Our Birth Story

On the 6th of September just before 5am the newest and smallest member of our family decided to join us, a week later than expected but still in quite a rush. She is now two weeks old and an officially registered person, we finally decided on her name too. Say hello to Eva Victoria Anderton.

I wanted to share our birth story because I absolutely loved reading other people's before I gave birth, I felt like they were preparing me for so many different eventualities and it was so good to be fully aware that whatever you plan for your perfect birth, it rarely goes exactly to plan! Ours didn't go to plan in the slightest but it was still a really positive (dare I say it, almost enjoyable) experience so I thought it would be worth sharing. So many people love to tell pregnant women horror stories about birth so I wanted to share a bit of positivity!

In the run up to the birth I'd been working my way through the Positive Birth Company online hypnobirthing course which I found incredibly useful, not necessarily for the breathing techniques which I thought I'd be most interested in, but more for the detailed descriptions of the different stages of labour and birth so I felt like I was prepared for anything that could happen. I'd thoroughly recommend this to anyone who's pregnant at the moment, it's only £35 and worth every single penny.

So, onto the birth story! It's a bit long and rambly but so is labour so I'm sticking with it.

4 ways you can make the world a little bit better

Since being away from work I've had actual time to think about everything a little bit more and I'm trying to make conscious decisions to make the world a tiny bit better. 

Our impending (now late...) new arrival is making me think about little things I can do to help and share them with you too. These are in no way life changing but the more tiny things we can all do, the bigger the difference will be.

10 Bobbi Brown Essentials (for the busy/lazy girl)

I'm not sure if it's something that anyone else does (let me know if it is!) but I have different timings and effort levels for make up depending on what I've got on that day. Not leaving the house? 2 minutes worth of make up. Heading out for the day for a walk and lunch with Joe? 10 minutes of make up. Actually going out out for once? Hell, let's spend an hour faffing about.

The majority of my make up bag is made up of Bobbi Brown products because they are so easy to use, compact and generally can be multi purpose, perfect for the busy or lazy girl in us! I spent an afternoon with them earlier this summer to learn about the products that their experts can't live without, and now, my make up routine can't function without. There were some products we tried on the day that I'd never used before and now use every single day so I wanted to highlight my favourites (and my not so favourite) to hopefully help speed up your daily make up routine.

The Third Trimester: My Experience

And just like that our baby is due in a matter of days, time has gone SO quickly! It feels like only yesterday I was writing about the second trimester, the third trimester has absolutely flown by but so much has happened over the past few months.

I thought I'd get this written up a little bit early just in case anything happens before our due date on the 30th of August, you never know! I do feel like the babe is pretty comfy curled up in there but then again the bump shape has changed quite dramatically today so it could be imminent. All the fun and games!

17 Things I've Googled While Pregnant (and the answers)

When you get pregnant for the first time, you're essentially thrown into the unknown. You're chucked head first into a world of nonsense you've probably never thought about and things you didn't even know existed, like what is a bloody Snuzpod?

After nearly 9 months of googling something baby related pretty much every day I thought I'd put together a few of the more questionable ones as a little insight into my antenatal madness. I've also added in the answers just in case some of you are thinking the same, or if you're just interested to know how much boobs grow in pregnancy...