Jake

So I thought it was about time I updated my blog. It's been a very busy month. I have gone from a pregnant lady with a massive bump...


...to becoming a mummy!
Jake arrived on the 2nd July, a week before my planned C-section after I experienced some bleeding and started going into early labour. I blame a trip round Ikea the previous day and an inexplicable need to clean the bathroom - what was I thinking?
I was so shocked when they said I would be having Jake early. The C-section itself was very straightforward and I have recovered from it very well -my scar is really neat, and although I feel a bit tender when I walk far, we have started getting out and about a bit.
Unfortunately, Jake had a slightly worse experience of birth, about half an hour after birth they realised he had wet lungs which needed clearing because he was coughing up gunk. He was brought back an hour later but then had a 'dusky episode' while breastfeeding - he basically forgot to breathe. He got taken to the Special Care Baby Unit and I wasn't able to see him for another 12 hours until my spinal had worn off. It was probably one of the most difficult times of my life, I couldn't wait to get wheeled down to see my baby.
Jake had no more breathing problems, but was kept in the unit for nearly three days. I was going up and down at all hours of the day to feed my baby, but was reliant on the staff to call the ward I was in.
When Jake was finally allowed out of SCBU, he had lost too much of his birthweight. This meant a round the clock feeding regime and a fight to keep breastfeeding, which was hard but I stuck to my guns. However Jake kept losing weight, and I felt like I was going to have a breakdown!
We were finally allowed out of the hospital just over a week ago when a consultant took pity and decided our home would be a better environment for Jake and me. Sure enough, as soon as we were home Jake started putting on weight and has been very happy and contented.
Becoming a mummy has been the best thing that ever happened to me. I know it's a cliche but it totally changes your life (in a good way!). Total unconditional love for another person, no matter how many times they wee, poo or vomit on you! I can't wait to spend the next year with my little man x x x

Nearly there!

Thought I'd post a quick catch up and update you on how things are going, seeing as I'm on my first real day of maternity leave.
First up, a quick page to share. I made this ages ago, and the photo is from even longer ago! I love walking along the Southbank and watching all the street performers, but this fish on a bike has got to be one of my favourites!

I am now feeling decidedly huge, and baby is certainly making its presence felt. Unfortunately we had confirmed on Friday that my placenta is far too low for a natural delivery, so we are booked in for a C-section on the 9th July, which is three weeks today! Very close to my due date which is a little bit scary as if I start early I'm going to have to hotfoot it to the hospital pretty quickly before I start dilating.

I'm a little bit disappointed that a normal delivery is ruled out, but ultimately all I want is that the baby we tried so hard to have gets here safely, and the danger of bleeding makes a C-section the best way to achieve that.

We have had a bit of a mad dash round the spare bedroom, trying to box up all my books and crafty gear, and most of that is now in the loft. I also did a big eBay sale and have even more to load up too now - there is no point keeping stuff that I haven't used for years, it might as well go to a good home.

I have been doing a spot of knitting for the baby - believe it or not this is going to turn into a duffel coat. I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days, I'm really not that quick at knitting. Unlike my lovely friend Rach who made me this gorgeous blanket! She is a knitting supremo (though this is of course crochet).

Finally, here is a little photo of me yesterday, at a spa day I was bought for my 30th birthday. It was at a lovely Elizabethan hotel in Staffordshire called Hoar Cross Hall, with these beautiful gardens. The day was just what I needed to calm me down, I was starting to feel very stressed out. The beautiful bump massage I was booked in for was bliss, and has left my skin so soft - even hubby noticed!

Anyway, hope to be back to update soon!

Lumps and bumps

It has to be said, I'm starting to feel decidedly large now.

This is me at 31 and a bit weeks (apologies for untidy bedroom in the background!). I have now put on over two stone, am getting decidedly breathless having to walk around at work and have forgotten what a decent night's sleep feels like. But I know it'll all be worth it in the end - just counting down the days until I can go on maternity leave and have a rest!

It's been a busy couple of weekends too. We went away two weeks ago, after my very clever husband attended his OU degree ceremony. I'm so proud of him - he completed it in less than three years while working full time, which is more than most uni students can say - I worked part time at best through my degree!

Ed had booked us a couple of nights in a hotel at Ironbridge, which is well worth visiting - very pretty and the Victorian museum is great. I have quite a few photos which will probably appear on layouts in the near future.

Then last weekend we visited my mum and dad's and I got to show off my bump which had grown a lot in the five weeks since I had last seen them.

Speaking of mum and dad, they feature in this layout which I made a week or so ago, the picture is ancient, from 2007, but I really love those beach huts! I'm not in love with this layout - the balance is a bit off - but I don't want to do anything else to it right now so it is going to stay how it is until I decide to come back to it and work out what is wrong with it. I think it might be the title.

The trouble with this layout is that after deciding to organise my albums chronologically (inspired by the Shimelle Cover to Cover class) I realised that this layout really stands out in my 2007 album because it has such a different style to the one I had back then when I scrapped a lot of my 2007 photos. I used to have such a busy, intricate style, I've really pared that back to let me have a chance of finishing the odd page since work got so much busier. I hadn't really thought about how much my style has altered over time.

Shimelle's class has got me all inspired - I have printed a lot of my 2012 photos and ordered an AC album ready to start scrapping some up to date layouts and hopefully create an album with flow. We are supposed to be looking for the things that will create continuity in our albums rather than a set of disconnected pages, and I'm struggling a bit with this. I tend to grab whatever is in the Cocoa Daisy kit I'm currently working through, but I'm wondering whether for this 2012 album I need to put more thought into it.

So here are the things that are fairly common on my pages:

- 7 gypsies quote stickers (or October afternoon sometimes)
- Stamping, usually in black ink. I particularly like my set of Autumn Leaves border stamps.
- Butterfly punches, but not on every page
- Buttons
- Ribbon or ric rac, usually to underline a title or similar
- I used to use a lot of paint, and have recently been experimenting with mists instead (a bit less messy/time consuming)
- One photo layouts (though I would actually like this to change to get more of my photos scrapped)

I'm wondering whether I need to choose a particular motif or maybe a colour scheme to create commonality. I'm not sure if I could limit myself though, so maybe just colour schemes for particular events or sets of pages instead? I do like Shimelle's use of kraft cardstock on all her pages in one album, but I would have to buy a load more kraft if I wanted to do this.

It is certainly giving me plenty to think about anyway!

For the two people waiting on their flowers, they are all now parcelled up, addressed and ready to be posted in the morning. Sorry it's taken so long!

An unusual double layout

You see, this is what happens when I go back to work - any other life goes straight out of the window! I haven't blogged for a week and a half, and I had been so good up to that point. Oh well, here I am again, ready to share an uncommon sight in my scrapbooks, the elusive double page spread!

As a rule, I don't like to scrap double pages - I find them really hard work to do well, and you need a lot more space to spread them out and check you have achieved continuity across the two. I have probably done about three double page spreads in the last four years. But I decided that I didn't want to have just one photo of this event in my scrapbook, but didn't feel like squeezing them all on one page.

The first page was inspired by an old Shimelle starting point - I often struggle to use plans or sketches, and I did with this, but I was quite pleased with the finished page. I really love the little camera and chandelier stamps, but for the life of me can't remember what brand they are! I continued my experiementation wth ink mists, in this case lime green and blue, to take away some of the harsh white of the background.

I then added the second page. I'm not as happy with this one, but I tried to fit three more photos onto the layout and also take some of the design features across, hence the use of the horizontal strips and blocks of paper and the same stamp set.

Here are the two as they appear in my scrapbook album - went a bit overboard with the lime green on the second side, but never mind! It isn't the favourite double page I have ever made, but it isn't awful and allowed me to get more photos scrapped.

The event in question was my third hen do. Yes, the third. I had four in total, though I suppose not all would be described as traditional hen dos. It comes from having such separate sets of friends. The first was an awesome day out in Stratford Upon Avon with my work colleagues involving a river boat trip and plenty of dares (and booze!). I had a fantastic time, but have yet to get any photos of this from my colleagues - I dread to think what I look like.

The second hen do was with another set of friends at one of their houses - good food, lots to drink and lots of gossip.

The third was this - a really lovely meal out with my in-laws, so quite a small affair.

And finally, the fourth was with my family in London - a trip to the theatre to see The Mousetrap, followed by another fantastic meal.

So this is the first one to be scrapped, but I'm sure I'll get around to the rest in due course!

In other news, the kitchen is getting gradually closer to completion - still no sink, but we may actually have a worktop and oven by the end of the day tomorrow.

Baby is starting to make me breathless going up the stairs and walking around - I assume because it is pressing on my diaphragm. I literally have to stop half way up to get my breath back - very embarassing. It's not that I'm particularly fit usually, but I definitely have better lung capacity than a sixty a day smoker. It's like getting a taste of what old age will be like!

To those ladies still waiting for their flowers, I plan on packing these up tonight, so hopefully will post at the weekend.

Baby Shopping

It just about dawned on me yesterday as I faced the prospect of returning to work that in 12 weeks, we should be welcoming our baby home. While it still seems like a dim and distant prospect as I feel like I have been pregnant for literally ever, people keep telling me how fast the time has gone and how big I'm getting. This made me decide that I probably should think about making some of the big purchases that we will need (while I'm still earning some money!).

My mum has very kindly offered to buy us the pushchair, so we are going to make our final choices about that at the weekend. And my sister in law has donated what feels like everything else we will ever need for the baby including newborn clothes, baby bath, baby walker, baby toys, moses basket etc. But what we did need to get was a cotbed.

I had looked around Mothercare a few times and thought this looked like a nice sturdy choice, but it was a bit pricey. So I was very pleased when I flicked through the website yesterday and found it with £50 off! Mind made up - I ordered it and we are picking it up at the weekend. God knows where we will put it though - everything is all over the place with the kitchen in the middle of redecoration.

So back to work today, and it wasn't too bad although I find that my tolerance levels are significantly reduced at the moment. I don't normally respond to kids too aggressively, however annoying they are, as it doesn't get you anywhere. But I am finding myself decidedly snappy when they irritate me. Hopefully they will sense the general mood and take care!

I've also been struggling a bit with my SPD for the last few days. I had it really early and went to the doctors, but then it seemed to sort itself out and so I stupidly cancelled the physio appointment that took about 6 weeks to come through. Then, as per the law of sod, it started to appear again in the last week, exacerbated by me trying to push a heavy trolley round Sainsburys yesterday. I know, not clever. I'm going to have a hot bath later and hope that it disappears from whence it came again.

So onto a layout to share with you which I made last week. You will realise there is no sense of order to my scrapping - I tend to scrap whatever photo falls on my lap or fits with the particular papers I have in front of me. This happens even more so when I'm trying to get through my backlog of kits as I am now.

I made it with the June 2011 Cocoa Daisy kit - a much brighter prospect than the May one altogether. When it arrived I initially didn't like it that much, but its actually grown on me a lot as I've come to scrap with it.

The photo is one of our group shots from a scrappy weekend away with the girls last year - I decided that we looked like one of those police line ups and was going to call it The Usual Suspects, but I didn't have enough 's's! So I called it The Line Up instead. Apologies to SJ who is mortified by the gesture she is pulling in this photo...

I was quite pleased with the little embellishment cluster here, which I augmented with some ancient Scenic Route supplies and some Girls Paperie cut outs. The date isn't on there because I couldn't remember it - I need to check!

In other news, Shimelle's new class Cover to Cover is open on the class forums, so I might spend a bit of time introducing myself over there later. In the meantime though, I want to finish a half finished page and also (shame) do a bit of work this evening too. I'm working later for the next few days, but hope to share another post with you soon, even if it is a small one!

The one with the rumbling tum...

I think I may have to nickname this baby the Hunger Monster. The main effect it seems to have had on me all pregnancy is giving me terrible hunger pangs if I don't eat every 2-3 hours. Most of the time I am able to satisfy its cravings and have been desperately trying to snack on fruit to try to introduce it to healthy flavours even before it enters the world. But my glucose test yesterday was an ordeal and a half.

I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything after 8pm in the evening, not even a cup of tea. They don't make you do this for most operations - you can eat later than that! By the time I had arrived at the hospital at 8.30am yesterday morning I was ravenous, but had at least another two hours to wait before I could eat anything.

The wait in the day room, while interminably boring, wasn't too bad. The baby was going insane kicking me, probably in protest, but finally the second set of bloods were taken and I got up to leave. By the time I had reached the lift though, I was shaking, in a cold sweat, heat was rising up the back of my neck and my head was spinning. I was nearly in tears by the time I reached the cafe, and even more so when I saw the queue! I always get grumpy when I don't eat, but apparently being pregnant magnifies my symptoms tenfold. I now have even more respect for my poor diabetic husband when he suffers hypos - his blood sugar levels drop way lower than mine!

I think it's safe to say that with that reaction to a lack of food, the chances of me having gestational diabetes are slim to none. 

But because of this, I spent the rest of the day feeling very tired and grumpy and wasted most of my time fretting about anything and everything that had already or might possibly go wrong. Note to self: never, ever go without food again if you can possibly help it.

Today is a new day however, and so far I have managed to finish a layout and now I'm onto blogging this one.

I made this layout a couple of weeks ago, it is a picture of me and my little sister at my engagment party in 2009. The papers are still from the May 2011 Cocoa Daisy kit, some of the backs of the pages were more pastel than vintage. While I really like this photo, I'm not overly happy with this layout. I think it's missing something - maybe some stitching? Or stamping? If you have any ideas, please feel free to comment.

I've got one single and one double layout left to share, though I may scrap a little more this afternoon so there could be at least three blog posts next week, though don't be surprised if you don't see another one till next weekend as all-consuming work takes over again. But I think I've definitely caught the blogging bug again, so I won't leave it too long, and I am of course going to be taking part in Shimelle's new class, Cover to Cover (or at least attempting to!) so expect to see me trying to get to grips with my albums which are currently, to use the technical term, a right old mess.

To the two people who wanted flowers - I have emailed you!

Creeping towards Monday...

I'm thinking I'd better make the most of my opportunity to post on this blog for the next few days - Monday is creeping ominously closer and this is going to be one very busy half term - we are hitting the height of exam season after all. It is weird to think I am only going to have about eight working weeks left before I start maternity leave - school is such a big part of my life right now. Don't get me wrong, I hate getting up in the mornings and love my holidays and weekends, but I do like the camaraderie with my colleagues and working with kids is great (most of the time!).

I spent this morning in school at an event for next year's Year Seven pupils - it was quite fun as we focused on team-building exercises including a blindfolded obstacle course which created a fair few laughs. Tomorrow unfortunately I have to be at the hospital in the morning for a glucose test - two hours of boredom while they check I don't have gestational diabetes. My husband is a diabetic and has been regularly testing my blood on his blood sugar monitor, so I can't help thinking it's going to be a big waste of time, but I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, onto today's layout, yet another Paris one, this time of the view from our hotel. Our hotel was a last minute deal but was surprisingly nice - it was a Best Western in the Bastille district of Paris and overlooked a long boulevard, in the middle of which they held a fabulous market on the last morning of our stay. We enjoyed a good look around all the of meats, cheeses and other delicacies before heading off on the Metro to the station.

This was made using the May Cocoa Daisy kit (again!) and I experimented a little bit with misting through a template to create the circle background. My favourite bit is probably the little embellishment cluster which I've shown in close up below though - I have absolutely tons of these paper flowers but never really use them, but I think they look really cute stapled on here. I must admit, much as I love the slightly vintage look on occasion, I am starting to feel a little bit starved of colour looking at the last few blog posts - safe to say, I have some much more colourful offerings on the way.

If any of my blog readers (if there are any of you left?) has a desperate love of paper flowers, I would be quite happy to gift a little bag of them to anybody who fancies - just let me know your name and address. I have way more than I can ever make use of in a lifetime!