My 'baby'

I am sitting in hospital this morning with my 'baby' who is having some minor oral surgery today. He is having some teeth removed mainly because i am a dentaphobe and want him to be fast asleep while any hideous dental procedure is done. But it is a horrible feeling watching one of your children go under.

My 'baby' is almost thirteen. He will turn 13 just before my eldest turns 20 so I will have four months of having three teenagers in the house. *shudders. Apparently mothers who continue to refer to their youngest child as their 'baby' may do so until they are middle aged. I hope so!

I never really intended having a third child. The Lawyer always wanted a third but I am one of those people who hated being pregnant, as nice as the end result is. I suffered terribly with migraine headaches and heartburn during my pregnancies. And having had post natal depression after my second (anally retentive control freak having two babies is a recipe for disaster) I didn't want to go through that ever again. So all in all I was not keen.

But after some pressure from the person who doesn't have to gestate a baby, get heartburn, migraine headaches, heat rash, breast feed, give up his career etc etc etc, I gave him ONE shot at it. ONE. I went off the pill for one month only. Both previous children were obtained from small doses of ovulation inducing drugs so I was fairly confident that it wouldn't happen.

When, about 4 weeks later I started salivating excessively ( some pregnancy symptoms are weird and this was the giveaway for me before anything else) I went and got the home pregnancy test knowing and dreading what it would say.

And you know what? When that little line came up telling me I was pregnant, all of that fear, uncertainty and dread disappeared. I was so inexplicably excited. I was having another baby! We had friends who were horrified that we would go back but there you have it. We were having a third child.

Even though I had given away every item of baby paraphernalia, and clothing and had to start again, here I was at almost 40 about to have a baby. Turns out, it was the easiest of pregnancies. I had a 4 and 6 year old who were at the stage of dressing themselves, cleaning their own teeth, using their opposable thumbs effectively, and it was a busy time. So busy I didn't really have time to think about being pregnant and HAVING ANOTHER BABY.

He was to be born on 4 January 2000 by c-section. Remember the Y2K drama? All I was worried about was not having an anesthetist with drugs available because all of everything was going to shut down at midnight before the new year. Turns out I wasted a perfectly good worry, as did everyone.

I had 18 people for lunch Christmas day that year. 10 days before my new baby was to be born. As you do.

On boxing day it hit me. I was having another baby. My others were about to turn 5 and 7. What the hell was i doing? Did I have everything I needed? I couldn't remember how to change a nappy. I remembered the thermo nuclear explosion in the nipples in the first few weeks of breast feeding and went cold. How was I going to get my others to school and pre school with a new baby? What if he or she was awake all night? What if the other children hated the new baby?.

On the way to hospital I started shaking and crying. I don't know why. Once at hospital and prepped, The obstetrician was worried that I was worried about his skill (hey, narcissists, everything is not about you!). I couldn't explain it. The Lawyer was forlorn not understanding and I just couldn't explain it.

Next thing I remember I had a beautiful baby boy in my arms. I have no memory of the epidural the surgery or any conversation during the surgery. I don't understand that either. Fear and anxiety made me almost unconscious it seems.

And all of a sudden nothing else mattered. Other than the fact that I had very fat babies and he had incredibly skinny legs which I noticed for some reason. He was the easiest of babies. Slept through the night at 12 weeks (although his big sister did so at 6 weeks, which really set up high expectations). Fitted in to whatever was happening. His brother and sister adored him. Could watch him while i did other things - hell my daughter even was able to bottle feed him. And she could read to him. We moved house when he was 4 weeks old. As you do. I supervised building a new house which we moved into when he was 11 months old. As you do. And I went back to work when he was 8 months old- And all the while he smiled and laughed and kept everyone entertained. And I did not once get that feeling of being low let alone depressed.


As he got older difficulties I wasn't expecting arose- sometimes it was like two generations in the one house and there was a constant refrain 'hurry up Harry', 'keep up Harry' from his siblings. He has of late been the constant butt of teasing from his older siblings but I just keep telling him he will soon be taller than both of them and they'll be scared of him and that it will make him very tough and resilient.

I adore all of my children. They are all different and all have fine qualities and are growing up to be good people. Although being tidy is not a skill any of them have. Of all my children my 'baby' is the one, for some reason, who is most sensitive to my moods. He can tell if I am sad, worried or anxious. He asks if i need help with anything. On my first mothers day after my mother died his card wishing me a happy mothers day referred to my mum being with us in spirit. I hadn't said anything to anyone about my feelings about that mothers day. He thanked his teacher for coming on school camp, acknowledging that she had two children of her own that she had to leave behind to come to camp with them. His grade 4 teacher wrote on his report card that 'he has a kind heart, and is always first to offer help to those students who need it'. He volunteered to buddy up for a whole year with a severely autistic boy in the class and just shrugged off teasing from the other kids for being his friend. He told me everyone deserves to have at least one friend. He was the only one to invite that boy to a birthday party that year. And he gave me a new, if limited, understanding of how hard it must be for parents of children anywhere on the autism spectrum.

So he is turning 13 in the New Year and I am very glad I gave The Lawyer that one shot at the third child. He completed our little family and makes my heart swell.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

How not to take up Yoga

I am generally regarded by my nearest and dearest, and sometimes by people I meet for the first time,  as a stressed and anxious person.  I have learned to accept this – most of the time. I cope and cope and cope, take on more and more until I get that 'oh oh' feeling, realise I am over stressed and over anxious and have a small-medium meltdown. Occasionally these are witnessed, but usually I have them on my own because that's how stoic copers are meant to be.  I never have a nervous breakdown - I prefer to think of them as perfectly calm breakdowns.

Every New Year’s eve, my New Year’s resolution is to 'be serene'.  And every year, I fail miserably at being able to relax and take things easy.  Usually by January 3rd.  

The physical consequences of being a stress bunny is that my body reacts to this by tightening all the  muscles in my neck and shoulders, which builds up to the point where the referred pain from my neck turns into a migraine headache of massive proportion resulting in me taking handfuls of large pills, usually downed with alcohol in an attempt to get away from the pain.

I have tried many things over the years to learn how to relax.  I once went to a relaxation class and had such a bad panic attack when my body actually started to go into relaxation mode that I had to run away and never go back.

I have tried acupuncture, massage, meditation and a variety of other things, but the simple fact of the matter is this is who I am, and I generally just have to try and deal with it.

A very dear friend of mine came up with a brilliant suggestion recently of a way I could both relax and stretch all my muscles so that I would not be 'in so much pain'.  'Have you tried yoga?' she asked me.  I had in fact tried yoga once a long time ago and enjoyed it.  And lost three kilos without much effort.   She invited me to go with her to her Bikram yoga class.  I did not know what Bikram yoga was.  She said it was a yoga class done in a room heated to 37°; the theory being that the heat in the room allows you to stretch muscles more.  Seriously, another problem of mine is that if I decide to take something on, I generally take on the most difficult way of doing something to prove I can do it.  So Bikram yoga it was.

I bought my special yoga mat, dressed in specially purchased yoga pants and crop top  and took my water bottle with me.  In hindsight, I should have taken three water bottles with me. 

I went in with my friend, who explained to the person at the counter that I was new and was just wanting to try out the class casually that first time. I was smiled at beatifically, in that 'I'm a relaxed yoga aficionado' kind of way.    I noticed an odd smell and mentioned this to her.  She said that is one of the downsides of yoga being done in, effectively, a sauna, was that people sweated a lot, and that the room was carpeted, so it did smell of body odour and sweat.  'But you get used to it' she said.  Great.  So into the room we went.  It was so hot.  I thought I was going to faint even before the class started. Just from the stench alone.  However, I am not a quitter. I am NOT a quitter.

The other thing I did not realise apart from the smell is that the class went for 90 minutes, not an hour.  I took my watch off – I did not want to look at it.  I did manage to do the class quite 'easily' for the first 45 minutes.  Then my head started to spin.  My heart started to race and I thought I was going to throw up. I looked around at all the seemingly calm, sweating lithe and loose class members who all seemed to be coping just fine, even though half naked and dripping with sweat.  Apparently, it is frowned upon to leave the room during the class as it disturbs other people who are in some sort of sauna zen zone.  The instructor was not happy when I put my hand up to ask if I could leave the room, and indicated that it was best to try and breathe through the discomfort.

‘Really, would you rather I vomited in here or in the bathroom?'  Subtlety is not one of my strengths, especially when told I can't do something.

I opened the door to leave the room and the relief of the cool air outside was overwhelming.  But I had a brief rest outside the room and went back in and finished the class.  Just.  I managed the half moon pose, the awkward pose, camel, rabbit, cobra and locust.  The tree, the triangle and the balancing stick pose.  Amongst others.

When I came home and got on the scales, I had lost 600 grams, which I thought was just terrific.  Forgetting about my neck pain, I thought it was worth doing Bikram yoga just for the weight loss benefit.  However of course that 600 grams went back on as I drank my own body weight in water during the course of the rest of the day.  Unfortunately, one of the side effects of Bikram yoga is that because I became so dehydrated after 90 minutes of exercising in a sauna, I developed a migraine headache in the early afternoon and was a complete write-off for the rest of the day. Even with the gallons of water after the class.

I rang my friend and said I did not think Bikram yoga was for me.  She asked me to give it a go one more time, because it was so good and she loved it so much that she was sure I would learn love it, and it would be SO good for me.

So back I went the next week, with two bottles of water. 

I managed to last the distance without having to leave the room this time.  That was mainly because the male instructor that week was a very attractive young man wearing tight red swimming trunks, which as the class progressed and as he got sweatier and sweatier meant that the contents of his red swimming trunks were very obvious for all to see – shape, colour, size and texture.

Where was I?  Sorry – I just got sidetracked.

But once again, after I got home, and got on the scales and got excited about the immediate weight loss benefits, my head started pounding, and I was in bed for the rest of the day with a migraine headache.

So Bikram yoga is not for me. I just have to work on that 'being serene' thing myself.  Just as soon as I get through that long list of things to do for other people.

AMFYOYO