Wednesday 8 August 2007

Shopping....again!

Elizabeth has a friend staying over today and they wanted to go shopping (!). I wouldn't mind but we've been to Lakeside twice in the last week and we're going with my sis on Friday, but off we went again. It was quite handy though as the girls didn't want me around with them, they wanted to go off and do their own thing. So off they went, with a little money in their pockets, whilst I wandered around on my own picking up a few pressies for Liz and friends we're off to stay with in Dublin the week after next. I arranged to meet the girls in a coffee shop so, half hour before they were due back, I bought the Evening Standard and settled down with a coffee and the paper - very civilised, and actually, quite relaxing.

It's been quite a relaxing evening all round. John's still at work (he's working until 10pm this evening) and the girls are up in Lizzie's room watching a DVD. It's normally a lot more hectic here. I haven't got just one child. John and Lizzie, when they get started are like two 5 year-olds!

While walking around the shops today I noticed quite a few pregnant woman and it's at this time each year that I always think back to my pregnancy and say a prayer of gratitude that I eventually managed to have a child. Elizabeth will be 13 on Sunday, and 14 or 15 years ago there's no way I could imagine that I would eventually have a teenager. I'd been through so much to get pregnant (numerous surgeries, masses of hormone treatments, and three attempts at IVF) that by this time in August 1994 I couldn't actually see past 12th August - the date set for the ceasarean. It's difficult to explain really, but it had taken so long to get to this point that in my mind, even though I had a big bump, I couldn't actually see us with a baby and a growing family. It seems silly, but I felt as though September 1994 wasn't going to arrive. Somehow the world was going to stop and it would prove my instinct true. Even when I was lying on the operating table outside theatre I told the surgeon to make sure that he didn't have to put me out as I needed to be awake. I felt that if I was asleep they could just have taken a baby off a shelf (!?!) and I needed proof that she'd come out of me! See, Mrs, I'm as mixed up as you.

Oh, aren't I silly one! And I haven't even been on the wine!

2 comments:

Mrs said...

Oh Chris.

Just caught up - you Slimmer of the Week, you (!). Very good!!! It's all going on, isn't it?!

Lizzie's birthday - a big moment for her, for you and for you and John. For all sorts of reasons. I love the fact you say a prayer of gratitude.

I hope things are ok with the fatty meal tests?!?!?!

I know we haven't met Lizzie but please send her our love for her special birthday. It's a rite of passage, no two ways about it.

As we're all realising with this diet malarkey, it isn't the individual meals that are our undoing - it's the little extras (and eating when we are not physically hungry) that add up over time. So, enjoy the celebrations, choose wisely and enjoy!

Take care. Big kiss.

Mrs Lxxxxxxx

Lesley said...

That's great - thinking back to when you were pregnant and remembering what you were feeling back then! As one who is just starting on that journey and wondering whether it will happen for us or whether we'll have the decisions about tests and ops and IVF etc to face I'm so pleased that it worked out well for you.

Enjoy her birthday - girl to woman time isn't it?

Lesley x