25 weeks pregnant!

Too long AGAIN, but oh well. I will just try to write as much as I can whenever I get chance! My days seem really FULL at the moment. I am busy from the moment I get out of bed till about 2 hours before I fall back into it at night, and during those two hours, Neil and I chat and pray first and then relax in our own ways (him on a computer game usually, me online for a bit, BUT bedtime for me is now 11pm and I need about 20 minutes before then to do my FlyLady Before Bed Routine (sooooo proud of myself!!!). So the bit where I get to go online is now tiiiny compared to what it used to be, each day.

I'm having a Braxton Hicks contraction! I haven't felt any of those for quite a few days so it has caught my attention, plus it isn't very comfy and my bladder is full so it makes me reeeally need to wee while it's going on! They only last a very short time - this one was only about 10-20 seconds if that.

Okay, so I am now 25 weeks pregnant! Only 15 weeks to go - that's crazy! Also, you're supposed to do all the big transitions for your toddler (or toddlers in my case!) by 6-8 weeks BEFORE the baby arrives. So that means we only have like 7 weeks to go till the 8-weeks-left milestone! Which is less than 2 months. Which is the timeframe where we have to get all the big stuff done with the boys that we need to. If I want to potty train Arthur (who isn't remotely potty trained yet), I need to do it in the next 7 weeks. Otherwise we'll have THREE children full-time in cloth nappies for at least the first 6-8 weeks after Nathan is born! Yikes! I LOVE my cloth nappies but ohhhh the laundry. And the pooooo. And three feels just a little bit overwhelming, though if I had triplets I would NOT hesitate to put them all in cloth nappies (honestly) from the word go.

Arthur and Matthew share a lot of nappies now because they are both in toddler-sized ones most of the time (Matthew still wears some mediums/larges and Arthur is in XL in those particular ones). But the ones they share are basically falling apart now! It's been so long since I sewed any nappies - it might even have been as far back as when I was waiting for MATTHEW to arrive. I simply haven't had time since having two little ones! I must make time though, because I have fabric cut out and waiting for me to sew it into Cuddlebuns or Very Baby diapers to fit my big boys! I know that potty training Arthur will relieve the strain on the poor old nappies, but right now he does NOT want to potty train, and I don't really want to push him, so. Anyway, we are going to need toddler sized nappies for a good while to come, so I might as well make some more! I hope I find time once Neil is out of work (as of tomorrow!!!!).

Anyway, pregnancy stuff!

Nathan's stats amaze me! I haven't checked those in a while and I can't believe he now weighs 1.5lbs and measures just over 13.5 inches from head to heel! He's getting so much bigger! His fastest weight gain will come in the 3rd trimester, and the fastest of that will be in the final month or so. So far I think he will be a lot like Arthur in weight, because he seemed to have Arthur's build at the scan, and his measurements confirmed that. Also it's interesting in the note Jemma left me (thanks Jemma!) that she compared my weight gain at 23 weeks with my 3 pregnancies and I had gained 18lbs with Arthur, 14lbs with Matthew, and 17lbs this time. As far as the start of colostrum production goes, I was just over 20 weeks with Arthur, and around 22 weeks this time, but I didn't have any till 28 weeks with Matthew. I wonder if there's a correlation there with the weight gain, for me? Arthur and Nathan's pregnancies seem to have things in common that Matthew's did not have, although let's face it, they were all pretty similar in general!

I am wondering about Nathan's birth weight.... Arthur was 8lbs 1.5oz, which amazed us at the time because he was the heaviest baby in our family on either my side OR Neil's! But it all makes sense now we know him better :) His build and weight gain in his first year are consistent with his heavier-than-expected weight at birth. Matthew, being a "subsequent baby" and especially a subsequent baby BOY, was expected to weigh the same as or more than Arthur, statistically. But he weighed less! He was 7lbs 11oz, and his build and weight gain pattern was well in line with that lighter-than-expected birth weight.

But Nathan.... I think Nathan is more like Arthur. So will HE be the "subsequent baby" with Arthur's build, who will be at least as heavy as Arthur was at birth? Statistically, yes, he is likely to be. Which makes me feel slightly nervous! I don't know why it should, since I know I can birth babies in general (!) and also 8lbs was fine. I am not expecting a 9lb-er by any means! So it shouldn't matter. I guess if I was doing a poll, I would probably say he might be 8lbs 2oz or 8lbs 3oz. I can't believe I would have a baby that heavy though, so maybe not! I am so petite, it doesn't feel natural, haha! All the babies in our families have been under the 7lb mark, pretty much. Except my daddy (note - the only one with Arthur's build!), who was 7lbs 15oz, past his due date (but not sure how much past). If Nathan is as late as Matthew (well, a week past my due date, not "late" as such), then maybe he'll have gained even more weight by then?! I think if he comes at 41 weeks, I would put my guess at 8lbs 4oz. Otherwise 8lbs 2oz. I think. Yes, that's my bet! Anyone else care to hazard a guess?! It's early for this kind of thing, but I'm curious! ;)

Nathan is in the middle of a quiet patch at the moment. It's been 2 days that he's been really quiet in there. It would probably freak me out if it wasn't for the fact that he does this a lot, when he's having a growth spurt. I'm sure this pattern is especially noticable this pregnancy over the other two. I wonder if it's because Nathan is a quieter baby than the other boys, and so if he's extra quiet then I barely feel a THING, whereas "quieter" for Arthur (or Matthew, I suppose) was sometimes equivalent to Nathan's BUSY patches, hehe! It's so easy to tell Nathan's busy-ness from his quietness - he moves; he doesn't move. With Arthur, he moved ridiculously much; he moved somewhat less ridiculously much! Although, Nathan DOES move when he's having a quiet patch, but I only get the odd gentle bump or tap, just the once or twice, every few hours. That's reeeeeally quiet for one of my babies!

Granny asked me if I'm SURE he's not a girl, when I said about how his activity levels compare with the other boys' pregnancies. And I had my 24 week antenatal appt last week. My bump measured behind!!! Which doesn't happen to me at ALL! The boys measured 2 weeks ahead throughout most of the pregnancies, so this is just weird for me! ;) At first when she was measuring, the doctor looked concerned, and measured again and again, and then seemed satisfied enough with the last measurement and told me it was a week or two behind but nothing to worry about. How different is that?! I know it's consistently like that this time around, because all along so far, I have noticed the top of my uterus isn't as high as it "should" be. Like it's meant to be at the belly button level at 20 weeks. Well it was 2 finger-widths below at 20 weeks, and it finally reached belly button height at 22 weeks. So, I know. And I'm not remotely worried about Nathan - I know he's growing fine in there and measuring normally at the 21 week scan. It could just be the way I'm carrying him or his position (not that his position seems much different to the boys really). But it IS different, for how my pregnancies usually are. Someone said (can't remember who), "Are you SURE it's not a girl?!" when I told them about that. And to both this person and Granny, I had to say, "Well, no. I'm not!" because I never did SEE Nathan's boy bits. I saw what was pointed out to me as a scrotum squashed between closed thighs! And the sonographer sounded confident from the start that he is a boy, so I'm sure he must be. But I didn't personally see the evidence, so it's a bit frustrating! We are all REALLY bonding with Nathan and I can't fathom how it would feel to have a baby girl pop out in February after all! I think Arthur would not take well to the unexpected change! And I think *I* would grieve a sort of "loss" of Nathan. So I really hope the sonographer didn't make a mistake. I really want my baby boy now!

Nathan seems to be head down most of the time. He gets hiccups quite a bit, maybe once or twice a day. I love feeling those! They are getting so strong and clear that Neil can just gently lay his hand on my bump and have my whole bump blip against his hand clearly! Which is lovely. I think Nathan's back must be up against my tummy for him to feel the hiccups so clearly. His back is often up on my right hand side, rather than the left. Matthew's was too. Arthur was always on the left. I wonder if that has to do with the position of their placentas? I read that babies like to face their placentas.

My energy is good at the moment, but I get tired easily. Sometimes I get sugar or protein "crashes" while we're out, which is not too fun with two sloowwww-moving toddlers walking with me! I just need to get home INSTANTLY if that happens, and eat! I used to try sugary stuff straight away, thinking it was low blood sugar, but it didn't seem to help that much. Today we were out for a short walk and I came over weak and shaky and lightheaded, and all that fun stuff, and ate protein instead (a ton of cheese while I made the boys' lunch) and that helped a LOT, really quickly. I think I am just building another human being, and so I need protein kinda desperately sometimes, hehe! ;)

Oh, the rest of my antenatal appt went fine. My blood pressure was fine (it's in my notes but I'm running out of time (and laptop battery) right now so suffice to say it's fine!), and Nathan's heartbeat was healthy and strong. My urine had a trace of blood, white blood cells, and protein in it, so they sent it away to culture. I haven't heard back from them so I presume nothing grew in it and I'm fine, but I was symptom FREE at the time of my appt (when I did the urine sample), and by the evening I didn't feel great, and it hurt to wee. I also needed to go more often, and that continued for a couple of days. Today it seems a lot better. So I felt sure I had a UTI, but I didn't hear from the doctor so I'm guessing the sample didn't show that. Weird.

The appt actually went well with the boys there!! I used new tactics. I put them in the tandem pushchair, and when we got there and the doctor was running late, I told the receptionist we'd be outside watching the traffic (the boys LOVE watching cars and any other vehicles for that matter!), and we'd keep checking in every few minutes. So there was no trauma in the waiting room! And they stayed in the pushchair! Yay! So I just wheeled them on in when the doctor called us, and parked them, still in the pushchair, for my appt! Now, this would NOT have gone down well, but then part two of my new tactics swung into action, and I whipped out the Organix gingerbread men (favourites at the mo, especially for Matthew), and a couple of cream crackers, and voila! Two quiet, uncomplaining boys, sitting still for the duration of my appointment!! It was BLISS. Bliiiss. It was so nice to focus on Nathan a bit and have quietness while I talk to the doctor, without fishing Matthew out of the clinical waste bin, stopping Arthur standing on the examination table, prising urine sample bottles (from the doctor's drawer) out of Matthew's hand, stopping Matthew jumping on the scales and pulling the blinds, etc, etc. I DREAD taking them to the doctor lately! But the pushchair/cars/snack thing worked wonders. I will be using that again! :)

Okay, what else before I really MUST go to bed. I am really over-warm these days. I seem to sweat a TON every day, just being around the house. It's not too warm in the house, but I just sweat! It might actually be more to do with the FlyLady stuff I'm doing - yes, I'm actually doing HOUSEWORK! And trying to get it done as fast as I can. There is a lot of WARM laundry involved, so maybe it's just that. But anyway.

I can't think of anything else, although I know there must be a ton of other stuff, just bits and pieces. We never did get around to taking a 24 week belly pic :( But hopefully a 25 week one, since the last one was pretty much 23 weeks instead of 22. I hate that I'm getting behind on things with this pregnancy. I want to keep track of everything as carefully as I did with the other two! But I'm that much more busy each time I have another baby!

We need a new car. Our current one won't hold 3 car seats. I have nooooo idea how we're supposed to do that before February with no income! Hmmm! We'll sell the one we've got, but it might not get us enough to buy a bigger car, even a well-used one. Hmmm. We're planning to move Matthew into Arthur's car seat and Nathan into Matthew's (they have identical ones, but we kind of want Nathan to go into the newest of the two), and get Arthur a booster seat. Their car seats are birth to age 4, but Arthur is nearly 3 and big for his age on these things, so he may as well go into the next stage car seat. He's excited about being the one to get a new car seat and especially wants a lellow one, for some reason!

Okay, it's 11pm so I have to call it a night. I'm so tired in the mornings! Matthew wakes a lot at night STILL, and that has to change! Some nights he only wakes once, around 4 or 5am and that's just blissful for me, but I need better sleep basically. And he needs to be WELL into a sleeping-through-the-night routine before Nathan arrives! We'll be transitioning the boys to a shared bedroom in the next 7 weeks! We're converting Matthew's cotbed into the toddler bed version. We couldn't decide whether to do that or have Nathan sleep in it when he arrives, but then we figured we'd have to buy Matthew a bed or toddler bed otherwise, and it's really HIS now. And he's chewed a lot of the wood so it doesn't look very pretty any more! So I bid on a cot (NOT cotbed this time) at eBay and won! It's a John Lewis "Anna" cot in natural beech, and very simple and sweet. I won it for £60, hardly used as the baby ended up co-sleeping. They are £100 new, so I'm happy! And bedding is thrown in free! I declined the mattress though, nearly-new or not. I want a NEW mattress. It's what you're supposed to do anyways. We'll have the cot in our room with us (need to shift ALL the furniture around). I think we can all fit in this tiny 2-bedroom house yet! :)

Okay, battery pretty much gone, and I'm tired out. I'll try to update again soon, and post a belly pic asap too. Thanks for all the notes and messages - meant to respond to some in more detail but run out of time tonight. Back soon!

24 weeks - viability!!! And catching up a bit...

Ohhh it's been way too long since I updated! Almost 3 weeks! I definitely do not want to repeat that again - I like to keep up with every little thing that happens in my pregnancies!

And it's 11pm now (bedtime for me) so I can't stay and update about anything. I just had to touch base. I just uploaded a belly pic (just the belly) for 22 weeks, although it wasn't actually taken till 22 weeks and 5 days, but oh well. I missed the 22 week belly pic last pregnancy too, how odd!

Today I'm 24 weeks pregnant! Can you believe it?! So it's belly pic day again today, but we haven't got around to it yet. Hopefully tomorrow though.

Thanks for all the lovely messages after my scan! I'm SO IN LOVE with Nathan already, to the point where I am already thanking God that he's a boy and not a girl :) I knew that would happen. Although, I did not have any "blues" after this scan, which was unexpected! Nice though :) It took me a couple of days to call him by name and say "he" when referring to him, but that's all. I just love him to bits! We all call him Nathan now, and Arthur talks about him a lot. Arthur has felt him kick several times now, and seems in silent awe about it every time!

Nathan is officially "viable" from today! Wheeeee! I can't believe I'm getting this far into my pregnancy! I have my 24-week antenatal appt with my GP on Wednesday. Totally dreading it as I have to take the boys and the last few times I've had to cart them to the doctor's surgery, it has NOT been any fun. At all. So I'm not looking forward to it! Nobody can help me out so they have to come with me. I will update about my appt midweek if I get chance, and hopefully post my 24-week belly pic then (and a more detailed update!).

I've been having headaches a lot lately (bad ones that won't go with painkillers) but I have taken my blood pressure during them and it's always something around 120/65 so it's not a blood pressure thing. My head feels TOO full of blood sometimes, like I can't ease the congestion because it's just vascular. Also I am getting ultra tense in my neck and shoulders these days. Can't figure out why, but I'm sure it's contributing. Anyway, so that's no fun but it's manageable I guess.

Nathan is making MUCH bigger and stronger movements these days. He has had a couple of big growth spurts lately (characterised by me eating a TON while he's super quiet for a couple of days, then me feeling like a slug for the next two days while he kicks bigger than ever before with tons of energy!). I will have to look up his stats and measurements for 24 weeks - haven't checked that kind of thing in a while. It's all whizzing by so fast! Last week he made his first big stretching/shoving movements with his whole body that actually HURT me! I think he's much later than my other boys though, with that :)

I'm making colostrum! I noticed it about 2 weeks ago - I think it was a few days after I last wrote an entry here, so maybe somewhere nearing 22 weeks? Anyway. I noticed increased pain when nursing the boys, and that they seemed to be less just comfort sucking and more TRYING to get something out of there, hehe! So one evening I tried hand expressing a bit to see if there was anything there, and there WAS! I was so excited!! It still seems white-ish to me, but it was thicker and like syrup in consistency, so I know it's colostrum (or the beginnings of it). Ever since then, I've been asking Arthur if there's any milky in there when he nurses (I occasionally asked him that before and he said, "No, none at all!" in a very forlorn tone!), and he says yes every time! So I'm glad the boys are getting something again, especially good immune-boosting stuff like colostrum :) I hand expressed a little again tonight and found the same white-ish colostrum at first, then a little more that was clear as water, but syrupy in consistency - that's much more what I remember of colostrum from my previous pregnancies, so I'm definitely producing it now, hooray! Now that will stay until my milk comes in after Nathan is born. I love lactating! I always feel kind of.... at a loose-end, sort of, unsatisfied (or something!) when I dry up during pregnancy for a month or two.

Arthur's nursing sessions are now very short, by my choice, but he seems happy enough about it. He only nurses a couple of times a day, and only for a couple of minutes at a time now, which is a HUGE change for Arthur. He has his normal breastfeed in bed at bedtime though, and without his afternoon nap he is so sleepy that he pretty much nurses to sleep at bedtime every night. When he doesn't, he CAN go to sleep by himself without us in the room though, so that's okay. He nurses to sleep within 10 minutes, so that's the longest he ever breastfeeds for now. I can't see him weaning for a while yet, myself, unless I choose to lead him in that direction. Which I have no intention of doing :)

Okay, I could write soooooo much more, but I must go to bed. Just wanted to check in, and have ended up writing more than I thought I would, so that's good! Oh, I weighed myself at 23w3d (I think?) and was 9st 8lbs. I think that's a total gain of 17lbs. Will have to compare it with my previous pregnancies. It doesn't really matter though. I'm pretty sure to end up gaining approximately 54lbs anyways! ;)

Nathan's Ultrasound Gallery!

My ultrasound scan pictures from my third pregnancy, with Nathan.

Here is Beanlet's first photo! It was an ultrasound at 8 weeks exactly (Beanlet measured 8 weeks and 1 day), due to spotting. I turned the picture on its side and then added rather badly written labels! Which is the second picture that you see :) Then you can make out Beanlet's head and limb buds and fun things like that!

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At 10 weeks and 5 days I had a really heavy bleed, and I got another ultrasound scan two days later as a result. This picture is from the scan at exactly 11 weeks - Beanlet measured 11 weeks and 1 day:

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Here are three very similar pictures of Beanlet from the nuchal scan, at exactly 13 weeks. Beanlet measured 13 weeks and 1 day - a day ahead for the third time running, so my due date was changed by one day. You can see Beanlet's little hand up by his/her face in a couple of these! He/she is lying on the placenta (the nice thick grey cushion underneath Beanlet!):

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Here are the two ultrasound pictures from the "Big Scan" at 21 weeks, where we found out that Beanlet is a BOY, and thus a Nathan! :) We didn't get as many pictures this time as with Matthew, and the two we got were basically the same, but Nathan was rubbing his nose with his hand during the photos, which was really sweet! Here he is!

Nathan's Belly Gallery!

My belly pictures for my third pregnancy, with Nathan, taken from June 2007 to January 2008

5 weeks pregnant

10 weeks pregnant

14 weeks pregnant

16 weeks pregnant

18 weeks pregnant

20 weeks pregnant

22 weeks (and 5 days!) pregnant

26 weeks pregnant

28 weeks pregnant

32 weeks pregnant

34 weeks pregnant

36 weeks and 2 days! Surprise! Nathan is 3 days old here.

Matthew has arrived!!! :D

Thank you so much for all the notes and messages! I just wanted to let you all know that Matthew has arrived! :)

He was born at 10.45pm last night at home (yay!). Wow, that's less than 24 hours ago! It feels like the longest 24 hours ever right now! I used no pain relief, just my TENS machine, which didn't feel like it was doing much but then I was too scared to try without it, just in case it WAS doing something! Oh my gosh, this labour was THE most excruciating pain I ever felt in my life. Okay so that's what I said last time, and it probably was as bad last time, but anyway! I called the midwife at 6pm-ish because I felt like things were hotting up a bit, contraction-wise. I was finding them harder to deal with and they were coming every 5 minutes by then. Right after I phoned the labour ward for them to page the community midwife on-call and get her to call me back, I went upstairs with Neil to try and put Arthur to bed. I figured if I could just cope with nursing him to sleep then he'd go down pretty quick and that would be done for the night, and then I could get on with labouring. But nursing him made my contractions unbearable so I had to leave Neil to put him to bed. It was so sad. Arthur KNEW something was going on. He kept wanting to hug me and look into my eyes and stuff, even breaking off from nursing to do so :( I kept reassuring him that Mummy was fine and to go to sleep, but he just knew. He was absolutely hysterical after I had to go back downstairs, and Neil rocked him and held him until he pretty much cried himself to sleep, my poor love :(

After that, my contractions were coming sometimes every couple of minutes and I was finding them very hard to breathe through and stay collected, so I phoned the labour ward again to ask them to hurry the midwife! She came a while later, and checked all my vital stats, which were all fine. My urine did have some ketones in, as I hadn't eaten much that day and she insisted that I sip water between contractions and start eating my glucose sweets that I had bought especially for labour. I didn't want to but I did it anyway.

I consented to an internal to see how far I was progressing, and was a bit downcast when the midwife pronounced me 3cm dilated with cervix not that low yet at 8.45pm. Worse still, she said that Matthew's head was posterior :( Perhaps that accounted for the back-labourish pain then? I dreaded a repeat of last time, with all the stalling and agony and so on, but she said not to worry because with second or subsequent babies, these things don't necessarily create delays like they do on the first baby. She also told me (in all seriousness!) that she NEVER looked after any woman who did not progress quickly! So she said to keep my spirits up, that she was going back to the hospital to do some paperwork, and she'd be back after she finished it at around 11pm. She said I could always call labour ward if I needed her sooner.

She left about 9pm, and man oh man I did not really deal with the pain well after that! Mummy and Neil said I did but urgh, it was awful, I could barely make it through each contraction! I mostly spent the time on the sofa which had a shower curtain and an old sheet on it. My waters hadn't broken and I'd had no show, so I wanted to protect things for when it did happen! It was all just horribly painful and all I could say during a contraction was how I couldn't do it, how it was too painful, and I kept on begging for help! It seems crazy now! But it just hurt that much, I didn't know how to ride it at all. Matthew was super active the whole time, wriggling and even kicking, and turning his head a bit. I WANTED him to turn from posterior, but his movements just felt like his normal vigorous evening activity. It hurt me beyond description when he moved like that during a contraction - I absolutely could not cope with the pain of it and just ended up crying and sobbing as it just totally overwhelmed me. I remember wailing into the sofa cushion, "He's hurting me! He's hurting me! Why is he hurting me?!" and sobbing over it till the next contraction started, just feeling absolutely broken like I couldn't understand why my own little boy would want to hurt me so much! Mummy kept telling me he didn't mean to, and obviously I knew that, but at the time I just felt too overwhelmed by the pain not to find it upsetting.

After an hour maybe, the sofa seemed too unbearable, so we decided I should try some different positions. The very thought scared me silly because it was already so unbearably painful that I was scared to find a WORSE position for the next contraction. I went on my knees in front of the sofa, and Neil put a shower curtain and sheet on the floor in case my waters broke. I leaned forward against the seat of the sofa, but that hurt just as much. I tried a few variations of the leany-forward position but it all just felt toooo much to bear.

I kept feeling like I had the biggest poo right in the way of things, and that if only I could poo I would feel so much better, lol! At 10.30ish I felt like doing a poo more than ever, in fact my body literally started pooing (on the sheet-covered shower curtain on the living room floor!). I could feel poo coming out (how nice and dignified!) so I didn't panic too much about the whole "maybe it's the baby's head!" thing, but then oh my gosh, I seriously never did such an ENORMOUS poo in my whole life before! Neil cleared it up and I realized with some anxiety that the feeling of pushing that poo out was just too overwhelmingly relieving and wonderful, so I wondered if Matthew might not be far behind!

Mummy phoned the hospital to say I wanted to push and the midwife set off. I moved over from where I'd pooed, but still on my knees leaning forward onto the sofa. I felt a bit sick with the contractions, but not actually like nausea, more like the contraction seemed to reach right up my throat or something. I asked for a bucket in case I needed to be sick but it passed within maybe 20 seconds, that's all. After that, every contraction felt like searing fire in my bits and I kept saying, "Maybe I want to push?" because I didn't know if that was what I was feeling, and I never had the urge to push at all with Arthur's birth, so I had no experience of it. It wasn't a nice urge to push, it was like my body was bearing down but my top half was trying to escape upwards! The weird and very unexpected thing for me was that I couldn't actually push with it, the overwhelming urge was to scream and scream rather than push! I can't believe I screamed during labour, but I tell you, I could not have stopped myself for anything. Not the shrill high pitched window-breaking type, just continuous primal waily thing that I couldn't even stop to take a breath in until the contraction stopped. The force of screaming bore the baby down, and it's like that was how I was made to do it. Though I felt kind of freaked out and out-of-control about the noise I was making, it really unnerved me that I was making it and I couldn't stop it. I could feel Matthew's head coming down and MAN it hurt like heck. I suddenly felt absolutely terrified, which again surprised me, as I have always been so confident about birth and my body's ability, etc, and have plenty of knowledge about it all. It just scared me that it was just me, Neil and Mummy - no midwife, and that I hadn't even conceived of such a thing happening in one of my labours! And on top of it all, I was totally unprepared for and scared by the sensations I was getting and how overwhelming it all felt. It wasn't anything like the typical descriptions of how the second stage of labour feels, and for some reason I had expected ONLY that, and anything else suddenly terrified me.

Neil delivered the baby! The midwife didn't arrive till about 15 minutes later. He was so wonderful - SO so wonderful, I can't even describe it. He stayed calm, and went to take a look at what was happening while my mum cradled my head in her lap (still on all fours on the floor against the sofa) and held me while I screamed my head off! He told me he could see about 2cm of Matthew's head between contractions. I panicked big time, suddenly it was ultra scary that the midwife wasn't there and I kept saying, "Oh God, what are we going to do, what are we going to do?!" But Mummy and Neil stayed so calm.

I had another contraction and my waters burst in a rather explosive way as I pushed/yelled it through. Neil said the 2cm of head instantly went to 2 inches of head. The next contraction was right on top of that one and his head started to crown. The doorbell rang and Neil ran, opened the door, and ran back, only to find it was my DAD (having no idea I was progressing that fast!) and not the midwife, which turned out to be great timing in the end anyway, as Neil called for my dad to bring soap and water (he'd just been eating pizza and wanted clean hands to deliver Matthew!). I kept saying I was tearing, as I felt sure that kind of searing pain had to be tearing. Neil kept telling me what he could see and that everything was going to be fine, and the next contraction would bring him out, etc. He was WONDERFUL. Next contraction his head was born and I felt his shoulders follow quickly (and painfully!). The rest of him stayed inside, and Neil said he had remembered things I'd once told him from my midwifery training, about keeping his hand on the baby's head to control its descent a little as it crowned, and about checking for the cord around the neck. He held Matthew's top half securely and just calmly told me to wait for the next contraction, whenever I was ready, and Matthew would be born completely then. I heard Matthew cry with some rattling goo sounds before the next contraction, and then I pushed him out and the IMMEDIATE relief was just so incredibly wonderful!!!! :)

They helped me turn over to sit on the floor with my back against the sofa and be careful about the cord, and then Neil put Matthew on my chest and Mummy covered us with a thick towel. My bits were stinging so much that I felt sure I had torn, but he was born SO fast that I didn't see how I couldn't have! Also I couldn't stop pushing/screaming while he was coming down so there was absolutely no control to his head being born.

He cried lustily and his chest sounded clear. He was pink almost immediately and seemed fine. Arthur woke (amazingly he hadn't woken while I was screaming!) a few minutes after the birth, and Neil brought him down to show him Matthew. Matthew was already latched on beautifully at the breast and Arthur didn't want to join in, he just wanted to watch. He looked absolutely in awe, bless him! He didn't seem remotely phazed by anything he saw, and looked unafraid and confident.

The midwife turned up and delivered my placenta - Neil cut the cord just before that happened, as it wasn't pulsating any longer. It hurt as the placenta came out so I felt even more sure of having torn. In the end they found I had a second degree tear (ow!), the same as with Arthur. It seemed to take forever to get all the checks done and my stitching (which, THANKFULLY they were happy to do at home). The midwives didn't leave till nearly 2am! My parents left just before them, and Arthur was just this little live-wire of adrenaline racing about the house from 10.50pm till 2am! He was so angry about having to go back to bed! But he was such a good boy, and my parents were great looking after him. My mum held my hand while I got my stitches, as Neil was getting Matthew dressed and into his first nappy (a kissaluv, like Arthur's was!) upstairs.

The midwife ran me a bath and helped me get upstairs and into it. Once I was up there I felt SO horribly weak and drained and shaky and breathless. I had to wee to show them I could (!) and that stung a lot, but it was okay. The midwife pretty much put me in the bath, washed and dried me, I just felt so weak. She tucked me in bed and Matthew was already fast asleep in his Moses basket, lying in the cot-bed next to my bed :) He had fed for maybe 40 minutes right after the birth, which I am so happy about!

So there we have it! Matthew turned out to be smaller than Arthur, even at 41 weeks! He weighed in at 7lbs 11oz and measured 49cm long (just under 20 inches I think). Arthur was 8lbs 1.5oz and 51cm long. He is so lovely! He doesn't look like Arthur, though I can see the resemblence in parts of him. He has completely different ears and a different nose I think. His eyes are dark blue and Arthur's were always dark and murky (they're mostly brown now). They couldn't do an Apgar score for him until 10 minutes as there weren't any midwives here! But he had a score of 10 when they were here to do it :)

Today we are doing okay. I got no sleep last night at all, as I just felt too adrenaliney, which was annoying as I was just so completely exhausted! Matthew made little snuffling sounds in his sleep constantly and I kept on popping my head up to see him every time, I just couldn't help myself! He slept all night and woke sometime after 6am. Arthur didn't get much extra sleep as Matthew's crying woke him, but he has taken a little longer than usual for naps today. I hope he'll sleep through tonight (Arthur, that is) because he reeeally needs the sleep.

Arthur amazes me - he is so wonderful with Matthew. He has never even given him a wary glance! He just beams and smiles and grins and squeezes himself with a gleeful expression, every single time he sees Matthew. He wants to touch Matthew a lot, and climbs up next to me all the time to see him closer. He says, "Ahhh-yo!" (hello) after he climbs up and peers into Matthew's sleepy face :) He spontaneously keeps giving him kisses, and blowing him kisses if he can't be up next to him at that moment. He pats him ever so gently through the cotbed side, and the sweetest thing he keeps doing is that he tries to play with Matthew! He has done this a zillion times today already, and I don't know where he got the idea from, because nobody showed him. He gets up close to Matthew, takes hold of one of his little mittened hands (he has really long nails that I haven't got around to cutting yet!), and puts it over Matthew's face. Then a second later, he whips it back (not too hard though, he is quite gentle), saying, "Boo!" to Matthew, and then he giggles, as though he is trying to encourage Matthew to find it funny too. He's the sweetest thing, I love him so much. It is amazing me how well he has taken to Matthew so far, and he doesn't bat an eyelid when I am breastfeeding Matthew. I ask him if he wants milk, but he's too interested in watching Matthew. Today I tandem nursed them for the first time, for about a millisecond! Arthur took 2 sucks on the side that Matthew wasn't using, then popped off, craned his whole body and neck so that his face was inches from Matthew's, said, "Ahh-yo!" and kissed Matthew soooo carefully right on the tip of his little nose while he was feeding! Then he climbed down and ran off somewhere else!

I know this diary is about Matthew at the moment, but oh my goodness I just love Arthur so much. He is being the most wonderful big brother already. And he doesn't seem any bigger or older to me, like I had thought he might. He's still just as much my little baby boy, in so many ways. Becoming a big brother hasn't aged him at all. Today I have managed to nurse him to sleep for his nap and bedtime, and that has just been so lovely. Matthew is nursing LOADS so I'm not worried about him getting less colostrum than he should with Arthur nursing too. I hope my milk won't take long coming in, because Matthew seems very hungry! He is really enthusiastic about breastfeeding (nothing like Arthur was at first!). The only little thing is that his mouth is so delicate and tiny, and my nipples seem sooo big in comparison. I am finding it hard to get a wide enough latch for him to take in enough of the areola to get a good "milking" action going. It's too easy for him to end up sucking on the nipple and that is juuust beginning to make me a little sore. Plus I get worried that it means he's not getting as much colostrum as he would if he was better latched. But he's peeing lots, has very wet nappies, and has done at least 4 meconium nappies so far (including one seconds after birth, all over himself and my legs!).

The midwife came today and pronounced everything fine for today, and I see another midwife on Saturday. They are still waiting for the blood results on whether Matthew is rh positive or not. If he is, they'll come back tomorrow to give me an Anti-D injection. I passed a huge clot this morning that got me worried enough to phone for advice, but the midwife looked at it when she got here (how nice!) and said it was fine. I haven't had any more since, and my bleeding is normal. It's heavy but it's already starting to wane a little, which is a relief. I hate the messy bit afterwards! My stitches hurt a lot, but they are okay. The afterpains I'm getting are worse than with Arthur (as I was warned they would be!) and some are bad enough to have to breathe through, but I'm taking paracetamol and it's all going to ease off in a day or so anyway, so it's fine.

My parents came today and helped with Arthur, but I am SO sad because they are getting the overnight ferry back to France as I type this :( I felt like the bottom dropped out of me (perhaps not an appropriate phrase to use right now, hehe!) when Mummy told me they were booked on a ferry TONIGHT. I just thought, how are we going to manage tomorrow?! I am so tired and weak and sore, and we haven't had chance to get any sleep yet, and Arthur is such a handful in the day, energy and activity wise. Matthew has become increasingly mucousy (as in, vomiting it now and then) and generally uncomfortable in his tummy, so it is already feeling quite hard to juggle both boys when we are tired and I am incapacitated. Mummy did some supermarket shopping for us today, but I just wish she was staying a day or so more. I feel like we might be better prepared to go it alone after that, but not after less than 24 hours! I feel so sad and vulnerable knowing she's gone and isn't coming back any time soon. Arthur will miss her terribly and ask for her, as he does every day before she gets here, and that will just break my heart, as I miss her so much already.

Okay I don't need to get tearful and hormonal right now! So I'll stop about that, and just finish this entry, as I'm so tired out I feel dizzy. Matthew is napping on Neil's chest while he watches some football right now, and then we're going to bed. He's waiting for me to finish this diary entry.

Here are some photos! The first one is me, Matthew and Arthur (with my mum at the side), about 5 minutes after I gave birth, right after Arthur woke up and Neil brought him down to meet his new baby brother. Matthew was breastfeeding. Arthur wanted to touch Matthew's head and kept reaching for it saying, "Ank-yoo, ank-you, ank-you" which is "thank you", which he also uses for "please" when he reeeally wants something, bless him!

Here is Matthew about to be weighed in a bright bots terry towel (!) while I got stitched up :)

Here I am with my new boy, first thing this morning after finally eating something!

And finally, here are absolutely totally UN-set-up examples of how Arthur has been with Matthew since he first laid eyes on him:

The last two were when Arthur wanted to say goodnight to Matthew before he went to bed. Matthew got a spontaneous bedtime kiss :) I love my BOYS!!! I have boys! I have TWO children! I can't believe it, it still feels so surreal. And scary. I'm not sure how my emotions are about it right now, as mostly it still feels overwhelming, but there are already moments that make me so excited for the coming months and years, and I'm so delighted to have two such sweet little boys!

I'll update again when I can - thank you all so much for your support lately! xxxx

Matthew's Ultrasound Gallery!

My ultrasound scan pictures from my second pregnancy, with Matthew.

Matthew at 12 weeks, 2 days:

You can see Matthew's little hand up by the face there, and the white of the spine in the torso. Matthew measured 58.7mm long from crown to rump here.

This is Matthew's ultrasound picture when he was measured. See how he is scrunching his chin onto the chest, thus making it a STUPID moment to take a crown-to-rump measurement?! Tsk. Anyway, you can also see a little better detail of Matthew's face, and also a full leg complete with tiny foot pressing me in the tummy! The squiggly looking thing around Matthew's hip area is the umbilical cord. You can also see the nuchal fold at the spinal area behind the neck.

This is just a very close-up image of Matthew's spine and neck area, to do the nuchal fold measurement. You can see the markers measuring it! His nuchal fold measured 1.7mm, well within the normal range :)

Photos from the BIG ultrasound at 21 weeks and 5 days!!

Here's the first one - a profile of Matthew with his little head and his arm (bent up to his face) and shoulder. You can see his knee bent at the far left of the picture. At the top, on the "ceiling" you can see a grey bulge of my placenta with a squiggle of umbilical cord coming down from it:

The second one is a lovely image of part of Matthew's face - I love this one because it's the clearest one of the finer details. On the right of the picture there is a huge mass of grey which is a cross-section of his tummy - the angle was looking up his body towards his face. There's a grey mass on the top left which is my placenta, and below that (on the left of the picture) is his little face, the top part of it is in "shadow", and you can clearly see his nose (and nostrils) and his lips and chin. Below his face is the squiggly umbilical cord, and just next to his chin below the placenta you can see a few fingers of one of his little hands. I love this picture!

Here are Matthew's unmistakeable boy parts!!! His thighs/buttocks are the v-ish shape on the right of the picture, and the obvious boy bits in between! There are two circles of the cross-sections of his calves as they come back down into the image, from being bent at the knee above. Again, you can see my placenta up on the left and the squiggly umbilical cord coming down from it :) I love my placenta!

And finally, another profile image. This one is a little clearer in the face, and I love that you can see his little hand with his fingers curled over, above his tummy, and his leg bent up on the left:

Matthew's Belly Gallery!

My belly pictures for my second pregnancy, with Matthew, from October 2005 to June 2006. He was born at 41 weeks exactly, but I didn't get another belly picture after my due date.

5 weeks pregnant

10 weeks pregnant

14 weeks pregnant

16 weeks pregnant

18 weeks pregnant

20 weeks pregnant

24 weeks pregnant

26 weeks pregnant

28 weeks pregnant

30 weeks pregnant

32 weeks pregnant

34 weeks pregnant

36 weeks pregnant

38 weeks pregnant

39 weeks pregnant

40 weeks pregnant - taken on my due date!