Whoops A Daisy

Ah Sophie. My little Soph. It is with great affection that I write this post. Not that I don’t have an equal amount of affection for my other beautiful children, but Sophie is my baby. And she knows it.

I don’t know how much I can reveal about Sophie’s beginning. Let me just say that she was unexpected. And, again, if you’ve read the posts about Jack and Mischa you know that pregnancy is so easy for me. So easy in fact that yet again, I had no idea I was pregnant. And when I found out, and went for my first check up with my much-loved Ob/Gyn which was supposed to be a 10 week check, we found out that I was in fact 13 weeks pregnant already.

There’s a lot about the time that I was pregnant with Sophie that I can’t share in such a public space. Those closest to me know the story and I am more than happy to discuss it, as I am not ashamed of things that happened, just not willing to open myself up to every man and his dog and his crazy comments about them.

After Mischa was born, our pediatrician recommended that we think long and hard about having any more children as it was likely that they would be born with lung and heart problems to the same extent if not worse than Mischa. But how can you decide whether or not to have any more children based on a ‘what if’? We knew there might be risks, but we wanted more children. It was a no brainer to try for more.

So, another perfect pregnancy health wise later, we booked in for another cesarean at 39 weeks. This time around I had hand-picked my team so we went in confident and happy, looking forward to meeting our little girl.

Everything went brilliantly and I even watched a lot of my operation. I had peeked at Jack and Mischa coming out, but this time I watched them cut me open and deliver Sophie the whole way through. It was just magical.

The only downside was shortly after she was delivered and I had been stitched up, I was lying in the recovery room with Sophie on my chest and Pete by my side when I got the feeling that my chest was being crushed. Some amniotic fluid was floating around my body, they told me, and it felt like I was going to die from the pain! Thankfully it only lasted a short while, and eased when I was raised into a sitting position.

Sophie was perfect. Perfect in every single way. She was a healthy weight, and good length, a champion breast feeder, and absolutely zero lung or heart problems. My little Angel. My Soph.

The year of Sophie’s birth was a super big one for us. You know that list of major life changing events that test your stress levels? Yes, well, we did quite a few of the big ones. In 2008 we: bought a house, interstate; had a baby; sold two successful businesses; became voluntarily unemployed; moved interstate; renovated a house; I travelled overseas for the first time in my life and on my own; bought a new business; I became a working mum; Pete became a stay at home dad; and we moved into that house. All within 12 months. Our stress levels were through the roof! Understandably I think

But all the time we had each other and our family. And though at times things were very tough and we struggled, there was always a light. That light was Sophie. She has this magical personality. You can’t help but smile when you are around her. She laughs and dances and infects you with happiness. When times were really really tough she was the reason we kept going.

Again, I know how that sounds, like Jack and Mischie didn’t. Of course they did though, it’s just that Sophie was the smallest. The Littlest Grif we call her. And she buoyed us all along.

Of course now she is 2 and a half and although she still has all the cuteness in the world, the laugh and the smile, the awesome dance moves (you’ve not seen anything until you’ve seen Sophie do ‘The Twist’), the cascading soft blond curls and the stunning blue eyes, underneath that is a rough as guts, satanic devil, waiting to unleash her hell at any moment! She has had to toughen up, being the third child, and boy has she done this with gusto!

She is Mummy’s Little Girl though, and has me wound around her little finger ever so tightly. I think I over compensate because she almost, once upon a time, might never have been here. That and the fact that Mischa is Daddy’s Little Girl and Jack .. well Jack is whoever is paying him the most attention on the day!

So, each child has brought me a different level of difficulty, a different level of happiness, a never ending always expanding level of love, stress and guilt like I have never known, more tears than could fill the North Harcourt res, and more smiles and laughter that I could have ever imagined possible before the loves of my life were born.

To Be Continued – Part 4: Why it’s the easiest job in the world.

Header Photo courtesy of Bendigo Magazine

It wasn’t hard to decide to have another baby. The hard part was falling pregnant. In reality, it really didn’t take long, but the six months we spent trying were agonizingly long and it felt like everyone else was falling pregnant BUT me. The same thing happened to me again – I did a test, it came back negative, so I went out with some girlfriends and had quite a few drinks to commiserate. A couple of days later I did another test and what would you know – pregnant. Again, I had no symptoms and zero morning sickness. I was monitored super closely over the pregnancy after what had happened with Jack and was in excellent health. We made the decision to have a cesarean again and the date was set for 38 weeks. Our little girl grew steadily inside me and seemed to be heading to a good birth weight. At 38 weeks I was only 11 kilos heavier than I had been when I fell pregnant. Things were looking super.

The morning of the birth Pete and I drove up to King’s Park on our way to the hospital and watched the sunrise together. On the CD player Coldplay sang ‘Fix You’. It was a perfect start to the day. We were happy and calm.

Mischa Rose was born and tears of joy flowed. She was so so beautiful. It was a magical moment. I had wondered how I could possibly love another human being as much as I loved Jack. I wondered if I would feel the same as I did when Jack was born. I felt all that and more. My heart just grew to hold all the love and the feelings. It was so so special. I know I am gushing – but I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

We finally made it up to our room and my little girl lay on my chest. We tried to do our first breast feed and Mischa was reluctant. I didn’t really think much of it, I suppose I wondered if I would be able to feed her after all the difficulty I had with Jack, but I was adamant I was going to try again. Then the midwife sort of looked a little funny. She picked up Mischa and …. I kind of lose track of things about here. All I know was that she was rushed and I mean RUSHED to the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit. I told Pete to go with her and NOT leave her side. I was hooked up to drips and all sorts of things and couldn’t be moved. It was the WORST moment of my life. I called my mum and my friend Sarah and they rushed in to be with me. I was alone as alone can be. And scared.

You have this person growing inside you for 9 months. They are with you everywhere you go at every minute of the day. You are never alone. You feel every little movement and you talk to them all the time. Then you give birth and for the first time in 9 months it’s just you again. Then to have that precious baby taken away from you in a moment of panic is terrifying.

Hours later Pete came upstairs again and brought me a photo of Mischa that the midwives had taken and printed for me. I was so distraught. Mischa had underdeveloped lungs and was lying in an oxygen ‘bubble’. She had a tube down her nose to feed her. I needed to be with her so badly but because I myself had just undergone major surgery, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Thankfully the midwife that was on duty that night with me was a little bit of a rebel. She knew I had to be with Mischa, so she unhooked as many tubes as she could, got me a wheel chair and sneaked me downstairs to see my little girl.

I can’t tell you what it was like to see her. She looked so vulnerable. She had all kinds of tubes and wires attached to her. I stroked her hand and cried. I cried and cried and cried. Suddenly, Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ became all the more meaningful (to this day I still tear up when I listen to it).

The next few days were pretty much a blur. A blur of expressing milk so that we could put it in a syringe and pump it down Mischa’s feeding tube. Of seeing Jack for little snatches of time and showing him his little baby sister through the glass of the NNU window. Of sitting in that black rocking chair beside her little bed and holding her whenever I could. Holding her was so hard though, because every time a tube moved an alarm went off and nurses would come running. Looking at her little purple toes and fingers as the oxygen struggled around her body. Crying at the drop of a hat. Dealing with being told that she may also have a heart problem. Trying not to think the worst and hoping just to get her upstairs with me – not even looking ahead to having her home.

The thing about Mischa was that she was an almost full term, good sized baby girl. The other babies in the NNU were so so tiny. And some of them had been in there for weeks, even months. So when on the 8th day I took Mischa upstairs with me it was with the greatest amount of relief and thankfulness ever.

After the week of tube feeding her, I assumed that I would probably not have much success with breastfeeding. And yet I yearned to do so. There was something so protective in me and I wanted to make sure that she had the best. Having said that though, I need to say this: when you have had a baby in the NNU, there is only one thing you are really totally 100% worried about. And that is the survival of your baby. I could care less whether Mischa had breast milk or formula. I just wanted her to live. My Mischie Moo though was a champion breast feeder. In fact she didn’t want anything artificial in her mouth. No bottle and no dummy. She just wanted me.

I turned 30 just under 2 months after Mischa was born. I expressed milk for her to have so I could have a few glasses of Veuve as I had a big party. Luckily after just a couple of drinks I got an inkling that I should stop – because, yeah, Mischa wouldn’t take the bottle at her midnight feed so there I was, feeding her and feeling guilty as all get out for having had a few drinks earlier.

She’s a thriving little girl now of almost four. To look at her you would never know that at the start of her life we had to consider some very bad outcomes. The first few weeks of her life were some of the hardest moments of my life. But, would I change them? Of course not. Because she is Mischa. She is my fighter. She is the baby that defied the odds. The girl whose heart mended itself by the time she went in for her 6 week check up. The little princess who made me love more than I ever thought possible. My heart was now open to anything. And my life was brilliant. I had the love of my life in my husband, a brilliant little boy and a strong little girl. Perfect.

And there wasn’t a job in the world that I would rather have. And there is not a job in this world that is as easy as looking after those that you love more than life itself.

To Be Continued – Part 3: Sophie

Header Photo courtesy of Bendigo Magazine

I find motherhood easy. And hard. I think I need to explain …

For most of my life before I became a mother, I only wanted to have one child. I always knew I’d be a mum, it’s just that i was adamant that I could only be a good mum to one child. I figured that I would be able to give this one child everything: all my love, all my time, all my attention, anything he/she should ever want or need. I had images of us lying on a rug on the floor in the sunlight, looking at flashcards and reading something highly intellectual together. We’d walk along the Indian Ocean and watch the sunset together. We’d walk in the park and play on the swings. Life would be just, well, just perfect.

I got pregnant with Jack after trying for about 5 months. Which I thought was F O R E V E R. I didn’t even know I was pregnant though – a failed pregnancy test, a night drinking to ease the pain of yet another negative test, followed by an “oh I’ll just pee on another stick just in case” and then … Oh. My. GAWD. Two little blue lines. Pregnant!! I braced myself for the morning sickness, the sore boobs … the extreme tiredness … but it never came. Jack grew steadily inside me and I loved every second of it. My blood pressure was around 115/75 at each check up. Everything was routine. I only put on 12 kilos. It was a perfectly awesome pregnancy. Easy.

At my 37 week check, my Ob/Gyn was running very late. Two cesareans had left him with a waiting room full of pregnant women. I sat on a chair with my hubby sitting between my legs. We had not a care in the world. We waited patiently and laughed at each other. We were okay.

Finally I got called in to see the midwife. And then – things went to shit. She did the usual tests – urine, pin prick (I was having blood sugar levels tested at each check, each time very normal readings), blood pressure. My blood pressure had soared to 150/95. And then I just lost it. I had terrible anxiety that I had been masking for the past couple of weeks. I was admitted immediately to hospital suffering pre-eclampsia. That was Monday afternoon. On Wednesday morning, Jack was born via cesarean.

It was, up to that moment, the BEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. Sure, having an epidural is right up there with the worst experience of my life (I’ll explain more in a bit) but the birth was MAGIC. Pete sat at my head. My doctor delivered Jack in a calm and loving environment. The paediatrician took hundreds of photos. Pete cut the cord. Jack lay on my chest. I was stitched up while my doctor spoke about his weekend. We all cried. My doc looked at me and squeezed my hand – “you’ll be back” he said. I smiled and had a chuckle. But I knew he was right.

I bruised like nothing you’ve ever seen before form that epidural. Every nurse on the floor and a number of doctors came to look at me. I was a case study. But I recovered form that cesarean quicker than anyone I knew of. And I lost the 12 kgs I put on before I left hospital. I would like to point out a MAJOR statement here at this point however – MY BODY HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME. I may have lost the kilos, but the shape is a whole other story. It’s kapput. And I’m not skinny AT ALL. I just made sure I only put on baby weight.

I tried to breast feed Jack. But it was so bloody hard. I took drugs to get my milk in. We feed him initially with a test tube. He wouldn’t take the breast but we kept trying because everyone said we HAD to. I had to use a shield. It was HELL. But I kept going.

Fast forward to 11 weeks later. I was a mess. In the depths of post natal depression yet UNAWARE of it I kept trying to feed this hungry baby with what I could provide.

I called the Breastfeeding help line. I broke down in tears. The consultant told me that since I was crying it was obvious that I still desperately wanted to breast feed so I should keep persevering. She promised to send me information to help me (which never came). I hung up seriously depressed. Desperate for help. Needing to feed a hungry baby. Needing to get out side the house (I couldn’t leave because I couldn’t feed in public due to the difficulty I was having). Needing to find the way out of the black hole I was in.

A day or two later I called Ngala – a parenting helpline in WA. By some magnificent stroke of luck I got a lady on the phone who had BOTTLE FED her baby. She asked me if Jack would take a bottle – Yes, I said, in fact he was happily slurping one back as we were speaking. Then stop breast feeding, she said. He will be okay.

I realised then that I had no recollection of most of the first 11 weeks of my first child’s life. So desperate was I to be the PERFECT mother that I forgot what being a mother was all about in the first place.

I was lifted out of the cloud and we didn’t look back. I loved being Jack’s mum. It was the easiest and the best job in the world. In no other job in the world could I hold my little baby boy in my arms and have him reach up and touch my face. In no other job in the world could I take him down to the Swan River and collect shells and watch his little face as he took his first steps in the cool water. In no other job in the world could I hear someone’s first word, see their first smile, hear their first laugh, watch them take their first steps. In no other job in the world could I be so completely responsible for a human being so completely dependent on me. In no other job in the word would I ever know THIS MUCH LOVE.

To be continued – Part Two: Mischa

I have a little boy called Jack. When his sister Mischa was born an extraordinarily large percentage of people said to me: “Congratulations!! You have your pigeon pair! Now you’re complete!” ….
So I went and had another baby, my Sophie …

What is it with this popular notion of being complete? And whose opinion is this anyway? Is it anyone’s right to say that you are done having children? No. Of course it’s not. But you’d be surprised how many people feel that it is their right to do so.

I’m going to give some examples of my friends and their families.

One has 4 girls. Her husband would have loved to have had a boy in there as well, I am sure, but so far it hasn’t happened. They’re a family. They’re happy.

Two has a boy and a girl. She’s not going to have any more children. Her and her hubby are happy with their family.

Three has a girl and 2 boys. She got the ‘pigeon pair’ comments too after her 2nd child was born. Who knows if Three will have more … I just know she is happy, with her family.

Four has 3 boys. She desperately wanted a girl. But she is still happy, and she has her family.

Five has a girl, 3, a boy, 2, and a baby girl who is not quite one. They’ll have some more children, I’m sure. But guess what? They’re happy, they’re a family.

There is no right and wrong, complete or incomplete when it comes to having a family. It comes down to what you want. And if you ever see someone with a boy and a girl – please, PLEASE do not say, “awwwww, you have a pigeon pair, you can stop now” – because who are you to say what someone else wants.

(Picture courtesy of Bendigo Magazine)