BRILLIANT BIG SISTER

Charlotte has amazed me as to quite how good she's been with her new baby brother, James.

 When she very first came to see us in the hospital, she looked into his cot and said "Baby James. Silly James!" - with such affection and lent in to stroke him gently.

Since then, the first thing she says when she's come into the house from nursery, swimming or being out with Grandparents is "James". She's happy to give him kisses and stroke him, and when he cries she says "it's OK James".

She'll look on with concern and interest when we change his nappy (the only time he really, really cries), and only once or twice has she said "No James" when she's wanted my attention when I've been busy feeding him.

I think she's going to be a wonderful big sister... until (from personal experience) they hit the teenage years!

FIRST FEW DAYS (AND NIGHTS)

Oh my Goodness - what a difference having a newborn baby that actually sleeps in their Moses Basket makes! With Charlotte, she would only sleep on us for the first three weeks, which made doing anything virtually impossible. But James will - on most occasions, especially at night - sleep where he's "supposed" to.

In fact I can't believe quite how different he is to Charlotte. I know comparing the two of them isn't fair or helpful, but it's also natural to draw on our previous experience. Where she would feed for more than an hour most times - he seems happier with a good  15-20 minutes most feeds, but perhaps more frequently.

That's not to say I'm not still concerned about how much he's getting - all the wet/pooey nappies and weigh-ins in the world won't stop my anxiety over that. And I've started wondering if he's sleeping too much? Never happy, me!

James is also far more like a newborn baby than Charlotte ever was. Six days in and he's only really just starting to open his eyes and focus on things. He's still mostly quite curled up in the foetal position, and his cries are still very "mew-ing" as opposed to the much more powerful wails of his big sister at the same stage.

I'm sure we're much more relaxed having been through it before... in the middle of the night, I just have to think about the 19-month old in the next room to know we'll get through these tough first weeks/months, and things will get easier. But they feel easier already - partly because we're in a much more conducive environment (a nice big house rather than a poky little flat), and partly because he's seemingly eating and sleeping well.

Or he's just lulling us into a false sense of security....

THE BIRTH

Here he is - introducing James Ramsay. In the first couple of hours after he was born, we couldn't believe how much he looked like his big sister. But it wasn't very long before he looked much more like his Dad than she did to start with - and he's certainly a totally different personality. More on that in a later blog.

But his arrival into the world started off much the same as Charlotte's. I had a sweep on Tuesday, and my midwife told me my cervix was very soft and already a couple of centimetres dilated, so labour was likely to be only a few days away - if that. 

But then she couldn't properly find a heartbeat, and when she did it had slowed right down, so she told us to get to the hospital immediately. All very panicky - thankfully Charlotte was being looked after at our house by her Grandad, so we headed straight to the hospital and were seen straight away. They got his heartbeat on the monitor seemingly fine, and I was hooked up for about an hour and a half - during which time it only slowed slightly when he was having a sleep.

But the trace also showed I was having very small contractions every 10 minutes or so. So we were confident he/she was on his way. But after resting in the car to get Charlotte to her Grandma's everything seemed to stop. We went out for dinner (during which time we agreed on a name if it turned out to be a boy - we'd already decided on a girl's name a week or two ago), came home and had a really early night because we were shattered, not because we thought anything was imminent.

But I woke at 0430 with mild back ache and the odd cramp. Very quickly that escalated to full on contractions and I had the 'show' at 0520. But the contractions were really irregular - 2minutes apart, then 6 minutes and of varying degrees of pain. So we rang the hospital anyway and they said to go in just to check where we were at just in case things were progressing quickly.

By the time we got there - with the aid of a TENS machine for pain relief - I was actually 6cm dilated and was told to make myself comfortable in a delivery room. It was all so different to our experience in London. The room had soft lighting and a really low, non-hospital-type bed, and we only saw one midwife the whole way through. And I was only monitored every now and then instead of constantly, which I was pleased about.

In fact my birth plan pretty much ended up going to plan. I used TENS right up to the pushing part - and gas and air in very late stage of labour. The midwife had to break my waters when, after 4 hours, I'd only dilated a further 1cm. But after that it didn't take much longer at all - especially the more I got up and moved around. Things really slowed down everytime I lay down and rested.

And within about 8 massive pushes on my hands and knees on the bed, James was out. We'd got to the hospital just before 7am, and less than six hours later, my son was in my arms having his first feed :) Things were going so well, I was told once we'd both been checked over we may be heading home in a couple of hours.

Unfortunately when they checked me over, it turned out I had a third degree tear, and I needed stitching up in the operating theatre as it was too tricky for the maternity staff. So my elation quickly turned to fear, as I'd never been anywhere near surgery for anything before (my episiotomy last time was stitched up in the delivery suite), and it meant having a spinal block.

It took the anaesthetist several attempts to do the spinal, but once it was done it was the most strange sensation - seeing my legs being moved without any feeling in them, for example. It also meant I had to stay in hospital overnight. But I ended up having a post-natal ward to myself until the following day, and the staff were all so nice, I didn't mind quite so much as I had done in London.

James seemed to feed and sleep well that first night - and we all went home as a family on the Thursday afternoon :)

NUMBER TWO'S ARRIVED

Charlotte is now a big sister! Or more importantly, James Ramsay came safely into this world at 1243 on Wednesday 30th January, weighing 7lb 10oz.

I will update my blog properly with the birth story and how the early days have been (and a picture) once he's not almost permanently attached to my breast and I can use something other than my mobile.

But so far, so good really - and Charlotte has been a star in accepting her baby brother into the family. :)

DUE DATE BEEN AND GONE

As not in the least bit unexpected - we have passed our due date for Twiglet. It was yesterday, and - just as when expecting Charlotte - we had fun stuff planned to focus on instead. We went out for a really nice meal and to the cinema while Grandma babysat. Sadly, not even a second fix of James Bond brought on any sign that Twiglet's coming any time soon.

Last time round I was able to do quite a lot of walking - but the past week has been reallly snowy and icy, and as I'm pretty clumsy at the best of times I've been hibernating a bit. Not been totally lazy though - impossible with a 19-month old - so running around after her at home and at various playgroups means I'm on my feet quite a lot of the day. Time to break out the Raspberry Leaf Tea, I think.

Got a sweep booked for Tuesday, which is how it all kicked off with Charlotte so we'll see if that works this time. It's difficult not to get too fixated on it all being exactly the same as last time, so perhaps we should have something nice planned for Tuesday evening or Wednesday that's easy to cancel.

The one thing that's preying on my mind far more this time round than last is the knowledge that things can still go very wrong even at this very late stage. Not a day has gone by since last March when I don't think about what happened to our friends. The post-mortem inconclusively suggested the placenta just 'ran out of time' and stopped working, so of course the more overdue you are, the higher the risk. Those sort of thoughts tend to go through my head on the rare occaisions that I've got really comfortable in bed and suddenly think "I don't even feel pregnant" - just for a moment.

And of course sod's law - Charlotte's started sleeping much better through the night (had a couple of full nights recently), while I'm up every two hours for the loo or to get comfortable again! But she's refusing her daytime naps more and more, so getting rest in the day is at a premium.

Here's a cheeky picture of Charlotte enjoying the snow:

REFUSING TO NAP

Virtually nine months pregnant is not the best time for my 19-month old to start ditching her naps :(

As if I'm not exhausted enough from lugging her baby brother/sister around in my tummy, add to that a couple of really rough nights (combination of insomnia, Charlotte up at all hours coughing and Number Two doing the tango in there) - I'm now barely getting any rest time in the day.

Charlotte's been really really fighting her post-lunch nap for about a month now - needing to be rocked to sleep. I don't think we even did that when she was a tiny baby. But now even that's not working. After 45 minutes of just leaving her, rocking, lullabies etc I've given up (and invariably let her have some restful - for me - TV time instead).

My OH is very good at trying to help out by letting me have a nap or relaxing bath and he watches Charlotte for an hour or so - but with the impending arrival he's pushed with work to get as much done as possible before he goes on paternity leave. Plus he's doing most of the night duties with C, so is also knackered.

Charlotte always used to be a terrible napper - but it improved dramatically when she was about one. I guess it co-incided with her moving much more, but now that doesn't tire her out so much she's just not that tired. Having said that, on the occasions we do manage to get her down, she'll sleep for up to two hours, so she must be pretty tired.

It's just another battleground I could really do without - on top of the 'throwing all my food on the floor' battle, 'throwing all my toys' battle, Ronaldo-style roll-on-the-floor tantrums and a return to bad nights. I imagine it's only going to get worse once Number Two arrives and she's fighting even more for attention. Oh joy...

BOOK WORM

Hurrah - for the first time in ages I've actually managed to read Charlotte a bedtime story that wasn't either The Gruffalo, Gruffalo's Child, Room on the Broom or The Snail and the Whale. Alright - it was still a Julia Donaldson (Stick Man) - but every minor breakthrough....

The thing is, she can finish off nearly every sentence of any book we've read more than 3 or 4 times now - so she demands certain books ALL the time (the aforementioned, Ugly Duckling, Three Billy Goats Gruff and A Squash and a Squeeze are among the favourites). Hoping that the veritable library of books she got for Christmas might give us a bit more variety - but think that might be wishful thinking!

Not surprisingly perhaps with all the book-reading that goes on in our house, her speech continues to astound and amaze us. Forget the "expert" books that say early talkers will start creating three word sentences from ages 24-36 months... try 18 months! And loving hearing her starting to really sing along with nursery rhymes and other songs (e.g. all the songs of the various In The Night Garden characters) :)

Charlotte was an angel on Christmas Day - playing dutifully with every present for a little while, which made ALL the grandparents (and great-grandparent) that were at ours for the day very happy. 

C's even been sleeping much better the last couple of weeks (except for suddenly needing to be rocked every nap time - but I'm just grateful she's still having a decent nap time even if it takes a little encouragement, because at one stage she looked like giving it up entirely). 

As for Number Two - just three weeks to go... and I'm measuring big. So fully expecting it to be a boy. Feeling very heavy and slow now - so won't be entirely surprised if he/she is early. To honest, I'd be quite happy with that to put an end to the worry about how I'm going to cope with two - I just want to get on with it now...