Hanging my head in shame!

Ok I know, I know, it has been months and months since I last updated this and yes I know, I know I was supposed to do a page and a photo per day for my 40th year but you know what... feck it! Yes I would have liked to have kept it up but I guess I have been spending the last few months enjoying life, doing new stuff, forming a new great relationship, having fun, as well as all the usual stuff my day to day life brings.

So what brings me here today (apart from my wireless router and lappy) well I guess the dawning realisation that my eldest daughter is going to be 21 in a few days. I ordered photos of her to stick up on the window and they arrived today. Odd how you blink and your kids go from waist height to driving cars, boyfriends and holidays away without you. Odd too that when I was her age I had a 2 year old child!

The other reason is that my feeble attempts at doing housework are hampered by a sore back so it seems reasonable that I 'recover' by sitting on the sofa I cleaned and conditioned yesterday in a room that I dunged out and re-arranged and drink coffee. Outside is grey and drizzly so I have convinced myself that no photographs would be taken today anyways. I did manage to empty the dishwasher, put some washing on, clear up some papers, make the bed and make coffee. All in all then (apart from my sore back) life is good.

So yeah, 21 years ago today I was heavily pregnant, several days overdue and getting fed up answering the phone to 'Oh are you still there!' Grrr! NO this is a fecking answering machine Trish is really in the hospital passing what must surely feel like a portacabin! Ahhhh yes Caesarian Sections, god bless em!

I had been married 5 months, we were still living with my parents and had taken over the front bedroom. The cot was in place, pram had been purchased, changing box complete with every type of baby lotion and potion imaginable and all I wanted was my little baby!

Looking back at myself although I was very mature and well able to cope with becoming a mother I was so painfully shy, insecure, timid, unable to voice what I really wanted. So when the doc said 'Lets induce' I nodded happily and went ahead with it. Never wanting to cause a fuss, letting everyone poke and prod me, happy to let others take control and direct I was just the tubby preggy pawn.

I now know exactly what my Dad means when he says he can recall and remember things from years ago like they just happened a few hours ago. A lot of my labour I do not recall (thank you gas and air) I do remember my water eventually breaking, waking up with that feeling like you are peeing the bed but no matter how much I clenched my pelvic floor muscles I could not stop what felt like gallons and gallons of liquid from leaving my body. I began to float on top of the rubber covered mattress and for a few seconds it was how I imagine an out of body experience to feel, warm, floaty and really quite comforting. Then I figured perhaps I needed to call a nurse/fire brigade with a suck out hose! 'I think my waters just broke.' THINK... I THINK... what the hell else could it have been, I think I have just had the biggest piss in the world? I think I just swallowed the entire river Lagan and expelled it out my bladder? Anyways, I was mopped, sponged down (not allowed to have a shower incase of infection since the water sack had burst) and dressed in a clean nightdress, a snoopy one if my memory serves me right. Poked and prodded some more and then told that yes I was defo going into labour and would promptly be hooked upto a drip to speed things along, how thoughtful of them. Anyone you want us to inform? Err... yeah perhaps my husband!

In sort he was stuck in Scotland waiting on the boat which had been cancelled due to gales. Phone calls back and forth, I think even the hospital rang the shipping company to request that he gets priority for the next sailing because his wife had just flooded the Ulster Hospital. Anyways, he made it with plenty of time to spare, buggered off home for something to eat, a leisurely shower before coming back up and being as much use as tits on a boar! He sat at the top of the bed, almost behind me for fear he might see my body contort to give birth to his child among my screams of pain. *sigh* I never did get to this delightful crescendo, I was there... soooo close... teetering on the edge of breaking glass and then had to admit defeat and be rushed off to the operating theatre, knocked out and miss my baby taking her first breath and look at the world. She came out into a room full of masks, lights, chrome and machines with no warm arms to hold her first, that bit I just hate.

I woke in a little quiet room, was most concerned that I was being moved and they didn't seem to be taking my bump into consideration... oh wait... what bump... through blurry eyes I blinked my way back into the afternoon and to my right hand side lay my beautiful baby. 'You have a little girl, Trish. Trish can you see your little daughter.' Omg I have never known a feeling like it, we just looked at each other through the glass walls of the little incubator (sure I know babies don't have great eyesight but I swear she was looking right at me) she was pink and long and beautiful. Kinda lying on one side, one leg stretched right out the other bent, one little arm moving in the air, waving. She was quiet and content and so was I.

That moment was so special.

The rest of the day was bla bla bla but I was so glad that we had enjoyed our little moment together, she was mine and I hers and in that fleeting glance we had bonded. Everyone else could cuddle and coo at her, love her and enjoy her but nobody else had what we had.

Feels like it all happened yesterday. On Thursday, 2 days time it will have been 21 years ago. Now that is hectic!

Figured today was a good day to let my blog go public, not that there is anything wild or wonderful in it but up until today I had kept it private. Meh I suspect that not many people will know me by my 'Flossy' title. :)