a rather random catch-up

Been a while huh?

I've been slowly making things inbetween children things and the endless moving of stuff round the house from one place to another in some sort of effort of tidying which seems futile at best. This is the latest piece, which I'm pleased with: I wanted to call it something like sunshine dancing through the flowers but that seemed a bit too silly. It's definitely a joyful, happy piece though!

This is a poorly photographed pic of another birthday gift I recently made which again, was fun to do, and I've sort of adopted it as a business logo for my yet-to-be-a-reality ChloeQuilts project. More on that another time.

Lots has been slowly going on. The girls are growing fast and summer has all-too-briefly shown her colours and today we are back to rain.

Tula is doing brilliantly and I've been having fun catching photos of her with my new toy in the pauses between walking around with her endlessly...

The biggest news however is that unexpectedly I have found myself pregnant with number four. As Tula has her rare genetic condition, this poses some questions regarding this newest little creation. Yesterday I had chorionic villus sampling, an invasive test that is performed between ten and twelve weeks antenatally, to determine the DNA of the baby. Luckily, the placenta was well placed so the consultant was able to access it easily and take some of it to be tested. The whole process took about ten minutes and was uncomfortable rather than painful. I feel OK, just a bit cautious with my body and Jude did everything for me yesterday, which was fantastic and I forced myself to properly rest and take lots of Arnica. However it has been back to normal today and thankfully I still feel fine. It usually takes 48 hours to fully recover. There is between 1-2% chance of miscarriage with this procedure, although I was assured that the hospital I was in was proudly 10% less chance than this - my maths not being great I reckon that means like .9-1.9% but that is kind of gibberish to me. Small, anyhow, but there nonetheless.

Obviously most people who have this test then have to make a decision based upon the results as to whether to continue with the pregnancy. I am confident that whatever we do will be right for our family, but this is not an easy time, and we will still have to wait up to a month for the full results to come through.

This is my very favourite photo taken so far with my camera: it reminds me of everything I love about photography; the colours, the familiar object made unfamiliar by canny composition - due to luck more than skill I have to say, but then most of my best shots have always been like that.

In the meantime, I am very slowly preparing for my birthday party in a couple of weeks' time, a Mad Hatter's Tea Party to celebrate my 39½ unBirthday (my real birthday is in winter - definitely not the time for a garden party!) which will be great fun, but right now feels like more work than I can really handle. I'll post again with my party creations thus far. Come back sunshine!

Enjoy your week xxx

Crazy limbo time

I keep starting this post and not getting further than the first couple of words. Maybe today I'll finish it. I am in the third trimester, final weeks crazy limbo of

Finding a squillion unimportant little things that suddenly really seem like they need urgent attention (like painting out chipped paint on the stair walls)

Packing the hospital bag, just in case; then unpacking it a few times because I've forgotten what's in it 

Getting baby clothes out of storage then worrying about whether there are enough (there are BOXES of baby clothes in the cupboards - third baby girl ain't never gonna be short of clothes!!)

Snapping at Jude for tiny misdemeanours, like using the wrong cloth on the kids faces, or leaving leftover food in the oven for me to discover a few days later, then expecting him to do all the DIY jobs round the house that REALLY NEED DOING (not).

Cleaning everything that stays put longer than 20 seconds

Mad sleepless at 3am tidying missions (the kitchen has never looked so neat)

Re-hanging curtains, clearing cobwebs, usual Spring clearing, but done at a manic - gotta get this done -  pace: OK that's done.... NEXT!

On the down side, I am STILL ill: now in the seventh (!) week of a foul cold with viral sinusitis thrown in (hence the sleepless nights - haven't slept properly now for months); I have Braxton Hicks throughout the day and am finding everything exhausting; on top of this I also had a brief vomiting bug, which along with the morning sickness I've had throughout this pregnancy meant I wasn't able to keep any food down for a week, which I'm still recovering from. 

The joy! The joy of pregnancy! I never EVER want to be pregnant again.

marvellous motherhood

It's funny how pregnancy for me seems to be one unfunny fat joke after another: as soon as the nausea subsides, the pelvic girdle pain kicks in closely followed by horrendous insomnia. Add to the blend of raging hormones a good dose of bleeding gums, heartburn and good ole varicose veins and you wonder what the hell women put ourselves through this for. Oh yeah: to spend the rest of our days, feeding, cleaning, clothing, nagging and worrying over the little bundles of joy that result.

My I'm full of the joys of motherhood tonight.

Yet we all had a lovely day in the sun today with very few cross words (read screaming tantrums) between the girls for a change.

Don't get me wrong, I love my girls; they have saved me in so many ways and honestly I feel so absolutely blessed by the miracle of their existence, their beauty and intelligence: they fill me with joy with their funny comments and random kindnesses.

It's bloody hard work though.

Rain face

Ooh, just what I need!

Today I finally accepted what my body has been telling me for weeks: I am clinically depressed. Last night I had a panic attack (which has never happened to me before) and was sat in bed, shivering with fear - terror - that something awful was happening/going to happen to me/the baby.

I have been very emotional with this pregnancy and experienced terrible mood swings, but had assumed (talked myself into thinking) that my symptoms were no worse than with either of my previous pregnancies, especially now I have two under-fives to care for. However, usually I've found that the second trimester is the eye of the storm for me, the time when I can really enjoy the idea of the baby in my body growing and changing every day, and make contact with her, by touch or thought.

Not this time. Every time I think of her, a flutter of anxiety starts in my belly, and if I continue to think about her - even positive, warm thoughts, the anxiety turns into a quaking loss of gravity when I start to panic that at any moment her precious hold on life - through me - is going to slip and I'll lose her.

Nonsense, of course - I know she's healthy and that I've carried two girls full-term before and have no (physical) health problems of my own - but that fear is very real.

So, the manic tidying, sorting, cleaning and clothes-washing can finally be put aside now I've stopped avoiding the problem and have started the process of getting help. As I'm back to having no transport now Jude's working, I emailed an NCT advisor and also got in touch with a midwife, who hopefully will drop by tomorrow morning for a chat. The advisor has offered to put me in touch with any support groups she can find in the area, or even just other mums to talk to, which in itself will no doubt help.

And just by acknowledging that I have a problem, already I'm calmer with the girls and more able to cope with the day, knowing I've made a positive step forward for myself and for the baby.

Change

White white white.... it is slowly coming together:

Since recovering my energy somewhat now I'm in the magical 2nd trimester, I have been on a mission to sort out the house. So I've been ordering shelf-making from Jude and sending him off for plastic boxes so I can put everything in order. I guess my subconscious is telling me that time is running out to do all of this before no.3 appears and I have to go back to sitting around all day breastfeeding... as much as I always wanted to be able to sling the baby round my neck and let her get on with it as I'm getting on with my day, it's never happened that way.

It's also very cleansing somehow to get everything in order: I've never been happy to wallow in chaos for too long, and when I'm pregnant it seems to drive me even more loopy, having to pull everything out of a cupboard to find that one thing you know is lurking in there SOMEWHERE. And even though my sewing projects have slowed right down since I started hand sewing the white quilt, I really want to be able to access my overflowing stash so I can alternate more easily between slow and speedy. I've rushed some parts of the white embroidery, which I kind of didn't mind too much at the time, but the more I look at it now, the more irritating it becomes. The white gets to me after a while too - I think especially when I'm feeling low in myself, a little injection of bright colour does me good: a bit of tropical warmth on a grey Cornish day.

So perhaps I need to get a little crazy again...

I've been playing around with the blog lately, sorry for all the changes, I should have got it all worked out before I started, but there you go... let me know what you think, my two lonely followers/wanderers and anyone passing by :) xx

Note to self: Be kinder to myself

I just read a great post on Authentic Parenting about the emotional journey of pregnancy and how it can bring out lots of deeper feelings and emotions that maybe haven't been consciously dealt with, and it just hit a nerve with me as I've been feeling pretty crappy today. It's easy to blame moods on hormones and pass them off as of no more consequence than a chemical imbalance in the brain, but often there is something calling out for attention from deeper within the psyche. I've realised my inner child has been in a pretty bad way today and actually needs a bit of nurturing after all the tantrums she's had, trying to get my attention.

On a plus note, there's an excellent book giveaway on the same blog which is about night-weaning, a subject I dimly recollect struggling with when Milly was a little younger - it's amazing how fast our brains erase the awful bits of parenting, isn't it? Even now, although it's a long time since she was waking for feeds, she wakes at least once a night and needs me to put her back under the covers, so I don't know how much sleep I'm going to get (if any) once new baby appears next March.... I think I'll need all the help I can get by then!

Warning: boob shot!