Half Term fun

Still eating fingers, but with cool hair!

Steam Train Ride

Painting art for the newly decorated bedrooms!

Playing Cbeebies and 'Disneyjuniordotcodotuk' - according to Emily


Playing in the Garden - it was a little cold

Fun in the sun at Trentham

All smiles

What a great week we have had.

What a week!

This week Seth has been to Manchester Childrens Hospital to have his corrective surgery. It went well, he is now at home recovering, in fact we are all recovering from it!

He is drugged to keep any pain away and seems to be doing well. He no longer has his wide smile but is perfecting his new smile.

Thank you for your love and prayers, we have been acutely aware of the care we have been shown. Now on with the rest of our lives with Seth repaired and ready for the next chapter.

Time Flies

Well, it has been a while so a quick catch up is probably needed.

Emily has had her first school report. It was great, she is doing well and seems to have embraced learning. She is not so good at following other children's rules or listening to their opinions. I wonder where that comes from? She has been a social butterfly with lots of parties and play dates, it can be tricky balancing family life with her calendar.
She has had her fifth birthday, she got a new bike, hopefully the stabilisers will go over the summer.
Note, her friend's horror as Emily was ;spitting' out the candles!
Joel is great. He is attempting to be toilet trained with some success but not amazing! He found it hard to understand why Seth was getting presents for arriving in the world and Emily was getting them for her birthday, but what about him? Life has hard lessons! We have been to the open evening for his Nursery school, it will be weird to see him in uniform! He has his next cardiology appointment on August 4th. He meets his new cardiologist as our other has moved to another hospital. We hope he cooperates as he like 'Dr Bani'. Joel enjoying a game at Emily's party!
Seth is four weeks old and doing well, or better than he was. He has been in hospital with a urine infection but is picking up. He is on antibiotics until they do some tests to rule out any problems with his digestion system. He doesn't like it as it tastes of aniseed, but he has no choice. We met his plastic surgeon on Thursday; he was very reassuring that his cleft is on the minor side and should repair well. His surgery is scheduled for September 14th, his 3 month birthday, so we have only 2 more months of his 'special lip'. He is sleeping well at night, on the whole, only 2 feeds, but he can be grizzly in the evenings. We are using infacol which seems to settle him and reduce the times of crying.
Jamie is well, he is on the countdown.... only 5 more school days to go. Emily is on the count down only 10 more days to go!

I am on the count down... only 11 more moths to go before back to work!

On another note it is 9.30pm and Jamie has Emily at the out of hours dr as she has been complaining of a sore ear! Hope they will be home soon with an Emily who is not in pain.

The wonders of technology

This week we met our baby! It was really quite amazing. we had 4D scans to see the extent of the cleft as well as an opportunity to see beyond his cleft and remember that we have another son arriving in 12 ish weeks! It is very weird for us, to know the gender of our baby but also to be able to see him and to notice that the parts of his nose that seem unaffected... looks remarkably similar to Emily and Joel! We think he is really cute! This week is a busy week with a midwife appointment, a consultant appointment as well as dentist appointments for the whole family. - You have got to love the NHS!

So, we are well, I am ballooning and blooming, feeling much better, although work is exhausting. Joel is excited that the garden is drying out after a long, wet winter so he can get out to play football. (I am pleased about this too as we have broken light shades, vases, cups and other fragile things in the lounge and kitchen!) Emily is going to the theatre to see our neighbour in Beauty and the Beast as well as her Ballet performance this Sunday... and Jamie is busy practising to play music with his friend Charles in a Tamil band!

Only 3 weeks til the Easter break, so that means 8 weeks of work left before Maternity leave... but there are bank holidays in there and I only work 3 days so you can do some maths... it is not long to go!

Thanks for love, prayers and kindness... we appreciate all that is said and unsaid.

Tuesday has come and gone

.... and we have more information. We hoped that this scans at St Mary's would confirm what the sonographers thought last Thursday. That Baby's palette is intact, as is his nose.

Sadly, that is not the case. He has a unilateral (one gap) cleft lip and palette. It is average in size and it does goes the full way up to his nostril and his nose is affected. His palette is damaged so feeding will be that little more complicated but the consultant is confident that all can be fixed with a minimum of two surgeries.

We are disappointed that it is as severe as it is, we had hoped that it would be only his lip, but now we really do have to consider speech difficulties, eating challenges and other hurdles too.

We are also very, very aware of the kindness of others, the pain and sadness that this brings. On the other hand we so many are excited to meet him and give cuddles. So form a queue... and be patient as June feels very far away.

Something to make you smile.

I picked Emily up form our childminder after our hospital appointment.
JA: we saw the baby dr today
E: Did he make my brother better?
JA: No, but when he is born.
E: What did he say?
JA: Well, your brother has a hole in his lip, but he also has a hole in his nose and mouth.
E: Mummy, there are holes everywhere! He is a holey baby!
JA: (Laughing) yes he really is!
E: But mummy, my baby brother is holey and Joel is holey, why am I not holey?
JA: I don't know Emily, we are glad you are not holey!

We are smiling, although we are hurting; we are laughing although we are weeping; we are praying and know that God is supporting us through people, friends and family and in silence too.

Round two

Well, the facial scans...

Where do I start? I suppose by saying that Jamie and I are hurting. Our little wriggly one, our much longed for and awaited one, our son... is going to be more unique than we thought. We eventually, after much walking up stairs, drinking sugary juice, jumping up and down... saw his face. He was still coy and at times pressed against my placenta but we have conclusive evidence that he has a cleft in his lip. A gap where both halves of his face have not fused together. We do not know how large, or how deep, we do not know if it affects his nose or palette.

We need more evidence so it is back to the children's hospital for round two of high level specialist scans.

What we do know is that we have been entrusted to look after this little boy..that he arrives into a world were vanity and the seeking of perfection is important. But he also arrives into a world where he is loved and celebrated. Where his choices are like any other; they just come after a bumpy journey for the first year or so.

We are anxious, we await these tests and hope that he cooperates and does not have his hands over his face. We go to Leeds for 4D scans at Easter to have high resolution images to see if that can guide his consultant prior to his birth. If not... we just wait for him to arrive in June, and then he will show us his face and we can work out what we and you and the NHS can do to help him.

We don't pretend that this is easy to handle. We already have Joel, his heart is still repairing, he is not at the end of his journey. Emily is an outgoing, busy 4 year old and into the mix we welcome a boy who needs a lot of immediate care. We would not have chosen this, but we have been chosen to be his parents and we look forward to meeting him.

So... we wait and pray. We pray for peace of mind. Peace of heart and soul. We pray for sleep in the long and sometimes short night. We pray for those who make decisions on our behalf, on our son's behalf. We pray for the staff who will care for him and help him. We pray for our families and friends as they hurt with us, journey with us, laugh and weep alongside us. We pray for Emily and Joel as we try to prepare them for a new brother. We pray that this little one will enter the world knowing that God made him and gave him to us to care for him.

We are grateful for all who have sent messages or called or just smiled. Hopefully we will have more information on Tuesday.

Sunny Autumn Days

Days out at Dunham Massey and Crow's Wood at Lyme Park, complete with new winter hats and fleeces!

School Days

Emily started school last week. We can't believe it is time for uniforms and black shoes already! All is well so far but she is on half days until 27th! We are adjusting to the rhythms of term, Joel starts at our new childminder tomorrow- hope that goes well.

It has been a while... and it will take a while to read this one!

It is 2 weeks until the end of our summer break and we have nearly finished the DIY. The conservatory is done, we just need to save for two pieces of furniture. We all love it, it is a great place to play, read and look out into the garden. It is even a good place to do school work!

The loft has had its fourth and final coat of paint and all it needs is some blinds on the windows so that when we need to sleep in it (in two weeks) the sun won't blind us!

The weather has been pretty unpredictable so we have had fun in our 'lounge cinema' complete with beds, popcorn and blankets. We have also popped out to visit Stan at Manchester Museum and have been to feed the ducks at Woodford Park Garden Centre. Sun would be nice so that we could enjoy our own garden a bit more.

We have been on holiday with friends on the Isle of Wight. Our god daughter is 11 and about to start high school, it was fun spending a week with her and her family. It is bizarre that the tiny little baby we were holding all those years ago is now holding our toddler's hand and playing with him in the sea! The sun shone for most of the time, we played on the beach, picniced a lot and had a fun time. We stopped at Longleat and had a great time at the Safari Park. Our kids love animals so it was a fab thing to do. Emily was beside herself at the thought of meeting Sportacus and Stephanie as well as holding a millipede! Joel enjoyed the train ride and the safari boats looking for sea lions and hippos!

Joel has had his second birthday. He got a scooter and a football net as well as fire trucks, rockets, animals and books. He even got a personally addressed and signed copy of Cave Baby - the new Julia Donaldson book! I am so excited for him - thank you Auntie Nic and Uncle David! We went to Monkey Forest with the McCulloch tribe and had a fun time with the 140 Barbarary Macques (not sure how to spell them... monkeys will do,).

It is hard to work out where the last 2 years have gone, Joel has been an amazing addition to our clan, he brings so much joy and laughter to our house and has a real love for all things four legged. I am sad to see the baby time go but he will keep us busy in the toddler years as he is as strong willed as his sister and Mummy! ( He also has a great thowing action like his Daddy, but sadly it is not just balls that he likes to throw!)

Well 2 weeks left, we are off to Greenbelt - a Christian arts and music festival. It is the first time we have camped since our America Trip in 2003 and the first time with 2 children. It is only for 2 nights..... I will let you know how it went. It is also results day for Jamie on Tuesday. He will find out how the students did in their exams and how his department has performed this year. Emily, Joel and I are going to our church kids club - the theme is super heroes. I don't plan to dress up in a cat suit! My parents arrive for a dessert afternoon with friends and family to celebrate Joel and Jamie's birthdays. A little late for JoJo but lots of people are away in August!

Then, before we know it, the 5 weeks that I have longed for since Christmas are done and I am meeting my new class of 32 Year 6 children on Wednesday 8th Sept after 2 days of Inservice training. Before that, I need to successfully convince a very adament 4 year old that she needs to wear black shoes to school and not pink ones. I have tried all summer and failed but this week I am biting the bullet! Wish me luck!