You capture - Play

Well, here is my first attempt at a "You Capture".

Rona, well, she isn't up to much in the way of playing, but here is a photo of her playing.



For more information about You Capture, check out I should be folding laundry
http://www.ishouldbefoldinglaundry.com/2010/07/you-capture-play.html

Another baby girl

My Sister in Law, Deanne, had a beautiful baby girl recently. Her name is Grace.

She has a great head of dark hair, and beautiful blue eyes. Not the normal newborn grey-blue that turns another colour but a beautiful sky blue that she has inherited from her father.

She was born 8 weeks after Rona, there seems to be a lot of baby girls born this year.
Husband's cousin had a baby girl 2 weeks before Rona.

It is funny to be surrounded in so much pink, but a joy to see the next generation. It is especially a joy to see Husband's great-uncles and great-aunts with the girls.

Another joy is watching Rona sleep, she is so very peaceful when she is asleep. Isn't she beautiful?

Stephen's Cake

A couple of weeks ago there was my brother's wedding. It was a great day, married in a beautiful Chinese garden and great homey reception.

I had the honour of being asked to make their cake. It was my present to them, truth be known it cost me a lot more than I would have spent on their present, but I was happy to do it.

The cake was a white chocolate mud cake which was coloured so that it was a rainbow cake. It was then topped by white ready to roll icing and hundreds of pink cherry blossoms.

Cake Decorating

I have been doing lots of Cakes lately, Rona's Christening cake, my brother Stephen's Wedding cake and Husband's 30th birthday cake.

I am self taught so I am not that good, but I do enjoy it and am slowly getting better.

In the next couple of days I will post come of the photos and speak about what I did.
Oh, and I should post come great links to cake blogs, so much inspiration there.

I know, I know, I really should write more regularly.....

In my defence, I have had Rona Christened, my Brother Stephen's wedding and Husband's 30th, and his 30th party....

So, I will try to be more faithful, it is good to write and get things off my chest.

What libido?

Well, it's official, I am off sex.
I am too tired at the end of the day to think about sex, or if we do have sex, it is sore.... what a change from this time last year, I used to have a great libido.

Hopefully I will recover soon, I miss..... well, everything

Being a stay at home mum is..... different

I adore it, it is harder and more wonderful than any job I have ever done.

The rest of the hospital story with Rona

The second night was an adventure, as Rona wanted to feed continuously for over 7 hours... and I didn't know what to do, then at 1am I asked the midwife on duty to do something, we fed Rona a little bit of formula as she was definitely telling us she was hungry, but I obviously had nothing left. I had told other people on duty before that that I was struggling, but I have learnt that you have to be a bit more assertive than I am usually comfortable with to get the "right" attention.

So, I am extremely happy to be home and can relax and I think we will be able to cope alright.....
(I ended up having to nag the people about me leaving, it took until 1pm....)

12 weeks ago today...

Okay, so an in-depth story about the birth etc, it only took me 12 weeks to get to this :P

Water broke at midnight, pretty much exactly. We rang the delivery suite and they said to come in. Husband and I got our stuff together and left home around 12:30.

We got to the delivery suite and they monitored the baby and I until about 3 in the assessment room, as they were not sure that I was in "active" labour.

In the delivery suite I tried a warm bath, but the contractions got a lot stronger, I requested gas for pain relief, about 4:30. I could not use it effectively as I didn't get any warning that the contractions were going to start to start the gas. It also made me only dizzy and did nothing for the pain (because of the non-warning).

The midwife asked which pain medication I would like, and I asked for an epidural, because I had reached my limit and was not comfortable with the morphine...

The anesthesiologist came within about half an hour of asking (5:30am) the epidural started around 6am, I got to rest until about 7:30am when the midwife change over happened. My right leg ended up totally in pins and needles and a different kind of numb to the rest of me.

At 9am I was asked if I was ready to push (as my cervix was effaced) and they decided to turn down my epidural to the lowest setting so I could have the sensation of pushing. So I started pushing around 10am. It became apparent to the midwife that she was either losing the baby's heartbeat or it was slowing down during each push.

Then it seemed to me that everything happened at once, we went from just Husband and the midwife to the midwife's supervisor, student OB, supervisor OB and at least one paediatrician. I didn't really understand while it was happening as I was rather distracted with the contractions/pushing. The student and then the supervisor OB had to check where the baby was positioned, as they could see the head, but pushing wasn't progressing as it should have. When they say you feel "pressure", that isn't what I felt..... having the doctor examine was as painful as the actual birth. So then they did an episiotomy (the student) and the supervisor had to put the vacuum thing in, her head was flexed the wrong way so the vacuum cup had to basically be placed at my tail bone (again.... "pressure")....

Then the fun began, the doctor began pulling as I pushed. It felt like a long time, but I am sure it wasn't. When the head was out, they discovered the cord around her neck, which explained the heartbeat problems....
Then when I was pushing again, the midwife told me to open my eyes to see the baby. They put her on my stomach, and I discovered that she was a girl (which was quite surprising as I was convinced that she was a boy while I was pregnant). They took her away immediately so that the paediatrician could make sure that she was okay. Husband went with her (still in the room, just across the room). Then I got stitched up (took forever) and by the time I got to hold Rona, she was cleaned and wrapped. (I am disappointed that I didn't get to spend time with her before they took her away).

Once I had held her for a little while I fed her and Husband, Rona and I had a good long time together.

Then I was stuck in bed while the epidural wore off, then had a shower and had to wait to go up to the post-natal ward.

And that is the fun labour story....