Seven Years On....

He is so seven, our Fergus.  Cheeky, bouncy, bright as a button with an amazing dry sense of humour and our family trademark of overacting ability.  So precious he takes my breath away.

   It seems overindulgent to look back and focus on his birth but it was so special I do remember it with such joy each year.  It wasn't the instant resolution of all my hurt, I didn't ever really expect it to be but it was a great big fist in the air,  an I told you so to every medic who told me my body couldn't birth my babies.

  And so today ,and I for the rest of my life,  I will first say a fervent prayer of thanks to God who listened and was there.  I will then raise a glass to my darling Raymond who trusted me even when I doubted myself, to fantastic Mary Cronk without whom I could never have dared a VBA3C, to gorgeous Andrya Prestcott who gave him that tug out he needed when his hips got stuck and gave me so much beautiful, intuitive support on the day, to lovely Sue Rose who so quickly became a part of the team.    Huge thanks too to all those real life and virtual friends who kept me going through that very long pregnancy, listened to my fears and kept me believing in myself and in the possibility of birth after horror especially the Beautiful Women and the UKVBACHBAC list.  Thank you all, so very much, always.

And now enough bathos, I have a cake to bake :-)

Hello Again Blogging World

Having been increasingly bored by email lists and finding Facebook updates tryingly short, I've decided to reactivate my blog, as a musing space to share with a more selective group. I have another blog where I think about my Christian life but decided I would do a more mundane life one too.

I am spectacularly struggling with life today, stranded in bed/on sofa with flu although dodgy laptop power supply has driven me into the discomfort of the study. Usually I find sitting in the study for any length of time causes problems due to the howling gale blowing thru the "ventilation" hole in the wall and the smell of the mice cages housed in here. Today, neither of these are a problem as I'm running such a temperature and my nose is blocked!

I feel a million times better than last night when I got home after a weekend in London teaching an antenatal course. I do love doing them and quite enjoy having some time and space away from family but I don't tend to sleep well at the best of times and increasing cold/flu symptoms plus noisy people in room next door ensured I was fairly wrecked by Sunday and by the time I changed trains at Birmingham I was on the verge of tears. I was very grateful for Facebook by phone and a good book "The White Queen" by Philippa Gregory which helped me stay awake - I was terrified of falling asleep and missing Derby. (Was about to type : terrified of falling asleep and waking up in Newcastle but thought this might be misunderstood and resented by my Georgie friends!!)

I am now willing myself to get better as I have a Jack Newman study day to go to in Stafford tomorrow and Fergus will be 7 on Wednesday which involves, Lord help me, 5 of his friends coming for birthday tea. I have an oversubscribed baby massage class on Thursday and am off to Telford on Friday for NCT conference. I would not wholly mind being sick for that bit as the mere sight of certain NCT staff makes me feel exceedingly ill but I need to fulfil my study requirement as a BFC and this is the only date I can manage. So I'm hoping my body will pay attention to the fact that I am WAY too busy to be sick and perform accordingly. I am determinedly ignoring the nagging sound at the back of my head which says I am sick because I am so stressed from insane amounts of work both paid and voluntary. I console myself with the thought that I have opened a door to a potential new career and am peeping timidly around it. Time will tell.