Archive for June, 2007
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Permanent sterilisation seemed a little extreme. I am speaking solely from personal opinion as I never dared speak of it to my husband. Although the simpler procedure, it seems it is emasculating for a man to get ‘the snip’. A woman looks after contraception from approximately the age of 15, endures pregnancy and childbirth and, once that is over, has to repeat the cycle. For a woman, sterilisation is a more complex procedure, one that carries with it serious issues of violation to one’s femininity. Would I feel as much of a sexual being if I no longer had my reproductive organs?
So I opted for extreme body piercing.
As soon as it was medically viable, I replaced my ability to fall pregnant with a state-of-the-art Mirena cervical coil.
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Tags: birth control, Mirena coil, sterilisation, vasectomy
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Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
So, you’re feeling evil about having bad thoughts about your newborn. Everyone around you is offering you words of encouragement, but you never let on how you’re really feeling. You’re terrified of being judged a bad mother. You feel inadequate because everyone around you behaves like they were born to motherhood. It looks effortless … or is it just a sham?
There is a thin line you have to walk, a veritable balancing act. You do everything possible to do all the right things for your child so you can be seen in a good light. But it’s a trap! You must do your best up to the point that you don’t surpass any of your peers in your apparent parenting ability. You should never be seen as one of those self-satisfied mums with a perfect life and a perfect child. Cope enough to be seen as a good mother, yet battle just enough to still get the sympathy of your peers.
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Tags: baby, inadequate, motherhood, parenting, perceptions
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Monday, June 18th, 2007
As long as you don’t actually throw the baby against the wall, there is no reason you should feel ashamed for wanting to. Just make sure there is always a pillow close by. This is good for screaming into, hitting or launching at the wall.
And if all else fails and the frustration levels get to boiling point, don’t find yourself in a situation of being home alone without first investing in a punch bag. This might also save other family members from grievous bodily harm.
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Tags: anger, frustration, punching bag
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Friday, June 15th, 2007
You remember the claims made by the Stepford Wives.
To recap:
‘Your life becomes so amazing when you have a child.’
‘You’ll fall in love with your child as soon as you see him.’
‘Your bond with your husband becomes so much stronger.’
You add Borg to the list of insults … You have a baby and you become a mother. Just that. A Mother. It’s like your slate is wiped clean and any identity you had prior to this event is immaterial. You are suddenly morphed into the collective. Unique no longer features on your DNA. As for the Stepford Wives, none of those feelings kicked in. My life did not become amazing. I was up to my elbows in sour vomit, crappy nappies and washing. I did not fall in love with my child. Quite the contrary, I felt like throwing him against the wall. My bond with my husband didn’t become stronger. In fact, I often wanted to throw him against the wall too.
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Tags: anger, Borg, collective, frustration, motherhood, stepford wives
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Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
The last time I had this thought was when I was cycling the Argus (109km around the Cape Peninsula i.e. many, many hills), the day after arriving in Cape Town on holiday – with a hangover. I am not a cyclist so the 7+ hours it took me to complete the course felt like an eternity. This is like motherhood, except motherhood is an eternity.
A new mother should never be let out of hospital so soon. Unless there is a support team, a few cheerleaders and several spare bicycles, no one would embark on a race of such epic proportions. You leave the support behind when you walk out of the hospital, armed with nothing more than a tiny baby and a bottle of painkillers.
The rush was so intense, the painkillers were sure to push me over the edge. So I endured the pain and let the exhaustion get me instead. This is a race with no finishing line.
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Tags: baby, cycling, exhaustion, hospital, motherhood, support, village
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Sunday, June 10th, 2007
A prerequisite for all new mothers before they leave the hospital is to take a baby-bathing test to prove to the nurses that they are capable of (if nothing else) bathing their newborns. But, besides feeling that I had endured as many tests of my ability as I could in any four-day period, when someone says to me that I can’t do X until I
have done Y, I tend to try my hardest not to do X. As it was I had no intention of doing X until my baby was at least six weeks old. I had a bottle of cold-pressed sesame oil, a purpose-bought shiny white kitchen bowl and a soft flannel. The plan – massage oil into baby’s skin, dip soft flannel into warm water on wipe baby’s body before gently drying and dressing.
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Tags: baby, bath, instructions, massage oil
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Friday, June 8th, 2007
There I lay, veiled in a drug-induced mist, recovering from the trauma of surgery. I hadn’t learnt anything from my hospital ‘trial-run’ the weekend before and found it almost impossible to ring the bell for help. Friends came and went, my husband was there almost permanently and, even when I didn’t ask for it, I had nursing staff buzzing about checking this and that, taking my temperature, giving me sponge baths … and an unwanted suppository at some point.
Not the type for broodiness and maternal instincts, I none-the-less recollect an almost immediate instinct to nurture. Regardless of all the activity, the exhaustion and the drugs, I insisted that the nurses bring me my baby every four hours through the night … whether he was sleeping or not … so I could nourish him. I returned him to the nursery immediately afterwards so I could get my rest and, come morning, I had him by my side where I could gaze at him sleeping, lift him to feed him and lay him against my skin so he could feel my warmth and feel safe. It doesn’t take any form of maternal instinct to realize the trauma a baby must go through being ripped from the warmth and quiet of a watery womb and into the foul smells, noise and bright lights of the physical world. From a miniscule part of each parent, a body is formed, through which a soul can reach the world. I was intensely aware of the fragility of the situation. And he clung to me, somehow realizing that I was his life-support.
We co-existed like this for 4 days.
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Tags: childbirth, hospital, maternal, morphine
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Thursday, June 7th, 2007
My R14, 000 childbirth budget was burning a hole in my pocket. And no, this was not the hormones dictating the need to go on a pre-baby spending spree; this was a legitimate amount of ‘spare cash’ earmarked for the hospital bill, which Liberty Life had so graciously agreed to settle.
There I was, post-op drugged on morphine, (f)lying in a bed in a general ward, hooked up with needles and trying to suckle a newborn. Surrounded by smiling faces, a few tear-mixed congratulations and the noises of 7 other exuberant families … all in the same room … was more than any ripped open, stitched up, new mother can be expected to deal with. Through the haze of the drugs and adrenalin, I managed to slur a demand to my husband. Ten minutes later I was being wheeled out of purgatory and into a private room-with-a-view.
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Tags: hospital, morphine, private room
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Thursday, June 7th, 2007
I knew the due date and I knew I was having a boy … so no surprises there. But everything else … Let me just say that you can buy a cot, decorate the nursery, book your foetus into high school, but you can never be prepared for what follows after that first cry when that tiny baby is ripped from your belly. They may as well rip your heart out too because from there on out, you wear your heart outside your body.
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Tags: childbirth, first cry, hospital
Posted in best reads, bhalababy | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
There are some very good things to be said about booking a caesarian, especially for a control freak like me. There is so much in life that you just can’t plan and I wasn’t going to have potentially the most
significant event in my life taking me by surprise. I had bought 6 month’s worth of baby supplies and clothes, tested out the breast pump, washed and cleaned everything in the house and made up the cot with white percale fitted sheet and cellular blanket.
Once the last of the furniture was in it’s place, I could soak in the bath, sip a cocktail of champagne and Rescue Remedy and fully prepare for the imminent arrival at approximately 8am the following morning.
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Tags: breast pump, equipment, hospital, supplies
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Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
If you’re pregnant, put your home on the market.
I’m not alone here so this could be one of the Borg-like qualities we acquire as part of the collectively pregnant when our bodies are flooded with hormones and our minds are filled with fear.
It’s not important where you live, it’s that your house is just not big enough, good enough, safe enough, close enough to the right schools … It’s just not right. Could pregnancy be the female equivalent of a male’s mid-life crisis? Going through some changes … better make them good. It’s no surprise that I found myself packing boxes 5 weeks away from my due date. Packing boxes and training a new Ridgeback puppy. Packing boxes, training a puppy … and on the phone 24/7 trying to arrange finance for our new home when our existing home didn’t sell in time. We cut it fine. I got us into our new home, and our furniture arrived the night before my planned date.
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Tags: mid-life crisis, pregnancy, puppy
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Monday, June 4th, 2007
I had always been under the impression that gynaes were gung ho about natural childbirth. Gynaes and midwives. On my trial run to the hospital I discovered the latter to be untrue when each of the four midwives advised against ‘pushing it out’, citing incontinence at age 80 as the reason. Now my gynae was trying to convince me that surgery was the best route.
‘I don’t want to disappoint you but it is unlikely that your child will come out naturally. Have you considered having a Caesarian?’
A few things went through my head on hearing these words. He either really thought that my small frame and the large head of my unborn child would pose a space problem or, being close to retirement date, he didn’t want to leave anything up to chance with his final deliveries.
And, hey, I needed no convincing. With all the advances of medical science, would someone with a heart problem ponder their dying wishes when they could have a triple bypass or a pacemaker installed?
Again to quote my gynae, ‘you don’t have to be a hero.’ Being a parent is good enough (that part is mine). It’s got nothing to do with posh and a hell of a lot to do with practical.
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Tags: caesarian, gynae, hospital, incontinence, surgery
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