A Little (but big) Life Update

Well it’s been a hot minute hasn’t it. Or should I say year? Because one minute I’m sat in a one bed flat finding out I’m pregnant and navigating an ever growing bump, and the next thing, I’ve moved house with a 5 day old baby (at the time) all whilst being in the middle of a pandemic.

Yeah, it’s been a year - actually 13 months. As you’ll agree!

I’m currently sat here, at my in-laws (that’s a story for another day because life just got a little bit overwhelming with a nearly five month old and having not seen anyone for months and months, and just y’know needing a breather to be able to shower/pee/drink a cuppa/sit on the bed for five minutes without any interruptions), and thinking back on the year it’s been.

Obviously my pregnancy diaries kinda gave the game away as to how I navigated these last few months (in a nutshell: not well), and I found that it got a little too much as my due date neared which was partly made worse with the fact our house was due to complete and exchange on the same day. As everyone kept telling me ‘things would work out, and if not, we’ll find a way’ - which I know is lovely advice but also not what you want to hear in that moment - and so rightly they did. Otis was born on the 6th September, we went and got the keys on the 8th September, and we moved in on the 11th September (and then went to my grandads funeral on the 14th). I don’t even know how we did it (actually with the help of our mums and a best friend that’s how). But we did.

So I guess you could say that the last five months have been a bit of a whirlwind. We had the highs of this love for a newborn baby, the excitement and fulfilment of our new house and this bubble that we were just floating around on which felt perfect, but then pangs of sadness would creep in with us longing to see our family, the grief for all the things we wanted to do with a newborn that had been taken from us, and the pandemic still leaving everything uncertain.

But we made it work. We’ve made it work.

We managed to keep our baby alive with two midwife visits and a phone call a month later checking in because they’d forgotten about us (cheers huns).
We managed to figure everything out, and spent a lot of time on Amazon ordering things we didn’t know we needed but helped save the day.
We managed to get our baby used to FaceTime so he could see all of our family and friends (I mean, it’s not something we’re proud of but also hello interaction rather than just us).
We managed to get our cat settled into his home and accepting that there was now another member of the house without any anxiety and within the first few weeks.
We managed to tidy up nearly all of our boxes, so our house didn’t feel like we’d just moved in.
We managed to pull up the carpets, sand some floors, paint said floors, paint the walls and order loads of new furniture and decor to make our house into a home.
And we managed to do all of this with lots of laughter, tears, arguments and this new overwhelming sense of love.

As I remember describing it at the time we were in this lovely little content bubble, which really was a nice place to be. Our bubble now has slightly expanded and comes with a few more downsides thanks to the never ending lockdown, but we’re still just taking each day at a time and remembering the important things - and getting endless smiles which make it much more bearable.

So right now, I’m just enjoying those quieter moments of drinking a warm cup of tea, taking a pee without trying to do it in under 10 seconds, having long showers, and cooking dinner with a glass of wine in my hand at a slower pace.

Because it’s been some time - and if there’s ever a moment when I can say to myself ‘you know what, you deserve this time’, then now is it!