2014 – Looking back

Family

It’s been a good year for us as a family. Jessica had her one and only hospital admission for the year back in January – a planned admission for a cardiac catheter which showed that her lung arteries had good pressures but were small and need time to grow before her next open heart surgery can take place. At the moment we anticipate that this surgery will take place towards the end of 2015 but Jessica will need another cardiac catheter before this. She has had a stable year from a cardiac point of view and her sats are staying up in the low 80s at the moment which is very encouraging.

We enjoyed our first holiday abroad as a family – a road trip around France, Belgium, Monaco and Italy with a day trip to Sark thrown in – enjoying sunshine and temperatures of up to 40’C, catching up with friends who live in the south of France and generally having a wonderful time. We have enjoyed lots of days out – including trips to Legoland and CBeebies Land, treasure trails, hunting the Gruffalo and looking for book benches. So many wonderful memories have been created this year.

It has been wonderful to see the bond grow and develop between Jessica and Sophie. We started off the year with a baby and a toddler – now we have two little girls who are both on the move and it is lovely to watch Jessica reach for Sophie’s hand when they are wandering about or see them playing with a toy together.

With hubby working very long hours throughout many parts of the year, it has been a bit of a challenging one as a family and our relationship has been tested many times but we have realised that the key to a strong marriage is communication and making time for each other. Plus the two most important phrases ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ go a long way!

Blog

When I started this blog back in April, I had no idea of the wonderful blogging community that was out there and it has been wonderful to get to know so many other lovely parents through their blogs – I look forward to reading more from you in 2015 and discovering other new blogs too.

I went self-hosted in October with a name change which reflected more about what my blog is about and was more significant with regards to being a heart mummy. My logo also reflects this – the four hearts represent my family and Jessica’s heart is blue because of her cyanotic heart condition. Being self-hosted has been great – I love having more freedom to play around with the look of my blog.

My top posts in 2014 were:

• Being a heart dad: a personal reflection
• The truth about… the 20 week scan
• Christmas fayre in memory of Amelia
• Finding joy in the tough times
• Review – Ninky Nonk Musical Activity Train

I’m glad that three of my heart-related posts are in the top 5 posts as part of my aim for my blog is to help raise awareness of congenital heart defects through sharing our journey as a heart family. I was also thrilled to reach the top 500 in Tots100 index in December, ending the year at no. 325 which felt like an amazing achievement. Thank you all for taking the time to read and comment on so many of my posts over this past year – and a particular thank you to Sara @mumturnedmom, Merlinda @pixiedust, Le Coin de Mel, Kim Carberry and The Reading Residence for being my top 5 commentators.

And so goodbye to 2014. Thank you for being a part of my year and wishing all my readers all the very best for 2015.