I’m delighted to announce that I am almost 6 months pregnant!!!!
For those of you that don’t know me this is my first child and to say I’m excited (but also terrified) is the understatement of the century! Feeling the kicks now as well is making it super real! As was seeing the scans and these photos still feel surreal to look at!
I’m being kicked as I type, this baby does not like when I stop moving, thankfully it’s stopped attacking me every time I hammer a ring, which is making bench work a bit easier!
So far the pregnancy is going well, thankfully morning sickness has gone now, I’m very tired but surprisingly my normal back problems have been less, so that’s a win! Heartburn is a nightmare so I will take any suggestions no matter how wild, people might have, if the whole heart burn = a hairy baby thing is true, I’m having a were wolf!
So obviously this will effect Fragment Designs, and while I can’t know how the rest of my pregnancy will go, or the delivery itself this is the current plan….
My due date is mid Feb, and I’m hoping to work pretty much right up to it or whenever baby decides to come, this means that from mid January I will be extending lead times but trying to get orders out asap so that I don’t have a back log but also don’t let anyone down if I do go into labour. Then my shops will be entirely shut down for probably a month.
So if you are hoping to order something in the new year especially wedding rings and ordering this year is an option please do. Both for my sake and also to avoid disappointment if I go into labour early or need to keep the shop shut down longer then planned etc etc. This whole pregnancy and baby thing seems to be a game of chance as to how it goes!
Once I reopen it will be with extended lead times and my lovely husband will be stepping in to reply to all your emails and to pack most orders. I am stocking up for the Christmas and for after and hope to have enough stock made for him to just pack and send the majority while I am on maternity. He’s also being trained up to do some bench work, hopefully we don’t kill each other! What could go wrong!
Of course my wedding rings are mostly made to order, so with them again we will have extended lead times and Conan will deal with the emails, ordering the metal and the sizers etc so that hopefully once a fortnight or so I can take a day at my bench to make them, I’m allowed 10 keeping in touch days at work while still on maternity leave.
While thankfully in the UK we do now get self employed maternity leave it isn’t a lot and as I am the main earner in our house I wont be able to take several months off. On the other hand when I do get back to work since both myself and my husband are working from home, I wont have to leave baby for entire days and I have a flexibility that I hope will make up for returning early. I also love my job and I’ve spent 8 years building up this business so its not such a hardship and I don’t want the business to dissipate because I took too long off.
So that is the plan! If you can please order early, I will try to keep you all informed with how stuff goes and fingers crossed everything continues going well and in Feb I have a little cutie and everything in my entire life gets to change! …GULP!