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I'm Bec Sendt and I'm just another mum with just another parenting blog. I'm not out to change the world, just keen to commit some of my thoughts to paper. Hopefully you can share in and relate to, some of my joys and frustrations!
When I first read this blog post from US blogger Kelle Hampton, I cried and cried and cried!
She wrote about the birth of her daughter Nella Cordelia so beautifully that I couldn't not share this.
Kelle is also a photographer, and the photos of her brand new baby are stunning, and make reading her words all the more powerful.
Read the full post here on Kelle's blog.
It is a long post, so I've included my favourite parts here, but if you have some time, be sure to immerse yourself in the whole post and the photos that go along with it.
Nella Cordelia: A Birth Story
the tiniest little body came out of me, arms flailing, lungs wailing...and then, they put her in my arms.
...and I knew.
I knew the minute I saw her that she had Down Syndrome and nobody else did. I held her and cried. Cried and panned the room to meet eyes with anyone that would tell me she didn't have it. I held her and looked at her like she wasn't my baby and tried to take it in. And all I can remember of these moments is her face. I will never forget my daughter in my arms, opening her eyes over and over...she locked eyes with mine and stared...bore holes into my soul.
Love me. Love me. I'm not what you expected, but oh, please love me...
(Later,) I remember my pediatrician suddenly walking in and my heart sank a bit...I knew. "Why is she here?" I asked. And they told me she was just checking the baby out. Which she did. And then the room grew quiet and everyone was asked to leave. I started shaking. I knew it was coming. The tears. The twisting in my stomach that they were about to rock my world.
Brett stood behind me, stroking my hair and my nurse friends, Dot and Katie, stayed on either side of the bed. And it happened.
My pediatrician snuggled Nella up in a blanket and handed her to me...and she knelt down next to my bed so that she could look up at me...not down. She smiled so warmly and held my hand so tight. And she never took her eyes off mine. We had been through a lot together with Lainey's jaundice and I have spent many tearful conversations with her over the course of these two and a half years. She is an amazing pediatrician. But at this moment, she became more than that. She was our friend as she beautifully shared the news.
I need to tell you something.
...and I cried hard... "I know what you're going to say."
She smiled again and squeezed my hand a little tighter.
The first thing I'm going to tell you is that your daughter is beautiful and perfect.
...and I cried harder.
...but there are some features that lead me to believe she may have Down Syndrome.
Finally, someone said it.
I felt hot tears stream down and fall on my baby's face. My beautiful, perfect daughter. I was scared to look up at Brett, so I didn't. I just kissed her.
And then, Dr. Foley added...
...but, Kelle....she is beautiful. and perfect.
I asked for my dad to be let back in the room. And when he walked in, I cried again. They think she has Down Syndrome.
And he smiled as his eyes welled up with tears and he said, "That's okay. We love her." He scooped her up and I asked him to say a prayer. And there, in the delivery room where moments earlier she entered the world, we huddled around my bed...Brett still stroking my hair, Katie crying on one side, Dot on the other and Dr. Foley kneeled down beside my bed. He prayed and thanked God for giving us Nella and thanked him for the wonderful things he had planned for us. For our family. For Nella. Amen.
Dr. Foley hugged me and told me she got to hold her for her examination, but now she wanted to hold her just for some snuggles. And she did. I will always remember her compassion and know there is no one else that could do a better job sharing this challenging journey with us.
Katie asked if I wanted to nurse Nella, and I did. Another dreamy moment I had always anticipated and yet it felt so different this time. But I remember her latching right on and sucking away with no hesitation and looking at her, completely accepting me as her mama and snuggling in to the only one she's ever known and I felt so completley guilty that I didn't feel the same. I felt love, yes. I just kept envisioning this other baby...the one that I felt died the moment I realized it wasn't what I expected. But the nursing...oh, the nursing...how incredibly bonding it's been. The single most beautiful link I've had to falling in love with this blessed angel. And, look...I smiled. I don't remember smiling, but...I smiled.
This article from news anchor Jacinta Tynan appeared in this week's Sunday Life and caused a bit of uproar. Why? Because Jacinta was rejoicing in how much she loved being a mum.
You can read all of the controversy about why this is apparently not an OK thing to say over on Mia Freedman's blog, but I thought I'd share the article here in all it's loveliness.
This was my favourite part...
"You will resent the night feeds”, one mother warned me. I never did. I relished them. I took my sister’s advice: to cherish those moments when it was just my baby and me together, the only light on in the street. I didn’t want to will away one second. “Don’t you hate the sound of their crying?” another mother queried, searching for camaraderie. No. I didn’t and I don’t. Babies don’t cry to annoy us. They cry because they are hungry or tired and we are here to solve that."
The full article is below...enjoy!
The Big Easy- Jacinta Tynan
There is one thing nobody warned me about when I became a mother: what a breeze it would be. I was warned about everything else. All I had been told since I became pregnant was to prepare myself for the ‘toughest job of my life’. For years of sleep deprivation, boredom (yes, boredom) and my life not being my own. I was bombarded with tales of cracked nipples, all night vigils, and vomit on the carpet. I was more than mildly worried as a result about how on earth I would cope. I am someone who needs my sleep and had a decades long habit of calling my own shots. Would the requirement to be at the beck and call of a little one – even my little one – do my head in?
Which is why I got the most pleasant surprise to find being a mum one of the most seamless, joyful, intuitive things I have ever done. Yes there are sleepless nights (many of them, in a seemingly endless row) but there is nothing difficult about being up all night with the love of your life. I know our baby boy is only nine months old and isn’t even crawling yet let alone tearing through the house crashing pots on the floor. I know I only have one child who is healthy and I, thankfully, escaped the cruel curse of post natal depression but, still, I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Ask me if I have another, but from where I stand motherhood is a cinch.
Yes it is tiring, and yes it is time consuming with showers and emails a sudden extravagance. But it is not hard. Hard is being tied to a soulless job for 80% of your waking hours. Hard is fighting cancer, or having a child who is. Or not being able to conceive a child when you ache for nothing more. Soothing a crying baby who won’t sleep for love nor money is a privilege not a hardship. Wiping spew off your jacket before bolting out the door to a meeting is funny, not a drama.
It is not fashionable to say so. For the past decade or two – coinciding with most of us trying to squeeze a career in with motherhood simultaneously – we have heard the cry of mothers’ martyrdom. It has become de rigueur to complain about how arduous the whole thing is, one upping on whose baby sleeps the least, chucks the most, and who has less hours in the day. We didn’t lobby this hard and hang out this long for work life balance to admit the whole thing is a piece of cake. A cavalcade of books and blogs reassure us we are not alone in our hair ripping out struggle to keep it together: I Don’t Know How She Does It, Mommies Who Drink, and the riddled with sarcasm Motherhood Is Easy: A Survival Guide, having a good chortle at our disheveled demeanors, and misdemeanors. You are excused for your despair, they say. It’s a tough gig. And it can be. It just doesn’t have to be.
Journalist Jenny Dillon might be pushing it with her claims that mothers today are “perpetuating a hoax” pretending it’s as hard as it used to be, household appliances apparently putting us on “easy street”. But I do think we could learn a thing or two from our mothers and grandmothers. You never heard a peep out of them bucking in to double the workload and double the kids with no online groceries or disposable nappies. Sure they didn’t work (most of them) but they also appreciated that being a mum was one of the better things in life. My mum had six children, no help and, on occasions, a job. Yet she gave it her all with grace and joy. Our generation acts as if we deserve a medal.
It’s not like we didn’t know what we were signing up for. Most mothers want to be mothers, longing for the day when we will hold our own baby in our arms. How tragic to begrudge it because we can’t get a thing done around the house.
“You will resent the night feeds”, one mother warned me. I never did. I relished them. I took my sister’s advice: to cherish those moments when it was just my baby and me together, the only light on in the street. I didn’t want to will away one second. “Don’t you hate the sound of their crying?” another mother queried, searching for camaraderie. No. I didn’t and I don’t. Babies don’t cry to annoy us. They cry because they are hungry or tired and we are here to solve that.
“It’s just because you have an easy baby”, say mums when I confess (it feels like a confession) how much I love it. We do have an easy baby. So far. He laughs a lot and loves his food and sleeps, well, like a baby. And I am blessed to have a stimulating part time job and good childcare. Like most mums I have to “juggle” – just as I was warned – often presenting six hours of live TV news in a fog of sleeplessness. Until recently our baby woke religiously at 4am. I also feel an overwhelming responsibility for my baby’s emotional well being. But, hard? No. Exhilarating and rewarding more like it.
I never knew I had such capacity to love. Nobody warned me about that."
For those of you who haven't heard the latest broadcast, yes we are having a boy!
There are of course many advantages for us to have another boy, not least that we already have a cupboard full of clothes. Because of this, I reasoned with hubby that we could use the money we will save on not having to buy more clothes to go on a holiday instead! Sound logic I think...
There is of course, one little problem with this argument. I keep 'accidentally' buying more clothes for the new bubba! WOOPS!
It really wasn't my fault, I swear. This website: http://kids.threadless.com/catalog/babies is just too incredible to resist for it's awesome, original kids t-shirt designs. And they are currently on sale...with free shipping from the USA. How was I supposed to resist for $9 a t-shirt!
Have a look at some of the designs below, and I think you will agree, this accidental use of the credit card was not my fault!
So my boss loves wombats. And it's her birthday. So naturally, I made her a wombat cake.
The only thing is, he is so cute that I think I will have to stop people from eating him!
Enjoy the photos!
So this morning I bundled Nick into the car and headed to the hospital for my first 'booking in' appointment with the midwives.
When I made this appointment over the phone, I thought I was being very cunning by making a 9am appointment. My theory being the midwives couldn't be running behind at 9am, as mine was the first appointment.
Oh how silly I was.
I walked into the clinic at 8:45 (very punctual I thought!), quickly filled in a form and took my seat. Soon I was informed that I would be seen 'around 9:30am'.
WHAT? Wait. It's 9am. I'm the only person in the clinic! There are midwives everywhere! Argh!
Well, at about 10:15, I finally got called in and seen by a lovely midwife in what thankfully was a big room for Nick to run around in, complete with bed and bathroom. It took about an hour to establish that 'no, I haven't ever had liver disease, kidney disease, diabetes, congenital heart failure, etc etc' and that 'yes, I have had a kid before, here is my proof- he is running around the room like a crazy person'.
We finally wrapped up, during which time Nick managed to lock himself in the bathroom and press the 'emergency call' button. Despite the embarassment, the two midwives who came running into the room to respond to the emergency were quite handy in helping unlock the bathroom door...
So assuming I am still welcome in the hospital, I am due back there in two weeks. Oh the joys of pregnancy!
All in all though, the midwives were lovely and well worth the wait!
Red Nose Day, held annually on the last Friday in June, is the major fundraiser for SIDS and Kids. Funds raised through Red Nose Day activities assist in providing vital services and programs.
SIDS and Kids is dedicated to saving the lives of babies and children during pregnancy, birth, infancy and childhood and to supporting bereaved families.
With nine offices throughout Australia and a National office in Melbourne, SIDS and Kids areas of focus include bereavement support, education, research, national awareness campaigning, advocacy and fundraising.
Click here to donate to this very worthy cause on behalf of Rose and Victor de Santa Brigida, who I work with. Their son Tobias was only in the world for a very short time, and the de Santa Brigida family would like very much to help the Red Nose Day appeal raise money to help prevent their heartbreak from happening to another family.
From Rose de Santa Brigida,
"We hope by setting up a page in honour of our little man, we can help raise awareness and money for research, but more importantly, we feel and hope the money can also be used to keep providing support for grieving families just like us."
Perhaps as I am writing a 'parenting blog'...it's probably time to announce to the world that my body has been converted to a slow-cooker for the year.
I'm cooking up a baby, due to make an appearance sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
Get ready for a marathon of posts about the triumphs and tribulations of pregnancy.
Let's start with...
"Admiring a pregnant woman's blurry ultrasound pictures"
Sorry everyone, but it's time to humour me and "oow and ahh" at my 12 week ultrasound pics...
First up... the typical ultrasound pic...
(Helping hand- this is a side-on view of bubs)
Next...the wonders of 4D ultrasounds!
(Helping hand- this is an image of bubs from the back. So you can see bub's back and back of head)
Finally, just because I think it's cool- this image shows the blood flow in and out of bub's umbilical cord. Isn't it amazing what they can see!
I posted a little while ago about padded bra's for children.
Of an equally scary nature are "my first piggies" aka hair extensions for babies.
Here is the description from the creator...
"This listing is for our white bow Piggies with a pink flower in the middle. Who says grown-ups are the only ones who can wear extensions!!! This is the NEW fashion headband for babies.
Are you a Mom who has a little girl who doesn’t quite have enough hair to put up in a barrette or pigtail? Are you looking for something other than that flower headband that’s out there??? Why not try something different? Something that adds hair and style to your little one. We offer our piggies in platinum blonde, dark blonde, medium brown, dark brown and frosted. We have many different styles and colors of ribbions to choose from."And here are the photos...
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Note how much happier the baby is with her hair extensions in! So I guess they *must* be a good thing then...
Tonight after dinner, Nick decided he wanted a banana.
Great. Awesome in fact. My son is asking for fruit and not ice cream. Parenting win!
However, Nick is a little bit obsessed with colours at the moment (along with everything else previously outlined in this blog!)
So it was hardly a surprise that Nick then decided he wanted a blue banana.
Sadly, it is a little hard to explain to a toddler who has trains, cars, socks, spoons and shirts in every colour of the rainbow that bananas only come in yellow.
Anyone who has ever met a two year old before, will no doubt relate to the irrational tantrum that soon erupted.
So here you go Nick, a blue banana just for you!
