Fashionista!

When you were born, we discovered that as you were 7 pounds and one ounce (3.2kg), the newborn baby clothes we had bought for you were just huge on you. You looked like you wearing adults clothes rather than baby ones!

Apparently the average weight of a baby is increasing, so while both your dad and I were considered normal weights at just under 7 pounds each, you are considered a small baby (for clothes, you are still considered to be a healthy birth weight).

So we decided we couldn't just leave you in massive clothes, so your dad went out shopping while we were sleeping in the hospital. I think he may have bought half the shopping centre. Here are some pictures of all the things he bought you in one half hour shopping trip!

xxx

Labour and Delivery

Today you are 7 days old. We've finally managed to sort through all of the stuff we took to the hospital (and bought while we were there) and I've downloaded all the photographs from our camera (there are loads!). 

We've found some more photographs from the day you were born, so I thought I'd add them to the blog. 

This photo was taken at about 8am in the morning. We'd been in the hospital since 10pm the night before and I'd gotten no sleep whatsoever because I was so full of adrenaline. So I look a little bit worse for wear! 

Your dad looks a lot more awake than I do! 

I think you are about 10 minutes old here. By this point you had already had a vitamin K injection and been weighed and cleaned up. You took to eating from that bottle as though you'd  been training for it for 9 months, which was such a relief! 

After you'd eaten you pretty much passed out and went to sleep. You've been like that ever since. You literally wake up to eat and be changed and then you are back down again for another nap! 

This was just before we were moved back to the maternity ward for some well deserved rest and relaxation. 

Your dad has been fantastic with you, he's been doing half the feeding and changing ever since the moment you were born. As you can see, he was totally smitten from the moment he met you. 

You had to go to the nursery for your check up, but then you came back to us and settled down for some sleep. 

xxxx

Welcome to the World Seren Angela Joyce Critchley!

Well, that was it! 

You were born at 8pm on Thursday 30th August 2012 at the American Hospital in Dubai. I was in labour with you for 22 hours in total, and it was completely worth it! 

You are just absolutely beautiful. You were born with a head of dark hair and almost jet black eyes. Your eyes are now navy blue, but we won't know for a while what colour they will end up being.

It was a long wait to meet you, but as labours go, I don't think we could have asked for anything better. Most of the labour was straightforward as I had an epidural (actually I had to have it removed and replaced, so technically ended up with two!) and so I was only in pain for one hour (when the epidural stopped working on my left hand side). That one hour was absolutely excruciating though, as I was being given medication to strengthen my contractions, and that made the pain so much worse. 

Your dad was amazing through the labour, and especially when I was in pain. He ran round looking after me and spent hours watching the monitor of your heart rate, checking you were ok. 

I had to have my blood pressure taken every five minutes, so had a cuff strapped to my arm, which was actually really painful! Everytime they took my blood pressure the cuff almost cut off my circulation. We were a bit worried as my hand kept turning bright red and blotchy, but it didn't affect you at all! 

Your dad held you as soon as you were born, and you were so slippery that it took a few minutes for us to realise you were a girl, as we were both too busy worrying that you would slip through his fingers. I was completely surprised, I really had thought you were going to be a boy! 

I'm so so glad that you war a girl though. I had secretly wanted a little girl first, but there are so many boys in both our families that I didn't think I would ever get a girl, never mind be lucky enough to get one first. 

You weighed 7 pounds and 1 ounce, or 3.2KG. So you are a couple of ounces heavier than me and your dad were. I was 6 pounds 10 ounces. Apparently babies are getting progressively bigger, because we brought newborn clothes for you, and you looked like you were wearing my clothes rather than baby clothes! They completely drowned you. 

Your dad had to head out to the shops to buy you a complete new wardrobe! Turns out that you are classed as a "small baby" as you are only 7 pounds 1 ounce. Newborn clothes are supposed to cover babies who are born weighing up to 10 pounds! 

Even some of the small baby clothes are a little big for you at the moment, but you'll definitely grow into them soon! You have lost 10% of your birth weight, which is apparently normal while you try to learn how to eat and grow. 

You are eating like a pro though, no problems in getting you to eat, and you are currently eating every 2.5-3 hours, which is what is recommended. 

Your dad and I cannot believe that you are here with us, and that we get to keep you. You have been the most incredible thing to come into our lives, and we are so so unbelievably blessed. We love you so much already, from long before you were born. You have us both completely wrapped around your little fingers.

You are currently napping, which is a relief, because when we brought you home yesterday, you decided you were not going to sleep and screamed the house down for an hour, just after midnight. I had to barricade myself in your nursery (which is the furthest away from our neighbours at either end) as I have no idea how much they can hear. 

We think you were a bit over awed by all the changes, it must be so strange to come from darkness to all the lights in the hospital and then to come home with us to another completely new situation. We wish we could see the world through your eyes, watching you see the world for the first time is amazing. 

Thankfully you seem to have adapted to the changes this morning, and after fighting to get you to sleep for 30 minutes this morning, you have been asleep for an hour now and no signs that you are waking up anytime soon! 

Hopefully I will be able to get a bath and a couple of hours sleep today. I've pretty much been awake with you since yesterday morning, apart from an hour that I managed to get while your dad took your night feed. 

I managed to get you into bed last night, but not to sleep. You lay in your pram (which is being used as a bassinet, as you are too small to fit into the great huge cot we have for you) and gurgled and sighed and huffed for about two hours until your dad got up with you. Clearly not happy to be expected to sleep! 

Here are some pictures from your first few days:

Your very first close up! I think you are about 10 minutes old here. You are already so aware, staring round at everything.

Daddy making sure you are fed. You were starving when you arrived! Gobbling down the formula as soon as it was given to you. You did not need to read the instruction manual!

Your first nap. The sleep suit you are wearing here is ginormous, but thankfully you can't tell from the photos!

You in your small baby sleep suit. You have gone from having lots of neutral coloured clothes (as we didn't know if you were a boy or girl) to a complete pink explosion. Thankfully it suits you!

You in your car seat as we were leaving the hospital. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to accept that you are going to be a Manchester United fan, the colour red suits you too much! 

xxxxxx

Well... this is it!

Ok, well it's 6:20pm here in Dubai and we are expected at the hospital at 10pm so that they can induce my labour.

So, fingers crossed we'll be meeting you within the next 24 hours, unless you are really stubborn and insist on staying put!

We are so so excited to meet you! We can't wait to see if you are a boy or a girl!

Although at the moment I feel really nervous. I have no idea what labour is going to feel like, whether it will be really painful, whether the pain relief will work. It's just a fear of the unknown and i'm sure once it gets started I'll just be focussed on meeting you, and it will make it all much easier.

I've been having some contractions today though, so hopefully you are ready to arrive. It's so strange because there's only me and your dad who know that we're going to be induced today, so I've been speaking to friends and family over the last couple of days and it's been difficult not to tell people.

I just know that if everyone knows that I'm in labour than we'll be getting texts and phone calls about how we're getting on, and we just need to concentrate on you for the time being. So we've decided not to tell anyone until after you are born. So i'm really excited to be able to text and call people to say you have arrived, but that will have to wait for now!

Right, I'm going to go and finish packing my bag for the hospital, but we'll see you very shortly. We just cannot wait!

xxx

Presents - Round 2

Now I know we've already done one post about your presents, but I think there will be many many more of them over the years! I have a feeling that you are going to be spoiled by absolutely everyone, as you've had so many gifts already, and you are not even born yet!

So here are some more of your gifts:

First up, this gorgeous, soft and snuggly sleeping bag from Gary's work collague Hisham and his wife Rosann. I think it's too big to be used right away, but you are going to be very snug in this once it fits.

These two super cute baby grows were part of a basket of gifts from Uncle Dave and Auntie Alison. You'll see all the other things they bought you below. You are very spoiled, as usual.

This absolutely gorgeous tigger dressing gown and slippers are from Auntie Kerry and Uncle Sy. Your dad would be wearing this himself if he could get his feet in the slippers!

A rattle and a baby book, more presents from Uncle Dave and Auntie Alison

This is actually a family heirloom. This mug was a gift to your dad when he was born, and Grandma Joyce has saved it for all these years and now it's being handed down to you. So we need to take good care of it.

Your dad and I couldn't resist wandering through the Disney Store when we were back in the UK in May 2012. So much of the clothes in there are gender specific, so we had to hold off going completely crazy and buying half the store (which is a good thing given how many presents you have received!). We did fall in love with the Finding Nemo swimsuit and pyjama and bib set, so they travelled back with us.

Another present from Auntie Kerry and Uncle Sy. I definitely agree that you are going to be AT LEAST as cute as Thumper.

This lovely Winnie The Pooh romper suit was a gift from two of the girls I used to work with before we left the UK for the Middle East, Charlotte and Bee. It was really thoughtful of them to get you a gift, and they are so excited to meet you at Christmas 2012.

And here is your final gift from Uncle Dave and Auntie Alison. Clearly we have a lot of Disney fans in the family!

So that is the end of the presents, for now at least! Although I'm sure you'll be receiving many more presents than you need over the next few years!

xxx

38 Weeks Pregnant - Two Weeks To Go!

I recently had a scan to check that you are growing as expected, and that there are no problems in the final weeks.

The radiologist who took your measurements was great and assured us that you are growing just as you should be. She also told us that you obviously liked the camera, as it was really unusual for her to be able to take this photo with the ultrasound machine:

I hope you can see your face looking upward! I think it's the best picture we have of your face so far, and it's so cute already!

As for me, I'm looking less cute! Here is me at 32 weeks:

And here is me last week at 37 weeks:

I feel massive! Getting on and off the sofa is really difficult, and I can't bend down to put on socks or shoes anymore. I'm very front heavy, so my balance is rubbish. 

It's only been the last couple of weeks that i've found moving around difficult, so I guess I've been pretty lucky, some people struggle a long time before I did. 

We've finally finished your nursery, except for the curtains which are due to be fitted in the next few days. As soon as the curtains are up I'll put some pictures on here, along with pictures of the apartment. 

In the meantime, here is a picture of our two cats, who will no doubt be scared still of you once you arrive! The grey one is Tabitha and the white and ginger one is Sookie. They are still getting over their flight from Doha to Dubai, but are settling into the new home pretty well. 

xxx

24 Days to Go!

Eeek, where has all the time gone!

Today I am 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant. So we only have 24 days until your official arrival date!

We've been pretty busy over here, which is why I haven't updated! We moved from Doha in Qatar to Dubai two weeks ago, so we are still rushing around like crazy people trying to get everything ready for when you arrive!

We had a complete fiasco at the airport in Doha when we tried to leave. The policy about how late I could fly when pregnant with you was now clear at all and the ground crew decided I was more pregnant than I was, and more pregnant than my doctors note said I was, and refused to allow me to get on the airplane.

It took a lot of arguments, a trip to see the airline doctor (who refused to see me) and eventually a complete meltdown into tears from me before everything got sorted and we were put on the next available flight! It was lucky we weren't travelling anywhere obscure, with only one flight a day, or we'd have been stuck there. Definitely not good when the Qatari Government have cancelled your visas and legally you have to leave that day!

We are currently staying in a hotel, The Address Downtown Dubai, which is a really beautiful hotel. It's right next door to the Dubai Mall, so we have been picking up lots of bits and pieces for you on our endless trips into the Mall. It's also right opposite the Burj Khalifa, which is one of the tallest bildings in the world (at least it is now, it probably won't be by the time you're reading this!).

It's also right opposite the dancing fountains, which are just beautiful. Although it's been so hot at the moment that I've been avoiding going outside as much as possible, so we've not been able to really see the mup close. Hopefully we'll come back over here in the winter to see them properly.

However, the hotel is not going to be the best place for you! It would be rather cramped, and we don't know yet whether you will be awake and crying a lot or not, and we don't want to disturb the whole hotel if you are!

So we've been hunting high and low for somewhere to live, and we've finally decided on an apartment. We're hopefully moving into Ocean Heights this week, to our new apartment on the 52nd floor! Your dad is especially excited because it has full sea views, and you get to see the sunset and sunrise from our apartment every day.

I must remember to get blackout curtains for your room, or you'll be awake a 4am every day!

The apartment is beautiful, although it's still empty. We're been furniture shopping pretty much every night for the last week, and bought literally half of Ikea. So over the next week or so, we're going to be assembling our new home and furniture, and hopefully we'll get that done before you make an appearance.

Although if you show up early, we do have your cot, it arrived and was assembled this morning, so you will, at least have somewhere to sleep. Your dad is going to decorate your room this weekend, so it will be done asap, so you can come home to your nursery the way we wanted it to look, rather than as it is now, empty with bare walls.

We also need to go and collect the two cats from the kennels, and introduce them to their new home before you arrive. So they can adjust to being indoor cats (with an amazing  view) and be settled in for when you come and keep them awake at all hours of the day and night.

It's so strange that we still don't know whether you are a boy or a girl. I thought someone would have slipped up and told us by now, but they haven't. So we are hopefully only going to find out once you are born.

I'm so glad we waited and didn't ask at any of our scans. It makes the waiting all the more exciting, not knowing who will be the one to be born. I still have a bit of a feeling you are a boy, but for no real reason. I also thought my cousin Sarah was having a baby girl, but Samuel George Farmer was born in May, so my radar is clearly a little off centre!

Almost everyone who has guessed (and almost everyone we speak to has a guess) thinks you are going to be a girl, so we'll see who is right when you arrive.

Thankfully sorting out the hospital was really easy. You are going to be born at the American Hospital in Dubai. Hopefully under the care of Dr Braithwaite, who is a pretty great doctor. She doesn't mess about and tells you exactly what is what, which I like a lot!

I've been doing lots of walking this week (on the treadmill, in the air conditioning) to try and get you in the right position for labour. You have been upside down for a few weeks now, which is good, and you are now starting to drop lower, getting ready for birth. Although I'm hoping you don't come too early, you wont be fully grown for another couple of days, and then you still have three weeks to decide to arrive.

Anytime after this Saturday (Saturday 18th August 2012) is perfect though, and the sooner the better, I can't wait to meet you!

xxx