Raising Harry: Three Years Of HARRY!!

I don’t know how it’s possible, but we have a three-year-old!

Harry turned three on Sunday the 31^st of March, which this year also happened to be Mother’s day. I have to be honest at first I was not thrilled with losing out on ‘my day’ – especially when I don’t have another day all to myself as Sam and I share a birthday – But the more I thought about it the more special it felt to celebrate Mother’s day on the day I became a mother.

But let’s talk about Harry. I still cannot believe he is three!

I look at him now and I am amazed at how far he has come, from that tiny dot of a new-born who looked so fragile in the NICU crib we were scared to touch him, all the way to the little boy he is now – And I realised this weekend he is a proper little boy now – with a serious attitude and a cheeky grin that melts even the coldest of hearts. He is doing fabulously and all in his own Harry way.

I still remember finding out I was pregnant like it were yesterday.

I have never had regular periods, so when I had missed a few it didn’t sound any alarms for me. I was also tired all the time but had just started a new job so I put it down to that – Sam, on the other hand, knew something was different about me. I remember the weekend of our anniversary. We had taken a trip to London to celebrate and we were going to see one of our favourite comedians record his TV show – Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Goodish if you were interested. I remember feeling unwell and exhausted all weekend but didn’t think much of it.

We had a great time but when we got home Sam kept on at me about taking a test – He was convinced I was pregnant. So, just to shut him up, a few days later I did.

'Oh shit,' I remember muttering - Or I thought I had muttered it, but apparently it wasn't quite as quiet as I thought because Sam came running in. The look on his face was somewhere in between smug and horrified. Smug because he was right (I never admit he is right) and horrified because I was pregnant. Not that we didn't want kids. We had discussed it when we realised we were serious and both knew we wanted two children, but the timing was HORRIBLE. I had just started a new job and Sam was only on a temporary contract in the job he was in. We discussed 'the other option' but I knew I couldn't do that. So we were having a baby.

Little did we know what an adventure this would be!

You can read my birth story here - https://www.raisingharry.com/2017/07/birth-story.html

NICU was hard - Somehow we got through that too. (I remember drinking a lot of alcohol the night I had been discharged without Harry - Not something I would recommend!)

On the 17th of April 2016, after 18 days in the hospital, we got to bring our amazing little boy home. During the time spent in the hospital he had endured endless blood tests, UV lamps and we got our T21 diagnosis. We didn't care. We were just excited to bring him home.