My backgroud story

Well this is all very new to me but after a few people suggested to me about blogging i thought id give it a go. I do however have one small request to anybody who may read this, that would be; please bare with me, i have NO idea what I'm doing!!!

I suppose a good place to start would be to explain about myself, my life and my family.

I class myself as a bog standard, normal girl (hence 'blog normal gal'). I grew up living in a small town in Dorset with my mum, dad and three siblings. I have two older sisters and a younger brother. We are a close family although my sisters and brother no longer live in the area. My parents still live in the house we grew up in, my eldest sister lives with her husband and three children in Cornwall. My older sister lives in London and my younger brother is in Bristol. I moved to Poole for three years but felt drawn back to the comforts and familiar surroundings of my home town.
I'm now 25 and have been married to my husband Darren (now 33) for 7years. Anybody able to do maths will see i married at the young age of 18. Unusual in this day and age for an 18year old girl to marry but i felt I'd met my soul mate and we decided to marry 2weeks after my 18th birthday. I don't think i will ever regret marrying at a young age, i still strongly believe I've married my soul mate and i still see us being married forever.

A few weeks after our first wedding anniversary we found out we were expecting our first child. It wasn't the most straight forward pregnancy and although i loved the thought that i was growing a tiny person in my tummy i found it hard to enjoy being pregnant. Looking back i think i was probably too young at 19 to be having a baby and this is why i struggled to enjoy being pregnant. We found out at our 20week scan that we were expecting a baby boy. I suffered with SPD (I'll blog about this another day in more detail) in my pregnancy meaning i struggled to move towards the end of my pregnancy so a week before my due date i was induced. After an agonising four days of labouring at 00.01am on Monday 21st August 2006 our healthy 7lb 11oz baby boy was born. We named our son Ethan John. Ethan meaning strong and John after both mine and Darren's dads.

Fast forward a few months to the 26th May 2007 when we found out we were expecting our second child. Again we found out the sex at our 20 weeks scan. This time we discovered we were expecting a girl. I was over the moon!!! A little girl to complete our family. I felt so so lucky to know that i would soon have not only a son but a daughter too. I had a good pregnancy but my baby girl was comfortable being tucked in my tummy and didn't want to make an appearance. 12 days overdue i went into hospital to be induced. I didn't need the long drawn out process of gels etc like i had with Ethan. I had my waters broken and after just a couple of hours at 1.10pm on Wednesday 30th January 2008 our healthy 8lb 8oz baby girl entered the world. We named her Georgina Elizabeth Kleines. Georgina and Elizabeth were just names we liked, but Kleines was my dads mothers name, and my sisters middle name. Unfortunately my dads mum died when dad was just 15 so i felt it was right to carry her name on through the family. As id had such a good delivery and all was well when Georgina was just 3 hours old when we bought her home to meet the family.

We decided that we'd like to move away from our small town and bring our children up near the seaside, so 6months after Georgina was born, just before Ethan's 2nd birthday we moved to Poole. We felt we'd landed on our feet and as a family became closer then ever. I grew as a person and felt i was learning about who i was and became more confident as a mother and a wife. I met some lovely friends through the website 'netmums' and i love them dearly!! I hope i never lose contact with these ladies as they truly are great friends!!!

After just over a year in our new home we realised we were outgrowing the house we lived in so started to look for another house but wanted to stay in the Poole area. We found a 3 bedroom house and moved to the other side of Poole. I loved this house!!! It had a good size garden, huge kitchen, three good sized bedrooms and i got along with our neighbours. I'd found the home we could stay in forever, or so i thought!!!!

Fast forward again to the 29th November 2010 when we discovered we were expecting our third child. I was utterly over the moon but incredibly scared. I felt a million miles from my comfort zone having a baby in Poole so far away from family. How would Poole hospital work in comparison to Salisbury? Salisbury had set a pretty high standard as far as i was concerned with my previous deliveries, how could Poole ever reach my high expectations of care and support at such a special time. All these doubts and concerns troubled me hugely. To add to my worry i felt very alone and isolated. Darren was working away Monday to Friday so I'd go all week with seeing nobody expect my two little beauties. I was 12 weeks pregnant when the dreaded SPD returned that I'd so luckily not suffered in my pregnancy with Georgina. I immediately decided i must be carrying a boy. This pregnancy was tough going though. I felt a single parent stuck on a different planet from the rest of the world. It suddenly hit me that i no longer wanted to live in Poole, so the quest for another house move began.

In march 2011while i was 22weeks pregnant we moved back  'home'. I never thought we'd move back and wasnt completly sure we were doing the right thing, until our first night. I slept like i hadnt slept in ages. I felt 'right'. I cant explain the feeling but i felt comfort like i hadnt felt for a long while. Straight away Ethan started in his new school and Georgina started at preschool. They both settled in brilliantly and made new friends with ease. I was so proud of the way they coped with such a transition. At last we had found a home that we were going to stay in forever to bring our family up in. The decorating task comenced. We had decided we werent going to find out the sex of this baby, afterall we had one of each sex so it made no difference either way to us. We had never had a nursery before so put Ethan and Georgina in a room together, painted one side pink and one side blue. They are so so close and love sharing a room. Our new arrival had been nicknamed 'smudge', so the next room to sort was smudges room. We painted it the neutral tone of yellow with winnie the pooh freeze, this would suit whatever sex we were gifted with.

I was 9 days overdue when i finally laboured after being induced again. This was another quick labour of just 1hr and 40minutes yet it was the most traumatic time of my life yet. It was fairly painfree (as far as painfree labour goes), and i felt comfortable and confident in how i was labouring, until the midwife hit the emergency button and all these people came flooding into the room. I felt a huge rush of panic and worry for my baby. I delivered my little bundle, Darren gave me the news, 'we were right, it's a boy'. I felt relief that the hard work was over, until i noticed the midwives were looking very concerned. It then occured to me that my baby wasnt crying. Time stood still as i watched the midwives trying desperatly to get my son to breath. I've never wanted to hear a baby cry as much as i did at that moment in time. I was so scared, he wasn't a good colour, he wasnt pink like he should be, he was the deepest shade of purple you could imagine. Then i heard the best noise i've heard in  my whole life, he gasped and let out a cry. The relief was overwhelming. The extra midwives started to leave the room and we felt overjoyed. The joy was short lived. The midwife looked for the afterbirth and she turned whiter then white and shouted for Darren to press the emergency button. Again the room flooded with people but this time for me, i was heameroging. I remember Darren stood in the corner of the room holding our son while all these people flapped around me trying to get drips into my arms and the registrar was hitting my stomach so hard, the pain was awful. I remember knowing that i was going to die, i just knew my time was up but i fought with all my fight to stay conciuous as i knew that if i closed my eyes, even for a second they wouldnt open again. It was heartbreaking seeing Darren looking helpless and scared as he watched all these people fighting to keep me alive. Just as it was decided to take me to theatre they managed to get the bleeding under conrol. I was very poorly and needed a blood transfusion. I'd hoped id have a similar experiace to what i did with Georgina, labour and go home very shortly after. Instead i was in for a while recovering after i'd been told that i'd lost at least pints of blood. This was a huge blood lose considering we only have 8pints of blood in our bodies anyway, i felt very very lucky to still be here. The blood i was given was magic, an amazing gift from people ive never met and never will meet. Never will i doubt how special blood donars are!!! I'll never ever be able to thank the team that saved both me and my son that night enough, nor the people that had donated their blood!!
It was 3.40am on Tuesday 9th August 2011 that our latest and final addition joined the family. Reginald Hendrix. Reginald is after Darren's grandad who had died a little while after Darren and i met. Darren had felt close to his gandad and had followed in his footsteps by becoming and electricain. Hendrix was a name we chose because we liked it.

I won't babble anymore for now. I have many blog ideas buzzing around in my head. Things like SPD that i suffered with in my pregnancys with both boys. PND (post natal depression) which i had with all three children. Bipolar disorder that i was diagnosed with while pregnant with Reggie. Being a busy mum of three yet still trying to be a 25 year old and my battle with weight. The list is endless........