Baby's First Concussion

Baby's First Concussion

It is not a "first" you ever want for your children - injury - but as a parent who trusts in the process of letting children explore and define their own risk it is somewhat inevitable. Still you hope they will somehow avoid spills, especially any involving a hefty head/ground interface.

On Sunday we took an afternoon trip to the beach. I handed Miss Olive to Keith while I went to the toilet and brought Esme with me because, well, divide and conquer.

The next thing I heard was my baby screaming her lungs out. And as a mum knowing all 2469 scream variations, I knew the song she was singing was Pain (I'm so scared I let a bit of poop out).

Unfortunately I was still sitting on the toilet at the time, now hollering at Keith to tell me what was wrong and at Esme not to open the door. Speed pee, thy name is motherhood!

When we eventually tumbled out of the toilet it was to see a shell-shocked Keith and a still bellowing baby ... now with added scalp laceration.

Always the diplomat I think my first words were "what the ever loving fuck just happened?!"

What happened was that Miss Olive just had her first lesson in why back flipping out of daddy's arms ranks somewhere just short of epic on the stupid scale.

Even knowing what had happened, and also being fairly well trained in first aid let me tell you, when your baby is hollering like a wolf just tore off her arm there is ZERO logic in your brain.

The small voice of calm is running through a well worn checklist and pointing out several obvious things like a)the lack of brain matter b) the obviously conscious baby c) all limbs still attached and in the correct configuration.

The other 99% of your brain is screaming "she's going to DIE!! Her BRAIN will fall OUT!! Call the ambulance, call the coastguard, call a priest, call ANYONE because BRAINS!!"

There is no cold sweat like it.

So we went home, still shell-shocked, Miss Olive now not crying but doing those big shuddering breaths that tell you she was really, REALLY upset there for a minute and how DARE you not be there at the time.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in this position because did I mention? UPSET!

If only that were where it ended: Looking at a baby who fell on her head makes you second guess yourself over and over. It is the one time you are compelled to poke your baby every 2 minutes when they sleep because your stupid irrational parent brain is telling you "THEY MIGHT NEVER WAKE UP!!"

Obviously babies don't much appreciate being prodded when they are trying to recover from the trauma of learning about gravity the hard way so now you have a ratty over tired baby and a brain shouting "THIS IS IT, THE BRAINS ARE COMING!"

Generally, it is a pretty miserable place to be.

The day after this minor drama, Miss Olive woke up grinning and flapping with a barely visible scab on her noggin. I woke up with sandpaper eyes have slept only fleetingly between nightmares of dead babies and listening to baby snuffles in the dark.

Such is the nature of motherhood: one moment you are a serene oil painting, the next a worn out husk of emotional wreckage.

Tuesday, 26 November 2013 Comments: 0

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Katie M Berggren Makes Me Smile

Katie M Berggren Makes Me Smile

So today is my birthday and this year I took the bold step if buying my own gifts.

 

Not that Keith doesn't buy exceptional gifts, but because I wanted something very specific - I wanted some pictures by Katie M Berggren to hang above our bed.

 

 

It took me weeks to pick the prints I wanted - I knew I wanted to celebrate co sleeping, carrying and nursing - and because these are such intimate images, I wanted the ones I picked to really highlight the spark that each activity ignites in me.

 

The nursing image captures perfectly the look that you get between a mum and a newborn when you have the quiet and the space to notice. They give you a look as old and wise as the ages and as a mum you just drown in it.

 

The baby wearing image I thought was a perfect celebration of Keith and I wearing our babies. I love the look of the parents drinking in the smell of sweet baby head because there is no perfume on earth more beautiful.

 

And the co sleeping picture is perhaps wishful thinking on the figure, but is a perfect representation of how I sleep with Olive; one arm getting cold every night and her nuzzled into me. It will always remind me of the one downside of co sleeping too, those evil razor sharp baby nails that slice you open when they peddle in their sleep. It's the reason sleep suits come with feet, I swear.

 

I would recommend you take a look at her site if your walls are ever in need of some beauty. Just don't blame me if you spend the mortgage buying her entire collection.

Monday, 25 November 2013 Comments: 5

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There Is An Etiquette to Co-Sleeping

There Is An Etiquette to Co-Sleeping

By now you all know we have moved to New Zealand. Of course you do, there are approximately 600 people who I'm sure want to reach into Facebook and shout "WE GET IT ALREADY, WITH THE SEA VIEW AND THE SUN AND THE AMAZING COFFEE!" You are of course right, the last thing anyone wants to see when winter is setting in is the sort of posts we regularly make, but my friends, there is a darker side to the emigration tale.

When we moved here, we took a short term let which basically turned out to be a house sit for a lady who goes to see family and friends back on Switzerland every year. Can you imagine the stress? My little darlings in a perfectly kept, fully furnished house? The fact that the only breakage was a single mug now ranks as one of my lifetime achievements.

The other problem with the house was that it only had two double beds. That means that for the last 2 months, I have been sharing a bed with Alfie and Olive and Keith has been sharing with Esme.

All of which is by way of helping you understand the utter joy I now feel at moving into a three bedroom house where everyone is now in their rightful place. Albeit with sleeping bags instead of bedding because our container has been delayed, but hey at least the children have ample room to run about.

Except clearly the last two months have wiped my husband's memory of proper sleeping etiquette.

Last night, for instance, I had headed to bed early to catch up on some sleep and have some Olive snuggles and he had stayed up to look at fishing equipment he's never going to buy. When eventually he came to bed however he did something of such epic stupidity, I am wondering whether he actually stayed up to sniff toilet cleaner.

Keith walked up to where I was lying, asleep, and WOKE ME UP to say "oh, you're sleeping on this side tonight". Yes, you read that right, he woke me up to confirm the location of where until moments previously I was sound asleep. I know where I'm sleeping darling, it's the place where I was JUST SLEEPING.

Still with me? Good, so was the baby. Because after we had established I was in fact sleeping where I was sleeping, Keith walked round to the othe side of the bed and climbed in. Except remember, we are using sleeping bags at the moment and Keith does the human equivalent of when a dog does five laps of his bed before settling down and by the time the rustling had stopped, HELLO BLUE EYES! I could have cried, or screamed, or both.

It took what felt like forever, and a ton more feeding to get Miss Olive back to sleep because as any parent knows when babies wake up hot DAMN it's party time!

Except my husband it seems, his solution to the whole problem was to roll over and fall asleep.

The fact that he made it through to morning without losing a significant body part also ranks as one of my lifetime achievements.

Thursday, 21 November 2013 Comments: 0

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My Bookish Legacy

My Bookish Legacy

When I was little I was a book worm.

OK let me rephrase that, when I was little I lived, breathed and often slept on books.

The stories I read gave me an escapism I sorely needed and I sometimes wonder if some of my grown up stress comes from having lost that escape. I would only lend my books under duress and if the spines got cracked, I would colour them in with felt tip so they still looked new. I cared deeply for the characters in each and every story and my habit got do expensive that in the end, it had to be rationed.

I think somewhere (not so) deep down I was hoping that one of my children would follow in my bookish footsteps and it gives me unbelievable joy to sit with them and read their favourite stories.

Even if it is the same story over and over and oh dear LORD can't we pick a different one tonight.

So here we are, reading Tiddler, my bookish little girl and I. And a baby making sure her boob doesn't run away while she's not looking.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013 Comments: 2

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The Healing Birth of Miss Olive

The Healing Birth of Miss Olive

I’m painfully aware that I owe this blog a birth story. It’s not like I haven’t had the time, right? It’s only been 5 months.

My God has it really been 5 months already?

For those who missed it, Olive Erin Batsford was born by Caesarean Section - my third – so perhaps there’s not that much to share. Except this birth was private and intimate and healing and peaceful and beautiful from start to finish, so perhaps this is a story that should be shared.

I spent my pregnancy with Olive working hard to find a birth option that would keep my heart safe while also securing a good birth for us both. That seems like a throwaway phrase – good birth – but it took up 90% of my brain power for most of the pregnancy to process. There were times I was so consumed by turning over this little pebble in my mind that I would forget to breathe.

Eventually I came to a place where I found some answers: I wanted Olive to be born with gentle hands guiding her. I wanted her to be left covered in her war paint and to hold her skin to skin. I wanted her cord to be left alone so that I, the mother who had grown and nurtured her for so long, could help her adjust to life separated from me. There would be no needles jabbing her, no strangers holding her, and I would be supported by a wise woman.

Initially I fought to make this birth a VBAC because the idea of achieving any of this with a c-section seemed impossible. I was wrong: I achieved all of it and more with the help of an amazing and enlightened hospital.

The morning of Olive’s birth, it was just me and my doula Mel.

For anyone wondering if the gender of your birth supporter makes a difference, there is not a font big enough to write this: YES! Birth with a woman supporting you has a completely different energy. I felt like a part of a tradition with Mel beside me; a link in a chain of a thousand generations of women bringing new life into the world. She also gave me support I didn’t know I needed, feeding me hypnobirthing cues when I didn’t even realise I was tense, and allowing me to be vulnerable and weak by mothering me and walking alongside me as a fellow labour veteran.

The staff just blew me away with their enthusiasm and support. I was asked a hundred questions about how I wanted to birth: Did I have a bag for the placenta? How did I want Olive to be handled? Did I want the lights dimmed? Did I have any music? Was it OK if they put tags on her? What were my thoughts on Vitamin K? Each asked respectfully and the answer carefully noted.

My big fear for this surgery was that for some reason I would need to be put under a general anaesthetic, and there were a few moments where I was fearful that could happen: Once during the siting of my spinal my blood pressure dropped and they had to hope that they had already given me enough, and again when we realised that they hadn't and I could still feel more than I should. Both moments overwhelmed me with emotion but Mel and the anaesthetist were calm and supportive and we found solutions.

This section was far rougher than my other two – apparently I had a lot of scar tissue - and the bruising is still healing 5 months later. So it took a shit ton of heaving and huffing before there was a pause, the surgeon asked me if I was ready to meet my baby, the screen was swung out of the way and slowly but surely, my baby was walked out of me and just as I had requested, dumped onto my chest still deliciously cheesy.

She was my first vernix baby and despite some comedy moments of being nearly suffocated by her as she slid onto my neck and nobody having a hand free to move her, I was already in love with her silky skin. She is still the softest of all my babies 5 months later and I've lost many an hour of sleep nuzzling her velvet neck.

For the first time I felt the urge to lift her leg and check she was a girl, and to look into her eyes and say “hello baby”, bonding moments I had missed the previous two times.

The placenta was placed in a dish beside us and there is stayed until that evening when I looked at my baby girl and knew she was ready to be her own person. It was a quiet moment when I cut her cord and she didn't complain, just adjusted herself to snuggle into my chest and slept on. A lot of people say lotus babies are more content and I think I would agree with that, Olive is definitely my most chilled baby.

The only thing that didn't go to plan with Olive’s arrival was her father. Keith is one for nervous energy and for reasons known best to him had worn himself out trading on his store of adrenaline until he came into the hospital and passed out on the floor beside my bed. Poor Mel had to deal with crazy-cat-lady-Esme before she ripped up the whole ward, and I had to call Keith’s dad to drive all the way from work to come and take them all home. Not ideal.

Olive spent the first 24 hours skin to skin with me and we spent 2 days in hospital cwtched up in bed together covered in a patchwork blanket from home. Nobody asked me to put her in her goldfish bowl, nobody asked me to take her out of her sling when we went for walks to get a cuppa, we were just left to quietly fall in love.

Sometimes a good birth can take the strangest forms.

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

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Dear Maria Kang

Dear Maria Kang

I am late to the game in reacting to your conceited little meme, but I am by nature a passionate and reactionary person and as I settle into the wisdom of middle age, I like to spend a little time mulling over things before I speak.

You will be pleased to know that your family portrait is still appearing in my social media feeds and that more than anything prompted me to write this post.

Equal parts cute and just slightly inappropriate

I doubt you'll ever read it, but I wanted to speak up anyway, on behalf of every mother you have left feeling red faced and shamed by your little stunt.

As a former English student, I still maintain a love of words, and I thought I would look at your choice of barb; excuse. I found one particular definition I liked

"reason or explanation given to justify a fault or offence."

A fault, or offence. Really?

Having a less than perfect body after having children is now a fault, or offence.

Like a lot of women I learned the meaning of beauty at a very young age. I grew up watching a mother who was beautiful in my eyes but who couldn't see it. All she could see was the baby belly three children had blessed her with, the tiger stripes her amazing body had created to mark its achievement. I saw the woman I loved beat herself up every day because she wasn't "perfect" and the only thing it taught me was to hate my own body and see it as ugly and flawed, whatever shape I was.

In my life I have ranged from a size 8 with a six pack to a size 16 with a jelly belly and have settled somewhere around a size 12 with a baby belly which one day may shrink as I get back into running. Then again it may not.

Regardless of the size of my belly however, I will never look at my body with hatred because I have three little sets of eyes watching my every move and learning even when I'm not speaking. A sigh of disappointment as I look in the mirror teaches more to my children about self-image than my words will ever be able to undo.

So instead I will choose to give them the lessons that will help strengthen them as people. I will teach them that their bodies are beautiful regardless of their size and shape. I will show them that health is a greater prize.

Most importantly though, while they are young (much like your own children) I will show them that time spent with them matters a damn site more than my own vanity.

Women don't need to be shamed, Maria, they need to be supported until they believe in their own beauty, whatever form it takes.

No excuse needed.

Monday, 11 November 2013 Comments: 0

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