A friend tagged me on facebook. This is supposed to test how much you remember about your firstborn.
1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? no.... very much no.
2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? not when we got pregnant.. he proposed the night we found out, and we got married when we were 6 months along
3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? tears. swearing. fear.
4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? absolutely not.
5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 21. i turned 22 a month before he was born
6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? i peed on a stick. isnt that the usual way? ok ok.. i'd been feeling ill for a couple weeks, but since i had a cough, i assumed i was sick. then i realised i was late, and we freaked out. thats when the stick came into play.
7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? boyfriend (now husband).
9. DUE DATE? sep. 18 2004. or possibly sep 28 2004. they couldnt make up their minds.
10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? you mean the part where i had to leap out of bed over my fiance in the middle of the night to make it to the bathroom to avoid vomiting all over the bed? yes. i had that.
11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? mcdonalds chicken nuggets. at one point they were all i could keep down.
12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? i really dont know..
13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? beautiful little boy.
14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? no, but i THOUGHT i was probably going to get a girl. boys seem to be a bit uncommon in my family.
15. HOW MANY KILOS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 25kg (55lb)
16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? nooooooooo
17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? gender? surprise.
18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? pre-eclampsia.
19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? royal prince alfred
20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 4. he came fast.
21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? hubby. went in for an appointment, and they decided to keep me and induce me.
22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? hubby, and a couple midwives. the only doctors i saw were one who stitched me up, and one who put in a canula.
23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? natural.
24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? i had 2 panadeine - i believe in the states this is called tylenol3? paracetamol (acetaminophen - tylenol) and codeine. and i didnt get it until i was pushing. they forgot to give it to me.
25. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 3.795kg (8lb 6oz)
26. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN? 29th sep 2004
27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? critterbug. duh.
28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 4yrs, 4months, 26days
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Saturday 21 February 2009
What a difference a day makes..
Today, my daughter is 2 weeks old.
Today, my daughter held up her head and looked around the room for a good few minutes without flopping hillariously.
Today, I managed to step into the bathtub without needing to use my hands to lift my legs, or leaning my entire weight on the bathroom sink.
None of these were true yesterday.
What a difference a day makes.
Today, my daughter held up her head and looked around the room for a good few minutes without flopping hillariously.
Today, I managed to step into the bathtub without needing to use my hands to lift my legs, or leaning my entire weight on the bathroom sink.
None of these were true yesterday.
What a difference a day makes.
Tuesday 17 February 2009
Five years ago today...
... my life ended. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it really did.
I was 21, twelve-thousand km (seven-thousand+ miles) from home, had very little family nearby (none of it immediate family), was unmarried, and had just found out I was pregnant. I was totally in love with my boyfriend, but terrified he was going to take one look at that evil little stick and run away. My life was over. I cried so hard it hurt.
Life started again within minutes. Boyfriend didn't want to run. He still loved me, wanted to keep the baby, and proposed on the spot. I kept on crying, but it was happier tears now.
But it was a different life.
My old life really did end. The life of Young-Sarah. No major responsibilities, always enough money, time to have fun. A carefree life, and one that matched my friends'. We weren't living in the same country, but anytime I went 'home' I would fit right in, we would have things in common. We could go out and do silly things. Stay out in the city till five AM and catch a cab home. Spend all day on the beach and eat whatever we wanted for dinner. And boyfriend and I could do whatever we wanted. We could stay up all night playing video games. Spontaneously decide to go to a museum 3 hours away from home. Drive to Vegas for the weekend with no prior planning. Go to the movies every night for a week. Not any more.
I think I like my new life better. Filled with cuddles and the smell of new baby, tiny clothes on the clothesline, and terry towel nappies scattered through the house. Brightly coloured toys that make far too much noise, and long nights in bed with a small body snuggled against me. A 'big boy' intent on teaching his sister to play soccer, and tiny hands eager to help with anything sister-related. Prayers to look after 'the baby', even though she now has a name, and a four year old's arms anxiously waiting to hold her.
My life ended February 16th 2004, and I've never been gladder.
I was 21, twelve-thousand km (seven-thousand+ miles) from home, had very little family nearby (none of it immediate family), was unmarried, and had just found out I was pregnant. I was totally in love with my boyfriend, but terrified he was going to take one look at that evil little stick and run away. My life was over. I cried so hard it hurt.
Life started again within minutes. Boyfriend didn't want to run. He still loved me, wanted to keep the baby, and proposed on the spot. I kept on crying, but it was happier tears now.
But it was a different life.
My old life really did end. The life of Young-Sarah. No major responsibilities, always enough money, time to have fun. A carefree life, and one that matched my friends'. We weren't living in the same country, but anytime I went 'home' I would fit right in, we would have things in common. We could go out and do silly things. Stay out in the city till five AM and catch a cab home. Spend all day on the beach and eat whatever we wanted for dinner. And boyfriend and I could do whatever we wanted. We could stay up all night playing video games. Spontaneously decide to go to a museum 3 hours away from home. Drive to Vegas for the weekend with no prior planning. Go to the movies every night for a week. Not any more.
I think I like my new life better. Filled with cuddles and the smell of new baby, tiny clothes on the clothesline, and terry towel nappies scattered through the house. Brightly coloured toys that make far too much noise, and long nights in bed with a small body snuggled against me. A 'big boy' intent on teaching his sister to play soccer, and tiny hands eager to help with anything sister-related. Prayers to look after 'the baby', even though she now has a name, and a four year old's arms anxiously waiting to hold her.
My life ended February 16th 2004, and I've never been gladder.
Thursday 12 February 2009
Meet Spaceghost
Erin Jacqueline
3.52kg (7lb 12oz, I think) 51 cm (20 inches)
Born Saturday feb. 7th, 6:41pm (I think) via emergency c-section, after her heart-rate dropped to 70bpm.
Now home and sleeping wonderfully, but I wish she would feed a little more, as I have far too much milk and it's a bit painful.
Her brother is excited, and nervous, and doesn't really know how to cope, but he's trying.
Daddy is wonderful.
We are all happy.
Friday 6 February 2009
This has not been a great week
Spaceghost can't seem to make up its mind whether to be super-low-down causing me aches in rather uncomfortable places, or all-stretched-out making it hard to breathe. Combined with the weather, this makes for a rather uncomfortable Sarah.
But I can deal with that.
What I'm finding harder to deal with is the fact that my father is currently in hospital with septicemia.
On wednesday afternoon, at nearly 4pm, I was getting ready to leave the house to go pick up critterbug from pre-school, when the phone rang. Since I had to leave the house in less than 10min and was only halfway dressed, I ignored the phone, and checked the answer machine just before I left. I heard something along the lines of this:
*VERY QUIET VOICE* mumble mumble mumble dad, mumble mumble mumble north shore private hospital mumble bone infection mumble mumble mumble
I turned up the volume as high as I could on the machine, but my father gets a bit incoherent when he's sick, and that was all I could make out.
Figuring there was nothing I could do to sort out the message, I left the house, and continued on my way to pick up my son. I texted my sister when I got to the bus stop, since calling dad would have resulted in more incoherence. She didn't have much more information. He was unwell, presumably some sort of infection, but they couldn't find it. They suspected he had an abcess of some sort, and were going to do a scan to figure out what it was. The were trying to put him on antibiotics, but couldn't get an IV in because his veins kept on collapsing. And of course, he thought he was dying. My father is a bit of a hypochondriac, and always thinks he's going to die whenever he has an operation, but this time he actually sounded very very sick.
Yesterday she had more info for me. They suspected septicemia, and he still thought he was dying. My father has rheumatoid arthritis, and therefor a compromised immune system. He doesn't get sick very often, since his body his constantly fighting everything including itself, but when he DOES get sick, he gets SICK. And in much the same way that AIDS sufferers tend to die from some random other infection that they can't fight because of the AIDS, apparently RA sufferers tend to die from mass infection. He's had a few scares in the past 10 years: an incompetent doctor who gave him 10x recommended dose of Methotrexate, making him extra-ordinarily sick, and thereby cutting it out of his treatment regime since he developed some sort of allergy and couldn't take it any more; an abcess on his spine which spread infection elsewhere (his elbow looked like someone had put a tennis ball under the skin, and felt like over-ripe fruit), and when trying to remove said abcess, the doctors managed to break his neck, though thankfully the spinal cord was undamaged. And now this.
Today I got a text from him. "seems clear i have septiccemia improving now hopefully home mid next week with aintibiotic drip pump sewn into me. will know more after scan monday."
I'm praying that he'll be OK, that he'll get over this the same way he's gotten over everything else. But I'm scared. Septicemia is not something to be taken lightly.
But I can deal with that.
What I'm finding harder to deal with is the fact that my father is currently in hospital with septicemia.
On wednesday afternoon, at nearly 4pm, I was getting ready to leave the house to go pick up critterbug from pre-school, when the phone rang. Since I had to leave the house in less than 10min and was only halfway dressed, I ignored the phone, and checked the answer machine just before I left. I heard something along the lines of this:
*VERY QUIET VOICE* mumble mumble mumble dad, mumble mumble mumble north shore private hospital mumble bone infection mumble mumble mumble
I turned up the volume as high as I could on the machine, but my father gets a bit incoherent when he's sick, and that was all I could make out.
Figuring there was nothing I could do to sort out the message, I left the house, and continued on my way to pick up my son. I texted my sister when I got to the bus stop, since calling dad would have resulted in more incoherence. She didn't have much more information. He was unwell, presumably some sort of infection, but they couldn't find it. They suspected he had an abcess of some sort, and were going to do a scan to figure out what it was. The were trying to put him on antibiotics, but couldn't get an IV in because his veins kept on collapsing. And of course, he thought he was dying. My father is a bit of a hypochondriac, and always thinks he's going to die whenever he has an operation, but this time he actually sounded very very sick.
Yesterday she had more info for me. They suspected septicemia, and he still thought he was dying. My father has rheumatoid arthritis, and therefor a compromised immune system. He doesn't get sick very often, since his body his constantly fighting everything including itself, but when he DOES get sick, he gets SICK. And in much the same way that AIDS sufferers tend to die from some random other infection that they can't fight because of the AIDS, apparently RA sufferers tend to die from mass infection. He's had a few scares in the past 10 years: an incompetent doctor who gave him 10x recommended dose of Methotrexate, making him extra-ordinarily sick, and thereby cutting it out of his treatment regime since he developed some sort of allergy and couldn't take it any more; an abcess on his spine which spread infection elsewhere (his elbow looked like someone had put a tennis ball under the skin, and felt like over-ripe fruit), and when trying to remove said abcess, the doctors managed to break his neck, though thankfully the spinal cord was undamaged. And now this.
Today I got a text from him. "seems clear i have septiccemia improving now hopefully home mid next week with aintibiotic drip pump sewn into me. will know more after scan monday."
I'm praying that he'll be OK, that he'll get over this the same way he's gotten over everything else. But I'm scared. Septicemia is not something to be taken lightly.
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