is not knowing better?

for 3 years every month i would convince myself i was pregnant..... my periods would be late AGAIN so of course this month was our month, but no, it never was. since having finley my periods have regulated themsleves, no more 50odd day cycles so far.

we made the decision to re-refer for our next round of ivf in january next year, but then also agreed to start trying again naturally because 'who knows' maybe we could be one of those lucky ones that it happens to. so this month around ovulation time we got jiggy a few times ;-) my 2ww symptoms from my pregnancy with finley then followed like clockwork. increased cm continued, pain in my boobs that shot through radiating into my nipples, heavy boobs, tiredness causing me to feel sleepy in an afternoon. then came the nose of a bloodhound, retching at the smell of my dads pork sandwhich and then the sickness followed later that day. even came down with an infction, last time it was a chest infection, this time a severe urinary tract infection. still 2 days off my due date i think we both became a little excited over the 'what if' until it all ended by the bright red blood staining my brand new pair of knickers. Not this month then!

we didnt even make it to test date to find out if this was just a random bunch of symptoms making us believe what anyone who has encountered the ivf train wants to believe, or if we had in fact just experienced our second chemical pregnancy. would it have been worse to test positive first? im sure it would, but the not knowing makes me feel silly for being just a little bit upset over something that i dont even know we had.

after all those many many months of tears at every period, i WILL NOT get caught back up in this. we have Finley now, we treasure him so much and are thankful every day for what we have. so how do you go about trying to conceive naturally after infertility has meant the only way of conceiving was through ivf. is it even worth trying or do we resign ourselves to the fact we can only make babies with a little bit of help?

6 months old and you finally have soe hair!!! - 6/5/2012

yesterday was your half birthday finley. i cannot believe its been six whole months since i pushed you into this world. you really are a cheeky little man with a massive personality. you dont seem like a little baby anymore, you talk away to us, you sit up all by yourself, you hold your own bottle, you feed yourself trees of broccoli or toast or whatever else is on the menu.

you shout at us for attention if just for a minute we've dared to look away. you tense up your arms and pull a funny face when you're excited. you've grown quite tall and your hair has finally started to grow. you sit laughing at mickey house and you are justing to find your groove hehe, i can see your tummy starting to bob up and down to the beat of the music

those nasty teeth are still not through and they have been causing you so much pain and upset. i wish i could take it away from you but i cant. in stead i give you medicine to help and lots of cuddles to make you feel better.
you sleep in your own room now, by half 6, to 7pm you cry to go to bed because you are tired. you sleep through with just one wake up on a few nights. at about 6 am you cry for me so i come trough to your room, scoop you up and you cuddle straight in. you lay next to me in mummy and daddys bed, cuddle in and go back to sleep for at least another hour. when you do wake up you lay cooing at me, blowing raspberries, pulling my hair and now trying to crawl onto me. it was funny this morning though because you were making lots of noise so i opened my eyes and you had pushed yourself down under the duvet and was laid there laughing.
although you're not exactly crawling, with a combination of rolling, turning and pushing yourself backwards you can navigate yourself around a room pretty well. on friday night you were very cheeky though because you were in the baby walker at nannas and you pushed ourself all the way over to the shelf so you could grab the picture frames.... nanna kept telling you 'no', but you just laughed at her.
so thats another month gone by and lots of new skills have developed, i wouldnt mind if you stop the hair pulling and nipping though, they really hurt lol.
love you so much my little man xxx

A seed

How does something so small, grow into something so unbelievably big.... my words fail me. The day the 'seed' was fertilized I didnt just grow a baby, I grew a love that brings tears to my eyes at the very thought of it. A friend recently told me how much being a mummy suits me and I told her back that everyday I think I couldn't possibly feel anymore love, until I just do.

It's 14 months since we bought those peter rabbit books, our first gift to you. We were clinging on to every piece of hope we could muster up that it would work. That you would keep growing! We read those stories to you everynight for 10 days....10 days of not knowing wether or not we were talking to an empty womb or one that now homed our growing baby. But even then the seed had been planted and the love was building.

Over the nine months an attachment, a love to you, became greater by the day and then you were born. We held you in our arms and we stared at you in complete disbelieve that you were here. But not just that you were here but that you were ours!

Over the following weeks I spent so many nights awake watching you sleep, listening to you take every tiny breath. Then you got bigger, you noticed us, you knew we were your mummy and daddy. You followed our voices. Then the smiles came and you would smile at us, then giggle.

Now you look at me, you hold your arms out to me, you look for me, but the thing that pulls at me the most is you cuddle into me. Squeezing your little hands around my neck you hold tightly and cuddle it, pulling away to see my face and then back in again.

That love, it grows by the second. I never could imagine this feeling before, its like nothing I have experienced and I cannot believe I am lucky enough to be allowed to have this.

a little controled crying equals a lot more sleep for mummy

well my cheeky little man. at around 6 week sold you started to sleep through, i thought i'd cracked it! then 9 weeks hit and the 'growth spurt' (or so everyon kept telling me) kicked in. every 2 hours at least you would wake, screaming to be fed. i would visit the health visitor and each tim i was told, 'its just a growth spurt'. but after 4/5 weeks i knew it wasnt so we tried weaning you from breast milk to formula, not all feeds but just a few. instead of taking to it, you decided you didnt like a bottle anymore, even thought you had been given one since birth. you went so far to even spit out your dummy. so we changed bottles, worked for a week or 2 but still no sleep!
resembling by this point a zombie mummy, we decided to start weaning you. you loved food from day 1, never leaving a drop of mush in your bowl, but still you continued to wake several times a night. sometimes hourly and feeding for upto 40 minutes at a time. we knew getting milk from me wasnt a problem cos i can give the cravendale cows a run for their money.
so 23 weeks old, 12 weeks of almost no sleep for me, i decided to go against all i have said i would do and i let you cry. the deciding point was when last wednesday, me you and daddy were laid snuggled on the sofa watching tv and your daddy asked me if you love me more then you do him. 'why?' i asked him. 'because he only settles with you'....... for 23 weeks i have enjoyed been the only one who could settle you, ive loved that when you cried i could snuggle you into me and you'd stop immediately. but ive now realised this is unfair to daddy. i decided the only way i can get you to settle with others is to get you to settle yourself. it was the hardest decision i have made so far considering there hasnt been a period of more then a few minutes where i have let you cry, even if i knew there was nothing wrong and it was just for some mummy attention.
so thursday night daddy was away on a stag do in barcalona. i massaged your creams onto your dry skin, i put your bedtime clothes on, we looked out of the window and said 'night night', we closed the blind ans then the curtans maing the room very dark. we then sat down, i fed you and then laid you awake in your cot with your light projector playing lullabies. i kissed you on the head and told you i love you and said goodnight. the minute i closed the door you cried, after 20 minutes of checking on you every 5 minutes you finally went to sleep, but you had got so worked up you were breathing funny so i ended up scooping you up and bringing you downstairs so i could keep a close eye on you.... of course you were fine. you woke several times in the night still.
friday it went on for over an hour, when you finally settled i was exhausted, but i had manged to leave you for lnger periods before checking. again you woke several times in the night.
saturday you cried for a few minutes and then you were quiet. ooooooo i thought we'd cracked it, popped my head in to check you were ok and you were laid there wide awake watching your lights, you gave me a big smile and i thought i'd messed it up!!! closed the door and when i checked half an hour later you were sound asleep. you woke a few times that night.
sunday night daddy was finally home!!!!!!!!! we showed daddy your routine and you went down. you cried for half an hour but i stayed out the whole time, i was clearly getting braver by the night. i dreamfed you at 11ish and then you slept till half 1, 4 and then came in bed with me for cuddles at 5.
monday night and tuesday night were pretty much the same as sunday night however you only woke at 3.30 and then 5 and then 3 and 6 this morning.
tonight we did our whole routine, saying goodnight to the world outside and settling you into your big cot that still seems too big a place for my little baby to sleep in. (i forgot to mention you have chosen to sleep on your tumy since being in your big boy cot and you snuggle your elliot comforter too). so i laid you there and smiling at me you rolled straight over, grabbing elliot on the roll over. 'goodnight my baby, i love you', kissed you on the forehead and left the room closing the door behind me. not a peep out of you tonight and you were asleep when i checked 15 minutes later, laid there in your giant bed snuggling your tiny nose into elliots cheek, holding him ever so tightly with your little chubby hand.
im so proud of you my little man! in less then a week, we have gone from screaming the minute i turned my back on you and waking at least 2 hourly.... to snuggling into your elliot teddy and going straight off to sleep, waking just once in the night before the sun is coming up and i bring you into bed with me for some mummy and finley cuddles....
love you more and more by the day my gorgeous little man
love mummy xxxx

you keep me strong

Finley, the last few weeks have been very hard for mummy. there are lots of things going on and i feel a little bit out of control over it all. the one thing that remains constant is you. you still look to me for cuddles, for feeds, for changes, for warmth, for smiles, for songs..... i could go on and on. i think about the feelings that i have now that i am a mummy, your mummy, and i feel completely and utterly overwhelmed by them. for just a short period of time you were so tiny you just laid in my arms and the only noises you made were cries to alert me to you needing somehing. now you giggle, you babble, you blow raspbrries, you cry and laugh at the same time when you're unsure of what it is you really want. you cuddle in and squeeze me tight making a little squeak of excitement at being in my arms.

this month i got to celebrate my first mummys day, i felt like the most special mummy waking up that sunday morning to a card you and daddy made together.

 it has your hands and footprints on it and pictures inside to show how you made the card with daddy. my present from you was a tattoo. a lickle moon for my lickle moon.


there are 13 starburst.... 13 was our lucky number during your treatment so this a very important number for you. the moon represents you and the white star at the bottom represents your brother or sister that we never got to meet. the black stars for the 3 long years we waited to hold you.

ive had to ask for a bit of help from nanna recently with looking after you everynow and then because mummy is so tired from all of your sleepless nights. at first i didnt want to see you go and i felt bad at leaving you, but i know now that i'm not leaving you .... im letting you spend time with your family that all love you so much too, and givibg myself the short break i needed to build my energy back up for when you're back in my arms being a little monkey again.

those 9 months of pregnancy seemed to last forever, but these past 5 months have flown by....look at you now sitting up all by yourself


i love you so so much my little man,

love from your mummy xxxxxx

i missed it :-(

well finley you little monke.... its been 22 days since you first rolled over. this morning i left you on your special quilt that i made for you whilst i put the washing in th dryer, when i came back you ad moved....a lot!!!!!!



i rang daddy and told him and we talked about how clever you are because you can also move around in a circle when laid on your tummy. as i put th phone down to daddy i put you back to your starting place and off you went again, back to tummy to back to tummy. ive worked out you must have done 3 1/2 rolls the first time to get that far!

well done my lickle man, we are so so proud of you xxxxx

Mothers day eve....

Do you know that feeling you get when you're 7 years old, its Christmas eve and you're just far too excited to sleep? Well that's me right now. Only its not Christmas and I'm not 7. Instead its the night before mothers day. Last year we had just found out lickle moon had stuck. I had hoped for a card 'from the bump' but I don't get one, I did however get two signs for my car, one said 'back off I'm pregnant' quite fitting really considering the raging hormones.... the second 'mummy to be, Becky, on board'. We made keyrings for our mums with a picture of lickle moons embie in, they were very cute and still being used now.

I've already had my pressie but ill tell you more about that tomorrow. For now I'm going to bed and going to try and get some sleep.....

Extremely excited about being a mummy on mothers day :o)