Ok, so before we get into this blog there are a few things you should know about me first:

• I am a control freak.
• I am extremely stubborn.
• I get stressed way too easily.

You should also know:

• I am a loving, caring person
• I mother everybody and want to take care of everybody
• I always put people’s needs and feelings before my own

So now you know a little bit more about me let’s get into it.

Some of you wanted to know ‘How do I cope with 2 children under two’ so I’m about to fill you all in on that.

Basically, I don’t!

The end, goodbye!

Haha joking!

Seriously though I don’t cope everyday with the two kids! Poor kere, some days he comes home and I am so bloody grumpy I think he just wants to walk straight back out that door and never come home! But what I can share with you all are my day to day routines, what kinds of things I have found help to make my days easier plus any tips and tricks I have picked up along the way to keep on top of it all.

Our days usually always start around 6-6.30am. Both the kids are generally awake around this time. Heath has a bottle around 3-4am (mostly) and I give him that bottle 98% of the time. I’ll ask Kere to do it every now and then. Anyway back to the mornings. If only one child is awake when Kere gets up which is 6am, he usually gets the child up and changes their nappy as well as giving them breakfast/a bottle. We always put morning cartoons on and paisley eats her breakfast while watching cartoons. Heath usually just sits playing with his toy. I take this time to make a coffee and breakfast, some mornings I have to feed the pet lambs and calves too! Heath goes down for a morning nap around 9-9.30am. I find the mornings the easiest cause the kids are the happiest after a big nights sleep. By the time the kids have had breakfast, and I’ve dressed them it’s not long before heath goes down for his morning nap.

I’ll let heath nap till 10.30am at the latest (as it sets him up for the rest of the day). Oh I should say to, Heath doesn’t have a bottle to go sleep he would usually have a bottle about 1-2hrs before he goes to bed and I will also give him some breakfast (usually weetbix with some puréed fruit). So I then just have to put him in his sleep sack and I pop him into bed wide awake. He has white noise playing, paisley and I both give him a kiss on the head and leave the room. He will usually talk/grizzle for maybe 3-5 minutes before falling asleep. This would have to be my first tip in coping with the two kids! Before heath did this it was a nightmare putting him to bed! I would spend an hour trying to settle him to sleep and paisley would just be left in the lounge playing on my phone or something, then when I would come back into the lounge and take the phone off her it would be meltdown central! Being able to put your child down for a nap while they are still awake and know they will go to sleep is a game changer and I would 100% recommend to any parent you should try and get to this stage cause it just changes your whole day and it becomes so much happier and less stressful.

While heath naps paisley and I play. We read books play tickle games and just be silly. Sometimes I will do a spot of housework like put washing on, go outside and hang washing out (which means we usually end up outside for a while cause paisley doesn’t want to come inside) or put washing away. She likes to help in the kitchen so we clean any dishes or make heath some baby food when we can. We have morning tea together at 10am and sometimes heath will join us too if he’s awake (he loves sucking on cruskits).

If I have to wake heath at 10.30am then paisley and I both go in and do that! He loves seeing her face when he wakes up! I’ll change his nappy and get him dressed then we just all hang out. Heath goes in the jolly jumper sometimes or just watches paisley and I play. Paisley loves paint, play doh and drawing on paper with pens. I also do things like tidy our room, I just bring the kids with me and sit heath on the bed with some toys. Paisley loves jumping on the bed and heath loves to watch. Mostly I do jobs that I can take them with me and still interact with them. Paisley and heath both have lunch around 11.30am. I like to have paisley in bed by 12-12.30. Again she goes to bed awake. We read a book and she has a small bottle of cows milk (she also has white noise playing). She will sleep till 2.30 (90% of the time) and I’ll wake her up by then if she isn’t awake. Heath will have a bottle after his lunch and goes to bed by 1pm (again he goes down awake). Heath will usually sleep till around 2.30pm as well and I will wake him by 3pm if he isn’t awake. This is the time when I have lunch, go on my phone and just chill for a good 30-45min (sometimes longer when I’m procrastinating). I try to get some jobs done that are harder to get done with the kids. I almost never clean up paisleys toys as she just pulls them all out again (that job gets done at night time). Sometimes I’ll use this time to prep dinner as it saves me a lot of stress later on when they are both awake. Honestly though some days I’ll literally do nothing in this time that they are asleep! If I feel like I just really need a couple hours to chill out then I’ll do it. I started to feel a lot less stressed and frustrated when I stoped telling myself I had to be the “perfect housewife” so what if some days the washing doesn’t get done or the floors aren’t vacuumed! The kids will never remember that sort of stuff, they will just remember if Mum was happy and playful or sad and grumpy. When I try to do too much is when I become stressed out and I can get short tempered with the kids! Some days we just have to stop trying to do it all and just enjoy the day with our babies!

This brings me to my next tip: Try get the kids napping at the same time, so that you have that bit of time in the day to do what you need to so you can get through the rest of the day happy and relaxed! I know they have the saying never wake a sleeping baby, but I find sometimes you have to wake them to be able to stick to a routine. I wake heath from his morning nap so he can go down for his mid day nap at the same time as paisley! Having this break is key for me and making my day a bit more manageable! This is where my control freak side comes out! I love my routine as it works so well for us! In saying that I make a real effort to never let our routine stop us from going somewhere or doing something fun! Both the kids are pretty adaptable which is great! If they have to have a nap in the car then that’s what they do! It’s great to have a routine, but you can’t let it control your life – you need to try makes kids work around you! Some days it works and some days it doesn’t, but that’s basically motherhood whether you have 1 child or 10, some days are great and some days are shit! We just have to try get through the shit days cause the good days make it all worth while!!

The afternoons are the hardest time for me! From the moment they wake up I feel like it’s a race to bedtime. One of the amazing things about living on the farm is we have so many places to explore and things to do. Some days, particularly if it has been a testing morning, we will go find the kids dad and grandad on the farm and help/watch. Paisley and heath both love being out on the farm, watching the sheep and cows and riding on the motorbikes. So that is a great way to pass the afternoon. Otherwise I just do what I have to to get through some days! If I haven’t cooked dinner I’ll put a movie or something on for paisley and give her an afternoon snack and that will occupy her for long enough (mostly) so I can get dinner cooked. To be honest heath is so chill he usually just sits playing with toys. Sometimes I’ll bring him into the kitchen with me and some toys so he can be close by but generally he’s pretty good! I’ll give heath a bottle at 4pm and then paisley has dinner between 4.30 and 5pm. Heath will save some dinner at 5pm. It’s basically straight into the bath at 5pm (Kere is always home by 5-5.30pm). The kids both love the bath (sometimes we will just play in the bath during the day to keep them happy and pass the time) so we usually spend about 30min in the bath just playing and getting clean. Then it’s just get them dry and dressed! Paisley always runs around naked playing for a good 15-30 minutes haha! Heath is in bed by 6-6.15pm. Either Kere or I take him to his room and give him is bottle so it’s quiet and relaxing before bed time. Then paisley goes to bed by 6.30-7pm. This is why I don’t let the kids nap too long in the afternoon as I like to stick to these bed times! Both paisley and heath seem to be the type of kids that wake around 6-6.30am no matter what time they go to bed, and we have found that by putting them to bed earlier they are happier when they wake as they have had a really good nights sleep!

Then it’s basically our chill out time which is my favorite time of day! We have dinner and just watch a bit of Telly!

So that’s our routine, now I will just finish with my tips and words of wisdom haha!

Try get things ready the night before! Some days when I know we have to be gone earlier in the morning I try to get together a lot of the things I’ll need the night before! It saves me so much stress the next day! This is basically the only way I leave the house on time! Also I try to not do too much! Some days when I leave the house to get somewhere by a certain time I leave the house in an absolute state! I actually find it easier leaving the house to get somewhere by a specific time than I do when I don’t have a time as I can just piss around doing pointless jobs, where as when I have to be somewhere I just do what I have to do so we can leave on time!

I actually find it useful to just try make a rough plan in my head of how I need the day to go, however I don’t let that control my day. If something doesn’t go to plan then I try to not let it stress me and just work off a new plan based of whatever occurred! I just find having a rough plan makes helps me to know what I’m doing for the day! Even if it’s just saying to myself that I would like to have 1 old if washing on and vacuum the lounge! Kind of like setting goals, just making sure I don’t set myself to many tasks!

My last piece of advice is be kind to yourself! Some days just never go to plan! The kids are crying and your crying – we have all been there! This is no way makes you a bad mum, it makes you a normal mum! If the kids seem to be having a really good day then I’ll try get more jobs done! I just work with them and if they need more attention then I give it to them and push the house work aside! I try and spread my jobs out over the week and then, whatever I didn’t get done, I finish doing over the weekend while Kere is home!

So that’s basically it! We get through, taking it day by day!

Those first 12 hours after Heath was born were bliss! I must say, I really enjoyed having a baby during the day (opposed to at night). It just all felt so much more relaxed, and Kere was able to spend the day with me to keep me company and let me sleep when I could.

Paisley came to visit with my mum, sisters and dad about 3.30pm. I felt so emotional seeing her and watching her interact with Heath for the first time. It was such a surreal moment seeing my two babies together. She was smitten with Heath and kept patting his head!

As I said goodbye to Paisley and my family I started to feel emotional. I didn’t like having Paisley being passed around family members, I just wanted to be home with her, Kere and Heath. However the breast feeding wasn’t going the best as I was still experiencing a bit of pain when Heath was feeding. I used up most of my expressed milk to give my nipples a bit of break (through syringe feeding). We had a lactation consultant come visit us the next day and she gave me some tips and positions to try and see if they helped. My nipples continued to get worse and they started blistering, bleeding and bruising again. So day three I decided to call it quits! I knew going into it this time round I wasn’t going to put myself through the same pain and stress I did with Paisley! I wasn’t going to let it get so bad I ended up back in hospital!!

This also meant we could go home, I said to myself I would stay in hospital until the breast feeding was sorted and because I was stopping I felt happy enough to leave. So, after two nights in hospital we went home.

At home I quickly developed mastitis again, but this time we were on top of it much quicker and because my boobs/nipples weren’t quite as sore as they were with Paisley I was able to massage them a lot better! So with taking antibiotics and massaging twice a day I was able to get rid of all the blocked up milk and therefore get rid of the mastitis! However it did take me a good 10 days or more to get them sorted and those 10 days were so painful! It was awful not being able to really cuddle or pick Paisley up because they just hurt so bad! I also hated being in the room when Heath was crying as I could feel more milk coming in (for those of you who don’t know, when your baby cries is can cause your body to start producing milk as it can sense your baby needs feeding) so this was also very painful for me!

All of this combined with the normal hormonal highs and lows that come with just having had a baby I was starting to feel quite stressed and anxious! I just wanted everything to settle back into normal life, only I seemed to forget that things weren’t ‘normal’ anymore. Well not our old normal, we now had a newborn as well as a 15 month old.

The change going from one child to two is quite massive (well it was for me). On one hand I felt guilty for not being able to give Paisley as much attention as I use to, and on the other hand I was feeling guilty for not being able to just sit and give Heath cuddles like I did when Paisley was a newborn. It was such an emotional struggle for me, feeling like I wasn’t giving enough attention and love to either child!

It felt like I had to choose, when they both needed or wanted me, I had to pick, who am I going to tend to first. Most the of the time it was Heath, obviously, as he was the baby his needs generally came first. I felt like I began to resent him for this, resent him for taking away my time with my daughter and making me choose him over her.

I think the hardest part initially was that Paisley didn’t understand. So when I was having to feed Heath or put him to sleep Paisley would get upset that I couldn’t give her attention or read her a book. It made me feel so guilty.

A lot of my emotion around this stemmed from the fact Heath was a very unexpected pregnancy and I struggled emotionally through that pregnancy with the idea of having two such young children and how we would do it. I know I’m not the first person to have children close together and there are people who have had kids closer in age than me, but we all have different personalities in how we cope with things and this sort of thing really stresses me out. I’m such a control freak so, feeling like I didn’t have a choice in such a huge decision really effected me!

Once my mastitis cleared up and I wasn’t in so much pain I was able to start playing with Paisley a bit more which then meant she was happier to sit and wait or play quietly by herself when I needed to tend to Heath! Also Heath started sleeping longer stretches which gave me more time to spend with Paisley!

I’m Not going to lie, the first 2 months were a constant learning curve some days Heath had great naps and I got lots of time with Paisley and other days he just wanted to be held all day and all Paisley did was watch kids videos on YouTube. It literally felt like the videos were raising Paisley more than me! As a mum there is so much pressure and expectations around how you should raise your children. To me, it felt like I was failing as Paisley was watching a lot of television and no housework was getting done.

When Heath was around 3 months old both kids and myself got really sick! Paisley and Heath had bronchiolitis and I had sinus infections (safe to say we had our fair share of trips to the doctors). That was an extremely hard time because both kids were very unhappy and super clingy! It was just heart breaking not being able to really give them both the cuddles they wanted! Heath actually coped with it quite well so I was able to put him down for some naps still and give Paisley some love and attention. I had a fair few breakdowns over this time though, having just had a baby, trying to cope with the new challenges that came with having two kids and then trying to cope with us all being so sick just became too much for me to handle! Thankfully I have the most amazing supportive fiancé who was there to help as much as he could – and when we couldn’t afford for him to take too many days off work I was able to stay with my parents too and get help from them! I really don’t think I could have managed through this time without all this support!

Slowly the kids and I started getting better and finally things started to settle down! This was around the time I started eating healthier and loosing weight which I think also helped immensely in getting me back into the rhythm and feeling normal again. I started to get more energy, which meant I could play with paisley more and get outside with both the kids for walks! As soon as I started to settle into life with the two kids and stopped stressing and feeling so anxious I noticed a huge change in the kids too! It really is so true that your children pick up on your emotions. When I was so stressed and emotional the kids were unsettled too!

Around 4 months Heath started to cat nap during the day and was ending up in our bed during the night. At 3am one morning while up with Heath I decided enough was enough and I sought help from a sleep training company. I know these methods are not what everyone agrees with and that’s fine, but for me it was an absolute life saver. To start with it was very difficult! The first week was extremely stressful, we made a lot of changes to how Heath slept (such as getting rid of the dummy and un-swaddling him). There were many times I thought about giving up and just going back to what we were doing before, but I wasn’t happy with how he was sleeping previously and it was beginning to take a toll on Paisley, Heath and me. So I stuck with it! Yes Heath did cry, a lot, but I would go in and give him cuddles, and I always knew his cry’s were just for cuddles, he was fed, changed and burped. Slowly but surely he started to cry less and less until he was able to put himself to sleep with just a couple of little grizzles! To be able to put Heath in bed and know he would go to sleep on his own just meant I had a lot more time to spend with Paisley and doing jobs around the house. It also meant he was able to learn how to link sleep cycles so it wasn’t long before his naps became a couple of hours each and only waking once in the night again (which helped make him a lot happier too and he was getting the sleep he needed). This is when things really fell into place, and since then have been smooth sailing (mostly).

I always knew going from one child to two would be difficult, but I never expected to go through all the emotional stress that I did. I think the only way I was able to get myself out of the rut I felt like I was in, was to seek help from those around me and to cry on the shoulders of those who love me when I needed to. We can’t always do these things on our own, and sometimes we as mums put so much on our plate and think we need to be super woman and do it all. It also helped a lot when I finally stopped putting so much pressure on myself to be the ‘perfect mum’ (there literally is no such thing) this was when I was able to relax a bit more. So what if Paisley watched a lot of tv, so Heath didn’t get cuddled at every nap! They are perfectly happy kids and they are my kids. I needed to realize I had to parent the best I could for me and my kids and not how society expects us to. Obviously now that Heath is older Paisley watches next to no television as we are all able to play together. So these moments are fleeting and we just have to do what we can to get through the day sometimes.

Paisley and Heath are the lights of our lives and I am so happy the are so close in age! They are becoming best buds and I can’t wait to watch their bond grow stronger.

Sometimes the universe knows what we need before we do – and our family needed Heath!

It was 8pm on the 15th May 2018. I was sitting on the couch watching T.V. when I felt a ‘pop’! There was no instant gush of water or anything, I said to Kere “oh something weird just happened, Ive never felt that before?!” I got up and walked to the toilet (still not a drop of fluid came out), when I sat down on the toilet some fluid came out then, but still not a lot! I just sat there thinking “shit have my waters broken?!” You are made to believe that when your waters break it’s this massive gush of fluid! I know that is the case for some people, but it certainly wasn’t the case for me! I messaged I midwife and she was pretty sure my waters had gone! So now we just had to sit tight and see if contractions started to develop! My waters never broke with paisley until I was about to start pushing, so I thought to myself “this my happen quickly” the usual rule of thumb is when your water breaks things start to really get going! This, however, wasn’t the case for me!

My contractions definitely started, I knew at this point that I was in labour! And all of a sudden I just got this moment of “oh shit”. The memories of the pain of contractions started rushing back to me and I got quite scared! I almost didn’t want to get into positions they say are good for helping your labour progress, like using the Swiss ball, which I used in my labour with paisley! I felt like I wasn’t ready, I didn’t want to go through all this again!!

We rang my parents and they came out to our house. We had planned for my dad to stay with paisley when we go to hospital and my mum would come with us to the hospital.

Around 11pm we all went to bed, my contractions were there, but they weren’t very strong and very irregular. I got a couple hours rest before my contractions started getting too intense for me to sleep through them. I came into the lounge and just chilled out. I put a movie on and just dealt with each contraction as they came. My mum came and sat with me. I would get a really strong contraction then a very weak one. So I knew we were a while away from going to hospital. I decided I just wanted to get things going now, so I sat on the Swiss ball and just rocked.

About 6am my midwife messaged asking how things were going. I basically told her my contractions were still quite far apart and not overly strong. She then informed me that I would need to come into the hospital at 8am regardless of where my contractions were at because once your waters have broken you are at risk on contracting an infection which can be dangerous for baby. So about 7.30am myself, Kere and my mum headed into the hospital. We met my midwife and went to the room that I would be having my baby in! My midwife checked me and I was only 2cm dilated! I was devastated! 12 hours of labour and only 2cm it was beginning to be a total repeat of paisleys 2 day labour!

It was then my midwife told us she would need to consult with the doctor about how to proceed. They wanted to get the baby out sooner rather than later to avoid the risk of infection. So the decision was made to put a drip in and start me on oxytocin. This is the drug the use to induce labour. I was really upset with this, I always want to do what is best for my baby in labour, but I always hated the idea of intervention. I just wanted my body to do what it needed to on it’s own, but I wasn’t willing to risk the health of myself or my baby, so I agreed!

About 1 hr later the hospital midwife came in to put the drip in my hand and start the oxytocin. In this time my contractions had started to get a lot more intense. I was sucking away on the gas pretty good by now, although I was still able to talk or make a joke between contractions. They proceeded to attempt to put the drip in my hand, but my contractions were coming so close together and my veins weren’t very good, that by the time she had found a good vein I was having another contraction so she had to wait! My mind was going crazy, part of me was thinking “what the heck I have to be more than 2cm by now” and then the other part of me was saying “don’t be silly it’s only been 1hr and the oxytocin hasn’t even started yet”

They finally got the drip in and I was allowed to hop off the bed and stand next to it with my hands and head resting on it! It must have been about 9.30am by now, and my contractions were so hard and so close together, I think I even remember my mum saying “gosh her contractions seems to be getting hard now.” I was so furiously sucking on the gas, and I definitely wasn’t making any jokes or talking, I was completely in the zone just trying to get through each contraction, but it was becoming so difficult!

Suddenly things started to change! With paisley it was like it went from full on contractions to I need to push right now! Where as this feeling was like a mix of a contraction and the need to push! I wasn’t quite sure what it meant! In my mind I was still telling myself “no you can’t be needing to push yet, they only just put the oxytocin in”. I just kind of went with the feeling, then it hit me! I literally yelled “ITS COMING”. I had no idea where my midwife was (she was sitting at a desk behind me) and I didn’t realize she was at my feet until she started pulling my undies down! And sure enough, baby was right there and ready to come!

My midwife quickly starting grabbing everything she needed whilst coaching me through pushes! After having a water birth with paisley (which I wasn’t able to have this time because of the drip) I figured standing would be a great way to birth a baby, you know with gravity’s help! Will I can tell you now it was most certainly not the case. As soon as I started pushing the feeling was so bizarre, like the baby was going up not down! I yelled “I WANT TO GET BACK ON THE BED” but it was too late now, I wasn’t going anywhere! So with the help of my midwife and the encouragement of Kere and my mum I continued to push! Now I don’t know if the water birth with paisley took away some of the sensation or the fact I was so high on the codine and sleeping pills my midwife had given me numbed some of the feeling, but I do not remember feeling her coming out the way I did with this baby! I remember feeling it all, the burning ring of fire, yup I felt it all! I might sound like a total crazy person, but it was the most amazing feeling ever! I could feel my baby being born, I was pushing it out, all on my own! I felt the head come out, and then my midwife just told me to do a little push, and bam baby was here! My midwife passed the baby up between my legs to my stomach! It was at this moment I saw we had a little BOY! 7lbs 2oz of totally boyish perfection (albeit a bit covered in vernix, with a slightly misshapen head from being suck in those first 12 hours) but he was amazing! I was over come with so much emotion, I just burst into tears! The umbilical was still attached to the placenta, so very carefully I climbed up onto the bed and got to have my little boy lay on me, skin to skin, it was such a surreal moment! We just lay like that (him on my Chest) for a good hour! It was so peaceful, we left the placenta attached until it has emptied all its nutrients into my baby boy, and then I birthed the placenta! I had no tearing or anything, it was all just perfect! He started looking for a feed straight away, he latched right away and had a great little feed!

I think all of us in the room couldn’t believe what had just happened! He was born at exactly 9.53am! Not even two hours after arriving at the hospital and being told I was two centimeters! Even though in the end it all happened so fast, it was just such an amazing birth experience, I felt so empowered! A little boy, we were just smitten! My mum asked “what’s his name?” Kere and I just looked at each other “it’s Heath”

And boy did Heath come with a hiss, roar and a bang!

Stay tuned for my postpartum story with Heath! I faced many challenges including a very tough emotional one!

The 15th September 2017 our lives changed yet again….

A few days prior Kere and I had started a discussion on when we thought we would want to possibly have another baby. Trying to think about what time of year would be ideal (due to wanting to try avoid having a baby during the busy times on the farm). I went to bed thinking about it all and suddenly had this thought of “when was my last period??” Paisley was only around 6-7 months old, I had my hands full with her, and just couldn’t remember when I last had my period. I honestly didn’t think much else of it.

I was taking the contraceptive pill, but I will admit I wasn’t very good at taking it. Apart from the fact I was busy with paisley and my days were so erratic (I would forget) I think I was also naive, I really didn’t think I would get pregnant that soon after having a baby! You kind of think your body would want a break!

So 15th September 2017, I brought a test and took it at home just casually around lunchtime. Paisley was playing in the lounge. I peed on the stick, put it down, went to my room to do something, then came back to look at the stick! I was in total shock, I had to grab the instruction manual to double check what the positive sign looked like! I didn’t know what to do, so many emotions hit me instantly! I wanted to cry, laugh, vomit, you name it. I walked into the lounge where paisley was playing and sat on the couch. I just said “omg paisley, mummy is having a baby!” hearing those words come out of my mouth, to my little baby sitting in front of me was surreal! I instantly grabbed my phone and called one of my best friends (who has a little boy the same age as paisley) and was also newly pregnant! On one hand I was absolutely terrified and yet on the other hand knowing I had this friend right by my side going through the exact same thing made me relax a little, talking to her was exactly what I needed, especially before breaking the news to Kere.

I had no special way of telling Kere this time round, he literally came home from work said hello, and I just blurted out “so……I’m pregnant!!” I think his reaction was a bit of a laugh followed by “seriously?!”. We both just sat in silence for a minute not really knowing exactly what to say!

On Saturday night (the night after I had found out I was pregnant) is a night that still vividly sticks out in my mind. We had keres brother and his girlfriend staying with us, who were about 15 weeks pregnant with their first! Paisley had the worst night she had ever had since being born. She quite literally screamed all night. I ended up on the couch with her, bawling my eyes out too, wondering how on earth we could possibly do this with another baby around! Poor Dylan and Nicole saw the absolute extreme of what having kids can look like! I had to reassure Nicole that next morning that last night was very out of the ordinary, all while keeping it quiet that we were infact also pregnant!

The next few weeks following were a huge emotional struggle for me! I was dealing with a huge amount of guilt as I felt like I didn’t want to have this baby! I just didn’t feel ready! To this day I still feel guilty that those thoughts crossed my mind. I know there are SO many deserving couples out there that can not have children for whatever unfair reason, and to have this absolute blessing and feel as though I didn’t want it really unsettled me. I’m sure paisley picked up on my stress as she also became very unsettled, especially at night. This meant I was literally exhausted from lack of sleep and the pregnancy as well as dealing with such immense emotions, I was seriously at breaking point! I think I look back at this time and wish I had expressed my emotions and concerns with someone, instead I just hid it all to myself as I was so ashamed of how I felt about being pregnant!

Our 12 week scan came around, I invited my sisters to some along with us (they definitely helped me get more excited about this as they were bouncing off the walls). And there it was, right in front of me, my little baby! Something hit me that day, I fell in love again, with this little life growing inside me!! I was almost instantly awoken out of my slump. I went home, and I decided to make some changes to get our lives back on track. I did more sleep training with paisley, and she started sleeping through the night again! And I told myself, each night before I go to sleep, to put my hands on my growing belly and tell that little baby how loved it is! I almost felt like I needed to give this baby extra love to make up for the lack of love I had given it to start!

Life became so much happier! And my pregnancy flew by smoothly. I was monitored very closely with my antibody present again! The care I received from my midwife (not the midwife I had in my pregnancy with paisley, but the midwife I had postpartum with paisley) was amazing! I felt so looked after, and always knew this little baby was growing perfectly!

As the pregnancy progressed I became more and more excited to meet our new little bundle, to see paisley as a big sister and to find out if we would have a little boy or girl. I knew without a doubt thought, boy or girl, this baby was going to be so loved by our family!

May 15th 2018, it was 8pm. Kere and I were sitting on the couch watching Telly, when all of a sudden I felt a POP…….

labour and brith story to come!

Those first few hours after Paisley was born were bliss! She lay on my chest, skin to skin, then she started to look for my nipple for her first feed!

I always wanted to breast feed and to be honest I thought I would have no issues at all, the woman in my family have breast fed their children! Paisley drank so well from that first little latch it started off so perfect!

About 12 hours after she was born I couldn’t wake her for a feed so I buzzed for a midwife to come in and help! We couldn’t get her to latch as she wouldn’t wake properly, we even got her fully undressed and put her skin to skin. The midwife noted she was a bit cold to touch, so she buzzed another midwife to come in. They started to do some hand expression on me to get some milk (once you’ve had a baby it’s almost like your body isn’t yours anymore, you do whatever is necessary for that little baby). They tried to syringe some milk in paisleys mouth and there was no reaction from her! They quickly whisked her out of the room and told us to follow. Before I could even have my top back on properly they had disappeared. Then one of the midwifes popped her head out of another room and told us to come in here. They grabbed me, sat me on a chair and (excuses the pun) milked me like a cow, literally! They just kept expressing milk off me to syringe to paisley as they said it would help bring her temperature up! She was so cold she has just gone all limp they couldn’t get her to open her eyes or even move a muscle! I don’t really remember what I felt at that time I just kind of sat there, boobs out, watching them work with paisley, rubbing all over her body to try get her to wake. They turned on the heat lamp above her and asked the ladies at the desk to page pediatrics urgently. I think by now I had started to panic all I kept saying to myself was “we are in the best place for her”! They kept asking me questions like how premature was she, but I was so confused cause paisley was born at 39/2. Even though her birth weight wasn’t tiny, 6lbs 15oz, she was extremely skinny with a lot of loose skin. They now think something to do with my antibody may have cause a few troubles late in my pregnancy and my placenta had stopped working so paisley had lost weight in the womb as she wasn’t getting enough nutrients through the placenta.

When pediatrics came in she did all kinds of tests including blood tests. They just pricked paisleys heel to take a blood test, but I remember watching her squeeze paisleys foot to get enough blood out and it looked like she was bending her foot in half, and there was still no reaction from paisley! She finally started to get warmer and show signs of movement and waking up! We stayed in that room for a while with paisley while she warmed up under the heat lamp. When she was fully alert we got to go back to our room. Safe to say it was a very stressful couple of hours and I think it was the beginning of a couple of issue to follow.

I continued breast feeding paisley but it was starting to become quite painful! I had a lactation consultant come see me and she thought the latch looked perfect and you could see paisley suckling and swallowing which also looked great. She said sometimes you can get a bit tender as your body adjusts to it all. So I just shrugged it off and hoped it would get better.

On the Sunday, the day after paisley was born, my midwife came to see me. She told me she had transferred me to a Wanganui midwife as we were living closer to Wanganui. This was a bit upsetting for me as I had told my midwife we had moved and we had discussed me coming into town for some visits as well as her coming to my house. In hindsight this was the best thing that could have happened for both paisley and I.

We went home on Monday, I was still struggling through the pain of breast feeding and also feeling unwell myself. My new midwife (Jess) came to meet us that Monday afternoon and we just chatted about my labour, the ordeal with paisley getting cold and my breast feeding issues. She was honestly so lovely and instantly put me at ease, ensuring we would get through the feeding issues.

The next couple of days were hell! Apart from the lack of sleep, the feeding just got more and more painful! My mum was staying at our house to help and thank god cause I don’t know what I would have done without her! My nipples began to crack, blister and bleed, they looked like they were about to fall off! I’ll never forget during a feed I took paisley off and my nipple was so destroyed through tears I said to Mum “omg is my nipple going to fall off?!” I was distraught and feeding paisley became an absolute nightmare! On top of ruined nipples when my milk came in I got so engorged that paisley couldn’t latch to my left breast as it was so swollen. I was then having to try express the milk off to avoid mastitis! The best pump was the haaka as it caught my let down when I was feeding off the other side. But even with that I was not getting enough milk off and I swear to god the milk was up to my collar bones and out to my armpits! I was becoming more and more uncomfortable and completely lost my appetite! I tried everything we could think of, creams, nipple shields, expressing but nothing was working. My mum suggested getting ultrasound done on my nipples, as she had done this when her nipples were being destroyed by her second baby! So I did this ASAP and the local physio got me in on the Wednesday, I had a session a day for two days! Then on the Friday the whole ordeal became too much for both paisley and I and paisley just wouldn’t latch! We tried for so long until it started coming up to 8 hours since she had been fed and she wasn’t even a week old! My midwife came out at 8pm to try help but we just couldn’t get her on! Basically the choice was give to me, keep trying, try and express off to feed her or the dreaded “give her a bottle of formula”! I tried so hard to express but I just wasn’t getting anywhere near enough off to feed paisley! So I decided to give her formula, and you know what, I instantly felt the biggest sigh of relief! Of course I had a big cry as I felt like I was letting paisley down, but to know the pain was over was such a huge weight off my shoulders!

This was Paisley 1 day old vs 1.5 weeks old

Feeding had become such a nightmare I began to dread feeding, I didn’t want paisley near me and I was terrified of people coming to visit in case they would wake her and she would want a feed! It was totally ruining my bond with paisley as just the idea of feeding her made me want to vomit!

When we decided to put paisley on formula my midwife said I needed to compress my breasts and put cabbage leaves on them to try stop my milk coming in! We could already see signs of mastitis coming on, so she also put me on oral antibiotics!

The feeling of more milk coming in when I was already full to the brim is something indescribable, I honestly just wanted to chop them off!!!

Paisley took to the bottle no problem at all! I think breast feeding was becoming stressful for her too!

On Saturday (paisley was 1 week old) my midwife came to visit us again to check how everything was going! She was happy to see paisley was drinking the bottles no problem! However she took one look at my breast’s and sent me straight to hospital as I had full blown mastitis! We went straight through to Wanganui ED and I was admitted after my pulse and blood pressure were through the roof and my temp was over 39 degrees!

They pumped me full of antibiotics through an IV line for 2 days, and luckily I responded well to that so I avoided having to get surgery!

I finally got my appetite back and paisley was thriving on the bottle! It felt so amazing to finally feel like things were falling into place for us and I could relax and enjoy my gorgeous baby!

That’s not to say I didn’t struggle with the fact I couldn’t breast feed. I had days where I felt like an awful mother and I even tried to start it up again, but my like supply had dropped off too much! I wasn’t willing to spend every free minute I had to pump either, as I knew it would just start to stress me out again and I didn’t need put us all through that!

I think that maybe the aggressive hand expressions done when paisley went cold may have started to irritate my nipples and it all went downhill from there! Also my midwife believes I possibly had some sort of infection before I had paisley as the mastitis came on so fast!

At the end of the day paisley is a happy, healthy little girl who is clever, funny and constantly on the go! When I look back at it now I would change A thing! Formula allowed paisley and I to bond and enjoy each other’s company (even at 3am)! And I could even have the odd night off as Kere could give paisley a bottle!

FED IS BEST

I’ll never forget the day I found out we were pregnant!

We hadn’t long made the decision for me to stop taking the pill and we weren’t making any conscious efforts to get pregnant, we just thought if it happens it happens and if it hasn’t in 6 months to a years time then obviously we would look into why not! I guess that was what we liked about the idea of starting young (24 yrs old) was that we had a bit of time to just see what would happen!

I hadn’t got my period so decide to take a test, but still somewhere in my mind I didn’t really think it would be. I waited till I got home from work to take the test, I was home alone. I peed on the stick and I could pretty much see the positive line appear almost instantly. I kinda just sat there in shock for a while not knowing what to do, how to act or what to think. Then of course all the doubts set in, “are we really ready?” “will Kere be excited?” of course we did have in depth conversations about it, but with it happening so quickly I worried Kere might not be as excited! I was getting more and more excited as the time was going by, waiting for Kere to get home from work! Then I thought “how am I going to tell Kere?!” I decided I wanted to give him some sort of baby item to tell him. I made the very difficult decision to not tell him when he first got home from work as I had to shoot off to netball training about 30 minutes after him arriving home. Instead I decided to call into the warehouse on my way home from training to get a baby item for him. I found a onesie that said “I ❤️ Dad”. I came home and just said “I have something for you” and pulled the onesie out of my handbag. His facial expression was so sweet, a mix between shock and a smile. He just said “really?!” I could tell instantly he was excited which immediately made me feel so much more relaxed! Isn’t it funny how from the second you see that positive sign that little baby does not leave your mind! I could not stop thinking about it!

I struggled with awful morning sickness for the first 13 weeks, vommiting everyday and just feeling like total crap. I was so sick I had to get some special medication subscribed, I got my Mum collect it for me. When she came to drop it off she just walked in the door and said “are you pregnant?!” she was so excited and begged me to tell my dad so she had someone to talk to about it! So I got my dad to call around after work to “pick up some potatoes” haha! I was laying on the ground feeling so sick and I just blurted it out! “No” was all he said over and over, I suddenly thought “shit, he’s not excited” but then he let out this burst of happy laughter and I instantly knew he was over the moon,, just in shock! We waited another 5 or so weeks to tell the rest of my family and well, their reactions were priceless!!

The rest of my pregnancy was very straight forward. My only real ‘complication’ was to do with the antibodies in my blood. I have an E antibody which is a foreign antibody (I may have contracted it through one of my tattoos). This anti body could cause my baby to be anemic. If the E antibody crosses my placenta to the baby’s bloody stream, his or her body would attack this antibody as it is foreign, but the baby’s body wouldn’t know when to stop so it would start attacking its own blood cells. Lucky I only had a very low count and they just kept eye on it to make sure my levels didn’t rise.

By 38 weeks I was starting to feel very ready to have our little baby earth side. I decided to go and try Acupunture. I had one session at 38 weeks, that night I had a lot of Braxton Hicks which I hadn’t experienced before! Then at 39/5 I went to Acupunture again, in the wee hours of the morning following my contractions started.

As we lived about 1 hr from the hospital we had decided that we would go stay at my parent house when my contractions started so we were closer to the hospital. About 9am on the Thursday we went to my parents. I labored on and off all day. At 4pm my midwife came to check me (I was having some strong some weak contractions and they varied in time). I wasn’t really dialiated at all, she just said my cervix was very soft so it was happening just a while off yet! I was feeling so disheartened like I got everyone excited for nothing! That night my contractions basically stopped! I was so upset, I just thought I had jumped the gun and it wasn’t going to happen yet! Thankfully it did mean I was able to get some sleep again!

Friday rolled around and it was much the same as Thursday contractions on and off all day varying in strength and length. By 4pm it was still very all over the place so we went to the hospital to see my midwife again. I was only 3cm, I could have screamed! I couldn’t believe it was taking this long and how was I suppose to have any energy when they time came that I really needed it! My midwife decided to give me a stretch and sweep. I once had a friend describe it like “trying to make your nostril the size of your mouth” I can honestly say it was the most painful experience of my entire labour rollercoaster! My midwife also gave me some very strong sleeping pills and codine, telling me to go home and rest! In hindsight this was not a very good idea!

We went back to my mums about 6pm and I was so dosey! I went to my room and lay on the bed trying to fall to sleep, but the contractions were getting harder and I couldn’t sleep through it. Around 10pm they were extremely painful but still very irregular! I was so drugged up I could barley sit up my Mum and Kere had to help me stay up right on the Swiss ball. My mum rang the midwife and said we were coming back in. I had decided that I couldn’t do it any more, if I went to hospital and was dilated more great if not I was going to get an epidural cause I was exhausted! On the drive to the hospital I was in so much pain, I vomited (lucky we had an ice cream container cause I filled that bad boy up). We finally got to the hospital and the walk to the room felt like it took forever. My midwife even made the comment to my mum “I don’t know how she is still standing, I gave her enough sleeping pills to knock out a horse” I guess the adrenaline overrode that!

When she checked me about 11pm I was 8cm! Even my midwife was stunned! My whole pregnancy I was so set on having the baby in the bath. My midwife had me set up on the bed with the monitor on as mine and the babys heart rates were high so the put iv fluid in! I hated laying on the bed it made every contraction so painful. So I hoped off and stood on the side. I can honestly say I don’t have any reccolition of time, all I knew was I felt like I was starting to push! I begged my midwife to put me in the bath, she finally agreed and just as I climbed into the bath my waters broke and it was all go from there. My body knew exactly what it wanted to do and this immense urge to push took over my body! I think about 5 pushes later my baby was here! At 1.15am we had the most beautiful little GIRL! To be honest, I don’t really remember a lot of emotion, she was passed to me and I felt like I just about passed out. I forgot to even look and see what she was (we didn’t know what we were having). She was taken off me and passed to Kere, my midwife whipped me out of the bath as it looked like there was a lot of blood. The next 45 minutes to an hour I didn’t get my baby on me, something I look back on and hate, I should have asked them to pass her to me while I was being tended too ( I had a small tear that needed stitching) no reason my baby couldn’t have been on me!

Kere and I both took one look at her once everything had settled down and we agreed

She was our beautiful little PAISLEY 💕

Hi, Hello, Hey –

So I’m not sure how you start these things off, I’m also not sure how many of you will actually read this, but I really like the idea of having a ‘journal’ of sorts to look back on one day!

So how do I combine 26 years of life, lived to the fullest, into a story that won’t take 13 years to read!

Lets just jump right in and hope I don’t ramble too much.

I come from a loving family of 6. I am the eldest sibling, 2 younger sisters and one younger brother. We grew up on dairy farms and I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood. My siblings are my best friends in life and I can literally go to my parents for anything.

I would say my school life was very normal for a pre teen/teenager! I had all the normal heart ache and drama I think most people do at this time in their life! I was cheated on, lied to stabbed in the back and bullied to some extent. I also loved, laughed and just had fun! I think all these things shaped me to be the person I am today. I’m not going to pretend I was an angel who never hurt anyone through these years, because I did! I made decisions that I look back on now and am embarrassed at the way I acted or the things I did, but I wouldn’t change any of it. I think overall I have very happy memories from my schooling years and I’m thankful for everything I learnt from this stage of life!

I met Kere in March 2010, I was fresh out of high school and also a bad relationship! I really wasn’t looking for a boyfriend at all, but as things happen when you least expect them to, something just clicked with him. The funny thing is, Kere and I actually went to high school together. He was the year above me and I only ever knew of him, and him I. We had never actually spoken two words to each other!

After I graduated from university in 2013 Kere and I moved over to Darwin, Australia and we lived there for 1.5 years. It was an amazing experience such a beautiful, different place. If you ever get the chance to visit Darwin I highly recommend it. Kere worked in the gold mines and I work in real estate. Safe to say we had a fair bit of coin and just lived a very carefree life. We then moved to Hoek Van Holland, The Netherlands, after Kere had a offer to play rugby for a team there. That was an experience to say the least. Living in a non English speaking country is very testing and it taught me a lot about my self. It definitely wasn’t easy but we had so many amazing opportunities to travel to so many different countries (23 countries to be exact). We even went to Egypt which is the only country we visited that we missed our flight home! But that’s a whole other story for another day.

We returned home in 2015 and quickly settled back into normal life. Kere started working on his parents sheep and beef farm and I started working administration in an accountants office.  We had a cute little rental in feilding and it felt so nice to be home. I think anyone who has been over seas for a few years knows how lost you can feel when you get home. For so long our life had been so exciting and we could travel so many places at the drop of a hat. I started to crave a new challange, a new journey. After months of discussion we decided we were in a good place to start trying for a family. This happened a lot quicker than we expected and before we new it we had a little gift due to arrive in February 2017. We had a busy few months following this exciting news.

Firstly we moved to a house in Marton that would soon be Keres grandmas house. We lived there for 6 months while our little gift grew. Then 1 month before I was due we moved out to the farm house (we basically house swapped with keres grandma) the farm house was getting to big for her and with Kere working on the farm it just made more sense for us to live there.

On the 18th February, 2 days before my due date, our little gift arrived. A precious little girl called Paisley.

So that’s my life summary. I hope I didn’t ramble too much! Tried to keep it short and sweet, hopefully you enjoy reading it!

My pregnancy and birth story with Paisley is what’s up next. Stay tuned, that is a goodie!!