It’s ten to ten…pm. I’ve just sat down with a decaf cappuccino (a nasty packet one which i know probably has bad things in it) some baby biscuits made with spelt and chamomile (no no i’m not weaning yet…they are for me and Iona!!) huge big sigh. It’s been one of those days. Only just got the baby down to sleep and I should probably go sleep myself but I need to unwind.

So the events of the day were a little crazy. I took Iona to school. I’m feeling a bit unsure at the moment about that one. She’s suddenly moved up out of the playroom into the proper nursery school area and although she loves it I’m suddenly all worried for her and nervous about it. I don’t want her to grow up too fast! Like she has her own Peg to hand her coat on!! Yikes! I then sorted out a place to cook the food for the Alpha course next week….at the church. The only way I am physically going to be able to cook for 30 people is to get everyone together to help me and help watch the kids and then bung it in the freezer until the day of.

Later in the morning I found myself in a bit of a crisis situation. As many of you know it’s my heart’s desire to help women who want to breastfeed. I am new in my journey and by no means a professional, and in some ways I feel very out of my depth as my personal experiences have been pretty straightforward. At the moment I find I am paranoid about people thinking I’m “pressuring” them. There seems to be a very fine line between helping someone and empowering them, and then other people seeing you as a pushy lactation officer. I’m frustrated at the lack of information there seems to be from midwives and health visitors in the early days of a woman’s experience. I am involved with a worldwide highly respected organization that takes great care  in being on the cutting edge of breastfeeding support and research yet, I at times it seems the advice I hear being being given and the things I have learned are contrary to each other.

So I tentatively tried to help my friend. I did not try and pass myself off as any expert or authority. I just tried to listen and encourage in a way that would be empowering. It can be very scary having breastfeeding problems in the early days. You doubt yourself, you fear for your baby, you think you should be able to do it and face feelings of failure when it just doesn’t seem to be coming together. What does a woman need to hear in this situation?  Perhaps different women need to hear different things. I don’t know. Perhaps more than anything the woman simply needs to be listened to and for her feelings and emotions to be affirmed. She needs the person to really know how she’s feeling. I think it’s only when we can really hear the mother’s heart, that we can assess how to help in a way that will empower her in whatever decision she makes.

It’s tough. It really is. I want to see women empowered…but at the same time how do you help someone feel empowered when all they’ve experienced up to this point is struggle and failure?  Me saying “you really can do this….” can perhaps be heard as “there is no reason why this should be hard for you” How do you help someone see beyond what is right in front of them? How can you encourage someone to see beyond their circumstances when they are full of fear and anxiety?

I’m sure I’ll come back to this subject over the next year as I consider my own role in helping my friends and fellow women….this is only the beginning of my thoughts on it…and I welcome everyone’s input.

For those of you who missed it on Facebook, I thought I’d put this on here!!

I wasn’t really that overdue. Calculating “dates” based on my own cycle, I was due the 25th of October. However the alimighty all knowing scan, said the 17th of October. So as the week of the his birth dawned, I started to worry a bit about the argument I would have to make with the “professionals” about how late I actually was. I did not want any interventions, and I was prepared to stand my ground, but at the same time, I didn’t fancy the hassle.
I will be eternally greatfull that I did not go into labour the previous week, as I came down with the flu and was not at all in any way fit to birth a baby. It was the scariest feeling to be laying in bed feeling completely ill, but with the prospect of contractions starting looming overhead.
I really have not been all that prepared for this birth. I bought the book “hypnobirthing”, and only read a few chapters. I was also lent some hypnobirthing cd’s that I downloaded onto the PC but never got around to downloading on my husband’s ipod so I could “practice” with them. Someone lent me a birthing pool and up until a few days ago I was unsure if I would actually use it.
Iona spent most of Monday feeling very ill and under the weather. I only managed to get out in the afternoon for a bit with her and it was then I finally picked up a hose and a mixer tap adaptor in case I wanted to use the pool.
So Tuesday arrived and my husband says to me “yeah…I think it’s time, do what you need to do to get things going” and I was like “what??? you think it’s up to me??!” However I did decide to do some walking. Last pregnancy I’d been walking all over the place all the time. This time, I have been a bit more lazy, so I put Iona in the pram and we walked into Sandbach, and then back again. I also rubbed some clarey sage oil on my tummy, but I’m not really sure if that works or not.
Anyway, the day progressed as normal and I made dinner and put Iona to bed, not suspecting anything was really up. About an hour and a half after Iona fell asleep, I heard her wake up. This is quite unusual for her but since she’s been unwell I wasn’t all that suprised. I ended up having to nurse her back down and it was then i started to feel a few contractions. She struggled to fall back asleep and seemed to be very restless and distressed. Jon took over for me and I told him I had felt a few twinges.
He was convinced from that point on that this was it, but I wasn’t. We decided to start timing them and they were over 10 minutes apart so again, I was convinced it was just practice labour and not the real thing. However, they were painfull so I decided to put the TENS machine on…just in case. I went on facebook, as you do….and my friend Emma offered to come over. Jon, who was quite convinced things were happening said “yes, have her come so I can take Iona to my parents house” He also had me ring the hosptial to forewarn them that I would most likely need someone. At his point I was still not convinced. Once Emma showed up, my contractions had started coming a lot more frequent. She insisted i ring the labour ward again and get them to send someone so I did and was told someone from the homebirth team would ring me. Jon started to fill the pool, and then slipped off to drop Iona off. The midwife rang me while I was having a contraction and did her best to assess me over the phone. It turns out she wasn’t even on duty but the other home birth midwife was with someone. She said she would come see me but that she was “not at her best” as she had been up the whole night before and working all day and would be ringing for back up. So Emma said to me “well then you’re going to have to have this baby when she gets here!!”
Emma was a star and helped me through my contractions which were suddenly coming between 1-2 minutes apart. Jon returned and just before the midwife arrived, the TENS machine ran out of batteries. Thankfully the pool was nearly filled. When the midwife arrived she examined me and I was 9 centimeteres, so I jumped in the pool, and immediately felt relief, but at the same time, a lot of pain! It was all happening so fast and I started to doubt myself. I was trying to relax and breath through the contractions like i’d heard and read about but I just felt overwhelmed. I was only about 25 minutes in the pool. In the end I was on my hands and knees when I felt the head come, and the midwife said to me “just reach down now and on the next push bring the baby up” Sure enough, on the next push, out the baby came and I reached down with my hands and brought him to the surface of the water. That was a lovely feeling and was exactly why i wanted a water birth. He was so calm. After an initial cry, he just nuzzled right into me and it was the most lovely sensation. He still had a lot of vermix on him, which shows those scan worshipers that he was not “late”. I had wanted to give birth in the water, but had not realized how much the water would contribute to the pain relief as well. It all happened so fast, the water was the only thing that helped me to relax in between contractions in any way shape or form.
The Placenta came naturally a few minutes later, which suprised me as last time I waited like 40 minutes for it to come. Then I was just completely struck with afterpains. I never knew they could be so painfull. I really did not feel well afterwards which was a bit of a dissapointment. After just sitting and recovering for half an hour, I latched him on and he fed beautifully. The midwives had to stay and do tons of paperwork, (another one arrived just after the birth) and then we all got into bed and snuggled down for what was left of the night.
All in all, it took about 3 and a half hours!

I’m still unsure how I feel about such a “fast” labour and delivery. In some ways it was almost too fast because I didn’t have time to get my head around things. It was all just hitting me so fast. I think If I had been a bit more together I would have insisted on Emma staying with me throughout the delivery as I found her presense very calming. She didn’t know what i wanted though and as it was not planned that she would be there, she self conciously just hid out in the kitchen! It’s funny how when you are in labour, you can be thinking something in your head, but be unable to verbalize it.

Recently I watch a program called “one born every minute” and the idea is to showcase a wide variety of births…and just seeing women in a hosptial setting stressing out made me so thankfull I was able to experience the birth I did. I realize how rare it actually is in our western world.

Yesterday was one of those great community days. Even though I live in the far reaches of Sandbach, I have friends that make the treck out here to visit me. It’s great as Iona loves having people over and someone to share all her dressing up clothes (thanks to her cousin in america) with.

I am learning that I can not tell Iona about things too far in advance or else she will expect them to happen instantly. When I told her that her friend Poppy was arriving first thing in the morning, she spent most of the morning sat by the window calling out “Poppy!!! Poppy!!!” explaining to me that if she called her, she would come. However nothing matched her excitment when Poppy did actually arrive. She couldn’t contain her excitement and squeeled and danced around. I love it. I love how she isn’t afraid to be unashamedly full of excitement. 

Another friend and her son joined us and the rest of the day was full of good conversation, squeeling toddlers, homeade quiche, french bread, yummy soup, and cups of tea.  It was one of those days you describe to your husband and he says “nice…..i had to work all day” But….it’s not that we were not working too…dishes were washed, kitchen cleaned, tables wiped down, noses wipes, conflicts dealt with, stories read, toddlers and babies nursed, however…as women…when we get together, and do it all together, it lightens the load and brings the full potential out of a situation.

Yesterday allowed me to get out on my own with Judah and get him weighed. I was simply curious to where he was up to and taking him and Iona would have been an ordeal, but just being able to nip in with him and nip out again was great. When I got back, my friends had done all the dishes and tidied my kitchen up!
I need more days like this as a mother. Sure it’s great to have quiet days at home…..but I think I prefere mothering within a community much more rewarding, not to mention easier! Staying at home and mothering does not need to be some sort of dark sentence to hard labour…we are allowed to share the burden and help each other out. I think sometimes that this is one of the best kept secrets of being a happy stay at home parent…the fact that we were never meant to cope day after day all on our own….we were meant to do with with other people alongside us.

Sometimes it’s something as simple as having somewhere to go for a cup of tea when the afternoon has just gotten a bit too long…other times it’s enjoying whole days together sharing meals and housework.

It’s not easy in some ways. It means we have to be vulnerable…allowing people to see the inside of our fridge, the dust on our shelves, and that random messy room where we stash our rubbish. Most of the time we are left with a colossol mess in our children’s bedrooms!! I think it’s worth it though. We have to transfer the mindside of being hostess with the mostess to simply a friend sharing our home.

I hope to grow in these kinds of relationships. I hope these kinds of day happen more often. I hope others can experience these days as well. It helps us to really enjoy our children at this stage and not just count down the days until they are in school full time.

Today while mindlessly checking emails I realized that the 4th disc of Ugly Betty season 3 was on its way in the post. You see, we recently signed up to LOVEFILM and I was in trouble last week for putting this TV series at the top of our list. I suppose it was a bit cheaky of me. So I agreed to a pause in my viewing and put a movie we’d both enjoy at the top of the list, assuming it would arrive next. Well, it didn’t. For whatever reason they still sent me Ugly Betty. I won’t say I was disapointed. I love Ugly Betty and it’s is wonderful therapeudic mindless viewing for me when I am at home holding  babies and breastfeeding for hours on end.  So I decided to fix the situation by simply watching it all in one go, and then sending it back as soon as possibly in order to get a movie we could both watch for the weekend.

So during the second episode, Judah needed his nappy changing, so I took off his nappy and let him have a bit of a kick about. then i picked him up and thought, awww this is lovely skin to skin time…he’s so happy. However at the same time I sort of got lost in the viewing…until I suddenly heard an explostion. At first I thought “oh good, he’s pooed” then I suddenly realized he was on my lap with no nappy and had pooed all over my jeans. Whoops. i felt like the laziest mother ever!!!!

So I threw my jeans in the wash, put a skirt on and decided to get off my bum and walk into town. It felt good to get some exercise..however it’s started snowing again. Yesterday I got caught out in the hail and I was carrying Judah in his car seat to the car, and he got totaly covered in little hail stones!!! How bad is that?

It’s amazing though how you can do all these crazy things in the course of the day, get stressed, run around, be in a terrible hurry, snap at your family…whatever…and in the midst of it, you look down and there is this baby just……smiling at you. I love it.

So it’s been about a year now. Last year at this time we were in Cape Town, basking in the sun, devouring gorgeous smoothies from Kuaui, and seeing all the sights. We knew our time in South Africa was nearing it’s end, but it had become such a part of our everyday lives by this time, it felt like our reality. England seemed so far away.

So we said our goodbye’s. Those goodbye’s you don’t really think are real because you can’t imagine not continuing to be  in constant contact with those you’ve gotten to know so well. However, as we took our seats on the plane, our South African  reality quickly started to fade into fuzzy memories. By the time the cold air of the UK whipped across our faces, it all started to feel like it had been a dream, and after a few weeks of settling in, we realized, we truly had passed through the wardrobe, out of our alternative reality, and back into our home.

This last weekend I was watching Avatar with my husband. A few minutes into the amazing cinematic experience and I thought of Phumeza and Noluthando. They once told me they had never actually been to the cinema. All at once I wanted them to be there with me. I wanted them to experience this beautiful movie. Not that getting to go to the cinema is really what’s going to make the difference in their lives, but i would have loved for them to have that experience.

The other morning I cut up a mango for my breakfast. I remember Sisanda hovering around me in the kitchen whenever I was cooking. I remember her taking the peelings from the mango and eating the scraps out of them. She would eat anything I made….no matter what it was. It was more food than she had ever seen before. We have her picture on our fridge, and I never look at it without feeling a little bittersweet. Especially when it came time for 3rd birthday and she suddenly started talking about Sisanda again and wanting her to be at her party. I wanted her there as well.

I spent most of this last year pregnant with my son Judah. I found out i was pregnant just a few days before leaving South Africa. My next door neighbour Annie was the first person I told, and the night before we left, she and Nicole stayed up making me a special toy for a baby they would never know…at least not in his “baby” stage.  So many times this year I wanted to run next door to thier houses, drink tea, and share this new life with those precious neighbours. I remember Phumeza telling me over a feast of KFC, that it was most definitly going to be a boy and I remember speaking to her in a rare phone conversation after my 20 week scan, and being able to tell her that it definitly was.

When you only spend 12 months somewhere, you barely scratch the surface. I talk about the wonderful friends I made but the reality was that although we had shared some pretty intesne experiences together, I had only started to experience the potential of those relationships. People ask me if I keep in touch. I’d love to say that we write to each other weekly pouring out the details of each others lives and remaining as close as ever. In truth, it’s more like the odd text message here and there, a few emails through third parties, and one phone call that I got out of the blue one day from Phumeza as I was pulling out of my in-laws estate. I pulled over to take the call and ended up getting in trouble with a very irritated driver who told me i was parked “most awkwardly” little did he know I was on the phone with a 22 year old HIV mother in South Africa.

I managed to write Noluthando’s story in full and I am hoping for an appropriate place to share it someday. It was a great encouragement to hear how she has moved on and really made a success of her life. I was worried for her when we left, afraid she would sink back into the darkness of township life…fufilling negative steriotypes…what little faith I have at times. She is doing brilliantly now looking after children who’s mothers have to work, mainly picking rubbish in the local tip. She has even managed to get the backing of an overseas charity and is now overseen and supported by them. A miracle really. I miss her. I want to visit her house…the first house in Walmer township I was invited into. I want to listen to her tell me all the local gossip and laugh.

But here I am…a year later. So very far away. Iona’s blonde highlights have darkened and In some ways the events of that year almost seem a bit sureal now. When I tell their stories in passing I feel like I must be exaderating, but…I’m actually not. That year did happen…..and I hope to keep it alive in my thoughts and writings so that it does not just fade to fuzzy memories. There are stories I still need to tell and there are lives that I intend to keep up with and give updates on.

We feel a little sad as the media turns to South Africa to showcase the world cup. We wish we were there….not to see the matches, but to take part in moaning with the neighbours about the rediculous things the government is implementing in order to prepare itself.