...and here's some pictures

35 weeks
nine days old

a family portrait..Action Man, Baby Girl and Betty

my sleeping beauty

cute as a button (must remember to fold ear into hat!!)

Life With Baby Girl

I must apologise for not keeping this blog up. I have been overtaken and fully enveloped by love, feeding issues, smiles, washing, dirty nappies, little milestones, chatting with other new mums, catching up on sleep and jobs, playing, tears mine and hers, developing stacks of photos, showing off my lovely love at any opportunity, laughter, feeding and more feeding, reading about babies and learning about sleep. Baby Girl is the love of my life. What a journey...wow!
BG is now 14 weeks old. She sleeps through some nights and wakes once on others. She has 3 to 4 fairly short naps a day (which is a huge improvement from the none she was having prior to 10 weeks!). She is generous with smiles and can almost roll over. I am amazed at her sheer determination to practise this skill after every feed. If we don't put her down she squirms and complains until we do then proceeds to throw her body weight to the side for 15 minutes or so. I think she will get it in the next few days. BG is a very happy baby now that she is contented with her feeds.
At my new mothers group the other day we discussed the gains and losses of becoming a mother. It was great to discuss the negatives as well as the positives because they are there, as with any new experience.
I feel the need to make a list.
Gains
*a beautiful person to love and watch grow and develop,
*pride in being such an important influence in a human's life,
*renewed friendships with friends who have been mothers for a while and whom I felt at odds with when I struggled to get to where I am now.
*A busy social life and new friends! Heaps of them. Through pre- natal groups and new mums groups and friends of friends. With this comes a great sense of belonging and sisterhood as we share what only new mums can share. This is something I longed for and it is as fantastic as I thought!
*A refreshed relationship with my mum and my MIL. Also a different relationship has emerged with the men in my life such as my BIL and FIL who are always calling in for an update and a cuddle from BG.
*The never ending delight of watching BG with her Dad. I see Action Man as a proud, involved, loving dad and he is just as I always imagined him to be.
*A whole heap of new skills such as being able to rock the pram with my foot whilst chopping vegies for dinner! Also a new set of neurosis! Is she putting on enough weight? What can I do about her eczema? Why do her farts stink so bad?
*My overall confidence in myself.
*A heightened sensitivity towards all the little babies who abandoned or treated badly. Tears come easily when these sad stories are reported.
Losses
*Things to talk about to friends without children. BG is a 24 hr preoccupation and so I struggle to think of things which are interesting to offer. Speaking from experience there is a limit to the amount of baby talk that can be tolerated.
*Time for myself, to look after my appearance and my fitness. A sense of time as I knew it prior to BG. All of a sudden my day is broken into compartments of BG awake and BG asleep. When BG is asleep I race around like a lunatic doing housework!
*The feeling that I'm not good enough because of infertility. Well that's a tough one really. I haven't lost it entirely but it's lessened. It is truly amazing how often people ask when we are going to have a second child. I certainly know better than to plan and anyway we are more than happy with our girl. It's still a shock that we have her at all!

Anyway, it's going great. Motherhood is harder than I expected but it's as wonderful as I had imagined!