Three weeks today!! It is hard to believe and I gave no idea where the time has gone to. I am still having a ball playing 'babies' and loving just being at home with Josie. The big sisters are still very taken with their baby sister and she is kissed and loved 100 times a day! Its lovely to watch them with her and to see them growing in confidence when holding her and helping me with her.

Josie leads an interesting life....she has already been to her first Managers Dinner, breakfast with Shaun's General Manager, been on her first road trip to PE and Alexandria. She was at grade 3 luncheon yesterday, a Coctail Party tonight and Final Assembly at school tomorrow!! Its amazing how No. 3 just has to fit in with everybody else and learn to 'go with the flow'! She is so good and so 'mellow' though and sleeps happily thru most things. What a blessing!

Josie was one week old yesterday....... and all is well!
She is such a sweetie pie! She is feeding every 3 hours (roughly) and sleeping well in between. The nights have been fine - one or two hectic ones where she has battled to settle but on the whole, we cannot complain!
We visited the clinic on Monday and she has regained her birth weight...really encouraging!
We have also had her hearing tested and all is good and working well on that front.
We are totally blessed by this little bundle!

Day 5.............All is well and we are adjusting to a very neat three hour routine. It was a great night...(yes - believe it or not!) She slept solidly between feeds and fed twice in the night. I am thrilled and feeling much better this morning having had some sleep!

Josie has had some visitors today and we are off on our first outing later......to watch the rugby with some family! Here's hoping they are able to win today!

Day 4....

Just to keep us real, Josie decided to keep me up for a good deal of the night! She seemed to be battling with tummy cramps and was squirming with pain and crying heart-wrenching cries that had me bouncing, rocking and swaying to try and help her releive some 'wind'. An interesting time...and it always seems worse when its dark and everybody else is sleeping.

The beauty of Maternity leave though, is that once all the family were packed off to work and school, I could get back into bed and catch up an hour or two of sleep while Josie slept. Yay!!

I am amazed again at how much time one can spend feeding, burping, dressing, etc the baby....it feels like I do little else in the day at this stage.

It is also wonderful to have a granny around who is taking care of everything I am not getting to.....washing, shopping, feeding the animals, fetching girls etc etc. Yay for grannies!!

I am loving every minute of 'playing babies'.....savouring every minute too as this is the last baby for us!! What a blessing!

Some more pics...

Well...........she is finally here!

I had to be induced on Monday afternoon and after 12 hours of labour, Josie Rae was born on 17 November at 5am. She weighed in at 4.1kg and is 51cm long. She has dark hair and looks very much like Abi did at the same age. She is just adorable!

She has had an interesting life already! After only being in this world for 5 hours, we were put into an ambulance and driven across town to the new hospital!! So she was one of the last babies to be born in the old hospital and one of the first babies to be housed in the new hospital. In additon to that, she has had to have her foot pricked every 3 hours to monitor her blood sugar and she has had her stomach pumped because she swallowed Amniotic fluid! Poor little thing.

But she is coping very well despite all the ordeals and is feeding well and sleeping a lot at this stage.

Her two sisters are obsessed with her and just want to cuddle and hold her. It is too sweet to watch them.

See the photos of our little treasure!

D-Day??

We're in the Labour Ward right now. The sound of a tiny heart is beating in the background and the contractions are gathering momentum. Hopefully Squiggle will arrive soon. All the sms's and calls have been awesome. Sorry can't respond to all!! Kim's contribution to the blog right now is probably not suitable for general consumption but I'm sure she'll post something more moderate and informative tomorrow sometime. Thanks so much to Brilliant family and friends..........

..............and watch this space!!

Well...the 11 November has arrived....the DUE date!! And still no sign of our precious bundle! She is clearly rather comfortable in her mom's tummy and not quite ready to face the world yet!

Its early in the day so I guess that anything could still happen and maybe she will still be one of the 5% of babies who actually arrive on their due dates! Time will tell. Watch this space for the news.

In the meantime, life continues at the normal crazy pace. The photos today are of Abi and Kate at their ballet class - we had an opportunity to go and watch their lesson last week.

One Week to go...........

Its just one week to go to the birth of our third daughter! The actual due date is 11 November, but we realise that she could decide to arrive at any moment now! The nursery is ready, the mom is finished work and relaxing at home and the bag is packed! The BIG WAIT begins! Watch this space for more news about our new addition!