A busier life

Well, adjusting to having 2 kids around has been a little bit of a challenge.

Avalon has started accepting the loss of "Mummy time", which is a great improvement on last week. And little Willow (or Wils as she is now nicknamed) is still too quiet to override the demands of Avalon at any other time other than feed time. So she's almost the silent but present member of our expanding family.

We had some friends over the other day, and with Avalon charging around the house and pulling knives down off benches and standing on VCR's, our friends hadn't had a chance to notice Willow sleeping soundly in the room. They asked us about half an hour into our conversation "so where's Willow?". To which we, bemused pointed to the wrapped, peaceful person in the basket on the couch. We laughed at how little attention she gets at the moment. But I know it won't be long before she demands her own "Mummy and Daddy time" and we'll be adjusting to a new situation all over again.

You have to be comfortable with flexibility. Parenting pushes you to have the most carefully planned day, which may need to be adjusted at any moment, depending on the children's response.

Tired days, boistrous days and just overexcited days change the well planned schedule, and you have to just fly with it, and not get too strung out about it. Some days I'll get a short nap, others I won't. And it is a challenge to not be resentful of these little beings who are too self involved to realise if they scream through sleep time, this means Mum is far more tired than normal for the remainder of the day.

But I totally adore looking after my children, and still find it a huge priviledge.

And having two to look after suddenly makes our house seem that much fuller. We're a much bigger family. Craig has his hands full most of the time, and so do I. But we're well aware of the fleetingness of youth. All too soon, these "chaotic" days will be far behind us when our kids are in school, learning from other people. And I know i'll look back at these days with fondness.

My contented newborn cuddles with Willow as she sleeps heavily on my chest. The look of understanding on Avalon's face when I talk her through one of her books. It's all so precious.

It's well worth doing hard things, like having children. Even when at the outset, you have no idea how it'll work.

The birth story series. Part 1.

I’ve come through it. It’s over, never to be repeated again. Thank God!
Birth number 2 is over with, and now I have a lifetime of enjoying our second daughter, Willow Alannah Hamilton.

I start out the birth story this way just to try to warn you. This is not a pretty piece of writing. 10 days into her little life and I’m already forgetting the sheer overwhelming ‘sensations’ of birth. Stupid hormones! No wonder we do this multiple times. We can thank God for his creation of oxytocin and other such blissful hormones created for us women in abundance during and following labour. Because I know that if I ever remembered the pain fully, then I’d definitely be reconsidering my “4 children, no less” policy that Craig is warming to. But I write this as a reminder to myself for next time to NEVER attempt this again without the most potent form of permissible drug administered by hospital staff and known to man.

See, my other two friends who birthed their second children just recently had some pretty decent birth experiences, as far as births go, anyway. So I was allowing myself to be hopeful, which is really all you can resign yourself to anyway, given that your body is again going to be thrown into the unrelenting and ever increasing pains of birth.

Unfortunately, even though this second child came faster than Avalon (8 instead of 16 hours of full-on labour) it was just as hard, and I think just as painful.

So- here’s the story from the start.

The days leading up to the birth were really difficult to live with. I felt as though my body was slowly shutting itself down, and with an active toddler now in my life, I felt that if Willow didn’t arrive soon, Craig would be off from work anyway, and I’d need bedrest until her arrival. My pelvis was in constant pain and my hip joints the same. I would get up from sitting down for no more than 5 minutes, and just breathe through the pain in my joints. Even though it was painful to stand, it was almost not worth having a rest to sit down, because of the agony that followed.

So I made a bold move. At my 39 week, 6 day appointment, I asked to be given a ‘cervical sweep’. This procedure was known to trigger labour by releasing natural hormones into your body to start it off. I won't go into details...

The midwife looked at me like I was crazy, but I begged her really and said that it worked for a friend of mine, and that I was in so much pain now, with constant prelabour and now this pelvis thing, that I wanted this precious gift out NOW (please). This was crazy painful for me, and I had to ask Craig to take the rest of the day off work, because I was useless to look after Avalon. I just wanted to collapse in a heap and moan softly to myself in self pity. Which I totally would have done, if I wasn't such a proud person.

The birth story series. Part 2.

It was 7am the following morning that my waters broke. No huge gush, but definitely unmistakenably, my waters broke. Every time I changed sitting position, I would gush again. It was more comfortable now to remain as upright as possible. I couldn’t have had a little “sleep” without flooding our bed, so, this was the most sleep I was now going to have until the baby arrived. And I got 2 ½ hours of it in between painful contractions that night, so I was already running on vapours.

We called my parents, and they came to look after Avalon. The morning was filled with me doing last minute cleaning and hospital bag packing, and Avalon squealing with delight at my parent’s play. I wish I could have stayed there until the birth itself. Unfortunately, I had a strep b infection, which 20% of women have, and it causes no harm to us, but to an unborn child can kill them if antibiotics are not administered throughout the labour. I’m just one of these unlucky women whose waters break at the start of labour instead of in the heat of the action.

So upon calling the hospital, I still had to be admitted even though labour hadn’t properly started. My contractions were 10-15 apart, some intense, some unnoticeable. This was prelabour. Again. Avy’s prelabour lasted 31 hours. I prayed for a faster one this time, and God was merciful. Only 16 hours with Willow!

I was cannulated, injected a couple of times with antibiotics, and left to my own devices to get this labour happening. We spent our time equally reading books, walking stairs and staying active to try to get the show on the road. Nothing exhausting, but enough just to jiggle this bub into the right position if something wasn’t aligned properly.

Craig was sent home once visiting hours were over for an early night, and I had a sleepless night ahead of me. Craig was woken at 11pm that night by a phonecall.

“Craig, it’s started”

“Oh ok, should I come now?”

The midwives didn’t believe me that labour had started. They’d told me to have a shower. I was all emotional. I wanted Craig with me, and I didn’t want to birth this baby alone in the shower. I’ve heard storied of how fast it can all happen, and having only 16 months between births, you just never know what your body’s going to do second time round.

“They won’t send me to labour ward. I don’t think they believe me. But I need you here, they’re really painful to get through without massage.”

Craig reassured me it’d be ok, to have the shower and then tell them again.

So I did. Instead of the shower helping them, they were now 8 minutes apart and QUITE painful. I had to breathe through the wave and use all my techniques I’d learnt to cope without collapsing in a heap.

The midwives finally listened to me, and one of them came to time them. By this time, they were now 5 minutes apart and growing in intensity with every one.

They told me to pack up, they were moving me down to the birthing suites.

Finally! How do you convince someone that you’re really labouring, when you’re not screaming in agony but breathing through the contractions? To an outsider, I must have looked too calm, so she dismissed me. I forgive her, even though at the time, this midwife was my mortal enemy, a barrier between myself and craig being together at this birth.

They transferred me to a lovely big room at about 12.30am Easter Saturday, so I called Craig again and told him to tally ho over, that we were now ready. He called my doula (birth assistant) on the way, and Willow was to be born that morning.

The birth story series. Part 3.

I was so incredibly relieved when Craig finally came through the door at 1.10am (yes- I was paying very close attention to my watch). We’d tried the bath, and the contractions spaced out, but it felt terrible being in there. The bath relieved the pain I was feeling in between the contractions, but it was awful for the contractions themselves. So I hopped out after about 3 contractions in there. It wasn’t working enough to relieve my back pain, which was far more severe than the pain in my abdomen during the height of the contractions. I needed some hands pushing on my back more than the relief of the water warmth. As soon as I stepped out of the bath, the contractions came thick and fast.

Craig had to lean into my back with his full weight while I held onto the bath sink and leaned myself on an angle back into them. And by the time my birth assistant showed, I wasn’t opening my eyes at all. The doula timed the contractions at every 3 monutes and tried massaging me herself, but Craig was much better at knowing where to push at this point, so she conceded to letting him do it a bit more before she took turns with him again.

For only going into real labour a couple of hours earlier, I thought that the pain was way too intense and too close together for me to cope very long without any relief from drugs, so I asked for the gas. Thankfully, the midwives did hook this up pretty quickly for me. I actually threw it away during a contraction early on because I swore to them that it wasn’t on. My doula insisted that it was, but I could tell no relief came from breathing it in, so I stood my ground until the midwives realised that no, it wasn’t working. They’d forgotten to turn on the switch that actually let out the gas with the oxygen.

What seemed like an hour passed (and it probably was) when I finally decided now was epidural time. The gas gave me such a spin out, and I decided that I wanted to push this baby out in my right mind. I wanted to be able to see this baby be born. And I also didn’t want to feel like I was dying. So I told Craig that now was the time, and that if I ask for it now, then when it’s unbearable and I can’t talk, hopefully it’ll be in and working.

Craig got the midwives informed of my decision, and they told me it was all in motion. The epidural was coming. Thank the Lord! 

The birth story series. Part 4.

This consoled me for a while and I focused on nothing but surviving. It’s a well known fact that in birth, women shut down to their primal brain, and all their higher functions of reasoning switch off. This makes entire sense to me. Because as I went through this experience, all I could focus on was survival. My body was doing everything it could to SURVIVE. Why would it need the higher thought of reason when the whole body is convulsing from within to expel this creature which has now reached the point where it is sucking the life out of it’s Mother, rather than her ‘supporting’ it? The baby can’t stay in there forever. And the body knows that.

The birth once it begins has to reach it’s conclusion. And the person inside that body is totally encompassed by it’s motions, that they can only accept the pain and go with it and try not to fight it. If you fight the pain, the body clamps up even more and the pain gets even stronger. We have to accept the labour pain for it to go away faster. How counterintuitive is that! Even when everything within you is telling you that this pain is wrong. Because in every other bodily experience, if we feel pain, it IS because something is terribly wrong.

It makes sense to me that pain is a fitting result of our rejection of God in the garden of Eden. Our response to God’s rule and authority is totally wrong, and consequently, pain now exists in his creation. And more intensely so in birth; the very act of his creatures creating! Creation itself is stuffed from our sin. And no more do I feel this truth than in the process of my babies’ births. And moreover, how fitting that I experience this trauma than on Easter Friday and Saturday. The days we set apart to mourn for our sin and the depths our Saviour Lord Jesus went through to release us of it.

The birth story series. Part 5.

As much as I hated the gas and it’s effects, I also loved it for the same reason. It helped me to not perceive reality. And during the most painful experience of my life, I actually don’t want to really comprehend the pain.

So I drifted in and out of dreamland while on the gas, all the time feeling every bit of the pain, but not perceiving that the feeling was “pain” because it made my mind so murky that my thoughts were also jumbled.

I hallucinated throughout the end of the birth. I drifted into consciousness and the pain of reality to breathe out the words “epidural please” several times, because when I stopped breathing the gas, I could tell that a lot of time had passed, and this epidural was still “on it’s way”. I thought Craig and my doula needed more convincing. Apparently, it was really just a staffing issue. In the wee hours of Easter Saturday, 3 other women were labouring, and one needed an emergency c section. So she obviously took precedence over my needs right then. I’m a little disappointed now that even though I asked for the epidural at least 4 hours before I birthed, it still didn’t arrive in time. Next time I’ll hire my own anaesthetist, too!

In my hallucinations I was dying. I saw shapes in black and white. This must have been during the peak of a contraction. The darkness (the pain) would cover all of the white, until the white was just a pin prick in my vision. I would stop sucking the gas, because I thought, that’s it, I’m dead. I should walk towards the light… And then the reality would set in, and the bathroom would become clear again, and I realised that I was experiencing such extreme pain, that I had stopped breathing and instead, had been waiting for death to take hold of me. The dawning of this reality made the pain even worse, so I grabbed back the gas and would suck it down again until I could no longer think clearly again. So it was in this dreamland that I indulged in. I sucked the gas as much as I could before passing out (tip: keep a small amount of light around), then I’d regulate my breathing so that I could stay with the visions and not come out of it. Because coming out of the haze into reality was too overwhelming.

I had fallen to the floor during this time, and my doula found me a birthing ball to hang over. They diligently dug their glorious hands into my back with every wave. In my hazy dreamland, I said “thankyou for my cloud” which was the last phrase I muttered before delivery.

The birth story series. Part 6.

The hallucinations changed at points, sometimes the white was only around the gas mask covering my mouth, and sometimes I visualised the white radiating around my back like I was having an outer body experience. All I knew was, that if I chased the light, the pain didn’t overtake me and I could keep surviving. I wanted to survive. I wanted to see my baby and not leave Craig alone with two children (yes- I had these thoughts during the labour somehow while still hallucinating on the gas. My mind just doesn’t ever want to shut down completely!)

But several times, I’m ashamed to say, I did stop chasing the light, and I let the darkness black out my dreams, because I wanted to be dead. I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore and I would stop fighting to survive. What happened at these points must have been that I sucked so hard on the gas that I passed out briefly, only to be jolted back to reality in the peak of the contraction, fully aware that this "sensation" was in fact, the pain of birth.

Then there was a lull. Contractions changed instantly to be less painful. They were there, but something different was happening. It was birthing time.

My body had a brief rest. I remember wishing it was all over because I was totally ready to go to sleep by then. I'd had enough. And I think my body knew that. It gave me about an hour of 'rest' where I just recovered and lay over my birth ball with only small urges to push her out. I put in a minimal amount of effort here. They may have even checked me somewhere and given me the green light to push. But I wasn't ready. I needed a break.

When my bodily urges kicked in hard enough to give her the heave-ho outta me, I welcomed them. But I didn’t want anyone screaming “push” at me like last time. So, I wrote in my birth plan for the midwives to leave me to my own devices. Let my body get her out on it’s own.

What I learnt from this is that my body takes A LOT OF TIME! What should have been only 15 minutes of pushing was actually just under 2 hours. (I checked the midwives notes later). I just waited until I was entirely at the mercy of my body to force her out. The 2 hours noted must have included that recovery time part, I think.

But psychologically, it felt good. At least if I was destroying myself, it was through no decision of my own...

The pain felt better too. It was a tangible pain. Contractions are all internal pain. This new pain was like a pin prick- external pain. It was truer, more real pain. And, who knows why, but I preferred this pain to contraction pain. And I didn’t need or want the gas during this time. Many, many, many efforts later, but mainly from the force of my own body's will, my second girl was born.

And so, Willow Alannah welcomed Craig and I at 7.38am Easter Saturday. She arrived with her hand curled up beside her head and as she was awkwardly passed through my legs to me by my midwife, Wills let out a hearty cry. I looked at her and said "hi", and informed her that she was a hell of a lot of work, but that it’s all over now. I think I was consoling myself more than her. She just looked like she was grumpy from being been woken up from a nice dream. Craig and I looked at eachother for the first time since the birth began and beamed relieved smiles at one another. Praise God that we only birth them once!

The Knowing

I saw this movie yesterday with a friend during Avalon's sleeping hours and the more I ponder it, the more intense my review of it becomes.

There's really not much of a plot to "ruin" by writing this blog, so if you think you might like it and want to see it for yourself, maybe skip this blog in case I do in fact "ruin" it for you, because I'm not going to hold back any of the ending. In fact, the ending is why I'm writing this blog in the first place.

Nicholas Cage (the lead) is an atheist. His father, a Christian pastor.

Nic believes that the world is created randomly without any purpose or explicit meaning to it, until he comes across this old prophesy, written in numeric form, about a bunch of events in history that caused a lot of loss of life. One of these numbers correlates with a fire that Cage's wife was killed in, and he starts to reconstruct his world view from here. Maybe there is a reason to this life? Maybe we're not just put here for no reason? There must be a purpose to life!

Then it gets weird. The numbers are planted in people's heads by aliens. The aliens are portrayed as if  they're actually angels in several scenes. In that they are pictured with a religious drawing of God, and in their final scene, they appear in their true form with mystical vapourous wings emanating from their bodies.

I don't think the question of "are we here for a reason?" was actually resolved.

Because the numbers point to the end of the Earth. The world as we know it does end in total destruction, but before it does, the Christians end up saying "this is not the end" and they all accept that it isn't the end. But what I think the "Christians" are referring to is that the aliens have taken some children from the current Earth, to live on another planet. And so- life continues.

It's strange because I'm not sure what mixed religious ideas are being portrayed. It is saying that there is a higher power, and more to creation than what we see on this Earth. But as for the "point" of creation? It's lost.

I think that's because in my worldview I believe that creation was made for Jesus. Without Jesus in this movie, and the real "end of days" as the bible teaches us about, the world does look completely futile and life pointless, even when the filmmakers are trying so hard to say the exact opposite.

The filmmakers show that life continues with this group of 20 or so children, even when everything else is lost. And they portray this as comforting and beautiful. How is that comforting? How is it beautiful? What happens to the rest of the world that have been vapourised? Is it meant to be enough for them to be assured that the "human race" has continued, even when their life has been snuffed out?

I'm still obviously a little confused about this movie and what it's trying to say. All I know is that, even though  "Christianity" is in it (probably to not offend that large group of "nominal Christian" Americans), I don't think "Christianity" is in it in any way. It completely skews any resemblance of our beliefs and the "hope" of continued life that is presented in this movie is so marred that I can say, I'm appalled by it's mention. The Christians don't bring up Christ at all. If anything, they could be pigeon-holed into the class of 'random people who are more comfortable with death than regular people but for no apparent reason'. They are comfortable with their own end of life, because they know that "it's not the end". But there's no hint that they mean life with Christ eternally. What's more obvious is that they mean the human race isn't ended, even though their own lives have.

Moreover, the end of the world doesn't even have any reason behind it. It just happens. Which means that they're portraying the creator to be just that. A creator. He doesn't have the power to stop the sun's devastating rays, or he just doesn't care about destroying the large majority of his creation for no reason and starting again. I don't know which option I'd prefer, but they're both awful views of the Christian God. They're either saying we have a God who doesn't care about people individually, but corporately, as a race, he does. Or they're saying that he lacks the power to be in charge of the world he's created and has just done what he could to continue life. Not by recreating it elsewhere, but by just moving it across the universe to a more habitable world. 

I should be pitied if I followed a God who was this distant, and/or powerless! 

I wish filmmakers would quit trying to incorporate Christianity into movies, when Christ isn't even mentioned. Just do a sci-fi! Just a regular sci-fi! Don't confuse non-believers into thinking that this is related to Christian thinking! 

If some Christians were upset about the "hidden" message of the Golden Compass, they should be outraged at this blatantly contorted view of Christianity. 

What do I crave in this life?

My husband challenged me tonight in his talk at church. The passage spoke about our extended life past this world and what it offers.  It spoke about what we can look forward to as Christians.

And the passage explained that at the end of the days numbered for us on this Earth, "we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

Craig's comment that made me really think was that he said "what we strive for and crave in this world is what we are hoping for in the next" and following this, his challenge was "are we craving to be with our Lord forever, now?" 

Because if we're striving for something different now, then our lives are out of line with what we should be craving for our future, too.

I think it was pretty obvious  to me that I don't crave to be with God above everything else. I think in my heart, he shares his position with other people who I care about. And that's not good enough. Even if all of my friends and family were to reject Jesus and live against him, and even if no one I had ever known was to be in heaven with me, I should be entirely stoked that I share it with Jesus. Those people shouldn't even cross my mind because I should value Christ's presence SO MUCH MORE than theirs. I'm not saying that their salvation and therefore their happiness shouldn't matter to me, but just that, in comparison to Jesus, I should count them a loss. (Philippians 3:8) "I consider EVERYTHING a loss compared to knowing the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

It made me wonder HOW to crave God. And HOW to crave his presence. 

"Why would I desire to be with these people at the same intensity as I desire to be with Christ?" 

After some preliminary thought, it's probably partly because these people are physically in my life everyday and they display in small amounts the qualities that I love in Christ. Everything that I love about these people are qualities that are inherent in Christ's nature and are far more full in him than they are in his created beings.

So, I think I have to be vigilant in prayer that as God renews my mind with his truth, that I will appreciate Jesus more. After all, God's is ALL good, ALL generous, ALL loving, ALL sacrificial. My husband, who is a very godly man, could not be described in this way, and neither could anyone else I know of, except the Lord. It is right that he should take supreme position in my mind above everyone else, even if I haven't met him yet in the flesh.

SO I will keep praying until this becomes a reality, and I'm sure that after God changes this divide in my heart, so much more will change in my life as a natural progression. I'm taking action against this divided heart, and by God's work within me, it will fall!

Cute things

Before another life enters this family and I get lost again in all the craziness of needing sleep, I thought I'd note down some of the incredibly cute things Avalon's been doing recently which will most likely be forgotten if not documented by me somehow.

So I'm sorry if I bore you all with this. It's mainly for my benefit. =)

- After drinking water, she will occasionally make a dramatic "ahh" as she swallows before going back for more.

- She loves her bubble bath, after being introduced to it by Hayley and Mia (thanks guys! What a great idea for her to start enjoying bath time!), and now says "bubble, bubble, bubble" almost continuously for a half hour before the water's cold and we have to get out.

- Avalon has started walking in funny ways. The first is to poke her tummy out, like Mummy's and stare down at it as she walks, the other is to walk with her back hunched over and her arms hanging down limp by her side as if she's a monkey. Both which she thinks is very funny.

- When we ask her to chew her food instead of attempting to swallow it whole, she will open up her mouth so we can SEE the chewing in progress.

- We've taught Avalon to knock on Daddy's door if she'd like to say hello. She does it even when he's actually asleep in bed at 7am, just because she's so pleased of her new skill.

- When I told her to go back to sleep today, she took out her dummy and said "Mum no more" and shook her head. Too cute!

- Everything is "dirt".

- When we go outside, we need our "at" (hat) and she will become quite emphatic about wearing it if I ignore her request for said "at". Good girl.

Can you tell that I just love her to pieces? I'm a very proud Mumma.

Stapled in the head?

If you were passing me by in the street, and were a bit more of an attentive person, I think you'd believe that I'd tried to staple myself in the head.

I have a war-wound of motherhood today on my forehead which would make passers by think that I either have no life, or that I'm one for a dare.

These identical staple-like marks are actually not an injury inflicted onto myself... Yesterday, Avalon, in a giggling/running fit slipped over on a cushion as I was happily reclining on a beanbag and planted her two front teeth firmly into my forehead. What resulted was two bloodied lines that I'm parading around with today.

I'm just thankful that after the mean streak Avalon went through last week, at least I can say this injury was unintentional on her part.