A look back at 2014

2014 has been both the best, and the worst year.  Up until the 27th Feb, the year was set to be one of the worst of my life.  On the 23rd January I lost my big brother only 12 days after his 47th birthday. He lived in France with two young children (3 & 5) and died suddenly of a massive heart attack.  It was only a few years earlier we lost our mother, so this was tough... I wasn't able to call him any more to chat about how much I was missing mum, or just to have a chat and see how things were going. He was the maddest person you could meet, full of life and passion - he was the big brother I was always so excited to see.  He'd randomly call the house and pretend to be the local pizzaria or the police, or just turn up unannounced for surprise visits (they were the best).

My late brother

A couple of weeks after, the hubby's aunty passed away after a long battle with cancer.  It's safe to say by this point, we were seriously over 2014 and it had barely begun.

After coming back from France I became poorly, I had the flu & a chest infection that wouldn't budge.  After 2 sets of steroids & antibiotics I headed back to the Drs explaining how I thought anxiety was getting the better of me - I told her how stress was suppressing my period, that I knew my body was trying to make me come on, thanks to the very achy boobs, mild womb ache and back ache.  At that point the Dr urged me to take a pregnancy test.  Being convinced I wasn't pregnant (we'd been trying for 8 months) after several negative tests over previous 'scares', I bought the cheapest test possible (Sainsburys own brand, 2 for £3.50) just to prove the Drs wrong.

Seems the Doctor wasn't wrong

I waited my 3 mins, turned the test over and couldn't believe what I saw, a very dark blue line telling me my life would never be the same again.

But given how the year had started, I was convinced something would go wrong, I was a hybrid of super excitement and being petrified of losing our baby.  But even if the worst did happen, I knew that after all these months of trying, I could get pregnant.  Maybe this was the year turning around?

After saying our goodbye's to the hubby's aunt, we were ready to embrace pregnancy and look forward to our future as a new family.  I'm pleased to say that was the back of the 2014 nastiness.

I'll never forget the first time we saw Squidge, it was the 12 week dating scan, my reaction was 'there is a baby there!' (I felt like I'd been lying to everyone about being pregnant), it was such an emotional experience and special day, I couldn't stop smiling.

Squidge's first photo - the 12 week scan

After developing gestational diabetes at 26 weeks I had scans either every other week or every week (depending) to check the size and growth of the baby, and my amniotic fluid as my levels dropped quite low.  After 7 trips to the maternity assessment unit for 'reduced movement', a strict diabetic diet and lots of aches and pains, Squidge was finally born on the 6th October 2014 at 3:48pm weighing just 6lb 9oz, a pretty small baby :)  If you want to read my labour story you can find it here.

3 weeks old

Nearly 8 weeks old

The next couple of months are a bit of a blur, a wonderful blur of baby firsts (smiles, giggles and all round cuteness), sleepless nights and tea.  Squidge has sailed through all his tests and checkups, making me a very happy mummy.

Finally, the day after I started writing up this post, my boiler packed in!  In fairness, we were warned about it in May 2013 when it originally broke, our plumber suggested replacing it at the end of the summer, but we didn't... and now, when it's cold, we have no heating... ah well, it's being replaced on Monday.  Well, Sunday night (the night before work on the boiler commenced) we had no hot water either.  The boiler was eventually finished on Wednesday late afternoon, boy did we miss having that up and running!

So that's been my year, it's been a strange combination of heartbreak and loss, and the wonderful indescribable feeling of holding your baby for the first time and becoming a parent - totally different from what I expected and thought I'd feel, so much more wonderful.  Here's to 2015!

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