Snowflake Day

Today, the 5th of September has been a date in mine and Simons minds since just after Christmas 2013, the date our bambino was due to arrive on! Throughout the entire aftermath of the miscarriage we have tried to take each day as it comes, sometimes you wake up happier than you expect and sometimes sadder, and we've learnt either is okay! Since we miscarried Snowflake there were certain dates and anniversaries that stood out in our mind, the ones we expected would be harder than the other days. Such as, milestones we would have been hitting, scan dates and so on, but of course today being one of the harder milestones. Since day 1 we have wanted to preserve Snowflakes memory and today was an opportunity to do that, and make some traditions along the way!

So heres a little run through of what we did today... 
Simon being the sweetheart he is, woke me up with Mcdonalds breakfast (Yum!) and a bunch of flowers in Autumnal colours. He even surprised me with lovely cut out Snowflakes across the fireplace. After brekkie we popped to Asda to get some balloons to release, because we couldn't find any sky lanterns anywhere (although in the end we both preferred the balloon gesture)! We purchased a balloon for Myself, Simon and Snowflake and included both a pink and a blue one to represent either gender Snowflake could have been. After that we went to the Odeon Cinema to see 'Sex Tape' which we didn't rate at all! But what we did rate was Frankie And Bennys after, (again, Yum!) a cute Italian restaurant where we had tea. Then came the final, most sentimental plan of the day, the balloon release! Myself and Simon have had a 'spot' where we have gone throughout the summer when we just need to escape and feel good. We'd go for a barefoot walk along the beach then sit on the exact same bench on the promenade afterwards. So we thought that would be the perfect spot for our balloon release. Simon held the ribbon of the balloons and I cut the ribbon releasing the balloons into the air! This had so much meaning for us and was filled with so much emotion, it was perfect in our eyes. We plan to release balloons every year on Snowflakes due date, and as we add to our family we plan to add another balloon. Later on tonight we plan to light lots of candles and watch 'Frozen'.

We are both really excited now for another chapter to begin, our shoulders feel as though a weight has been lifted now the due date has arrived and is almost over!

A midweek break away!

Anyone who knows myself and Simon personally will know we have been through stressful situation after stressful situation recently, and our due date should have been this Friday also! So you can only imagine my reaction when Si suggested we go for a cheeky midweek night away to one of our favourite places, Guys Thatched Hamlet.

Guys Thatched Hamlet is canal side which makes for a very beautiful location! It's just our cup of tea, as we like to go for strolls and watch the world go by.

Autumn is in the air!

We usually opt for the Deluxe Executive room, which has a double spa bath and aqua TV (fancy nancy indeed), but this time as it was a spur of the moment thing we decided to get a cheaper room. We love the spa bath so we chose a room that still had the bath, but a smaller version, and we wasn't overly bothered about whether we had an aqua TV or not!

When Simon finished work we took Pookie to the cattery and set off, making it quite late when we finally did arrive! We lounged around in our room for a while indulging in 'Chalet Girl' (Ed Westwick - need I say more?) We then chose to eat at the restaurant which we have found scrummy each and every time!

Nearby is a really lovely garden centre called Barton Grange, it has amazing gifts and things for the house so we went there for a really good browse. We got lots of Christmas gift ideas there!

P.S, Meet my little buddy, Captain Pugwash! He or she is a little kitty that lives on site, she's super friendly and is always up for a cuddle, absolutely perfect for my crazy cat lady self!

An Autumnal bucket list

It may only be the 2nd of September, and it isn't officially Autumn until the 21st September (my Birthday wahoo)! But I have been dreaming of falling leaves and festivities for some time now! 

Here's what we are looking forward too...

Make a big old batch of scrummy flapjack,
Watch Hotel Transylvania,
Go for a crisp morning walk,
Drive around the illuminations,
Get food from the chippy and walk around the illuminations, go in the arcade too!
Go on an Autumnal picnic, hot chocolate is a must!
Watch Hocus Pocus,
Watch The Corpse Bride,
Pick out our pumpkins,
Carve and decorate our pumpkins,
Make goodies for the trick or treaters,
Have a bonfire and roast marshmellows,
Light sparklers,
Decorate for Halloween,
Make DIY Halloween decorations (spiderweb flowers and spider and web mason jar lights)


And here's some things that aren't on our bucket list, but might make yours!
Visit a Maize Maze
Go apple picking
Bake pumpkin pie
Trick or Treat
Visit a pumpkin patch
Eat a candy apple

100 Happy days

I first heard about 100 Happy Days when Rosie Hardy posted about it on Facebook (If you don't know who she is or of her work, give her a google, she is bloody fabulous, as well as being super super lovely). So I had a little look into it, and the website instantly sold me on it! On the website it says '71% of people tried to complete this challenge but failed, quoting lack of time as the main reason'. This struck a cord with me. Did I have 'enough time' for my own happiness and if not, could I make enough time? Every day, everything we do comes down to us just trying to be happy, so how could I not have enough time for my own happiness.

The rules of 100 Happy Days states that it is not a happiness competition. Having spent the majority of my life comparing myself to other people and their lives, I thought if anything, that would be my biggest challenge. To not compare my happiness or what makes me happy, against what makes other people happy.

Since the beginning of this challenge right up until the very end I have noticed nothing but positive changes in myself. I was reminded that in every single day, there is something to be happy about, whether it be receiving some flowers, going for a walk, watching my favorite 'youtubers' or whatever silly things my fur baby has been up to that day. There is always, always, always something to be happy about. Some days I would feel like I didn't have anything that made me really happy that day, so I would go and make it happen by buying myself a plant or doing something like painting my nails. So not only did it make me realise how much happiness was out there, it helped me create happiness for myself too! Aside the obvious reasons, I originally set out to do this challenge as an aid in recovering mentally from my Miscarriage which happened earlier this year.

I would recommend this challenge to absolutely anyone! To people suffering with depression, to people who are going through a tough time, people who have nothing to do over summer or even the happiest person on the planet. I don't think there is one person who wouldn't benefit from 100 Days of Happiness. 

See my 100 Happy Days here 
100 Happy Days website

Fathers Day

I had been waiting for fathers day to come around for some time, I could not wait a single day more for Simon to feel as proud as I did on Mothers Day! With Mothers Day I had sooo much anxiety in the build up to it, but Fathers Day was completely different. We had gotten through Mothers Day, so we knew the sorts of emotions that would probably arise.

For special occasions we be naughty and let the fur-baby come on upstairs with us to join us for present unwrapping fun, and fathers day was no exception! She bounded upstairs and purred her little heart out whilst Simon opened his presents.

Since getting home from Tenerife where we lost Snowflake, we have eaten at home very little. We have lost all motivation to cook and eat at home, we found comfort in going out to eat at our favourite local pubs, or getting a cheeky McDonalds. So it felt appropriate that for Fathers Day Snowflake sent Simon something to encourage us both to eat at home more often! He was absolutely thrilled with this gift, he has been mentioning George Forman grills for some time now.

He also received this Marvel notebook to store all his ideas and plans to improve his family business. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with Snowflake, Simon put so much effort into the family business to build even stronger roots for our family. So we thought this notebook would be appropriate for the Marvel Loving note taker he is (and we were sick of the loose paper and lists piling up around the house)! Simon had a lovely day and said he felt proud and happy throughout the entire day which I am ecstatic about. He even went to bed that night and had a 'new baby dream', I hope his intuition is correct! Fingers crossed for now.

See our Mothers Day post here!

3 month update

When people bring up our holiday I can barely believe that three short months ago we were on holiday, it just seems so long ago now and it feels like a lifetime since I was pregnant! After our miscarriage I had so many questions unanswered and things I just didn't understand, and where possible I tried to see a doctor, but sometimes you just find yourself googling things. And on my Google missions, I found that nobody really talks about miscarriage, aside from privately on forums (usually backdating to the 00's). So we decided that we we're going to be open about everything. So that one day perhaps, when someone like me is googling away, that they stumble across our little blog and feel less alone in their journey. From the beginning we have been more than happy to answer peoples questions, open to talk about the subject and of course my little blog here. It was a big risk for us being so open, we were already vulnerable from our experience, but we have received nothing but positive and loving feedback! Healing wise, as a person who tends to hold everything in until I pop, blogging the journey has been extremely therapeutic for me.

I have had depression and anxiety for around five years now, and I have learnt an important fact about myself, that i'm not one to be able to be beaten down for long before I start making plans to build myself up again. Myself and simon sat down at the very beginning and made some goals we would like to acheive to aid our recovery. We wanted to be able to look at baby clothes in stores, see a pregnant person and smile, be able to smile at little ones (came very easily, i'm a sucker for a gummy smile), begin pinning nurseries again on Pinterest, be able to hear baby talk, be able to discuss future pregnancies and so on. We are doing very well with the goals we set and we have pretty much checked them all off, which feels amazing!  One thing that really helped to spur along our recovery was discovering that Simons brother and our sister in law were expecting a second baby. We found out the news the day after we found out we had lost snowflake. Initially, this was really bloody hard, I am not going to lie. I am incredibly close to our sister in law (I love you and hello if you are reading this :D) and we would chat for hours and hours about pregnancy, babies and everything for that matter. I really did not want to lose this, I didn't want to lose such a wonderful relationship, so we kept talking about things, and it got easier and easier. 

The miscarriage hit Simon hard, but he too found outlets that helped him get through. It was hard for both of us to think about anything other than the miscarriage. He played lots of Disney Infinity which he got for his birthday, which I think was really really good for him. It's good to lose yourself in a happy childlike world. He also began creating graphics for his family business, and today he continues with that. We stuck together through it all, we made sure that each day we were talking through our feelings and getting them out in the open. 

The recovery phase is a journey, a journey which has no finish line. As daunting as that may sound, it does, and it has got easier. Day by day we are getting stronger and the breakdown moments are farther and fewer inbetween. We still have a long journey ahead of us! But for now, since receiving the news that I will not have to have another operation, we are hoping to get a positive pregnancy test sometime in the near future!

Remembering Snowflake

'When a baby is born, it's a mothers instinct to protect the baby. When a baby dies it's the mothers instinct to protect it's memory'

When everything that happened - happened, I had this motherly instinct within me that had to do everything possible for this babies memory to be kept alive. For some that may sound utterly ridiculous, as we never met snowflake. But for us, we knew snowflake, we knew how he or she would make me feel at certain times of the day, we dreamt and pictured the face, and more importantly we knew how we felt about snowflake, and we didn't want to throw that away.

We had a few different ideas of things we wanted to do for Snowflake, such as matching tattoos for myself and Simon, a scrapbook, and a memory box. We decided since we had so many bits and bobs accumulating (some big too, like the booties) a memory box would be best! We purchased our little box of love from a super cute vintagey homeware shop in Keswick, The Lake District. We was away there for a few days for Simons parents anniversary, shortly after we got home from Tenerife, it was perfect timing and allowed for a little holiday to get over the holiday. In the shop, to the left of the box was a sign that said 'If you are looking for a sign then this is it, then we saw the box - we think it was fate!

Putting the box together was an emotional rollercoaster, we felt so many different emotions. I had a lot of cries that evening!

Inside our little box we put in some lovely cards we received sending love, the 'Thank you' one above may seem a little inappropriate to anyone reading this, but it was from my Grandad who was on holiday with us and had to leave us at the airport to go home. He thanked us for looking after him on holiday, and wished us love and luck in the future. We also put in the booties, our announcement card, and the plane tickets that got us home the day of my Op! We also put in the pee stick as we kept that, but didn't feel it required its own picture.

Our memory box for Snowflake has provided us with lots of comfort, whenever I want to remember what we went through i'll have a dig through our little box. Snowflake now feels a part of our home although he or she is not physically with us!