Dear Samuel,

The last twenty four hours have been an emotional rollercoaster. Last
night you starting screaming anytime I tried to put you to the breast
and it really upset me. I started really having to consider giving up
this morning when you kept screaming any time I tried to feed you and
by this afternoon I was at the end of my rope and didn't know what to
do. So I let nana look after you while I went and had coffee with a
friend. When I arrived home you were awake and happily kicking your
legs and waving your arms around on your mat on the floor. As soon as
you heard my voice you began looking around for me, the moment I came
over to you, you looked up at me, smiled and my heart melted. It was
at this moment that I decided I would continue trying to get
breastfeeding work at least for a little longer. At your next feed I
again tried the supplement system and this time you nursed and took
happily from me for about half an hour. I just tried the sns again and
again you took from me. You were sucking for half an hour and when you
came off I realized that the tube was too far back which means the
entire time you were having my milk. This has made me feel so much
better and while I know we may still have to give up I have found the
strength to continue trying for a little longer.

First smile and first tonque poke

Dear Samuel,

Five weeks old today, how time flies. Everyday you are growing, sometimes I could almost beleive that I can see you growing in front of my eyes while I watch. Every week brings changes physicaly in you as well as in the things you seems to be able to do. This week you have started smiling at us, not just wind smiles but real smiles that lights up your whole face, smiles where while you are smiling at us you hold eye contact with us. Everytime I see one of your smiles it doesn't matter how tired I am or how bad I might be feeling your smile makes me smile. Seeing you smile, knowing that you are happy brings me such comfort and joy and the knowdlege that despite our breastfeeding problems that I am a good mother and that you are happy and healthy. As well as your smile you have started interacting more with us and have learnt to stick your tonque out at us. It is so cute when you stick your tonque out at us but your such a smart little boy child that you stick your tonque out at us 'after' we have stuck ours out at you.

This week has mostly been quiet. We went and saw the lactation consultant again and have been trying a new feeding system that lets you have both breast and formula at the same time, again showing how smart you are you have figured out how to get rid of the nipple and just get your milk from the tube so I am having to watch carefully to make sure you are getting both. So far I don't know if I can call it a success but we are at least trying it and as I have said to everyone around me I will try everything I can before giving up on trying breastfeed you and even then I will continue to give you the little bit I can until I am no longer making any milk.

My darling boy, you have bought such joy and happiness into my world, into the dark that I was living in you have brought light. I look around me and everything seems different, the world feels like a new place full of potential, full of good things and while there are bad things out there the good things right now far outweigh any of those bad things.

Thank you for bringing the joy in to my life little man, the day you came in to our life our world became a better place.

Love
Mummy.

You did it!

Dear Samuel,

Tonight you have made me so happy. Tonight you nursed for a good amount of time, suckling the whole time apart from a tiny winge right at the start, not only did you nurse for a long period of time but you fed until you went to sleep and then when we put you in your bassinet you stayed asleep.

This has made me happy for a few reasons the first of course if because of how difficult a time we have been having trying to feed, some days you don't want me at all so it feels so nice to have had you want me.

The second reason I am happy is because you nursed to sleep without the need for a formula top up. Only earlier today I was wondering if there would ever be even one feed that you didn't take formula after and now only hours later you have given that to me.

The last reason I am happy is that you fed to sleep. We have been having lots of trouble getting you to sleep this week but today has been different. Without anyone here to interrupt us your father and I have paid close attention to you and the signs you give us that you are tired. As soon as we have seen the signs that you are tired we have started trying to settle you to sleep and as a result of this we have not had any of those moments where you are so over tired that you scream and scream and nothing we can do will get you to settle. So to have you settle again was fantastic but to have you settle while feeding from me felt even better.

Thank you little man I now feel like things will work out, that because you have done it once I know that you can do it again. I am so proud of you little man you are doing so well for such a tiny little boy so new to this world.

Love always your happy and proud
Mummy

Dear Samuel,
This time four weeks ago I was sitting in the chair that I am sitting in right now timing contractions. They were starting to come much more frequently and were becomming much more painful. It was about this time that I knew that I was really in labour and would be meeting you soon. I thought that labour would take hours and hours so when you were born only five hours after we arrived at the hospital I was very surprised and so happy to meet you and hold you in my arms at last.

There are so many things I want to do with you as you grow up, so many experiences that I want to share with you and your daddy. I want us to go overseas and explore the world, I want to teach you how important family is and have you know that your family will always love and support you. I want to show you that its the simple things in life that matter. You don't need to spend a lot of money and have all the latest gadgets to be happy, to be happy all you need in life is a safe roof over your head, a warm bed to sleep in at night, enough good quality healthy food to fill your belly and love and acceptance from your family. It doesn't matter what else you own, if you have these things, if you understand that these things are what is important then you are rich in greater ways then money could ever allow you to be.

Today I had to leave you for a few hours so that I could go and see the doctor and do some food shopping, the whole time I was out all I could think about was getting home to you as quickly as I could. I hate leaving you even for short periods of time, time is passing so quickly that I don't want to miss a moment of your young life. Sometimes I watch you when you are sleeping and think how lucky I am to have you.

Four weeks ago at this point in time I didn't have a clue how much my life was about to change or how much I could love such a little human being. I love you more then all the stars in the sky, I love you more then all the grains of sand on the earth. I love you more today then I did yesterday but not as much as I will love you tomorrow. My love for you grows stronger and deeper with every passing day. Thank you my little man for showing me how deep love can be, thank you for showing me that I can love and be loved without fearing that I will lose that love. Now I know how it feel to love and be loved unconditionaly.

In four weeks you have grown so much and everyday you seem to want to interact with us more and more. When I feed you often you gaze up into my eyes, when I talk to you, sing to you or read to you I know you are listening as your focus is all on me. I can't wait for the day that I hear you call me mum or hear you tell me that you love me, until that day I will tell you how much I love you over and over again so that you grow up knowing that your mummy always loved you no matter what else was happening.

A rough few days.

Dearest Samuel,

We have had an adventure the last few days, going to Melbourne for your Godmother Teena to meet you and for me to get away from home just for a few days. Even now that we are home I don't know if going away was the right thing to do. It was just me and you and it was scary being away from you father feeling like I couldn't ask Teena to help me if I needed it. (though she insisted on helping anyway)

I think it was bad timing to go away as you were not as settled as you usualy are but that didn't start until we got there and I can't blame you for being unsettled, you were in a new environment, I was stressed and tired, I had to give you a new formula and couldn't express which meant more then likely that I didn't have enough milk for you and on top of all of that you have oral thrush at the moment which must make it uncomfortable and a little painful to feed as well and I think you also have a touch of colic making your little tummy hurt.

What ever it was making you unsettled there were times that I found it really hard to deal with. I felt like I didn't know how to settle you as nothing I did seemed to make it any better, I checked your nappy and you were dry and clean, I had just fed you trying the breast before you got really worked up and pushed me away then giving you bottle until you had drank so much you started bringing it back up. I tried skin to skin contact, wrapping you, not wrapping you, pacing with you, rocking you and nothing seemed to work except for letting you suck my finger or giving you a bottle. You were crying and were all red in the face with tears streaming down your face and I couldn't handle seeing you so upset so I got upset and started crying myself. The first time this happened we were in the middle of Melbourne central shopping centre I knew you were hungry that time but I couldn't find anywhere to feed you and then it kept happening once we got to Teena's. I thought that I was a bad mummy, that I didn't know how to be a mummy because I couldn't figure out what was wrong, getting home today and seeing you still have problems with nanna and dad trying to sooth you showed me that its not just me but that its just that you are not feeling very well at the moment. Hopefully you will feel better soon and we will get things working better.

Right now I am considering if I should get you a dummy or not. I always said that no child of mine would ever have a dummy but you clearly love sucking and it clearly gives you comfort when nothing else will comfort you. I have been researching it all night and my research tells me that while it may put you at risk of some things like dental and speech development problems it could also help you deal with pain and discomfort as well as reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Nanna Kerry wants me to give you a dummy to see if it helps but right now I am unsure if it is the right thing to do. Part of me still thinks I don't want you to have it while another part thinks that if it could make your pain less and make you feel better when nothing else will that I am a bad mummy if I don't get you one. I will discuss this with your daddy tomorrow and then we will decide what we should do.

Right now I want to tell you something important. When you are upset, when you are frustrated and crying or screaming at me sometimes I get upset too but its not you I am upset at. I am upset because you are upset, I am frustrated because you are frustrated and I don't know how to make things better for you. I don't want you to be in pain, I don't want you to cry your little heart out and it upsets me to see you so upset because I love you so much. I know what it is like to cry for a long period of time, I know how bad it can make you feel and I never want you to feel that way.

I love you my beautiful little boy, some days might be hard, sometimes there may be times when I wonder if I can be a good mum or wonder if I did the right thing having you but it only lasts a moment because when I look at you I am filled with such love that it takes away the bad feelings and I know that while I may never be a perfect mum as long as I always do what i beleive is best for you that will be all that matters. You are my little man and such a precious gift from the great ones and I can not imagine what my life would be like now after only a few weeks if I had never had you.

It's okay to ask for help in life.

Dear Samuel,
This evening marks two weeks since we arrived home from the hospital, two weeks since we were thrown into this new world that we have had to make sense of on our own without the midwife and hospital staff there to step in if I am doing wrong.

The last two weeks have been a steep learning curve, I have had to learn how to manage on a lot less sleep then I am use too as well as learn how to nap when ever I have had the chance too but the biggest lesson for me (apart from learning to look after you) has been to ask other people for help when I have needed it. For as long as I can remember I have had problems asking people for help, afraid that they would think less of me or be annoyed with me for asking but since I had you I have learnt that it is okay to ask for help as long as I am not expecting someone to completly change their life and plans or expecting them to do something that would leave them in a bad position. As you grow up little man I hope that you will learn that it is okay to ask for help when you need it. I hope that you will know that your father and I will always be here for you and will do what ever we can to help you if you ever need it whether it be helping physicaly, emotionaly or with advice we will never turn you away if you come to us and need our help. We will do our best as you grow up to teach you what we can so that you find you are able to help yourself but I hope that we can teach you that it is not weak to ask for help, sometimes in this world there are things that we just can't do alone and must ask for help.

Love
Mummy

Dear Samuel,

The last few days have been all over the place some of them have been good and some of them have been bad but even on the bad days I never ever doubt that I did the wrong thing by having you. The bad days are only bad because I want so much to do the right thing by you and breastfeed you for at least the first six months of your life and some days its just really hard as you get frustrated and hot or tired and you don't feel like trying to feed from me. I understand though, the last thing I would want when it is hot outside is to be that close to another hot body and it must be frustrating for you having got use to bottles to suddenly have to work for more of your food then you usualy do. Yesterday was one of the worse days but we got through it just like we will get through any more bad days that come our way.

The highlight of the last few days was that my brother, your Uncle Luke came down to visit us and spent a few days here. Before he got here I didn't know how he would be with you but he fell in love with you as soon as he saw you and was stopping to kiss you or hug you everytime he walked past. I have photos of him with you and they are beautiful photos. He was so worried about you, asking all the time if you were okay and when you were sleeping, stopping to check that you were still breathing. I hope that he comes and visits us again soon but he lives quite a distance away so it may be a while before he can get down again. Even if he doesn't come down very often just know that Uncle Luke loves you very very much my little man.

Today you have been so good, I have worked out that if I give you a few mouthfuls of your bottle before nursing you that you show more interest in drinking from me and suck for longer then you would if I put you straight there, i think that when you first wake you are so hungry that all you can think is 'want food now' and in your frantic attempt to get my breast in your mouth and feed you don't latch on so good which frustrates you and causes you to cry and cry and cry but if we give you that little bit of bottle first you have a tiny bit in your belly and are able to try harder to nurse with me.

We have taken so many photos of you little man, every day we take more, I just can't help myself you are so beautiful and I don't want to miss a moment of your life, before I know it you will be all grown up and I will be wondering where all that time went. Here are some of the photo's from the last few days that I like the best. My favorite is the one with you and dad asleep in our bed, you look so happy and content in your fathers arms. I wonder if you feel as safe in his arms as I do?

Purpose

Dear Samuel,

I fall in love with you more and more everyday and as everyday passes I wonder how I ever lived life without you in it. In under two weeks you have turned my world upside down and I like it much more now then I did before you were here with us. You have brought your father and I closer together then we have been in a long time, watching you when you sleep brings a smile to my face even when I am exhausted or feeling a little blue.

For a long time I have been searching for my purpose in life, no matter where i turned things didn't seem to make sense, there have always been things I wanted/want to do but nothing that gave me the this is it, this is my purpose in life type of feeling... until now. When I look at you I know my purpose you have given me a greater purpose in my life then I ever thought I would find. I know that my purpose right now is to raise a healthy, happy man that is independant and can stand on his own two feet yet doesn't feel that he can do everything on his own. My purpose now is to teach you the things you need to survive in this world, to show you love, to teach you to show love, to teach you that emotions are not something to be afraid of or something that need to be hidden and to teach you that if you work hard at it you can be what ever you want to be. Don't let anyone is this world tell you that your not good enough to do something that you really want to do, don't let anyone talk you out of taking your life by the hand and making what you want out of it and never ever be afraid to dream big little man.

Yesterday we had an appointment at the hospital to get some help for both of us with your feeding. Sometimes you feed really well but other times you don't seem interested in it at all and much prefer your bottle. The nice lady at the hospital really helped me know how to feed you and what we need to do to make this feeding thing work. It will take some work to do it but I know that together you and I can get it working so that you are feeding more from me then you are from the formula in a bottle. I am doing everything I can to increase my supply of milk so that there is enough for you to get full and to remain relaxed and calm so that you don't get stressed at feed time. I think there are few things more beautiful then a mother feeding her baby and I really want to share that beauty with you.

There are so many more things I want to tell you right now but it sounds as though you are about to wake up so I will cut this short so I can make sure that you are okay.

I love you my little man
Mum

Happy new year

Happy new year my little man,

It feels so right to start a new year fresh with you in our lives. A little over a year ago now I was told that I would never be able to have a baby naturally and that I would need help to get pregnant. On hearing this your father and I had a long discussion and decided that we were going to spend 2009 trying to get pregnant and our new years wish that we made on new years eve 2008 was to have a baby by the end of 2009. Just before new years eve 2008 your father had an accidant and spent months not well, as the year moved in to April I got sad because I thought that my new years eve wish would not come true but then one day I wasn't feeling well so went to the doctor thinking that I must just have a stomach bug to find that instead of having a stomach bug I was pregnant with you. I will never be able to describe the feelings that surged through me when the doctor told me I was pregnant with you, in that moment my whole world began to change and I felt like I was overflowing with joy. As soon as I walked out of the doctors office I called your father to tell him the good news, he was stunned and so very happy and in his shock that we had actauly made you his response was 'how did that happen'. When I got home from the doctors I spent the rest of that night in shock and walking around with a huge grin on my face. You made your father and my new years eve wish come true little man and you arrived with a week to spare.

You made me so happy and proud today Samuel, since we left the hospital on Monday you have been too tired and frustrated to want to feed from me but today you have been trying very hard and everytime I have tried to get you to feed you have, at the very least latched on to me. Tonight a little before you were due to have a bottle you woke up and wanted me. For almost an hour you fed from me and you are so very good at it. Last night I went to bed thinking that we would never make breastfeeding work but tonight I am heading to bed knowing that working together you and I can make this work.

I love you so very much my little man that tonight I am finding it hard to go to bed because I want to sit here and cuddle you and watch you sleep all night, you are so beautiful and so very precious to me.

Love mummy.

One week ago

Dear Samuel,

This time a week ago I had been in labour with you for about three hours, it was around this time that I realised you were really coming and that after two weeks of contractions starting and stopping these were not stopping and had been getting worse. As I packed the last items that I would need for the hospital in my bag I took a last look around the house thinking to myself that this is it and life would never be the same again. I didn't want to go to the hospital so soon in to labour but your father insisted that we go and I have to say that I am glad he did as once we got to the hospital things became intense very quickly.

It was a little over five hours after we got to the hospital that you made your way into the world and as I heard you cry for the first time my heart surged with the love that I feel for you. When they put you in my arms for the first time I knew that this was the way things were meant to be and that you are the little gift that I had been waiting on for so long. The moment I saw you the pain of giving birth to you vanished all I could see was you and all I cared about was that you were here and safe in my arms.

The past week has been one of learning for both of us and while things are not how I thought they would be I know that I am doing the best i can for you. It makes me sad that I can not feed you just my milk and that I need to give you formula as well but its what I have to do to make sure you are healthy and strong and don't end up back in the hospital.

We were in hospital for five days because you developed jauntice and they had to keep an eye on you to make sure that you would be okay. You were taken out of our room and put under lights in the nursery, I hated seeing you with a drip in your tiny little hand and hooked up to monitors when all I wanted was to hold you in my arms and tell you how much I love you. Since they allowed you out of the nursery and back to us I have told you many times a day how much I love you, I only hope that as you grow up you will never for a moment forget that mum and dad love you very much.

We have been home for two days now and things are not easy for either of us at the moment, you still have the jauntice and that is making you a very sleepy little man which is making it hard for you to drink from me and I am feeling sad that I am not feeding you, I hope that soon you will be able to feed just from me and not need the bottle of formula.

Life has changed so much in one week and I don't for a moment regret the changes. Our world currently revolves around you and seeing to your health and happiness. I have spent hours watching you, holding you and talking to you and I think that everytime I look at you I love you even more.

I never knew how much I needed you until you were here in the world with us little man. There is nothing that you could ever do or say that would cause me to love you any less. There is nothing in this world that would make your father and I ever regret having you. We look forward to guiding you in this world and teaching you right from wrong. We look forward to seeing you discover the world around you and helping you to make sense of what you discover but most of all we look forward to sharing our life with you and giving you all the love we can give you. Never doubt for a moment that you are wanted and loved and that we will do what ever we can to support you in this life.

love you always
Mum

The birth story of Samuel James

When I went to bed on Tuesday 22nd December 2009 I some how knew that after the next day everything in my world would be different. As I tried to go to sleep I remember thinking to myself that my life would never be the same again and wondering what it would be like. I was 39+5 days pregnant and was well and truely over being pregnant all I wanted was to meet our baby and get started on the rest of our lives. As the night grew later I tried hard to sleep knowing that I could go into labour anyday and that I needed my rest to make sure I had the energy for labour but sleep that night was not easy to find. All night I was up and down going to the bathroom, litrally ever hour I felt that I needed to go but when I got there nothing happened. At the time it never occured to me that the feeling to go to the bathroom was a prelabour sign as I expected my waters to break or to get a show before contractions started.

Wednesday morning rolled in and it was a nice sunny day, I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but had to go to an appointment with the Ob. The Ob for once was running almost on time seeing me at 10.30am rather then 10.15am and as he examined me and I told him how I was feeling. (Lots of pelvic pain and pain in my stomach, back ache and exhausted) The Ob did an internal and found that I was 1 - 2cm dilated and that everything was looking ready to happen, he preformed a stretch and sweep and then told me to go home and rest as the way things were looking he thought that I would be meeting my baby in time for christmas.

On the way home from the Ob we stopped to get doughnuts and as I was sitting in the car I felt the first contraction of the day, I didn't think much of it at the time as contractions had been stopping and starting for two weeks at that point. We got doughnuts and headed home where I went upstairs to try and get some rest. I had been trying to sleep for an hour when I realised that my back ache was getting worse and that it was coming and going in waves. I asked Adam to get me a heatbag, took some panadol and continued trying to get some rest. At 1.30pm I gave up trying to rest, the backaches hurt too much and I started thinking this might actaully be it. I called the hospital and told them how I was feeling and they agreed that I was in early labour.

I got out of bed and into the shower where I stayed for an hour enjoying the warmth on my back eventaully though I had to get out as I needed to sit down. I headed downstairs and jumped on my computer trying to distract myself from contractions by surfing the net. At 2.30pm contractions were regular and I started timing them. They were about eight minutes apart and lasting for around 45 seconds. At that point I was dealing with them quite well just by breathing and using my stress balls. In between contractions I continued to play on my computer and chat to Adam and my mother, as the afternoon went on the contractions became more painful and at 6.00pm they were seven minutes apart and lasting up to a minute. I always planned to labour at home for as long as I could, until contractions were at least five minutes apart but at 6.00pm the pain was getting a lot worse, the house felt too hot to breath and I was almost in tears so I called the hospital and they said to head in when ever I was ready too. I told Adam that I thought he should warn his brother who was driving us that I would need to head to the hospital in an hour or two, ten minutes later his brother turned up and the two of them convinced me that we should head to the hospital now. I called the hospital again and told them we were on our way but i felt like I was failing already as contractions were not even five minutes apart and told the midwife on the phone that, she told me that there was nothing wrong with coming in earlier if I felt i needed too and so we headed of.

We arrived at the hospital a short time later and by 7pm we were settled in to our room with the midwife checking my blood pressure and monitoring how the baby was doing. I feared that contractions would stop on getting to the hospital but found that they quickly intensified, as the midwife set up the oil burner for me and read through my birth plan I breathed through contractions while Adam rubbed my back and reminded me to keep breathing. By the time the midwife finished monitoring bubs the stress balls were not enough to manage the pain and I asked if it was too early to get in the bath, the midwife laughed and said if I wanted the bath then it wasn't too early and went off to run it for me. Before I got in the bath she did an internal and found that at 8.00pm I was 4cm dilated, she commented that things seemed to be moving quickly.

The bath helped a lot but somehow it also seemed to make the contractions come stronger and quicker, it felt like I didn't have more then a minute between contractions before the next one would start and it was all I could do to focus on breathing. Mum and Adam were both beside the bath, my mum holding me up when a contraction would come so that my face wouldn't slip below the water and adam rubbing my back, encouraging me and letting me squeeze his hand. From this point in things are a little fuzzy.

I laboured in the bath and according to Adam at around 9pm the midwife had a quick look and could see that i was just about ready to push so she told me if i felt the urge to push just to go with it. Not long after it was all i could do not to push. Mum and Adam tell me that I was thrashing around in the bath as if I was trying to get away from the pain and groaning, I remember asking for the gas but only after a couple of contractions with the gas I was pushing the mouthpiece away from me yelling at them that it wasn't working (apprently I left it too long too ask and so by the time I did the pain had got to the point where it was too much to manage with the gas) I continued to labour in the bath and I remember feeling my water breaking with one contractions and seeing my show floating in the water. I remember hearing the midwife telling me that the baby was coming and she would be surprised if he wasn't there by midnight.

At around 10.30pm they got me out of the bath as mum and Adam were having trouble keeping my head above the water. At this stage I had already been pushing for over an hour and the midwife thought that changing positions would help so I laboured on all fours resting into a beanbag for a little while before she suggested I try sitting on the toilet, i wasn't there for long before i went back to the beanbag as it seemed more comfortable. I remember hearing Adam telling the midwife that I was struggling and that I was exhausted as I hadn't really slept the night before and that he was worried about me. I had said a few times before then that I couldn't do this and when I said i couldn't do this I hadn't been saying it because of the pain or the exhaustion but because something didn't seem quite right to me but of course nobody listens to a woman in labour when they say they can't do it. At this point it felt like the pain never stopped, like there was never a break between contractions it just kept coming and was all in my back feeling like he was trying to kick my spine out to get out and there was no break in the pain at all.

At 10.30pm midwife changed and the new midwife was encouraging me to push and helping talk me through breathing, Adam was sitting at the head of the beanbag holding my hand and cooling me down with a wet face cloth and mum was there rubbing my back and encouraging me. In between the intense bursts of pain that puncturated the on going pain I rested in to the bean bag and sobbed. The new midwife got me on to my back to see if holding my legs up and pushing that way would help and that position hurt more then any other position, while I was on my back she did an internal to find that the baby was stuck. It was about 11.30pm (The way they explained it to me later was that there is a bend that they have to get around to get out and that because he was coming out sideways he got stuck and couldn't get through)

From then on things happened so fast, I heard them telling me that I couldn't deliver him without some help and asking if I agreed to a vacume birth, I remember crying that I didn't care about my birth plan anymore that I just wanted it over. They called my Ob and instead of telling me to push were trying to get me to stop pushing but I felt like I had no control over it my body was pushing regardless of what I wanted. They bought in the bed and got me up on it and wheeled me back to the room we started in where they strapped the monitor on, after hours of being told to push it didn't make sense to me to suddenly be told not to stop and I just couldn't stop. The Ob took 20 minutes to get in and in that 20 minutes i remember hearing the midwifes talking and remember hearing them say he better get there soon, I remember hearing the alarms going off and Adam and mum telling me not to push that I had to wait for the doctor. Adam was holding my hand and mum was cooling me down with a face cloth and ice water and I was screaming. The doctor came in just before midnight and the room was full of people, the alarms kept going of, i kept screaming and crying and they were all pleading with me not to push and trying to get me to understand the instructions the doctor was giving me about when to push. At last I heard them all tell me to push and so I tried and then they told me to push without the noise and put all the noise I was making into the push. I pushed and pushed and pushed and then there wasn't anymore push left in me, i was out of breath and had nothing left to push and then the Ob was telling me that I had to keep pushing that I couldn't stop that he was almost out and somewhere in me I found something deep inside that let me keep pushing and suddenly I felt his head pop out followed quickly by his body. They quickly took the baby to the resus thing and worked on him for a few moments before I heard the best sound in the world - the sound of my little man screaming his lungs out and I asked if 'he was still a boy' while looking at Adam. (We had been debating for months if the scan really showed that the baby was a boy) and then he was being placed on my chest and i looked down at this tiny little boy and through my tears I said 'Hello little man, welcome to the world, daddy and I are going to love you and look after you and show you the world' then I looked up at Adam and said 'look what we made'

Samuel James came into the world at 12.08am 24th December 2009 and weighed 3.456kg. He made it into his due date by eight minutes proving everyone who was so sure that I was going to go early wrong.

As I type this I stand at the edge of a new point in my life, a point that for a long time I thought that I would never reach, that it would never happen to me. For nine months I have nurtured and carried a child inside my womb, for nine months it often felt like he would never be here and that I would be pregnant for ever but now all of that is about to change. Sometime very soon I am going to be holding my first born child in my arms and my life as I know it now will never ever be the same again. I am excited, I am nervous, I am terrified that I am going to stuff up and screw him up in the process but when it comes down to it I know that I can and will be a good mother. In these last moments of the life where the only person that I have to really consider their needs is myself all I can think about it how much I look forward to holding my baby in my arms and and guiding him as he grows up and explores the world around him, I look forward to watching him discover new things and learn new skills and I look forward to the new challenges that being a mother will bring to my life.

I have now been in labour for three hours and i can say even at this point in time this early in that the contractions are already worse then I ever imagined they would be so early but so far I am coping and I am breathing through them. I know that each contraction has a purpose, that it is a healthy pain and that it means my little boy is on his way and that soon he will be here. I know that if they get bad enough that I can not handle them on my own that I am allowed to ask for pain releif and that if I need pain releif that I have not failed. My goal right now is to have as natural a birth as a can but over riding that the goal is to deleiver our child in the safest way we can for both him and I, if it means that i need help to cope with the pain then I will do what ever it is that I need to do.

Notes: This jouranl entry was made only half an hour before we decided we had to call our ride to the hospital as the pain was getting to be too hard to bare. We arrived at the hospital at 7pm and Samuel was born at 12.08am the following morning.

Dear Bubbles,
For the past 37 and a bit weeks I have carried you in my womb, you have been a part of me yet already your own little being with its only little beating heart and functioning brain, no matter what the future holds you will always be a part of me and a part of your father too, carrying both our genes but no matter where life will take us I will never forget the time that I carried you in my womb, the time that nothing could be any closer to my heart then you are.

For months I have loved you without ever seeing your face or knowing you as an individual person but very soon the months of waiting to meet you will be over. Its sometimes hard to get my mind around the fact that in only a short time you will be here, that I will hold you in my arms and be able to gaze down into your eyes and look upon the miracle and wonder that is a newborn baby. What an amazing miracle the continuation of the human species is, to think that you form from two tiny cells much smaller then the eye can see and then over what is realisticly only a short span of time those two cells become a fully fuctional little human being. Its an amazing wonderous process that I feel truely blessed to have been able to experience.

As I sit here typing this I can feel you moving around in my womb sometimes a gentle wave other times a sharp kick but each movement a precious sign that you are there and that everything is okay with you. Today I got to see you again, you have grown so much since our last scan 17 weeks ago, to clearly see your heart and other organs, to see your little head and your spine and all the bits that make you a whole human in your own right is amazing. I can not wait until you are here my precious little man, until I can hold you and share this world with you, guiding you and teaching you the things that you need to know.

Dear baby,

We saw you again today and you are growing so well. I am amazed all
the time at the human bodies ability to grow a competly new life
within it. You look just like a baby now and even your organs have
grown and are already active. This week I am twenty weeks pregnant
which means that we have reached the half way mark in another twenty
weeks you will be right here with us and together with daddy we will
be a family.

The biggest thing to happen today is that we found out that you are a
boy now that we know what you are we can think of a name for you. So
far we like Liam and Samuel. I wonder if you will like the name we
choose for you or if you will grow up wishing we had named you
something else, I guess if you don't like it then we can always let
you change it when you are older.

I will end this note here with a quote from a wise bear "sometimes,
said winnie the pooh, the smallest things take up the biggest place in
our hearts."

I love you so much already my baby boy

Love mum.

Week 13

Dear Baby,

You scared the hell out of us today. I had some spotting and bad pain in the area that you are in and was almost sure that i was losing you so the doctor sent me off for an ultrasound and there you were. Your growing really well and your heartbeat is still nice and strong. Your an active little bub and wouldn't sit still to allow the doctor to get a good photo of you for me but oh well I guess I will just have to be patient and hope that at the next scan you will co-operate with the nice scan person. Your due date has been changed to the date I have said it was since the start December 23rd. It was awsome to see how much you have grown in a few weeks, to see your little legs and arms as you were flipping all over the place in my belly but what was even more amazing was that in the scan we could even see your brain. To think that you are resembling a realy baby more and more everyday and that you even have a brain now it an awe inspiring thought. Apprently this week you have also started to urinate as well as growing eye lashes and other body hair.

I can't wait to see you again at our scan in six weeks time.

Love Mummy.