The Good Bodies

10. J is for Japan

2011-03-11T20:40:00.000-06:00

My brother-in-law and his beautiful wife life in Japan, so you can imagine how crazy today has been for my husband's family. Thankfully they live on the southern most island, and while they felt the earthquake and saw the tsunami, they haven't been directly affected. They were both at work when it happened, which is apparently a good thing as their apartment building isn't as sturdy as some office blocks.

Anyway, they're safe and well, and they're going to call us tomorrow morning for an update.

Jeez, what a day for Japan.

Tina.

9. I is for Idea

2011-03-10T22:11:00.000-06:00

I have an idea: I should go to bed, instead of making up some drivel no-one wants to read.

Night night!

Tina.

8. H is for Happy Times

2011-03-09T21:19:00.001-06:00

I think I've touched upon Little O's recent developmental spurt but I haven't gone into too much detail. Well, it's all tremendously exciting and I think it's to do with him not wearing a cast for his scoliosis at the moment. Basically, I think he's been determined to try out some new tricks since Christmas but the cast he was wearing has prevented any new mobility. We took off the cast Friday 11th Feb, with the intention of letting his skin take a breather over the weekend and a new cast applied on Monday 14th Feb. Well that all went out the window when Little O got sick right after the cast was removed, and he started a round of hospitalisations and so on. The new cast was never put on.

It's so nice to see him catch up a bit. In the last three weeks he's learnt how to sit up by himself from being in a lying-down position on the floor, how to kneel, how to walk using a walker the physiotherapist lent us, and, most excitingly of all, how to pull himself to stand up using a large object such as a couch! Today he spent most of the day rolling around, sitting up, getting over to me, then using me or the couch to pull himself upright. I am absolutely thrilled to bits! Children figure out this upright thing before they're a year old, so my theory that Little O is developing at half the pace of other children is right on. I think he'll walk at about 27-30 months too. Right now it's about determination and figuring out what will motivate him best. He likes things he's not supposed to have, which usually means prying an XBOX controller out of his sticky little hands, so we bribe him with one to get him to walk, or crawl, or pull himself upright. Anything, really, to try and encourage him.

The cast will have to go back on in the next few weeks, which is very sad. But we are taking him to the Wisconsin Dells for his second birthday in May as they have the greatest water parks in the country and my son LOVES the water! He will have to be cast-free to go though, so at least we know we have that time to look forward to. I can't believe my baby will be two!

Tina.

7. G is for Getting It Done

2011-03-08T15:53:00.001-06:00

I apologise for not posting yesterday, but in all honesty I was out there getting shit done so that I would actually HAVE summat to blog about!

Little O and I spent yesterday and today getting up to and in to loads of stuff. First we went to a craniofacial appointment at CHOW on Monday morning, which is one of my least favourite clinics to visit because they have such appalling time-management. Once I was a there for nearly two hours, and saw the doc for about five or ten minutes of that. Yesterday was a little better though, and we were there for only about an hour or so, seeing the doc for about ten minutes. Doesn't mean I don't still hate them though.

After that went to see my friend up in Milwaukee for lunch, and she's lost loads of weight from having the stomach flu so she looked a bit gaunt. Still beautiful though. Then we went to buy Little O a new swimsuit and supplies for swimming in the afternoon. I LOVE buying clothes for my son, but shopping in Babies R Us is VERY dangerous. I seriously had to set myself a budget and only walk out of there with a new swimsuit and those fancy diapers that don't explode when your kid gets in the pool. I got so close, too! I walked out with diapers, swimsuit, and a new sheet for Little O's bed that cost $4.99. That's actually pretty amazing. His new shorts are rainbow-coloured and I bought a UV-protective t-shirt in orange to match. It says Beach Bum on it. It's awesome. :)

After that we went swimming! It was kinda rubbish, actually, because the pool was advertising that time as designated for special needs users only, but it was no different to any other time of day. It's a water park too, which meant there were loads of slides and cool shit for older children, but nothing that suitable for babies. Little O is trying to figure out to crawl, and when we were in the zero depth section he kept trying to put his face in the water and crawl into the deeper sections. I was terrified he'd inhale water and start drowning! I think if I go again I'll take my husband.

Today we've being doing chores, seeing therapists, and running errands. I even got something very special sent to Butterfly Charlie in the mail! (Shh... don't tell her...). My kitchen is finally tidy again, after a weekend of not doing any dishes AT ALL - I am disgusted at myself, but mature enough to blame my husband - and I am trying to get caught up on laundry. But, more importantly, I have been playing with my son. He is pulling himself to stand all the time now, and figuring out this crawling and walking malarky, and he's just so much FUN at the moment! It's been like having a 12-month-old in the house, when they learn all this new cool stuff suddenly, and I'm just enjoying it so much.

I'm also enjoying "An Idiot Abroad", which is currently airing over here. Sooo funny!

Happy 100th International Women's Day, everyone! May the next 100 years be even better than the last.

Tina.

6. F is for Frustration

2011-03-06T13:48:00.000-06:00

My husband snores. It's an issue.

Have you ever slept next to a snorer on a regular basis? My God, it's awful. I am a person who needs a lot if sleep (between eight and ten hours a night usually does me right) and recently I've been getting around five or six. Between Little O being sick, having to get up early for work or therapists visiting the house, and my husband snoring his blasted head off ever night, it's driving me mental. I can't fix Little O and I can't stop the therapists coming over, but I CAN get my other half to do something about his nocturnal soundtrack.

The thing that drives me round the bend with snoring is that it's so inconsistent. At least with a ticking clock there's a definite pattern to it, and you can predict when the next sounds will come. With snoring, each person has their own cycle and variety of delightful nuances in tone and volume, and it's hard to fall asleep when you're laying there waiting for the next shuddering breath to make an appearance. It's so stupid to get so worked up about it, but night after night of trying to drop off for up to three hours is getting really annoying.

So, my husbands has been given an ultimatum. Either he does something about his snoring, or he sleeps in the guest room. It's perfectly fair, given that it's HIS problem, not mine, and it has already started to work. He has now been looking for snoring remedies online and in the shops, although he has yet to buy anything. Yes, I could use ear plugs, and yes, I have used them routinely for years and years since having to share houses with noisy housemates as a student, but it isn't treating the problem itself. Besides, why should I have to give myself ear infections and the like because HE'S snoring? It doesn't make any sense.

We had my brother-in-law stay with us last weekend, and we have guests staying next weekend too. The guest room is therefore unavailable, so my husband sleeps with me. It's no fun for either of us though, because I get so frustrated that I wake him up whenever he starts snoring just to let him know he's at it again. Then he gets mad and doesn't sleep, and I feel guilty but also satisfied I'm making a point, and then we're both not sleeping and get up cranky e next day.

We really need a better solution, but until we find one the guest room beckons...

Tina.

5. E is for Electricity

2011-03-05T23:56:00.000-06:00

Whoo hoo! The lights in the basement work!

Crap post, I know, but it's Saturday and I've been too busy with weekend stuff to write anything else of note.

Tina.

4. D is for Drilling

2011-03-04T12:57:00.000-06:00

We have the electricians in. Oh dear.

We only have ourselves to blame. We bought this house in 2009 knowing full well it needed A LOT of work doing to it, and knowing that we had neither the time nor the money to get it all done at once. So here we are, two years later, finally getting around to finishing off the "nice" side of the basement and changing it from a dumping ground for old baby junk and stuff we want to sell this summer in our first-ever Yard Sale (eek! I'm so American!), to a dumping ground for new baby junk and stuff my husband thinks is important. The idea is that all the video games, consoles, too-big-for-the-living-room TV and other assorted gear will now have a place to go, and the upstairs will be a nice place for entertaining guests. We're putting in a fourth bedroom too, although we can't technically call it a bedroom because the only window down there is too small and high up the wall for anyone to escape in an emergency, and another walk-in closet. Hopefully the closet will end up being large enough for future prospective buyers to imagine upgrading it to an en-suite bathroom, but we have neither the need nor the money to do that just yet.

The basement is split into two halves: the side to the left of the stairs houses our washing machine and dryer, all the electrical maintenance and plumbing stuff for the house, the sump pump (if you're British, don't ask), my husband's tools, and shelving for all the boxes of holiday decorations, baby clothes Little O grew out of, and some random carpet tiles my husband imagines he will get around to laying down one day. On the other side, to the right of the stairs, is where the action is happening. When we first moved in, it had rust-coloured carpet sitting on top of bare concrete (not stuck down, or over insulation... just sitting there), and the vilest dark-brown fake wood panelling covering every available inch of wall and ceiling. It was so dark and grim that for the last two years I've not even ventured into the gloom to investigate what's under the stairs. I swear Gollum lived there, muttering about some bloody ring and being generally creepy.

Anyway, in January my in-laws came to visit and drywalled the entire right side of the basement, covering up the wood panelling with clean, bright plasterboard, and ripping up the carpet ready for fresh flooring. It already looks so much nicer, and I'm excited to get down there and start finishing it up. We're having all the lighting re-done today so that the bedroom and closet actually HAVE lights, and getting recessed lights added overhead in the living space because the ceilings are so low. The people who owned the house before us obviously did a lot of this work themselves, because it's taken Sparky the entire morning just to get everything to a state where he can stop ripping out and start installing. There's noise, and dust, and drilling, but progress is good and I think it's going to look so much better when they're done.

Next step: the ceiling!

Oh, and if anyone does want to give us a few million dollars to help speed this process along, please feel free.

Tina.

3. C is for Complaint

2011-03-03T14:26:00.000-06:00

Day three! Things are going well.

When we brought Little O home, some of his... ahem... presents... were left behind so the lab could run some tests. In the event we had further problems at home and would need to bring Little O back for more IV fluids, the lab would already be one step ahead and we would have a clearer picture of what we were dealing with. Well, it turned out that my son actually DID have something else wrong with him: C. Difficile. AGAIN. Jeysus. C. Difficile lives in your gut normally, but is a superbug that is resistant to most antibiotics. If, like Little O, you have been on antibiotics for some other reason (he'd had bronchitis in January), then that can kill a lot of the good bacteria in your system as well as the bad. Because C. Difficile is resistant, however, and the good bacteria is being removed, it has the opportunity to grow quite rapidly and essentially take over the entire gut south of the stomach. This means the good bacteria cannot get back in once the antibiotic treatment has finished, and you get stomach cramps, diarrhea, a fever, etc. If left untreated you can potentially get very, very ill, and it can even kill you.

So, we had to go back to Little O's regular doc and get ANOTHER presciption... which has been successful and we have seen no further signs of illness or diarrhea. At that appointment he also checked Little O's arm and told me how disgusted he was at how it happened. I told him I had very strong feelings about it, but that I was going to be polite and keep my language clean. He suggested I complain to CHOW's Patient Care line, and I told him I already had... :) In fact, after I brought Little O home from the hospital and made sure all of us got a good night's sleep, it was the first thing I did on Thursday morning. I spoke to a very nice chap who listened carefully to my concerns, and then started apologising and apologising, over and over again. I told him that I needed to know that the staff who had treated my son were going to be spoken to, and that this would not happen to another child, and he promised me that all the staff concerned would indeed be "interviewed". Because this might take a while I might not hear back for several weeks, but I have already had a letter at home telling me the investigation is ongoing and that I will be contacted when it is resolved.

Result! Malpractice lawsuit not withstanding, that's basically the best outcome I could hope for. I wanted someone to take my concern seriously, and for the staff at CHOW to know that their neglect (for that is what it was, essentially) did have consequences. It's not as though I could get my money back, or coupons off my next visit (although that would be SWEET, given the cost of healthcare in this country), so making everyone aware that they need to do a better job listening to parents and paying attention to the cries of tiny children in pain is all that matters. Job done.

Little O's arm is now almost healed, two weeks after the incident. We kept applying that magic stuff, Vaseline, to the sore to create a barrier without using cotton wool or gauze (the threads could have gotten stuck to the wound and caused an infection), and it seems to have worked. The swelling took about three days to go down completely, but the scabs fell off earlier this week and we now only have some pinkish scars in the crook of his arm to remind us of that awful day. We also haven't seen any more diarrhea or signs of other gut problems... but we have been giving him more water than usual to help things heal faster anyway. The only problem we have now is that his ear has been draining what looks like green snot... and that isn't a great surprise, seeing as he has a minor cold and ear tubes helping his ear canals keep clear of infection. But it's still REALLY DISGUSTING, and I do gag when it's my turn to clean things up. I can't help it! Blood, poo, wee and vomit I'm fine with. Bogies from the nose, eyes and ears are HORRIBLE and they make me retch. Gah! I'm turning green just thinking about it.

I need to lie down.

Tina.

2. B is for Baby Steps

2011-03-02T13:52:00.001-06:00

Okay... day two!

So, we left off with Little O being admitted to CHOW for dehydration following a Rotavirus diagnosis at a different hospital. Well, we finally got settled in our room at about 8pm, which is usually Little O's bedtime, but, as anyone who's ever been admitted to hospital knows, getting through the barrage of tests, questions, medical history and other assorted interruptions, means that it's another several hours before you're left in peace. Finally at around midnight we were left alone for a while, and I managed to get the pull-out couch set up so I could also sleep. However, during the night we were constantly being woken up by nurses and other medical professionals who needed more blood drawn, or vitals taken, or even just medical students 'taking a look' at 4am. It was absolutely absurd, and by 5am I'd given up and got up for the day. I'd had about three hours of sleep, and Little O had had about five.

Because he was so tired and ill, my son was also GRUMPY! I therefore made an executive decision to instruct all medical staff and other busy-bodies to leave us the hell alone after 12pm so we could both nap. Little O was getting sleepy around 12.30pm, but he was finding it hard to drop off and just wanted to roll around and tug on the number of tubes and devices attached to his body. At 1pm he finally succeeded in ripping off the splint that was keeping his arm straight so the IV would stay put, and before I could run over to his bed and stop him, he'd already begun playing with the IV itself. Convinced he'd done some more damage than I could see (with my medically-untrained eyes), I pushed the call button for the nurse and held Little O's hands still until we could fix the bandages, splint and IV. After about 20 mins a different nurse came in from our usual one, took a cursory look at the IV, and announced that she saw nothing wrong with it. I protested, and explained that Little O had definitely been playing with it, but she flushed it a few times and stuck to her guns. Then she wrapped the splint back on his arm so tightly I couldn't see any skin from armpit to fingertip.

Feeling unsure but relieved, I tried to get Little O to sleep again, but he started cycling through patterns of sleeping for about 15 mins, then waking up screaming and being restless. Then he'd tire himself out from screaming so hard he'd fall asleep, and 15 mins later the pattern would start all over again. I was really upset. I was so, so tired, and getting frustrated and worried. I called a nurse in (our usual one, this time) to look at him and she said she'd get a doctor, who never came. Then twice I called for a doctor myself, even going out into the hallway to physically bring one back with me. Doctors are not gods, and no matter how much respect I have for their knowledge, profession, or time, I felt as though I needed to start making a fuss so someone would help me with my son.

At about 2pm I called my husband away from his work and he arrived just after 3pm. The first thing he said when he entered the room was: "Little O is in pain". At around 4.30pm we managed to get some more doctors and med students in to take another look, and both my husband and I told them explicitly that we felt Little O's IV was bothering him, and that he was in pain. Finally one of them agreed to give him Tylenol (paracetamol) and a nurse was sent off to complete the order. At 5pm she came back in to administer the meds, and while she was in the room she checked his IV, for the first time since 1pm. Immediately she said, "This has to come out" and pulled off the gauze, tape and splint to reveal a very swollen little arm. She ripped out the IV and ran out of the room to get some help.

I approached the bed to see what the problem was, and to my horror Little O's arm was so swollen that he could not physically move his fingers. His arm was about three times the size it normally is, and he was SCREAMING in agony. His whole arm, from fingertip to shoulderblade, was absolutely massive. It looked like someone had inflated it with a bicycle pump. When the nurse had taken off the adhesive, the skin underneath had been stretched so thin that the tape had taken several layers off with it and left a gaping, weeping wound in the crook of his arm. There were also blisters and burns, and the whole thing was very painful to touch. The IV must have infiltrated about four hours prior, when he'd been playing with it, and the fluid meant to rehydrate him had instead been slowly pooling under the skin, swelling the arm and causing a lot of pain.

Well, I just lost it. I scooped Little O up and started sobbing and sobbing. I disconnected his feeding pump and took him over to the couch for cuddles and kisses, while both us got drenched in tears. My husband began the practical stuff, by getting us pillows and blankets, and applying the warm compresses the nurse had brought in to soothe the pain and start to relieve the swelling. I was able to calm down enough to tell my husband I wanted to take Little O home, because I felt he was being harmed more than healed under CHOW's care, and he immediately agreed with me. We told the nurse our intentions and she got a doctor in to try and talk us out of it. We didn't listen, and prepared to go home.

Before we left, Little O's regular GI doctor stopped by to see us, and recommended getting some stool samples to test on while we were heading home. As it was non-invasive (Little O kindly prepared a "sample" during the discussion), we said it was okay and then left at about 7.30pm.

More on the results of those tests tomorrow... But just one last thought for today: I called this post "Baby Steps" for a reason. One, because Little O is finally learning to walk, and two, because learning how to be an advocate for your child can take you to places you never thought you'd go. Having a nurse ignore your pleas for four hours, and for medical professionals to cause harm by thinking they know your child's patterns of behaviour better than you do, well, it really made me take a few baby steps in a new direction. I have been forced to face up to the fact that I may be seen (or unseen) to be invisible, and for my instincts to be ignored. This has never happened to me before, because most doctors my son sees defer to me on how to take care of him in the best way. However, I am certain, more than ever, that I am the best advocate for my son, and I am certain that I will not take no for an answer next time. I will do better and will be stronger, so that there is never, ever, a "next time" anyway.

Baby steps, baby steps.

Tina.

1. A is for Announcement

2011-03-01T14:41:00.000-06:00

Well! This marks the 100th post on this blog, and with it comes an announcement: for the entire month of March I will attempt to post every single day, so that I get back into the habit of regular updates.

I'm hoping to use each letter of the English alphabet, with perhaps a few Welsh characters thrown in at the end to take me to 31 days. Welsh, or French, or anything else that takes my fancy on the way... I haven't decided yet.

So let's get started.

Since I was last on here, I have had (and now stopped) a full-time job. Little O was in full-time daycare as a result, and in addition to the never-ending guilt I felt about that, it also meant he was exposed to far more germs and beastly beasties than he ever was at home. He got sick so often, and so severely, that by Friday, February 11th, I'd had enough. As I was taking him in to the local ER, and he was being admitted overnight again, I reassessed my priorities and decided I would not be going back to work on Monday. I went in to clear my desk on Sunday and wrote a formal e-mail (gosh, how modern of me) to my boss explaining my decision. She was absolutely wonderful about it and said I'd get a glowing reference if and when I needed one. However, it was a real turning point, and the culmination of five weeks of illness for my little boy. He had been ill with a cough before Christmas which turned into bad asthma... and that then turned into bronchitis in January... which then went back to being bad asthma again... then he got double ear infections... twice... and then in mid-Feb he came down with similar symptoms he'd had last October (remember that?). Not willing to risk more hospital treatments, I took him in to the ER to be proactive and nip whatever it was in the bud, and he was admitted anyway. Sigh.

They ran all manner of tests on him overnight and the results came back Saturday afternoon saying he had Rotavirus. It's something they vaccinate for here in the USA, although my folks back home have never even heard of it. And yes, Little O WAS vaccinated. But his immune system has a hard time making antibodies and keeping him healthy, so his defences against this rather unpleasant virus weren't exactly solid. Anyway, armed with this knowledge we came home on a different feeding schedule with extra fluids, and did our best to keep him hydrated at home. It worked, until I felt he was looking and acting a bit peaky ("peaky" is not an American expression, apparently. Trying to describe your child's status as "a bit peaky" to an American doctor gives you both an education...), and I took him in to CHOW's ER for some more IV fluids. And, of course, they admitted him again. When will I learn? Sigh.

...and because I need something to post about tomorrow, I will leave it on that tantilising note for now. See you tomorrow!

Tina.

Let's catch up, shall we?

2010-12-05T14:17:00.000-06:00

Ha! The last post I wrote on here was called My newly insane life, and how apt that turned out to be. My apologies for not having updated recently, but... well... it's been a bit insane.

When I last wrote, my son was still in the hospital, recieving IV fluids for dehydration and the stomach flu. It was a Thursday, if I recall correctly. Well, my own father flew in from the UK to spend time with us that Saturday, and it was the same day Little O was discharged. He came home to see his Grandad, and we were thrilled his doctor thought he was well enough to come home back on a regular feeding schedule. We were all looking forward to getting some sleep, some food, and spending time with my dad.

That night, Little O took a turn for the worse, and we ended up being rushed to CHOW on Sunday afternoon by ambulance so he could be re-admitted up there. It was scary to be told your child was in a worse state than ever, just 24 hours after being discharged. His stomach flu and dehydration had led to a critical inbalance of electrolytes, and everyone was very concerned. It wasn't until later that I finally had time to sit and think about everything, but it scares me now to consider the possibilities of what could have happened if we hadn't taken him in again. It's possible we could have lost him.

The doctors on-call up at CHOW told us they would not be releasing him until they were 100% sure he had fully recovered, which implied they felt the staff at All Saints hadn't done their jobs properly and had fixed the symptoms, not the cause. Little O had blood drawn every hour until he screamed because his veins were so bruised and sore, and his diapers were weighed constantly to see how much fluid he was putting out. The most frightening score I saw was his weight. Before he was ill, Little O had worked hard to get to 25lb; when he was admitted to All Saints, he had dropped to 22lb, and when they took an initial set of measurements at CHOW only a few days later, he was between 18 and 19lb. For a little boy like that, losing 6lb is a scary, scary amount. Most of it was fluid, which he put on again fairly quickly with the IV rehydration, but it's still a significant part of this whole ordeal.

When he started getting better properly, the doctors told me what they thought was going on. Initially they suspected C. Difficile, which Little O had a few months ago, and we all had to wear protective gowns, masks, and gloves when he touched him. (I didn't, because I'm his mother and I thought it was ridiculous to wear protection after changing dirty diapers for over a week with bare hands.) Then those tests came back negative after 48 hours, which meant they settled on a diagnosis of several components:

1. Borderline compromised immune system
2. Catches stomach flu, like anyone else
3. Body can't fight off the flu easily because of the compromised immune system
4. Parents continue to feed liquid nutrition and fluids as instructed by healthcare staff
5. Body tries to absorb fluids but is also fighting off flu still
6. Fluids cannot be absorbed, so get 'washed out' of gut
7. As fluids pass through, they also wash out all the 'good' bacteria and enzymes, which cannot get a good grip because they body is still fighting the flu
8. No enzymes or bactera = no absorbtion = dehydration
9. Dehydration makes the diarrhea worse
10. Diarrhea makes the dehydration worse, which makes the diarrhea worse, which makes the dehydration worse... etc...

So, once Little O was discharged from All Saints and came home on a normal feeding routine again, his body actually couldn't cope and the dehydration got worse. In order to break the cycle, all food and fluids had to be stopped, and Little O had to be maintained on IV fluids only. It worked after 72 hours and we managed to get his body to accept small amounts of Pedialyte and formula again by Wednesday afternoon. He was discharged late on Thursday, after being in the hospital for five days (eight, if you include All Saints). He now has a different feeding plan altogether, and different liquid nutrition. It seems to be working, although it's a shame the new formula is made by Nestle, because Nestle is evil. I'm choosing my battles though, and have accepted this minor inconvenience because it's literally keeping my son alive. Hopefully it's not forever and he can move onto something less annoying as he continues to recover.

So, I went back to work and things pottered along for a bit until Little O got his cast. Remember that? He's wearing a cast for 3-6 months to help improve his scoliosis, and then a brace for another 3-6 months to keep his spine in place as he grows. The cast is incredibly heavy, and bright green. It's also a bitch to keep clean, as it comes down very low on the back - almost to Little O's tailbone. Because Little O has very loose poops anyway (which are further exacerbated by an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, for which he is now on Flagyl for), the diapers cannot contain everything they need to. We've had to actually change diaper brands from Target (cheap, and we've never had a problem with them) to Pampers (horrifically expensive) because they're smaller, lighter, and use a different system of keeping the contents of diapers in its place. It's all very disgusting and technical, and it's such a colossal pain in the neck to deal with. Changing diapers isn't particularly enjoyable at the best of times, but trying to change one that cannot be secured in the usual manner because there's a giant fucking plaster cast in the way just gets ridiculous. Thankfully most of Little O's blowouts happen in the middle of the day, so the daycare staff have to deal with it more than we do. Small mercies, right?

There's more to say but I'm all typed-out for now. I shall endevour to provide another update shortly on the highs and lows of being back at work while juggling more freelance projects than I've ever had at any one time, and sinking further back into a grey depressive state (mmm... meds...), but for now I shall leave it here. Little O is home, and healthy(-ish), and it's nearly Christmas. I am thankful.

Tina.

My newly insane life

2010-10-21T14:11:00.001-05:00

Wow. My life in the last few weeks has taken such a dramatic turnabout that I'm exhausted just sitting here typing it out. And I'm not complaining, either... it's just... different.

So, I got the job I wanted, and I organised my life around a brand new routine. I organised it. Me. Not my husband; not my friends or family. Me. I, and I alone, set up Little O's new daycare arrangements; I called my mother-in-law to come out for two weeks to help us transition everything; I got the job and bought new work clothes; I researched the best route for avoiding traffic; and I typed up the daily instruction sheets for Little O's carers to follow. It has been a bit of a marathon, to be honest, but I felt as though life was slowly coming together this weekend when my mother-in-law returned home and my husband and I were facing our first week of full-time employment and daycare simultaneously.

Then Little O got sick.

Saturday morning he came down with the most unpleasant stomach flu I've ever seen, and by Sunday he had a raging fever and kindly donated his germs to his parents. My husband and I therefore came down with the same stomach flu, which crippled us entirely and made the entire house stink of illness, poo, vomit, and stale laundry. We both took Monday off, which would normally have been something to celebrate, but instead we just rolled around the living room carpet in a state of helpless misery. It was like being pregnant again, but this time my husband felt just as bad and was no help whatsoever. Incidentally... my husband is NOT good at being ill. Our cat developed a limp over the weekend, to add further insult to injury, so seeing as we had taken the day off, I sucked up my stale, sickly breath, and took him to the vet. I also ran to get some groceries and made soup for lunch... all before 12pm and while having stomach cramps from the flu bug. I returned home to find my husband laying pathetically on the couch, a quivering hand extended in my direction to pass him a sip of water for his parched throat. He hadn't done a single thing in my absence.

That man got no sympathy. He also got no sympathy when I got a phone call telling me Little O's glasses had arrived and we needed to take him down to the opticians the same day to get them fitted correctly. My husband did not want to come, but there was no way in hell I was doing ALL the chores by myself so he grumpily accompanied me.

So, bearing all this unpleasantness in mind, Monday evening came around with a significant improvement in mine and my husband's health, but none in Little O's. In fact, he seemed worse than on Saturday. We gave him a nice warm bath and attempted to put him into bed for an early night, but he seemed so fitful and restless that I decided to take him into Prompt Care. My husband was extremely reluctant, but I had a niggling feeling that all wasn't right, so I got my way and off we set. When we arrived we were seen by a nurse and then a doctor, who both agreed Little O needed some blood tests and possibly IV fluids to get him feeling better. We don't like the ER attached to our local Prompt Care (been there before and they look at Little O like he's a fuckin' unicorn), so we told the nice doctor we'd take him up to CHOW to their children's ER instead.

WELL!! On the way home, my husband said he didn't want to go all the way to Milwaukee (a good 40 min drive away) only to sit in an ER all night and be told nothing was wrong, so he turned the car into our house. I understood. He felt unwell. I felt unwell. Little O needed fluids, which we could give him at home via his feeding pump. After all, one of the advantages to having to feed a child with a pump is that you can keep them hydrated even when they're refusing to eat or drink. I understood. I strongly disagreed, but I understood. I pointed out that I've never once been wrong about taking Little O in to be seen, and I've never created an emergency where there hasn't been one. I've always trusted my instincts, and they've always been right.

But I understood. And I let it slide. I agreed, against my better judgement, against my Mama-instincts, against everything my heart and head were telling me, to keep Little O at home in his own bed and to allow my husband's body time to fully recover. (Never mind the fact I was also still feeling shit - I'd sorta forgotten about that in all the fuss over my baby's health.) We spent the night at home and I took Tuesday off work to give Little O some extra care and love. By this point, I must have changed over 100 diapers in about 72 hours, and they were still coming strong. My baby's bottom was red and raw and he was so fussy and irritable that he was almost inconsolable non-stop.

By Wednesday morning I decided to take him into daycare and go back to work myself. I felt miserable having to choose work over him, but I've just started a new job! What else was I supposed to do? It also isn't helped my the fact my husband leaves for work at 5.30am, two whole hours before I do. If Little O is sick, he won't know about it until he's already been at work for several hours... so I have to make the decision. Anyway, I told the daycare to call my husband with any concerns as he was 'on duty', and drove in.

Around 3pm I got a call saying Little O had a fever. The daycare called my husband but he wasn't answering either his cell phone or his work number, and they really felt Little O needed to be seen by a doctor immediately. I was SO angry! I'd been fretting and worrying all day about my baby; why hadn't my husband?! Why wasn't his cell phone glued to his head? Why wasn't he chewing his nails to the quick every time his work phone rang? I was so mad I had him paged. The last time I did that I was in premature labor, so he knew something was up when I finally got him on the phone. And he left work. Immediately. Because he had no other choice.

Little O was admitted to hospital Wednesday night for severe dehydration and dangerously high sodium levels. I'm typing this out on my laptop in a hospital room while he naps peacefully, comfortable for the first time in nearly a week. It's Thursday afternoon and he's hopefully coming home tomorrow. I feel three things: 1) Anger towards my husband for not taking Little O to CHOW on Monday night; 2) Guilt at my own decision to keep him at home, despite my instincts telling me otherwise; and 3) Happiness that Little O is finally getting the help and comfort that he needs to feel better. But mainly anger and guilt.

I spent the night here; my husband went home. I took today and tomorrow off; my husband plans on working a full shift both days. I am proactive in seeking out support and assistance; my husband won't even speak to his HR team about FMLA law. It's deeply, deeply upsetting that I am still expected to carry the burden of Little O's care while also holding down (or not) a full-time job. Right now I'm seriously considering quitting work. I don't want to, but I also don't want to be 'that' employee who always has to take time off for her child. I don't want to get fired. I don't want that on my record. I don't want to let my new employers down, who have been wonderful and kind and generous, but whose patience will not last forever.

I was so invigorated starting a new job. Today I feel utterly exhausted again, and back in the same place I was a month ago.

Tina.

(I wish this were a happier post, but it isn't. So I'll round it off with a happy ending instead: Happy Anniversary, Anthea and Husband! Four years of marriage, and ten years together. Well done you.)

Why do I even care what you think, anyway?

2010-10-14T16:08:00.000-05:00

As we know, I am telling quite a lot of people about my current pregnancy, and when I do so, I have developed the need to follow the news up with the information that I don't intend to have any more.

This is because I want to pre-empt them thinking that I'm some kind of manic breeder, who either has no idea how to use contraceptives, or who is some martyr who just wants to devote herself to discomfort and the needs of others, I dunno. Well, what's wrong with either of those? It's not a sin to have children. It's not a sin to have 12 children! But I still don't want to be perceived as either of them, for some reason.

Yes, the pregnancies have followed in somewhat quick succession, but they're not really that close compared to, say, me and my sister, or my husband and his brother. These babies will be 23 months apart, perfectly respectable. There were many reasons why I chose to have a baby at this time, to do with my age, my career at this point, my finances and the desire for S to have a sibling he could have fun with. These were my reasons, dammit! Nothing to do with what anyone else thinks! Yes, there have been gasps of, "Oh! You didn't give yourself much breathing space did you?!" and, "Congratulations, you mad thing!" but who gives a crap what they think?

Apparently I do. And I was unable to stop myself from frowning and muttering, "Well, it's a lot to put your body through..." when judgy friend from a few posts back mentioned that she had stopped using contraception. (She has two children under the age of 2). I'm telling myself I was just getting my own back for her calling me silly the other week.

But really, have I too absorbed society's message that procreation and women's pregnant bodies and childbirth are obscene and that they should be controlled and constrained? Probably.

Anthea

I got it I got it I got it I got it

2010-09-29T21:48:00.001-05:00

I got the job! :)

Of course I did. Why wouldn't I? As one of the interviewers pointed out, I'm more than qualified and I know I interview really well. But still, the nerves always get to me and for days before the event I practiced my answers to questions while on the bog, or driving, or waiting for Little O to stop screaming like a banshee and go the fluck to sleep. But I digress. It was lovely to finally be back in a work environment, and now we move on to the next phase of sorting out Little O's daycare arrangements.

My husband's mother is coming to stay with us next week to learn the ropes of looking after Little O, and to help us out while I start my new position. Initially we thought we were going to need her from Monday 4th Oct, but there was a huge balls-up with the drug test this afternoon and now I won't be able to start until Wednesday. But no matter: it's nice that she's able (and willing, more importantly) to drop everything and visit us while we're in need. Very, very nice. The drug test incident, to clarify, wasn't an error on MY part. I'm drug free. In fact, the last pot I smoked was before Little O was even conceived, so it's not as though I'm having to wait to re-take the test or something. No, the problem was that I arrived at the testing centre (center, I suppose) with a small child in tow. Apparently some "parents" - I use the term loosely - have used their child's urine in place of their own to avoid detection, so now kids aren't allowed in. I asked if Little O could stay outside the bathroom while I completed the test, but they don't have liability insurance or waivers so that wasn't allowed either. So I was told to go away and find child care arrangements, and then come back by myself. The whole thing is so infuriating, because if I'd been able to find someone to look after Little O this week, I would have started the new job earlier... grr...

Anyway, I'm taking the test Friday morning before my husband and I take Little O to get the results of his MRI test, so now the drug test results won't be available until Tuesday, which means I can't start until Wednesday. I'm sure it doesn't send the greatest message to my new employers, but quite frankly they can lump it. THEY'RE the ones who want my pee so badly, so they can jolly well wait until I'm ready to give it to them.

But I am excited. And it's a contract-to-permanent position, which means even if they choose not to renew the contract come February, I already know in advance and can start looking for ~~better paid~~ other work. Plus, if we do decide to have another baby (took a test or seven and I'm NOT currently pregnant... which is a bit of a relief now this job's come up) then I can take the third trimester easy at home, sitting on a comfortable cushion of hard-earned dollar bills, yo.

Yay for me! I think Little O's good luck charm worked. :)

Tina.

The greatest good luck charm EVER

2010-09-27T21:30:00.001-05:00

This evening Little O said "Mama" for the very first time. I have my interview this week and it's the greatest good luck charm I've ever had. He's so cute when he says his Ms; he approaches them cautiously, as though he's warming up: "Aaaaa hhhhmmm mmmmaaaa". He likes to practice them in the car while we listen to music, and sometimes he even hums along and dances to the beat.

Tonight was the first time he really responded to me saying "Mama" to him though, because after copying me a few times and getting out a couple of "Mmmmaaa" sounds, he suddenly went "Mama", completely out of the blue. What a wonderful feeling, to hear your child say your name.

I was so happy I cried.

Tina.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

2010-09-22T17:40:00.000-05:00

I got an interview! Like Butterfly Charlie, I'm not going to say more about it just yet, but I'm pretty hopeful.

Now I just need to sort out a babysitter for Little O. Hope my husband bucks his ideas up a little and helps me find a solution...

The big secret

2010-09-21T16:22:00.000-05:00

I'm about 6 weeks pregnant, I think, and have told a lot of people. I told my family immediately. I found out on a Saturday, and told everyone at work on the Monday. I haven't told many friends, just a close few. Any others I'm going to tell as and when I see them. I'll do the big Facebook broadcast once I've had my first scan.

Last time I was pregnant, I was horribly sick - puking most mornings, the works. I came in late, left early and was a fetching shade of green. As a primary school teacher, the majority of my colleagues are women and as such many of them are mothers. Most people suspected I was pregnant and grilled my closest work friends about it (who denied all knowledge, bless 'em). But no-one actually came and spoke to me! Everyone was talking about me, but no-one was talking to me! The stupid thing is, if anybody had approached me and said, "are you pregnant?" I would have answered, "yes, but please keep it to yourself".

I posted here:

http://thegoodbodies.blogspot.com/2008/10/and-puking-began-here.html

about how unfair it is that during the first trimester, the time when you feel the worst and need the most support, you are not supposed to tell anyone. The reasons for this are that something like 95% of miscarriages happen some time in the first 12 weeks. So presumably, you wouldn't want to follow up the exciting announcement of a pregnancy with the sad one of a miscarriage.

Or would you? In a workplace full of women, mothers, children and family problems, my colleagues are a fabulous support network. We see each other through private and professional dramas, and rally round when somone is having a crisis, however large or small. In fact, I think that if I were to suffer a miscarriage - which is not that likely anyway, I'm not in any of the high-risk categories and have already had one straightforward pregnancy - my colleagues would provide me with tremendous support. If I suffered any other sort of loss or bereavement, I would want the support of the people around me. I wouldn't really want to soldier on as if nothing had happened. I wouldn't want it to be a secret. And therefore I can't see any good reason for me keeping early pregnancy a secret.

I'm lucky in that my employer is fully supportive (to the point of over-enthusiastic!) of staff having children. In other workplaces, it might be a good idea to keep it quiet until your maternity arrangments are fully in place, I don't know. But I've told everyone at work so that they know there's a good reason why I might not be keeping up properly, or be rather absent-minded, or be green. I want their support through this, because it's a big upheaval, even second time around. (Mind you, I seem to be getting evening sickness rather than morning sickness this time so maybe it would have been easy to conceal, I don't know!)

I play in a brass band and told one of my friends there, who herself has two children under the age of two, at the same time as another friend. She asked me how far along I was and I told her only a few weeks. "Well that's a bit silly, announcing it this early, isn't it?" she said, all judgemental. "Why?" I asked. "Well, you'd better hope nothing happens," she replied, implying a miscarriage. "But then I'd want people to know that as well," I said.

OK, so this particular friend is a bit like that, a bit judgy and speaks without thinking, but I reckon her comments only demonstrate the prevailing attitude in society. Where does this come from? Why should miscarriage be such a shameful secret? Why should early pregnancy be so embarrassing? Does this date back to a time when reproduction - and naturally, women's bodies in general - was just so shameful that it wasn't mentioned in public until the physical evidence was unavoidable: i.e. the bump began to show, at the start of the second trimester? Probably.

Ugh, in other news, a friend has just found out she is expecting twins! Please God no! I haven't got room for two more, just one please! It hadn't even occured to me until she told me that of course, she hadn't known either until the scan. And mine is about 6 weeks away! Fingers crossed, just the one baby please!

Anthea

The eternal question

2010-09-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

I'm facing that eternal question; the one that plagues mothers everywhere:

"Should I go back to work?"

Yesterday I was sent an invitation to apply for a proofreading position at a pharmaceutical company 30 miles away, based in the same business park my husband used to work in (although for a different company). We know the company and we know how far away it is (40 min commute), and we know that I am absolutely desperate to find meaning in my life beyond that of a-mother-with-a-special-needs-kid-who-does-some-freelancing-stuff-when-she-has-time. So when this opportunity came up I was really interested, but I delayed in answering the e-mail because any decision I make involves the whole family. It really does.

I spoke to my husband about it when he called home at lunchtime and he was very positive, saying I should definitely apply and totalling up how much extra income we would have if I got the job. But something still stopped me, and it took me a while to figure it out.

Daycare isn't really an issue long-term. I'm visiting a nursery on Monday that caters for children like Little O, and they seem very keen to have him on board, but they can't offer him a week-long placement until mid-October, which is awkward. I'd be able to get him in all day Monday and Friday for a few weeks, but that would still leave Tues-Thurs with no care. Then my Dad comes out to visit at the end of October and it would be a shame to have Little O in daycare the whole time, and me at a new job. But come November, and daycare and family issues will be resolved, and I'll have plenty of time for a full-time position.

The commute also doesn't bother me, although the hours are a little sticky. It would be 50 hrs a week, plus occasional Saturdays, depending on deadlines. Thankfully I'm a very fast worker when I know what I'm doing, so I anticipate meeting their expectations and then surpassing them, and not actually having to work many Saturdays at all. I'm also not afraid to commit a large portion of my time to a new job if I really enjoy it. I actually love working in offices, but I've never found a JOB that I like. Perhaps that would change.

No, the thing that bothered me and took a while to surface, was my husband's attitude to Little O's care. My husband is almost as much of a feminist as I am, but on this particular topic it's as though he's thrown all notion of equal parenting out of the window. When we were discussing specifics last night in bed, I reminded him that if I were to work full-time, it would mean I couldn't take Little O to all the appointments and therapy sessions that I do now. Actually, at least initially, I wouldn't be able to do ANY of them because I'd be in a new job and trying to make a good impression. So I requested that he look into his employer's flexi-time policy, and find out whether he can start shifting his hours a little to accomodate Little O's care.

His response was quite astounding. He said, "No, they won't go for that", and turned over in bed. End of discussion. I was gobsmacked, so I pulled him back over to face me and asked him why. He said they're really busy, and besides, WE need the money. It struck me that he sees his job and my (potential) job differently. As far as he's concerned, it's ME who needs to ask for flexi-time because HIS job is already stable, and because it's MY responsibility to take care of Little O. I was lost for words. I had always assumed that if I worked full-time again, that parenting our son would be shared equally - indeed, before we knew about Little O's problems, I'd intended to go back to work much sooner than this. So what the hell is going on?

I feel like I'm meeting everyone else's needs and schedules... what about mine? I've given up my career to this point to be an advocate and parent to my son, but I feel like it's my time again. I WANT to go back to work, but I CAN'T do it if my husband won't meet me halfway. I just can't roll up to a new employer and tell them I need three days off a month to take my son to appointments because my husband won't help me. It isn't fair to ask that of me, or my (potential) company. I don't know what's going on. Maybe my husband's afraid of losing his job, or taking on extra responsibility at home; I don't know. But I do know that I can't have a full-time job AND be the primary caregiver. Not with Little O.

In the end, I did apply for the job, via an agency. I explained my situation to them and they seemed accomodating, but they recommended I don't tell the company until I'm offered a position. If and when that happens I'm going to feel really guilty, because it will feel like I've misled them. I'm already panicking about finding childcare for Little O for when I have to go to an interview - how the hell do I pick up those extra three days a week too? Frankly, I feel confident that I'll get the job if I get an interview, because unlike other jobs I've gone for where I just need the money, in this instance I'm really invested in the position itself. And I'm fucking good at what I do and I'm confident in my abilities, so selling myself to an employer should be okay. It's just post-interview that I'm worried about.

I need a grandparent around for about a month, I think. Someone to take care of Little O while I get a job organised; someone who can take him to his appointments and act on my behalf. But I also need a husband who supports my decision to go back to work properly, on MY terms. It's all very difficult. Exciting, but difficult.

Tina.

Tantrums!

2010-09-14T12:46:00.000-05:00

My sweet sweet baby has discovered he has an opinion. Wait, let me rephrase that: he has an OPINION!!

For a child who cannot talk, sign, or generally communicate to me what his needs and wants are, he sure is getting good at telling me anyway. He has entered a rather amusing phase in his life where tantrums are starting to play a significant role in his communication skills. We're not sure he'll ever be able to speak in the same way you and I do (well, not my little sister V - she and Little O may have a lot in common), but he's certainly finding his voice.

I was brushing my teeth this morning and put Little O on the bathroom counter so he could watch. He likes to play with the lotions and potions up there and it keeps him from scooting around on his backside outta the door and down the stairs. I gave him a packet of flossups to play with while I was occupied with a toothbrush, and he was very happy watching me and chewing on the plastic wrapping while he waited. Well, then I wanted to USE a flossup to floss my teeth with, which required me to extricate said item from small child. This did not go down well. He SCREAMED, went red in the face, burst into tears, and started whacking his thighs with tiny, bunched-up fists of infant fury. I found the whole thing terribly funny, especially as, as soon as I'd got out a flossup and given them back to him, he stopped his tantrum instantly and resumed chewing the corner of the packet.

Ah, I love Little O. The more 'normal' stuff he does, the prouder I am of him. It's just such a joy to see him achieve a goal he's really struggled with, as well as the other 'norrmal' development milestones like throwing temper tantrums. At this point I love everything he does, from the back-scooting to the tantrums. Ask me again in a month though and I may have changed my mind...

Tina.

News

2010-09-12T15:50:00.001-05:00

I am a useless person.

Well, to be more accurate, I am a person who has worked full-time since her son was less than 10 weeks old, who devotes a minimum of two evenings a week to playing in and managing a band, and who has spent the last year or so buying and moving into a property. (A key worker property. Do you know how complicated that is??) What I actually am is a busy person.

And as such I have, since S's birth, written but two posts. Both about said birth. Surely I cannot really claim to be a contributor to this blog at all.

However, I feel I must at least post this: I found out yesterday that I am pregnant with our second baby. Congratulations to me, I feel.

(Do not confuse me with Tina at this point! She might be, whereas I definitely am!)

Anthea

Scissor Sisters

2010-09-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

I think I forgot to say that I went to a Scissor Sisters' concert last week. Well, I say 'concert'... it was more of a down-and-dirty 'gig' in a dive bar. And it was FABULOUS. I cannot believe I haven't written about it yet.

I'm a big fan of tunes with heavy basslines, clever lyrics, and a beat you can shake yer ass to, and the Scissor Sisters fill those requirements beautifully. Their first two albums were really disco-ey and funky, and their third has become a more mature sound, with a focus on really filthy lyrics. They played stuff from all three albums at the gig and because I am, by nature, a woman who insists on knowing ALL the lyrics to ALL the songs she loves, I sang my throat sore to everything they performed.

It may not be cool to love disco, soul, and funk as much as I do, but I do. I cannot help it. I MUST dance and shake my ass as much as possible when I listen to music, and after D sent me Paloma Faith's album I have been cranking up the volume on that too (yeah... I know it came out last year, but I live in Cheeseland, Wisconsin, and we don't get funky shit released that much over here). I'm not cool. I know that. But I'm okay with it, because it means I get to meet fabulous gays and too-cool lesbians at dive bars in Milwaukee that play host to the Scissor Sisters. I fuckin' LOVE IT.

Driving home from the gig I felt drunk. Or high. Something, anyway. I'd only had a single Malibu and Diet Coke so I knew I wasn't actually drunk, but it was the most beautiful feeling. My throat was hoarse and my ears didn't stop ringing for three days, but I felt so energised and... well... happy. I truly felt like I deserved a night out with J & G and my new 400+ friends in tight jeans, and while I was dancing and singing away I honestly forgot where I was and who I was. I was no longer in Cheeseland or a wife and mother; I was just a silly, happy party beast. It was a fantastic feeling and it really invigorated me the following weekend. Don't get me wrong: reading and writing and massages and taking walks are all lovely, relaxing things to do. But they don't speak to me like a gig like that one did. I didn't have any responsibilities at all for three whole hours, and I got to feel the way I did when I was younger, boogy-ing my way through university.

Honestly - and I know this sounds crap - I think I had a spiritual moment. I think the music gods of the sky were patting me on the back and telling me it's okay for me to stop being Tina the Wife and Tina the Mother once in a while, and just be Tina the Magnificent. It was fucking unbelieveable.

I want to do it again.

Tina.

Withdrawal

2010-09-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

Coming down from using hormones is astonishing. Just astonishing.

I've been using the Depo Provera shot since June 09: six weeks after the birth of Little O. You may remember I posted this account of my frustrations at the inadequacy of contraceptive options for women back in April 09, and how shocked I was that there was nothing out there that really fitted my needs. Well, my needs after the early arrival of Little O changed somewhat - I wasn't able to breastfeed him directly and once we had him home the schedule of expressing, sterilising, feeding, and ensuring he stayed upright long enough to not aspirate on his own vomit, just proved too exhausting and I had to give up providing breastmilk altogether. It's not something I'm proud of, but that's what had to happen. Anyway, because I wasn't breastfeeding I was able to choose a contraceptive that interfered with a nursing mother's supply, and so I choose Depo Provera. It is administered by a nurse using a needle in the upper arm and lasts for three months. It's GREAT if you hate taking a pill every day; it's GREAT if you don't want to get pregnant for a while (over 99.9% reliable); it's GREAT if you don't like having periods; and it's GREAT if you hate using barrier methods such as condoms.

However.

Depo Provera SUCKS if you don't want to gain weight (70% of women gain more than 10lb in their first year of use); it SUCKS if you are prone to depression (it has been found to increase this tendency dramatically); it SUCKS if you want to have sex with a partner on a regular basis (it can severely limit your sex drive); it SUCKS if you want strong bones (it can irreversibly affect bone density after two years of continuous use); and it SUCKS if you want to conceive a child in the near future.

Let's go through that a little, shall we?

I am... how shall I put this? A little heavy. I'll admit it. I love food and I love sitting on my arse watching TV, and I hate exercise for the sake of losing weight. I put on nearly 40lb when I was pregnant, although I lost 30lb of that in the first four weeks after giving birth. So I was still 10lb over my pre-pregnancy weight, and I had started that adventure being about 40lb overweight to begin with. So really, my doctor should have advised me that, being about 50lb overweight during my consultation with him, that I should look for another method of birth control until I had successfully lost some weight. I might have smacked him one, and I might have gone ahead with the Depo Provera shot regardless, but I still should have been informed either way.

Secondly, when I went to visit my doctor, my son was still a teeny tiny premature newborn with an extremely rare genetic disorder that no-one, not even a geneticist, could give me an accurate prognosis for. Mothers of babies who stay in the NICU for any length of time are SEVEN TIMES more likely to suffer from some form of post-partum depression than other mothers. If my doctor wasn't aware of any mood changes I was experiencing the first time he administered the shot, he sure as hell should have checked in on me for subsequent shots to make sure this method of contraception was still appropriate. Because after six months, or two shots, it definitely definitely wasn't. I was in full PPD mode, which later led to a more serious mental health issue, and not one single health care professional told me that the Depo Provera shot could be contributing. Also, my doctor doesn't see patients who are there just to receive a shot - you have to ask for a whole other appointment. I really feel that that policy is negligent. At the very least he should have recommended I see him personally after six months or a year, just to check it was still the best choice for me.

Thirdly, while I guffawed at my doctor when he said the shot could decrease my sex drive, I've found out the hard way how true that can be. Having just given birth I wasn't planning on bonking my husband three times a day in the near future anyway, so putting a cap on my sexual activity seemed like no bad thing. However, come six or nine months down the road, my husband and I were lucky if we managed a single bonk in a month. A MONTH! Forgive me for my bluntness, but we used to be four- or five-times-a-week kind of people before I got pregnant. My husband was incredibly patient and we attributed my lack of interest to my adjustment disorder, but it put a huge strain on our marriage when I would only put out on a very limited basis. A marriage needs a healthy sex life, but I was so unhappy that ours just withered away.

The bone thing is disturbing, no? I don't think I've been affected - yet - because I stopped using Depo Provera after 15 months, but the fact your bone density can be damaged so easily without hope of reversal? That's some scary shit.

And finally - if you want to have a child after using Depo Provera, you had better be in it for the long haul. While the company that manufactures it claims fertility can return to normal immediately, there are countless stories on the internet to suggest otherwise. The general consensus among women who know - women who've had at least one child already, used the shot, stopped using the shot, tried to get pregnant again and failed - is that it takes at least as long as you were on the shot to get pregnant again. I used it for 15 months, which means it could take another 15 months to conceive. Wow. They say it can take six months for you to just start ovulating again and to regain regular periods, and another nine to 18 months to get pregnant. Just wow.

I know it's my responsibility to do my own research and work out what's best for MY body before signing up to anything, but I do feel that there isn't enough material given to women about the Depo Provera shot. I certainly wasn't given any literature at my doctor's office, and as a new mother of a special needs baby, I just wanted something that would take away any extra worries I had about getting pregnant for a bit. I was NEVER told about the weight gain, depression, bone density side-effects, or the possibility of it taking so long to conceive again.

I am not an Earth Mother. I am happy to put hormones into my body in order to prevent pregnancy. I hate condoms (I think I must be a little allergic or something, because those things CHAFE) and I was on the pill from the age of 17. I came off it at 25 and conceived within the first month, which meant I haven't had a normal period since I was a teenager. I've always been fine with that because periods are not my friend. I do not believe in embracing something I find unpleasant - just like I find bogeys, eye gunk, earwax, urine, poop, and vomit repulsive. (Actually, baby poop I don't mind at all. I find it incredibly satisfying to clean Little O's bum because then the smell magically disappears. Eye gunk or nose bogeys, however, are a different story. They make me gag.) Anyway, seeing as I'm not mad keen on being a mad woman once a month, I've truly never minded suppressing my fertility with hormones. It's always meant I either had lighter, regular periods, or none at all - and that suited me just fine.

Until now.

Now, I'm coming down from hormone usage. I have been hormone-free for 14 days and the side effects are quite astonishing. Assuming I'm not already pregnant (more on that in a minute), then I've been feeling my body literally moving itself back into a normal position and preparing itself for a monthly cycle once again. It's fascinating, and not without its aches and pains. I've been having the most dramatic mood swings you've ever seen; I've been sleeping during the day and not at night; I've had stomach aches, back aches and leg cramps; my boobs have been going up and down in size, sensitivity, shape, and texture - and they tingle; and I've felt my appetite decrease to such an extent that the thought of some of my old favourite foods (such as chilli), has made me queasy. I've also, happily, begun to want to shag my husband again. He's been most obliging.

The changes in my body over the last two weeks have been so dramatic that I think I'm going to have to check I'm not up the duff. It's made difficult, however, by not having had that normal monthly cycle for the last ten years. I've got absolutely no idea when I would have ovulated, or even if I'm likely to, or when the date of my last period was. (Erm... October, maybe?) I'm therefore completely baffled as to when I'm supposed to take a pregnancy test. Yes, my husband and I have been having (semi) unprotected sex, but if the effects of Depo Provera take as long to wear off as they say they do... and if I don't know when or if I'm even ovulating... then taking a test too soon could give me a false negative result. It's all tremendously disconcerting.

But I feel better about not taking any hormones anymore. It feels good. It feels right. If my husband and I do conceive soon, then we're thinking about making a more permanent choice for contraception next time. We're discussing vasectomies, tube-tying, IUDs... even donating an entire testicle to science (yes, it can be done. There's a very famous university who does research into testicular diseases, and they offer thousands and thousands of dollars for healthy testicles from men under 35). Whatever happens in the next few months though, I don't think I'm going to go through this hormone withdrawal again. Using hormones was appropriate for me in the past, but I think I've reached a point in my life where I'm tired of bearing the sole responsibility for contraception in my relationship. And I think after the last 15 months we've had, my husband is too.

Tina.

We'll call him Sam

2010-09-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night.

In it, I was nine months pregnant and in the throws of advanced labour. I was alone in a bright, clean hospital room, and I could hear nurses and activity beyond my closed door. I was wearing a hospital gown and I could feel my baby moving inside me when I put my hand on my stomach.

I moved off the bed because I was laying in a horizontal position, and I felt that my labour would last too long for me to bear if I didn't give it some help with gravity. So I began to walk around the bed to the door, when I felt an enormous gush between my legs and my waters broke. I launched myself forward and grabbed the nurses' buzzer to let them know what had happened, when my husband walked in and saw me squatting in a pool of pale yellow, almost clear, liquid. A nurse finally arrived and sought the help of an orderly to clean up the mess, and I was moved back to the other side of the bed.

My husband and I were left alone, and I squatted down to see what he was up to on the floor (looked like he was making a shopping list on a cell phone), when I put a hand between my legs and felt the baby crowning. Suddenly, my body took over and I pushed, once. A small, slimy baby emerged from me and I pulled him up to my now naked chest to keep him warm. I told my husband to help me hold him, and then I pushed the nurses' buzzer again three times. Then I looked at my baby. He was very small, like Little O was, but he had masses of dark hair and the biggest, bluest eyes. He was very alert and kept looking around the room at all the bright lights.

The umbilical cord was still attached, but when the nurse came in she suggested we allow it to finish pulsing before clamping it, to allow all that precious oxygenated blood to flow into my new son's bloodstream. He didn't cry, but was breathing and very happy. Eventually someone took the baby from me and laid him on the bed, at which point I stood up and promptly delivered a very slimy placenta. And lots of other goo and blood.

The next thing I knew we were at home, and I was introducing our new child to Little O. Little O was the age he is now, even though I had been 'pregnant' for nine months. I spent some time barking at my husband to get Little O's old newborn clothes out of storage, and then we dressed the baby in a blue sleepsuit with a hood attached. We had to decide on a name, so I looked at our bookshelf for inspiration and finally settled on Sam. Sam - from Samuel.

*********************************************************************************

A friend from childhood sent me a Facebook message the other day telling me she'd had her own dream where I was pregnant. Five months pregnant, apparently, and showing her my ultrasound video.

Is the universe trying to tell me something?

Tina.

Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo

2010-08-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend things felt a lot better for me. We met up with some friends on Saturday morning to visit the Milwaukee Zoo (seeing the orangutans is VERY important for Little O, you see), and the weather was just gorgeous. Because these friends also have a little one, they completely understood when we needed to stop and change a diaper, or set up Little O's feeding pump, or whatever. The difference between going on a day trip with these friends and going on day trips when my Mum was out here was astonishing. Just so much more relaxed, and we had plenty to discuss. I really, really like L. She's so 'with it' in terms of her career and her relationship with her husband, but sometimes asks for my advice regarding her baby. It makes me feel fantastic to reassure her about a minor detail, or to suggest she asks her doctor about this or that. And by the same token, I call on her to reassure ME that I'm not going crazy when I fuck things up at home or with my own husband. She's just a really cool lady.

After the zoo we went home and took a family nap. It. Was. Awesome.

Saturday night I stayed up late preparing for my radio interviews. Butterfly Charlie, who reads this blog, told me afterwards that she'd listened in and thought I was an excellent guest. :) This is good to hear: partly because she works in the media, and partly because I was shitting bricks when I did them. The first was in Leeds and I thought I sounded really stupid and nervous, but after Manchester, Sheffield, Derby, and West Midlands, I think I had the routine down pat and did a good job. I felt incredibly energised afterwards, and even though I slunk into bed at 3.30am I was wide awake for another hour or so, just running things through my head again. I listened to the shows the next day to reassure myself I hadn't made a complete arse of myself, and they weren't too bad. You can actually still listen to them for another few days, but as they give out my full name I'm not going to link to the sites on this blog. If I'm friends with you on another site, ask me for the links and I shall oblige.

Oh, and one last thing. My husband and I had unprotected sex for the first time. (Well, not the FIRST time... obviously... Little O is proof enough of that.) Watch this space, and keep your fingers crossed I'm not up the duff YET. Christmas would be just fine.

Tina.

I'm so tired I could...

2010-08-27T16:30:00.000-05:00

thump.

That's the sound of my head hitting the pillow this afternoon for a well-deserved nap... or rather, it would have been if Little O hadn't been such a godawful ratbag and woken up time and time again to scream the house down or throw up.

I bloody hate Fridays. Traditionally Tuesdays were my least favourite day of the week because while you can get a good nights sleep over the weekend and charge your batteries for Monday, there's no such opportunity for Tuesdays. You've still got to get up and have a day of misery at work, but you're running on less sleep and more angst than the day before. It's traditionally been a bit shit.

But now Fridays are a bit shit. I'm just so tired and fed up with being forced to be stay-at-home-mom that I spend the whole day watching the clock and waiting for my husband to get home. I had to get my sorry arse out of bed early this morning to take Bob to the vet for some vaccinations, so I prayed Little O would do the decent thing and let me sleep as long as possible... no such luck. He woke up AS SOON as my husband left for work at 5.45am (a common theme, and I feel the two aren't entirely unrelated) and threw up, did a poo, then yelled at me to come and clean both messes up. And of course I couldn't get back to sleep after that, so I was all kinds of moody at the vet and have continued to simmer and seethe ever since.

Little O is just driving me mental. He's my favourite person in the whole wide world, which is why when he acts up I get a bit demented. I feel like he's deliberately pushing my buttons( which of course he isn't), and sometimes when he cries or coughs or poos and MAKES himself throw up it feels really personal. It feels as though I'm failing him somehow, and he knows it. We have a procedure next week to try Botox injections into Little O's stomach. And an endoscopy. And a contrast study. And anaesthesia. And all kinds of other bollocks that I'm too tired and miserable to discuss. I just want something to change. I want the doctor to point at a screen, go, "Oh look! That's the problem!", and fucking fix it. Little O and I have been dealing with this for 15 months now. It isn't fair. MAKE THIS REFLUX GO AWAY.

I was at the gym yesterday doing a Zumba class, and right slap bang in the middle of some kind of ridiculous twisty move, two things happened. One, I felt a rib go 'pop'; and two, it struck me how pointless everything else in my life is until this reflux gets sorted. Why the hell am I investing my time and energy into an extremely camp exercise class, when my child is at home throwing his guts up every two hours? My mother wants me to go and visit the UK in February with Little O. By myself. For 'a break', as she put it. Yeah, right. Because travelling for nine hours on a plane with a baby who won't stop throwing up will of course be 'a break'. That's it's very definition. Don't get me wrong: I don't mind going to the UK and taking a small child with me, but I don't want to do it alone. It took all the strength in both of us to keep calm and carry on when my husband and I flew over at Christmas, and it took even MORE strength in me to do the same in Seattle. It's just different when you're by yourself, and it's hugely different when you're dealing with a baby with special needs.

Still, Sunday beckons, and with it the enticing invitation to appear on BBC Radio. I'm naturally a night owl so I'm actually really, really looking forward to drinking loads of Diet Coke and staying awake until the wee small hours. And I'll have a fantastic, legitimate reason for poking my husband to get out of bed in the morning to deal with Little O's vomit/poo/screaming, because I'll have been working until 3am.

It's amazing that I consider that 'a break'.

Tina.

I'm going to be on the radio!

2010-08-26T14:52:00.002-05:00

Got an e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to be part of a discussion on baby names in the UK. It's going to be broadcast on local BBC stations around the country on Sunday morning, so tune in if you're able to. The main programme is focused on faith, so I'll start by focussing on religious and spiritual names (Rachel, John, Mohammed, etc), but after that it's going to turn to Samantha Cameron's new baby girl and why parents chose the names they do.

I am WELL EXCITED! Shame I can't get local broadcasts over here, but hopefully at least some of my friends and family can listen in. BBC London should be a good one, if they're using me (I won't know until the day which stations I'll be talking to, but I'll be 'on the phone' for two hours and spend about ten minutes with each interviewer). Listen in 7am-9am this Sunday!

World domination begins here...

Tina.

My Pookie Bear II

2010-08-23T22:06:00.000-05:00

(First section is here)

So, Little O was born on Sunday, 17th May 2010. After we got settled in that night and I'd been escorted to my post-partum room (no wheelchair for ME! I am a big brave warrior and wobbled my way there on my own two feet), I allowed my brother-in-law and his girlfriend to come in to my room and discuss in some detail how the birth had gone and what we were expecting to happen next. After they left I learnt how to express milk for my new baby (WHAT a palaver) and spent the night visiting him in his special care nursery, using the breast pump, and trying to get some sleep - which wasn't easy, given I was incredibly hyper, overtired, and sleeping on the hardest bed known to mankind.

Anyway, the next day I got up and toddled down to the nursery again, only to find there was a middle-aged woman with grey hair peering at my son over spectacles. She introduced herself as Dr. B, a geneticist, and talked my husband and I through her 'findings'. Seeing as I'd never even heard of a geneticist, much less asked for one to analyse my beautiful baby, I was a little surprised and offended by her assumptions that Little O had a genetic condition. She discussed the fact he kept his fists closed, had an ear tag, inguinal hernias, a grade-II intraventricular haemorrhage, funny little feet, very small eye openings (and didn't open his eyes until he was a week old, although we didn't know that yet), a small mouth, cleft palate, wasn't coping very well with feedings on his own, and the fact he was five weeks premature. Slowly my husband and I took all this in, but the more she talked and the more I thought about my own family's history, the more I came to understand that she might be right. We agreed to have our own blood tested to compare to Little O's once I was discharged, and returned to a flurry of excited visitors and concerned phone calls from far-flung family members. I also got to hold him that evening for the first time since the birth.

The next day I went down to the special care nursery to drop off that morning's expressed milk, and found a number of doctors and nurses surrounding Little O's incubator. Someone pointed out that I was the mother, and someone else (a doctor, I think, although I can't remember who) told me to sit down. They told me something about Little O having seizures, and all I can remember is looking at this tiny creature I was no longer allowed to touch (that nurse bitch Debbie - I'll never, ever forgive her for denying me this basic human right when I was so distressed) and praying to God that I wouldn't lose him. I went back to my room when they ordered some tests for Little O and I called my husband, bawling down the phone. He legged it up there, and we spent the rest of the day talking to specialists, nurses, and the hospital chaplain about our son's condition. I will forever be indebted to the kindness of that chaplain. Her name was Beth and she was the most wonderful creature to the two distraught parents in her care; patient, kind, not pushy with her faith, and she spent time every morning for the next week visiting Little O and praying at his bedside.

I was discharged on that Tuesday as I was healing very well. I'd only had one really wobbly moment: the day before. I was showing some friends our new baby in the special care nursery, and had been standing up for far too long and trying to do too much. I had to call out for a chair before I fainted, which was rather dramatic at the time, but I lost very little blood overall and felt well enough to walk out when I was released from hospital. After kissing my baby's hand over and over again before we left, I think a nurse took pity on us and arranged for a separate room to be available opposite the nursery that we could use as a 'base' while we waited for developments. We could sleep overnight there if we wanted to (which we did, only once) and it was a private and peaceful place for us to eat, recuperate, and for me to express milk and put my now-hugely-swollen ankles up.

The next week was a complete and utter blur. We went to the geneticist's office to have blood samples taken and were told the results would take a little time; and we spent many, many hours meeting with new doctors and talking to family about Little O's condition. My husband had to go back to work on Thursday, so I spent the rest of the time expressing milk (an arduous process, and one it pains me to remember), demanding to hold my baby, putting my ankles up, and watching Nancy Grace on daytime-TV (eugh). By Sunday morning things were looking up, and people were telling me Little O could probably go home by Wednesday or Thursday; however, that evening his seizures got worse. He would spend over an hour just shaking and jumping at a time, and for a tiny premature body that's incredibly wearing. The doctors looked very serious and ordered more tests, and the nurse in charge suggested we stay the night in case things got worse.

You can imagine the effect a statement like that had on us. We COMPLETELY freaked out, thinking we were about to lose this perfect-looking person we'd only known for a week, and we spent the whole night either in tears or waiting for news. At 3am a nurse knocked on our room door and told us Little O's oxygen levels had dropped dramatically, and that they'd had to put him on a nasal canular. By 8am they'd given him so much phenobarbital (an anti-seizure medication) that he was woozy and not very responsive, and by 10am it was decided that he should be transferred to another, more capable, hospital.

They sent for a specialist paediatric ambulance to transfer a week-old-baby to the new unit, and while we waited for it to arrive I just sat there by his tiny bed, rocking him and singing to him and crying my fucking eyes out. I was absolutely terrified. The nurses were incredibly supportive (except Debbie, bitch) and allowed me to spend as much time with him as I needed to, but when the ambulance crew arrived with their horrific-looking portable incubator I just lost it. I cried like you'd never heard a woman cry before, and I refused to let my baby go. He was so tiny, and so beautiful, and giving him away to strangers felt absolutely barbaric. I'm normally very capable and very calm under pressure, but they say you don't know love until you look your first child in the eye, and they're right. My heart just broke. The new hospital, St Joseph's, had sent over a senior nurse to accompany Little O, and she must have seen how distressed I was because she began to mother me herself. She became very calm and comforting, and yet she also took charge enough of the situation to allow me to feel secure in putting Little O into that yellow machine. (Later on, when my husband and I arrived at St Joe's, the same nurse told me she thought I hated her for taking my baby away. She wasn't far off the truth...)

I hate the fact that my child's first experience of being in the outside world was being driven to another hospital in an ambulance. I hate it, but there wasn't a lot that could be done. He needed more intensive care, and the only way to achieve that was to trust strangers to drive carefully while they moved him. I still shudder and give myself nightmares thinking about if there'd been an accident on the way; I would never, ever have forgiven myself.

Regardless of the how, why, or when, Little O's new home was at the St Joseph's Hopital NICU. He transferred there on Monday, 24th May 2010, and would stay there for the next two and a half weeks.

More to come...

Tina.

Visitors

2010-08-16T14:23:00.002-05:00

As ABBA once said, "I have been waiting for these visitors..."

I'm going to come back to the My Pookie Bear testimony soon, but there are some other things we must discuss first.

My Mum is out visiting at the moment, with D. It was also my birthday last week (27... sigh...) and I was embarrassingly disappointed with the whole affair. Since I was little, right up until recently, I have looked forward to my next birthday right after I got done with the last one. However, for the last four years I have felt absolutely nothing. No excitement, no anticipation, no nothing. It's going to be incredibly selfish of me to say this, but ever since 2007 something has kind of stolen my thunder. In 2007 I was forced to live in the UK while we waited for immigration paperwork to be processed, but my husband had no legal right to work over there so we spent the whole year (our first year of marriage) living in two different countries. On my 24th birthday, therefore, I was sleeping on my sister's couch working as a credit-control temp for a food company, and it SUCKED. In 2008 I was happily living in WI and took a week off in the summer for my birthday and for my family's visit, but I go so excited about them coming over that I completely forgot about my birthday and felt a bit weird on the day itself. Same story in 2009, and exactly the same in 2010. I'm so lucky that my family wants to come and visit me, but I wish we could spread things out a little. I'd love for them to come over every year, but perhaps they could make it a week or two later next time? I'd really like to celebrate with just my husband and Little O, and feel special about my birthday again. I want to DO something... not feel like I have to entertain guests or watch my alcohol intake in front of my parents. Maybe next year if they're back again, they can look after Little O for a weekend and my husband and I will bugger off and get pissed at a hotel somewhere. I'm really not looking forward to asking my family about that though...

It's weird having my Mum here with D. Admittedly he's helping to diffuse potentially hazardous situations, for which I am very grateful, but it's still strange watching their relationship. For example, my Mum stopped kissing and hugging us goodnight when we were teenagers, but with D she makes sure they say a 'proper' goodnight... every night. It's sweet and not inappropriate (he's gay, remember?), but it just strikes me as odd that she'll give him a hug and peck on the cheek before bed, but then turn to me and wave goodnight as she goes up the stairs. I dunno. Maybe this is all at D's request: not her's. Maybe it makes her feel weird doing it in front of me too. It's just that I don't have a great relationship with Mum on my own, and seeing her be comfortable and motherly to someone who isn't her child is... hmm... uncomfortable.

Another thing that's making me feel uncomfortable is how my Mum is around my son. She clearly adores him and has frequently demanded to hold him or play with him, but she's never once offered to HELP with him. I know he's a lot of work and that learning how to take care of him is a bit of a minefield, but even if I turned down the offer of help I'd still appreciate the gesture! She has never once offered to feed him, change him, put him to bed, give him a bath, get him dressed, hold him while I deal with another crisis... nothing at all. As far as she's concerned, she's his Grandma and her prerogative is to enjoy cuddles and playtime. My in-laws, however, offer to do EVERYTHING. They have been the most helpful, supportive grandparents for Little O, and I feel more confident in their abilities to take care of him in an emergency than anyone else. Yes, they've seen him more often, and yes, they live considerably closer, but that's not it. They're better with Little O because they WANT to be. When we visit them they make sure we have everything we need to get comfortable, and they will happily and without complaint rearrange anything at all to fit around us. They want to administer medications, feed him via g-tube, change diapers, give him his nebulizer, bathe him. They're happy to do it because not only do they love him, but they realize how much pressure my husband and I are under and they want to help relieve it. My Mum, on the other hand, wants to be treated like a guest. So I have to run around cleaning up after her and D as well as all my usual Little O-related business. It would just be nice for her to offer to change him when he's dirty, or feed him something tasty... just once. That's all. Because that's the kind of Grandma Little O needs.

Thanksfully my Dad is coming to visit in October and he's more like my in-laws. He's happy to get stuck in there and help out as much as possible, so I'm looking forward to seeing him and trusting him to take care of his grandson. I think he's a wonderful father and a brilliant Grandad. I miss him a lot.

In other news, I got offered another copyediting project! Thank FUCK for that! I was beginning to think my publishers didn't love me anymore...

Tina.

My Pookie Bear

2010-08-10T16:04:00.003-05:00

I've been reading some incredible books lately, including two written by parents of children with special needs. They are so much more helpful than the tripe my therapist lent me, and they've inspired me to write my own testimony.

So, here it is. The first draft of my testimony to what being a parent to Little O is really like, right from the very beginning. This may take some time, so buckle in...

My Pookie Bear

My husband and I decided to try for a baby in the late summer of 2008. A naturally realistic person, I was concerned that conceiving a child would be very difficult, and prepared myself for several months of waiting and frustration. My son, however, had other plans.

We found out I was pregnant in September 2008 and immediately visited the ob/gyn to get started on the merry-go-round that is pre- and post-natal care in the USA. I read up on the subject of pregnancy as much as I could, researching all the things I should and should not be doing, and generally becoming very excited and proud. At about eight weeks gestation I began to have hyperemesis gravidarum, which meant my work schedule and household chores became a daily battle against nausea, vomiting, and keeping anything other than water down. I was eventually prescribed medication for my extreme sickness and things began to look up in early 2009, when my husband and I excitedly went to the L&D ward at the hospital for my 20-week scan.

It was at this scan that we were first introduced to the notion that all was not well with our baby. A neonatologist trained in sonography scanned my belly and announced two things: 1) that we were having a boy; and 2) there was a possibility our son had a heart defect. To be honest, I was still reeling from the shock of being told my baby's sex - I was absolutely convinced we were expecting a girl, and I remember my stomach dropping just a smidge when a tiny set of genitalia was pointed out on the monitor. I was still shaking my head in disbelief, therefore, when the doctor told us he was referring us to a foetal cardiologist for further tests. I came away from the hopital absolutely numb. I had to get back to work, so my husband and I talked on the phone as we drove our separate ways, and I remember being so confused and so upset that I took a wrong turn and ended up at Milwaukee General Mitchell Airport. Frustrated at the lack of accurate signposts and terrified at the thought of losing my baby, I had to stop the car to sob hot, angry tears. Looking back, the feeling of utter helplessness and lack of specific knowledge about my son's condition was actually excellent preparation for that confusing period of time following his birth.

When we visited the foetal cardiologist (which we did, twice), she assured us after lengthy scans and pokes at my baby that all was in fact well. She saw no evidence of a heart defect, and thought that the first doctor must have seen a shadow, or a rapidly-moving baby too fast to guarantee a clear picture. Still, despite her reassurances, I continued in my pregnancy to feel as though all was not right. My mother had experienced peaceful, trouble-free pregnancies with her first two children, and then an astonishingly distressing one with her third. And that third baby ended up having such serious disabilities that to this day, at the age of 22, my younger sister requires 24-hour supervision. I was fearful that this pregnancy would have a similar outcome, but to the world and to my husband, I just put on a brave face and knuckled down to the job of waddling about with a beachball attached to my stomach.

At six months, I was made redundant from my job. It was a Thursday. I looked my employer straight in the eye and walked out of that building with my head held high. The next day we signed contracts, closed on our new house, and moved in to our baby's first home. On the Monday, I sat on my couch and filed for unemployment benefits, then continued working on the manuscript for my second book, Baby Names 2010. After all the stress of the previous week, I was content to just sit and relax and maybe take a nap or two. A few weeks later, my Da died. I was too heavily pregnant to fly home to the UK for the funeral, so I mourned the loss of my baby's Great Grandfather from afar, writing a dedication to him and including it in the service sheet. Eleven days after his death, I went into premature labour.

Labour is a funny thing. At 35 weeks I wasn't expecting it, although I knew the signs to look for. The weekend before, I had stood in my baby's new nursery and yelled at my husband for not working quickly enough to get the room ready. At the time he laughed at me and called me mental, but now we look back and realise I was 'nesting' - my body knew the baby was coming but I had no idea. On May 14th, 2009, I was at home and working on the computer when I felt hip and back pain. Assuming it was just pregnancy aches, I attempted some exercises on the floor to encourage the baby to move about, and then spoke with a friend online. She warned me that I might be in labour, so I called the doctor and sure enough...

Over the next 55 hours I worked harder than I've ever worked before. I was not a strong or courageous woman in labour until the last hour, when I became incredibly focused and determined, and pushed my tiny son into the world in 45 minutes. He was born at 5.12pm on Sunday, 17th May 2009. When I remember the feeling it brings tears to my eyes. I was just so relieved he was here. I didn't care that he was early, or that I was bleeding on to the bed. I didn't care that I was experiencing a life-changing moment: I was just so glad he was here.

But if I am to be totally honest, then I have to be brutal. And blunt.

When Owen was born, I was not surprised that he didn't breathe. I was not surprised that he was pale, and floppy, and had a massive bruise covering most of his scalp. I was not surprised that they rushed him to the bed warmer and stimulated him to cry. I was not surprised when they announced he had inguinal hernias, blood in the meconium, or an ear tag. I was not surprised that he didn't open his eyes, or that I wasn't allowed to hold him until they had worked him over.

I was not surprised, because I knew already. I just knew. I knew something was wrong at that 20-week scan, and I knew something was wrong when I compared my pregnancy sickness with my mother's. I knew something was wrong when I went into premature labour. It's hard to describe, but I just knew. I listened when people told me everything would be alright, but I didn't really take it in. I listened when my sister told me of her own pregnancy sickness and how her own scans had been normal, but I didn't really take it in then either. I just knew something would go wrong, because I had been preparing myself for so long for the worst.

But you know what? When I was finally allowed to hold Owen, I cried and cried and cried. I cried, not because of all his 'wrongs', but because of all his 'rights'. He was astoundingly beautiful. He was pale, with creamy skin just like his Mama and two tiny rosy cheeks that bloomed across his face when he cried. He had the smallest and pointiest chin I've ever seen on a baby, and it is still my favourite part of him. That tiny little chin was so cute and perfect and smooth, and I would run my finger along it over and over again to feel the sharp little curve. He had small and slender lips, and tiny starfish hands, and curly toes that we would later identify as coming from his father's genes. His wrist was the size of my thumb and he had no hair at all. In fact, his head was so round and smooth and white that the nurses all told me he was nicknamed 'Cueball' in the nursery.

In short, he was gorgeous. Like any newborn baby's mother I thought he was stunning, but another, more rational part of me also thinks so. He was just a lovely looking baby. Perfect and tiny at only 19" long and 5lb 14oz, but strong and breathing by himself. I decided there and then that he was a superstar, and the first book we read to him was called Baby Brains Superstar, because the baby looked just like him.

More to come...

The weekend for getting shit DONE

2010-08-07T23:13:00.000-05:00

So last week was pretty horrendous. This new feeding schedule is supposed to be freeing up time for me and Little O, but it's actually become a little more taxing. On Thursday for example, Little O woke us at 5am for a throw-up and scream fest, but then did settle down again until 7.30am... for another throw-up and scream fest. He basically hasn't gotten all his PediaSure overnight since we started this routine a week ago, so on Thursday morning I just dumped out the remainder and put it back in to the fridge so I could give it to him later in the day via a bolus gravity feed. (I hate that term: bolus gravity feed. It makes me think of bowels and space and Newton and, for some reason, balloon catheters. It's just a really irritating phrase.) So that day I had to give him his remaining PediaSure at 9.30am because he got fussy and I correctly interpreted that as hunger, then water and an oral feed at 11.00am because his speech therapist came over, and finally set his pump to run at 12pm for his regularly-scheduled nap. It meant I spent allllllll fucking morning feeding (or fretting about feeding) my son.

It's been pretty much the same story all week.

Anywhoo, my husband and I weighed him tonight before bed and Little O has gained three ounces! Yay! He was 23lb 3oz last Thursday (July 29th), and weighed 23lb 6oz today (Aug 7th). It's not a great gain, but I WILL TAKE IT! We're still not jumping up and down, but hopefully this is the start of a better journey. The more weight he puts on and the bigger he gets, the more his stomach will be able to tolerate (in theory, I stress), which means we can up the pump rate and he'll hopefully keep more down. It's all a matter of biology I suppose.

My Mum is coming to see me next week! She'll be here for my birthday, which makes it the third year in a row I've had family out to Wisconsin on that day. It's rather remarkable and I feel incredibly special, but it is helped by both my parents working in education and August falling during the UK schools' summer holidays. She'll be bringing over D, who is a lovely young chap who lives with my Mum and Dad, and who has had a rather interesting start in life. It's not my place to discuss his affairs online, but I'm looking forward to seeing them both. (Worth noting is the fact he's openly gay, before anyone raises an eyebrow at a 52-year-old woman and 22-year-old man going away together on holiday.) Hopefully D will help break some of the inevitable tension that accompanies those times my Mum and I get together.

Mmm... they're bringing some Cadbury's Dairy Milk too...

In anticipation of their visit, my husband and I have been madly preparing the house for guests. Normally this involves washing the sheets on the guest bed and cleaning the bathrooms (both done far too rarely), but we've gone a little mad this time.

On the list this weekend:

1) Go to the DMV for the Ford's MOT/emissions test
2) Vacuum carpets
3) Clean carpets (we bought a fancy carpet cleaner machine for this, seeing as Little O gets our house rather filthy, and it's already paid for itself after four months)
4) Wash all bedding (yup, all three beds)
5) Tidy and organise the basement (a rather big job, which we're excellent at avoiding)
6) Clean oven inside and out (again, a job done too rarely, but I seem to have fallen in love with the self-clean programme and I fancy this will be done more often now)
7) Clean microwave (ditto... sigh)
8) Clean both bathrooms (I refuse to do this. It's gross)
9) Wash all non-carpeted floors
10) Clean upholstery in living room (our fancy-pants carpet cleaner has a gizmo for this, and Little O's goo gets EVERYWHERE)
11) Mow lawn (I actually really love doing this)
12) Stain the deck (we did this earlier today and now it's a rather startling shade of orange. Oops)
13) Replace batteries in kitchen clock (cheap piece of crap)
14) Go grocery shopping
15) Dusting
16) De-flea Bob (all done now! He shrieked like you wouldn't believe, but that shampoo is awesome. And now we have clean carpets and anti-flea stuff down too, so those little buggers better find somewhere else to live)
17) Finish toy box (my husband's job. He started making Little O a toy box for his birthday... which was in May... sigh...)
18) Put up curtain tie-backs in guest room
19) Replace air filter in heating/air conditioning unit (it's been well over a year, and who knows how long it had been there when we moved in. We changed it today and it was black)
20) Clean kitchen top to bottom
21) Laundry

There are others, but we've either done them already and I've forgotten them, or we're clearly never going to do them and I've also forgotten them. But at least five of those items on the list are BIG JOBS and it took us all day today to get them done. Tomorrow we're going out for brunch at the Botanical Gardens, thanks to our lovely friends J&G, who gave us a voucher for free babysitting and two paid-for brunches to use whenever we chose. I'm trying really hard not to stress about leaving Little O for a couple of hours because I know he'll be safe and loved, but I'm such a control freak when it comes to my son. It's really hard to spend all day looking after him and then hand him off to someone else, no questions asked. I feel guilty and a little bit lost. I need to work harder at letting go... but I don't really want to...

This post is a little bit of a ramble, I know. It's probably very boring to read about the chores we're getting done this weekend, but I felt a bit absent after my last post and I wanted to write about something utterly mundane. And chores are pretty fucking mundane.

I still miss Anthea. She moved in to a new flat a few weeks ago (they OWN it! In London! How cool is THAT?) and hasn't had any internet since then. She also works in education so it's not like she can nip in to work and get online for a few hours. It means I haven't chatted to her for aaaaaages, and right now she, her husband, her son, my other sister V, and my Dad are all on what sounds like a rather hilarious canal boat holiday. My Dad's always wanted to go on one but my Mum prefers city breaks so we never did it as children. Now Mum's flying over to see me, and Dad's taking the initiative and cramming four adults and a one-year-old on to a narrow boat for two weeks. It will be absolutely fucking hilarious and while I miss them like crazy, I also can't wait to hear about how much they got on each other's nerves and how my Dad nearly capsized a 30ft-long canal boat in some random lock.

Good times, man... good times.

Tina.

From good to bad to worse

2010-08-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I started today out feeling better about the 'situation' and even got as far as to write a post about the good news. Then the rest of my day took over and now I feel desperately unhappy again.

I'm just not getting a good grip on Little O's feeds. I've been trying for so long to adapt and persevere, but it seems like there's a constant wall up ahead that I can't climb over. Since he came home from the hospital on June 10th, 2009, my husband and I have battled and battled to make sure Little O has been fed properly and makes gains in his growth and development. We've tried so hard to offer him a variety of foods; changed formulas three times (four if you include breastmilk); worked with gravity feeds, pump feeds, bottle feeds, spoon feeds, safety-feeder feeds; and all along we've had experts in our ears telling us to 'switch this', or 'stick with that'.

I'm exhausted, and I've spent a great deal of today in tears. Last week we weighed Little O on our home scales and were dismayed to see he still hasn't gained any weight since April. April! I took him to Seattle in April.... it seems a very long time ago. After noticing this problem I called his nutritionist and suggested to her we try feeding him his PediaSure when he's asleep ONLY. He's generally a very good sleeper and will sleep for about 11 or 12 hours at night and another three or four in the afternoon, so the idea of slowly pump-feeding him while he naps seems like a good solution. The theory is that he'll not only stop throwing up (because the rate is so slow on the pump), but it will also free up large portions of the day to concentrate on oral feeds. If I'm not having to force liquid nutrition into him while also forcing a spoon into his mouth, it means he's less likely to throw up solids, AND he'll hopefully enjoy oral feeds more. And then, the more oral intake he has, the less liquid nutrition he needs.

IMAGINE! Imagine this glorious world where your baby boy doesn't live in constant pain. Imagine packing the burp cloths and wipe-up rags into storage because you don't have to mop up sick five times a day. Imagine feeding your child like any other family, where dinner time isn't battle-time and you don't have to mentally and physically gear yourself up for war. Imagine putting your child to bed knowing they've felt no discomfort all day and that they can look forward to a tomorrow where eating is a nice, enjoyable activity. Just imagine...

Today I can't imagine this world. This world seems very far away. My baby boy is nearly 15-months-old and his reflux is still the hardest challenge he faces. He woke up several times in the night to throw up or just scream, and even when I went in at 7.30am, the pump still had nearly 100ml left to go. I don't know what to do. I can't set the pump to go any faster because he'll just throw it up, and I can't leave the food in the bag because he needs the nutrition to grow. I can't run the pump for longer because he needs to be asleep, and I can't let him sleep for longer because then he won't nap in the afternoon...

Yesterday I was so pleased that Little O went down for his nap at 12pm and slept right through until 3.30pm. I was pleased, because it meant he got all his PediaSure and I didn't have to worry about a thing. That was, until I went to wake him up and saw that the med-port on his extension tube (the tube that clicks into his stomach) had popped open during his nap, and he was laying in a large, wet pool of pink PediaSure. So after three and a half hours of pump operation, Little O had digested exactly nothing. Nada. Zilch. And this morning I went in at 7.30am because he was yelling his head off, only to discover that he'd thrown up a large volume of goo, and was now laying in a large, wet pool of chocolate PediaSure. And that brown stuff STAINS. So, for the second time in two days I had to change his bedclothes, comfort a soaking wet little boy, and fret about the fact he's not getting enough food digested.

I am just SO DONE WITH REFLUX! I cannot, cannot keep fighting this battle. I just can't do it. I don't have the patience. I certainly don't have the energy. I cannot keep explaining to experts how horrific our lives have become only to have them dismiss my words. I'm so sad and angry and frustrated. I need for this to go away; I need a Fairy Godmother to come and visit my house and whisk us all away to that lovely other world where Little O doesn't cry out in pain in the middle of the night and where bedsheets aren't stained to the point of embarrasment. I need for someone else to take care of us. I need to be able to focus on something, anything else but whether my son is growing and eating and comfortable. I need a break. A real, honest break.

I need to see to my sister. I really miss her. I miss both my sisters, but sometimes you just need a hug from your big sister and you get the energy back to fight another day.

God, I need some help. And I need to stop crying.

Tina.

Panic over!

2010-08-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

It's all okay! Now I can stop being distracted and dropping stuff and forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing, and concentrate on not flipping out for the umpteenth time this week that Little O's food pump keeps leaking PediaSure all over his bed.

So, it's good news... but wow. That was close.

Tina.

Uh oh...

2010-08-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

Something's going down. It's a long shot, but if I'm right then oooooooohhhhhh shit.

Update to follow later this week.

Vaccines

2010-07-30T15:14:00.002-05:00

I think I might piss a few people off shortly...

Little O got the results of his immunology study last week, and the news was mixed. They tested him about six weeks ago for a complete immune deficiency disease, as well as searching for antibodies to all the usual suspects that he's had vaccinations for. The most important thing they found in that first series of blood tests was that he was lacking any kind of antibodies to pneumonia and tetanus, despite the fact he'd had all his routine jabs until that point. In order to see whether this lack of antibodies was an indicator of a more serious condition, Little O had to be re-vaccinated for the pneumococcal and tetanus bugs (ouchee) and then after a month have his blood re-examined for new developments. That second study was what we had the results for last week.

They showed that his tetanus booster had been a success, but of the 11 tests they ran for pneumococcal, only four came back with a positive result. This, combined with other data, suggests he's right on the cusp of having an immune deficiency. It's kind of annoying, actually, because while it means we don't have to wrap Little O up in cotton wool and become one of those families who sanitises every Goddam surface all the live-long day, it also means we have to take a very cautious approach to caring for his health.

Let's take vaccines.

Routine vaccinations can either be replica virus cells or live versions of real viruses. In the case of children (or adults, I suppose) with immune deficiencies, it is extremely unwise to give them live virus vaccines because their little bodies wouldn't be able to fight it off, leaving them in danger of both becoming ill from the virus in the jab, and still not immune to the real thing, like measles. Children in the USA have to have two particular live vaccines in order to go to school: varicella (chicken pox), and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella). If you give the MMR jab to a child with a compromised immune system, there are very few drugs available to help them if they become sick, and they are at serious risk of complications - including death.

So, let's recap: We're still not sure Little O has an official diagnosis of an immune deficiency, and live virus vaccines can be life-threatening with children who do. What do we do now?

Well, after a consultation last week, it was decided that the risks to Little O if he caught any of the four diseases mentioned (chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella) were much greater than if he were to react to the vaccines. So we went ahead and vaccinated him on Wednesday against the varicella virus. If he responds well, then after a month we can go ahead with the MMR. If, however, he reacts badly, then we don't do the MMR. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. So far though, he's been great after the varicella jab and I think he'll be fine with the MMR. This is great news and a big relief for me. I don't want him catching a horrendous bug and not being able to shake it off. It has also reminded me of the importance of vaccinations.

Now to piss a few people off:

Why WOULDN'T you vaccinate your children?? Even when your child is at risk from the vaccine itself, surely the risk to their health from a serious disease is far greater? I just don't buy into all this crap about not vaccinating children because it's all a money-making scam run by drug companies. Those parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are selfish. Selfish, not only because they believe that if every other child is vaccinated then there's no danger to THEIR kid and therefore they don't need to be stuck in the arm with a needle, but also because by exposing THEIR child to harm, they're also exposing MY child to harm!

Imagine if Little O had a very serious immune deficiency and we were strongly advised not to give him the MMR. If another healthy child caught one of those diseases, they would be exposing my child to their condition, even though my child has no say in the matter. And MY child would suffer far worse consequences because they have no immune system to fight it off. Healthy children who are not vaccinated are not only a danger to themselves, they're also a danger to every other child they come into contact with. You cannot tell by looking at a person if they are immuno-compromised, so you cannot deliberately avoid them. By avoiding vaccines, however, you are endangering their life. And that just isn't fair.

Please, please, vaccinate your children. Don't avoid it because of your own fear of needles, or the fact you think drug companies are scamming you. Don't put it off because you think if every other child is vaccinated, your child doesn't need to be. Don't; because not every other child IS vaccinated, and sometimes it's for their own safety. Please put others before yourselves, and think about the potential danger you could be exposing them to.

My Little O is lucky this time. Other babies might not be.

Tina.

Little O is awesome

2010-07-29T21:54:00.000-05:00

Little O met a MAJOR milestone today!

As most of you already know, my little boy has been tube-fed directly into his stomach since the day he was born, and we've always struggled to engage him with oral feedings because he has a strong aversion. The aversion is due to his God-awful reflux (GERD), which has led to a vicious cycle - he throws up - which makes him not want to eat - which means he doesn't try solid food - which means his reflux doesn't improve - which means he throws up - which makes him not want to eat - etc... etc...

Anyway, we've been looking for new foods and stronger tastes to help him want to taste and accept more, and this lunchtime we tried... dum dum dummmm... french fries!

Oh my God.

My Little O LOVES them! He likes to stick his tongue out and lick all the salt and grease off, and today he managed to do something he's NEVER done before. He bit off a small piece of fry, chewed it (with assistance), and then SWALLOWED it without choking!

There is no expression or emoticon obnoxious enough to express how I feel about this. It is the first step towards him being weaned off his feeding tube and I don't even care that fries are perhaps the very worst food you can eat. I just don't care! When a child who point blank refuses ANY food at all suddenly decides to bite, chew and swallow, then that child is allowed as many fries as they want.

My baby is a Superbaby. Feel free to gush in adoration.

Stop being SO SMUG!

2010-07-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

Money troubles are really starting to get to me. Although Mike's salary can handle the mortgage and bills, if we want to ever have any fun then we need something extra coming in: namely, ME working. My usual client isn't sending any projects my way at the moment, and no-one else is biting when I send out e-mails and make enquiries.

So, while we wait for other people to figure out how much of a fuckin' genius I am at making their work look brilliant, we have to figure out some ways to cut costs. We're not massive spenders, to be honest (I can't remember the last time I bought a new piece of clothing), and most of our 'fun' money goes on the odd meal at Subway or buying new clothes for Little O because he grows like a weed. Actually, he hasn't gained a single ounce in the last three months so we haven't needed any clothes recently, but the tales about his weight gains and losses are enough to fill an entirely new post, so I'll leave it there.

One of the things we've considered doing to save money is investing in cloth diapers. I KNOW they're called nappies in the UK, but if I'm going to start translating British and American English every time I mention them then things will get very boring, so please just accept that Little O knows his bum-coverings as diapers, and we'll all be happy. So yes, cloth diapers. I've read a lot about them recently, but until Little O turned a year old, we had no time to devote to extra piles of laundry and we've simply chosen the more convenient route. I think you'd find it hard to argue that we didn't deserve a little convenience in his first year....

So yesterday we started looking at purchasing some cloth diapers for real. I went on to the Fuzzi Bunz website and had a poke around, watching the helpful 'care for' and 'application' videos, and generally cooing over all the lovely little baby bottoms wearing fluffy, colourful diapers. However, nowhere on this website does it give prices, so you have to explore their sellers and distributors for a break down in costs. I went to the Fuzzi Bunz Store website and was excited to see they sell packages of cloth diapers to save customers money. "Whoo hoo!", I thought. "This will be A LOT cheaper than buying disposibles!"

Oh, how wrong I was. Numerous websites recommend buying four- to five-dozen cloth diapers so that you can do a completely separate load of laundry for them and not risk ruining your silk sheets with baby poop and extreme temperatures (one load hot, one load freezing cold). Have enough, and you can spend only one or two days a week washing diapers, while your little one wears the dry ones. So, when I was looking at costs, this figure of four- to five-dozen was firmly in my mind, and I went straight to the packages of 18 or 24 diapers to do some calculations.

18 One-size Fuzzi Bunz: $284.25
24 One-size Fuzzi Bunz : $442.80
(NOT including sales tax)

If you want to buy the recommended four- to five-dozen diapers, then you're looking at start-up costs for JUST DIAPERS of at least $1,000!! Then you have to consider how to store dirty diapers (handy diaper pails or some smart drawstring pouches for about $15 each), how to wash dirty diapers (two washes: one hot, one cold), how to dry diapers in the horrible winters we have (tumble drier), and then all the other incremental costs like wipes, spare pads, paper liners ($7 for 100) that you don't necessarily NEED, but they make the cloth diapering experience much less stressful.

So... to get us up and running, we'd be looking at around $1,000 to $1,200. The diapers are one-size, which is nice, and they'd last us until Little O potty-trains (if he's capable of it - we don't know yet), but we'd still have a larger water and electricity bill every month, as well as purchasing paper liners and wipes. So every month we'd probably be forking out an extra $20 anyway.

Generic, Target-brand diapers are $13.82 for 82 size four disposible diapers. We get through a box about every three weeks, so our monthly out-goings for diapers is about $20, and that's being generous. Wipes are bought in massive, commercial-size boxes containing nine packages for about $9. We go through one box about every six months, so our wipes cost us about $1.30 a month.

Let's run some numbers for the next two years, assuming it will take us that long to potty-train Little O.

Cloth diapers: Year One (12 months)
$1,000 start-up
$15.60 wipes
$12.00 spare pads (9)
$84.00 paper liners (100 liners for $7)
$30 - $50 extra water and electricity

= $1,161.60

Cloth diapers: Year Two (12 months)
$15.60 wipes
$84.00 paper liners
$30 - $50 extra water and electricity

= $149.60

TOTAL for two years: $1,311.20

Disposible diapers: Year One (12 months)
$240 diapers
$15.60 wipes

= $255.60

Disposible diapers: Year Two (12 months)
$240 diapers
$15.60 wipes

= $255.60

TOTAL for two years: $511.20

DID YOU READ THAT?! We would actually spend nearly THREE TIMES as much on cloth diapers if we made the switch! That's quite remarkable.

I have a theory on cloth diapers and the people who buy them. Parents can be a little... smug... sometimes. We hit upon a magic formula (and I'm as guilty as the rest of them - Little O sleeps like a fuckin' baby and everyone remarks on how well we must have taught him) and we like to feel that our parenting skills are infinitely superior to everyone else's. Parents who spend a large of money upfront on cloth diapers watch other parents throwing disposible diapers in the shopping cart every month and feel VERY, VERY smug. They forget, of course, that they spent a thousand dollars when their child was first born, and they forget how much extra water and electricity they use because it's absorbed in to their household costs.

Handily chosing to ignore the enviromental impact of disposible diapers (and this is actually a major concern for me, living half a mile from a landfill), I'd have to say that the myths about costs and convenience are just ludicrous. Even if you invested in one-size diapers and used them for two children (presumably buying a few more because you still need that four- to five-dozen per child), you're still looking at extraordinary costs. Yes, Fuzzi Bunz are in the premier league of cloth diapers and there are cheaper brands available, but if you're the type of parent who's going to invest in your baby's comfort, your own sense of smugness, and saving the environment, wouldn't you go for the brand that offers the most convenience, cuteness and brand-security? I would.

So, cloth diapering families, stop being SO SMUG! You are NOT saving any money! Perhaps if I believed in buying Pampers or Huggies the pricing would work out more in your favour, but I don't. My son craps in his diapers so we only buy generic brands, and I'm afraid that this equation just doesn't add up.

The next person who tells me they save $4,000 a year by cloth diapering will get an earful. And a small lapel pin that says: "I am a self-righteous cloth diapering prick".

Tina.

But you look ridiculous...

2010-07-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

It has occurred to me this past week that people with tanned skin look utterly ridiculous. Not naturally-tanned or dark skin, like my husband (as he frequently reminds me of his 1/16th Native American blood from his mother's side), but people who are naturally fair-skinned like me.

I went to see my therapist yesterday evening for the first appointment in three weeks. I think that means I'm starting to get better, but it does seem that as soon as I get rid of one set of issues, another set leaps up to take their place. Last night for example, we explored money troubles and having a second child, and I came away feeling really exposed. I always look forward to my sessions for a chance to talk about ME for an hour (well, who wouldn't?), but I always come away feeling as though there were a hundred things I wanted to say and didn't. I'm now even MORE worried about money and LESS convinced having another baby is right for us psychologically at the moment. I think we're still going to put the plan in to action in September, but I will have to have had more work coming in if we're going to afford it.

ANYWAY, my therapist has clearly been in the sun recently. She's in her 50s with silver grey hair, and I'm afraid to say that her skin colour did not suit her at all. I'm used to seeing all the Wisconsin-ites have pale, flushed skin from the hard winters we have, so it's a bit weird seeing all these bronzed bodies come out this time of year. We live about ten minutes from a beach on Lake Michigan, and if you walk down there on a sunny day you'll find the entire town baking in the heat and turning various shades of lobster and bronze. Now that I spend most of my time outside keeping my me and my son OUT of the sun because of our matching ivory complexions (heh heh), it all just seems really odd. Why would you deliberately want to damage yourself like that? Why would you risk skin cancer, premature ageing, and even just a terrible sunburn, all for the sake of looking brown and shiny? I don't get it.

They're running a campaign on the Style Network at the moment to get people to cover up and wear sun protection outside. The most startling commercial is of a small child (could be a boy or a girl - it's wearing frilly blue underwear and no top) playing near the sea, and the words that run on the screen are something like: "One blistering sunburn in childhood doubles the risk of skin cancer as an adult." The child then hears its mother's voice telling it to come back inside and it runs off. I WAS that child. I had so many, many cases of sunburn and heatstroke as a child that I've forgotten them all. I know I have to be careful in the sun now, and I'm extra-cautious about Little O. I don't think I'm at a particularly high risk for skin cancer anymore as I deliberately take precautions (hellooooo, factor 50), but it does make me afraid for my babies. I want to be here for them as they grow old, and getting my skin to tan seems like it's a sure-fire way to prevent that from happening.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not the type of person to wear long sleeves and high necklines to avoid ANY sun exposure; I just make sure when we're out and about that we stay close to the shade and wear suncream. I love a moderate heat (nothing above 30C/90F) and will happily take Little O to the beach on sunny days, but I just think we all need to be a bit more sensible. That story in the UK about the tiny baby in Brighton blistering with second-degree burns while his mother sunbathed on the beach made my heart break. I don't blame the mother for anything other than stupidity, because it is hard to protect a child under six months from the sun as suncream is only suitable for children over that age. You don't want to stop a woman from having fun on the beach with her baby, but someone really should have pointed out the dangers to her child sooner. If she wasn't aware of how much damage could be done then she needed educating. But then, I think we all do.

Little O is currently laying here on the floor next to me, hitting himself in the head with a plastic drum lid. Oh yes, that's my child.

Tina.

Fuck me, that was good.

2010-07-21T21:52:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to apologise for being absent for a few days, because I've spent that time being extremely productive: I've read the entire "The Girl..." series by Steig Larsson. And fuck me, was it good.

I haven't read any reviews of the series deliberately, because I don't give a shit what other people think about it. To me, those three books are some of the best literature to have been published in the last few years, and I think it's a Michael Jackson-esque tragedy that the author died before he could create anything else. (By Michael Jackson-esque, I mean that they both died too young, but also that they probably died in their prime - before they could produce anything crap.)

Lisbeth Salander is one of the most well-written and outstandingly brilliant female characters I've ever come across. I simply couldn't stop turning pages whenever she was active in the plot, and I've lost a fair bit of sleep because of it. She's just so... so... feminist! Ballsy isn't a very feminist term - I suppose it ought to be some reference to ovaries or breasts, but that seems a bit weird - but she really is ballsy. The girl has guts, and I admire Larsson so much for being a male writer who has caught the mood of young ballsy women everywhere. She stands up for herself, but when the world is out to destroy her (or the entire Swedish government, whatever), she just bides her time, takes the abuse, and stores away information to use against them in the future. She's a complete legend.

I loved Mikael Blomkvist too, but not nearly as passionately. He's smart, but he just couldn't have done anything without Salander.

I watched the film of the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I felt that Salander wasn't nearly as skinny, ass-kicking, or downright weird as she is in the book. I realise that you cannot possibly ever translate an entire novel comfortably to the silver screen (look at Harry Potter, for God's sake), but they could definitely have done more with Salander. I know The Girl Who Played With Fire is currently in cinemas, but I think they ought to ask me to direct the third movie: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. I'd do a cracking job.

I want to know what happened to Camille though. Maybe if they don't ask me to direct a movie I could write a fourth book instead, and we'd find out what happened to her. Now there's an idea...

Oh, poo

2010-07-08T09:46:00.001-05:00

I have a dilemma.

At the moment, my entire house smells like an odd combination of strawberries, vomited PediaSure and poo. I can't seem to escape it, no matter which room I go in to and I'm blamimg Little O.

According to our insurance plan, we are allowed to order two flavours of PediaSure a month. (The mind boggles as to why they think a child will be content only eating two different things a month, but that's besides the point.) This month we have strawberry and chocolate, as well as some vanilla and banana cans left over from last month. We tried Little O out on the strawberry stuff and he LOVES it! Normally he couldn't give a toss when we offer him a drink, but now he's begun to lean forward and move his mouth towards his cup, asking for more. It's quite something, and we're doing our best to encourage it.

The vomiting still hasn't ebbed, which I predicted would happen. So now we have layers of stains on the living room carpet where he gets fed (I know, I know. I should be feeding him at the dining table like a 'proper' family, but when feeds take an hour you need to have SOMETHING to do that doesn't involve using your hands, and I'm afraid putting the telly on is a simple solution). These stains were once very white (Neocate), then cream (PediaSure), and now they're turning pink (strawberry PediaSure). It's quite revolting, but I'm afraid cleaning the carpets every day is just not going to happen. Which is why the house smells like strawberries and vomit.

The real problem is the poo, though. Little O is still training his digestive system on how to process longer protein strands, so he's creating dirty diapers several times a day. But now they're... interesting. They've changed colour so much during the last month or so that I'm still not sure what to do. The initial changes were attributed to a possible C. difficile infection, which was treated with antibiotics, and it did improve things a little. His stomach seemed to hurt less, which was nice, and the frequency of changing him declined a little - we were up to 10 or 12 dirty diapers a day a few weeks ago, and now it's more like three or four. But I'm still not convinced that there isn't something wrong with his tummy.

His poo is currently pink. Yup, pink. Obviously I'm thinking the pink strawberry PediaSure is responsible for this, but I have NEVER SEEN PINK POO BEFORE. It's freaking me out, to be honest. I mean, when he was on certain antibiotics his poo was a bit purple, or a bit orange, but never pink! It's alarming to unwrap a nappy and see that staring you in the face. Oh, and it's not consistently consistent, either. In the early mornings it might be almost as solid as a normal toddler's, but by 9am his 'present' is as runny as water. And they ALWAYS have a really unusual smell. There just doesn't seem to be any progress.

So what do I do? I don't know whether to just keep pumping the PediaSure into him and keep my fingers crossed his body will eventually adapt, or whether to bother the GI clinic AGAIN with my concerns. I hate being that parent and I do my best to solve riddles by myself instead of bothering busy clinics, but until now I've always trusted my instincts and my instincts have always been right.

It's just that right now I'm not sure what my instincts are. Any thoughts?

Tina.

Two things

2010-07-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Two things of interest have happened to me the last few days. Just two, no more.

Firstly, I have started applying for more work. For someone who NEEDS to stay at home, this isn't exactly easy, but I've spent a few hours trawling Monster and Craigs List and have applied for four freelance proofreading positions that sound hopeful. I'd really rather be doing copyediting or content writing, but unfortunately most of those positions aren't freelance or electronic. So the idea now is to secure some kind of distance proofreading job with a single company, earn some dolla dolla, and then impress them so much with my mad skillz that they're begging me to take on more work of a copyediting- or content writer-nature. Naturally, because I've only been at this for two days I'm optimistic. After a month or two I will probably have given up and decided I'm useless.

Secondly, I had a row with some rather unpleasant characters over on BritishExpats.com and managed to win the argument for once. This is pretty impressive, even for me, because normally I'm keen to keep up my oh-so-hilarious-feminist-parent vibe and don't really engage douchebags in conversations when it isn't worth it. But last night there was a 100+ post thread all about ginger hair, and it wasn't exactly saying having red hair was a blessing. On the contrary, people were posting jokes, comments, cruel vibes, and generally disgusting turns of phrases, and I just saw... well... red.

Yeah yeah yeah, having red hair is HILARIOUS. I mean look at it! It's GINGER! Ya big freak.

The thing is though, it isn't really. It's just my hair. And I can't do a thing about it, either. I could dye it, admittedly, but my freckles and pale skin would still reveal the truth, and anyway I don't think I should have to. I went through a phase in high school of dying it various shades of brown or even brighter red, but since I reached the age of 18 I've pretty much left it alone. Because actually, I quite like it. It has always made me stand out (not that I've needed any help there, playing the tuba for thirteen years and being quite gobby), but it's also made me an incredibly strong person. I mean, I've been made fun of for the colour of my hair since I was born. Yup, since the very day I was born. And I'm completely sick of it. I'm sick of the disgusting jokes made about my crotch in particular (oh, pur-lease), and I just don't think anyone has the right to say the things they do to me in such revolting ways.

It's hair. It isn't remotely funny, and now I'm at an age (and height) where I can stand up and spit at you without remorse, may I suggest you leave off the ginger jokes? The contributors to that thread on BE.com were forced to acknowledge my opinion when the mods shut it down, and I'm not in the least bit afraid to delete YOU out of my life either.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a joke and sometimes I'm not. You'd have to know me exeptionally well to know the difference. And as Tim Minchin so aptly put it: "Only a Ginger can call another Ginger ginger".

Tina.

Clingy... like cling film...

2010-06-30T14:10:00.000-05:00

No idea where this has come from, but Little O has officially decided he's a Mama's Boy. Well... yes, actually I do know where it's come from because I spend almost 24 hours a day with the chap, but this latest desire to be-with-you-Mama-all-the-time-where-are-you-going-don't-leave-me-waaaaaaaaaaaaah! is somewhat unexpected nonetheless.

Little O has never shown any signs of being clingy towards either me or Mike until recently. I have always attributed this good fortune to several factors: a) he was in the NICU for three and a half weeks, so apart from the 10-12 hours a day I was up there by his bedside, he had to get used to not being around his parents pretty quickly; b) he spends a lot of time with therapists, doctors, nurses, and other 'important' people, so being handled by strangers seems very normal to him; and c) I'm always with him! He has never HAD to be clingy, because he's always been assured that even when I leave him to shower or make some lunch, I'll be back very quickly.

I've been a member of the local gym for two weeks now and I'm starting to get a bit fitter. One of the reasons I keep going back (been six times in ten days so far) is not that I'm immune to being lazy or sore, but that you have to book childcare 24 hours in advance. They organise their staffing ratios around how many kids will be there, so if you fail to show up they charge you anyway. It's only $1 a time, but it's MY $1 and I want to make use of it! So I've started scheduling gym sessions for 10am fairly often, and Owen has been attending childcare every time. Recently he's begun to cry... not when I leave him... but when I return. It's as though he's just figured out I've left him for a period of time and he wants to let me know he's annoyed at me. He's also started crying when I leave the room he's in at home, even if it's only for a few seconds. I think being separated from me at the gym is started to affect him, and he's getting concerned that I'll be leaving him for longer and longer.

While I think it's rather nice to be needed (and I do enjoy the fact that a kiss and a cuddle from me can calm him instantly), this has had a rather unpleasant side-effect. Little O has started to nap during his lunch, which means he's tube fed for a few hours while he sleeps. Now, putting him in to his bed at nighttime is never usually an issue, because he's tired and it's dark, and I sing to him and talk to him before closing the door and going downstairs. It's exactly the same routine, every night, and he's reassured and comforted enough to just lay his head down and send himself off to sleep. Naptimes, however, are sporadic and stressful, and he's awake enough to think, "She's not coming back. It's daylight and I don't want to be alone", so he's started a pattern of sleeping for ten minutes, then waking up and yelling, then being soothed back to sleep by me, then sleeping for ten minutes, then waking up and yelling, then... you get the picture.

I swear upon my bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk lurking in J's suitcase that this is all, ALL, to do with putting him in childcare. But the kid has to get used to me not being there at SOME point. It might as well be for a few hours a week while I'm getting healthier not 30 feet away. I do wish he'd start napping properly though. It's very hard to keep his lunch inside him at the moment, because he usually yells hard enough to make himself throw up, but I can't just stop the pump running and let him go without. I just hope the extra few mls we're adding to his overnight feed are enough to compensate for all this nonsense and he starts gaining weight again soon.

In fact, he can gain all the weight I'm losing! That would be awesome. Freaky, but awesome.

Tina.

Baby steps

2010-06-28T09:16:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you ask for a miracle, and God delivers.

Little O has taken his first steps. :) He requires quite a bit of assistance, involving supporting his trunk and helping him to bear weight on each side, but the kid's lifting and placing his feet ALL BY HIMSELF. This is possibly one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen him do, and I couldn't be any prouder of my Pookie Bear. We bought him one of those baby walkers so he can practice when we're not holding him, and he's been scooting around the kitchen like he's driving his first car. Lol. The walker has friction pads on the bottom to prevent it moving on carpet, so Little O's been practicing standing up independently in the living room, which is also pretty cool.

At the genetics clinic last week I was given some two leaflets - one on children with 16p duplications and another on 3p25 deletions. Little O's condition is unique to him (so far - there may be other children out there with his exact karotype, but they're not registered with Unique's database), so the information in the leaflets is only partially accurate and descriptive of him, but they're useful general guidelines. For example, children with 16p duplications are often born with severe reflux - check! Children with 3p25 deletions often have heart conditions - check! Both leaflets also said that children with these genetic issues are very slow to develop, and often don't walk at all - or if they do, it's between the ages of two and four. Well, Little O is thirteen months old and attempting to take independent steps. I think he might be walking properly by eighteen months, although if he takes a bit longer that's okay too.

I have a theory on Little O. Firstly, that because the 'p' arms of his affected chromosomes are not as damaged as other children's, that he is actually more able than we realise. And secondly, that he is actually a very smart little boy. Any developmental issues he has are being overcome (albeit slowly, slowly), because his intelligence is pushing him harder and harder to succeed. Both Mike and I are smart; it's a fact and I'm not apologising for it. I think that if our IQs were lower, Little O would be having a tougher time learning all the wonderful things he's been doing lately. I hope this turns out to be the case, and that even if he cannot go to a mainstream school, or if he does go to one but he learns at a much slower pace than other children, that he is aware enough to push himself to do his best.

For now, I'll take these small miracles for what they are: baby steps. What a superstar.

Tina.

Continuing my rant, followed by birthday fun

2010-06-26T16:44:00.001-05:00

Right. Got a bit sidetracked the other night and forgot to finish my post, so I'll do my best to finish up what I can remember.

I was all angsty after Thursday's SS appointment, and one of the reasons was the fact I was up there for THREE HOURS. I obviously hadn't accounted for this and so I hadn't brought any of Little O's food with me. I'd fed him at 8am that morning, and didn't leave the clinic until 1.30pm, which meant he didn't start his lunch until 2.30pm. He's also developed this incredibly annoying habit of wanting to nap at EXACTLY the wrong moment, so that instead of being hungry and wanting to enjoy some PediaSure (mmm, banana flavour-y), he basically yelled the whole way home until I put him in his crib. I figured I'd just hook up his feeding pump and let him get as much as he could while he was asleep, but Little O is having none of that at the moment and as soon as he starts to feel something entering his tummy, he wakes up again and yells. Yells until he chokes and throws up anything I've just spent the last half an hour trying to put in to him. It's completely maddening, and I just get so frustrated sometimes.

All I ever try to do is keep my son healthy, happy and growing. I do my best to make time for appointments and specialists, but it's infuriating to have to reschedule Little O's life around THEIR office times. It's worse when an appointment takes three sodding hours, Little O won't sleep, and then basically misses an entire feed because he's all out of sorts. I hate other people sometimes. They make our lives very difficult.

Today was a better day. I was utterly exhausted last night (it was Friday, after all, but let's not go down the ol' Spoons route again. I don't have the va va voom for that right now), and started falling asleep on the couch at 6pm. Mike ordered me to bed, and in bed I stayed... until 9.30am this morning. I was so startled when I woke up and the clock said 9.30 but it was light outside. It felt WONDERFUL to get that much sleep and really recharged my batteries. We even had sex to celebrate. :)

Feckin' miracle, that is.

We took Little O to his friend's first birthday party this afternoon at the zoo. She is such an adorable little princess, but that child LOVES to get messy! She had a massive pink giraffe birthday cake, and when she was given a slice she tore in to that thing like she'd never eaten before in her short little life. She was absolutely covered in cake, crumbs, and icing, and I think I wasn't the only one who found it hysterically funny when she pressed her sticky pink hands against her mother's clean white shorts. I'm still chuckling about it now. I got some beautiful shots of Little O and his birthday-girl friend sitting on the grass together, but I think Facebook is as far as they'll be going. Sorry about that. Of course, you can always befriend me on FB and share in Little O's gorgeousness instead.

Tina.

And repeat!

2010-06-24T17:55:00.000-05:00

This week has been rather lovely for me and Owen because all three of his therapists have gone dun a bunk and he hasn't had any Speech, PT or OT. Which means I haven't had to clean the house in preparation for their visits (because, let's face it: if I didn't HAVE to clean the house, I WOULDN'T clean the house), and we've had some more free time than usual.

However.

Because this is the sixth month of the year, and because I am a diligent, organised parent, a lot of Owen's routine appointments have cropped up and I have chosen to attend them instead of buggering off on holiday for a week or seven. This has meant that two appointments, genetics and Stepping Stones, have occurred back-to-back in the same week. And neither of them are up at CHOW or at my own house, so it's kind of a bitch to get to them and remember how long they're going to take. Anyway, genetics was yesterday and aside from it being a colossal waste of time, it was rather nice to present my son to them and go, "SEE? Isn't he MARVELLOUS?", and for them to go, "Oh yes! What a lovely little boy you have there, and what a REMARKABLE job you're doing with him!" in return. Which is what always happens at these types of appointments. Honestly, I think there must be some real douchebag parents out there, because whenever I see any of Little O's specialists I'm always commended on my parenting skills - particularly my ability to remember which medications he takes, which doctors he sees, dates, times, and past medical history, all without referring to something I've written down.

The trick to remembering it all is quite simple: repeat. Often. At least once a week. Tell every doctor, therapist, nurse, specialist, interested friend, and family members as often as possible, because chances are they won't have remembered a single sodding thing from the last time they saw Little O, and haven't bothered to look at his chart before they entered the room. Trust me, you can get a reputation as an outstanding parent very quickly if you are forced to repeat, repeat, and repeat again your son's medical history every time he sees someone.

The thing is, I'm usually a wreck. Emotionally and physically, I'm a wreck. Because attending appointments means adhering to someone else's schedule, I always arrive looking and feeling completely frazzled. I can't remember the last time I bothered to dry my hair instead of sticking it up in a mess, and as for make-up or checking to see if my clothes are baby-fluid-free ... well ... let's just say they're low on my list of priorities. I turn up at least five minutes early, because to me "on-time" is late, and I have always, always busted a gut to get out of the house with a semi-clean Little O and chewy toys, wipes, diapers, special butt cream, clean t-shirts, clean trousers/shorts, several burp cloths, wallet, diary (planner), phone, car keys, and feeding supplies if they're needed (milk, water, bottles, extension tubing, 60cc syringe, 10ml syringe, bib, sippy cup, semi-solid food, bowl, spoon, plastic baggies, freezer pack, insulated bag). And it always takes me an hour to get to most of our appointments, so I have to shift Little O's feeds around to make sure he's done puking by the time I sit him in his car seat. It isn't fun pulling over on to the hard shoulder to mop him up; oh no, it isn't. Today for example, I was up at 6am just to make sure we arrived at our 10.30am Stepping Stones (SS) clinic appointment on time.

That, quite frankly, is ridiculous.

It's also ridiculous to ask me to add a single sodding thing to my already scheduled-to-death life. The therapists we see at SS all make very helpful suggestions whenever we go, and I'm always pleased to see them, but they make it sound SO simple and they need to know it isn't. Asking me to prepare fresh baby food instead of shop-bought is just not an option right now. I don't have the time to dry my hair, let alone mash some vegetables up! It's completely maddening and today I was kind of at the end of my tether. I sobbed quite a lot this morning before I left the house and I just didn't have the patience to sit through another "helpful suggestion", so I told them quite honestly the things I was, and wasn't, prepared to do. And making fresh food for a child who will not eat anything at all, is so low on my list of priorities that it doesn't even register.

Wait one sec ... this post is nowhere near finished, but Little O has a stinky bottom and the phone's ringing.

To be continued ...

Tina.

Mmm... thanks for that, Bob

2010-06-22T12:24:00.000-05:00

After all the drama at the weekend, I'd like to present to you some more... normal... stuff.

Owen woke up at 4.45am to cry, throw up, and generally annoy both himself and us. All the commotion woke up our cat, Bob, who decided that this was the perfect time to bring us a 'present'. As we settled back down to get another few minutes of kip, Bob was out hunting. And catching. And mauling. At about 5am, I was just nodding off again when the rather alarming sound of a bird twittering and tweeting very close to me brought me to my senses. Now, we had an amazing thunderstorm last night, so my first thought was that we had a hole in our roof and a bird had somehow managed to get inside the attic and couldn't find a way out again. Anyway, it stopped shortly after and as there was no water dripping on to the bed, I figured I'd just deal with it when I got up.

The alarm went off at 5.30am and Mike got up. Now, yesterday he had some minor surgery on his toe (more on that later), so he was kinda hobbling about and knocking shit over in an attempt to re-dress the bandage. So he turned on the light to see all the shit he'd knocked over. And saw instead, horror of horrors, that Bob had not only brought a live bird in to our home, but that he had chosen the spot just outside our bedroom door to play with it and kill it. There was blood and feathers and dead bird carnage EVERYWHERE. Bob, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. He was obviously very pleased with his offering and had gone off to bother some more of Wisconsin's wildlife, and we were so mad at him that we closed his cat flap and locked him outside for a bit.

That poor, poor birdie. It's Bob's fourth present snce we've allowed him outside: three birds and a baby bunny rabbit. The rabbit was very sad, but at least it was a swift, clean kill. This latest one was obviously very distressing for the birdie because I could hear all its twittering as it died. I have no idea if, had I gone to investigate the noise, I could have saved the birdie, but I think it would have been even worse. Bob would have probably released it, and then we would have had a flying, twittering bird in our house with severe injuries. Poor little birdie.

Stupid cat.

So, Mike's toe surgery was to FINALLY fix a problem he's had for eighteen months. Christmas 2008 he went out in the snow to get something from the car, and decided flip flops were the sensible footwear of choice. As the snow was coming down thick and fast, he ran back up the steps to our (then) flat, and slipped on some ice, slamming his big toe into heavy-duty concrete. It's never been right since, and all attempts to help it heal haven't worked. Until yesterday he had a pretty serious ingrowing toenail, and an infected site that oozed pus every day. Well, the doctor whipped that sucker out and GOUGED OUT THE OVERGROWN FLESH that was trying to compensate for a poorly toenail, so that Mike is now left with two-thirds of a big toenail, and two open wounds on each side of the nail. He's pretty miserable and hobbling around with one toe stuck straight up in the air. Also, he can't wear open-toed shoes to work (oh, that he were a woman!), so he's planning some covert operation where he slides his shoes off under his desk and goes barefoot all day. Lol. We'll see how well that goes...

I've also joined a gym where childcare is only $1, but the free weights instructor completely kicked my arse today and I can't be bothered to type any more. Besides, there's still some blood on the carpet upstairs and it's not like I can ask Bob to clean it up.

Tina.

Let's set some stuff straight.

2010-06-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently I've caused quite a stir.

Thankfully, because I'm not obsessed with Twitter I have managed to avoid the 'discussion' (read: people telling me off like a naughty child) about my previous post. And I don't WANT to know what people are saying about me, because a) they do not know me, and b) only three of them have bothered to start a real 'discussion' with me about it on my own sodding blog.

This whole thing started off with this headline: Spoons aren't just for sick people. Apparently this has been deemed EXTREMELY inappropriate in the blogosphere (and I thank my only positive commentator, Jemimaaslana, for bringing this to my attention), EVEN THOUGH the author of the article I linked to (here) uses the word 'sick' herself! Imagine my dismay when I find out people haven't even bothered to look at the original article and explore the rhetoric for themselves. I'd say that's almost as bad as judging me and my blog without engaging me in debate.

So the heading of my post enraged 'Annoymous' (and Anji, I'm totally calling you out on this one. I know it was you and I'm gobsmacked a woman of your drive and passion didn't have the guts to put their name to that comment), and that started a small snowball of anger, judgement and (hee hee) visits to my and Anthea's little innocuous blog about parenting, health and lifestyle choices. People with disabilities (I looked this up in the Guardian Style Guide to be certain, and this is the correct term, so don't you dare shoot me down for any terminology I'm about to use) are apparently very upset that: a) I wrote about a theory which they, and ONLY they are allowed to claim for themselves; b) that I myself am not disabled; and c) that I have the audacity to use the word 'sick' instead of 'disabled', even though (as I mentioned earlier) that is the phrase the author of the original article used herself.

The whole thing has surprised me, to be honest. Readers of my blog posts will know my history of managing a mental illness, looking after a disabled child, and growing up with another. I am not claiming to be disabled myself; I think that's rather stretching it a little, to be honest. What I AM claiming, however, is that I can EMPATHISE with the author of the original article (and if you look back, you'll see that's exactly what I wrote), and use her theory in my own situation. I have been criticised for not 'checking my privilege' and trying to claim words and devices people with disabilities claim for themselves, and themselves only. To me, I can see both sides of the debate. I can understand why a woman would not want a man to claim certain words as his, and I can understand why a man claiming 'female' words for his own is also important to the development of equality. Apply this to any other dichotomy and you'll come up with the same. But no, I do not pretend, or claim, or anything else, to be disabled. I do not qualify for Medicaid, which my son does as he has chronic conditions that cost him, his family, and the state money - so we are assisted. But I do receive treatment for an adjustment disorder with depression and anxiety. It certainly doesn't ENABLE me in any way, but it doesn't DISABLE me, either. I consider it to be neither.

Not that it's anyone else's Goddam business, but I do know a little something of disability. I grew up with it, for a start, and very rarely, if ever, discuss my younger sister's conditions because she is not able to grant me permission to do so. But she has had such a massive impact on my and Anthea's life that for people to fling around comments that I know nothing about disability, is just rude. I also have a son with various health issues, and being a mother to him has caused my mental health to suffer. So again, saying I know nothing is just plain rude. And wrong. And irritating. YOU, on the other hand, know nothing about V, or Little O, or my mental health, because you haven't bothered to ask.

I'm going to keep my previous post up because I stand by what I've said. I also apologise to anyone I've upset or offended, because that was not my intention (and you must see that, if you're honest with yourselves). Perhaps I'll use the Spoon Theory again to illustrate a point, and perhaps I won't. I haven't decided yet. But next Friday, when I'm so exhausted that I cannot lift my head of the floor, I will think about you lot. And I will think about how closed-minded YOU'RE being that you cannot believe a young mother with a mental health issue can ever feel as tired, challenged, or frustrated as you. Because believe me, it isn't the case.

Please, engage with me in a sensible, adult debate on MY blog, where I can respond to you. Don't be cowards and hide your Twitter posts. If you feel that strongly, you shouldn't be afraid of the challenge.

With respect,

Tina.

Spoons aren't just for sick people

2010-06-18T23:11:00.000-05:00

Came across this today: Spoon Theory.

It's definitely worth a read if you have the time.

As I was reading it, I was struck by how much I could relate to this woman. No, I'm not sick in the traditional sense, but I do have a mental health issue and I do take care of a chronically sick child. I too feel as though I only have a certain number of spoons in my hand at any given time, but for me they're weekly allowances, not daily.

Mike was late getting home today because we had extremely violent thunderstorms which knocked out some traffic lights down by his workplace. Plus, people always drive bananas when the rain comes and it takes you three times as long to get anywhere. Anyway, he called me while he was stuck in a traffic jam and to me it was the last straw. By Friday, I'm absolutely exhausted. I have no energy to feed my son, to cook (or even think about) dinner, to tidy up the house, or to run errands in the evening. I feel bone-tired, even though Fridays are usually my least-busy day of the week, and sometimes I just don't have the energy to get off the floor - which is usually where I am on a Friday afternoon. When Mike calls me at the end of the week, he's always so excited to be done with work, and every single time I manage to crush his buoyancy like a particularly annoying mosquito. I just can't bear it when he's so energetic and ... just ... MAD. He's like a small child on Fridays, and after an entire week of taking care of one of those, I just can't face another.

When I'm tired I can't make decisions. I find it hard to function normally, and as my 'normal' involves feeding Little O, I'm often driven to the point of desperation when Mike is late and can't do his Friday 5pm feed. Today I nearly cried when England drew against Algeria because Owen REFUSED to sleep at his usual time, which meant he cried and cried and cried, which meant his stomach muscles contracted like mad, which meant I couldn't get his feeding tube to drain properly, which meant I couldn't get his lunch inside him, which meant he didn't eat his entire lunch, which meant I felt extremely guilty, which meant I was exhausted after two hours of battling reflux and guilt, which meant when England didn't secure a win I was VERY upset. And very, very tired. I could NOT face another round in the ring for Little O's dinner, and I was almost catatonic on the floor when Mike told me he would be late. He came home to me still on the floor, propping Little O up on my arm while his automatic feeding pump whirred in the background. Sure, it takes three times as long to get a meal in him, but when you just don't have the spoons left to fight another battle, it sure as hell makes do.

Today, my spoons are all gone. But tomorrow, thank God, I get a fresh supply.

Tina.

Fckitty fck fck fck

2010-06-16T09:27:00.001-05:00

So, I finished a copyediting project at the beginning of the week (a day early, I might add) and in my e-mail to the sub-editor, I casually mentioned that I hadn't yet been given a brief for Baby Names 2011 (US edition), and seeing as she had told me the manuscript needed to be finished by July, I wanted more information pretty sharpish. I mean, leaving me two and a half weeks to re-write an entire book wasn't really good enough. So she replied by thanking me for my copyedit, and told me that she hadn't yet been given the go-ahead for Baby Names 2011 (US), but she'd let me know as soon as she had.

Then today, I received an e-mail telling me it's no longer going ahead! Ahhhhhh!! Apparently their acquisitions department has royally screwed up, and they have to delay the title by another year ... which means it'll be Baby Names 2012 (US), and I'll start work next May. NEXT MAY!! Honey, I need that cheque THIS year, not next! And let me remind you, YOU approached ME about this title, not the other way around. I was quite content to just mooch along with the UK edition, but the second you told me Crimson was planning a US edition, I got all excited and essentially cleared some time so I could work on it. Now I have nothing. Nada. Zilch. I am at your mercy, and it's not something I'm remotely comfortabe with.

The other balls-up was that Mike forgot to put the bins out this morning. They collect recycling every other week, and now Little O's formula comes in handy-dandy pre-mixed cans, we have A LOT of recycling to get rid of. It's now going to stink up the garage for two weeks and multiply. And I am going to yell at Mike, because it was his fault.

Little O still has an upset stomach, and I've already changed him four times this morning (it's 9.20am). The GI clinic called me back yesterday and they're putting him on some kind of bacteria-bustin' medication because they reckon his digestive tract is still trying to figure out the new formula and is working overtime, producing too much bacteria and whipping food through him too quickly. He's hasn't gained any weight in over a month (hasn't lost any either though, which I suppose is something) and just seems pretty miserable these days. His poor little bottom is absolutely COVERED in a rash, too, because sometimes his poop doesn't smell and I don't catch it in time, so he has to sit in it for a while. The rash has been bleeding the last couple of days, so the GI clinic has also prescribed some fancy-schmancy cream to help clear things up. Poor little baby. I feel very helpless and sorry for him.

Immunology appointment this afternoon. Fingers crossed things aren't THAT bad and he dosn't need transfusions or a bone marrow transplant ... I'll post more once we've seen the docs.

VBAC birth story

2010-06-13T21:16:00.000-05:00

You HAVE to read this: http://thefeministbreeder.com/jules-michael-birth-story/#comment-5084

I've been reading The Feminist Breeder for a few weeks now, but I've never read her incredible story about the birth of her second son. Even if you're not the slightest bit interested in birth and babies, I do recommend you take a peek. What that woman faced from doctors and nurses while in the throws of advanced labour just makes my uterus shrivel up and refuse to bear another child. But she stood her ground and point-blank REFUSED to give up her beliefs, and... well... read it and see...

Read it. It's phenomenal.

New Look!

2010-06-11T20:27:00.000-05:00

No, not the clothing company...

Our blog has a new look! That MASSIVE picture of Little O's feet was driving me nuts, because I couldn't either get it smaller or the blog title bigger and centered. So I scrapped it in favour of a smaller, neater picture to one side, and a new colour scheme to match.

Because let's face it: we're classy.

Our (not so) secret plan

2010-06-06T17:25:00.000-05:00

We're going to have another baby! Well, not RIGHT now, but at some point before this year is up we're going to start trying to have another child.

We love Owen, and one of the reasons we've reached this decision is to benefit him. He doesn't attend a nursery or day care centre, so the amount of interaction he has with other children who are of the same age as him is very limited. It would therefore be lovely if we could provide him with a playmate, and, given Owen's developmental delays, the differences between their ages would be extremely small. We also feel that each child would benefit dramatically from having a sibling so developmentally different from themselves. After all, my younger sister is extremely delayed, but Anthea and I have nothing but good things to say about our experiences growing up with her. She has also benefitted from having us 'normal' siblings around: you can tell she loves us and remembers us each time we see her.

For a very long time, Mike was prepared to have another baby and I said a definite 'no'. I was (and to some extent, still am) extremely nervous about taking care of two small children by myself during the day. Owen's feedings have been so traumatic for me that the thought of mopping up sick with one hand and breastfeeding a newborn in the other just made me break out in a cold sweat. Owen also has so many appointments that my concerns about spending adequate time with each child, and just being able to MAKE all those appointments, has seemed very daunting. My mental health has already suffered in the past year; what's to say it won't spiral even further out of control with the responsibility of another baby?

Well... in the last month or so, life has started to slowly, slowly... creepingly... improve. We changed Owen's formula recently and his feeds have not only been more successful, they've also been quicker. It has meant I have more time to devote to playing with him, doing my own work, and taking care of jobs around the house. Also, now he's turned one, his appointments are starting to ease off a little. He's had as many surgeries as doctors initially anticipated he would when he was born, which means that although we still need to attend yearly appointments, things won't be on the same scale as they have been over the last twelve months. It's true that we have to start dental care visits, and some appointments won't ease off at all, but Owen's body has responded so incredibly well to a growing and healing heart, eyes, head, and brain, that most of the specialists we see are already scaling things back. These changes have been so small, so incremental, that to anyone else they're barely visible, but to ME, they're the difference between health and misery.

For the last six weeks I've been seeing another therapist, and Mike and Owen attended a session with me last week. I feel very good about this course of therapy, as she really listens to what I want, and allows that input to guide my treatment. For example, I think deep-breathing and listening to whale music will do jack, and I smirk loudly whenever people talk about it. Reading a book she's lent me called Coping with Infinite Loss and Grief, however, allows me to analyse my thoughts and behaviour from an analytical standpoint - which is much more up my alley. I also love the fact she has evening hours. It makes such a difference to not have to bring Owen along, and to return to him fresh and allieved of dark thoughts, just in time to put him to bed.

So, the upshot of all this is that I have an appointment to get my last shot of Depo Provera tomorrow, and that will be it. It will wear off in September, and Mike and I will allow nature to take its course from that point on. Apparently the hormones in Depo can take several months to wear off, so I'm not anticipating a baby arriving next May, but it's kind of nice to have a timeframe in mind. Maybe by Christmas I'll have some good news.

Tina.

Bigger blog

2010-05-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

Since Owen's birthday on May 17th, things have been a bit of a whirlwind. He has had a birthday party, some professional photos taken, surgery and a stay in hospital overnight, a change in formula, and a pretty nasty stomach bug.

It's a shame I'm not keen on sharing photos of my son on this annoymous blog, otherwise I'd load up some from his awesome birthday party. It was brilliant. Every child ought to have a first birthday just like it. Mike's family came out to visit for the occasion and I invited about twenty other friends and their small children too. We had a barbeque using our very American gas-powered outdoor grill, which fires up in about three minutes and cooks meat and veggies perfectly - as long as Mike is watching it. We also had a friend make some cheesecakes to use as birthday cakes. Owen can't manage completely solid food yet, so some creamy, delicious goodness seemed like a nice halfway point between proper sponge cake and liquid baby food. It meant we could stick a candle in it too, which for some reason was very important to me. Owen's guests were extremely generous with presents and he received some incredible clothes and toys. Every single thing was obviously thought-about too, because friends of mine know how much I can't stand gendered toys, and that Owen requires clothes that don't interfere with his tube feedings. He received very gender-neutral toys and clothes, and there was nothing I thought we'd have to put away for a bit until he's able to use it. I was also very pleased that people listened to my (polite) request that he be given toys to help his development. Not every toy aimed at one-year-olds is appropriate for my little boy, but there are items out there which will kick-start a new stage in his growth - such as an adorable walking device that babies can either sit on or push in front of them, that we have named Lionel the Lion. It roars. So does Owen.

On his actual birthday, which was a Monday, I took Little O to get some professional photos taken. Out here it is perfectly normal to get photos done ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY. I have friends who took professional shots every month for the first year of their son's life, and others who don't let a national holiday pass without marching in to a photo studio: Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day; their daughter has a portrait for all of 'em. I, however, prefer to be a cheap-ass mother, and felt that some nice photographs to commemorate the first year in my son's extremely challenging life were more than appropriate. Owen had other plans, of course, and didn't smile for the camera for most of the session. Of the thirty-or-so shots the photographer took, only four or five were nice enough to use. I ordered some for home and family, but it's not something I plan on doing every year. But this year was special.

On the Wednesday of Birthday Week, Owen had surgery to repair his cleft palate and take off that fucking ugly ear tag he's had since he was born. He was a complete trooper during and after his operation, and my mouth fails me when I try to describe how brave and strong he is. His fourth operation in a year, and he's such a superstar. My heart just swells with pride at the strength of his character, and I tell him that every day. He has to wear these ridiculous arm restraints for two weeks so he doesn't suck on his fingers and pop open his stitches - yuk. It's incredibly hot over here at the moment (yesterday it was 82F/28C) and those restraints stink like a son of a bitch with Owen's sweat. Thankfully we have two pairs and I've been able to wash them, but they're still not nice for him to wear in the heat and I haven't been particularly diligent about him wearing them when he's fussy. At the moment he has a horrible stomach bug, and it seems cruel to deny him the comfort of sucking on his fingers or thumb when he's feeling crappy. I've been watching him to make sure he doesn't get too aggressive and potentially harm the surgical site, and so far, so good.

On Monday of this week I took him up to the GI clinic to see if we could change his formula. He's been on Neocate since he was born, which is a hypoallergenic, amino-acid based formula suitable for children who just won't tolerate anything else. After Owen passed his allergy study a couple of weeks ago, his doctors have been keen to move him on to something with higher calories and a cheaper price tag. So now he's on something called Pediasure, which is widely available and comes pre-mixed. Hallelujah! Unfortunately, the night we started weaning him on to it, he came down with a stomach bug and temperature, and hasn't been tolerating feeds of any large volumes at all. I'm just hoping it's the bug and not the formula.

I do feel guilty when Owen gets ill, because I take down the amount of food I give him. When he's ill he throws up more, regardless of whether the bug is respitory or gastrointestinal, so it seems cruel to push as much food as I can in to his stomach, only for him to bring it up violently and with great distress. So I tend to ignore our regular schedule (8am, 12pm, 5pm and overnight starting at 8.30pm) and allow him to sleep as much as he wants to. It does mean though that not only does he miss complete feeds, he doesn't even get a full feed when he does eat. It's that ever-present issue of trying to do what's best for him versus what keeps him happy: balancing his nutritional needs with his comfort. He's so unwell at the moment that he's waking up every ten minutes or so at night (don't even get me started on how exhausted I am after the last two nights), and throwing up his overnight feed, which means he's not getting that full amount either. I feel very guilty when he doesn't gain weight during an illness, but I try and remember that if he were a normal child, fed in a normal way, then he'd probably be refusing to eat anyway. This is a similar thing, I guess.

In a couple of weeks I take Owen in to discuss the results of an immunology study he had done. His doctor called me and requested I bring him in, which scares the bejesus outta me. Apparently some of his 'levels' came back too low, which is a strong indicator of an immune deficiency disorder. Those are pretty scary and something which I know next to nothing about. I just hope it's not so bad he eventually requires a bone marrow transplant, or infusions every month. The more stuff I can manage from home, the better.

Owen qualified for Medicaid! Hurrah! Too dull to explain here, but it means that a lot of our financial problems associated with his care will now be handled by the state of Wisconsin. This is fantastic news and I'm just waiting for him number to arrive in the post so I can call all his healthcare providers and tell them to stick their medical bills up their arse. I will relish every single call.

Tina.

Owen is one!

2010-05-17T19:54:00.001-05:00

Just a quickie: Owen turned one today!

Really, really happy and I'll update more later this week. He has surgery and some other stuff, so there will be plenty to write about...

Tina.

Ten. TEN!!

2010-05-10T10:54:00.000-05:00

As I was brushing Owen's teeth last night, I thought I saw a flash of white in the corner of his mouth. Concerned he'd tried to eat something he shouldn't have, I explored his mouth with a finger and found not one... not two... not even three... but FOUR teeth I didn't know he had! That brings his total to ten. I cannot believe my child has managed to grow four more teeth that I was completely unaware of. And this comes from someone who brushes his teeth twice a day and tries desperately to shove food in to his gob another three. TEN! I was impressed last week with six. Now I'm close to passing out...

Mother's Day in America was yesterday, which was kinda cool. In keeping with last year's pre-baby/motherhood theme, Owen (Mike, ahem) bought me new bedding. Last year was some glorious stuff for our main bedroom and this year it was a new quilt set for the guest room we've just finished redecorating. I also got a fancy schmancy breakfast cooked for me and some flowers. The breakfast gave both me and Mike mild food poisoning overnight, but it was worth it. Hahaha.

I've also discovered I really enjoying mowing the lawn. That's not in the least bit interesting, I do realise, but there's something very calming about sticking on some headphones and just getting on with it. Plus we share some lawn at the front with two neighbours, and there's an immense satisfaction about having a neater lawn than them, even if it's only for 24 hours.

I had a really long list of stuff I wanted to write about in my head earlier and now I've forgotten nearly everything. Ho hum.

Tina.

Seattle and other stuff

2010-05-04T10:55:00.001-05:00

Since I last updated, Owen and I took a short break to Seattle to see some friends who moved out there last year. I was pregnant when they moved so they've never met Owen, and it was really nice to travel out there and do some catching-up. They have a two-year-old who is completely off the wall, and it was hilarious watching her interact with Owen, wondering on earth they were making of each other.

I'm pretty impressed with myself for managing this trip alone to be honest, as there was a four hour flight out there, and (once you calculate in all the frickin' delays and shit) an even longer one home. And not only that, but on the Wednesday before we left Owen woke up with a cough, which slowly became an absolutely horrendous sinus infection, complete with five minute cycles in the middle of the night of falling asleep, coughing, waking up and then throwing up. I'm not kidding or exaggerating - every. single. five. minutes. We left home Thursday morning after me seriously considering not going, and that night was possibly one of the worst I've ever endured with my son. The last time things were so bad was in September, when he was not only recoving from hernia surgery, but also had pneumonia AND a 48-hour EEG monitor stuck to his head. Yup, that was pretty bad, but at least Mike and I were in it together and we were in our own home. This time I was by myself in someone else's flat. I felt absolutely miserable and exhausted the next day, which really put a dampner on the entire trip. He did improve slightly over the next few days, but he was still very poorly on Sunday during the flight home, so Mike took Monday off work to help me get some rest and to take Owen to the doctor. You know things are bad when Mike takes time off work.

Little O is now responding to antibiotics and seems basically back to himself again, other than being a bit more sleepy and cuddly than usual - which I am in no way complaining about! He's back on the nebulizer for a bit and the antibiotics are making his poo purple, but other than that things are getting back to normal.

I'm so glad I went to Seattle, even if it was incredibly tiring. Now I can REALLY put up an argument when people humm and harr about flying with small children. Get over it! Heavens; if I can fly solo across a continent with a very poorly, tube-fed, refluxing 11-month-old, then you can fly with your very normal, healthy child, fully supported by a spouse!

Removed content for editing

But Seattle was nice!

Tina.

What was the point of that then?

2010-04-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

After yesterday's debacle, I was sorta expecting an improvement in today's activites. Well, things didn't go quite as badly as Monday, but one majorly stoopid thing did.

We're up at CHOW at least once a month, and sometimes more than once a week. Well, even though I officially hate the drive up there after my speeding ticket yesterday (AND that bastard cop was waiting in exactly the same spot today in the other direction, catching us 'criminals' while we ferry our little darlings to and from the hospital), I had to do it again today for a Gastric Emptying Study. (It's not a proper noun, but I feel it adds gravitas, don't you?)

The point of a GES is to observe how the stomach and digestive tract responds to food, and how long it takes said food to move through a child's system until there is no trace of it left in the stomach. Usually this takes about 90 minutes. So, we arrived at 11am as instructed, after skipping Owen's breakfast to ensure his stomach was empty. Most children would be extremely put out about skipping a meal, but Owen quite frankly couldn't have cared less - in fact, his mood was better than usual because he hadn't spent several hours blowing chunks. Anyway, we started the test after a fairly lengthy discussion as to how much food to put in to O's stomach, at what rate, and what they'd be looking for during the study. They wanted to put in as much as he normally gets in an hour over five minutes, but I had to point out that if you put in that much in anything less than one hour, Owen WILL throw up. So the technician suggested half. I suggested a quarter. We settled on one third.

She pushed one third of his food (about 60ml) in to his g-tube over seven minutes, during which time we discussed how the test would conclude. Either Owen wouldn't reflux at all and would lie perfectly still for 90 minutes while the scan followed some radioactive material through his stomach, or he would throw up everything she'd just pushed in and the test would be over.

Natually, my son did just that. About twenty seconds after she'd clamped his g-tube closed, he spurted a fountain of formula all over his chest, and the test was over.

So, I wasted two 40 minute drives and a half hour in a radiology lab for the technician to tell me that Owen had failed the test. I'll say! She couldn't even get the equipment up and running before that child threw up! Failure is always an option in our household.

I did TELL her he'd throw up. She really should have listened.

Tina.

Oh. My. Good. God.

2010-04-19T15:34:00.000-05:00

First off, I couldn't weigh myself this morning because before I could, the toilet overflowed.

Mike gets up earlier than me (at 5am, which is plainly ridiculous), and this morning he took the opportunity a dark, quiet house offered him and spent some time on the toilet doing whatever it is men do in there for sooooo long. After he left (5.30am: still ridiculous), I slept for another hour or so, then got up at 7am to start my day. I went in to the bathroom, lifted the lid of the toilet, and noticed that Mike either hadn't flushed when he'd finished, or our toilet was clogged. So, because it was 7am and I'm not at my most coherent at that time of the morning, I decided to give it another flush to *ahem* help things along.

Oh. My. Good. God.

The toilet literally vomited out its entire contents on to the bathroom floor, including everything Mike had deposited there earlier. I think I screamed, or whimpered, or did something fairly sissy-ish, and then grabbed some old towels and literally threw them on the floor, thinking this would somehow help. It did not. To use the term "chunky water" is not something I do light-heartedly, but I feel it's appropriate in this instance. It was brown, yellow and had dark chunks of godawfulness floating in it. I then jumped over the towels on to a dry patch and chucked down the pan some de-clogging gel we have in the cupboard, shut the door and scarpered. This, my dear friends, is MIKE'S FAULT, and I am fully prepared to sacrifice some towels and bathmats if it means I don't have to *literally* clean up my husband's shit.

I did tell him about it though. I didn't let him discover it for himself at a later time. That would have just been cruel.

So, after this incident at 7am, I realised I was running late. Owen had to up, changed and eating by 8am, and I had to have the house clean, myself dressed and him done with refluxing by 10am because the Occupational Therapist was coming over for an assessment. I think Owen knew how stressed I already was, because halfway through his feed he took supreme pleasure in doing one of the largest dumps he's ever done, and it exploded out of his nappy on to his back, legs, highchair, blankets and, once I got him on to the floor to change him, the carpet, his hands and some of me.

Oh. My. Good. God.

I got him cleaned up, met with the OT, fed Owen again and made it to CHOW with about ten minutes to spare. Met with his Craniofacial doctor (the one we don't like) and his fabulously glam new nurse (whom we do), and left CHOW feeling much more upbeat. So upbeat, in fact, I turned up the stereo and put my foot down on the motorway. The speed limit went down to 55mph at one point due to road works, so I natually slowed down a little bit, then when it changed back to 65mph, I sped up to 73mph. This is the speed I normally do on the motorway, and as I'm constantly being overtaken my other vehicles doing in excess of 80mph, I think nothing of it. Today, this was not the case.

Oh. My. Good. God.

Not ONLY did I get my first ever speeding ticket, but because I sped up to 73mph coming out of a 55mph work zone, my fine was doubled.. DOUBLED!! I have gone from having a clean, perfect driving record to points on my licence and a $236 fine. I was gobsmacked. Well behaved in front of the police officer, but gobsmacked. And I'm too ashamed to tell Mike. I may have seen his shit, but telling him I have a speeding ticket is cheek-burning embarrasing because I'm always crowing my superior driving skills at him.

After all this nonsense I decided to call my sister in the UK to find out about her weekend under some Icelandic volcanic ash, and whether or not she made it to her friend's wedding out in Ireland, but our sodding phones kept disconnecting and I only got as far as Owen's blowout. This is too bad, because I really, really, REALLY need to vent.

They say things come in threes, but my day has already had so much crap in it (literally!), that I'm just expecting more of the same later on. What a disasterous Monday.

Tina.

My Feminist High Horse

2010-04-05T16:26:00.000-05:00

Weight: ??

Who gives a toss? It was Easter weekend! Nom nom nom nom...

On to some more interesting stuff. There was a very interesting article on The F Word last week called Fertile Feminism, all about being both a mother and a feminist. It raises issues such as finding yourself excluded from demonstrations because they are un-child-friendly, or ending up being a stay-at-home parent (read: Mother) because someone's career had to give, and your's was the lesser-paid of the two. Hmm. I think I've felt that somewhere before...

Once again, let me say: I KNOW I am extremely fortunate to be able to stay at home with my son every day and watch him grow up. I acknowledge that there must be millions of parents who want to have exactly what I have. HOWEVER... the reality of raising him myself 80% of the time is something quite different to the rose-tinted image working parents have of staying at home. My life is basically all about nappies, sleep, appointments and the dreaded, ugly, frustrating feeds. Yes, Owen makes me laugh, and yes, I love to watch him learn something new (currently it's bouncing in his exer-saucer... he's had it for the last six months and only just figured out the thing can mooooove), but at some point, every single flipping day for the last ten months, I have had a meltdown. Usually it's crying, but it might also be some mild violence (doors are good for slamming and cushions just deserve to be thumped), or even me just putting my screaming baby in his cot and walking into another room for ten minutes to get a grip. In short: staying at home for me every day has never been a choice; it's never felt like a choice; and I resent the "choice" my partner gets to make in my place.

Because I was made redundant when I was six months pregnant (once again: WHO DOES THAT?) and I wanted to pursue a different career anyway, it seemed logical that it should be my responsibility to take care of our child when he arrived. Well, ten months down the line and nothing has changed. Okay, my third book is being published at the end of the year, and I've been able to make a limited means doing something I enjoy, but essentially my career was over before it even began. I've been trying to figure out how to get a part-time job in retail, but as Mike would have to look after Owen while I'm out, the only real hours I have free are evenings/nights and weekends, which mean I'd either get no sleep or have no free time with Mike. Or both. So once again, I am unable to bring in any sort of meaningful contribution to the household finances and I cannot tell you how much I HATE THAT.

I wish Owen were healthier for so many, many reasons. I mourn the loss of the Owen I didn't get to know: the one who developed normally and is already starting to toddle around. My Owen, my beautiful, sweet, stubborn Owen, has so many struggles and set-backs and yet he has the kindest, nicest temperament of any baby I currently know. He only cries when he's very tired or if he's refluxing, and the rest of the time he's all smiles and cuddles and wriggly-bottoms. I just wish that this lovely little boy were around all the time, because I know that in forty minutes I have to feed him again, and out will come the confused, in-pain baby I have to force to eat. It's torture for both of us. I wish he were healthier so he could enjoy his food and spend more time learning how to crawl, or stand, or play with blocks like other babies. I also wish he were healthier so he didn't have to have his fourth surgery two days after his first birthday, and his fifth a month after that. I wish he didn't have to adhere to such a tight schedule and he could just tell me when he was hungry, and again when he was full. And I also wish he were healthier so I could let him play at a daycare centre once in a while and I could work.

I try so hard not to wish for things I cannot have, because it doesn't help me and it certainly doesn't help Owen, but...

I still do.

Tina.

Week...err... four?

2010-03-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

Weight: 211.2lb

This, obviously, is a big kick in the gonads. I am extrememely irritated I didn't reach 210, which was my goal for this week. I feel like eating a big slice of cake just to piss off my scale.

In other news, my weekend was a complete and utter disaster from start to finish. I had a deadline due Monday morning for Crimson and because I am both excellent at working under pressure AND being a lazy bum until the last minute, I didn't start my work until last Thursday. This is not normally an issue because I'm pretty quick at what I do, but I didn't expect BOTH our computers to pack in on Saturday morning. I cannot describe with enough anger and frustration exactly what happened, but just know this: Windows 7, Microsoft, Office and our internet can all take a scalding hot bath in some freshly laid cow shit. I finally gave in on Sunday and took my poorly laptop in to Geek Squad, and after threatening to cut off various parts of their anatomies, those chaps fixed my machine that afternoon. Our iMac is still down (still blaming the idiots at Best Buy who swore blind to us that just inserting a Windows 7 disc on a machine with Snow Leopard would work... oh how WRONG THEY WERE) and we're kind of afraid to turn it on again, because every time we do it reboots and reboots and reboots and reboots and reboots... and either the iMac is going out the window or one of us is...

Poor Mac. We miss you.

Owen is doing well and still laughing at everything we wave in front of his face. He's starting to look like a little boy rather than a baby, which is both incredibly exciting and yet leaves me a little bit sad. I've already forgotten what he sounded like as a premature babba (a kitten, incidentally, but I can no longer bring it to memory), and while I love the way he interacts with us now, I do miss just lying back on our oh-so-American recliner chair and falling asleep with him on my shoulder. Jey-sus, if I tried to do that now I'd either get an elbow in the eye or a kick in the stomach.

We've changed his feeding schedule (again) and we're trying out a new thing with our food pump. Now he eats only three times a day, and the rest of his food is pumped continuously in to his tummy overnight. We scoffed at first and were extremely reluctant to try it, but I'm so glad we overcame our intense dislike of the pump and got it working, because he is an absolute champion at using this method. He didn't like it at first because ever since we brought him home from the NICU almost a year ago, he's fallen asleep in the living room in either his high chair or our arms while being fed. Now he has to go to sleep by himself in his cot a whole half-hour before he used to (9.30pm instead of 10pm) and pretty much stay there until 7.30am. Thankfully he takes after moi, because once we've settled him, he does stay asleep all night and is happy to remain in bed the next morning. If he were more like Mike he'd be fast asleep at 7pm and wake my sorry arse up at 5am. We did feel sorry for him when we first changed things around because he was so confused and cried and cried and cried, but four nights in and he's settling down after only five minutes. Result! He's sleeping so much better and of course, his food is staying in his tummy. Our next challenge is to build up the amount he gets overnight and reduce his day time feeds, so that he's only eating enough during the day to satisfy his hunger, and not so much he's puking his guts out. Watch this space.

Tina.

Things which confuse me...

2010-03-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

1. The difference between "that" and "which". I really ought to know this by now, seeing as I correct other people's grammatical errors for a living.

2. Why people iron baby clothes. Or children's clothes, for that matter. Actually... I don't know why people bother to iron on a regular basis at all. I certainly don't and I'm still alive.

3. Gender stereotypes.

4. Why chocolate isn't good for me.

5. Manual gearboxes on cars. Yes, I learnt to drive in a manual and I even passed my test in one, but now I've been solely driving an automatic for the last five years, a manual really baffles me. Biting point... what?

6. Vegans. Vegetarians, I get. Vegans, I don't.

7. Bob. He's just TOO Bob sometimes, as I said to Mike last night. The cat needs Zoloft.

8. Wisconsin weather.

9. Illinois drivers.

10. Why people in this country don't want healthcare reform, and they use the "Socialist" UK as an example of it not working. Firstly, the USA IS Socialist, and secondly, the NHS might have its flaws, but it seems to be trotting along just fine.

Tina.

Day Fifteen / Week Three

2010-03-22T12:57:00.000-05:00

Weight: 212.6

Not such a great loss this week, but still a loss. It snowed over the weekend, unbelievably, which put paid to my walking trips with Owen, and I think that's what's done it.

Plus the pizza I ate on Saturday. Heh heh. :)

Owen's healing nicely still and I've discovered new ways to make him laugh, so I spend most of my days attempting to do just that. He doesn't laugh like other babies, but instead of that making me sad, it makes me proud of him. He probably doesn't have the same understanding and intelligence as other children (although that's just a theory at this point), so for him to understand that a soft toy Eeyore kissing him on the nose is funny... well... that's pretty mega. I don't know whether he recognises that the toy has a face and characteristics, or if it's just the sensation of the fur tickling his nose, but he gets a kick out of it nonetheless. I do think it's the former though, because I started just approaching his nose and he'd start giggling. He was also facing away from me, so I know it wasn't me he was laughing at. Either way, it's a wonderful thing to hear his little laugh and to know he's interacting with his world.

His PT thinks he may skip crawling altogether, which doesn't surprise me. She reckons he'll figure out walking "soon" (in Owen terms that could mean another six to twelve months), so I'm trying to not feel heartbroken that he's not going to crawl. Little heartbreaks. Every day.

Things were pretty bad over the weekend, being trapped inside by the snow and getting frustrated that we'd eaten all the healthy food we had in the house and there was nothing left but pre-diet crap. Mike and I had several rows and finally started talking about Big Issues on Sunday. I won't air my dirty laundry here, but we got to a place I never thought we'd see. It made me realise that I'm not over my depression, and how it's manifesting itself is affecting Mike far more than I thought. He asked me what I needed to be happy, and after a long, long think, I decided that I need him to be the strong one for a change. I can take care of Owen if he takes care of me. In addition, I made an appointment to see a doctor for the first time since the birth to try and get to the bottom of several complaints, including this unshakable black cloud. It irritated me the way the receptionist wanted to know why I needed to see the doctor (to enter into their "system"), so I told her it was because I'm concerned about my iron levels. I am, but that's not the reason I'm going in, and quite frankly the truth is none of her goddam business.

He'll probably tell me I'm overweight. Sigh.

Tina.

Day Eight and Surgery Stuff

2010-03-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Weight: 214.1 lb

Well, I dropped over 5 lb, which is pretty cool! Diet went really, really well last week until Friday, when I abandoned all pretenses at the hospital and shared a Galaxy bar my fantastic friend J had imported from the UK. I think we all deserved it, given the situation. And I'm back on track now.

Owen's surgery went very well, although his left eye isn't nearly as open as his right and this is causing both me and his surgeon a bit of concern. If it's just some extra swelling squeezing it shut then given enough time, it will look the same as the right. However, if the stitches have come open or Owen has rubbed his eye somehow, then he'll have to go back to the hospital for an adjustment. Other than that though, things have been going well. We have to apply an ointment to the corneas and incisions four times a day to help things heal and stop his eyes drying out, which is utterly exhausting and Owen absolutely loathes it. In addition, as he also had tubes put in his ears to relieve the excess fluid build-up that was preventing his eardrums from vibrating properly, we have to put drops in his ear canals twice daily. He doesn't like that much either. AND we have to give him antibiotics by mouth (read: tube) four times a day AND cover his eyes in these strange metal shields at night to help keep things moist. He likes none of these activities and I'm so pleased the surgeon said we can start cutting back on everything from today.

You know, I'm really really tired. I feel as though I can never sleep enough, although I get around seven hours a night usually, and catch up on naps at the weekend. I think the burden of caring for Owen is just wearing me down, although I don't resent doing it. I just wish I were able to trust someone, anyone else to do it for a few days to give me a rest. I want a week off. It occurred to me today (sitting on the loo, of course), that I haven't had a real day off since before Owen was born. Such is the life of a mother who stays at home, I guess. Mike gets days off from work but even when that happens, I'm still working. It may be my fault, but I can't even relinquish control to him when he is home, because he often forgets the most basic of Owen's needs. Take Owen's nighttime routine, for example: every night we have the same routine of medications, changing into pyjamas and a bedtime feed. Every other night we bathe Owen as well. With all the extra gumph post-surgery, this routine is currently taking us a good 45 minutes, which we start at 9.00pm in order to start his bedtime feed at 10.00pm. SO... I always have one eye on the clock, making sure we get things started on time, and when 9pm rolls around I turn to Mike and tell him it's time. His usual response? "What needs doing?"

"What ALWAYS needs doing, Mike?"

Sigh. Then he'll act surprised at my tone and ask what he should start doing. Oh, I don't know! How about you just START doing SOMETHING? I feel I need to double-check everything he's up to, just to make sure he doesn't miss a dose of a medication, puts a new gauze around Owen's mic-key button, or even just gets the right volume of formula ready. If I don't, something always goes amiss and I'm really tired of being the safety net.

Don't get me wrong: Mike is a fantastic father and I do think that if I left him and Owen alone for a weekend that Owen would eventually get everything he needs, but to me that's not good enough. I need a partner who is on the same wavelength and is already thinking about what step comes next before I have to turn to him at 9pm and tell him so. I need a 24-hour father, just like I'm a 24-hour mother.

Tina.

Surgery

2010-03-11T15:40:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow is Owen's surgery date. Not a lot to add to that, other than to please keep him in your thoughts and wish him a speedy recovery afterwards. He's a trooper, is our little lad.

I'll add more post-surgery, but as I've been telling my family and friends: no news is good news.

Tina.

Day Two

2010-03-09T15:14:00.000-06:00

Not too bad today, although I had to eat sushi for the first time ever and thought it was absolutely revolting. Who on earth thinks something that cold and slimy is delicious? Eugh. I have to eat it again on Thursday but I reckon a substitution might be in order.

Ick.

I also had to eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich (not nearly as exciting or fatty as you'd imagine), and while the thought of peanut butter on its own is enough to make me retch, eating it on soft wholemeal bread with some blackberry jam wasn't too bad. One demon conquered, anyway.

Don't know what my weight is today because I'm only weighing myself once a week, but my walk with Owen was much nicer than yesterday because it wasn't as cold. He didn't fall asleep though, which was a shame.

I have lots of other thoughts going around my head but this isn't the time to write them down. Soon. Soon.

Tina.

Day One

2010-03-08T16:51:00.000-06:00

I have debated and debated over whether or not to put my real weight on here for all and sundry to read and gasp at. I have come to the conclusion that, unless I face the truth and my eating demons, I will continue to be overweight, unhealthy and a bad influence on my son as he grows up. Therefore, here is the first of hopefully many entries about how the new lifestyle is going.

Weight: 219.4 lb

I CANNOT believe that figure and I am absolutely horrified. Admittedly my clothes don't fit me very well any more, and I don't do any exercise at all, but STILL. That is completely and utterly disgusting. I was 194 lb when I had my first weigh-in at the doctors when I initially got pregnant in September 2008, so that is my first major milestone. Before that though, I have a few minor milestones to reach, starting with the first five pounds. I would like to eventually be 150 lb, but I'm planning on taking this slowly and changing my eating habits for good, so that particular goal may take some time. And that's okay.

The new eating plan is more time-consuming than I anticipated, but I'm going from heating up chilli and topping it with cheese in the microwave, so let's face it: anything else will of course be time consuming. I like the hummus and hard-boiled eggs combo though, even if it required over an hour's preparation time. Yum.

I also got out for a walk today with Owen today. That was fun and put him to sleep, so double win.

I promise not to get too dull and weight-focused, but I do need to write these things down so I'm accountable for myself, my eating and my exercise habits. If you think it's boring, move on! This blog is a way for me to write down things for ME, so that is what I intend to do.

I'm looking forward to being healthier and having more energy for Owen. :)

Tina.

Twenty things to be thankful for

2010-03-06T21:11:00.000-06:00

1. Owen is alive.
2. Spring has finally arrived and I don't have to wear umpteen layers to leave the house anymore.
3. Now the weather's warmer I am able to take Owen out for walks again.
4. Our kitchen is nearly finished.
5. There are many, many people out there in the world who love me and my son, and think about us every single day.
6. One of those people is my mother-in-law, who sent us about one hundred home-baked cookies the other day, just because she thought we'd like them.
7. Owen has begun some pre-crawling movements, which gives me hope.
8. I am able to make a small living doing something I absolutely love, while staying at home with my son.
9. I am starting my new diet on Monday and the food sounds both delicious and cheaper than our normal processed stuff.
10. Owen's surgery is on Friday... finally.
11. I have several fantastic friends who have already booked themselves in to come to Owen's first birthday party in May, as well as Mike's entire family.
12. One of these fantastic friends is accompanying me to Owen's surgery so I don't go to pieces.
13. Two other fantastic friends are preparing some dishes for me and Mike so we don't have to cook when Owen comes home from the hospital.
14. I am learning something new everyday, and putting most of it to good use.
15. Owen will qualify for Katie Beckett Medicaid, which will eliminate most, if not all, of our remaining medical expenses for him this year.
16. A remarkable family donated nine cans of Owen's expensive formula to us, which is about half a month's supply.
17. I have some new music to jive along to.
18. I have a wonderful, supportive husband who works incredibly hard.
19. My PPD now only rears its ugly head every so often, and I know what it is now so I'm better at dealing with it.
20. My son is both beautiful and hilarious and I love him more than he'll ever fully realise.

Radical Parenting

2010-03-04T09:53:00.000-06:00

Watched a very, very cool documentary on Discovery Health last night called Radical Parenting. Check out The Feminist Breeder's blog (see sticker on the right) for more info.

Can't write much more right now as Owen has the stinkiest nappy you've every smelt, but I'll try and update more about why this show was so cool later.

Tina.

Some days you just have to throw in the towel

2010-03-01T10:26:00.000-06:00

Today did NOT start off well, I'll be honest with you.

First off, Mike's car is on the blink and he's not the most organised of people so it's still at the mechanics, a mere three days after he took it in. I wouldn't mind so much if they were actually working on the thing, but seeing as they can't identify the problem yet and Mike hasn't given them permission to do any unauthorised work, it's been there since Friday in the same blinkin' state it started in. Sigh. So today he has my car, which means I can't leave the house. I got all excited for about ten minutes planning a walk with Owen, but then I remembered the buggy's in the boot and Mike won't have thought to take it out before he left at 5.30am. Double sigh.

The next thing to go wrong was Owen waking up at 6am. This isn't SO bad, but seeing as I don't usually feed him until 7am, it was kind of irritating to have to go in to his room and shush him, then not be able to go back to sleep for the extra hour because my body assumed getting out of bed meant getting out of bed.

Well, Owen's feed was, as usual, a spectacular fountain of puke. We are down to the barest essentials now with his clothes as he's growing at an alarming rate (he's nine months old and yesterday we noticed he'd grown out of his 12-month babygrows. Awesome), and all the burp cloths are filthy from the weekend. I know it's not much, but not having anything clean and/or fitting for him just really, really gets to me. I mean, if he HAS to throw up constantly, the very least I can do for him as a parent is keep him clean and wearing clothes. I dunno... it just seemed relentless this morning.

So, after all this nonsense, I settled down on the laptop to load the internet... and the thing doesn't work. Argh. After FOUR attempts to get to my desktop in an hour it finally calmed down... and the internet doesn't work! Apparently there's an issue with my wireless card and I'm so far past caring about the waste of my life I just invested in it that I can't even bring myself to discuss it. Needless to say, the laptop is now lying abandoned on the floor and I'm on the big Mac. Mac = much better. I think my next machine will be a Notebook Air, or whatever they're called. They just never seem to fail!

Well... after FINALLY getting online here, I check my e-mails and what do I find? An innocent e-mail from my publishers. After waiting a whole week, sleeping badly and chewing my nails down to the quick... they are not picking up my proposal.

BASTARDS!!

I sulked for a good hour after reading that, then sent them a cursory e-mail thanking them for their time and informing them I'll be finding another publisher. It WILL get published, mark my words.

Anyway, after all this mayhem and foolishness this morning, I decided to treat myself to some new music on iTunes. I finally found that bitchin' song I love from Abby and Luka's wedding on Season 13 of ER and have been jamming away to it ever since. Because sometimes when things go wrong, you just have to throw in the towel and jam out to this:

"Can't Stop" by Ozomatli

Tina.

Ideas and work

2010-02-22T13:39:00.000-06:00

I finished off a copyediting project last night and diligently sent it off to the publishers so they had it first thing Monday morning. Finishing writing projects always gets me really fired up, so I had a terrible night's sleep and was up an HOUR before the alarm clock went off. Thing is, I haven't even felt the effects yet because while I was working on the manuscript over the weekend, I had a fantastic idea for a book. I put something together last night and asked my publishers if they would accept a book proposal from me today, which they said they would. So this morning I put together my first ever book proposal... which is weird considering I've already had two of the blighters published... but now I'm extremely nervous waiting to hear back from them. It's like waiting for your essay marks back at university, or even better: a pregnancy test.

I personally think my proposal is a total winner, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? I'm not going to tempt fate and start spreading my ideas all over the internet like Nutella (nom nom nom), but I really do think it's a corker. I'm also rather chuffed with the way I wrote the proposal, managing to incorporate all the things I love about Crimson without sucking up, and really getting detailed on the chapter synopses. I really, really hope they pick it up, and that all this waiting and no news is actually good news. Maybe my editor has taken it to someone higher up the chain of command and they're mulling it over during a morning meeting tomorrow. Either way, I'm still checking my e-mails every other minute - even though I know the UK is six hours ahead and they'll have all gone home by now.

If this one does go into publication it'll be my third book, but the only one I'll own the rights to. I think I can choose to sell the copyright to the publishers for a fee, or receive royalties instead. It's kind of a niche market I'm aiming at so I'll probably go with the fee, but even so... THIRD BOOK! Mike said I'll sound like a proper author now.

Oh, and Baby Names 2011 is going ahead, which will technically be a second edition (the first being Baby Names 2010), but I'm counting it as a whole 'nother book. So there. Creepy Rich (*shudder*) bought a copy of Baby Names 2010 for his wife as she's expecting their first child, and messaged me on Facebook to sign it. So far I've avoided that particular minefield but it's only a matter of time before my ego is stroked to excess and I give in. After all, there is something wickedly cool about signing your own books.

Tina.

The Winter Olympics

2010-02-19T10:10:00.000-06:00

I have noticed something extraordinary about the Winter Olympics this year: I have changed my opinion dramatically about what events are worth watching. For instance, women's figure skating used to get me tuned in every time, but this year I've noticed the men's single figure skating is FAR more exciting than the women's. I think it's because the men are allowed to just go for it and let loose on the ice, whereas women are still supposed to be graceful and elegant, even while throwing themselves about in the most extraordinary positions. To be fair, the single women's competition hasn't aired yet, but looking at the women in the double's competition, it seems that they're just... well... duller.

I think this change in me has happened because when I was younger I always wanted to BE a figure skater (or a gymnast, or a dancer, or a paramedic, or a midwife, or a lorry driver, or a "stone lady"...), so I'd watch these tiny little skaters with the sure knowledge that I could also do what they were doing, if I only chose to do so. Now I'm older and the skaters are pretty much ALL younger than me (humph), I've noticed that the male competitors are able to perform much more advanced jumps and twists, which makes for more interesting viewing. I've gone from cringing at a man in spandex flaunting his wrists about and tilting his effect in a romantic fashion, to holding my breath when they attempt the ever-elusive Quad. It's extraordinary.

Also, speaking in more general terms, I think this Olympics has shown me some really, really exciting events I hadn't paid any attention to before. The fact I now live in the USA means that events have really become something, because there's usually a fair chance a medal is up for grabs. The team from Great Britain have barely been visible, although I will always cheer for them first. Also, the fact I live in the Midwest means that a lot of the US team's competitors are either local to this state or train nearby, which is rather exciting. For those reasons I've really taken to the short track speed skating (especially the relay... Oh. My. God.), the snowboard cross, the snowboard half-pipe and I'm sure some other events yet to be shown. There was a rather thrilling event the other day in the women's downhill skiing, because the competitors were flying down the mountain at such a rapid pace that there were wipe-outs and crashes galore. Fabulous!

Because I'm at home all day I've managed to watch nearly every minute of broad-casted Winter Olympics and I have to say, I don't think I've enjoyed one before quite so much.

Come on Great Britain! Win at least one medal... please...!

Tina.

Part 2

2010-02-15T12:13:00.000-06:00

Right, where was I?

At about 12.00pm I asked to get back into the bath. (Midwife: "That's a good idea, it can really help to speed things along". So why aren't there rows of baths instead of beds on maternity wards then?) I had actually wanted a water birth but, as I say, I don't think anyone bothered to look at my birth plan, and I was too frightened to speak up. Anyway, I got into the bath, dragging my Entonox cylinder with me, and promptly relaxed and calmed down. I continued to doze off between contractions, with the Entonox mouthpiece falling out of my mouth! Before long, though, I thought, "this baby's coming." I gesiculated wildly at the midwife's pull-cord to get my husband to summon her, but he didn't know what I was pointing at and thought I wanted something from my pile of clothes on the windowsill! I finally gasped "midwife!" and he got her.

I was taken back to my bed to be examined, whereupon my waters broke. I was 7cm dilated and preparations were made to take me down to the labour ward. At this point the 'show' appeared (the mucus plug in the cervix which keeps everything sealed up for 9 months). I spotted it on the bed and asked what it was (I wanted to be sure). "Oh, that's the show," said the midwife, and threw a sheet over it. "You weren't supposed to see that." Why the hell not? "It's ok, I made it," I managed to say. The staff commented that I still had a sense of humour - which was true but that wasn't the point. It had been inside me for all that time and I wanted to see it, to be aware of everything that had and was still happening to me. Why did they feel the need to keep it hidden? Is there honestly still a belief that these natural female bodily functions and secretions are shameful and dirty? I was put in a wheelchair and taken to the labour ward - but not before a little wait because there was a hospital tour for expectant mothers taking place and, the state I was in, I don't think they wanted me to frighten them! I'm not sure what I think about this. I mean, I was about to give birth, surely my needs should have been top of the list, but it is good that they wanted to give the expectant mothers a positive impression of what they're about to endure (however misleading that may be).

So then. Onto the second stage, or 'active labour'. I had originally decided not to have an epidural as I didn't fancy the side-effects (loss of bladder control, lasting numbness that would have to wear off, etc) but at this stage I changed my mind and decided I wanted one. However, the staff said that I was doing so well and things were moving on at such a pace that I would probably get on without one. I began pushing with the contractions, and stopped taking the Entonox (no pain relief at all! I am a hardass.). This carried on for nearly two hours, during which time I repeatedly requested an epidural and was repeatedly told (very nicely, though) that it would probably not be worth it. However, before long I was shouting "I don't care if you have to keep your quotas down or whatever, I wanted an epidural and YOU wouldn't give me one!" In retrospect, I'm pleased that I made it through without one, but it's myself I'm pleased with, not the staff. They should have given me what I wanted. I was given fluids in an IV in my left hand, and I remember informng them that I give blood from my right, and that they might have more luck finding a vein there!

What nobody knew at this stage was that the baby's cord was wrapped three times around the neck, which was why the baby wasn't making progress down the birth canal. A (male) obsetrician appeared at this point (to be honest, plenty of people were in and out of that room over those few hours, and I could not tell you how many or who the majority of them were. My mind was elsewhere) and he said that they were going to 'give the baby a hand' getting out, since progress had stalled and the baby's heartbeat had slowed. Whatever my feelings on interventions during birth were prior to this, this was brilliant news. As I was moaning and complaining about the pain, a midwife said, "it's 3.00pm. Your baby will be born by 10 past". The best thing I had heard all day.

The end of the bed came away, my head went back, the stirrups appeared and up went my legs. I was given four injections of local anaesthetic and an episiotomy (cut thorught the perenium) was perfomed. Yes, it's an absolute cariacature of childbirth, and it was quite a bloodbath (and have I mentioned the shit yet? Yes, I shat myself while I was pushing. And couldn't care less). A suction cup (ventouse) was attached to the baby's head, and with a few more pushes and contractions, the head was out. I asked why I couldn't hear the baby. I still don't understand why babies don't cry as soon as their head's born! A couple more contractions and pushes and my husband cried "It's a boy! Oh, it's S------!" and my brand new son was born.

He was a huge baby - 9lb 4oz, I shortly learned - and he had shat himself too, and was grey from the birth goo and the effect of the birth on his circulation. They plonked him on my tummy and the first thing I saw was this enormous, round, grey baby bum with a brown anus! Nice! I didn't even see his face until minutes later, when the cord had been cut and he'd been wrapped in a blanket. Next time, I'm going to insist that all that can wait until I've seen my baby's face and kissed it. Nor did I see the placenta, which I really wanted a look at (see 'the show', above). In all honesty, my prevailing feeling at that point was relief and gladness at the pregnancy, labour and birth being over, rather than joy or excitement at meeting S. That sounds awful, but in my defence, I had had virtually no sleep, there was no food in my system, I had never experienced pain like it, and I was rather out of it from the Entonox. And I doubt I'm the first new mother to have felt like that! giving birth was simultaneously the best and worst experience of my life, although I would not come to see it as the best for little while. Predictably, the first thing I said was, "I'm never doing that again!" The midwives all laughed and said, "they all say that," so I pointed to my husband and said, "well, you're having the next one then!" And I meant it.

Apparently I only swore once and only told my husband to shut up once - less than on a normal day!

I've been writing this as much for me as for anyone else to read it. While women the world over give birth every minute, I have done it but once, and it was the experience of my life. Nothing else comes close. Every woman's birth story is unique and I'm glad I've now got mine on record. Having said that, it's true that nature causes you to forget the pain, so despite this being a pretty accurate account, I know something is missing. We all know that if any mother had an accurate memory of giving birth, she would never put herself through it again! I've got a lot more to tell about the first days and months of S's life, and hope I can continue to write on here a little more often. But now it's teatime.

Anthea

Part 1 of many

2010-02-14T10:41:00.000-06:00

OK, I've finally found 5 minutes to sit down and write something on here for the first time in about 8 months!

The birth of my baby seems like as good a place to start as any.

After two weeks of curries, 'romantic nights', long walks, membrane sweeps (if you have to ask...) and abject boredom, baby was showing no signs of making an appearance. In fact, the head was partly engaged and then went back up again! I had to be induced. I walked to the hospital on the Friday night and had prostoglandins (synthetic hormones) injected up me - nice. Normally, this method of induction takes about 6 hours to work and is not successful first time round for first time mothers, so the plan was that I would have it done at bedtime, sleep, and then they'd have another go in the morning which was much more likely to work.

So. My husband stayed with me while the induction took place, then got me settled and went home to get some sleep himself. Unbeknownst to him, the hormones took effect very quickly and my labour began at about 1.00am. It felt like back pain, but after a while a midwife confirmed that the pains were settling into fairly regular contractions. I was alone on the ward, in the dark, with a skeleton weekend staff whom I barely saw. Not how I'd pictured my labour. No-one asked me about my birth plan, I was too intimidated to ask for help with my TENS machine (so didn't use it in the end) and had no-one to rub my back or coach me through the pains. At 3.00am I decided I wanted to phone my husband and get him to come in so approached the front desk and informed the woman (don't know if she was a midwife, nurse or receptionist) that there would soon be a man arriving and she would need to let him in. "Why?" she asked (!!!???!) "Because I'm in pain and I want my husband to help me through it," I replied (!!!!!!!) "I'm afraid visiting hours are between 8.00am and 8.00pm," she informed me. Fucking hell. So I spent the rest of the night without pain relief (I wanted massage and the TENS machine), labouring alone in the dark, and fairly scared since this was my first time. I do plan to have another baby, and if the same thing happens again, I shall shout and scream and stamp my foot until I am allowed to have my husband with me. I mean, if we'd turned up at midnight with me having gone into labour spontaneously, would they have sent him away and told him to come back at 8.00am? I think not. The more I look back on this, the more outraged I am. I'm thinking of officially complaining. Any thoughts?

Anyway. I did take a bath after this in a huge double tub. I found it highly effective - in fact, although I'm usually happier on dry land and a bit scared of water, I had really enjoyed baths and swimming throughout my pregnancy - in terms of pain relief and calming me down. At 7.00am I rang my husband. He answered the phone and apparently I sounded really down (not surprising, considering the night I'd had!). He took this to mean that I was annoyed that the induction hadn't worked, when it was quite the opposite! "See you in an hour," I said, but 15 minutes later I the pains were getting worse so I rang him and told him to come straight there, to hell with their visiting hours. At 7.30 he arrived and was again informed of the visiting hours. "Is that going to be a problem?" he demanded, and they grudgingly let him in.

From then until about lunchtime is a bit hazy now. I walked around for pain relief and vomited on another bed ("You must really stay near your bed!" I was curtly told - minutes before another midwife recommended I try walking around!). I used Entonox (gas and air) for pain relief, which I loved. My husband massaged my back for what seemed to him like hours on end. I can't really remember much more than this as I was quite high on Entonox and had had virtually no sleep during the night so kept dozing off between contractions.

Right, baby is now demanding milk so I will return shortly with the next instalment!

Anthea

Bit mad.

2010-02-11T18:43:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's been a while since I updated, but things have been a bit mad in my household. First Mike's grandfather passed away so we went out there for the funeral and to spend time with his family, and then Owen caught his third bout of pneumonia and we had to cancel his surgery this Friday.

Bit cross about cancelling it, but what can you do? If he's sick, he's sick. The silver lining though is that ENT is now able to get involved on the new surgery date (March 12th) and put his ear tubes in sooner than May. So yeah... annoying that we've had to postpone things, but good news about improving his hearing two months ahead of schedule.

Pinched

2010-01-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

So, inspired by The Butterfly Rush and an old post on Blue Milk, I wanted to write an entry where I answer questions. Mostly for myself, but feel free to read and comment if you so choose.

(Pinched from the What Does A Feminist Mother Look Like? entry at Blue Milk)

1.How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?

To answer that in one sentence is really tricky. I suppose I am a liberal-minded feminist with non-activist tendencies, although I practice what I preach every single day and try to persuade others to think about gender equality wherever possible. I think I've always been a feminist underneath, having been brought up in a household where my mother ruled the roost and we were encouraged to play with both dolls and cars, but I really came to claim the label for myself when I lived by myself. So around the age of 22. This was several years before I became a mother.

2.What has surprised you most about motherhood?

The amount of stuff that just never ends. My love and adoration for my son goes hand-in-hand with the sheer frustration I feel when he throws up for the twenty-third time in ten minutes, or the fact I never catch up on my sleep anymore. The responsibility never ends, either. From the moment you conceive you are completely responsible for someone else's life, particularly when that someone has special feeding requirements or medical appointments every day. I am constantly surprised when people refer to me as "Mom" (or "Mummy", although I choose to go by "Mama") and it reminds me just how much responsibility I have to have.

3.How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?

I am both far more relaxed and far more militant. I care less about certain aspects of feminism (what books I "ought" to be reading, for example, or things I cannot change in other cultures) and far more about things that directly affect my family. Motherhood and marriage have done this. I will defend to the death a woman's right to choose: her name, anything to do with her children, her ability to speak out, her safety and anything else she might need. However, I condemn those women who do nothing for our rights and are involved in showing off their bodies for money (I'm looking at YOU, Jordan-esque types), buy oodles of pink crap for their daughters and toy guns for their sons, and who do anything else that generally irritates me.

4.What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?

My mothering started out differently the minute I knew I was pregnant. Mike and I decided that although we wanted to know the sex of our baby (no excuse, just sheer curiosity), we felt it was no-one else's business. So we kept it a secret and everyone bought us neutral baby gifts. Now we all know Owen is a boy, it pisses me off that we receive things in blue or with a sports motif, simply because he has a willy. I wish people would listen to me more when I tell them how much I hate that stuff. I think my approach has yet to be fully defined, but I think that refusing to buy gendered baby stuff makes me different to a non-feminist mother. I will also educate Owen on how boys and girls are the same as he gets older; and how he, as a white, middle-class male, needs to think about his impact on women's rights more than most.

5.Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?

The only time I feel compromised is when I buy things for other parents. I hate myself sometimes when I buy something pink or blue because they've specifically asked for it or I know they'll really like it. I always try to pick out something neutral instead. The very worst times are when there's no option: I was looking at buying plasters today, but all the children's Band-Aids were either girl characters or boy. There was no in between. You got either Barbie, Dora or Littlest Pet Shop; or Transformers, Spider-man or Star Wars. In the end I went with Toy Story, but I couldn't fathom why it was in the boys' section. I rarely feel I've failed as a feminist mother because for me, that isn't an option. I'm a feminist and I'm a mother. I live my life according to both principles.
6.Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?

Sometimes yes. Other people Just. Don't. Get. It. They think you're being deliberately antagonistic or that you think your parenting skills are better than theirs. (But that's usually because they are, if you're not a feminist parent.) I am getting better about speaking up though, and I'm learning that speaking my mind calmly and logically will often help other women to come around to my way of thinking of their own accord.

7.Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?

I cannot believe I'm a stay-at-home-mom. God, I hate that. I'm so glad I'm also in the publishing industry, because I don't believe women should be confined to the home with children. It's so boring! I've sacrificed a lot for my child, starting with my job and ending with my sanity, but the way I reconcile it is to remember it's not his fault. It is whatever I make of it, and I choose to be a feminist mother, even while I'm engaged in a non-feminist role.

8.If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?

Mike is also a feminist, if we've finally made up our minds that men can be feminists too. Therefore he supports all my decisions and even though it sometimes takes him longer to get there, he also recognises feminist issues and helps us resolve them in our parenting. The biggest impact I've had on him was our decision to keep my surname as our family name, losing his. It was so important to me, and it has become very important to him too.

9.If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?

I don't know what that means!

10.Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?

Feminism has only failed mothers in one way: motherhood is not as valued as it could be. Feminism is started to lean back this way though, which is remarkable to see. I love a world where women can REALLY choose to have a career OR stay at home and to not feel guilty for either choice. And in terms of what it's given mothers... well... the list is endless. Breastfeeding in public, having a career, enabled fatherhood, the pill... brilliant, brilliant stuff.

So there you go! What an easy post.

Tina.

It's been a while.

2010-01-18T08:11:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but the day after we got back from the UK Owen's cough got really nasty, and by Thursday it had developed into full-blown pneumonia. Again. Sigh.

He's just about getting over it now, although it's taken nearly two weeks for the antibiotics to have any real effect. Owen seems to need stronger and stronger stuff to kill his bugs, because we went through the same thing last time he had pneumonia in September. It's a shame too, because the stronger the antibiotic, the worse his nappy rash gets (don't ask me why, but antibiotics and pneumonia often give babies horrible diarrhea and that then gives them painful, red cracked bottoms). Anyway, we've got drugs to fix that too, so providing he gets the full course of antibiotics, steroids, nebuliser treatments and butt gel, he should be healthy enough for his eye surgery in February. Fingers crossed.

Oh... and we have a new cat. :) His name is Robert BartholeMEW Turner, but he's known as Bob. He's seven months old and all black with a single white dollop on his chest. He's the snuggliest, most playful cat I've ever owned and he keeps me company during the day. We like him A LOT.

A post-holiday update

2010-01-06T11:47:00.000-06:00

Well, we're back! Mike, Owen and I got back late last night after our two week visit to the UK over Christmas and the New Year. It was fantastic, and just the right length. I'm so glad we made it over there with the babba, even if the travel itself was a complete nightmare. For future reference, flying for eight hours with a ratty, tube-fed baby with GERD is NOT recommended. On the way there he screamed for about six straight hours, and I'm not exaggerating an ounce. He was so much better on the way back, but I think that's because the timing of the flight was more suitable and he's a little under the weather (meaning he's sleepier than usual).

I think he's caught some nasty bug from me, because while we were over there I came down with some vile throat thing that made swallowing almost an impossibility and I completely lost my voice. I also had a cough, which is the single most irritating symptom of any illness in the world ever. And that's the truth. You can quote me on it. Now Owen has the cough and if it's no better by tomorrow when his nurse comes to visit then it's off to the doctor we go. Sigh.

ANYWAY, back to the UK. Some interesting stuff happened, including noticing the formula we'd packed so carfeully was an astonishing three months out of date and we'd been using it since the start of December. As we get it shipped directly to us by our insurance agent it was their fault - they'd sent us cans with September's date on and we don't get through it slowly enough for it to have been some stuffy cans I'd let fester at the back of the cupboard. Plus, having worked in retail, I'm really, really careful about rotating our "stock", for this very reason. Oh, and ALL of the 14 cans were out of date, so their entire shipment was old and crusty. I contacted them from the UK and threatened them with legal action if they didn't get us replacement stuff, to which they rightfully shat themselves and fell over each other to help us. In the end we got a good enough replacement to last us the rest of the visit and my insurance agents are footing the bill. Quite right, for making me feed my son potentially dangerous milk.

Owen got spoilt rotten over Christmas, which was absolutely fantastic. An award for Outstanding Contribution to the Turner Family goes to his Grandad (my dad) for being the ONLY member of my family to be proactive and learn how to feed Owen by himself. My mum did one feed supervised, and then always found an excuse to bugger off when it needed doing again. Oh well. Owen also discovered the art of grabbing the mouth and cheeks of whomever is holding him, which has caused endless amusement for me and a few scratches near my ear lobes. I think he's so funny, but I always have done. He just has to raise his eyebrows when I ask him a question, or punch me in the face so he can grab my chin flab and I crack up.

So yes, a marvellous time was had by all. We went all over the shop, despite the "horrific" weather the UK is having at the moment. "Horrific", my arse. My driveway is "horrific"! And we're expecting another 10" overnight, so you can feck off if you think I'm shovelling my way out of the house at all for the next week. Owen and I are going to hunker down, watch movies and eat Cadbury's chocolate until winter buggers off. Then we'll reminisce about visiting Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Aberystwyth, Rhyll, Blackpool, Isleworth, Hounslow and Richmond and how much fun we had at my nephew Stanley's Christening where Owen also got blessed. My only regret is that the suitcases weren't big enough for more chocolate.

So now it's back to reality. Back to medical appointments, battling reflux and being alone with Owen during the week. Back to the depression, I suppose, because for a while there I seemed to be recovering. With all the activity and celebrations I felt better than I had in months, but now I'm back home I can feel the dark shadows hovering outside the door again. I suppose I'll just have to suck it up and get on with it, because I don't really have any other choice. And speaking of medical conditions, I think I MUST be anaemic again because I've started getting very odd bruising on my legs. Really big, dark, painful ones too, but I don't remember ever banging my legs into something. And even if I have, it's certainly not with the frequency with which the bruises have been appearing. I know I ought to get to a doctor and have a blood test done, but I'm beginning to loathe all the paperwork. Also... I researched leg bruises and fatigue online and one of the scarier explanations is leukemia, which I am really not prepared to even contemplate at this point. So I'm going to bury my head in the sand a little longer, see if things improve and up my iron intake. Fingers crossed.

Even though I loved being away, and even though coming home means facing Owen's upcoming surgery, it's so GOOD to be home!

Big, adult decisions.

2009-12-21T18:07:00.000-06:00

I took Owen to the eye specialist this afternoon to get his eyelids assessed. When we went to the opthamologist a couple of weeks ago she mentioned that in addition to his optic nerve pressure there was also a possibility of his eyelids obscuring his vision. His eyelids have never opened very far, known as a condition called Blepharophimosis; it's indicated by small eye openings horizontally as well as verically, a low nasal bridge and some other stuff. Apparently it's quite rare. How lucky for us to have won THAT lottery.

The surgery involves putting in a small piece of silicone tubing into each eyelid crease, then attching these to the muscle above the eyebrow which controls the opening and closing of the eyelid. Apparently to do this in both eyes will take several hours and he'll have black and blue eyes when it's over. Whooopie. He'll also have to stay overnight at CHOW.

Now the big, adult decision we have to make is whether the major benefit to this surgery is going to outweigh the major drawback. Owen will certainly be able to see better and he won't have to tip his head back all the time, but on the othe hand... he will no longer be able to close his eyes all the way. Ever, unless we completely reverse the surgery. So while he will still be able to sleep, whoever is looking after him will have to make sure they put ointment on his eyes during the night to stop them drying out. Yes, it's inconvenient for us, but what isn't these days? No, my concern is him having infections in eyes that can't blink properly and in his general appearance as he ages. Can you imagine sleeping next to your boyfriend for the first time, only to discover his eyes don't close? Freaky. Apparently his eyes will be fully open immediately after surgery and will then learn how to close partially as time goes on. They won't ever close all the way though.

It's at times like these I feel at a crossroads. I want to ask Owen what HE wants, but that isn't possible. When he was tiny we made the decision to place a G-tube, but I've regretted this ever since and have wondered if his oral aversion to bottle-feeding was a direct result of it, not in spite of it. And now we have another decision to make that could affect his development. We're being told it will help him, because the head-tipping is so acute it's preventing him from learning how to sit and stand, but how do we know this? I mean, we were told the G-tube was a must-have, but now I'm not so sure... what if this is the same thing?

Even though Mike and I talk about this stuff, because he's not at these appointments with me I often feel very alone. Very pressured, very alone and sometimes very unsure. I can't wait for the day Owen is old enough to tell me what HE wants.

Tina.

The Truth About Online Anorexia

2009-12-17T20:39:00.000-06:00

So I sat down by myself tonight as Mike had his work Christmas do, and I stumbled across this documentary on BBC America. (It was an ITV programme originally but BBC America likes to mess with my mind like that.) Called The Truth About Online Anorexia, it was presented by Fearne Cotton and followed her investigation into the world of online Pro-Ana websites. I daren't link to any here for fear of prompting someone else to actually visit one, but rest assured they are a grim sight.

I'm sure countless other feminist bloggers have already written about this documentary as it was aired in the UK back in April, but I just feel I need to put something down about it too. Imagine the scenario: here I am, sitting on the couch having just battled for the last two hours to get my son to initially take his food, and then to assist him in keeping it down. I'm scoffing a rather scrummy frozen cheese pizza (I like to add sweetcorn, personally, although I do get rather strange looks when I do it in public) and I'm sipping on a caffeine-free Diet Coke (I like the taste, and I do acknowledge that this makes me odd). Then I turn on this show about how eating is BAD BAD BAD and being thin is GOOD GOOD GOOD.

To say I was upset is an understatement. After half an hour I looked at Owen, and I just burst in to tears. I looked at his chubby little cheeks and his lovely fat arms, and I thought about how so much of his life is completely and utterly controlled by food. He is at his happiest, like nearly all children with GERD, when he is not eating. When he is eating, he's miserable. He feels gassy, over-full, uncomfortable, nauseous, like he has heartburn, and I imagine it stings like hell when the contents of his stomach are violently projectiled out of his mouth and nose.

But we battle it, he and I. I work like hell for three out of every four hours to make sure his food stays put. It is a tribute to my own perseverance, grim determination and sheer bloody hard work that he is exceeding every single doctor's expectations and has grown as much as he has. He has gone from losing weight as a newborn and dropping off the growth charts, to an astonishing 50-75% percentile placement. And that's if you don't even account for his prematurity and knock five weeks of his age. It's the hardest, most draining job I've ever had and I consider it a successful feed if he keeps down at least three quarters of his food.

So for me to watch this documentary and to hear about women denying themselves food to try and reach some unattainable perfection was so, so sad. I felt many things. I felt, initially, sorry for these women. Then I got angry and I felt that I'd never heard of anything so fucking selfish in all my life. You don't eat DELIBERATELY? You starve yourself? You are so ungrateful that there are people working hard to put food on your plate that you consider it to be disgusting to put it in your mouth? I've never heard of anything so repulsive. Don't you know that there are children out there who don't HAVE food to eat? That there are children out there who have all the food they could want, but who can't or daren't eat it because of the reaction their little bodies have to it? Don't you know that when your child can't or doesn't want to eat, it is one of the most frustrating, upsetting, guilt-ridden emotional rollercoasters a parent can go through, and they go through it every moment of every... single... day...?

This train of thought continued until the show was over, I'm sorry to say. The idea that you would work so hard as a parent to feed and nourish your child, only for them to deliberately damage their body and make themselves ill - even to die from it - just made me sick to my stomach. I even ate my pizza more quickly because of it. Then, after a while, I just felt sorry for them all again. And I thought about my own issues with food and eating, and how nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

I've put on A LOT of weight since my pregnancy. In part it's due to a lack of exercise (I'm stuck on the couch feeding Owen so much that it's really hard to get out), partly with what I eat (see the pizza example, above), and partly the depression. So in way, I'm damaging my own body by not giving it the healthy, nutritious stuff it really needs - is this worse? I might be eating, but I am also sticking two fingers up at the work my parents did when I was a child to keep me healthy and growing. I came to the conclusion that the only way to be a positive role-model to Owen as he grows up is to have a healthier relationship with food. I need to stop using it as a crutch when I'm angry or sad, or when I feel as though I deserve a "reward". I need to use that hour before the next feed to walk around the house, or to stick the Wii on and jump up and down. Hell, I need to stop going to Target and buying candy just to get out of the house.

So, starting tomorrow, one week before Christmas, I'm going to eat healthily. We already have many, many healthy items in the fridge and I think it's time to eat them. I cannot let my depression or any other excuse rule my life. If I want to change, the only person who can make it happen is myself.

Tina.

The way we think.

2009-12-15T11:30:00.000-06:00

The other half and I got into a major, major fight on Sunday over something so small and petty I can't bear to think about it. What I do have to remember though, is how completely irrational I was and how, even though I could hear the words coming out of my mouth, see how much I was hurting him, and know I probably looked and sounded like a teenager, I wasn't able to do a single thing about it.

It's mad, this depression. It makes you do and say things you'd never have dreamt of doing before. After the fight, when things were calmer and we'd agreed to talk about what had happened, I asked Mike whether he liked me anymore. He said no. He told me he loves me still, but he doesn't really like me much these days. And who can blame him? I'm a complete misery and I pick on him mercilessly. I'm on a deadline with a copyediting project at the moment, so I asked him to take care of Owen and a few things around the house on Sunday so I could work in peace upstairs. At 1pm he was still playing video games, so I sat on the stairs and reminded him of our agreement: he works during the week, I work weekends. He apologized and once I'd gone back upstairs he got to work.

The thing is, Mike's brain works differently to mine. In my mind, the things we needed doing were for the benefit of our Book Club guests coming over that night. That meant clean bathrooms, vacuumed floors and tidy rooms. In Mike's mind it meant ripping up the rest of the kitchen linoleum because he was embarrased it was still there. Which created more mess, which meant everything was still in transition at 5.30pm when I needed to be in the kitchen preparing food. So we fought. And I was irrational. In fact, I was completely off my fucking head because he asked me to get something out of his car (a shop-vac, brought home from work to vacuum large splinters and particles safely), and I STORMED out to get it, STORMED back inside, threw the thing on the floor and slammed the door behind me. The reason? I was cooking and even though he was shirtless and shoeless and it was below freezing outside, I didn't want to be interrupted.

If I weren't depressed, I would never, ever have behaved that way. Getting something out of the car to help out my partner would have been second nature, and once everything had blown over and we were like old times yesterday, I would have done it for him again in a heartbeat. But when I'm in that moment, and the cloudiness is fogging my brain, it's really, really hard to see and behave clearly. I have no idea how to change things, either. It's like I'm watching myself on a screen somewhere, half the time. I know I'm hurting Mike and I know I'm simply terrible to live with, but I just don't know how to stop it. How do you stop a runaway train?

Tina.

Kiiiiiiiiitchen!

2009-12-10T17:38:00.000-06:00

Well, the kitchen's halfway there! All the cabinets are in, so now we have to have the countertops people round to take the final measurements (why they couldn't just take the specs from the cabinet order, I don't know. It's not as though anything's bleedin' changed) and get those ordered. That should take another couple of weeks, but Mike cunningly kept hold of the old wooden tops so we can balance them for something to chop our veggies on. We are still without a sink in the meantime, but at least it's something.

The cabinets are SO PRETTY! I love them, I do. I think I might have chosen to sleep in the kitchen tonight if it weren't for the state of the half ripped-up floor with its dangerous spiky nails everywhere. Seriously, I love the design that much.

The nurse came over today to give Owen his RSV shot and to take his vitals. The boy, at six and a half months, is 27" long and weighs 18lb 11oz! He weighed 5lb 14oz at birth, so it's quite remarkable. In fact, since his last weigh-in less than a month ago, he's put on nearly two whole pounds. What a superstar! He has also learnt the "L" sound and is currently rolling happily around on my floor under the Christmas tree practising it. It truly makes my heart sing to see him so happy, because for so much of the rest of his life he's so damned uncomfortable.

I took him to the neurologist today but he couldn't tell me much as we're waiting for the CT scan to happen tomorrow. He seemed surprised that Owen's myoclonic jerks were under control, given that he has optical nerve pressure and restricted head growth. Apparently seizures and seizure-like activity should actually increase with inter-cranial pressure, not the other way around. He had no idea if my theory about pressure = migraines = extra vomiting could be accurate, as there are lots of ways pressure can manifest and until we see the results of the scan we won't know whether the brain's control site for vomiting is affected. So we'll sleep on it and find out what's happening tomorrow.

OH! And I feel very good about Owen's growth because a few times since his last weigh-in we took him down to four feeds a day (when we were travelling, for example), and I was very concerned that he wouldn't be getting enough nutrition if we did it too often. But he did, and that makes me feel good. I think the extra solids are really helping in that respect.

Mama KNOWS BEST!

Tina.

Snow, kitchen and nails

2009-12-08T13:49:00.000-06:00

It's snowing. Again. It looks pretty, but it's a bastard to drive in. And this is the first year we've had to shovel our own driveway clear of it, which is only slightly less extruciating than digging your car out of the two feet of drift the snow plough just pushed up against it in the apartment building car park. While pregnant. And it's -30F. And there's been an ice storm, which has stuck said ice to your windscreen an inch thick. And no-one sells de-icer, so you have to scrape it off in two minute bursts, broken up only by warming yourself up in your car for another ten.

Ah yes. The famous Wisconsin winters. At least this year I don't have to wake up two hours early to get the car prepared to leave for work on time, and thanks to my insistence on purchasing a house with an attached double garage, I never have to scrape my car again. I do, however, have to think about Owen and whether valet parking at Children's Hospital is truly a lazy girl's game or a stroke of genius.

Speaking of CHOW (I love that acronym), I took the babba up there today for his CT exam. He was a perfect angel and slept all the waaaaaay... until they switched on the machine and strapped his head and arms down. Apparently that's not very comfortable compared to my left shoulder, and he let us all know about it. He screamed so much they've had to postpone the test until Friday, when he can be sedated. So, what should have been a half hour scan has now turned into a full day in the surgery clinic. Naughty baby, but I can't blame him for being scared.

In other news: our kitchen is being installed tomorrow! Yaaaaay!! Cannot. Bleedin'. Wait. I HATE our old kitchen and I said when we moved in that other than Owen's nursery, the kitchen was the first room I was going to work on. It's just such an eyesore, which its orange (ORANGE!!) cabinets, ivy print wallpaper and fake wood laminate countertops. Eugh. At least from tomorrow we'll have beautiful cupboards, even if we have to wait a bit longer for the sink and countertops to arrive. In the meantime I consider ourselves very lucky to have a downstairs bathroom to wash Owen's stuff in.

And finally: I must be getting a bit stressed at the moment because I've had to resort to painting my nails with Stop 'n' Grow for the first time since I was sixteen. I'm so ashamed.

Tina.

So tired... so very, very tired...

2009-12-04T11:48:00.000-06:00

Well, it seems as though life is out to bite me in my abundantly-sized buttocks, because we've had some more bad news about Owen's eyes and brain.

Ok, so here goes:

Owen's eyesight is actually okay. He's long-sighted but apparently that's common at this age and he'll outgrow it. No, the problem is a little more difficult than that. Firstly, his eyes only open a tiny amount because the muscles in his eyelids are underdeveloped. He's now learnt to compensate for this by tipping his chin up, which is very bad for his neck, back and shoulders, and if we don't sort out his eyelids he may develop a permanent disability because of it. He needs corrective surgery between now and May to insert silicone tubing into the upper eyelids to strengthen them and help open the eye up further.

In addition to this, the doctor carried out a refraction on his pupils and found something very, very scary. The optic nerves in both his eyes are so inflamed that if we ignore the problem it could become an emergency. Owen's skull is fusing prematurely, which means it has essentially stopped growing and expanding. His brain seems to still want to expand though, which is putting an extraordinary amount of pressure on the skull and the backs of his eyes (hence the inflamation of the optic nerves). Now, normally I would just sigh and think, "Oh, yet another hurdle to get over", but today the doctor frightened me by the stress and importance she was putting on his condition. She seemed frightened herself.

Owen will almost definitely need surgery to open up the spaces in the skull he's supposed to still have, but he may also need a shunt put in to the brain cavity itself to drain excess fluid and relieve pressure in between surgeries (he will need several over the course of his life, until his head is adult-szed). If we do nothing and the pressure continues to grow he could either lose his sight, experience brain damage, or in some severe cases, even lose his life.

So it was not a pleasant way to spend my morning and I got very upset about everything. This poor little boy is experiencing headaches as a result of all this, which makes me want to just pull him into my arms and cuddle him very tightly forever. I'm not even sure I'm allowed to give him any pain relievers as they don't routinely recommend giving them if there's no cause. Sigh. What on earth am I supposed to do?

Thankfully we have managed to get his CT scan moved up a week, so if they find anything on Tuesday that's serious enough to need action immediately, we'll be ahead a week. Today I've been making phone calls left, right and centre to push appointments up, get reports faxed to new specialists and generally try to make life easier for Owen sooner. I think it's going to be a bumpy road, folks...

Oh, and I think I'm anaemic again. Booooooooo.

Tina.

A few new ideas

2009-12-02T14:28:00.000-06:00

We went away to Minnesota for Thanksgiving last week and it was really nice for Owen to spend time with his extended American family (the fact they can occasionally drive me bananas is neither here nor there).

While we were out there I basically stopped wearing make-up. For Friday, which was when Owen got baptised, I put on some warrior paint again and I actually enjoyed it. It's made me stop wearing it since we got back (except for a touch of concealer, because I'm still vain and embarrased about my teenage-style spots) and I'm determined to keep it up. I like to think that while I may be plain under my eyeliner, actually it doesn't matter to anyone but me. And then, when I do put some slap on again for a special occasion, it feels like a treat and I'm happy to devote some time to it.

I think the thing that bugs me the most about make-up is taking it off again at the end of the day. I absolutely HATE getting ready for bed because I have to use the loo, take off my make-up, take out my contact lenses and clean them, brush my teeth, put on lip salve because the teeth-cleaning dries them out, put on hand lotion because washing my hands after everything else dries them out, and finally get into my pyjamas. This all usually takes place shortly before midnight because I forget to do everything before Owen's last feed of the day... SO... if I can skip taking off the make-up because I didn't put any on in the first place, all the better.

It's incredibly emancipating and I reckon I'm going to save a few pennies too. :)

In other news, I spent many an hour talking to my brother-in-law last week and we got into a very interesting discussion one night about Catholicism. As we were talking about the concept of Original Sin (it having been Owen's baptism earlier that day), a theory occured to me. Forgive me if someone else has already come up with this, but it really did enter my head entirely on its own.

Before women's reproductive systems were really understood, women were considered "dirty" and "the other" because they bled once a month. (Misogynists still believe this today, but that's because they're idiotic trolls and not necessarily because they're uneducated.) Now, the process of childbirth is also very messy. It's often primal and the experience reaches into the very core of a woman in labour in a way that no other experience can. It's animalistic and private, and when your child emerges they are covered in white goo, or blood, or even their own bowel movements. They snort and they drool and they cry, and if you've never watched a birth before you'd probably be very surprised that babies don't emerge all clean and dry and swaddled in a receiving blanket.

So it occured to me that because children come from a place that is traditionally misunderstood and unclean - being the inside of a woman - the founders of Catholicism decided that not only did the outside of the baby have to be washed when it was born, but also the inside needed cleansing too. Hence the idea of Original Sin. Seeing as humans cannot reach the inside, or the soul, baptism serves that purpose. Yes, Jesus may have been baptised by John, but the concept of Original Sin didn't emerge until hundreds of years later, when the women of the Bible had been all but erased (see the virgin/whore dichotomy throughout) and men could really get to twist its words.

Well, that's what I think, anyway. Original Sin is essentially misogynistic and I'm not buying into it. Owen's baptism was NOT Catholic and it had no mention of such nonsense. My beautiful baby boy would have gone to Heaven whether he'd been sprinkled with holy water or not, but now he gets to embrace his faith fully and celebrate it with his family.

Original Sin can kiss my arse.

Tina.

Happy Half-Birthday, Owen!

2009-11-17T08:07:00.000-06:00

Owen is SIX MONTHS OLD today! So far to celebrate, he has cried a lot, vomited a lot, needed changing three times (it's 8am right now) and finally fallen asleep for his morning nap. Later on I'm taking him for his six-month vaccinations at the doctor and possibly the H1N1 shot, too.

What a crappy way to celebrate your first half-birthday! I think I'm going to buy him a little treat after our visit to the doctor to make up for it. Or just half a treat.

Tina.

God in my life

2009-11-16T18:31:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking really hard about my spiritual leanings recently, what with Owen's baptism next week and his blessing at Stan's Christening in January. I haven't reached any conclusions yet, but I will say that my feelings towards God change on an hourly basis at the moment.

When Owen is clearly in pain and screaming so hard he makes me cry too, I shout at God. I ask Him why he's chosen MY family to go through this; why Owen, why me? It breaks my heart every single day to see my child live in such discomfort and to realise that he has known nothing else his entire, short, sweet life. Why would God put such an awful disease on the planet, and why would He decide that Owen is one of the ones who should suffer? I have taken to venting my frustrations out on Him because I find it a lot easier and safer than talking to Mike or anyone else. After all, God doesn't really answer me back, and I know He'll forgive me if I say something I shouldn't.

But it's so hard to understand it sometimes. It's just so damn hard to watch my little boy suffer so much and to not be able to control it. I find myself looking at the children of friends and longing for their lives instead of our own. That isn't right. How can it be right to covert their lives; their children? And it isn't even as though I want THEIR child - I just want MY child to have THEIR child's easy life. I find it very, very hard to listen to people when they say, "Well yes, Little Susie spat up too", or, "Little Jimmy did XYZ today!" So bleedin' what?! My child is delayed developmentally because he has GERD and there's not a lick of a thing I can do about it.

Those jealous feelings lead me to believe that perhaps God isn't in control of my situation. Perhaps He skipped this house. Perhaps He meant to fix Owen's health issues but He got caught up in Darfur or Iraq, helping those mothers with their frail little ones instead. I couldn't blame Him - they probably need Him more.

Which leads me to my other feelings about God.

I heard a lovely phrase the other day: "Special babies are given to special mothers". I don't know whether this is true, but it's certainly nice to think it is. Perhaps God does have a hand here. Perhaps Owen was given to me because I am the one Mama in the whole wide world who is suited to exactly meet each and every one of his needs. Maybe God thought that Owen is a strong enough baby to live like this and we are a strong enough family to cope with watching him struggle. Maybe these problems had to be given to somebody and it was just a matter of choosing the strongest recipients.

I don't know. In times of despair, I find all that very hard to believe.

Tina.

Been busy...

2009-11-14T17:25:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I've been absent since before my baby's birth - I've understandably been very busy since then! I promise to fill in the gaps and keep up a bit more now! Watch this space.

Anthea

Sad news

2009-11-14T17:23:00.000-06:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects?CMP=AFCYAH

This breaks my heart.

In a moment of rather sexist bitterness, I find myself thinking 'women create, men destroy'. Who fights and kills? Not women, not children, men. Who suffers? Mothers and babies. Yeah, I know, there are female soldiers and men too suffer and die in war, spare me the lecture. But soldiers choose to fight and know the risk to their own lives that they are taking. These mothers and babies did nothing whatsoever to inflict this on themselves.

Stuff like this makes me lose all faith in people.

Anthea

Changing stations in public bathrooms

2009-11-07T15:14:00.000-06:00

Does anyone else judge the quality of a shop or restaurant by the baby changing stations they provide? I do. The very worst culprits don't have anything at all in the men's room, and the very best have family cubicles (or even whole rooms) where you can use the loo yourself while keeping your child in sight.

My main gripes are when they put the nappy bin and the sink too far away from the pull-down unit, so unless you have extendable arms you have let go of your child to throw things away and/or wash your hands afterwards. It's especially annoying when you haven't brought in your sling or buggy and going to wash your hands means taking not only your hands, but also your eyes off your child. I know they have straps but they're often broken and don't get me started on how many units have run out of disposible liners. I now carry my own wipe-clean mat to lay underneath Owen because of this problem.

I was in a brand new Wal-Mart today and they not only had an entire room available for families (changing station, adult toilet and comfortable section for breastfeeding), but in the main women's room they also had a large space for changing nappies. The unit was ultra-modern and stocked with liners, there were two bins very close by, there were three hooks for you to hang your coat, handbag and diaper bag if you needed to and the sink was located right next to the unit. In fact, not only was there a separate sink for parents, but in the main row there were normal height sinks and two placed lower down for children and wheelchair access. Now THOSE are facilities!

Wal-Mart might be evil for a lot of reasons, but I cannot fault them on their parent and child-friendly loos. Ace.

Tina.

Solids!

2009-11-05T16:12:00.000-06:00

What an exciting day! First of all, a driver came by this morning to collect Owen's feeding pump, which is such a huge psychological relief. Having that thing on an IV pole in your living room just serves as a constant reminder that your-child-is-different, and I think our place looks a lot more "normal" now without it.

So on Monday the speech therapist told me it was okay to start thickening Owen's milk and giving it to him with a cup, but the promised Thick-It powder never materialised. I had shown her the new Nutra semi-solid food Neocate has created and she seemed skeptical but on board, so I was going to wait to speak to our nurse about getting hold of some. Then today she showed up to Owen's appointment with a can in hand! The woman has mad skillz. We had a really good meeting with her: I just love her and so does Owen. Since he was discharged from the NICU she's been working with us and she's very calming, relaxing and yet efficient. We usually get through Owen's business and then chinwag for a half hour - it's a lovely way to spend a potentially infuriating medical appointment.

Owen weighed 16lb 4oz naked, which is almost two pounds heavier than when she last saw him three weeks ago. Because of this, she and I agreed that it's okay to start messing around with his feeds a little bit. After she left I cracked open the Nutra can and mixed a single scoop with one ounce of his milk and spoon-fed my little boy. It thickened it only a teeny tiny bit, but that's how I've been told to start things until Owen can cope better with oral feeds. Well! The boy LOVED IT! He was surprised by the new taste but then he started smiling, kicking and smacking his little lips together and I reckon he managed about a quarter of an ounce by mouth. This is mega-huge-awesome-fabulous-can't-believe-he-did-that news, because before this week he wouldn't tolerate any milk in his mouth at all. Anyway, after all that excitement about the new sensation he was knackered and fell asleep, so I gave him the rest of his feed by tube.

I'm so proud of him. I was a bit anxious about oral feedings but he was such a superstar. He got so excited about the new taste that I'm really encouraged to keep going with him. It's also reassuring to know that I was right. I KNEW he should be starting solids, but I kept getting knocked back by the "specialists". I should have just listened to my instincts. Either that, or today was just the right day for Owen and being two weeks older has made a difference. Either way, it doesn't matter. We reached the first hurdle today and passed over it successfully. Tomorrow it'll be the same routine: one ounce, one scoop, one feed per day; then I'll up the mixture to two scoops, one ounce and then again after two days to two feeds. Eventually after about two or three weeks he'll have three feeds of full-thickness semi-solid food and two of normal milk. After that, who knows? Maybe some fish and chips...

Tina.

Right! Enough with all the grumbling!

2009-11-02T12:35:00.000-06:00

It's time for something POSITIVE, I reckon! Enough with all the grumbling and groaning: let's have some GOOD news for once.

1. After my tirade last week I took Owen to his routine cardiologist appointment. He was born with a heart murmur, which, when looked at on an ultrasound, was an 8mm hole in the 20mm wall between the top two chambers of the heart. For those in the know, this hole is present in all foetuses as they do not require their lungs to oxygenate the blood, but it closes upon birth once babies start screaming their heads off and breathing independently. Well, either because of Owen's crazy genes or because he was premature, his hole didn't close. This meant his heart had to work a lot harder to both pump blood and to keep him oxygenated. WELL! Last Monday, creepy Dr. Thomas (lovely, efficient doctor but stands far too close to me for comfort) confirmed what Owen's paediatrician suspected: the hole has almost closed by itself! This is truly remarkable. You would expect to see the ratio between hole and wall stay the same (so if the wall grew to 40mm, the hole would be 16mm), but not actually get any bigger. Owen's has done the complete opposite and closed to what the creepy doctor called "a slit". This, my dear friends, means he doesn't have to have heart surgery. Ah... what a happy, happy afternoon that was.

Also, we got the babysitting situation sorted because some remarkable friends who live hundreds of miles away saw how upset I was and took matters into their own hands. What fabulous people.

2. Today has already been a day for gettin' shit DONE. So far, I've managed to feed, clothe and change Owen twice (in themselves quite a feat), call our medical supplies provider to cancel our next order, call another provider to set it up there instead (don't ask - insurance in this country is mind-boggling), call my therapist to make a few changes, call Stepping Stones for Owen's December appointment, call a new doctor for Mike because he's a lazy bum and hasn't done it (and that toe is now DISGUSTING and I can't bear looking at it any longer) and finally... eat lunch. Productive, considering it's only 12.30pm and I'm still in my pyjamas.

3. In other good news: We're looking at high chairs! Whoop whoop. This is good news because it means Owen's head control will soon be good enough to manage sitting in one, our speech therapist is on board with it, he's growing out of his bouncy chair AND I get to start him on solids. Whoop whoop indeed!

4. Halloween was fun. Owen was a teddy bear, I wore purple and black bat deely boppers and Mike wore his hilarious spike hat. It's a shame I'm too lazy to put pictures on here, but you can use your imagination. Our neighbourhood holds trick or treating at a set time every year, so we had about a hundred small children banging on the door for three hours on Saturday afternoon, and then nothing for the rest of the weekend. I think it's a fantastic way to go about it because there was a real sense of community and it had a total party atmosphere. It was the first time I've really enjoyed Halloween and I'm sure it's down to both owning our pretty house and having Owen here.

5. And lastly: Owen's hair is growing. It's so cute! He's a little blondie right now but I swear his eyebrows are turning ever so slightly ginger, like me. His hair is long enough to put bubbles in and spike it up in the bath. What a superstar.

Tina.

The Good Bodies

10. J is for Japan

9. I is for Idea

8. H is for Happy Times

7. G is for Getting It Done

6. F is for Frustration

5. E is for Electricity

4. D is for Drilling

3. C is for Complaint

2. B is for Baby Steps

1. A is for Announcement

Let's catch up, shall we?

My newly insane life

Why do I even care what you think, anyway?

I got it I got it I got it I got it

The greatest good luck charm EVER

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

The big secret

The eternal question

Tantrums!

News

Scissor Sisters

Withdrawal

We'll call him Sam

Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo

I'm so tired I could...

I'm going to be on the radio!

My Pookie Bear II

Visitors

My Pookie Bear

The weekend for getting shit DONE

From good to bad to worse

Panic over!

Uh oh...

Vaccines

Little O is awesome

Stop being SO SMUG!

But you look ridiculous...

Fuck me, that was good.

Oh, poo

Two things

Clingy... like cling film...

Baby steps

Continuing my rant, followed by birthday fun

And repeat!

Mmm... thanks for that, Bob

Let's set some stuff straight.

Spoons aren't just for sick people

F*ckitty f*ck f*ck f*ck

VBAC birth story

New Look!

Our (not so) secret plan

Bigger blog

Owen is one!

Ten. TEN!!

Seattle and other stuff

What was the point of that then?

Oh. My. Good. God.

My Feminist High Horse

Week...err... four?

Things which confuse me...

Day Fifteen / Week Three

Day Eight and Surgery Stuff

Surgery

Day Two

Day One

Twenty things to be thankful for

Radical Parenting

Some days you just have to throw in the towel

Ideas and work

The Winter Olympics

Part 2

Part 1 of many

Bit mad.

Pinched

It's been a while.

A post-holiday update

Big, adult decisions.

The Truth About Online Anorexia

The way we think.

Fckitty fck fck fck