I have 5 minutes to write, yay :)

Gisele Aurelia is now 12 weeks old, she's a giggly, happy baby, an absolute blessing.

She was 10 days overdue and was born on November 30th at 7:52pm
Not the best labour, but she wasn't distressed at any stage. I wish things had gone differently, but I tried.
When she was born, she was screaming, they handed her to me and I said "Hello beautiful" and she looked at me and stopped crying, it still makes me teary when I think about it. She made baby noises and held her head up right away. I didn't care that she was covered in blood and vernix, I kissed her little face, I fell in love with her squooshed little face, she was perfect, there were no problems.

She was a teeny tiny 2.7kgs (5 pound 15) but 52cm long (20.5 inches) and she's been growing and gaining weight quite rapidly, last check up at 8 weeks she was already over 4kg and 58cm.
She's obviously doing a whole lot better being outside of me :)

She sleeps so beautifully, always has. She either sleeps through the night or gets up once at 4 or 5am for about 10 minutes. During the day when she shows tired signs, I put her in her bassinet and she settles herself to sleep (no tears, no dummies, and have never used controlled crying) We're just lucky that she is an easy baby. People have said to me "it's because you're older..." etc etc, I say bull to that, I'm not doing anything differently to what I did with my other two daughters, Gisele is just a different baby who likes letting her mummy and daddy sleep :)





The girls adore their little sister and they are a big help to me, I'm very lucky to have them.

The only thing my beautiful baby wont do is take a bottle of expressed milk! She gives me filthy looks when we try and give her a bottle. I'm going to have an awful lot of Avent products listed on ebay soon lol

Things I have learnt about Gisele, she likes sitting in the water at the beach, she prefers showers to baths, she loves to giggle, she's very determined - she has been pulling herself up to standing by hanging onto our fingers since she was 6 weeks.. we were so stunned that we videoed her doing it. She wants to move, she pulls herself along the floor. She sees something on the ceiling which fascinates her and she has conversations with it (Guardian Angel or fairies maybe?) And she makes my day when she smiles at me.

And now she's awake :)

Not breech anymore! Due date today.. But not going to happen in this heat

First off, please have a look at the photos my beautiful daughter has posted on her blog of her yr 10 formal, she looks gorgeous!

We've had a bit of an "emotional roller coaster" (we just lurve that little saying) in recent weeks.
Baby decided it preferred being breech, so I tried doing everything to turn it. Moxibustion sticks, which is Chinese accupressure, moxibustion sticks are long sticks of mugwort that you light and hold next to your little toes for about 15 mins, it's supposed to stimulate the baby moving, I also swam lots, put my knees on the lounge and hands on the floor, and stuck ice packs on the baby's head.

My wonderful Obstetrician did two ECVs (external cephalic version) which involved me going to hospital, having a fetal monitor put on my belly for 20 minutes then two doctors.. one scanning.. and the other turning the baby from the outside and then another 20 minutes of monitoring. When I first decided we needed to do what we could to turn our baby, googling 'turning breech baby' inevitably showed up with stories of women choosing (being 'encouraged') to have caesareans over trying ECV because of "the risks with ECV" and because they're told that if they've had caesareans then they can't have an ECV. I chose not to read any of those and to just read about non invasive ways of turning the baby and to have faith in my OB, if he thought I could have one, then I could and I did, first one was successful, but the baby turned again the next day, which I'll admit was quite distressing because I want to try for a natural delivery without too many complications. My OB called me on Monday to see how things were going (Have I mentioned how much I love this guy) told him the baby had turned again, so he asked me to come back in that afternoon to try another ECV, that one was unsuccessful. BTW the ECVs did NOT hurt! they were just like having a nice tummy massage.

So Tuesday we did moxibustion again and at Wednesdays check up, the baby had finally turned head down!! and has so far stayed that way. Even though my OB is quite happy for me to try and have this baby naturally if it is breech (he's a rare OB) I am so happy that being head down will make this a little easier for me.
40 weeks pregnant and the baby turned, so so far I've avoided an unnecessary caesarean :)

We're ready for our new little one, but if it can come on a day that isn't so hot, then that would be great.

Married life has been wonderful, I adore him, he's very good to us. I hope he'll be happy with our 6 months of summer, cos I know I wont be, I'll try and not be too lizzy borden-ish (he thinks I'm like her when I'm hot.. could be right)

I guess my next post will be introducing our baby, can't wait :)

Glen and I got married! and I promise to never take advantage of him again :)

Glen and I were married on Friday November 6th just after 10am at Zenith Beach near Nelson Bay... and Glen had no idea it was going to happen :)

It was too easy to be sneaky

When Glen's visa was granted a few weeks ago, I decided to start the wedding plans again which had been cancelled months before. I went to Port Stephens and my friend Kylie and I went looking at beaches, I knew it had to be Zenith Beach which was the first one we looked at, there's a track leading to the beach, the headland and water were beautiful, it was the perfect place for us, and the only time it wouldn't be protected from the wind was if there was a southerly, and I was assured they rarely come in the morning there.

While standing there looking at the ocean I decided that I was going to make it the day we were
supposed to get married and that I would keep it a secret from Glen and ask him to marry me at the end of the track when we got to the sand. That afternoon Kylie suggested a hot chocolate at Merret's at Peppers Anchorage while waiting for our table I flicked through their lunch menu, they had a set lunch for $29 for 2 courses, Perfect! This was where the 'reception' would be. We spoke to a wonderful lady there who helped me with the bookings and planning. A round table for 12 in the glass room.

Now for the rest of the planning...My beautiful girls got their dresses at Tree of Life, pink for A and blue for B, I thought the dresses needed something else, and while I slept that night I remembered I had two over dress wrap thingies with embroidery on them, in pink and blue, and they matched perfectly!I had a white dress that I bought from tree of life last year, I love it but I thought I should get something new, I found a long white dress at a surf shop which fit my belly. Shoes... pink, white and blue thongs :) mine and A's had diamontes on them.

I got an invitation pack from America when I was there last, which I absolutely loved, I did the printing and sent them with maps to the beach and to Peppers, and a cover note to let people know it was a secret and to not mention it to Glen.

To get Glen to go to Port Stephens for a few days I told him that because we were supposed to be
married on November 6th, I'd probably be a bit down so we should go away for a few days to relax and take our minds off it. And because Glen is so sweet, he agreed, he'd do almost anything to make me happy. I booked us into Peppers Anchorage for three nights.

When Glen arrived in Australia, we layed in bed and went through the celebrant's folder of readings, vows, ceremonies etc, even though I was doing all the planning, I wanted Glen's input so he would love the ceremony too, I told him that we should go through it to get an idea for when the time came for us to start planning.

As for Glen's clothes... I never knew buying clothes for a guy would be harder than buying clothes for
teenage girls! We went everywhere looking for something that I liked, yes I had to like it :)There are some truly ugly men's clothes!I finally decided that he should wear the shorts I had bought him from a surf outlet store because every other pair of shorts I saw were just not right, we got him a nice shirt to go with them and he got his good going out black thongs to match :)

The Tuesday that we had a 38 degree day, I sat up til 3am writing out our ceremony for the celebrant, and I am grateful that he didn't change anything.

I called Glen's mother to ask for her blessing for our wedding, I knew she would say yes, but because no one from Glen's family could be there, I wanted everything to be ok with her and with Glen's brothers. I also asked her to write something for B to read at the wedding from Glen's family. She was very happy for us, but very sad that she couldn't be there, which I completely understood, The following evening on the phone, she read out a letter for us, I wrote her words down and we both cried.

I'd started the paperwork in March before we found out we were pregnant, so all we needed was Glen's signature. The celebrant was a touch worried because I wasn't going to ask Glen to marry me before the actual day, apparently having an engagement ring, being pregnant, and spending a fortune on a prospective spouse visa isn't enough to prove that Glen actually want to marry me. I told Glen that while we were in Port Stephens we should go and see the celebrant to finalise the paper work and then we could get married anytime we wanted to. Glen was interrorgated for a while about when he wanted to get married (he said as soon as possible, that we'll just have to organise for my girls to be there :) etc etc etc so after 2 hours with the celebrant, we were finally able to have some time together, and Glen still didn't know he was going to get married the next day, even though the celebrant asked him if he'd want to get married at 10am the next day.

I had to be very careful when we got to the Anchorage, I had been told that the welcome board would be updated in the afternoon to have a congratulations message for Glen and I, so I had to make sure Glen didn't go to the reception desk. When I had to call home and my dad, I had to lie and say that our room didn't have very good phone coverage so I had to leave, then there were the million texts I had to lie about, I absolutely hate when you're with someone and all they do is text, I had to lie to Glen and say there was a small problem at home the girls needed help with, and I felt terrible, but there WAS a small problem. Everytime we were in Coles or near the florist, we'd look at their flowers and talk about what would be nice to get, I said pink and white roses would be beautiful and we bought ribbon to be wrapped around them, come the wedding eve, for the first time that we saw, the florist didn't have a single rose!! and coles only had deep red and some pink. After about 45 mins of texts and sly phone calls, the girls got white lisianthus and the pink roses for me, and some red roses for them. They did beautifully, I'm very proud of how they handled everything.

Glen and I couldn't choose rings, so Bianca made some, his is made from silver beads and Bianca
surprised me by making mine out of freshwater pearls, very beautiful.

About 5 o'clock that afternoon, it started raining, that was ok, I wasn't worried yet.I was planning on doing my hair that night, doing beautiful curls with my ghd, and then having it all perfect
for the morning, I am hopeless, nothing I did worked, it was ok though because I hoped a miracle would happen and my hair would be ok lol

When I woke up at 4.30am, and saw it was still raining, I was hopeful it would stop. The texts started again, my hair was a shocking mess, the rain got heavier and I decided I needed some heavy duty hair spray which I haven't used in years. I told Glen I was going to coles, but first I sat in the car and called the girls so they could check the radar online for me and I cried, even though they assured me it would be ok, they tried making me feel better by saying the cupcakes and flowers looked beautiful. I then called mum and dad and they were happily telling me it would be ok because rain never stopped our family doing anything, and they were right, we'd have bbqs, go for walks, rain wasn't a problem to us. I'd only had 5 hrs sleep so I was a bit tired and emotional.

I got my stuff from coles included some tim tams in the basket and cheered myself up, I was going to marry Glen, I'd loved him for 11 yrs, rain didn't matter.

The celebrant called, he said I should think about changing the place for the wedding, but I refused, he said there was a downpour coming, but I had faith.

Back at the hotel.. my hair was still a scary mess, but I tried to fix it, hair lacquer helps :) I put some little silver flower clips in my hair and we got ready, I told Glen we were going somewhere nice for breakfast, but he didn't question why we were getting so dressed up.

At about 9:45am the rain stopped :)

At 9.55am (the wedding was to be 10am) More texts.. "your parents aren't here!" wtf?

Then a text from B "we stopped for breakfast, now they've stopped for a toilet break, I'm going insane!"

I was feeling sick with nerves, I told Glen that the manager at Coles had suggested we should have a look at a beach that would be nice to get married on, so that was my excuse as to why we weren't going to breakfast just yet, I pretended to get a little lost, drove the long way, only to pull up to the car park to see my mum, dad, Uncle Doug and Aunty Sue walking down the track towards the beach!!! Glen thankfully didn't notice them.
So I had to fake some pregnancy issues so we could sit in the car longer, that part was easy, I was
shaking with nerves, so I said I was feeling light headed too, we waited about 10 minutes and then
started walking down to the beach..
It still wasn't raining, the wind was blowing southerly (which I was told wouldn't happen lol) my hair was an absolute shocking mess again, but what could I do, I didn't realise it would be that windy.

We walked down the path and I could see everyone, Kylie and my dad were to the left of us taking photos of me about to ask Glen to marry me, and everyone else were about a hundred metres away waiting, Glen still didn't notice lol

This is how the conversation at the end of the path went.

Me...."Glen what would you say about getting married today?"

Glen.."Do you like this beach?"

Me... "Yes, would you marry me today?"

Glen.."We'll have to get everyone up here"

Me pointing to everyone.... "they're already here, see?"

Glen... "oh ... OH"

it finaly dawned on him lol

he kissed me over and over and hugged me and I knew it could rain, and I could be a mess, I could be the size of an albino walrus, and this would still be one of the happiest days of my life :)

The girls came running over to hand me my flowers, they were beautiful, the girls and the flowers.The celebrant came over to speak to Glen alone to make sure I wasn't forcing him into marrying me
And then my girls, Glen and I walked over to everyone to and they were just as happy for us as we were.

The ceremony started with asking permission from A & B

Then an introduction that I wrote about how Glen and I met almost 11yrs to the day (it was actually the
7th November that we met)Allira did the first reading which was an Irish Blessing (Glen has Irish citizenship)

We then had a "sand ceremony" I didn't use coloured sand, we got sand from Merewether Beach and sand from Zenith beach to pour into a bowl.

Bianca then read the second reading which was from Glen's mother, it made Glen very emotional.

Next was our vows and rings, Glen and I both did our vows from the heart, neither of us had anything written down, we exchanged rings, which were beautiful.

We then had a hand blessing which was lovely...

The rain stayed away until we left the beach over an hour and half later, we had dolphins near the shore when were saying our vows and signing the register and there were crows, two animals which are important to me.
Our lunch at Merrets was beautiful, and having only 10 guests was lovely.

Our wedding was perfect for us We stayed at the Anchorage until Sunday, and I think we smiled the whole time

We are so happy, this is where we are meant to be

5 more sleeps! 6 more weeks!

I Love this new photo, I love my compact bump
I am much better,
I have contacted ACE,
I got through a tummy bug which almost had me running to hospital because I couldn't keep anything in, not even water, but it didn't last long and 12 hrs into it I managed to keep water down. Bianca was very impressed at being asked to empty my vomit bucket :)

This year is going so quickly

5 sleeps til Glen gets here!

That comes with it's own little set of excitement and fears
I haven't lived with anyone other than my girls since 2003 and it's been quite nice actually, I like the freedom, but Glen is wonderful when it comes to my needs.
Cooking for him will also be different, I feel like I have to impress him with 50's housewife meals every night, where as a lot of nights here we play surprise chef and grab things out of the fridge and cupboards and cross our fingers that something edible is created. And Glen is a fussy bitch with some foods, doesn't like Indian (one of our favourites) doesn't like seafood (blah blah blah, I can't wait til I can have crab, king prawns and oysters again) and I'm too lazy to cook separate meals so I suppose he'll be making dinner for himself some nights :)
Hopefully he wont miss having high fructose corn syrup in everything.... that was one of my big hates in America, it seems like it's in EVERYTHING
so I'm sure there'll be some little problems as we settle in, but we'll get through them, if not, there are numerous pubs in this town that he can go to :)

6 weeks til due date!
I spent over an hour with my midwife and OB last week and we went through everything. I love how they are willing to listen to my wants during my labour, and are willing to compromise on some of their protocols, which is the opposite of a lot of stories that other women who want VBACs have written about. And my Ob thinks that email I received was ridiculous. He checked my fluid again and the level was 21!!! which is well into normal :)
I have another big scan next week to check the baby's growth etc, but I'm sure it's all good. Baby is probably a little small because of the stress I have put myself through this pregnancy.

I am so excited about my Pregnancy Ritual at Rose Cottage that is coming up, I've never had a baby shower or anything like it, and I know the Ritual will be something special, my girls are excited and one of my closest friends is coming up from Wollongong for it which means a lot to me, but my friend of 28 yrs wont come, which hurts, but it's her choice not to attend.

Lisa and the other ladies at the cottage, I am so grateful for this Ritual, thank you

In a couple of hours there is a baby shower for Glen and I in New York. It's also a going away party for him, but my sister in-law has gone to a lot of trouble to make it about the baby too. Pink and blue m&ms, baby favours etc etc. She's bought Glen a 'new daddy' hat to wear and all the other things they do over there. I really wish the girls and I could have been there for it and then we could have all flown back together, but it wasn't meant to be this time. Glen is playing with his band there too, which I would have LOVED to have seen, he plays guitar, and is brilliant! I got to see them rehearse earlier this year and it was great! Best foreplay ever is watching him play lol
They're going to attempt to hook up a webcam so I can hopefully see what's happening, crossing my fingers that it works.

Back to cleaning out the garage :(
18 yrs of accumulated crap! there's stuff in there that was my ex husbands! that goes straight in the bin :)
Hopefully the car will fit in there sometime this week

P.S It REALLY annoys me that the movie of Where The Wild Things Are is not going to be released in Australia until December 3rd!!!! But opens in America this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yes I know it's all got to do with holidays etc but it still annoys me

xx

Googling and the personal trauma it can cause

NOTE: this was extremely difficult for me to write

I am writing this to get it out, stop having it bottled up, also so I can keep a record.

Googling is a good thing, but when I got an answer that I never thought I would hear, it has caused me nothing but heartache and stress.

I can start by stating the obvious, this hasn't been an easy pregnancy for me, it's one thing after another, horrible morning sickness, severe anemia, gradually increasing high blood pressure and then it being normal all of a sudden, the sciatica which I am seeing an obstetrics physiotherapist for and then the small for dates and Polyhydramnios. I have been asked by midwives at my appts if I wanted to go ACE services at the hospital, which deals with women with antenatal and post natal depression, I keep saying no because I am putting my tears down to Glen not being here and feeling guilty for putting too much on my girls.

It's been difficult for me and I am sure it hasn't been easy for my girls, but they have been an absolute blessing with everything they have done to help make things a bit easier.

When I first got the diagnosis of Polyhydramnios, I was fairly confident that all it meant was excess fluid and that's pretty normal, the small for dates thing concerned me more because Glen is 6'3 and I assumed this little one would be long too, Bianca was 55cm and 7 pound 12, allira was 53cm and 9 pound 3, and everyone says that babies usually get bigger.

So I started googling when I got home. Excess fluid occurs in 1-2% of pregnancies, wow, so I had a 98-99% of NOT having excess fluid, but I fell into the tiny % of women that did get it.
Then I started reading about congenital problems. I felt sick.

I had been assured many times that my baby looks normal, but I had been talked out of an amniocentesis and that is pretty much one of the only ways to be sure of the common problems such as down syndrome. Yes soft markers do show up in ultrasounds, but not all the time. In hindsight I should have had the amnio for peace of mind now.

At this point I was a bit nervous but not a wreck.
I did more googling, specifically small for dates and Polyhydramnios.
I found a website writtten by a director of maternal-fetal medicine in America. He has a list of questions written by women with Polyhydramnios and he takes the time to answer them. Reading through the questions I found a comment that he says smaller babies and polyhydramnios is something to be seriously concerned about as opposed to bigger babies as this is a big indicator that something could be wrong.

So I wrote to him, I gave what I thought would be enough information to hopefully show that everything looked positive.

Hi, I am 37 and now 31 weeks pregnant with my third baby, last week I had a scan because I am measuring large for dates. The scan showed polyhydramnios with a level of 25. There seems to be absolutely nothing wrong with the baby apart from being small for dates, she was measuring as a 28 week baby instead of 30 weeks. We are absolutely 100% sure of when I conceived, so the dates can't be out. I have done the GTT and my levels are fine, so no gestational diabetes. My other two daughters were born at 7 pound 12 and 9 pound 3. I am concerned about her being small when it seems like most people with polyhydramnios have bigger for dates babies. I didn't have an amnio because my NT test had excellent results. I am getting quite upset about this and wondering what could be wrong. Any information you could give me would be wonderful, thank you.

I hoped for a quick reply but a week later there was nothing. Now during the time I waited for a reply I saw my GP who I have been seeing for 16 yrs and my Obstetrician who has women coming from as far away as QLD to see him, and they both said don't worry and I accepted that. My OB did another scan and said my fluid levels hadn't risen so that was a good sign. So after that appointment I felt great, I stopped worrying and felt like my little one is as perfect as I first thought.

But then I got a reply from the Dr in America

To Tania: I am afraid the combination of polyhydramnios, a smal for gestational age baby, and your age scares me a little too. I have seen this situation MANY times where it turned out the baby had an unsuspected chromosomal abnormality such as Down syndrome. If you have not seen a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine, I strongly recommend you ask your doctor to send you to one. Good luck to you and let us know how things turn out.
Dr T

Well... I went from being happy about Glen's Visa approval to an absolute blubbering mess. I was physically sick and my joy at being pregnant went to a feeling of sickness when the baby kicked and moved and I had to take down scan photos because I cried everytime I saw a picture of my beautiful baby. I felt sick thinking about labour and what was going to come out.

All I could think of was this 'expert' said that he'd seen this "MANY" times and there is a problem and not a small problem but a major chromosomal abnormality. I went into panic mode, I tried getting another scan but he's on holidays, I went to see my GP who called the Dr "stupid, stupid stupid" but all I could think of was that I was the stupid one for not getting the amnio I wanted months ago. I tried to see the OB but he was unavailable. I spent days in tears. I didn't want to look at any baby items, here or in shops and when Boo picked up an outfit in Kmart I cried and cried in the store.
My friend Ky begged me to stop googling but I was trying to find an answer that would be different to what he said, and I couldn't find anything that related to small and polyhydramnios.

On Saturday my neighbour asked me how everything was going, and I couldn't help it, I just burst into tears and as she is a midwife I poured it all out to her. She hugged me a lot and said that she has seen many women with a lot of fluid and the most common thing was a Tracheoesophageal Fistula (TEF) which is a swallowing problem and is found and fixed straight after birth, really nothing to worry about. She also asked about my OCD and I said I was a lot better since things in my life had improved, then she asked "are you using any lotions on your body?" and I admitted that I'm not, I don't use sunscreen, I haven't used a moisturiser on my face in months and I rarely even use the special pregnancy lotions that Glen bought me from Belli because I am worried about the ingredients, she pointed out that this is OCD. She asked if I was like this with my last 2 pregnancies and no they were a breeze compared to how I am now. She said that if I am this anxious then I should think about a ceasarean because my labour wont progress.
She asked why I wont go to ACE services and I admitted to her that I am scared that they'll think I'm crazy and take the baby away from me, she cried and hugged me when I said that :(
It's very difficult to admit my reason and she's the first person I've told that that's how I feel.

Even though I promised not to google anymore, I did one more and made it a more Australian search. And I am glad I did, I wanted to know what normal amniotic fluid levels were, and normal ranges from 5-25! so I am on the higher side of normal! Why have I been so worried! I read a lot of stories on forums, for a condition that only occurs in 1-2% of pregnancies there are an awful lot of stories. There were some very sad stories, but the majority were positive stories and practically all of the women had much higher levels than mine!

I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and that the Dr in America was extremely negligent in what he had said to me.

Through this I have tried not to involve the girls too much because I don't want them to be upset because of how I am feeling or because they could think there is something wrong with their new sibling.
But sadly I am resenting Glen at the moment, he gets to continue to live his single baby free life in New York, he goes out every weekend, while I feel forgotten by him and he's able to distance himself from all of this, while I struggle to cope with everything that gets thrown my way.

There's about 6 1/2 weeks to go until I can hold my little one and there'll be no more googling for me

Good News! Visa Approved!!!!!

Just when I thought our case officer had gone on holidays.....

Glen got a call this morning to say his Visa has been approved!

I am so happy! Lots of happy tears

I was so worried that he'd have to go back to New York a few weeks after the baby arrives, so this is the best news that we could have hoped for :)

It's a beautiful day, month, year, life

Thank you for emails from concerned people, I appreciate it.

Quick update on the baby front...
can't believe there's only 7 1/2 weeks to go!!!

I luckily have a brilliant Obstetrician at JHH who took the time to answer my list of questions, he's also very much for vaginal deliveries after cesareans.
He did a quick scan to check my fluid and said that it hadn't increased which is great! And the baby has turned, it's head down and is still extremely active.

We're kind of ready for the baby. Over the years I have hoarded so much stuff that there's no room for the baby or Glen, plus we live in a tiny 2 bedroom flat, I have been cleaning things slowly, but we're getting there, trying to decide whether markets or a garage sale would be the right way to go. Attempting to make room for Glen's stuff in my cupboard is difficult, I have the most gorgeous, ethereal, gothic, feminine, princess, hippy, etc dresses and I am struggling to part with any of them! Hope all he needs to put in there is a couple of shirts and a suit lol

Things are progressing though, I was trying to decide what kind of car seat I should get, and then I got a sheep skinned lined baby capsule for free! Got the pram off ebay, brand new from a lovely lady in Mayfield who I still keep in contact with, there's lots of clothes, just need somewhere for the little one to sleep when it gets home, I have a beautiful antique hooded basinette that I bought when I was pregnant with A, I need to get it out of the garage (yes I said I was a hoarder, I keep everything) and scrub it and keep it in the sun for a while when all this dust and wind settles down. I've got a new tea tree mattress for it, so looks like all I need now is Glen to get here in 18 days 22 hours and 28 minutes and then for labour to start :)

I have been thinking about my life last year, I was abused and struggling to find my strength. Reading a blog post I wrote a year ago and I found this..

A "asked me why I was happy today, I told her that if I spent the morning miserable then that is how I would spend my day and isn't it better to have a happy day"
And this
"I said to my mother "what did I do to deserve to be treated like this for so long?" and straight away I answered my own question, I believe that this is a small dark dead end alley on my path, I was given this because I needed it to move on and find my strength, so I am ok."

I found my strength, with the help of many people. Last year I would never have guessed that within a year I would be engaged to a man I have loved for 11 years, and having a baby.
I can honestly say I have no regrets for what the abuser put me through, because it took that to get me where I am now.

I hope everyone has the happies :)