William

Wow. When I left you last, I was on the verge of giving birth. And now it's 5 months later and my beautiful boy is growing so fast I haven't had the time to write it all down like I promised I would.

Right now it's 12.20am and I can hear him babbling in the other room. Such sweet sounds frm my baby.

I miss his new-born Ness.  He is now well and truly a baby. Not the tiny little parcel of love that came out in literally 4 pushes. So surprisingly quick that I could not believe my eyes when his beautiful body was placed on me.

And how has time flown so fast that the days of wrapping and swaddling are gone and he's now in a sleeping bag. The gorgeous smell of newborn baby washed away as he's begun to become aware, finding his fingers and staring at his toes as if to say 'what are those things!'

He just started eating solids. Gobbling down almost anything! His first taste being apple, sweet potato and pumpkin left over from a friend's one year old's pouch of Rafferty's. This was quickly followed by a French fry dipped in hummus!

As I wait for him to settle himself to sleep I can't quite believe how happy I am to have him. All the drama of those last week's of pregnancy have disappeared and I am a mother again. I love it and each stage that is reached by him makes me miss the earlier stages. I want those first few weeks of his life back. To sit and snuggle and never let him go.

He is a beautiful, beautiful baby. Both my babies have been but after all that had happened, it is amazing to me that I am privileged enough to have him in my life.

I love his soft downy head with baby hair fuzz. I rub and kiss it like a good luck charm. I stare at his beautiful eyes, which were first blue then gunmetal and now brownish. His chubby legs actively kicking and getting ready to crawl and walk and run.

5 months have flown by and I miss his newborn days so precious and fleeting.

Welcome to the world!

So, not much did happen after 9.15am when the epidural went in. It was very slow goings. The doc came by mid morning and said i still wasn't dilating very fast and delivery may be around midnight. Sigh.... Anyways, a whole day of just waiting went by. I was bed bound of course but slept and rested, watched some TV.

When dinner came around 6, i couldn't eat it, and after that, anything i put in my mouth came up again so i decided to leave it alone. I started to feel a teeny bit of pain and the anasthegiologist came by to top up my epidural. Still a little bit of pain. A nurse came by afterwards to readjust the baby monitor and took so long to find the baby again, she started to wonder if something was going on. She decided to check if i was dilated and i had all of a sudden gone from 4cm to 9cm! Almost ready to push! By 9.30 the midwives were hanging about and did 3 practice pushes with me. Then told me to wait until the Dr came by. I prepared myself for a couple hours of pushing and wondered why the doc would be there so early.

10.30pm, the Dr shows up, puts on his rubber boots and gets settled. Here we go. With a mighty yell he says a contraction is coming and to push really hard for 10 counts. We do that 3 times and then on the 4th push, all of a sudden my little man pops out and is put on my lap. It is 10.43pm on the 16th of December. I can not believe it. He is beautiful, perfect. Welcome to the world. Weight 2.58kg. He is my tiny little miracle.

I love my anesthesiologist!

9.15. The epidural is in. It's all happening and I can't believe that I'm finally saying that I'm feeling a bit of excitement now.

We had a second dose of prostin around 5.30am. I had been feeling contractions for a while and they were 5 minutes apart but my cervix was still long and only 1cm dilated. So they put another dose into me and left me to my own devices.

The contractions were painful but not as bad as I thought so i had a snooze and before I knew it, my perky anesthesiologist was here and it was all happening. I don't know how long it'll take from now. With my darling daughter it was 5 or 6 hours til delivery. Maybe this one will be faster and easier. I can only hope!

So difference between first and second child. Last time my dear husband was by my side holding my hand when the epidural went in. This time... Sitting in the armchair on his laptop hardly even looking up during the while thing.

Now I'm gonna watch a movie and relax until it's time to push. I so hope it doesn't take too long!

Tonight is the night.

So here I am. Back in the hospital but this time I'm here to have the baby. We are having an induction at week 37 + 2 days. It was a bit of a ringmarole to get here but here we are.

It's 12.45am and they just unceremoniously shoved a tablet (prostin) into my vagina and told me no walking about for two hours. Gee thanks! I just drank a whole freaking bottle of water before leaving home.

They will b back around 5.30 to decide if I need another tablet.

So night night. I'm gonna try and get some sleep and hope that all goes well. It's been such a horrible and bizarre road to get here, I'm a bit afraid of what's to come. But this kids coming out somehow. So I best get as much rest as possible.

Friday night and all is well...

I got out of hospital on Tuesday and spent Wednesday and Thursday in such a frenzy that I can't even remember most of those days. I wanted to be back in the hospital because the anxiousness I was feeling was overwhelming, frightening and I just could not cope being out. I felt like vomitting at every meal and I almost went back to the hospital just so i could feel safe and secure. Those were horrible, horrible days and the nights even worse.

Tuesday night I got up at 3am and and never went back to sleep. Wed was worst. I got 45 min of sleep total. That's because i had seen another psychiatrist who specialises in prenatal depression and gotten new drugs off her. One of which was supposed to be a sleeping pill but after being awake all night, i decided to google it and it was a drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Not taking that one again!

Thursday was spent in a haze of tiredness. It was horrible and very hard to tell what was caused by depression/anxiety and what was caused because I was just downright tired. Thursday night came along and I decided to try these antihistimines, another drug from the new psychiatrist. i had taken half a dose at mid day and that zonked me out the rest of the day, i could not function or even help my darling daughter with her homework. I took it in hopes of getting some sleep. And I did. I was asleep more than awake and that was good enough for me. Still up every hour but better.

Then today, though i spent most of the morning in a tired haze, i went to see the new psychiatrist again, I had started to feel more like myself again. She said obviously the night medicine didn't work. And yes, in larger doses it is used for schitzophrenia, but with the dose i was taking, it was more of a sedative. (i'll be honest when i say, i think i needed sedating). Taking the antihistimine instead was fine.

Next stop was my endocrinologist who really, must think i'm the biggest nut case. (All my doctors must think so, i had been emailing them and harrassing them to no end with the hope of being admitted again.) I had them take off this continuous glucose monitoring device that i was wearing. It had a little plastic needle embedded into my belly and hooked up to this beeper device. Had it put in when i was in hospital but i couldn't stand it no more and ended up at the hospital to have it removed. Had a chat to the doc about my blood levels and what to do from there. We agreed i could try to be drug free for the weekend and see how it goes. If it doesn't get better, it's back on metformin for me. I seriously hope i can do drug free.

You see, the insanity of the last 2 nights were such that my lovely mother in law and I had spent two nights praying. Yesterday, she and darling husband were commenting on how much better i was though i didn't feel it, feeling so tired and out of it from the drugs and everything. And today. I'm loving today.

Today! Starting after i saw my endocrinologist... is the first time in weeks that i felt like myself again. And it didn't just last for an hour. It's been all day. I am so grateful and thankful. It is so nice to be back to myself. I pottered around the house. I could sit still for over 10 minutes and take in the view. I wasn't anxious and pacing everywhere. I did not need to prick my finger a hundred times to see my blood sugar (the device that was embedded into me and marked a trend where i'm pretty safe except after mealtimes when the blood sugar spikes).

Also decided that it'd be better for me not to take my anti nausea tablets. You google enough about a drug and you just know that it can't be good for you. And you know what, not much nausea except late afternoon when i took a quarter of a tab of the antihistimine which also works to settle the stomach.

Can not believe it. So unbelievably happy to be back to myself. So grateful and joyous. I have missed me. I have missed me terribly!

So praying for another night of sleep. and continued my-self-ness. If this could be then i might just make it to 38 weeks when the baby will be delivered. And more than that, i might just be ready to look after another little person.

Admitted

Babies are a miracle. They are these tiny little things that just popped out of a person's belly and are allovasudden thrust into the world and expected to live and survive. They are amazing. I say this as I walked down the halls of Raffles Hospital where, yes folks, I've been admitted and am spending another night.

Reason? Well, I guess there is not much wrong with me. Everything seems to be going well. Just that yesterday, it was aweful. Nausea, vomitting, feeling so anxious and outrageously incompetent of keeping myself together that I finally emailed my doctors and here i am. Cost of ignoring my day to day responsibilities for a day or two? Who the hell knows. I bet it'll be over $5k. But you know what, keeping me safe... Priceless.

So back to babies who are a miracle. They are amazing and I have one growing in my belly. I have one which is a gift of God. How could I not be amazed myself and grateful that I been given this little person to take care of! I need to remember that. I've walked down these halls and seen these little miracles, cuddled in ecstatic grandparents arms, with new parents and they are just the sweetest little blessings you can imagine. Who do i have to be so down and depressed about.

Met a new psychiatrist today and she is gorgeous. Mum of 3, though not looking nearly old enough to have even one. She spent a bit of time with me reminding me to be grateful and telling to try and think of a plan of what I need to do rather than feeling overwhelmed by everything. She's not big on drugs which is great for me. And the session did help me. I just think it might just take more time now to retrain my thinking and get myself back to what I used to be.

But i need to do this. I have to do this for myself, my family, my gorgeous child and for everyone who loves me.

I am so lucky to have the things i have. And it is possible. Anything is possible. She shared with me stories of so many people who have done it tougher than me and have become so successful. I need to remember that that is possible for me. I am not trapped. My life is not over just because i'm having another little one. Life can be good and I can enjoy it all again.

I just need to decide to do so and then try. Try harder than i have been. To be grateful and willing to just try to be positive instead of negative. The little miracle inside me depends on it.

Nothing really changes on this planet called crazy...

So went to get a blood test and see the doc today. Poor guy... He made room in his schedule just to see me and tell me that everything is really as it should (according to my bloods) and that it's probably all due to my anxiety issues. You have got to be kidding me. Seriously, all this crazy is because i feel, um.... CRAZY? 

I know it sounds weird but i was hoping there was some other reasonable medical explanation for all this instead of me being anxious and needy. I was hoping there was something that i could take a magic pill or shot and it would fix itself up. To know that it's just me being full of anxiety is a bit funny to me because, really, i'm usually so in control. This is not like me. It is not rational. It is not right. It downright pisses me off!

But it is the way it is. And the day was somewhat the same. After feeling so fab last night and most of the morning (hullo placebo about seeing the doctor), I had my usual crazies throughout the day and really, i'm over it. They say it could be my body getting used to lower blood sugar levels. Probably right, though i've been at it 3 weeks now and not much has changed. I'm an addict. To sugar. Hi addict, can you believe it. I almost lost it when darling husband refused to share a sip. Just one sip of his coca-cola. What the hell! So not fair.

But life's not fair. Thank God that it's not alot worse for me because, even though this seems like the worst. It could still be worst. And i should be grateful. As i was last night. Grateful that i have people who love me. And the best friends in the world. Ones who will take my darling child off my hands for hours on end just to help me out. And family. Loving, fabulous family who would drop everything just to be with me and help me through this.

But you know, i'm still a little pissed off. I'm just going to be! Hopefully soon i can let it go and get on with living.