It's that time of year again, the birthday's are stacking up for the March 2011 BB babies...
Happy Belated Birthday's to those who've had their birthday already, I keep missing them, and advanced happy birthdays for those who are still waiting in case I miss them too.
Today is the 3rd heavenly birthday of the most precious and beautiful little girl, Miss Hayley May, with her full head of long thick black hair, who was taken from her mummy and daddy far too soon.
For 9 months we shared the pregnancy journey with all of it's highs and lows, for 9 months our babies brought us all together into one supportive group.
We lost some early on along the way and we grieved with their mummy's, but we kept going.
During this week 3 years ago we found out one of our own was gone, a beautiful little girl had been called to heaven and left her mummy and daddy without their perfect princess and empty arms.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, I cried, wailed and even screamed, it wasn't fair, life wasn't fair. I wished it had been me instead, no one should ever have to go through that pain, and I wanted to take that pain away from the wonderful person who I considered to be my friend.
Hayley May passed away on March 21st, 2011. Her mummy was left reeling, her daddy had lost his princess. And the world had lost a beautiful little girl who even in death made everyone who saw her fall in love with her perfection and see the world in a new light.
To this day we still remember the perfect princess that is Hayley May. Her amazing hair and rosebud lips are etched into my memory and I will never forget.
At the time I was still 9 days away from delivering our Princess Elise, effectively 9 months pregnant and grieving for my friend when I should have been celebrating with her on the birth of her beautiful daughter and looking forward to my own birth.
It has been 3 years, and as our Princess Elise's 3rd Birthday approaches I am reminded of those dark days, and they were very dark, while I grieved for my friends child as though she were my own and tried not to drown in the pain.
So before I drown my laptop in tears - HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAYLEY! Watch over your mummy, daddy, little brother and little sister from heaven, and I hope you have a wonderful day with all the other angels (Jack, Tomas, Alicia, Amelia, Nicolas, Sophie, Obi and all the others!).
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Friday, 28 February 2014
Sadness and Anger and Acceptance about My Traumatic Birth Experiences
Hello to those who may be reading my blog, thanks for stopping by.
Today's long awaited post is going to be about my 2 traumatic birth experiences and where I am at in my healing from them. I have had a lot of time to think about these experiences over the past few weeks or so since Jaycen started school (he's doing extremely well at school too by the way and loves it), even with the girls here the house has been quieter and I've found myself wandering around aimlessly and thinking about the past and beginning to work through my feelings about my birth experiences.
I know it will still be a long time before I can truly accept them, but I am starting to move forward and that is the most important thing.
To begin with I have finally reached the stage where all I feel about my cesarean delivery is sadness. As recently as January 2013 I still felt angry about it, angry at myself for not knowing enough, not listening to my gut instincts, and not doing more to avoid the cesarean, and most importantly not saying no when the cesarean was first mentioned as my son was still happy and the decels during contractions were still within normal limits according to the research I have done since he was born just over 5 years ago.
So now I am sad, sad that it happened at all, sad for myself that I had to experience that kind of introduction to motherhood, sad for my son who has to live with how he was born and it's possible effects on his body and mind for the rest of his life, sad that he has had to live with a mother (myself) who was not entirely there (suffering from un-diagnosed post natal depression) during the first 4 years of his life, sad that we didn't have the inst-ant bond that the girls and I had, sad that he never got to breastfeed, sad that he spent the first 4.5 hours of his life away from me in a crib in the nursery on his own only being picked up by nurses for a feed, sad that his first feed was given to him without mine or his fathers permission and that it was formula that he was given, sad that none of the midwives even bothered to ask me if I wanted to breastfeed until he was already 3.5 days old (it's no wonder my milk took over 7 days to come in and that my supply was always lacking after he was born and disappeared so quickly when I got mastitis 3.5 weeks post partum).
I am sad that my whole introduction to motherhood was coloured by the traumatic experience that was Jaycen's birth. No mother should have to go through that kind of trauma. To look at your newborn baby and think that he isn't yours, to think that they have given you someone else's child by mistake, to not feel anything at all when you look at your newborn child, that is the most horrible feeling ever. And you feel guilty because you don't have those loving feelings that everyone tells you about, you feel disgusted in yourself, you feel like a horrible mother because you don't love your baby properly, and you feel like a failure because you couldn't do what nature made you to do - you couldn't deliver your baby vaginally and you couldn't breastfeed. That is how I felt back then, and to some degree those feelings are still inside me. Jaycen and I don't have a very good bond, it is only just now starting to strengthen, but I still have moments where I look at him think that he isn't my child. He doesn't look like my husband or I or any of our family members if I am truly honest, where the girls have dark hair, eyes and skin like my mum and myself, Jaycen is blonde haired, blue eyed and has pale skin that freckles easily but doesn't tan in the sun. It is hard to come to terms with the knowledge, knowledge that I have always known but was completely unable to accept in the emotionally traumatic aftermath of his birth, that he did actually grow inside my womb and did actually come out from it.
Emily's birth is a different story and not one that I have shared publicly outside of a private facebook support group before so now I am sharing it here so that others can know that they are not alone and so that others can do things to prevent this happening to them as well, and traumatic for far different reasons. Yes she was born vaginally, a successful 2nd VBAC only 15.5 months after my first successful VBAC, but things happened to me, were done to me, all without mine or my husbands permission, that I am still very very angry about. Being honest, I am grieving the birth that should have been with her, just as I grieved for what Jaycen's birth should have been as well, I may have succeeded in what I set out to do but through no fault of my own my 3rd and last- birth was medicalised and filled with unwanted interventions and nothing that I said or did made any difference. I was effectively relegated to the status of a bystander in my own labour and birth, I was ignored, denied, treated worse than an animal, things were done to me that I didn't want done and I was never asked if I wanted it done and when I refused I was told I couldn't refuse and in some cases even physically held down while they did it.
Some who read this may think what I have mentioned doesn't happen in this day and age, but the truth is that this all happened only 1.5 years ago, in early July 2012, and these things are still happening all around the world now. I am not alone in my experience, and one day I hope that these things will never happen again, that no one will every have to feel as scared, alone, afraid, terrified, angry, disheartened or made to feel as stupid as I was at that time.
What should have been a beautiful and empowering experience like Elise's birth was turned into a horrible experience that I don't know if I'll ever be able to recover from. Sometimes I wonder, how do rape victims recover from their horrible experience? I was "birth raped", this is a new term in birthing circles, I believe it was first coined in the early 90's (though of course I could be wrong), and I have lived through it, experienced it first hand, and my husband and children have had to live with the consequences of it ever since.
While I was in labour I had an obstetrician walk into my room unannounced and stick his hand up my vagina without even saying one word to me. Yes, that's right, he stuck his hand up my vagina without permission and then told me to keep still while he was examining me (I was squirming in pain and discomfort and horror, this was not what I had asked for or even expected and this strange man had stuck his whole hand up my vagina without introducing himself or asking permission!). He spoke to one of the midwives and then left. The midwife told me who he was and that I was 4cm dilated and asked if I would like something to help me sleep, I asked for pethidine. I was given an injection through a drip (something that I hadn't asked for and it was put in place before I could even say that I didn't want it, so much for the laws regarding the need for full consent before medical procedures are done), I was deemed to be dehydrated so fluids were started. I had been asking for the midwife to call my obstetrician for 6 hours by this stage and it would be another 6 hours before another midwife finally called him and told him that he wasn't required at the hospital.
Much later, when my youngest child was just over 1 day old, I would find out that I was given something that wasn't pethidine, I was instead given a drug that is used to stop premature labour, why I was given this I had no clue, and I was at the time of the drug having been administered 40 weeks and 2 days gestation, so most definitely NOT in premature labour. To this day I still cannot remember the name of the drug, I was in such shock after being told that (along with the fact that both myself and my newborn daughter were severely vitamin D deficient and that she was at risk of developing rickets if nothing was done about it) that I just didn't take it in. All I could think was "What next? What else was done to me without my knowledge?", I already knew what had been done to me without permission, but this I hadn't known and I am so angry at my treatment and what was done.
My birth plan had been thrown into a bin by a snotty midwife not long after I arrived at the hospital, I was told that because it wasn't signed by both my OB and the midwife I had seen through shared care it wasn't able to be followed in the hospital (I have since found out that this is a crock of shit and the midwife in question should be investigated for taking away my basic human rights of freedom of movement and for not following MY BIRTH PLAN which was for MY BIRTH) and as a result she refused to call my OB for confirmation of my birth plans.
In my birth plan I had wanted a physiological third stage with delayed cord clamping, not too much to ask at all, and really very simple. I mentioned my wishes several times throughout my labour, as did my husband, but once my youngest was out (through my vagina! A HUGE STUFF YOU to the Paediatrician and the Surgeon who were there when my cesarean was done at around 12:30pm on December 23rd 2008 at Sale Hospital in Victoria and came to me as soon as I was out of recovery and before I had even seen my baby, while I was completely on my own with no one to support me, and told me I would never, ever, deliver a baby vaginally and would only ever have cesareans because my pelvis was the wrong shape and too small for a babies head to fit through) the midwife immediately jabbed me with the synthetic pitocin and they cut the cord, and then began pulling on the cord to get the placenta out as soon as possible.
Once the placenta was out the horrible OB from earlier came storming back in and jabbed me with local anaesthetic in my vagina. I had a 2nd degree tear, a mild one, one that would have healed quite fine without stitches. Once again I was never asked for permission, and within moments of the local anaesthetic being administered the OB started stitching me up. I never even got the chance to tell him that local anaesthetic doesn't work well on me and takes forever and over a dozen injections to even start working at dulling the pain.
So I was stitched up, and unbeknownst to me a student doctor was also in the room without my permission, the first time I became aware of the student doctor was when I stopped being in agony from the stitches enough to hear the OB telling the student that "this is how you do this stitch, and here's a couple of extra ones that aren't really necessary just so you know exactly how it is done".
So you can see why I am ANGRY at what was done to me. I had a strange mans hand shoved up my vagina without permission, I was given medication (that I had never had before and therefore could have possibly been allergic to) given to me without permission, my birth plan was thrown in the bin and ignored, my requests were ignored, my demands were ignored, my OB was told that he wasn't needed even though I DID NEED HIM and had told the midwives over a dozen times that I REALLY BLOODY HELL DAMN FUCK YOU ALL I DID NEED HIM, I was physically held down on the bed so things could be done, I was stitched up without permission and given extra stitches that weren't needed at all and as a result I have extra scar tissue down there that shouldn't be there because it "over healed" with the extra stitching.
This same OB I have mentioned above had also been in the emergency department when I was 16 weeks and was there for severe lower abdominal pain and extremely high BP (it was 240/180+ for a couple of hours while I was there and only came down when I was given morphine for the pain). He never once examined me, never ordered an ultrasound. I had a large ovarian cyst on my left ovary and it had burst and he never investigated it. I could have gone into premature labour and lost my baby or bled out or even developed sepsis because of the cyst rupturing but he didn't care. All he said to me was "You are either having a miscarriage, a placental abruption or have pre-eclampsia, either way there is nothing we can do for you and we will just send you home to wait it out". Just what you want to hear at 16wks prengant with a much loved and wanted baby, NOT.
I am angry, I am devastated, I am frustrated, and I am still hurting from that birth experience. It should have been a wonderful birth, the birth of my 3rd and last baby, and instead I wasn't respected, I was treated horribly and expected to "GET OVER IT" because I had a "mostly" healthy baby. I should have been treated with the utmost respect, I should have been left alone to labour my way, my requests should have been honoured right away and my OB should have been called in to come and see me. It was MY birth, MY body, not theirs, and they took everything away from me and left me feeling like I had no control over anything. They were the bad guys in this story, what should have been beautiful and peaceful was turned into a horrible fiasco that I will never "get over" and will have to live with for the rest of my life.
So that is what happened, that is how I feel and why I feel that way. I hope I can help others who have been through this and feel like they are all alone, it is a horrible thing to go through.
Until next time,
Jenna
Today's long awaited post is going to be about my 2 traumatic birth experiences and where I am at in my healing from them. I have had a lot of time to think about these experiences over the past few weeks or so since Jaycen started school (he's doing extremely well at school too by the way and loves it), even with the girls here the house has been quieter and I've found myself wandering around aimlessly and thinking about the past and beginning to work through my feelings about my birth experiences.
I know it will still be a long time before I can truly accept them, but I am starting to move forward and that is the most important thing.
To begin with I have finally reached the stage where all I feel about my cesarean delivery is sadness. As recently as January 2013 I still felt angry about it, angry at myself for not knowing enough, not listening to my gut instincts, and not doing more to avoid the cesarean, and most importantly not saying no when the cesarean was first mentioned as my son was still happy and the decels during contractions were still within normal limits according to the research I have done since he was born just over 5 years ago.
So now I am sad, sad that it happened at all, sad for myself that I had to experience that kind of introduction to motherhood, sad for my son who has to live with how he was born and it's possible effects on his body and mind for the rest of his life, sad that he has had to live with a mother (myself) who was not entirely there (suffering from un-diagnosed post natal depression) during the first 4 years of his life, sad that we didn't have the inst-ant bond that the girls and I had, sad that he never got to breastfeed, sad that he spent the first 4.5 hours of his life away from me in a crib in the nursery on his own only being picked up by nurses for a feed, sad that his first feed was given to him without mine or his fathers permission and that it was formula that he was given, sad that none of the midwives even bothered to ask me if I wanted to breastfeed until he was already 3.5 days old (it's no wonder my milk took over 7 days to come in and that my supply was always lacking after he was born and disappeared so quickly when I got mastitis 3.5 weeks post partum).
I am sad that my whole introduction to motherhood was coloured by the traumatic experience that was Jaycen's birth. No mother should have to go through that kind of trauma. To look at your newborn baby and think that he isn't yours, to think that they have given you someone else's child by mistake, to not feel anything at all when you look at your newborn child, that is the most horrible feeling ever. And you feel guilty because you don't have those loving feelings that everyone tells you about, you feel disgusted in yourself, you feel like a horrible mother because you don't love your baby properly, and you feel like a failure because you couldn't do what nature made you to do - you couldn't deliver your baby vaginally and you couldn't breastfeed. That is how I felt back then, and to some degree those feelings are still inside me. Jaycen and I don't have a very good bond, it is only just now starting to strengthen, but I still have moments where I look at him think that he isn't my child. He doesn't look like my husband or I or any of our family members if I am truly honest, where the girls have dark hair, eyes and skin like my mum and myself, Jaycen is blonde haired, blue eyed and has pale skin that freckles easily but doesn't tan in the sun. It is hard to come to terms with the knowledge, knowledge that I have always known but was completely unable to accept in the emotionally traumatic aftermath of his birth, that he did actually grow inside my womb and did actually come out from it.
Emily's birth is a different story and not one that I have shared publicly outside of a private facebook support group before so now I am sharing it here so that others can know that they are not alone and so that others can do things to prevent this happening to them as well, and traumatic for far different reasons. Yes she was born vaginally, a successful 2nd VBAC only 15.5 months after my first successful VBAC, but things happened to me, were done to me, all without mine or my husbands permission, that I am still very very angry about. Being honest, I am grieving the birth that should have been with her, just as I grieved for what Jaycen's birth should have been as well, I may have succeeded in what I set out to do but through no fault of my own my 3rd and last- birth was medicalised and filled with unwanted interventions and nothing that I said or did made any difference. I was effectively relegated to the status of a bystander in my own labour and birth, I was ignored, denied, treated worse than an animal, things were done to me that I didn't want done and I was never asked if I wanted it done and when I refused I was told I couldn't refuse and in some cases even physically held down while they did it.
Some who read this may think what I have mentioned doesn't happen in this day and age, but the truth is that this all happened only 1.5 years ago, in early July 2012, and these things are still happening all around the world now. I am not alone in my experience, and one day I hope that these things will never happen again, that no one will every have to feel as scared, alone, afraid, terrified, angry, disheartened or made to feel as stupid as I was at that time.
What should have been a beautiful and empowering experience like Elise's birth was turned into a horrible experience that I don't know if I'll ever be able to recover from. Sometimes I wonder, how do rape victims recover from their horrible experience? I was "birth raped", this is a new term in birthing circles, I believe it was first coined in the early 90's (though of course I could be wrong), and I have lived through it, experienced it first hand, and my husband and children have had to live with the consequences of it ever since.
While I was in labour I had an obstetrician walk into my room unannounced and stick his hand up my vagina without even saying one word to me. Yes, that's right, he stuck his hand up my vagina without permission and then told me to keep still while he was examining me (I was squirming in pain and discomfort and horror, this was not what I had asked for or even expected and this strange man had stuck his whole hand up my vagina without introducing himself or asking permission!). He spoke to one of the midwives and then left. The midwife told me who he was and that I was 4cm dilated and asked if I would like something to help me sleep, I asked for pethidine. I was given an injection through a drip (something that I hadn't asked for and it was put in place before I could even say that I didn't want it, so much for the laws regarding the need for full consent before medical procedures are done), I was deemed to be dehydrated so fluids were started. I had been asking for the midwife to call my obstetrician for 6 hours by this stage and it would be another 6 hours before another midwife finally called him and told him that he wasn't required at the hospital.
Much later, when my youngest child was just over 1 day old, I would find out that I was given something that wasn't pethidine, I was instead given a drug that is used to stop premature labour, why I was given this I had no clue, and I was at the time of the drug having been administered 40 weeks and 2 days gestation, so most definitely NOT in premature labour. To this day I still cannot remember the name of the drug, I was in such shock after being told that (along with the fact that both myself and my newborn daughter were severely vitamin D deficient and that she was at risk of developing rickets if nothing was done about it) that I just didn't take it in. All I could think was "What next? What else was done to me without my knowledge?", I already knew what had been done to me without permission, but this I hadn't known and I am so angry at my treatment and what was done.
My birth plan had been thrown into a bin by a snotty midwife not long after I arrived at the hospital, I was told that because it wasn't signed by both my OB and the midwife I had seen through shared care it wasn't able to be followed in the hospital (I have since found out that this is a crock of shit and the midwife in question should be investigated for taking away my basic human rights of freedom of movement and for not following MY BIRTH PLAN which was for MY BIRTH) and as a result she refused to call my OB for confirmation of my birth plans.
In my birth plan I had wanted a physiological third stage with delayed cord clamping, not too much to ask at all, and really very simple. I mentioned my wishes several times throughout my labour, as did my husband, but once my youngest was out (through my vagina! A HUGE STUFF YOU to the Paediatrician and the Surgeon who were there when my cesarean was done at around 12:30pm on December 23rd 2008 at Sale Hospital in Victoria and came to me as soon as I was out of recovery and before I had even seen my baby, while I was completely on my own with no one to support me, and told me I would never, ever, deliver a baby vaginally and would only ever have cesareans because my pelvis was the wrong shape and too small for a babies head to fit through) the midwife immediately jabbed me with the synthetic pitocin and they cut the cord, and then began pulling on the cord to get the placenta out as soon as possible.
Once the placenta was out the horrible OB from earlier came storming back in and jabbed me with local anaesthetic in my vagina. I had a 2nd degree tear, a mild one, one that would have healed quite fine without stitches. Once again I was never asked for permission, and within moments of the local anaesthetic being administered the OB started stitching me up. I never even got the chance to tell him that local anaesthetic doesn't work well on me and takes forever and over a dozen injections to even start working at dulling the pain.
So I was stitched up, and unbeknownst to me a student doctor was also in the room without my permission, the first time I became aware of the student doctor was when I stopped being in agony from the stitches enough to hear the OB telling the student that "this is how you do this stitch, and here's a couple of extra ones that aren't really necessary just so you know exactly how it is done".
So you can see why I am ANGRY at what was done to me. I had a strange mans hand shoved up my vagina without permission, I was given medication (that I had never had before and therefore could have possibly been allergic to) given to me without permission, my birth plan was thrown in the bin and ignored, my requests were ignored, my demands were ignored, my OB was told that he wasn't needed even though I DID NEED HIM and had told the midwives over a dozen times that I REALLY BLOODY HELL DAMN FUCK YOU ALL I DID NEED HIM, I was physically held down on the bed so things could be done, I was stitched up without permission and given extra stitches that weren't needed at all and as a result I have extra scar tissue down there that shouldn't be there because it "over healed" with the extra stitching.
This same OB I have mentioned above had also been in the emergency department when I was 16 weeks and was there for severe lower abdominal pain and extremely high BP (it was 240/180+ for a couple of hours while I was there and only came down when I was given morphine for the pain). He never once examined me, never ordered an ultrasound. I had a large ovarian cyst on my left ovary and it had burst and he never investigated it. I could have gone into premature labour and lost my baby or bled out or even developed sepsis because of the cyst rupturing but he didn't care. All he said to me was "You are either having a miscarriage, a placental abruption or have pre-eclampsia, either way there is nothing we can do for you and we will just send you home to wait it out". Just what you want to hear at 16wks prengant with a much loved and wanted baby, NOT.
I am angry, I am devastated, I am frustrated, and I am still hurting from that birth experience. It should have been a wonderful birth, the birth of my 3rd and last baby, and instead I wasn't respected, I was treated horribly and expected to "GET OVER IT" because I had a "mostly" healthy baby. I should have been treated with the utmost respect, I should have been left alone to labour my way, my requests should have been honoured right away and my OB should have been called in to come and see me. It was MY birth, MY body, not theirs, and they took everything away from me and left me feeling like I had no control over anything. They were the bad guys in this story, what should have been beautiful and peaceful was turned into a horrible fiasco that I will never "get over" and will have to live with for the rest of my life.
So that is what happened, that is how I feel and why I feel that way. I hope I can help others who have been through this and feel like they are all alone, it is a horrible thing to go through.
Until next time,
Jenna
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Update, and a long post on taking things the wrong way and misunderstandings
I am writing while sitting inside with the fans and air conditioner on from our new house in sunny QLD (well, rather overcast QLD today). The house is wonderful, more than I could have hoped for, and we are slowly settling in after our big move on October 4th.
I am now almost completely off the antidepressants now, I take half a 50mg (so 25mg) tablet of Zoloft a week, and emotionally things haven't changed so I am taking that as a good sign that my withdrawals are confined only to mild physical symptoms like tingling in the limbs and extremities and dizziness/feeling light headed.
The only things that have brought me down are the occasional argument with the hubby over finances (we need to sell our old house so that we can clear out all our current debts and it isn't happening yet grrrr), and having people on facebook taking what I type the wrong way.
Before I go any further I would like to state that I am not writing this out of any anger or hate, I am writing it with only confusion and the thirst to learn what went wrong. I am merely using this medium to get my thoughts out of my head and put them down where I can reanalyse them at a later date and learn what words in what order could be taken the wrong way so that I can improve my "neutral" status updates so that in future they can't be taken the wrong way.
A serious question though, if you are asked a question about who has removed themselves from your friends list and you answer it with a name, and are then asked if you know why they've removed themselves and you admit that you don't know and then make a guess saying "I guess being diagnosed with PND and moving to QLD might have been the right time time for said person to defriend me", it's a guess, something that isn't based on fact and is just a conclusion you make without sufficient information to back you up and confirm it, you wouldn't normally see it as having a go at someone unless you were already looking for a fight would you? I know that I wouldn't, my closest friends wouldn't, the person who asked me the initial question didn't and was horrified that an innocent question had started such a huge drama just because I had answered with a name and made a guess.
I have nothing against this person who started the drama. Apparently I am passive aggressive against her and other "crunchy" or gentle parenting mothers, apparently I have something against them all and am anti-crunchy/gentle parenting just because I have smacked my kids. The reality is I have nothing against them, some of my closest friends are Crunchy and Gentle Parenting mumma's, I respect their parenting beliefs and they respect mine even if they don't believe them to be the right way to parent themselves, if I post something on my wall that might impact a bit negatively on gentle parenting without realising it, they just ignore it and move on, they don't start a fight or create drama just for the sake of it.
To be honest I feel sorry for this person. This isn't the first time she's taken something the wrong way and created drama. I've stuck by her as a friend in the past even though I didn't agree with why she started the drama, I just ignored it, had a bitch to hubby in bed at night if I needed to clear my head of it (if by the off chance said person does happen to come across this and recognises it, or one of her friends, ONCE AGAIN I AM NOT HAVING A GO AT YOU SO STOP THINKING THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING BAD ABOUT YOU!!!, and then moved past it and went back to being friends and enjoying the good things about said person. I have noticed that said person does pick fights a lot, and is very touchy about anything said about herself and her family and reacts rather angrily and aggressively by attacking the person who makes the apparently "controversial" comment. I understand where she's coming from, I've done it myself in the past. Which is why I've never deliberately made any comments about her behaviour before. Last night I did lose control a bit after being abused one time too many in a short period of time and I did make some comments that shouldn't have been made, and for that I am sorry, but now it is done and I cannot take any of it back. In a way it is a good thing, because it has removed a negative person from my social circle who was only going to bring me down with her if I had continued to respond to her comments.
I have to note though that this person is also a fellow doula, which scares me a bit. If she can read passive aggressive from an originally neutral post and "guesses" made in the form of puzzled comments then I worry how her reputation as a doula will be affected if she reacts the same way to something that one of her clients says without the client realising that it could be interpreted as passive aggressive or, if a client is trying to tell her that she has done something wrong and is unable to get it across without seeming confrontational or condescending. Going on from that if her reputation is affected by just one client that she took the wrong way then every other doula's reputation will suffer as well. Word of mouth spreads quickly, especially when social networking is involved, and a once perfect reputation can be ruined in an hour if enough people talk about it. It is scary, and it makes it even more important for Doula's to learn and take in communication skills during their training. Something that I have noticed after talking to many doula's who have done their training through many different organisations is that not every Doula Training organisation has an in depth module dedicated to only communication and what things could be taken the wrong way and how to improve how you communicate with not only clients, but people in general.
Back to the original reason I'm posting about this. I have also had people say things about me in the past, for the most part I ignored it, unless I was pregnant and then I gave back as good as I got because undiagnosed post-natal and pre-natal depression while pregnant can make you very angry and aggressive which is what happened to me. I admit, I have created drama and started arguments before, but I always apologised for starting them once they reached a certain point where things just start going around and around in circles, which is what happened last night. Instead of accepting my explanation for why I posted and nicely asking to remove the answers to the question said person just kept going on about it and abusing me. She took it too far, and has now lost a friend who used to respect her and her personal beliefs.
I am also fully aware that she has lost respect for me as well, if she ever had any respect for me in the first place, I don't know and I never will truly know as I am not her and don't know how her mind works. All I can do is make personal observations on what I have seen of her behaviour yesterday and in the past, and from my point of view it doesn't look good, just as much of my past behaviour doesn't look good either. The difference between the two of us though is that I am actively working on improving how I control my emotions and what I let bother me and what I don't let bother me.
I was doing pretty well until the abuse started, and that's one thing I WILL NOT STAND at all, being verbally abused by someone who has no idea what I've been through or am going through and insists on making it look like she has it worse than everyone else - which is untrue, there is always someone far worse off than you are, something that I am faced with every day as a self confessed VBACtivist who supports women wanting to VBAC and having to fight tooth and nail just to get an empowering, often healing birth in a way that they want and not under the knife by some obstetrician's orders.
I may have gone through hell and back again bringing my first child and third child into the world, but both times it wasn't as bad as what someone else went through to bring their children into the world. My birth experiences had shaped me, made me, brought me down and lifted me back up again. I am stronger for what I have been through, I have more knowledge than I did when I was pregnant with each of my children, I am able to support a woman impartially throughout her pregnancy and birth, and able to share her happiness and excitement when her baby is born happy and healthy while taking any negative feedback at the same time and learning from it to be better the next time.
The one thing that I still seem to have trouble with though is dealing with people in general. I have always struggled to relate to people, to get my words across the right way. Even as a very young child I was far more comfortable around adults than I was around other children my age, but I also had the problem where I would say things that could be taken as negative or innapropriate by others. I am a literal person by nature, I say it how it is and rarely think about the consequences if what I said is taken the wrong way. In many ways I am naive when it comes to the intricacies involved in normal every day conversation, what I see as normal conversation isn't normal to most people and they find it strange and hard to relate to, just as I do with them. It seems that this is a lasting legacy from my childhood, one that I may or may not be able to overcome. But you know what? I AM GOING TO KEEP ON TRYING. Because that is all that I can do, try and try, and try again until either I overcome it or reach a point where it doesn't matter anymore
And this is where I end this post. I have updated on where we are at, I have raised a valid issue and put my side of the story across, and I have gone off topic a bit, come back again, and extended the issue again.
I have tried to explain why I think, talk and write the way that I do in the only way that I know how to. What those who read this take away from my post is up to them, I am not responsible for other peoples feelings and emotions, and I am not responsible for other peoples misunderstandings of what I write, if I was I would probably be in jail already, or dead because someone decided that I shouldn't be allowed to live. Any misunderstandings or bad emotions are the responsibility of those who have them only, and it is their choice of what they do with them, if they choose badly and take it out on others that is their problem, not mine. If they choose the better option and ignore it and move on then that puts a good light on them and they have my respect.
Jenna.
I am now almost completely off the antidepressants now, I take half a 50mg (so 25mg) tablet of Zoloft a week, and emotionally things haven't changed so I am taking that as a good sign that my withdrawals are confined only to mild physical symptoms like tingling in the limbs and extremities and dizziness/feeling light headed.
The only things that have brought me down are the occasional argument with the hubby over finances (we need to sell our old house so that we can clear out all our current debts and it isn't happening yet grrrr), and having people on facebook taking what I type the wrong way.
Before I go any further I would like to state that I am not writing this out of any anger or hate, I am writing it with only confusion and the thirst to learn what went wrong. I am merely using this medium to get my thoughts out of my head and put them down where I can reanalyse them at a later date and learn what words in what order could be taken the wrong way so that I can improve my "neutral" status updates so that in future they can't be taken the wrong way.
A serious question though, if you are asked a question about who has removed themselves from your friends list and you answer it with a name, and are then asked if you know why they've removed themselves and you admit that you don't know and then make a guess saying "I guess being diagnosed with PND and moving to QLD might have been the right time time for said person to defriend me", it's a guess, something that isn't based on fact and is just a conclusion you make without sufficient information to back you up and confirm it, you wouldn't normally see it as having a go at someone unless you were already looking for a fight would you? I know that I wouldn't, my closest friends wouldn't, the person who asked me the initial question didn't and was horrified that an innocent question had started such a huge drama just because I had answered with a name and made a guess.
I have nothing against this person who started the drama. Apparently I am passive aggressive against her and other "crunchy" or gentle parenting mothers, apparently I have something against them all and am anti-crunchy/gentle parenting just because I have smacked my kids. The reality is I have nothing against them, some of my closest friends are Crunchy and Gentle Parenting mumma's, I respect their parenting beliefs and they respect mine even if they don't believe them to be the right way to parent themselves, if I post something on my wall that might impact a bit negatively on gentle parenting without realising it, they just ignore it and move on, they don't start a fight or create drama just for the sake of it.
To be honest I feel sorry for this person. This isn't the first time she's taken something the wrong way and created drama. I've stuck by her as a friend in the past even though I didn't agree with why she started the drama, I just ignored it, had a bitch to hubby in bed at night if I needed to clear my head of it (if by the off chance said person does happen to come across this and recognises it, or one of her friends, ONCE AGAIN I AM NOT HAVING A GO AT YOU SO STOP THINKING THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING BAD ABOUT YOU!!!, and then moved past it and went back to being friends and enjoying the good things about said person. I have noticed that said person does pick fights a lot, and is very touchy about anything said about herself and her family and reacts rather angrily and aggressively by attacking the person who makes the apparently "controversial" comment. I understand where she's coming from, I've done it myself in the past. Which is why I've never deliberately made any comments about her behaviour before. Last night I did lose control a bit after being abused one time too many in a short period of time and I did make some comments that shouldn't have been made, and for that I am sorry, but now it is done and I cannot take any of it back. In a way it is a good thing, because it has removed a negative person from my social circle who was only going to bring me down with her if I had continued to respond to her comments.
I have to note though that this person is also a fellow doula, which scares me a bit. If she can read passive aggressive from an originally neutral post and "guesses" made in the form of puzzled comments then I worry how her reputation as a doula will be affected if she reacts the same way to something that one of her clients says without the client realising that it could be interpreted as passive aggressive or, if a client is trying to tell her that she has done something wrong and is unable to get it across without seeming confrontational or condescending. Going on from that if her reputation is affected by just one client that she took the wrong way then every other doula's reputation will suffer as well. Word of mouth spreads quickly, especially when social networking is involved, and a once perfect reputation can be ruined in an hour if enough people talk about it. It is scary, and it makes it even more important for Doula's to learn and take in communication skills during their training. Something that I have noticed after talking to many doula's who have done their training through many different organisations is that not every Doula Training organisation has an in depth module dedicated to only communication and what things could be taken the wrong way and how to improve how you communicate with not only clients, but people in general.
Back to the original reason I'm posting about this. I have also had people say things about me in the past, for the most part I ignored it, unless I was pregnant and then I gave back as good as I got because undiagnosed post-natal and pre-natal depression while pregnant can make you very angry and aggressive which is what happened to me. I admit, I have created drama and started arguments before, but I always apologised for starting them once they reached a certain point where things just start going around and around in circles, which is what happened last night. Instead of accepting my explanation for why I posted and nicely asking to remove the answers to the question said person just kept going on about it and abusing me. She took it too far, and has now lost a friend who used to respect her and her personal beliefs.
I am also fully aware that she has lost respect for me as well, if she ever had any respect for me in the first place, I don't know and I never will truly know as I am not her and don't know how her mind works. All I can do is make personal observations on what I have seen of her behaviour yesterday and in the past, and from my point of view it doesn't look good, just as much of my past behaviour doesn't look good either. The difference between the two of us though is that I am actively working on improving how I control my emotions and what I let bother me and what I don't let bother me.
I was doing pretty well until the abuse started, and that's one thing I WILL NOT STAND at all, being verbally abused by someone who has no idea what I've been through or am going through and insists on making it look like she has it worse than everyone else - which is untrue, there is always someone far worse off than you are, something that I am faced with every day as a self confessed VBACtivist who supports women wanting to VBAC and having to fight tooth and nail just to get an empowering, often healing birth in a way that they want and not under the knife by some obstetrician's orders.
I may have gone through hell and back again bringing my first child and third child into the world, but both times it wasn't as bad as what someone else went through to bring their children into the world. My birth experiences had shaped me, made me, brought me down and lifted me back up again. I am stronger for what I have been through, I have more knowledge than I did when I was pregnant with each of my children, I am able to support a woman impartially throughout her pregnancy and birth, and able to share her happiness and excitement when her baby is born happy and healthy while taking any negative feedback at the same time and learning from it to be better the next time.
The one thing that I still seem to have trouble with though is dealing with people in general. I have always struggled to relate to people, to get my words across the right way. Even as a very young child I was far more comfortable around adults than I was around other children my age, but I also had the problem where I would say things that could be taken as negative or innapropriate by others. I am a literal person by nature, I say it how it is and rarely think about the consequences if what I said is taken the wrong way. In many ways I am naive when it comes to the intricacies involved in normal every day conversation, what I see as normal conversation isn't normal to most people and they find it strange and hard to relate to, just as I do with them. It seems that this is a lasting legacy from my childhood, one that I may or may not be able to overcome. But you know what? I AM GOING TO KEEP ON TRYING. Because that is all that I can do, try and try, and try again until either I overcome it or reach a point where it doesn't matter anymore
And this is where I end this post. I have updated on where we are at, I have raised a valid issue and put my side of the story across, and I have gone off topic a bit, come back again, and extended the issue again.
I have tried to explain why I think, talk and write the way that I do in the only way that I know how to. What those who read this take away from my post is up to them, I am not responsible for other peoples feelings and emotions, and I am not responsible for other peoples misunderstandings of what I write, if I was I would probably be in jail already, or dead because someone decided that I shouldn't be allowed to live. Any misunderstandings or bad emotions are the responsibility of those who have them only, and it is their choice of what they do with them, if they choose badly and take it out on others that is their problem, not mine. If they choose the better option and ignore it and move on then that puts a good light on them and they have my respect.
Jenna.
Monday, 24 June 2013
Home, And Planning a BIG Move :)
Hello all, I am home again. My plane flew in on thursday night.
I really enjoyed myself up in QLD, it was so beautiful and warm even though it is winter. I came home with a tan lol.
Much of my time up there was pent looking at houses as we are planning a BIG move to QLD in the last week of September/first week of October. Not long to go now - only 3 months to go! I can't wait, I am so excited.
While up there I also had to visit a local doctor (Dr McArthur from the Kallangur Clinic is AMAZING! A true blue Aussie bloke who is also a Doctor, and a GREAT one at that!) due to getting severe tonsilitis and a sinus infection that showed itself on the plane trip up there on May 17th. Dr McArthur went over my Effexor Prescription and agreed with me that it wasn't the best option for me while I was breastfeeding, he said that the side effects while meaning off of it were awful and he didn't recommend it, so he took me off of it and put me on Zoloft. I have to say that Zoloft is making me feel better than Effexor did, I don't get the dizzy spells or light headedness that I used to get while on Effexor, and so far my only side effects have been a 10 day period and some nausea, and some weight loss - which I can't complain about because I have a lot of weight to lose ROFL.
It was great to see my mum again, and the kids loved seeing her and my stepdad (their Poppy) every day as well - Jaycen can't wait to go back again as he misses his Grandma and Poppy.
So we are moving to QLD. We have our eyes on a house in Kallangur which is at Auction on July 6th, it is a 3 bedroom house with a large room downstairs that we can turn into a master bedroom, it has 2 toilets and 2 showers, a Pool, a nice backyard, 1 garage and is fully and securely fenced. It is also only a short walk to all shops and the local Public School where Jaycen will most likely be attending next year, and it is only 2.5km away from the nearest train station.
It is perfect.
All we need to do now is get finance and sell our house (we have 2 possible buyers currently, one is offering $140,000, and the other is offering $150,000). We will hopefully find out tomorrow if it is sold or not.
In other news I am losing weight! I have lost 4.1kg in the past 38 days - 2.1kg of that has been over the past 4 days which is a little bit freaky, but hopefully it will level out to a slower weight loss soon as my body gets used to the new antidepressants.
Emily also learned to crawl while we were in QLD. Now she can get around everywhere and follow me ROFL
So anyway, that is about it for now, Matt is making Emily giggle right now (she's such a daddy's girl!) and we will all be going to bed soon.
Until next time,
Jenna.
I really enjoyed myself up in QLD, it was so beautiful and warm even though it is winter. I came home with a tan lol.
Much of my time up there was pent looking at houses as we are planning a BIG move to QLD in the last week of September/first week of October. Not long to go now - only 3 months to go! I can't wait, I am so excited.
While up there I also had to visit a local doctor (Dr McArthur from the Kallangur Clinic is AMAZING! A true blue Aussie bloke who is also a Doctor, and a GREAT one at that!) due to getting severe tonsilitis and a sinus infection that showed itself on the plane trip up there on May 17th. Dr McArthur went over my Effexor Prescription and agreed with me that it wasn't the best option for me while I was breastfeeding, he said that the side effects while meaning off of it were awful and he didn't recommend it, so he took me off of it and put me on Zoloft. I have to say that Zoloft is making me feel better than Effexor did, I don't get the dizzy spells or light headedness that I used to get while on Effexor, and so far my only side effects have been a 10 day period and some nausea, and some weight loss - which I can't complain about because I have a lot of weight to lose ROFL.
It was great to see my mum again, and the kids loved seeing her and my stepdad (their Poppy) every day as well - Jaycen can't wait to go back again as he misses his Grandma and Poppy.
So we are moving to QLD. We have our eyes on a house in Kallangur which is at Auction on July 6th, it is a 3 bedroom house with a large room downstairs that we can turn into a master bedroom, it has 2 toilets and 2 showers, a Pool, a nice backyard, 1 garage and is fully and securely fenced. It is also only a short walk to all shops and the local Public School where Jaycen will most likely be attending next year, and it is only 2.5km away from the nearest train station.
It is perfect.
All we need to do now is get finance and sell our house (we have 2 possible buyers currently, one is offering $140,000, and the other is offering $150,000). We will hopefully find out tomorrow if it is sold or not.
In other news I am losing weight! I have lost 4.1kg in the past 38 days - 2.1kg of that has been over the past 4 days which is a little bit freaky, but hopefully it will level out to a slower weight loss soon as my body gets used to the new antidepressants.
Emily also learned to crawl while we were in QLD. Now she can get around everywhere and follow me ROFL
So anyway, that is about it for now, Matt is making Emily giggle right now (she's such a daddy's girl!) and we will all be going to bed soon.
Until next time,
Jenna.
Monday, 13 May 2013
More on Jaycen
As I said in the previous post we have known that something was up with Jaycen for a while, I suspected things (ADHD and Aspergers Syndrome) but couldn't prove anything until we got a new Maternal and Child Health Nurse in July 2012, after Emily was born, who saw what I saw and gave us a recommendation for our GP to refer us to a Paediatrician.
During Easter 2012 we discovered that when Jaycen ate chocolate he became quite violent towards me and his little sister Elise, he would hit us and became rather nasty in general, so we made the decision to cut chocolate out of his life, he never had it on a regular basis anyway as we made an effort to make sure that he ate only healthy foods as Matt and I are both overweight and we didn't want him to end up struggling to lose weight as an adult like us, so it was a simple thing to do.
In February while Matt was home sick with the blood clot in his leg we had 2 and half wonderful weeks where Jaycen was on his best behaviour, being helpful and nice, not getting hyperactive or doing anything naughty and we thought that it would be the end of all the trouble we had had with him, but it wasn't to last, at the end of those 2 and a half weeks he went straight back to his old self and progressively got worse.
In March we decided to try a gluten free diet to see if that helped as we had been told that going gluten free could sometimes help ADHD children reduce their hyperactive behaviour, unfortunately this didn't work.
At the start of April Jaycen attended the birthday party of one of his daycare buddies, and ate lollies (I didn't realise there were lollies there until after he had started eating them) and within 15 minutes he was so hyperactive and into everything that I was starting to stress out and worried that we would be asked to leave (we had walked almost 4km just to get there! and I didn't want to have to walk all that way back home, uphill, with a hyperactive child who wouldn't listen to anything that I said), 30 minutes later Matt arrived and picked us up and we went home because we needed to get Jaycen out of there before he did something really bad.
At home Jaycen ran around like a crazy person, jabbering on about nothing in particular, getting into everything, hitting his sister, touching things that he knows he isn't allowed to touch, hitting the dog (how our dog, Libby, puts up with it I will never understand, she is so patient with him and treats him like he is her own puppy), and he started having jerky movements and twitching. After an hour he finally crashed on his bed and fell into a deep sleep the we couldn't wake him from, he was still twitching and I was a bit worried.
When he woke up 2 hours later he was a very subdued little boy and not his normal self. We made the decision then and there to cut processed sugars completely out of his diet.
It has been a difficult month trying to keep sugar out of his diet, he can no longer have his favourite Apricot Jam on toast and sandwiches and we are limited to giving him Vegemite instead. He cannot have most stir fry sauces, or much sauce (tomato sauce and BBQ sauce) in general, because they contain too much sugar as well so we tend to not give him any at all unless it's a special occasion.
Yesterday we discovered that he cannot have strawberries. At daycare they do a morning tea for the children with fruits, carrots, celery, cheese and berries. Jaycen loves strawberries so of course he ate as many of them as he could get and ignored everything else on the plates.
According to his room teacher, Tony, within minutes of eating the strawberries he became so hyperactive and uncontrollable that they had to let him outside for an hour (in the drizzle that kept on coming and going yesterday) just to run off some of the energy as he was disturbing the other children in his room. Jaycen stayed hyperactive for the rest of the day until he finally fell asleep at 7:30pm.
At least we now know that Strawberries are a trigger, but it is sad that he can no longer eat one of his favourite foods.
I am going to be writing up a list of things that he can't eat tonight to take up to QLD with us so that my mum and stepdad know what he can't eat as well.
To say that I am worried is an understatement. I am scared, frustrated and terrified about the future and what it will mean for Jaycen. All I ever wanted was for him to have a normal life, now I don't know what the future holds. We had planned to send him to school next year, but now he may have to stay back and do kindergarten next year instead and start school the year after - the year that he turns 7! If he starts school the year that he turns 7 I am scared that he will be teased and called dumb because he will be so much older (almost 2 years older) than the majority of the other children in his class. It is a scary thought, and I know firsthand how cruel other children can be to someone who is different to the norm.
So here I am scared, worried and fearful of what is to come.
Until next time.
Jenna.
During Easter 2012 we discovered that when Jaycen ate chocolate he became quite violent towards me and his little sister Elise, he would hit us and became rather nasty in general, so we made the decision to cut chocolate out of his life, he never had it on a regular basis anyway as we made an effort to make sure that he ate only healthy foods as Matt and I are both overweight and we didn't want him to end up struggling to lose weight as an adult like us, so it was a simple thing to do.
In February while Matt was home sick with the blood clot in his leg we had 2 and half wonderful weeks where Jaycen was on his best behaviour, being helpful and nice, not getting hyperactive or doing anything naughty and we thought that it would be the end of all the trouble we had had with him, but it wasn't to last, at the end of those 2 and a half weeks he went straight back to his old self and progressively got worse.
In March we decided to try a gluten free diet to see if that helped as we had been told that going gluten free could sometimes help ADHD children reduce their hyperactive behaviour, unfortunately this didn't work.
At the start of April Jaycen attended the birthday party of one of his daycare buddies, and ate lollies (I didn't realise there were lollies there until after he had started eating them) and within 15 minutes he was so hyperactive and into everything that I was starting to stress out and worried that we would be asked to leave (we had walked almost 4km just to get there! and I didn't want to have to walk all that way back home, uphill, with a hyperactive child who wouldn't listen to anything that I said), 30 minutes later Matt arrived and picked us up and we went home because we needed to get Jaycen out of there before he did something really bad.
At home Jaycen ran around like a crazy person, jabbering on about nothing in particular, getting into everything, hitting his sister, touching things that he knows he isn't allowed to touch, hitting the dog (how our dog, Libby, puts up with it I will never understand, she is so patient with him and treats him like he is her own puppy), and he started having jerky movements and twitching. After an hour he finally crashed on his bed and fell into a deep sleep the we couldn't wake him from, he was still twitching and I was a bit worried.
When he woke up 2 hours later he was a very subdued little boy and not his normal self. We made the decision then and there to cut processed sugars completely out of his diet.
It has been a difficult month trying to keep sugar out of his diet, he can no longer have his favourite Apricot Jam on toast and sandwiches and we are limited to giving him Vegemite instead. He cannot have most stir fry sauces, or much sauce (tomato sauce and BBQ sauce) in general, because they contain too much sugar as well so we tend to not give him any at all unless it's a special occasion.
Yesterday we discovered that he cannot have strawberries. At daycare they do a morning tea for the children with fruits, carrots, celery, cheese and berries. Jaycen loves strawberries so of course he ate as many of them as he could get and ignored everything else on the plates.
According to his room teacher, Tony, within minutes of eating the strawberries he became so hyperactive and uncontrollable that they had to let him outside for an hour (in the drizzle that kept on coming and going yesterday) just to run off some of the energy as he was disturbing the other children in his room. Jaycen stayed hyperactive for the rest of the day until he finally fell asleep at 7:30pm.
At least we now know that Strawberries are a trigger, but it is sad that he can no longer eat one of his favourite foods.
I am going to be writing up a list of things that he can't eat tonight to take up to QLD with us so that my mum and stepdad know what he can't eat as well.
To say that I am worried is an understatement. I am scared, frustrated and terrified about the future and what it will mean for Jaycen. All I ever wanted was for him to have a normal life, now I don't know what the future holds. We had planned to send him to school next year, but now he may have to stay back and do kindergarten next year instead and start school the year after - the year that he turns 7! If he starts school the year that he turns 7 I am scared that he will be teased and called dumb because he will be so much older (almost 2 years older) than the majority of the other children in his class. It is a scary thought, and I know firsthand how cruel other children can be to someone who is different to the norm.
So here I am scared, worried and fearful of what is to come.
Until next time.
Jenna.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
A Possible Diagnosis For Jaycen
For those who know me they will know that I have complained a lot about Jaycen's behaviour and how hyperactive he is. On wednesday I did my driving test and failed yet again (so now I am setting my sights for July to do it again and hopefully pass, this should give me more time to work on the things caused me to fail), and in the afternoon we had Jaycen's first Paediatrician appointment.
It went well, the doctor typed down everything we said as we said it (a pleasant change from our local GP's who dodn't write notes until afterwards and sometimes get things wrong), and then got the paediatrician in to talk to us as well.
The paediatrician is of the opinion that Jaycen has ADHD, and also has either high functioning Asbergers Syndrome (a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder) or OCD, or even all 3 of them.
To be honest I am not at all surprised. I have known that he was different to other boys his age since he was 18 months old, and suspected ADHD and Asbergers since he was 27 months old and learned how to unlock the front door, open it and cross the road in peak hour school drop-off/pick-up traffic around the same time that he started to obsess over certain things.
Jaycen is an extremely intelligent little boy, he could count to 10 by the age of 2, and knew all the colours of the rainbow and count to 15 by age 3, now at age 4 he can count to 20, dresses himself and puts his shoes on (we are still working on tying his shoelaces on the few shoes he has that don't have velcro). He makes decisions over what he does and what he eats. The only things he is really behind in are the pincer grasp and drawing - he still just does squiggles and lines and only a few circles, although lately he has become obsessed with drawing rainbows. He is also extremely creative, he makes Jewellery with me displaying a very advanced use of colour and shapes, and his hand/eye coordination is very good, at daycare he makes the most amazing creations using the magnetic building pieces (similar to meccano but in different flat shapes like squares, rectangles, diamons and triangles).
The reason why I have suspected Asbergers since he was 27 months old is because I have dated (and even once been engaged to) 2 men with Asbergers Syndrome, and Jaycen is so similar to both of them in temperament and in his actions/behaviour that it is quite scary.
Jaycen is obsessive about cars, motorbikes, trucks, trains, helicopters and Chuggington (a childrens TV show with talking trains). He has aversions to vegetables, bee's and Apples. He gets separation anxiety when I am not around, and he has anger issues because he is unable to control his emotions, basically he is either extremely happy/excited or extremely sad/angry with no grey area's in between.
The paediatrician also confirmed our suspicions about a sensory issue, in that Jaycen has to touch EVERYTHING that he see's, even if it is dangerous to him. He also has to count everything as well, a good example of this is the other day when Matt took Jaycen shopping with him, at the checkout Jaycen had to count every single bar of chocolate in the top layer of the display and when Matt tried to pull him away Jaycen had a tantrum and insisted on finishing his counting - this could be a symptom of both OCD and Asbergers, hence why the Paediatrician didn't want to give us a full diagnosis of either of those 2 things without further investigation.
The 3 photo's below are examples of what he does with his toys and other things. The Play center that is in pieces in the top 2 photo's is one that we have just been given by a friend and it was all sitting in a pile of pieces behind our gate yesterday morning and up until 4pm when Matt got home his morning shift at work.
Around 5pm-6pm I brought the kids inside for dinner (it was a beautiful day yesterday so I sent them outside for the day, unlike today which is cold and overcast and typical of mid-late Autumn weather lol) and this is what I found at the back door. Jaycen had carried/dragged every single piece of the play center and lined them up like this, even going so far to mostly put the pieces in order of size or colour.
The bottom photo is an example of what happens here on a typical day with his trains and cars, he either lines them up like the top 2 photo's (usually on his windowsill or on an old bathroom mat that he has claimed for this exact purpose) or he puts them into a circle like in the bottom photo where he has put his Chuggington trains into a circle and placed other trains and a car inside.
Jaycen is very demanding, and it takes a toll on me every single day that I can't do anything to curb what I see as bad behaviour but which is normal for him. Add my PND into the mix and it's a bad situation for all of us. I am trying to learn patience, but it is getting harder as he gets older and lashes out more, mostly at me and his sister Elise (thankfully he hasn't lashed out at Emily yet and I hope he never does).
Having a child with special needs, whether it is due to physical or mental disability, or even from ADHD or Aspergers or Autism (in all of which the child had special needs) that differ from "Normal" children, is hard, and it feels harder now that we have a more definite (though not 100% decided) answer as why Jaycen is the way that he is. I just wish it had been picked up sooner so that we would have had more time to learn coping strategies and implement a stricter routine with him. I and angry at the MCHN who saw Jaycen at his monthly check ups and weigh in's, I told her something wasn't right, I expressed my concerns at every appointment, and every time I was brushed off and ignored as an over worried and silly first time mother. I feel let down by the MCHN, one of the people who are meant to be on the lookout for these things so that early intervention can be given as soon as possible to allow the child to live what we consider to be a normal life.
Mothers intuition is a powerful and marvelous thing, and in the majority of cases it is always right. I knew something wasn't right but I didn't push the matter further than just mentioning my concerns. Maybe if I had things would be different now ans we wouldn't be having as much trouble coping with Jaycen's behaviour as we are now. Maybe I would have been able and willing to seek help for how I was feeling earlier too, maybe I wouldn't have PND right now.
So many maybe's, and no way of knowing what really could have been.
For now I am taking one day at a time, taking my antidepressants at the same time every morning, trying to be the best mother that I can be to Jaycen and my Girls, trying to teach Jaycen patience and that there are consequences to his actions. What more can I do? I don't know yet. I will know more after he has seen the Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist and Psychologist - whenever that may be - and after we have seen the paed again on July 17th.
This friday we are leaving for QLD, I just hope that I can manage on my own with all 3 kids.
Regards,
Jenna.
It went well, the doctor typed down everything we said as we said it (a pleasant change from our local GP's who dodn't write notes until afterwards and sometimes get things wrong), and then got the paediatrician in to talk to us as well.
The paediatrician is of the opinion that Jaycen has ADHD, and also has either high functioning Asbergers Syndrome (a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder) or OCD, or even all 3 of them.
To be honest I am not at all surprised. I have known that he was different to other boys his age since he was 18 months old, and suspected ADHD and Asbergers since he was 27 months old and learned how to unlock the front door, open it and cross the road in peak hour school drop-off/pick-up traffic around the same time that he started to obsess over certain things.
Jaycen is an extremely intelligent little boy, he could count to 10 by the age of 2, and knew all the colours of the rainbow and count to 15 by age 3, now at age 4 he can count to 20, dresses himself and puts his shoes on (we are still working on tying his shoelaces on the few shoes he has that don't have velcro). He makes decisions over what he does and what he eats. The only things he is really behind in are the pincer grasp and drawing - he still just does squiggles and lines and only a few circles, although lately he has become obsessed with drawing rainbows. He is also extremely creative, he makes Jewellery with me displaying a very advanced use of colour and shapes, and his hand/eye coordination is very good, at daycare he makes the most amazing creations using the magnetic building pieces (similar to meccano but in different flat shapes like squares, rectangles, diamons and triangles).
The reason why I have suspected Asbergers since he was 27 months old is because I have dated (and even once been engaged to) 2 men with Asbergers Syndrome, and Jaycen is so similar to both of them in temperament and in his actions/behaviour that it is quite scary.
Jaycen is obsessive about cars, motorbikes, trucks, trains, helicopters and Chuggington (a childrens TV show with talking trains). He has aversions to vegetables, bee's and Apples. He gets separation anxiety when I am not around, and he has anger issues because he is unable to control his emotions, basically he is either extremely happy/excited or extremely sad/angry with no grey area's in between.
The paediatrician also confirmed our suspicions about a sensory issue, in that Jaycen has to touch EVERYTHING that he see's, even if it is dangerous to him. He also has to count everything as well, a good example of this is the other day when Matt took Jaycen shopping with him, at the checkout Jaycen had to count every single bar of chocolate in the top layer of the display and when Matt tried to pull him away Jaycen had a tantrum and insisted on finishing his counting - this could be a symptom of both OCD and Asbergers, hence why the Paediatrician didn't want to give us a full diagnosis of either of those 2 things without further investigation.
The 3 photo's below are examples of what he does with his toys and other things. The Play center that is in pieces in the top 2 photo's is one that we have just been given by a friend and it was all sitting in a pile of pieces behind our gate yesterday morning and up until 4pm when Matt got home his morning shift at work.
Around 5pm-6pm I brought the kids inside for dinner (it was a beautiful day yesterday so I sent them outside for the day, unlike today which is cold and overcast and typical of mid-late Autumn weather lol) and this is what I found at the back door. Jaycen had carried/dragged every single piece of the play center and lined them up like this, even going so far to mostly put the pieces in order of size or colour.
The bottom photo is an example of what happens here on a typical day with his trains and cars, he either lines them up like the top 2 photo's (usually on his windowsill or on an old bathroom mat that he has claimed for this exact purpose) or he puts them into a circle like in the bottom photo where he has put his Chuggington trains into a circle and placed other trains and a car inside.
Jaycen is very demanding, and it takes a toll on me every single day that I can't do anything to curb what I see as bad behaviour but which is normal for him. Add my PND into the mix and it's a bad situation for all of us. I am trying to learn patience, but it is getting harder as he gets older and lashes out more, mostly at me and his sister Elise (thankfully he hasn't lashed out at Emily yet and I hope he never does).
Having a child with special needs, whether it is due to physical or mental disability, or even from ADHD or Aspergers or Autism (in all of which the child had special needs) that differ from "Normal" children, is hard, and it feels harder now that we have a more definite (though not 100% decided) answer as why Jaycen is the way that he is. I just wish it had been picked up sooner so that we would have had more time to learn coping strategies and implement a stricter routine with him. I and angry at the MCHN who saw Jaycen at his monthly check ups and weigh in's, I told her something wasn't right, I expressed my concerns at every appointment, and every time I was brushed off and ignored as an over worried and silly first time mother. I feel let down by the MCHN, one of the people who are meant to be on the lookout for these things so that early intervention can be given as soon as possible to allow the child to live what we consider to be a normal life.
Mothers intuition is a powerful and marvelous thing, and in the majority of cases it is always right. I knew something wasn't right but I didn't push the matter further than just mentioning my concerns. Maybe if I had things would be different now ans we wouldn't be having as much trouble coping with Jaycen's behaviour as we are now. Maybe I would have been able and willing to seek help for how I was feeling earlier too, maybe I wouldn't have PND right now.
So many maybe's, and no way of knowing what really could have been.
For now I am taking one day at a time, taking my antidepressants at the same time every morning, trying to be the best mother that I can be to Jaycen and my Girls, trying to teach Jaycen patience and that there are consequences to his actions. What more can I do? I don't know yet. I will know more after he has seen the Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist and Psychologist - whenever that may be - and after we have seen the paed again on July 17th.
This friday we are leaving for QLD, I just hope that I can manage on my own with all 3 kids.
Regards,
Jenna.
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
A Little Bit Disappointed...
My client due early next month has decided not to have me as her doula. I am disappointed, this would have been my first certifying birth, my plane tickets for me and the kids have already been paid for and cannot be refunded due to the airlines no refund policy (that's $550 we've wasted for something that will never happen now).
I'm a bit angry, not at my now former client, but at myself for getting so excited over being given the gift of the opportunity to attend her impending birth. I should have stayed neutral, calm, not looked forward to it so much. I shouldn't have cared as much in the lead up, or planned anything until right at the end.
A small part of me is saying that I shouldn't have even offered to be her doula in the first place, that I was only asking for trouble as I live so far away from her, 1000's of kilometers away from her in a different state entirely.
It hurts, and her announcement came at the wrong time, literally just days after I had had an emotional breakdown from the PND where I wanted to end my life. I feel like things are fucked up all the time, I've even given in, sucked up my pride, and gone down the path of getting antidepressants (Efexor-XR 75mg) from a GP at my local doctors clinic. I haven't started them yet, but I am planning to start them in 2 days time. I hope they work, because I don't want to go through another emotional breakdown again like I did last week, it was scary.
The week before last I also failed my driving test, it gutted me as well, and may have contributed to the breakdown.
Tomorrow I am taking the driving test again, so I am hoping that this time I will pass it.
That's all for now.
Until next time,
Jenna
I'm a bit angry, not at my now former client, but at myself for getting so excited over being given the gift of the opportunity to attend her impending birth. I should have stayed neutral, calm, not looked forward to it so much. I shouldn't have cared as much in the lead up, or planned anything until right at the end.
A small part of me is saying that I shouldn't have even offered to be her doula in the first place, that I was only asking for trouble as I live so far away from her, 1000's of kilometers away from her in a different state entirely.
It hurts, and her announcement came at the wrong time, literally just days after I had had an emotional breakdown from the PND where I wanted to end my life. I feel like things are fucked up all the time, I've even given in, sucked up my pride, and gone down the path of getting antidepressants (Efexor-XR 75mg) from a GP at my local doctors clinic. I haven't started them yet, but I am planning to start them in 2 days time. I hope they work, because I don't want to go through another emotional breakdown again like I did last week, it was scary.
The week before last I also failed my driving test, it gutted me as well, and may have contributed to the breakdown.
Tomorrow I am taking the driving test again, so I am hoping that this time I will pass it.
That's all for now.
Until next time,
Jenna
Monday, 8 April 2013
Thoughts and Ruminations...
I've been ruminating... thinking... trying to get my head around things. Trying to figure out what went wrong and when it all went wrong, what I did wrong. What could I have done differently...
I know that I can't change things, but I can't stop thinking. Since January 21st, the 8th anniversary of when I lost Tomas, it's like I have been grieving his loss - and the losses of my other 6 angels - all over again
I've been dreaming of Tomas, of what could have been, of him as a newborn baby and holding him in my arms but I can never see or picture his face no matter how hard I focus or try. It's like he never was real, only a dream but I know he wasn't a dream, he was real, I saw him on that scan, I saw his little nose bud, the growing arms and legs with finger and toe buds. HE WAS REAL.
So many people told me to just get over it back then, to move on and forget, that I was only 17, still young and could have many other children. How do you just "get over it", the loss of a child no matter how small they were or how long they were with you? It still hurts, even now over 8 years on.
This time 8 years ago I should have been getting things ready, all excited at welcoming my first little boy into the world, I should have been excited about my upcoming 20 week scan to find out that he was to be a little boy and I would have then gone out to buy boy themed clothes for his coming home outfit, his bassinet and a pram, a carseat, I would have been getting my learners licence so that after I turned 18 I could get my probationary license and start saving for a car of my own. I wpuld have been busy helping my stepmum plan our joint baby shower as she was due with my little sister almost exactly 2 months after me.
Every night when I go outside to have a cigarette I look up at the stars and tell Tomas how much I love him and miss him, how much I wish he was here to play with his little brother and sisters, he would have loved them so much and been such a great big brother.
It's human nature to want what we cant have, and I am no exception. I just want my babies back.
I know that I can't change things, but I can't stop thinking. Since January 21st, the 8th anniversary of when I lost Tomas, it's like I have been grieving his loss - and the losses of my other 6 angels - all over again
I've been dreaming of Tomas, of what could have been, of him as a newborn baby and holding him in my arms but I can never see or picture his face no matter how hard I focus or try. It's like he never was real, only a dream but I know he wasn't a dream, he was real, I saw him on that scan, I saw his little nose bud, the growing arms and legs with finger and toe buds. HE WAS REAL.
So many people told me to just get over it back then, to move on and forget, that I was only 17, still young and could have many other children. How do you just "get over it", the loss of a child no matter how small they were or how long they were with you? It still hurts, even now over 8 years on.
This time 8 years ago I should have been getting things ready, all excited at welcoming my first little boy into the world, I should have been excited about my upcoming 20 week scan to find out that he was to be a little boy and I would have then gone out to buy boy themed clothes for his coming home outfit, his bassinet and a pram, a carseat, I would have been getting my learners licence so that after I turned 18 I could get my probationary license and start saving for a car of my own. I wpuld have been busy helping my stepmum plan our joint baby shower as she was due with my little sister almost exactly 2 months after me.
Every night when I go outside to have a cigarette I look up at the stars and tell Tomas how much I love him and miss him, how much I wish he was here to play with his little brother and sisters, he would have loved them so much and been such a great big brother.
It's human nature to want what we cant have, and I am no exception. I just want my babies back.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
PND - Post Natal Depression
I have been "diagnosed" with PND. I should be happy to finally have a diagnosis, but instead it makes it worse. I am more angry, more upset and more frustrated than I was before.
I keep thinking "Why wasn't this picked up earlier? How the heck can a doctor say I was borderline for PND in November while the counselor I'm seeing tells me that I have had it since my son was born in December 2008?
How the heck does this happen? I am angry with the doctor, frustrated with my counselor for pushing me to take antidepressants, and upset because now it's official, I have Post Natal Depression.
I'm over it.
I need a break.
A holiday... without kids, without the hubby. Just some time for me and only me, where I can relax and not have to worry about the kids, or listen to them scream, yell, cry, or watch them hit each other - with fists or toys - where I don't have to change and wash nappies all day every day, or give them food/breastfeed constantly. A holiday where I am alone and no one is relying on me.
That would be the ideal, but it won't happen. In just under 2 months I will be flying up to Queensland with all 3 kids and leaving hubby at home for a whole month.
Hubby owes me big time for this!
That is all.
I keep thinking "Why wasn't this picked up earlier? How the heck can a doctor say I was borderline for PND in November while the counselor I'm seeing tells me that I have had it since my son was born in December 2008?
How the heck does this happen? I am angry with the doctor, frustrated with my counselor for pushing me to take antidepressants, and upset because now it's official, I have Post Natal Depression.
I'm over it.
I need a break.
A holiday... without kids, without the hubby. Just some time for me and only me, where I can relax and not have to worry about the kids, or listen to them scream, yell, cry, or watch them hit each other - with fists or toys - where I don't have to change and wash nappies all day every day, or give them food/breastfeed constantly. A holiday where I am alone and no one is relying on me.
That would be the ideal, but it won't happen. In just under 2 months I will be flying up to Queensland with all 3 kids and leaving hubby at home for a whole month.
Hubby owes me big time for this!
That is all.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Bad Luck Is Following Us...
Again I have been slack in my blogging, I just really haven't had the mental energy to do it.
Bad luck has been our companion lately, first Matt got a thigh length blood clot in his leg the day after he had his surgery to have his gallbladder removed and was readmitted to hospital for the rest of that day, then released with home visits from the nurses for treatment with clexane injections.
After 2 weeks the clexane hadn't worked so he was put on warfarin as well.
He has been off work for over a month now, and we are really starting to struggle financially.
It is starting to clear up now but it gave us all a huge scare.
On sunday he starts back at work again which is a huge relief.
During this time I also had the mother of all migraines and had to go to hospital where they suspected that I had meningitis, luckily I didn't, but I did find out that I have had a chronic sinus infection since Christmas Eve 2012 when the migraines started. Since being treated with antibiotics my migraines have gone and I now only have occasional headaches, which is so much better than it was before.
Last week Emily also got sick again with conjunctivitis and the flu and needed antibiotic ointment for the conjunctivitis but she had a reaction to it, it made her eyes all puffy and red, so we had to stop it, and on Tuesday just gone we went to get her immunisations done as she is overdue for them but we couldn't as she had a non asthma wheeze and congestion in her lungs and was put on antibiotics again - this time a different type - my poor baby hasn't have much luck healthwise this year :( The congestion and wheeze in her lungs are now gone and she will be getting her immunisations next Tuesday as long as nothing else comes up between now and then.
And the other day not only did my glasses break, but the front windscreen of my car cracked as well!
So things haven't been very good, hopefully they get better now, it would be nice as I've had to put off my final 2 lessons with the driving instructor, I was hoping to be preparing to get my P plates by the end of next week but now it won't happen until early next month and I have to see a client at the end of April (we met for the first time on February 25th), so I really need to have them by then.
The only really good thing to happen is that I now have my own ABN and can run my hobby and work as a Doula and run both things as real businesses, which is great!
The other thing we have done recently is help out a mate who was homeless and had been living on the streets, sleeping on park benches and concrete footpaths, for almost a month with hardly any food, so we took him in for a couple of days, fed him, gave him some clean clothes and washed his clothes, let him use our shower and then helped him find a place to stay. He was so grateful and it was so nice to see a smile on his face again even though he was crying (tears of joy). He is now living in a caravan park and can see his partner and kids again which is wonderful for them all.
Anyway, that is all for now.
Until next time, Jen.
Bad luck has been our companion lately, first Matt got a thigh length blood clot in his leg the day after he had his surgery to have his gallbladder removed and was readmitted to hospital for the rest of that day, then released with home visits from the nurses for treatment with clexane injections.
After 2 weeks the clexane hadn't worked so he was put on warfarin as well.
He has been off work for over a month now, and we are really starting to struggle financially.
It is starting to clear up now but it gave us all a huge scare.
On sunday he starts back at work again which is a huge relief.
During this time I also had the mother of all migraines and had to go to hospital where they suspected that I had meningitis, luckily I didn't, but I did find out that I have had a chronic sinus infection since Christmas Eve 2012 when the migraines started. Since being treated with antibiotics my migraines have gone and I now only have occasional headaches, which is so much better than it was before.
Last week Emily also got sick again with conjunctivitis and the flu and needed antibiotic ointment for the conjunctivitis but she had a reaction to it, it made her eyes all puffy and red, so we had to stop it, and on Tuesday just gone we went to get her immunisations done as she is overdue for them but we couldn't as she had a non asthma wheeze and congestion in her lungs and was put on antibiotics again - this time a different type - my poor baby hasn't have much luck healthwise this year :( The congestion and wheeze in her lungs are now gone and she will be getting her immunisations next Tuesday as long as nothing else comes up between now and then.
And the other day not only did my glasses break, but the front windscreen of my car cracked as well!
So things haven't been very good, hopefully they get better now, it would be nice as I've had to put off my final 2 lessons with the driving instructor, I was hoping to be preparing to get my P plates by the end of next week but now it won't happen until early next month and I have to see a client at the end of April (we met for the first time on February 25th), so I really need to have them by then.
The only really good thing to happen is that I now have my own ABN and can run my hobby and work as a Doula and run both things as real businesses, which is great!
The other thing we have done recently is help out a mate who was homeless and had been living on the streets, sleeping on park benches and concrete footpaths, for almost a month with hardly any food, so we took him in for a couple of days, fed him, gave him some clean clothes and washed his clothes, let him use our shower and then helped him find a place to stay. He was so grateful and it was so nice to see a smile on his face again even though he was crying (tears of joy). He is now living in a caravan park and can see his partner and kids again which is wonderful for them all.
Anyway, that is all for now.
Until next time, Jen.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
A New Year, A New Me
One of my new years resolutions was to get back into healthy eating and lose weight again.
While I was pregnant with Elise I lost 16kg, I believe it was because of the Gestational Diabete's that I had combined with Hyperremesis Gravidarum (severe all day sickness) and the cravings that I had for veggies, salads, chicken, goat, rabbit and fish. In the 6.5 months post birth, prior to becoming pregnant with Em, I lost another 16kg, and was 10kg off my goal weight 72kg.
Since Em was born however I have put on at least 15kg, and I feel it too. I have gone up a dress size (I was a 14 in tops and 16 in pants prior to becoming pregnant with Em, now I'm an 18 in both!), and I feel yuck, fat and just plain blegh all the time.
Today is day 3 of my healthy eating project, consisting of Porridge with honey and fresh blueberries for breakfast, either a shake or celery with peanut butter for lunch and either a healthy shake or meat and veggies/stirfry etc for dinner (I only have one healthy shake a day), with an apple, a banana, blueberries and a fruit, nut and seed mix as snacks.
So far it's going well, I'm mixing the snacks up each day (thankfully I really like them all anyway) so I don't get bored, portioning what I eat and eating slowly so I fill up quicker and don't overeat.
My goal is to get back down to 80kg, and then my next goal is to get down to my original goal of 72kg. I'm not sure how much I weigh currently but I'm guessing it's around 98-99kg, which is not where I want to be.
Now don't get me wrong, but some of my weight is muscle, and I do pride myself on having strong leg muscles, they are larger than I'd like too, but they aren't toned so that will be another thing to work on once we get the Wii set up again and start using Wii Fit like we used to after Elise was born.
I am going to try and get Matt back into losing weight as well, as he has put back on all the weight he lost before we got married and is now very very overweight. He will be having surgery next week to have his gallbladder removed as well, so once he is recovered he will need to do something about his weight.
I think that is it for now, I will update when I get around to weighing myself (we don't have scales at home, so it will have to be whenever I can get myself into our local Tony Ferguson Weightloss Center, I haven't been there since early December so it will be interesting to see if my healthy eating has helped when I do eventually go back.
Bye for now.
Jen.
While I was pregnant with Elise I lost 16kg, I believe it was because of the Gestational Diabete's that I had combined with Hyperremesis Gravidarum (severe all day sickness) and the cravings that I had for veggies, salads, chicken, goat, rabbit and fish. In the 6.5 months post birth, prior to becoming pregnant with Em, I lost another 16kg, and was 10kg off my goal weight 72kg.
Since Em was born however I have put on at least 15kg, and I feel it too. I have gone up a dress size (I was a 14 in tops and 16 in pants prior to becoming pregnant with Em, now I'm an 18 in both!), and I feel yuck, fat and just plain blegh all the time.
Today is day 3 of my healthy eating project, consisting of Porridge with honey and fresh blueberries for breakfast, either a shake or celery with peanut butter for lunch and either a healthy shake or meat and veggies/stirfry etc for dinner (I only have one healthy shake a day), with an apple, a banana, blueberries and a fruit, nut and seed mix as snacks.
So far it's going well, I'm mixing the snacks up each day (thankfully I really like them all anyway) so I don't get bored, portioning what I eat and eating slowly so I fill up quicker and don't overeat.
My goal is to get back down to 80kg, and then my next goal is to get down to my original goal of 72kg. I'm not sure how much I weigh currently but I'm guessing it's around 98-99kg, which is not where I want to be.
Now don't get me wrong, but some of my weight is muscle, and I do pride myself on having strong leg muscles, they are larger than I'd like too, but they aren't toned so that will be another thing to work on once we get the Wii set up again and start using Wii Fit like we used to after Elise was born.
I am going to try and get Matt back into losing weight as well, as he has put back on all the weight he lost before we got married and is now very very overweight. He will be having surgery next week to have his gallbladder removed as well, so once he is recovered he will need to do something about his weight.
I think that is it for now, I will update when I get around to weighing myself (we don't have scales at home, so it will have to be whenever I can get myself into our local Tony Ferguson Weightloss Center, I haven't been there since early December so it will be interesting to see if my healthy eating has helped when I do eventually go back.
Bye for now.
Jen.
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Em has been in hospital...
I haven't updated for a while, there just hasn't been anything to write about until now.
As the title says Miss Em is in hospital, she was admitted on wednesdat night with suspected gastro, a fever and dehydration with a lot of tummy pain. its friday now and she isn't feeding much either.
Yesterday she lost 50 grams in weight in just under 12 hours, and last night he paediatrician said that if she wasn"t picking uptoday and gaining weight again they would be inserting a nasogastric tube to feed her.
I am also having to express allfeeds for her to have bottles now instead of breastfeeding so that they can see how much she is taking in, and its scaring me because normally in rhe morning she would have at least 300ml (I can express approx 150ml from each breast first thing in the morning) and today all she has had so far is 175ml.
At least the fever has gone down now so that is a good thing, and she hasn't had any diarrhea yet today either.
And now we are going home with instructions to treat her for oral thrush (which came up yesterday morning) and that if she gets worse again or starts to have bad diarrhea again we are to bring her back in.
Well thats it for now, have to get ready to go home.
Jen.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
I've Been Slacking Off With The Blog Again...
A month without blogging! I have been slack :(
I'll recap now, not much has been happening, Miss Em has learned how to roll from back to tummy, but gets stuck on her tummy and can't figure out how to get back over lol
She is also giggling and laughing at random things now, she loves her big brother and sister and laughs at them both on a regular basis.
Matt has discovered that he has bad gallstones as well and will be seeing the surgeon in January in preparation for surgery to have his gallbladder removed.
Master J is his usual hyperactive crazy self, he will be turning 4 in 7 days! I can't believe how quickly the past 4 years have gone by, I miss the little baby he used to be, and now he's growing up so fast and turning into a real little man :'( makes me want to cry that my baby boy is growing up so quickly.
Princess E is turning into a Prissy Girl, she doesn't like being told "No" or being told off and if it happens her bottom lip goes out, starts wobbling and she bursts into tears. She loves her Pink Butterfly Sequin sandles, and her pretty dresses, though she still likes to play with Master J's Chuggington trains and Hot Wheels cars lol
As for me, I ended up getting an infection behind my belly button incision almost 2 weeks ago and was on antibiotics (It was sooo painful! And red and hot to touch, I felt so horrid and sick), and now I have Pharyngitis (a throat infection) with a nasty cough after having this cold (yes a cold in SUMMER of all seasons) for the past 5 weeks.
Not much else has been happening, we are managing to stay comfortable financially this year, the first time in quite a while that we haven't had to worry about our finances around Christmas (the last few years we have had to ask for help the the St Vincent De Paul Society in the form of food vouchers just to get us over the Christmas/New Year period while hubby wasn't working.
I can't thank the St Vinnies Charity and it's volunteers enough for the help they have given us over the past few years, they are amazing and do so much for people who really need the help. I regularly shop at our local St Vinnies Op Shop and donate many of our old clothes and household items that while still in good condition we just don't need anymore (all my size 20 clothes for example were recently sent to St Vinnies as I am currently a size 16-18 - I am hoping to get down to a size 14 soonish though lol).
In regards to my weightloss journey, the first 2 weeks after my gallbladder was removed I only put on the 100g (I know I've put this in a previous blog entry but here it is again - prior to surgery I was putting on 1.5kg a fortnight on average), and since then I haven't gained any weight at all (and that is with eating some bad things every couple of days lol including a whole pack of caramel TimTams and half a pack of Lamingtons!) and have even lost 1cm off my waist! I get weighed again on monday, so hopefully I will have lost a bit of weight this fortnight (and another 1cm off my waist, it's certainly looking a bit smaller, I can't see it past my boobs unless I lean forwards slightly now! lol).
Anyway, it is currently 12:35am and I need to get some sleep as I was up until 5am yesterday morning with insomnia and only got 3.5 hours sleep.
Night all!
Jen - xoxo
I'll recap now, not much has been happening, Miss Em has learned how to roll from back to tummy, but gets stuck on her tummy and can't figure out how to get back over lol
She is also giggling and laughing at random things now, she loves her big brother and sister and laughs at them both on a regular basis.
Matt has discovered that he has bad gallstones as well and will be seeing the surgeon in January in preparation for surgery to have his gallbladder removed.
Master J is his usual hyperactive crazy self, he will be turning 4 in 7 days! I can't believe how quickly the past 4 years have gone by, I miss the little baby he used to be, and now he's growing up so fast and turning into a real little man :'( makes me want to cry that my baby boy is growing up so quickly.
Princess E is turning into a Prissy Girl, she doesn't like being told "No" or being told off and if it happens her bottom lip goes out, starts wobbling and she bursts into tears. She loves her Pink Butterfly Sequin sandles, and her pretty dresses, though she still likes to play with Master J's Chuggington trains and Hot Wheels cars lol
As for me, I ended up getting an infection behind my belly button incision almost 2 weeks ago and was on antibiotics (It was sooo painful! And red and hot to touch, I felt so horrid and sick), and now I have Pharyngitis (a throat infection) with a nasty cough after having this cold (yes a cold in SUMMER of all seasons) for the past 5 weeks.
Not much else has been happening, we are managing to stay comfortable financially this year, the first time in quite a while that we haven't had to worry about our finances around Christmas (the last few years we have had to ask for help the the St Vincent De Paul Society in the form of food vouchers just to get us over the Christmas/New Year period while hubby wasn't working.
I can't thank the St Vinnies Charity and it's volunteers enough for the help they have given us over the past few years, they are amazing and do so much for people who really need the help. I regularly shop at our local St Vinnies Op Shop and donate many of our old clothes and household items that while still in good condition we just don't need anymore (all my size 20 clothes for example were recently sent to St Vinnies as I am currently a size 16-18 - I am hoping to get down to a size 14 soonish though lol).
In regards to my weightloss journey, the first 2 weeks after my gallbladder was removed I only put on the 100g (I know I've put this in a previous blog entry but here it is again - prior to surgery I was putting on 1.5kg a fortnight on average), and since then I haven't gained any weight at all (and that is with eating some bad things every couple of days lol including a whole pack of caramel TimTams and half a pack of Lamingtons!) and have even lost 1cm off my waist! I get weighed again on monday, so hopefully I will have lost a bit of weight this fortnight (and another 1cm off my waist, it's certainly looking a bit smaller, I can't see it past my boobs unless I lean forwards slightly now! lol).
Anyway, it is currently 12:35am and I need to get some sleep as I was up until 5am yesterday morning with insomnia and only got 3.5 hours sleep.
Night all!
Jen - xoxo
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Update
I haven't updated in a while as things have been busy so I'll do a quick recap.
Mattt went on the Barry Sheen run to Phillip Island and the moto GP last month and had a blast. It was hard being on my own with all 3 kids and I was really stressed out while he was gone, so much do that I had a gallstone attack the night before he got home and was in hospital for around 6 hours.
After he got back I had an ultrasound which showed 3 visible gallstones measuring 1cm to 1.25cm in size, and my GP told ke it wasnt bad enough to fo anything yet and to just keep going as normal. I had another 5 gallstone attacks in the space of 8 days,after that first one, the last attack was in the early hours of the morning last tuesday, only 6 days ago, and even morphine didn't take the pain away so I went in for emergency surgery at 1:30pm on tuesday afternoon.
I wasn't able to express or feed Emily for over 24 hours so my supply has suffered and I am slowly trying to build it back up.
So today I am 6 days post surgery and still in pain, I can't relax or take it easy like I am supposed to because Matt has to work and I have to look after the kids.
My family isn't helping at all, my Mother-in-Law took the kids for a few days for hich i am extremely grateful, but my side of the family couldnt really care less except my mum, dad and aunt who are all busy with work and can't get down here to help.
My stepmum hasnt even bothered to calk up and ask how I am goung or visit, I'm ready to write off most of my family right now.
Anyway that is all for now.
Jen.
Mattt went on the Barry Sheen run to Phillip Island and the moto GP last month and had a blast. It was hard being on my own with all 3 kids and I was really stressed out while he was gone, so much do that I had a gallstone attack the night before he got home and was in hospital for around 6 hours.
After he got back I had an ultrasound which showed 3 visible gallstones measuring 1cm to 1.25cm in size, and my GP told ke it wasnt bad enough to fo anything yet and to just keep going as normal. I had another 5 gallstone attacks in the space of 8 days,after that first one, the last attack was in the early hours of the morning last tuesday, only 6 days ago, and even morphine didn't take the pain away so I went in for emergency surgery at 1:30pm on tuesday afternoon.
I wasn't able to express or feed Emily for over 24 hours so my supply has suffered and I am slowly trying to build it back up.
So today I am 6 days post surgery and still in pain, I can't relax or take it easy like I am supposed to because Matt has to work and I have to look after the kids.
My family isn't helping at all, my Mother-in-Law took the kids for a few days for hich i am extremely grateful, but my side of the family couldnt really care less except my mum, dad and aunt who are all busy with work and can't get down here to help.
My stepmum hasnt even bothered to calk up and ask how I am goung or visit, I'm ready to write off most of my family right now.
Anyway that is all for now.
Jen.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
A Mothers Pain
I have been busy so I haven't had the chance to update for a bit.
Today marks 19 months since a friend, gave birth to and said goodbye to her precious baby girl, Haylz.
I have been blessed at being permitted to see a photo of her.
Haylz was beautiful. her full lips, chubby cheeks, thick black hair. Haylz was pure perfection. And now she is a perfect angel in heaven or wherever it is that souls go.
I don't believe in a God, but I do believe that there is something out there that we as humans can't truly fathom, whether it is a god or goddess, or something else entirely. I choose to call it a goddess personally, with no name and no benevolent or violent nature. Call it nature in its raw form or Mother Earth if you like.
If i had believed in the God that dominates our society I would have stopped believing the day that Haylz passed away. How can any henevolent God take away the life of an innocent baby? How can any God who supposedly loves us destroy that little family, and all the other families who have lost babies, in that way?
And for those who say that God has his reasons, well that is a load of complete bullshit. There is no reason for it.
To lose a child is to spend the rest of yours days in a living hell with constant reminders of everything that you have lost - that first smile, the first time your baby rolls over, crawls, the first steps, first day of school, graduation, seeing that child get married and have children of his or her own. Just seeing pregnant woman and young babies down the street is a bleak reminder of everything you have lost.
My friend was blessed at the beginning of this year with her rainbow baby, a little boy, but her pain is still fresh, and I can only imagine that when she sees all the other babies in our baby buddies group, and hears of what they are up to and learning, that her loss is even more pronounced because Haylz should be here doing all the things that Elise and the other toddlers are doing.
I can't continue any further as I am too upset.
Until next time,
Jen - xoxo
Today marks 19 months since a friend, gave birth to and said goodbye to her precious baby girl, Haylz.
I have been blessed at being permitted to see a photo of her.
Haylz was beautiful. her full lips, chubby cheeks, thick black hair. Haylz was pure perfection. And now she is a perfect angel in heaven or wherever it is that souls go.
I don't believe in a God, but I do believe that there is something out there that we as humans can't truly fathom, whether it is a god or goddess, or something else entirely. I choose to call it a goddess personally, with no name and no benevolent or violent nature. Call it nature in its raw form or Mother Earth if you like.
If i had believed in the God that dominates our society I would have stopped believing the day that Haylz passed away. How can any henevolent God take away the life of an innocent baby? How can any God who supposedly loves us destroy that little family, and all the other families who have lost babies, in that way?
And for those who say that God has his reasons, well that is a load of complete bullshit. There is no reason for it.
To lose a child is to spend the rest of yours days in a living hell with constant reminders of everything that you have lost - that first smile, the first time your baby rolls over, crawls, the first steps, first day of school, graduation, seeing that child get married and have children of his or her own. Just seeing pregnant woman and young babies down the street is a bleak reminder of everything you have lost.
My friend was blessed at the beginning of this year with her rainbow baby, a little boy, but her pain is still fresh, and I can only imagine that when she sees all the other babies in our baby buddies group, and hears of what they are up to and learning, that her loss is even more pronounced because Haylz should be here doing all the things that Elise and the other toddlers are doing.
I can't continue any further as I am too upset.
Until next time,
Jen - xoxo
Thursday, 4 October 2012
News
It has been a,few,days or so since my last blog entry, and a few things have happened.
First my Oma (maternal grandmother) had a fall and broke her hip, she was stuck on the floor for 2 days before my aunt found her. Shes 88 years old, a heavy smoker and lives on her own, so she's done well to get this far without something serious like this happening. She gave us all a huge scare, we didnt think she would make it through the surgery to pin her hip back together, we are very glad that she did.
Her only visitors so far have been my uncle and us, she's getting a bit lonely in hospital on her own.
To say she looks like hell is an understatement.
Because of this my mum is coming down from QLD to help out, so she will finally be able to meet Emily for the first time. She is driving down and arrives tonight but we won't see her until tomorrow.
In other news Emily had to have some blood tests done yesterday to check her Vitamin D levels, lipids and thyroid because when I was pregnant with her my vitamin D levels were dangerously low but no one told me until after she was born.
Today she saw the paediatrician and we got the results, the good news is that she won't have to see the paediatrician again but the bad news is that her vitamin D levels are only 45 and the minimum of the healthy range is 50 so she has to stay on Pentavite (a childrens multivitamin that is highin Vitamin D) until she is 12 months old.
Tomorrow i am meeting my bestie in Traralgon and we will be going shopping for dresses for the girls to wear this summer, which after the heat we had today (30 degrees celcius) summer is going to be really hot!
That's all for now, until next time,
Jen - xoxo
First my Oma (maternal grandmother) had a fall and broke her hip, she was stuck on the floor for 2 days before my aunt found her. Shes 88 years old, a heavy smoker and lives on her own, so she's done well to get this far without something serious like this happening. She gave us all a huge scare, we didnt think she would make it through the surgery to pin her hip back together, we are very glad that she did.
Her only visitors so far have been my uncle and us, she's getting a bit lonely in hospital on her own.
To say she looks like hell is an understatement.
Because of this my mum is coming down from QLD to help out, so she will finally be able to meet Emily for the first time. She is driving down and arrives tonight but we won't see her until tomorrow.
In other news Emily had to have some blood tests done yesterday to check her Vitamin D levels, lipids and thyroid because when I was pregnant with her my vitamin D levels were dangerously low but no one told me until after she was born.
Today she saw the paediatrician and we got the results, the good news is that she won't have to see the paediatrician again but the bad news is that her vitamin D levels are only 45 and the minimum of the healthy range is 50 so she has to stay on Pentavite (a childrens multivitamin that is highin Vitamin D) until she is 12 months old.
Tomorrow i am meeting my bestie in Traralgon and we will be going shopping for dresses for the girls to wear this summer, which after the heat we had today (30 degrees celcius) summer is going to be really hot!
That's all for now, until next time,
Jen - xoxo
Friday, 28 September 2012
I've Come So Far Already
A few weeks ago when I started writing this blog I was in a very dark place. Looking back I can't help but compare it to the way I felt as a teenager when I was teased and felt isolated and alone even among friends, the way I always felt after each loss, the way I felt while I was pregnant with Elise, and it was the most like the way I felt when I was in the deep dark place after losing Tomas.
So even though I'm feeling a lot better emotionally I'm still left with the question "When will I get over this pain of never having another baby?" I really need to know! How long will it take for me to be able to look at a pregnant woman without feeling this horrible jealousy, this pain, anger and frustration?
I don't know why I'm still feeling like that, I hate feeling like this. I want to be normal again.
Back to other news, I have a new phone so I will be able to post some pics in future blog entries.
My driving is still going well, I've made a few errors but it's all part of learning and I haven't crashed the car yet or hit anyone so that's a good thing!
Wednesday next week I will be driving us up to Matt's parents place in Seaspray for an overnight visit to the beach since Thursday is supposed to be really nice and warm. Hope the weather forecast stays the same and doesn't change to "cold with rain", I've had enough of cold and rain after todays weather.
That's it for now. Until next time,
Jenna - xoxo
So even though I'm feeling a lot better emotionally I'm still left with the question "When will I get over this pain of never having another baby?" I really need to know! How long will it take for me to be able to look at a pregnant woman without feeling this horrible jealousy, this pain, anger and frustration?
I don't know why I'm still feeling like that, I hate feeling like this. I want to be normal again.
Back to other news, I have a new phone so I will be able to post some pics in future blog entries.
My driving is still going well, I've made a few errors but it's all part of learning and I haven't crashed the car yet or hit anyone so that's a good thing!
Wednesday next week I will be driving us up to Matt's parents place in Seaspray for an overnight visit to the beach since Thursday is supposed to be really nice and warm. Hope the weather forecast stays the same and doesn't change to "cold with rain", I've had enough of cold and rain after todays weather.
That's it for now. Until next time,
Jenna - xoxo
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
On A High
Today I am on a bit of a high, I managed to get some things done that I've been wanting to do for a bit.
I managed to get most of the rodent cages cleaned out.
The veggie patch has been dug over and I purchased seedlings yesterday which I planted in it today - Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cucumber, Peas, Carrots, Celery, Spinach and Lettuce. Soon I will plant the seeds that I have (peas, tomatoes and lettuce) into trays to try and grow them too. I still have to buy some leaks, broccoli and cauliflower to plant as well, and I might get some spring onions and a few other things next fortnight if I can find things that I like.
I also started tidying up my study today and packing things that I don't need right now away.
Tomorrow Jaycen has a morning session at daycare so I will be catching up on the dishes and hopefully do some more tidying in my study.
My driving has been going well too, although there are still many things I need to work on (not cutting people off by accident is the main thing) and just as many things still to learn (reverse and parallel parking for example), but I am finally at the point where I am really looking forward to going driving, and to being able to drive on my own without Matt in the car. We have talked about the car as well, Matt would like to get a twin-cab ute at some point, and I would like to have a smaller car (we currently have a station wagon, which while great for travelling distances with the kids and the dog I have a lot of trouble judging the length of the car and the distance between the back and front of the car and things around us while driving) so there are a lot of things to think about for my driving future.
On Thursday I am hoping that my best friend Janelle will come to visit, it is supposed to be 27 degrees C, a beautiful spring day! So we have plans to spend the day outside beading while Matt plays with the kids and does some painting with them. And I am hoping Janelle will join me on Saturday for the local Rodent Fanciers Picnic. I am taking one of my girl rats and her babies along, and might take some of the baby mice as well since some of them will be available for sale in a few weeks. Apparently one of the Melbourne rat breeders is coming down to visit all of us Gippsland rodent lovers, it will be interesting to have a chat with her and learn more about her breeding methods. I would love to bring some new rats home with me, but I am not allowed to as I am in the process of reducing my numbers while working on the health of my lines and producing younger rats to breed from in future.
On Sunday it will be the NRL Grand Final, and the Rugby team that we support, the Melbourne Storm, is playing, so Matt has set up the shed and connected the set-top box and aerial to the projector so that we (us and some of our friends) can watch it live on the 7ft projector screen with the wood fire going if it gets cold.
I am looking forward to it, and I really hope that Storm wins since we lost our place in the Grand Final last year due to a salary cap scandal within the NRL (Storm were used as the scapegoat even though every other club was doing it too, some worse than Storm). So we will be kept busy getting ready for it.
Emily is asleep in the bouncer at the moment, so I am catching up on watching episode 4 of "Call The Midwife" which I missed on Sunday.
Until next time,
Jenna - xoxo
I managed to get most of the rodent cages cleaned out.
The veggie patch has been dug over and I purchased seedlings yesterday which I planted in it today - Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cucumber, Peas, Carrots, Celery, Spinach and Lettuce. Soon I will plant the seeds that I have (peas, tomatoes and lettuce) into trays to try and grow them too. I still have to buy some leaks, broccoli and cauliflower to plant as well, and I might get some spring onions and a few other things next fortnight if I can find things that I like.
I also started tidying up my study today and packing things that I don't need right now away.
Tomorrow Jaycen has a morning session at daycare so I will be catching up on the dishes and hopefully do some more tidying in my study.
My driving has been going well too, although there are still many things I need to work on (not cutting people off by accident is the main thing) and just as many things still to learn (reverse and parallel parking for example), but I am finally at the point where I am really looking forward to going driving, and to being able to drive on my own without Matt in the car. We have talked about the car as well, Matt would like to get a twin-cab ute at some point, and I would like to have a smaller car (we currently have a station wagon, which while great for travelling distances with the kids and the dog I have a lot of trouble judging the length of the car and the distance between the back and front of the car and things around us while driving) so there are a lot of things to think about for my driving future.
On Thursday I am hoping that my best friend Janelle will come to visit, it is supposed to be 27 degrees C, a beautiful spring day! So we have plans to spend the day outside beading while Matt plays with the kids and does some painting with them. And I am hoping Janelle will join me on Saturday for the local Rodent Fanciers Picnic. I am taking one of my girl rats and her babies along, and might take some of the baby mice as well since some of them will be available for sale in a few weeks. Apparently one of the Melbourne rat breeders is coming down to visit all of us Gippsland rodent lovers, it will be interesting to have a chat with her and learn more about her breeding methods. I would love to bring some new rats home with me, but I am not allowed to as I am in the process of reducing my numbers while working on the health of my lines and producing younger rats to breed from in future.
On Sunday it will be the NRL Grand Final, and the Rugby team that we support, the Melbourne Storm, is playing, so Matt has set up the shed and connected the set-top box and aerial to the projector so that we (us and some of our friends) can watch it live on the 7ft projector screen with the wood fire going if it gets cold.
I am looking forward to it, and I really hope that Storm wins since we lost our place in the Grand Final last year due to a salary cap scandal within the NRL (Storm were used as the scapegoat even though every other club was doing it too, some worse than Storm). So we will be kept busy getting ready for it.
Emily is asleep in the bouncer at the moment, so I am catching up on watching episode 4 of "Call The Midwife" which I missed on Sunday.
Until next time,
Jenna - xoxo
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Driving Lessons + Elise walking and new words
Not much to report really, I did go driving again the other day, just to the shops and back again.
I went driving yesterday too, and again today.
I now have 7 hours and 14 minutes of driving experience, only another 112 hours and 46 minutes left until I will feel comfortable going for my Probationary License, so my goal of getting it by this time next year is well within reach, though Matt is hoping I get it earlier, say by February next year. We shall see.
Other news is that Elise is finally walking everywhere on her own instead of walking while holding onto furniture and the walls. She really started doing it 3 days ago just by walking in circles around the lounge room, and now she is confident enough to walk everywhere but can only walk for short stretches before she needs to have a rest.
She has also learned 2 new words - Cool and Uh-Oh, she is having some trouble pronouncing them properly and getting the right pitch but considering she will be 18 months old on the 30th and was only saying "Mum-mum", "Dad-dad", "Nan-nan", "Bub-bub", "Bot-Bot" and "Pretty" before now it is about time she learnt a new word.
Me, I am feeling a bit better emotionally today, although I am very tired and just want to sleep a lot which I can't do right now. I did manage to have a mostly undisturbed shower this morning by putting the bouncer in the bathroom and having Emily in it where she could see me and putting a "My Little Pony" DVD on for Jaycen and Elise.
Jaycen is in love with My Little Pony at the moment, although I am getting tired of hearing "I want the ponies on again! turn the ponies on again!" every time the DVD finishes, that and the DVD gets extremely boring after 100 repetitions lol
I have purchased 9 new My Little Pony DVDs off eBay, so hopefully they will arrive this coming week and we can watch something new. I am revisiting my childhood with 5 of these DVDs, 4 of which are the original My Little Pony Tales episodes in DVD form (from the 1990's), 4 are the generation 3-3.5 style DVDs (2000's) and 1 is the original movie. I hope the kids like them as much as they like the current "Twinkle Wish Adventure" DVD.
Well that is it for now, I have to go and start getting some things ready for dinner tonight - Squid Tubes stuffed with CousCous with a Chilli-Lime yoghurt dressing, Yummo!
Until next time,
Jen - xoxo
I went driving yesterday too, and again today.
I now have 7 hours and 14 minutes of driving experience, only another 112 hours and 46 minutes left until I will feel comfortable going for my Probationary License, so my goal of getting it by this time next year is well within reach, though Matt is hoping I get it earlier, say by February next year. We shall see.
Other news is that Elise is finally walking everywhere on her own instead of walking while holding onto furniture and the walls. She really started doing it 3 days ago just by walking in circles around the lounge room, and now she is confident enough to walk everywhere but can only walk for short stretches before she needs to have a rest.
She has also learned 2 new words - Cool and Uh-Oh, she is having some trouble pronouncing them properly and getting the right pitch but considering she will be 18 months old on the 30th and was only saying "Mum-mum", "Dad-dad", "Nan-nan", "Bub-bub", "Bot-Bot" and "Pretty" before now it is about time she learnt a new word.
Me, I am feeling a bit better emotionally today, although I am very tired and just want to sleep a lot which I can't do right now. I did manage to have a mostly undisturbed shower this morning by putting the bouncer in the bathroom and having Emily in it where she could see me and putting a "My Little Pony" DVD on for Jaycen and Elise.
Jaycen is in love with My Little Pony at the moment, although I am getting tired of hearing "I want the ponies on again! turn the ponies on again!" every time the DVD finishes, that and the DVD gets extremely boring after 100 repetitions lol
I have purchased 9 new My Little Pony DVDs off eBay, so hopefully they will arrive this coming week and we can watch something new. I am revisiting my childhood with 5 of these DVDs, 4 of which are the original My Little Pony Tales episodes in DVD form (from the 1990's), 4 are the generation 3-3.5 style DVDs (2000's) and 1 is the original movie. I hope the kids like them as much as they like the current "Twinkle Wish Adventure" DVD.
Well that is it for now, I have to go and start getting some things ready for dinner tonight - Squid Tubes stuffed with CousCous with a Chilli-Lime yoghurt dressing, Yummo!
Until next time,
Jen - xoxo
Thursday, 20 September 2012
My Bad Luck With Technology
I seem to be having some really horrendous bad luck with technology lately - first my HTC Incredible S smartphone died (the adaptor that you put the USB cable into failed first and then the battery went), second my laptop got a virus that will let it start up but won't let me log in to it (all our photo's of the kids and places we have been are on it), and third now my phone has gone missing in transit!
You'd think Optus wouldn't lose a mobile phone that they send off to be repaired, but they have. The customer service person that we spoke to on the phone then had the gall to tell us that they weren't liable and legally didn't have to replace the phone, which is a complete crock of shit! By LAW they are required to replace any item that is lost while in their care, just as any other company is required to do if things in their care go missing.
So I am still without my phone and relying on a 7yr old dodgy Samsung flip phone with no internet access that is unable to send, receive or take photo's, in order to stay in contact with people. And wasting my 2.38gig of download data that I still have in credit which is due to expire on September 26th, which also marks a full month since my phone died and was sent off to be repaired.
I really don't know how I managed without my smartphone before I purchased it in early September last year, it has been so difficult the last 3.5 weeks without it. I am cut off from my online support network on Facebook (I can't use Facebook on my husband's laptop, I can only browse ebay and google and update this blog), I am also unable to take pictures of the kids, our life, friends or even our pets - the Dog and the Rats & Mice.
My own mum who lives interstate and has only seen the kids a few times in person (She still hasn't met Emily yet) can't even see updated photo's of them as they grow which is the worst thing of all, she has missed out on seeing almost a whole month of their lives that I could have uploaded onto Facebook for her if my phone hadn't of died and hadn't gone missing.
To add to this my period turned up yesterday, I feel cheated as I am breastfeeding and it still turned up, I was hoping it wouldn't show up for at least 6 months, and it's yet another reminder that I won't be having more kids. I'll have another 20+ years of getting it pretty much every month, of having the cramps and horrible pain, as I refuse to have a hysterectomy, until I go through menopause. What fun, NOT!
Yes I know this is another vent/down post, so I'll bring it up with something happier - my driving lessons.
So far I have 3 hours and 20 minutes of driving experience under my belt, only another 116 hours and 40 minutes of driving time left to go before I will feel comfortable and positive enough to go for my Probationary License and get my P-plates.
On wednesday I did 36 minutes of driving, did a few laps around one of the local football ovals and then drove the few blocks (including going around a round-a-bout) to home. The only down thing about Wednesday's lesson was when I was practicing my parking I hit the metal fence that surrounds the football field. It brought on a bloody migraine, so I'm not feeling 100% at the moment.
Yesterday I had my 3rd driving lesson and drove from Clarke's Road in Hazelwood North all the way up to Jeeralang Junction and then into Churchill and then all the way back home, I even got up to 100km/h but had one brief scare where I didn't pay attention to the road properly and started veer into another lane by accident, I could have caused a car accident which scared the crap out of me, at least this time I didn't have a panic attack. I missed our driveway though when we got home and ended up half on the road half on the nature strip just past our driveway, so that wasn't very good. Last night I had my 4th driving lesson, a very short one going from home to Mid Valley Shopping Center to get some things and then from Mid Valley back to home, this time I made it into the driveway! Such a relief.
Matt wants me to go for another drive today, but if the strong winds keep up then I won't feel comfortable going for a drive today, I don't feel ready for that yet as I have enough trouble staying in one lane when there isn't any wind and if I have to fight the wind while driving as well then I will be more likely to have an accident now than I will be in a few weeks when I have more experience and confidence in driving.
I mentioned our pets further up this post so I will tell you about them now. We have a dog named Libby, a Rottweiler, who will be 11 in February, and pet Rats and Mice that I breed. I sell the mice as pets because I can guarantee their health and I am working on their friendliness, but I don't sell any of the rats as I am working on the health and friendliness of their lines. We have a lot of issues down here in the Latrobe Valley with the health of rodents who live outside so I am undertaking a long term project to improve their health as they do live outside.
I have 9 adult mice and currently have 9 baby mice, in a variety of colours (Siamese, Blue, Chocolate, Brindle, Black and White) although the babies are all Manx and one of the males is a Manx.
I have 15 adult rats, 8 females and 7 males, in Black Hooded, Black Berkshire, Black Varigated Berkshie, Agouti, Mink Capped, Champagne Hooded and Blue Hooded with Standard and Rex coats, and I currently have 9 baby Rats in Black Hooded, Champagne Hooded, Dalmation and Black Eyed White with Rex coats.
So those are our pets :)
We are also currently working on our vegetable garden, we have Sage and Rosemary bushes growing which have been in their for 3 years now and are doing great, when we first started it we grew Blueberries in a pot, Strawberries, lettuce and snow peas which did really well, the snow peas kept on producing for 5 months before they finally died off, we must have got about 8kg of snow peas off the vines during that time and they were so delicious!
The 2nd year we didn't plant anything as we just didn't have the time, we just moved the Strawberry to a pot to stop Jaycen from eating them lol, and still had the blueberries in a pot, we got around 100 blueberries from the one plant.
Last year we grew Garlic, Onions (which failed and never grew to more than 1.5cm in size), Zucchini, Lettuce (from the previous years lettuce which we had let go to seed), Cherry Tomato's (which were so yummy!) and Strawberries (which we moved to the front of the house because Jaycen still kept on eating them lol), and the blueberries still grew but we only got around 20 as it was a really hot summer.
This year we will be growing our strawberries again, the blueberry bush must have around 200 flowers on it this year so hopefully we get that many from it, I will be planting lettuce again along with Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas and Cherry Tomato's, and I'm hoping to plant some cucumber and zucchini again, and possibly carrots, Broccoli, Caulliflower and beans, and if Matt will let me some Pumpkins as well.
It is something to look forward to anyway, Matt has nearly finished digging up and removing the cooch grass from the veggie patch and once he has finished he will be mixing blood and bone fertilizer through the soil (it's pretty good soil anyway but water comes down from the roof of the rat shed into the veggie patch and a lot of the good nutrients end up being washed away when we have big downpours in winter and spring so we like to prepare the soil first before we plant anything in spring and then top up with liquid fertilizer every month or so while things are growing).
Well that is it for this entry, until next time.
Jenna - xoxo
You'd think Optus wouldn't lose a mobile phone that they send off to be repaired, but they have. The customer service person that we spoke to on the phone then had the gall to tell us that they weren't liable and legally didn't have to replace the phone, which is a complete crock of shit! By LAW they are required to replace any item that is lost while in their care, just as any other company is required to do if things in their care go missing.
So I am still without my phone and relying on a 7yr old dodgy Samsung flip phone with no internet access that is unable to send, receive or take photo's, in order to stay in contact with people. And wasting my 2.38gig of download data that I still have in credit which is due to expire on September 26th, which also marks a full month since my phone died and was sent off to be repaired.
I really don't know how I managed without my smartphone before I purchased it in early September last year, it has been so difficult the last 3.5 weeks without it. I am cut off from my online support network on Facebook (I can't use Facebook on my husband's laptop, I can only browse ebay and google and update this blog), I am also unable to take pictures of the kids, our life, friends or even our pets - the Dog and the Rats & Mice.
My own mum who lives interstate and has only seen the kids a few times in person (She still hasn't met Emily yet) can't even see updated photo's of them as they grow which is the worst thing of all, she has missed out on seeing almost a whole month of their lives that I could have uploaded onto Facebook for her if my phone hadn't of died and hadn't gone missing.
To add to this my period turned up yesterday, I feel cheated as I am breastfeeding and it still turned up, I was hoping it wouldn't show up for at least 6 months, and it's yet another reminder that I won't be having more kids. I'll have another 20+ years of getting it pretty much every month, of having the cramps and horrible pain, as I refuse to have a hysterectomy, until I go through menopause. What fun, NOT!
Yes I know this is another vent/down post, so I'll bring it up with something happier - my driving lessons.
So far I have 3 hours and 20 minutes of driving experience under my belt, only another 116 hours and 40 minutes of driving time left to go before I will feel comfortable and positive enough to go for my Probationary License and get my P-plates.
On wednesday I did 36 minutes of driving, did a few laps around one of the local football ovals and then drove the few blocks (including going around a round-a-bout) to home. The only down thing about Wednesday's lesson was when I was practicing my parking I hit the metal fence that surrounds the football field. It brought on a bloody migraine, so I'm not feeling 100% at the moment.
Yesterday I had my 3rd driving lesson and drove from Clarke's Road in Hazelwood North all the way up to Jeeralang Junction and then into Churchill and then all the way back home, I even got up to 100km/h but had one brief scare where I didn't pay attention to the road properly and started veer into another lane by accident, I could have caused a car accident which scared the crap out of me, at least this time I didn't have a panic attack. I missed our driveway though when we got home and ended up half on the road half on the nature strip just past our driveway, so that wasn't very good. Last night I had my 4th driving lesson, a very short one going from home to Mid Valley Shopping Center to get some things and then from Mid Valley back to home, this time I made it into the driveway! Such a relief.
Matt wants me to go for another drive today, but if the strong winds keep up then I won't feel comfortable going for a drive today, I don't feel ready for that yet as I have enough trouble staying in one lane when there isn't any wind and if I have to fight the wind while driving as well then I will be more likely to have an accident now than I will be in a few weeks when I have more experience and confidence in driving.
I mentioned our pets further up this post so I will tell you about them now. We have a dog named Libby, a Rottweiler, who will be 11 in February, and pet Rats and Mice that I breed. I sell the mice as pets because I can guarantee their health and I am working on their friendliness, but I don't sell any of the rats as I am working on the health and friendliness of their lines. We have a lot of issues down here in the Latrobe Valley with the health of rodents who live outside so I am undertaking a long term project to improve their health as they do live outside.
I have 9 adult mice and currently have 9 baby mice, in a variety of colours (Siamese, Blue, Chocolate, Brindle, Black and White) although the babies are all Manx and one of the males is a Manx.
I have 15 adult rats, 8 females and 7 males, in Black Hooded, Black Berkshire, Black Varigated Berkshie, Agouti, Mink Capped, Champagne Hooded and Blue Hooded with Standard and Rex coats, and I currently have 9 baby Rats in Black Hooded, Champagne Hooded, Dalmation and Black Eyed White with Rex coats.
So those are our pets :)
We are also currently working on our vegetable garden, we have Sage and Rosemary bushes growing which have been in their for 3 years now and are doing great, when we first started it we grew Blueberries in a pot, Strawberries, lettuce and snow peas which did really well, the snow peas kept on producing for 5 months before they finally died off, we must have got about 8kg of snow peas off the vines during that time and they were so delicious!
The 2nd year we didn't plant anything as we just didn't have the time, we just moved the Strawberry to a pot to stop Jaycen from eating them lol, and still had the blueberries in a pot, we got around 100 blueberries from the one plant.
Last year we grew Garlic, Onions (which failed and never grew to more than 1.5cm in size), Zucchini, Lettuce (from the previous years lettuce which we had let go to seed), Cherry Tomato's (which were so yummy!) and Strawberries (which we moved to the front of the house because Jaycen still kept on eating them lol), and the blueberries still grew but we only got around 20 as it was a really hot summer.
This year we will be growing our strawberries again, the blueberry bush must have around 200 flowers on it this year so hopefully we get that many from it, I will be planting lettuce again along with Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas and Cherry Tomato's, and I'm hoping to plant some cucumber and zucchini again, and possibly carrots, Broccoli, Caulliflower and beans, and if Matt will let me some Pumpkins as well.
It is something to look forward to anyway, Matt has nearly finished digging up and removing the cooch grass from the veggie patch and once he has finished he will be mixing blood and bone fertilizer through the soil (it's pretty good soil anyway but water comes down from the roof of the rat shed into the veggie patch and a lot of the good nutrients end up being washed away when we have big downpours in winter and spring so we like to prepare the soil first before we plant anything in spring and then top up with liquid fertilizer every month or so while things are growing).
Well that is it for this entry, until next time.
Jenna - xoxo
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