This third week of 2018 has continued to be filled with friends, family and the good things about summer… and just like last week it has also been another good week for the list.  This week also brought the return of appointments for Isaac and one last effort to get things done before Dave goes back to work.

I am still getting the hang of how to write these blogs without them sounding like a lame diary entry… so this time I think we will start with the list items that were achieved… This week we managed to cross another 3 things off… but only one of them has photos ready to go…  We had some family photos taken (no. 6) which I actually wore non-maternity jeans for, which is technically crossing no. 20 off as well, but they were only on for the photos and I am definitely not committed to making it a regular thing… maybe in winter, so we will leave it on there for now.  I wore something other than a black t-shirt for the whole week… yep… I did (no. 98).  And most excitingly, this week we finished Isaac’s room (no. 63) and I am really happy with how it turned out.

When Isaac was born, Dave and I were very unprepared… because Joshua was only 24 weeks old when he was born we were desperate to make it to 26 weeks with Isaac.  At 24 weeks mums and dads have to make lots of really hard decisions, decisions about treatments, resuscitation, viability and quality of life… things that no one ever really thinks about when starting a family, and decisions that they are not really emotionally prepared to handle when they are asked at such an awful time… when you realise things are not going as you planned…  At 26 weeks, the babies are what the doctors term viable… that means they are more likely to live than die… it still doesn’t factor in quality of life… but because they can live, the choices are usually made by the doctors, rather than the panicked mum and dad…  So 26 weeks became our goal… but given our recent experiences, I was not willing to plan for him or make room for him in our house until after the 26week mark because I didn’t want to have to pack it away if we also lost him.  So… when Isaac decided 26weeks exactly was his cue… we had nothing… well not nothing, nothing, we had some clothes and nappies that we had been given or brought in preparation for Josh… but we had limited ‘big ticket items’, and the ones we had purchased were still in boxes in the garage.  We had a flat packed chest of draws and a chair… we had no cot, no change table, no car seat, no pram… nothing we actually needed when coming home from the hospital… Isaac’s room was still full of stuff… the overflow of our house… and I had not yet removed the old wall decal from the previous home owners or painted over the green and purple walls… we were not ready, because we thought we would either have no time… or lots more time.

So between hospital visits we brought the items we needed, cleared out the room, painted and then started putting it together… and then he came home from hospital… and it still wasn’t quite done… He has now been home for 66 days… and we have finally added the finishing touches, his shelves and the wall decal… and it is now my favourite room in the house.  I often just wonder in and look at it…  It makes the whole house feel more complete and in a small way, having this finished, feels like the proper end to waiting to bring home our baby chapter… that we can now really embrace life with him… because he is here and he isn’t going anywhere.

My favourite bit of the room is his bookshelf… I don’t know why I love it so much… but I really really do…

This week we also had to say goodbye to K as she headed back to London… we always hate doing this.  But we did get to spend some more time with our NZ fam before they head back this week… so this weeks been bitter sweet.

Oh and in Isaac news, this week we continued slowly weaning his oxygen yay!… but had to go and buy some bigger clothes, because he has a new accessory for a little while… a hip harness… but to make him (and by him I mean mummy) feel better, we extended our Disney book library…

Yesterday we finished our week with a garden engagement party for my little brother Jake and his fiancé Amy-Ruth… which is a pretty nice way to end a week. They had the garden looking magical… and what is not to love about love?

So there you go… week 3…