S is 4 months

S is now 4 months, she had her first visit from portage, her first visit with her paediatrician and she is developing fantastically, the paediatrician described her as meeting all the goals of a baby her age. She is now rolling over and has been for a couple of weeks :-).
H has got into her choice of secondary school so she is very happy and Su is continuing with the traumas of being a teenager but she is a happy one.
I am struggling with the thought of going back to work and I honestly don't think that I can leave S so I am keeping my options open as to what to do.
I must apologise that my blogging is very sporadic, I am trying to get better at it :-) .

Now the weather is picking up we are enjoying our walks even more, we are regular visitors down to our local bridge where the children enjoy running under it and down by the river. There are hardly any cars so they have complete run of the track and they really enjoy jumping off anything they see that is high enough :-)

This is S and H and one of their friends showing off their skills :-)

Well I have now taken Sapphire swimming for the first time and she loved it, we lasted in the pool for half an hour but when she started to turn blue I thought it was a good idea to get out. We will be going again next week.
My mum has knitted Sapphire her first cardigan, the photos will follow when I can get them from her, since my phone landed in a cup of coffee I can't take pictures.
I am lucky enough to have my friend next door who loves to take photos, she has taken some fantastic ones of Sapphie and I have to share this one with you because it has to be my all time favourite one :-)

As my family will tell you, my bottom lip was always out as a child and my sisters would probably tell you that it still is stuck out.
Anyway Sapphie has her first visit with her pediatrician on Wednesday and I am certain that it will go really well :-). I will be back on to let you know how she gets on.

Somedays are worse then other days. I find that some days things make me really wonder about what Sapphire's life will be like, I know I over think things but I would say any one with children always wonders what they will be when they grow up? will they be happy? and many more questions go through your minds. This sounds so silly but I watched Glee and there is a girl on there who has down syndrome, basically a boy told her he couldn't go out with her and she said " is it because I am so intimidating" and he said "yes". When she walked away she said the question she wanted to ask was "is it because I have downs", she went onto say that she already knew the answer and that she knew it was yes and she began to cry, I have to say it really did hit home and I found myself crying too, all we as parents want to do is protect our children, I know many people will say it is only a programme and not true but if we are honest with ourselves then we all know how cruel people and life can be and I just pray that Sapphire doesn't constantly meet heart ache.

On a more positive note Saf is now 10lbs, she has had her first jabs and she definitely let the people know in the surgery that she was there. She is now smiling and oh goodness her smile melts my heart.
Harmony has shared her rules with Sapphire about how ahe has to behave when she sits on her knee which made me laugh, she was having a conversation with Saf and Saf just looked at her and smiled and then pulled her hair :-) Harmony had to then go on and tell her that this too was not allowed while she was sat on her knee :-).

Well what a busy few days we have had. We have started healthy eating and I am cooking from scratch, if you knew me you would know that is a big step up to take aways and frozen meals :-) not sure that the children are enjoying it as much as I am though.
As you can see from the photo above Sapphire is now smiling and she is also cooing (obviously you can't see this in the photo :-)). The health visitor has been out and she is meeting all her milestones. She is now 9lb 1 oz so she is putting weight on nicely (I am putting that down to my homemade cooking). Much to my mums delight I haven't given into the temptation of a dummy.

We have had visits the past few days from my friends who I used to work with years ago at a sewing factory, they have had lots of cuddles and totally adored Sapphire

As you can see while Sapphire was getting all these cuddles her sisters and friends were really busy doing this, I believe we have too much technology in this house :-)

As well as being busy with visitors I have been reading, I was given some good advice from another parent who has a young baby with Downs and that was, not to read any of the books that are available as most of them are out of date, she told me to buy a book called "Gifts", it is written by 63 parents who have children with downs and it is their own stories about how they came to terms with the news and it has been inspirational to me. It made me feel less guilty about how upset I had been when I got the news of Sapphires condition because what I have read so far they reacted in a similar way. I just want to say that at first when I had her I found it hard to see past her condition and see her as a baby and the guilt I felt about this was intense but that feeling doesn't last for long.

Sapphire wore her first dress today as S and H wanted to dress her up, can I say the headband didn't last long, she soon took it out by wriggling her head until it was out and I can't say I blame her.

 

Sapphire is still struggling with bringing her wind up, so I am hoping her new chair will help that as it vibrates so I am hoping it will break it up for her.
Summer is spending lots of time snuggling her but unfortunately Harmony is poorly so her blog is a bit slow at the moment.
Sapphire is now staring at people when they talk to her and we all just wish that we knew what she was thinking, or maybe we are better off not knowing with her growing up in this mad house. She is still loving the water so I am currently looking into taking her swimming, I need to find out how old they have to be and if they have to have their injections or not.
Anyway I must go now as a little lady has woken up for her feed :-) xx

Hello :-)
My sister and her family came up to meet Sapphire and she loved all the cuddles and attention she got from her Auntie, Uncle and Cousins. Katie (my sister) came to help me while my mum was in Scotland having a well deserved break after what she has been through with me the past 4 weeks. It was lovely to see everyone, my sister loved being an Auntie again and she said she would do everything but nappies, but Saf had different ideas about that and she waiting until she was alone with her Auntie and made it clear to her that she needed a new nappy on there and then :-). Katie tried to not tell me she was changing it but Saf again decided to take charge of the situation and had a wee all over the mat so my middle daughter came and told me that her Auntie Katie was changing a nappy and that Saf had done a wee, she thought it was sooo funny.
Katie left on the Sunday and is now safely back in Cornwall along with Sapphires cold (I have taught her to share from a young age). It was great having her here and she was such a great help, I love the way families come together to support and look after each other in times of need. I just hope they all realise how much I appreciate what they have all done for me.

Harmony blowing out her candles on her 11th birthday

I have to say it has been a busy couple of weeks. Harmony celebrated her 11th birthday and moved into her new bedroom which is now a shrine to her favourite band, one direction. Everytime I enter the room I am greeted with her favourite member of the band Harry's cheesy grin. She had her friends over for tea. I think I am now turning into a bit of a dab hand with baking. I made cupcakes for the first time ever and here they are

She had an amazing day and she boasted to us both that she was the first one to get a birthday card from Sapphire and that she had even signed the card herself :-)

I am going to have to go now as Saf has just woken up and cuddles are too precious to miss out on.

Ok I have a small amount of time while Saf is asleep, the eldest is at a sleepover and the middle one is at her friends for tea :-) This is a rare peaceful time for me.
I am going to try and quickly get up to date so excuse me if I don't get into any detail but so much happens every day, I am constnatly playing catch up on here :-).
Saf and I were only out of hospital for one night, the photo above shows her fast asleep in her new bed which she is still in and loves. The midwife came out the next day to check us both over and found that Saf had gone down in weight from her birth weight of 8 lb 8 to 7lb 6, because she had lost more than 10 percent of her birth weight she told us that we had to go back into hospital, once again my emotions were shook and all I can say is thank god for my mum. She was an absolute rock and there is no way I would of got through this without her. She took us back into hospital and had my 2 eldest girls for the next few days.
When we arrived back in hospital it was found that Saf had hyperglycemia and hypothermia. I really didn't think I could take anymore, my hormones were all over and I was exhausted.
The NICO unit nurses came and monitored her in the maternity unit with me. I don't think I have ever cried or felt so useless in my life, I was so frightened that something was going to happen to Sapphire I just didn't think I could deal with it. The staff at hospital were absolutely amazing and soon Sapphire was gaining weight, they finally let us go home on  Friday 6th January.
I was still really nervous about her weight and paranoid, I wrote everything down, the times she fed, her temperature and what was in her nappies. This was all new to me and I was determining to continue breast feeding her as babies with down syndrome have a lower immune system.

The girls were ecstatic to have us home but were also a little nervous that we would have to go back in.
The midwife came out the next day and I asked her if she was aware that Sapphire had a separate weight chart because of being Downs, and she wasn't aware of this and neither of the others were, also they weren't aware that Saf wouldn't put weight on as quickly as other babies. The midwife who came out was lovely but it was just a lack of education. Waiting to have Sapphire was worse than I used to feel waiting to get on the scales at weight watchers :-).

To bring you upto speed, Sapphire has now had her heart scan and she hasn't got any of the defects associated with Downs but we have to wait until next January to see if she has a hole in her heart. If the hole is big enough they will operate but it will only be keyhole surgery and it will be done when she is 3 and she will only have to stay in hospital for 2 days. Her hearing is responsive so everything is positive
 

Sorry for not keeping up to date with my blog but it has been a busy week for us but a very good one. I will get to that in a bit, first I would like to get up to date to let you know how we got to where we are now.

After the initial shock had set in and the official results had come back from Leeds confiming that S had Downs Syndrome or Trisomy 21 as it is also known, this is the form that 94 percent of children that have downs are diagnosed with.
Safi ended up with jaundice and because I was not thinking straight and neither of my other 2 children had this when they were babies I automatically associated it with the fact she was downs (obviously now sanity has set in I know this was not the case). As you can see from the photo above she is perfectly happy laid there and getting a tan :-). She stayed on this for 2 days and I was lucky that this light worked and that she stayed with me on the maternity ward and did not need to go up to NICO (neonatal intensive care unit). We were then discharged after 5 long days in hospital. I was so pleased to be going home and starting our new life with all 3 sisters together. Her big sisters S and H were so pleased that we were home and it was such a relief to finally get home.

Finding out Sapphire had Trisomy 21

ok so I am back sooner than I thought :-)

December 29th came and I was soooo nervous and scared about going into hospital, they aren't my most favourite of places. My mum was my birthing partner and I honestly could not tell you who was more nervous about the operation, her or me.
The waiting in the hospital was the worse thing as by now I was so excited and just wanted to know if my baby was a girl or a boy. The doctor and anesthetist had been to see us and explained the whole operation to me. It was going to take no longer than 45 minutes.
It was finally my turn and I was taken into the theatre while my mum went and got her gowns on, she even asked me if I would take a photo of her in her scrubs lol.  I was so proud of my mum as she even looked as they were trying to pull her out, my mums face was a picture :-)
At 12.35 pm I had a beautiful baby girl weighing 8lbs and 8oz, she was gorgeous and had so much hair, obviously tears of happiness were flowing to see that she was healthy. When they had cleaned her and weighed her they bought her back to me, the midwife who was called Clare said she was just going to get the pediatrician to look at her just because she was a bit floppy, she told me this was common with baby's born by cesarean, the reason being they haven't been squeezed when going through the birthing canal so they may still have mucus to bring up, so I thought nothing else about this.
They had given Sapphire (this is what I had decided to call her because she was a special gem to me) to my mum she came across really dizzy and had to hand Sapphire to the anesthetist and she went out. I was told she was ok and that she was having a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
I went into the recovery room for about half an hour and was lucky to be able to take Sapphire in with me. Clare (the midwife), I had been told that I probably wouldn't be able to. Everything was perfect :-)
When we went back up to the ward the doctor came to look over Sapphire, I asked him if everything was ok but he told me we had to wait for a room before he could tell me anything, I can't even explain to you what was going through my mind, my mum was with me and by then Sapphires dad was there (he lives about 300 miles away from me). I was so scared and when I asked the doctor if it was serious he replied with the same answer about needing to find a private room, I felt like my world was falling apart and all I could think was that she was going to die.
It felt like a lifetime before I was wheeled into the room. Then I heard these words and I felt like my whole life had been turned upside down "we need to take a blood test as clinically I believe she has down syndrome"(also known as trisomy 21). It was surreal, I felt like it was happening to someone else and I was just looking in. My first thought was her heart as I knew it was common for children with downs to have heart defects, he told me he didn't know anything yet and he needed to take her bloods and taxi them through to Leeds.
I was now inconsolable, all I knew was that I loved my daughter with all my heart and I had no idea what sort of life she was going to have. How could they have not known straight away, I thought I was ready for hearing the news as I knew I was high risk, but nothing in the world could have prepared me for finally hearing those words. We were all in tears by now, even Clare, no one knew what to say, all I could do was cry as they took Sapphire out the room to take her bloods. They told me I would get the results back on Saturday morning, but I knew that she had it, I could see it in her eyes and I had even commented when she was born saying that she looked oriental. Her name Sapphire suited her more than ever now as she was more precious than ever, I had been told in the operating theatre that I wasn't able to have anymore children so Sapphire was my little miracle :-)

Finding out I was pregnant

When everyone had told me that life began at 40 I never imagined that I would be giving birth to new life. I had always wanted another child but as a single parent to 2 other girls Summer who is now 12 and Harmony who is 10 (11 next month) I had decided that I was too old to have another child and with Summer and Harmony being the age they were, starting again was a scary thought. I had just spent seven years doing my honours degree in child care and finally getting my Early Years Professional status, I loved my job which was managing a local pre school. My life was perfect and I had got to where I wanted to be.
In the April I found out that I was pregnant, I went through all different emotions, my main thought was about what other people would think. I knew that I could manage and their was no other option in my mind but to have the baby, I was scared to say the least.
I went for all the tests including the blood tests to see if my child had down syndrome, I had my results back of 1 in 200 chance. I just thought that anyone could be that one and no matter what I would have my baby so I didn't have the anmio test.
I was booked in for a cesarean on the 29th December because my other 2 daughters had to be by cesarean too.
The pregnancy was hard and I had morning sickness for the first time, I was so big that I felt like the baby was hanging out quite alot of the time, obviously it wasn't :-). I really did feel my age. I moved house at about 30 weeks pregnant as a bigger house came available.  I took it as both my girls wanted their own rooms and it wouldn't have been possible in the house we were in.
I had so much support throughout my pregnancy from my family, children and friends. I could never thank them enough.

I am going to have to blog off now as I need to grab sleep so that I can function in my old age with all the night feeds :-)