D-day!

Today I'm 40 weeks pregnant, this morning I had an appointment with my consultant, there was a medical student working with the midwife so got given a thorough once over, then in came the doctor who was lovely and was aware of my case as she was 'the boss' the doctor on Monday had consulted with!  My blood pressure is borderline but not high enough to treat or be overly concerned.  But the decision was made to induce me when there was availability on delivery suite.  Meanwhile she performed a membrane sweep which has to be said is not the pleasantest of experiences but anything to get the ball rolling! It's not much worse than a smear test but you are left feeling a bit uncomfortable. (If not a little violated!). 

My induction is booked for tues (bonfire night!) at 11.30 of course if they're busy it could always be delayed! But at least something proactive has happened and if no labour by tues I know something will get done.

39 weeks pregnant

A little late with this post but as you'll find out I've been a bit busy! Last tues started with pain in lower back (feels more like bum!) saw midwife on thurs @39 weeks she's referred me to physio who I'll see on weds (day before dday!!!) bp 140/82 also said I had oedema in legs - I'd not noticed anything so booked a home visit on Sunday for monitoring.

Sunday came and midwife turned up about 11.30 bp 120/104! Did a recheck was 140/96 so it was a trip up to the day unit!  We dropped G off at the inlaws on the way and picked up some mcds as not had lunch then straight to hospital.  Fortunately not too busy when got there about 1ish so was put straight into monitor had 3 relatively normal readings then on last one where she'd have sent me home went back up to 142/91 so had to wait for a review with a doctor.  Unfortunately there'd been an emergency c section so everyone was in theatre.  The day unit closes around 4.30 so then got taken up onto maternity ward to wait for a doctor there, was only sat there about 10 minutes when called through was put in a single ward and wasn't long before doctor arrived had a chat and decided needed rechecking tues at day unit and see midwife thurs then attached me to ctg to check baby- who is fine and gave a text book reading!

Monday morning rang to organise appointment at day unit and found out was only for single bp reading so asked if could organise community midwife to do it, there was a local clinic on Monday and they got me an appt for in 10mins so rushed to get there weeing in a pot before I left.  It was the same midwife again poor woman sick of seeing me!  Bp up again 130/98 and 140/90 on retaking! But there was protein in wee so another trip to day unit!  Which was absolutely heaving when I got there so had a long wait bp profile pretty normal but wanted me to see doctor to come up with care plan!

Doctor discussed sweep and induction with me and got excited thought they were going to do a sweep there and then and start the ball rolling but when he came back after talking to his boss decided to send off some bloods if they came back ok then will see my consultant thurs to discuss induction but if came back raised urates then they'd have me back there and sort out induction.  'Unfortunately' they came back ok slightly elevated but not to be a concern so have to wait till Thursday morning now for anything proactive! Which is due day anyway!!! 

Halloween hand and footprints

Messy Monday moved to Tuesday this week as we had a play date on Monday! So continuing the halloween theme as trying to fit as much in before baby arrives - not that G is even aware it's halloween!  I thought we'd get the paints out so good old Pinterest didn't disappoint with inspiration and came up with 3 pictures to create using hand and footprints.

Once we'd done the actual prints G was way more interested in playing with the bowl of soapy water for cleaning up than in finishing the pictures - so it was down to mummy!

Once finished I let him loose with some fresh paper and he seemed to prefer the freedom he even tried painting his own foot like we'd done earlier! So cute!

This soon turned into a session of body art! - my son seems to prefer painting himself to putting it on paper!

So here's our finished pics not too shabby and now in pride of place on the fridge!

And here's his solo piece bit abstract!

Our wedding day

Statistically the two most stressful things a person can do in their life is nice house and get married!  October 15th 2010 we moved house, on the 16th we got married I know we must have been mad you say well it wasn't planned that way the house sale was supposed to go through weeks before then was about to fall through and we just wanted it out of the way before our big day!  In a way it was nice because I was stressing about the house I was able to relax and enjoy my wedding day glitch free (well apart from a slight panic over the cake but more on that later!) and we came back off honeymoon like an old fashioned married couple to our new home together.

We chose the beautiful Allerton castle nr knaresborough North Yorkshire for our wedding fortunately at the time chris was self employed so we were able to pile money into our wedding pot if we were doing it today it would be a whole different ball game.  But it was the sort of place you walked in and just went wow!

My gorgeous husband scrubbed up well for the occasion.

Neither of us is religious so we decided to have a civil ceremony but the beauty of the hall in the castle is that it feels quite chapel like and certainly adds its own character to the day.

I can't believe how nervous I was I'm not one for being centre of attention and I had a staircase to walk down which added to the tension, I must have looked pretty scared as the registrar wouldn't continue until I cracked a smile!

We decided on very simple decorations using single flowers suspended in large vases so as not to detract from the splendour of the room, for flowers we chose the white rose of Yorkshire for me and the red rose of lancashire for Chris.

On to the cake, as we'd spent so much elsewhere on the wedding we chose a plain ivory three tier cake (1fruit and 2 sponge) from marks n Spencer's getting the florist to decorate it for us when Chris went to collect the cake on the thurs one of the layers was missing! They found a white fruit bottom layer, the girl at the desk -trying to be helpful- offered to take it home and re-ice it for him as she did a bit of dabbling!  Realising this wasn't an option they found another fruit layer in white and a final layer would have to be collected from another branch in the morning!  Chris went off to fetch it I went to collect my dress and go to solicitors whilst a hoard of people moved us into our new home!  After he'd collected the final layer he got a call saying there'd been a mix up and somebody had returned our cake anyhow long story short we ended up with six layers of wedding cake! The final one has just been used for our sons naming day.

It was the perfect day surrounded by family and friends and the man I love I couldn't have wished for more.

Messy Monday 14/10/13

After the success of the last sensory box I wanted to make G a halloween inspired box.  I coloured some rice using black food colouring and alcohol hand gel.  I picked up lots of spooky bits in the three for £2 at morrisons and added some table confetti from a pound shop. I also found a flickering pumpkin for only £1.89 at home bargains.  I buried a large skeleton in front of a tombstone then hid some smaller skeletons and spiders in the rice. Then sprinkled on some of the confetti

It's been sat in the dining table all weekend and G has been eyeing it up so when I got the messy play mat out and put it down in front of him he couldn't wait to dive in!

He soon found the buried skeleton and was mesmerised by how it's jelly like structure made the rice stick to it.

He dug out all the 'buried treasure' and even seemed to be sorting the confetti into piles but I think this was purely coincidence - either that or we have a child genius on our hands!

Then it got thrown back in and it was a free for all!

The small skeletons were incredibly stretchy!

Though it turned out not quite as stretchy as he thought and we now have bones rather than a full skeleton!

And after all that play he even helped to tidy up!

Was that my waters no don't worry love its only cat wee!

So after last weeks suspected breech and high blood pressure had to have a recheck on Friday which was still a bit high but had come down and certainly not high enough to do anything about, so just had to wait for normal appointment on thurs.  Meantime we have been car shopping as I have been without a car since February and can't expect lifts off people with 2 babies!

On tues after a trip out looking at cars and taking the opportunity whilst I had the car to visit a local retail park I came home to discover the kitchen bin over the floor! Now we have a dog and two cats but I know who the culprit is and he got a telling off, later that night I was giving G his milk in our recliner sofa so much easier when heavily pregnant to rest a toddler when in the recline position!  Chris took G off me as my feet touched the floor they landed in something wet and I must admit first thoughts were oh my god have my waters gone and I haven't realised!!!! After a couple of checks assured chris (and self!) definitely wasn't me so onto hands and knees to investigate further! Fortunately it was 'only' cat wee!!!! The little bugger was spitefully getting me back for telling him off earlier! Needless to say he's been banished to the kitchen and the house stinks - anybody any good tips on getting rid of stench?

Moving on midwife check today bp top figure down but bottom back up to 88 so now have to stay in on sat until a midwife comes round to check it again! On a lighter note baby's head engaged since last week so it's on its way!

36 Week Check and a Trip to Hospital

36weeks today and routine midwife appt my blood pressure was elevated at 150/80 ish do she decided to do all her other checks before redoing it. I got on the bed and then she got her serious face on and said "I think the baby's breech" I couldn't speak, not exactly the words you want to hear when you're trying to think calm thoughts to get your blood pressure down. Anyway I think she completed the rest of her checks measurements and listened to heart beat but to be honest it was all a bit of a haze all I was thinking was bp's gone up earlier than with G and now it's breech would I have to have a c-section?

She sent me straight up to Chorley for a scan and organised an appointment for tomorrow at a clinic to get my blood pressure remeasured. I had to make sure she'd written it down as I couldn't think straight.  I had G with me we were supposed to be going swimming I had to snap out of it for his sake! I hastily rang the inlaws to make sure they were in and that I could drop him off before dashing up to the hospital, fortunately I'd taken chris to work this morning so I could have the car! - sixth sense or something!

No hanging about at the hospital was straight in and out can't complain about that and immediate relief when head showed up in the right place!  So did I find out the sex you're all wondering aren't you..... Well that would be telling wouldn't it!!! 😜😜😜

Now a relaxing soak to get blood pressure down for 1.30 tomorrow!  Zen here I come!

A Naming Day and First Birthday Celebration

Neither Chris or I are religious I mean we got married in a castle not a church because we felt it would be hypocritical, so when it came to doing something for George we decided not to go down the traditional christening route.  So I sat down and googled the other options instead of a christening and out of the many choices out there we decided on a naming day which seemed to fit in with our lifestyle and we loved the idea that we could do it ourselves which would cut down costs!  We combined it with G's first birthday as my parents would be visiting from Malaysia and meant we only needed to get everyone together once.  I found a brilliant book in our local library

It covered everything you could possibly want to know about organising a naming day including theme ideas and poetry ideas.  It was like a one stop shop and I basically used the book to write our complete service.

Next on the list was to find a venue we decided to check out our (very) local non league football club and because we wanted it for a sat afternoon we managed to get the room for the bargain price of £10/hr and we didn't even have to use their catering, I'd got in my head I wanted to do a simple afternoon tea so thought I'd do it myself (in hindsight not my best idea as made the actual day more stressful than needed) I managed to pick up some disposable cake stands really cheap in sainsburys sale to display the food with enough to put them out on every table.

The day before G helped me make some scones

I got some cake toppers from a lady on eBay and used the last of our layers of wedding cake and re-iced it myself 

This was my first attempt using roll out icing and have to say I was pleasantly surprised with how well it came out!  We bought G a lovely little outfit from mamas and papas he looked so cute unfortunately this is the best photo we could get of the little rascal!

The service started with a little about what a naming day is and that we wanted to welcome G officially into the family and reassured the religious in the room that it wouldn't inhibit him seeking religious knowledge in the future we just wanted to give him the chance to make his own choices in the future.  Chris then explained a little about how we came up with G's name.

Chris and I made promises to G to be the best parents we can, to love him, look after and care for him as long as he needs us.  We chose a poem called 'I shall' by Paul Weston which I felt echoed our promises.  We chose guardians for G these were my brother and wife and Chris' sister and husband and they also made promises to G.

Then we broke the exciting news that G was going to be a big brother before reading another poem 'my first birthday' by unknown author then singing happy birthday.

After the ceremony we had a game of pass the parcel for the children whilst afternoon tea was served.

I can't begin to thank people enough for their help and for everyone being part of G's special day also the generosity of gifts and money he received overwhelmed me.

Here's his naming day cards such a lovely selection I thought he wouldn't really get any or all the same card but there are so many lovely ones on the market now.

A Farmyard Sensory box!

Being a Pinterest addict I've been pinning lots of ideas for messy and sensory play, up to today I haven't actually gotten around to making a sensory box for G today was the day!  I got out his sand and water table that nanna and grandad bought cheap in the tesco sale and found some porridge oats on the pantry shelf then what to put in it? As it was the first attempt I got out some of G's happyland farm bits and set them up I also got out some measuring cups (from when I used to go to Rosemary Conley!) and a few scoops I'd saved from when he was on formula!

G got straight in there he found the cups and started scooping and pouring

He loved it when the scoops got hidden and then he found them (note for next time get small items to bury for him to find!)  Then he was fascinated with the sound the oats made when he sprinkled them with his fingers

But even better was the noise they made onto the mat I'd put down on the floor and brilliant to dance on!

He threw out all the toys so he could be one on one with the porridge!

Quite a bit ended up on the floor and on me!

so play moved down there with the toys again

Only once did he try to eat the porridge I think we may be finally getting through that phase!

All in all this kept G occupied for a good hour which is really good going the only other thing which captures his attention is usually cars and other things with wheels! Having put the mat down it was pretty stress free to tidy up too as picked it up and tipped back into table ready for the next time and a quick Hoover round the edges that escaped and we were done.  Also with the porridge being dry I think it's the first messy play I haven't had to carry him at arms length straight into the bath!  Win win!

I've already got my head buzzing for the next one for halloween!