The birth of my third baby

The birth of my third actually happened in between those of my two sons. It was a lot less painful physically, although it did take a lot longer. It was still created by me and my husband, but we also delivered it ourselves. It was, of course, the birth of Who Loves Me?.

When our first son was born, the grandparents (on both sides) would visit frequently, they would never leave it longer than a couple of weeks in between visits. Nevertheless this was long enough apart for our son to completely forget them (apparently babies of three months old can only hold your face in their memory for 24 hours) and, as a shy baby, he wouldn’t want to cuddle them straight away and would often cry if he was taken away from mummy. He would get used to them during the course of the visit and be smiling like a very smiley thing on a particularly smiley day by the time they left, but the next time they came we’d be back to square one – refusing cuddles and looking at them as if they were strangers. Obviously all very upsetting for the grandparents who just wanted a big snuggle with their baby grandson.

[Enter Who Loves Me? stage right]

We made some cards for him – they were exceptionally basic compared to the ones we now make, but the prototype nonetheless – with photos of each of the family on each card and a little typed caption underneath with the name of the person and “loves me” (e.g. “Grandma loves me” or “Granny loves me” or “Uncle Simon loves me” etc) and we would show him the cards in between visits, looking at each card with him and saying the name of the person. The difference was honestly incredible. He would recognise granny / granddad / grandma as soon as they arrived!  They would be treated to a big smile when they walked through the door and he would reach out for cuddles for them. Well, you can imagine how pleased the grandparents were!!

We used our own cards for a while before we began thinking that these would also be really beneficial to other families. After all, not many babies see their grandparents every 24 hours! I took our cards to my NCT friends who had babies the same age and asked them what they thought. Was it a viable concept?  Would they buy a pack? How much would they pay for them? (In recent interviews I’ve done, this has been called my ‘ready-made focus group’ – a professional way of saying I asked my friends what they thought over a pizza!)

I got my friend Lisa, a graphic designer, on board who beautifully brought our vision to life by creating the artwork for the borders of the cards. My dad (an accountant) guided us through the financial administration of setting up a business, our friend Josh (a marketing guru) gave us a marketing workshop over a long dinner and his wife Gemma (a lawyer) helped us with the terms and conditions on our website. Sadly we didn’t know any web designers or trade mark lawyers (we know plenty now!) but we found some and got them all involved too. 

After what felt like forever we finally ‘gave birth’ in June 2010 – when I was heavily pregnant with baby number two. Two births within a few months of each other - now that takes some doing!

                                                    Dom making the first pack of cards!

I’ve never written down this “birth” story previously, so thanks to Tara Cain and The Gallery  for prompting me.

Gleeful baking and bbq for The Gallery

So, I was another mummy sadly not cybering (is that a verb?!) this weekend. It looked and sounded amazing from everything everyone has said and posted about it, but that's another story.

Instead, my Saturday was spent baking biscuits (my picture for The Gallery, above) with my two year old while the baby was asleep and watching Wimbledon (even having a picnic tea in front of the television so we didn't miss any) when the boys were awake. My Sunday was spent having a gorgeous BBQ - delicious food, plenty of pimms and a paddling pool for the kiddywinks (remember how hot it was?) - with several of our lovely neighbours.

However Saturday night was the biggy of the weekend for me. GLEE. LIVE. I know there are many of you who will judge me negatively for this, with my lovely husband leading the charge, and I don't care*. A night out with the girls singing along loudly to some total cheesey tunes is as good as it gets!

Yes, we were in the very back row of the 02. So, no we couldn't see a thing apart from what was on the video screens. But the atmosphere was incredible and we were all strangely starstruck about seeing the Glee cast in the flesh (and by "flesh", I obviously mean seeing them on big video screens rather than my home television), and most importantly getting the girls together for some silly dancing was brilliant. I thought I might cry. That is actually true. I'm just sorry I didn't have a really really really really really big zoom lense so I could share with you a photo of Finn / Quinn / Kurt / Rachel / A N Other! I know you would have all appreciated that more than my photo of some dubious looking biscuits....!

*Obviously I do care. Please don't judge me :)

A somewhat dramatic introduction to blogging

This week, for the first time ever, I called 999.

My son, a two year old toddler, innocently fell over in his baby brother’s room (whether said little brother deliberately stuck his leg out is a subject to be discussed on another day), but careered head first into the side of a toy box with such force that he quite literally split his head open.

He obviously screamed at a pitch and volume that I have never heard before (and never wish to hear again!), and when I turned him round to cuddle him his face was already covered in blood. My initial internal reaction of absolute panic was taken over by the need to comfort and reassure him, but having got a flannel to his head to stem the bleeding I realised the wound was about the same size as his open eye, and oh, so deep. I’m not squeamish, but even I wanted to vomit (all I can say is thank goodness my husband wasn’t there – he nearly passed out when I had a drip put in my hand once).

I rang a good friend. “I need help” I said. Correction: “I need help” I wailed “A has his cut his head.” “I’ll come and get the baby” she said.

I looked at his head again, I thought for the briefest of moments, and without hesitation dialled 999. They were brilliant on the phone (although even they laughed when they asked if the crying they could hear was the patient and I answered that no, that was my baby, who cries if his big brother does, and yes, I did have two screaming infants with me, one of them bleeding profusely). They told me to keep him still, try and apply pressure to the wound, keep him calm, ring back if he deteriorated before the ambulance crew arrived and open the front door (on a complete aside, I’ve never known about this ‘leave the front door open’ policy, but it makes so much sense on a number of levels 1) if you’re the patient in case you pass out before they get there 2) if you’re tending to the patient it could take time to answer the door and 3) the ambulance doesn’t have to slowly crawl down a street while the crew look for door numbers or names, they just look for the open door. Clever.)

Somehow my friend, with her one year old son in tow, beat the ambulance to my house. Which was impressive because the ambulance was fast! She took the baby and the ambulance crew took me and the wounded little soldier. He clung on to me for dear life in the “nee-nar” despite my efforts at trying to console him with stories of how jealous all his friends would be that he’d been driven in one.  It may be the best cuddle he has ever given me. How’s that for finding a silver lining?!

 

The paramedics reassured me and looked after him physically and mentally - they even tried to make him smile with a puppet they made by blowing up a surgical glove and drawing a face on it. They got us to hospital pronto where the doctors and nurses fixed him up (the fact we had to return three times before someone glued and stitched his head sufficiently to stop the bleeding and seal the wound is another story, one that spans 72 hours and that is similarly harrowing and gory).

All details aside though, I guess the point to my little tale is that I’ve always worried that when the time came I wouldn’t know when something was serious enough to dial the emergency services, and like so many other people wouldn’t want to “cause a fuss”. Thankfully when the time is right to panic, you do!