C.J. at toddlers halloween party.


I don't force him to do the hoovering - honestly!!!!

A bit about me!

Thought I would take the plunge and let you get to know me outside of PNI.

I grew up in Ayrshire on the west coast of scotland with mum, dad and younger brother James. We had a lovely, quite priviliged life, full of laughter and love. As children we never wanted for anything!
When I was 13, my dad died suddenly, and for a while, my world came crashing down around me. I have to admit to going off the rails somewhat, but nothing too serious - that I'll admit to anyway lol!
At 14, just after my O levels, we moved to Ireland, as mum felt the need to be with her own mother. Although not deleriously happy about it to begin with, I soon settled in and made some life long friends.
After my A levels, I saw an advert for au pairs in america on a friday, had interview following friday, and was on a plane to New York the next friday!!! I don't hang about me lol!
Spent a wonderful 2 yrs there, and only came back as I had serious bout of pneumonia, and the medical bills there are astronomical.

So, then decided to train as a nurse. Applied to large, highly respected hospital in scotland, was accepted and started my training in aug 1996.

In Feb 1997, while waiting for a taxi, went into tv lounge in student halls, and saw the most gorgeous person I had ever seen.

He decided to come with us, and in Aug 2001 we married!

Spent a lot of time and energy trying to get pg, ( will tell the clomid story sometime), and just as we were about to give up hope, Lewis was born on 16th Jan 2005, followed by C.J. on 23rd June 2006.

So, that takes me up to PNI and meeting you lovely ladies.

Look, I can feed myself lol!

Lewis doesn't look at all enamoured with C.J.'s attempts.

hunnybeanz again!!!

i'm going to get this across my back as a tattoo. i love this pic so much, i didnt like charlie when it was done, but now i love him to bits.... he's my little boy!

charlie-graeme at new year. he was scared sh*tless of the poppers, but loved the tangly bits afterwards lol!

another favourite pic of charlie-graeme, he looks soooooooooooo much like his natural dad in this one tho.....

this is us yesterday,charlie-graemes nearly as tall as me already and he's not even 2 yet!!! (seriously, he comes up to stomach level on me!) and he weighs nearly as much, he's 3 stone, i'm 5 stone!!!

this is the wonderful view from my back door at the moment. picturesque isn't it?! all of this concrete stuff will be decking on day...... i hope!

back garden again, i've been digging this bit over and over now for nearly 3 weeks, i couldn't afford any bricks for the wall (thats going along the bottom of this pic) so been trying desperately to stay interested!

more back garden, after a night of "breezy showers" (thats what they said on the telly anyway! i didnt put the bin like that.... the breezy showers did it!!!

and this one's jaime-leigh when she was about 4 weeks old. thats my hand in the pic, and my hands are REALLY tiny... gives you a real impression of how small she was (and still is). she was 2lb 15oz at birth and she weighed in at 9lb 1oz last week at her check up. the nappy in this pic is a baby born nappy (those dolls! )

Slightly more decent ones of him! Need to put more recent pictures on.

Hi all, this is C.J., 2hours after he was born, and looking somewhat like ET.

more!

another of charlie-graemes modelling pics, i love this one
cause he looks like he's havin a right strop, but for once he wasn't
lol!

taken last month at my mums old house. he's
such a smiley little bugger thesedays... except
when he's bad he's very bad!!! hah hah!


charlie-graeme when he was learning to brush



his own teeth, he's now more than adept at doing



it now, all by himself.... and when i check his



teeth now, more often than not he's done a



proper job..... lol












this is jaime-leigh in scbu, in the incubator. cant



really see much in any of these scbu pix, but



i did say i'd put them on :D




garden pix coming up soon.... just as soon as i find the cable for the cam lol!

hunnybeanz

well, here are a couple of pics of charlie-graeme, this

one is from as soon as he was born.... half hour old!

one of his (many) modelling pics from last year.

this one is me and charlie-graeme last year at blackpool, one of my favourite pictures this one.

i'm going to be putting some pics of the garden on..... before and afters!!!

and when i can get the buggers onto this pc i'll put some of jaime-leigh on too.

i really wanted to share these pics with everyone, for some reason photo's mean a lot to me, they capture certain moments in our lives and you can't get those moments back, so cherish every reminder!

love hunnybeanz // julie

Me and Petey Living Our New Life :D

Hey girls just thought id post some recent pics of pete and i :D
We're pretty happy just being the two of us!! Hasnt he grown???

Newwies Pictures

Newwie asked me to post these lovely photographs for her. The man in the picture is her father and the baby is G

MY HOLIDAY

I thought i would put some photos on from our holiday in tenerife we all ahd a really good time and it was nice and relaxing as well. The first picture is of sam holding the snake from the snake show he was the mans helper and held three different snakes the one in the picture is the medium one there was another one smaller and one bigger which he held all three and was really brave. then a good picture of molly and most of them she was just sitting in her pram the last one is sam at the water park as you can see he likes parrots as well as snakes

PNI ORG UK

Our management meeting 22/03/06

Some of the management waving hello to you all in the kitchen after the meeting!

Last night we had a management meeting for PNI ORG UK, we have to have at least 3 a year according to our constitution.

I thought it might help you all to put a face to the mysterious management committee to see some photographs of them as on the whole theywill not post on the forum. Partly because this will help to keep objective and have an overview of the organisation. They are contibuting ro PNI ORG UK in a different way from those of us who work on the forum. But this is still a very valuable and supportive role to the work of PNI ORG UK.

We made last nights meeting into something of a little get together with eats and tea after the meeting

It was my intention to take a few photographs of us all throughout the evening but unfortunately I could not find my camera until the meeting was over and I think some had already left, so I only have about 3 reasonable photographs I can show you and not everyone is in them. I will try again for next time we meet.

Most of mangement have known me for at least 10 years and some much longer. A couple also knew me when I was ill and some such as Sandy and Heather were around when I was really suffering badly from PNI

Sandy was a member of the playgroup Caja and I went to and both Sandy and I shared a love of riding with Heather and I would often ride with them and take our childen riding - for us riding was our big escape - one of our ways of coping and getting away from our concerns, was via our involvement with horses. we were never 'posh' riders or part of the hunting etc - I used to call us 'The Rough Riders'

Above is Apollo the dog, Barry, Heather, Emma, Geraldine and Sandy drinking tea after the meeting.

All the management members, except Caja! have at least one child and many have experienced PNI to some degree, but not all have.

This is Bee who currently lives with us

in the Caravan and is a member of our

management committee, she has a little

boy aged 5.

At the edge of the frame is Katlin, one of Emma's daughters.

Peters Christening 26/2/2006

Here are the pictures of Peters Christening!
It was a great day, a little bit stressful due to Peter throwing tantrums in church and screaming a few times, but hey, who expects a 14mth old to sit quietly?? lol
In the group shot theres both sets of my grandparents, My parents, My two brothers are in there somewhere along with my two cousins (ones the god mummy holding peter) , my aunty and uncle, the godfather, a best friend of mine Yasmin, myself, brett and peter.
Hope you enjoy!
Love Nat xxx

Bionic Leg

I said I would post a picture of my amazing new removable cast - its called an 'aircast' and it is therapeutic in that it helps preserve bone and stops the muscles wasting as they might if I wore an ordinary cast for too long.

Anyway I thought I might as well start from scratch with a picture history of my leg decorations since my accident in 2003

Left is the original and horrible Ilizarov Frame/External Fixator

I wore for nearly a year

- horrible really!

I was going to say do not show your children but I found that children are actually often fascinated by it. It was the adults who fainted!

Then I had my ankle fused to my leg in January and this is the lovely pink cast I had at first.

And below is me when I was abandoned in a car park by Barry the other day when we were out - he did collect me eventually - what do you think of my matching my clothes and hair colours to my cast?

Well you have to try!!

I now have this amazing boot thing - which I will now wear for some time . Its an amazing item. The tubes are to pump air into special support sacks, they gave me a pump and full instructions!

Whatever will I have to wear next!

My Photos of our Christmas - shoot the photographer!

Hi Everyone

I used to pride myself on my ability as a photographer but if my attempts to photograph us this Christmas are anything to go by - then I have lost my touch - or perhaps its my new camera?

Anyway here is my attempt - I thought I'd better post it before I went into hospital.


This is Caja:

Here is my sister, she is about 15 years younger than me and works as a PR in the IT industry. She used to work at Microsoft as a PR for MSN and now has just got a new job with Cisco - a big IT company.

All our family feel it is ironic that while we all are into IT she ( and my older brother John does OK by it too ) is the only one of us to have made money from it and yet while the rest of the family are quite skilled and have IT qualifications - she is a computer illiterate!!!!

Well not quite and she would be very offended that I said that really - but she is a PC user only and knows little else than how to use them, while I have an HND, and our two brothers did programming at uni and one has a PHD in IT - yet she is the one with the job for BIG IT companies??

Here is my sister and me - as usual I HATE my photo - new years resolution, once I get over my operation do something about my weight and fitness!!!!


I look huge compared to my family. I know others say I am not big and no I am not that big compaired to most of my friends, as we are all about the same size give or take a pound or too, but my family are all so slim and small so I feel like a whale when I am next to them .

Which is not at all good when Barry and I are having a bit of a cuddle etc - he is so slim compared to me it makes me feel huge.......

I am sure you can see what I mean when you look at the size of my family compaired to the size of me! I hope you do nto think I am self obsessed to care about this ?

But to redress the size difference in bed a the very least - I vow to get at least a little slimmer.

Here is the only one I managed to get of Barry

See you all after I come out of hospital

Love to all

Veritee

Peters First Birthday Party!!!

Hey There Girls!
No ones put anything on here for a while so i thought id put some pics of peters 1st birthday party!
He had a great day but was a bit grumpy due to teething! There were other little kids that he enjoyed playing with which was great!
He also ate some of his chocolate birthday cake and he was a total mess afterwards...i had to go bath him!!! lol
So here are the pics of him eating his yummy "The Wiggles Cake" :)
Lotsa love,
Natalie xxx

Hi everyone i thought i'd put these photos on to show you what my children thought of halloween. As you can see Sam really enjoyed dressing up and going out trick or treating. In fact he enjoyed it so much that he has been asking nearly every night if we can go again. then as you can see from the other photo halloween passed over Molly without too much bother she slept the whole time even though we had lots of people knocking at ours trick or treating. Did anyone else go out this year if so what did you kids dress up as.

OUR WEDDING!!!!

Hey Girls,
We had THE BEST WEDDING DAY!!!!
It was so great...went way too quickly.
Have put a few photos here to show you all :)
The first one's Brett, myself and Peter, the other one is with my bridesmaids, and then the other one is my mum and me :) !
I'll talk to you more later in the week as we're still a bit flat out lol!
Take care girls and looking forward to catching up!
Lots of love, Natalie xxxx
PS: I'll be adding more pics as i get time through the day :)

Sarah BC (before children!)

Before I had my children, the first of which was born when i was 19 years old, i had great ambitions!! (didn't we all?!) I was going to be a midwife, have a great career then have my family. However, i turned down a place at uni (because my ex didn't want me to go!) and had my 1st child, Cameron instead. I love him to bits and i can't believe he is 9 years old already. Then came Kirsty Louise who is now 6 years old. Still didn't manage to become a midwife! Then me and my hubby split in 2003 and i enrolled at college on a nursing course which was to take 3 years. Then i met the love of my life, Robbie and also got a job as an auxiliary ambulance driver (a step closer to working in the medical profession) but i couldn't take the stress and dropped out of my college course. I kept working as i loved my job and thought one day i would maybe train as an ambulance technician. We then decided to have a baby together and now we have Nathan, who is now 15 weeks old. I no longer work for the Ambulance Service as i can't cope with the stress!! so now my dreams and goals have changed a little bit!! lol
As you can see from reading the above, i'm not very good at dealing with stress and think maybe a career in the medical profession isn't for me. I still dream of becoming a midwife but think it takes a stronger person than me to deals with the ups and downs the job would throw out. Any new career suggestions on a postcard please........ lol. I need to think about my future as ME, because although i'll always be a mum, one day my kids will be following their own dreams and career paths.

I met up with Elaine Hanzak Yesterday

Hi Everyone

Here are the photos of our walk on the beach after our meeting for lunch.

Here is Elaine
She looks great doesnt she ?

This is from left to right: Barry ( my husband) Caja ( my daughter) Elaine, Dominic ( Elaine and Nick's Son) and Nick ( Elaine's Husband ) and my dog Apollo. Barry does not need the stick , for some reason he was holding it for me!

This is a group with me in it - I do not like me in photos.. but I think we are all the same about this really

Anyway it was lovely to meet Elaine and her family

Veritee

Me before them

I too wanted to say somethings about me as a person not me as a mum. As some people know i'm a nurse and i have been for ten years which seems like such a long time. My little boy is now three but before i had him life was so different going where we wanted and doing what we wanted just me and my husband. We are both a bit of rollar coaster addicts weht to alton towers and blackpool at least once a year before the children came along. But it a bit hard to go places like that now with the two children as it would mean ridding the rollarcoasters on our own which isn't as much fun. I love both the kids too pieces but there are some things that you just can't do with them. However on the other hand there are so many new things for them to experience. And on another high note we are going on our first holiday abroad in april nest year since before sam was born so everyone is really excited about that. Well there you go for now maybe soon i'll be brave and put a picture of my happy family on here as its really cool seeing what everyone looks like. Also i have to say Veritee that this is an excellent idea.

Our Little Family!

Hi Everyone,
Had a get together at my house today for my birthday, and had a photo take, i wanted to share it with you girls so you know what we look like :)

What My Life Was Like Before Mummyhood!

Hey Gals!
Well i worked as a pharmacy assistant but also managed the Kodak Express lab that was in the chemist. I printed many interesting photos to say the least lol :)
I loved driving around with my girlfriends, catching up with my model friend who lives in Sydney (she's in th UK at the moment though), loved going out to lunch with my girlfriends, spent time with my fiance brett, and loved shopping!
I also am a music person, i used to buy at least one cd every week...don't really have the money too anymore.
I'm also a make up artist, so i did quite alot of that too. I still get jobs, but it slowed down after i had Petey as i couldn't take on too much.
I also used to love having sleep overs with my cousin. We grew up together so we're like sisters. I miss the sleepovers !
I loved quiet nights in watching movies with brett and then sleeping in till late the next morning.
I have to admit, thats the one thing i miss the most, sleeping in and just lying in bed enjoying the sunshine.
Now you know a bit more about myself :)
Good topic Susanne!
Love Natalie xxx

Ok, so life before PNI?

Hiya girlys,
Ok, so what was your life like before PNI?

I enjoyed seeing my friends, I loved shopping, and of course music....music is part of my daily life, I love singing and I love music of all kinds. I enjoyed going to the theatre, Les Miserable is one of the most amazing musicals I have ever seen in my life! I've seen it in most theatres in the country and a total of 17 times. I have a Les Mis T shirt and CD and DVD and somewhere I've got the sheet music! I love it, especially the performance with Micheal Ball as Marius....ooooo I'd like to play his wife if you catch my meaning! lol
I was writing a lot before PNI struck, I love writing and have written many poems and short stories, not necessarily to be published, but just for the love of writing.
I moved to Liverpool to be with Alan, my boyfriend, and I love him very much. I like cooking, although I am a very fussy eater and will sit watching the cookery programs saying 'I don't like that' or ' I wouldn't eat that' Alan quite often asks me why I watch them! But I enjoy them!
I found my Dad two years ago, after 17 years of not knowing him (I was 3 when he left, for reasons of his own) and that is amazing, we are still getting to know each other and settling into the way of having a dad and him having a daughter!
I was working as a teaching assistant working with children with severe special needs, which I loved. My dream is to be a teacher, but I am waiting until the girls are a bit older, because I'm not sure I could cope with the work load and the children.

Sorry, I tend to get carried away! lol I'll stop now, I think i can smell my tea burning!

my angels

Hi this looks like fun so i just thought i'd give it a try and add my own pictures this is my som sam who is three and a half which you will all know is very important to them and my daughter Molly she is my little angel.

Heya Girls!

Hey Girls,
Thought i'd give this a try. I have included a picture of my beautiful angel boy Peter (Petey).
Love and Light,
Natalie xxx

This is great Veritee! Fantastic Idea! Time for fun :D

Well I am going to be brave - this is me

Hi All

To get the ball rolling I am going to be brave - I HATE photos of me but I am going to post some here. As I would love to see what you all look like. ( but no pressure, I realize that many of you might not want to publish your image on the web and this is fine) Some of them will be ones you have seen before as I do not have many taken - but I will try to include some new ones too.


Here is the one I had taken for the observer colour mag article. see http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1123963,00.html I hate this pic as it makes me look very harsh - which I am not - as I had short hair and this does not suit me . And to make it worse it was a whole colour mag page spread!! UGH!

But here is one I took myself just now and basically now I come to think of it I prefer the one by the professional photographer!!


As I look harsher here - must be the red hair - But I'm determined not to grow old graciously! Red is better than grey!

Veritee

This is Squidgey GJ

And this is GJ! Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen!? Awww my ickle squidge.

Thea

This is Thea, my ickle baby girl!
Isn't she soooo beautiful?

Hiya everyone

Wow, doesn't this look posh!
Well done Veritee!

Please Join me here

This is Barry.

My long suffering husband - he is looking great considering he is 53 ( well I like him anyhow!)

- but he stays slim because he works at sea in very bad conditions - often over 100 degrees F - in an engine room on a ship. I tell him that doing this sort of work that keeps him slim and fit will probably lengthen his life, but he does not seem to get any comfort from this!















This is Caja, at Falmouth Harbour in the summer - Who is now 16 and a rather nice girl really! The trouble is she hates her photo taken and is trying to be a goth, and this was also a bad day when she had a cold and was feeling ill - so the combination makes her look like a really bad tempered, fed up teenager - but take my word for it I'm her mum - she's lovely really!
_____________________________________________________________

Hi to everyone

I have not used this Blog for a while - I created it for women who have PNI or have had PNI to have a bit of an offload or to share pictures of their children or to share anything else that they feel does not belong in our Post Natal Illness support web site at http://www.pni.org.uk or our forum at http://veritee.proboards7.com/

No one has used it really but I am hoping it will catch on as this could be a really nice way of sharing our photos etc
I hope you will join me here?

If you want me just email me at veritee@pni.org.uk and entitle your email ' pni blog' and I will send you a link and instructions so you can join and post photos and whatever else you would like to add to the blog

All the best

Veritee

Caja at Flora Day 2000 

We have a Life

Come on girls - lets show the world through this Blog that just because women are suffering Post Natal Illness, does not make them boring gits with no life!

We have a life , we have families, we have views, many of us have jobs or vocations and we are all great people, some of us even have a sex life -shall we try to share some of our 'other lives' here?

Wendy' Children

I Said She Was Small!

Caja In the Cats Basket age 3ish

Lets have some fun

Yes we have or have had PNI. But this is not all we are about, it is not all of our lives.

Lets have some fun here.

This blog is where you can share stuff you would not on the forum at http://veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi

Some where for off topic stuff and well - just a bit of fun.

You can have a rant too
Lets party!