Hello!

If you’re reading this and you don’t know who I am, firstly that’s bit scary (!) but hi…my name is Jo, I’m 37, I’m married to Mark and have a daughter called Robyn. I’m originally from Shrewsbury and now live in Cardiff. I should think of other vaguely interesting things to say but you’ll be learning plenty about me if you do carry on reading.

In January 2022 I found out I was pregnant for a second time; we were about to join the Two under Two club. Honestly my over riding feeling was…oh shit! Robyn was amazing at many things but sleep was not one of them; how were we going to survive with a newborn baby in the mix?!

My pregnancy with Robyn was pretty plain sailing, other than a global pandemic, a national lockdown, and delayed building work that meant knocking down the back of our house (during said national lockdown). We found out we were pregnant not long after starting to try for a baby - I felt well, we didn’t really have any scares, I managed to stay at home for most of my labour before going into hospital for an uncomplicated birth. Fuelled on the shock of already being 8cm dilated, gas and air, Marks endless counting of my breath and lots of London Grammar; our surprise baby girl arrived in the early hours of a November morning. Robyn – our world. And she has 100% kept our world turning over the last few months.

I fully expected my second pregnancy to be pretty similar to my first, except I did know I’d be way more tired. I was constantly tried, I regularly napped with Robyn and buckled under the pressure and had a few coffees (no more than the recommended amount for a pregnant person but I’d still feel guilty about that in weeks to come).

We decided we wanted to go on one final holiday as a family of three. France was the obvious place for us – we’d enjoyed lots of holidays there over the years, plus it meant no flying with a crazy toddler. We booked what I thought was a proper ‘family holiday’, a full on camp site with indoor and outdoor pools, bouncy castles and kids activities, near the beach. Oh how times had now firmly changed, no more cocktails on a lounger or city breaks, but it was time to embrace it.

In my head, once we were back from the holiday, we needed to get planning for this baby. We’d get back from France, decorate a new bedroom for Robyn and move her in, buy a double buggy, get a new bedside cot and try not to buy tooooo many cute, tiny little clothes. We even had a brand new family size car on order. I felt like the summer would fly by and our September baby would soon be here.

We were so excited for the trip. Anyone who knows Mark knows how much he LOVES a France holiday! We had been the year before with Robyn and had such a lovely time, we knew it was going to be fun.

It’s safe to say that the fortnight that followed was nothing like we had expected.