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
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Scissor Sisters
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.
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.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Withdrawal
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.
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.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
We'll call him Sam
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.
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.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo
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.
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.
Friday, August 27, 2010
I'm so tired I could...
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.
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.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
I'm going to be on the radio!
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.
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.
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