"Goodnight Sweethearts...well, it's time to go"

Those who are fans of "Three Men and a Baby" will know that one...or, those who know the song I guess,.

Its time to go I'm afraid.

Possum is ok now, great in fact. I re-established breastfeeding through a lot of hard work and it has paid off. She is 4 months as of 2 days ago and I don't want to be anywhere else than with her. I had to email my work and tell them that Im not going back to work in 6 weeks time as originally suggested, Im going to stay home the full year. If they don't like it, they can fire me.

I really wish you all healthy happy babies and that it happens soon. I WILL be reading your blogs and leaving comments and I will follow your journey until you are all holding your babies in your arms.

Thank you so much for all of your support, it meant the world to me when I needed it the most.



Take care, I will see you in the comments of your blogs =)

I will leave you with a few photos of my darling daughter. She is worth every painful period I ever had and every lap operation for endo...



***REMOVED***

its all worth it girls. Please keep trying.

xoxox

Possums health

she seems to be ok now.

Went and saw a pead who said she caught my virus [ =( ] and her bowels wre having problems digesting the lactose from my milk.

So, she is on lactose free formula for a week and then hopefully it will all pass and she can go back to bre@stfeeding. I miss it actually. Finally got the hang of it and she has to go on to a bottle (which she hated. Took us 2 days of hysterical crying before she took it. Still have to pretend she is going to bre@stfeed ...therefore the Slovak can't feed her).

Anyway - Pam from "not just a Cookie Dream" and "Just Me" sms'd me - she had her baby boy Tristan last week! gah! I knew she was due but this past week has been a nightmare...

so - if you are up to it, mosey on over and say hello...as Im about to now =)

Going nowhere fast....

Possum is 3 months, as of yesterday. She is sick with her first sore throat (so the GP suspects) and the last 5 days have been a nightmare that aren't going to end anytime soon. I hate it - I don't care about anything other than making her feel better. I don't care if it costs me thousands of dollars or even hurts me....this has made me realise how much I love her....


this blog is gong nowhere fast. I don't have much time and don't have much to say.

Ill come back for a proper goodbye once Possum is settled...in the mean time, I am still reading all your blogs....

How to wrap a baby - for Pam!

This is for Pam over at "Just me" and "Not just a Cookie Dream".....her bubs is due VERY soon!!!

I do it this way - (but I will give you a website for the other way!)

STEP ONE - make a diamond with your muslin wrap (for Summer)....
fold one corner down and put your bubs in the middle of the folded corner...shoulder at the edge



STEP TWO - Put one arm down along side their body...





STEP THREE - Fold that side over your baby's body and wrap it under the opposite side of their body...





STEP FOUR - do the same on the other side





STEP FIVE - tuck the bottom to one side and underneath...




And you are done! =)

If you want to wrap their arms UP near their chest, here is the other option...

http://www.cradle2kindy.com.au/wrapping-demo.html

Possums birth story * with photos *

is 2 posts below!

I was working on it as a draft for a few days, and now it won't post as a new post...but I want you guys to read it!

and thank you everyone for your kind comments about our Charlie...I'm going to check out all your blogs now - and find out what LFCA is!

Charlie has been put down...

We think he got hit by a car. He ran away for 2 nights and came back covered in pee and something wrong with his back legs. Turns out his spine was broken just below his pelvis and he had no control over his bladder / bowels.

He had a week on meds to recover, but he didn't. I was constantly cleaning his towels in his bed and his room as there was stuff everywhere....and I don't really have the time when I am with Livi alone.

So I left him at the vets to be put down today.

...very sad.

the below photo is one of the recent ones...I was pregnant and Charlie got all affectionate again after a period of being a little bugger! Please excuse how sh!t I look...

Possum's Birth Story

Stats

Due Date – Thursday 11th December
Date Born: Monday 15th December
Time: 2:34 pm
Weight: 3.9 kilos
Length: 52 cm
Head circumference: 35.5 cm
Eyes: Blue
Hair: medium brown

Sunday 30th November – 11 days till Due Date

Found out that Possum was still Posterior and only 20% engaged. I had a session of acupuncture to try to turn her around and help her engage. I also used my fit ball all the time.

Friday 5th December – 6 days till Due Date

5 days after my previous appointment, Possum is now almost fully Anterior and 80% engaged! I then make the huge mistake of not longer sitting on my fit ball…..

I have more acupuncture to start things moving (I had such a strong reaction during the session I got all hot and sweaty and needed to pant while breathing).

Start getting waves of nausea throughout the day

Wednesday 10th December – 1 day till Due Date

Possum turned back to Posterior and disengaged back to 20%! Back on the fit ball! I also had an acupuncture session that day to try to turn her back around and engage her.

Sunday 14th December – 3 days past Due Date

Around 2:30 am I started to have severe period pain that started in my back and moved around to my lower abdomen. I keep getting up to pee to relieve the pressure and hoping that it will pass.

This happened for a few hours and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I started timing them at 7:47. They were lasting for anywhere from 15 seconds to 40 seconds and coming anywhere from 6 – 20 minutes apart. This is when I woke the Slovak up and he started to help me time them.

I was still feeling ok and was able to jump on the forums to let everyone know that I thought something might be happening, but I wasn’t sure if it was real labour or not.

The Slovak's brother wanted to come over to hang out, but we didn’t want anyone to know I was possibly in labour. We arranged for my other support person, my sister to come over and then the Slovak went to his brother’s house with my assurances that nothing would happen for hours and I would be ok with my sister. Worse comes to worse, he could meet us at the hospital!

So my sister and I watched the whole series of “High School High” while I sat on the fit ball and used my tens machine for the pain. I also went in the shower for long periods of time but had to get out once my fingers became painful from getting all pruney.

The Slovak came home in the afternoon (more than 12 hours after the contractions started) eager to take me to the hospital after hours and hours of irregular yet increasingly more painful contractions. I told him they weren’t regular yet and the hospital would send me home if I wasn’t dilated enough. Besides, I wanted to spend more time at home and was coping ok with the pain. I only swore once – my sister put on some music and one song annoyed me so I said “I hate this f**king song!”. =) Luckily she changed it for me.

Around 8 pm the contractions were becoming more regular, every 5 or minutes, so we rang the hospital (silly woman on the phone wanted to talk pleasantries with me but I was annoyed at her telling me that this was “normal” and chucked the phone to The Slovak when I had another contraction).

I was placed under observation with fetal monitors measuring the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions (showing they were coming every 3 minutes). I also had an internal, which showed that I was only 3 cm dilated! (after 17 hours of contractions). The internal hurt like hell too. All this time I still didn’t lose my mucus plug, see a bloody show or have my waters break. The reason my contractions were so close together yet I wasn’t far dilated was due to Possum being posterior. This was going to be a loooong labour!

So we went home around 10 pm. I tried to have a shower but there was no freaking hot water! So while I was shivering and trying to make a bath, my sister and The Slovak were desperately boiling water in the kettle and in big pots on the stove. I eventually got my bath and tried to sleep in it while The Slovak slept on a doona next to me on the floor in the dark.

Monday, 15th December - 4 days past due date

The pain started getting so bad that I remember thinking “Just give me the f**king epidural NOW!”. We weren’t timing the contractions as we were all so tired, but once the pain got to be too much we went back to the hospital (around 2 am Monday morning, 24 hours after the first contractions started).

I was now 6 cm dilated and being a little more noisier during my contractions than I needed to be, to ensure they didn’t sent us home. I asked for some pain relief – Morphine. They gave me a shot in the butt which hurt but let me rest between contractions. They said we could stay and a shower was suggested. I was looking forward to this seeing as I couldn’t have one at home!

So I got naked again and sat on the chair with my head resting on the metal hand railing. I slept between contractions and sucked on ice to keep me cool.

Time seemed to go really fast for me as I was able to sleep for short periods. Not so for my support team. They told me later they were both thinking “when is this going to END?!?”

I had another internal that morning (more than 30 hours since first contractions, and 6 hours since coming into the hospital the second time). I was 7 cm dilated….only 1 cm more than last time! I was a little annoyed at this and jumped at the chance to have my waters broken.

A few hours later I was 9 cm! But, I had an anterior lip (some of my cervix lip was blocking her head). This was not good news. The midwife tried to unblock it and turn her a little (as she was still posterior) during my next contraction (this hurt the most, I cried out for her to stop and The Slovak started crying from seeing me in so much pain) but it didn’t work. She left to give me half an hour to let it fix itself which it did luckily.

Another midwife checked on me and said she could see her head all the way up there! This motivated me on and I was told I was 10 cm dilated and I could start to push!

This is when things got difficult. I was told how to push (Like I was doing a big poo…lovely) and couldn’t do it the right way at first. I tried all different positions like leaning over the bed on a bean bag and on all fours but the best position that worked for me was on my back, with my legs on the midwives shoulders or knees and pushing up against them. I also was told to hold my thighs apart =) Charming position but it really worked for me!

I was pushing in each contraction and getting really tired as she wasn’t coming out. Usually you are only meant to push for 1 hour, but I was pushing for over 2 hours.

I asked for a mirror so I could see everything. My sister was holding it but the angle was totally off, so I kept straightening it with my foot which the midwives thought was hilarious.

I could see the top of her head, but it just wasn’t crowning. I started pushing even when I wasn’t having a contraction (but the midwives didn’t know this) and for longer than when I was told. The head midwife came to assist and kept saying in her Chilean accent “Don’t estop, Don’t estop, keep pushing, keep pushing! No. No. you can push more!”. She was a great help with her tough love! The Slovak was also trying to motivate me by saying “doing well!” but he said it so many times it was annoying me. But, some how I said nicely “honey, please stop saying that!”.

I was told if she didn’t come out soon, they would need to use the vacuum. I was really worried about this as I wanted to stay in the birth centre and not be transferred (as its classed as a high risk birth). And I would rather something happen to me than to her to get her out. The doctor was called and they gave me an anesthetic and cut me (I was only told 2 seconds before it happened, but I was happy something was happening!). I was prepared for the cutting sound (thanks to the Maternal forum girls) but I felt the end of the scissor blade on my thigh (as he was cutting slightly to the side) which felt a bit gross. The Slovak and my sister told me that when he first cut me, a huge spurt of blood splurted out like a fountain or something you see in a movie. Shame I missed it, they moved the mirror!

After the episiotomy I saw this huge cut and thought she would slide out….nope, still was pushing with the threat of vacuum being used or worse.

After what seemed like forever, the vacuum packaging was about to be opened when I pushed her head out! She was very pale blue and very chubby. Everyone was surprised how big her head was. No wonder I had problems pushing her out.

The next few pushes were very painful, as the doctor was pushing on my stomach, trying to turn her around. After a few more pushes, she slid out. The Slovak started sobbing he was so happy =)

Turns out, she had her cord around her neck. Nothing was said about it, but The Slovak and I noticed, just before he cut the cord.

She was put on my belly. The midwives started telling the doctor that Possum wasn’t moving or crying much. She picked up my baby’s hand and dropped it, showing how lifeless she was.

I still wasn’t worried, as I knew babies were blue when they were first born.

So they took her, wrapped her up and gave her to The Slovak, who tried to suction her mouth and lungs as she had fluid in them. She still wasn’t crying or turning pink so the paediatrician was called.

Meanwhile, I was being stitched up, with The Slovak holding my hand. It was painful, but I wasn’t really noticing as I was watching Possum being rubbed and suctioned right next to me on the bed.

Less than 30 mins after she was born, she was in Special Care with respiratory problems and “duskiness” (blue colour). She was placed in a humidicrib but needed only a little amount of extra oxygen.

She had IV’s put in her arm and given antibiotics in case she had a chest infection, and constant heel pricks to check her blood sugar level. It was really hard to see her like this at first. I couldn’t pick her up and when I was eventually able to, there were cords everywhere.

My first official hold was late that night, when I was almost sleeping sitting up (I hadn’t slept in almost 48 hours). I held her against me, in my shirt “Kangaroo hold” style.

It was so sweet and special. She was so soft.

She was released from special care 48 hours later, and we took her home 3 days after she was born!