Life has been super busy recently, hence no posts. I have had 2 weeks without having the boys so you would think that I’d have an excess of time for relaxation, well that would be the case, if it weren’t for Son moving house last Friday so, as I couldn’t help on the moving day because I was working, I offered to look after Evie on the days prior to the move, those excessively hot days. Their move went well, however since they both have a desire for perfection they concentrate on a specific, wonderful in their work life but rather limiting when moving house and needing to set it up quickly for an 8 month old who is crawling , cruising and into everything. As a result, by Monday the house was still full of boxes, mirrors propped up against walls and totally unsafe for an adventurous bundle of mischief so, I abducted her for the day. Thankfully it worked the trick and by the time I returned her the house resembled a home, rather than a junk yard.
On Sunday Amy, the boys and their Mummy and Daddy came round for dinner as they had only returned from Majorca the previous evening. We were lucky to still have Amy as, on their first day there, she jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool while her Mummy and Daddy were attempting to control her brothers. By the time they had realised that she was not with them she was bobbing up and down underwater. Daddy leapt into the water and dragged her out, blue and, eventually, spluttering. She recovered well, unlike Daddy’s camera and wallet which were in his pockets when he jumped into the pool.
I’ve been having a clutter clear-out and am now a huge fan of ‘Freecycle’ . I have always been a terrible hoarder, mainly because I hate throwing out something which is still ‘fit for purpose’, so having a system whereby you can pass things on to people who want them is brilliant.
Whilst I’ve been on annual leave one of my women who I had booked for a homebirth had her baby, in a lay-by! Whilst I was discussing homebirth with D and her partner she asked me what would happen if she decided that she wasn’t coping well labouring at home, I reassured her that if that were the case then we would transfer her in to hospital. I did point out though that as this was her second baby, and if she were progressing well in labour, the chances were that by the time we had got her to the maternity unit the baby would be very close to putting in an appearance, and it may well be too late for the epidural. I’m so glad that I said this as what happened proved my point. Apparently a midwife had been called out early in the morning, examined D, found that it was still early labour, stayed for an hour observing irregular contractions and then left, leaving D with her phone number for when labour kicked off. Labour did kick off, and D decided that she wasn’t going to bother the midwife as she was finding contractions too much to cope with, so decided to go straight to the maternity unit by car, only they didn’t get that far before baby decided that car travel was interesting and so he would get a better look by being born, in a lay by, on a dual carriageway. Thankfully everyone is well, the car does need valeting though!
For the past 5 weeks I’ve been on-call for a family friend who was having a homebirth. Needless to say this 1st baby was reluctant to start the being born process by himself, so off went his Mummy for an induction on Thursday. Boy was this an awkward little boy, so, so near to being born normally, but, after 14 hours on the syntocinon drip, Mum’s cervix nearly fully dilated, a doctor discovered that baby was trying to come out brow first and so a CS was the method by which the not-so-little – 8lbs 11ozs, baby boy came into the world. Once again though, Mum and baby doing well.
I’ve just managed to get 2 days much needed gardening in, the borders are looking so much better now and the risk from errant brambles has been contained. I must be stronger than I thought as I succeeded in snapping a tine off a garden fork, only 3 months old and with a 10 year guarantee. When I returned it to the store the assistant told me that they had never had one returned, broken, before. Don’t mess with me, I’m obviously a force to be reckoned with.
A Midwife's Muse 