I'm an Aunt!

It's been a busy week for the Marrows family! Congratulations go to Chris and Chrissy as my neice, Isabella, was born this morning at 3:03am. She weighed in at a very respectable but not too hurty 7lbs 8ozs.

Sad News

Earlier today Dad phoned with some sad news - my Grandpa passed away this morning.

He was an amazing man; someone I admired and respected greatly. I have some incredibly fond memories of him, especially from my youth when I used to love going to stay for 'holidays' with him and Gran.

I'm feeling a little guilty as I haven't had chance to go to see my grandparents since April - I just hope he knew how much I loved him. I certainly know how proud he's always been of not just me but all his family.

Harry's Arrival

There were several things that weren't ideal about Harry's arrival, and whilst I'm being a bit self indulgent writing about it here I get rather teary when I think about it so I'm hoping that the process of writing down will be somewhat cathartic for me.

08:00 - Tully had been sent home from nursery yesterday as she'd been vomiting, and I'd been up and down with her all night. So despite being really tired and only having had a couple of hours sleep when I woke at 8 noticing mild contractions I decided to get up and make sure they were real and didn't fade away to give Mum and Dad maximum notice to start driving over as they'd been called in to help.

11:00 - The contractions are relatively mild in terms of pain, but coming regularly every 3-4 minutes so we decide to head to hospital as we know a couple of people that have been caught short with their second for being too complacent. Luckily as it's half term Alicia (our baby sitter) and her Mum Maria are around and Tully happily goes to play with them for an hour or so as Mum and Dad are still a little way away.

12:00 - We arrive as Wythenshawe and are sent to triage where I am assessed. I am about 2-3cm dilated, but apparently 'not in established labour' yet despite still getting contractions every 3 minutes or so. The head is still a little high and the cervix is still too thick. Also, I think that I am generally to calm in my appearance which was incidentally my downfall when I went in with Tully - the midwives never seem to believe that it's for real. On the very (very) off chance I have another I must learn to be more histrionic about things as it's clearly the only way to get taken seriously. Anyway, more on that later. I am told to keep mobile, given a bed in a little room off the ward by triage and the midwife agreed with Mark that I may be in established labour in a couple of hours or so. We decided to go for a wander to the shop to buy some snacks and to phone Mum and Dad and make sure they've arrived safely etc.

13:15 - We get back from our walk. The contractions are much much stronger now and getting really very painful. I get a birthing ball and bounce a bit but am still just about coping with the pain using my TENS machine.

13:45 - I am now struggling to cope with the pain, Mark suggests getting someone in to assess me and I suggest we wait til 2 because then it's 2 hours from my first assessment, grit my teeth and get on with it.

14:00 - Mark goes outside to see if someone can come and see how we are getting on. He is told they are just starting a shift change and someone will be in soon.

14:15 - I am in a lot of pain now, and the midwife that did my first assessment spots that I'm leaning over the bed in tears and pops in. She brings me a canister of gas and air but as with Tully it makes me feel quite nauseous so I only use it sporadically. It's about 14:30 by the time she examines me and I'm gutted to discover I'm still only 3cm dilated. I think this is where it all starts to go wrong as I'm sure this midwife now believes me to be a drama queen rather than being the opposite and hating making any kind of fuss or putting anyone out. I could be wrong but I assume that she passes this belief on to the new midwife at the same time as passing on the medical information that nothing much has happened for a couple of hours so I'll be quite a while yet. She does at least concede I'm in established labour and also says that now I'm getting stronger contractions things should start to happen more in the next couple hours.

15:00 - Each contraction is complete agony and I think it's fair to say I am no longer even close to coping with the pain and screaming out with each one, partly because it hurts so much but I don't try and hold it in as I normally would in the hope that someone will move me to a delivery room soon, if only so that the other people on the ward can't hear me. Mark goes to ask if someone can come to see me and is told by the new midwife on duty, after confirmed his wife "is the one she can hear" that she'll be there in a couple of minutes. I've since learnt she was just sat at the desk doing paperwork which adds to me being convinction that my assumptions on my handover were correct. At this point I am assuming I'll still only be 4/5/6?cm dilated and have to put up with this for some time yet and know I will not manage with the TENS machine alone which is still my main pain relief, although I am using the gas and air more - nausea being more preferable to the pain...

15:25 - I now feel that I have to push and that nothing anybody can say to me will be able to stop me. I've still no pain relief and still not had anyone come to see me. I am also really trying not to push as I think I still have a long way to go. Mark again goes out to ask for someone to come in, and she again says she'll be in soon. Mark tells her I am saying I have to push and she does at least decide to get up to come in, although still with no urgency. She tells me that I need to calm down (I really far from calm or coping) and says after the current contraction she will get me to turn over (since about 14:30 have been on my knees and leaning onto the pillows) so she can examine me. I remember thinking there's no chance of that and scream out that I HAVE to push... I am still wearing my pants so she tries to slide them down and I am still desperately trying not to push as I've read so many takes of people thinking they need to long before they are really ready. At this point it's a bit of a blur, but I remember her saying she can see my baby's head; me shouting out that "it's not good" and refusing to listen to anyone telling me anything different; Mark telling me to listen to her, that it's ok and that she says I can push (but still in my head think he must be wrong as I've heard no such thing so desperately trying not to); her asking for a delivery trolley and to listen to my body and do what it tells me.

15:41 - Harry is born!

The whole thing happens in 15 contractions from the point where I get assessed by the initial midwife - I know because as a way to get me to cope Mark suggests we deal with them in small blocks and I just need to worry about getting through the next block of contractions. His head comes out on the 14th, and his body on the 15th.

It doesn't get much better from here either - I can't complain that my care at this point was left as she made sure I didn't need stitches and completed everything she needed to for safety's sake, but we had to wait almost 3 hours for him to be weighed / measured etc as she had to go to attend to someone else on the ward. It was a bit embarrassing that people kept coming in saying things like 'Blimey - we don't normally have babies up here!' and asking and we had to say we didn't know. Eventually a more mature healthcare assistant came in to say hello and see how we were and somehow she seemed to realise this was a bit rubbish and went off to find somebody to get things moving. As was explained to me later, in a delivery room you have the dedicated focus of a midwife to you and your baby, but as I was still on the ward there was just the one for everyone there. I asked how often babies were delivered in this ward and was told 'not never but not very often'. I later pushed this again and eventually got told about 1 every 4 months (i.e. about 3 a year). This in a maternity unit that delivers well over 500 babies a month...

I still feel like I'm making a fuss by writing all this down as I am well aware I'm not the first person to give birth with practically no pain relief. I think the thing that upsets me is that I feel like I was ignored / dismissed and that someone should have come to check on me earlier. If I'd known I was so close my state of mind would have been much better. Part of the problem is that anyone that knows either Mark or I know that we communicate urgency etc by the vocabulary we use, rather than by tone. Neither of us likes to be thought of as demanding, and we are amateurs at this so didn't know that we ought to be more insistent, but I genuinely don't know what we would have needed to have done to get someone to pay us attention either.

Anyway, it's done; both of us survived and are healthy etc which is the most important thing. But I also know I'll always feel slightly aggrieved and disappointed by the experience and whereas I thought everything about my care with Tully was wonderful, I have definitely been left with a sour taste in my mouth this time.

Less than ideal...

Yesterday Tully was slightly listless and wanted a sleep in the day which is normally unheard of. Then she called for me in the night and I noticed she was running a fever. She seemed quite a lot better this morning - she was certainly full of beans although did complain that lots of parts of her ached - and I ignored my instinct to keep her at home, gave her a dose of Calpol and sent her off to nursery regardless.

In the middle of the afternoon I receive a phone call from nursery to say she'd just been violently sick, and has subsequently been sick 3 more times since we've brought her home. Mark has now also retired to bed with a mild fever and feeling a little nauseous.

Who bets I go into labour tonight?

Mum and Dad are on high alert to jump into the car regardless of time of day or night as Tully isn't really allowed into nursery until 48 hours after she was last sick (although they know our situation and say they would look after her for a couple of hours is need be whilst Mum and Dad race across the country), and luckily Sarah is happy to equally cover for a couple of hours if things should start in the night. Honestly - things are never simple are they?

Bump!

Just for laughs for anyone that's not seen me recently - here I am doing my best Mr Greedy impression... This picture was taken 1 day after my due date.

To allow you to do a rough comparison from last time - here is the post from 10 days before Tully was due.

There's been no further sign of him arriving after the events on Wednesday evening. I hope he hurries up though - all this waiting about is just tedious. That and Mark is fancying a day off work tomorrow! ;) Also we are in trouble if he's not arrived by Wednesday as the Wills family go away and we haven't got a back up plan for anyone to look after Tully!!! Eeep!

False alarm

Last night I started getting contractions at around 9pm. They were a bit odd and I wasn't entirely convinced I was in labour, but I also couldn't rule it out as during the day there had been numerous similarities with events that happened the day leading up to be going into labour with Tully.

So, given the time of night we decided it was wise to take Tully to Holly's house anyway, the worst case being that she'd have an extra night sleeping over, the best case being they'd not all get woken up at 2 in the morning...

It was all very odd - although I never had any braxton hicks contractions either with Tully or previously in this pregnancy I don't think that was what I had last night as all the things that are meant to clam them didn't work at all and I was having regular contractions through until 2ish this morning, but then they all just fizzled out. Ho hum. I'm thinking it can't be long now though as there are far too many little indicators that things are about to happen... I'll keep you posted.

New Camera

Our new camera arrived today. Our old one has taken a bit of a hammering as it's gone so many places randomly thrown in my handbag primarily in a quest to make sure I can keep Tully's blog updated. Although really that's just an excuse as it still takes good pictures, it just looks a bit battered. But we got it just before Tully was born so the imminent arrival of boy slug seems an ideal time to treat ourselves to another...

Anyway, we decided on the Sony DSC-T300 to upgrade our Sony DSC-T3 as we've been so pleased with it.

Initial impressions are mixed - it seems much more complicated to do some of the basics, but maybe I just need to learn some of the shortcuts I know on the current camera. Also one of the things I especially liked about our old camera compared to other people's I've seen recently was that the battery charged in situ in the camera, but it must be the modern way as this one requires the battery to be removed and inserted into a special cradle to charge as with other newish cameras I've seen. Weird... How can that be better?

On the plus side the screen is HUGE, I'm loving the larger zoom, and the picture quality is much better.

The big room move!

This weekend was rather busy - although sadly more for Mark than for me. He took a car full of stuff to the tip / recycling centre, dragged LOADS of stuff up to the loft and brought a whole load of other (baby) stuff back down again(!), moved furniture around between the 2 main bedrooms and put up a cot. And somewhere in the middle of all that he also found time to take Tully to her swimming lesson, take her to the park, for us all to go to the library and have lunch out at Oca, go and do the weekly shop and go to the carpet shop to make final decisions on flooring!

I on the other hand mostly sat about - I honestly did try and help as much as I could but it has to be said my efforts were meagre to say the least. Anyhow, everything is pretty much sorted for when boy slug decides to put in an appearance and I have to say upstairs is looking really good!

For those especially interested the front bedroom now has the cot in and Mark and I have officially moved into the back room - which we'll 'lend' out when people come to stay as the double bed is still all set up in the front and poor boy slug will have to share with his parents for a couple of nights!

Family Portrait

It's not often that we get dressed up, and it's equally not often we think get a picture of us together, but we remembered to ask someone to take a photo of us on Saturday so here it is! I think we scrub up quite well as a family!

Vics and Fraser's Wedding

We left Brighton this morning and drove to the hotel where the wedding was being held - the Newick Park Hotel.

Wow - I always knew Vics would ensure her wedding day was spectacular but it was absolutely amazing. Newick Park Hotel is a small country house hotel and they'd hired the entire place for the day. The back drop was stunning, and it was all helped by having clear blue skies!


Vics (when she finally arrived!) looked beautiful - apparently there were hair traumas which meant she was almost 30 minutes late...


Other than that the day passed without a hitch, although I felt a little bad for them when they sent for a rather long trek to take photographs by the lake! In fact they seemed to have a lot of photos taken of them full stop poor things. Luckily Tully and I managed to catch Vic on one of her very short breaks!


They had arranged for childminders for the evening as the dinig room was quite small so the few children that had the honour of being invited, Tully included, went off to their own party as we went through for dinner. I was a little worried about how she'd feel but we'd talked about it several times in advance and she was so brave! In fact she had a whale of a time: we couldn't get her to leave later and whenever we popped in to check on her she shooed us away as she was having too much fun...

Vics had given me the honour of speaking on her behalf 'best woman' style, and luckily they had the speeches before dinner which meant I was over my nerves and could properly enjoy the food which was delicious.


All in all I had a fabulous weekend!

Off to Vics Wedding

Finally the big weekend has arrived - it's Vics wedding and I have to say I'm very excited. We drove to Brighton today and stayed at the Metropole on the front, which meant we got to go on the beach, as well as have a little wander around Brighton.

I fell in love with the place when I came here (a lot!) whilst working with Southern Water, and I still think it's one of my favourite places in the UK now so it was lovely to wander past some of the places I used to go and have a reminisce!

House Stuff

After initially struggling to come to terms with not being at work I have decided it's actually quite good being a lady of leisure - if only because it means I can arrange to get all the little jobs that have needed doing around the house for the last 4 years done as I have enough time to organise!

I've only been off for 2 weeks so far, but in that time I have:

had quite a major de-clutter

had the landing floorboards replaced

had the weird coving style skirting boards upstairs replaced

had a new tv aerial fitted

had the leaky toilet fixed

had Cloudy fixed (twice!)

and made arrangements for:

new internal doors to be fitted

new landing and stairs carpet to be fitted

new flooring in the bathroom and toilet to be fitted

the side of the bath to be fixed

the steamed up double glazing panes to be replaced

someone from one of the charity shops to come around to collect a load of stuff

someone to paint the toilet and bathroom (how lazy is that!?)

I'm about halfway through my list of house stuff - any chance I'll get it complete before himself decides it's time to say hello to the world?

Pixels is here!

We went to collect our new car today which has been named Pixels.

It's a Nissan Qashqai 2.0 Tekna 2WD, the choosing of which has taken us a very long time (on and off over a series of about 18 months!). We were finally forced into making a decision as my maternity leave approached as it was far too much like hard work managing with just 1 car when I was on maternity leave with Tully.

Choosing the Qashqai ended up being quite an easy decision, choosing the spec was fairly straightforward, but choosing which engine took slightly longer partly because we really struggled to find a 2l petrol version to test drive. After much hunting the dealer in Boston came up trumps during our trip to Mum and Dads a few weeks ago. It was immediately obvious that this was the one for us and as the salesman did us a very good deal we went ahead. Buying in Boston has the added bonus of providing an excuse to have another weekend with my parents which means we get a lovely long lie in!

The naming is a bit of a long story. I wanted to call it Moo (as most people seem to pronounce it Cashcow) but Tully said that was a stupid name and that it should be called Pixels (although I have no idea where she got that from). Tully also has a name for the baby that neither Mark or I are keen on so we did a deal: she names the car and we name the baby. So Pixels it is!

I'm really (really) pleased with it but Tully isn't - apparently it's too red...

Early Maternity Leave

In theory I should be working for another 2 1/2 weeks but my SPD has been getting harder to handle at work and after another visit to the doctor I've been signed off until the end. That was on Monday but I ended up working one of my busiest days in a while yesterday whilst I handed everything I've been working on over to the various people that will be covering my job whilst I'm away.

Today was therefore my first day at home and it's very odd. I'm feeling a bit lost if I'm honest, I suppose because I'm not mentally prepared for finishing so early. And to make things worse I'm just sat here not able to do very much and spotting lots of 'jobs' that need doing around the house and getting increasingly frustrated that I can't do any of them.

I was trying to work out if I took things slowly if I'd be capable of painting the bathroom and toilet earlier. You'll be pleased to know even I decided the task was beyond me but it's all sooo annoying! Poor Mark - I think he may get somewhat nagged over the next few weeks!

Big Bruise

On wednesday morning I slipped getting into the bath and banged my leg on the side of it. I am quite proud of the bruise!

Nesting?

This evening I decided it was absolutely imperative that I completely rearrange the contents of the kitchen. I hadn't realised when I started just how much I'd move otherwise it probably would have warranted a before and after picture! Mark had popped out when I decided to start and I'll not tell you what he said when he got back and saw my efforts given I was meant to be relaxing...

Holiday!

Hooray - I've booked a holiday! Now I know it may be a bit premature but I figured I needed something to look forward to whilst I'm stuck at home with a baby for the next few months!!!!

So next spring we are going back to Northumberland, staying at Village Farm Cottages in Coquet Lodge. As an added bonus we've persuaded Mum and Dad to book Kielder Chalet for the same week so we have some assistance with childcare! How sneaky was that!?

Exciting weekend in Nottingham!

Ok, so not very exciting really but nice all the same. We had decided it would be a nice idea to have a weekend on our own before boy slug arrives in a few weeks but as I'm a bit broken and walk around very much we struggled to decide where to go.

Had I been more mobile I'd have liked to go to Norfolk but in the end we decided on Nottingham as it's not too far from Mum and Dad's, in roughly the right direction for home so Mum and Dad could meet us there on the last day and would have nice restaurants and be ok for a few little potters out and about.

We booked into the Hilton partly because we quite like Hiltons, partly because it's very central, and partly because I thought I could book myself a treatment or two in the spa. Sadly I was thwarted in the latter part of that plan as by the time I phoned up to book in they were already fully booked with hen parties. Ho hum.

We had a fab Chinese Buffet meal on Saturday night, some nice lunches, and some BIG breakfasts!

We'd taken the PlayStation and loads of DVDs so spent quite a lot of time lounging around watching some of our fav films and old tv series, Mark got back into Ratchet and Clank and I read a couple of books. We also went to the cinema (which was luckily incredibly close by - 1 min walk for normal people, a 5 min walk for me!) and saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor which was quite entertaining if a bit too fanciful in places and would have been significantly better if Rachel Weisz still played Evelyn.

We also took a few walks around the city, down to the castle area and saw the Robin Hood statue, and past the Theatre Royal for a trip down memory lane as it was where we used to go to the Panto when I was little. We also did some general lazing around with no small children to worry about! Bliss!

Vics' Hen weekend

I was lucky enough to have another night away this weekend - it was Vics' hen weekend! So on Friday afternoon I caaught a train and headed to Oxford. Helen, Vics cousin, had done a sterling job with the organisation and had found these lovely apartments right in the centre of the city for us to stay in. She had also somehow arranged for Sainsbury's to deliver groceries to us just as the first of us arrived.

Friday entailed an evening in whilst everyone turned up from wherever they were coming from. We were meant to be going punting during the day on Saturday but unfortunately the only thing that Helen couldn't pre-arrange - the weather - let us down. Instead we went for an organised boat trip along the river, and then got taxis to the rather aptly named pub we should have punted to for lunch instead.

After lunch it was back to the apartment for a cup of tea and for everyone to get ready for the afternoon's activities. The rest of the day for the fit and able was a burlesque dance class, then party drinking games back at the apartment assisted by a semi-clad butler, a dinner in a private room at the Malmaison and finally going on to a club.

Even without being disabled by my stupid pelvis thing I'd realised that most of this would be much better enjoyed whilst partaking of several alcoholic beverages, so I had decided to leave them all to it and get out of the way, and had booked my return train for same time the burlesque class started. So after laughing at them all in their outfits I said my farewells and headed back to Manchester in time to put Tulster to bed.

I'd wondered if I'd regret my decision once I got there, but I felt like such a burden most of the time as I can't walk about much it was definitely the right thing to do. I'm really looking forward to the wedding now! Hope you had a fab time Vic! X

Ouch

I have been getting increasing levels of discomfort in my pelvis over the last 3 weeks or so, ranging from just being aware I have a pelvis to quite significant pain. It varies from day to day, but today is especially painful so I decided to pop to the doctors. Using the magic of t'interweb I had correctly self diagnosed myself as suffering with SPD, and the lovely doctor is going to refer me to an obstetric physiotherapist.

My main concern is doing my best to make sure it doesn't get any worse, as whilst it's not good at the moment it is at least bearable, and nowhere near as bad as it sounds like it could get in it's severest forms.