10 years of Han and Dan

10 years ago today I said "so if you want to go out with me I'm ready", and Dan said "yeah alright then" and I said "oh, ok are we going out then?"

Here is our 10 years in photos:

We met for the first time at Will's 21st birthday, we were both on team pink headband for some game or other.

We got to know each other, Dan's look on this photo was analysed at length by our meddling friends

We both fancied each other and most of our friends knew so they tricked us into playing a very awkward game of twister at Dan's 21st birthday. This scene was later depicted in icing on our wedding cake.

We finally got together on 23rd May 2007

3 and a half years later we got engaged, Dan proposed dressed as santa.

Very soon after that we attempted making a life sized elephant for a political protest, but that's largely irrelevant to our story.

in July 2011 we got married...

bought a house together and I painted it....

....and we continued being weird

In 2013, after years of planning and saving, we set off on a two month cycle ride from our house in Liverpool to Kuwait. Just for lols.

We made it!

In 2014 I got pregnant. Look at, us blissfully unaware of the sleepless nights that were to come.

Percy Samuel Jones was born 22nd October 2014

In Feb 2017 after 3 years of trying to move, 1 failed house sale and 9 months of living with another family, we finally got a family sized house.

Which was good news because 3 weeks ago....

We became a family of 4, with our new addition Eric Peter Jones born 3rd May 2017.

I Proper love you Dan. Happy 10 years of us. xx

12 days of Eric

On the first day of Eric the midwife gave to me, a tiny slimy baby.

I finished my previous blog with the baby being out. This is the story between then and now, day 12.

Day 0
4:15AM After my post birth tea and toast:
Midwife: so we'll just do the paper work and then you can go home in an hour or two.
Me: can't I stay in the hospital and sleep?

.....Later on that day

Me: I'm ready to go home now.
Nurse: well the paediatrician has to check your baby over first and she is so busy I don't even want to bother her, so you'll have to stay over night.

Day 1
Nurse: So you're all ready to go, we'll just get someone to take you to the discharge lounge.

....2 hours later

Me: how about we go for a wander and see if we can find the discharge lounge?
Nurse: no you're not allowed to do that.

About 3pm we eventually get home, 24 hours after we wanted to. Percy and Eric met and we sat in the sun in the garden for a bit, enjoying our new family.

Day 3
I tried to take their foot prints, it's such a cute gift for grandparents, if you don't think about how much a 3 day old baby did not enjoy or consent to it. Percy loved it though.

My sister spotted this on my birth notes:

Time Epidural was requested 1.47am (I'm pretty sure I was constantly requesting it) reason it wasn't given: Imminent delivery within 60 mins. But what was his time of birth? 4.15am!!

Day 4
My boobs have gone from soggy pear size to juicy melon size. Unfortunately that's just the milk coming in and they will one day go back to soggy pear.

Day 5
A new wardrobe arrived for our bedroom. This was followed by 3 or 4 days of sweat, tears, probably not blood, but there were some bruises. So far we'd survived having a newborn but adding a flat pack wardrobe that just fits into a space nearly destroyed us both mentally and physically. And we still have a shed to build.

Day 6
Went to Aldi by myself to stock up on snacks... Without a newborn baby I am just a fat person wearing jogging bottoms buying unhealthy food. I saw a couple in gym clothes buying vegetables and I really wanted to be like "I'm not a fat tracksuit wearing slob! I've just had a baby" but with or without a baby I was still a fat person buying unhealthy food wearing scally clothes.

Day 8
Went for a nice walk through Calderstones park to the ice cream parlour. I decided Eric's head looked a lot like a kiwi and showed Dan this incredible meme:

Day 11
I like to start our kids on comedy young. Percy went to his first comedy show at 6 weeks, he invented his first joke at just under 2 (the wheels on the bus go quack quack quack), he preformed this joke at a kids comedy club aged just over 2 and managed to win best joke. Eric had his first taste of comedy yesterday at the Improvathon. The Improvathon is 2017 minutes worth of improv comedy, I think thats about 33.5 hours. This year it was space themed, so Percy brought his rocket and Eric wore his space baby grow. I was tempted to go in the middle of the night, as I was up most of it anyway, but in the end we went to the child friendly bit with both the boys.

Day 12
We're half way through the 3rd packet of tiny baby nappies, there are 44 in a pack. Percy is still in nappies too, how is this sustainable?! We hope to potty train Percy ASAP.

Overall it has been a good first couple of weeks, there have been ups and downs, not really enough sleep, but it's been lovely to hold our little boy and to have lots of friends and family visit. Sometimes I think I just have babies because I'm an extrovert who likes it when people visit.

When you're trying to play it cool but your brother didn't get the memo

In tribute to Avril Lavigne 

The Birth of Eric

I've lost a lot of weight since I last blogged, and I did it all whilst eating biscuits. Yes, its time for a birth story. The prequel to this is Percy's birth story from 2 1/2 years ago, but to sum that up it was a ridiculously painful induced labour where I had an episiotomy (when someone chops your bits to make way for the head) and ventouse (a little baby hover that sucks the baby out). I remember sending out the "I've had a baby" text and the main point I tried to get across was the pain. Everyone ignored that and texted back "congratulations", they really missed my main point of the text. I said to Dan at the time that the only way I would ever give birth again would be by planned c-section.

So this time was a bit different THANK GOD! I was quite scared about it after my previous experience, I had had a bit of birth trauma counselling with a doctor friend who has just set up this as a business. I wanted to make this birth experience as different from the last one as possible, I considered home birth but then when I thought it through it involved my mum being there to look after Percy while I made mooing birth noises, and I really didn't want to moo in ear shot of my mum.

So I decided on either the hospital pool or the epidural (which numbs all your bits) the problem is that neither of these are guaranteed. It depends on if the pool is available at the right time and if the anaesthetist is available in the relatively short window of time that you can inject the magical epidural. There's two bits of the hospital you can give birth in (unless you're my mum: she'll give birth anywhere in or out of a hospital, the rebel). So there's the Midwife Led Unit, which they claim is a "home from home" for lower risk patients. I mean, if at home you have gas and air hidden under a picture frame and limited access to good drugs then I guess "home from home" is an accurate description. Then there's the high risk bit with doctors around, where you are likely to need continuous monitoring with straps that go round the bump to track the heartbeat, which means you can't go in a pool but they do store the Magic E there.

They sort of imply you have a choice of where you go, but you don't really. If I was being induced, which was the plan for today, I would be high risk but if they had let me go naturally, which was the plan a few weeks ago when the baby was deemed normal size, then I would be low risk.

So I started having mild contractions early in the morning of Tuesday 2nd May. It was annoying because the adrenalin starts going as I packed bags ready to go in, but also I knew it might be nothing, which it turned out to be when I eventually went back to sleep. Dan went in to work as normal on the Tuesday which I kept changing my mind about whether that was the right decision. I had a bit of pain but carried on with a normal day looking after Percy. When Dan got home contractions had started again and Dan started recording them. We contacted our emergency childcare people to see who was free and Rachel became the chosen emergency person. She got the bus over to ours after work, we told her to come straight here as we were worried it had started to get quicker, and then we felt a bit stupid when she got here and it all slowed down a bit. Dan later drove her back home so she could get an overnight bag, and I warned my mum to come up for 7am to relive Rachel and get Percy up in the morning. Finally around 10:30 we decided this was actually going to happen and we phoned the hospital who gave us permission to come in.

There was some discussion as to where I should be because this was natural non induced labour but the baby was still measuring small. In the end I had to start off in the Midwife Led Unit because there was no room in the other bit, and then they said they would transfer me to the other bit when I was ready to deliver. I was measured at 3cm dilated, but you need to get to 4 to get taken seriously and given drugs and you need to get to 10 to start pushing. So we had a walk round the hospital and I spent a lot of time sitting on a big bouncy ball. After a few hours and much more painful contractions the midwife said she could examine me but she doubted I would be more than 3 because the contractions still weren't following a regular patten. I'm glad I asked her still to do it, because I was 7-8cm! At that point she started taking me seriously and got me some gas and air. This is the 3rd time I'd used gas and air. The first was when I dislocated my elbow aged 16, I somehow managed to swallow the gas and air which resulted in a lot of stomach pain. This meant I was fearful of it in Percy's birth and ended up doing it wrong and then giving up on it. This time I finally got the hang of it. It's pretty fun.

I got transferred to the high risk bit ready for the babies imminent exit. My waters were bulging but for some reason wouldn't break. I asked again for the epidural, and the midwife were like "oh but you're doing so well, you don't need it" The last thing the midwife from the low risk bit said before going back to the Midwife Led Unit was "good luck and I hope you don't get the epidural" which I felt was a bit too opinionated. You sometimes hear people saying "it's better to give birth naturally" but when you've already had a traumatic birth experience I think it's pretty natural to want to avoid that horrendous pain ever happening to you again. No one goes for a c-section and says they want to do it naturally do they?

It was a bit difficult to then decide whether to really demand more drugs or not because I was just coping on gas and air but I knew it would get worse when a head started getting squeezed out and it's too late to ask then. In the end I didn't get anything, I don't feel like that was my decision though it's just what happened.

So I got to fully dilated and still the waters hadn't broken and I wasn't pushing. Whereas last time I started pushing when I was 8cm, they told me not to but I couldn't help it my body was just doing it. They felt I was holding back and gave me a little pep talk, the midwife was really nice and she was aware of my negative past experience and tried to make it different so she let me do a kneeling kind of position which I preferred to lying and she explained that she would have to press the button to get another midwife at the last bit which was normal. That was good of her because last time the button kept getting pressed and more and more people ran in because it was a bit of an emergency.

So anyway...we're nearly there thanks for reading this far. There was a back log of things I needed to get out first the waters finally came splashing out wetting my midwife and my sock. Then I needed to poo! ww it's so gross but apparently the poo had to get out before the baby. So I pushed that out and had a midwife wipe my bum. Thanks NHS I owe you one. And now it was time for the main event: The head. I was in so much pain I was moving around nearly falling off the bed screaming almost being sick, I got a telling off got back, into position and pushed him out!

The relief when you finally hear the cry and you've done it is immense! I now only had one thing left on the to do list of things to to push out, the placenta, no biggy that flopped out a minute later. It was 4.15 am, little Eric was here, and I could immediately claim my free tea and toast. Hurrah.

6lbs 4

Dan one hour later...he did a super great job, it was pretty hard work for him too.

What to expect when you're expecting.

Expect a person to come out of your genitals, and make a mess everywhere.

Tomorrow I will be 38 weeks. This time last time I was pregnant I was throwing a pancake party because it was the night before I was going to be induced and I was blissfully unaware of how painful squeezing a person out of your bits is. (If you're first time pregnant and reading this maybe ignore everything I'm saying. the other person in this photo, Steph, thinks birth is a lovely miracle and gave birth on 2 paracetamol.)

I tried to write my birth plan today, the short version is "just give me all the drugs and get the baby out." I've been reading up a bit about birth so I can look out for signs of early labour, as I'm now not being induced this time like I was before. Flicking through this book I found several mockable sentences which I will mock now. This is a paragraph telling you all the things you might want to do during early labour. I really just want to know the facts not a list of jobs a generic person might want to do. but yeah I could be folding baby clothes. If baby clothes really needed folding, they're tiny, I don't even fold adult clothes properly. 

"Cook some extra food" my mum had 17 minutes from first contraction to baby being out, with her 3rd child Sarah. My dad had to deliver her because there was no time to get to the hospital. I don't feel like this situation would have been easier if she was half way though making a lasagna. "email your friends" its not 1999.

Don't start telling me what to eat now, if there's any time when you can eat what you want it's when a person is about to come out of you.

Quick I'm in labour, I must find out what celebrities are going to share a birthday with my child... there will be absolutely no time to ever do that again and it is essential that I know now. Just in case it's Hiltler and then I'll try and keep my legs crossed until tomorrow.

This is some advice for the Man now. I don't know if you know, but ice pops will melt all over your neatly folded baby clothes. I remember after giving birth last time I was given a sanitary towel made of ice that was meant to make up for the fact that a man had chopped away at my bits with scissors. (this is called an episiotomy) Initially you're like "ok weird", but yes it's just like putting a bag of frozen peas on a bumped head. Then the ice melts and you have wet underwear and trousers that need changing... and you think this product would not get through to the final stages of Dragons Den.

So glad Dan has been devouring this book so that he knows the essentials like "put socks on cold feet".

Apparently stage one of labour is the time to make jokes and definitely not stage 3. What if you're married to a comedian? Do the rules still apply? Who knows?

Ewww.

Living on the Edge

Hey, it's been a while. Every time stuff is happening in life I have no time for blog writing and every time nothing interesting is happening I have nothing to write about. It's a wonder anyone writes anything.

Not that anything massively major has been going on, we've just been doing A LOT of diy, like almost every evening. We've been in the house a month now and only between 2 and 9 weeks till the baby is here. I'm going to guess most likely we have 4 weeks left. It takes a bit of explaining: So the baby is due on 9th May (7 weeks time). The most you can realistically go over is 2 weeks (9 weeks time), but the baby is a bit small so they are thinking about inducing me, which according to them could happen "around 37 weeks or before". I have another scan on 4th April so they will probably make a decision then.

You're probably thinking "why are they getting it out early? If it's small, thats like getting a bread out of the oven because it's not done properly." Correct, but the baby might be small because the "oven"(placenta) is not working well, in which case it might rise better in the "microwave", which I think in this metaphor represents being attached to my boob where he can get nutrition in a different way. Theres also a small chance the baby has a more serious problem such as no yeast (genetic abnormalities) in which case taking it out of the oven won't help. This was a terrible way of explaining the baby is small and so I might be induced.

So back to the house... We now live on the border between Belle Vale (a bit rough in places) and Gateacre (quite posh) but officially on our address it's Belle Vale, that's why a 4 bed house with a garden was affordable to us. (£132K if you're wondering, I'm really just including that for the Londoners.)

So our house is in walking distance from houses like this:

and people with Cath Kidston bags, and a specialist cheese shop.

It's also in walking distance of this:

The beautiful Belle vale shopping centre. Just what the french had in mind when they invented the word "belle"

and people who wear false eyelashes as everyday eyewear.

I met one of these false eyelash wearers on a trip to Morrisons. It was my first ever time there and I was signing up for a Morrisons loyalty card at the customer service desk. The woman who worked there was a very pleasant false eyelash wearer: she told me all about how you could earn points. Then she told me she saved up all of hers and spent them on vodka, but that I could spend mine on whatever I liked. While having this conversation an old woman with just one tooth in the middle came over and said "haven't you even got a "M" card?!" She was disgusted with me. I said "I've just moved to the area, this is the first time I've ever shopped here and I'm signing up for one now." She still looked disgusted.

So we've invented a game, it's not very nice, we look at people and guess if they're from Belle Vale or Gatacre based entirely on what they're wearing. We'll never know for sure. We've met our neighbours both sides and they're really lovely, proper scouse but super nice. One side told us where all the local stuff was and things that you can do with kids in the area and said come round if you need anything at all. The other side brought round a plant and a huge box of Thornton's chocolates.

At the end of our road is a tree thats been made into a memorial. It always has fresh flowers and lit candles, theres a chair there and sometimes you see a guy spending time there, usually smoking weed. I said to Dan "If I die please don't attach tacky decorations to a tree and smoke a spliff next to me."

Here's some photos of the house progress:

I finally have a studio room after 3 years. 

We painted it, laid laminate, and got those ikea boxes everyone has.

The bedroom is still a work in progress, we're still sleeping on the floor but the woodchip is gone!

We wanted to get rid of the woodchip because a) woodchip is horrible and b) I once watched a documentary about prostitutes who were also drug users and they moved into a council house which had wood chip and they got it off strait away, so if they can have the self respect to remove woodchip from their home then so can I.