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Everything is so hard here at the moment, I have the keys to my new house in my hand but what I don’t have is any furniture or any money to buy anything. My tax credit application is in and will be backdated but could take 3 weeks to process. My child benefit comes in at the end of next week and I think I’ll be using that to buy a cheapy second hand sofa and a fridge. When I get paid at the end of the month I’ll be buying a bed for me.

I’m hoping that my parents are going to honour their promise to buy me a TV but I am not counting on it. If they don’t then I’ll have to wait until my first batch of tax credits come in.

I’m moving out on Monday, but moving some stuff in tomorrow. I’m going to be living in the house on my own for the first 2 weeks while I leave the children with their dad. This gives them the chance to finish the summer holidays in what they know as their house, surrounded by their friends and not in a big empty house with no fridge, food or TV with me.

This does, however, mean that I will be living alone in an empty house. With no mobile or 3g coverage, no landline, no broadband and no bed. I have borrowed a blow up mattress so I should be OK. Sigh.

I’ll post some photos of each room as I get it done. The order is going to be :

Little girls room

Eldest daughters room

Son’s room

Kitchen

Lounge

My room

I knew that I wanted 3 children. I always had. Hubby was happy with 2 but I told him every day, every single day that I would have a third child. This isn’t the last time I’m going to breastfeed a baby you know? I told him when my son was 10 minutes old, covered in shit and screaming in my arms that I was totally doing it again. That I wasn’t done, that I loved every second of pregnancy, birth and motherhood and that we WOULD have more children.

In all honesty he wasn’t bothered about having any more. But we did. Again, I got pregnant as soon as I stopped taking my pill. I had another tough pregnancy according to the books but it was fine. I opted to have this baby at a local midwife run unit, not in a hospital. I loved it there, so friendly.

On my due date I woke up at 2am having contractions. It took an hour for my parents to get to us and 20 minutes for us to get in. So that made it what, about 3.30 before the midwife examined me. I was 4cm dilated. She told us to go home. I refused. She said 3rd babies were hard and that I would be in labour for many hours yet. I ignored her. She told me that she had one other mother who was labouring and no other midwife on duty and that I could stay as long as I looked after myself. Fine with me.

I paced around for a while, had a bath and knew that I was getting closer. At 5am I felt huge amounts of pressure. I sent hubby to find her. She clucked back into the room, telling me that I was nowhere near ready to have the baby and that the lady next door was 9.5cm and needed her more than me. She examined me, I was 9cm and my waters hadn’t broken.

She looked horrified. Realised that she was going to have to deliver 2 babies at the same time. The other baby was the first one for the mum, I told her to go back next door. She was not prepared to break my waters as this would be irresponsible. I hung out with hubby, breathing and trying not to push and telling myself it would be OK. My waters broke by themselves. Hubby ran next door. The midwife came in and 2 pushes later my second daughter was born. Hubby cut the cord, baby was put in my arms and midwife rushed back next door. Another midwife was just arriving at this time so I wasn’t on my own for long with the baby before she bustled in.

9 pounds 6 this time, no drugs again. She was born at 5.22. I was at home in my own bed by noon. They made me stay for 6 hours then I think they were as glad to get rid of me as I was to leave!

We married when our eldest was 3. Our wedding day was THE best day. I felt like a princess. She was my only bridesmaid. She swung in between hubby and I as we said our vows, she danced our first dance with us. She fell asleep in my arms covered in profiteroles and I carried her around for the rest of the evening. It was a great day.

Once we were married I said that I wanted to have a baby straight away. I took my last packet of pills shortly after we were married, had 1 period and then was pregnant. Woo Hoo, that was easy. Another amazingly easy pregnancy followed. My due date was the day AFTER my daughters 4th birthday. I spent all day praying that I wouldnt go into labour, and then woke up the next morning knowing that today was the day.

My boy was born on his due date. It wasn’t an easy labour, the midwife told me that I HAD to have pain relief. I ignored her. She told me that she would not examine me again because I’d only been 4cm 20 minutes before. I made her examine me again. I was 9cm and still waters not broke. She agreed reluctantly to break my waters and as she did, all hell broke loose. There was meconium and I promptly threw up. She ran from the room screaming in the corridor that she needed a peadiatrician and another midwife that we had a serious problem. I ignored her, I could tell that this was going to happen quickly. She had barely made it back to the bed before I was pushing, she told me to stop but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My son was born 10 minutes after she broke my waters, weighing 9 pounds 2. No pain relief again, I was proud of this. I joke and say that the difference in the births was amazing, my daughter popped out all blue and spaced out, opened her eyes and looked around at me before realising who I was. My son came out covered in shit and screaming.

I had to stay in hospital for 24 hours because of the meconium. This was about 20 hours too long for me! I was desperate to get back to my daughter.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the big events in my life and how different each experience of finding out I was pregnant has been. I’ve written here about the last time I found out and how soul crushingly devastated I was.

The first time I found out was very different. I was 23 and working for a big company in the City. I was project managing from an IT point of view a move from a building with a capacity of 300 to one with a capacity of 2000 to take into account some huge expansion plans, I was working 12 - 15 hours a day and topping that off with some proper beer drinking after work.

I’d been with my boyfriend for about 2 years. We were pretty serious, serious enough to be having sex without using any protection but there was a pretty good reason for that. I’d had cervical cancer when I was 18 and been told I could never have children. Once I’d had that conversation with boyfriend and he had got his head around it that was that really, I’d known for years that I wouldn’t be a mum and it wasn’t a big deal to him at the time.

It was 2 days before Christmas, around 7am. The move was scheduled to be completed early Jan. I’d said to my boyfriend that in the New Year my life had to change. I was bone tired all the time and putting on weight from all the junk food I was eating. I was always head-achy and had started being sick a lot and feeling nauseous all the time. I knew it was because I was working hard, partying hard and not eating proper food or resting. I told him that I’d do my best to tone it down in between Christmas and the move being completed.

I was standing in Boots on the corner of Parliament square in the queue for my breakfast, feeling sick and tired. As I stood there waiting to pay I looked around and saw that I was standing next to a rack of pregnancy tests. Suddenly something clicked in my head and I started frantically counting the weeks since my last period. Holy crap. I couldn’t be pregnant. But I bought a test anyway and practically ran into work and straight into the ladies toilets (working in IT you could in those days guarantee a fairly private ladies toilets, great for crying in!)

Yes, you guessed it. I was pregnant. Suddenly the weight gain, sickness and tiredness made sense. I was in shock, didn’t feel happy or sad - just worried about the amount of alcohol I’d drank recently and worried in case I wouldn’t be able to carry the pregnancy to term. I walked out of the ladies, put in a mornings work and at 12 noon said to my boss “I’m not well, I’m going home. Happy Christmas, see you next year”

I phoned my boyfriend and told him the same story - I wasn’t well and would be come round to my flat that evening please? (yes, we weren’t even living together at this time, he still lived at home) I walked around Mothercare feeling like a fraud with all these gorgeous big heavilly pregnant women and bought a small pair of baby socks which I took home and wrapped up.

When he came around that evening, I told him I wanted to give him a Christmas present early. I handed him the tiny socks. He said he didnt want to open it until Christmas. I told him he had to. He opened it and for a minute, didn’t realise what it was. When he realised what I was telling him the love and joy on his face was unreal. We both cried and hugged and cried some more for the rest of the evening.

We waited a long while before we told our family and friends. They were shocked and thrilled in equal measures. I had a great pregnancy and my first daughter was born at 38 weeks. I went into hospital for a routine checkup in a high risk pregnancy to find that I was 7cm dilated. I thought I just had stomach cramp. 3 hours later I had a brand new baby in my arms. She was born 100% naturally, I had no drugs, no gas and air - nothing. I breathed my way through. Everything was going OK until the very last minute, I had been pushing for an hour and was tired. She wasn’t moving enough. The midwife asked my permission to give me an episiotomy, they cut on a contraction without any pain relief - it was OK. She was born with the cord tied around her neck in a perfect knot.

My beautiful blue baby, didn’t cry. She opened her eyes and looked straight at me. She breathed by herself from the start and was placed straight on my stomach. I felt like I had known her forever, I knew then that she would be my best friend as well as my daughter - that one day it would be her and I standing up against the rest of the world.

7 pounds 11. Not bad for 2 weeks early. I had a tough recovery, had burst both my eardrums pushing and had a fair number of stitches. I remember sitting propped up in bed when she was 3 days old with blood and pus pouring from my ears, infected stitches and my milk just coming in and looking at her and thinking that I just didn’t care. And I still don’t.

She is amazing. A lot happened in between her being born and the next baby 4 years later.

I’ve always believed in fate, I’m a very spiritual person.

Yesterday I drove into work for the first time in weeks. I just woke up in the morning and decided that I didn’t want to cycle and that I wanted to drive. When I got into work there was only 5 people in the office, one of them being my very best friend in the world. I said to her, “hey, bitch, I’ve got the car today - want to go on an adventure at lunchtime?” She laughed and said it was well overdue my turn to drive (I offer her a backie on my bike when we go to the pub but she never accepts) and we carried on working.

At lunchtime she received a personal call that threw her life into panic. I calmly logged off her machine, gave her keys to a co-worker to go and walk her dogs, rang her childminder to look after he daughter for longer, placed her in my car and drove her to Leeds. 3.5 hours there, 6 hours sitting in the hospital and then 5 hour drive home. If I’d cycled into work we’d have been screwed as I’m not insured to drive her car.

Someone knew I’d need my car yesterday.

On the way home I decided to get off the M1 at Leicester and cut cross country to pick up the A1. I was following the maps on my iphone, the little blue dot was gradually seeing us home. When we came off the M1 the blue dot didn’t move. For 12 minutes I drove in the right direction, following the signs, saying to my friend “The blue dot hasn’t moved. For fucking fucks sakes, it think’s we’re still at the M1 junction, what’s going on?” I swear that we drove in a pretty straight line for those 12 minutes, I would put my hand on my heart and say that we did not go around in a circle.

Suddenly we came to a roundabout and I couldn’t believe to see that we were back at the same M1 junction where we had left 12 minutes previously! I went all the way around and back in the same direction again. Same thing happened. 12 minutes later we were back in the same place. I gave up, got back on the M1 and the blue dot immediately started to move.

I didn’t look up to see if anything had happened on the road I wanted to take but SOMEONE wanted us to be on the M1 and not the A1 at that point. I didn’t argue once I realised what was happening, who am I to interfere with fate?