32 going on 90

This is the post that suddenly made me realise how much I needed to undertake my Summer Challenge. I was trying to explain how generally blah, meh and bleh I was feeling and suddenly found myself pouring our pages of painful purple prose (I feel alliteration has been an underutilized literary device in my blog. Well, no more!). Honestly, I love a good bitch and moan but even I was surprised by the amount of "oh woe is me" that flooded out. It's only been three days but I do feel better for the lack of fried, sweet, fizzy, caffeinated, processed food in my diet. Also, getting a bit of exercise doesn't suck (afterwards. Not so much during.)

This past fortnight or so I've been feeling old. Not just tired (although I'm tired), not just achy (although I'm achy), not just heavy and stripped of energy and cranky and disillusioned and lacking in passion (shall I have a cheddar or a brie to go with my whine?) but all of those together. And old. Also PMS. Huzzah for returning fertility. Wotevs - as the cool kids say.
To quote St Paul - For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Except while I don't do the things I want to do - have fun and exciting adventures with my family, plan my next NaNoWriMo, pray, plant rogue tomato plants around the neighbourhood - nor do I do what I hate - the housework, exercise, figure out what would be the correct punctuation for this sentence. I'm paralyzed at times by the amount of stuff that requires my attention. I start the washing up but the toys need to be put away, I start to put the toys away but the plants need to be watered, I start to water the plants but the kids really need a nappy change, then they're hungry, then Ellabo needs a nap. It's only 12.30pm but I'm exhausted and still not out of my pyjamas. James needs more of my attention at the moment and he needs a good routine but surely part of a routine is living in an organised house? So I put on a DVD to try to get the house into some sort of order ultimately neglecting him and still not getting any where in the chaos of all the kitchen cleaning, clothes folding, toy putting away that needs to be done.I know that this is just a season of life. I found caring for James difficult when he was Ella's age - old enough to be awake and wanting entertainment, not old enough to entertain themselves - and now I have a nearly eight month old baby and a nearly three year old. I'm not caught in a storm but I'm caught in a lull. Watching sea faring movies as a child I was always more terrified of the calm then the storm. A storm at least is exciting. There's some thing to battle, some thing to curse in a storm. A storm can be terrifying but it's also exhilarating. The slow death of windless days on the ocean is much scarier for me. Slowing running out of food, of water, having nothing to stare at but the horizon day after day, knowing that at the end of each day you've atrophied just a little bit more... You get my point. 

So, I'm hoping I'm out of the lull, there's wind in my sails and some other sea faring thing that will serve as a metaphor for getting on with my life in a more positive manner. Of course, the house is not any cleaner...

M2T's Summer Challenge

Until the 1st of December I'm going to be pursuing a healthier and more energetic life style - yes, it depresses me too. No, I haven't broken this new to Spidermonkey yet. If you want to see how I'm going check it out at M2T's Summer Challenge where I'll be blogging about it. All other parenting stuff, general ramblings and complaints will be posted here as usual i.e rarely and with no obvious fore thought.

And another thing...

I'm slowly working on the story of the actual birth but there are a couple of things I left out of my 'preparation post' which I think should be mentioned. (I know, I know. A birth story should have an actual birth in it at some point. So far I have a prequel and an appendix.)

Yeah, also if you don't like this type of thing - bye bye now.

1) I had one, major, must not be broken rule for those who were supporting me in labour and that was that there was to be no discussion of the labour behind my back. If any thing needed to be said it had to be said to me first. No 'she's loud, isn't she?' 'how much longer do you think?' or  'I don't think this is working' whispers going on at any point unless I was unconscious.

2) I made up my mind that I was not going to muck around with any kind of induction. I'm sure that's part of the reason why Trogdor's birth ended as it did. This time there was to be no 'natural' induction methods - raspberry leaf tea, nipple fiddling, curry (unless I really wanted one), sex (same as for the curry), castor oil, eggplant parmigiana (no, seriously), stretch and sweeps or what have you. And no medical induction either (which is not recommended for a woman with a previous uterine scar any way). Labour started naturally, in it's own time, or I went in to surgery.

3) I really thought I might die. (Yes, I'm that overly dramatic) It got to the point where I started mentally drafting letters of farewell and apology to my friends and family. I gave that up when I realised they were all just a variation on 'Good bye, I'm sorry, Good luck." I can laugh about it now. Kind of.

4) I was worried that I would start pushing before I was properly dilated, that every thing would swell and baby would get stuck resulting in the same out come as Trogdor's birth. When I asked Rachele if she would do an internal before I started pushing, just to check, she told me that she didn't like to do internals if every thing seemed to be going well and when I had the urge to push I should just go with it. "Well," I thought, "I just won't push until she checks me. Then she'll have to do it." I can definitely laugh about that now.

5) Two or three days before labour started I sneezed and felt that mini tearing/burning/stretching sensation in my scar which I believe is caused  by adhesions. It was so painful I was frozen for a minute and then instantly burst into tears. If I couldn't sneeze I was absolutely convinced I wasn't going to be able to birth.

I think that covers most thing that I left out.

To be continued....

again.

sorry.