Bring it on

OK, I think I've finished whining now.

Clearly privacy is at a premium everywhere - many comments mentioned toddlers and toilets. Been there, done that. I understand. I do. And at least I have an unburnt house.

So, moving right along...

I'm back at work this week, after a very busy weekend featuring a rare Perth appearance of my London Aunts. Such darlings. They were so kind and hospitable to us when we were in London in 2007, so I was more than happy to be their (loosely bound, achieved by email, license to boss/draw together long-lost folks) social director for a 5 day visit. We went to a wildlife park where a wombat was scratched, along with a koala. We picnicked riverside, we looked up train timetables. We told tales, we ate scones and homemade jam, prawns, sticky date pudding, ice-cream cake and a large roast lamb dinner (we are very full).

I also managed to squeeze in a 20-hour retreat to a hotel for some time alone with my squeeze, although it was a close run thing. While wandering in the wildlife park I had a call from the booking agency telling me that the hotel was full and would not be able to honour our online booking. They were going into to bat for us, but they were unable to make them build a hotel room overnight, so did we have any other options? Clearly not. 6 hours later she rang me back to confirm that a room under repair now WAS available (phew).

We went, we gymed, we swam, we schmoozed, we ate room service for Valentine's dinner, we slept soundly. Mission accomplished. It was just lovely. We are very, very lucky people.

So I am working in clinics now, where there are antenatal sessions, and gynaecology sessions, some with midwives and some with doctors. Its a busy place, with lots of staff to-ing and fro-ing, and fighting over rooms, but it is generally a comfy place and the staff are all nice, so once I learn the routine I should be right. I worked in the outpatient clinics 4 years ago so I have some idea, I just have to adapt it to all these new clinics. Clinics also means no night shift or Sundays for a while. Yippee!

Today and tomorrow I have study days. I'm doing a 2 day Advanced Fetal Assessment course which will allow me to sign off on all the CTG traces I encounter in LBS. Its a useful skill to have, and as I hope to spend a long period on LBS this year I'm keen to achieve this competency. There's an exam involved, but I should be OK.

Steff went to work again today, no dramas that I heard about, so I hope she settles in better this week.

I do feel refreshed after a 2 week break and going away, even with a stressful last week or so.

I have also been enjoying So You Think You Can Dance on TV, and try not to miss it, or tape it religiously, or catch it up on the website. Another show I enjoyed was Cranford on ABC, which I taped the first week (cos it clashed with SYTYCD) - but I now discover to my delight that it is on ABC I-View - the online digital channel, which luckily our ISP subscribes to, so we can catch past episodes within the next week, in their entirety, without using up our download quota. Yay!

Its all go in my house, I tell ya!

And the very best bit of news is that as I type this, Lesley will be in the air, en-route to us here in Perth. I will feel most un-abandoned by her return, in contrast to when she left for the USA at a similar time to another best friend going to live in Scotland, and following the sudden death of another close friend. I am so looking forward to having her home. Just what I need...less abandon.

Lesley and I have a few projects planned, including making a quilt for a teenage boy that Frogdancer knows, who has lost his home and possessions in the fires. Frogdancer very kindly and generously passed on a quilt to his Mum that she made last year, that I got to see last September. She has posted about her visit to them here. Its a great post, I was moved to tears.

I'm also looking forward to the return of my prodigal son, who has been gallivanting in Melbourne, arriving on the morning of the fires. He goes back to uni on Monday, hopefully for his last year.

Well, I'm off to make dinner now.

Thanks for dropping by, I'd love you to leave a note and say hi!

Don't you hate it when...(warning contains whining)

Second warning - contains no midwifery content either! Just whining. And a snapshot of my day.

Don't you hate it when you wake up early to see the kid off to work. After a late night baking sticky date cake for her work, waiting for it to cool and packing it carefully. In bed after midnight. A hot night, not good for sleeping.

When you head out to the dentist, arrive after arranging the appointment weeks ago for while you were on holiday and being told your appt has been shifted and no-one told you?

And that your notes had NOT arrived from the previous dentist after sending a fax weeks ago requesting that very thing.

And when she keeps offering you an new appointment at a very inconvenient time because I'm a shift worker and that's why these things are arranged weeks in advance honey! No, I have paid A LOT of money to attend on conference on THAT day. (Oh, beam me up.)

And you get home to spend the last day home alone with your sweetie, but he's gone into work to kill some time because you were at the dentist.

And its your first day home alone together for literally months, and you know what that means.....

And when he gets home you go to hang out the just finished washing before leaping into the sack for some well-deserved adult time...and he has put a new tea-towel in the wash - a RED one- with your three favourite (previously) white tops, fave nightie, knickers, socks, and assorted other things that you really wanted to be WHITE (and now they're not).

So you grind your teeth and reach for the bleach while the washing is still wet, and you run out.

And while you are trying to remain cheerful and maintain the idea of libido the phone rings and its the workplace and someone has to come home because her back hurts from standing.

And she works a 40 minute drive away. And they can't possibly let her come home on the train (literally doorstop to doorstop) because she is distressed.

And don't you hate trying not to punch a wall with frustration (of all kinds) that the day's plans have gone awry? On the ONLY day alone together on our holidays.

And then you have a meltdown where you pour out your heart to explain why this is so fucking shitty. On so many levels.

And you both drive clenching and sniffing through snot to the workplace (thereby dripping shiny snot onto your fave clean pants) to pick up the also sniffing and red-faced worker, and deliver her floor workmat for standing (so there is no further excuse for repeat performances). She then catches the train home with her Dad because there would just be way too much emotion in one car. The workplace support workers support me as I blub.

There's no way to ever get this day back again. Life's like that. It could be worse.

Casual lunch out with hubby was quite nice in a 'desperate escape from the house with zero privacy' kinda way. But not what we had planned.

Then, with back miraculously repaired, and offers of pain relief declined she sat at her computer and read Fan Fiction with a smile on her face. He had a nap in our room, I fell asleep with a book in the lounge room.

Then he went out. Then I went out, walking, in the 36C heat to a long meeting where I scribbled very hard for two hours.

When I got home we looked up the only remaining hotel room in Perth for Saturday night, Valentine's Day, in a 5-star hotel for a luckily very good price.

We're going.

What do you do when you need privacy?

R is for...

An easy meme (I think it will be easy, I could be wrong).

You list 10 things you love that all begin with a given letter, and post the list on your blog. Anyone interested can leave a comment, you assign them a new letter, and on it rolls.

I got my letter from Lesley of Chapter III. My letter is 'R'.

My answers - in no particular order.
1. Roses
2. Rubies - both the colour and the jewels
3. Reunions - this is NOT my family depicted below. I'm sooo looking forward to seeing Lesley again.
4. Rabbits
5. Reading
6. Rummaging
7. Risotto
8. Romance
9. Rome
10. Rottnest Island. Look it up.

Just for fun, I made a Flickr mosaic out of them.

1. Red Roses, 2. Ruby Red, 3. Henderson Reunion 2004, 4. andouille sausage and chicken risotto, 5. Rubies.., 6. Johnny the Rabbit, 7. found at the rummage sale on friday, 8. summer reading, 9. ..{ R is For ‘‘ Romance ’’ ..♥.., 10. the romance of candlelight, 11. In LOVE with Rome, 12. Australia - Perth - Rottnest Island

R is also for reduce, reuse, recycle, rejuvenate, recharge, relax, real and recovery. I like those words too.

Be good.

A fortunate life

It seems irrelevant to tell of my gallivanting last week in the face of such tragedy afflicting our country at the moment.

It is all so shocking, a staggering level of destruction in the firestorms, an enormous and incomprehensible loss of life. We were in that region last year for our niece's wedding at Healesville, and can well imagine the leafy communities and winding rugged roads that have become death traps in the thick smoke and terrible conditions.

We have made immediate donations of money where requested, and I plan to make a quilt to send to the comfort efforts. It seems such a small thing ... We watch with tears in our eyes, and pray it doesn't get worse.

My husband's family lost a home to the Hobart fires of 1967. It is still discussed how Uncle Bob drove into the little cul-de-sac to fetch Mother and Auntie Marj, and drove away as the firestorm raced up the valley to claim the house behind him. He saw it in his rear-view mirror as he floored it uphill to take them both to safety with the clothes on their backs.

My heart is with all those affected.

We were very lucky last week to spend a four night break in the bush and beach setting of Eagle Bay, near Dunsborough on the South West coast. Thanks so much to the Zeds for the loan of a fabbo house, metres from the water through a tiny fringe of scrub. See the turquoise bit?

The house was ideal. Simple floors, huge rooms, fully equipped...heavenly. So comfortable. We kicked back and unwound. A lot. There were just the three of us, we could have had rent-a crowd with us.

Don was beside himself with delight. Give the man a beach close-by and he is there morning, noon and night. Give him a fishing pole and he is even happier. I know people have always felt this way about this house. I remember, now bittersweet, the happiness Lesley describes of sharing time with other friends there over the years. I was thinking of K, Les. And his family. Savouring the joy and simplicity of watching my husband fishing. This one got thrown back, but I was tickled to have been there to see it briefly. (edited to add - he caught another fish, a whiting, that became Steff's breakfast the next day)

I made his day on the first afternoon by joining him on the beach (I tolerate beaches, but I'm really more of a pool girl). And not just joining him, but swimming with him, topless, as I have forgotten my bathers (D'Oh). We wandered up and down the beach, slowly making our way in through the shallows, just us, well - apart from that solitary man in the distance, who walked past eventually, my back to him as he approached. As I was unable to find any full bathers to fit all of my gorgeousness, I ended up buying a tankini bottom and a new black bra and wearing it as a two-piece for the rest of the stay. Its been years since my tummy saw any sun! I kinda liked it.

The bush was lovely, we visited Meelup Beach - scene of the first of the wedding frenzies last year (ooh, my hair was really short).

We went to the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste - a whole post for another day. I love lighthouses, yet somehow this was the first I have ever been inside. It won't be the last.

I was terrorised in the shower by a very large spider on my last day. A Large, LARGE spider. Large amounts of screaming were involved. All lived to tell the tale (including the spider, maybe on his spider-weblog). A quick drop in to Busselton for a coffee on the way home and we headed back to Perth. An early birthday dinner that night with our son before he headed off to Melbourne.

Steffie started work today. It seemed to go well. She is taking sticky-date pudding to work on Thursday! I hope she won't get lost and phone me in tears again on Thursday. My heart was in my mouth, from 15 miles away, talking her through the backtracking to the station and taking the right way through to the place 200m away. Little steps. I'm so glad she came home cheerful.

The return of Laura

You know what I'm going to say don't you?

I'm back. From Eagle Bay. It was great. No really great.

Sorry to have skipped out on you like that. Husband watching all computer activity like a hawk. You know what I mean. So I didn't get to post a 'bye for now' note.

Post (with photos, thank goodness) very soon.

The house was even clean when I got back (amazing).

Later...

Welcome to Holland

I wonder if you have read or heard of this piece before?

It has been in my mind lately for many reasons.


***************************************************
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
byEmily Perl Kingsley.


c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you are going to have a baby, it is like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I am supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

Nevertheless, there's been a change in the flight plan. They have landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. You must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

Its just a different place. Its slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. Moreover, for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
************************************************

Its true. Some families only ever get to speak Italian. They never think twice about it.

Some commute back and forth from Italy (that can be very confusing). An Italian kid and a Dutch kid in the same family. Some of us have Dutch uncles :)

We become bilingual. Its a talent. An art. Not one we aspired to from an early age, but still...

For those who find themselves in Holland - welcome to the club.

And congratulations to my little Dutchie, my little spekulaas, for landing a job. Woo-hoo!

I wouldn't change you for all the pasta in the world.

Good news

I just picked up my camera!!!! Yay!

Bad news - hubby is away and I miss him already.

He's my favourite squeeze AND he cooks, cleans, shops, vacuums and gardens. In addition to working really, really, ridiculously hard as an academic.

I should be a better wife.

We really do need more time together. Alone.

Did I tell you we're going to Italy in June? and maybe Amsterdam?

(screams quietly in excitement). Can't wait.

From chocolates to boiled lollies

We are encouraged to ask women about their intentions re contraception prior to discharge from hospital.

One of the consultants stood at the desk and urged us all, loudly, to keep it up because we see some pretty sick women (well, we do) who are not doing their bodies any favours by imposing a pregnancy upon it. Parturient autonomy anyone?

On that topic, I had one such woman in my care on the postnatal ward the day after my dreamy day on LBS. She was 30 and had just had a premie baby, her first. She had a number of underlying conditions and I was having the talk with her about her contraception plans.

I won't be needing any.

Are you sure? Unplanned randomness can happen you know.

I'm seeing a woman, so it won't be a problem.

Oh, I see. Fair enough. Were you seeing a fella for a while to get your baby or did you make other arrangments to conceive?

Whaddya mean? (frowning)

Well, women with female partners sometimes arrange for a friend to be a semen donor and they turkey baste to get a baby, or they will have a short term arrangement in order to conceive. You did say you were seeing a woman didn't you? That you have a female partner?

I said I'm a single woman. A S-I-N-G-L-E woman. That's why I won't be needing anything. And I don't like no oysters! Geez!

D'OH!

She saw the funny side of it.

I'm very inclusive. So sensitive. And a bit deaf it seems.

My bad.

Number forty six

All good things come to those who wait. (Yes bold Em, I'm talking to you).

Today I was unexpectedly sent to LBS.

I arrived 4 minutes after the birth of a little one, to a primip who had laboured beautifully and quickly, a few stitches (not by me), done and dusted. I had a student midwife with me who was just terrific, really efficient with obs etc. The couple were pretty pleased with themselves, baby fed promptly, gave him his top to toe check on Mum's tummy, he was really relaxed. All was good.

Mum was in the shower and almost ready to go to the ward when I was called to another room.

It was another labouring primip, already 7cm dilated. I took handover and she stayed standing up at the windowsill. She was attended by husband and mother who were doing really well with massage, and she was rocking, not making much sound.

After a while she informed me there was 'something there'. I peeped and there was a pouting bottom, that went away with the contraction's end. But I knew there was a baby not far behind!

I kept peeking up her dress with contractions, seeing a bit of poop here, a bulge there. She was trying not to push, just let the contractions do the work.

It worked. What a genius, what a natural she was.

On the fifth look, there was definite perineal bulging and .....a head on view! I got the hubby to push the bell to call another midwife for the imminent birth, and asked her if she wanted to stay standing up for the birth. No, I want to get on the bed. Then you'd better be quick! I replied.

The second midwife turned up, I got my gloves on and the head was there, then slipped back after the contraction. Just enough time for the student midwife to come skidding in the door and scramble into a pair of gloves. We caught the baby together after a slow and gentle crowning, then a quick restitution and baby slithered out in a hurry, with a hand under the chin.

What is it? Mum asked - I don't know - you tell me! Its a girl! she cried Yes! I prayed for this!

There were sobs of delight, repeated thankyous and much joy in the room. Baby A blinked and looked around at all the grinning adults, pink and perfect and alert. She was calm and observant and very pretty. Her parents were just delighted, and so they should be. We midwives were most fulsome in our praise for them too. Such a clever woman, such a fantastic labourer, she made it look easy. We were stoked.

Unfortunately there were quite a few stitches needed here and there, nothing catastrophic but a bit ouchy initially. She was really great again, and turned to me for support during the stitching, which doesn't often happen, but I was really pleased to be 'with woman' in this way. She slipped her hand in mine, our heads were close and she asked softly that I tell her a story...so I began.

Once upon a time...there was a lovely young woman who was having her first baby, and when it was time to labour she was really brave and strong and beautiful and stayed home for a long time while her contractions came thick and fast. And when she got to hospital she was already near the end. And so she kept labouring beautifully, talking to her midwife when she needed to and telling her when the baby's head was there. And then she pushed out her baby easily and calmly, and everyone was very proud of her, and she was proud of herself, because she had done an amazing job bringing her baby to the world. What a miraculous thing is the female body, and the process of birth. God is very good.

It was such a special thing. I have never had a woman ask me for that before, and I was surprised that I slipped so automatically into storytelling mode, as if she was a child. She wasn't of course, but it seemed right. And she responded shyly but with delight to hear her tale already the stuff of legend. I told her that she should think about having her next baby at home, or in a birth centre as she had done so well she was an ideal candidate.

The baby remained calm and alert, and fed well and easily. It was really special. Her prayers were answered...and so were mine.

How delightful to spend the day with two new mothers who birthed with such power and ease. With two sweet, calm babies who didn't fuss but just responded well to their natural instincts. And to work with a student midwife who was so competent and thoughtful. We had a chat at tea, about how moved we frequently are at seeing women birthing so strongly, trusting their bodies to follow the physiological process, and how it all can go so smoothly. It is a privilege like no other, to be a witness to these births.

To top off our lovely day, on the board where the women's names are logged room by room, and they are noted as 6cm, delivered, or whatever, next to our room the coordinator had written:

"Delivered, beautifully"

I love being a midwife

I am here.

Just busy....being good.

Typing minutes while at the computer instead of blogging.

Seeing High School Musical 3 with the girls (finally) - OMG it was sooooo great, I really loved it. Ahem. No... really...it was good clean fun, with much UST (unresolved sexual tension). You could just tell that they were dying to get it on. And the music makes so much more sense in context, and it was much funnier than I thought it would be, and slightly less cheesy. And we went with A, who was squealing with delight. She is pretty well, if scarred. Its been good to see her twice this week, for two sleepovers and much cuddling. Concerns continue, but cuddling is reassuring.

Watching Northern Exposure on DVD - a real blast from the past, and still quirky and funny.

Op-shopping a bit. De-stashing in my head (sorry Vic, you're the ONLY recipient, it will be an awaited pleasure -soon).



Nursing a very tender ingrown and infected big toe that I can barely reach due to the stiffness of my back (since long ago surgery). I am trying to be a tough wuss, but my son thinks the faces I pull when hubby drips alcohol on it to dry it out (while gripping it tighter than he knows) are hysterical. I am trying not to vomit in pain, and he's snickering. He's very lucky he didn't have to push out (himself) as a 10lb baby. Adorable swine.



Going to work a lot.

No playing of bingo. Not much reading. NO crafting (hmmph).



Lots of Bloglining.



Trying to sleep in dodgy heat of 22 - 25C overnight. Sigh.



Looking forward to holidays.



Not getting the camera fixed yet. Tomorrow.



Growing my hair. Down one day, up the next. With flowers, clips, pretties etc. Very girlie.

Checking out pizza ovens. We are likely to build one ourselves from a kit. What fun! I've always wanted to try mosaics! I know if I uncover/de-stash enough piles of books I will find the book I bought about how-to-mosaic (stop laughing Widget. You too Lesley). The oven will also be green (the colour) - to match the newly rendered wall that has finally been completed. We are scrounging tiles and china and materials.

Getting quotes for a bathroom renovation.


And so it goes. Keep in touch.