Yesterday was a good day! I was invincible!! I got up, fed Isla, put the washing on, went on the treadmill, fed myself, pegged the washing on the line, had a shower AND took Isla to her hospital appointment! Clearly, yesterday, I had superpowers!!!

Fast forward to today however…

It’s 17:00. I have JUST had my first bit of food. I’ve not showered. I’ve not brushed my teeth. The only reason I’m dressed (I use the term loosely… *read: have thrown a creased up dress on) is because about an hour ago I caved in and put Isla in the car seat and stuck her in the car to go for a drive to send her to sleep in the hope that when she woke up she’d be in a better mood.

This is what I’ve got!

That look says “I’ll play without crying mummy but don’t think I’m going to enjoy it!”

I have strong mummy guilt today!!! I keep asking myself why she seems so unhappy all of a sudden… is it something I’m doing? Is it something I’m not doing? Is she in pain? Is she sad? Is she going to grow out of it? How do I maintain enough patience to make it through an entire day of crying without sighing when she starts up again? How do I not murder my husband when he comes home and tells me he’s had a tough day at work 😂🤷🏻‍♀️ (joking… maybe!) … so many questions!

Thing is, even on the worst days she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me but mannnnn it’s difficult at times!!! And yet… I know she’s just got to give me just one of her gummy little smiles and today will be a good day. Oh to be 3.5 months old and have so much power.

Pray for me 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

 

Ah mannnnn… just when you think you’ve nearly cracked this parenting malarkey something new comes along to put you back in your place.

My little superstar has been sleeping through the night (and I’m talking a good 8-10 hours!) for a few weeks now, she’s smiling more and has almost mastered a giggle. We’ve had great news about her splints… life couldn’t be better right?!

Then… BAM. Screaming fits. Boy oh boy can she scream!!! Definitely got a good set on lungs on her. They started last week and were originally just for an hour every evening. Now we seem to be getting them through the day as well. I’m talking ear-piercing, gut wrenching, the neighbours will think I’m murdering her screaming fits.

I THINK she might be teething 😩 but I’ve also realised I have absolutely no nap routine in place for her (minus mummy points for that one!)

Only thing that soothes her screaming is sticking her in her car seat and driving round for a bit, then she just goes to sleep!

So today we are on trial structured naps. Currently sitting in a dark room next to Isla in her cot who seems to think it’s hilarious that she might nap when I want her to rather than in the middle of a feed. Or her favourite, after she’s screamed the place down and we give in to putting her in the car.

I’m just reminding myself that I am the grown up here. She will not win. Yes those gummy little smiles are irresistible… ah man… must. not. pick. her. up.

And it looks like it’s working… her little eyelids are getting heavy 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

This might just preserve my sanity later!

Check out the death stare she gave me in the car 😂😂😂 like “bitch don’t even think about stopping this car until I’m asleep”

I hope to God she is teething. Because if not there’s no other explanation than she’s just being a little shit. And that judgement is fair by the way… I took her to the drs because I was so worried she was in pain because the screaming fits were so bad… went a bit like this:

Dr: “Are you ok? Your mummy said you’ve been poorly”

Isla: *big giggle*

Dr: Did you trick your mummy?

Isla: *BIG smile*

Dr: I’ve checked her over, nothing at all wrong with her, in fact she seems really happy

Mummy: 🙄

The joys…

Finding time to exercise has always been a challenge for me. Mainly because I hate it! I went through a stage early last year where I did a really good job of making an effort with it, but that was because I blew a chunk of my redundancy pay on a gym membership and I had nothing else to do! I’d go for long leisurely swims and then just chill out round the pool applying for jobs on my phone! I even went on the treadmill occasionally!

Anyway, all that stopped when I sprouted a humongous bump very early on (might just have been that I lost the ability to breathe in to be fair, who knows 😂).

Finding time to exercise with a baby is a whole other level. Weirdly I didn’t struggle as much to find the time to watch Love Island for an hour every night (guilty pleasure… don’t judge me) I don’t struggle so much to find time to go out for a meal (don’t get me wrong it’s a challenge, but I manage!!) or to have a few glasses of wine on a Sunday with my mum. Exercise with a baby though… well that’s a challenge because I DON’T WANT TO DO IT!!!

I’ve cocooned myself in the comfort of “it takes 9months to go on, you can expect it to take at least that amount of time to come back off” I did start trying to do bits a few weeks ago and then let it fade out again as life got in the way. However, after a few recent prompts (how bad is it that being asked when my baby is due was a bigger kick up the bum than my dad having a heart attack 😳) I figured I really should make the time to do the horrible thing that will keep me alive and semi healthy!

So today I dragged the play gym in to the garage, stuck Isla on it and started over with couch to 5k… AGAIN!!! Did I die? Well, nearly… if the jogging doesn’t do it I’m pretty sure my boobs will… Jesus, jogging with milk boobs is an experience!!! Do I feel better for it afterwards?? Also no… I’m like a giant sweaty tomato. Isla doesn’t look too impressed with mummy’s new smell either! But I did it!!! So yay me! Now I just need to find some more time to shower…

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year already since I knew for sure that I was pregnant! We’d been trying since the January and I remember being so excited a few days earlier when I’d seen a hint of a second blue line on a test. I then took about a million first response tests to see a very, very light pink line… I still couldn’t quite believe it so thought I’d buy a digital test before I bankrupted us buying tests 😂

I saw the blue line on the Monday and waited until the Thursday night to tell my hubby. I bought a little baby grow and wrapped the digital test up in it. I presented it as an early Anniversary present (2 years – cotton, so that was lucky!) and watched the disbelief and then pure joy spread across hubby’s face! We both sat there with big goofy grins and happy tears saying “fuck, how do you even look after a baby”

Unfortunately, that time wasn’t meant to be. Literally a few hours after I’d told hubby I started getting cramps, and a few hours later I started bleeding. I went to the drs the next morning who confirmed that I had sadly had an early miscarriage. I was absolutely devastated. The Dr explained that it’s very common and I remember thinking why don’t people know that? I had no idea that the majority of people miscarry at least once! We need to talk about this more! I think it’s so cruel to not talk about it. I didn’t mourn my “baby” as such – I know that so early on there wouldn’t have even been a heartbeat, nothing that anyone would recognise as a baby as such – but I definitely mourned what could have been. All that excitement, everything that our future held, all suddenly completely devastated.

They say everything happens for a reason and I guess sometimes you just have to trust that your body has done what it needs to do for reasons that will never be clear to us. It’s easier for me to look back on this and believe that as we were lucky enough to catch again straight after with Isla! Second time round there were no happy tears (not until I saw her heartbeat on the monitor at 8 weeks anyway – then there were big ugly happy sobs!!!), and those first few weeks were filled with pure fear! We didn’t date even talk about it incase anything happened!! Thankfully, everything went well 2nd time round and we are now so very lucky to have our beautiful little rainbow Isla 🌈

 I can’t believe how fast the time is going! I officially no longer have a newborn anymore 😱 It’s such a bittersweet feeling! I’m so excited for everything that’s still to come, and I absolutely love seeing her little personality develop a little more everyday. She’s just starting to learn to use her voice, and I think we’re super close to giggles, and I have so much fun watching her wriggle about, and I can’t wait to introduce her to food. But…. I miss her being tiny!!! I miss her being able to snuggle in to my neck, I miss being able to carry her for longer than 15minutes without getting arm ache, I miss all her clothes being too big!

She’s been sleeping through for some time now (hero – goes 10-8!!!) and as much as the extra sleep is lovely, man oh man do I miss those middle of the night feeds!! I know that’s such a strange thing to miss, but when we were up in the night it felt like we were the only people in the world, such a special time to share ♥️ (nostalgia’s great isn’t it 😂 I’ve almost completely forgot that there were many nights I cried with her because she just wouldn’t bring her wind up and go back to sleep! And that I could barely function in the day through sheer exhaustion!!)

I just keep thinking it won’t be long until she’s in her own room. I’m going to miss her so much when that happens!!! I need time to slow down just a little bit so I can savour every second with her! 

Completely un-baby related but I have finally finished my CIPD and am now officially qualified in HR!!

I signed up for this when I was made redundant last year thinking it would be a great use of a chunk of my redundancy pay… I’ll be honest, I’ve resented that decision ever since! Nothing makes writing 5000 word assignments more depressing than knowing you’ve forked out £4,000 to put yourself through this hell!!!

I missed one of my assignments in August last year when I had a miscarriage, so had to take that module again in June this year and wait for the results. But they are finally in, and I passed… woohoo!! 

As proud as I am for completing it, I have told all my friends and family that if they EVER hear me contemplating taking the next level in the qualification they should punch me in the face immediately to knock some sense in to me 😂

I’ve been expecting it for a while… and have been surprised that it’s not happened sooner. Ironically… (oh how I love irony!!!) when I got on the scales this morning I was happy to see that I am back down to my first pregnancy weigh in weight. Naturally I did what everyone does when you know you’ve lost/gained weight (I’m more familiar with the gained 😂) and went to inspect myself in the mirror. Still a looooooooong way off where I want to be, but admitted to myself that actually, yes, my humongous mummy tummy did actually look a little smaller. So I got dressed and went about my day.

Fast forward to 2 hours later, I nipped in to Tesco Express to get some bottles of formula (Think the stress of last week has hit my milk supply!), I left Isla in the car as she was fast asleep. When I ran back out the store there were two young lads trying to raise money for charity. They smiled at me, I smiled back… and that’s when it happened. One of them, opened his mouth and said….

”Excuse me, can I ask when you’re due”

Fucks sake. So yeah, that pissed on my parade.

I guess he thought that would be a good conversation starter and that I’d make a donation. Turns out it wasn’t.

I guess at least I have actually had a baby. The fact that she’s nearly 4 months old probably makes it less ok though 🤦🏻‍♀️ Need to up my diet and exercise game pronto. Or just get pregnant again 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

We had some fantastic news at Isla’s 4week hospital check up for her hips – she’s doing so well that we’ve been allowed to start weaning her out of her splint early! We were originally told that she would have to wear them constantly for 6 weeks and then of things were going ok we could start taking them off for an hour a day, she’s had them on for 4weeks (well, 5 now!) and they’re so happy with the progress that we’ve started doing this already!

She loves her wriggle hour so much!!! And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see her kicking those chunky little legs ♥️ And I can bath her again, and cuddles without the splint are just the best ♥️

Also means we have fortnightly appointments now at the hospital instead of every week! Next scan is in 3 weeks, hopefully at that one we’ll be told we can take her out for 4 hours a day! It shouldn’t be long before we’re able to go to nigh time only and then have them off completely!

I’m so proud of my little lady for how well she’s done with them!

Hey! Not sure if anyone is still checking in on this page, if you are – thanks! You’re awesome!! I’ve had a busy few weeks, and I’ll put lots of updates on here now – who knew binge blogging was a thing!

Soooo… what’s new in my little world? My dad had a heart attack last week! Completely out of the blue! We go over and stay with my mum and dad every Sunday, my mum cooks us dinner and in exchange they get lots of baby cuddles (and the occasional bottle of wine and beers 😉) Monday morning my dad had some cuddles with Isla while I got ready to take her to her hospital appointment, everything was normal. Monday afternoon I get a call from my mum to let me know that my dad is being blue lighted to hospital as he’s having a heart attack.
My dad is literally the last person in the world that I’d have expected that to have happened to. He’s in really good shape, eats well, walks 5mile a day with the dog, and is so laid back he’s horizontal. So it’s been a huge shock to all of us.
He was fitted with a stent straight away and has to go back to have another fitted in a few weeks. Thankfully he got to hospital in time for there to be minimum damage and he was back home with us on Wednesday evening.
The silver lining of it all I guess was that we got to spend lots of time together as a family last week. Me and Isla moved in and were on parent/grandparent sitting duties and my brother (who lives in London so we don’t get to see him much) also came up to stay.
I love this pic of my dad, brother, Isla and Poppy (the dog!) chilling on the sofa together ♥️♥️♥️

Happy World Breastfeeding week!
When I was pregnant I had no doubts that I wanted to breastfeed. I thought the biggest challenge would be sore nipples. Oh how wrong I was!!! Despite trying very, very hard, Isla just wouldn’t take to my breast. She got so upset she’d scream until she was exhausted and then go to sleep instead of feeding. I felt like a failure. Which wasn’t helped by the hospital teams coming round and making me keep trying, despite the fact that Isla was clearly getting distressed by the whole thing. It was a difficult decision to stop trying to breastfeed as such and move to solely expressing.
14 weeks later and we’re still going strong with the expressing. I’d lie if I said it hasn’t been incredibly difficult and challenging at times – the sore nipples, the leaking breasts, the occasional drop in milk supply, the constant need to express and the fact that you basically have to give up a part of your body. Breastfeeding may be the “natural” option, but it certainly isn’t the easiest and doesn’t feel like the option that comes naturally to some mamas and babies (Isla took to a bottle no problem, my nipples, not so much!)
So I have massive respect to anyone who has breastfed, whether you did it for one day or one year, whether it’s straight from the breast or you express, it’s amazing that our bodies have the ability to produce the food we need to nourish our most precious gifts. And to everyone who gave it a go and had to make the call that it’s not for you – kudos to you too, I know how hard that decision must have been, especially if you had your heart set on it! ♥️