baby's health is far more important to me than my comfort or discomfort, I'd rather have baby out and healthy.

Then, Saturday evening we went on the hospital tour and I was fine until they showed us the maternity theatre. Knowing that if I do end up being induced there's a fair possibility of me ending up having a c-section, I got a bit scared at that point. I hadn't realised that for 20 minutes I was going to be on my own while they prepped me and Steve got changed into his scrubs. I think out of the whole process, that was the bit that scared me the most - the thought of being separated from Steve.

But again, on the way home, I really felt the peace of God reminding me that I would never be on my own. I am just amazed at how peaceful I actually feel about all this. We have been praying with good friends that I'll have a natural birth and baby will come out this week, we have stood together and agreed and said Amen, and now - well, it's not that I don't have faith for that, or that I don't want it to be a natural labour, it's just it's not such a big deal any more. What happens happens. As long as baby is safe and healthy, that is the biggest priority. Everything else is kind of irrelevant now.

I guess if it does come down to going into theatre the best thing I can do is trust the people that are looking after me. If I trust them, I'm not going to panic. I have to trust them. And, as Steve said, if I don't feel able to trust them, then I can trust God because He is my Rock and Saviour, my Strong Tower, my Comforter.

I get to meet my baby soon.

A Grand Day Out

Today has been what I wanted last Saturday to be - a day out, a date day, a day for me and Steve to spend together enjoying each others' company.

We started by going to another NCT nearly-new sale in Worthing and picking up a bag full of funky baby clothes for next to nothing prices; had coffee and then lunch with Julian and Libby and Nathaniel; and then headed in to Worthing to buy a couple of bits for baby like sunscreens for the car windows and also to have a look in the camera shop for flashguns and tripods. Not intending to actually buy anything this time round, just to look.

Ended up buying me a camera like Steve's (except because the camera is a year old and two more models have been brought out since, it was half the price he paid for his last year), a camera bag, a tripod and some spare batteries. I feel like I've come of age, I finally have a grown-up camera of my own. Feels quite weird.

We then had our lovely hospital tour for when baby does decide to make his appearance, and decided on the way home afterwards that instead of getting a takeaway for dinner we'd actually eat out. I can't remember the last time we ate out, just the two of us. It was lovely. An indian meal in a decent restaurant, no rushing, no cooking, just nice food :)

What a grand day it has been.

Thank you God.

Eviction Notice served to Bump-E.

We went for our final antenatal/diabetic clinic and 36wk growth scan today. It appears that whilst I have been feeling like I've been struggling with eating, baby has not been struggling at all. They've put his current estimated weight at 3 kilos. Can't work that out exactly (brain tired) but it's about 6.5 - 7 lbs already. He is "growing well" according to the grinning sonographer. A "good size baby".

Hmm.

Following that, we served Bump-E with his eviction notice. If he doesn't make an appearance by himself by the 21st October we'll be sending in the bailiffs...... (aka I'll be induced.)

We're going to be parents in 11 days' time!!

Like a child in a sweet shop.

Thursday morning 9am. A text from Nick. "Jeni, can you come in at 10ish and take some pictures of the shop?" Such a beautiful day, and perfect timing - I wanted the afternoon off to meet Libby and Nathaniel, and was planning on going to the shop in the morning anyway to do some work.

I love my job. As well as doing the accounts and processing payments, I get to design various bits of marketing for the shop, take photographs for use in said marketing, and I'll be sorting out their website in the new year some time.

So Thursday morning I took Steve's camera in with me and I felt like a child in a sweet shop - I love taking photographs, and to be paid to do it, to have a purpose to the photos I was taking, was just brilliant! All the fruit and veg just looked so delicious in the morning sunshine, and I had a ball taking pictures and seeing if I could get the photos to do them justice.

After a bit of admin work it was time to go and pick up Libby and Nathaniel for an afternoon relaxing at the tea rooms in Steyning. I think we must have spent a good 2-3 hours in there, eating sandwiches and cake and drinking tea in the sunshine. Nathaniel occupied himself by trying to pick up the knots in the wooden table and then hitting the table repeatedly because it made a nice big noise.

After that it was back to the cottage, to see if we could find anything to feed Nathaniel with, as Julian was going to be quite late picking them up. We discovered that Somerfield baked beans evidently don't taste as good as Asda baked beans, and we also discovered that feeding Nathaniel cheese when he's not very well produces a lot of puke. Poor Libby had put a nice top on for coming out to play, and Nathaniel had already rubbed a big piece of gummed rusk onto her top. The puke finished it off. Good job we're about the same size although my brain was not up to speed and I went rushing off upstairs trying to find something for Nathaniel to be changed into rather than a clean top for Libby! Silly Jeni.

Distraction...

We spent the weekend collecting all the last bits and pieces for baby, like cots and buggys and nappies. God came with us, although it didn't feel like it at the time... when we finally made it to Ikea on Saturday evening, the cot we'd decided we wanted wasn't in stock! Grrr. So we had to choose a different one, and then we had to choose a different changing table as a result.

But, yesterday, when we were (well, Steve was) building the stuff, we realised that if we'd bought the cot and dresser that we originally wanted it would have fitted in the space available but wouldn't have been very practical as it had drawers which would have been particularly awkward to open.

Good job that cot wasn't in stock...

So yet again our bedroom is a bit of a squeeze. It's possible to get round everywhere, which is pretty amazing really, but there's no room now for being messy. (Just you watch though, we'll find a way to be messy.)

I think all the rushing round and the lurgy and various other things over the past few weeks finally caught up with me yesterday afternoon. I had a few horrible moments: fighting off panic about the reality of nearly being a parent, and then wondering if baby would love me. And in the evening, after a beautifully relaxing afternoon in the teashop, I found myself panicking again - baby will be here in 3 weeks' time. We're going to be parents. I nearly cried. I can't imagine what it's going to be like. I feel like the not being prepared materially has been masking the horrible feeling of not being at all prepared mentally - but now we've got all the material paraphernalia, there's no hiding any more from the realisation that with every moment, we get a moment closer to being parents. Will we be good parents? Will we "bond" with baby? What will baby be like, will he be a screamer or a giggler? Just how exhausted are we going to be? Panic....

You can prepare as much as you like, materially; but there's no amount of preparation can prepare you mentally and psychologically for the reality of becoming a parent for the first time. Steve and I have been married a month and a half shy of 8 years, and with the 2 years that we were dating before that makes nearly a decade of it just being the two of us. We've had great fun: we've lived, we've learnt, we've loved - we've enjoyed life together. And all of a sudden, it's going to be 3. Ok so baby's technically here already - he's wriggling around in my belly making his presence known, but within a month he's going to be announcing his presence to the world wherever we go. Our whole world is going to change. I was talking to my dad last week, he remembers when I was born - their whole world changed, turned upside down, everything revolved around me instead of around themselves.

That's quite a big change, especially if you've spent the last 10 years just the two of you.

But then, thinking about it, maybe sometimes our brains are wired up for this kind of thing. For the first 3rd of my life, my life was about me and it took time to learn that it wasn't just about me. The second 3rd of my life was about how I fitted in to the rest of my little world, and discovering boys. Relationships became important, I didn't want to be just me, I wanted to be part of a relationship. This last 3rd of my life so far has been in the context of an amazing relationship with the man I love, my life has been shared.

I can't imagine what it's going to be like to share my life with a little man as well...

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Blessed be Your Name

"Blessed be Your Name, when the sun's shining down on me,
When the world's all as it should be,
Blessed be Your Name.

Blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering,
When there's pain in the offering,
Blessed be Your Name.

EVERY blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise,
When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say
Blessed be the Name of the Lord....."

So often there's a whole lot more emphasis put on the second half of the song, the bits about still praising God even though things are difficult and I think it's almost like people wear suffering as a badge of honour - it shouldn't be like that.

God is good, all the time. ALL the time.

That includes when He's, well, good!

So often we forget to give God thanks and praise for the good things that He has done, almost as if it were going to upset people that God has actually been nice to us for a change.

God certainly does bring us through tough times (note: He doesn't cause, but brings us through) in order that our faith may be made stronger, our characters developed and matured.

But God also knows how to give good things to His children!

I really believe that as a people of God we've got to learn to not be shy about publicly giving thanks to God for the good things that He's done - for the blatantly obvious good things that He's done, not just the obliquely good things that He's done through our suffering.


Right now, I am thankful for...

This cottage that we live in
A bed that doesn't bounce every time one of us rolls over
A healthy bump
An amazing antenatal care team
Good friends and a new family here in the South
Being planted
Breakfast!

It's 4am and yet again...

... I am downstairs with a bowl of cereal.

I have to have this bowl of cereal at this time of night, to stop myself from having a mild hypo during the night. Something to do with the current amount of slow-release insulin I'm on. Needs adjusting. Again. At least I'm doing enough blood sugar testing to be able to talk to the nurse with some useful figures, so we can adjust the dose accordingly.

It's not as if it's difficult to wake up either - all I need to do is have a drink before I go to bed and hey presto I wake up at 3.30am needing the loo.

Bit fed up.

Another I'm fed up about is that I've just stocked up on chocolatey cereal, this having been my staple food for the past 6 months, only to have - within a matter of days - my tastebuds change again. Hurrah that I'm back on healthy cereal again but now what am I going to do with all these boxes of chocolatey rubbish? They're far too sweet all of a sudden.

And finally. I appear to be developing a cough.

Could do with some of that healing blessing really.

Failing that, a hug would be nice.

xx

Praying for an early baby

At the last antenatal appointment I raised the issue of being induced and what my chances of it happening were.

In a nutshell, diabetic pregnancies, if left to go full term, have a much higher risk of stillbirth and the team understandably would rather not put me or baby at risk.

So...

If baby doesn't decide he wants out early, we'll be induced at probably 38 weeks although the actual "date" will be decided at our final appointment at 36 weeks.

And, as these things go, if we're induced we set off down the slippery slope of medical intervention and the possibility of ending up with a c-section goes up to 50%.

So here's the prayer request - that baby decides that he wants out at 37 weeks!

I want to be able to see the team during and after a normal birth and say that the reason baby is so perfect and healthy and hasn't had to be induced is because God's been involved all the way through. So I've not had the pleasantest of pregnancies but baby doesn't seem to have noticed.

I know that "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him" and I know that God uses our circumstances to bring about good things.

I've had the best care out of all the pregnant women I'm currently in contact with, mainly because I'm diabetic. But I don't believe that God would just stop there. There's so much opportunity for Him to show His power and grace and love through these circumstances... and I just hope that He decides that a natural birth would be the best way for this!

Travel Systems Are Go!

We bought a travel system at the weekend. It's not red, to match the car - upon serious reflection we decided that red could get quite wearing. So we've gone for a sensible black and grey combination. I think it may well be the first time we've been sensible in a long time.