Time for a change

Seeing as many people who read this blog now know us, I have decided it’s time for a name change for the boys. I still want to keep a bit of privacy, but from now on will call them just by the first letter of their names – that is ‘S’ (for BC) and ‘M’ (for little Bean).

Incidentally, given that S was born in September and M was born in March, I am now feeling pressure that baby number 3 (currently only know as Ogol and with no ‘real’ name in sight yet) needs to have a name that starts with the first letter of the month he’s born in as well, especially when Dianne (me) was born in December and A (my husband) was born in April. So, with baby number 3 most likely making an appearance in January. I am particularly on the lookout for a good ‘J’ name…..

Yes, I really have mellowed out today, haven’t I – possibly to the point of the ridiculous, but especially with my blood sugar levels sitting perfectly in range today, it’s a very very nice feeling .

Seriously

For 3 out of the last 4 mornings, my ‘fasting’ blood sugar reading (the one I have to take first thing in the morning) has been too high.

This means there’s a good chance they are going to recommend I start having insulin injections  (which incidentally terrifies me because I lack confidence in the thought of giving myself injections – anyone want to come and do them for me?? ).

The addition of the insulin will mean my pregnancy is no longer going to be considered ‘low risk’.

This means that I will be kicked out of the lovely ‘Know your Midwife’ program where I get to see the same midwife every appointment.

This means I will be attending additional appointments with varied midwives, diabetes educators and doctors (which is unfortunate timing given that my sis-in-law leaves the country in 2 weeks so I will be dragging the boys along to appointments. Hard to concentrate when I am worried about Bean pulling out cables and messing up filing systems).

This also means that there is an increased risk of the baby being larger.

This means that especially given what happened with BC there is going to be more pressure on me to consider a casearean or early induction.

This means that I am starting to worry.

I don’t want to worry. I want to enjoy these last few months of pregnancy. I want to be confident of a natural, incident free birth.

But it’s getting hard to keep that confidence when the medical ‘team’ I am dealing with keep bandying around words like ‘serious’, ‘high risk’ and ‘dangerous’.

Those are not the words I need to be hearing right now. I just don’t need for everyone to keep telling me things are so serious right now. Seriously.

It’s in the hips….

BC’s hips are x-rayed every year. I always worry about these x-rays because I know that hips can be a big problem.

If you google  ‘cerebral palsy hips’ there are 782,000 hits. Number one that came up when I  did the search was a research study that states  “Displacement of the hip and equinus are the two most  common deformities in children with cerebral palsy.”

Scary stuff.

The consequence in the long term can be surgery. We don’t want to have to go down that path.

We see a chiropractor regularly in the hope that he can help keep BC’s hips in good shape and his hips on annual x-ray have up til now looked pretty good.

So I was a bit concerned when we got his most recent hip x-ray results (as part of the VicCp child study) and they pointed to some displacement. There were some figures given, but they didn’t mean too much to me. So naturally, I began to worry.

Thank goodness we have a wonderful paediatrician. As soon as I opened the letter I wrote her an email asking for her opinion. Within 24 hours she had replied that she’d looked at the x-ray and the displacement was ‘mild’ and not really something to worry about yet. But we will keep monitoring.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for BC to have such a great doctor. She’s very passionate and caring and always replies to emails promptly. It’s such a great thing.

But I will remain worried about his hips. Not frantically. But it’s just another thing to add to the list.

We have our appointment for the gait lab just before Christmas. They will be studying the way BC walks and giving us some feedback. I am hoping that this too might help us work on the best ways for him to be kind to his hips.

I’m cool

It’s time to make a confession. In those few weeks that I wasn’t blogging, I wasn’t only overwhelmed by all the things I had on my plate, I was a complete mess.

I was finding it hard to think straight and I was very emotional – teary at the smallest thing and not at all feeling in control. I was also very anxious. Worrying about everything – from the huge mortgage we were taking out, to whether or not I am actually going to be ready to dealwith another new born baby as well as looking after my two demanding boys. And I had no energy. I was flat as a tack, barely able to get through all the things I needed to do in a day – which was not particularly convenient seeing as I suddenly had a MILLION things to do each day. And the fact I wasn’t doing these things was just adding to my anxiety.

Fast forward to this week. On Wednesday I had a complete meltdown. Partly because it was really hot. Bloody hot. Far too hot for November. It was 28 deg C at 5am. And yes, I was up at 5am with a cheeky little boy. Later in the afternoon I had a big row with my husband (well, I ranted and raved and he sat on the couch looking shocked ). I just wanted him to take control of ALL the things I had to do. I couldn’t possible imagine how I was going to get it all done when I couldn’t even get half way through a single task. There were tears (mine of course) and I was at a real low.

Less than an hour later, the hospital rang to tell me the results of my Glucose Tolerance Test that I had done on Monday – I was diagnosed with mild gestational diabetes. Most people would probably be upset, but me, I was relieved. It provided a possible answer to why I’ve been feeling so tired, unable to think particularly clearly and pretty much a fruit loop.

After just two days of a low GI diet, I am feeling so much more in control.  I’ve got most of the things done that I needed to do and I can feel myself thinking much more clearly.

I have an appointment with the Diabetes educator first thing Monday morning, but I’ve already figured a lot of stuff out (love you Google!). For those with permanent diabetes – WOW. I don’t think I’d ever fully appreciated what a lifestyle change it would be to have to carefully restrict and manage your diet.

And bless the Gods, the heatwave we’ve been experiencing here for the last few weeks seems to have broken. The weather dropped from 38 deg C to 24 deg C about 2 hours ago. The windows are all open and I am loving the cool breeze.

I am still a little concerned about the gestational diabetes – mostly because a side effect can be larger babies (check out this 19.2lb/8.7kg whopper born in Indonesia not too long ago!). Given that the complications that we had with BC’s birth were related to his size (4kg) I am naturally very keen to avoid a large baby. So I will be a very good girl over the next 8 weeks – even with Christmas and New Years festivities to get through – and I will follow doctors advice to the tee.

And fingers crossed, now that I know WHY I’ve been so flaky AND now that the cool change has arrived, I really will be cool B-).

He ain’t heavy….

He’s my brother

We’ve been fortunate enough to borrow this adapted tricycle from CPEC (BC’s early intervention centre).

It’s very sturdy, provides great back support and holds his feet in place on the pedals with velcro straps  so that he can work on his pedalling skills more easily. Conveniently it also has a basket in the back to carry important things .

I love watching how close my boys have become. Bean will follow his big brother around the house and wants to include him in everything he does. And BC is very protective of his little brother and loves to share his activities with him.

Yes, of course they have their moments – when Bean destroys something that his big brother has made OR when they both want to play with the exact same toy and aren’t willing to share.

BUT they generally really enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun being together. It’s special to see. Especially right now as we’ve only got 2 months to go until they will meet their NEW little brother. I hope the three of them will be great mates.

A horse called Cheeky.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about BC’s horse riding. OK, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted about much at all. But I am BACK in the saddle now (sorry for the pun!).

It’s been a year and a half since BC started riding with ‘Riding for the Disabled’ (who’ve recently changed their name to ‘Rideability’. Not sure what I think about the change…).

He’s so confident on the horse that it amazes me.  His most recent new skill is that he has started using the reins himself to get his horse to turn, or stop. He loves having this extra control.

His horse’s name is Cheeky. Although sometimes I’m not sure whether it’s BC or the horse that is more cheeky!

The benefits of horse riding for BC are many. Not only does it improve his balance, coordination, strength of his trunk, spine and overall body but it’s also a great confident booster and the most fun ‘therapy’ that we do.

Whenever we are out at some sort of public event and there’s a long row of kids waiting for a pony ride, I always point them out to BC – telling him that those children probably get to ride a horse once a year. He’s so lucky he gets to do it every week!

And we’re lucky that they have such great staff and volunteers to work with BC. He adores his riding and I love thinking about him riding more and more confidently as he gets older.

New inspiration!

A friend in the UK sent me a link to this great article from the weekend Guardian newspaper.

The mum who wrote the article is also keeping a blog.

Things have settled down in my world. I am looking forward to getting back into my blogging routine

Gone fishing…..

I wish.

Actually, there’s a much more boring reason for my absence from the blogosphere.

Suddenly, there are just less hours in the day.

It started when my husband was in Indonesia for a couple of weeks. I thought when he returned that I’d get the hours back, but turns out that being almost 7 months pregnant, I’m needing to sleep most nights by 7pm so I’m losing my evenings that I usually use for doing all those things that I ran out of time to do during the day. Of which there are many.

And of the hours that I do have, I just seem to be doing everything less efficiently than usual. Everything is taking far, far too long!

It didn’t help that a yukky tummy bug came to visit the house for a week. We’ve all been ill to various degrees – BC worst of all. We lost a lot of sleep (and he lost a lot of weight!).

And there are lot of things on for us right now.

At the moment, I am trying to sort out funding for a Voice Output device for BC, gather documents for visa applications for both my sister-in-law (long term visa) AND my brother-in-law (short term visa),  attend all the usual appointments, therapy sessions and reviews necessary for BC AND……

OMG, we’ve bought a house!!!!

I had NO IDEA how many fiddly little jobs that would involve and with my husband on night shift, most of those jobs are coming down to me.

Feeling like I need to either clone myself or find a clock that stops time for a day or two just so I can catch up .

Promise to be back on the regular blogging mill soon.

VERY VERY excited about the house, but equally terrified. Never been in debt before and with house prices so high here, it’s not a teensy tiny debt either….

Here’s a pic of the front of the house. Will post more ONCE we secure our finance. Fingers crossed that will happen in the next week!!!