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Thank you for the supportive comments on my last post. We met with our midwife yesterday and are feeling positive about the coming months, about our options and about having an empowered birth despite circumstances out of our control.

We've also decided (last minute) to take our annual road-trip down to Melbourne, and have been busy bees trying to prepare. I didn't get around to making Christmas cards this year, but I did dust off the ol' sewing machine last week to re-purpose some vintage tea towels into Christmas stockings.

Here they are hung on our messy mantle:

And here's the sparkly version:

I know I haven't been very active in the blogging community this year, but thank you for reading and leaving your thoughts. May everyone have a happy, safe and joyous Christmas.

xxx

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Some pics of how we've been spending recent days. Swimming, drawing Christmas Angels and hanging out with friends.

I had an unfortunate incident last week that resulted in a late night ambulance ride and a couple of nights at the local hospital. We found out at the 20 week scan I had a low laying placenta, so although we knew that was the likely cause of a rather large bleed it was still freakin terrifying at the time. Now, I'm not saying all hospitals are evil places, but my experience at this one – my only hospital visit ever – was unfortunately not a positive one. Despite everything being okay I was consistently bullied into transferring my care from my private midwife to their hospital clinic (not a chance) and repeatedly told that my delivery is now an 80% of being a c-section (bullshit) and the need to have ultrasounds once a month (also, bullshit) and threats that after the third bleed (um, if it even happens) I would have to stay in hospital until delivery... and on... and on. Shortly after being admitted a scan showed a healthy baby no longer sitting breech, when I showed a bit of excitement at this – because at my 20 week scan the little bugger was upside down – I was quick to be told not to expect it to stay like that "they move so much early on, you'll probably find it's breech again by the morning". Yup, Nice one, arsehole! Way to make the lady with the bloody pyjamas feel good.

It will come as no surprise that once we (PB, my private midwife and I) felt confident it was safe to leave I discharged myself and hightailed it out of there. Tubes in arm and all.

So I'm taking it a bit easier now and we're all hoping that by 35 weeks the placenta would have moved enough to have a crack at natural birth. Apparently the odds are in my favour!

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It's been an exciting/emotional/hectic/fun few weeks in our household – as I'm sure it has for many. BB has started pre-school (we were offered a spot early and decided to take it), and despite a few nerves and tears seems to be settling in okay. We've been busy getting into the Christmas spirit, tree-trimming, making cards and decorations, baking. Basically everything except buying presents, that'll be saved for the last minute, as always.

Unfortunately my hard-drive has been dying a slow and painful death, and unbeknownst to me Time Machine hadn't been backing up correctly, so you can image the panic that ensued when restoring everything to a new hard-drive and seeing my iPhoto library wasn't there (although strangely everything else was). 4 visits to the Genius Bar and over 3 hours of phone support later we've managed to piece it together but have sadly lost the last 6 months of photos. That's about 1000 photos gone from a possible 16,000. Not great but certainly not the worst it could be.

So that means I won't be pulling out the big camera until I can find a better solution than iPhoto (i.e. afford to buy Lightroom). So it's back to the good ol' phone camera for now.

Hope everyone is having a happy and merry December. xx

1. Our first live family Christmas tree (and guest chair). 2. BB made Christmas stars (I cut, she glittered). 3. The view from my bedroom window, we happen to live right near the most eccentric Christmas house in the neighbourhood (and this is from the back, too). 4. Ready for a surf with Dad, with 2 wetsuits to stay extra warm.

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20 week summer belly. Half way there and finally – FINALLY – feeling good.

People keep asking me how I cope being pregnant in the heat, to be honest, despite the fact that towards the end of summer my feet will be too fat for haviana's, I couldn't think of a better time to be big bellied and free.

Pregnant in summer with a newborn in Autumn, we definitely didn't plan the same (or any) timing but stoked at how it's turned out.