Parenting the Shand Princesses

This weeks pregnancy journey is by Samantha Abraham . Her journey had me laughing and i'm sure you will do the same! I gave birth to my beautiful baby number 5 at the beginning of January this year. I have 2 boys aged 21 and 8 years as well as 2 girls aged 7&5. Baby No.5 came as a huge but pleasant surprise after having decided not to have any more and quitting my job to create a start-up. Having passed the stages of denial I finally take a pregnancy test... Reality sets in and my husband and I are now passed staring at each other in silence which goes on to last a couple of months.   This eventually moves into us having conversations about our worries and what we need to do to plan for this.... unplanned, untimely pleasant little gift with the power of scaring us half to death!!! ... At some point among the madness, we do the maths and work out as tradition would have it....our little gift really was a gift!!!...as in that we worked out that we

The next few blog posts are going to be based on pregnancy and the obstacles we have to face not only during pregnancy, but conceiving and even after giving birth. My guest for this post is Danielle from My Mummy is a Bookworm  She has decided to share with me her journey to becoming a mother. "We got married. I came off the pill. I thought it would be that simple. Boy was I deluded. It started with absent periods, months went by and I had nothing, I did pregnancy tests and they always came back negative. I went to see my GP for advice, and they sent me for some blood tests. The result came back and I found out that I had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and that this may impact on my ability to conceive. I was shattered, the reality of having a baby suddenly felt so far away and I felt that it was completely my fault. I couldn’t give myself or my partner what we so desperately wanted - a family. I was referred to a specialist at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester