Christmas eve

Imogen with Santa

Caught in the act! opening christmas toys under the tree the week before christmas

My happy baby girl

Time really does fly by when you are looking after a little one. It's Imogens first Christmas tomorrow and I am so excited, I cannot believe it is here already! Tomorrow is not just Christmas, Imogen will be six months old tomorrow, so there will be a few changes. She will be moved to her own room on boxing day (which has airconditioning as of yesterday!), her car seat will be turned around, solids will be introduced on a daily basis, the midday breastfeed will be replaced with a formula feed. The beginning of our weaning process.
Those are the external changes, Imogen herself has been changing a bit this week, with the development of her backwards shuffle that she does on her tummy now, so that she can get to places. I have seen her turn around so that an object is behind her so she can reverse up on it. She is getting chattier every day. I have heard /w/, /m/, /b/, and /p/. Accidental 'words' have included 'mum', 'wah' and 'boob'. I know that they do not count as words yet as they have no meaning to her yet, but its pretty cute when she cries she sometimes says "mum!" between sobs. The beginning of CVCV babbling I suppose.

She had her shots on Monday and was weighed and measured. She is in the 95th percentille for height and weight and the 97th for head size. AND I'm a vegetarian (pesco vegetarian). Some people have been surprized that a veggie has been able to grow such a big bubba!

Right now Imogen is in the kitchen with her daddy, helping with the Christmas menu which is as follows:

Christmas Menu

Snacky foods

-        Cheese

-        Olives

-        Biscuits

-        Pear/quince paste

-        Olive bread (SIL)

Meats /mains

-        Chicken

-        Pork

-        Prawns

-        Vegie Shepard’s pie (MIL)

Salads and sides

-        Pumpkin salad (Mum)

-        Onion tart (SIL)

-        Brown rice salad (SIL)

-        Twice cooked potatos

-        Roast vegies

-        Prawn dips (a thousand island, wasabi)

Desserts

-        Hot chocolate mousse

-        Pudding (mum)

-        Icecream

  I will let you know how Imogens first Christmas goes!

Strawberry Kisses

When my bubba was about 2 or 3 weeks old I noticed that she had a small red mark on the left side of her face. I remember asking at her birth if she had any birthmarks. I did not know that they actually develope later on! It's slowly been growing since it was first noticed. The only thing that drives me nuts about it is peoples reaction. No she has not hit or head. Nor does she have brain cancer. It's just a little birthmark.

I plan to tell her it's her own personal Harry Potter mark! And it's not the lightning shape because her parents didn't die!

Another saying I have heard is that they are called Stork kisses, love from the stork at delivery! Which is pretty cute!

Our weekend away

Henri, continues his adventures within Australia

 My dear cousin got married last weekend, down in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. Rhys and I were so excited to receive an invite! However the venue did not allow for paediatric guests. So after a couple of months of umming and ahhing, should we go? yes. Can we take Imogen to Melbourne? How will we travel? Who will babysit? Will we take time off work? We ended up deciding on leaving Imogen in Brisbane in the care of my mum in our house, and only going down for one night, leaving just enough time to go to the wedding and come home again!

A chance to relax and chill out

 On the way to the airport I honestly felt sick, anyone who knows us or followed our travel blog (travellingwithhenari@blogspot.com) knows that we love to travel, we spent days in the air last year and I never felt ill once. Getting on the plane heading away from Imogen I felt sick. I had to stare up at the ceiling for a while, in an effort to prevent throwing up. And in the end I didn't throw up. I think I only started to relax when we were in the hire car heading from the airport to the yarra valley, via Resevoir (because it turns out that the western freeway, northern freeway and metropolitan freeway are all the same bloody freeway).

At the wedding

We stayed at a local vineyard with a lovely view (top photo). It was just so nice and quiet. I had a nice long soak in the tub and went to the wedding with NO vomit or dribble or poopies on my dress! We had a lovely time at the wedding and managed to phone Imogen at the perfect time to say good night.
The next morning we had a massive breakfast at the hotel, had another soak in the massive tub, went on a scenic drive and stopped at a winery for some wine tasting (at 11am!)

I'm glad we went. My husband is my best friend and it was nice to have an opportunity to say hello and to discuss some things in detail without having our thoughts interrupted by little Miss. Our next trip? Adelaide! Next month!! And this time, Imogen will be coming too...

Santa is on his way

For the last four or five christmases I have envied those with little ones. Christmas always seems more magical when there are little ones around.
Frankly I think it will be better next year when she can be a little bit more involved, but still having a little one around has made Christmas more fun.

For a start there are TOYS under the tree! Not just jewelry, clothes and makeup. And Stargate box sets.

And as she was born on June 25, December 25 will be when she reaches six months in age. So it will be the time she gets to start trying some pureed solids, her cot will be moved from our room to her room (after Christmas), her car seat will be turned around. It feels like a lot will happen around that time! She is growing up too quickly.

We went Christmas shopping today and I have well and truely bought enough things for Miss Imogen. She is receiving (from myself and Rhys),
a cabbage patch kid (Named Alice Imogen),
a little people toy plane (to start discussions about travel before her first overseas trip - fingers crossed - in June),
3 dresses, 2 shirts and 2 pairs of shorts.
Oh! Wait! I still would like to buy her a book.

We have most of our Christmas shopping done. I just need to buy Rhys his gift from me and one from Imogen.

I am so looking forward to all the Christmases we have to come... Christmases where we go to bed early, but not before putting out cookies and milk (and possibly a santa trap). Write letters to santa. Go to look at Christmas lights. And bake special Christmas treats. 

Imogen at four months

Sitting up in her bumbo, playing with her new toys

 It's going by so quickly I rarely have the chance to stop and think about what Imogen is like, right now, at the point in time.
Well, she is a lovely baby. From the start we have always received comments about how quiet, happy and easy going our little girl is. And she really is, we have very rarely had to deal with an inconsolable baby, most of the time with Immy she is trying to tell you something when she is crying. She is a little bit of an odd ball, sometimes she just wants to be put down and left to play/comfort herself.
At around 4pm every night her crib becomes her enemy, the same place she is happy to sleep in in the morning and late afternoon, just will NOT do. So she usually ends up in my arms, and we sit in my big feeding chair and she will have a nap while we wait for Rhys to get home.
She is very good at grabbing and holding onto things. She smiles all the time, and will laugh if Rhys or myself laugh.
She is bigger than average, weighing in at over seven kilos at four months of age.
She reminds me of her dad, not because she looks like him (which she sometimes does), but because she acts like him. She dropped something in the kitchen the other day, and it made this massive sound, so I spun around to see the exact face Rhys gives in that situation, on Immy's little face.
She continues to refuse to roll over all the way. But finds it funny to roll around during nappy changes.

Out for icecream with mummy and daddy

We still cannot agree on what colour her hair will be, blonde? strawberry blonde? brown? At the moment the popular guess is bald.

Out and about on our daily walk

We sort of, but do not really have a routine. She usually has a nap around 7-8am, 11-12pm, 3-4pm ish. But I don't keep it to exact times, I go from her eyes and sleepy looks. Sleeps can vary from 15 minutes to  2 hours.
She enjoys "conversations" with Mr Butterfly or "doing her calculations" on her walker.
She is a big daddy's girl, and usually will not look at him on Monday/Tuesday when he gets home from work, I think she is upset that he left her ALL DAY with mummy after the whole weekend with both mum and dad.
She likes to be involved, she started to cry when I was making dinner last night, so I gave her the egg flipper and she stopped crying and played with it for 25 minutes!
You can tell she is getting sleepy from her eyes and her laugh (she has an I'm not sleepy laugh).
She is stubborn and persistent. She is gentle and happy. She is Immy.

This time last year...

Is that a second line?

We left Phuket on 6/11/10 and I remember writing one last blog for our travel blog and checking my messages on facebook. In my message box was a message from a good friend of mine and it seemed like she thought I was pregnant and that I knew about it. Well she was half right!

We got back to Australia on the 7/11/10 and for two days I just felt sick and bloated and said it was jetlag but hoped something else.

I think I did some serious googling on the 9/11/10 of pregnancy symptoms and possible due dates.

So I told Rhys of my thoughts and the next day 10.11.10 he went out and bought some tests, I set of three I think.

We did the first one (above) in the morning and I don't think Rhys believed it at all, so he said we will do another test in a couple of days to check. Later that day I did another test and the result way the same, a line is a line no matter how faint!

After that second test we were both in shock and happy and amazed and in shock and most of all happy.

I never doubted she was a girl, I went out that week and bought some "its a girl" pink nail polish. 

What a great years its been.

Time to sleep.

In her wrap me up at nap time

Bounce Bounce with daddy.

I think that we have been lucky with Imogen. At four months she is a pretty good little sleeper, she does have her off days or nights but on the most part she sleeps from 7 or 8pm - 5 or 6am, and has 3-4 naps in a day.
To assist with sleep we.

Use the wrap me ups, the little swaddles with zips you can buy. I have found this really helps me during the day, when she gets really sleepy the arms and legs just go everywhere, the wrap me up seems to help with that.

She has a "sleep sheep" its this random sheep that makes whale noices, I think she is beginning to associate this with nap time.

We have a big blue exercise ball (OK two, one in the lounge and one in our bedroom) used to bounce little miss to sleep (has always worked well for us).

Rocking her back and forth in her cot or pram works ok too.

Cute Pregnant

Me, 17 weeks pregnant with Imogen

Sometimes, particularly around the time of the birth of a brand new baby (and there have been a few in Oct/Nov) and also around the time of pregnancy announcements (of which there was another one today), I miss being pregnant. Not 32+ weeks, waddling and struggling to breathe pregnant, but something a FB friend of mine called "Cute Pregnant."

I really enjoyed my pregnancy, even though at the end I was admitted with pre-eclampsia and she was born a bit earlier than planned. I really really loved early pregnancy, you know, around the time when you have a fresh baby bump, and you find out the gender, and feel the first kicks - for me this was all back in February.

I really want to go through all that again for my girl, we have both figured that Rhys is destined to be surrounded by women, so we are having two girls (we think) and Immy is such a daddys girl, but the youngest will be all about mummy.

We have agreed to have two children, but when will we be welcoming our youngest?

I do not know, but probably not any time soon.

In need of a pretty dress...

Me at the last wedding we attended on June 4 (3 weeks before Imogen was born)

My bump at its peak

I have been pregnant at the last four weddings that I have been to. Actually the last wedding I went to before I fell pregnant was my own! I think I wore the same black dress to pretty much every event I attended whilst I had my baby bump.

I actually kind of miss my bump, in some strange way, it was ok to be an odd shape, because I wasn't fat I was pregnant. But now looking for a dress for my cousins wedding, which is now next weekend, I just feel fat. I am a lot bigger in some parts (bust mostly), and I just do not know how to dress for my shape!

Me on our wedding day

 I look back at our wedding photos and wonder, will my body ever be the same?

I think what I need, is a good haircut. I feel all scruffy and disshevelled, and like my left arm always has spit up on it.

And I need a new dress! The ones in my current wardrobe just will not fit nicely right now. I have set aside this Sunday and next Friday to Christmas shop/get a hair cut and find a new dress.

Wish me luck.

If you have any suggestions... I would love to hear about good dresses for post baby bodies that have yet to fully bounce back!

What’s in a name…?

Imogen Louise Alice.

Those are the names we end up giving our baby girl. And here are some versions of the meanings of these names:
In Irish, the name Imogen means- image of her mother. In English, the name Imogen means- Innocent. The name of the heroine of Shakespeares play Cymbehoe as a result of a printing error in the Folio edition of the play. (was originally Innogen).
In German, the name Louise means- a famous warrior. In French, the name Louise means- Feminine form of Louis: Famous warrior. Renowned fighter.
In Celtic, the name Alice means- Noble. In English, the name Alice means- Of the nobility. From the German Adalheidis meaning nobility, and the French Adeliz which is a form of Adelaide. Used in Britian since the 12th century; Alice became very popular in 1865 when Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland was published.
So she’s an innocent bub who will look like her mum, fight hard and is of the nobility…
Ok so we didn’t choose the names because of the meanings.
We knew she was a girl, even before we were told at 19 weeks. So at about 16 weeks we bought this name book and Rhys would read a new letter out loud every night. When he got to the start of ‘I’ he said, “what about Imogen” and I agreed that was a very nice name, but shut up and read all the I names from the beginning, don’t start at Im.
I think I had really liked Arabella, Astrid and Amelia at this point (the primacy effect at work, perhaps?)
But when we saw her little face and was told that yes she was a girl, when I got into the car after that scan I put my hand on my belly and said “Imogen.” And that was it, from then on when it was just Rhys and I around she was Immy.
Louise is my middle name, Alan is one of Rhys’s, so I thought an Al- girls name would be nice, and I thought Alice was pretty.  
 

A Real Mum

Imogen and I

I find myself thinking, I wonder what a real mum would do in this situation, at least once a week. I can not help but wonder when I will start to feel like a Real mum!
Don’t get me wrong, I am a pretty good mum, well I think so. I can always calm her down in a reasonable amount of time, usually I can make her laugh and I can change a nappy while covered in poo, without getting any on her.
But I still feel like I lack a certain mum confidence. Since she was born I have never been confident about my techniques and assumed everyone knew better.
During the pregnancy I had so many people, mostly health professional, doctors, OTs, nurses, take one look at me/my medical history and so they warned me that I wouldn’t be able to hold my baby, I wouldn’t be able to breast feed, she would probably need to go into care… that I think I was left convinced that I was just no good.
But she is almost four months old now, and I have breast feed her the whole time, and she very rarely leaves my arms when Daddy is at work.
Her Daddy does a lot when he is home, and my mum does a lot of washing and cleaning around the house to help out.
But right now it’s just Imogen and I and she is asleep right next to me, and after this blog I am going to clean the kitchen and make the bed. I think we are doing alright. I just wonder when will I consider myself a real mum? I’ll let you know when I do.

my cutie

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The Good bits

I really want to start another blog!
My husband bought me a laptop for my birthday so I finally am able to access the internet on something other than my iPhone.
I have been thinking about starting another blog since my daughter was born in June.
The thing is, is that I don't think I could be someone who blogs about everything, the good and the bad.
I'm afraid that all I plan to blog about is the good bits of being a mummy.

So please read! And if you're reading and think 'her life cannot be that great' I guarantee you that it is definitely not. These are just the good bits.

-T

The birth of my daughter

One of the first shots with her eyes open, daddy keeping a close eye on his lil girl

Daddy and Imogen do some skin to skin

I spent the last three-four days of pregnancy as an in-patient at the Royal Brisbane. I had every symptom of pre-eclampsia, the blurred vision, the headache, the on edge mental state, the high blood pressure, but it stubbornly refused to show up in any of my blood tests.



On the Thursday (23.06.11) I actually started to have regular contractions (after about five hours they gave me medication to stop them). On the Friday they decided they did not want me to go into labour and they decided to ignore the blood tests, diagnosed me with pre-eclampsia, put me NBM (nil by mouth) and set my c-section date to the following day.

I remember the morning of 25.06.11 better than any morning that has happened since, and better than most of the mornings that happened before.
I was exhausted (from being woken for OBs, ah! being in hospital was exhausting!)
I was so thirsty. I wasn't allowed water since midnight, and for a three litre a day girl it was rough going.
I was ready. I had spent three days campaigning for this and now that it was happening I was left with a complete inability to recognise that by the end of the day I would be a mum!
I took for granted that she would be fine and that everything would go well. So I was not that nervous.

The c-section was booked for 1030am, but when we got down to the operating rooms there was an emergency c-section that pushed ours back two hours.

So we waited, took photos of each other, sat quietly, bullied the nurses into handing over a cup of ice chips.
I think it was just after twelve, I had snuck off to the toilet and when I came out the nurse was waiting and it was time!
My blood pressure shot up to over 180/110 while I had my spinal block and eqidural put in. I was sitting with my legs dangling over the left side of the bed, trying to arch my back like a cat and pretend I was on a beach on Mykonos. When I was really in a room that resembled a supply closet.
The spinal block took effect quite quickly.
The doctor ran ice down my stomach saying "Can you feel the ice"
"Tell me when you put it on," I replied.
"It is on"
"Oh then, no".

The nurse asked Rhys what her name would be. There was a big pause so I said Imogen! Turns out he didn't reply straight away because he was tearing up.

We moved onto the next room, after they inserted the catheter. I was transferred to the operating table. They covered me in sheets of paper, put pillows under me arms. Put up a screen between my head and tummy and invited Rhys in.

I could feel it. I could feel tugging and pressure. It didn't hurt or anything.

After about 5 minutes we were told that it was time.

And then there she was! Being passed over the barrier, screaming angry little face.

She was weighed and measure (3.27 kg, 7 lb 2 oz, 49.5 cm in length).

And then she was in my arms! She was crying, I said 'hello, its ok, you are alright' and when she heard my voice she stopped crying and just looked at us. At me.

The doctors sewed me back together again and then we were in the recovery room having our first feed.

She was so quick at feeding. She was so strong. She was so beautiful. She was so tiny. She was all mine! and she was perfect.



36 weeks 4 days pregnant



Imogen and mummy meet face to face