Baby has arrived!

Our beautiful son entered the world on Thursday 22nd July. Conveniently commencing his arrival only a couple of hours after we had tied up all the lose ends and signed all the papers with builder and bank for our house-building project. He ended up being 3 days early - which is perfect: I was dreading having to continue waiting if he was overdue..

The birth definately was not delightful, though 'on paper' it appears to have been a very good birth, according to the obstetrician's report... In the end, it did not go at all as I had anticipated - though I was unaware of my expectations, thinking I was keeping an 'open mind' to all possibilities... I was prepared to just 'go with the flow' and take things as they occurred. But really, I did NOT expect to end up delivering my baby in the bath and without the aide of any drugs at all! The desire to give birth in the bath has never appealed to me, and to be honest, the idea of a woman giving birth without any drugs has always sounded insane! But that's what I did - and it was bloody hard! Best forgotten really!

I actually went into a bit of shock after the birth - and it felt a lot different to be holding a new baby and looking at him in wonderment when you can well feel all the trauma that your body has just endured - with my daughter I was fortunate enough to be feeling absolutely no pain at all (thanks to an epidural) at that crucial moment of holding her for the first time!

But of course, the wonderment and love of a new baby wins through - and all the gory details are readily pushed aside. Just the love of our new family member is foremost, and the thought that 'thank-god the birth is all over with now!'

Caring for a new baby is very easy at this stage - he just feeds and sleeps a lot. Nappy changing has a few new challenges, as we are not used to getting showered at any given moment - so I have a lot of clothes washing needing to be done! I keep trying to convince my mum NOT to waste time ironing all of his little clothes, as he tends to pee on them before they are even worn!

The two year old daughter is the biggest handful! A few extra tantrums and odd behaviours as she reacted to her routines being quite out of whack, and Mummy not being around for a few days... But things seem to be settling down quite well now.

Trying to take a nice 'family' picture has proven to be difficult - as T decides she doesn't want to sit still and smile at the camera... unless she has a bag over her head! (see below)

I am enjoying having my husband at home to help out... and am a bit scared of how I will go when on my own... I think any outings will have to be rather limited and very simple... We all went to the library yesterday for story-time and that was hard enough with two adults and two children... I am about to get both children in the car on my own soon for a mini outing to gran and pops... Yep, baby steps! Before long I will be a pro no doubt! (scarily my husband has already started talking about the possibility of a third child in the future: aaahhhh!)