Back to work

Well, that time has come – Eve is 16 weeks today and on Monday I will be going back to work.

Yep – I know what you’re thinking – “that’s very early”.

Well, it is – and the simple reason is – after three children and three spells of maternity leave we simply cannot afford for this one to last any longer!

But it’s ok – Eve will be in the capable hands of her doting daddy, who is staying at home with the girls again (for a little while at least – but that’s a whole other story), and I enjoy my job so it’s not all bad. Plus, I’ll be able to drink whole uninterrupted cups of coffee, wander round the shops ON MY OWN in my lunchbreak and even go to the toilet without anybody following me!

I am definitely going to miss my babies, especially Eve as she is still growing and changing so much every day at the moment, and I am really worried about how Tony is going to cope – three pre-schoolers is definitely a job for two people, at least!! But he will manage and I think he will even surprise himself.

We’re both excited about the future, especially Lilly starting at school. We had a very good meeting at the school this week at which we met her teacher and toured around the classroom. We both came away feeling extra confident that she will really love school and that it’ll be really good for her.

We have had so many changes of our day-to-day routine over the last few years, I think we are getting quite good at adapting ourselves! And there is likely to be more change coming over the next few months, hopefully all for the better.

So, goodbye maternity leave. You have been great. I have spent some lovely times with all three of my babies and also plenty of time with my hubby too. But now it’s time to get on with the next chapter…

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Things do when your baby is four days old…

1. Decide (once again) to move house!

Yes, our house move is back on and this time we are so INCREDIBLY EXCITED about it all because the house which popped up for rent when Eve was 3-days-old was in our most favourite part of our most favourite road and it had everything we wanted but thought we would never get - three bedrooms, utility room, downstairs loo, large kitchen diner AND seperate dining room, garage, large garden and even an en suite in the master bedroom.

It was so perfect that the very next day there we were with our 4-day-old baby, having a look around and signing up to move in in just 3 weeks time!

I know lots of people think we’re crazy! But this house really feels perfect for us. It is literally a stone’s throw from what will (hopefully) be Lilly’s new school come September, and it offers us the space we have been craving for so long. It is so much better than the house we nearly went for a few weeks ago.

There are only a couple of negatives – some of the decor isn’t to our taste and the kitchen is a little dated. And we are stretching ourselves to the upper limit of what we can afford. But we both feel confident that it is going to be so worth it.

Now we just have to find somebody to rent ours out – the house is back on the rental market – and of course we have to pack up our things and move!

And, in other developments, it looks like hubby may be going back to work for a bit – while I’m off on maternity leave. We got home from viewing our new house and he had a call out of the blue from his old boss offering him some work. We hadn’t really planned for him to actively job hunt (he is the stay at home parent now, and I will only be off work until June) but we feel that we’d be stupid to turn down an offer of some additional income at the moment. We are now waiting to finalise the details, but it looks like I may be flying solo with the three girls in a few weeks time – which makes me nervous and excited in equal measures.

So, there you go – Things to Do When Your Baby is 4 Days Old: Move house and get a new job!

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35 weeks pregnant and counting down to maternity leave

Well I am now 35 weeks pregnant and at the stage where, in my last two pregnancies, I finished work and began maternity leave.

But this time round, I still have another three weeks to go - 15 working days to be precise (not that I’m counting!)

I am feeling the usual aches and pains of late pregnancy. My hips and pelvis feel looser and generally less sturdy. If I get up too quickly or stretch too much I get a nasty pain in the side/bottom of my bump. The baby’s wiggles are very strong and she quite often feels as if she is stretching out as if trying to make more space for herself in there – that can feel a little uncomfortable! Also, I have heartburn/indigestion quite a bit and have re-discovered the Gaviscon dependency I had in my first pregnancy (although not in my second). Sometimes I wake up at night and have to get up to take a swig of the stuff… lovely!

In terms of tiredness and energy levels, I can’t complain too much. I have enjoyed a few weeks in which I seemed to get a surge of energy, and I’ve been feeling good. In the last few days however I’ve been feeling a little more tired again, and the 7pm naps on the sofa have returned. Sometimes when I’m walking the baby bump feels like a concrete block, which only gets harder and heavier if I try to walk any faster (so I don’t!).

I went out for coffee yesterday with a friend and her little girl, who is a few months younger than Isla. Her baby was born at 34+4, so I am now more pregnant than she was then. I had a little look at her facebook pics of when her baby was first born – even after three pregnancies it still amazes me that there really is a real life little person in there who, if born tomorrow, would (hopefully) be a perfectly healthy little baby. Of course, after two babies arriving more than a week after their due date I am not expecting that we will be meeting our third any time soon…

Lilly remains really excited about the baby. She knows “the baby is coming soon, isn’t she?” Isla has got a real fascination with my belly and likes patting it. I have started telling her: “there’s a baby in there, your little sister” but at 18 months old I know she can’t really be expected to understand. We have also had a few reads of There’s A House Inside My Mummy, but again, Isla is still too little to really understand. Maybe some of it might go in, you never know. I do feel guilty that I can’t prepare her properly, and I am anxious about how she’ll react. But I also think that because she is so little it probably won’t be long before she can’t remember a time without the baby being here, and hopefully that will mean she can take it in her stride. Fingers crossed.

In terms of preparation, we have started getting our acts together. Our Sola (pram) has been in for repairs as we have bought a car seat to fit onto it. Work have very kindly offered to buy me a moses basket as a leaving present. We still need to buy new bottles and a steriliser, and I need to start washing the baby clothes, blankets and bedding. Oh, and I remembered the other night that I will need a hospital bag – and the girls will need an overnight bag packed for when they go off to stay at Nanna and Grandad’s when I go into labour or get induced. And I have stepped up the raspberry leaf tea intake to two cups a day!

Because our family circumstances have changed – hubby is now a stay at home dad and I am the only wage earner – I will be having a shorter maternity leave with baby number three, returning to work after 18 weeks when the money runs out. That is why I have decided to work for a little longer at the end of this pregnancy to maximise those precious weeks once our third little angel arrives and to make sure I save up plenty of leave to enable me to work part time for the first few months back at work.

This pregnancy seems to have gone so fast and the due date has got closer and closer very quickly, especially with the distraction of Christmas and Lilly’s birthday. Before then I wasn’t counting down the weeks and days to maternity leave like I was the first or second time.

The first time I went on maternity leave, I was looking forward to a few weeks of rest and relaxation, daytime TV, lazy indulgent breakfasts and lie ins. And I was extremely impatient to meet my first baby.

The second time I was hoping for one week of partial rest and relaxation, while Lilly was still in nursery. Then the plan was loads of quality time with her doing baking and playing in the paddling pool before her little sister arrived. I never quite got the week of relaxation, as Lilly came down with chicken pox and couldn’t go to nursery, so we just ended up with one week more quality time. Which was lovely, and in hindsight I wouldn’t change it for the world.

This time, things are going to be different again. I will have hubby at home with me the whole time… yay! And we won’t be stressing out about ‘what if baby comes while he’s hundreds of miles away at work?’ But there definitely won’t be much rest and relaxation going on – not with the two little munchkins we already have! Although if I am very nice to hubby he may allow me the odd daytime nap if I’m feeling really shattered… did I mention how lovely he is?!?

Now, having just had two weeks off over Christmas, I am now really starting to look forward to my maternity leave. It is going to be a really wonderful opportunity for us to spend time together as a family – all five of us. Yes, there will be stressful moments as we adjust to life with a newborn, a one-year-old and a pre-schooler. But how great it will be for us all to be at home together for a little while. Hopefully both Tony and I will get to spend some lovely time with all our girls and be there to help each other out when we’ve had a bad night with the baby or when one or other of the girls is off colour.

I am worried about how I will cope if hubby does go and work while I’m off – we haven’t yet made any decisions about this. And of course I also worry about going back to work when the baby is only four and a half months old. And how hubby will cope once I do – looking after three pre-schoolers on his own will be tough.

But these are exciting times ahead. I can’t wait to meet our new darling girl and I can’t wait to have our family complete.

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A week of changes

This week was my first week back at work after maternity leave. It was been a much planned for and anxiously anticipated week.

It was also the week when Isla would start nursery properly, and Tony would take charge of the children in the mornings, having to get them to nursery by himself on two of those days.

It has gone pretty well, all in all.

Work have been very gentle with me and eased me in slowly, but at the same time, I know there is plenty of interesting work ahead to keep me challenged and interested in the coming months, so no complaints there.

Isla has reacted well so far to nursery. I wouldn’t say she has “settled” as I would imagine feeling truly settled at nursery will take quite a few weeks yet for such a little person. The first day Tony took her, she cried at first because of somebody’s loud voice (she can be quite a sensitive soul at times) but the tears weren’t to do with being left at nursery and she was comforted and happy before he left. She has even settled herself to sleep easily both days – twice on the first day, and although she isn’t yet sleeping the two hour stretches she manages in the afternoon at home, she is doing pretty well I think in a totally new environment with new people.

The mornings have been the thing we have dreaded most, I think. Me trying to leave the house early in order to achieve my hours for the week, and Tony having to handle breakfast and the nursery run on his own for the first time. This has gone pretty well, apart from the fact that Isla has chosen this week to become a super-early riser. It has ranged from 4.50am to 4am to 4.30am to 5am. And she will not go back to sleep until an hour or so later. And by that time she has woken Lilly. So Tony and I have been very tired going to work this week – not great as he has to drive more than 300 miles a day. So we’re both keeping our fingers tightly crossed that Isla sorts herself out a bit and sleeps in a little later very soon.

Oh, and yesterday, Isla’s first tooth finally popped through! We’ve been able to feel it through her gums for a week now, and she’s been dribbling for England. But when I picked her up from nursery yesterday and she gave me a big, coy smile, I noticed the little white line on her bottom gum! She’s growing up so fast!

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Last days of maternity leave…

Well, that’s it then. My maternity leave has finished. On Monday morning I will be rejoining the world of work. Yikes!

The last six months have flown. Actually, it’s been more than that, as I finished at 35 weeks and Isla was 12 days overdue.

Next week our new arrangements begin. I will be working five days a week, although two of those days will be mornings only. Tony’s mum will have the girls one day, they will be in nursery two days each week. And on the two days I’ll be working half days, Tony will have them in the morning and I’ll have them in the afternoon when he’s gone to work.

As far as we can practically afford, the arrangements are as good as they can be. It won’t be easy though. I’ll have to get to work for 8am to make my hours add up – that means leaving the house not too long after 7am each morning. Gulp.

And for Tony, it means coping with the morning routine alone, for the first time. I will try to help him by getting as many things as possible ready the night before, and doing as much as I have time for before I leave, but I know he’s still nervous about it – especially those days when he’s got to get them both out of the house to nursery!

Last week Isla had her taster sessions at nursery – an hour with me there on Wednesday, and hour on her own on Thursday. She wasn’t in the slightest bit phased – she is too young to really care, as long as she is fed and looked after as usual, she won’t mind in the slightest!

Leaving her at nursery was easy. Not like the first time I left Lilly, when I was an emotional wreck. But now, I know the nursery, I know the staff, I know Isla will be happy there and will develop well and will make friends, just like her big sister. I also know she’ll only be there two days a week. I do worry that the older babies will pull her hair, or fall on top of her, or that the staff will forget that she’s only been sitting up on her own a little while and she’s not too good at it yet. She needs lots of cushions behind her, because she’ll either fall over, or dramatically throw herself backwards.

And although it is easier this time, I still felt a little pang of pain when I was filling in the nursery forms for Isla and one of the boxes to fill in read: “When I am sad, please…” I don’t like to think of my little baby with the tears in her eyes and her mummy far away and not able to give her a cuddle…

BUT.

I know she will be fine. And our arrangement should work out great.

So I will concentrate on that.

And on HOW THE HECK I am going to leave the house by 7am on Monday morning…

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Plans plans plans

When we thought about having another child, we always knew one of the biggest issues was going to be childcare costs.

Before I went on maternity leave, I was working full time and Lilly was in nursery four days a week – Tony’s mum looking after her on the other day.

We tried to bury our heads in the sand about how much it was going to cost to have two children in nursery four days a week, and consolled ourselves with the thought that Lilly would be 3 by then, and therefore would qualify for 15 hours free.

However, it has come to the point where we can bury our heads no longer. I am going back to work in January, and had planned to return full time, but using annual leave to make the return more gradual – so starting on three days, then four, then up to five by March.

But at the end of the week, a brainwave struck. Perhaps there was a way for me to go back part time, meaning the girls won’t have to spend four whole days a week at nursery, and I get more time with them.

My plan is simple. Return to work four days a week, but instead of taking a full day off, take two half days. Tony works shifts, so he would look after the girls two of the mornings, and I’d have them in the afternoons. That way we save two days of nursery fees per child per week! Basically a saving per month of about £450 in fees – which is less than I should lose in salary after tax by dropping down to four days!!

It’s just perfect – and now all I need is for work to agree! I have spoken to my boss this afternoon to suggest the plan, it seemed to be received ok and I just need to apply formally and see if they say yes.

I feel really excited about it – two afternoons a week, every week, with my girls that I wasn’t expecting to get! My mind is already racing with things we could do all together those days. And, to prove I’m really getting carried away with myself I’ve been thinking “that’ll also be really great when Lilly goes to school and I’m doing the school run” – bearing in mind that is nearly two years away!!

The only potential fly in the ointment is T’s work. Like everyone in the world at the moment, we can never be sure how secure his job is. He currently works afternoon – evening, but that could change and he could be asked to do mornings, or even 9-5 which could scupper our plans completely. And, once I’ve asked to go part time, there’s no guarantee that work would allow me to return to full time in the future if I wanted to.

But, for now, if work say I can do this, I’ll be over the moon.

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35+1 – Last day at work

Well, I finished work today to start my maternity leave!

I’ve had a really lovely day, with lots of kind things said and lots of lovely presents, not only for me and the baby but also some presents for Lilly too!

It feels really great to finish. Work itself hasn’t really been so bad, it’s the getting up in the morning and getting ready, driving to and from work and then coming in after a full day, exhausted and having to look after Lilly for a few hours before bed. I must also say that I am feeling VERY “pregnant”. I can remember last time feeling like everything was loosening up and I was starting to feel a bit like my hips and everything were slightly wibbly. I think that was only in the last few weeks, but i’ve already been feeling like that for a couple of weeks this time. I’m also getting lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing that resembles “real” contractions. I feel much bigger and more cumbersome than I ever remember feeling with Lilly – I really feel like I’m dragging myself around a bit!

I’ve done some bouncing on my ball, and now I’m just hoping baby has turned and is no longer breech. If she has, I’m not aware of it, and I don’t know how I would tell. I couldn’t get to sleep straight away last night, and baby was moving lots, and I was trying to feel whether I could make out a hand or a head at the bottom of the bump… it was inconclusive! I really hope she has moved!

I have an appointment with the supervisor of midwives now – on Tuesday. I’ve written up my new VBAC birth plan (as I want it to be) and I’m going to take that along. Continous monitoring and mobility being the main issues. So I’ll see what we can agree on.

As far as Lilly goes, we have come to a sad conclusion this week: it is the end of the nap. Her sleeping has been up the wall for a few months now, and only in the last week have we enjoyed a few nights of continous sleeping. And only when she hadn’t had a daytime nap. Yesterday, she had an hour’s nap in nursery and hardly slept a wink last night. That sealed the deal! No sleep today, so lets see how well we do tonight… fingers crossed.

It’s a shame becuase I was really hoping she’d still be napping while I was on mat leave. But it wasn’t to be. RIP daytime naps, you will be missed!

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33 weeks pregnant – and feeling it!

Well, 33 weeks gone now… we’re getting towards that home stretch very quickly now!

I cannot explain how quickly it has gone. Every cliche in the book is true – it has flown! In fact, I’m just gobsmacked as to how quickly i’ve reached this point. When I was pregnant with Lilly it felt like a lifetime – I was so impatient and thought of nothing else but being pregnant and my new baby. This time, I’ve already got one baby, and she takes up a lot of my time and my thoughts, and so the pregnancy has just carried on without me paying such close attention!

I am finishing work in two weeks!!!! And I cannot wait. I decided to bring it forward a week to the 14th, rather than the 21st. Tony, my mum and his mum all kept tempting me into an earlier finish, and I’ve been feeling fairly tired the last few weeks, especially with Lilly being a little bit ‘challenging’ in the sleeping department lately (more of that in a minute, no doubt). I think I always knew that finishing at 36 weeks might have been ambitious. In fact, I’d have been happy to finish work at about 30 weeks if I could have! I do feel heavy and big and slow and tired… but I know I’m very lucky as, aside from that, I’m feeling very good.

I haven’t got around to ringing the Supervisor of Midwives yet to make an appointment r.e. my VBAC. I must do that in the next few days as I don’t know how long it takes to get seen.

My birthing ball has arrived and I have had a few bounces! I’m trying to second guess which way up baby is. Some pregnant women seem so confident they know everything that’s going on on in there – they say they know whether it was an arm or a leg kicking them, for example. I’m afraid I’m not as knowledgeable as that!! I *think* baby might be head down judging by the kicks I’ve been feeling, but it’s really hard to tell. Going back to the midwife in a week’s time, so we’ll see what she thinks.

I’ve also started buying some of the baby bits and bobs. Most exciting of all, the pram! Have decided to go for a Mamas and Papas Sola, which is now ordered and we’re waiting for it to arrive in a few weeks time. Also bought some of the more boring baby bits – dummies, muslins, bottles, maternity pads, breast pads… all the glamourous stuff!

Meanwhile, Lilly’s sleeping is still up the wall. She wakes up at least once in the night. If we’re lucky, she settles back down with a few ssssshhhhes. If not, we have to sleep on a sofa bed on the landing. If we’re really unlucky, she has a screaming fit and won’t settle for ages. Last night was one of those nights. I am knackered! She is also having plenty of toddler tantrums during the day – especially when she’s tired and it’s coming towards bedtime. She had one of those yesterday, too. Huge screaming hysterics at bedtime. Took an hour and a half to get her quiet. Exhausting. Then she was awake at 5.50am. Grrrrrrrr. I’ve been left seriously wondering how the hell I’m going to manage toddler and baby bedtime at the same time on my own once Tony is back at work after the birth. It just doesn’t bear thinking about!!

Oh, and Lilly is back in her cot. The big girls bed just made the sleeping worse. And she could get out, which just added and extra element to the bedtime/nighttime battle. Now, as far as I’m concerned, she can stay in that cot as long as she needs to – even if it means buying another one for her sister!!

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28 weeks 1 day

Well, if I wasn’t feeling particularly tired last time I blogged, I certainly am now!

In the last week I have been feeling very pregnant indeed! I feel huge and I feel slow and I feel lazy!

I’ve also had some kind of strange bug which left me feeling a bit strange and slightly sicky – it still hasn’t really gone and it’s been a few days now. Tony has had it too so i don’t think it’s pregnancy related! When i eat it makes me feel slightly worse, so i’ve been off my food slightly for three days – nothing too major, although it’s been toast for dinner the last three nights!

We are now a week and a half into the Big Girl’s Bed for Lilly – it got a lot worse after the last post. In fact, a few nights ago, she was essentially awake for four hours through the night and T and I took it in shifts to stay with her. But last night – praise god! - she slept all night til the respectable hour of 6am!!! It felt amazing, and Lilly was rewarded with a cuddly Waybuloo which her daddy had promised her if she managed to sleep all night!

It’s now 8 weeks til I finish work. That feels like quite a long time. I could quite happily finish today, especially the way i’ve been feeling the past week. I’m just hoping that it will pass and I will get some energy back. I definitely cannot remember being this tired and slow and just all-round pregnant at this stage with Lilly – but then, I never had a toddler to look after too!

I’m hoping I haven’t been too ambitious with my plans to work until 36 weeks – I only worked to 35 weeks with Lilly but as she was 2 weeks overdue it felt like quite a long time. But this time in hindsight that extra week would have been lovely!

Note to self: In future, if contemplating number 3, start Mat Leave EARLY!!!!

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22 weeks pregnant

Well, here we are… 22 weeks pregnant… time is really rushing by!

We had our re-scan on Thursday after the first 20 week scan failed to pick up the baby’s stomach. I’m pleased to say, this time, everything was absolutely fine and baby had a nice full tummy which enabled the sonographer to measure everything she needed to. I also asked her to double check that it is a girl… she had a little look then said: “I’m pretty sure those are girlie bits…” well, they looked that way to me!

Afterwards, Tony and I went out for a bit of lunch and in the nightime we had a rare meal out at the local Indian while Tony’s mum babysat. We were back by 10 but came home and watched a programme on TV called One Born Every Minute, which is a fly on the wall documentary about a maternity hospital in Southampton. Obviously I ended up in tears at the story of one lady who had a c-section and her baby was whisked away to ICU straight away as his bowels had developed outside his body… poor little mite.

That same morning I had also had a midwife appointment at the local GPs. She listened to the heartbeat (and said: “I would’ve known that was a girl, from the heartbeat” – to be fair she said that last time, when she didn’t know, and was right!) She also did that farcical tape measure thing and pronounced that it was 23 cm which is “right”. Personally I just cannot believe measuring a persons belly tells you much about the size of the baby inside, so I take all that with many pinches of salt!

In terms of how I’m feeling – not too bad, tired mainly. I do have the odd achey feelings down there, and was thinking yesterday that my boobs are feeling a bit tender again. Baby is kicking loads, which is lovely, at all times of the day and night. You can actually see my bump moving when she’s going for it!

We were also excited to find out this week that some of our close friends are also expecting a baby – Lilly’s godfather and his wife. They are due at the beginning of August, so there will only be a month or two between our children, which will be really lovely. We were the first of all our friends to have a baby, and still don’t have any friends living close by who do (except my NCT friends). So this will be really nice, and we’re really chuffed for them.

It does feel like time is marching on… it’s nearly March… then we’ve only got April and then we’re into May, which will be finishing work and almost time for our little girl to arrive!

I have just been looking back at my blog from when I was roughly at this stage with Lilly. We had just been working out our childcare / return to work options. This time we have made our decisions a little earlier. We know just how tight money was last time when on leave, and this will probably only be worse because of the expense of two children, and Lilly staying one day in nursery.

So, we’ve decided that I’ll be having another six months off, returning in January, full time. However, I’ll use leave to make the return to full time a little bit more gradually, probably spread over about three months. Lilly and the new baby will work their way from two to three to four days a week in nursery. However, if Tony stays doing the shifts he is doing now, these will only be short days, maybe even half days for the baby for a bit. Tony’s mum will have them both one day a week, as she does with Lilly now. She is talking about retiring perhaps next year (although I’ll believe it when I see it!) and maybe if she does she might take them for an extra day or half day. Luckily, Lilly will get 15 hours free nursery from Jan 1 2011, which is one day after her third birthday! And that will certainly ease the burden financially, although obviously what we’re paying out on childcare will go up quite a bit.

Luckily, we’re very happy with the nursery Lilly goes to, and as far as they go, it’s a reasonable price. So, number two is already all booked up and although that feels a little weird at such an early stage, it’s good to have a plan (even if we end up adapting it slightly, like last time).

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