Birth

HE'S HERE! and he's a he. On 22nd October at 1.30pm Percy Samuel Jones arrived into "the outside" weighing slightly over 8lbs.

I know mother's have the like biased hormonal thing which makes them think their own children are beautiful, but he is lovely right? (if you don't agree it's probably best not to say.)

So birth....that was less beautiful. Here's a photo of me not looking my best but I wanted to include it because it's what the face of a real life woman is like after birth.

Compare and contrast with this one that was taken after a makeover when I was 21.

 It should be like a warning to all men on the pull (if you can't cope with a woman looking like this then stop trying to pull her)

Anyways back to birth... In my last blog I wrote how I was imagining birth to be the pain of when I dislocated my elbow with the endurance of cycling 70 miles through mud. So how did it compare? Lots of people say you forget the pain when the baby is born, well I haven't forgotten it yet!

It was horrendous. I don't want to scare you if you're pregnant though. I think I had a worse than average experience. I spoke to my friend Steph today who gave birth the day after me and the only pain relief she had was paracetamol!

Warning skip this paragraph if you don't want to know the gory details.

So for me once I got onto the delivery suite after about 14 hours of having contractions on the induction rooms, I was shown how to use gas and air but I did it wrong and it had no effect on me. Then everything started happening really fast. The baby's heart beat was dropping, the midwife called in another midwife, who called in a doctor who called in another doctor.  I started pushing even though they told me not to because I wasn't ready yet and it would hurt.  But you can't control that, no one in their right mind would push when they've been told not to but I just couldn't help it. They had to cut me, and use the suction thing on the baby's head to get it out. Then they put the baby on me while they stitched me up.

People say 'once they put the baby on you the pain is gone and you're just so relived and in love with the baby that you forget everything' That was not the case for me, I was still lying with my feet in stirrups being stitched up, just in less horrendous pain.   But I do remember in the middle of that looking down at the baby and saying "who is it?" Then I moved the umbilical cord stump and said "it's Percy!" (which was our chosen boy's name.)

I would say the love for him came a bit more gradually over the next 24 hours.  But it's safe to say that we are now both completely besotted with him.

The only final thing to say for today is that Dan was an absolute legend and I have a overwhelming fresh new love for him too.

Baby News!

I've not had the baby....but our big news is I'm going to be induced at 38 weeks which is in 10 days time!!

Here is why:

So I've had itchy skin particularly at nights for a week or two, I ignored it because I though it might be an insect based thing, I did have a few insect bites and there are some annoying little fruit flies in our house sometimes. Then eventually I googled "itchy skin during pregnancy" and found out that it was most likely to be a hormonal thing but there's a chance it could be a liver problem.

So then I phoned the hospital to speak to a midwife who called me in for some blood tests. The next day they asked me to come in again because I did have the liver problem (Obstetric Cholestasis.) It's only a problem while I'm still pregnant, but if someone with this condition is left till 40 weeks or more then their risk of having a still birth is higher. So they will induce me at 38 weeks to reduce that risk.

It's not a big risk at all so no one worry, we're not really worried we're just excited to be meeting baby Jones soon. My induction is 21st oct at 8pm so their most likely birthday will be 22nd October.

I've been wondering what birth will be like and as I've never given birth I'm trying to think of the nearest I've come to it in terms of pain, endurance and medical professionals looking at my privates. So this is what I've come up with:

The most physical pain I've ever experienced was when I was 16 and this happened:

Yeah ...if a random guy in Tescos car park asks you to unicycle don't unicycle forward while looking backwards to check he's watching. It's arrogant (and dangerous.)

The biggest endurance test I've done was day 2 of our 61 day trip to the middle east. We cycled 70 miles from cheshire to Birmingham in the rain on roads like this:

It took 11 hours and I cried after 50 miles.


My tyres and feet looked like this:

Also like almost every female over 25 I've had a smear test, not pleasant but no big deal really. Surprisingly enough I didn't take a photo of this occasion.

So anyway if giving birth is like cycling 70 miles in the rain with a dislocated elbow while having a smear test, I'm all prepared.

The Wedding of Jo and Elisha

On Saturday my little sister got married! It was a fantastic day probably the best wedding I've ever been to other than my own. In fact last night I started comparing different elements of their wedding objectively with my own wedding (I know that's a terrible thing to do).  When it started to look like they may actually win this comparison I stopped comparing (because comparing weddings in a terrible thing to do!)

Jo looked absolutely beautiful, and as you can see we were more than a little excited!

There were 7 bridesmaids, 8 if you count bumpy the littlest bridesmaid/ pageboy.  When walking down the aisle Bumpy led the way closely followed by the rest of me, and then the other bridesmaids all in pairs.  I'd asked Dan to take photos as we entered he decided to take a video, but forgot to take the lens cap off.  Elisha (who is also called Dan by some people) looked very pleased to see his bride walking in.

After the service I got to see some of my extended family and some good friends including Bex who is due in 2 weeks!

Then after a long discussion about who should go in what car it was on to the lovely reception venue.

The speeches were great apart from when Dad accidentally raised a toast to the Mr and Dr Jones.  I think he was concentrating so much on pointing out his daughter was a Dr that he forgot the surname. (Which is Hastings.)  The meal was followed by dancing and a photo both ran by my sister in law Rebekah.  I can't wait to see the photos from that...  I'm on almost all of them, sorry other people.

Love the macarena it's the only time I'm not the worst dancer on the dance floor.

We returned to Liverpool very tired at lunch time on Sunday to greet poor little Lola the rabbit, the only one who didn't enjoy the wedding. Unfortunately I had forgotten that Rachel who I had asked to feed our rabbit didn't have a key to our house. Luckily we had purposefully left the cage unlocked so she had access to our garden and Rachel was able to go round our neighbour's house and throw a few rabbity treats over the wall. We spoiled her when we got in and hopefully she has forgiven us now.

Last night ended with some unexpected maths problems while we lay in bed with a hot chocolate. I was asking Dan about when they say 'you're 10cm dilated' -what is that? It must be the diameter right? So what is the circumference? That's when we both had to think back to some year 8 maths. Dan thought the formula was Pi R Squared (sorry there's no pi key) this came out as 78cm which I was sure sounded too big. I then got a roll of masking tape some ribbon and a ruler and worked out that the diameter of the masking tape was 9cm while the circumference was 28cm. That's 9 x 3! What number is roughly three?! Pi! therefore we have discovered (a long time after someone else) that to find the circumference you times the diameter by pi. That other formula (Pi R Squared) is the area.

So how exciting! when the midwife tells me 'you're 10cm dilated time to push' I won't have to worry about the circumference because I'll know that it's 31.45 assuming my cervix is a perfect circle which I'm sure it's not.

Oh the joyous things we would never do if we had a TV.

Top 10 Pregnancy Comments

Today I am 35 weeks which you think would mean we had a 'special hug' 35 weeks ago actually it doesn't, because of the silly way they count it, it's more like 33 weeks since that happened. Anyway that's enough about our special hug life. Check out the bump.

I'm going to dedicate this blog to all the people who have commented on my pregnancy: friends and strangers but especially the funny commenters which are mainly the kids from the school I work in.
I find it funny when strangers feel the need to comment, fair enough if they ask when is it due or whatever that's just being friendly. But there was a man is Aldi who said 'you're big' (ironically he was about 20 stone) and there was a lady on the till in Asda who insisted I shouldn't be carrying my shopping which was only something like a loaf of bread and some jam. What do you actually expect me to do? Are you offering to carry my shopping home for me? If not don't comment. (I didn't say that though)

Most adult comments are normally variations on either...'oh look at your bump' 'when are you due?' 'do you know what it is?' or 'I think you're having a boy/ girl because xyz'

People have been very lovely and helpful and it really is nice that people are taking an interest and stuff so I don't want this to come across as negative, but because I get asked the same questions a lot I am tempted to give stupid answers. Like 'how long have you got left?'.... 'oh hopefully another 50 years at least...probably longer than you.' Or my favourite variation on 'Do you know what it is?' was 'What sex are you having?' Soooo hard not to say a position, but I just managed to politely say 'we're having a surprise'

Kids comments have been much less predictable here's the top 10 hilarious kid comments:

10) Why are you having a baby? (I wasn't sure whether to answer that from a biological or psychological perspective)

9) Are there 2 babies in there or 3?

8) The baby might not know you're an artist. (I'm not sure why this was such a concern)

7)  If it's a boy you should call it Steven Gerrard.

6) Do you actually want a baby? Do you know that babies grow into kids?

5) You don't have a TV?!! You'll have to get one before the baby arrives or your  baby will be soooo bored!

4) If it's a girl throw it in the bin!

3) Do you know you need a man to make a baby?
yes, I am married
Well we've never seen your husband!

2)When you have a baby either you have to show all your rude bits or have it cut out of you. Which one are you going to do?

1) What's that in there? (pointing to my belly)
a baby
oh I thought it was a ball
Have you never seen a woman with a baby in her belly before?
My Dad has a big belly.

The Middle Sister

A week today my sister Jo is getting married. This means I must share a childhood picture of us:

Aww.... from the days where I was the tallest sibling (and I had a horrible fringe, If my baby is a girl I will actively discourage her from fringes.)

One of the best things about Jo is that on first impressions she comes across as very normal, very mature and responsible maybe even a little bit dull...but she's actually crazy! She has done a lot of crazy things like skydiving and zorbing, she is an accomplished unicycler, tightrope walker, gymnast and trampolinist. We wrote a little book for Jo at her hen night that we all signed with nice memories and stuff... for some reason the main thing I could remember  was this time we were really bored on a family walk and decided to repeatedly touch an electric fence. Good times. Mum and Dad were despairing a little, but we wouldn't even have that family walk memory right now if it wasn't for touching the fence.

Since we've always had a bit of an interest in circus, this became the theme for the hen night.

Back in the day...

The hen night....

I'm pretty proud of my costume... I didn't want to be a pregnant clown so when Dan suggested big top (after elephant) I thought that would work well. My costume was mainly made from a laundry basket and a lamp shade. I felt a great sense of freedom wearing a costume that no one would recognise me in. for example I would never creep out an innocent man working on his laptop in my home town in normal dress...

Nor would I dance with Jo in front of a bit of and audience.

Happy hen night Jo, can't wait to be the fattest bridesmaid at your wedding!

Hopefully you'll look a bit better than you did at the end of your hen do. x

Babies

Everyone loves babies especially in digital form when you can just admire their cuteness without them disturbing your sleep. Here's our properly adorable nephew Reuben with his Daddy (the husband of Dan's sister)

All babies are cute but some are cuter than others and he deffo comes into the 'cuter' category.

At church on sunday I was asked quite publicly "How was your shower? I saw the photos" I quickly added " my BABY shower? yeah it was great" You can never be too careful in church, that's how rumours start.

So I had my baby shower this week which was brilliant. Everyone put so much effort into making it a lovely day, I felt very spoilt. Our baby is super spoilt he or she now owns 7 hats! Lets hope they're a hat person.

We played lots of games at the baby shower including Cat's game 'stick the Jewish hat on the the baby' (a reference to a bit of my stand up) and Katie's game try and guess what Han and Dan's baby will look like.....

It's a pretty disturbing game.

A lot of people are very keen to guess the name, at the baby shower I gave out very cryptic name clues:

So if you want to join in the guessing game, we have chosen 4 names: a boys first name and middle name and a girls first name and middle name. So 4 of these clues relate to these 4 chosen names but there are also 2 red herrings. I'm not going to say if you're right though so it really is a pointless game.

This weekend ie the rest of the day is my sister's Hen party. I can't reveal much now or I might ruin the surprises but lets just say my costume is pretty immense, and took me 2 days to make. Photos to follow.

P.s this is my last bit of stand up before motherhood which I performed on Wednesday.

Edinburgh and Stuff

Almost 2 weeks ago we went to the Edinburgh festival to hang out with with our super fun comedian friends who are staying there all month. It was really our last chance to live the student life style for a few days before becoming the kind of people who carry wet wipes with them at all times, and invest money in invisible things like life insurance and pensions. Thinking about it though, maybe students and parents have more in common than you think, they both survive on too little sleep and they both turn a blind eye to crisps on the floor.

Edinburgh festival is really fun there are 1000s of shows and lots of them are free, (we went to 10 shows in two days and they were all free.) We saw a lot of our friends shows, and we really do have some super talented and funny friends. We saw some other shows too. We came back singing the songs from Kris Foster's album, he's a Lancashire comedian who wears a leopard suit for no reason and writes songs about Vimto, and taxidermy, and that situation that you sometimes find yourself in.... when you need to make two brews and you only have one tea bag. I respect people who write songs about things people don't normally write about. There are way to many songs about love, and I don't think I'm the only one who has run out of tea bags more times than I have been in love.

Since coming back I have been making the baby's room, so far I have painted the floor and one wall and been to ikea but not actually made the ikea stuff up yet. Here I am testing a few colours in my pyjamas. With hindsight the second coat was not really the time to start testing out different shades but I have an unconventional approach to decorating. When it's all finished I'll put up some photos.

Happy 57th Birthday to my Dad. We went to surprise him for the day while he was on holiday in the Yorkshire dales. The great thing about being 28 and having parents in their 50s is that we're at that nice point in life where neither of us are burdening each other, financially or emotionally. I've managed to get over all my teenage issues before they have started having old people problems, I hope to have at least another decade of that.

And last but not least...exciting news!! We have a nephew called Reuben born yesterday! Massive congrats to Dan's sister Bethany and husband Nick. Hopefully we'll get to visit soon and then I can dedicate a whole blog post to him.