An exciting day!

Today has been an awesome day! Since Essington was born and had numerous feeding issues, I have been expressing all my milk with an electric breast pump and then feeding it to him with a bottle! I was determined for him to have my milk. At odd occasions I have attempted to put Essington back on the breast but without success. i thought expressing and then bottle feeding him was going to be our pattern until I decided he could go onto formula. This was a very time consuming process and was also at times quite challenging, however not too hard to require me to give up.

I was speaking with a friend on the weekend and she had similar issues and then she finally got her son back onto the breast at 14 weeks. This gave me great hope! Essington was 12 weeks old on Sunday. This morning I thought I would offer him the breast in preparation for trying to switch him over gradually! 

We did not need to take the gradual approach - he too his whole feed this morning and every feed thereafter today from the breast. I am so excited! We had the most beautiful time today! I felt very blessed to be able to have such a close relationship with him. Through all the challenges I have faced this year, I feel like it is some ones way of saying hey its your time to have some really great things happen. 

Today I did my training at home - I have a commercial grade treadmill in a big open plan room just off my kitchen. Tucker was happily playing with cars and trucks on the mat next to me, Essington was in his rocker watching me and I was running at 9.5km/h x 3mins then 6.0km/h x 2 mins and I repeated this 6 times! Fun! 

Its 7.45pm here in WA - both boys are bathed and sound asleep, dinner is eaten, kitchen is tidy, washing is done - it must be time for me to go a

nd relax on the couch! 

xxx

I'm back.......

Hi all,

Yes it has been a really long time since my last post - unfortunately that was a sad post - my dad sadly passed away. he had previously been sick but the last bit was very sudden! Something quite unexpected. he was always such a fighter and I thought this time he was winning the fight too, but unfortunately the fence was too high for him to climb. He is at rest now and free of pain. I feel like he is watching over us all. I love you dad, and miss you every day. One of the most special aspects of a sad situation is that he was fortunate enough to meet his new grandson and what's more on that same day he was able to have a brief assisted hold of Essington - luckily I had the camera with me and I got a picture which I treasure. 

Onto a brighter note, little Essington is developing in leaps and bounds. He has gained plenty of weight now and is a very strong and healthy baby - a big contrast to the early and sick little man we had when he arrived. 

He is a very placid baby and has the most beautiful personality. He is now 12 weeks old - full of smiles, babbles away and is trying very hard to laugh. He does not just smile with his mouth - his whole face lights up! I am very blessed with his sleeping - he sleeps anywhere between 4 and 6 hours during the day and sleeps for 10 + hours at night. It must be all that good breast milk he is receiving. Unfortunately he does not feed off the breast - I express all my milk and feed it to him through a bottle. Initially i was a little disappointed that I could not feed him - now I focus on the positive that he is still having my milk - it does not matter how he receives it. 

Tucker is the most beautiful big brother - he could not be anymore affectionate to his little brother if he tried. He is nearing the end of his first year at school - Kindy, and is quite excited about pre-primary next year. He is now writing his name very clearly and especially loves to be able to write his own name in cards. He is doing very very well with his swimming lessons. He was very reluctant to start with but now I struggle to get him out. All my hard work of visits to the pool every day has paid off. he is very excited about our trip to Perth this weekend - we are off to see the Wiggles live in concert!

Mike is the most amazing husband and dad. He is so helpful with both of the boys and loves coming home to smiles from Essie and stories from Tucker. His PhD study is going quite well and broadly on target. Work is keeping him busy with frequent trips to Perth. 

I have returned to training at the gym - which I am loving. My weight is falling off at quite a good rate..... always helped by a good clean and natural food diet. I have been doing step, attack and rpm classes as well as treadmill running, and weights. All the pelvis problems I had in the pregnancy have disappeared - YAY! 

I better stop there otherwise you will be there reading my post for half the night. I am now aiming to post more frequently. I hope you like the pictures of two of the three beautiful boys in my life. xxx