I can hardly believe…

… its almost a week already. This time last week Max and i were on our way into town. I’d had one quite big contraction when my mum came to pick up the girls, some that showed up on the daily monitoring, then i came home and we went off to buy me some pretty jamas. I’m ever so glad i did, it was nice to feel relatively glam in hospital! Then we came home and had one last curry and i had a hot bath. As chat up lines go, i fear “darling you are the only one who can provide me with the hormones they won’t give me tomorrow” doesn’t rate terribly highly – but it worked in 45 minutes ;~). I’d dozed off and then suddenly found myself awake, told Max to go in the other room so he would get some sleep cos i was uncomfortable and BANG! I honestly thought i had popped my hip out or something, the noise was so loud. I’m still gobsmacked that my waters were clear, its the first time ever. And i’m wavering between relief that i got a lot of what i wanted and regret that i didn’t hang on a bit more to see if things would have got going again (and WHY i didn’t because i can’t really remember why i was okay to stop and head for theatre), and relief that we are both safe, and sadness that i missed the first hour and a half of her life, and relief its all over and sadness i won’t be doing it again. I always feel a bit sad when you start to be able to say “a week old” and not “so many days old.”

So one thing i am not going to apologise for or feel quilty about is that i am incredibly glad that i have my 4 girls. Its what i always wanted and i’m completely delighted. And its no disrespect to any of the lovely boys i know or lovely boy-inclusive families i know, but i so wanted 4 girls. And if i can’t have the births i wanted, i’m glad i got that. I watched the big three in the park today, while i carried Josie and i just felt lovely. I’ve got the family i wanted. I think i would have been okay with a boy this time but it would have been “one extra thing” – funny though that it was the lack of a good name that worried me most and when it came down to it, we didn’t have a name for Josie either. I can’t for the life of me work out why none of the three we had didn’t fit her, but they didn’t. Apparently Josephine (or Joseph really) means “God adds another son” – well another daughter got added certainly :~) her name ended up being the most convoluted set of negotiations i have ever gone through, all conducted in a noisy recovery ward where i was so off the planet that despite knowing i had given birth on Bonfire Night, i couldn’t work out what all the noisy bangs were outside! Bizarre really :~D

Anyway. Today has been mostly very pleasant. The girls have played some complicated playdough cafe game all day (but it had money and stock control in it which had to be educational surely?) and Maddy particularly seems to have the canny retail spirit to her! Ammi is just being wonderful with Josie and Fran seems to have recovered her spirits. Just need to iron the weeps out of Maddy now really. We had a nice long walk in the park, i used my huggababy and give it the full thumbs up. They had a lovely time playing tag and so on, although Fran has lost her nerve on things like monkey bars and poles since she fell off. Quite weird to see her reluctant to do that sort of thing. Ammi picked up a boyfriend while i discovered i now have the full HESFES spirit, because i can chat amiably to any stranger, so long as they have a sling, child and poncho :~) Did get mildly annoyed by the large number of old ladies who clambered all over me to paw my baby, but still…

So fortunately for Sarah, nothing remotely worky got done but i think we did read about “Ruth and Naomi” last night (although i fear i found the point of that particular story a trifle hard to grasp) and i think we are going to do the Leopard and how he got his spots in a bit. Might start the Magic Faraway Tree too – i wonder if it has a magic portkey to send Amelia Jane to the far ends of the galaxy?

Josie did great last night, slept all afternoon, then all evening while we watched “About a Boy”, then from midnight till 4am and 4.30am till 8.30am. Can’t ask for more than that really. And she is only a little bit yellow now. Feeding is a bit better – i can never understand why it can be fine on one side and stupidly hard on the other but although i am still sore, i think its more that i didn’t pay attention that one night than anything else; its just going to take a while to heal i suppose. Kath – thanks for your email – all useful stuff. I STILL don’t get the use right arm to position to left boob thing you know, i never have. Maybe i just have stupid arms or boobs or something but it seems completely cack-handed to me. I can only ever do it where the baby lies along the same arm as the boob. Anyway, its not getting any worse and its manageable, so lets hope when she grows a bit more it’ll be okay. I think she has Fran and Maddy’s little mouth whereas Ams has Max’s “widemouth frog” look which i am sure made the early days easier.

And no – STILL no email – how long can ntl take to sort one problem out i wonder….