an introduction

The Turnip (or not-Turnip for, now that we have seen him, we have to admit that the nickname isn't apt - though it is sticking) was born on 6th May 2008 after a 43 hour labour. Given that he was 9 days overdue when my labour began (and 11 when he finally made an appearence) it seemed that he was, quite frankly, taking the mick. After an emergency transfer between hospitals, 4 lots of epidural, a drip that sped up my waning contractions, a spinal block, lots of swearing and tears, both baby and I going into distress, a trip to theatre, a forceps delivery, a threat of caesarean and 3 sets of stitches, I couldn't have cared less though.

In spite of my fears about giving birth to Winston Churchill, in spite of my reaction to the epidural and spinal block and the whole lenth of the bloody saga, in spite of the fact that my son was battered and bruised from forceps which hadn't accounted for the fact he had turned back-to-back at the start of the labour - in spite of all this, I gave birth to the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Even if I couldn't focus on him at first.

He had been Turnip Head from the moment we found out I was pregnant - blame a recently blossoming and slightly belated addiction to 'Lost' - we had just started watching the first season around the time I wee'ed on a stick, and Charlie's name for Aaron stuck - even when, at the 20 week scan, we discovered the type of baby we were having, and we named him 'properly'. I still call him Turnip at times, and I swear he remembers it from me talking to him during pregnancy.

I've had blogs before, kept them updated sporadically, and I've enjoyed writing them. And this I am writing for me and for Turnip - a living memory box to the things I would otherwise forget, and a way of trying to work through the issues I had during and after his birth - a lack of support at the original hospital with breastfeeding, which left me feeling useless because I couldn't work out how to do something that should "come naturally", and left the Turnip jaundiced through lack of milk. Thanks to the second hospital (where I should have given birth, had everything not gone completely tits up) we managed to leave healthy and happy and feeding.

I plan to write about my own ups and downs, and the things I learn from this small, clean slate, whose favourite things are sleeping at night and screaming in the day, black and white photographs, beautiful lights and having 'The Cat in the Hat' read when he's meant to be napping. Already, Turnip, you seem to be in control.