One of the most common things people say to first time parents before their baby is born is that they should "stock up" on their sleep. That would have to be one of the stupidest things ever said to new parents. Sleep doesn't work like that. You can "catch up" on lost sleep, you can even have a good nights sleep and feel good the next day and might even cope better with a subsequent disturbed night. But you CANNOT stock up on sleep like some squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter shortage. It just doesn't work like that. The other reason that it is a stupid thing to say is because for the pregnant mother, sleep disturbance happens a long long time before the baby is born. It can start as early as the first trimester. And with all those extra hormones running around making you more than a little loopy anyway, sleep deprivation just adds to the fun. There is a reason that sleep deprivation is used as a torture. Losing sleep not only leaves us feeling grumpy, tired and having trouble concentrating, it can also have a negative effect on our health.
Why does the sleep deprivation start so early? Well the first reason is a pregnant woman's bladder is NOT her friend. The additional hormones stimulate more urine production and even the small weight of that tiny fetus and growing uterus resting on top of the bladder make holding on for too long impossible. By the time you get to your second or third pregnancy the muscles that control all of this can be a bit weak too so the urgent signal can come at any time through the night "wake and go pee or you will wet the bed!"
Another reason for sleep disturbance is the vivid dreams that come with pregnancy. I don't know why this happens and I am not sure anyone does. I have heard from someone that it is to do with hormones but who knows how true this is? Last night I had nightmare after nightmare. Not a good nights sleep. Dreams from me trying to leave to get to a presentation I am doing on Saturday just to find myself standing at the door suddenly naked, or without my notes or other necessary items. Then the dreams about premmie babies or deformed babies or forced abortions complete with babies screaming. No prizes for guessing where those dreams came from. It is my 12 week ultrasound this afternoon and being 37 I am a bit worried about the health of this baby.
The final reason for my problems sleeping, and I don't know if this is common to pregnant women or not, is the changes to my bodies thermostat. Leaving the covers off left me feeling cold after a while but when I put them on it wasn't long until I woke up covered in sweat. Gotta to love a body that doesn't know what it wants. Sigh I just hope I get a decent nights sleep tonight before my big presentation tomorrow or I may just find myself trying to leave the house sans clothes ;-)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Common Courtesy
not so common! Ok a bit off topic today. This morning when I was dropping my son off at school we followed two older boys into the school and neither of them made any effort to stop the door from closing even though we were only a couple of steps behind them. On my way out of the school I held the door open for a couple of girls going in and neither of them said a word. In the car park I was in my car with my reverse lights on when a father in his Porsche pulled up right behind me and sat there while his son got out. On the drive to work someone cut into the waiting line of traffic, obviously they were too good to wait like everyone else. All of these things smack of two things a lack of "common" courtesy and a lack of consideration.
I have a friend whose ex-husband is a teacher at a very expensive private girls school here. He had a call one day from a mother demanding to know why he wasn't teaching her daughter manners. Obviously a parental inability to teach manners has nothing to do with socio-economic factors. When I was working in retail a mother and child came up to the counter with the child demanding "I want a doughnut, I want a doughnut!". The mother stopped the child and made her repeat the demand as a question with a please "Can I have a doughnut please?" The mother then turned to me and demanded "Two doughnuts!" I must say the temptation to look at her and say "say please!" was almost over whelming. Our children learn manners from the example they see in the people around them. If we use manners with them then they will use them with us and others. It is a very easy thing to let slip but it is also an easy thing to stick with. Teaching our child this most basic of human skills - being considerate of others and having meaningful interactions with them is so important. It is a huge shame on our "modern" society that we think we don't have time for this.
When I talk to my kids about why manners are important I tell them that manners and courtesy are the grease which makes life and society run smoothly. I am often told what good manners my children have, which surprises me, it makes me proud as well but it surprises me because it means they are different to the other children around them. I for one will continue to do my best to teach my children to think of others and to show them respect because I think in turn it will mean others will think of them and show them respect. It will make their lives that much better and more meaningful and after all isn't that what we all want for our children.
I have a friend whose ex-husband is a teacher at a very expensive private girls school here. He had a call one day from a mother demanding to know why he wasn't teaching her daughter manners. Obviously a parental inability to teach manners has nothing to do with socio-economic factors. When I was working in retail a mother and child came up to the counter with the child demanding "I want a doughnut, I want a doughnut!". The mother stopped the child and made her repeat the demand as a question with a please "Can I have a doughnut please?" The mother then turned to me and demanded "Two doughnuts!" I must say the temptation to look at her and say "say please!" was almost over whelming. Our children learn manners from the example they see in the people around them. If we use manners with them then they will use them with us and others. It is a very easy thing to let slip but it is also an easy thing to stick with. Teaching our child this most basic of human skills - being considerate of others and having meaningful interactions with them is so important. It is a huge shame on our "modern" society that we think we don't have time for this.
When I talk to my kids about why manners are important I tell them that manners and courtesy are the grease which makes life and society run smoothly. I am often told what good manners my children have, which surprises me, it makes me proud as well but it surprises me because it means they are different to the other children around them. I for one will continue to do my best to teach my children to think of others and to show them respect because I think in turn it will mean others will think of them and show them respect. It will make their lives that much better and more meaningful and after all isn't that what we all want for our children.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Breastfeeding
Ok it is a topic that will provoke strong reactions in a lot of people. There are your breastfeeding nazis who seem to think that no pain no discomfort no problem should ever ever stop you from breastfeeding your baby. They will tell you the horrors that await "artificially" fed babies. A term that conjures up images of feeding a newborn baby the liquid equivalent of MacDonalds in an inhumane cold plastic bottle. They will tell you that you won't bond with your baby, that the baby will be less intelligent, have more health problems, more allergies and you will forever regret not being a "true" mother. Then on the other end you find some women, very few, who find breastfeeding is disgusting and should either only be done in total privacy (like the toilets, as if they would eat their lunch in there) or not done at all. I think this attitude says more about the women (and some men) who have it than anything else. After all women have breasts so they can feed their babies not for the enjoyment of men.
Then somewhere in the middle, often leaning towards one end or the other you find most women. This is where I sit. I was determined with the birth of my first child that I was going to breast feed. I didn't and don't judge any one that doesn't but I was going to. It was the one thing I was stuck on. The cloth nappies, I was flexible, where the baby slept, I was flexible, clothes toys everything else I was flexible. But I WAS going to breastfeed. Unfortunately it was not that easy. My eldest child lost a lot of weight before he was born because the placenta had started to break down. His birth was hard and I was lucky not to have ended up with an emergency cesarean. He was a low weight, and look liked an old man where all his skin was wrinkled up. On the second day the pediatrician saw him and said he was to have top up bottles of formula at least until my milk came in. The poor thing was too exhausted to feed properly but too hungry to sleep so I was already exhausted myself by this stage because he would attach to my boob, feed a little, fall asleep, I would go to take him off and he would wake up and cry. So he got top up feeds. Which didn't help my supply. I tried expressing as soon as my milk came in but that wasn't working either. When we eventually left hospital the midwives told me he was fine and I would not need to top up feed him at all. They were wrong. The same cycle that established itself in the early days of feed, sleep, detach, wake, scream, started again. And went on and on and on. He was colicky for up to 18 hours a day and although I didn't know it at the time also had bad reflux. It was a nightmare. I ended up sleep deprived and very depressed. I went to a lactation consultant, that told me he was putting on heaps of weight so we didn't need to give him the formula feeds and wouldn't listen to me when I told her that they were the only thing that would stop him from screaming. I felt a total and utter failure. I couldn't even do the most basic thing for my child, feed him. We took him to back to the pediatrician who told us it was probably an allergy to milk, something that runs in my family. So I cut all dairy out of my diet. When that didn't help I started cutting out other allergens until I was pretty much eating, lettuce, chicken and rice. Still nothing helped except to give him a bottle.
Why didn't I give up breastfeeding? I had the nurses and everyone telling me he was getting enough and he would be fine but they weren't there at 3am when one of us would take him for a drive out of desperation. Eventually I ended up at QEII, which is a level 3 hospital for mothers and babies with sleep or feeding problems. They were wonderful. They set me up with a supply line, I would put a bottle of warm formula in my bra and a very fine tube would be taped beside my nipple so that my son could attach to me but get formula. The idea was to increase my supply while giving him a feed so we would no longer need top up bottles. It started to work, although my little man being so smart started to refuse to take my boob if there was no supply line or attached bottle. I would try pinching off the line part way through the feed but he would pull off and give me a look that just said "I know what you have done!" I was just starting to despair of ever having my son, who was 4 months old by now, fully breastfed. Then my own health let me down. After months of sleep deprivation, restrictive diets and depression I ended up in hospital with pneumonia. I was very sick. The only reasons they didn't keep me in was because they didn't have the beds, I threatened to sign myself out and my husband (a school teacher) was home on school holidays to look after me and the baby. I was given a ton of different medications. With each one the doctor would tell me "this is safe for breastfeeding". After the fourth script I stopped him and asked, "you say each one is safe for breastfeeding but what about all of them together?" He didn't know. No one did. My husband had been bottle feeding my son while I was in hospital and between that and the doubt in my own mind about what all these different medications might do to my child I finally decided to give up the struggle to breast feed.
The change in my child was astonishing. By the time I was well enough to notice he was in a routine. He was sleeping through most nights. The colic stopped. He was on a prescription formula. It is specially processed so that the milk proteins that can cause allergic reactions were already broken down before hand. The pediatrician had also put him on medication for reflux. He was a happy healthy baby at last. I still felt like a failure and the occasional questions from other mothers, old and young, and health professionals about why he wasn't breastfed didn't help. We then went through three years of avoiding milk in all forms until he was given the all clear by an immunologist. In hindsight with what happened with my daughter later I suspect that milk was never his problem. But again this is a topic for another post. I will always wonder if my son's tendency to be sensitive and easily upset comes from spending his first four months of life in pain and not getting good sleep. I guess it is something I will never know. However he has grown into a very healthy and generally happy boy. :-)
Then somewhere in the middle, often leaning towards one end or the other you find most women. This is where I sit. I was determined with the birth of my first child that I was going to breast feed. I didn't and don't judge any one that doesn't but I was going to. It was the one thing I was stuck on. The cloth nappies, I was flexible, where the baby slept, I was flexible, clothes toys everything else I was flexible. But I WAS going to breastfeed. Unfortunately it was not that easy. My eldest child lost a lot of weight before he was born because the placenta had started to break down. His birth was hard and I was lucky not to have ended up with an emergency cesarean. He was a low weight, and look liked an old man where all his skin was wrinkled up. On the second day the pediatrician saw him and said he was to have top up bottles of formula at least until my milk came in. The poor thing was too exhausted to feed properly but too hungry to sleep so I was already exhausted myself by this stage because he would attach to my boob, feed a little, fall asleep, I would go to take him off and he would wake up and cry. So he got top up feeds. Which didn't help my supply. I tried expressing as soon as my milk came in but that wasn't working either. When we eventually left hospital the midwives told me he was fine and I would not need to top up feed him at all. They were wrong. The same cycle that established itself in the early days of feed, sleep, detach, wake, scream, started again. And went on and on and on. He was colicky for up to 18 hours a day and although I didn't know it at the time also had bad reflux. It was a nightmare. I ended up sleep deprived and very depressed. I went to a lactation consultant, that told me he was putting on heaps of weight so we didn't need to give him the formula feeds and wouldn't listen to me when I told her that they were the only thing that would stop him from screaming. I felt a total and utter failure. I couldn't even do the most basic thing for my child, feed him. We took him to back to the pediatrician who told us it was probably an allergy to milk, something that runs in my family. So I cut all dairy out of my diet. When that didn't help I started cutting out other allergens until I was pretty much eating, lettuce, chicken and rice. Still nothing helped except to give him a bottle.
Why didn't I give up breastfeeding? I had the nurses and everyone telling me he was getting enough and he would be fine but they weren't there at 3am when one of us would take him for a drive out of desperation. Eventually I ended up at QEII, which is a level 3 hospital for mothers and babies with sleep or feeding problems. They were wonderful. They set me up with a supply line, I would put a bottle of warm formula in my bra and a very fine tube would be taped beside my nipple so that my son could attach to me but get formula. The idea was to increase my supply while giving him a feed so we would no longer need top up bottles. It started to work, although my little man being so smart started to refuse to take my boob if there was no supply line or attached bottle. I would try pinching off the line part way through the feed but he would pull off and give me a look that just said "I know what you have done!" I was just starting to despair of ever having my son, who was 4 months old by now, fully breastfed. Then my own health let me down. After months of sleep deprivation, restrictive diets and depression I ended up in hospital with pneumonia. I was very sick. The only reasons they didn't keep me in was because they didn't have the beds, I threatened to sign myself out and my husband (a school teacher) was home on school holidays to look after me and the baby. I was given a ton of different medications. With each one the doctor would tell me "this is safe for breastfeeding". After the fourth script I stopped him and asked, "you say each one is safe for breastfeeding but what about all of them together?" He didn't know. No one did. My husband had been bottle feeding my son while I was in hospital and between that and the doubt in my own mind about what all these different medications might do to my child I finally decided to give up the struggle to breast feed.
The change in my child was astonishing. By the time I was well enough to notice he was in a routine. He was sleeping through most nights. The colic stopped. He was on a prescription formula. It is specially processed so that the milk proteins that can cause allergic reactions were already broken down before hand. The pediatrician had also put him on medication for reflux. He was a happy healthy baby at last. I still felt like a failure and the occasional questions from other mothers, old and young, and health professionals about why he wasn't breastfed didn't help. We then went through three years of avoiding milk in all forms until he was given the all clear by an immunologist. In hindsight with what happened with my daughter later I suspect that milk was never his problem. But again this is a topic for another post. I will always wonder if my son's tendency to be sensitive and easily upset comes from spending his first four months of life in pain and not getting good sleep. I guess it is something I will never know. However he has grown into a very healthy and generally happy boy. :-)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Headaches
I suffer from headaches. No one has ever been able to figure out why. Anything that raises my blood pressure can set off a sudden onset migraine that leaves me writhing in pain. Unfortunately while I am pregnant I can't take the medication that normally helps keep these head aches in check. The drug can increase my baby's chance of having spina bifida. So there is no question of my taking it. I can last out another six months until the baby is born. I have heard that it is safe for breastfeeding but I am not sure I want to be taking so many medications and passing them onto the baby. Anyway that is a whole new post. In the mean time I am having battle frequently with bad headaches. The worse ones are making my morning sickness worse, I usually feel a bit sick when I have a bad one so it is just piling up on top of the morning sickness. Today is a bad one. I am struggling along at work but only with the help of some Panadeine which has its own unwelcome side effects. What I really want to do is go home and sleep for the day but alas it is not an option. So on with the day and thinking about my perfectly healthy baby to keep me going :-)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
"Placenta brain"
Anyone who has ever been pregnant or spent time with someone who is pregnant will know what I mean. It seems as soon as you have a small parasite nestling in your womb it sucks all the life out of your brain. It was bad with my first pregnancy. Here's me who can remember our social calendar 6 months in advance, pay all the bills on time and, according to my husband, recite back something said in the heat of an argument 5 years previously, suddenly unable to remember what shopping I was supposed to pick up on the way home. And your brain never recovers. I never found myself miraculously able to recite back something my husband had promised a year ago. But I learned to cope. Then along came the second pregnancy and it got worse. Not only did I forget what I was going to the shops for I forgot to go to the shops. I would walk into a room and wonder why I was there. I started to wonder if I had some early onset of Alzheimers or even what my Mum calls "Old-timers". Again I managed to never have the power cut off and I learned to cope. Now with a third pregnancy it is so much worse again. I can forget what day of the week it is. I can certainly forget what I was just doing at any point in time. I forget appointments, dates and phone calls. Get a diary you say?! I have one. The problem is I have to remember to write things down and THEN I have to remember to look in it occasionally. I have a diary and a calendar that lives on the kitchen bench at home, supposedly to keep track of kids events, family gatherings, bills etc etc. I have a personal diary to keep track of what I am doing on any given day. And at work I have Outlook into which I put anything and a reminder pops up at the appropriate time. Again I have to remember to actually put things in. I do owe a lot to the Outlook calendar, I even have reminders in there for the days I need to pick up my son from school. Without which I know there would have been days when I would have gotten to 3pm and wondered vaguely what I had forgotten before my phone would ring at 3.15 with my sons teacher on the other end wondering who was supposed to be picking up my child.
Again I have to wonder what the evolutionary advantage of losing your faculties ever offered to pregnant women. Did primitive hunter gathers find it advantageous to forget where they left their first born child? May be the trauma of being so thoroughly forgotten by the one person who is supposed to care the most toughened our offspring up and left them better able to cope with the rigors of primitive society. What ever the reason for it there is one small advantage, in 12 months time when I am busy caring for our new baby and our older children all the pains and complaints of pregnancy will be well forgotten.
Again I have to wonder what the evolutionary advantage of losing your faculties ever offered to pregnant women. Did primitive hunter gathers find it advantageous to forget where they left their first born child? May be the trauma of being so thoroughly forgotten by the one person who is supposed to care the most toughened our offspring up and left them better able to cope with the rigors of primitive society. What ever the reason for it there is one small advantage, in 12 months time when I am busy caring for our new baby and our older children all the pains and complaints of pregnancy will be well forgotten.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
thanks
Ok I would like to say something important today. I want to thank my husband. The past few weeks have been just as trying for him as they have been for me but I have been totally focused on myself. The tiredness and morning sickness have robbed me of my energy to do much at all. The house is constantly a mess and a lot of things have fallen behind. At the moment you can't see our lounge suite for the huge mountain of washing that is waiting to be sorted, a lot of that washing he has done not me. A lot of the care for our older children has fallen to him too. Through all this he has been very supportive and given me a lot of TLC. He brings me breakfast in bed every morning to help me get going and to help with the nausea. He gets home from work as early as he can and looks after the kids while I slip off for an afternoon nap. He not only baths the kids but will often start on dinner too. I am very lucky to have him and I know that I could not survive without him. I love you. Mel
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Hormones
There is an old and very crass joke that goes "How do you make a hormone?" "Kick her in the crotch!". I did say it was crass. But seriously what is the deal with hormones. Ok you expect a bit of a change when you are pregnant, after all it is making some pretty big changes to your body. But really what is with the emotional stuff. What evolutionary niche did the tendency to cry at the slightest provocation fill? Last night, ok the house was a mess, what else is new, I was seeing all the new furniture I had dreamed of disappearing, it was the start of my working week, but why oh why did I burst into tears when I started putting the kids toys away. Feeling overwhelmed yes, tired yes, but weepy WHY? When we were still hunter gatherers and that Sabre toothed tiger was stalking the slow one in the mob, (ie the one with the big pregnant belly waddling along behind everyone else) was bursting into tears really going to make the tiger stop and decide to eat the slightly faster grandmother over there? Hmm I don't think so. The extra blood, the fat deposits even the water retention I can all understand as being beneficial for mother and bub but I just don't get the over emotional hormonal state. Oh Well only 30 weeks and 3 days to go, but who is counting ;-)
House renovations
Ok so we are having a third child and we have a smallish three bedroom house. Why can't the kids share? That is what I thought. I was happy to have two of them share a room. We have a boy and a girl so the baby is going to be the same sex as one of them. But my husband was pretty adamant that he wanted the kids to each have their own room. And the more I thought I about it the more I agree. We are not rich by any means but we do have the means to provide our kids with a bed room each. Ok it is taking a loan from the bank to do it but what does that matter. What is more important than our kids. We have a double garage that we haven't been able to get a car into in some time. It is too full of junk, including all our baby stuff that we hadn't gotten around to selling or giving away, thank goodness. So we are going to convert it into a bedroom, a study/craft room and a play/rumpus room. It will be wonderful to have a bit more space. Our daughter will probably move into the new bedroom and she will be able to pick out the colours etc. I can already see what she will pick now, Pink Pink and more pink. She is very much a girly girl :-) The baby can have her old room, which has always been the nursery and is the closest to our room. The study/craft room is the one I am most excited about I have to admit. I do have a dedicated craft space but it is basically a little cubby hole in our bedroom. So I have to be quiet and any mess has to be stepped over etc on a daily basis. Having a room with the computer and all my craft stuff in it will be heaven. I have already started planning out how I am going to organise it. I know we are having a new baby and I am more excited about getting a craft room. What can I say? I will be excited about the baby when it arrives don't worry.
So we had a meeting with a building designer yesterday and he told us that what we want is doable and will should (very big provisos on this word) get past planning regulations. It is also doable with our budget. That was the disappointing part, I was really hoping that he would tell us that we had heaps so we could get some new furniture and the soft furnishings but I guess we are just going to have to save every cent we can so we can get those things. All in all I am pretty happy about our plans. :-)
So we had a meeting with a building designer yesterday and he told us that what we want is doable and will should (very big provisos on this word) get past planning regulations. It is also doable with our budget. That was the disappointing part, I was really hoping that he would tell us that we had heaps so we could get some new furniture and the soft furnishings but I guess we are just going to have to save every cent we can so we can get those things. All in all I am pretty happy about our plans. :-)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Telling family
Always a big moment with any pregnancy. I wanted to wait until the end of the first trimester, there is less chance of anything going wrong after that point. But my husband was keen to tell everyone. So we compromised and waiting until after I had the dating ultrasound which turned out to be at 6 weeks into the pregnancy. There was a heart beat so that is a good sign. I still felt and still feel nervous that something could go wrong but I was keen to tell our children and if we told them we might as well tell our parents because 6yo and 3yo are not known for their ability to keep a secret. So we invited the whole family over for a dinner to "celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary".
A couple of hours before the dinner we sat down with our older children and told them they were getting another sibling. Our 3yo girl didn't really take it in and was distracted by something else almost straight away. Our 6yo son was a different matter. He was very excited and loved the idea. He went off and drew a picture of me with a speech bubble over my head and asked us how to spell "I am pregnant". It was very cute and we told him he should use it to tell everyone.
So a couple of hours later my mum shows up on time. An hour and a half later my brother- and sister-in-law show up. We wait another hour for my husbands parents but they never show. We tried to call them several times but got no answer. By this stage our little man is chomping at the bit to show everyone his news. So we tell him to go ahead. Everyone thinks it is a cute drawing but no one seems to twig why he would draw it. My mum asks "so who said that?" I smile and say "I did". She looks at me in disbelief, she was well aware that we were not keen to have any more children. Finally everyone gets the message that yes I am pregnant and we are having another child.
The next day we get a call from my in-laws, appologising for forgetting about dinner. I am not really impressed, my husband had been pretty upset. This is not the first time that they have done this, it is not even the second, I have lost count actually. On one occasion they forgot about his 30th birthday dinner. Anyway they stop by that afternoon to see us. My husband to my annoyance doesn't say much about them forgetting, he told me earlier that there was no point. I think he should let them know how hurt he was.
Anyway our son shows them his picture and my father-in-law thinks it is a good joke that he is telling them until he looks up at my husband who is nodding, then at me who is also nodding. The first words out of his mouth are then "but I thought you had yourself fixed?!" which just cracks me up. It brings up the mental image of sending my husband off to the vets to be "fixed" like we did with the dogs. "Hi is he done yet? Can I pick him up? does he need one of those cone things for his head to stop him licking the wound?".
Then a phone call to my Dad in Queensland and a call to my brother in Melbourne and the whole family know. Our closest friends also know but we are keeping it mostly to ourselves for the time being. I am only 8 weeks pregnant and there is still a lot that could go wrong.
Fingers crossed it all goes right :-)
A couple of hours before the dinner we sat down with our older children and told them they were getting another sibling. Our 3yo girl didn't really take it in and was distracted by something else almost straight away. Our 6yo son was a different matter. He was very excited and loved the idea. He went off and drew a picture of me with a speech bubble over my head and asked us how to spell "I am pregnant". It was very cute and we told him he should use it to tell everyone.
So a couple of hours later my mum shows up on time. An hour and a half later my brother- and sister-in-law show up. We wait another hour for my husbands parents but they never show. We tried to call them several times but got no answer. By this stage our little man is chomping at the bit to show everyone his news. So we tell him to go ahead. Everyone thinks it is a cute drawing but no one seems to twig why he would draw it. My mum asks "so who said that?" I smile and say "I did". She looks at me in disbelief, she was well aware that we were not keen to have any more children. Finally everyone gets the message that yes I am pregnant and we are having another child.
The next day we get a call from my in-laws, appologising for forgetting about dinner. I am not really impressed, my husband had been pretty upset. This is not the first time that they have done this, it is not even the second, I have lost count actually. On one occasion they forgot about his 30th birthday dinner. Anyway they stop by that afternoon to see us. My husband to my annoyance doesn't say much about them forgetting, he told me earlier that there was no point. I think he should let them know how hurt he was.
Anyway our son shows them his picture and my father-in-law thinks it is a good joke that he is telling them until he looks up at my husband who is nodding, then at me who is also nodding. The first words out of his mouth are then "but I thought you had yourself fixed?!" which just cracks me up. It brings up the mental image of sending my husband off to the vets to be "fixed" like we did with the dogs. "Hi is he done yet? Can I pick him up? does he need one of those cone things for his head to stop him licking the wound?".
Then a phone call to my Dad in Queensland and a call to my brother in Melbourne and the whole family know. Our closest friends also know but we are keeping it mostly to ourselves for the time being. I am only 8 weeks pregnant and there is still a lot that could go wrong.
Fingers crossed it all goes right :-)
"What?!"
As always there are some funny stories about this pregnancy that I would like to share. There are also some not so funny stories that I will share but I think how we found out that we are going to be parents again is pretty funny. It is also bordering on TMI so be warned ;-)
Well I got all my usual monthly symptoms, sore boobs (see what I mean about TMI), constipated, wanting to rip everyone's head off for no good reason... But then nothing. Most of those symptoms went away... well they changed anyway. My boobs got sorer, still constipated but far from wanting to rip everyone's head off I constantly swung between feeling happy and wanting to cry at the smallest thing. Still that didn't really twig any thoughts of pregnancy, sounds a bit dumb now but remember we were using contraception. Anyway a couple of days down the track the thought started to creep up on me that maybe just maybe I was pregnant. I was talking to my closest friend on email and I slipped a PS in at the end of one of the emails, "PS. I think I am knocked up". About 10 seconds after hitting the send button my phone rang and my friend told me, in spite of the evidence, that I couldn't put something like that in a PS. Later that day I started to get some cramps I told her and we decided that I had been wrong.
That evening the cramps had gone away and my period still hadn't arrived. I was still feeling really emotional and my boobs hurt to the point were my arm brushing against them almost sent me through the roof. I hadn't really thought any more about it though until I was cooking dinner. I was browning some mince, normally a pretty nice cooking smell but it was making me feel ill. Then I added some red wine to the mince and I almost vomited into the kitchen sink. Ok that is not normal. Once we had our kids in bed I asked my husband to go to the store to pick some stuff up and I gave him a shopping list
Milk
Bread
Pregnancy test
He read the list and just looked at me.
"You're late?"
"No honey I just thought it would be fun and a good way to waste some money", no I just thought that really, I guess I was on the down swing of my hormonal cycle. I simply said "Yes!" So he came back with a single pack of the cheapest test on the market, I guess he didn't really believe it either. I took the test and there was the faintest of faint positive result. No way! We both pointed out that I had done something wrong with the test. Now feeling very agitated I sent my husband back to the shops. He came home with a three pack of the same brand. I took another two both with the same very positive result. Hmm nope still can't be true. So I saved the fourth and final test for the following morning, knowing that a morning test is the most accurate. Sure enough the next morning brought a much darker line and a much more convincing positive test. Oh Shit!
So off to the doctor, still not really believing it. That was until I was sitting in the waiting room reading a story about a dog that was saved from the bush fires, it was all I could do not to burst into tears. Ok so I was REALLY hormonal, it finally started to sink in. I walked into the doctors office and said "I'm pregnant!" I guess the look on my face said it all because she just started laughing at me.
Of course the blood test confirmed it and I have now had an ultrasound too. Seeing that little heartbeat was the final positive for me. I am having another baby and I couldn't be happier!
Well I got all my usual monthly symptoms, sore boobs (see what I mean about TMI), constipated, wanting to rip everyone's head off for no good reason... But then nothing. Most of those symptoms went away... well they changed anyway. My boobs got sorer, still constipated but far from wanting to rip everyone's head off I constantly swung between feeling happy and wanting to cry at the smallest thing. Still that didn't really twig any thoughts of pregnancy, sounds a bit dumb now but remember we were using contraception. Anyway a couple of days down the track the thought started to creep up on me that maybe just maybe I was pregnant. I was talking to my closest friend on email and I slipped a PS in at the end of one of the emails, "PS. I think I am knocked up". About 10 seconds after hitting the send button my phone rang and my friend told me, in spite of the evidence, that I couldn't put something like that in a PS. Later that day I started to get some cramps I told her and we decided that I had been wrong.
That evening the cramps had gone away and my period still hadn't arrived. I was still feeling really emotional and my boobs hurt to the point were my arm brushing against them almost sent me through the roof. I hadn't really thought any more about it though until I was cooking dinner. I was browning some mince, normally a pretty nice cooking smell but it was making me feel ill. Then I added some red wine to the mince and I almost vomited into the kitchen sink. Ok that is not normal. Once we had our kids in bed I asked my husband to go to the store to pick some stuff up and I gave him a shopping list
Milk
Bread
Pregnancy test
He read the list and just looked at me.
"You're late?"
"No honey I just thought it would be fun and a good way to waste some money", no I just thought that really, I guess I was on the down swing of my hormonal cycle. I simply said "Yes!" So he came back with a single pack of the cheapest test on the market, I guess he didn't really believe it either. I took the test and there was the faintest of faint positive result. No way! We both pointed out that I had done something wrong with the test. Now feeling very agitated I sent my husband back to the shops. He came home with a three pack of the same brand. I took another two both with the same very positive result. Hmm nope still can't be true. So I saved the fourth and final test for the following morning, knowing that a morning test is the most accurate. Sure enough the next morning brought a much darker line and a much more convincing positive test. Oh Shit!
So off to the doctor, still not really believing it. That was until I was sitting in the waiting room reading a story about a dog that was saved from the bush fires, it was all I could do not to burst into tears. Ok so I was REALLY hormonal, it finally started to sink in. I walked into the doctors office and said "I'm pregnant!" I guess the look on my face said it all because she just started laughing at me.
Of course the blood test confirmed it and I have now had an ultrasound too. Seeing that little heartbeat was the final positive for me. I am having another baby and I couldn't be happier!
Mirror
Well I had a good look in the mirror this morning. And I mean I really looked. Most of us (all of us?) look in the mirror and look at one particular thing, do I have something in my teeth, do I have a zit? Or we see the picture in our heads. In my head I still look the way I did when I was 17, given that that was 20 years ago the real image has shifted a bit. So I took a real look at myself. And I saw a very overweight middle age woman who is suddenly pregnant and looking very very tired. So what can I do to improve this image? I have been resting a lot lately, well I am pregnant and I currently have a kidney infection which is not much fun so I have needed plenty of rest. But is it possible to have too much. I look around my house and what a mess it is, and think about what a mess I am and I think I need to get moving! So what can I do? It isn't like I should or even could launch myself into a sudden fitness routine. I do need to take it slowly. So I am going to go and organise that gym membership I am owed and I am going to get out my Wii fit again. Even if I just do some yoga every night for the next few weeks it is still moving.
I am also going to stop giving in to my cravings. I know that you are supposed to give in to cravings because the theory is that it is something your body needs but am I craving Chinese takeaway because my body really needs CHINESE TAKEAWAY or simply because I need some salt and possible some oils? So I am going to try and steer to the healthier option. If I am craving Chinese Takeaway ok, I will make myself a stir fry and see if that will do.
Hopefully by the time this baby arrives what I see in the mirror won't be so much of a tired overweight middle aged woman as a slightly healthier (being realistic here) slightly less overweight and not so tired middle aged woman. :-)
I am also going to stop giving in to my cravings. I know that you are supposed to give in to cravings because the theory is that it is something your body needs but am I craving Chinese takeaway because my body really needs CHINESE TAKEAWAY or simply because I need some salt and possible some oils? So I am going to try and steer to the healthier option. If I am craving Chinese Takeaway ok, I will make myself a stir fry and see if that will do.
Hopefully by the time this baby arrives what I see in the mirror won't be so much of a tired overweight middle aged woman as a slightly healthier (being realistic here) slightly less overweight and not so tired middle aged woman. :-)
Here!
So here I am 37 and unexpectedly pregnant with our third child. I only ever wanted two children and we have a boy 6 and a girl 3 who are my world. Sure over the past few years I have gotten cluckier and cluckier but if I let my, what a teacher of mine once called, "enviable good sense" take over I knew that it probably wasn't a good idea. Not just the three bedroom home that we built and love and never want to leave, or the small car that will just fit a family of four, my babies were nightmares. Don't get me wrong, I love them and loved them then too, with all my life. That is probably why it was so hard when they would scream in pain for up to 18 hours a day. I ended up in hospital when my son was 6 months old with pneumonia because I had not been looking after myself while trying to cope with the demands of a baby that never slept. My daughter ended up in A&E at 6 days old because she was vomiting blood from over feeding and then in hospital at 6 weeks old because she would scream constantly. They both have a problem with their bowels that it seems runs in my family and explains my history of irritable bowel, reflux and heartburn. Not to mention we are just getting to the point where our children are becoming more independent and life is getting that little bit easier. My husband certainly didn't want a third child. And despite what a lot of people might think we were using contraception. However as my GP laughingly told me NOTHING is ever 100% effective. I guess the proof is in my morning sickness. Despite all of this and how this has thrown our little world into turmoil I can't help but be happy. A baby is a blessing and I can't help but feel blessed. I know my husband who was very firm on never wanting any more children can't seem to wipe the grin off his face and our children are pretty happy to be getting another sibling too. Now just to survive this pregnancy and sort out the practicalities :-)
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