Mmm

I made two of the nicest things in the last two days - crepes and sushi.

Only Veggie sushi, I'm afraid, because I don't eat fish, I'm averse to it. However I suspect that if I did I'd prefer it raw to cooked.

But that is neither here nor there.


As for the crepes, cheese and mushroom, mmmm, raspberry jam and custard, heavenly. I recommend it.

Continuing on the foodular theme,

Oh crap. I can't remember. Seriously. I had it back there when I started, but now it's gone. I'll have to get to bed.

Oh dear!

Posting will be infrequent over the next few weeks, I've mucho work to do.

Wait! I've remembered! Others would delete, but I want you to share with me the agonies of being Jo. Obviously.

Easter Eggs. I was in Tesco yesterday, looking at them sitting there, shining with sticky promise, and I saw deals, and I got anxious, wondering how soon Easter was and if I should be getting in supplies, they looked like they were selling out a bit, didn't want to miss out... and then I remembered it was Pancake day, which meant I had FORTY DAYS to buy Easter eggs in. Forty freakin' days.

Panic over.

For fuck's sake.

home again home again

Hello, friends, readers, bloggers.

Home in my messy little house I am again.

I do not walk into an interiorly designed to within an inch of itself life hotel room that has been pristinely cleaned by fairies any more, or arrive downstairs to a full breakfast each morning (though in the interests of honesty, I must admit that the first one was rubbery).



The blog awards were great. I love Cork. It's nicer than Dublin. You heard me. Congratulations, and thanks to Damien for the whole thing. Brilliant idea, having them there, so I got to go on a holiday, en famille, and stay in a hotel surrounded by lots of nice people I know, but not so well I don't like them :)



I was full of wishes to be an eccentric millionaire, and invite all the nice people to come party in my fabulous hotel all the time, but I said that to Devin, this morning, who I met while checking out, and she made the excellent point that it would be like Melrose Place, great at first and then go waaay down in enjoyment levels quite fast. So true. Novelty is everything.



Still, I felt a little like I was in a Cliff Richard film - blue skies, sun, cocktails, and We're All Going On A Blogger Holiday'. The kids LOVED the hotel, with all its lights and fun stuff and mad decor. BUT I hope that next time I might miraculously be able to go as a couple rather than as a family, and sleep in, if nothing else. I forced myself to go up at three last night, but didn't go to sleep til four, Bodhi woke up just after eight, and had two feeds between times. It's time to do something about that, really, especially as he'd stopped looking for milk at night for a while.



So Yawn.



I gave up on the new hurty boots though. Alright, I know, I'm just not built for them. Will have to return 'em in favour of a pair of great boots from FatFace (though I've just seen they're sold out, and for some reason my mouse won't give me the copy menu anymore??), which I saw modelled by a lovely pregnant Caroline last night.



It seems the collective noun for bloggers of the lady variety is teaparty. Apparently the boys keep asking where there event is every year. A better woman than I might have been heard to mention the words piss up and brewery in conjunction with each other.



I met a certain blogger's lovely wife, who I suspect must work as an International Woman of Glamour, so glamorous was she.



I got to see a bride on a bouncy castle, which was quite excellent.



I can't seem to hear so well today, I suspect I have tinnitus from sitting in front of Elly-mar during the awards.


I also have a great photo of five shaven headed, possibly follicularly challenged men sitting together in a huddle, and I was sorry Axel wasn't around to blend in - but I'll have to keep you without a visual as there are some of us who prefer to remain unphotographed... like myself.

I'm looking forward to visiting everyone else's reports of the night. And seeing photos. And hearing all the scandal I missed. But for now, this'll do me. Back to getting lunch and the school run, ah me.

Corkwards

I hope everyone going to the blog awards has a blast - I've been up baking for hours and I'm cupcaked out.

We leave tomorrow, planning to go at 10, but as I haven't packed yet, it'll be more like 12, if we're lucky.

Bodhi has no socks...

To bed with me, I'm pretending I'm going to get up early.

To all the people there I want to see, don't forget to hook up! We'll be round after dinner/baby bedtime on Friday night, but we're off to Phota on Saturday morning, if anyone fancies stalking us.

cakes!

Ugh. Wordpress. Photos. So... hard...

Make it worthwhile, have a look: www.piosacake.wordpress.com

not listening

My husband is back in the off licence (working, not drinking, I hasten to add) so after a long and happy hiatus, he's back on the tabloids, bringing me home stories. That Limerick guy, who killed the woman in the hotel, had attempted to abduct a child and been detained by her father two months before, but was still out and about murdering some one's mother a month later?

And then there's this, about the 8 year old whose phobia of the dentist led her to starve herself rather than have to go back ever again.

And the hospital/GP system which seemed to allow her to die, without noticing what was going on? I don't even know how her parents factored into it, but as the mother of a child who refuses to eat much, they have my sympathy.

It's a bewildering, frustrating thing.

But first of all, the girl had eight teeth pulled.
We decided that bringing Olivia to the paediatric dentist was the way forward, to ensure she had a positive experience. Despite the good things I'd heard about the HSE dentists, I met a woman in the waiting room whose daughter was there because of her experience at the hands of a HSE dentist - she didn't give me details, just said that she hadn't been allowed go in, and that it had been pretty horrific. God knows what that little girl had been through. Will the dentist be investigated, I wonder?

The hospitals and GP's writing her off makes all too much sense too, I'm afraid. I took Olivia to the GP last year, trying to discover the source of her ongoing stomach pains. It turned out that she had a slight fever at the time, so the GP dismissed them as swollen glands. The trip to the doctor on Halloween night, he suggested worms were the most likely. Though last week I took her for allergy testing to be told she has gluten and lactose sensitivities - which would certainly account for the pain she's been experiencing after eating.

And in the dentist's, after her tooth was capped, she complained loudly of pain in her teeth. Despite the fact that she'd sat still and uncomplaining through the whole root canal, no, they said, she'd still be anaesthetised, there was no way she could be hurting yet. I couldn't give her Calpol as I'd given her some that morning, and had to wait another hour. But it would be hours before the injection wore off, they insisted.

The dentist also dismissed the idea that she could be shaking uncontrollably because of the injection (I think they give them a big whack, not taking any chances). I asked a second time if that's what her visible shaking was. 'No', he snapped, 'It's not from the anaesthetic'.
Yet each time I get a large dose of it, it makes me shaky afterwards, one dentist assistant told me I might be allergic... so why not her?

But that night, I suggested flossing lying down, as the dentist had had no trouble reaching her teeth that way after finishing the work. She leapt to say no, that had been sore - she had lain there, silent and uncomplaining, but the flossing had clearly been painful, or she wouldn't have reacted like that. And it shows that yes, she had feeling back in her cut up gums. Despite their assertions otherwise.

Why don't patients get listened to? Children especially, but also parents, or just patients? Mothers in labour, especially. We know what we feel. We know what we need a lot of the time.

That dismissive attitude needs to change.

When I was in hospital with Bodhi, watching him being prodded and poked and x-rayed and pumped full of antibiotics he didn't need, I was grateful to the lovely paediatrician for asking me how I thought he was. And listening, when I said I thought he was absolutely fine. I hope he also listens when parents say they know something is wrong, even if nothing shows up on the tests.

I hope those parents weren't given the line about how the doctors 'never treated a child for malnutrition' or that 'she'll eat when she's hungry'.

I know my own girl is depriving herself of essential fatty acids and antioxidants and proteins she'll need later on, for disease prevention and reproduction and so on. The weight of being responsible for that is huge. My heart goes out to those parents, and their frustration and uncertainty.

erotic mermen

I had a beautiful dream this morning.
I went back to bed, I just couldn't not, so I just grabbed it, and amazingly Axel actually got up. I'd been intending to read a bit of Twenty's book I just got yesterday, but not even that could keep me awake. I got woken up by Olivia demanding cake, but when I saw it was only 10.55 I thought, fuck it, and went back to sleep again. And I'm so glad I did.

I had a vivid dream about mermaids, living in a house on a sort of atoll of rock and shell that rose out of the sea off the mainland. It was a bit like Mermaid This Life or something, I think they were business types in their day jobs, but at home time they slipped into the sea, and swam home with long sparkly mermaid tails, scales flashing in the sunlit water.

They had a lot of friends, including me, and a very social night life. There were various scenes of boats and swimming, and them keeping their secret, but I saw them, all betailed.

Right at the end of the dream, the sexy promiscuous merman, who looks a bit like Aidan Turner was sitting naked in my house (I wasn't really really me, if you know what I mean, I was some one's younger sister, maybe), which was on the beach, presumably he'd just swum there, and was basically waiting to sleep with the person he was sleeping with, who might have been my sister, but it's all a bit vague.

What is less vague is the fact that I started talking to him, watching the light glow goldenly on his body, and we gradually began to kiss, and in whistles he was talking to his merman mate Baz (I know a v attractive Baz),who was passing in the sea, about both of them sleeping with me next time. Raar, not one, but two mermen!

I awoke feeling all delighted. That's not meant to be a euphemism.


Though the whole erotic nature of the event is, in hindsight, spoiled by the fact that he had a teeny willy like a toddler's, and I was vaguely concerned about nappy rash :)

Marriage and motherhood tend to really intrude on the fun of erotic dreams, I find. Plenty of women have told me they can't seem to dream cheat, they always stop, and now it seems the only penis my subconscious is capable of caring for is a baby's. Meh!

I want to write something

I want to write something. But nothing hard. Not the queue of difficult posts that jostle in my pocket each day. Bodhi's birth story, things from counselling, the need to rock in a corner and wail and wail out the tears that keep welling up against my will, that elephant post for some reason, not being able to write about my marriage. None of them.

I want to write something beautiful, poetic, with twists and turns, alliterative and assonantal, enigmatic and charming, new.

But I'm fucked if I know what.

I'm fighting the confessional urge, the thing that for some reason makes me feel the need to tell every foible and fuck up, every horror and fear. My weight and date of birth.

Why? I don't know. Because otherwise they feel like secrets, maybe. I never had any truck with them, with not telling.

But I'll be content with this: despite having given up wheat yesterday, I seem to be suffering from terrible Trapped Wind.

brr!

I don't have time to concieve of a fabulous post today. I'm chilly. Fierce chilly, frozen footed, ice-chested chilly.

This cold snap has made me realise I have hardly any winter clothes. Nothing in the shops ever seems to have long sleeves. And all my tops are open necked, thanks to Trinny and Suzannah type fashion advice.

Brr!

birth in Ireland

Maternity services in Ireland are in crisis.

We have no continuity of care. No space. Very little choice. And the care providers are focusing more and more in controlled, managed births, preferring the predictable, time saving ease of Cesarean section to anything natural or woman led.

Women give birth herded together, are induced without provision of pain relief, are left to labour alone, scared and in agony. They are denied their preferences, often denied pain relief, privacy, rest, breast feeding support, after care. Recent stories I've heard about our National Maternity Hospital amount to abusive practice, yet women continue to accept it, as if it's some sort of punishment original sin.


I'm not denying that woman can still have good hospital experiences or that there are skilled and dedicated midwives out there. But I think those experiences should be a given, not a lottery.
I could write about this in detail every single day, with stories and examples indefinitely.

My cousin had her children in a birth centre in California, with the same midwives who had given her antenatal care, and a doula , who is a friend of theirs. A birth centre is a nice half way house between home birth and hospital. There are medics and equipment there, but also quiet places, nice bedrooms, birth pools. We don't have these options here, despite their success in England. Despite the fact that an extra woman with the mother is proven to shorten labour time and reduce complications, doulas were banned from Irish hospital deliveries last year, only one birth partner is allowed, and women may no longer rotate partners.

Reading her story makes me thrilled and jealous in equal measure (well, not quite equal!), as to me it seems to epitomise the best about gentle birth and natural birth.

She took out the photos, of course, but if I could show you her glowing, ecstatic face as her husband lifts the a baby to her chest, nobody would deny the possibility of having a happy unmedicated birth.

ideal birth

This is my cousin's birth story, see the intro in the post above.
Excuse the length of this post, but here's the story!


Early labor
Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. I had acupuncture. The acupuncturist predicted I’d go into labor with 24-48 hours. (I really need to call her to tell her she was right!). I had irregular contractions all day Wednesday. By 1 a.m. they were coming every 15-20 minutes and were mild. I slept in D’s bed last night because J has had the cold that just won’t quit and was coughing and snoring. I dozed on and off all night between contractions.When I got up I gushed a bit of fluid. I went into our bedroom and told J, “Are you ready to meet your daughter today?” (Even though I knew it could still be a few more days, I was pretty sure she would be born by the next morning.) The gushing continued for a few hours, but as I made D breakfast and did stuff around the house, the contractions went away. J decided to stay home from work, and I called M, our doula, to let her know what was going on. I also called the midwife because I thought I had seen some meconium and that can be a problem. I also told her about the fluid leaking and she said she wanted me to come in and get checked.The birth center had a policy change since the last time I was there--it used to be, if your water breaks, you can labor at home until 36 hours, at which point you have to go in. Then they had a case of a woman developing an infection and had to change their policy so that now if your water breaks, you need to be admitted and in active labor within 24 hours. Needless to say I didn't like that policy at all, and I considered just waiting it out, but we decided to ultimately just go in and see what the midwife said, and then take it from there.

We called J’s mom to come down and stay with D. We gathered everything up and got ready to go. R stopped by to give me a card and we chatted a bit. During this time I kept having light contractions but they weren’t progressing. We got to the hospital and B checked the fluid and determined my water had broken. What I thought was meconium was actually just a part of mucous plug. That was a relief. We talked a long time about why they wanted me to stay, etc. and I noticed something interesting—my contractions were picking up! I thought that maybe being at home with D distracting me had caused my contractions to recede, and now that I was out of that environment and at the place where I knew the birth would happen, they were coming back. We decided to stay and hope for the best.
We got to our room—one of the nice big birth center rooms—and basically sat around waiting for things to pick up. All afternoon I alternated between resting and walking, all over the hospital, up and down stairs. We kept M informed about what was going on throughout. B kept talking about castor oil to get labor going. Inductions aren’t done in the birth center, and castor oil is really all they can do to help things pick up. She was kind of pushing me to take it—I know she was doing it because she didn’t want to see me go downstairs to Labor and Delivery and end up on Pitocin, but something was holding me back from trying it. I really wanted to go into labor on my own.

Active labor
As night fell I started to get serious. I gave myself until around 9 p.m. and if nothing was happening, I’d take the castor oil. J began to press the acupressure point called “spleen six” which can cause contractions, and we did that for probably about an hour—press for a minute, rest for a minute. My contractions began to pick up! M arrived around 7:30 and by then I was having contractions every 10 minutes. I welcomed each one and was smiling through them. Within an hour they became more frequent and intense. The mood in the room was very electric, we were all making jokes and laughing between contractions. J, M and I had spent so much time together in the weeks leading up to the birth that we just fell into our roles so well—J providing strong emotional support and M providing professional experience.

By about 9:30 p.m. I was definitely in active labor. My mood had changed to excited and smiling to serious and focused. The midwife on call that night, H, came in a few times to observe me. I found the best position for contractions was to be squatting on the yoga ball and facing the bed, with J on the bed, holding my hands, and M on a stool behind me, pressing into my lower back/hips. I was able to stay relaxed and open during the contractions and felt immense support and love from J and M.

As things picked up even more, I began closing my eyes during a contraction, and M told me to try to keep them open during the next one and to remain mindful, because by closing my eyes I was closing out what was going on and focusing too much inward, which could brew fear. From then on, my eyes were open for the rest of the labor. It really made a huge difference.H checked me—maybe it was around 10:30?—because I was feeling very nauseated and chilled and thought I was maybe in transition. I was 4-5 cm and my cervix was soft but not fully effaced. Of course I felt frustrated and figured I was in for a long night. M reminded me that it was just a number. I repeated that to myself and remind myself of all the birth stories I had read where women can open up several centimeters in a matter of minutes.

I requested the birth tub be filled up and while it was, I went into the shower where I directed the hot water on my belly during contractions. When I got out, I went back to my favorite position on the ball. The tub was still filling. By now, a different midwife, K, had come in and introduced herself. She said H had called her in as backup because “everyone has decided to have their baby tonight!” (I later found out that there were five births in the birth center that night, C being the first.) By now the contractions were coming very fast and furious, and I was beginning to be more vocal. I was very nauseated and was shaking uncontrollably and even though it had only been less than two hours since I was last checked, I really wanted to be checked again. This was a bit after midnight, I guess. I was 8 cms! That gave me such a burst of energy.

After I was checked, I went through a very intense period of several excruciating contractions right on top of each other and tons of pressure. I kept telling everyone that I had to push but I couldn’t believe I had gone from 8 cms to fully dilated in just a few minutes. I had told K that I wanted to squat for pushing so they set up some chux pads on the floor next to the bed, where the ball had been.

Birth
J was on the bed, facing me, and I gripped his hands and started pushing and yelling so loud I was hoarse the next day. The M told me to make my screams more low-pitched and that helped so much. Within a minute K told me to reach down and feel the baby’s head. Of course, that gave me the energy to push a few more times right away. I felt the ring of fire, which I hadn’t felt with D due to the epidural. I paused and then pushed again, and felt her head come out, and then pushed again and out she came. It was about five minutes in all. K immediately passed her to me through my legs and I climbed up on the bed. My first thought was how tiny she was! My second was, I can’t believe I just did that!

From several seconds after her birth until about three hours later, she never left my bare chest, except to spend a bit of time on J’s bare chest. I had a first degree tear which the midwife stitched up. She said I was bleeding a bit more than she’d like to see so I got a shot of Pitocin. We had requested to spend at least an hour with C before she was weighed, etc., but it ended up being about three hours since they were so busy that night. That was so lovely—the midwife and nurse left and within a half hour of birth C latched on perfectly and nursed for an hour! We just sat there and marveled at her and talked about the birth. I was so high from the intensity of the last couple hours.

I don't think I could have asked for a better experience... now I'm glad that we were in the birth center when active labor began and didn't have to try to drive to the birth center in time. It gave the experience a much more relaxed feel. I think I have more to say about my experience with this unmedicated birth vs. my epidural birth with D, but I think I'll have to save that for another day when I have more time and more coffee!

The only thing I'd pick up on is that ideally, the midwife would be guiding the baby out slowly, slowly, that you breathe her out rather than push, and give the vaginal tissue time to adapt and stretch, perhaps have a warmed cloth pressed to it, and this way it's completely possible to avoid any tearing. Sometimes though, you just can't hold back! Most community midwife programmes have a very low tear rate and virtually no episiotomy, compared to something like 80% of first time births in standard hospital procedure.


Pitocin is called Syntocin in Ireland, I think.

the inner pre-teen that never quite sleeps

Jeeze, Jo, get a grip

When I see David Boreanaz, something deep in me twangs.

When he offers emotionally in touch advice with a serious compassionate face on, my innards resonate suddenly with something close to pain. You know the hollow and ache.

When he leans in and twinkles into the camera, my tear ducts and sinuses mist up and burn. I really nearly cry, like a hysterical Beatles fan in 1965.

In another life time, on, eheh, a Buffy posting board, a woman said that she’d written him fan mail congratulating him when his name went into the permanent credits. And he RANG HER, to thank her. She answered the phone, and it was him. My heart leaps to my throat thinking about it.

In answer to your question, actually, there is something about him that reminds me if Axel, or maybe vice versa. Maybe not so much these days.
But god knows it’s been a long time since I had one of those golden dreams where I was Buffy…
I’m not kidding myself on that count.

And yet. Whenever I see the man on television it just breaks me open.

coming soon...

No, not me, but I am excited. My cousin sent me her birth story to post, so I'll be putting it up on Monday.

Might I respectfully request that anyone who feels the need to make silly jokes gets them out of their system now, as she'll no doubt be reading the comments.

Thanks :)

batteries included!

The postman (grumpily) struggled through the ice this morning to deliver me a parcel. I am the proud recipient of Maxi's Filthy Butt Fun Award and the kindly Sex-Toys.ie people have sent me me an Evil Pink Vibrator - and batteries!

I had to sneak upstairs to open it as Bodhi would be all over it otherwise, sucking it, chewing it, hitting the dogs with it (hit me with your rhythm stick?) so you'll have to wait for photos or if anyone's interested, a review.

It's got quite a lot of vibration variation and gets pretty strong ( I did the nose test). It smells a bit evil, alright, in terms of rubberiness, but maybe it just needs airing.

Still and all, you gotta love the smell of sex toys in the morning!

can't work for lookin at the snow

I love to watch the snowfall.

The sky has turned into a greyscape, low and glowing dimly.

There’s the perspective of the whirling, floating snowflakes, they seem to pelt so fast it’s dizzying, rushing groundwards. But focus closer and the freefall slows, becomes a to and fro dance and twirl. Pick one out in the middle distance and try to follow its zigzag path to the ground, dazed by the faster millions behind it.

And if it sticks, the snow on the ground completes the white circle, a snow-globe world, each stone and leaf and discarded coke can made pure and pretty.

It ionizes us, the snow fall, grounds us maybe, pulls down fresh, clear, higher air to breathe icily in.

I wish it happened every year, I can’t help but feel it slipping, melting through my fingers, like reaching the last presents on Christmas morning. Nearly over for another year.

15 minute consolation

The sky darkened. I looked outside and snowy hail was pelting. Action! I whipped Bodhi into the Dunnes' hat and gloves and wellies I'd bought him yesterday, pulled boots and coat on over my jammies, and we ran out the back forsome very temporary snowfun, and a few slightly fake photos: the sky is blue again now, the snow family is melting already, but at least I have the evidence.

Weys! Wey Boots!

I seized the moment and made a tabletop snowfamily

Oops! Forgot the dogs!

Pigs! Piggy!

Bleary but snow-happy

arse parsley monday - s'no fun

Apparently today is a black monday, where the most people phone in sick. It certainly wasn't a great day have stuff to do - hence the arse parsley (don't ask me, it just sounded appropriate).

I had to bring Olivia to get her abscessed tooth sorted. She got sick again yesterday, only eating her breakfast and the ice cream her Dad bought her on the way home from swimming -oh dear, not so great for a fever, but it wasn't apparent til after.

She had tooth pain, fever, headache, stomach ache, was up half the night, then we had to go out in the snow with no socks, no hat...

Axel was insisting on pouring hot water on the car windows to get rid of the snow. He ran out, and came out with a pot of water as I was brushing it off with a cd case - and he slipped on our murderously slippy step (the ones I slipped on before Christmas), flew up in the air and landed on his back, on the step edge. I heard him yelp and Bodhi start to cry, and turned to see him lying there, holding Bodhi out of harm's way, heroically.

He said he thought he'd broken his back and his life flashed before his eyes, wheelchair, no work etc. He had to go to work but hopefully will stop off in the A&E later - so I may not see him for a week.

Then it took me an hour and a half to get to Ranelagh, but thankfully they took us in anyway.

I'm peeved. It should have been all bundling them up and sledging and snowmen. Not that crappy morning!

Tea Party registration open

Final details for the Ladies Tea Party are up: register fast!
I'm thinking of nice things to bake and hoping my ladyblogger friends are going? Liz? Claire? K8?Ciara? Everybody?

I might even bring me knitting. Pretend I only just started it, not months ago 5 rows in....