no more.

okay - i know ive said this before. no more babies for me.

then came alice. then came pippa...

no matter how many times you say it - a teeny tiny part of me always thinks "yeah - we could do it again" but then reality hits me like a brick wall and i say NO MORE.

i sat feeding pippa this morning at 2:35am and looked at her tiny hands and feet and marveled at this beautiful creation that was there before me and felt so completely in love, like the love that makes you think - how can my heart be this full.

being a mamma is such a privilege and i thank God every day for being blessed with 4 beautiful daughters whom i love and cherish.

cleaning

when we moved I was pregnant, so ive been waiting for the day to get into some proper unpacking/cleaning of stuff that has just been sitting there annoying me - every time I look at it, it annoys me. I really dont know why - its just clutter I spose.

anywho - ive stuck myself into it all today and got half way thru when I realised there is so much more to do. maybe I should just hire someone to come and do it for me.

lazy? yes.

the great debate...

So - 4 babys, 4 different births?

Nope. 4 babys, 2 different experiences, 2 different health care systems.

AND I KNOW EVERY ONES EXPERIENCE IS DIFFERENT. THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE.

First and second were inductions - both at some stage early morning, not working, so needing other stuff done like drips and waters broken etc. Both ended up being "assisted" by epidurals and both took around 8 hours ish. Both were in a Private hospital with a private OBGYN.

Third and forth were both very quick with no medical intervention required at all and no pain relief. Both took around 1.5 hours to be born. Both were in public hospitals with Midwifes.

Is there a pattern here?

The cost of private health cover is expensive, add onto the normal cost of your policy the hospital excess, the cost of the OBGYN ($3k) , costs of visiting the dr, ultra sounds, blood tests - the list goes on and on. A rough guess on how much we paid for 1 and 2 would be $5500. The hospital was great and had a nice view - but was it worth that?

I look back over all 4 of mine and wish that I had more knowledge and understanding of what goes on and why. Even with 4, I still had questions about things... I have mixed feelings about the Private system now - after having such positive birthing experiences 3rd and 4th times - I feel like I could have had more of a say the 1st and 2nd times, instead of the Dr just "telling" me what I was going to do or making decisions with the other staff instead of with me. With #2 I was having terrible chest pain and it turned out the baby was ready to be born - the midwife was about to go and call the anesthetist to order more epidural for me...

Yes - the public hospital is just that - sharing a room and bathroom the whole time, food pretty ordinary etc etc, but the care was the same - if not better in the public system. The midwifes that delivered 3 and 4 were fantastic, encouraging, helpful and knew exactly what was going on the whole time.

hairdressing fun

just got back from having my hair done. i never imagined sitting in a chair for two hours watching your newborn baby could be so relaxing - and it was. when i got home i realised that the reason it was so relaxing was i didnt have 3 other bodies climbing on and over me trying to get to the baby and saying "its mine turn", "no its my turn", "no, pippy wants me to hold her", "noooo meeee" etc etc etc.

TV

Its that rare time of year (before a new baby is born) that Cade and I find that we have little to watch on TV, but the last month or so has been exciting TV for us for a change... We have new survivor and amazing race, the office (from USA), we have been watching the x factor - not massive fans but enough to keep watching each week, and we have just finished watching all five seasons of the wire which was a HBO show a few years ago. It will pbly slow down again now esp when the babe is born and there is exercise to be done in the evenings again, but its been good catching up on a little tv time of our own...

the feeding debate.

I have just finished reading an article online about bottlefeeding v breastfeeding. Its a debate that has been going for quite a while now - I assume like many things, people jump on either side and stick to it until they are in the situation where they "have" to do the other and then open up somewhat and have less of an opinion about it.

We know people who have done both. We have done both. M was about 6 months old when we put her on formula because I was pregnant with T and back working already. It wasnt a big decision at the time, I did what needed to be done.

Feeding a baby either way you do it every couple of hours isnt the easiest thing in the world to do, anyone with a newborn baby will be able to tell you that. I think that whatever is decided by the parents is the correct choice for that child. I prefer to breastfeed, its quick, mostly easy and if its been around since good old Eve - then I assume its gotta be okay. Yes, I have had my moments - 3 bouts of bad mastitis with A was insanely painful and horrid and it makes you wonder whether or not its worth it - but that's what we do as humans, we over think our decisions on a daily basis.

The frustrating things for mothers is that in todays society you are wrong if you do it and you are wrong if you dont do it. Everyone has an opinion on it and they are happy to share that. Reality is that in the long run, I really dont think it matters all that much. We dont get judged later on in life by whether or not we had a bottle as a baby.

I have friends who are ABA Counselors, midwife friends and even Drs wives who all have different opinions. I know people who for some reason have not been able to breastfeed at all. I have other friends that have so much milk that they could feed another 10 babies. Everyone is different, everyone has a different experience, everyone I know just wants to do what is best for their babies at the time - isnt that whats important??

We debate this topic back and forth and back again, and it seems like the two sides just go ahead and keep fighting it out. Should we make formula a prescription? Should women be able to get their breasts out in public? Babies sleep better when they are formula fed. Babies are healthier if they are breastfed. People who dont have kids, but yet have strong opinions about either side of the debate... on and on it goes.

Being a parent is tough work, and this is just the start of the decisions that you will have to make, and in the end (sorry to tell you) but it really wont matter! Once they get to school, teenagehood and then become adults, you will still be a parent - and it really wont matter if they were breastfed or bottlefed.

itchy?

my bfb (big fat belly) is so itchy right now - i have never had this with any other of my pregnancies. also, the back pain down my left side - whats up with that?? its amazing to see how different your nine months can go - we have 14 weeks to go now, which seems like a really long time, but im sure that it will just fly by and soon we will have another little babe in our house. maybe my body is just reacting differently this time because i have passed the big 3.0. hard to say. whatever it is, i will be glad when november comes so i dont have to keep scratching my bfb all day long.

face what?

getting to that point again where I wonder about facebook. i wonder about the way that people use their status updates to put people down and not in a joking way. having been on the "outskirts" of a messy situation during the past couple of months, i "dislike" that i find out about the situation from the way their updates are coming in via facebook. i wonder if people realise that the world wide web is real and there for now and a long time to come, not just something that is on your computer/phone for you to see - but the www///whole wide world...

pizza dudes

we just ate a frozen pizza for dinner, as we are trying to use up whats in our freezer before we move next week. it was interesting, but now is repeating on us - which is never a nice feeling... we should have gone with the dominos deal...

lazy

as a business, you could be really lazy about how you did things.

we are currently experiencing this with getting our TV "quoted" to fix. no fixing is being done, just a lot of nothingness.

they have no answering machine service, so you cant leave a message for them - this would require them to then call you back at some stage. they told us it would be at least a week to quote it and not to ring before that week was up. when i called this morning to check how it was going (after the week and a day had been up), the info was not yet entered into their computer system, so i have to now wait for the guy who had "just popped out" to get back and re call them to ask if they have even yet done anything for the quote. now the phone is engaged, so i just have to keep calling.

cause i have nothing better to do with my time. maybe we should just buy a new TV.

learned

It really is amazing to see how different kids learn things. A wise old friend told me about rope learning when Miss M was a teeny tiny babe and ever since then I have tried to see the difference in what children can just memorize, and what they can learn for actual development. Songs from Kindermusik are being sung once a week in our house, and they turn up the next week and can remember everything. This is a beautiful way of seeing how a childs brain retains information and can spit it out later on when needed.

Counting has been another interesting learned thing in our house. Our kids love to count, as I assume most kids do, but its amazing to watch Miss M now build a tower and be able to count the individual blocks as she builds it up to 15, knowing when she has made a mistake with her numbers and starting again to make sure she counts the correct amount of blocks. Letters are another thing - she is very interested in knowing what letters make up what words and wants to be able to sound things out with the right sound. I spose its because you cannot remember learning all these things when you were a child that makes it so special to be able to watch and encourage.

friday night fun

So, Cade got all excited for Friday night football as the Dragons are playing and he can watch it live. I got all excited because I got invited OUT - yes, OUT, on a Friday night. Well, its to a Tupperware party where I am not allowed to buy anything - but hey - its OUT on a Friday night....

smokes

surely if the governments of this world are making tobacco and its products even more expensive and introducing even tougher laws about where they are smoked, SURELY people would realise that there must be something wrong with doing it and it possibly could be bad for your health???

changing times

I was in the shower yesterday morning trying to fight Alice off from climbing in with me, and I was thinking about how I used to cope in the other house that we had with the other bathrooms we have had. Each house and each child have given different experiences:

1. L Street - with Maisie. We had a child gate up in the hallway so she could not even get to the bathroom - so she would stand at the gate and sing to me as I was in the bathroom.
2. G Street - with Maisie and Talia. I showered mainly at night or when Cade was around, as the bathroom was pokey and the shower never had enough hot water to last long anyway...
3. Q Street - We had a weird shower/spa thing, so as soon as both Maisie and Talia heard the water running, they would come running/crawling. Being prepared was best in this house - I had toothbrushes and toothpaste ready to go when they entered. They would then chase each other around the house whilst brushing their teeth.
4. E Way - ahhhh, the joys of an ensuite!!! TV on for Maisie and Talia, Alice in bed or on our bed. The big girls would usually come in at some stage - and stand at the glass whilst I sprinkled water over the top of the shower at them.
5. Current Address - again, joys of ensuite - but this time its Alice who comes running. Usually the big girls dont even notice, but Alice is in there ready to take her clothes off and get in as soon as you hop in. Or, she will just start eating the toilet paper off the roll until you jump out.

new game

the girls new game in our house is playing "church". they drive there, sing songs and read from their bibles and even have a childrens talk. they take their "babies" and get them settled into church as well. quite cute.

HoOp dE DoO.

So busy - I have spent the last few months wifeying, mothering, working and celebrating. Now life seems to have settled down a bit and we seem to almost be back into a bit of routine. This year is already looking busy with pre school and mums bible study times already booked in, and plenty of morning teas and playdates to be had.

I think I have finished up at MYER. It was so much fun but I am now pleased to say that I am a stay at home mother - which is MUCH harder than doing both!!