Busy Little Beavers

The man thing and I are going to be busy busy busy today. We have a little catering job so A) The man thing can earn some work experience which will be awesome for his course and B) to earn a little something to go towards looming bills!!

I kind of got dragged into it (not unwillingly I must add) because the other person who was scheduled to do the work with my man thing ended up incommunicado so I was volunteered. Yippee!
Something to keep me busy. Something productive to do, even if it is mostly just washing dishes lol.

The SIL is coming around today as well and will be staying a few days until we take her down the line to FILs.

We have a TON of housework to catch up on *Blush* but that will just have to wait until most probably tomorrow when I drag myself out of bed.

Busy busy busy!!

Oh the Excitement

Seems that I'm destined to have an exciting pregnancy. Over the weekend I was back up the hospital again for pains and finding MORE of the stitch work, and I had a couple of symptoms of a urinary tract infection so I wanted to get it checked out.
Turned out that I DON'T have a urinary tract infection, the ache in my back is most likely just from bubs pressing on one of the ribs round the front and where the pain is round the back is where the stress is being transferred to so it's aching.

Good news about the stitch work though is there's more than one loop of it holding my cervix closed so what's fallen out so far isn't panic-worthy. Sure, it's a little concerning that it's falling out at all but at this point there's nothing they can do about it.

This morning I got to visit the lovely Dildo-cam again and had my cervical length checked. At the scan 3 weeks ago it was 27mm long but today it's only 20mm long. That's still a pretty decent length of cervix but the concern is in the fact that it is still shortening. Bubs is persistently breech at the moment and seems in no hurry to move. So anyway the OB and I had a little bit of a chat and everything and we made some decisions about what to do. I'm having steroid injections to help mature baby's lungs faster just in case he does decide to make his grand entrance in the near future, I have to go back to the hospital to get jabbed in the bum again tomorrow lol. The injection stings!!
And also I'm going to pack an emergency bag that we can just pick up and run out the door with so I don't have to be fluffing around with finding clothes and so the man thing doesn't have to worry about trying to find me something that I will actually wear. Knowing him he'll just grab a handful of shirts and a pair of pants and none of it will fit me lol. Either that or it will all be too heavy for the weather at the moment and I'll end up overheating. Best to make sure it's all packed by me, the right way *Wink*


I hope everyone else had a good Christmas and it was a lot less drama filled than mine.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has been having a great christmas.

Christmas and Birthdays

Well we don't really do Christmas as such, it's more just a family feast with the odd gift occasionally thrown in. This year my nana is giving us a meat pack (yum yum) and she's also giving the man thing a weed eater (line trimmer) so he can cut our lawn (or the pitiful excuse we have for one anyway lol)

I'll tell all about the food tomorrow but suffice to say YUM!

The man thing has some jewellery to give me (I helped him pick it out so I KNOW I'm going to like it lol) and I was hoping that my mum would have enough money to get me a hair dryer (I've taken over her bank accounts at her request and I know exactly how much money she doesn't have) but that can wait until my birthday.
18 days until my birthday and I'll be entering my second decade. Goodie goodie.

I found my first 3 stretchmarks today. They're not massive but they're definitely there. To be completely honest, I don't give a rats ass about them lol. I knew it was highly likely to happen seeing as I'm pretty prone to stretchmarks and I think the OI has a bit to do with that. The lack of collagen I'd say.

Fingers crossed my stretchmarks don't make it to the tattoo that I have on my right side. I'd hate to see that ruined.

Heat: Part 2

So I now know why it was so freaking hot today. The temperature got up to 45 degrees (113f)
Talk about OUCH!!
The only way I managed to cope was iceblocks and sitting in my paddling pool up to my chest in lovely cold water.
It's cooling down a lot now, as in it's in the 20s rather than the 30s or 40s (I pant thinking about it!) but this is definately going to be one hell of a hot summer. I break out in a sweat just thinking about it!

Heat

It is so gosh damn hot. I feel like I'm going to melt into a puddle of sticky clothes. Wearing as little as possible and it's still too much. I'm about to jump in my freezing cold paddling pool to cool off for a while. Mmmm... coldness.

Shopping Galore

So today, for the first time in a looooong time, the man thing and I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I now have some more summer clothes that I'm not going to melt in!! I have singlets and dresses!! Now all I need is a couple of sarongs to wear as skirts and I'm all set.

Hip hip, hooray

I've made another one of my goals. Technically.
I'm now 26 weeks by the clock lol. 43 minutes into 26 weeks.
I'm very happy with this. Every extra week is another week towards term and the best chances for my little sproglet.

Now, if only I could figure out how to reduce nipple leakage down to acceptable levels lol. Dribbling every few hours is NOT nice.

Cuteness!

Walking towards the kitchen this evening I hear crunch crunch crunch and think "oh yeah, the cats having some bikkies"
Well when I looked it wasn't the cat lol. It was a hedgehog!! A cute little hedgehog had let itself inside via our ranch slider (which is jammed open a little bit for the cat to get in and out but so no-one can push it open further) and decided to have a munch on some cat bikkies. It was absolutely gorgeous! Only a little juvenile one too.
So I saw the little black shape, turned the light on expecting to see a rat or something and the hedgehog scuttled through the cats water bowl (lol) and into the pantry. I couldn't help it, I had to wake the man thing up to tell him!
The man thing and I found something to pick it up with (those prickles are rather sharp!) and took it out the front and put it on the porch. It toddled over to the edge and walked up and down trying to figure out how to make it down the 10cm or so to the driveway. It then slid carefully over the edge and toddled over the driveway and into the darkness.

All I can say now about it is NAAWWWWW!!! It was just so damn cute!!

Mutter mutter

That bloody cat decided that her dinner time would be moved to 6:30am. Yeah. Right! She also decided that since I was still asleep at that time then she would wake me up... by howling in my face!!!
Did she get any food?  Nope. I showed her her bikkies and then went back to bed.

Bloody cat!!

Umm THAT's not meant to happen, is it?

Well what else am I supposed to think when I find NYLON in my Hoohaa? Logical explanation is it's part of my suturing, right? UH OH!!
Yeah, here's the thing, OB (not mine, the one on call) says "Well there's nothing I can do about it. We will have to wait and see" *Headdesk*  Gee, thanks doc!

And that was only after the FIRST piece. I haven't reported the second yet *Blush* 

Well I know for sure it's some of the suturing material because I now don't have nylon radiating from my cervix. Bedroom activities are much more comfortable for the man thing lol. I know for a fact my cervix is still nice and closed, just how it should be. Now it better bloody well stay that way!!

Just one more thing to be paranoid about I guess *sigh*

*Sigh*

The antenatal classes are done! Now what am I going to do with my Wednesday nights?  Lol.

We had a good evening. Had a couple of people come talk to us like a dental health nurse and someone from playcentre. We were also supposed to have a Plunket nurse come talk to us but she couldn't make it.
Then we had nibbles!! I made curried egg sammies after a lot of worry about whether or not they were suitable. They went down a treat. Everyone dug in and I didn't have any to bring home. Luckily I have more curried egg in the fridge so I can have some more for munchies later *wink*

The man thing then had to leave so he didn't get to watch the baby being bathed. He has work tonight.
The baby being bathed was so cool!! Just seeing it happen right in front of us was definitely more informative than watching a dvd or reading it in a book.

So yeah, the man thing is working tonight. He's doing some behind the bar work at one of the pubs and pool halls just down the road from us. It's great. If he does a certain amount of behind the bar work then he can go for his bar managers license (after some other prep work for it that is) and then he will be pretty employable. The bars and pubs around here would much rather hire someone with their bar managers license than hire a rookie.

So yeah. My Wednesday nights are free again and I get the bed to myself for most of tonight. Here's hoping it cools off a little!!

Paranoia. Again.

So I've just got home from another trip up to the hospital to get things checked out in my downstairs department because things seemed a little... wrong.
This time it's because I've been feeling these random sharp stabby type pains in my cervix. If you google it (I did) it's not the most reassuring picture, but I'm glad I can read stuff like that and keep a level head.
I rang my mum and talked things over with her and she recommended that I give the delivery suite at the hospital a call and see what they say, so I did. I explained everything and was told it would probably be a good idea to go in there to get it all checked out.

Well now, what an interesting experience that was! I had my temperature and blood pressure taken and my temp was a little high, blood pressure was normal.
So then it came to checking on bubs to make sure he was ok. Turns out he's turned transverse sometime in the last couple of weeks so it was a little trickier to find his heartbeat than it usually is. Then he decided to play hide and seek with the CTG so we couldn't get a reading of his heart rate with that so the midwife brought in the handheld Doppler which bubs decided to play hide and seek with too!! We eventually pinned him down (I don't think he liked being woken up by the prodding hands lol) and got a reading on his heart rate and it was perfectly fine.

Then came the waiting for the doc to come check me. My OB poked her head in and said hi. She'd just come from theatre so she let one of her colleagues check on me. The doc had a look at my cervix and said it looked closed, and she took a swab to check for any infections that may be brewing and possibly causing the slight rise in temperature.

So while all this is going on I'm chatting away with one of the midwives about a book lol, the one by Jodi Picoult about a girl with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Handle with Care. I haven't read it but this midwife had and she was telling me about it. It does sound like an interesting book, I've just never been all that interested in getting it out of the library. Maybe now I will.

So anyway, the doc says she cant see anything physically wrong that may cause the stabbing pains I've been experiencing so they take my temperature again to see if I need overnight observation and my temp has come down to normal levels so I'm deemed fit to go home but if I have any concerns or if the pains get worse then I'm quite welcome to go back to get checked out again.

I think that the slight elevation in temperature was because about half an hour before going into the hospital I had a warm shower which could have raised my temp just that little bit.

So yeah, I'm home now and still experiencing the odd stabby pain still. I'm going to take a paracetamol and head to bed, try to get some sleep. The man thing is out trialling at a bar to see if he can get a job there so I've got the bed to myself until he manages to come home lol.

Birth Plans

Something that I keep seeing in my cyber travels around all sorts of different birth/baby blogs and even in some books is talk of Birth Plans. What is a birth plan?

Now understand I can only describe a birth plan from my point of view but I will describe some of the purported Birth Plans that apparently cause medical staff to laugh in peoples faces.

My kind of birth plan is pretty specific in that I dont beat around the bush and make it flowery, but it's not all demanding either. I like to think that my birth plan is pretty fair.
It states things in terms of "I would prefer..." rather than "This is the way it's going down, bitches!!"

I understand that emergencies happen which is why my birth plan covers many contingencies, even the possibility that I could have a cesarean. It doesn't say anything like "A cesarean is the LAST thing that I want" it simply says that if a cesarean is required I wish for the man thing to have skin to skin as soon as possible, if he so wishes.

Nothing too confrontational about that now is there?

Stuff like this *Click Me* is rather counter-intuitive. See, a birth plan isn't actually a PLAN, or at least it shouldn't be because of course birth cant actually be PLANNED. Things can be considered though and those things can be PLANNED for.

A birth plan shouldn't read "I want to turn up at the hospital, be checked and found to be 7cm dilated, I want to have an Epidural placed 10 minutes later that works perfectly and then 3 hours later I want to be checked again, found to be 10cm dilated and then directed how to push. Pushing will take no more than 1 hour and my baby will slip out with no problems, perfect APGARs and then latch immediately. I will have no tears or need for an episiotomy."

That is the kind of birth plan that is definately going to make a health care providers hackles rise. Hell, just writing it is making MY hackles rise!

A birth plan which I think would be better recieved by the health care professionals (be they a midwife, nurse, OB) would be one along the lines of;

I would prefer Intermittent monitoring over continuous monitoring.
I CANNOT have an Epidural so please do not offer this to me. 
I wish to have Entonox avaliable at my request.
I wish to have a birthing tub avaliable for my use if I so desire during labour.
I would prefer to avoid an episiotomy and would rather tear naturally.
I would prefer that the cord not be clamped or cut until it ceases pulsating.
I would prefer a physiologic third stage of labour.

Now some people may think that that sounds a little too pleading but it plainly states how I feel about all of the above. Now, barring an emergency I cant see why any of those "requests" would be ignored. Of course, here in New Zealand the environment and all the attitudes seem to be vastly different to those in the USA where most of the Birth Plan issues seem to stem from.

I have already talked over many of these things with either my midwife or the antenatal classes that I have been attending. I have a little checklist in my notes that states my preferences to things like monitoring and cord clamping/third stage. Still, I wont know what is really going to happen until I'm actually in the process of labouring/birthing so we will have to wait and see how it all turns out.

Uh Oh

Reading THIS post by The Feminist Breeder, a blog that I follow, makes me wonder what I've let myself in for with writing my blog. I always thought it would be cool to have a place to speak out about what's happening with me and so on but maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew...

So far I have 5 followers and 1, maybe 2 occasional commenters, but who knows how many people actually read. I'm really glad I havent been flamed or had anyone bitching about what I've written. REALLY glad lol.


Maybe I should just be thankful that I have such a small following. It doesn't get all angsty on me.

My stance

Ok, I cant quite find the balls to call myself a Natural Childbirth Advocate/Activist so I'll stick with Supporter. You want to know why? Check out this website *Click me* and some of the bullshit that comes out of the mouths of medical professionals who are supposed to keep us safe and supported during pregnancy, childbirth and the times soon after.

THIS is why I support the Natural Childbirth movement.

Brain Disconnect

I keep finding it really hard to get down what I'm meaning to write about Natural Childbirth. I keep getting off track. Reading back over my previous post I realised that I don't say much of how I actually feel about natural childbirth, merely that I'm really eager to avoid cesareans.

I'm going to have to give it a try another time. Tonight I'm just too tired.

Rhyme and Reason

The other day I touched on the fact that I am a Natural Childbirth supporter. I thought I would expand on why.

As I said, I was reading up on everything about pregnancy and birth that I could get my hands on. I wanted to know what to look forward to. Drugs and medications never really sounded that appealing to me, though the Entonox always did. In one of the pregnancy and childbirth books I found a list of all the painkilling medications that are commonly given during labour and birth and it included a list of side effects for both mother and child. I lapped it up! I now wish I knew what book that it was in so I could read the list over again. The best of the bunch sounded like the Entonox. Only downside to it is it doesn't work for everyone and some people feel really spaced out while using it.
Well, I know for a fact that it works for me! And very well too. 3 puffs and I'm not feeling any pain at all. Any more than that though and I feel nauseous.

So, while I'm all for the Entonox, WHY else am I natural childbirth supporter? Well, pretty much I have no choice. See, either I go as naturally as possible or I can do it like in the "good" old days and get knocked out and sliced open. See, due to some surgery on my spine to fix my scoliosis, it's now impossible for me to have an Epidural or Spinal block. Thus if I have a cesarean, it's lights out for me. Sound appealing to me? HELL NO!

Also, reading all the natural childbirth books that I could get my hands on, and later all the websites and blogs that I could find, I found out that doing it the medical way isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now, in saying that things like cesareans and other obstetric procedures have a very good and very important place. It's when they're OVERused that I have an objection to them.

I myself was born via cesarean. I was a stubborn breech and with the 50/50 chance of OI no-one wanted to take the risk that I would break something on the way out. As it was I was born with a broken femur (thigh bone) but it healed quickly after birth. My mum has no bad words to share about her experience. It wasn't easy for her to establish breastfeeding due to a dodgy latch (I would get the nipple under my tongue every single time) but she was determined! After 12 days in the hospital she had it down pat and she breastfed me for 13 months. The only reason she stopped when she did was because I bit her and almost detached her nipple. Oops...

Whoopsie, kind of went a little off track there.

So, I have a very good reason for wanting to avoid a cesarean seeing as I want to be "Present" for the birth of my child/ren and if I'm knocked out then the man thing wouldn't have the opportunity to be present either! That's not an acceptable situation for me so I've looked at the alternatives.

Ultimately, if I wasn't classed as high risk for any reason then my dream birth would be at home. Because I'm high risk that simply isn't possible because I doubt I could find a midwife who would support me and going unassisted really isn't my cup of tea.

Now of course if there is some sort of emergency where having a cesarean would save my life or the babies life then I'm all for it, I'm just not going to be signing up for an elective cesarean anytime soon.

Family Drama, again

I thought that pregnant women were supposed to have a reputation for being emotionally unstable and prone to flying off the handle for no (seemingly) good reason. Seems like I'm the most level headed one in my family at the moment. Not that that's really anything very new...

Last night there was SO much drama going on. Family members yelling at each other, hanging up on each other and lots of tears.

And of course my mother (one of the main causes of the big blowout last night) was doing her usual "Poor me, I've been yelled at and now I'm all unstable and... GIVE ME ATTENTION"
Yeah, no sympathy from me.

Yummy yummy

My hips and thighs wont me liking me but bubs and my bones certainly will. The darling man thing and I decided to buy a whole bottle of milk to dedicate to milkshakes for this week. We have banana and strawberry flavoured syrups and we got a tub of icecream too to make them really nice. Made one jug full and the man and I drank it all so fast. Was just SO good.

Thumbs up to calcium *wink*

Appointments

Well I'm still in one piece. Saw the obstetrician today and had a scan done (internal, first one ever, have many more to look forward to) which shows my cervix is still funnelling but my cervix is 27mm long so that's a pretty decent length. OB said everything else looks good, measurements and fetal heart beat are all normal. Now it really is just a case of wait and see.

I have another appointment in 3 weeks time (just after Christmas) where I'll be getting another internal scan (oh goodie...) just to check up on things. There was some talk of steroids after the next appointment as a precaution but we will have to wait and see about that. Fingers crossed I make it to the next appointment with no issues at all.

During the scan I confirmed that what I keep feeling poking and prodding my cervix is definitely a hand. Little bugger had his hand riiight in there lol having a good grope around. No wonder I feel uncomfortable at times.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I actually think I'm going to make it to 24 weeks. Granted, I have 1 hour to go lol but I'm pretty damn confident that things wont go tits up in just an hour (Touch wood!)

I'm still feeling nervous about some cervix twinges that I've been having. Some of them are baby induced, as in bubs decides to give me a good punch or prod. Not nice. Some are just little twangs that I cant identify a reason for. Here's hoping that things are shown to be fine at the scan on Tuesday. Funnelling I can handle, so long as the cerclage is doing its job, which it seems to be so far.

I'm really hoping that I can hold out until 32 weeks at the earliest so I can give birth at my local hospital. It's seriously a stones throw from my house lol. I can see it from my front door!! If I happen to go earlier than that I'll have to be taken via helicopter to the big children's hospital about 2 hours away (by car) because they have all the special facilities for a prem that early.

*Sigh*

I'll wake up in the morning and be 24 weeks pregnant. Feels like such a remarkable achievement for me.

Letting go

My partner suggested that we take Antonys ashes to the beach and bury them. I realised that I'm just not ready to let him go when my eyes welled with tears and I couldn't say anything for fear of sobbing. I dont know if or when I will ever be ready.

Damnitt, now my eyes are leaking again.

Coming out

So I don't even know why I decided to avoid this on my own blog *shrug* but I'm going to come out and say it.

I'm a natural childbirth supporter.

Yeah, I bet that's a bit of an anticlimax LOL.
So what's the big deal about me being a natural childbirth supporter anyway? Well first off in all my travels around cyberspace in search of information about childbirth I kept finding things about "natural" childbirth. I read all sorts of books during my first pregnancy, up to and including Pregnancy for Dummies. Yes, there is a book called Pregnancy for Dummies.
I SCOURED my local library, picking up every book about pregnancy and childbirth I could find. I read them all. I soaked up all the new information and all the new opinions like a sponge. Some of the opinions and information I mentally put question marks beside but still, I read it all. I already had a few opinions myself on childbirth and whatnot but nothing solid.

Then I found the eye opening book "Pushed" by Jennifer Block. After reading that I just couldn't look at childbirth the same. I was horrified by the atrocities I was reading about that seemed to be the "norm" in American childbirth. Sure, I had read about a majority of them in all the other books but those books didn't paint anywhere near the same picture as "Pushed" did.

My eyes were opened. I couldn't look at routine interventions in childbirth the same again. Thus, I went looking into the alternatives to the "hospital norm" that I kept reading about (bear in mind that a lot of the books I was reading were written in the USA and more geared towards the maternity system in that country, the maternity system in New Zealand is completely different, it's like comparing apples and pumpkins). I read about a woman in "Pushed", Ina May Gaskin, who was hailed as the mother of American Midwifery and went looking for the book she had written called "Spiritual Midwifery". A spark was flaring into a blaze, I had to find out more about Natural childbirth! I read the book and though some of the concepts in it sounded a bit out there even for my extremely open mind, I took it all in. It clicked with me. It just sounded so RIGHT to me.

Thus began my foray into Natural childbirth. I haven't stopped reading about it since. Luckily here in New Zealand we have a much more midwifery model of care rather than the American Obstetric model. Obstetricians are required, just like any other branch of medicine is required, the USA has just pushed that to the extreme.

I for one am very glad we have Obstetricians and I am seeing one myself, simply because my pregnancy is classed as high risk first due to my Osteogenesis Imperfecta and second because of my incompetent cervix (which could possibly be linked in to the OI) so I'm glad that I have the professional backup there if and when I need it. That being said, at my prenatal appointments and everything I see a midwife (all of my prenatal care is through the hospital) which I certainly think is better than seeing the OB at every appointment. My OB is a busy woman who certainly has better things to be doing than seeing me for the basic antenatal appointments where I pee on a stick and have my blood pressure taken.

I'm currently seeing my OB fortnightly (due to my dodgy cervix lol) and I'm glad that I have her on board. Would I much rather that I didn't need to see her at all? Definitely. She's lovely and all and I like her but she's proof that I'm screwed up and sometimes I could do without the reminder *wink*.

Ok so this ended up going on a bit of a tangent, oops, lol.

I'm a natural childbirth supporter because I agree with other natural childbirth supporters that birth has been medicalised to the point where more women and children are harmed than lives are saved. Whether it be physical or mental trauma. I'm a natural childbirth supporter because I believe that women (and their families) should have options available for their care. A one size fits all birthing policy can be detrimental to the health of either mother, child or both.
I, like many of the other natural childbirth supporters that I have come across in my cyber-travels, thoroughly dislike (and some even hate) the phrase "All that matters is a healthy baby" because there is much more at stake than just a healthy baby.

Counting Down

I now have 3 days until my baby is considered viable. A mere 3 days. The thought actually frightens me somewhat. I'm not entirely sure why, this baby is most certainly wanted, but still I'm nervous. Possibly the whole fear of the unknown thing.

Counting down the days and making small goals are a couple of the ways that I've been finding helpful while I try to cope with such a stressful time. Not overtly stressful, but the worry is still there, niggling in the back of my mind. I feel paranoid about every little niggle, ache, twitch and twinge. I worry if baby hasn't moved much in a day, or if I have a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions. I'm a compulsive knicker-checker. I cant help it, every time I go to the loo I check.
I worry about how the movements feel, especially if they're low movements. I could swear that I've felt this little ninja attack my cervix a few times. Rather disconcerting when I'm super paranoid about any feelings/pain/discomfort in that area, a sudden fist to the cervix can make me jump lol.

Once I make it to 24 weeks (3 more days, only 3) then my next short term goal is going to be 26 weeks. Long term goal is going to be 32 weeks so I can deliver at my local hospital (a hop skip and a jump down the road) rather than needing to be airlifted to the national childrens hospital 2 hours away (by car)
9 weeks to that goal.
I'm pretty sure I can make it but I have to be realistic with my expectations. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst and all that jazz.

Breast vs. Formula

So I think the whole breastfeeding vs. Formula feeding debate is absolutely ridiculous but something that I see in my cyber-travels is how the possible benefits of breastfeeding have been over hyped and oversold. I found this article written by a woman, a retired OB/GYN who I love to cyber-stalk (lol) and while I quite often disagree with her views, she has made me think about things from a different perspective even though she patently refuses to see any perspective but her own.

What I enjoy the most about this article however, are the comments. The actual conversation about the article that the Doctor presented. One of the comments that I found extremely apt;

"Breastfeeding is the biological norm for humans. Why should breastfeeding have to prove its self as being healthier/better?"

I have to say, to me this has hit the nail right on the head.

Why SHOULD breastfeeding have to prove itself better than formula?

Another quote from the same commenter;

"We do not need to over sell the benefits of breastfeeding at all. Breastfeeding is normal for our species however we are doing mothers a disservice by letting them believe that artificial feeding is safe (there are NO studies to show formula is safe), that there are no health risks associated. Why do we have no qualms about telling mothers that drinking alcohol in pregnancy can cause birth defects and damage their babies but we cannot tell these same mothers that formula feeding has health risks for fear of “making them feel guilty”?????"

Now this isn't me trying to attack any formula feeding parents out there who happen to read this blog, this is merely me agreeing with this commenter asking why should breastfeeding have to prove itself BETTER than formula.

As a friend of mine has said, you cant tell who was breastfed or formula fed just by looking at a child/teen/adult. In the long term it is not obvious.

One thing that puzzles me about the whole debate, more from an American perspective than anything else, is how formula seems to be the standard and how breastfeeding has to prove itself "better". This is why I like the commentary of this article, there is true discussion about it and it's from a scientifically based standpoint.

Setting the bar at formula, in my eyes, is silly. Formula hasn't been around for anywhere near as long as breast milk, it's (generally) based on cows milk, something designed to feed baby cows and it's definitely not infallible, the recent melamine issues with it in China has proved that. Things may not have been proved one way or the other as to whether formula has definite risks associated with it but breastfeeding most certainly has benefits, however small they may seem individually they can add up to a fair amount.

Ok, I'm getting a bit repetitive now lol, time for me to take a breather.

As I've said before, to me it only matters that the child is adequately fed and is loved, not the method of feeding.

Defensiveness and Breastmilk

I came across a rather interesting conversation on a friends Facebook wall about Breast Milk donation and Milk Banks and how people feel about them. There was the usual happy conversation about how some would have been happy to donate or make use of donated milk, screening for drugs and illnesses was also briefly touched upon, and there were a few women who quite openly, honestly and plainly stated that they would prefer to use formula over breast milk that was not theirs.

Then there was the one woman who seemed to take every comment FOR breastfeeding and using/donating to milk banks as a personal attack on her and her choices.
She's unlikely to ever read this, I don't even know her myself, have never seen her name before today but I still have to say this.

Honey, it's not about you.

Yeah, that probably sounds really patronising (apologies) but I have to say if she's feeling that defensive about it, especially when there was absolutely NO formula-bashing going on, then she should realise and own her guilty feelings and try to move past them, rather than over-reacting and abusing women who were having a perfectly civil discussion about Milk Banks and Breast Milk donation.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about this person other than she decided to formula feed her child/ren, and from what I could pick up it was because she couldn't breastfeed. I make no judgements about her or her experiences, I don't know if she's had people look down on her or what for formula feeding but as one of the other participants in the conversation said;

"No one can make you feel bad about formula feeding either, you make a choice and if you are happy with your choice then it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks."

I agree with this fully.

-------------------------------------------------

Now, I'm going to leave the above as it is and talk about how I personally feel about breastfeeding, formula and milk-banks.

I'm planning on breastfeeding. For as long as I can, preferably 18 months but if bubs decides to wean prior to that then I can hardly force feed him now can I.

As for the whole Breastfeeding vs. Formula Feeding debate (which I think is ridiculous to be honest) yes I fully support breastfeeding and I DO think it's best, I also fully agree that for those who either cannot breastfeed for some reason or choose not to, formula is there for them to use. To add another dimension, I also think that a milk bank would be a very good idea for those who cant/choose not to breastfeed but still want their child/ren to have breast milk. Why should it be all or nothing?

I would gladly donate to a milk bank, I even thought about it after I lost my son Antony and had furiously leaking boobs, I just didn't know how to go about it and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to try to figure it out at the time. Once this one is born I would be quite happy to donate any excess.

I would not force parents to make use of donated milk if it didn't sit right with them for any reason. I get that some people feel squeamish about another persons milk being used to feed THEIR child. I get that some people think that the entire idea is silly and that that's why we have formula. I get that some people will worry about the screening any milk would have to undergo, and about any possible allergens from the donaters diet. Simply put, I get that it's not for everyone but shouldn't it be a viable option for those who would like to make use of it?

Pretty much to me it boils down to I don't care which method you choose to use to feed your child, whether it be breast, bottle or whatever, as long as the child is fed adequately and loved, that's all that really matters.

Don't beat yourself up about it!

(I apologise for the rambliness, it's 3am and I just HAD to write something about this)

Grow my pretties, GROW!!

So I've finally got all my seedlings into the ground. All 13 tomatoes, 6 broccoli and 4 corn. So happy to have them all planted so they can grow all nice and big and strong.

Speaking of gardening, I really should get into weeding the scrub patch here at home. Not entirely looking forward to it since it means a lot of bending over and at the moment, with my lovely pregnant belly, bending over can cause my lungs to get squished lol. It's rather hard to take a breath when your chest cavity is suddenly full of intestines lol.

My strawberries are loving me. I've given them fertiliser and they're sprouting berries and flowers all over the place. Not many per plant, only 2-5 or so but when you multiply that by 12-14 plants, that's quite a few strawberries!!

I'm so proud of all my gardening lately, minus the weeding. The hellish weeding!!!

Dramas!

Well this morning I had a bit of a scare. I thought I had sprung a leak.
The man thing was out and I was alone to over think things.
The good news is I was poked, prodded, swabbed, sampled, measured, listened to, scanned and deemed perfectly ok. It's thought that I either peed myself without noticing, or the regular discharges down there had a flooding good time.
I rang the man thing before I headed off to the hospital and he came zooming into town and met me there. I hadn't told him what was up over the phone so he was worried as hell, wondering what was going on. In hindsight I really should have told him what was happening...

Well since we've been home (several hours now) I've hit the slump after all the adrenaline. All I want to do now is crash out and sleep for a while! If I didnt have a bouncy little jumping bean using my bladder as a trampoline then I might be able to get some sleep lol. I love feeling the movements, really, they're just so strong already!

Garage Sale SCORE!!

Oh before I forget I HAVE to tell you about this amazing score I made at a garage sale in my street this weekend. For $30 I got a change table, a capsule that does up to 13kg and a Mountain Buggy Urban. Yes, all of that for only $30!!!
Such a score!!

Sweet Emotion

Or not so sweet as the case may be. The man thing is lucky to be in one piece at the moment *wince* seeing as I've been one hell of a moody cow at the moment. Dreaming of your fiance cheating on you with any female that opens her legs is also likely to put one in a bad mood...

So yeah, today I've been happy, sad, frustrated, angry. In general, pregnant!

Bubby boy has been jiggling round in there quite happily today. I think I had a knee or a foot massaging my right flank while I was watering the plants. Felt rather interesting, let me tell you!

The bumpage is getting bumpier by the day. I'll take a photo tomorrow and show y'all.

My belly button cant make up its mind whether to be an innie or a flattie at the moment, it hasn't quite progressed to being an outie yet. Close, but not quite.

Mama worries

Tomorrow I will be at the same gestation as I was when I lost my first son Antony. Understandably this is making mama bear a bit on the worried side. Subconsiously more than anything else. I've avoided sitting down and consiously worrying about it happening again because I cant see the point in stressing myself out over something that is out of my control. Seems my subconsious has been doing the worrying for me.

So far I've had 2 nights of seriously crappy sleep. The night of 20w4d, which is the day that I had the anatomy scan with Antony that suggested there could be a problem with my cervix, and last night 21w, which was the night before I was admitted into hospital to await progress.

Well, the good news is I'm not in hospital so things are definately different this time.
Umm, bad news... I dont think I have any at this stage, and I bloody well hope it stays that way.

Tomorrow I will be lighting a candle for my lost son, to remember the short time that he was with us and to celebrate him becoming a big brother. So sad that he isn't here with us now...

Mountaineering and ping pong balls

No I'm not about to go start climbing mountains, but I have been sifting through them. Mountains of baby clothes that is.

The man thing and I went on a little road trip to Auckland Tuesday/Wednesday to meet up with a few people and pick up some stuff for the baby. I got 2 doz flat cloth nappies (Thank you Lisa!!!) and a bag of absolutely pristine clothes from a friend (Thanks Steph!!!) but the biggest suprise came when the father-in-law gave us 2 boxes AND a black sack full of baby clothes. I was stunned. So, yesterday afternoon when we got home I started pulling it all out and sorting it into sizes/age ranges and *jaw drop* I don't think I'm going to have to buy anything for the next 2 years!!!

Currently on my coffee table I have a rather large stack of NB/0-3 month clothes. Mostly bodysuits and AIOs. The stack is a foot high!!! There's a smaller pile beside it of more wintery AIOs which I think will be a little too heavy for my Due-In-March baby.

We also had our first Antenatal Class last night. Gosh, it was fun. I was a bit nervous, ya know, meeting all these new people and stuff but it was pretty cool. I did my usual hang-around-in-the-background kind of thing but I did participate a little.
The man thing had no qualms about jumping in. He volunteered to wear the 7kg fat suit LOL. It was quite cute. I think the reason he did it was because they said he could try the entonox when we go for a spin through the delivery suite. Yeah, like he's never had that before *wink*

One of the most entertaining parts of the class was when we had to put ping pong balls into balloons (sounds really weird right?) then blow the balloons up a little. It was to simulate the uterus and how it works with the contractions, and also how Braxton Hicks contractions are different from Labour contractions.

Apart from that (which I thought was pretty cool, especially when we started shooting ping pong balls all around the room) I didn't actually learn anything that I didn't already know, either from reading pregnancy books, or the Internet.

Let's see how much I learn from these classes...

(Note to self: Use spell check... Mountain is NOT spelled mountian *facepalm*)

Big tickets

Boy are we lucky. We keep being given things that will really come in handy for the baby like a cot, a high chair, a dresser...

The dresser and a recliner rocker chair are the latest items to join our lovely haphazard collection of furniture. I'm very happy that we have them since the new dresser now gives me a place to put all of the baby clothes that I'm accumulating as well as being able to set up a change area on the top of the dresser. No need for one of those fancy fandangled ones that you see now in the baby shops *wink*

Yesterday, the man thing and I (well mostly the man thing, I watched) rearranged the babys room and our bedroom to make our new acquisitions fit.

The new dresser was my grandmothers and it's one of those old style ones with the mirrors on the top, so I didn't think it was suitable for a babies room, thus it's now in my room with my clothes in it *wink* and I'm loving it. Sure, I had to whittle down the amount of clothes that I have in the drawers (good thing the man had an empty drawer in HIS dresser) but I have way too many clothes anyway lol, I wont miss them. My old dresser is now in babies room waiting to be filled.

The recliner rocker I'm going to most probably use as a breastfeeding chair since it's so comfortable.

Now the only big ticket item we have left to acquire (well hopefully the pram/stroller I have available for my use is suitable) is a carseat. I'm still exploring my options there but I'm definitely looking at what is available to see if any of it is what we want. We may possibly be hiring a capsule but at this point I'm not entirely sure.

It's a...

Whoop.. hold it.

So, I suck at keeping up this blog, obviously. I've abandoned you lovely people for 9 whole days!!! *gasp* It's horrible, how can I do such a thing.

Thus, here is an update of everything that has been going on lately.
The man thing felt the sprog squiggle the other day. He was really happy about that. He's had plenty of opportunity since then but hasn't taken advantage of it.

Umm, what else. Oh yeah, went for the Anatomy scan (also known as the 20 week scan) and everything there looked great. We came home with an abundance of pictures, some alien like and others not so. We also found out what flavour bubba is most likely to be. General consensus is: BOY!!

Spring in my step

Hardy hardy har. I can barely walk, but anyway.

Spring is here! The man thing has his first sunburn (Idiot), the birds are chirping, the sun is shining and I have seeds germinating wink.

We're planting a vege garden up at my mums place and I'm growing what I can from seeds. I currently have sugarsnap peas, tomatoes, brocolli, corn, marigolds and alyssum (yeah I know the last two are types of flowers). The brocolli and peas are sprouting, along with the flowers but the tomatoes and corn are being a bit slow.
I also have some carrot seeds but I'll wait until the garden bed is ready before I plant them anywhere. I'm not sure how they do in pots.

I also have an abundance of strawberry plants. 15 in all. I purchased 6 plants last year, planted them in the ground at my mums place and let them grow. They didn't fruit very well but they made plenty of babies.

The 15 strawberry plants I now have are a mix of the original 6 plus babies. I now have 4 plants in a planter along with some lettuce (yes I know, strange bedfellows) and the other 11 are in pots.

I also have a raspberry bush in a lovely big tub sitting on my porch. It's loving its new position. It was badly mauled when it was at my mums place by a lawnmower over winter and all the canes were taken off at ground level. It was barely poking up any new leaves when I got to it 3 weeks ago. Since then, WOW, it's LOVING the tub on the porch where it gets plenty of sun, it gets water, and the occasional dose of plant food. Here's hoping it loves it so much it gives me a few berries this year lol, though that could be wishful thinking.

Anyway, off to tend to the seedlings and possibly plant some more.

I have the green bug!!

Dangitt Part 2

Well we got home from the hospital at 3am *yawn* with the verdict of...

A sprain. Or a bruise.

Gah!

So what I'm thinking is that it is either yes, a sprain or a bruise, OR there's a crack there that they couldn't see on the xray because that can sometimes happen with people with OI. Great huh.

Well the pain is the same as it was last night (a clue for me that it's likely more than just a bruise) and my toe is a lovely subtle shade of blue so I'm going to be taking it real easy over the next few days to let it rest up and see how it goes.

I hate having a not-very-common bone disorder at times.

Dangitt!!!

I think I've broken my toe :(

Well, I should rephrase that. I think the man thing has managed to break my toe. He accidentally kicked it and I think I've either bruised the joint or maybe chipped one of the bones a little. Here's hoping it's just a bruise. Best to get it checked out though so once I've finished my cuppa we're off to the hospital.

**Disclaimer** If you suspect you have a fracture or break in a bone it is not advisable for you to eat and/or drink before being seen by a doctor as surgery may be required. The only reason I'm finishing my drink is because I know this merry-go-round very well wink

I'll let y'all know how I get on.

Love love love

love love love love this blog!!!

http://simplehomekeeping.blogspot.com/

Now I really do aspire to do what this lovely woman does. I would love for us to be on a more whole-foods diet and I would LOVE to be more self sufficient.

Hell, the next time we move somewhere I'm going to try find a place that has a nice sized yard so we can plant a vege garden, and so I can have my chickens. I've wanted chickens for a while.

This lovely woman has SO many great ideas and while it may take me a bit of adjusting, I'm hoping to put some of them into practice for myself.

I'm so...

Spoiled? Nah that makes me think of rotten fruit.

Spoilt? Is that even a word?

Nevermind.

I feel so lucky! My grandmother is quite seriously looking forward to meeting her great-grandchild and thus she is showering me with gifts. For the baby of course.
I have a full set of newborn clothes, all without even asking for anything. She's just been buying these things and giving them to me. It's awesome. It's like Christmas lol.

Since at this point there's no reason for me to buy any clothes, nana has that all sorted, I've been putting money into other baby related items like a nappy bucket (because I'm one of those nutty people who is going to be using cloth nappies, and not even Modern Cloth Nappies!), a bouncinette like this one but in black.


And a black, red and white baby gym with matching play mat.
I'm totally in love with the play gym/mat set.

Flutterbys

Not of the winged variety, but more of the uterine kind. I've been feeling little flutters and maybe wobbles since about 13 and a half weeks but now at 17+6 I'm definately feeling little kicks and nudges.

Nothing feels more random than a complete somersault, though I guess there are more to come in the coming months.

Seems to be that either baby REALLY doesn't like the laptop (or possible the wireless modem in the laptop that I cant seem to turn off) or I just have a bit more body awareness when I'm using the laptop. Weird, as you would think I would be more distracted by what I'm reading...

Anyway, it's late (or early) and I really should get to sleep.

They're going to hate me

*cheeky grin*

No, seriously, doctors, nurses and midwives are going to hate me.

At my last midwife appointment I asked my midwife about the routines, policies and procedures in the Delivery Suite. She looked a bit suprised and simply replied, "We talk about things like that when we talk about your birth plan"

Hmph. I'm already WRITING and INVESTIGATING my birth plan.

She didn't seem to like it when I told her THAT.

Yeah... They're going to hate me.

Long time no see...

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted, life just kind of got in the way and I kept procrastinating lol. Whoopsie. Doesn't help I forgot my password *blush*

So, quick catchup!
Baby is still ok, in fact s/he is doing well. I'm now 17 weeks and 2 days along. At almost 15 weeks I had a cerclage put in to stop my cervix from opening up early again. That went well and so far there have been no complications (fingers crossed that doesnt change!!)

The man thing and I have been discussing names, though honestly I dont think that we need any more to think about, we have 20 boys names and about 50 girls names... We should really concentrate on whittling down the ones we have now.

In two weeks and a bit we are having our anatomy scan (also known as the anomoly scan and the 20 week scan)and we are hopefully going to find out the sex of bubs.

In 3 weeks we are going to start Antenatal classes which should be interesting. I've been doing my own research into things and all I can say is OMFG is this a rather...contraversial subject. I think I'll get into this a bit more in later posts but for now I think I'll leave it at :O

Thanks but no thanks

So DF doesnt have a job anymore. After a week and a half of working for the company, they pretty much said to him "Thanks, but we dont need you anymore. Bye"
Grrr!!! It was so painful to see the man thing come home after being told that. We both had such high hopes for that job. Looks like it's back to the drawing board, yet again.
We never seem to be able to win.

Again

I'm back again. I keep forgetting to update, then when I do remember, I can never think of anything to say. Sorry guys :)

Well I'm still pregnant. Still have the sore boobs and the random other symptoms. Worrying a bit that it's all going to turn to shit on me, but still trying to keep my chin up.

It was supposed to be my due date yesterday for my son, so I've been feeling a bit sad and stuff like that. Trying to keep myself occupied and whatnot. The man thing and I spent a quiet day at home yesterday and watched dvds together. It was nice.

Anyway, I'll try to remember to update a bit more often.

Mother Bother

I dont even know why I try helping my mother. Honestly. I moved out of her house so she wouldnt be able to drive me bonkers, and she's doing it from a distance anyway!
So she's supposed to be giving up smoking. She's using the patches and the lozenges and all that, but she picks and chooses when she wants to use them! I thought that if you were going to try quit smoking, you would actually try, rather than make a token attempt then decide it's too hard!
She cant feed herself properly. She has absolutely no idea on what makes a good diet, she never has known. Her excuse, she cant be bothered only cooking for one person. Oh boo hoo! Hell, when I was living with her she could barely be bothered cooking for 2 people! I ended up doing most of the cooking just so it a) had some flavour and b) so there were actually some vegetables! She acts like she's allergic to vegetables, when I know for a fact shes not. She has absolutely no idea on how to feed her cat either. Oh, I've run out of cat food, lets feed the cat a lasagne topper, at least it will make him stop bugging me for food.

GRRRRR!!! She fucks me off so much because she is just so CLUELESS!
I hate feeling more mature than her. I'm 19 FFS. She's 47. I've been feeling more mature than her since I was 15!

I seriously dont know how to deal with her, because she parades all her shit in front of me, and I'm such a softie at heart that I cant help but try to help her, when all that does is fuck me off MORE!

I try not to visit her too often anymore because her whole attitude gets on my nerves. She complains she doesnt have anything to do when her house looks like a pigsty most of the time. She sleeps all day, and her personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. I just get fed up with all her shit. I am VERY glad I dont live with her anymore, otherwise I would have gone completely mental months ago.



Ok, I'm over it. No more helping my mum. She needs to learn how to stand on her own two feet rather than having eneryone pick her up all the time.


(Sorry guys, just really needed to get that out)

What's in a name?

I'm up late looking at names. The man thing and I made a list of names for the last sproglet and we didnt pick any of them. I've just been putting all the names we do have listed into a spreadsheet along with meanings so it's easier to have a good look and make a choice. I just spent a good hour looking up the meanings. I even looked up whether they are in the top 100 nationally, or top 30 internationally. (Yeah, I'm a geek)

I also found a few new names to add to the list like Alevandra and Jayson. Yeah, I'm into alternative spellings and all that. I'm really not interested in a common name, but neither of us want a really out there kind of name either. I'd prefer a name that can be shortened easily, but I'm not so interested in an already shortened name. So I'd rather go for Nathaniel than just Nathan, or Nate. I'm picky lol.

Anyone have any ideas for names? I currently have about 50 girls names, and about 20 boys names, so I think I need a few more. Please, feel free to suggest something :)


Well today I went kind of mental on vacuuming the house lol. I spent about 20 min just vacuuming the hallway, trying to get all of my hair out of the carpet. I have long hair, and it seems to get EVERYWHERE! Just to let you in on how much hair was in the carpet in the hallway, it is about 1.5 metres by 0.7 metres (we have a very short hallway, and a rather small house). And it took me 20 minutes to get all the hair out of the carpet. Yes, that is bad. I'm going to have to go through the whole house attacking the carpet the same way I was today, with the brushy foot bit on the sucky part of the vacuum cleaner (lol, yeah I dont know what it's called)
The man thing and I moved all the furnishings in the lounge today and I vacuumed where everything was. These things havent been moved, or vacuumed under, in about 6 months, since we moved in here.

Anyway, I'm absolutely knackered. I ache in places I havent ached in a long time. I'm off to bed. G'night.

Boooooo-bies

Well theres a pregnancy symptom I didnt expect to see for a few months yet. Leaky boobs. Not too bad, thankfully, just a couple of drops, but still, it's more than I was expecting at this point in my pregnancy!

The man thing is enjoying his job, thankfully. I think it's the only 9 - 5 (ish) job he's ever had. All I know is that it's weird not having him come home around 4 :( Like he used to. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.

Oh gosh! The hunger I had this morning! I could swear my stomach thought my throat had been cut lol. All was fixed after a lovely bowl of porridge. Mmmmmm.

Grumble grumble

Not me, my tummy. I cant find anything I want to eat :( I'm thinking about cooking up a sausage or two, but still cant decide.
The man thing is off at work, hopefully enjoying himself, and I'm sitting at home waiting for the washing machine to finish, for the second time today. I'm trying to catch up on the chores that seem to run away on me. I'm not looking forward to doing the dishes, mainly becuase that is supposed to be the man things job. I dont see what is so hard about washing the dishes when theres only a few of them, rather than waiting until theres a gigantic stack.
Oh how I wish we had a dishwasher!!!

Oh, I'd love it if I got some comments :)

Paranoia

So everyone says (well doctors really) that a line is a line, in relation to pregnancy tests. Awesome.
So I was sitting here earlier on worrying about the pregnancy test I took the other day. The not-very-sensitive one, because it has faded a bit. The line is still there, just not as clearly, or as wide. The First Response test I took is still perfectly fine. I think the line faded a bit as it dried, but it's still clearly there.

Meh, paranoid preggy worries lol. I asked my man thing to pick me up another test on his way home anyway, if he remembers.

OH!! My man thing got himself a job! (Yeah, I know you've heard this before lol) Working for one of those home ventilation companies. It's awesome, he's a telemarketer :)

I also put in a couple of job applications for part time work for me. Scary thought. I havent had a real job in... over a year. Almost 18 months actually. Wow. If I manage to get one of the jobs it wont be a huge amount of money, but at least it will be something. I've been thinking about getting myself a part time job for a while now, just to help keep the boredom at bay.
Sure, I love having the freedom to do what I want, when I want, but it gets quite boring being at home all day every day, which I tend to do more often than not.

And the winner is...

ME!!
I was talking to a few ladies who know I'm TTC and told them what I've been feeling lately and they all encouraged me to test, so test I did.
So I'm waiting for the test to develop, 2 minutes later I look at it. No second line. Oh well, better luck next month, then I put it down and walk away.
Well, an hour and a half later I walked back into the bathroom and looked at it again. 2 lines! What? When did that happen? I asked my friends in the know what they thought and they recommended I take another test. So I did. First Response has a pretty good reputation, and they're pretty cheap so I grabbed myself one. Lo and behold, a second line comes up.

Yes, after only one month of trying, I AM PREGNANT!!!

The man thing is so proud of himself. He's strutting around saying "I never miss!"
Men huh lol.

Keeping it kind of quiet for now. Only the online friends I have know.

And so I'm back...

From outer space...
Well, it feels like it at times anyway.

It's been a little while since I've updated, I hadnt actually realised just how long it HAD been.
Well my man thing decided not to go for the job. It wasnt reliable hours and at the moment we would NEED reliable hours. At least we know he can do the job anyway.

On the TTC front, well according to the charting website that I use, I'm 14 days past ovulation. Cant say how accurate that is seeing as my temps have been all over the place lately. Cant help I missed a few days either *blush*

I found this blog Simple Housekeeping and it's awesome. I'm really keen to give a lot of the things a go. Theres all sorts.

I'm also interested in eating more whole foods, but with the budget the way it is at the moment, it may be a bit trickier than I had hoped. Well if I actually get my ass into gear and sort out this home based childcare, then we would have a little more money coming in.

Anyway, that was just a short update on where we are at the moment. Looking forward to updating more regularly :)

Ciao for now

Interwebs

My internet sucks. I'm still on this crappy 52kb dial up modem. Thus, my internet access is really slow and annoying. It's a real pain when I'm trying to watch something on YouTube or play Frontierville on Facebook. I would upgrade to wireless broadband but we cant afford it at the moment. I'd love to see the day that we CAN afford it.

OH!!! My man thing got himself a job! He's at training for it now. It's only delivering pizzas but its better than nothing. Get us off this stupid benefit and all. This means I really should get on with sorting out the house for the Home Based Childcare thing I'm wanting to do. With us getting off the benefit it just means that any money I earn can be saved and stuff like that. I'm hoping to save up a bit for when we do get pregnant again.

On the TTC front, we're not exactly keeping track of everything but I am on day 11 of my cycle. I'm not expecting to ovulate until about day 21 or so, so theres a good 10 days of regular sex. Hopefully.

I had a tarot card read for me the other day and it pretty much said either we are going to get married, or have our first baby. Well, we're not looking at getting married for another 3 and a bit years yet so it's looking like the second option. BABY!!!

Sometimes I do still wonder if I'm really ready to be a mother, to have a baby and all the responsibility that comes with it, and then I think about how excited I was when I found out I was pregnant with Antony and I KNOW that I want a baby and all it entails.

Right, now off to do some of the chore I've been procrastinating about for the last few weeks *blush*

Family Drama

My mum has a mental illness. She used to be classified as Bi-Polar. Now the shrinks are leaning more towards Borderline Personality Disorder
All I really know about it is, if mum takes her medication, she's pretty ok. If she doesnt take her medication she flips out and does stupid things. Well she's been feeling her tenuous control over her mental stability slip for a couple of days, but she is being proactive about it, for once.

The immediate family all know she's going through a tough time. The biggest thing at the moment is that today is my grandparents 51st wedding anniversary, and late last year my grandfather died. So my nana is a little depressed at the moment, as you can well understand. I think that the wedding anniversary has also triggered my mum too.

So I had a talk to my mum about whats up at the moment, and reccommended to her that she not dump her problems on nana. She respects that, and has been avoiding lumping all her problems on nana already. I am quite proud that she had the foresight.

So my mum is generally falling off the rails, and I have no idea where my fiance is right now. He went off fishing with some of his family and I dont know where they are, or when theyre getting back. 5:46pm. It's getting pretty dark so I hope they get back soon.

Just like a man to go off fishing and not notify me of E.T.A back at home.

Whoops!

So its 11 days until we start to try to conceive our baby and my man hasnt been very careful with his testicles. Last night he put a hot hot water bottle on them, so I'm hoping he hasnt cooked the next 75 days worth of sperm. That's 2 and a half months. Lets just hope that theres still enough life left in those poor little cooked buggers for them to swim to mrs eggy.

Been taking my temp every day for the last 4 days now. On Cycle day 5 and things are starting to sort themselves out.

Thyhe man thing and I have given up on the precautions and are just letting things do their thing. If it happens this month (or more likely in the beginnings of next month) then all good. Awesome. Wicked. If not then we have plenty more time to try!

Day One

Well I am quite happy to have started myself a new cycle, just in time for TTC in 2 weeks. Looks like we will be starting to TTC right when I should be ovulating. Hopefully.

Wouldnt that be awesome. First month of trying again. Not getting my hopes up too far but last time I stopped taking my contraceptive pill, 2 weeks later I had my period and 5 weeks after that I got a positive pregnancy test.

As my man thing says, he never misses.

He was so proud of himself last time, lets hope that this time he's the same. Strutting around lol.

So my Fertility Friend charts say that my cycles average 38 days long. I usede to approximate it at 35 days, or 5 weeks. Seemed pretty consistent, although that was when I was taking the contraceptive pill. Maybe my cycle is different when I'm au naturale?

Movie time

So this afternoon my partner and I are off to watch another movie. We got the tickets for free. Kinda. It's a deal with our newspaper. Cool huh.
So today we are going to go see the A-Team movie. Should be good. We saw the trailer for it when we went to see Prince of Persia. It looked good then, and I've only heard good about it since then.

So in 1 hour we are going to be watching an awesome movie. Hopefully. If I can walk that far (jokes)

The car is off getting repaired. Warrant and all that. Seems theres some rust in a place you really dont want rust, but the old girl isnt doing too bad for being older than I am. Then theres a few other things that need to be done to it. Goody...
Money is a little bit stretched as it is at the moment.

Mmmm... Cake

So last night I went on a bit of a baking spree. I ended up making a chocolate cake (recipe sucked so it didnt turn out that great) a gingerbread cake (YUMYUM) and some gingernut cookie dough. Going to bake the gingernuts today and make a bigger and better chocolate cake tomorrow.

I dont eat cake all that often but I sure do like making it. I'll be the perfect mum lol. Baking cakes and cookies and lots of other goodies. I like making my own bread too.

Yuuuuuummmmmm...

Baking bread is made so much easier with a breadmaker though teehee.

I want to make some bread now...

First, off to the supermarket to get some more ingredients to make cake so I can make an awesome chocolate and orange (jaffa) cake for tomorrow afternoon.

See, tomorrow afternoon my fiance and I are saying farewell to an ex friend of ours. In recent times he has been quite a bit of an ass, so we decided to part ways with him. Seems he's made that pretty easy by deciding to move out of town. The biggest problem with deciding to part ways with him is he lives with my mother. Great huh. Well not for long. As of Monday he's moving 4 hours away to live with HIS mother, then he will be moving further down the country to live with his nana.

Enough of that maudlin subject. Cake! Cake is good. Well, it tastes good anyway, it's not so good on the hips, or the waistline, or the heart...

Well, everything in moderation and all that.

In the know

I like having friends in high places. Like doctors, or at least med students. They may not be fully qualified but they have some idea on what they're talking about. They can also talk to other doctors and get information that normally isnt shared, like which doctors are complete dickwads (I'd figured one out by myself but got a heads up on another one) and the after appointment chats with specialists that arent generally shared with the patient in question.

I am very thankful that my lovely med student is such an awesome guy, who I will be very glad to keep in contact with hopefully for years to come. It's nice to know someone who can give it to me straight, and who I can have a conversation with over pizza about hormonal contraceptives lol.

So I thank James for his wonderful insights into the world of the doctor, and I thank him for his advice over whether to file a complaint over a truly horrible doctor or not.

Thanks James!

Baby Making

So theres now 20 days until my darling fiance and I can try for another baby. Believe me, the waiting is excrutiating.

I have dabbled in the mystical arts of temperature charting, mucus observation and ovulation prediction, with poor results. I'm the person who forgets to eat breakfast until lunchtime, so I find it damn near impossible for me to remember to take my temperature every morning before I get out of bed.

I am reconsidering my stand on trying to temp, but until I actually get to the first day of my cycle, theres really no point.

For charting to work, I will need to change my entire routine basically. Currently, I go to bed and go to sleep whenever I feel tired. Whether that be 9pm or 2am, it doesnt matter. Theres no routine to it. I must make a routine. And actually stick to it...

So for now, until I can find the willpower to make a routine and actually stick to it, the baby making plan is just have sex when we feel like it, as often as we feel like it, until we either get sick of having sex (yeah, like thats going to happen), or until I get pregnant. Lets hope it doesnt take me very long to get preganant.

Cinema Time

So on Tuesday night my fiance and I went to the movies and saw Prince of Persia. It was a pretty alright movie, gave a few laughs, was a little heartwrenching at times and all that, all the things a good movie should be. It pales in comparison to Avatar though.

Yes, I'm an Avatar nut. I saw it at the cinema twice, and I now own it on DVD.

The biggest upside with going to the movies to see Prince of Persia was the fact that it was the first date my man and I have been on in... ages!
It was so nice. We had dinner (lasagne, which I cooked) and then went and had a lovely time out at the movies, snuggling up together watching a pretty cool movie. Then when we got home afterwards... That was good too lol.

Now, to get the man thing to do that more often teehee.

Baby-land

So up until recently I was pregnant. That didnt end so well, with me having the baby at 21 weeks gest. and there being no chance of survival for him. We named him Antony.

So we were told to wait 3 months before trying again. we have 22 days to wait now, and the waiting is getting... interesting.
So many people cant understand that my partner and I have intergrated the loss, we have worked through it and everything. They dont seem to be able to get it.
My mum for example. Pretty much all I keep hearing is wait wait wait.

We dont want to wait.

I went to the sexual health clinic the other day, and I heard pretty much the same thing from the nurse I was talking to. Yes, thank you for your opinion, but butt out of my life would you!
My partner and I made a decision to try for a baby. The dream still hasnt been fulfilled. Yes, my firstborn will always be there and I will never forget him, but our want for a baby hasnt been put on hold because of him. He was an experience, a dream and I am thankful that I got to share the time with him, short as it was.

Just because I had a baby and he died, hasnt made my life go on hold. It took me a while to work through it, and work through it I did but when my partner and I talked it over after Antony, we still want to share our lives with a child of our own creation. We still want to have another baby and we dont want to wait.

My first post whooooooo

Ahem.. Yeah anyway.
Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm an internet addict.
Erm.. I hate getting things like this started. I much prefer them once they're established and all that jazz. Although, if I think about it, people wont really be seeing it until it's established will they...

Pretty much this is just going to be the place where I bitch about what I see, I comment on news, weather, occurrances and stuff. Lots and lots of different stuff.

This is also going to be the place where I comment about my life, my family and so on.

Enjoy!