Weight and Waiting (by sarah)

Alaric finially got me some bathroom scales yesturday - I weigh in at 15 stone. This is a stone lighter than I was just before having Jeany even though I started this pregnancy about 3 stone heavier than I was at the beginning of Jean's.

I am really happy about this as double my weight was not pleasant and I was petrified of doing the same with this pregnancy and starting out that much heavier it really would have been a health disastor. Of course I did loose weight at the beginning of the pregnancy with the whole 'food posioning' business but I have also I have been eating me and Alaric food and not the hospital food. I have also not been bed ridden and though can't walk far can still walk some and of course I have tablets and blood testing kit to keep the gestational diebetes under control. All so very very different from Jeany's pregnancy.

I have a birth plan as well - this involves saying yes to vit K injections and saying I want to breast feed. I found out that breast feeding is good for me as well as the baby from the midwife. I knew it helped with weight loss and with baby blues but there are medium and long term benifts too which include stuff like cancer resistance (specifically breast and oviarian which with mum going in for another lumpectomy is a encouraging to know) and the other one is after the menopause it will help me stave off osteoporosis - something I've been meaning to talk to the Dr about now I'm in my 30's anyway! (Again due to family history though I am sure my nan probably breast fed some of her children - nutrition would not have been balanced like it is today plus her teen years were during the second world war).

But I am a weird mix of board and worried and fantic about the house!

The Glass Pelvis (by sarah)

Through my tears and the creation of a dark transient poem I have hit upon the concept of writing a self-help/how to survive book on chronic pain and truma during and pregnancy, child birth and the after math. It would be called the Glass Pelvis. Arrogant? Probably - something that's needed definatly.

I slipped over yesterday which would have been pain full for anyone as pregnant as me but with the seperated pelvis - I could not speak for the tears of pain. This have been quiet bad pain wise as I have had a mini pain flare up with my left arm anyway which sucks as it has ment no proper writing and no guitar practice for about a week now.

Chronic pain has many books on it - but seperated pelvises are relatively new thing in medicine. A great increase has been seen in the last ten years - I have my theories on this involving modern live style and gyms not getting to the right areas that women need strengthened and modern diet with it's additives and loss of various things like sea food.

You see I am on the crutches and it is an issue but I am not anywhere near the state I was in with Jeany and looking at how things like gestational diebetes come about I feel that management of such conditions as the 'broken pelvis' are important. Especially as it can lead to complications and more truma for both mother and child.

Now there was nothing avalible for me when I had Jean and everybody seemed quiet confused over the whole thing. I have been told this time round that even the physios are now giving up with the condition.

So I want to share what I went through, to aliviate some of the isolation that mothers in this sort of position suffer. Of course I also had lots of other things from the miscarriage stuff, to the blood clots to the pre-clampsia and pregnancy induced hyper tension. Even being in the hospital when the bombs went off in London. I think with research and checking with medical people I could produce a good guide to mother who don't have it easy.

Separeted Pelvis is termed symphysis pubis dysfunction or SPD and having seen the result of being not allowed out of bed with Jean's pregnancy (due to blood clots and what not!) I have been desperate to keep my mobility up what ever the pain levels (once I'd checked that there was no danger of baby popping out!). I have interesting comparisions but then this pregnancy has been managed much better - the only issue is that a) the pelvic pain never completely went away from Jeany and b) due to issues I've had I've had a body pumped full of pregnancy hormones on some level for well over a year now meaning that the pelvis has been far more mobile than expected.

The truth is that I didn't now that I would end up on crutches again before the baby was born - becuase I was bed and wheel chair for the last half of Jean's pregnancy the pelvic issues were only found after the birth and was told that it was from the childbirth because of an old back injury and a large baby but they have said this is wrong and it is the hormone levels and stuff. This was a bit of a blow for us but hey I can still walk (with crutches) in the week when my baby is due!

I think the main issue with producing such a book will be that I don't know what a 'normal' pregnancy and labour is like. And even the c-section is going to be interesting on the recovery side of things due to walking with crutches etc...

My mood is fragile at the moment due to the pain I'm in but what is actually concerning me is that after Jean was born I was bunged in a side room at Harold Wood with no one to talk too and depending on shifts was not even given water to drink! (resulting in dehydration and my milk drying up and me then having to suppliment and work hard at getting the milk back again!). People have said it's not like that here but the fear of hospitals is still nagging at me - I am concerned as to what is going to happen to my mood when I get the post birth hormone crash and a hospital stay. I'm hoping that I will just know how to cope with it better this time.

So in some ways I think this is going to be a self help project as well.

Me and My Guitar! (by sarah)

Ok here are some pics of me and the purple sparkly electric guitar 🙂 It is a Vintage and if it had been bought new it would have been hundreds of pounds! And I would have had to hit Al on the head for buying it! As it is repairing the damage it got in transit would cost more than three times the sort of money he paid!

Only thing is please bare in mind that I am like ready to drop the sprog in these photos so am a little on the erm... large size! Also these are posed photos from before we got the string for it so I'm not actually playing.

Dad got a string for it today and I have tied ribbon onto it as a strap until I extract my existing strap from my brother - I then played it until my fingers got sore - making about with the nobs and what not - I got an OH YEAH! sound out of it - unfortunatly the only things I can play really well at the more are nursery rhymes so we had a rock version of Goosey Goosey Gander 😉

I tried out some Guns and Roses and Nivana on it too - just to check you know 😉 I haven't a clue what I am doing with it and thin Come As You Are actually sounds better on my old battered acoustic!

I think I am in love.... droool - I think I may make up my own musical genre too. When I have the Purple Vin in my hands I magically transform into Bubble Gum Goth!!!! a.k.a. the Happy Mosher who has not been seen for a few years but is still lurking around 😉

My 30th Birthday (by sarah)

Today I am 30, the dreaded 30! Something I've been dreading to be honest - but Alaric is going to be organising me a party in the summer 🙂 So I am having my official birthday then and thinking about my twenties I am sort of relieved to be leaving it!

So far today I've been woken up by a five year old twice to be given presents! The first time she presented me with a pair of purple and black lacy knickers - which would have been disturbing except they had sparkly penguins on and she has no concept of them as anything other than something nice to ware! Daddy had been a bit worried about letting her buy them but she found them whilst they were out shopping and got very insistant and had enough pocket money!

Alaric gave me some packets of a new craft material to try in all the colours currently avalible called sygeru! First thing I'm going to do with it is fix my glasses!

The second time was when she came in from school (she was convinced I hadn't actually gotten up but I had and had to go back!). She gave me some cardboard and rubber and the russian dolls I'd given her and then her and Daddy bought in my present.

A purple sparkly electric guitar with the trianglular body shape I have always wanted! Unfortunatly it has been damaged in transit meaning that part of the veneer is chipped off in the corner (were the packaging was busted :/ ) and the 'top' string is broken. But it is still bueatiful! It's neck and shape means that I think it is actually going to be easier to play than my acoustic which is always good news were my hands are concerned! Of course I know nothing of how to play it 😉

Jean had got me a mini amp and cable (she said she'd bought it on the internet with Daddy's card! They'd rushed out on Friday and bought a battery for it too :). Alaric had been going to get the string sorted for today but run out of time at the weekend (mainly due to me needing new art supplies for a special baby/Jean present I'm working on!).

This morning whilst Jean was at school I've been reading Mort by Terry Pratchette, drawing the front cover of a poetry book and did some writing and things. This is a lovely contrast to yesterday which is sort of the point!

There has been lots of guitar stuff since Jeany came home from school - I got her a guitar for Christmas and have been giving her lessons 🙂

I am currently slowely pottering about setting the table for dinner and writing (using pacing as I can't really manage to stand for more than 6 mins at a time at the mo!). Alaric and Jean have prepared food for tonight at the weekend so that we can have a nice meal tonight 🙂

Then we are going to have a go at the Dinosaur game - so I am very happy 🙂

And the other thing is I still have my party in the summer to look forward too!

The Last Day of My 20’s (by sarah)

The last day of my twenties was spent in hospital clinics, at the Drs sugeries and in pharmacies. I fill this probably sums up my twenties, ok so some of the medical stuff was long term issues from things like glandular fever which I caught in my teens but sometimes I do feel that the world has been rather mean to me. Sometimes I also feel I am the luckiest person alive (to be alive to be able to do things!).

I found a diary entry from when I was like 15 - apparently I should have my PhD and be doing research, have an album out, at least one novel series published and have art work selling like hot cakes - not too mention two children (if I had a bloke if not I was to start looking at being a single mum!) all before I reached 30. There was also a long list of mountains to climb and charities to help.

Hmmm - well - fail I think! Still it could be worse - according to five year old me I should have been a paleaontologist and been into space by now along with writing, singing, making the costums and scenery of operas by now! Oh as well as running a joint orphanage and old peoples home where I would fly out in my special plane with attached motobike to rescue people from danger and abuse.

Ok so I have probably achieved more of these goals than would normally be theisable - I have performed in light opera - Musical Theater and stuff with various chiors, I have short stories and poems published, I have lie two novels written if not published, I have made stage senery and costums, I have been published (once maybe twice) in a scientific journal (ok so it's not a PhD but I did it without the PhD! I have raised money etc... for various charities (unfortunatly I was not yet in my 20's when I went to Kenya to help build a school), I'm not sure Snowdon really counts as a Mountain either! I've DJed all be it at the Union and only when Malcomn was absolutely desperate.

I have achieved alot - I have one beuatiful child and one almost here - missed that goal by 2 weeks!

I have also lost four good friends in that time, three of whom were contemparies, my peers and this still saddens me and will I think forever. All three of them partook in some way or another with my 21st birthday celebrations even if it was "just" a phone call.

I have also nearly died myself in this time frame - something which has left it's mark on me as the nightmares during this pregnancy have shown. I have also suffered my back getting worse, lose of hand usage and sometimes walking, I have scrapped myself back to functioning again so many times :/ I have also had a slipped disc, hernia, shingles, bone infection and infected stomach ulcers plus the standard popped and torn ligements. Cysts and nasty inflammation resulting in no baby too 🙁 which is why I have a current bump and not a yr old.

But I have been lucky as most of my twenties have been spent with Alaric and if you take our clumsy 'courting' via email it is well all my 20's! I have now known him a 1/3rd of my life!

And the thing about us is that I suppose we are not really like husband and wife - not the way the concept is normally portrayed - we are instead best friends and I'm hoping my 30's will be much better - I hate the idea of being old and 30 is not a number I want to be but at the same time I also feel looking back on things that me and Al have sort of grown up together - not the physical growing up and adjusting to glands growing up but the settling into and working out of life that happens after that. I hope we have done this without getting old.