Pre-childbirth my experience of caesarean, never mind a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), was limited to 'What to expect when you're expecting', which I saw when I was about 30 weeks pregnant and it terrified me. One of the women had to be rushed off for an emergency c-section in which she was drugged up to the eye-balls, completely unconnected from the birth and then nearly dies. Following that and lots of hippy books, I knew I didn't want one. I wanted to experience labour to the max, let my body take over, and all those primeval notions related to giving birth.

However, then I went into labour. On Super Saturday, as I was watching Mo win his second gold medal, I was thinking 'good for f*cking you, Mo, you dick. I wish I could have a c-section'. Entirely unconnected statements but I hated Mo (sorry Mo, I actually think you're lush, I just

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Today was the last day I could ever say I'm in my 20's...

I've thought about this day before, in my late teens, when I read an article in a magazine (might have been Red) about Naomi Campbell. From what I can remember, she was soon turning 30 but rather than looking at the age with worry, distain or whatever else a successful supermodel might think of turning 30, she was optimistic. She felt like this age would bring her peace, make her feel more stable and settled. Oh, and she'd drive a Volvo. I liked the sound of that, the feeling at peace with myself and also being stable and settled.

{I wasn't so sure about the Volvo - my Grandparents always drove a volvo and my Grandma would hare around corners in it like it was a mini, with a complete disregard for other drivers (not intentionally - she was

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Reuben is 6 months old today. I have had a baby for half a whole year. I can't work out if it feels like ages or if it's flown by. Probably a bit of both. He's completely consumed everything I do so I no longer have any concept of time! I know I've got very well acquainted with Beethoven's 9th Symphony Op 125 (thanks to baby einstein!)  but I'm sure we've done more...here's a review of what's been going on broken down into the Newborn Months - 0 to 3 months and the Baby Months - 3 to 6 months!

Reuben, my perfect little boy, arrived 3 days later after a rather long labour

I pondered my new body at 4 days and then 3 weeks and again at 12 weeks

I soon discovered Reuben wasn't a fan of sleeping unless he was on me, on my boob, so in a bid to not

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This week started with tears. Lots of tears. At 10:00 on Monday morning while Reuben was having his nap, I'd got everything ready for his day with Grandma and Grandad so I decided to indulge in some twitter time. My little twitter community that I follow had been shaken by the death of Mum blogger, Jennie Edspires, little girl, Matilda Mae, the day before from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. I clicked onto Jennie's twitter feed, where she had been explaining what happened and how she was feeling. I feel like I have no right, I didn't know her, but I wept for her loss. She had JUST lost her baby and I had never seen such open grief as it was happening, right now. I could feel her pain, I could imagine it, and although she didn't know, I cried with her. I ran down the stairs to scoop up my baby,

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My New Year's Resolution was to READ and so yesterday that's just what I did. I had a click about on the Internet and, would you believe it, I've already found some really interesting stuff!

This was my journey...

More than toast

A delicious mum blog serving up gorgeous recipes with a side of motherhood and reality (see what I did there?!) - made sense to start here since this is where I went on the rare occasion I would read as it's my favourite mum blog.

She linked to:

I'm only saying what you're thinking

A mum with gorgeous hair and style, and an ability to say it like it is (1 out of 3 for me isn't bad). Her post about pessimism really hit a chord (which is weird because she didn't give much away at all!) about making sure your kids don't see you frowning and moaning but instead laughing and smiling.

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This day a year ago, I sat down with a vague idea to start a blog. My first post, the gist, outlined 'where I was at' - recently preggers, going through the closure of my business (so therefore, unemployed!), worried about becoming fat, growing an extra pair of boobs (in case you don't believe that happens, it happened to my friend who had a baby a month after me. So there!), piles, etc, and wanting to be happy and healthy.

My mission, which I planned to document, was as follows...

a) to be healthy and happy in time for Reuben's Birth;

b) to make some money/get a job; and

c) to streamline my life – meaning everything from successful and painfree business closure to uncluttered cupboards and a Gok-style wardrobe.

Firstly, I now see that I clearly take my time every year to think through my resolutions. I needn't have panicked and thought I'd missed

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I know this must be getting insanely boring for any lovely readers out there, and I know I said I was going to relax and accept that Reuben is going to wake up... BUT SERIOUSLY, I don't get it. Last night we were back to 5 wake ups! He self-settled 3 times and I went to him twice but, all in all, Mike and I had a really bad night's sleep.

Perhaps it's judgement...Mike sent me this article called Don't get up if your baby cries in the night (I can't believe I now get information on scientific studies from the Daily Mail! Please don't judge me) and I recon Reuben could tell. The highlights of this study from Temple University, Philadelphia (and they studied 1,200 babies from 6 months to 36 months) are as follows:

- 66% of babies at the age of 6 months sleep through

- The majority of babies

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I'm not completely set on them but I'm a little closer to working out what my New Year's Resolutions are...What?! I'm taking my time and making sure I get some good ones!

In the mean time I thought I'd fill you in on the baby sleep experiment... A few weeks ago I hunted out some "tips" for how to get your baby to sleep through the night. The main one that I pinned my hopes on was dream feeding. What a crock of shit that was! Seriously stupid idea. I did everything that was advised...pick him up carefully, don't wake him, let him feed then put him down again. All fine except he then started to wake up earlier than when I was supposed to feed him. Then he started to wake up every 2 hours through the night! It was exhausting.

Mike and I had a date night away scheduled in

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Well it's been 2 weeks since my last post. Even straight after having a baby I blogged more than this!

I guess the combination of Christmas with the anniversary of finding out I was pregnant has rendered me speechless! Often it's Mike who goes into his Christmas grump but comes out the other side quoting Delboy "...this time next year..."!

Now it's my turn. Even before I started over-indulging, I had started to contemplate my new existence and have been thinking over and over how I would articulate it in a post. I've never had a plan. When I finished Uni I was offered a job without looking for one, so I didn't need to think about that. Then I had a fun (read drunk) night with best pal Alex and our business was born and we did that for 3 years. Then I got pregnant and we shut the business down

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So, when do babies sleep through the night? Ah, the age old question... after last week's blog (yes, that's how infrequently I'm blogging these days!) about combining bottle feeding with breastfeeding was posted on the Nuby facebook page, if there's one thing I learnt from the hundreds of comments it's that all babies are different! My experience (which has resulted in a sweeping generalisation) of people who have bottle fed their babies is that the baby sleeps through from 6 weeks. Turns out this isn't true! Who'd have thought.

There were people who have exclusively bottle fed with babies who didn't sleep through until they were 1 and others who were breastfed and slept through from day 1...so apparently it's not down to the type of milk.

Reuben isn't so bad, he goes to bed at 7pm and wakes between 6:30 and 8:30am. He's down to about 1 wake up in the night

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