Nothing so sharply changes your sense of time as being a parent. It seems like just a heartbeat ago that Bob and I brought home an impossibly tiny baby. But it seems it was six months ago, and that tiny baby is marching her way towards toddlerhood.
This week we have put away her bassinet and bouncy chair, to join her baby bath and pram bassinet. We are just a few short weeks away from turning her car seat around. We both needed a hug when we realised this.
At least once a day she demands to be left to her own devices and three times today she pushed my hand away and grabbed the spoon for herself, jamming it successfully into her mouth.
Sometimes I miss the tiny baby so much it takes my breath away.
Mostly, I am excited about what tomorrow holds and continuing to get to know this gorgeous little person who is cheeky, funny and impossibly intelligent (If not a little gumby).
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Wedding and The Honeymoon: A new way of life in more ways than one
Unlike my post on finding out about our pregnancy, where I elected to omit the details of the wedding planning for the sake of brevity, I am going to omit the details of the wedding for the same reason many brides cite, and that is, I simply don't remember a whole lot of it! I KNOW I had a wonderful time, I KNOW it was a beautiful day where every detail was pulled off with perfection, I KNOW I danced a lot, ate a lot, laughed and smiled a lot and generally had the most awesome time of my life, but can I remember the exact details? No, not really. It all comes back into sharp focus when I look at the album (mostly. Sometimes I think, WHEN WAS THAT PICTURE TAKEN????), but as a rule, it's one big blur of awesome, ending in exhaustion!
I cannot thank our families and friends enough for such a wonderful time, especially my grandma, who never thought to say no to any request, no matter how Bridezilla-ish.
I will also say, as inelegant as this is, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE GIFTS. Our start to married life was so much smoother thanks to you. We never gave out Thank You cards as we were gifted them. But as life "happened" to us, life "happened" to the people that gifted them, and we never received them, and by the time we realised we would need to do something ourselves, we were right in the middle of the worst of Lily's Story. We SWEAR something more lovely will come before the First Anniversary! We cannot thank everybody enough. You were generous beyond measure.
Onto the Honeymoon.
We had decided to go to Fiji before I fell pregnant and booked a fabulous week long stay at the Sofitel, Denarau. We left on the Monday, excited about a really relaxing week before we both had to return to work. But, although we did have a nice time (snorkelling was amazing!), it was tainted with worry. On the flight over, I began to bleed lightly. Some people might have stayed at the airport and gone home on the next flight. But I had been bleeding about once every month like clockwork. I had even had a heavy bright red bleed shortly before Christmas (at Bob's work's Christmas party, actually. Bob panicked and decided to eat breakfast even though I was about to fall to pieces. Most surreal moment of our lives. He explained later that if it HAD been a miscarriage, there was nothing we could do anyway, so why not eat before spending hours at the hospital. SIGH) But these bleeds had always lasted less than 48 hours.
By Wednesday night, I was getting distressed. I had had my quickening in early December, and if I lay very still, I could feel her moving. Sometimes. Maybe. Well, I just didn't know!
After a long discussion, we decided not to go to the hospital. We had seen the schools, and knowing how school infrastructure often compares to hospital infrastructure, I didn't hold out much hope. At this point, I was scared less about a miscarriage and more about poor technology and overworked doctors misdiagnosing a miscarriage of a healthy baby.
We DID have a really nice time in the end and we are eagerly planning a second trip in a few years. I even found a job to go to on my return home!
We arrived home on the Saturday night, and went to the hospital Sunday morning. While they couldn't confirm whether or not my cervix was closed because it is so mutilated from surgery, they could use the Doppler to find her heartbeat. The sweetest sound in the world!
They called my doctor and booked an appointment for the very next morning (hooray for private doctors!).
He seemed very grave and elected to do an internal. He confirmed that my cervix was closed, but was concerned about the length of my cervix and the position of the placenta. He believed the placenta's position was the cause of the bleeding, suspecting that it was so close to the opening of the cervix that a corner had lifted and bled. He wanted to confirm his suspicions of a short cervix, as the exact length, which he couldn't measure with his equipment, would determine whether it was simply a short cervix, or a much more serious incompetent cervix.
He tried to get me into Maternal Foetal Medicine the next day, but they said that as they had never received my 20 week referral, which I HAD faxed, I couldn't have an emergency appointment. My doctor immediately sent a new referral, and they were to get back to me in 24 hours.
Dr Cattanach, bless his life saving soul, sent me home on modified bed rest and 100mg of progesterone twice a day, despite the lack of proven efficacy of either.
And this where the fun, and new post, begins!
I cannot thank our families and friends enough for such a wonderful time, especially my grandma, who never thought to say no to any request, no matter how Bridezilla-ish.
I will also say, as inelegant as this is, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE GIFTS. Our start to married life was so much smoother thanks to you. We never gave out Thank You cards as we were gifted them. But as life "happened" to us, life "happened" to the people that gifted them, and we never received them, and by the time we realised we would need to do something ourselves, we were right in the middle of the worst of Lily's Story. We SWEAR something more lovely will come before the First Anniversary! We cannot thank everybody enough. You were generous beyond measure.
Onto the Honeymoon.
We had decided to go to Fiji before I fell pregnant and booked a fabulous week long stay at the Sofitel, Denarau. We left on the Monday, excited about a really relaxing week before we both had to return to work. But, although we did have a nice time (snorkelling was amazing!), it was tainted with worry. On the flight over, I began to bleed lightly. Some people might have stayed at the airport and gone home on the next flight. But I had been bleeding about once every month like clockwork. I had even had a heavy bright red bleed shortly before Christmas (at Bob's work's Christmas party, actually. Bob panicked and decided to eat breakfast even though I was about to fall to pieces. Most surreal moment of our lives. He explained later that if it HAD been a miscarriage, there was nothing we could do anyway, so why not eat before spending hours at the hospital. SIGH) But these bleeds had always lasted less than 48 hours.
By Wednesday night, I was getting distressed. I had had my quickening in early December, and if I lay very still, I could feel her moving. Sometimes. Maybe. Well, I just didn't know!
After a long discussion, we decided not to go to the hospital. We had seen the schools, and knowing how school infrastructure often compares to hospital infrastructure, I didn't hold out much hope. At this point, I was scared less about a miscarriage and more about poor technology and overworked doctors misdiagnosing a miscarriage of a healthy baby.
We DID have a really nice time in the end and we are eagerly planning a second trip in a few years. I even found a job to go to on my return home!
We arrived home on the Saturday night, and went to the hospital Sunday morning. While they couldn't confirm whether or not my cervix was closed because it is so mutilated from surgery, they could use the Doppler to find her heartbeat. The sweetest sound in the world!
They called my doctor and booked an appointment for the very next morning (hooray for private doctors!).
He seemed very grave and elected to do an internal. He confirmed that my cervix was closed, but was concerned about the length of my cervix and the position of the placenta. He believed the placenta's position was the cause of the bleeding, suspecting that it was so close to the opening of the cervix that a corner had lifted and bled. He wanted to confirm his suspicions of a short cervix, as the exact length, which he couldn't measure with his equipment, would determine whether it was simply a short cervix, or a much more serious incompetent cervix.
He tried to get me into Maternal Foetal Medicine the next day, but they said that as they had never received my 20 week referral, which I HAD faxed, I couldn't have an emergency appointment. My doctor immediately sent a new referral, and they were to get back to me in 24 hours.
Dr Cattanach, bless his life saving soul, sent me home on modified bed rest and 100mg of progesterone twice a day, despite the lack of proven efficacy of either.
And this where the fun, and new post, begins!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Read to your kids
This blog post is less about raising Lily, who is 6 months old today! (amazingly, to her father and me, who look into her bed at night and are astonished to see, not the tiny baby that was surely there just yesterday, but a beautiful SIX MONTH OLD. Tomorrow I will turn around and she will be too old to hold my hand, to tuck in at night and kiss all over every day.) And more about something that is dear to my heart.
If you stand still long enough, or even if you are trying to run away, my grandma will have a story to share with you. One she is very fond of is my family's hard work at instilling a love of reading in me at a very young age. She especially loves to tell how my poppy would tell me stories in bed at night, straight out of his own imagination and would read to me at every opportunity, spiriting me away to book stores when Grandma was pursuing her favourite sport, clothes shopping. By the time I was 3, I could read. It was gift that has given more to me than any other.
When Lily was born, I was determined that she should receive the same priceless gift from her father and I. Even in the NICU we would read to her. Beatrix Potter's Jemima Puddleduck was the first book we ever read to her. It took her a long time to actually like books, listen to them, and enjoy them. When she was almost 4 months old, she enjoyed her very first book, Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
She hasn't looked back since.
Lily is fairly passive about things, she likes people, but things, she could take or leave. She loves books though. She kicks her legs, and laughs and wriggles when you get a book out, and she remains excited, no matter how long it is. She has lasted through Winnie-the-Pooh stories and whole Dr Seuss books. She LOVES Dr Seuss and Lynley Dodd (Hairy Maclary, for those philistines out there) and rather enjoys Dora the Explorer. There is NOT A SINGLE DAY that goes by where we don't read at least one book, and most days we read two, and many days three.
And here's where I get preachy. READ TO YOUR KIDS. No matter if their butts are in disposable or cloth, the food in their belly is organic or not, they are immunised (or, dare I say, not) or they can watch TV during down time. No matter which way you lean for the dozens of things that parents are told to do and not do in never ending circles, READ TO YOUR KIDS.
Recently, the Queensland government implemented a programme where every child would be given a book at birth. The whole reasoning can be found here. But, the basics are that horrific numbers of five year olds, around 48% were not regularly read to at home, which was leading to poor literacy skills in similar numbers of children. It was decided that parents just needed a bit of encouragement, and the Books for Bubs programme was born!
90% of children who are poor readers at the end of Year 1 are poor readers at the end of Year 4. If a child is disengaged from learning at age 8, it is very difficult to get them back on track, and reading is often key to this disengagement. Just 20 minutes a day can make all the difference.
Some words from Mem Fox: Ten Read Aloud Commandments
It takes around 1000 books to teach your child to read, which is just 3 a day over the course of a year. So read to your kids. It is the greatest gift they will ever receive from you.
EDIT: Bob reminded me of two things, which reminded me of a third. The first is a story. The day I got my weaning books, Bob sat down with Lily on his lap and started to flick through one. Not reading, just looking, and Lily go so excited, she start kicking and gurgling, expecting to be read to. So he did. She loved it! Also, he reminded me of this gem: children will learn to love reading if they see you doing it. So read whenever you can as well. You wouldn't tell your child to brush their teeth and eat their veggies and not do it yourself. Same goes for reading. And finally, a love of reading instills a life long love of learning, and no matter what you say about school success not being intrinsically connected to life long success, the road is 100% easier if the child loves to learn, and is good at learning, and reading is key to setting their feet on this path.
If you stand still long enough, or even if you are trying to run away, my grandma will have a story to share with you. One she is very fond of is my family's hard work at instilling a love of reading in me at a very young age. She especially loves to tell how my poppy would tell me stories in bed at night, straight out of his own imagination and would read to me at every opportunity, spiriting me away to book stores when Grandma was pursuing her favourite sport, clothes shopping. By the time I was 3, I could read. It was gift that has given more to me than any other.
When Lily was born, I was determined that she should receive the same priceless gift from her father and I. Even in the NICU we would read to her. Beatrix Potter's Jemima Puddleduck was the first book we ever read to her. It took her a long time to actually like books, listen to them, and enjoy them. When she was almost 4 months old, she enjoyed her very first book, Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
She hasn't looked back since.
Lily is fairly passive about things, she likes people, but things, she could take or leave. She loves books though. She kicks her legs, and laughs and wriggles when you get a book out, and she remains excited, no matter how long it is. She has lasted through Winnie-the-Pooh stories and whole Dr Seuss books. She LOVES Dr Seuss and Lynley Dodd (Hairy Maclary, for those philistines out there) and rather enjoys Dora the Explorer. There is NOT A SINGLE DAY that goes by where we don't read at least one book, and most days we read two, and many days three.
And here's where I get preachy. READ TO YOUR KIDS. No matter if their butts are in disposable or cloth, the food in their belly is organic or not, they are immunised (or, dare I say, not) or they can watch TV during down time. No matter which way you lean for the dozens of things that parents are told to do and not do in never ending circles, READ TO YOUR KIDS.
Recently, the Queensland government implemented a programme where every child would be given a book at birth. The whole reasoning can be found here. But, the basics are that horrific numbers of five year olds, around 48% were not regularly read to at home, which was leading to poor literacy skills in similar numbers of children. It was decided that parents just needed a bit of encouragement, and the Books for Bubs programme was born!
90% of children who are poor readers at the end of Year 1 are poor readers at the end of Year 4. If a child is disengaged from learning at age 8, it is very difficult to get them back on track, and reading is often key to this disengagement. Just 20 minutes a day can make all the difference.
Some words from Mem Fox: Ten Read Aloud Commandments
It takes around 1000 books to teach your child to read, which is just 3 a day over the course of a year. So read to your kids. It is the greatest gift they will ever receive from you.
EDIT: Bob reminded me of two things, which reminded me of a third. The first is a story. The day I got my weaning books, Bob sat down with Lily on his lap and started to flick through one. Not reading, just looking, and Lily go so excited, she start kicking and gurgling, expecting to be read to. So he did. She loved it! Also, he reminded me of this gem: children will learn to love reading if they see you doing it. So read whenever you can as well. You wouldn't tell your child to brush their teeth and eat their veggies and not do it yourself. Same goes for reading. And finally, a love of reading instills a life long love of learning, and no matter what you say about school success not being intrinsically connected to life long success, the road is 100% easier if the child loves to learn, and is good at learning, and reading is key to setting their feet on this path.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
6 Month Immunisations
Lily has always been a trooper when it comes to her immunisations. It's actually, I believe, a byproduct of her NICU time, when uncomfortable and painful things happened to her daily.
Despite not really going to pieces over her injections, she makes a noise and then settles almost instantly, she is just not herself for about 48 hours afterwards. So this morning, when she was talking, laughing and generally making sure the world knew she loves life, I felt very sad that we had to take her for her shots. I thought I wasn't going to see this happy, outgoing and joyful person for a few days.
Well, Lily, as usual, is marching to her own tune. After a quick nap to sleep the worst of it off, she woke up happy and fun and has spent the morning playing, and refusing to nap, because there is just too much to do to sleep.
In fact, as I finish this off, she has woken up from the nap I tricked her into and is lying in her bed talking and laughing at herself. What a clown!
Despite not really going to pieces over her injections, she makes a noise and then settles almost instantly, she is just not herself for about 48 hours afterwards. So this morning, when she was talking, laughing and generally making sure the world knew she loves life, I felt very sad that we had to take her for her shots. I thought I wasn't going to see this happy, outgoing and joyful person for a few days.
Well, Lily, as usual, is marching to her own tune. After a quick nap to sleep the worst of it off, she woke up happy and fun and has spent the morning playing, and refusing to nap, because there is just too much to do to sleep.
In fact, as I finish this off, she has woken up from the nap I tricked her into and is lying in her bed talking and laughing at herself. What a clown!
No going back.
It is a year tomorrow that we found out Lily existed, so here's the post recounting how it went down.
Of course after the engagement comes the wedding planning. I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail here, mainly because 6 months is a long time to fit into a single post and dividing it up more would be contrary to the point of the blog.
However, as with most brides, one of the things I was embarking on with the wedding planning was weight loss, through strict diet and exercise and a skin care regime. It therefore made a whole lot of sense that I was hungry, and trying to juggle the stress of wedding planning, house building and the end of year wrap up at school, that I was a bit moody and quick to temper. But sometime around mid-October, Grandma said, "You're pregnant." With the self confidence only a grandma can possess in such matters.
Even though I thought she was crazy, I did a pregnancy test. The truth was I COULD be pregnant. Even though Bob and I had agreed that the honeymoon would be when we would start actively trying to conceive, we had abandon any reliable form of contraceptive in September because a very dear friend had had more trouble conceiving than is fair for a 24 year old to have, and I was anxious the same might happen to me and I would miss my window of opportunity.
The test was negative, which didn't surprise me as I'd just had a period, although it was incredibly light. I was more disappointed than someone trying to fit into a $5000 wedding gown at about $500 per major alteration should be.
So I carried on with life. Not someone who makes a habit of drinking, when I do, I do it with style. Or lack thereof, rather. So the last two weekends in October saw me attending Oktoberfest and a girls' night while Bob was in Sydney. I didn't hold back at either, although I will admit that, at Oktoberfest, I felt very light headed very quickly.
On the Sunday after the girls' night, I felt like a wreck. More than was reasonable, and by Monday I still hadn't pulled up as much as I should have. I also noticed I wasn't just dieting hungry, I was RAVENOUS. And exhausted. And moody. And my skin, that was being looked after meticulously, was breaking out in pimples. And my boobs hurt. And I just had to LOOK at a glass of water and I'd need to pee. All the other things could be attributed to my period, but the last had me suspicious. So I bought two pregnancy tests on the Tuesday afternoon, and did both.
I screamed when they both appeared positive. Bob turned grey.
There was no going back now, though.
Of course after the engagement comes the wedding planning. I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail here, mainly because 6 months is a long time to fit into a single post and dividing it up more would be contrary to the point of the blog.
However, as with most brides, one of the things I was embarking on with the wedding planning was weight loss, through strict diet and exercise and a skin care regime. It therefore made a whole lot of sense that I was hungry, and trying to juggle the stress of wedding planning, house building and the end of year wrap up at school, that I was a bit moody and quick to temper. But sometime around mid-October, Grandma said, "You're pregnant." With the self confidence only a grandma can possess in such matters.
Even though I thought she was crazy, I did a pregnancy test. The truth was I COULD be pregnant. Even though Bob and I had agreed that the honeymoon would be when we would start actively trying to conceive, we had abandon any reliable form of contraceptive in September because a very dear friend had had more trouble conceiving than is fair for a 24 year old to have, and I was anxious the same might happen to me and I would miss my window of opportunity.
The test was negative, which didn't surprise me as I'd just had a period, although it was incredibly light. I was more disappointed than someone trying to fit into a $5000 wedding gown at about $500 per major alteration should be.
So I carried on with life. Not someone who makes a habit of drinking, when I do, I do it with style. Or lack thereof, rather. So the last two weekends in October saw me attending Oktoberfest and a girls' night while Bob was in Sydney. I didn't hold back at either, although I will admit that, at Oktoberfest, I felt very light headed very quickly.
On the Sunday after the girls' night, I felt like a wreck. More than was reasonable, and by Monday I still hadn't pulled up as much as I should have. I also noticed I wasn't just dieting hungry, I was RAVENOUS. And exhausted. And moody. And my skin, that was being looked after meticulously, was breaking out in pimples. And my boobs hurt. And I just had to LOOK at a glass of water and I'd need to pee. All the other things could be attributed to my period, but the last had me suspicious. So I bought two pregnancy tests on the Tuesday afternoon, and did both.
I screamed when they both appeared positive. Bob turned grey.
There was no going back now, though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)