First of all let me apologise. It has been some time since I last blogged but I have been the victim of a delicious whirlwind. Everyone in my family has. On the 27th September - after a tricky birth - my youngest son was born.
The first week was spent in hospital recovering. A C-section is major abdominal surgery and the recovery is a slow process but this process is made so much sweeter when you get to gaze into the face of your newborn. I say face and not eyes because in the first few days they sleep. They sleep a lot. Myself and Mr Wendy spent five days in the hospital gazing at our delicious baby boy as he fed and slept, fed and slept.
The day before I was due to go into hospital I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my other kids and Mr Wendy and as we chatted I thought about how our lives were about to change forever. However much you prepare yourself for the birth of a new baby, you cannot begin to imagine the impact this tiny bundle will have on your lives. The kids were so excited about him coming and they have been delighted with him and phenomenally understanding about the fact I can't get up for breakfast every morning - 4am feeds put a damper on my ability to bounce out of bed at 7am - and have savoured every moment of holding and cuddling their new baby brother.
We have had family and friends to stay and visitors dropping by every half hour. It has been lovely but hectic. In the midst of this whirlwind lies dozing our little treasure. He is delicious and warm and soft and a little tyrant.
We are at the mercy of his whims. I do feel sorry for new babies. They spend nine months in the womb having their every need catered for, constantly fed in a nice warm place where they get to hear mummy's voice all the time and can sleep and wake as they wish. Then they come out. The look of shock on their little faces when they come out makes me feel guilty and then they have to deal with a new way of feeding, poking and prodding from doctors, being handed around all the relatives, having to sleep at designated times and don't get me started on how physically sick I feel when they took blood from him at a week old! Yes it was only a little prick but my angel yelped with shock.
I also love what our new baby makes everyone else bring to the table. Families feel closer, friends turn up with food packages and strangers talk to you in the street. It's amazing. This tiny little being who is capable of such an enormous cosmic shift.
But what does a new baby do to your relationship? Yes it's tested. With the level of exhaustion involved, everyone feels the strain of the family carers existing on four hours sleep. It will get better - I know this - but it's difficult to step back from the situation when you are in it.
The rewards are tremendous though. There is nothing like watching the man you love with his strong arms which would move mountains for you if they could, cradling his baby - our baby - with a tenderness you never thought possible.
We are now a family of five. Two weeks in we are adjusting to this but so far it feels fantastic. I have flashes through the tiredness of how life is going to be - we took the eldest two swimming this morning and baby slept in his pram. It was quite a production but we managed and I know it will get easier.
We've also managed to see a film. We went to a mother-and-baby screening of Tyrannosaur. It wasn't quite the most suitable film to see with a baby but it felt like a date. We managed to go on a date two weeks after having a baby! It was very exciting.
As I've said, we are only two weeks in and we are all getting used to each other but I can't wait to see how life unfolds with The Whirlwind.