Love

I don't want this to be all about Alfie's medical condition although it is, through necessity a huge part of our lives. We can't avoid it as we have to give him the fullest care in our powers to keep him safe.

It is about a very special, much loved and very much wanted little (OK not so little, really quite large) boy. The love that I feel when he smiles that gummy grin at me is indescribable, it almost hurts. This feeling was slow coming, none of the huge wave all the books say you feel at birth. There was a deep recognition when I heard him cry for the first time, it was MY baby but not that all encompassing thing I was led to believe.

The Bump that became the Beast!

It does have to be said that this could have been the 20 hours of labour, the excruciating pain, the huge number of times I threw up, even when they were lifting him out of me, the numbness (literally from the spinal block), the concern that he had his own birthday and not sharing it with my mum! I know, I always think of the oh so important things at crucial times!

It slowly started to dawn on me how important this little being was to me. It was so odd, all this time to get him and the delays through one thing or another and my great desire to have a baby and his dad only really going through it all for me and he gets the big rush and I get the slow trickle. Not that I resented this, he deserved it and loves our boy more than life itself and I love him all the more for it.

Coming home.

We have been together for nearly twenty years and I think it worried both of us what having a child would do to us as a couple, we had been so focused on the getting pregnant that we didn't really consider that. It was only when we started the IVF that I started to get a bit of a reality check. By this stage Mr Reluctant was so positive and I was full of negativity, totally convinced it was not going to work and if it did what would i do with a baby and would be a hopeless mother. We were going to travel the world when it didn't work (now we will do it with the best piece of luggage in the world), had it all planned I was that sure it would be a failure.

We were due to test on the Saturday, but on the Tuesday I found a test in the cupboard. it had come free with some ovulation tests. I didn't even know it was there, honestly! It just yelled at me all day and in the end i had to give in and there were two lines! On that one and the ...... more I did after because I still couldn't trust the result. I didn't feel the excitement I had the first time, before the miscarriage. We both had to hold back on that, for Stuart until the 20 week scan and for me, well I don't think I ever did. There was so much fear until then and then the pain kicked in.

There were perfect moments it has to be said, Christmas night when Stuart felt our future rugby player for the first time, oh boy could he kick (and still was all the way though labour!). Then the less than perfect, I even have to confess disappointment when we found out it was a boy (that has changed since, I couldn't be happier than with my little boy).

Nothing really went according to the fictional plan I had in my head. It was not going to work, then it was going to be exciting, then a good scan, then it was a girl (thank goodness not, imagine me with a teenage girl!), the nausea was going to stop, it did finally on about the day the agonising pain in my ribs started! I was going to get hugely fat, so upset that one didn't work out :-). I was going to nap and sleep for England, instead of which I stopped sleeping at 20 weeks and found I don't do napping. we were going to have a last holiday in the sun but the pain meant I couldn't fly so Cornwall in the rain it was. I was going to be a complete wimp in labour and swear like a trouper. I was brave, not pain relief for 14 hours and not one naughty word passed my lips, I know miracles can happen!

Stuart was going to be a bit useless, but no even that didn't happen. He couldn't have been more supportive, he cooked all the meals as I felt too ill at the idea of cooking. He rubbed cream into my belly to ease the discomfort and stop stretch marks, he laid 2 floors and friends helped us decorate 3 rooms. He even (reluctantly) gave up on bike trips due to bad timing.

Motherhood was going to be so hard and I was never going to cope, instead thanks to my gorgeous little pumpkin I slept more after he was born and felt better than I had for ages. The worst bits were the over nights in hospital without Stuart at my side but after that it was wonderful. We had our moments, forgetting to make bottles and me loosing the plot thinking I was the worlds worst mother if I couldn't even manage that when Stuart could. Things settled down but then the awful time you have already read about kicked in.

My heroes.

That was when the full impact of how I felt about this little man and the big man that had helped me create him kicked in. The thought of loosing him was unbearable and now in all his plumpness his smile fills my heart and his cries, that that they are break it in two until I can whatever I can to fix it. He is beyond special, he has his wonderful dads laid back nature with just hint (maybe a little more than a hint) of my temper. He is so loved and cared for, he had people thinking of him and praying for and anything else that may work all over the world. I had no idea how much and how many people cared for him and about him and us.

Thank you all for caring about this miracle that is my son.

And Stuart, I couldn't love you more than I do and I pray that I never have to face the world without you at my side as you have always been. Now we have the third point to our triangle of life.

Perfection!