Lucy Lou

Lucy Louise Annora Doggett was born on the 25th May, after a grueling 1 hour and 30 minute labour. I know, it's not long, but it was intense. I was induced with pre-eclampsia again. I learned something new about pre-eclampsia, and that is that I'm, apparently, allergic to being pregnant! The doctor said that labour that is induced due to pre-eclampsia is usually quick b/c your body is eager to get the baby out b/c it's making you sick. Nice, I know, but my 3 babies that I had pre-eclampsia with have all been labours under 2 hours. Chloe was the only baby I wasn't allergic to and she took 2 days to get out! I just think the whole thing is hilarious! Anyway, we're happy and healthy. Lucy is a good baby and a good feeder. We've had a couple of sleepless nights, but what's having a newborn without a lack of sleep? All the children have been ecstatic about having her. She is a well-loved baby!

Easter Hullabaloo and Good News

I've got a lot of catching up to do, so hopefully this won't be too draining for everyone to read. My mom arrived in England to help out and spend a couple of months with us on the 2nd. WOOHOO!! I'm so excited b/c I've always wanted to have my mom around when I've been having a baby, and now my dream has come true! She's really enjoying spending the time with the children, too, as they are really enjoying her! I think James' favourite word is 'Yia Yia', which is what my children call her. We're having a blast and I get to put my feet up! It was Easter break, pretty much from the time she arrived here, so no school and we took her to Cornwall for the day, when we visited Simon's parents in Exeter.

Easter is such a lovely holiday! I used to always be a Christmas person, and I still love Christmas, but Easter is my favourite. I love that the flowers are all blooming and we get some sunny days, we also have some lovely traditions that always make Easter special for our family. We start out Easter morning by going and having a devotional in the countryside at sunrise. Simon always finds us a lovely spot for it and we read the Easter story in the scriptures, sing a hymn together, and have a prayer. It is always a really spiritual experience. I love it! We then have church and the talks and lessons were so uplifting this year, especially the talks in Sacrament. Afterwards, we have a special Greek Easter feast. When Simon was on his mission in Greece, they celebrated Easter more there than they did Christmas, so we decided as a family that we could do a Greek Easter. Simon grills a lamb, and we have stuffed vine leaves, fried aubergines, pitas, Greek salad, etc. It is soooooo delicious, and I don't do the cooking, which is always a bonus! I love our Easter traditions. There's not a more significant event that's ever taken place in the history of man, than that of our Saviour's atonement and resurrection, and our traditions have made it even more special for me to have that extra bit of reflection on things.

The rest of the Easter break was eventful, to say the least. James broke his leg, in what they called a toddler fracture. It wasn't anything major, but he had to get a cast on it for a week. When I took him into A&E, it was 8 days after he hurt it. I know, I'm a bad mother, but I didn't actually see the accident and Simon insisted that James was just over-reacting to a little twist of his ankle when he was coming down a slide. Anyway, Simon went away for a day to visit his mum, so I took James to A&E, where I was, again, treated like the delinquent mother. The report that the receptionist wrote up even said I was referred by the police, which made me feel like a criminal! Next time, I'm sending Simon!

The really good news is that Simon's mum is now at home. It is a miracle!! She went from having a 20% chance of living and being in a coma, to now being at home for her recuperation. She was supposed to have something like 4 weeks more in hospital, then have to go into a home for a couple of weeks of rehabilitation, but she's bypassed all of that and is now at home. She's still quite weak, but is doing amazing. I got to see her for the first time last week, when she was still in hospital, and she looked good to me. She's always been a determined woman and strong, so this has proved no different to her character. I'm just amazed by it all! The Lord has blessed us so much! I could never be in doubt of his love and mindfulness of us!

Anyway, that's what we've been up to. Hope you've all had a lovely Easter and Spring!

Major Progress

Just to keep everyone in the loop, Simon's Mum came out of intensive care, yesterday. Hooray! We're so thrilled with how blessed she's been and we feel confident now that everything is going to be okay, although it will be a very long recovery.

She tried to walk for the first time, a couple days ago and finds it very frustrating, but she's determined to work at it. She's also talking now and we were able to talk to her on the phone on Monday. It was amazing!

Simon's Dad has been unwell and not able to see her as much, but is managing very well in the circumstances, especially as she is doing much better.

We just feel very blessed and know that the Lord is watching over her and that the Spirit has blessed us with a great calmness and reassurance at this time. Thank you for all your love, concern, prayers, and well wishes. It's all helped, tremendously!

Mum Update

I just wanted to send an update about Simon's Mum. She's doing much better than we could have expected at this stage. She is still in intensive care, but has regained some consciousness. She can open her eyes and breathe on her own, unaided. She is no longer on dialysis, either, so her kidneys have started to function again. Also, the bacteria has started to go down for the first time. Basically, instead of failing, all her organs have started to function again. We're so happy that positive progress has been made, but the doctors told us not to get too excited, as patients in her condition often have relapses and go back to stage one. We feel positive, though, that the Lord is looking after her and she is fighting to come back!

The recovery for her would be a matter of months, though. After intensive care, she would be in the hospital for weeks and then into a sort of care home for weeks after that, so we're not hoping that she'll be coming home soon anytime, but that she'll just continue to make positive steps in progressing. We feel blessed that she has been getting better.

The Lord really does hear and answer our prayers. Keep praying, though! xx

Families are Forever

In the last few months, our family seems to have moved from one crisis to another. At times, some things have been more than we thought we could ever bear. Some of it has been brought on by others and totally beyond our control, some of it has been health related and, also, beyond our control. I don't write about any of it too much because I always try to remain positive, especially on my blog.

Last Thursday, Simon's Mum, was taken to hospital. She had been in bed for 8 days, not talking or eating. She was having problems breathing, so Simon's Dad phoned an ambulance. Now, she is in the intensive care unit at the hospital. She developed a condition that is, basically, very rare and life threatening. The name of it is streptococcus. It's some form of the the strep throat virus, as far as I know, and her immune system worked too hard to fight it off and started to poison her, instead of help her. The doctors have had to shut down her immune system, completely, because of it, and she is in an induced comma. With this sort of illness, the odds of survival are generally 20%. The doctor did say that given the fact that Mum doesn't smoke or drink, and that her general health is good, that the odds could be up to 50% chance. What a blessing it is to have the Word of Wisdom. In some circumstances, it really could mean the difference between life and death! We don't know what will happen, but that's a significant increase of odds in her favour.

Right now, we're all just waiting. It can take 7 days before there is any sign that the treatment is working, but she is stable. Our prayers are just constantly with her. The whole thing has just come out of nowhere, and has been a complete shock for us all. We have much faith, though, and we can certainly feel the calming power of the Spirit in such a difficult time. We're also very aware of our Heavenly Father and His mindfulness of us. We're doing okay.

One thing that has really helped us through this the most is the temple. We are so grateful for the temple and the prospect of our family being eternal. Simon's Mum always lives to the utmost degree of righteousness. Sometimes, I've even teased her for going a bit overboard, when she's told me she doesn't even watch commercials because they can be against her standards. I could never feel anything but gratitude to the way that she lives her life, now. We find it so comforting that we know, without any shadow of a doubt, that whatever happens we will be with her forever. She is an example to me in my life of the standard that I want to live up to. I really do love her.

I'll continue to update everyone on any news that we get. I just wanted to express how grateful I was today.

Happy Birthday, Momma's Little Helper!

James has turned 2 years old today! We had his party on Saturday with Granny and Grandad, where he enjoyed stuffing his face with cake! We went walking in Long Barrow, again, for the afternoon. The children love it there, and James loves climbing all over the place.

He's been such a blessing to have in our lives. The sad thing is, he is surrounded by women who are never going to let him go! A few things his family love about him...

-He is just so stinking cute!

-He is overly helpful and will get really cross if you don't let him help you with something.

-He is constantly singing, beautifully in tune! He can't talk, but he can sing!

-He loves to cuddle...something I could never deny him of, no matter what I'm doing!

-He goes in for a kiss like he's going in for a major snog!

-When he walks to school, he puts his hands in both of his pockets and strolls along like an old man.

-He loves helicopter's, and will talk to you about them for ages, demanding all your attention, and you can't understand a word he is saying! This doesn't bode well for his future wife!

-He is usually very placid and happy, but when he loses his temper, he goes on a major head banging session!

We just love our little man! Happy Birthday!

His gift from us was a Thomas The Tank Engine airport. It was a good choice for him.

He didn't really know what to make of Daddy and Sophia blowing on his cake. He just wasn't going to let go of his baloon and his helicopter.

Climbing around at Long Barrow.

Half term hum drums

Our half-term for school was the week before last and this half-term was, needless to say, somewhat eventful. I had a midwife appointment on the Monday, which indicated high blood pressure. The midwife was threatening to send me to hospital, but Simon was away and there way just no way that I wanted to spend time in hospital, so I protested...and won! Whilst we were at the midwife appointment, James ran around the room and knocked his eye on a chair...which ended up in us all having to spend an hour in A&E. Not very helpful in lowering blood pressure!

Wednesday, I had to get some bloods taken for my hospital appointment on Friday. The problem is that I spend ages at the surgery and about 5 pokes later, the nurse decided she couldn't get blood from me, so I had to get it done at the hospital anyway. Not an unusual experience for me, as I'm cursed with deep veins!

Friday was my hospital appointment in Bath. I was paranoid that they were going to keep me in hospital for ages, so I prepared for the worst. The good news is that my blood pressure had returned back to normal. I got to see the thyroid specialist, too, who upped my dose of medication. Yipee! I'm feeling more energetic from it already! The bad news is that they think I'm just going to get pre-eclampsia again, so I have to go into Bath every 4 weeks for a scan until I get induced. I also have to see the midwife and get bloods in-between hospital appointments, so I'm just going to be spending my life at hospitals. Apparently, with pre-eclampsia, you have it the first baby and never again, or you have it with every pregnancy. The obstetrician was shocked that all my children were from the same father b/c I didn't have pre-eclampsia with Chloe, my 2nd child. I'm not sure I even convinced her that Simon was, indeed, the father of each of my children! Never mind! I did have another scan, but they still couldn't tell what the sex was, so I'll have to wait until 30 weeks.

Other than that, half-term was relaxing. I loved not doing the school run. You wouldn't think it was such a big deal b/c school is only a 2 minute walk down the road, but I hate how it rules my life! I loved not having to get everyone dressed until 10am! Life is grand!
I was pleasantly surprised to find the children cuddling on the couch while I made dinner. The silence was scaring me b/c that usually means I'm going to have some major clean-up!


James is always filling bags up and wearing his dressing gown. All of my children start out life by closing their eyes when I tell them to smile for the camera. My eyes are small and squint when I smile, and my children interpret the squinting as closing. The children I nannied for in London also started closing their eyes for pictures. I really don't know how to prevent it!

For one night during half-term, the children got to sleep in their tent in the girls room. James was not meant to be part of the equation, but he was so gutted that we had to let him. The children didn't get much sleep that night!