Welcome to the world Lena Jo

I wrote this not long after having our third baby, Lena Jo on April 23rd, but I haven't added it to here until now:

Although I know that every pregnancy,
every birth and every baby is different, this being my third baby, I
had quite a few preconceptions about how things would pan out. Although
I'd been doing everything in my power to ensure that I didn't have
another long labour, I was fully expecting to be at it for quite a
while again, and to be overdue. In the last week or so though, I'd
begun to have doubts, I was pretty sure that I'd had a show, and this
baby was engaged and much lower than either of the boys ever had been
at this stage, maybe this time it would be different?

On the Thursday evening, I gave Mahe his
bedtime feed, and immediately got quite bad braxton hicks contractions,
they didn't last for too long, and soon stopped. He was awake again in
the night, and after another feed, I had about half an hour more of
contractions that came to nothing. I didn't really think much more
about it, I'd decided that Friday wasn't going to be the day that I had
my baby, although I'd quite have liked it to be, as it was my Nana's
birthday.

I spent most of the day pottering round
and finishing off little jobs that I'd been meaning to do for a while
but just hadn't got around to as yet. I didn't have a twinge all
morning, and at three, when I was picking up Kai from Big Steps, I was
really quite surprised to suddenly have a big contraction that took my
breath away. I still didn't really think that it was the start of
anything, so once I'd driven home, I walked up to the shop to post some
letters. It quickly became apparent that things were happening and that
my baby was on the way. I timed the contractions and found that I was
having them every five minutes or so, and they were lasting about 30
seconds. I text my midwife, and tried to keep my mind busy so that I
wasn't thinking about the pain. Because I've been being a good girl and
doing my homework, I was doing my best to get into the right position,
seeing as I've had such long labours before, I spent each contraction
on all fours with my bottom wiggling.

Unfortunately I'd decided to go into
labour on one of the few occasions when my midwife wasn't on call, so
after looking forward to knowing the midwife who was going to deliver
my baby, right at the last fence, it wasn't to be. Her back up midwife
knew all about me though, and shared similar ideas with my midwife, so
it was ok. I spoke to her first at about five and she said that they
would be back in touch with me shortly to decide what to do. Usually
they waited until the contractions were coming around every three
minutes, but as I was going for a vbac they thought they might want me
sooner.

It became clear, as I waited for them to
call back that perhaps my body wasn't waiting around in quite the same
way that it had in the past, he contractions were now coming every four
minutes, and between them I managed to let M know that we'd better get
his sister round to watch the boys and get going. I called the midwife
back, and said I thought I'd better come in.

It's a half hour drive to the hospital,
and I spent much of the journey thinking, just slow down and hold on a
bit longer, as things were certainly moving along. We reached Waitati
only to discover that they were diverting the traffic up into the back
of beyond due to a bad accident on the main road. M pulled up at the
road block, and in true television fashion explained that his wife was
in labour, they quickly waved us through, I think M was a little
disappointed that we didn't get a police escort though.

Once at the hospital, all should have
been plain sailing, but a few little things started to go wrong. My
promised cordless monitoring went out of the window, as no one could
actually get the one remaining machine to work. (The other two were out
of order due to error in one case, and someone accidentaly chucking one
of the $4,000 pads into the laundry basket in the other.) So for a
third time I was to spend my labour wired to the monitor. Next came the
fun of trying to site the cannula, which they were putting in just in
case I needed a drip. They also needed to take some blood as I seemed
to have two NHI numbers and no one could work out my blood group as a
result. When I had Mahe they took two attempts to get it in, and I
ended up with a very swollen hand, due to my small veins. This time,
the midwife decided to get the consultant in to do it, and even he took
quite a while to find a suitable site to place it.

Finally it was time to check how far
along I was, and after my previous experiences of having to be told
that I was only a few centimetres dilated, I could have kissed the
midwife when she told me that I was already 7 - 8 cm. I quickly got
back into the bottom in the air, on all fours and wiggling like a mad
thing with every contraction position that I'd been in before. They
gave me gas and air, which helped a little bit, but to be honest I only
used a handful of times because it made my mouth so dry.

By this point the student midwife I'd
been seeing had also arrived, so although I hadn't got my midwife,
there was someone there who'd been following the rest of my pregnancy
which was nice. They kept telling me how well I was doing, and how well
I seemed to be coping. I told them that it must be my British stiff
upper lip, but I'm not sure that these Kiwi's always know how to take
my sense of humour. I decided about now that I needed to go to the
toilet, and discovered that actually sitting on the loo was really very
comfortable. I stayed there for three contractions, and was a little
concerned in case I ended up having the baby on the loo, but the
midwife assured me that although she'd had some close calls in the
past, she'd always managed to prevent the baby arriving in the toilet
bowl in the past.

She'd been asking me if I was feeling
any need to push for a little while, but I wasn't feeling the need at
all. Once off the loo, she wanted to see how far along I was. I was
quite surprised to find out that not only was I fully dilated, but the
babies head was actually only about an inch from appearing. I still
felt absolutely no need to push, and I continued to breath through each
contraction, letting my body do the work. After a while the midwife
said that I should perhaps think about trying a push with the next
contraction as the doctors tended to start to panic if things went on
for too long, with me having a vbac. Trying to push, when I didn't
actually feel the need to was very hard, the midwife used her fingers
to give me something to push against, and before long little baby was
on the way out.

I think the whole pushing process took
about 45 minutes, which was a similar length of time that it took with
Mahe, but everything else had been much faster. They held up a mirror
so that I could see the head emerge, and the progress I was making with
each push. When the head arrived, unlike Mahe, who lay there still
until he actually fully arrived, little babe opened one eye and wiggled
a bit. Little babe was delivered straight onto my chest and half
wrapped in a towel, while I had my first cuddle. M cut the cord, and
they gave me an injection for the placenta which followed fairly
quickly.

We'd been busy taking in our new arrival
for about ten minutes, when a different midwife (the one who'd been
there for the birth had to go and deliver another baby, apparently
there is very rarely more than one lady in labour at a time, but that
night there were three,) asked what we'd had. M had a look, and had to
double check “is it a girl?” I could hardly believe it, I'd actually
got a daughter!

She was soon having her first feed, and
although feeding a little one again took a bit of getting used to, she
was soon having a mammoth feed. Meanwhile I was having an array of
different midwives checking my blood loss, and that things were
returning to normal. Mic-feed and mic-being poked and prodded Lena
suddenly went blue and floppy, and she was quickly whisked away. I
don't know exactly what happened, and she quickly recovered, but it was
perhaps the scariest thing that I've ever experienced. Apparently
sometimes they forget to breath and swallow, and she was thoroughly
checked over to rule out any other problems.

After everything had been sorted out I
got my tea and toast, which were divine, and then a shower, which was
so good that I would have been quite happy to spend the rest of the the
week in there. A few more checks were done, and we made our way back to
the ward. I was still too full of adrenaline to get much sleep, that
and the noises of the hospital and the need to check my little girl
every few minutes, meant that I did little more than doze for half an
hour here and there.

I'd done it though, a little girl and my third, and by far my easiest, birth.

So tired

I really could do with more sleep, this whole pregnancy thing makes you tired at the best of times, but with Mahe not sleeping very well at the moment, and then me not able to get back to sleep after getting up to him, I'm really suffering at the moment.  Sorry, didn't mean to just moan, but I am feeling pretty rotten at the moment.  Still when baby number three turns up, at least I'll be used to sleepless nights I suppose......

Another new venture.

Well, since my last entry, when I think I mentioned my new on-line shop, http://www.nzwools.co.uk I've also become involved in something else. 
I ordered a load of bamboo knitting needles and crochet hooks for the site, and thought I'd try selling a few here in New Zealand too, so I listed them on Trademe.  (Which, in case you are wondering, is a bit like ebay.)  They sold far better than I expected, so now I have another on-line store, this time just for needles and hooks, and it's got everything from circular needles, to crochet hooks, to tunisian crochet hooks on it.  All quite exciting really.  http://www.knitnacks.webs.com

KnitNacks

I'll have to try to keep you up to date more often though, I seem to go ages between making entries on here.

Wow; It's been a long time!

Well, I've not been on here for a while, I've been quite busy though.  As if having two little boys wasn't enough to keep me occupied, I'm having a third baby in April (yay!) I'm not sure what flavour as yet, but I'm thinking that it will probably be another boy.  (Of course, if I'm honest, I'd like a little girl, but I don't mind really.)
I've also started a business, selling knitting wool and yarn, basically there is so much lovely stuff here in New Zealand, and I thought it might be nice to share it with the rest of the world.  The prices are in £, but I will ship for the same price (once you've converted it that is) anywhere in the world, and the price includes the cost of postage. If you know someone who knits or crochets, then let them know about http://www.nzwools.co.uk
I'm also working on a new free pattern for the site, there are quite a few on there already, so I hope to have that available very soon.  Here's a picture of the finished article:

PhpWMMA10PM

Right, I'd better get on, busy busy busy at the moment.  Will try to update again soon.......

Breastfeeding a personal triumph

This time a year ago, I was around five months pregnant, along with the usual pregnancy worries and niggles, I was really worried about breastfeeding.  It hadn't been an easy journey with Kai; I had started off feeding him fairly well, but by the time he was three weeks old, we were back in hospital due to his dramatic weight loss.  I had no option but to give him top-ups of formula.  We battled on for months and despite repeated attempts to move away from the bottles it never happened.  I found this old diary entry earlier:

I've just got back from taking Kai to the baby clinic and he's lost weight, he was 13lb last week, and this week he's down to 12lb 13oz.  I could cry!!
I thought that I'd done with all this weight dropping and worry after he lost loads at three weeks and had to go into hospital.  A few weeks ago I decided to try and phase out his top ups, which I was doing but hadn't managed totally yet - he's down to 2oz a feed and 4oz at night, and he has loads of time at the breast now.  I just feel really low, and despite my best efforts it really looks like the end might be in sight for the old breast milk.  I just feel so bad every time I give him formula, and now it looks like that might be all he's getting!  I know that if I go back to offering him more, then he will no longer be interested in breast milk.
The worst thing is I was convinced he was going to have put on loads, he's such a happy, lively, sociable baby and he feels very heavy to me!!  So when the weight showed on the scales I just felt terrible.  Sorry don't want to go on, should try and focus on the fact that he does seem to lively and happy and that at least I've managed to feed him for this long.
I finally admitted defeat when Kai was just shy of six months, he clearly wasn't interested in breastfeeding any longer, I wasn't even sure that he was taking any at that point.
I was worried that second time around wasn't going to be any easier, and in some ways it wasn't.  Mahe is a long baby, but very light, he has always been on the edge of being a cause for concern, weight wise, but here we are, at just over seven months, and still breastfeeding.  What's more he didn't start solids until six months, and he's never so much as looked at a bottle of formula. 
It's not easy for everyone, this breastfeeding lark, but I'm so pleased to be able to say, that for me at least, second time round was much better. 

There really is only one way to see if you're pregnant....

 When I first thought I might be pregnant with Kai, before doing a proper test, I found an on line pregnancy quiz. It gave a percentage chance of being pregnant. I recently stumbled across something similar, and thought that it would be interesting to fill it in again, just to see what my chances were: Your score is 50%. You're probably pregnant, see your doctor or midwife! But, alas, I am fairly sure that I'm not. Maybe I wouldn't be the only one to get a similar result, what if I filled it in for my husband? 

Q1: Have you missed your period? No. I don't think never having had one counts. 

Q2:Are your breast sore? No. Slight man boobs, but no pain in them. 

Q3: Are you more sleepy than usual? Yes, he is working hard at the moment, but it doesn't ask why. 

Q4: Are you feeling moody? Yes, no doubt about this one. 

Q5: Do you have an increase in cervical discharge? No, that might be a little difficult. 

Q6: Have you missed more than one period? No, see question one. 

Q7: Do you feel movement in your lower abdomen? Yes, possibly something to do with the curry he ate last night. 

Q8: Are you having weird food cravings? Yes, cheese and jam sandwiches, I think that's weird. 

Q9: Are you having more frequent headaches? Yes, along with other man flu symptoms. 

Q10: Have you had any bloating? Yes, see question seven. 

Q11: Have you outgrown your clothes? Yes.

 Q12: Have you had a positive pregnancy test? No. 

Your score is 50%. You're probably pregnant, see your doctor or midwife! I'm not really sure how to break it to him, I think he may be a bit surprised. Still, it goes to show, there is only one way to tell if you are pregnant, and that's to do a pregnancy test. (Or, of course, you could just wait nine months and see if a baby arrives.) Symptom spotting will just drive you mad instead.

Kai's Birth Story; two and a half years on.

I really, really meant to do this
sooner, much sooner.  I'm not really sure how much I remember of
Kai's birth, it was over two and a half years ago now.  What I
do know, is that at the time, I hadn't really come to terms with what
happened, and perhaps if I'd done this sooner, it would have be
easier to deal with.

The whole of my pregnancy with Kai had been
very easy and straight forward, with no problems or things to worry
about.  I fully expected the birth to be fairly straight
forward, and I think that I could have been more prepared for things
not quite going to plan.  I had thought, right from the start
that Kai would be late, just because my Mum was late having the three
of us, and I'd got it into my head that Kai would arrive on the 1st
October.  I wasn't surprised that I reached 41 weeks, with no
sign of a baby, (apart from my huge bump of course.)  I was
given a sweep on the Wednesday, which was really quite uncomfortable
(not that I expected it to be a nice experience) as I hadn't started
to dilate at all.  I thought nothing of it really, and didn't
expect anything to happen. 
The next morning, I sat up in
bed, ready to do lots of things to keep my mind off waiting for the
baby, and found myself sitting in a pool of water.  It took me a
few minutes to realise that things might be starting, and for some
reason, I seemed more concerned with tidying up the mess, than
ringing the hospital.  Once I finally got myself into gear, and
called the hospital, I began to feel quite excited.  Mike was
working in Leicester at the time, and had to travel back home, and
have a shower before we headed to the hospital.  We spent the
next hour or so in the delivery suite, being monitored, but as I was
still to have any contractions, they booked me in for an induction on
Saturday morning if nothing happened in the mean time, and sent me
off home.  I spent the next day and evening in front of the TV,
waiting for something to happen, but alas, nothing.
The next
morning, I noticed that the liquid on my pad had changed colour
again, so we spent a second morning in the delivery suite with me
attached to the monitors, but still nothing had changed.  I was
getting the odd tightening, but nothing that looked like he was on
his way.  It didn't help that Kai kept kicking the heart monitor
pad out of the way, and we ended up being in there for quite a
while.
That evening I finally started to get regular contractions,
at around 11 pm.  Not really enough to say that things had
started, but too intense to let me get any sleep.  I spent the
night playing around on the computer, and watching television, (there
really is very little on in the wee small hours.) Finally at around 5
am I called the hospital again, and they told me to come in. 
For the third morning in a row I found myself in the delivery suite,
attached to the monitors.
As the morning progressed, there was
very little change, I'd barely dilated at all, and they decided to
speed things up with the drip.  I was doing quite well at this
point and managing without any pain relief at all.  As they
increased the dose and I found the contractions stronger and closer
together, I started using the gas and air.  I should have tried
to be on my feet more at this stage, not easy when you're strapped to
the heart monitor, but not impossible, and I could have stood up a
bit more.
When they checked me to see how dilated I was, the
midwife thought that Kai's head felt a bit soft, more like his
bottom, so they decided to scan him, and check that he wasn't
breach.  He was head down, but he'd been squashed down for so
long without coming out that it made his head feel soft.  As we
were there for so long, when the shift changed, the next midwife and
doctor had the same concern and had to check again, so I found myself
having two scans while in labour. 
By about lunch time, I
was feeling very tired, and finding the contractions harder to cope
with.  Poor Mike had gone without food all morning so I sent him
off to get some sandwiches.  I expected him to nip out to the
car, and come straight back, but he ate them first and then called a
few people, so by the time he returned, it felt like he'd been
hours.  I was beginning to feel I needed more for the pain too. 
We called the midwife in, she started checking the read-outs from the
monitor.  With every contraction, Kai was having something
called an "early" which basically meant that his heart rate
was dropping.  They were concerned that it could be a sign that
he was distressed, and so to check that all was well they decided to
take a blood sample.  I didn't really take in what this
involved, but soon found my feet in stirrups, while they tried to
scratch the top of his head.  Trying to fit it all in between
contractions, meant that it took three attempts, and I'm sure that I
had half of the hospital staff in the room, peering up between my
legs at one point.
They couldn't decide one way or another if he
really was distressed, but suddenly I had the whole world in my room,
discussing which theatre was free.  I couldn't quite get my head
around the thought that I was about to have a section, and the next
thing I knew, I was being wheeled away to theatre.
When they put
the spinal block in, it was a wonderful feeling, suddenly all the
pain was gone, and I started to fall asleep.  Mike asked me what
it felt like, and was told off by one of the theatre nurses, because
I had more important things on my mind right now.  They put a
screen up to shield my lower half, and for a moment I was quite
worried, as I could see my legs reflected in the light above me, but
they soon covered that, so I couldn't see.  All of the hospital
staff who weren't actually doing something right then, stood with
their hands clasped in front of them, and Mike told me later, that he
thought they were about to start preying, I'm told that it's the best
position to stand in, to keep your hands sterile though.
The
section itself was a bit of a blur, I remember being thrown about a
bit, because he was wedged in quite well, but I remember little until
he was pulled out.  We didn't know what we were having, so the
consultant had shouted out, "it's a boy," before I got to
see him.  They carried him over to be checked out, and I saw a
little blue baby, with the longest arms and legs I had ever seen. 
It was just how he seemed, but that first sight is burned into my
memory for ever.  He was absolutely fine, and none the worse for
his ordeal.  The wrapped him in a blanket and let me hold him
for a minute or two, and then gave him to Mike while I was sorted out
and tidied up.
It was around this point that I went into shock, I
only know that's what it was because of a recent first aid course I
had done, and it was nothing like I had expected.  I felt so
cold, colder than I've ever been before, and although they wrapped me
in a couple of heated blankets, it took quite a while for me to feel
normal again.
The last thing that I had expected to happen, was
that I would end up having a section, and I was totally unprepared
for it.  I felt for a long time that I had somehow failed Kai,
and I would get quite upset when I thought about it.  I came to
terms with it more as time went on, and having Mahe really helped. 
I felt so good after his birth, and not having to have a second
section, that I think that it got rid of the final negative thoughts
I had about Kai's birth.