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Wednesday 31 August 2011

First Egg Donor Appointment

I went to Guys for my first egg donor appointment today and it was such a positive experience.

As my husband couldn't get time off work my lovely sister came with me to hold my hand and help remember family medical history.  I hadn't realised how close Guy's is to London Bridge station - very easy to find!  Rather than spending the morning shopping I managed to fit a work meeting in - beneficial to my wallet and makes me look organised!  I managed to get myself lost both too and from the office in Southwark - not an unsusual occurance for me and also me that ant I got to see lots of lovely streets that I would normally miss.

I had thought that I wasn't nervous but as soon as my lovely husband dropped me at the station I had a slight IBS attack and also asked the man at the desk to double check my train as I couldn't see it in any of the departments!!  Luckily he helped me get my act together and got me on the right train (thank goodness for friendly station staff!).
Doing some work in the morning and meeting my sis early kept my mind off my appointment until about lunch time when I started panicking that we were going to be late - luckily my sensible sis reminded me that we were 5 minutes walk away and still had an hour left before my appointment!!

Guy's is a lovely hospital and the Assissted Conception Unit (where the appointment was held) was really modern, clean and comfortable.  And the artwork was amazing (I would put a picture up but don't want to get sued - not sure about copyrighting and stuff).
First I was weighed and measured by the smiliest, sweetest nurse.  Then I was asked to sit in the most comfortable hospital chair EVER and rest my arm on a pillow.  Sensing what was about to happen my sis came and stood next to me and I squeezed her hand tightly - only for us to feel like complete plonkers as the nurse took my blood pressure and not my actual blood.
Then we met the doctors I will be seeing.  They were friendly, proffessional and approachable.  I felt completely at ease - not sure what I was nervous about at all.  The doctor went through the whole process with me and took the medical history she needed.  Next she gave me an internal scan and a swab.  She also talked through what would happen to any fertilised eggs that aren't used (frozen for future use with the couple and/or used for research)
THEN I had my blood taken.  I'm not great with needles but they used a different contraption which meant that I could barely feel when the tubes were changed - by far the 'nicest' bloods I've had taken.  And yes - the lovley sis took her rings off and let me squish her hand.
Finally - I had a counselling session - which was great cos I love talking!!  It was also good as I like that I still feel confident in my decisions.  The counsellor went through the law, how comfortable I felt about the process, why I was doing this, how my husband felt and also assured me that I could pull out at any time up until the eggs are implanted in the other lady.
It's nice to know that things are starting to happen although I know it is a few months befor the actual harvesting.  In the meantime I need to drop another BMI point before my next appointment in 6 weeks.  Now where did I put my trainers???

Photos from my big day out:

An old fashioned firestation and the first time I've seen a practice tower that wasn't on Fireman Sam!





Other interesting things I saw.

Even the toilets at Guy's had pretty doors!!


My wonderful, lovely Sis

Tuesday 30 August 2011

A Family of Bunnies

This weekend I finally finished the little bunny family I had been making for FP's birthday (only a couple of weeks late!!


quickbunnyI found this beautiful little bunny pattern on Elsie Marley's great blog
and tried to make them (I thought it might be a good thing for FP to keep in her pocket for comfort when she starts school). 





But .... this is how mine turned out:-
Definitely not as cute.  BUt the Eldest FP loves hers (the bigger one) and spent quite a lot of time sucking or chewing the ears!?
Baby FP has ignored hers from the begining and shows no interest at all!!



So, I looked for other patterns that I could be more succesful at and found one at Cut Out + Keep.
I adapted it a little (e.g. I didn't tack the ears or sew a tummy on).  When I showed it to Eldest FP she decided she wanted a family of bunnies, so that is what happened!  On these ones I made pom poms for their tails.


I also made a strawberry and carrot for each bunny.  There are lots of tutorials out there but these are the ones I used: Carrots and Strawberries.  I just enlarged or shrunk the images depending on what size I wanted. 


Now we have a family of bunnies living with us. 
This is such an easy project and the eldest FP loves them (mostly she loves pretending to eat the carrots and strawberries - at least she's not ried making rabbit pie yet!)




Happy days

Fairy Princess Mummy
xx



Thursday 25 August 2011

Playzones

So I've finally got round to starting to completely sort through all the stuff I hoard (I have pens and pencils I'm sure I used when I was at school about 15 years ago!).

Since we moved to this house two years ago we have had another princess and the oldest princess has had two birthdays and Christmas's.  This all means that the storage we have and the way some rooms are laid it isn't working as well as I would like it to.  And we have a toy stores worth of toys ... which neatly brings me to my first 'playzone'

As Baby Princess has finally moved in with her big sister we needed to get rd of some furniture from their room.  So I took their storage unit down to the bay window next to the Eldest Princesses kitchen.

So now she can play shop or cooking whichever she feels like.  I also put the chair behind the table so when she is drawing she can face the room and Baby Princess has the rest of the floor space and can't bug her big sister as much as she would like.

The Eldest also likes to hide and so I created a little space for her beside the sofa with her little ELC Happy Land sets and games/puzzles on a set of shelves.  (She was so obsessed with the Royal Wedding earlier this year that we bought her the royal wedding set that the ELC produced and saved it for her birthday.  When she opened it she was so excited to get her own 'Prince William and Kate' so they obviously have a good space).  I put a couple of cushions on the floor and her blanket so she can get all cosy.

Upstairs we have a large space on the landing which I was using as a bit of a dumping ground so I have turned it in to a reading / dressing up space - It's not finished yet but this is it so far.  Very excited as I have just done it and the girls haven't seen it yet! I'm hoping to put up some hooks and bunting and more girly, pink, fluffy things that I haven't thought about yet.  (I so love having girls - I think I probably enjoyed creating these spaces more than they will enjoying playing in them! Hehe!)


Can't wait to see their faces in the morning!!

Have a fairy happy day
Fairy Princess Mummy
xx
Update: - Ellie woke up and when she saw her dressing up stuff out she said 'I love it!' - Success

Saturday 20 August 2011

Princess Party

My eldest baby turned 4!  I don’t know where the time has gone.  One minute she was a super-cute dark haired squishy baby and now she is a beautiful, very blond, intelligent, funny, cuddly, cheeky princess.

 

Last year we had a Toy Story Party but this year she is far more grown up, girly and all about fairies and princesses.  I thought I would blog about the food, entertainment, party bags, etc. because when I was looking for ideas I really appreciated other peoples party idea blogs.
Luckily for us Fairy Princess Daddy is a bit of a computer wiz and whipped up this invitation.
The party bags included:
-          A pen/pencil/rubber/or similar
-          Packet of sweeties
-          Star or heart shaped crayons (we made these with old crayons – lots of great recipes on the website but I can't find the ones I used - will post when I find them.  Beware though – I still haven’t worked out how to get the ice cube moulds clean yet!)
-          The girls got tutus and the boys got superhero capes (the tutus I found in Poundland -guess how much?  And Ellie loved the one I bought her so much that I thought they were a good idea for party bags.  The boys got a bit of a raw deal as I couldn’t find what I wanted for them so ended up making them.)
As the tutus and capes wouldn’t fit in to ordinary party bags I knew I wanted brown paper bags similar to Primark’s little bags.  It was difficult to find these but eventually we found them in Wing Yip (Croydon) for £3 or 4 For about 300 (at least we will never be short of paper bags).  Then I got the Birthday Princess to decorate them.  We decided on Butterflies and Crowns so I drew a faint outline in pencil and she painted them.

Entertainment:
We had a bouncy castle (ABC Castle Hire) – A princess castle of course.
I put my sister in charge of glitter tattoos (surprisingly popular among the adults too!).
And I also bought some elastic which I cut in to shorter lengths and some cheap beads and my lovely friend S helped the kids make beaded bracelets.

Food - We went a bit healthy this year and had
-          Salmon
-          Rice and peas
-          Couscous with roasted vegetables
-          Sticks of vegetables with dips
-          Bowls of cherry tomatoes
-          The fruit bowl was out filled with tangerines, bananas and packets of raisins
-          I got the mini Muller corners for pudding
-          And of course a big bowl of sweets
-          To drink we asked parents to help themselves to tea, coffee, etc and made up jugs of apple juice or blueberry juice mixed with fizzy water
Surprisingly the food went down really well and most parents seemed to appreciate the lack of junk food (I hope – maybe they were just being nice).
My sister made a beautiful fairy garden cake and flower cupcakes but we only have one photo of that which is still on my sisters phone!

Even the baby FP joined in the dressing up!







So anyway this is far too long a post so I think I will do presents and decorations another day!

Have a fairy happy day

Fairy Princess Mummy
xx

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Catching Up

My legs and arms have gone in to shock and have decided to stop working in protest at the exercise I did last night!  I finally had my induction session with a personal  trainer who came across as lovely but made me work like a mad thing – it obviously worked though.

Anyway I haven’t blogged for ages so lots has happened that you may or may not be interested in.
We went to Cornwall on holiday and it was lovely.  I felt like I was the only person in the whole world who hadn’t been and now I know why.  It was beautiful and I’d love to go back – no wonder everyone raves about it.
On a frustrating note – I had to miss what should have been my first appointment at Guys hospital for the egg donation.  I got sick with a throat virus while on holiday and was just too sick to make it.  I was desperate to go but eventually after a few tears my lovely husband persuaded me not to go and share my germs with others.  I am emotional at the best of times but horrendous when I feel sick so I cried quite a bit then calmed down and phoned the lovely A at Altrui who was so nice and sweet to me that I cried all over again!! (How dare she be so nice to people !)  So we have rearranged for a couple of weeks time.
While on Maternity leave, the baby FP and I completed an OU undergraduate module in Psychology.  I finally got the grade through and I got 73 (apparently the equivalent of a 2:1 or a B), so that was good.
I also have confirmation that I have a place on the Masters course I want to do and am, geekily,  incredibly excited about it even though it means I will probably not have a social life for the next three years!
And finally my eldest FP turned 4 this weekend so we had a lovely princess party!  Here is my Fairy Princesses.  Soon I will blog about the party properly, including party bags and decorations.  My very talented sister has also promised to explain how she made the beautiful birthday cake (I might even show you a picture!).





Happy days

Fairy Princess Mummy
xx