Everything pinned on the big move!

So i'll start with an update from my last post about Betsy's sleeping situation. 

Everything is shit. She is in with us every night. From the beginning of it to the end. Her cot is now just a ridiculous joke taking up a large amount of space in her bedroom, reminding me every time i walk into that room just how much i have failed. 

We have kept her bedtime routine the same. She still has her last bottle in her room. But whereas before she would finish this then go in her cot, now when she finishes she immediately starts clawing at us and staring angrily at her cot. She knows she goes in our bed. So in she goes. Whoever has drawn the short straw of putting her to bed will lie down with her for a few minutes, till she has drifted off, then retreat. It is an awfully dire situation. 

However, something magical is upon us. Something that i am hoping will be the answer to all of our problems. Something so wonderful and exciting that i can hardly contain my self.

We are moving!!

Lost in the bloggersphere!

So just recently I have gotten a little lost. A little overwhelmed. My to do list for my blog has gotten out of control.

The list of general things I need to do; finish the half written posts in my drafts, reply to comments on my blog, comment on other blogs, join in with linky's, ... there is such as lot I am behind with. I love doing my blog, but slowly I have become a bit bogged down with the amount of things I need to keep on top of. I just can never find the time to do any of it. It doesn't help that I am a huge procrastinator. I find myself switching on my laptop with all the best intentions, whipping out my lovely blog notebook and then coming face to face with the dreaded never ending to do list. And feeling defeated. Each time I look at that thing I add about 5 more to do's to it. And I never seem to cross any off of it.

There is so much I want to do with my actual blog. I want to get my own domain. I want to install all those little buttony things for instagram and Facebook and the like. I desperately want to self host. I want to redesign my blog. I want to create a blog badge. The list goes on. And to a large majority of people reading this, it is all probably relatively easy to do. Not for me. I have no clue how to do any of it. I have scoured the internet for websites to help with it. I have scoured blogs for posts related to it all. There is so much out there that explains it all so easily, but my simple little mind just cannot understand anything. I am so baffled by all things computer. I have been blogging for 3 months, yet I still feel as clueless as I did the first time I hit that publish button.

Life with a toddler.

It seems like such a long time ago that Betsy was a new born. All soft and new, with her baby smell. Those new born squeaks and little noises.

Then a babbling baby. Entertained by the simplest thing. With her little round bald head. And podgy belly. Bless her.

The next stage, the one we are at currently, is terrifying.

At 16 months old, Betsy is a toddler.

A no nonsense, stubborn, cannot be fooled toddler.

She is the clumsy, careless, strutting-around-like-she-owns-the-place child who will trample over anything and anyone in order to get to where she wants to be. She stomps her way around baby groups or soft play, she takes very little notice of other children, other then the death stare she gives them should they get in her way. I am no longer able to sit and relax, watching her sit in the same spot playing with a toy. I have to ensure I am within grabbing distance at all times. The risk of hair pulling, eye poking or bottle stealing are endless. The other day at a baby group I turned my back for a second and she had a dummy in her mouth. Along with a look of triumph. She can spot another child's beaker a mile off. And almost always reaches it before me. Yes, she is indeed one of those children.

#wickedwednesdays- 18/3/15

Mother's (in law) Day

This is my mother in law, Pauline.

She is fabulous.


I owe such a lot to this amazing lady. I would be totally lost without her. I feel like I don't thank her enough for all of the things she does for me.

One Lovely Blog Award

 

 

I have been nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by Mummy in training, Something crunchy mummy and Awesome austerity (Thank you ladies!).

I am so unorganised so am only just getting round to doing my post!

 

 

How it works: The One Lovely Blog award is given to you by fellow bloggers. You simply thank the lovely person/people who nominated you, write 7 facts about yourself and then nominate another 10 bloggers!

 

 

So here is 7 facts about me:

 

1. I am a statuesque 5ft 10in. I used to be a couple of inches taller but it appears I have shrunk. I am by far the tallest of all my friends. My other half is 6ft 3in, so I feel that there is a strong chance Betsy will grow to Amazonian woman proportions!

The doctors appointment.

 

So yesterday I made a doctors appointment.

 

 I was sat at the table with Betsy having her lunch, but mentally I wasn't there. My head was a mess, I was a mess. I was on the verge of tears. And I didn't know why. Betsy was chattering away to me, offering my bits of chewed up food and I was looking right through her, not registering what she was doing, not being the Mummy she deserved. I couldn't carry on like this. I picked up my phone and rang the doctors there and then, before I could back out. I told the receptionist I needed to speak to a doctor, I was struggling to cope and I had a 15 month old daughter to take care off. She was lovely and told me the duty doctor would ring me within the hour. Luckily, the duty doctor was my doctor, so I was relieved about this.

 

20 minutes later the phone rang. I fought back the tears as I tried to explain how I was feeling and what was going on. She made me an appointment to come in today at 8.30am. I felt relieved that I had finally acknowledged I wasn't ok, but scared about what was going to happen.

A bad day

On Monday, I finally broke. I finally let out all that I had been desperately trying to keep inside of me for the last couple of days. Knowing I would never win. That it would inevitably take control of me once again.

Ashley said goodbye as he went to leave for work and I couldn't stop myself. I began to cry, and I just couldn't stop. I was halfway through feeding Betsy her Weetabix, and I couldn't continue. I couldn't do anything except cry.

I felt awful for springing it upon Ashley, just as he was heading out the door to a busy day at work. He didn't need this. He didn't need the burden of my depression on his already over burdened shoulders. He didn't need to be worrying about how I would cope.

Ashley shouldn't have to walk on egg shells, tip toeing around me wondering what I'm going to do next. Whether today is going to be a good day. Or a bad one. He desperately tries his best with me. He tries to say the right things. He tries to do as much as he can with Betsy so that I can rest. I can have a break.

Betsy didn't need it either. She doesn't deserve it.

Birth regret

I didn't quite know what to say in this post. I feel like I still have a lot that I need to say about my birth experience, things that I didn't feel were appropriate to put in my actual birth story posts. I'm not sure why I felt like this. But now that they are done I feel like I need to explain myself. To a lot of people who have spoken to me about Betsy's birth, I have been very negative about it. I have said how much it traumatised me and how I could never go through it again. Yet from the outside looking in, as in to everyone except me, there wasn't anything that stood out about it all that would have me feeling this way about it. I'm sure if any of those people have read my birth posts, they will be wondering what on earth I am going on about. So I feel like I need to explain a little. I feel like this is going to be a bit of a rambly post, as I have so much to say on this subject. So bare with me.

Yes it was painful. Yes it was long. It was both of those things to the max. I was completely and utterly unprepared for all of it. I know I have mentioned this before, but I feel like I need to emphasis my point, because I was really unprepared.

My birth story: Part three

Betsy was finally here. The midwife handed her to me, and I looked at this wriggling little thing and did not have a clue what to do. I think this was quickly noticed, as they whisked her from me and bundled her up in lots of towels and handed her to her Daddy. I don't remember much of this, I was still coming to terms with what had just happened, but I will always remember the look of pure joy and amazement on his face.
I had an injection to get the placenta out and it very soon after emerged. I will always remember the midwife asking me if I wanted to see it, and my reaction (recoiling in complete horror and giving him a firm NO!). Once that was dealt with, he informed me I would need stitches. I wont go into what this was like, I will just say it wasn't nice.

So all stitched up I was brought onto the ward and shown to my bed at about 6am. I was completely and utterly exhausted. I could not keep my eyes open. I was brought a cup of tea and some toast, which I was so grateful for I literally could have cried. No cup of tea or toast before or after this has ever come close to how great it was.

My birth story: Part two

She finally listened, and her and Ashley helped me out of the pool. I had to have an internal examination to see how dilated I was, and I cannot remember for the life of me how many centimetres it was. It was horrible though, she was very gentle but I was just in so much pain. It was changeover, and I had a lovely midwife come in. She introduced herself, and then one of them (I cant remember which one) administered the Pethidine, which I didn't even realise had happened due to the pain.

It started to work almost instantly. It was amazing. The midwife was amazing and I remember feeling so very grateful for her being there. She chatted to me and Ashley about lots of different things, asked what we were having and what name we had chosen. We talked about TV programmes and weather and all sorts of things. If someone had walked into that room, they would never have known I was in labour (although the fact that I was in a birthing suite might have given it away). The room with the pool was separated from the room I was in by a bathroom, and I heard a lady go in and literally scream the place down. I was shocked, and kept saying how I hope I don't end up being like that. Then it all went quiet, and we heard a new-born croaky cry. It was so amazing, to know that someone had just given birth a few metres away from me. I began to feel like I could actually do it too.

My birth story: Part one

It started the early hours of Friday 29th November. I couldn't sleep and felt very achy and crampy, not myself. I had my first contraction at around 9am, although at the time I didn't realise that this was what it was. I had a shower and got dressed and had a couple more in this time, but tried to ignore it as I had had so many false starts that I didn't want to get my hopes up. I carried on as normal throughout the morning, having a few pains here and there. It wasn't until just after 12pm that I had one that stopped me in my tracks and made me realise what was happening. I just knew that this was it. I text Ashley to tell him, he was at work but due to finish at half 12. I sat waiting for him to come home, anxious and terrified but excited too. I had a little cry to myself. Once he was home we went to my mum in laws, I cant really remember much about being there as I was lost in a bubble of emotion. The contractions weren't regular or even that painful, but I remember feeling like I was about to burst into tears the whole time we were there.

A good end to a cr*p week.

 

Regular readers of my blog will know that last week was a CRAP WEEK. It was full of sleep depravation and illness. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

 

I was worried about how I would be when it was over.

 

Well, I am fine. Still a little tired, but that's it. There is no depression trying to pull me under. Admittedly on Friday I started to feel like it was starting to show itself, but I muddled through and everything was ok.

 

 

Some of you may have noticed I had a fabulous girls night out on Saturday! I was ridiculously excited about this. It is the only thing that kept me sane last week. I don't have many nights off since I had Betsy.

The demise of #100BloggingDays

So, much like I assumed labour would be a walk in the park, I also naively thought blogging every day for 100 days would be easy to. I was wrong.

I have NO IDEA how I thought that this would be possible. There are so many bloggers for whom this would most likely be exceptionally simple. They would manage it with ease. I am apparently not one of those folk. 

I managed a pathetic 9 days. NINE DAYS!