living with a baby

So much changes when you have a baby, especially your first baby. Now you are a mother (or a father) which in itself is a big change. It's another title to add to your identity. But there are so many other things that change or happen after you have a baby.
Suddenly you find that everything is a complete mess. The house is in disarray, dishes are piling up and your clothes are ending up in a pile in the corner of your room. Okay, I'm sure there are probably some 'Wonder Mums' out there who can look after their new baby and keep the house spotless, so props to you! Unfortunately I am one of the many who can't seem to find the time to keep everything in order. My son can be a bit needy. He always wants attention. Pop him in his bouncer, he might be content for a little while but soon he starts fussing and all you have to do is look at him, make noises and he's happy again, but will only stay that way if you're giving him all your attention. I've started putting on kids tv shows for him to watch when I really need to get something done. That seems to last him 30 minutes before he loses focus. My mum would say that his neediness is my own fault and she's probably right, but being a new mum and not knowing what to do when your child is upset, wanting to give them a cuddle and calm them down in your arms is a reasonable thing to want to do.
However, we have now made it past 3 months and he is slowly starting to get to the point where he can be more easily distracted by toys etc. Just this week I purchased him a baby play gym, which is of course Dinosaur themed (I'm obsessed with dinosaurs!) and it seems to be a total winner. He isn't quite at the point where he's trying to grab toys but those colourful, hanging dinos sure do keep him distracted.
Baby gear! Before Toby was born I thought we had everything we needed for his arrival. Turns out I was wrong. First of all, Toby was very small at birth and none of his newborn clothes we packed in his hospital bag were small enough for him to fit. We had to borrow the hospitals prem baby clothes until my mum could go get us a bunch of stuff later on when the shops opened. And then as he grew and grew, you might think you have enough clothes but you don't. Babies can go through their clothes like nothing else. Vomit, wee and poop. One mess up can mean a whole new outfit. Toby just had his 3 month shots which made him a little unwell and he's been throwing up more than usual which means that we have gone through our whole collection of bibs multiple times. Thank goodness for washing machines!
Once he arrived we also bought many other items. A portable bassinet for when we go away or visit family. A baby carrier (really we should have thought of getting one earlier but whatever). We also bought another portable floor bed/change mat before we got the proper portable bassinet, not that I'm too bothered, they're both handy at different times. Extra baby bottles; I ended up not being able to breastfeed (or express) so bottle fed was the way we had to go which mean't we had to buy more bottles. We also bought a bottle warmer and a microwave steriliser which ended up being too big for our tiny microwave (blame the husband for buying us such a small microwave in the first place). I've bought alot of other items but they aren't particularly things that were necessary, I just wanted them haha.
And of course we can't forget one of the biggest changes; SLEEP! You lose any kind of sleeping habits you once had and if you are a night owl like me then you suddenly relish the thought of going to bed before 11pm just so you can get at least 3-4 hours in before the baby wakes up. Toby isn't too bad when it comes to sleeping through the night. He has those odd days of waking up every 3-4 hours but usually he sleeps a good 6 hours straight before waking for a bottle and then back to sleep again. Last night he slept 8.5 hours! unfortunately for us our sleep was disrupted by a construction vehicle making loud noises on the street outside at 4:30am (um excuse me!!). Sometimes you just can't win.
There are good days and bad days.
Some times I want to do nothing but scream and rip my hair out because I think I might lose it from lack of sleep or not being able to calm down a screaming baby (we've had a few of these type of nights since he had his shots). There are days when I feel down for no apparent reason and might not have anything to do with having a baby and being a mum, sometimes I just get a little depressed. It helps to get out of the house as much as possible. Go out with a friend or family member, or just pop baby in the pram and go for a walk round the block for some fresh air.
Then there are those beautiful moments, when you're holding your baby and they are looking up at you with those gorgeous eyes and that loving smile and you just can't believe how you got so lucky to end up with such a beautiful little human being in your life.
Change can be good and I think having Toby has changed our lives for the better. I couldn't imagine my life without him in it and he's only been here for 3 months. I think I was born to be a mother and I love my new role as mum. It challenges me and it strengthens me.
Like always, I am looking forward to our future with our son, watching him grow and develop.
Here's to living with a baby and loving every (well almost every) second of it.

two months old

My little Tobias is 2 months old today and honestly that 2 months feels as if its both flown by and gone by slowly. I can't believe my son is already 2 months old but at the same time I feel like he's been in my life longer than that. He is my whole world. I love him to pieces and at 2 months old he already has such an amazing personality and characteristics. He's a happy, smiley baby who loves hearing his mummy sing. Our favourite music to listen to at the moment is "The Greatest Showman" soundtrack. Toby absolutely loves those songs and I have videos of him giving the biggest smiles as we listen and I sing along.
Hes also started reaching for toys, well one toy in particular. A good friend of mine got him this very basic hard plastic elephant that you can clip onto pushchairs etc. and it has a little ball on it that you spin. I clip to the side of his travel cot that he lies in during the day and he absolutely loves it! He is content to just lie there, making noises to the elephant and hitting at the ball while laughing.
The other night he laughed in his sleep. Must've been a really good dream.
Sometimes after he sneezes he makes this little sigh noise, almost as if sneezing was a big relief for him.
He is strong and does not like to lie down or be held right your chest half the time (except when sleepy), he would much rather push and I mean push, with his hands, away from you and look around. He holds his head up like a pro and has been doing that since his first week of life. We had people commenting on how strong he was to be holding his head up so easily for long periods of time. Honestly we think this kid is going to be rolling, then crawling and then walking in no time.
I think he's started to try and suck his thumb. I say try because it's as if he wants to suck his thumb but hasn't quite figured out exactly how to do it properly. His hands and fingers are all over the place and it takes him a good while to find his thumb.
He also sometimes seems to find it funny when I have to clean up his puke. Obviously spitting up his milk doesn't bother him and he already gets enjoyment out of watching me have to clean it up.

I can't wait to see him grow and progress and gain even more of a personality. I love him more than I could ever have dreamed. my beautiful little man.

one month in..

I didn't come into life of motherhood completely oblivious. I'd been around babies before and even changed plenty of nappies. But all that previous knowledge was nothing compared to actually becoming a mother for the first time and having my own baby.
When I first became a mum I learnt that, despite my love for staying up late into all hours of the night, sleep was suddenly the most desirable and mostly unattainable thing. I learnt that babies go through way more clothes than I'd originally thought, between spitting up and pee leaking out the nappy, 6 outfits a day is reasonable. I learnt that even though I had all intentions of going at this head-on with a total positive energy, sometimes you just have to cry and come to the realisation that life's just not that easy but you just keep going.
'Baby Blues' was a phrase I'd heard plenty times before but I like to think of myself as a mainly cheerful person and thought "that won't happen to me, I'll be alright". Wrong. The truth is, I can be a very emotional person at times and that mixed with all the hormones that come with pregnancy and post labour, Baby Blues are inescapable. I did well during the day. Days are easy. If you didn't know, its normal for babies to sleep a lot during the day and be up all night. Nights were when those emotions started to really buildup. When my baby was born I hadn't slept a wink in 24 hours and for the next couple days afterwards I maybe got 8 hours sleep. I couldn't really sleep during the day and mostly I just wanted to cuddle and stare at my beautiful new baby. I had a few, I guess I could call them, minor breakdowns, almost always at night when my baby was unsettled and I was beyond tired, and there were a few times in the week or so after being in the hospital that I thought I might lose it.
I can safely say now that my Baby Blues are long gone. Yes I'm still tired and can get a bit stressed at times but I can deal with it. Truthfully I am the type of person who can actually function on a lack of sleep, so now that my Blues are gone I am able to cope a lot better and also making sure I find time to nap during the day while my son sleeps is always a good idea.
You start to learn things about yourself too, or rather, becoming a mother teaches you so much that you grow more as a person. Becoming a mum is the best thing that I have so far and will ever accomplish in my life and its made me a better person. I can definitely see changes in myself, though I am essentially the same person, just with more responsibility. I am a good mum, people always said I would be and people tell me now, but I know it for myself completely now which is really what matters.
Another thing I've learn't since having my son and being home with him all day is that you can go a little stir crazy. Really I figured this out being in post-natal. We had to stay in the hospital for 4 days following the birth of my son. We wanted to leave earlier but couldn't and spending 4 whole days in that same room and in that same uncomfortable bed, I began to get a little stressed and couldn't wait to get out. The afternoon we were allowed to finally leave was a blessing, I had never been so happy to go outside in my life.
I now make sure that I get out as much as I can. On wednesdays my mum has the day off from work, so we always go out for the day with my baby, out for lunch, a browse around a couple shops or sometimes we just go back to my parents house to hang out for a few hours. Other times, when the weather is good, or not too bad, I take Toby for a walk in his pram. It gets me out of the house and I think he enjoys going for a stroll, most times it puts him to sleep but sometimes he enjoys looking around at the scenery while we walk. If I can't get out, its nice to have someone visit or keep myself busy at home. I even went out to the cinema one evening with my sister which was the first time being away from my son for any amount of time. I can honestly say that it was great to go to the cinemas but I really did miss my son and couldn't wait to get back to him.
Its been over one month now and I'm learning new things about babies and motherhood everyday. We're doing good, we're happy and enjoying our new life. Being a first time mum can be a struggle but this little human is worth any struggle every time. This baby boy is my world and our lives are now more complete with him in it.

i can't breastfeed..

We made the final decision to bottle-feed formula to our son on day 3 in postnatal. It wasn't a difficult decision to make but it also wasn't our plan from the beginning. I would have loved to breastfeed my son, it just wasn't going to work out. Some people might say I didn't try hard enough, or think that I made a completely wrong choice cause there are people who are against not breastfeeding your baby. The thing is I did try and it didn't work, it wasn't going to work and in the long run if I was struggling to breastfeed or even express then my baby wasn't going to get enough food which left us with bottle-feeding formula.
We are happy with our decision.
I was able to properly breastfeed my son once in the first half hour of his life. It was a wonderful experience. Skin to skin, feeding my son for the first time. However, it was difficult. Tobias was born small, weighing 5lb 7oz. He only had a little mouth and he struggled to latch on properly.
The next problem.. I have very sensitive breasts and my nipples are easily irritated. The moment he wasn't able to latch on properly, my nipple ripped/cracked from him sucking on the end. I fed him from both breasts and both times he failed to latch fully a couple times before getting it right. This meant both my nipples were then ripped and for the next day they were stinging from any slight touch.
This could be normal and I could have pushed through the pain to feed my son. I did try. A while later when I tried to feed him again, he wouldn't latch on at all.. somehow he just couldn't get on even with midwives trying to help me. So I tried hand expressing, which I was able to get enough to feed my son. Back to my sensitive breasts.. My breasts have multiple cysts in them, heaps of small ones and a few quite big, painful ones. Expressing was really painful and I tried pushing through that pain to get food for my son. After a day I couldn't even bare to touch my chest. Just the fabric of my t-shirt shifting stung my nipples and my cysts were aching from expressing.
At this point they started giving us some formula to feed our baby. I was planning on giving my chest a rest and trying again, which I did. The next day I tried to breastfeed again and, like the last time, again he failed to be able to latch on at all and just didn't seem to want to. So I tried the pump. I used the pump on both sides for 10 minutes on a low-medium setting and managed to get some out. My right breast is the most painful with 2 large cysts and majority of the rest of my breast filled with small cysts. I had to use a very low setting to express my right side because it was almost completely unbearable, even on the low setting.
I could tell straight away that I was going to struggle to even express breastmilk to feed to my son, so even when we started to think "maybe we can mix feed, breastmilk and formula?" we soon realised I wasn't even going to be able to that.
It might sound like I barely tried, sometimes I sit there and think "did I try hard enough?" "should I have just pushed through the pain?".
But really, if I was going to struggle to express because of the pain from my cysts then I wasn't going to be able to feed my son enough for him to grow healthy. So we finally decided that we would just formula feed our baby.
And it is working. Our son eats (drinks) plenty. He was born weighing 5.7lbs. He is now 4 weeks old and weighs 8.4lbs! He is growing at a good rate. My small little man is chunking up! He is healthy and happy.
There is nothing wrong with our decision to not breastfeed. If I could, I would. It's just not possible at this stage.
I'm going to be going in to get my breasts checked again and hopefully have something done about my cysts. When I first found out about my cysts a couple years ago they told me that they should go away on their own but they havn't yet so I may need to just get them removed, at least the larger, more painful ones.
Hopefully I will be able to get my chest sorted out and maybe by the time I have my next child (not for a while) I will be able to try breastfeeding again and succeed. But even if when the time comes and it doesn't work out again I will still be alright with the decision to formula feed. I will not allow myself to feel bad that I can't breastfeed, nor will I allow anyone else to make me feel bad.
There is nothing wrong with you if you are unable to breastfeed. My mother couldn't breastfeed me or my sister and fed us on formula, we turned out completely fine and when she did start feeding us on formula (after trying to breastfeed for a while) we grew and gained weight.
If you can't breastfeed don't let other people tell you that you are a bad person or that you aren't trying hard enough. It is no one's business but your own what your decision is. They don't know how much you might have tried and they don't need to.
Do what works for you and your child. I am and we are happy.
Oh and it also means that my husband can help out in the middle of the night when Toby wakes up needing to feed. Nothing wrong with that :)

i have a baby!

My labour/birth was good. Thats what the midwives, doctors, my mum and my husband all say. And it's true. It was a very good labour, even I must admit that and it was the first time I'd given birth so I have nothing to compare it to.
I think the fact that it was a good birth was a blessing because of all the (slight) stress and anxiety surrounding my labour and pregnancy at the end.
At 28 weeks pregnant there were some concerns that our baby was smaller than he should be at that stage, so from then till I gave birth I had a scan every 2 weeks to monitor growth and sometimes even another scan in between to check for other things. The growth scans began to show good results and our boy was on track to be a healthy baby at least 7lbs in size.
Sunday 18th February (39 weeks pregnant), I felt no baby movements all day which was very unusual because our boy was a total wriggler, always moving and kicking me in the side. I called my midwife at 8:30pm and was at the hospital at 9pm hooked upto the CTG monitor to check baby was ok. He was.. oh and as soon as the machine was on monitoring his heart rate, he started moving. Gave us all a scare for nothing. Even still a doctor came in to see me and ask about me personally, if I was feeling well, had any pains etc. I had a rash on my hands and itchy feet which apparently could mean I had this liver condition that could come from my placenta. I don't know the exact details but its not common in pregnancy and a bit indicator is that the bottoms of your feet are itchy. They took my blood and had them sent for results. I still don't have those results and even if I did have the condition, its gone now, as its one that usually goes away as soon as your placenta is out. The doctor did however book me in for an ultrasound the following morning just to check baby out more.
So, Monday 19th February at 10am I came in for a scan to check baby. A couple hours waiting for a doctor to come give us results and being hooked up to the CTG monitor again, we were then told that the scan indicated that our baby had stopped growing and my placenta looked like it was dying. They could see that our baby was conserving energy and sending nutrients from the placenta to specific organs but wasn't getting those nutrients everywhere.
The doctor decided that they wanted me to come in for induction that evening. We went home, grabbed our hospital bags, got something to eat and heading back to the hospital that afternoon. Waited in a delivery suite room for a few hours and then at 9:45pm doctor came in to get induction started. As they were about to start the procedure they'd chosen to start my induction, my waters broke and about 5 minutes later I had my first contraction. It seemed that it was time for me to go into labour anyway and they didn't even have to induce me.
I was kept hooked upto a CTG monitor the whole way through my labour and I stayed lying on the bed, on my side. My plan during my pregnancy was that I was going to keep moving and be upright during labour to help with the process but that plan went out the window, especially when my contractions caused lower back pains and closer to the end that pain spread to my hips and upper legs. My husband spent the whole time rubbing my back through every single contraction and giving me encouraging words, letting me know I could do it.
My mum was also there to hold one hand while my other hand squeezed hard onto anything I could grab.
From 10pm - 3:15am I pushed through every contraction without any pain relief (other than my husbands back rubbing). Then I asked to try the gas, which is quite interesting. The gas did not help with the pain at all, I felt every contraction, but it did however make me feel very floaty and inbetween contractions I had a short period of time where I felt a bit more rested/relaxed.
At 3:30am a doctor came in for an examination and told us I was 4cm dilated.
From that information I thought it was gonna be a long while before our baby decided to come out. So I continued to push through my contractions with just the gas even as the pain got worse.
Then at 4:45am I felt the most intense burning pain I've ever experienced and I asked for an epidural (something I had planned not to have, but it hurt so bad) only to be told that it was too late because that burning pain meant that he was coming.
I pushed and pushed through that horrible burning pain and at 5:02am on Tuesday 20th February our beautiful baby boy was born.
He came out easily and I didn't need any stitches at all.
Our boy was born completely healthy despite his small size and weight of 5lb 7oz. He was so tiny! When it came to dressing him none of the newborn clothes we bought with us fit him, so my mum had to go out later that day and buy us a bunch of prem baby clothes (and even some of those were and still are loose on him).
Tobias George Rowley is 2 weeks old today, still small wearing prem clothes, but he now weighs 6lb 8oz! which is amazing and means he's healthy and eating well.
Still adjusting to our new life as parents and can't believe that we have a baby but we couldn't be happier and love our little man more than anything in this world. Our greatest adventure has begun.

Wedding Photos

i married my best friend

On January 20th 2016 I married my best friend of six years and it was the best day of my life. I got to be sealed in marriage to the love of my life for time and all eternity. Our immediate families and few close friends were there at our actual wedding and then ten days later on January 30th we had a ring ceremony back home with all our friends and family where we got to share our own hand written vows with each other and all our loved ones. We had an amazing reception afterwards which was absolutely beautiful and it was all thanks to my amazing mum who worked harder than anybody to make this whole experience the best time of both our lives.

Ben could not keep his eyes off me the whole time and I think he smiled more in a day than he ever has in his whole life (he's not a big smiler haha) and I was the same. Everything was absolutely perfect, nothing went wrong and even the weather was great! Thank goodness (it was forecasted to rain!)
Bens four siblings were all apart of the bridal party, two brothers as his groomsmen (along with his best friend/best man) his youngest brother as our ring bearer and his sister as my junior bridesmaid.
My younger sister and two best friends where also my bridesmaid and my two young cousins were our adorable flower girls.

There is so much of the day that I want to share but the post would just go on forever. I think the best way to explain the day is through photography.. unfortunately I'm still waiting for our professional wedding photos to arrive but as soon as they do I will definitely be posting some in a new post.
but for now here is a few photos taken by friends and a couple selfies from moi ;)