Introducing Our Second Baby
If you’ve been following my blog and social media, you’ll know that we were due to have a second baby in June. Right around the time Austin was due to turn three. Well, I’m pleased to announce that we had a little girl and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
We’ve called our little girl Autumn and she’s absolutely perfect in every way. She actually arrived just over two weeks early, so our June baby actually turned out to be a May baby. But that has worked out well as it means we were really able to celebrate Austin’s third birthday and weren’t stuck in a hospital or trying to juggle a very new newborn.
I had literally only just finished up work that morning when my waters broke, so she really was quite early and unexpected. I had grand plans to go to the garden centre that day and get some new plants for the garden. I’m so glad I didn’t go as that would have been a strange place to go into labour. My husband was at work, so he finished up his work and headed home and we set about getting ready to go to the hospital.
On arrival at the hospital, I was having regular contractions and we were left for quite a while before anyone came to see us. Our baby girl was not hanging about and she was here by natural birth just over 2 hours after getting to the hospital. It was a very different birth to Austin – who was born by emergency c-section after being induced and then getting stuck. She was also back-to-back but she was coming and there was no stopping her! It was quite amazing to be at home working and then just a few hours later cuddling your newborn daughter – especially when they arrive early like that.
She’s settled in well. She’s eating and sleeping really well and seems like a very contented baby so far. Austin has been amazing. He’s embraced his role as the senior and has taken on more independence. He’s also a very kind and caring big brother – spending time bringing Autumn toys, stroking her and always saying good morning or good night. He even brought some of his Thomas the Tank Engine books over to her so he could ‘read’ her stories. He’s hardly shown any jealousy and he’s very good at understanding that Mummy and Daddy need to help Autumn first.
My husband and I feel really lucky to have two gorgeous children and feel like our family is complete now. We’ve both been a lot more relaxed with our newborn baby girl – I think that comes from already being through it with one baby. It’s definitely a juggle with two children, especially when I spend a lot of time feeding Autumn so feel like I can’t do anything else for long period apart from sitting and feeding, but so far it’s been lovely and not as hard as I thought it would be. I might eat my words when my husband goes back to work next week and I’m all on my own with two kids and everything that comes with it. We’ve been lucky with my husband having a lovely long paternity leave agreed – 5 weeks. Although in all honesty, 5 weeks still feels a bit short when they are this little. I know he’s a bit sad about going back to work and not seeing his children for large portions of the day. We’ve had such a nice few weeks whilst he’s been off.
Watch this space as I share how we are getting on as a family of four. Wish me luck!
Read more posts in the Parenting Category