my bad midwife

I'm hearing more about my midwife's unprofessionalism from other women on the homebirth board on Rollercoaster - one oman wondered, as I have, whether we should contact the Home Birth association about her or not. I think the answer is that we should - I would hate any other woman to go through an experience like mine - or the woman who had a 3rd degree tear she felt was caused by the mw's mismanagement, or the woman who had an emergency section she felt was avoidable.

I wish I'd talked to more people about her before my labour - I would still have had no choice of midwife but at least I would have been more warned, and perhaps devised a strategy and not trusted her as much! But I feel much better communicating with these women - vindicated. It makes me blame myself less.

I need a fairy godmother

So we never booked our holiday because my husband's job kept putting the decision about his bonus on the long finger, again and again.

Even when he found huge discrepancies in the bookkeeping, rather than pay him his money and sort out their shit internally, they just kept handing him vague excuses and deferring decisions.

Which they're still doing, after yet another two week wait. Which he accepted, after insisting he wouldn't accept it.

So finally I convince him we need our holiday enough to spend savings on it - I found an affordable villa near 3 k s from the beach, with a pool, and an hour and a half from Rome, near the wedding we were going to. And Aer Lingus flights are now €1,600 + to Italy, Ryanair €1,000 + baggage fees. So that fucks that. It's just too much, we could do it for half the price in October.

But then we miss the wedding, and there's no need to go to Rome, we'd be better off nearer our friends, perhaps, on the East coast.

I just don't know. I just want something to go right.

:(

Books I've read

I've managed to read a fair few books in my last weeks of pregnancy and the first couple weeks of new babyness. Strange!

Someone lent me an Anne Tyler, who I've never read. Digging to America is just my kind of thing - a believable, honest look at adoption in multi cultural America, told through convincing and likeable characters, funny and moving. It's gorgeous, I highly recommend it. The story of two Korean babies, adopted on the same day, one by an Iranian family, one by an middle class American family, and their ensuing friendship.

And in a swing into a different genre entirely, Janine Ashbless writes erotic fantasy literature - Cruel Enchantments is a collection of fairy tale type stories (fairies, witches, werewolves, dragons, though I'm really not sure about that one!) with quite considerable erotic content. Just the thing to tide me through this post perineal tear, breastfeeding induced period of libido-lessness. It's fun, but it's also beautiful, well crafted writing.

http://www.janineashbless.com/

Beautiful clothes

I wish I'd had funky clothes when I was a kid - instead I dressed in motley ensembles from the Bring and Buys my granny frequented - when I blamed her for my scruffbag appearance she protested that my parents would be waiting at the door with outstretched hands for her sale of work bargains with outstretched hands!

But just imagine how different life would have been if we'd had baby docs and bandanas

instead of diamond socks and 70's tracksuits in maroon?

I was in Dun Laoighre park today - face painting and the market, for the World Culture festival. There's a new play ground, very nice.

But a woman was selling a gorgeous range of kids' clothes, Keedo clothing, from South Africa - I wish there was some for grown ups! Check this out. There's lots more in the new brochure, actually.

http://www.keedo.com.za/

As always, the boys' stuff isn't as good as the girls' but the furry jackets with bear ears are super cute! There's a stall tomorrow in the Park in DL or on Fridays at the Leopardstown market.

sleeping like a baby...

My wee boy slept from 9.30 til 5 am last night, which was fairly spectacular - never mind that he had colicky fuss from then on. And that his sister did her night terror type thing for half and hour last night - so freaky, it's like being in a horror film.

Anyway, do the law of averages suggest the baby will be awake all night tonight? His sister's already got up half asleep and peed on her rug, something that hasn't happened in a while but used to happen often.

Is there a Child Psychologist on the plane?

sleeping like babies

My boychild slept incredibly well last night - while my girlchild woke me five times before one am and on through the night - and was up at 7.30, despite the fact I can't get her out of bed on Montessori mornings...

My husband played a 21st last night, had to go on very late, then dropped gear back to friends and decided to stay up all night, as he had to get up for work at 5.30 thismorning - did he call? No - another of his less attractive habits, which I think is one of the biggest fuck-yous.

Also, he's not well and we have to go visit friends and endure a birthday lunch for my mother in law - I say endure because we're going to the Glenview in the mistaken hope we'll be able to sit outside. We won't, even if it's nice, which it's isn't, and said MIL doesn't like the food there, so we'll have to spend the whole meal miserably analysing why our meals weren't nice and listening to her being disappointed.

Then we'll come home, he'll go to bed, and I'll continue to fight with my daughter and hold the baby who won't spend any time not being held at the moment.

ARG!

the dreaded colic

Both my babies have had colic. It's a given on this one, as he had to have antibiotics on the third day of his life. But my daughter was bothered by it for four months.

It's exhausting - you feed them, they get pain, they think they want more food, and the wind pain, hunger pain and tiredness all get confused, so they just want to feed all the time and the cycle starts again. It's not as bad as reflux, and in fairness, the baby grizzle more than screams, and doesn't do it ceaselessly like some. But it really is interfering with sleep and his settling - and agonisingly, he'd be great at night so far if he could just go off to sleep after each feed!

I am dedicated to breastfeeding as a method of feeding babies and wouldn't consider doing it another way unless I had no choice. But God. Between my over supply and fast flow (which isn't so bad this time, but the boobs are still too swollen for him to latch on properly half the time, so with the faffing around before and the colic after, feeds are taking ages and getting frustrating for both of us). And then there's the puking, especially if he has a bit more to try and settle his wind - then you get milk on top of air and the burps come with puke on the side when they finally come. I've got the Frankenboobs too, very uncomfortable!

But the massive problem is not being able to eat anything. How bad must my diet be that I'm so limited while I feed my baby. Can his tummy really not take lots of types of veg, beans, dairy, chocolate etc? Is it all so deeply unnatural, especially after being processed into milk?

I don't know. I wonder if colick is an age old phenomenon? Animals don't seem to suffer from it. Plenty of babies don't suffer from it, and I'm sure I don't eat that much worse than their parents - or do I?

Either way, while the hassles of breastfeeding are worth it to me, I can totally see why other people who aren't so into it are put off. And I feel that in evolutionary terms, we should have had a better version of bfing - and pregnancy, come to think of it, by now!

20lb baby?

Someone told me they saw a news report about a 20lb baby being born recently, in the States. I did a search for it, but only came up with a 2005 story about a Brazilian woman, a diabetic, who had a 17lb baby. I would post a picture (so scary! It's like a 6 month old!) but the baby died 11 hours after birth, so I don't want to make it in to a freakshow.

I didn't know til late in my pregnancy that if you get gestational diabetes the insulin causes the baby to grow big. A good incentive to avoid sweet things... though I had several urine tests with traces or high sugar in them, which worried my midwife, but I didn't contract diabetes, nor have a big baby.

In fact, despite my fears, as my daughter was 8lb12, this little boy was my ideal baby-weight - just 8lbs. I wonder why? I thought second birth and being a boy he'd be bigger. I suppose I ate better in some respects during my first pregnancy, though I hardly ate anything for the first 4 months due to morning sickness. And I got more sleep. Sleep and salad make bigge babies, perhaps? More later about diet and colic.

soya beans

I got all excited because Superquinn actually had these in. My Tesco sucks.

I still haven't tried them though, because for the second night in a row, I've made dinner and forgotten to cook the actually protein section of my meal. I had a vague feeling something was missing but couldn't pin it down.

Yaaawn.

My husband is back to work tomorrow, so I'll be bringing my daughter to school - have to get both her and baby up and out of the house. Will we make it?

I still haven't paid my car tax...

1st excursion

My birth story is half written but it's upsetting me to write it and I'm not writing anything else because it's not done, so I think I will just keep moving along for now.

Despite my tantrummy daughter and my sore muscles I decided to bring her to the zoo with her friends yesterday. My husband was going off to town for a teenage day of fun shopping with his mate (see www.forninepounds.blogspot.com) and the prospect of hanging round the house didn't appeal, despite my fears about continuous breastfeeding in public and my daughter ruining every ones day - not to mention getting fined for having no car tax - I forgot to renew it in April!

I evaded the guards, who were only stopping people using the bus lane, thanks to my mother's god of parking, I found a miraculous space just outside the zoo. I remembered how to drive and didn't faint from breathing the air of the Great Outdoors. Our friend made an incredible picnic, I was able to get people in on my membership card, my daughter didn't put a foot wrong, except for whinging for ice cream when she got tired.

We saw the baby elephant, though unfortunately it was inside and a bit far away - no photos... and their website is CRAP, they don't even have baby elephant photos up yet.

I managed to walk all around, but lord, I was stiff after sitting down again last night. The only other downside was that the traffic was so heavy it took a long time to get in and out, and the poor baby, who slept through the whole day, had to spend way too much time sweating in his car seat.

I'm proud of myself though. After my daughter was born, I felt a bit agoraphobic - there's no way I would have attempted a day out like that, I even felt scared to drive. And now I have a fear that I just won't be able to manage two of them. I think you have to expect a lot of help - the same poor woman had to hold the door for us on the way in and out of the petrol station - two kids = fewer hands. But it was fine. Yay me.

And to top it all I met my friend who's been away, on her way out with her family as I was on my way in, an unexpected meeting is always nice.

This post is very domestic and pedestrian - one reason I haven't been posting is because I feel I have nothing to say, and I'm sure no-one wants to hear about my stitches :(
But this is the reality of the first few weeks with a new baby, I suppose.

This morning I dreamed I was meeting my cousin, good friend, and sister in a Japanese restaurant, I don't know where we were. But my sister, who eschews glamour, walked past me on the street in red, red lipstick, which looked fantastic. I wonder what that means. In my dream, though, it was really nice to be out with the girls... Weesh, I wish you didn't live so far away!

I've raised a rude child

My husband has pointed out I can change the title to We've instead of I've, which is magnanimous of him!

He had a gig on the Noggin Inn 'festival' gig rig today, which we've been talking up for a couple weeks, she was going to go with him and wear her band Tshirt. The singer's girlfriend was bringing her little boy, his mum brought down colouring books for her to play with while her Dad was on stage. But she threw a strop before going over to them, just as he had to go on, then sat in a puddle of grumpiness and rejected every one's offers of friendship and comfort - wouldn't play with the other little boy, refused the toy he'd brought her so they could play together, wouldn't say thank you when someone bought her an ice pop. My husband said by the time he came off stage half an hour later, everyone was looking bewildered and she was still glowering. He's totally pissed off and embarrassed.

Similarly, yesterday, her friend was going to bring her to Jungle Mania, a favourite haunt, after school. But she wanted to come home - the friend is three and very brightly social and apparently my sound sensitive daughter can't take her loud voice (which in fairness, I think is a genuine complaint), however, she also told her this twice in a nasty, angry way, and wouldn't go out with her, leaving the poor wee one sobbing miserably. Sheesh! And when I tell her she's going to lose her friends she just says she wants to, and is never going to talk to said friend again.

I don't know what the answer is - telling her not to be rude, telling her it's not ok, none of it makes any impact. I do believe that there's a sort of conundrum with kids this age - they're old enough to grasp the emotional power they have over, say, their granny (she is SO mean to her Granny) but not emotionally sophisticated to really grasp the idea of hurting someone elses feelings. She's not always anti-social. I wonder if the problem is that we have such a small family, she's spent too much time as the centre of attention and hasn't really experienced many big events, with lots of extended family or other people, crowds of cousins, for example, or even friends coming to the house. I think me and her Dad have been a bit isolated and it's meant she hasn't formed the usual social abilities?

So what's the solution? Should we not take her out anywhere again til she's got over this phase? Or will that just disable her further? Would it be better to aim for total social immersion, and bring her to loads of things til she's forced out the other side of her social awkwardness? I'm also thinking we need a zero tolerance policy, where if she won't say thank you she doesn't get what's being offered to her, no matter how embarrassing it is for us and the giver.

checking in

Hello, anyone looking. I'm in the land of Having No Time now, and though I've started writing the Birth Story (or serialised saga as it may turn out to be) it's going to be a while before it's finished. Shifting hormones and emotions and all.

Suffice it to say, the actual birth of my baby bears no remote resemblance to the positive and confident affirmation I posted initially, it's deeply ironic.

Key highlights are: pressure from hospital, lack of support from midwife, irrational panic from me, overdoing labour-speeding tactics, very very fast birth, midwife missed it, baby just about delivered by paramedic next door neighbour. Poor, terrified husband...

Then two days in hospital while baby was monitored for what ever was causing his little cyanotic episodes - moments when he'd turn purple. Millions of tests and antibiotics, me on the road to PND. There, and I was worried it would take me pages and pages to tell the story :)

But we're home, there was nothing wrong with him, I've had a grief that is keeping me feeling more sane and cheerful and philosophical about it all. And I have the most wonderful, sweetie pie baby with the most fabulous head of hair. He's feeding well, though he's colicky and I have engorged Frankenboobs... he's just wonderful, we're all in love. My daughter came in to see 'my sweetie' today - she won't kiss him but she loves to touch him - she asks me if she can every time.

It's weird, she came in to visit in the hospital and it was like she was a giant-child, she seemed so huge and dense in contrast with the teeny baby. A friend said she felt the same about her first when her second came - it was like Gulliver's Travels - exactly!

Oof, so tired. No energy for posting yet. Sleeping, eating, feeding baby, reading. I think I'm going to stay in jammies for at least another week, thankyou. Trying to gain back lost ground. I'm dying to post a picture, but I think I'd better sick to my resolve not to put my children on the internet...