This time last week my little Reuben had just been born…Are you ready for this? Warts and all?!

Reuben Parker was born on Sunday morning at 9:47am, weighing 7lbs and 11 oz. He is the most perfect thing I have ever seen and I am completely overwhelmed by his loveliness!

I’ve been working on this all week, when I get chance and I’m going to be honest about what the birth was like (while I can still remember – I’ll need Mike to fill in some of the details as I’m already forgetting!) but for anyone pregnant with their first baby I want to remind you that I actively avoided detailed stories of birth in order to keep positive and help prepare myself in the way I felt best. So, I want to highlight the following before you read on:

1. It was the most amazing experience of my life (and already I’m

Read More

So, I think many of you will have heard that the super gorgeous baby Reuben was finally born on Sunday morning. He is just amazing and I plan to fill you in on all the gory details of the what felt like the world's longest labour soon (it's taking a while and very difficult with a new born and therefore very limited sleep!)...

Before that I wanted to tell you about our due-date date (I believe I refered to this as our final fling in my last post) on the anniversary of me turning 40 weeks pregnant - we decided that to celebrate each other and enjoy potentially our last opportunity we would have to go out for a meal together for a while (in theory), we would take the Labourmobile out for a spin to a gorgeous restaurant in Jesmond called Firenze for a romantic meal.

I was so convinced that there

Read More

You may find this appalling but I pride myself on my ability to avoid paying any attention to the news – yes, this sometimes means I have no idea what’s going on BUT it means I get to filter what I do find out about, thus avoiding things that’ll upset me, particularly with my current delicate constitution.

However, I can’t control what other people tell me and recently I’ve been caught out a few times. A few weeks ago I mentioned I was getting neurotic (37 weeks pregnant - neurotic) and this was after I was told about a blogger in Fife who lost her newborn baby a day after she was born. I have been worrying about this ever since. Then yesterday, I had managed to avoid the news that Gary Barlow’s 4th child had been still born until some pals came over. Despite my double plea for them not

Read More

Well, I've gone and got myself a babymobile! Not be confused with the cute thing that plays music above the (not yet bought or assembled) cot, this is a luxurious family car that I've been asked to test drive for 5 weeks by Benfield Motor Group with my soon-to-be-bigger family!

It's a Hyundai i30 and it has my blog details on it and everything! The only problem now is that I'll have to stop driving like a crazed pregnant woman, lest I should start getting angry comments on my blog/twitter/facebook (and as a newly appointed ambassador for Benfield, they probably wouldn't appreciate it either)...

The funny thing is that I was asked to do this with another blogger (the lovely Hannah Layford from Raspberry Kitch - read her post about the car) who got the cute little Kia to bomb around in as 'the girl-about-town' ... 9 months ago I was the girl-about-town, now I

Read More

So, I'm theoretically into my last week of my pregnancy - 39 weeks pregnant. I'm due next Thursday, 9th August, and I still have a piano and a sofa in my kitchen (well I did when I was writing this but then Mike's family arrived to move everything so now I don't). But, it's over now. The floors have been sanded, they are dry enough to put pianos and sofas on top of and to top it off for the first time in about 2 weeks we have a bathroom door. The luxury! And, as my mum pointed out yesterday, the kitchen will feel MASSIVE when there's no piano or sofa in it! Can't beat her optimism.

The bathroom door - yes, there's no doorknob and yes, it doesn't shut but nonetheless, it's a door!

In amongst all this mess I've been trying to remain calm in the hope that the baby

Read More

On Monday we moved back into our house after 3 weeks of living with our parents. Here's a tour of our house when I first arrived home...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lhZSZJgb0Q&feature=youtu.be

Should have filmed it in landscape, so I yet again show off my filming prowess.

I mentioned that I freaked out about how much we needed to do. Unfortunately, as a result of my initial freak out I've managed to panick both Mike (he's struggled to sleep well all week for worrying about me) and my mum (who's now offering to come over and help do stuff, which would be great if I could work out what needs doing...!). Whoops!

Despite the size of the washing pile, that never goes down (pretty much everything got covered in dust), and the fact that the nursery is a dumping zone, I've actually now done a u-turn and I'm feeling pretty relaxed.

The washing pile - there's a washing basket and

Read More

Yowzers. Another week passes.

Firstly, I can't believe that I have a fully grown (pretty much) baby inside me now. Even with the help of this 37 weeks pregnant picture I find it really hard to imagine (courtesy of ask a mum)!

Secondly, I literally can't keep up and everything is beginning to feel a bit overwhelming. I know when I think about it logically (with Mike's help) that it is all fine but my crazy baby brain isn't logical and I barely slept last night for thinking about things. I'm not entirely sure what, just things.

We moved back into our house yesterday after 3 and half weeks away. I'd really been looking forward to it but once we got back the amount that still needs to be done (preferably in the next week so that I can properly relax and let baby know that we're ready for it to come out!) freaked

Read More

I'm 36 weeks pregnant (37 tomorrow!) and I can't seem to keep up with the weeks at the moment there's so much going on!

The good news is I handed in my report so I'm on maternity leave! Of sorts - I may still be needed to update a picture or a paragraph but hopefully not. The other good news is baby is fine, with its head down, and apart from the odd bout of thrush (ooh the glamour), so am I.

The bad news at the weekend was that I nearly passed out at a dinner party - I was sitting down and had just eaten, so goodness only knows what that was about. I did have heartburn for 2 days afterwards but I feel perfectly fine now. I was probably just a bit over excited by being so grown up/out late/out at all.

The other bad news is that I am potentially

Read More

Well, 35 weeks pregnant came and went in a bit of a blur. With 5 weeks to go, it was suddenly very real. I've been dreaming about going into labour and worrying about the baby continuously - it's moving too much, not moving enough, why's it hiccuping ALL the time, etc!

Mike was still away and I was feeling a bit miserable, particularly after a visit to my Grandparents. My Grandad turned 80 last weekend. He's an amazing man, still working full time running his own business, very fit and healthy. What he hasn't picked up with age, however, is any tact, and while we were watching the Wimbledon final last Sunday and just after I'd enjoyed a chocolate, he decided it was important to tell me, in a very matter-of-fact way, that I'd put on more than baby weight. Particularly in my face and legs. Although I knew this was

Read More

I think I'm losing the plot! I arrived in Olney yesterday to visit my best friend, Alex, and her boyfriend in their new, lovely house, and yet I have zero crack.

I'm not sure if it's because I've just waved Mike off for his 2 week 'work trip' (he keeps accidentally referring to it as a holiday!) to Sri Lanka, you know the place with tsunamis, earth quakes, civil unrest, and food that could give you the shits? Or if it's because I'm going to be living out of a suitcase for the next 2 weeks bunking at my parents, or if it's the state of the house and the fact that when we get back there's still 2 more weeks of living out of 3 of our 8 rooms (kitchen, bathroom, spare room). Equally it could be my self imposed deadline for a first draft of my work's report, which

Read More