mmmmwah!

the hubs always accuses me of turning the little thing into a 'mommy clone'. like when she insists on dipping her croissant into her hot milk (so french), or when she refuses to go in the car seat without her sunglasses (well, that's obvious).

but today i saw evidence that she is indeed picking up some unexpected mannerisms. when i asked her for a kiss she leaned over, kissed the air somewhere far left of my cheek and said, very definitely, "mmmmmmmwah!".

not so much a clone of me as already outclassing me. my one and half year old is air kissing like a fashionista.

help! my husband still fancies me ...

yes, it's true. my husband still fancies me. and i'd probably rather he didn't, right now.

i've told him that 10 days after the birth of a child is not the best time to come on to your wife - he agrees with the logic but says he can't help wanting to catch up on all the sex we missed when i was pregnant.

oh god.

despite the jokiness of our exchanges there is a (for me) frightening sub text. from my research into how women feel about sex after childbirth, we fall into two very different camps.

the first group of women (oh, lucky them), think nothing of breaking the six week ban on post natal sex. 'dying to try it out' and 'horny as hell' were two descriptions of how these women feel about sex.

for the other group of women (including me), it's a kind of 'never would be too soon' approach to sex. add this to the fact that the hubs expects us to be having the rigorous, physically unforgiving athletic kind of sex we had as new lovers. oh dear.

we have what nigel, our therapist, would call 'a gap in expectations'. now ain't that the truth.

luckily, i feel in much better shape physically and mentally than when i had the first little thing. but my reluctance to get back in the saddle as soon as possible is nevertheless there.

and damn, my husband still fancies me. isn't it cruel the way the world works ?

what happened next

so then we spent a few dreamy minutes gaping at our little boy in the delivery suite.

the midwives rushed around talking about placentas and stitches (to which i totally switched off) and talking about a 'heightened heart and respiratory rate'. it was clear they were discussing baby who hadn't yet let out the piercing scream that all newborns need to clear their lungs. instead he was still his funny just born blue colour and making an awful grunting sound as he tried to breathe.

i held him in my arms and was aware of myself almost screaming to no-one in particular "is he ok ? is he ok? is he ok?".

before long he was in special care, wired up to an intravenous drip, taped up to monitors and under close monitoring. with me in a wheelchair (no use of legs due to the earlier epidural) and him in his incubator, i was in tears immediately.

he spent four days in the unit, steadily getting stronger. the drip came out on the day we came home. he still has to go for a check up on his heart in a month or two.

in the meantime, he's on medicine to prevent jaundice - a consequence of our mismatched bloods crossing over during his birth.

now he's home, i realise how much our goalposts shifted during those days in hospital. sleepless nights ? not a bother. endless nappies ? but he's so cute. hard to look after two young children? not when i love them so much.