my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

sleeping through the night? not yet? August 19, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,exhaustion,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 10:45 am
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Hi Little Poogie,

you are fast asleep in your cot and I wish I were sleeping too.  We had night three (I thought night four but your dad thinks night three, he is probably right as I’m starting to not be able to think straight) of trying to get you back to sleeping right on through the night again after a period of not doing so (yes, it was a one-off that night).

And gee, I’m sure it was easier when you were a bit younger.  Now your fighting / resistance skills have increased.

Day one was fine.  You woke up at 2am, I gave you a cuddle and a bit of a walk, calmed you down and you went back in your cot and back to sleep until 7am.

The next night you woke at 2:30 am and then stayed awake until 4:15, fighting sleep.

Same last night.

Me, a bit of a jumbling, crazy person who can’t quite think straight today.

you, tired.  You were more intent on eating the floating toy duck at swimming lessons today than actually swimming.

aaaaghh..

this better work.

mum

 

you survived your first blood test. And the logisitics of a pee test for a baby. July 29, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,emotion,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 3:12 pm
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Hello!

Update on the blood test.

I managed to not cry. Mostly because I had to help hold you down on the table and you were looking right at my face, so I thought I should keep it together and look calm and in control for your sake. Inside I was quaking. (and I managed to keep the chocolate down too).

You screamed, and they took at least 7 vials of blood (more…)

 

Blood Tests for Babies – erk. I’m feeling sick just thinking about it. July 29, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:57 am
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Hello Poogie,

So. Feeling very nervous. Have just consumed most of a family-sized block of chocolate in an upset/nervous/tension-filled empty moment. Yes, single “moment”, not plural “moments”. I literally inhaled it.

We are back from holidays and in organising mode I phoned the pathology lab yesterday to see how far in advance of your next doctor’s appointment I need to get the blood and other tests they want you to have done. And I was thinking about a week out from the appointment. Then got told a month out. Which was last week. So today it is. We are off to the hospital as soon as you wake up from your morning nap for a blood and other pathology tests.

And you know how I hate needles? I’m sure you know that, as I told you enough times when I was pregnant about the fact that I was just getting all these needles for your good, not mine.. And some of my experiences with needles lately haven’t been the greatest: my experience in a birthing suite with some bleeding during pregnancy, and a bad experience that I didn’t go through in this blog but did happen when they were trying to get a line into me for my surgery. Anyway, I hate needles at the best of time. Worst when I’m having to have one stuck in me. I thought. Until today. Now I’ve realised that I hate them even more when I have to think of one getting stuck into you. AAAAAAAAGHH…. (vomitous feeling, chocolate coming up my throat).

Just needed to get out some nervous energy. Erk. You’ll be fine, I’m sure. I’ve packed three of your favourite books, and a tub full of pomegranate seeds and sultanas, your favourite.

You’ll be fine.

You’ll be fine.

You’ll be fine.

I’ll be not fine.

love you
mum

 

Exploring the wild… June 17, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,development stages,exercise,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:45 am
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So, one of the things you’re really getting into at the moment is exploring the wild places in life. Like our back garden.

exploring the garden

exploring the garden

Which is all great fun. You’ve mostly stopped putting absolutely everything into your mouth all the time (now it is just most things about 20% of the time), so I feel more (more…)

 

…and the pasta comes back up again. April 23, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 10:34 am
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So we’ve had the dreaded gastro bug that people tell me has been going around. Poogie, you started with it early Saturday morning, Aunt R1 got it on Saturday morning too, your Dad got it on Sunday evening, and I got it on Wednesday afternoon. So we’ve had a few days of retching (more…)

 

Birth Story: “A Generation Ago” February 3, 2010

Filed under: Birth Story,birthing,family,healthcare — rakster @ 11:33 am
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Hello Poogie ,

So.  The first Birth Story in the series is today’s reading.

This story is by your maternal Great Grandmother about your Grandma K joining the world.  So I guess now it is two generations ago, rather than one.   It’s very special to me and I’m really glad that my Grandma got to share it with us – it’s a sneak peek into birthing in the 1950’s.   Your Grandma was a very beautiful person, and someone who was always there for me during my childhood.  I’m crying as I write this as I still miss her (she died 17 or so years ago).   I really would have liked if you could have met her – you’ll have to imagine her based on my stories about her and some of the things she did leave me and I can share with you: a love of baking, reading (poetry collections) and going to the movies.

…………………..

Birth Story Details:

where: hospital, Australia

when: 1952

who: birth of your Grandma K

…………………..

A Generation Ago

At 7am on 30 May, 1952, I woke up with an uneasy sensation in the stomach.  My husband suggested that I rest in bed while he prepared breakfast.  As soon as the smell of bacon and eggs floated through the house, I felt nauseated and made a frantic dash to the toilet.  That was when the continuous pain set in – not the intermittent bouts I had been told to expect.  Breakfast forgotten, we took off for the hospital, foot well down on the accelerator all the way.  No relief from the thrusting pain at all.

By 7:40am I was admitted to the hospital where immediate preparations went into top gear. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was rushed into the public labour ward as the intermediate ward was filled to capacity.  As I was wheeled into the long room, I was horrified at the complete lack of privacy: only flimsy curtains separated the beds on which women lay in all stages of the birth process.  Some were groaning, some shrieking and a few for whom the ordeal was over smugly assured me how wonderful it was to have the birth all over.

My pain continued unabated while I had to endure that humiliating preparatory shaving and the putting on of those big white leggings that went right up to the top of the thigh.  When my legs were hoisted in the air, I was given that gas-mask to use when the pain became too agonising.  I tried desperately hard to avoid the use of this, but the continuing constant pain beat me a couple of times.  By the time my own doctor came on the scene, I was so exhausted that I felt I couldn’t stand any more of the unremitting pain.  In response to the sister’s urgings such as “You want your baby, don’t you? Try harder, harder!”, I made my last supreme effort and stayed conscious long enough to see my daughter held up in the air – and to hear one nurse exclaim, “What a shrimp!”.  I flaked out without producing the afterbirth; so that had to be removed by force without my active participation.  It was all over by 10:40am – not a bad effort for a thirty-eight-year-old woman producing her first child.

Because of a lack of beds in the wards, I was kept in the labour ward for the next five hours during which I witnessed births of all kinds and developed admiration for the hospital staff and the way they coped with so many different emergencies so competently.

I must admit, however, that I was more than pleased when a bed for me became vacant in one of the intermediate wards.

Footnote: When my husband came to see me in the afternoon, he complained rather bitterly of the bad headache he’d had all the morning!

…………………..

 

Birth Stories – hopefully the start of a series… February 1, 2010

Filed under: Birth Story,birthing,development stages,family,healthcare,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 4:34 pm
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Today I’m getting around to another one of those not-a-new-years-resolution resolution: get there with the birth stories. Well, start the process anyhow.  Did you notice I was digging around in the storeroom the other day looking for a book? It’s all related.  I thought I’d start simply with a letter I wrote to some friends a month or more ago – but if you’re reading and you want to take part, drop me a comment… home birth book

Hello!

As I think most of you know, I started blogging when I was pregnant & have continued on with my ramblings since then. One of the important posts that I haven’t got around to yet is finishing off the birth story post. I’ve almost got it down, I did most of it in the weeks after Poogie was born, but time is slipping away, and I want to get it out there. I’ve requested a dad version too, which is due before christmas sometime (husband read a book with dad’s versions of birth stories before Poogie was born to help with the birth preparation and found it really helpful). And I have an idea…

When I was a kid, my mother shared her experience having my sister R2, with our family, and had a home birth, which I watched. It’s still one of the best and most memorable experiences of my childhood. Perhaps another reason I remember it so clearly (apart from the event itself) was that soon after that my mum helped edit a book on birth stories. I wrote about my sister’s birth and did a picture, which was published, along with many other stories, in the book. My mum’s story of my birth and my sister’s birth, and my grandmother’s story about my mum’s birth was also published in the book. So. I had the idea before Poogie was born that it would be nice to publish not only his birth story, but republish those of others in my family at the same time, so they’re in one spot and celebrate us all. And, thinking about it further, I thought that it would be an idea to publish a few friends’ birth stories too – that is, if they wanted to share them.

So – here is my request to you. If you have a story (or two, or three) that you (or your partner or kids / family) would like to share, I’d love to be able to publish it on the blog. I’d be happy to do so. Just words, photos and words, anonymous, not-anonymous.. Whatever suits you best…

Love me

P.S. The book my mum worked on was about homebirth – but we’re interested in all types of births, babies or experiences 🙂

 

Boobies are Us… January 12, 2010

Filed under: cooking,development stages,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:37 pm
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Hello Little Munchkin,

What has been happening?   ….. mmm Apple Pie

Long time no write for me.  It’s been a busy week – swimming, sanding the back deck and reoiling, cooking apple pie (I’ve been meaning to do the pie for at least a year and I finally got to it on Sunday – and it was yum).

Apple Pie from the baking book

Apple Pie – I finally got around to this recipe..

 Designer Apple Pie

You: rolling, commando crawling at greater and greater speed, trying to swim, competently sitting-up, lots and lots of squawking.

Today’s Walking Adventure – Hot hot hot

Today is our car-less day.  Your Dad has the car on Tuesdays and we are left to our own devices.  We decided it was better for the environment and would work out that we just maintained a single car and then your Dad can taxi around a bit when he needs to for work and the like, apart from Tuesdays.   We’ve always walked and cycled a lot, and it’s one of the reasons we bought our house in the inner city – so we could continue to do so.   But today is particularly hot.  It is 30.9 degrees celcius and 51% humidity.  Not the hottest day by far, but hot enough if you’re walking around.  Today was the first meeting of the year for my local group of the Australian Breastfeeding Association, so you and I walked there and back.  And today I’m gonna write about it, ’cause I enjoy it so much and really get a lot out of it.  And you enjoy it too – it’s a chance to interact with a bunch of other young kids.

Australian Breastfeeding Association

Boobies are Us.

“Boobies are Us” is what your father affectionately refers to it as.   He thinks it’s great and is really supportive of breastfeeding – he knows it is the best thing for you and unfortunately he can’t control it, so puts his energy into helping me.  We’ve been out to the shop in our city to buy some things a few times and he has had some great input from the women working there and out the back in the State office.  But I must admit I think he is still a little perplexed about what we actually do at the support group meetings.

I know it’s is jest, but the question,

“Do you all just get your boobs out?”

has come up!  The answer?  Yes, most of the women there do “get their boobs out” at some point to feed their child/children.  Some discreetly, some less discreetly.  Some babies, some toddlers.  But not everyone.  There is an older lady (perhaps in her fifties) who is our treasurer, whose children are well past the breastfeeding stage.   Is everyone there a boob feeding nazi? No, definitely not.  That’s one of the reasons I enjoy it so much – there is such a mix of people there.  Yes, people there are obviously giving breastfeeding a go as that’s what it is: a breastfeeding support group.  But do some of them use other forms of food too – you bet. Are all of them commited to feeding their babes by breastmilk until they are five? Of course not. Are some – yes, if that’s what their babes are after.  It’s a mix.

Do dad’s go?  Yes –  not so many, but there have been a few at different meetings, often when their baby is young and they are there with their partner to get some input and support.

And what do we do??  Well, most fortnights there is a topic for discussion, and we have an activity or prompts that the group leader has put together that we use to stimulate discussion and chats.  The kids (of varied ages) all rollick around on the floor (it’s held in the playgroup space under a local church so there are lots of toys and it’s a safe area).  The reason I enjoy it so much is that there is actual opinion, debate and experience about meaningful things discussed.  Yes, most of it is breastfeeding-focussed, but a lot about the tribulations and challenges of raising children, and coping strategies, techniques and listening to each other.  And it’s a very local group, so I then see a lot of the members around the traps when we are out and about.  It makes me feel connected to you, my baby, and my area, and the community.  Which is pretty important.  ‘Cause my hormones still leave me up and down quite a bit.  And I’m still adjusting to the major life change of having a baby and having to care for someone else 24/7.

Today’s topic was about toddlers.  We discussed a range of topics such as  developmental milestones, separation anxiety, breastfeeding, eating, weaning, having a second child, me-time or mum-time, occupying and stimulating toddlers…  It’s still school holidays, so there were lots of extra kids there today, and about 15 mums.And there were lots of opinions, lots of questions and lots of talking.  Fun.   You cracked-up and got a bit tired about and hour and a bit in, so we left early.

Just thought I’d write about one of the things we get up to during the day.  An important thing.

Love you

mum

 

mishaps… baby safety and a big rash December 27, 2009

Filed under: healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:32 pm
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Hello Little Pumpkin Pie,

so.  It’s now the 27th of December, two days have passed since Christmas.  Your fever broke on boxing day, and you seemed to be doing quite well today.  Apart from the bit of a red rash that you got yesterday / on Christmas day.  Which was just light and a little red, so we figured it was just maybe some food that maybe someone slipped you in passing on Christmas day, or just a reaction to the heat, to the humidity (it’s been around 100% and raining a lot for the past 4 days, highly unusual for this time of year but hot and sticky), or just ’cause you were tired.  Or …

But.  Another day on, and you’ve just had boob juice today as the rash was a little worse yesterday so we wanted to check.  The rash is getting redder, brighter, bigger.  And while you’re off the panadol, you seem a little unsettled.  So hard to tell why though: it could be shock from when you rolled of the bed today onto the floor when I turned my back on you for a second when you were almost asleep on our bed (I felt like the worst mum on the planet, a feeling that actually got progressively worse for an hour or so after it happened after my immediate panic and caring for you had passed).  Or it could be just that it’s been a very busy few days and whilst we’ve been trying to keep it a little quiet for you as you had an ear infection, it’s been hard to do that so there have been a lot of people about.  Who knows?  Maybe you have an opinion you could share with us if you could talk.  Your signing isn’t quite up to it yet.

What your Dad and I do know is that we’ve decided to cancel our planned trip to Straddie (Stradbroke Island) for the next two days and take you to the doctor instead as we didn’t fancy two days on an island with limited medical facilities if there is in fact something wrong with you.  And we figured that you’d only worked your way through about half of the antibiotics prescribed, so we couldn’t really stop giving them to you in case the ear infection wasn’t gone properly yet, but we couldn’t keep giving them to you as that might be the cause of the spreading rash.

Rash smash.

So.  We might just have a quiet time at home depending on what the doctor says.

Ah, the joys of being a new parent.   😉  I sigh.  I love you but goodness, there is a lot to worry and think about.  It’s all a bit stressful sometimes, but it just creeps up on you.  All fine, all fine, then BOOM!  Rash has got worse and it looks like you’ve got the pox and we’re feeling like bad parents again. I’m starting to get the picture that this is a common feeling of parenthood.

kisses and hugs to my little boopie baby

mum

 

Murphy’s Law, Christmas and an Ear Infection December 24, 2009

Filed under: healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:58 pm
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Hello Poogie,

you are reclining on our bed, coming in and out of dozing.  You are officially ear-infected, and on a bunch of paracetamol to bring your 39.5 degree celcius (that’s 103.1 farenheit) fever down.

Yesterday you came down with a fever in the morning, so I dosed you up on paracetamol, as it was pretty high, and made sure to give you lots of breastmilk during the day.  I am not a generally ‘give babies paracetamol’ kinda person, but your temperature was HIGH and you were burning up, and I’d rather keep your temperature down so you have a chance to recover.  You seemed to get better, but another fever spike late in the afternoon, so we kept you in bed with us and you spiked again around midnight.  The paracetamol seemed to bring it down, and you weren’t screaming in pain or anything, but oh, so hot.  The books I read seemed to say you’d be ok if the fever came down with paracetamol, but I figured 24 hours the day before Christmas was long enough to wait to see if you could right yourself, and I didn’t want to spend the next two days lining up at the emergency ward of the hospital…

So.  I managed to convince the lovely receptionist at the Doctor that we really did need an emergency appointment, she was much more resistant than normal but finally relented.  You screaming your way through the waiting room I’m sure helped us get moved up the list…  And you have a middle ear infection.  Right on the six-month mark – just what the baby books say is common in infants six months to 2 years.  Good work.  I’ve had a stressful night and morning worrying about you – not just the ear, but the antibiotics too – both my sister and I are allergic to the one you got prescribed, so I’ve been watching you to make sure you’re ok with it..  But now, apart from being very dopey, you seem a lot better.  The doctor said 24 hours or so until we should see a big improvement, and to lay low.

So.  Santa, be quiet when you come, we have a sleeping, dozing, recovering baby in the house.

Shhhhhhhhhh

mum