It's been a while

Well I just realised I have not updated my blog for over a month. Probably because something else is distracting me, a little person by the name of Ella.
As of today she is 7 weeks and 4 days old and done so much in her little life. She is a complete social butterfly, I guess it all started the day after we got home from hospital with our first outing to BDM and Medicare in Wollongong, lunch at a Cafe and then out to Nanna's house and ended up going to a restaurant for dinner.

Since then it hasn't stopped with more days out than at home, sometimes I just wish to stay home but for some reason she is happier out being pushed around and hey who am I kidding I do like to get out too.

My memory is failing me more than ever, I have to write everything down and put the most trivial things in my diary. I even went to a Cafe with the mothers walking group and didn't realise til I go home that I forgot to pay for my Scones and drink, oops. Jamie dropped in the following day to pay for me.

So in Ella's 1st 7 weeks she has; had her first Professional photos, been to a Wedding, been kicked out of a Club (for sitting in over 18's section), been to a paintball tournament, been immunised, had her first Santa photo, 4wding and a swim at the beach, not to mention many trips to cafe's, restaurants and mothers group.

Here is a picture of her with 14 of the 17 babies in the mothers group.

I have also managed to get a little bit of scrapbooking done, it is amazing what a new subject will do for your creativity, here are a couple of layouts.

1st is a Scrapbook Savvy sketch using mostly product from their Nov Kit.

2nd layout is my tribute page to Lisa Warren with the awesome Cosmo Cricket kit she gave me.

3rd layout is Inspired Blueprints sketch #37

4th layout I truly can't remember where I got my inspiration, but think it is an IB sketch (mothers brain at it again).

I hope to be doing a lot more now that I have such a wonderful subject to scrap.

Our little Angel has Arrived

By now most of you who read my Blog will know our little Angel, Ella Jean Griffin, arrived on 16th October 2009 at 2.43pm weighing in at 7lb 6oz and measuring 51cm.

Nowhere near the doctors prediction of a 10lb monster. It is safe to say nobody won the bet because everyone was in the 9lb range or above.

Things happen for a reason and the Doc scheduling in a C-Section was a blessing in disguise, read more about why later.

We arrived at the Hospital at 12noon, expecting the surgery to be happening around 3pm only to discover I was first for the Doc that day and was actually going in at 1.30pm. By the time I put my bag in the room they were hustling me to gown up and put on my fancy hat and lay back on the bed to be wheeled down the hallway. No time to freak out.

After the Anesthetist doing his, well some call it "magic", I call it "hell", of putting in the Epidural, then the screens went up and it was all systems go, baby arrival is immanent. Jamie was my rock, although he probably didn't think so at the time, I know he wanted to take away my pain and discomfort. After poking and prodding around what felt to me like my guts were spread all over the room, they produced baby. Holding it up over the curtain I asked what we had, "A Little girl" they announced. I burst into "Happy" tears, got a kiss from Jamie as they whisked our little girl away to check her out.

More poking and prodding, I am guessing to put my bits back in, very uncomfortable, a bit of nausea, some tweaking of the medication to stop the nausea, sucking on some ice. Then they brought back my little girl all wrapped up, she was perfect, cute as can be and not at all ugly and monkey-like as I feared.

Recovery was horrific and if someone had asked me at that moment if I would do it all again they would have got a definite NO. Slowly getting feeling back in my legs, pins and needles, unable to move, all very unpleasant. The nurses mentioned that I had lost a lot of blood during the procedure about 1.5 litres apparently, they kept my epidural in my back for the next few days in case I needed to go back into surgery, they also ordered in blood in case I needed it over the weekend. Thankfully my blood pressure was in the normal range so it was not needed.

They placed baby Ella on me for some quality bonding time and what a magical feeling that is, everyone says it is a special moment but it honestly can not be put into words. When your little bundle of joy is stroking her itty bitty fingers on you bare skin, it is crazy the love and emotions that you feel.

The next day the doctor came for his rounds and discussed how the surgery went, he said it was not what he expected, they had cut an artery when he made his incision which was why the major blood loss and they had to get that under control all the while trying to get the baby out, in they end they had to use forceps to get her out. Also my placenta was attached to the Uterus (something doctors refer to as Placenta Concreta), so had I have delivered naturally they would have had to open me up to remove the placenta so the C-section was a blessing.

At least I only had 1 healing process.


My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Nearly Time

It is getting so close now to having this baby, I am getting anxious and excited and scared to death. I was a little emotional after leaving the doctors today, because every other time I went it was 'come back next week', this time it was see you Friday at the Hospital, eeek.

I am scheduled for a Ceasarean on Friday 16th October. I have to call the Hospital admissions to check in tomorrow and go for a blood test and it is all systems go.

My concerns with a Ceasar was the ability to drive, lift, do housework (if I chose to) etc. He said I can do whatever I like, he puts no restrictions on his patients. He said if you do something and it starts to hurt, stop doing it and try again in a few days, he said you will feel the pain before it does any damage, obviously this is after a 7 day rest in hospital, not immediately after giving birth. I asked him nicely if he could mention in front of Jamie that housework, laundry and cooking were all off limits for a month or so, he cracked a smile but I don't think he took me seriously. I mean seriously would it kill him to say it, lol.

I have had a bit of a stressful day, mum and dad are trying to go on Holidays and wanted to leave Thursday or Friday, so dad has been ringing every day asking if there is any movement and telling me old wives tale remedies for bringing on the baby early or had I been to the doctors yet and could he give me an exact time of when he would do the procedure and mum asked if he could schedule me in for Thursday instead of Friday. I know they mean well but sorry this baby will come when it is good and ready or the doctor thinks it is well baked to get it out, so Friday it is.

Last week it was Jamie's parents on holidays telling me to cross my legs til they get back. So according to the grandparents I had a 4 day window to give birth, the Griffin's arriving back from Holidays on 12th Oct and my parents wanting to leave on 16th Oct. No pressure but hello this baby was always due on 18th Oct and they have all known about it for a few months now, better planning required from the Grandparents I think.

Well I am guessing this will be my last post before Baby Peanut makes a grand entrance into this world and the next post I promise will have photos and Peanut will HOPEFULLY have a 'real name'.

Oh last thing, anyone want to place bets on Boy or Girl and how much Peanut will weigh. Leave a comment with your guess I will scrounge up a prize for the person who guesses closest to the weight or email rachael.griffin@mortgagechoice.com.au

Oh The Horror

Just under 2 official weeks til my due date, although I am hoping the "Twat" doc will bring me on a little early as I am getting really uncomfortable, irritable and huffing and puffing around the house. Not to mention the swelling in my feet.

The worst is my snoring, OMG it is so bad I have a shocking nights sleep every second night. I must be that tired the other nights that even I can sleep through it. A few weeks ago I thought I would put earplugs in so I didn't wake myself up, but the sound that resinated through my head was like something out of a horror movie, it was like a Freddie Kruger victim screaming and launching me out of sleep. On top of the noise I sometimes feel like I am choking, no matter what position I get in the snoring never ends.

Now my dear friends who have children should have given me a little more of a friendly warning about an internal examination. I am sure someone mentioned it was unpleasant, I was thinking unpleasant like a Pap Smear, hell no I was so wrong, it was horrific, like a piece of timber being rammed up the clacker, I guess the only positive was that it was reasonably quick. Then I hear on the grapevine that most would prefer to give birth than have an internal examination, information that could have been helpful to know LAST WEEK!!!

After that pleasant visit to the doctors he recommended I go for a couple more tests, another Ultrasound and a CT scan on my pelvis. The Ultrasound was to determine how big Peanut is getting and also check on the position of the Placenta which has been a little low in recent scans, well the podgy little thing is now 9lb, 3.95kg, a bonus is that the lady doing the scan said that baby is not big all over, just has a big belly which is pushing the stats up into the 97% range, I say it takes after its Daddy. The placenta is also moving into a better position. The CT scan of my Pelvis was to see if I am going to be able to naturally birth a monster baby as Peanut potentially could be LARGE.

Enough of my gory baby details I will get the results of both test on Wed, and keep you all posted.

No more Baby Classes

Well aparently we have been taught everything we need to know about having a baby and keeping it - yeah right.

Last night was our 6th and final week of Pre-natal classes. This week was all about what your baby could look like when it comes out, ranging from Massive cone head, bruises from forceps, splotchy rashes, covered in goo. We watched a video of a lady who had just given birth and she was looking at her baby like it was an alien, it was pretty funny.

We were also introduced to a real baby, Chelsea, 4 days old, cute as a button and her mother looked fantastic, flat stomach about a size 8, huge milky boobs, not at all like she had just had a baby.

I successful managed to apply a nappy and wrap up a new "Stunt baby" this week I received a dark skinned (plastic) baby girl, perhaps to hide the bruises when I drop the baby, but successfully kept baby on my lap the entire time it was required. Louise then said we can put the babies back in the tub, Jamie motioned for me to see if I could sink a hoop by throwing baby from my seat into the tub, a distance of about 2 metres, challenge me, he dares, of course I thought I could do it but decided in the interest of "Stunt baby" that I would get up and place baby carefully back in the tub intstead.

Louise then asked if we had any questions, annoying girl of course, had some, she wanted to know the best feeding pillow to buy and the best baby bath etc etc. She is so annoying. Louise politely said pillow is a personal preference and the bath should be cheap because they are not in it for long, I piped up and said get 1 off ebay and the girl next to me suggested the Ikea baby bath. My mind wandered, aaaah Ikea I was thinking when could I road trip to Ikea to buy a baby bath I don't need and how much other stuff I could come home with at the same time, then I thought about how bad my Cankles would be if I sucessfully navigated all the arrows walking around Ikea for a day. I will have to give this more thought, if they provided a nana scooter with a trailer it could be done.

So final week of baby classes was pretty uneventful. I only have to keep my legs closed until Sunday and then I can birth at Figtree Hospital and I must say I am pretty ready to have this baby soon, don't know how much longer I can keep on waddling around.

Emotional Basketcase

Well Friday I hit a wall of emotions that I hadn't felt for a long time if ever. It all started with a day off work because I was going to be a domestic goddess and clean the house before we had visitors on Friday night and Sat.

I started on the Kitchen and had it spotless except for the mess that resides where we dump our stuff upon walking through the door. I kept trying to sort that mess but everytime I wanted to put something elsewhere I thought I am just going to have to move it again when I go to clean the next room.

Easily sidetracked I ended up in the scrap room with laptop open doing a combination of work and sorting out album pages. I was pulling apart a post bound travel album when all my spare bits fell off the table and onto the floor, this was the beginning of the meltdown. Jamie called right in the middle of it and I made light of the fact that I was too fat to bend over and pick them up. Not wanting to be outdone by my lack of wasteline, I swept all the bits into a pile and squatted and moaned and managed to pick them all up.

Dilema sorted, I put the pages in the album put it all back together only dropped 1 more bit which I again managed to pick up.

So I moved onto another space in the house that collects mess, the bottom of the stairs, Jamie's paintball stuff was sitting there as well as the "collectors" bottles of alcohol that he insists on buying but yet we have no space for, so I shoved things under the stairs. Then he rang right in the middle of my mess and he asked the dreaded question "what is wrong", bursting into tears, I started ranting - house, shitfight, mess, fat, dropping things, don't know where to start, can't bend over, hadn't yet had a shower, visitors coming, blah blah blah. After calming down a little I said don't worry I'll be fine, just being stupid, so I thought I would go and have a shower this might help. Well how wrong I was.

I caught a glimpse of my naked physique in the mirror, boobs sagging to an all time low, HUGE belly, it was hideous, I managed to blubber myself into the shower. Then I had to get dressed, I thought I would find a pair of lightweight trackies that I could roll up to 3/4 and a T-shirt that would fit to finish my housework, but no, absolutely nothing to wear, pants so tight I was embarrassed to wear them even around the house incase someone knocked on the door, t-shirt so tight it was like a lycra bodysuit, so I sat on the edge of the bed and cried some more, everything I wanted to wear was in the wash. I finally managed to locate a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that was semi respectable.

Housework can wait, I was in no state to do anything apart from hopefully see someone elses story who was worse off than me, cry about that and then my life would be all ok. So with a giant bowl of leftover chinese food in hand I plonked on the lounge to watch Oprah. Well it wasn't the story I was hoping for but it did keep my mind off the mess.

I had stopped crying when my friend Maryanne turned up from Maitland to stay the weekend and then she said the dreaded words "how are you", well that started me off all over again.

Long story short, I said fuck the messy house, I am not cleaning anymore, and as it turned out with Maryanne's whirlwind almost 3 year old in the house all weekend plus all the guests and their children on Sat and pizza making, not only did the rest of the house get messy but the kitchen was a disaster zone after making the dough, so I was probably lucky that I didn't keep going otherwise another meltdown could have been iminent.

Saturday was very relaxing apart from rolling out the Pizza dough I managed to get some quality time on the new deck chairs and we just chilled out and relaxed in the glorious weather, it was great to catch up with some of mine and Jamie's friends. I was a completely different person to Friday.

Moral to this story, don't do housework it messes with your head.

Baby Classes - the 2nd Installment

Dear Peanut

Daddy and I have just done week 5 of 6 weeks of classes all about how to care for a baby. This week was all about Breast feeding and Daddy has been looking forward to this all week, it's all about the Boobies he said.

First we had to each pull an item out of Louise's goodie bag and then say what relevance we think it has to breast feeding. I pulled out a Wine glass, yes you heard right a wine glass. I had 2 thoughts about what it could be for, 1 would be they were going to tell us that baby only drinks the equivalent of 1 standard glass of wine per feed the other and far more sensible was that they were going to tell us that any form of alcohol was "FORBIDDEN". Well it wasn't quite that bad, good ole Louise then explained how and when we can drink whilst breast feeding. I listened very intently, must get that right I don't want you all drunk and falling down at such a young age.

Daddy grabbed the Breast Pump, a hideous looking contraption that will cause RSI in the wrist and I am sure would be like milking a cow but worse, it would be like milking ME.

There were some other fun topics that came out of the items handed around, the colour and regularity of poos you will do in the first 4-6 weeks, the difference between formula fed babies and breast fed and the all important nutrients of breast fed babies.

Oh the pressure of breast feeding, it will make you smarter and have better teeth and have better eyesight and a great immune system. Daddy wasn't breast fed and he has perfect vision and is very smart and has great teeth and all the men on his side of the family all have a full head of hair at old age, if you are a boy lets hope you take after his side, my family has male baldness issues.

Another item to crop up was an ice cube tray, apparently this has 2 uses, 1 is for freezing water into ice to use for soothing engorged breasts or making bourbon and coke, the other is for storing breast milk for use at a later date. Lets hope the bourbon and milk drinkers don't get their ice mixed up.

Louise then whips a box out of the cupboard and hands us your stunt double, a rubber baby, naked with moulded boy bits and asks for us to assume the position of breast feeding, I whilst trying to juggle the extra piece of cake I got from the break we had just had was very confident that I could manage the eating of cake and juggling of "Stunt Baby" into the assumed feeding position. Mission accomplished, there were the 2 types of holds, the standard baby across the belly and then there was the Football hold where baby is tucked under your arm and attached to the nearest boob, whilst Jamie comments "should you put your arm out to defend off any attackers" as per rugby. There was a little snicker around the room from his comment.

Louise prattled on, I lost a little bit of concentration, because I had Stunt Baby to play with, so I was moving legs and arms, patting Stunt Baby on the back, which Louise must have seen because she said they don't teach the patting on the back technique for burping anymore because of an increase in "Shaken Baby" cases that have happened in recent years, it is a simple rubbing on the back, no back slaps, baby is not choking. My mind wandering yet again, thinking of wine drinking strategies and how funny it would be if Daddy mixed up the milk cubes with the ice cubes and then "Stunt Baby" leaps from my hands and falls to the ground with a thud, there was a few gasps of horror as naked rubber baby bounced around the floor and landed in the face down position, more than 2 dolly steps away from me. Loudly I stated "oh dear" and promptly waddled the 2 steps and groaned to bend over to pick up "Stunt Baby" off the ground and the entire room burst out laughing, including Daddy and I.

I was close to going into hysterical uncontrollable laughter and was soon silenced by my thoughts of what if that was my real baby. I am soooo not ready for this.

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny........ socks

I must have broken into some sort of nesting phase this week as I pulled all baby items out of their packaging and recycled all packaging and prepared to wash everything. I even scrubbed the washing machine before I started to remove any trace of dirt and lint, read the instructions on how to operate the special baby detergent I bought and washed all items as per their instructions, must have been about 4 loads and all on delicate cycle. I could not resist taking a few pics of everything hanging on the line, soooo tiny and cute. Is it an omen that my row of socks all had pink pegs? I swear I didn't plan it that way.

Dear Peanut

Last night your Daddy and I went to a class to learn about how you are going to be born. It was very interesting and I learnt a lot about where you are living at the moment. Our Midwife/teacher Louise was very helpful.

Initially we had to go around the room and introduce ourselves, tell them all our name and 1 thing we like and 1 thing we dislike, of course I sat on an end and had to go first, "My name is Rachael and I like Pizza, and I don't like mushroom on my Pizza" and so it began the stupidity coming out of my mouth. Well we had just had Pizza for dinner and when put on the spot I couldn't think of anything else. Daddy he likes Paintball and dislikes bad drivers, this was probably top of his mind as well due to a traffic jam around the corner from the hospital and then followed my terrible parking in the dark and rainy carpark at the Hospital and my comment on thinking my driving is getting worse, I was way better when multi-tasking, like driving while smoking and eating a cheeseburger and talking on the phone, almost all at once. Of course I don't condone smoking and you will be in serious trouble if you ever start.

After our initial round of introductions Louise starts to ask us what we want to get out of these classes, I kept silent for fear of embarrassing Daddy, trying not to be the loud and annoying person in the group, and to my delight someone else took that role, she had a comment for everything, I think she was reading my mind and probably that of everyone in the room but she was the 1 who kept asking stupid yet relevant questions.


Louise went through the stages of labour, early contractions, timing, what happens to the cervix during dilation, she demonstrated the cervix with the little dolly that represented a baby and the knitted hippy type hat that represented the Cervix, she asked the question to the group "how do we measure the dilation of the cervix", I was ready to pipe up and say "der with a ruler or tape measure" and thankfully kept my mouth shut and was so wrong, she actually pokes up her pointer and middle finger spreads said 2 fingers apart and them whips them out for what I would say in engineering terms is a very inaccurate measure of how dilated the cervix actually is. Apparently they have been using this method for years and appears to be working for them so, I say lets run with it.

The next part of labour we were to learn was the transitioning, this is where the nice little mild contractions that I thought were going to break us in 2, actually get WORSE, and me your beautiful eloquent mother turns from nice mummy into Psycho Beast with turrets syndrome (you will probably meet her when you are naughty at some stage throughout your life). I fear this could be when daddy leaves the room and starts running screaming down the hallway, when in actual fact his job is to get up into my face and try to calm the BEAST. I hope he makes it, I believe he made attempts to warn that he may have to slap me across the face during this time, I don't condone domestic violence but will go so far as to say I may well need it at this point.

Next is the calm before the storm, apparently once the cervix is ready to go I get a 20 minute reprieve from the pain of the past 4-48 hours depending on individual circumstances, before pushing you out. Apparently once you pop out you are tossed onto my bare naked body for some quality skin to skin time, all gooey and slimy and you have to hang out there until you work out how to handle the sustenance of my engorged bosom. During all of this I have to also give birth to the Placenta which has been keeping you alive for the last 9 months, again the loud 1 in the group asks if this is painful, good ole' Louise says, no that is the easy part as it has no bones in it, charming I say. Whilst I get a whisper from Daddy who says "it will come out like a goon bag down a hallway", to which I almost lost my shit and tried to keep from laughing hysterically.

I won't be allowing you to read any of this until you are of the age when you won't have to ask me what a placenta or cervix or "goon bag" is, I might have to put a "goon bag" into your time capsule as I fear these may not be around for ever, they could get replaced by something less practical that will not turn into a party pillow or pool flotation device once finished.

Anyway we then got to sit through a video of about 4 different women giving birth to demonstrate all that we learnt tonight. Now this video must have been made somewhere Circa 1980, 1 of the caregivers or midwife had a hairdo that resembled the brunette out of ABBA, the harsh cut fringe and straight long hair and then the Pis ta resistance 1 lady was wearing nothing but leg warmers, WHAT THE. Well I need to go and get me some of those as that is standard birthing outfit.

Well only 5 more weeks of classes before your impending arrival in 9 weeks time, can't wait to meet you my little Peanut.

Peanut Update

After a quick visit to my Obstetrician Dr Walton yesterday for the results of my Glucose test it was all good news, it was on the low side which is remarkable, (I was going to ask if he got my results mixed up with someone else, but hey I will take his word for it), blood pressure still good, nice strong heartbeat, a couple more scans scheduled for 32 and 36 weeks to check on size.

I told him I was concerned that this pregnancy is going all too well, does that mean I am going to have a horrific labour or feral child. He reassured me that the good pregnancy should mean a good birth, he made no comment on the feral child comment. I guess that could be up to me, lol.