Thankful Thursday

After reading about a girl who photographed one thing she was grateful for every day for a year, I have decided to introduce Thankful Thursday. Every Thursday (or Wednesday or Friday, we're flexible here at the Accidental House) I'll let you all know something that makes me happy, reminding myself in the process.

So, drum roll please, for the inaugural Thankful Thursday....

Today I am so thankful for my sleeping baby. Last night she slept for 7 hours straight (I didn't though, I became worried and got up to check on her very few hours. She was fine!) In the end my dodgy 4am judgement kicked in and I just woke her up for a feed. Next time I won't be such a rookie, and hopefully I'll be confident enough to just leave her be.

She also catnapped long enough this morning for me to have a decent length shower. This was particularly nice as I spent most of Tuesday with shampoo in my hair, because she started hard core fussing halfway through the shower and I couldn't bear it and got straight out to console her. She didn't have another quiet time for hours, but my hair is super clean this week.

Which leads me onto her baby rocker. With one foot I can keep her happily rocking, distracting her for up to five full minutes of hands free time. I can eat, type, sew, or read for up to 5 minutes. It's fantastic! I never knew how much I could accomplish in such a short time.

And that leads me onto anthology books. I visited the library and borrowed two chunky books full of short stories that fit into my 5 minutes of free time. Bliss!

One Month of Living

She's been in the world on her own for a month today.

It's been a month of baths with Daddy,


reading with Mummy,

and naps dreaming of being superman

She has gained 1365 grams (that's 3 pounds) and has grown 4 cm taller. She has learnt to hold her head up and has strong, kicking little legs. She curls up like a turtle when you unwrap her for a feed, and pulls a surprised, lemon-sucky face when she poops. She smiles when it's time for a feed, and sometimes afterwards too, when she's content and snuggling.

She loves baths, but has already outgrown the bathroom sink. She has learnt to focus her eyes, and likes to stare at light and patterns with start contrasts. This includes the pattern of the ridiculously ugly orange and brown tiles in the parents room at the local shopping centre.

She is blessed with excellent sleeping patterns, waking only once or twice during the night and then just for a feed. She self-settles. The fog of pregnancy has lifted considerably in the last week, and I am starting to feel like myself again.

Every day I have a shower before midday I feel a sense of achievement similar to that of brokering world peace. I don't think Mr Accident quite gets that, but he tries. I am obsessed, but still exhausted, and every time I return to the hospital for baby clinic the thought of giving her back briefly crosses my mind. But only very briefly.

I am still convinced she is perfect.

Welcome Princess!

My beautiful little princess has finally arrived! One afternoon, a month ago today, I was making a CD at home, a compilation of daddy-daughter songs to give to Mr Accidental as a becoming-a-dad present. The first attempt at burning the CD didn't work, and as I went to get a fresh disk, I had a sudden rushing, wet sensation and I thought I had peed myself - gross! I threw my clothes in the wash and got changed, but it kept on coming, and coming.... I rang Mr Accident with the news that my waters had finally broken , and told him that he might as well keep on heading to the gym, nothing would probably happen for hours. Thankfully he ignored me and came straight home.

The trip to the hospital was a little fraught. The hospital is on the other side of the river, and there had been two cyclones and a fair bit of flooding in our region over the previous few weeks. The bridge across the river had been underwater that very morning, and I had been strictly instructed to cross my legs and wait - I failed! Lucky the water had subsided enough for us to be able to cross the river, but there was still a lot of water on the road and Mr Accident had to drive very carefully. And on the verge. Sorry council gardeners, I'm sure the ruts in the grass will come out soon!

At the hospital I was put straight onto the fetal heart rate and contraction monitors, and even though I couldn't feel them, I was very excited to see some contractions were actually occurring! As the afternoon and evening progressed, the contractions sure got strong enough for me to feel them myself. At bed time, Mr Accident had curled up onto the teeny tiny couch in the delivery room and was sleeping. the contractions were about 5 minutes apart and strong enough to completely rule out sleep for me, but I did catch some 4 minute naps in between. Each time the pain was too intense and I let out a moan, Mr Accident would pop up awake from the couch and say "are you ok?" It took a LOT of diplomacy for me to kindly tell him, after what seemed about the 500th time, that I was actually Not OK, I was Hurting and to STOP ASKING ME THAT. He changed his half asleep, mumbled mantra to "You're doing a good job". Every 5 minutes. Thanks darling.

At around 7 the next morning not much had changed, and the midwife and OB decided to induce. The next 4 hours were a blur - once the drugs kicked in the pain hit like a freight train, waves and waves of rippingly strong contractions. The midwife gave me some mild gas, and then when the time came to offer an epidural or pethidine I kind of missed my chance, and just asked for more gas. It was great when she turned it up, it worked really well, but I became so wasted that she turned it off completely. I spent the next hour begging for more drugs, I Really Wanted That Epidural NOW Please. No joy, however.

Long story short, the relief I felt when my little one was finally born is indescribable. She was tiny, and purple and white, and the seconds between her being born and that first little squeak were the longest of my life.

At this point I have to give massive credit to Mr Accident. He really was fantastic. He was totally encouraging the whole time, helped hold the gas nozzle for me when I was too tired, and miraculously thought to get a cool towel for my forehead when that was literally all I wanted and I was too exhausted and confused to ask for one. He cut the cord, saw the head crown, and didn't (visibly) flinch at the placenta. And most importantly, he fell head over heels for our bub as soon as she was born. I could not have asked for anything more. But I still haven't burnt him that CD yet!

Hairstyles

Okay, this post comes with a warning: it has pictures of my head, with NO makeup, just after I woke up, and with a swollen pregnanty chin. (I must be freaking mad to post this.) So scroll down at your own risk.

However, every risk should have a reward - and, drumroll....

I need help picking a new hairstyle. Something to hide my huge nose, please. I have had issues with my nose since I was a teenager, always trying to look at people front-on, so they didn't notice the profile. You can probably appreciate this could get a little tricky when I was in a crowd. I'm sure I sometimes looked like a carnival clown, swivelling my head like mad.

Apparently bangs are supposed to help, and I think they might soften my face up a little and hide my expaaaansive forehead. I went onto one of those hair trial websites and went mad, and here are the results.

This is me wearing Keira Knightly's hair. I hope she doesn't want it back. If I went with this one it would look a bit less messy, I'm a neat hair freak. This is about the natural colour of my hair, and it also has a bit of natural curl, so I reckon this would work.

This is Jennifer Aniston's hair. If I had this one I would have to straighten it every day, which totally wouldn't work with a brand new baby. The real question is, what do you think of the bangs? Workable?

Cameron Diaz was kind enough to lend her hair. Again, the bangs? Are they ok?

This last one from Faith Hill. I'll wear it with my pearls and fluffy high heels when I clean the bathroom:

So what do you think? Curls? Bangs? Banging curls? Advise me, please....

When will she arrive?

I've started to feel a bit like the bottle that holds the ship. It was relatively simple getting all the necessary bits in, and they arranged themselves in a logical order to create something amazing. But now how do I get the ship back out? And how do I do it without breaking the ship or the bottle? And the ship just keeps getting bigger!

Every morning I wake up disappointed that the baby and I are still inhabiting the same body. I'm starting to experience the worries that I'm sure come to every new mother. Will she be late? Will she be healthy? Am I mentally and physically ready to give birth? More importantly, will I totally embarrass myself during the delivery? Shriek too scarily? Break down and cry? Try to leave? Poop? Will Mr Accident still respect me afterwards?

When I start to worry too much I think about the Queen - if she gave birth and then went on to rule a country while wearing pearls, I reckon I just might be okay.

Pavlova

We're heading out to dinner at a friends tonight, so I made up a pavlova. It's basically egg whites beaten with caster sugar, with a little vinegar and cornflour folded though. It's dried in a low oven and it comes out like a big meringue. (Isn't meringue the weirdest word? Spelt nothing like it should be.) You top it with sweetened whipped cream and fresh fruit. I'm still debating whether this one needs some fresh mango as well - I might just eat the mango all myself, no sharing.

The biggest challenge with pavlova is peeling it off the baking sheet. It always looks perfect on the tray straight out of the oven, but once I've had at it with a spatula and a knife trying to get it into a serving dish it's just a mess. I've found it's easiest to just give up, peel off the bigger pieces of outer shell and then flop the middle across as a mess. Put the shell on, hide the cracks with heaps of cream and voila! No one need ever know. Except now I've told everyone with internet access. I'm so sneaky.

Here is what the BBC says a good pavlova should look like:

Look, no cracks! It's a miracle.

Tinkles, wee and urine

I went to visit the obstetrician today. This always involves wee - it's unavoidable. At my first doctor they asked me to pee in a cup when I arrived. Despite the initial embarrassment of handing a warm cup to a nice nurse, I had no issues with this method. However, on my first visit to the new doctor they gave me my own specimen jar, and they wanted me to pee at home and then bring it in. This was the single deciding factor in my choice of new handbag - it had to be large enough to carry and conceal my wee jar without embarrassment. It's not cool to be running errands and dig through your purse, having pulling out the wee jar in order to reach your wallet. People look at you strangely. It's like carrying a concealed weapon. I guess I could whip it out if I got into trouble; if someone threatened to throw wee at me I would be far more disturbed than if they threatened to shoot me. So anyway, the crux is that every morning before I have a doctor's appointment I need to pee in a little yellow lidded jar.

This used to be an easy proposition, but I now have a sizable belly to contend with. The jar is small, the belly is big, and I haven't been able to see my lady-bits for months. This results in a literal hit and miss affair that consumes my morning. It usually takes a couple of goes to get it right, so this needs a fair bit of hydration, which brings its own problems. Sneezing suddenly becomes a stressful event.

My appointment was supposed to be at 1215 but I didn't get in until about half past one. I tried to be understanding, but it was over my lunch and I was so incredibly hungry, and I needed to pee again really badly, but I was worried about going to the bathroom in case they called me and I wasn't there. When I was finally seen I was so relieved that it was the shortest appointment in history. Baby is well, she still has a head and a spine and a heart beat, and I still have blood pressure. More than that I don't know - we didn't have enough time! I do know I am sitting on the 85kg mark, which is a solid gain of 20kg over the pregnancy, with only 11 days to go until the due date. I'm starting to get impatient!