… I was waiting.

Yannick was due 20 April 2006 but managed to hold out in Hotel Mama until Sunday 30 April.

… I had my sister over, staying with us.

She was the person who drove us to hospital as Frank didn't have his driving license then. She stayed with us there too.

… I was quite uncomfortable.

Sitting was getting difficult, unless I sat straight up. My hands and feet were aching as I was suffering of carpal tunnel syndrome (which persisted for a while even after giving birth), my legs were slightly swollen, and I had heartburn every night.

… I was slightly worried.

Back in Dublin I had missed the window for some examinations to find out whether my baby might be suffering of Down syndrome. As I am an older mother the risk was slightly higher than for younger mothers. On the other hand, what would I have done if I had found out that my baby was suffering of this??? I am glad that things turned out to be just right.

… I was VERY ignorant about babies.

I believed that all small babies would sleep for long stretches of the day. Ahem.
I thought that I would have a say in when I would stop breastfeeding. Ha ha ha…

… I didn't know what was going to hit me afterwards.

"Once you have the little one, everything will be forgotten." Ha, motherhood will make it all go away??? Excuse me, make what go away, what will be forgotten, the baby? You might forget the pain of the birth, but if you are unlucky you have a really poorly, crying, hungry, not sleeping baby. That won't go away!

… I was curious.

I didn't know what I was going to have, a boy or a girl. I was hoping for a girl, but this little boy is such a darling that it really doesn't matter!

… I didn't know a lot of things about myself or Frank.

I am incredibly short tempered when I get too little sleep. Ack!
But I can survive on a lot less sleep than I ever thought.
Frank really is my rock to lean on. *blush* And he is a great dad!

Looking through boxes and sorting out things I found a piece of paper with this on it:

From: Richard
To:     Sylke
Date: Friday 4 March, 1994 8:54 am
Subject:

MS SYLKE KRAMER,
OUR FAVOURITE TRAINER,
WITH HER SLIM, TRIM FRAME, HER
EYES INFLAME, HER
GOLDEN MANE, HER
LIPS, HER MIEN, HER
VOICE, HER NAME,
NO ONE CAN CLAIM HER,
NO ONE CAN CHAIN HER,
OUR FAVOURITE TRAINER,
MS SYLKE KRAMER!....

At the time I found this quite flattering - and I still do!

This poem was written by one of my students when I was on a work placement in a training company. I taught a group of ca. 25 people basic computer skills. The full-time seven week course included word processing (WordPerfect), spreadsheets (Lotus 1-2-3), databases (dBase), desktop publishing (no idea what we used), email, and an intro to Windows 3.1. And this was only 12 years ago. Gosh, we've come a long way! All of this was during my first stint in England, when I was based in East London.

I met some really nice people at the course but unfortunately I lost contact with all of them. (Bob, Ben, if you should read this and remember me, contact me!!!)