Pumpkin Patch and Halloween!

Once again another October has flown by, we had a great one, Skye talked non stop about halloween the whole month! 

She got really in to it this year and kept asking when we could decorate the house! 

We decided to go back to the pumpkin patch we visited last year, but this year we went earlier and there were so many more pumpkins! I think we will probably end up visiting here every year now! It is perfect as its small and quiet! I looked around for others but they were all ones you had to pay for as they had other activities available. 

We all prefer something a little more quiet and where we can do our own thing so this place is perfect for us!

For halloween we carved our pumpkins and had a little party at my mums house, sadly though Skye Bee ended up being poorly for the day so didn't end up enjoying it as much as she would have! She kept her spirits up though and still wanted to have her face painted and dress up!

So that's October for another year! Now on to Skye Bee's FOURTH (what?!!) birthday! 

Hope you all had a great October and Halloween!

Missing You.

I can't believe it's been over a year already.

Seeing all the other mama's stories on baby loss brings it all home again, and although I still think about it everyday, this week seems to make everything come to the surface just that little bit more.

How do you ever really get over losing a baby that was so so so wanted and already so loved?

Even after hearing other peoples stories I still feel silly for feeling so sad, I was barely 7 weeks pregnant, I didn't have a bump, I didn't have any symptoms. I know I have as much right as anyone else to feel sad about it, I know this, but still when I hear stories of women losing babies much further on, or even still born I can't help but feel I'm being a little dramatic for feeling so upset.

I don't talk about it to anyone for this reason, because I don't feel anyone but Dom really understands.

I know in reality A LOT of people would understand and do understand.

I am so glad that baby loss is so widely spoken about now, and you really don't realise just how many people are affected by it.

When I had Skye the thought of loosing her never crossed my mind. The thought of anything going wrong never crossed my mind. I was in such a naive little bubble. To be honest I am so glad that I was! I feel if I ever get pregnant again, I won't be so naive to it all, and I'll probably worry a whole lot more.

I hope that in sharing my story, I have at least made just one more person aware of ectopic pregnancies and just how common and dangerous they can be, I know before it happened to me, I was unaware of just how serious and dangerous they were.

So here we are a year on, and still missing you little one.

#babylossawarenessweek

I don't need you mummy!

Why are these words so hard to hear?!

Skye just went to use the toilet, and she marched in ahead of me, stopped at the door and said "I don't need you mummy.." she pulled the door shut behind her and left me stood outside wondering where my baby went!!

It seems like only yesterday that she couldn't even hold her own head up without me, now she apparently doesn't need me!

It so tough to hear as a mum (or dad!) that they don't need you and obviously we know that's not true,  I mean come on she's three, but still ..!!

On the flip side though it makes me so proud how grown up she is becoming, and she's really found her confidence in doing things for herself since starting nursery.

Anyone else clinging on to the baby years, dragging them out for as long as possible?!

Starting Nursery.

Tomorrow morning my baby girl goes for her first proper session at nursery.

I can't quite believe it has come around so quickly and before we know it she will be starting school!

I decided last year that when she was three I would start taking her to nursery just to get her ready for when she starts school and get her in to the habit of getting ready and going, and also learning to be away from me.

Though in saying that I think it's far more me that needs to learn to be apart from her! When I put her name down last year it felt like such a long way away, but now the day is here and I can't quite imagine not being with her! I can't imagine leaving her behind or leaving her with strangers!

She is only going for a few hours in the mornings but I feel quite sad as this was our treasured part of the day. She would help me with the house jobs, and play quietly in her room while I got ready, sometimes pretending to do her make up with me as I did mine and now I feel quite sad at the thought of returning home tomorrow morning without her!

I know it will be good for her, and I know she will be back before I know it, but it really doesn't stop me dreading the morning and wishing she could stay my baby for just a little longer.


Please send positive thoughts our way as I feel tomorrow is going to be a tough day for this mama!

Life after loss..

 

I have wanted to write this post for a while now, just to sort of finish off my previous post and feel like I had said all I wanted to.

As it is international pregnancy and baby loss awareness week and the week is coming to an end I figured now would be an appropriate time for this.

It's not so much to share my story as I have already done that previously, but more to share how I felt after my experience.

I remember the following days in hospital being very strange, the only other time I had stayed in hospital was after I had had Skye, and this felt very similar, only I didn't have a newborn to distract me from surgery pain. I remember feeling such a dejavu of feelings, the way I had been told to get up and move were all so similar to what I was told after having my c-section. I couldn't quite get my head around not being pregnant anymore and still having to suffer. There were a few people who said "try not to think about it" but how could I not?! For the first few days I had the horrid trapped wind shoulder pain every time I got up and I had four wounds where they had cut in to my stomach for surgery. These were all covered so I couldn't even see the extent of what lay beneath either which worried me also!

Coming home was strange also, it was like I had been away from home for ages, I missed my baby girl and couldn't wait to see her. I had only seen her once since being in hospital and it was so strange not seeing her for three days, I haven't spend a day apart from her since she was born so this was also another thing to add to the pile of emotions I was feeling.

The first night home was probably the worst. It's almost as though being in hospital makes you numb to everything, nothing is familiar so you don't feel out of sorts, but at home it's a different story. Once Skye was in bed, I went in to my room for the first time since coming home, and it was as though all my emotions hit me at once. I found it hard being sat exactly where I was when my first pains started and it was as though all the memories came rushing back in a flash. I began to wonder how I was going to cope! Luckily after a lot of tears and reassurance from Dom I began to feel much better.

It took me around four weeks to fully heal from the surgery and I am so thankful to Dom and my family for all their help and support.

I still find it strange to talk about it, having an ectopic pregnancy feels like a different story to someone who has had a misscarriage, and I almost felt silly saying I had lost a baby. People didn't really ever mention that part to me and I felt a little like the most important fact was over looked because I'd had surgery that was what people focused on. I know it's a difficult subject and people don't know how to talk about it, but sometimes I felt a little as though they had forgotten that I was pregnant at all!

I'm lucky to have such a supportive husband and we talk about it a lot still and I'm glad we both feel the same that we want to remember this little one as a part of our family and not just a loss or something terrible that happened. Obviously Skye knew I was pregnant, and she did ask Dom the first night I was away if I was bringing the baby home, which was so upsetting, but I didn't see any point in lying to her, we wanted to be as honest as we could. We explained that the baby was too poorly and has had to go and live in the sky. She understands and I think being honest has been for the best. She doesn't keep asking where the baby is anymore and I like to think she's made peace with where the baby has gone as well.

Sending love to anyone who has lost a baby in whatever way - not only the mamas but the papas too because I think sometimes they get forgotten in the sadness. xxx

To share or not to share..

I was really in two minds as to whether or not to post this picture on social media.

However the more I thought about it the more I thought, it's part of my life. I've always documented life events, and this was and will continue to be a huge part of mine. I wrote a long post which I haven't yet posted, just explaining what happened to me. Again felt in two minds as to whether or not to post it. I worried that people would think it strange to post such a horrible and upsetting experience, but again, it's what I do.

For as long as I can remember, whether it be something good, or something bad writing was my only outlet. I've always kept a "diary" as such and I've always found writing out my feelings is a good escape for me. I find it hard to talk about my feelings out loud - hence the blog!

If people want to read this then they can, if not then skip past and wait for happier times to arise again!

I'm reading this through now and again wondering if I'll even post this! I'm wondering why I'm defending myself! Why am I always so worried about what people will think?!

I don't want to forget. The worst thing in the world happened to us, but I don't want to forget that for 7 weeks our littlest love was with us.

Mama's Day 2016

Well another year has flown by and here we are again.. I can hardly believe this is my third mothers day!!

I really can't write much more than I have in my other posts. How many times can I say how blessed and happy I am to be this little girls mama?!! 

She seems to have grown so much in the past year, and its amazing to watch, and I am so happy that I  get to experience life with her!

I was lucky enough to receive these cute little flowers from her this morning, which I'm sure daddy had a hand in making for her! I love the way her face lights up when she gives you something that she's helped with! It's just the cutest!! 

I look forward to many more mothers days with this little one! 

I hope all you other mama's out there had a brilliant day, celebrating your littles ones and your own mama's :)  

Goodbye 2015....

I used to love doing these posts and I still now look back at the ones I did a few years ago!

I love to document things, and in a world where we are constantly taking photos I always worry that in years to come I'll forget when a certain picture was taken! So at least I can look back at these posts and remember the year haha!

These pictures aren't in any sort of order, because lets face it who has time for that anymore! lol

2015 was a year of many highs and lows. We had many tears and many laughs!

It's so strange when I look back especially at photos of Skye because it seems she started the year unable to do so many things, and now she has learnt so much, it doesn't seem possible that she's learnt so much in one short year!! I always feel that photos from the start of the year should have been so much longer ago than they were! 

We have definitely enjoyed our family days together! Evenings are the most fun, when daddy usually does the bath time and I enjoy hearing them giggling away together! 

At the start of the year Skye was just getting the hang of walking (1st pic) We went to Weston on a day out for my birthday and it was the first time we had let her walk around somewhere that wasn’t home! 

Another big change for Skye this year was that we decided to move her into her big girl bed - You can read more about this on a separate post I did earlier in the year! We are so proud of how well she adjusted! We just knew she wasn’t comfy in her cot anymore so the move was for sure needed!

This year also saw a very big challenge for our whole family, as my dad had made the difficult decision to have a major operation for his pulmonary embolism. This was a very scary time for us all and made worse by having to wait for over 6 months for him to be called in. We didn't really know a lot about the operation, and I especially didn't want to know. That was until we got the phone call one morning to say he was booked in for the operation at the end of May. It suddenly became real and I decided to read up about it. I'm not sure if I felt better for knowing what was going to happen or not! 

It was quite scary reading that it is one of the most difficult operations and where he went is the only hospital in the UK that does it! We even saw a youtube video with someone else who had had the op and the surgeon who performed it!

I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of walking away from him in the hospital that night we left him there, not knowing if we would ever see him again. 

I also won't ever forget the moment I got to walk into the intensive care unit and see him afterwards. So relieved that he had made it through! I had gone up to the hospital in Cambridge with them as I didn't want mum to be alone when she couldn't be with him, so this obviously meant taking Skye as well. I honestly couldn’t be more proud of how well she handled all the waiting around, different places and being away from home for around a week! 

This year also saw a little sunshine! Which meant we got to play in the garden and Skye had her first proper paddling pool play! She really enjoyed this and loves playing with water! We also enjoyed a family day out to Durdle Door! 

Another fun trip we took this year was to Longleat! I was given some vouchers for my birthday and couldn't wait to take Skye! Especially on the driving bit so she could see all the animals up close! She loved it! I would love to take her again now she is a bit older!! 

Obviously the best part of our year was this right here! I got to marry my best friend!! It's so funny to think that at the start of the year we had no idea we would get married this year! We decided to start planning the wedding as a way to distract me from thinking about my dad's operation. We picked out a few venues to go and look at and funnily enough the first one we went to I fell in love with! We spoke to them about dates and they told us they had one date available in August.. ! It was April at this point and we walked away feeling that we should have taken it! On the drive home we came to the conclusion.. why the hell not?! My dad was due to go for his op in May and  we thought this would be the perfect thing for him to look forward to afterwards! We took the date and began planning!! However as May came around and the hospital still hadn't phoned we began to panic that dad wouldn't be well enough to come and we had to consider cancelling. Luckily we held out and he had his op at the end of May which left almost 3 months for his recovery! 

We had so much fun planning our wedding and Dom did so much!! All the little details that I wanted he made possible. I will definitely share a whole post about our day. It was perfect and once it was over I just wanted to do it all again!!

So here we are at the end part of the year, Skye enjoyed her first carnival! She also enjoyed fireworks on bonfire night and her first sparklers! She still talks about fireworks now! lol She also enjoyed carving pumpkins with daddy! And of course she turned two at the end of November!! I don't know where the time has gone! I'm sure I was just bringing her home in that tiny car seat!! 

This year also saw us sign for our first proper home together!! It has been a long few weeks of decorating!! We now just need to do the big move! 

Dom also had a career change right before christmas! It is so strange to not have him here whenever we need him, but we will get used to it! Being self employed is hard hard work! 

And the best thing of all.. dad had his 6 month check from the hospital and we are over the moon to report that he is doing so well! 

I can't wait to see what 2016 brings for us all! 

p.s Yep one picture made it in here twice! Oops ... it is a cutie though.. can you spot it? :P lol

Skye at two.

As I did a small update last year on things Skye was up to at age 1, I thought I would do another one now so I can remember what she was up to when she turned two!

We have one week left of our little bee being one! I can't believe she is going to be two already! Feels like yesterday she was turning one! The time just flies by.. maybe because we're having so much fun!?

Skye seemed to go from being a baby to being a toddler in such a short space of time, and I'm sure one minute she was saying odd words and the next she was the biggest chatterbox ever! haha!
She says pretty much everything now and is so good and communicating with us, she can always tell us what she wants, and although she is sometimes met with our confused faces we always get there in the end! I love how she has her own little language and sometimes you will hear her chatting away to her toys! So cute!

One of her favourite toys is without a doubt her scuttle bug - She is crazy on that thing! She will go so fast down the hall way and just before getting to the front door she will lift her legs up before banging into it! It is so funny to watch - She also loves to skid round corners on it.. I think she gets this from her daddy!

She also loves her dolls and spends ages putting them on the changing mat and changing nappies! She also loves to wrap them in blankets and put them in to bed! It is so cute to watch her doing things that she has obviously learnt from us!


The other thing she loves is her tea set - she loves to make us cups of tea and coffee! She puts all the cups out and stirs them with a spoon before handing them out to everyone! She even makes sure that she tells me mine is a cup of tea and daddy's if coffee!

She also loves to sing - wheels on the bus is one of her favourites, and she likes it when we changed the words! We change the words to grandad/daddy/mummy/leo/other animals and she will aways say what the different person says! We thought it was hilarious when we said the daddy on the bus goes... and she replied "coffee coffee coffee!" haha!

Other things she loves include books, puzzles, play dough and water! She would play with water for hours I'm sure! She loves playing with other children and loves when her cousin comes to play! Also not forgetting her biggest love Leo! I love how much she loves Leo and the way she pats his back and says "good boy!"
She can also count to 10, and is getting pretty good with her colours too! :D

Skye's biggest achievement this year is quite a recent one and that is that she is now potty trained! She was showing signs of being ready for a little while, so we got her a potty just to get used to the idea. I then decided to just go for it. I will write another post about this another time. But I am so proud of how quickly she picked it up!

Her favourite things to eat have been pasta (still!) sausages and beans. She has become a little more fussy with her food and will only eat when she's properly hungry! Pasta is what she eats the best and fruit. She still loves her fruit which I'm glad about! She is also a complete chocolate monster! Her new love is chocolate coins! She calls them Peppa coins after seeing Peppa eat them on one episode!

She is growing in to such a beautiful little girl and sometimes I look and her and I just can't believe she is mine! She is the most loving and caring little girl and always gives hugs and kisses to everyone!

 So I think that's all for now, obviously it's so hard to remember everything as she learns something new everyday! She is so much fun and I can't wait to see how she changes again in the next year!

 We love you Skye bee!!

Mommy Talk: Morning Sickness.

I thought I'd start once a week to try and do a post on mummy topics. Things that I've experienced, from when I was pregnant, right up to the toddler months we're now in!

I thought what better place to start, than where my journey began.. and where it stayed for quite some time!!

When I first found out I was pregnant, we decided to not tell anyone for a little while,  well that lasted for around a week! We were due to go out for an easter meal with all my family, and as I went to get out of bed, I was hit with a horrid feeling of nausea, the way you feel after a heavy night of drinking! Of course as I knew I was pregnant I knew exactly what this was.. I hadn't escaped it! Damn!! I had expected some sort of morning sickness, but what I didn't expect or know, was that it could (and would!) go on for weeks, and not just be in the morning!

After a few days of being in bed unable to keep any food or drink down, I knew I had to tell my mum what was going on! She had already guessed I think anyway! I decided now was the time to go to the doctor and see what they could do to help! I had been googling (naughty!) ways to help myself but nothing seemed to work for me. The doctor signed me off work and gave me some tablets which should have eased the sickness enough to help me to eat. They did not work!!

I was so fed up of lying in bed and spent hours reading through pregnancy forums to find out when this would be over and I could enjoy being pregnant! Obviously though nothing could give me the answer I wanted, and I just had to wait it out. The worst of my sickness lasted for around six weeks. However it didn't stop there! I still had the odd day here and there where I would feel dreadful, and I was still sick in the mornings right after I'd eaten (TMI!!) all the way up until I was 40 weeks!! It wasn't every day, but quite often!!

Sickness like this was not something that I had ever known about before getting pregnant, I mean I knew about morning sickness of course, but I had imagined being sick once when waking up then carrying on through the day! I did not know it could go on all day or last for weeks!!

Here are a few things which helped me to get through! I hope if anyone is in the same position I was and is scrolling the internet looking for anything to help, that this helps a little!!

- Eating something as soon as you wake up, even if you don't feel hungry.

- Drink lots of water. My doctor said the baby will get what it needs from you as long as you stay hydrated.

- Wear travel sickness bands. I don't really think these helped, but it was more of a mind trick!

- Don't worry about work. - I would worry constantly what people at work would think that I had phoned in sick again, or if I had to go home, but honestly don't worry. Your health and your baby are more important than what other people think. I was signed off of work for six weeks, and when I went back they would let me go home if I didn't feel well enough. Working in retail it is very hard to cope with sickness or hide it!! Especially when you have to stand constantly all day! Any "work tips" that I found online all assumed that pregnant women work in offices and that you have a desk! Well where I work there is no chance to sit down or rest!

- Keep mints or sweets handy! I always found sucking a hard sweet or a mint helped, and it kept that horrible taste away as well!

- If you can't face eating, try drinking a glass of milk. This always helped me! If you don't like plain milk, try flavoured milk.

- Also eating dry things like toast, breadsticks and rich tea biscuits. I lived off of these things for the first few weeks!

- Keep a snack handy. I used to keep a kit kat or small pack of biscuits in my bag at all times. The second I felt hungry I would have to eat otherwise the sick feeling would come!

These are a few things that helped me, and I hope by sharing it will help others!

Did you have pregnancy sickness? What tips do you have? :)

Currently.

Doing: Having a lazy morning with Skye, thinking we really should get dressed! She's watching cartoons, and trying her hardest to get Leo to cuddle her! She's also decided trying to walk along the sofa is a fun game! Also, doing.. well this I guess!!

Watching: Skye is watching Ben and Holly, it's rare I get to watch any TV in the mornings! Other than the TV I'm watching Skye trying to walk across the sofa and giggling to herself when she flops down!

Planning: We are currently planning our wedding which is all very exciting, but at the same time a little uncertain right now. Due to my dad's operation we may have to change our date. Hopefully all the extra added stress right now will only make our wedding more special when it does happen!

Thinking about: Food. Always! Also about my dad. I've been thinking a lot lately about how we really take things for granted sometimes, and it's not until big things happen that you stop and think wow I really should appreciate things more. I've known for over 9 months that my dad is due to have this operation, and I think I just put it to the back of my mind, but more recently as it could be any day now I've been thinking about it more. It's terrifying, and I hate that he has to go through it. It's said to be the most complicated operation there is, there's one hospital in the UK that does it, hence why we're all playing the waiting game. He'll be gone for up to three weeks and I'm dreading it. 

Looking Forward To: The day my dad comes back from hospital and we know he is ok. I literally want nothing more right now.

Loving: The days I don't have to work and get to spend with Skye. The way she is turning in to such a  grown up little girl that understands things and that she is beginning to have proper conversations! Also the funny little things she does! I hope I never forget any of them!

How about you, what are you unto? I love to read currently posts!

Breath of fresh air.

On my last weekend off my mum and dad asked if we wanted to go for a little stroll around Durdle Door, the weather was sunny and Dom was working so I thought it'd be a nice day out for Skye!

I'd seen lots of pictures of Durdle Door but never actually been, and it really is a beautiful place! Even if the weather was that pretend sunny that tricks you into thinking it's warm! We had a little something to eat when we got there, then my dad took Skye back to the car whilst my mum, Miki and I walked down to the beach. We never would have got down there with the pushchair and it was a little cold and windy for her!!

One we had walked down and enjoyed the view, we let Skye have a little run around! She loved having the freedom to run around and play! Since she has started walking she wants to walk everywhere...!!

We had a great afternoon, and the fresh air was just what I needed!! :)

 

 

 

Where do you like to visit? :)