Giving thanks

I moan a lot. Just ask HID, he'll tell you. I like a good moan, people feeling sorry for me, woe is me. Yes, I'm hobbling on crutches while 22wks pregnant and looking after a bouncing 17m old mostly by myself 6am-6pm. But it's not really that bad is it?

With my Boy, I had a horrible pregnancy (morning sickness BPT [before pregnancy test] up until 7 months gestation, SPD,which ended in me being housebound for 2months, from 6 months til Boy was a month old), a terrible labour and birth (26 hours of "back labour" followed by 3rd degree tearing and 4 hrs in surgery), a horrible post-partum (surgeons eventually realised I'd been stitched up "wrong" when I could still barely walk months after giving birth and was "cut open" to "start again", and sat on a rubber ring til Boy was 6m, couldn't leave the house til he was 4m, plus breastfeeding issues meant Boy was boarderline dangerously underweight in the early days, there are skeletal photos I've just had to destroy). And of course, probably due to all of this, Boy was by no means contented, or an "easy" baby until he was at LEAST 6 months old.

But other than the weight issues (which were my fault, and stemmed from being hopelessly determined to breastfeed), at no point was there ever any health problems with my son, and nor has there been since really. I may have felt like shit while pregnant, but there was never any risk to baby. I may have been in pain during and after labour, but my Boy wasn't.

I have a healthy, happy and perfect little boy, and I am truly the luckiest Mummy alive. He can smile and laugh. He can make a joke. He can run about. He can eat, he can swim.

So when people are horrified when they find out I am pregnant again, so soon, after my "terrible time", I tell them; this is how you get babies. There is no other way.

So I might be hobbling til baby arrives, and a c-section is major surgery, I won't bounce back. But, if I'm very lucky, I'll have another healthy child to love, to welcome into our busy, happy home.