It seems like such a long time ago when I decided to write a book it’s something that has been on my agenda for a while but I didn’t have a clue where to start. So I thought I’d take the time to start at the beginning.

In January 2011 what was suppose to be a routine pregnancy scan turned into the worst day of my life.  After having 2 perfectly healthy children you never imagine things will go wrong – why would they you have done it before, your body knows what to do.   At 22weeks we were informed that our baby wasn’t growing properly and that the Dr’s are unsure why.   Our prognosis was as follows:-

Baby has no physical characteristics or features or issues which can be attributed to her small size.  The placenta is more than likely the issue.  Come back for a scan in 3 weeks time to measure her growth again.  This will be crucial in deciding the next step.  Ideally if pushed to deliver 28 weeks presents the best chance for baby’s survival.

Reading this now all those thoughts, fears and emotions well up inside me and I can’t help but cry – which is silly as Olive crawls along the floor beside pushing her car – my perfectly happy, healthy baby.  Statistics show that under 28 weeks the survival rate is very low so to be told that, that is your ‘goal’ was horrendous.  The next few months I threw myself into my business, blog writing and my family – M&M and with every hospital appointment (there were many!! Every 2-3 weeks) there was the glimmer of hope.  Baby was still growing slowly buts steadily and even though the consultant always looked puzzled and filled our heads with woe our little baby didn’t listen.

Thankfully intervention wasn’t needed and all by herself at 42 weeks and 1 day – Olive Anne Louise Giltrow made her entrance into the world a staggering 5lbs.  Due to her size and a few sugar issues from the speedy labour we were admitted onto the ward.  Sadly I’ll never look back on this time with fondness!! It was awful! Moo would cry his eyes out when he came to visit – missing his mummy dearly.  Olive wasn’t putting any weight on and Daddy Moo was spending a small fortune on car parking.  Then one day I called Daddy Moo asking him to bring me a notebook and pen … he reminded me I should be resting before I came home and had 3 other people to take care of, enjoy some 1:1 with Olive.   That day after Daddy Moo went home, I had eaten my gourmet NHS dinner (yuck!)  and Olive was asleep – I started writing a plan.

With every visit to the hospital we never had any answers – we had resigned ourselves to looking after a sick child.  Olive displayed signs of this and signs of that but nothing concrete to pin point.  So to suddenly be presented with a baby that looked, smelled and behaved in the same way as my previous babies albeit smaller was … this might sound weird … but inspiring.  I felt that Olive hadn’t given up she hadn’t struggled her way through the pregnancy like we were led to believe she did her own thing in her own time – she is AMAZING!   I felt that I needed to do something amazing in her honour.   So that book I keep saying I’ll do then another year and another year passes by I put pen to paper and I jointed down my ideas.  As I wrote it became apparent that my other business commitments were going to hold me back – with time and limiting my resources.

So after 6 days in hospital we were finally allowed home.  My list complete …

My plan had was as follows:-

1. Write a book and have it published.
2. Sell Networking Mummies UK
3. Enjoy every moment with M,M&O – mummy 1st – business 2nd.