Jazz, aka Libby the Liberty Taker is now aka The Turd Burglar.
If you're picturing a dog on its hind legs, hunched over and tip toeing stealthily and looking shiftily left and right with front paws up in true Scooby Doo style, you're close.
Libby has always had a penchant for selecting only the ripest turds from the backyard menu and serving them up at the back doormat. She stopped for a time - we thought it was just a growing phase for our pup - and now it's started up again in earnest. Along with small stones. A leaf maybe. And sometimes a stray little twig. These other items I have no problems with. It's the finely crafted bits of dried shit that, er, I'm not so keen on as offerings.
Cigar, anyone?
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Top of the pops
Note to self:
If you're changing a nappy and you hear a sound come from the rear end of the baby, this is the usual cue to both close your mouth and move your head out of direct firing line because you are going to smell something. Failure to do so will end in watery eyes and/or mouthful of Parfum de Baby Guts.
I am going at such a slow pace at the moment that not even hearing a fart is enough to spur me into high-speed mode. What next? I mean, this time two weeks ago I was hearing those noises and literally jumping back and to the side *just in case* Now, I think the dear girl could projectile just about anything my way and I'd be just too darn tired to even side-step.
If you're changing a nappy and you hear a sound come from the rear end of the baby, this is the usual cue to both close your mouth and move your head out of direct firing line because you are going to smell something. Failure to do so will end in watery eyes and/or mouthful of Parfum de Baby Guts.
I am going at such a slow pace at the moment that not even hearing a fart is enough to spur me into high-speed mode. What next? I mean, this time two weeks ago I was hearing those noises and literally jumping back and to the side *just in case* Now, I think the dear girl could projectile just about anything my way and I'd be just too darn tired to even side-step.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
A story for a very looooong rainy day
Lauryn’s birth story
Diary entry 18.7.06
“We’ve made it! Past every obstacle, milestone, date we set to assure us we are “getting close”!
I had so hoped Lolly was going to choose her own birth date. But we’ve made it to the 18th and I will be induced tomorrow. We go in at 4pm.
I’m so excited. Very wired. Unsure how I’ll sleep, actually. I can’t wait to lay eyes on our little girl! So many people are waiting to hear of her safe arrival, but I don’t know if I want to burst the bubble too soon. I oscillate between expecting I’ll want to show her to everyone before the cord’s even been cut, to wanting her all to ourselves – just her dad and me.
We have waited so, so, so long. The anticipation is palpable! I have so much to give as a mother, I just know it will come flooding in. It was cut so short with Ella, but I knew in an instant (all of a sudden, some days after her birth) what I was like as a mum.
Lolly, I cannot wait to call you Lauryn!”
I struggled for weeks and weeks at the end of my pregnancy, with my emotions about becoming a mum again. I asked questions of people who have been down the road before me – women who became mothers again after losing their first-born child – I soul searched, I tried to connect with my baby. I was painfully aware our little family of three was about to become +1. And I was so worried I wouldn’t be up to scratch for her in terms of accepting her, of letting Ella go just that little bit more, and feeling so damn guilty about knowing I would have to focus wholly and solely on our new baby, thereby not giving much headspace to our angel Ella.
The day before Lauryn was born, I had to check in to the hospital for induction. I had been looking forward to the day for so long, it felt like the heady anticipation of a long-awaited holiday on a big international flight – I have similar butterflies when I look forward to and then dread a big plane trip on the eve of the flight.
I really had secretly hoped Lolly would take matters into her own hands as she had done throughout the entire pregnancy and each hoop I jumped through, and choose her own birthday, but when dawn came (following another night of around 4 hours sleep), I knew I would be in for a bit of a challenge with the labour. She had proven herself to be a sure but steady girl as she grew and each time I came across a scare (bleeding at 6 weeks, then 15 weeks, and threatened labour at 24 weeks causing hospitalisation until contractions subsided), I continually had this solid straightforward feeling from her – the only feeling I had from her! – and I knew she would just keep on coming. Slow and steady wins the race…
We went around that morning doing some last-minute house-keeping, I distracted myself by doing a few edits for a client, we watched a couple of funny TV shows and the mood was good. Even. A little incredulous that we would be seeing our little girl as soon as the next day and in good spirits despite the slight but building apprehension.
At around 1pm (about 2 hours before we had to get ready to leave), I started to get quite emotional. Scared about how I would feel about seeing her and whether I would do right by her if my feelings were mixed, immense guilt at inducing a perfectly happy baby instead of waiting for the day she chose to come, sadness that I felt so alone and that I had to go through yet another process emotionally isolated from most people who know me and haven’t experienced the birth of their next child after losing their first.
I have to admit to feeling very nervous and even leaving it a bit late to get ready to leave. I think perhaps I was so excited and so looking forward to seeing Lauryn that I lost my nerve at the last minute because I couldn’t believe the time had actually come. Until we got to not only the day, but the time to leave, I never quite believed it would happen and I guess it was all of that that started coming down on me that afternoon.
I pretty much spent my whole pregnancy like that. It probably made real emotional attachment a bit of a hurdle, although overall there was no denying my sheer joy nor could I overlook the sense that I was growing a wonderful, content, strong little girl with a big and definite energy (the nature of which, aside from knowing she was ‘happy’, she kept from me!).
We arrived at the Admissions desk and the clerk made small-talk, asking us if this was our first baby. My reply, of course, was “No, we have another little girl”. She excitedly said they would have fun being sisters and I had to then tell her that big sister Ella died as a baby. Without missing a beat, this woman said “Oh so this is your first really, then”. I HAD to correct her!
I felt very safe and supported at the maternity ward, as it was the same one where I had Ella. We were taken around to Foetal Monitoring and I was hooked up for one last time to listen to Lauryn’s heart, which was fine. Then by 5.30pm the gel had been inserted and I was told to have a rest and then go for a walk. DH went home and I was left to “wait and see”.
As it happened, a fellow EB member was admitted in the public ward and we had met the previous week. I decided to go around and sit with her and while we were chatting I got very uncomfortable. She had a twinkle in her eye and tried to tell me I was in early labour, but I waved the pains off and said “Nahhh!” while trying to get comfy in the visitor chair.
I ended up coming back to the ward at around 9pm and the pains were quite strong already but I was told it was probably just the effects of the gel and that sometimes, it mimicked labour but was not necessarily the start of anything. So I was given pain relief and sleeping tablets and tried to catch some sleep. When I woke, I still had contraction type pain and timed them 5 minutes apart for 40 minutes then called in the nurse again. She said to try and get more sleep, that it could still be nothing. I could have told her differently! But miraculously, I caught another hour and a half of much needed sleep and woke again in great agony around 1.30am. Calling the nurse in again, she told me to get up and come sit with her for a while so she could time the contractions and guage what was going on. They were understaffed that night and while I sat in the ward nursery, I timed my own contractions and they were now 3 minutes apart. Very strong and almost unbearable already, I tried to collect my thoughts and keep my wits about me. I didn’t recall them being quite so acute during my labour with Ella and I was surprised at my inability to even effectively breathe my way through them. They were over a minute long and coming 3 minutes apart, so there wasn’t much of a rest by this time.
There was another midwife tending to the babies in the nursery, who decided to step up the pace of getting me to Delivery, and I was told to go and grab that shower I wanted before going to the Labour Ward because it was highly unlikely I’d be getting any more sleep that night. I was relieved to hear someone say the pain hadn’t been for nothing!
It took me over half an hour to have a quick 1 minute shower and hobble back to the nursery which was only paces from my room. I could hardly walk, even between contractions, and still couldn’t understand why I was in such agony. It seemed that even as the contraction subsided, I was left with residual all-over-body intense pain and I was constantly very uncomfortable. It was around 3am and I silently started hoping they were going to tell me I wasn’t far from having this baby because I felt at the end of my endurance already and I was only 5 hours into it.
In Delivery, I was taken to a lovely quiet room at the end of the ward somewhere and the most lovely calm midwife was there to assist me. It felt like I hadn’t been in there long with her when, after being attached to the foetal monitor, she suggested I might like to call “hubby” and get him in. It was almost 4am.
By the time DH arrived, within half an hour, I really wasn’t in the mood for any more of the small talk the midwife had been using to very effectively distract me through a little more of the labour. It took everything in me to get through each contraction and I was not getting a break in between to catch my breath. They were still about 2 minutes apart but my mind was not overcoming my physical pain, something I had not been prepared for. I was absolutely exhausted by shift change-over at 7.30am (the midwives’ shift, not mine unfortunately!) as I farewelled the gorgeous angel of a midwife who had seen me through the middle of the night.
By this stage, I was asking for pain relief. Despite myself, my beliefs, my experience of being able to cope positively with the effort of labour and child birth last time, this time I felt different. It was intense, as intense as last time, I knew I was certainly in a different place emotionally now too. But even when I had the grave fears of delivering a baby 10 weeks prem (with Ella), I was able at that time to push those fears out of my mind and remain very stoic, positive and focused. This time, my labour felt out of control, I couldn’t think straight because there was no let-up of the pain, but I only realised this after the fact – during the process, all I could do was endure. I recall trying to rationalise with myself, that the pain I felt wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before. But yes it was! I started arguing in my own mind, some part of me trying to reason with the other pained part of me – at this point I felt like I literally separated myself in two: the mind and the body weren’t working together anymore. I think my body wanted to sack my brain for being a poor advocate up to that point and I guess that’s what it did!
This next part I was unclear about until it was pieced together with the help of DH and my obstetrician. I do remember pleading with anyone who would listen that I needed pain relief. I wanted an epidural (words I never thought I’d utter – I very naively just expected that I would be able to ‘wing it’ this time as I had done so well last time and never even thought I’d need to ask for pain relief). I didn’t want to try and do this on my own. But despite asking for help, all I was offered was the gas. I declined it because last time, I used it for about 15 minutes at the very end of the second stage and all it did was make me delirious and start to vomit. There was no relief from pain at all.
Seeing as it didn’t seem worth having the gas and possibly feeling worse, and with my pleas for the epidural going ignored for some reason by the midwife, I felt so alone. I literally felt like I was just left there to tough it out and I started to feel quite desperate. I was begging to my husband, to the midwife, to another midwife who came in at one point, but all I was told was that my doctor would be in to check on me soon.
Dr R arrived sometime after 8am and I even asked him for an epidural! “Hello, how are you doing?” “GIVE ME AN EPIDURAL”, I think the conversation went…. Anyway, he performed an internal, the pain of which I was bracing for (“Great, more pain, I can’t stand this!” I was screaming in my mind), but I didn’t feel a thing. I was 4cm dilated. Dr R then advised that they weren’t picking up a consistent trace on Lolly’s heart beat and I had seen it on the monitor wavering around the 90-135bpm mark. But because of my moving around, it couldn’t be relied on as being accurate. So, as my waters hadn’t broken, he informed me he would break them and put a monitor on Lolly’s head to give a steady accurate reading. Then he told me he would be back at lunchtime to check on my progress and wished me luck. I sobbed that lunchtime was at least three hours away and where the hell was my epidural??! But he never answered.
So sometime after 9am, close to 9.30, I was checked to see how far along I was and the midwife kindly warned me that she would have to get another m/w to confirm her internal because she was “new at this”. I wasn’t very obliging with my reply I don’t think. I certainly didn’t need the added fear that I had an inexperienced midwife with me. Now, no offence to trainee midwives but I was not in a very fit state to have someone who was unsure, least of all tell me she was new to the whole caper. I was fearful enough of getting the baby out safely as it was, let alone knowing she might not have all the skill she required if something was going wrong.
And then it ALL started falling apart. Everything felt out of control. The room felt very tense, frantic, urgent. I was being told to flip this way and then that way. I glanced at the monitor and the heart rate was 89bpm. All I could say with the little breath I had was “WHOA!” and point. I felt so, so desperate. I felt like my grip on my endurance was really slipping already and now I also felt the intense urgency that I had to get my baby out soon because I didn’t like how I was feeling (that something was going wrong).
The midwives were talking at the tops of their voices, probably to get over my primal groans! But I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I was just calling out for someone to please help me and really started to panic. From the pain, from the reading on the monitor, from the feeling that something wasn’t right and suspecting they knew more than I did and weren’t telling me what was going on.
DH told me afterwards that at this point, the first midwife had peformed the internal and thought I was 4cm but couldn’t be sure. The second midwife checked too and confirmed this was approximately correct. They then discussed quickly the Obop in heart rate and they did explain to me that they were watching to see how well she recovered after each contraction. It was this reading that was what they were keeping their eye on. I wasn’t convinced I was going to get my baby after all.
They then called my Ob who had begun his day at his consulting rooms next to the hospital. When the midwife came back to report to the other, she said he had told her to keep watching the heart rate and to call him if it dropped any lower, but to keep him informed. As it turned out, her heart rate did start to improve with a slight change in my position and one of the midwives went out to page my Ob to let him know it was looking ok.
Next thing I knew, I saw her walk back in the room and right behind her came my Ob. The speed that he burst in and the tone of his loud voice (he’s usually like an almost comatose-calm person!) really frightened me. He said to us later when he came to see us on the maternity ward that he had never run for anyone but he had run for me – awww! But holy crap at the same time…
Lauryn’s cord was around her neck. She was flagging with each contraction and her heart rate dropped to below 70bpm at one point. My DH knew this but I was unaware what the problem was, only that it all felt very urgent. I was trying so hard to internalise my screams because I knew that the louder I was, the more energy I was expending outwards and it wouldn’t help me when I needed it most. I didn’t realise until I was told later, but my Ob prepped me with forceps and gave me an episiotomy all without any anaesthetic or pain relief whatsoever. I have never felt more “out of it” in all my life.
Then all of a sudden, it was like all the noise from everyone else stopped and it was just me. I could only hear myself. My Ob stood at my side and said that the next time I felt a contraction I could push if I “wanted to”. I answered back that I didn’t feel like pushing, I didn’t have any urge. But the look on his face and his firm tone when he then said “Ok you need to push” told me … erm, I needed to find something somewhere in me to push! It was so physically exhausting, trying to push correctly without any urge whatsoever. But soon the urge did come. I was racing the biggest marathon of my life and I sit here crying now as I remember just how desperate I felt it all was. Was I birthing her safely? Was my body stifling her? Had the induction caused this somehow? Even at that time, my mind was racing that this wasn’t right, that I had caused this and that I was all alone in it. No one else could do this but me. But I was doing it. And little by little, as I felt more and more urge to get her out, the sheer force of her bearing down and the enormity of her energy (I could really start to feel it in me now) just got me over the line. At one point, I was told to stop pushing. And I asked what was happening, very scared at the stillness in the room and knowing she wasn’t out yet. I was reassured that her head was out – DH said that my Ob simply said “Cord” at this point and that is when he cut it to free it from her neck – and then before I knew it I was told I could push again. With her shoulders clear, she came sliding out and it was all over. I went into a bit of shock after that. They placed her on my chest and I could see her colour was quite different to her sister’s. I was shocked and scared by this, as Ella had been so pink (in fact, her face was very bruised right after the birth, but her body was a very healthy fleshy colour) despite her prematurity, and here was my huge full term baby looking very wan and not making even a whimper.
They whisked her off me almost as soon as she’d had a chance to land. And as I lay dumbfounded at the sudden relief from all the pain and pressure, I kept asking over and over if my baby was ok. I still couldn’t hear her cries, because she wasn’t making a sound, and there were several people clamouring around her so I couldn’t even see her. No one was answering me or if they did, I didn’t hear them, and then my midwife told me she was beautiful. Then I saw them wheel an isolette into the room, the same kind her sister had spent her four weeks of life. I really started to panic and yelled at them to tell me if she was ok, that she could be beautiful but not ok! That’s when a few people at once did confirm that she was fine. Great. Thanks everyone for the suspense!
As it turned out, the isolette was merely to keep her warm as she was a bit cold and had needed a little bit of help with respiration right after birth. Once she was all sorted, my Ob began stitching me up. I had been only 8cm dilated when told to start pushing, hence I guess the lack of an urge to push. I had torn internally and of course he had to stitch the episiotomy point as well. It took for.ever. For those stitches to be done. In the calm quiet of the room now, it was pretty hard to make chit chat with people as I lay there thinking “You’ve just birthed a big baby without pain relief, how can you be whincing at a few stitches?!”
As for the elusive epidural, at my 6 week checkup I quizzed my Ob as to why I wasn’t given one, despite begging and pleading for some several hours. He said flippantly that they probably thought I was coping very well without it. Damn! I knew I should have started biting people and spitting in their faces. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been. But anywho…!
Lauryn Renee was born 8lb 7oz (3.84kg) and 53.5cm long with a HC of 35.5cm. She was a posterior labour. My Ob informed me later on the ward that there had been no time for a Caesarian section. He had figured, with the issue with the cord and her low heart rate, he had about 30 minutes maximum up his sleeve before brain damage or “other complications”. We knew what he was saying. We were speechless and we all sat there with rather glassy eyes, my Ob included. He delivered Ella and has said ever since that he would get me “there” safely. Well, he nearly didn’t and the choice wouldn’t have been his if I wasn’t meant to know Lauryn and bring her home. But I can’t fault his adept handling of a tricky situation.
He told me that I did in five minutes what would usually take a woman an hour to do. I had pushed my cervix out of the way, dilated enough for her to pass through and she had turned from posterior to anterior to come out the right way round. I don’t know how close I came to it all going very sour but it is this thought that gave me little panics in the first weeks and I’d wake from sleep very upset at nasty dreams reliving it in the worst possible scenario outcome. Over time, I have been slowly healing physically. Now that I have written this out in full, I know it will also help me put to rest some of the huge emotion of it all I have been carrying.
Our girl was from birth, and continues to be now, the most placid, content little person who more often than not wears a look of sheer enjoyment on her face. I can hardly believe that from her urgent, frantic, traumatic birth has come this beautiful, happy soul. I remain quite traumatised by this possible end to any ttc #3 in the foreseeable future. I’ve been quite frightened off the idea frankly and for that alone, I need to recuperate my body and my heart and mind. I’ve been pregnant 10 times and delivered two babies. We’ve ttc’d for our entire married lives (6 years to the point of conceiving Lauryn). Now is the time for us to relax and enjoy her for as many years as we all need and want. We agreed we owed this to each other and to our girl.
I felt like I birthed the world that day. And as it turned out, I did. My world.
Diary entry 18.7.06
“We’ve made it! Past every obstacle, milestone, date we set to assure us we are “getting close”!
I had so hoped Lolly was going to choose her own birth date. But we’ve made it to the 18th and I will be induced tomorrow. We go in at 4pm.
I’m so excited. Very wired. Unsure how I’ll sleep, actually. I can’t wait to lay eyes on our little girl! So many people are waiting to hear of her safe arrival, but I don’t know if I want to burst the bubble too soon. I oscillate between expecting I’ll want to show her to everyone before the cord’s even been cut, to wanting her all to ourselves – just her dad and me.
We have waited so, so, so long. The anticipation is palpable! I have so much to give as a mother, I just know it will come flooding in. It was cut so short with Ella, but I knew in an instant (all of a sudden, some days after her birth) what I was like as a mum.
Lolly, I cannot wait to call you Lauryn!”
I struggled for weeks and weeks at the end of my pregnancy, with my emotions about becoming a mum again. I asked questions of people who have been down the road before me – women who became mothers again after losing their first-born child – I soul searched, I tried to connect with my baby. I was painfully aware our little family of three was about to become +1. And I was so worried I wouldn’t be up to scratch for her in terms of accepting her, of letting Ella go just that little bit more, and feeling so damn guilty about knowing I would have to focus wholly and solely on our new baby, thereby not giving much headspace to our angel Ella.
The day before Lauryn was born, I had to check in to the hospital for induction. I had been looking forward to the day for so long, it felt like the heady anticipation of a long-awaited holiday on a big international flight – I have similar butterflies when I look forward to and then dread a big plane trip on the eve of the flight.
I really had secretly hoped Lolly would take matters into her own hands as she had done throughout the entire pregnancy and each hoop I jumped through, and choose her own birthday, but when dawn came (following another night of around 4 hours sleep), I knew I would be in for a bit of a challenge with the labour. She had proven herself to be a sure but steady girl as she grew and each time I came across a scare (bleeding at 6 weeks, then 15 weeks, and threatened labour at 24 weeks causing hospitalisation until contractions subsided), I continually had this solid straightforward feeling from her – the only feeling I had from her! – and I knew she would just keep on coming. Slow and steady wins the race…
We went around that morning doing some last-minute house-keeping, I distracted myself by doing a few edits for a client, we watched a couple of funny TV shows and the mood was good. Even. A little incredulous that we would be seeing our little girl as soon as the next day and in good spirits despite the slight but building apprehension.
At around 1pm (about 2 hours before we had to get ready to leave), I started to get quite emotional. Scared about how I would feel about seeing her and whether I would do right by her if my feelings were mixed, immense guilt at inducing a perfectly happy baby instead of waiting for the day she chose to come, sadness that I felt so alone and that I had to go through yet another process emotionally isolated from most people who know me and haven’t experienced the birth of their next child after losing their first.
I have to admit to feeling very nervous and even leaving it a bit late to get ready to leave. I think perhaps I was so excited and so looking forward to seeing Lauryn that I lost my nerve at the last minute because I couldn’t believe the time had actually come. Until we got to not only the day, but the time to leave, I never quite believed it would happen and I guess it was all of that that started coming down on me that afternoon.
I pretty much spent my whole pregnancy like that. It probably made real emotional attachment a bit of a hurdle, although overall there was no denying my sheer joy nor could I overlook the sense that I was growing a wonderful, content, strong little girl with a big and definite energy (the nature of which, aside from knowing she was ‘happy’, she kept from me!).
We arrived at the Admissions desk and the clerk made small-talk, asking us if this was our first baby. My reply, of course, was “No, we have another little girl”. She excitedly said they would have fun being sisters and I had to then tell her that big sister Ella died as a baby. Without missing a beat, this woman said “Oh so this is your first really, then”. I HAD to correct her!
I felt very safe and supported at the maternity ward, as it was the same one where I had Ella. We were taken around to Foetal Monitoring and I was hooked up for one last time to listen to Lauryn’s heart, which was fine. Then by 5.30pm the gel had been inserted and I was told to have a rest and then go for a walk. DH went home and I was left to “wait and see”.
As it happened, a fellow EB member was admitted in the public ward and we had met the previous week. I decided to go around and sit with her and while we were chatting I got very uncomfortable. She had a twinkle in her eye and tried to tell me I was in early labour, but I waved the pains off and said “Nahhh!” while trying to get comfy in the visitor chair.
I ended up coming back to the ward at around 9pm and the pains were quite strong already but I was told it was probably just the effects of the gel and that sometimes, it mimicked labour but was not necessarily the start of anything. So I was given pain relief and sleeping tablets and tried to catch some sleep. When I woke, I still had contraction type pain and timed them 5 minutes apart for 40 minutes then called in the nurse again. She said to try and get more sleep, that it could still be nothing. I could have told her differently! But miraculously, I caught another hour and a half of much needed sleep and woke again in great agony around 1.30am. Calling the nurse in again, she told me to get up and come sit with her for a while so she could time the contractions and guage what was going on. They were understaffed that night and while I sat in the ward nursery, I timed my own contractions and they were now 3 minutes apart. Very strong and almost unbearable already, I tried to collect my thoughts and keep my wits about me. I didn’t recall them being quite so acute during my labour with Ella and I was surprised at my inability to even effectively breathe my way through them. They were over a minute long and coming 3 minutes apart, so there wasn’t much of a rest by this time.
There was another midwife tending to the babies in the nursery, who decided to step up the pace of getting me to Delivery, and I was told to go and grab that shower I wanted before going to the Labour Ward because it was highly unlikely I’d be getting any more sleep that night. I was relieved to hear someone say the pain hadn’t been for nothing!
It took me over half an hour to have a quick 1 minute shower and hobble back to the nursery which was only paces from my room. I could hardly walk, even between contractions, and still couldn’t understand why I was in such agony. It seemed that even as the contraction subsided, I was left with residual all-over-body intense pain and I was constantly very uncomfortable. It was around 3am and I silently started hoping they were going to tell me I wasn’t far from having this baby because I felt at the end of my endurance already and I was only 5 hours into it.
In Delivery, I was taken to a lovely quiet room at the end of the ward somewhere and the most lovely calm midwife was there to assist me. It felt like I hadn’t been in there long with her when, after being attached to the foetal monitor, she suggested I might like to call “hubby” and get him in. It was almost 4am.
By the time DH arrived, within half an hour, I really wasn’t in the mood for any more of the small talk the midwife had been using to very effectively distract me through a little more of the labour. It took everything in me to get through each contraction and I was not getting a break in between to catch my breath. They were still about 2 minutes apart but my mind was not overcoming my physical pain, something I had not been prepared for. I was absolutely exhausted by shift change-over at 7.30am (the midwives’ shift, not mine unfortunately!) as I farewelled the gorgeous angel of a midwife who had seen me through the middle of the night.
By this stage, I was asking for pain relief. Despite myself, my beliefs, my experience of being able to cope positively with the effort of labour and child birth last time, this time I felt different. It was intense, as intense as last time, I knew I was certainly in a different place emotionally now too. But even when I had the grave fears of delivering a baby 10 weeks prem (with Ella), I was able at that time to push those fears out of my mind and remain very stoic, positive and focused. This time, my labour felt out of control, I couldn’t think straight because there was no let-up of the pain, but I only realised this after the fact – during the process, all I could do was endure. I recall trying to rationalise with myself, that the pain I felt wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before. But yes it was! I started arguing in my own mind, some part of me trying to reason with the other pained part of me – at this point I felt like I literally separated myself in two: the mind and the body weren’t working together anymore. I think my body wanted to sack my brain for being a poor advocate up to that point and I guess that’s what it did!
This next part I was unclear about until it was pieced together with the help of DH and my obstetrician. I do remember pleading with anyone who would listen that I needed pain relief. I wanted an epidural (words I never thought I’d utter – I very naively just expected that I would be able to ‘wing it’ this time as I had done so well last time and never even thought I’d need to ask for pain relief). I didn’t want to try and do this on my own. But despite asking for help, all I was offered was the gas. I declined it because last time, I used it for about 15 minutes at the very end of the second stage and all it did was make me delirious and start to vomit. There was no relief from pain at all.
Seeing as it didn’t seem worth having the gas and possibly feeling worse, and with my pleas for the epidural going ignored for some reason by the midwife, I felt so alone. I literally felt like I was just left there to tough it out and I started to feel quite desperate. I was begging to my husband, to the midwife, to another midwife who came in at one point, but all I was told was that my doctor would be in to check on me soon.
Dr R arrived sometime after 8am and I even asked him for an epidural! “Hello, how are you doing?” “GIVE ME AN EPIDURAL”, I think the conversation went…. Anyway, he performed an internal, the pain of which I was bracing for (“Great, more pain, I can’t stand this!” I was screaming in my mind), but I didn’t feel a thing. I was 4cm dilated. Dr R then advised that they weren’t picking up a consistent trace on Lolly’s heart beat and I had seen it on the monitor wavering around the 90-135bpm mark. But because of my moving around, it couldn’t be relied on as being accurate. So, as my waters hadn’t broken, he informed me he would break them and put a monitor on Lolly’s head to give a steady accurate reading. Then he told me he would be back at lunchtime to check on my progress and wished me luck. I sobbed that lunchtime was at least three hours away and where the hell was my epidural??! But he never answered.
So sometime after 9am, close to 9.30, I was checked to see how far along I was and the midwife kindly warned me that she would have to get another m/w to confirm her internal because she was “new at this”. I wasn’t very obliging with my reply I don’t think. I certainly didn’t need the added fear that I had an inexperienced midwife with me. Now, no offence to trainee midwives but I was not in a very fit state to have someone who was unsure, least of all tell me she was new to the whole caper. I was fearful enough of getting the baby out safely as it was, let alone knowing she might not have all the skill she required if something was going wrong.
And then it ALL started falling apart. Everything felt out of control. The room felt very tense, frantic, urgent. I was being told to flip this way and then that way. I glanced at the monitor and the heart rate was 89bpm. All I could say with the little breath I had was “WHOA!” and point. I felt so, so desperate. I felt like my grip on my endurance was really slipping already and now I also felt the intense urgency that I had to get my baby out soon because I didn’t like how I was feeling (that something was going wrong).
The midwives were talking at the tops of their voices, probably to get over my primal groans! But I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I was just calling out for someone to please help me and really started to panic. From the pain, from the reading on the monitor, from the feeling that something wasn’t right and suspecting they knew more than I did and weren’t telling me what was going on.
DH told me afterwards that at this point, the first midwife had peformed the internal and thought I was 4cm but couldn’t be sure. The second midwife checked too and confirmed this was approximately correct. They then discussed quickly the Obop in heart rate and they did explain to me that they were watching to see how well she recovered after each contraction. It was this reading that was what they were keeping their eye on. I wasn’t convinced I was going to get my baby after all.
They then called my Ob who had begun his day at his consulting rooms next to the hospital. When the midwife came back to report to the other, she said he had told her to keep watching the heart rate and to call him if it dropped any lower, but to keep him informed. As it turned out, her heart rate did start to improve with a slight change in my position and one of the midwives went out to page my Ob to let him know it was looking ok.
Next thing I knew, I saw her walk back in the room and right behind her came my Ob. The speed that he burst in and the tone of his loud voice (he’s usually like an almost comatose-calm person!) really frightened me. He said to us later when he came to see us on the maternity ward that he had never run for anyone but he had run for me – awww! But holy crap at the same time…
Lauryn’s cord was around her neck. She was flagging with each contraction and her heart rate dropped to below 70bpm at one point. My DH knew this but I was unaware what the problem was, only that it all felt very urgent. I was trying so hard to internalise my screams because I knew that the louder I was, the more energy I was expending outwards and it wouldn’t help me when I needed it most. I didn’t realise until I was told later, but my Ob prepped me with forceps and gave me an episiotomy all without any anaesthetic or pain relief whatsoever. I have never felt more “out of it” in all my life.
Then all of a sudden, it was like all the noise from everyone else stopped and it was just me. I could only hear myself. My Ob stood at my side and said that the next time I felt a contraction I could push if I “wanted to”. I answered back that I didn’t feel like pushing, I didn’t have any urge. But the look on his face and his firm tone when he then said “Ok you need to push” told me … erm, I needed to find something somewhere in me to push! It was so physically exhausting, trying to push correctly without any urge whatsoever. But soon the urge did come. I was racing the biggest marathon of my life and I sit here crying now as I remember just how desperate I felt it all was. Was I birthing her safely? Was my body stifling her? Had the induction caused this somehow? Even at that time, my mind was racing that this wasn’t right, that I had caused this and that I was all alone in it. No one else could do this but me. But I was doing it. And little by little, as I felt more and more urge to get her out, the sheer force of her bearing down and the enormity of her energy (I could really start to feel it in me now) just got me over the line. At one point, I was told to stop pushing. And I asked what was happening, very scared at the stillness in the room and knowing she wasn’t out yet. I was reassured that her head was out – DH said that my Ob simply said “Cord” at this point and that is when he cut it to free it from her neck – and then before I knew it I was told I could push again. With her shoulders clear, she came sliding out and it was all over. I went into a bit of shock after that. They placed her on my chest and I could see her colour was quite different to her sister’s. I was shocked and scared by this, as Ella had been so pink (in fact, her face was very bruised right after the birth, but her body was a very healthy fleshy colour) despite her prematurity, and here was my huge full term baby looking very wan and not making even a whimper.
They whisked her off me almost as soon as she’d had a chance to land. And as I lay dumbfounded at the sudden relief from all the pain and pressure, I kept asking over and over if my baby was ok. I still couldn’t hear her cries, because she wasn’t making a sound, and there were several people clamouring around her so I couldn’t even see her. No one was answering me or if they did, I didn’t hear them, and then my midwife told me she was beautiful. Then I saw them wheel an isolette into the room, the same kind her sister had spent her four weeks of life. I really started to panic and yelled at them to tell me if she was ok, that she could be beautiful but not ok! That’s when a few people at once did confirm that she was fine. Great. Thanks everyone for the suspense!
As it turned out, the isolette was merely to keep her warm as she was a bit cold and had needed a little bit of help with respiration right after birth. Once she was all sorted, my Ob began stitching me up. I had been only 8cm dilated when told to start pushing, hence I guess the lack of an urge to push. I had torn internally and of course he had to stitch the episiotomy point as well. It took for.ever. For those stitches to be done. In the calm quiet of the room now, it was pretty hard to make chit chat with people as I lay there thinking “You’ve just birthed a big baby without pain relief, how can you be whincing at a few stitches?!”
As for the elusive epidural, at my 6 week checkup I quizzed my Ob as to why I wasn’t given one, despite begging and pleading for some several hours. He said flippantly that they probably thought I was coping very well without it. Damn! I knew I should have started biting people and spitting in their faces. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been. But anywho…!
Lauryn Renee was born 8lb 7oz (3.84kg) and 53.5cm long with a HC of 35.5cm. She was a posterior labour. My Ob informed me later on the ward that there had been no time for a Caesarian section. He had figured, with the issue with the cord and her low heart rate, he had about 30 minutes maximum up his sleeve before brain damage or “other complications”. We knew what he was saying. We were speechless and we all sat there with rather glassy eyes, my Ob included. He delivered Ella and has said ever since that he would get me “there” safely. Well, he nearly didn’t and the choice wouldn’t have been his if I wasn’t meant to know Lauryn and bring her home. But I can’t fault his adept handling of a tricky situation.
He told me that I did in five minutes what would usually take a woman an hour to do. I had pushed my cervix out of the way, dilated enough for her to pass through and she had turned from posterior to anterior to come out the right way round. I don’t know how close I came to it all going very sour but it is this thought that gave me little panics in the first weeks and I’d wake from sleep very upset at nasty dreams reliving it in the worst possible scenario outcome. Over time, I have been slowly healing physically. Now that I have written this out in full, I know it will also help me put to rest some of the huge emotion of it all I have been carrying.
Our girl was from birth, and continues to be now, the most placid, content little person who more often than not wears a look of sheer enjoyment on her face. I can hardly believe that from her urgent, frantic, traumatic birth has come this beautiful, happy soul. I remain quite traumatised by this possible end to any ttc #3 in the foreseeable future. I’ve been quite frightened off the idea frankly and for that alone, I need to recuperate my body and my heart and mind. I’ve been pregnant 10 times and delivered two babies. We’ve ttc’d for our entire married lives (6 years to the point of conceiving Lauryn). Now is the time for us to relax and enjoy her for as many years as we all need and want. We agreed we owed this to each other and to our girl.
I felt like I birthed the world that day. And as it turned out, I did. My world.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
I was wondering...
How do certain words or phrases come about? Is it because they actually happened? I mean, I've been curious for a while now about this:
"Stop piss-farting around"
Did someone actually lose control of their bodily functions while they were supposed to be getting on with something?
I overthink things waaaaaay too much. As evidenced by the above.
"Stop piss-farting around"
Did someone actually lose control of their bodily functions while they were supposed to be getting on with something?
I overthink things waaaaaay too much. As evidenced by the above.
Friday, September 15, 2006
A car full of double-edged swords
Case in point:
• A dummy on a long journey can soothe. It can also fall out.
• A car you call The Tardis because of its uncanny ability to be so small on the outside yet so roomy on the inside makes reaching from the front into the back to replug the dummy nigh on impossible without contorting like a rubber man from a freak show.
• Each red light you stop at gives opportunity for you to twist into said position. It also takes you longer to get home.
• A dummy on a long journey can soothe. It can also fall out.
• A car you call The Tardis because of its uncanny ability to be so small on the outside yet so roomy on the inside makes reaching from the front into the back to replug the dummy nigh on impossible without contorting like a rubber man from a freak show.
• Each red light you stop at gives opportunity for you to twist into said position. It also takes you longer to get home.
Monday, September 11, 2006
She was there to sell makeup but the father saw more
I ask you, what kind of irresponsible single parent could possibly hire someone to nanny his children on these few flippant facts:
She had style
She had flair
She was there*
That's all! That was the extent of her resumé and the basis on which she was hired. Apparently the girl they described, was just exactly what the doctor prescribed. Really?? For serious? He should have at least asked her to say something, because I'm sure that would've changed Mr. Sheffield's mind. Suffer the little children, indeed.
*Disclaimer: I do NOT watch The Nanny. I was just flicking past. On my way to the Biography Channel. Honest injin. And I only know the father's name because it's well quoted by Nanny Fine and has become like a catch phrase. Oh, and I only know her name is Nanny Fine because..... just because. But I swear, I've never watched an episode. Ok, well I've never watched a FULL episode. I'm going now.
She had style
She had flair
She was there*
That's all! That was the extent of her resumé and the basis on which she was hired. Apparently the girl they described, was just exactly what the doctor prescribed. Really?? For serious? He should have at least asked her to say something, because I'm sure that would've changed Mr. Sheffield's mind. Suffer the little children, indeed.
*Disclaimer: I do NOT watch The Nanny. I was just flicking past. On my way to the Biography Channel. Honest injin. And I only know the father's name because it's well quoted by Nanny Fine and has become like a catch phrase. Oh, and I only know her name is Nanny Fine because..... just because. But I swear, I've never watched an episode. Ok, well I've never watched a FULL episode. I'm going now.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Hey is this some kind of joke to you, Google??!
Imagine my horror when I log on to my blog to see that the Google ads of choice down the side are promoting adult diapers, TENAS for bladder weakness..... *shifty look* I could've sworn I didn't divulge in here that I've become that most awful of continents. The "in" kind.
I'm being deliberately mysterious and wordy so that our only male reader won't catch on that I'm talking about the fact that I am not currently able to hold my water since pushing out a 3.8kg human being.....
Oh. D'oh! I just gave it away.
I'm being deliberately mysterious and wordy so that our only male reader won't catch on that I'm talking about the fact that I am not currently able to hold my water since pushing out a 3.8kg human being.....
Oh. D'oh! I just gave it away.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
My family
We took some photos of the three of us the other night. Lolly was so rapt we both got down and put our heads next to her. I think she even struck a funny photo smile, the kind that becomes a little kid's trademark (mine was always a very demure cocked head, like Lady Di used to do - it's difficult to find a photo of me pre-15 years old without it). She turned from Steve to me, over and over, and made all those breathy, awestruck baby sounds I've waited years to hear from my own baby but have always made do with getting close to nieces/nephews, kids at Creches where I worked in my younger days, etc.
When we uploaded the photos to the computer, I was so overwhelmed by them. To me, they are awesome. To anyone looking at them, we are the picture of a happy family with their first little bub. All the time in the world to actually get down there and take that snap. And here's where the familiar taste of bittersweetness hits me.
Do I ever have to let go the fact that this is not my whole family? The sum total of "us" is there physically on that play mat in that picture, for all anyone who doesn't know us or our story knows or cares. But there is one very special, achingly distant big ol' soul who is a part of us yet never there, forever just out of tangible reach. Will I ever get to a point where I introduce me, Steve and Lauryn as "my family" and drop the explanation that we also have a big sister, Ellanor, who died as a baby? It pains me every time I have to bring her into it, do I add her to cards at Christmas time especially now we have Lauryn? I feel like, to make her existence real to Lolly, I would surely have to include her as a part of our family.
But it's also uncomfortable to do so. I am certain there are some people (probably through their own discomfort) who would assume it's me "not coping" - that ridiculous turn of phrase which I despise so much in the way it's used as a blanket term - and not letting go. And yes, it is true I shouldn't worry about what other people think. It's not that I worry so much as the fact that I would dearly hope everyone gets the fact that Ella is ALWAYS going to be included in our everyday lives (although she's not spoken of very often, as such, but she's just interwoven into our family just like any family member whether or not you spend your days talking or thinking about them). That it is always going to be extremely difficult on holiday/family occasions for us, despite the fact we have a second child now. I am keenly aware of Father's Day coming up. A day I have said before that, like Mother's Day, is not an important day in this household - it's a gimmick day if you ask me or Steve - but we recognise it as special to other parents in the family and also feel the pressure to attend celebration of those two days.
I'm suspecting the assumption this year will be that we'll be so ecstatic that we now have Lauryn to share these days with. But to try and explain that it just makes them so very much harder because we should be receiving hand made cards from an excited 2 1/2 year old now would make me sound like I'm a glass half empty kind of person.
If I look hard enough, I see Ellanor all over this photo. In the whole series of them we snapped giddily with our little Lolly so excitedly looking at our faces so close to hers. Every time a moment like this happens, I will be jerked back to a feeling of loss. Of immense pride and love. And loss. It will never be shaken or grown out of. Not distance nor years nor new memories will ever erase it. Ella lives alongside us. Forever 4 weeks old. But also forever Lauryn's older sister. As Lolly gets older and older, day by day clocking up new milestones, so too does my feeling of Ellanor - I think of her as being older than Lauryn despite the fact that she is now almost two weeks older than her sister was before she left this Earth.
And here endeth the ramble. Before I overthink it all.
These are the posts which get me thinking I really, really need to make my lunch date with Alliecat. Soon.
When we uploaded the photos to the computer, I was so overwhelmed by them. To me, they are awesome. To anyone looking at them, we are the picture of a happy family with their first little bub. All the time in the world to actually get down there and take that snap. And here's where the familiar taste of bittersweetness hits me.
Do I ever have to let go the fact that this is not my whole family? The sum total of "us" is there physically on that play mat in that picture, for all anyone who doesn't know us or our story knows or cares. But there is one very special, achingly distant big ol' soul who is a part of us yet never there, forever just out of tangible reach. Will I ever get to a point where I introduce me, Steve and Lauryn as "my family" and drop the explanation that we also have a big sister, Ellanor, who died as a baby? It pains me every time I have to bring her into it, do I add her to cards at Christmas time especially now we have Lauryn? I feel like, to make her existence real to Lolly, I would surely have to include her as a part of our family.
But it's also uncomfortable to do so. I am certain there are some people (probably through their own discomfort) who would assume it's me "not coping" - that ridiculous turn of phrase which I despise so much in the way it's used as a blanket term - and not letting go. And yes, it is true I shouldn't worry about what other people think. It's not that I worry so much as the fact that I would dearly hope everyone gets the fact that Ella is ALWAYS going to be included in our everyday lives (although she's not spoken of very often, as such, but she's just interwoven into our family just like any family member whether or not you spend your days talking or thinking about them). That it is always going to be extremely difficult on holiday/family occasions for us, despite the fact we have a second child now. I am keenly aware of Father's Day coming up. A day I have said before that, like Mother's Day, is not an important day in this household - it's a gimmick day if you ask me or Steve - but we recognise it as special to other parents in the family and also feel the pressure to attend celebration of those two days.
I'm suspecting the assumption this year will be that we'll be so ecstatic that we now have Lauryn to share these days with. But to try and explain that it just makes them so very much harder because we should be receiving hand made cards from an excited 2 1/2 year old now would make me sound like I'm a glass half empty kind of person.
If I look hard enough, I see Ellanor all over this photo. In the whole series of them we snapped giddily with our little Lolly so excitedly looking at our faces so close to hers. Every time a moment like this happens, I will be jerked back to a feeling of loss. Of immense pride and love. And loss. It will never be shaken or grown out of. Not distance nor years nor new memories will ever erase it. Ella lives alongside us. Forever 4 weeks old. But also forever Lauryn's older sister. As Lolly gets older and older, day by day clocking up new milestones, so too does my feeling of Ellanor - I think of her as being older than Lauryn despite the fact that she is now almost two weeks older than her sister was before she left this Earth.
And here endeth the ramble. Before I overthink it all.
These are the posts which get me thinking I really, really need to make my lunch date with Alliecat. Soon.
Monday, August 28, 2006
A good change is not necessarily a quick change...
Ok, so it was one of *those* moments.
Ever bursting with wonder at the miracle of that little single cell which grew into something that not only put a second line on a wee stick, and many many more lines on my stomach, but stole my heart long before I saw her, it can still happen. That moment you just want to end. The moment of tending to your little cherub that is making your back ache, your melted heart break and quite frankly, regret that you didn't pause the live stream of the Emmy Awards with your Foxtel IQ button (ahhh, magic button, where have you been all my life?).
My reasons are thus:
Miss Lolly was in her Monday best, a) because we were going to visit the Homeopath - that man I almost had a blarney with in all my hormonal haughtiness, and b) because it's probably the last time she'll fit in that top and those pants. All went smoothly. We came home. She slept in her *nice* clothes, sans the jacket, and I got her up on queue. It all went to shit, literally, after that.
I decided that, as she is getting over a case of nappy rash and wondering if perhaps I'm leaving her in her nappy too long, I would get her up and change her. This would be fine if she wasn't used to being changed in between her feed and NOT when she had a raging empty stomach. I know that.... now.
Foolishly, I began to change her, dry and lather up with barrier cream that red, sore bottom and even do a quick-draw McGraw change into a more comfy growsuit. She did her usual "Ooooh, my nappy's off! I'll take a whizz now!" and so the cloth nappy I put under her butt was wet before I could even do it up. But apart from that, it all went relatively smoothly.... except that part with her going purple with indignation that I wasn't taking her order to the Kitchen.
The moment over, we went out and she fed while I just thanked the cosmos for the silence and peace restored, and she made some whopping great noises while she was feeding. It wasn't until I got her up to burp her that I discovered she had managed to blow out the top of her disposable, right through the new bodysuit and growsuit she had on (we use sleeveless bodysuits with snaps at the crotch as singlets in this house).
So I realised with much angst that I had to take her, kicking and screaming if that's how she wanted to do it, back to the change table to do it all again. It went relatively smoothly... the first bit. I changed her and cleaned her up and got to the part where you do up the new nappy - a cloth one this time - when I noticed she was wet on the outside underneath. These modern cloth nappies are so good that, even when I undid it and checked the part that was touching her skin, it felt dry. I cocked my head on the side *aruh?* and then realised that, yes, she had managed to wet through another nappy in that short space of time. So. Off it came.
During this, she possitted from the other end and wet the top shoulder of her singlet suit. This also had to come off. Again. But a new nappy had to come first. While she was laying there as I grabbed another nappy, and removed the terry square nappy from under her that she'd wet too, she weed directly on the change mat. And all up the back of the fresh growsuit and singlet I'd laid under her. So out all that came. Again.
New nappy positioned and secured, I was then able to redress her. Now all this time, she was not a happy customer - the verbal equivalent of banging your knife and fork ends on the table, I'm sure. I got her arms, now getting quite rigid and not accommodating as they were the first then the second time I had to change her, through and then tried to do up the snaps at the bottom of the suit. She has outgrown it. There was a split second of flat panic from me, with my aching heart that wanted to help her (by putting her to the breast), arguing the pro's and con's of leaving it on and just being done with it. But that was until I saw that I had had to pull it down so far that she now had an alluring off-the-shoulder look happening up the top end. Damn her father's tall genes!
So the poor wee darling has gone through more costume changes than a can-can dancer on opening night. So pooped she was that she fell asleep before she finished her feed. And that was after waking from a good 3.5hrs+ snooze. I've not heard a peep. She's probably too scared to call me in, for fear I'll make her wardrobe up again.
The count stands, in one lot of awake time, at:
Nappies = 5
Bodysuits = 3
Pants = 1 (the "good" pair)
Top = 1 (the one that goes with the "good" pair of pants)
Growsuits = 2 (complete with a stain even Mr Hart What A Mess would be impressed with)
Ever bursting with wonder at the miracle of that little single cell which grew into something that not only put a second line on a wee stick, and many many more lines on my stomach, but stole my heart long before I saw her, it can still happen. That moment you just want to end. The moment of tending to your little cherub that is making your back ache, your melted heart break and quite frankly, regret that you didn't pause the live stream of the Emmy Awards with your Foxtel IQ button (ahhh, magic button, where have you been all my life?).
My reasons are thus:
Miss Lolly was in her Monday best, a) because we were going to visit the Homeopath - that man I almost had a blarney with in all my hormonal haughtiness, and b) because it's probably the last time she'll fit in that top and those pants. All went smoothly. We came home. She slept in her *nice* clothes, sans the jacket, and I got her up on queue. It all went to shit, literally, after that.
I decided that, as she is getting over a case of nappy rash and wondering if perhaps I'm leaving her in her nappy too long, I would get her up and change her. This would be fine if she wasn't used to being changed in between her feed and NOT when she had a raging empty stomach. I know that.... now.
Foolishly, I began to change her, dry and lather up with barrier cream that red, sore bottom and even do a quick-draw McGraw change into a more comfy growsuit. She did her usual "Ooooh, my nappy's off! I'll take a whizz now!" and so the cloth nappy I put under her butt was wet before I could even do it up. But apart from that, it all went relatively smoothly.... except that part with her going purple with indignation that I wasn't taking her order to the Kitchen.
The moment over, we went out and she fed while I just thanked the cosmos for the silence and peace restored, and she made some whopping great noises while she was feeding. It wasn't until I got her up to burp her that I discovered she had managed to blow out the top of her disposable, right through the new bodysuit and growsuit she had on (we use sleeveless bodysuits with snaps at the crotch as singlets in this house).
So I realised with much angst that I had to take her, kicking and screaming if that's how she wanted to do it, back to the change table to do it all again. It went relatively smoothly... the first bit. I changed her and cleaned her up and got to the part where you do up the new nappy - a cloth one this time - when I noticed she was wet on the outside underneath. These modern cloth nappies are so good that, even when I undid it and checked the part that was touching her skin, it felt dry. I cocked my head on the side *aruh?* and then realised that, yes, she had managed to wet through another nappy in that short space of time. So. Off it came.
During this, she possitted from the other end and wet the top shoulder of her singlet suit. This also had to come off. Again. But a new nappy had to come first. While she was laying there as I grabbed another nappy, and removed the terry square nappy from under her that she'd wet too, she weed directly on the change mat. And all up the back of the fresh growsuit and singlet I'd laid under her. So out all that came. Again.
New nappy positioned and secured, I was then able to redress her. Now all this time, she was not a happy customer - the verbal equivalent of banging your knife and fork ends on the table, I'm sure. I got her arms, now getting quite rigid and not accommodating as they were the first then the second time I had to change her, through and then tried to do up the snaps at the bottom of the suit. She has outgrown it. There was a split second of flat panic from me, with my aching heart that wanted to help her (by putting her to the breast), arguing the pro's and con's of leaving it on and just being done with it. But that was until I saw that I had had to pull it down so far that she now had an alluring off-the-shoulder look happening up the top end. Damn her father's tall genes!
So the poor wee darling has gone through more costume changes than a can-can dancer on opening night. So pooped she was that she fell asleep before she finished her feed. And that was after waking from a good 3.5hrs+ snooze. I've not heard a peep. She's probably too scared to call me in, for fear I'll make her wardrobe up again.
The count stands, in one lot of awake time, at:
Nappies = 5
Bodysuits = 3
Pants = 1 (the "good" pair)
Top = 1 (the one that goes with the "good" pair of pants)
Growsuits = 2 (complete with a stain even Mr Hart What A Mess would be impressed with)
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Pop quizz
We've tried all of the below. Your question, should you choose to answer it, is:
How does one ensure a certain little Lolly drops off to sleep successfully during the day (as in, stays asleep for more than 15 minutes)? Is it:
A. Don't make a peep, don't touch a thing anywhere in the house for fear of creating a noise?
B. Allow a little bit of noise but only after she is well and truly zonked?
C. Same as B but with a cd of classical music on repeat in her room?
D. Dry your hair with a 150 decibel hair dryer, keep the laundry door open with the washing machine going and swap that classical cd with a good mix of repetitively-played not so quiet songs you used to listen to constantly when she was but a tadpole?
Answer will be in the next instalment.
How does one ensure a certain little Lolly drops off to sleep successfully during the day (as in, stays asleep for more than 15 minutes)? Is it:
A. Don't make a peep, don't touch a thing anywhere in the house for fear of creating a noise?
B. Allow a little bit of noise but only after she is well and truly zonked?
C. Same as B but with a cd of classical music on repeat in her room?
D. Dry your hair with a 150 decibel hair dryer, keep the laundry door open with the washing machine going and swap that classical cd with a good mix of repetitively-played not so quiet songs you used to listen to constantly when she was but a tadpole?
Answer will be in the next instalment.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Track wars
Curtain tracks, that is.
I love my husband. Don't get me wrong. I adore him. We fit well, we have fun, laugh loads, we're on the same wavelength, yada yada yada. Before you think I'm getting trippy on the happy hormones of motherhood, let me put some "howevers" in there.
Steve took five weeks off work to meet and greet Lolly. The first week, before she arrived, was great and we got along as good as usual. The first days in hospital were fine. We were still connecting well. By the last day in hospital, that's where my wheels started to fall off. I say mine, because his couldn't surely even be wonky....
So by the end of these past five short (but loooong) weeks, I am happy to say Steve is safely back at work. Where I can love him and miss him and really appreciate him when he comes home.
Among all the other quabbles, I was really getting so sick of the curtains open/curtains shut thing. Anyone who's ever had a brother or a boyfriend or a husband they've lived with for any length of time will know what I mean. It's that incessant penchant men have for blocking out all chance of vitamin D so they can watch *insert tv program/sport/loud movie, the more blokey the better* or play their *insert game console of choice here*
Today, it's a fresh 17 or so degrees, beautiful warm sun streaming in, a nice fresh breeze blowing through the house and the curtains, the blessed curtains, they're open! I don't CARE if there's glare on the tv. I feel so liberated.
I do miss Steve. He just needs to not be here so I can love him again.
I love my husband. Don't get me wrong. I adore him. We fit well, we have fun, laugh loads, we're on the same wavelength, yada yada yada. Before you think I'm getting trippy on the happy hormones of motherhood, let me put some "howevers" in there.
Steve took five weeks off work to meet and greet Lolly. The first week, before she arrived, was great and we got along as good as usual. The first days in hospital were fine. We were still connecting well. By the last day in hospital, that's where my wheels started to fall off. I say mine, because his couldn't surely even be wonky....
So by the end of these past five short (but loooong) weeks, I am happy to say Steve is safely back at work. Where I can love him and miss him and really appreciate him when he comes home.
Among all the other quabbles, I was really getting so sick of the curtains open/curtains shut thing. Anyone who's ever had a brother or a boyfriend or a husband they've lived with for any length of time will know what I mean. It's that incessant penchant men have for blocking out all chance of vitamin D so they can watch *insert tv program/sport/loud movie, the more blokey the better* or play their *insert game console of choice here*
Today, it's a fresh 17 or so degrees, beautiful warm sun streaming in, a nice fresh breeze blowing through the house and the curtains, the blessed curtains, they're open! I don't CARE if there's glare on the tv. I feel so liberated.
I do miss Steve. He just needs to not be here so I can love him again.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Guess who's been experimenting with clichéd poses
I don't believe it. Even Steve's hands are photogenic.
But those little skinny legs.... the lucky girl had better hope she gets to keep those. Things I wish for my daughter #3998: that she has her daddy's metabolism.
My husband ... the alien?
Forget the cocked eyebrow... who said it wasn't noticeable that he was a forceps birth? Bwahahahaha, now that's just being downright mean.I took this photo in '99 on our honeymoon, somewhere out the back of nowhere in the wolds of England, we were lost, it was raining hard, we were retracing our steps back to a B road after being cut off by a flood (we tried to drive through it but decided against it when we went so far into it that the brakes started smoking on the hire car) and Steve jumped out of the car in the rain to pose for this shot.
I'd say by now he's the full 4/4 cracked, by the way. He's been with me almost 14 years after all.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
You had me at bottom burp
One of the many perils of the after-effects of a vaginal birth (with tearing, an episiotomy and stitches), as follows:
"Do you think we'll ever do it... like... ever again? Without it hurting?"
"Mmmm *pondering, hesitantly* Yeah..."
"When?"
*big pause, putting a sympathetic hand on my knee*
"When you can let Fluffy off the chain without crying."
"Do you think we'll ever do it... like... ever again? Without it hurting?"
"Mmmm *pondering, hesitantly* Yeah..."
"When?"
*big pause, putting a sympathetic hand on my knee*
"When you can let Fluffy off the chain without crying."
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Oh who am I kidding...
I need to show her off. As often as humanly possible. You'll have to bear with me for the next while, til I get this out of my system and go back to the banal shit.
So without further ado.... here's the latest photo exposé of The Girl:
Watching the music
Safety
Bliss is...
hanging out with mummy under a plush blankie.
So without further ado.... here's the latest photo exposé of The Girl:
Watching the music (there's a world of spinning black, white and coloured things twirling above her head....but she finds watching the speaker where the music comes out far more interesting....)
Safety Ohhhhwwwwww, how those cheeks just kill me. Every day.
Lovin' the Ergo Carrier
Lovin' the Ergo Carrier
Bliss is...hanging out with mummy under a plush blankie.
Getting there
I promise I am working on the story of Lolly's very dicey entrance into my arms.
I think I'm a little scared of going there again. I actually caught a bit of Bringing Baby Home or one of those birth shows on Discovery channel just this morning.... when the narrator said 'Tanya's epidural was wearing off and she felt *some* pain with each contraction', whilst showing *poor* Tanya crying as she awaited for the next instruction to push because she couldn't actually feel the need, I had to hold back my tears. And also the undeniable urge to put a fist through Tanya's face on the screen.
So. I have some serious things to work through apparently. I will get there though. By writing it out, I'm hoping I can start to actually overcome some of my emotions about it. I think it may actually have got in the way of my feeling anything for Lolly (Lauryn!) for the first week or two, over and above the normal factors that all new mothers face - I realise many mums don't 'feel the lurve' and have that instant bond. I don't know if I was expecting that. But I was expecting to feel more than I did. I spent most of my time in hospital literally unable to separate Lauryn from Ella. They were like one baby to me and I struggled very hard to rewire my thinking, as the last thing I ever, ever want for our new baby girl is to feel like she's being overshadowed by The Perfect Forever-Baby in our family.
More later.
I think I'm a little scared of going there again. I actually caught a bit of Bringing Baby Home or one of those birth shows on Discovery channel just this morning.... when the narrator said 'Tanya's epidural was wearing off and she felt *some* pain with each contraction', whilst showing *poor* Tanya crying as she awaited for the next instruction to push because she couldn't actually feel the need, I had to hold back my tears. And also the undeniable urge to put a fist through Tanya's face on the screen.
So. I have some serious things to work through apparently. I will get there though. By writing it out, I'm hoping I can start to actually overcome some of my emotions about it. I think it may actually have got in the way of my feeling anything for Lolly (Lauryn!) for the first week or two, over and above the normal factors that all new mothers face - I realise many mums don't 'feel the lurve' and have that instant bond. I don't know if I was expecting that. But I was expecting to feel more than I did. I spent most of my time in hospital literally unable to separate Lauryn from Ella. They were like one baby to me and I struggled very hard to rewire my thinking, as the last thing I ever, ever want for our new baby girl is to feel like she's being overshadowed by The Perfect Forever-Baby in our family.
More later.
Meet our new dog!
Her name is Libby (otherwise known as Liberty Taker, a.k.a. Libby for short).She thinks that because there are new bright, colourful and plush squooshy floor blankets in the house, they are hers for the lying. So we've had to get wise to the Libby and have taken to covering everything in towels that belongs to the baby, before letting her and her friend Pepe le Pissed Off At New Baby in at night. So they're lulled into a 'business as usual' comfort zone. Which isn't happening. Because there's something.... something breathing and squawking in That Room We're Not Allowed In.
No flies on our dogs.
Or the new dog that looks straaaangely like Jazz.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
It's oh so quiet....
It's all so still.
I've had a shockingly emotional week. Cried my overworked heart out for a couple of days, realised I didn't feel ready and even had apprehension about Lolly coming. But after using Steve as my outside-of-my-own-mind rationality yardstick, I'm much better. Prepared, primed and ready. Bang up for it. Actually, pacing because I can't wait to meet our little Lolly.
Here's us at 38 weeks. My God, how time has alternately flown and stood still. And I ask myself daily, despite the extreme back/hip pain giving me a shuffle that makes Cliff Young look like he was positively sprinting, how we have been so lucky to have made it this far this time. Makes my experience with Ellanor so much more special and full of meaning.
And while I'm not giving any dates away, this could be my last entry. I vowed that if my waters broke, I'd write it here if I got the time get an entry in.... before Lolly's entry was made. But as it turns out, we've served a notice of eviction on old Lazybones Lolly so next time you read, I could be a new mummy. That is, of course, unless some random bit of trivia or a funny cartoon tickles my fancy enough that I have to share it here.
The induction date is strictly a secret, but let's just say, birth is imminent. And my body is thanking me profusely for allowing the induction to go ahead (I was in two minds, but I can't go on anymore with the pain).
Steve finished work on Friday for five whole weeks. If I was physically able, I would have fallen at his feet and gripped his legs so he had to drag me as he walked, I was that pleased to see him home on Friday night. Saying "Neverrr leave again", in Homer's classic line from the Rancho Relaxo episode.
So, dear Bloggy Audience, I dread to love you and leave you. Don't leave me! I am going on a forced break.... unsure of when I'll return. Depends on Lolly I guess. Through various other channels, you will soon know when I've given birth. I'm in hospital for a week, possibly a bit over depending on whether I do have to be induced (in which case I'll be admitted to await labour coming on) or whether Lolly, in true form, decides the birth date for him/herself.
I've had a shockingly emotional week. Cried my overworked heart out for a couple of days, realised I didn't feel ready and even had apprehension about Lolly coming. But after using Steve as my outside-of-my-own-mind rationality yardstick, I'm much better. Prepared, primed and ready. Bang up for it. Actually, pacing because I can't wait to meet our little Lolly.
Here's us at 38 weeks. My God, how time has alternately flown and stood still. And I ask myself daily, despite the extreme back/hip pain giving me a shuffle that makes Cliff Young look like he was positively sprinting, how we have been so lucky to have made it this far this time. Makes my experience with Ellanor so much more special and full of meaning.
And while I'm not giving any dates away, this could be my last entry. I vowed that if my waters broke, I'd write it here if I got the time get an entry in.... before Lolly's entry was made. But as it turns out, we've served a notice of eviction on old Lazybones Lolly so next time you read, I could be a new mummy. That is, of course, unless some random bit of trivia or a funny cartoon tickles my fancy enough that I have to share it here.
The induction date is strictly a secret, but let's just say, birth is imminent. And my body is thanking me profusely for allowing the induction to go ahead (I was in two minds, but I can't go on anymore with the pain).
Steve finished work on Friday for five whole weeks. If I was physically able, I would have fallen at his feet and gripped his legs so he had to drag me as he walked, I was that pleased to see him home on Friday night. Saying "Neverrr leave again", in Homer's classic line from the Rancho Relaxo episode.
So, dear Bloggy Audience, I dread to love you and leave you. Don't leave me! I am going on a forced break.... unsure of when I'll return. Depends on Lolly I guess. Through various other channels, you will soon know when I've given birth. I'm in hospital for a week, possibly a bit over depending on whether I do have to be induced (in which case I'll be admitted to await labour coming on) or whether Lolly, in true form, decides the birth date for him/herself.
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