Dad and StepMom are here!

Lots of baby-bonding and moderate sightseeing. They're handing jetlag surprisingly well and we're fitting into my little house ok. Milord and I are sharing Princess' room - she's quiet enough but I wonder how she's handling the snoring... I notice her day naps are longer than usual!







Dad is still recovering from his surgery a bit, so we keep our walks short. I try to let Princess have her morning nap at home each day so we usually only get moving at midday - which seems to suit the grandparents!

Garden

I enjoy gardening. Since arriving in Sydney I haven't had much chance to garden though, as at first we were in a rental with a low-maintenance garden, and then we've been renovating for the past 2 years and our "garden" is a building site.

Milord has had me in mind all this time though, and he built me a huge planter box down our boundary fence.












Just before Princess' birthday party I finally had a chance to plant plants in it, and they are starting to come along nicely!




4 kinds of lavender, 2 sorts of tiny white daisy, a sage bush and a rosemary bush. A climbing star jasmine, a passionfruit vine and another climber with red trumpets. An abelia bush right at the street end as a screen, and heaps of impatiens and lobelia seedlings around everything for colour. I can't wait for it all to mature and flower! We should attract butterflies, and the scent of jasmine and lavender through summer will be divine!

In the meantime Milord continues to deck along the side of the house, and someday we'll deck the backyard too. It's going to be stunning.

Bo' Bo' Bo'

Dad and StepMom will be here in a few days time! Dad's kidney cancer seems to have been successfully treated by surgery, although the doctors will be keeping an eye on him. Now that Dad has recovered from the operation they are finally coming to Australia (from South Africa) for the first time, to meet his granddaughter. I am very excited!



I had my bestest friend in the whole wide world (and her hubby and 2 lovely daughters) visit me this week too so I'm getting very spoiled by my loved ones this month! BestGirl and her family have managed to swing immigration visas and will be moving to Australia within the next year. I'm going to have her on the same continent! Within weekend-visiting-distance! Woohoo!

Of course I was so overwhelmed at having BestGirl here for a night that I completely forgot to take any photos. She took a few I think so I'll have to get those. We sat up chatting until 2am, trying to jam 2 year's worth into one night. Now I'm missing her terribly and I keep picking up the phone and realising that it's the middle of her night... *sigh*

I'm here...

We're grand, I just haven't felt like blogging... tax returns, jogging by the river, book reading, very clingy baby. You know, the usual.

...have some photos!

One!!!

Princess is one! It was a normal day really, although she got loads of pressies (mainly from mummy and daddy). She thinks wrapping paper is awesome.

We are having a little party at home on the weekend.




And for an added Princess fix, here she is at another birthday do last weekend...


And in her actual playpen!

and on a lighter note...

I needed somewhere safe for Princess to watch me gardening... tadah! Instant Playpen!

I had no idea

Several friends and acquaintances of mine have had miscarriages. Each time I've mouthed sympathetic words, but inside I'd always felt that a miscarriage - or even a stillbirth - wasn't quite a person yet and so didn't merit a great of grief.

I was wrong.
Flash was already a person to me, and I am certainly grieving.
It's really hard.

Milord had a go at me for rearranging the babies' room this week: hiding the still-unassembled second cot behind furniture. I just couldn't stand to see that sorry pile of mattress and rails looking at me any more. I packed the double pram in a large bin liner and lugged it into the loft space. I boxed the maternity clothes, and I tidied away the prenatal exercise DVDs. When I have a glad reason to see them again I'll bring them back...

Walking past newborn nappies in the supermarket makes my lip tremble, and watching a documentary about childbirth had tears rolling down my cheeks.

I've lost a kilo since I last stepped on the scale. Where that would normally make me jump for joy I know that the weight loss is my missing baby bump and I just feel awful.

Milord is either being very strong or has disappeared into a man-cave to deal with things. He doesn't want to talk about losing Flash and I'm not ready to talk about trying again, so we're just avoiding the subject. It's a bit lonely.

Physically I'm ok - just a bit of painless spotting.

Emotionally I have a long way to go.

Why we get out of bed in the morning...

We're doing ok. Had the D&C today. I was terrified - trembling and tearful as I was wheeled into theatre. I'd been under general anaesthetic once before in my life and had such a horrible experience that I'd sworn never to do it again. Unless I had to... *sigh*

In the end the general was just fine. I woke up easily in no pain surrounded by soothing nurses. The crappy part was the 4 hour sit in the waiting room to have the elective pre-booked procedure! I'm never using the public hospital system again. Unless I have to...

I feel better now than I have in a week. Physically better. Emotionally better. Psychologically ready to move on now that Flash has truly left us.

But this is the main reason we feel ok:



She's been brilliant, in spite of spending days in hospital waiting rooms or travelling in the car. In spite of catching a nasty cold and running a temperature. In spite of mummy and daddy needing extra cuddles.

Thank all the gods we have our Princess!

Flash has left the building

Last Friday I started bleeding. Just a smudge on the loo paper, but still... I rang my doctor and they said to keep an eye on things and if I was still bleeding on Monday they'd send me for a checkup. It was a long, long, looong weekend. The bleeding got worse, then better, then worse, then better.

On Monday I rang my doctor and they said to get myself checked out at the hospital. I love hospitals. I especially love public hospitals. Milord came back from work and sat with me in a sad cramped room with many other couples looking tense for 4 hours. We were in the miniscule minority in that we had a bright bouncing Princess laughing in our laps, and she has been the only thing keeping us upright at times. I feel so sorry for the childless couples who were waiting with us.

We eventually had a scan that showed us a very undersized Flash, with no heartbeat. Looks like the fetus died a few weeks back, but my body didn't want to accept the truth...

We are not ok, but we are better than we were a few days ago and we are being very very kind to each other. Milord was given the week off to be with me. We went away for a night, via a glorious scenic drive that took 7 hours of mountains and rivers and bright green gum trees. Princess was an angel. I'm still bleeding, but it's painless and more like a period than anything.

Tomorrow I will be having the final cleanup, as my body is still in denial. And then we will pull ourselves back together, and keep on keeping on.

We are so sad. We were so looking forward to meeting Flash.

Baby Led Weaning - Update

Ok, so I never actually stuck with Baby Led Weaning! After a week or two of hand feeding Princess with chunks of food I got fed up and moved to spoon-feeding her lumpy food instead. I am only now starting to introduce finger food that she can feed herself.

The advantage of following BLW for a little while was that Princess never had pureed foods - she mastered her gag reflex very quickly and she was fine on lumpy stuff from 6 months old.

I didn't stick with it because I probably started too soon and Princess wasn't ready to pick up the food herself. The social pressure to have your baby start solids on the day they turn 6 months old is immense, and she really wasn't interested yet. She only started grabbing for my food after 7 months...

...and if was going to hand feed her, then it was easier to make a lumpy spoonable bowl of food.

This week for lunch I started handing Princess skinny strips of sandwich to feed herself. The first got fingered to death and thrown around before I could teach her to bite at it. After that she was totally into the experience. She still can't get to anything in her palm, so a fair bit of food gets thrown when she gives up and chucks it from her.

While Princess has a great pincer grip she doesn't try to eat anything picked up like that. I sometimes sprinkle cooked rice and peas on her highchair tray and she (eventually) picks each one up, peers at it, and throws it around or wipes it into her hair. This puts me off trying her on mac'n cheese etc on her tray!

I should just bite the bullet and do it. At least my floor is wipeable!