Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • 12 week update and asking advice

    Twelve weeks. Yes, really, I’ve managed to hit the milestone that is meant to herald the start of pregnancy being amazing. You know, for all those normal people out there.

    I was going to crop out most of the garden, but I thought some people might like to check out the edging of green. I had to change the angle of this photo from the last one, because my tomatoes have grown too high to be seen over. (Tomatoes in bottom left corner) Behind me is the black currant and jostaberry bushes, getting ready to drop their leaves and in the bottom right corner is the flowering perpetual spinach. It makes the whole garden smell like honey.

    So far this pregnancy I have lost 5kg (11lbs), which has sent my Ehlers Danlos into a spin.

    Normally my EDS is managable, provided I don’t lose too much weight, but obviously I wasn’t able to control the weight loss, even with anti-nausea medication and here I am.

    Basically this means that my gastic system has gone on strike, leaving me unable to eat a lot of foods. Dairy being the main culprit, with meat being close behind.

    Now, my anti-nausea medication is excellent for controlling morning sickness and making life bearable, but it is less effective on EDS nausea, merely stopping me vomiting while I wait the waves of nausea out. Not vomiting is always a bonus, but I’d prefer I was able to actually eat things.

    Even worse, being unable to digest dairy means that I have effectively lost most of the fat content of my diet. Rich food makes me unwell at the healthiest of times and I’m left wondering what on earth I can eat to stop the weight loss and keep myself relatively healthy. Any ideas? Currently I’m living mostly on fresh fruit and crackers.

    I recently bought a trail mix of dried fruit, seeds and nuts and have been snacking on that, but there is a limit and I’m afraid that my body is going to pull the same trick it pulled with Amy’s pregnancy, which left me incredibly unwell for the entire nine months and a good 10kg underweight.

    So, there’s that.

    On the upside, aside from the nausea and weight loss, this has been the least eventful pregnancy I’ve had, with only a tiny bit of spotting at 5 weeks and not a single drop of blood afterwards. A huge improvement from the pregnancy with Isaac, that included bleeding through all three trimesters.

    Frankly, I am a little surprised at the lack of bleeding, knowing that there was a large patch of blood inside my uterus at my ultrasound. But I’m certainly not complaining about it.

    No real food cravings, unless you count the fact that I want to stab everyone who mentions sushi or sashimi. I swear, I would kill for some sashimi right now.

    And finally, I’m pretty sure I felt the baby move, which seems to be following the same path as the other two kids, both of whom I felt at around 12 weeks.

    I guess there are benefits to being underweight, because the first thing I thought was “Thank God you’re not dead.”

    Bonus.

    Did you have any food issues while you were pregnant? How did you manage these?

  • On fiction, lies and envy

    Sometimes, I find myself envying song writers and poets. Not because I feel inferior (although I do, sometimes) but because their version of written reality seems less sharply defined than mine.

    I think that is the problem with writing mostly creative non-fiction. I’ve got free rein to be creative in how I write and edit a story, but at the end of the day there is truth. The things I write about here, they’re happening to me, in real life.

    It takes a lot of my brain cells to work out how I want to continue writing, when the itch is there, but there is nothing tangible that I can put my finger on to write about.

    Some days, the blog posts flow like water and I press publish and everything is great. Other days, the itch to write is intense, but there isn’t the time to write fiction (have you tried writing fiction with two children demanding cuddles and lunches and playtime?) and nothing especially exciting is happening here.

    I have two blogs, the other of which is ostensibly for writing. It’s meant to be for the short pieces of fiction (which go down like a lead balloon in Internet-Land) and the unreal realities, for the untruthiness and the warped reality. Sadly, it’s also sorely neglected and almost entirely truthful.

    I think that might be the problem with the Internet. The Internet demands truth and raw ripped souls. It is an insatiable machine, filled with LOL-cats and fuzzy bunnies and the dark dark undercurrents of don’t you dare lie to us.

    I’ve written fiction on the other blog, tagged it as fiction and still had readers assume that it was a representation of my life. It was …… uncomfortable. For me, anyway – probably not so much for them.

    Sometimes, I am drawn to starting a new blog, one filled entirely with lies. Stories of sex and death and art and music, all wrapped up together and quietly, somewhere, tagged as fiction. The urge to deceive, to create a whole world that is entirely my own – that appeals to me.

    Then I wonder – wouldn’t I be better off putting that energy into some of the fictional pieces I am meant to be working on? (Yes. Yes I would)

    But the urge is there, and I expect it will remain – at least until I can comfortably write fiction every day and save the Internet from wanting to lynch me for it.

  • Before and After

    Look! Look at what my father did for us today.

    Before:

    What you can’t see in this photo are the scratches, pockmarks, holes and stains in the laminate surface. You also can’t see that it’s way too short to work at comfortably.

    This is what we have now, care of a piece of pine from my uncle and an awful lot of work from my father.

    After:

    Now we just need to reline the kitchen, paint the godawful purple and replace the cupboard doors.

    Eventually.

  • Teenage parents are not “lesser” – so why does society treat them so badly?

    I’ve been resisting writing this post for a long time, but here it is.

    I was a teen mother and pregnant as a teenager twice. Amy was born when I was 17 and Isaac was conceived when I was 19, and born two months after I turned 20.

    There is my bias, disclosed.

    When you are pregnant as a teenager, you are subjected to a certain amount of harsh treatment. This is deemed acceptable by society, apparently, because no one disagreed with family acquaintances calling me a slut and no one thought anything of the midwives at the hospital treating me badly. Nor did anyone listen to my complaints about the doctor who attended Amy’s delivery shouting at me, or the brusque treatment of the midwife in attendance, who provided no support, merely barking orders at me.

    That kind of treatment is to be expected when you’re 17 and obviously too stupid to keep your legs closed.

    The treatment from medical staff didn’t change once my daughter was delivered and I was chastised for feeding her too much, for attempting to breastfeed too often, for undressing her, and for co-sleeping and for not agreeing to midwife home visits for the first 6 weeks post-partum.

    When Amy went on to scream and refuse to sleep for her first months, it was apparently because I was a teenager mother (or maybe because my milk wasn’t good enough – depending on who was asked), rather than certain ASD qualities and a preference for being awake.

    I was made to feel stupid and lesser, by all but one professional I came into contact with. The exception being an older clinic nurse who had seen it all and seemed merely impressed that I had a supportive partner and breasts that lactated magnificently. A far cry from the later clinic nurse who we stopped seeing.

    If you’re a teenager walking with your newborn baby through a supermarket, shopping isn’t all about the strangers cooing over your gorgeous baby. No, it’s about the sideways looks, the slight sneer and the almost palpable relief that people exhibited when they saw that I was with a partner.

    My second pregnancy was fraught with similar issues. The only thing worse than being a teen mother, apparently, is being 19 and pregnant with your second baby.

    No one cares about your backstory, or what you’re doing with your life, or your plans and goals – no, as a young woman, your entire worth is tied up in your reproductive system and what you’ve done with it.

    And lest you think that I am alone in these observations, a quick conversation on Facebook showed that if anything, I was treated quite well, in the scheme of things.

    Think about that for a minute.

    People were telling me that midwives would refuse pain relief to teenage mothers, in order to “teach them a lesson” and prevent future pregnancies.

    Stories of judgement, of being made to feel unfit, of terrible treatment – these are the stories that young parents bring to the table.

    Isn’t that a spectacularly crappy way to start your parenting journey?

    Frankly, it saddens me. Teenage parents are not any less capable than older parents. Parenting is a great levelling field, where ostensibly, everyone starts off on an equal footing. Young parents do not love their children any less fiercely, nor is their age a barrier to being a good parent.

    Anyone can be a great parent. Age does not change that.

  • How many times a day can two children watch one show? LOTS

    My children have an obsession with Peppa Pig. This pink, snorting, grunting, talking pig, has invaded our house.

    It started with the very occasional showing on ABC4Kids. Then, they discovered ABC4Kids online and spent hours watching the same episodes, turning the computer back on, every time I turned it off and hiding in corners with my Tablet.

    Then they started to act out the episodes.

    This is including, but not limited to:

    Giant chunks of Peppa Pig, repeated over and over,

    Pretending to be the characters (this means Isaac stops talking and starts whining)

    Pretending to cry, like George (causing my brain to explode)

    and

    Creating and jumping in muddy puddles (my poor, poor washing pile)

    It’s a bit wearing.

    But the biggest problem really, is that every time I watch Peppa Pig, this is all I can see.

    It’s a real issue.