Happy Easter

Fighting a Losing Battle

One of the main problems with depression is that it never really goes away. No matter what the experts say, no matter how much CBT training or counselling you have, it is always there, somewhere in the background!

I refuse to take medication for it, probably not the best idea I've ever had but I just think it's un-natural to pump our bodies full of medication all the time. I also swear that the medication changes people, they become very detached from the world and un-naturally dosile.

Over the years I have tried many different methods for managing depression and none of them have really worked but I do now have a sort of system that seems to work quite well.

It is quite simply a weekly routine. Everyday we have at least one thing to go to or do. Like today, Tuesday, we go to one toddler group in the morning that starts at 10am, so I have to get up, get dressed and get out of the house. Now to anyone that has never suffered with depression this wouldn't seem like a big deal, but to someone that does suffer sometimes just managing to get out of bed in the morning is a massive achivement! 

Then this afternoon we have another group to go to. It helps to split the day up so you know that you don't have a whole day at home with two little ones that will inevitably get bored and start playing up. It helps me to know we have stuff to do and places to go, it helps to put me in the right frame of mind for the day.

So on days like today, when I feel tired, achey and just general rough it helps me to drag my behind out of bed and forces me to get on with it even though all I want to do is curl up in a ball in my bed and never get out again. 

What about you then, do you have a coping mechanism? Or are you one of the lucky ones that has never suffered with it? 

100th post - H's Birth Story

 As this is my 100th post I though I'd share with you H's birth story, as him and his sister are, after all, why I started this blog.
Everyone has their own unique birth story and this is his. I wouldn't say it's the nicest birth story ever but definitley not the worst.

I hated being pregnant, I spent far too long worrying about the birth and not enough time focusing on the fact that I was actually going to have a baby to look after afterwards.
I had a very detailed birth plan and I knew that I wanted an epidural, no exceptions!
H was due on the 8th of Jan and everyone kept telling me that it was very rare for babies to come early so I wasn't expecting him anytime soon.
Then on the 4th Jan I went into labour! 
That night as the OH and I walked up the stairs to bed I peered out of the window and what did I see... SNOW and lots of it! I looked back at my partner and jokinly said "It's snowing, guarantee you I go into labour tonight". Little did I know that I actually would, 3 days before my due date.

We both went to bed, same as always, nothing happening.
It took me ages to go to sleep as it did every night at that stage of pregnacy. (I just couldn't get comfortable).
Then suddenly in the middle of the night I awoke with a start and sat upright in bed. I must had made a noise or something because the OH jumped up out of bed faster than I have ever seen him move. He then promptly announced that I was in labour. It still makes me laugh now that he knew this before I did.
With this being my first child I didn't really believe I was in labour. I was in a kind of denial about the birth, like somehow I would just suddenly have a baby without actually giving birth.
I remember he kept asking me "Do you think your in labour?" and I remember thinking 'how the hell do I know, I've never done this before!' I'd been having a lot of Braxton Hicks pain weeks before this and I wasn't really sure if it was just that or labour.
It felt like period pain, a sort of warm feeling all around my ovaries with the cramping pain in my stomach. The pain came and went in waves exactlly the same as I get every month with my period. It wasn't anything like you see in the movies where the woman suddenly screams, then her waters break and five seconds later she has a baby. It was definatley a gradually pain.

The OH rang the hospital and they advised that we came in as we lived 30 minutes from the hospital and it was now thick with snow outside.

From here on in everything was kind of a blur but I will tell you the bits I do remember, so if it seems a bit disjointed then that is why.

I remember the car journey, and I remember thinking at the time, 'Thank god it's snowing, now he can't drive to fast. Silly things you think of, the fact that I was about to give birth was irrelevant.

Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre

I then remember arriving at the hospital and worrying about getting a ticket for the car.
Then it was the longest walk of my life from the car park to the maternity ward, (why do they put this ward the furthest away the possibly can!) and having to stop every minute for the flow of pain.

We finally got into the ward and they examined me straight away, I was only 3 centimetres! This was going to take a while.

By now the pain was like really strong period pain but nothing I hadn't felt before, every month for the last 14 or so years. 

I told them I wanted an epidural and they said I'd have to wait for the man with the drugs as he was busy with someone else at the moment. I don't really remember much after that point until he arrived, I think I went into some kind of trance or something.

When he did finally arrive I remember being in quite a bit of pain by then, I had to lean over the side of the bed and stay really still, easier said than done when you are in that much pain. I fet like saying to him 'How about I kick you full pelt in the goolies and then you stay still while I stab you in the back with a very big needle'. Luckily I was in to much pain to speak.

As it turned out I didn't even feel the needle go in.

I must admit I did feel a sense of relief after the epidural went in that this pain was going to stop soon, or so I thought!

After about an hour or so after I had the epidural I was in more pain than I was before. The midwives couldn't work it out until I tried to stand up. Basically I couldn't, I couldn't feel my legs at all, I couldn't even wiggle my toes. So naturally I paniced, they've bloody paralised me! 

What they decided happened was something to do with the chambers in my back along my spine, so the medicine had gone straight down to my legs instead of my stomach, where I needed it. 

By now I was in quite a lot of pain and was temporarily paralised from the waist down and still hadn't actually had any pain relief that was working. This was not going to plan.

They decided to get the medicine man back in and do ANOTHER epidural but higher up in my back this time.

Once this one was in it worked, I had no pain, it was amazing. The only problem now was that I was so numb down below that when it came to the time to push I couldn't. This is where it gets a bit nasty, just to warn you. So out comes the ventouse (the thing they attach to the babies head and basically suck them out of you). They had to cut me down there in order to get it onto his head, luckily because I was so numb I didn't feel this at all. 

So after much pulling and tugging which was sending H's heartbeat up, not suprising really (not the best way to come into the world) and about 16 hours later, he was finally born.

You think this story would end there but it doesn't (by the way if you've made it this far well done).

After he was born and the midwives had sewn me up again they wanted to transfer me into the recovery ward, only problem was I was still paralised from the waste down. They had to maneuver me onto a bed with wheels and roll me into the room. I then had to have a catheter put in which was horrible, possibly the worst bit so far, not because it hurt, I still couldn't feel anything but because I knew they had to take it out again at some point when the pain relief had worn off. 

I spent the entire night awake in bed worrying that I was going to rip the catherter out if I feel asleep. I still couldn't move and H kept being sick (nice tar looking black sick) and I couldn't do anything to help him so I had to keep calling the nurse in every 5 minutes to sort him out. Apparently he swallowed a lot of the fluid inside and he was bringing it all up, which was terrifying.

I didn't get the feeling back into my legs until the next day and by then I was so tired from lack of sleep that I didn't know what planet I was on let alone that I'd just had a baby. 

When I finally got to go home I was very sore from the stiches and it seemed to take weeks to heal but I had the most beautiful little baby boy which made it all worth it.

3 and a half years later and my little baby boy is so not so little any more

The Gallery - The Everyday

If I could give one bit of advice to anyone expecting a child it would be this...

If you are going to introduce something into the bedtime routine, whether it be reading a story, singing a song or putting their favourite toys to bed, I strongly suggest that you think very carefully about what it is because you will be doing it again and again and again 'everyday' for the next few years!

We made this mistake with LJ with her beloved animals. 

She has a pocket tidy in her bedroom and each pocket fits one animal in. So one day just before bed I showed her how to put them in and said 'Goodnight animals'. Little did I know that this one off game was going to become a regular occurrence, every night from then on in. 

The problem is people keep buying her new animals, so this little routine is getting longer and longer every night!  

I'm thinking that some of the animlas might just have to get 'lost'. I know mean Mummy.

This post was for The Gallery on the lovely Tara's blog at Sticky Fingers 

Terrifying experience

Last night the most terrifying thing happened to me and I woke up this morning feeling totally confused and scared.

In the night I awoke with a start because I thought I could hear H in our room, which was weird on it’s own because he never gets out of bed on his own in the night. I then went to sit up to have a look and realised that I was completely paralised! I literally couldn’t move any of my body, not even lift my head of of the pillow.
I completley freaked out and then I got confused because I thought I might still be asleep and was having one of those Lucid dreams where you can control what goes on in your dream.

I could still hear the noise in our room that I thought was H, still unable to move and then I freaked myself out even more by thinking that it was a ghost or spirit. Our new house is very old so this idea plays on my mind quite a bit.

Image by Mark Strozier

The last thing I remember was laying there, still paralised, and trying to convince myself that I was just dreaming and made myself go back to sleep.

The next thing I knew it was morning and I woke up really shaken up and freaked out! I told the other half about it straight away and he said that he remembered reading something about that kind of thing on the internet. I looked it up and apparently it’s called ‘Sleep Paralysis’.

‘A person may wake up and find themselves unable to move or speak as if they are frozen. He also may hear footsteps, see a ghost like creature or feel someone sitting on his chest.Throughout the history, people considered this phenomenon as work done by evil spirits. However, the modern science can explain the terrifying event as a Sleep Paralysis.’

‘A sleep paralyisis is possible a hereditary disorder in which one experiences very frightening seconds or minutes of total body paralysis. A victim in this state feels awake but he cannot move or speak. Common symptoms include feeling choked or suffocated, hearing strange noises like footsteps and voices, seeing beings or dark shadows and feeling an existance of someone in the room. ‘

‘When a person sleeps, his brain sends signals to inhibit any muscle contraction. If he comes into consciousness before the brain sends signals to activate muscle contraction, he cannot move his body and consequently becomes paralyzed.’

‘How an episode of sleep paralisis induces visual or auditory hallucinations is still not clear but it seems to have a significant relationship with anxiety.’

 SOURCE - Serendip’sexchange

I don’t really know what happened last night but one thing I know for sure is that I never ever want it to happen again and the stupid thing is that I’m now worried about going to sleep tonight.

It does, however, show you just how powerful the human mind really is.

Image by reighleblanc