Sat 30th March 11.04pm

 The date and time of my title marks the moment my beautiful daughter gave birth to my beautiful grandson. He is absolutely gorgeous and I LOVE HIM! 

He was due on the 28th but was ok where he was. She had been for a sweep from the midwife two days apart and was 1-2cm on the first and 2-3cm on the second and ‘stretchy’. ( makes me wince! )

I broke up from school on Maundy Thursday 28th and we drove up on Good Friday morning. 

When we got there - the midwife had told her to keep active as her hind waters were leaking so we walked the dogs at a favourite haunt and then once home, she bounced on the big gym ball she had. We had chippy tea which was lovely and all went to bed. Up bright and early I was on Saturday, busy knitting a little hooded jacket as I thought the cardi I knit was going to be too small as they had predicted he weight 8lb 11oz at her final growth scan at 39 weeks. 

Anyway all along I have been convinced it was a girl. Convinced. So I’d done the girl version. It’s Irish moss stitch and I was on my third front. Third because I had gone wrong on my first attempt flipping between pages of the pattern - started the left front for a girl which you had to continue as left front for boy from ** to ** - if you knit, you will know what I mean. But I’d done left front then Co to her as right front which I was baffled at the time because it didn’t make sense but I battled on. New pattern so yanno, was going with it. 

Started again. One side finished. Started the third, went wrong! Had knitted the same side twice! 

Normally I would have turned it over but there’s no bands! Anyway I am now an expert in Irish moss stitch. 

So

Saturday morning she came down stairs saying her waters had broken - no pains so she’d rung the hospital and they told her to lie on her side for 2 hours and then call them back. 

Two hours passed. No pains. Rang them and they said to go in to get checked. This was about 10am. 

They came back. To get her hospital bags! Half an hour later off they went leaving me and the HG all of a dither! We walked Bluebell and Freddie round the local park. They both had a frolick in the stinky ducking and got shouted at by a barnacled goose. They got shouted at by a none barnacled me and put back on their leads! 

Back at the house and hosed off. The HG did some jobs round the house they wanted doing and I sat and knit and washed and waited! She was great - she texted updates not that much updated and indeed what transpired was almost a repeat performance of when I had her! 

She wasn’t progressing despite strong contractions, epidural, no progress, off for c section. The only difference being her epidural never wore off like mine because they didn’t keep her waiting as long as me. She was an emergency in the end - smash and grab and as the HG has kept telling me this week really really traumatic and how poorly I was after. My memories are vague and none existent of her first two or three hours. 

But here they seem to be much better at their care and she went to theatre with her beau and more slice and gently lift a perfect little baby boy was born at 11.04pm 

( she was born at 10pm ) 

He weighed 9lb 8oz ( she weighed 9lb 7oz )

There was a delay between them telling us what they’d had but both the HG and I had said all day that all along we said she was having a girl but we’d changed our minds and decided strongly on a boy! 

Anyway meet Baby GS for anonymity ! Some of my lovely regular readers are now fb and insta friends so will know his name! 

He’s had jaundice like she did so had been in hospital with mum and dad ( dads can stay 24 hours !! ) and is able to

Come home today! 

So the HG been spring cleaning the house that was tidy and clean to start with and that I spring cleaned yesterday!! 

We wait! 

Love from Nanna Rachel!! 

Baby update with 6 weeks to go

 

The wait is unbearable for the HG. For me it is zooming by so fast. Mum to be is blooming nicely. She’s a lovely big round bump and she’s sent me videos of that magical happening of the visible movements of baby. My sister drove my mum and I over for the ( new fangled these days ) baby shower. Her best friends had taken the reins and organised it. It was at the South Causey Inn if anyone knows it. We’ve eaten there a few times. It’s a lovely big sprawling destination pub that does weddings and occasions as well as traditional pubness! 

It gladdened my heart and soul to see she is so loved dearly by all her friends. There were 22 of them! She had expressed that she was not expecting or wanting gifts but if people wanted to, then they were invited to bring a copy of their favourite childhood story, to write a message in it, to start off their own library. I didn’t buy her anything because I don’t believe in baby showers ha. I’ve already been buying little bibs and bobs when I’ve seen them in the sale and not forgetting we bought her the excruciatingly expensive travel system! 

Anyway, what I did gift to her was the baby record books I’d had when she was born. There were two. I’d diligently filled them in until she was probably walking! We used to use double print or triple print photos - you’d send your film away plus a cheque or postal order - remember those!!!!- and you’d get your photo plus a smaller print back and we used the smaller ones in these books or to give to relatives! 

( Poor child of mine number 2, Mr 26, I think had a book but it was nowhere near as filled in as Miss 29! )

Anyway I also gave her the record book from the baby clinic too. Mr 26’s was one of the new ‘red book’ style. Her’s was just a paper book. 

We had afternoon tea. They brought it out on tiny little picnic tables. I say tiny- they were huge. I gasped at how much there was between two only to double gasp when I discovered it was one each! Needless to say xtra boxes were provided to bring things home! It was one of the best Afternoon Tea’s I’d tasted. There was a warm cheese and onion quiche that was divine. The bread was fresh and soft. The fillings were generous. There was cheese and grapes, macarons, raspberry buns, lemon meringue, divine chocolate tiffin, scones, sausage roll, a huge chocolate chip cookie, chocolate mousse tart and then the friends had organised a baby shower cake too! There were games of guess the baby. A little hopes and dreams and a-z baby names booklet to fill in for her to keep. I started off the names sensibly but think the sugar rush from the cake or prosecco sent me giddy and I went rogue and completed the rest with comedy names! 

Her friends had organised those little Polaroid cameras and each guest had a picture taken with mum to be and it went in a little guest book keep sake with a message. There was also a surprise video message collection that her friend had organised in secret! That made us all tear up a bit. It was a wonderful day. 

This was the first point in all of this that made me sad she lives away from me. I know her mum in law loves her and is such a wonderful mum to her too - to be fair she is spoiled by her - she’s been and done the garden, decorated for them and used to take her a cup of tea in bed every morning when they lived with them for a while. I’d not do the tea thing! But I am wallowing and allowing myself to do so because I am two hours away. 

She has a great family support from his family. Her work friend and uni friends are an amazing bunch of wonderful souls and her school friends from here made it over too. We will go over as much as we can and we also have a halfway meeting point set up at Carlisle for impromptu days where it’s only an hour and a bit each for us to travel to it. 

I’ve been busy knitting and in my last post I alluded to it. She requested a Pregnancy Temperature Blanket. Now I’d heard of Temperature Blankets before and my old school friend has made one for last year but in crochet. Now I can crochet a little bit. I don’t love it as much as knitting - so I decided to knit it. Basically you choose colours of wool to match the daily temperature recorded. It took us ages to fully choose and eventually after much debate and photos back and forth between us and at an eye wateringly cost I ordered the wool. I mocked up using paper the finished estimated size ( now I know how much I UNDER estimated ) and decided on 132 stitches - wish I’d done a few more but the internet seemed to agree and what I seem now to be making in essence is a super long striped scarf…..or stair carpet! It won’t be as thin once off the needles obviously but we’ve decided I’m going to sew it folded in half so it’s warmer and smaller! I had planned on backing it with soft fabric. The HG said I should restart it and  double the stitches. After telling him my own suggestion involving long runs off short piers and the fact that the blanket would cost over £100 in wool, he now keeps his opinions to himself! So here’s some photos to share the progress thus far. Annoyingly they have not come out in order! But you get the jist! 

Mum to be’s idea

We did eventually made the temperature gauge smaller to allow for more stripes! 

This is what £60 of wool looks like! I bought some for a little jacket project too. 

Using an old diary for the notes so ignore the October! 

My estimate!! Ha! 

Originally planned on white border - I didn’t like it! So did two starts….

It does keep me warm as I knit! 

Love the cooler shades. 

Of course they don’t happen in the nicely graded colour way so next time I wouldn’t be so stressy over it! I’d also use reds! But Madam didn’t want reds. 

That’s about half done! The deep gingerbread stripe is their week away in Cyprus 30C* daily! 

 I also decided as it is being folded in half I would not be sewing in the ends. The get a smooth colour change I knitted it in stocking stitch just one row each of k and p. Maybe I’d do it differently next time! Maybe I would crochet it and then it would fit a double bed! 

When looking through for photos I found this one of Bluebell carrying her Christmas  frog toy about and it made us laugh like drains at the time! 

Love from 

Rachel *Nanna to be* Radiostar xx