Big Day for Jack

Monday was a big day, Jack managed to roll over front to back AND sit unaided long enough and stable enough for me to take photos :)

We have got him a fantastic high chair, it's a Stokke Tripp Trapp, a chair that grows with your child. I was lusting after one for ages but they are very expensive. But I thought I'd have a look on Ebay and happened upon one that was in the finish we wanted, bidding closing in 20 minutes and collection only from just up the road! It was fate, so we bid on it and won. We've been sitting Jack at the table with us for dinner since Sunday and he has started sleeping better. We don't think it's a coincidence. I reckon that being included in the family meal is helping him settle in the evenings as he doesn't feel he is missing out on anything. We didn't need to introduce solids early, just sit him at the table!

I've been thinking about some of the reasons parents give for early weaning, notably "my baby is interested in food and watches us eat". I've always taken issue with this. 4 month old babies are fascinated by everything their parents do. Their main way of learning is observation and everything that their parents do is interesting, even a smile from mummy is the most exciting thing in the world! Also, the mouth is the most sensitive part of the human body, babies learn a great deal more about things by putting them into their mouths than simply looking at them or holding them. They learn what the thing smells and tastes like as well as getting a more detailed idea of its texture and hard/softness. They also find it soothing to press things against their gums when teething.

Some of the things Jack has put into his mouth, or tried to, in the last two months:

his own feet,
clothes and muslin squares,
toys,
books,
the TV remote control,
an xbox controller,
people's fingers,
a plate! (I was eating a sandwich with him in my lap and he leaned forward and sucked the rim of the plate I was holding!)

Things he has watched me doing with great intensity:

eat,
fold laundry,
brush my teeth,
talk on the phone,
sing.

Does this mean he is ready to do all of these things? Hardly!

And just how, exactly, do people think that their 4 month old baby knows what food is? They have no idea that we get nourishment from it. In their world view food comes from the breast, a bottle or a cup. It's possible that if they have been cup-fed they recognise us drinking as receiving nourishment, but there is no way they can possibly understand that solid food from a plate is our way of filling our tummies.

Parents who follow baby led weaning (BLW) have noticed that the first few weeks or months their children are simply playing with the food, it isn't until about 9 months old that they truly seem to know that the food can fill them up and give them energy, once they have had chance to experiment.

I know it shouldn't bother me how other people choose to raise their children, but I can't stand ignorance when it comes to children's health. It's frustrating that there isn't really anything I can do about it, so I just have to vent here.

What a week

In the last week Jack has started rolling over, back to front to his right side and cut two teeth!

He'd been working on rolling over for about a month, getting as far as his side, sometimes turning his hips over so he was twisted in the middle but his shoulder wasn't making it out from under him. Then suddenly one evening on our bed he just did it, flipped right over like it was the most natural thing in the world. I rolled him back and called Andy in to see and Jack kindly obliged and did it again for Daddy. He did it again the next day on his play mat and this time got both arms out in front of him and pulled his head up to look around. He's only done it a couple of times since, seems to have lost interest a bit and still hasn't managed to go over to his left, or roll back onto his back, but I'm sure that will come with time.

He cut his first tooth last week, it came through at an angle with one pointy bit sticking out more but has evened out now and the one next to it came out at the weekend. He now has two front bottom teeth and his teething rash on his cheeks is starting to clear up, so that looks like the worst is over for now at least.

For about the last 3-4 weeks he has been having trouble getting off to sleep properly. Some nights he'll wake after about an hour screaming the house down and I had decided he was suffering night terrors. But some nights it wouldn't be so bad, just normal crying that was easily soothed with a cuddle or feed. Other nights he'll just refuse to go to sleep at his normal bedtime, instead staying awake for an extra hour or two and still wake an hour later! It was as if he thought he was going down for a nap, like during the day.

It may be connected to his teething, but Andy and I talked about it at length and wracked our brains to find a pattern. What we came up with was that the nights he seems to be worst have been when Andy was not around, or not participating in his bedtime routine. The night before last I stayed in the room with him after putting him to bed, Andy did too but left after about half an hour and ten minutes or so later Jack woke up crying.

So last night we both stayed with him, talking quietly and at that crucial 50 minute mark when he normally wakes he started to stir. We went quiet and watched him, he started to whinge so we both spoke up and reassured him that we were there and low and behold, he slowly went back off to sleep... have we cracked the mystery? Is it separation anxiety from Daddy? We'll try the same tonight and see what happens.

Development

Dating scans are accurate because all embryos develop at the same rate. At 24 weeks I'm viable because all foetuses develop at the same rate. I'm due at 40 weeks because all pregnancies are the same length as all bumps develop at the same rate. My baby will have growth spurts at 2 weeks, 6 weeks and 3 months because all newborns develop at the... hang on a minute... what's this? 4 months? My baby is hungry, s/he must need solids! But the research says it can be harmful before 6 months... but it's fine for my baby as all babies develop differently!

Where does it change?

The very same people who claim their pregnancies are utterly predictable because all babies develop at the same rate in utero claim that their baby's gut is ready to digest food two months early because not all babies conform to the same development patterns.

I find this odd. Now, I'm the first to say that there are differences in development between babies both in utero and out. I openly promote the fact that pregnancy can last anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks and that babies come when they are ready (i.e. not all are developed for birth bang on 40 weeks). Children do reach developmental milestones at different times, some roll first, other cut their first tooth first etc.

But when it comes to physiological development we can't actually see their insides so we can't actually know from observation whether their gut is mature enough to take solid foods. Isn't it best to err on the side of caution when it comes to our child's long term health?

Yes, the guidelines are a recommendation, not a requirement and it is every parent's right to ignore it or not. But recently I have encountered a number of people who not only ignore the research, but seem to think it is fictional or in some way unreliable. We are talking about dozens of academic, peer reviewed studies of tens of thousands of children. But when parents who have already decided to wean their child early they will, understandably, close their ears to the research that contradicts that decision one or more months down the road.

I have found, however, that many parents, at the time of making their decision are aware of the guideline, but haven't looked into the reasoning behind it and are not aware of the health risks associated with early weaning. They tend to say things like "I was weaned at 3 months and I'm alright, so I don't see the harm in weaning my baby at 4 months."

With very narrow world views like this it is easy to see why they would make such decisions, but I can't help but be disappointed that more parents don't take the time to look into these issues more.

Independent Midwife

(I made my 100th post last time!)

So, Andy and I had a meeting with a local independent midwife (IM) on Monday to go over the hospital notes from Jack's birth. It wasn't quite as tough as I was expecting it to be, I think because we had read over them on our own already and got the worst of it out of the way. The IM, Debs, asked us to describe, from our perspective, what had happened. That was the tough bit and I did cry a bit towards the end.

Then she had a look through the written comments from my labour and studied it alongside the partogram so she could see what physiological signs were going on at the time. She came to much the same conclusions as we had, that we had an inexperienced MW on the day who should have been suggesting specific movements to encourage Jack to turn as soon as poor position was suspected (from the very first examination).

Also, artificial rupture of membranes (ARM) should not have been offered as Jack's heart rate was elevated at this time which the MWs attending on the day themselves said this suggested he was in distress, which they confirmed on breaking my waters and finding meconium. Debs, however, says that "thin meconium liquor" as described in my notes is not really of much concern and that ARM is known to cause foetal distress, so when his heart rate was up anyway it was a very poor idea. It is also known to make it more difficult for poorly positioned babies to turn into a better position. All in all it was an extremely inappropriate intervention to offer.

On the positive side, however, she thought that the MW at the hospital stretched her guidelines and protocols for us, albeit in a very medicalised way, she still piled the interventions on, but did not put any time pressures on us for well beyond what her superiors will have been advising. When Debs was in the NHS she said that she found it almost impossible to provide woman-centred care and when she did she was repremanded for it. The implication is that the hospital MW we had was probably in a bit of trouble for the leeway she gave us.

Another thing that she advised us of is that prolonged periods on the syntocinon drip can increase risk of uterine rupture, which is why it is ill-advised for VBACs. We were not advised of this risk at the time of being offered augmentation of labour, nor was it raised as a reason to come off the drip and go into theatre. I do feel that this was poor medical practice. The MW and consultant did not allow us to make an informed choice, they did not mention any risks. I do not believe that the onus should be on the client to request this information, though sadly it seems to be the case.

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. My own thoughts about what happened have been confirmed by an experienced third party and although we can never know if things might have gone differently with another MW I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that my body did not fail me.

It was also great to meet someone who we may well hire next time, her fees are doable if we save a little each month, but as she is currently expecting her first baby we had better make sure we wait as long as we intend to!

Party

On Saturday 1st August we held a large house/garden party to celebrate Andy's 30th birthday and Jack's Naming Day. In the week leading up to the event we kept a close watch on the weather forecast and crossed all our fingers as it looked more and more likely that the day would be plagued by rain. We invited rather a lot of people and knew that we would have a problem if we couldn't use the garden.

Andy wanted to barbecue and we were planning to plant a tree for Jack. We decided to get the tree planted the day before, so as not to have to get dirty on the day or battle with the weather to get it done.

We had friends and family coming from all over the country, some arriving on the Friday and some staying with us, so there was a lot of cleaning and tidying to be done!

It was fantastic to see friends that we hadn't seen in a year and friends from Bristol not seen since our house-warming in December. We also got the chance to meet my second cousin's little boy, who commanded a lot of attention with his loud screeches!

Saturday came and the weather did not look too promising, but the forecast was for light showers and that's what we got. For most of the afternoon we were able to use the back garden, where Andy tended the bbq surrounded by friends. At the peak of the party we had over 40 people and there was a heavy shower at one point, meaning the house was full to bursting!

In a break in the weather we did get everyone outside to show off Jack's tree and propose a toast to him and Andy. I hadn't wanted to do a speech or anything formal or fancy, but this seemed appropriate. Afterwards though I felt a pang of regret for not mentioning our chosen Supporting Adults or why we chose Jack's name. Having lost the little book I had wanted people to be able to write their hopes and wishes for Jack's future in there really wasn't much about the day to mark it out as a naming day :(

That said, I did commission a fantastic cake for Jack, which was completely beautiful and much admired by everyone. It tasted amazing too! Luckily there was quite a bit left for Andy and I to enjoy over the following week!

Once the guests began to drift off we wound things down, Andy and some of the remaining family and friends went down to the local pub, who were having a beer festival. It was a chance for Andy to be the centre of attention and really celebrate his birthday. I got Jack into bed and had a precious hour to myself before heading to bed!

All in all it was a lovely day, so nice to see Jack with his cousins and our friends' little boy with his interesting mode of transportation - bum shuffling! I wish I had filmed it!

Milestones

Jack is over 4 months old now and developing wonderfully! He cut his first tooth today, poor little mite is really uncomfortable, is drooling constantly, chewing everything and has sore cheeks. Hopefully now that the first one is out it will get easier for him.

He isn't rolling over yet, but can shuffle about and is very partial to grabbing his feet! His coordination is fantastic and he is interested in everything around him. He is a very happy boy, he giggles at being bounced and having his neck cleaned in the bath and has started to laugh at the sight of me! He can almost sit unaided already and will take his weight on his feet when supported in a standing position. He loves books and can turn the pages of board books himself.

Most of the mums I shared my pregnancy with have started weaning early and I have recently found myself drifting away from them. It's hard to stay friends with people who have such different ideas about parenting. Jack won't be having solids until he is at least six months old, at which point we will be following baby-led weaning (BLW), which is the practice of including children in meal times and offering them real food, not purées. It helps ensure a happy and healthy relationship with food, teaches table manners and is generally a lot easier than spoon-feeding! I'm looking forward to it :)

The Recovery

At 6 days post partum it was found that I had an infection in my c-section wound. I was then on antibiotics for most of the next 7 weeks, and having my wound dressed by the district nurses at my local GP surgery every few days.

I developed post natal depression, had trouble breast feeding Jack and found it virtually impossible to participate in the basic care of my new baby. I couldn't bend or kneel to change his nappies, couldn't lift him from the floor or his bouncer, couldn't get out of bed in the night to fetch him to me for feeding, couldn't lift him in his infant carrier or push a pram and couldn't take him out anywhere without help. It was hell and seriously interfered with my ability to bond with him.

Luckily, Andy had over 3 weeks off work so was able to help a lot during the worst of it. My mum then took over, visiting every day to take me to the nurse and help look after Jack.

We had trouble with BFing, mainly, I believe, because of the surgery. I wasn't able to hold him for several hours afterwards, we didn't get our immediate skin-to-skin, in fact it wasn't until the next day that I got this. We were advised to use nipple shields to help him latch on, so we used these for a couple of weeks, but they were a pain to use, had to be sterilised and were generally unpleasant and interfered with normal feeding. At about 2 weeks we cracked it, we ditched the shields and Jack managed to latch on on his own and from there on I was able to feed him normally. We did give him a few bottles of formula in those early weeks, but stopped when Jack was about 5 weeks old. We've been exclusively BFing since, Jack will be 19 weeks old tomorrow!

When my physical recovery took off I was almost immediately better able to bond with Jack, I could do more with him and began to enjoy being a parent. But the events of his birth continued to haunt me and although I had felt ok with each decision at the time I began to look back with deep regrets about our decisions to call the MWs so soon, consent to ARM and hospital transfer and the cascade of interventions we were coerced into accepting. I have since learned of many women who had extremely long latent labours (days long), who had posterior babies etc who gave birth naturally at home. I applied for my hospital notes and on examining them we found that there had been more progress than we had taken in at the time (at one point I was 5-6cms) and Jack was posterior, not transverse as predicted. Transverse babies can become lodged in the pelvis, but women give birth to posterior babies all the time with little more difficulty than anterior babies.

I believe now that the NHS MWs did not try hard enough to help me have a normal birth, protocols and misguided use of interventions led to the c-section. We have an appointment with an independent MW next Monday to go over the notes with an impartial 3rd party and I am keen to know what she thinks about what happened and what she may have advised differently had she been in attendance.

I have agreed with Andy that the only way I would consider having another child in the future is if we can hire an IM and shun the NHS. He agrees with me. A dear friend asked me why it matters what happened and I had to tell him that I feel I failed as a woman, I did not give birth to Jack, he was surgically removed from me and the experience of giving birth that I was very much looking forward to was stolen from me. It also has implications for Jack's health (c/s babies are higher risk of asthma and diabetes) and makes a normal birth in the future less likely. Hiring an IM goes some way to increasing the chances of me being able to give birth next time and there is no way I will trust the NHS to have my best interests at heart in future, they will have their arses as their top priority.

The Birth

OK, so it was another four weeks after my post about normal birth that Jack finally decided to arrive. I wrote this birth story a few days after the events, it was still very raw but also written with some naivety... Jack was born on Saturday 28th March 2009, at 18.37, weighing 8lbs 7oz.

It's hard to say exactly when labour began! We thought it had got going on Sunday 22^nd March. I was having regular surges at five minute intervals and went into the trance-like state I had been practising for so many months. It was a euphoric experience, pain free and very intense. The MWs were called out and I agreed to an internal to see where we were at. It was fairly gloomy news, I had barely begun to dilate and my cervix was still high. The MWs left us to it and the surges almost immediately stopped. I then spent the next few days in an almost constant state of frustration waiting for things to start again but only ever had occasional irregular surges.

It wasn't until Friday 27^th that I knew things were starting for sure. I woke up at around 5am with surges accompanied by cramps. I got up and wandered about a bit, squatted by the bed and tried to put my breathing to good use. After almost an hour I woke Andy to tell him something was happening. I couldn't concentrate on my breathing, I was excited and restless and it did hurt a fair bit, so I was a bit frustrated too!

We kept an eye on the surges and after a while we were happy that they were coming five minutes apart. So my mum was called and we put some music on for me to try and get into my deep relaxation. I got half way there, was using the breathing techniques I'd learnt and it was all going pretty well. Soon the contractions moved up to every three minutes and we thought things were progressing quite quickly so called the MW.

My mum arrived and sat with me while Andy started getting the pool ready. Shortly after my MW arrived and I remember being so pleased that it would be my MW who I had seen antenatally who would attend the birth. She examined me and again it was not great news. Despite the frequency of the contractions I was barely 2cm dilated and my cervix was still high and posterior. She also said that it felt like the baby's head might be in an awkward position.

She agreed to leave us to it for a few hours and I sat on my birth ball by the bed, trying to breathe through the tightenings. They were getting very intense and I found it too hard to get into my relaxed state. It was very different to the previous Sunday.

We decided to try and keep busy so the three of us went into the front room and put a film on. I sat on the sofa with my birth ball in front of me and with each surge I moved to my knees on the floor and leaned on the ball. It was getting more painful and even harder to relax and I desperately wanted to get in the pool. We had to turn the film off half way through for me to go back to bed and put my relaxation CD on. Things improved a bit then and we called my MW back early afternoon but there had been no progress.

I was getting frustrated now and all attempts to get relaxed were failing. But I was still reasonably happy with the pain and it felt great to know that we would be meeting our little one soon. My MW called in the on-call MW for the evening so I could meet her before needing her in the night – everyone was still sure baby would arrive soon – my MW was going off duty so it wouldn't be her delivering our LO after all. So we met the new MW, she was young and seemed a bit nervous, but I was barely able to register that at that point. Both MWs left with the parting advice to give them about an hour's notice when I felt we would need them again as the second MW, who I had not yet met, had to come from Leeds and go to Bradford first.

It was only an hour or so later that the intensity really picked up and I felt desperate to get in the pool for the pain relief. So we called the MWs back and they arrived just over an hour later. I was told I was 3cm and could get in the pool. By now it was about 7pm and all I'd eaten all day was half a sandwich, but I just wasn't hungry.

Andy and I got in the pool and it was absolute bliss! The pain eased up but the contractions kept coming. But they weren't as regular as the MWs would like, and hadn't been for a number of hours. They would come in pairs with a bigger gap between each pair. But this didn't seem to be of much concern. I spent most of our time in the pool up on my knees leaning against the side of the pool, aware of being in a good position for the baby to descend.

The MWs and my mum sat in the living room chatting while Andy and I laboured in the pool for a number of hours. I was back to enjoying it now but soon the contractions became much more painful and I asked for the entonox. I didn't use it right away, I didn't want to feel sick or drunk, I'd always been wary of using the stuff but after a few more very intense contractions I relented and started sucking.

I told the MWs I felt like I needed to push and they came to sit with us, everyone was quite excited now. I'm not sure what time it was or how long it went on, but I was using the “J” breathing from hypnobirthing rather than trying to actively push. The MWs wanted me to get out of the pool to examine me, they had guidelines to examine me every four hours. I didn't want to get out, but I agreed and we went into the bedroom.

Here is where it all started to turn. I think it was about 3am, so I had been contracting at least every five minutes for 22 hours, I was exhausted. The MW examined me and found that I was still only 4cm, if that and I began to feel very disappointed. She said that she could feel the sac between baby's head and my cervix and she offered to break my waters as it might make the contractions more effective if the sac was no longer forming a cushion. I had heard of other women finding that they progressed after ARM so I agreed to it. She went ahead – it didn't hurt, much to my surprise – but her face said it all. She told me there was meconium present and that we should transfer to hospital.

I resisted at first, I remember saying a few times that I was post dates and that baby probably just had mature bowels. But she was concerned that the last few doppler readings had shown an elevated heart rate. I asked them to keep monitoring with the doppler for a while, which they did, they checked him about every five minutes for half an hour, while the lead MW talked to her supervisor on the phone regularly. His base line rate was up in the 160s consistently, whereas it had been around 140 earlier.

My mum and Andy were starting to really worry, Andy was even a bit tearful so I agreed to transfer. I was devastated and cried a bit, saying that I was going to end up with a c-section – I knew the hospital transfer story well - but felt we were doing the right thing. In the ambulance I really got stuck in to the entonox, I was becoming distressed and the pain was getting very intense. Once we got to hospital I had to stop a few times on the way in for contractions, I was holding onto my V-pillow for dear life and was barely aware of where I was.

We got taken into a room on the delivery unit and I was offered a bean bag rather than the bed, which I accepted. I was very woozy from the entonox and couldn't focus on any of the people coming in to the room to talk to me. I remember a woman offering me an epidural and telling me they were going to put a canula in my wrist. I shouted “No!” I didn't want a routine IV or anything and really didn't feel the need for an epidural. People came and went in a blur as I got more and more drunk on the entonox.

I remember my dad trying to tell me to stop taking it and someone said to only use it during a contraction, but the pain went on between contractions as well and I was finding it hard to tell where one ended and the next began.

I don't know how long I sat there, but I remember them putting me on a syntocin drip to try and get my contractions into a regular pattern and I dozed my way through several hours, sucking on the entonox.

A some point I moved to the bed and was examined again and there had still been no progress, I was stuck at 4cm. It was confirmed that the baby's head was transverse, so the widest part of the head was pushing down, basically preventing dilation. Breaking the waters hadn't helped, the contractions were still not regular enough to compensate for the position of the head and I had a premature pushing urge. I tried to fight it, but god that's hard! I remembered from our antenatal class a tip to lift your chin to resist pushing, which I kept doing but it just didn't help. I could feel fluid rushing out of me every time a contraction peaked and I was screaming the place down. It was the most horrific period of my life. I cried and screamed through each agonising contraction and couldn't stop myself pushing hard even though I knew I had to try.

The MW examined me again and found that my cervix had swollen and closed up. She strongly suggested an epidural to stop the pushing urge. I agreed and we were given four hours to get my cervix to unswell and start dilating before we would have to talk about a c-section. I remember the anaesthetist telling me to lay off the entonox and taking it away from me! Once the epi was flowing I didn't need it and I became properly lucid for the first time since about 5am.

The epidural was pure heaven. By this point it was about 11am, I'd been labouring without food or sleep for 30 hours. I was able to sleep and the pushing urge disappeared completely. Four hours later and my cervix had started to unswell but was still only 4cm. We talked at length with the MW, who I was finally able to focus on! She was wonderful and had been looking after me all morning, though I was oblivious. We asked for another two hours to try and get the baby into a better position. The consultant wasn't happy about it but he agreed as the baby's heart rate had settled down significantly since we arrived and was holding steady at just under 150.

I managed, with difficulty, to get onto my knees and lean on the head of the bed, I was desperate to get the head to turn so that I could still give birth to him. But we had very limited time now and I knew that it was going to do no good. I actually felt fine about it, I was reasonably cheerful in fact. The most important thing seemed to be that we had done everything we could and that we just wanted a good outcome. People kept telling me that my body just wasn't going to manage it and although I was upset and disappointed I felt we had taken the best decisions we could based on the information we had at the time.

I was checked again at about 5pm and had barely got to 5cm in 36 hours. So we agreed to the section. The anaesthetist came back to top up the epi, the consultant went through the consent form and got me to sign it and Andy was taken away to get into scrubs. When he came back I remember declaring to the room at large how sexy he looked! We had a giggle with the MW about Dr “McDreamy” Shepherd in Greys Anatomy and everything seemed quite cheerful, despite what was going on. The MW cleared the room to put the catheter in and shave me, concerned about preserving a little dignity for me, which was much appreciated. My mum went to meet my dad and wait for it to be over and we were wheeled into theatre.

It wasn't too bad, I still felt calm and reasonably content with what had happened, I had Andy right by me and the MW who had looked after me all day was there too. We insisted that Andy be allowed to announce the sex, it was the one part of our birth preferences that we could still have, so the MW made sure everyone knew to keep their mouths shut! The epi made me really shaky and I kept trying to breathe and relax to stop my arms from lashing out.

When they held him up for us to see there was really no mistaking him for a boy! Andy announced it anyway and I started to cry. He was taken away to be cleaned up and he needed a little help breathing as he had swallowed some meconium. But we soon heard him cry and the MW yelled that she'd been weed on - twice! He was handed to Andy all wrapped up and he sat with him by my head while they stitched me up. I tried to look at him and stroke his face but I had to crane my neck and it really hurt and I was still shaking uncontrollably. The stitching up seemed to take forever and I did ask at one point if everything was ok, as it was possible they had been busily stopping a haemorrhage or something without alerting us! There was a woman stood by my head on the other side to Andy, I'm not sure who she was, but she reassured me that I was fine.

When it was all over we were taken to recovery and the next hour or two is a blur, except that I kept on shaking and couldn't hold Jack yet as I was still being kept on my side. I remember someone manhandling me to put Jack to my breast and he sort of fed for a minute. My parents came in to see us and my MIL popped in just as they were tidying me up to take me to the ward! I actually had to ask for some privacy, I think they would have had everything on display to my MIL if I hadn't said something and then I was on the ward and Andy was saying a heart-wrenching goodnight to us both.

The three days in hospital passed slowly. Although Jack slept lots I couldn't and various midwives kept trying to help get him feeding, some of whom with very little regard for my personal space, getting very hands on without asking my permission. The MW who was on duty during the day for all three days was wonderful and I am very thankful to her for being very supportive. She wanted me to stay in longer to get the breastfeeding working, but I was desperate to go home. I couldn't stop crying and the nights were getting harder to be without Andy, so on the third day I insisted on going home and she told me she had every confidence we would persevere at home and crack it, which was a nice confidence boost.

It was good to get home, but the recovery was hell.

Oops!

So looks like I have been somewhat remiss here, not only have I failed to blog about the arrival of Jack but I haven't updated on anything since! I'll get caught up now, but will split it all up into multiple posts.

While I'm thinking of what I wanted to post in the first place I will get it down now: I was just reading about the changes to the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel for this year and I had a wonderful memory come to mind... me (and my bump!) and Andy sat in the window of our living room in the dark, with no curtains, surrounded by a mountain of boxes, eating fish and chips and watching Strictly: It Takes Two on our little 14" TV every evening. The memory made me smile. How long ago that seems now (November 2008), how different our lives are now, and how sublimely ridiculous that situation was lol!

Normal is the new natural?

OK, so people use these terms in various ways. People can use "natural" to describe:

All vaginal births
All vaginal births without instruments
Spontaneous vaginal births
Spontaneous vaginal births without epidural
Spontaneous vaginal births without epidural or narcotics
Spontaneous vaginal birth with no medical pain relief

So at any one time when someone says "natural birth", how is anyone supposed to know what is meant?!

To my mind being in a hospital bed, hooked up to a monitor, catheter, spinal injection, IV, paralysed from the chest down and being told how to force the baby out, while a tray of scary looking instruments and resuscitair stand ready is about as far from natural as you can get!

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the use of epidurals. They can be a blessing when a woman has had a difficult and long labour and needs to get some rest before the second stage. I have a slight issue with women who don't even give any thought to the possibility that they may not NEED an epidural. But I cannot say that I agree with including epidurals in the "natural" category.

So, if "natural" is so meaningless these days what is the alternative?

There is a movement towards the term "normal". It is already in use in medical circles and its use is currently limited to spontaneous vaginal births without epidurals or instruments.

An article in The Sunday Times today, however, criticises the exclusion of epidurals from the "normal" category and NHS plans to try and limit the use of epidurals to those cases where it is strictly necessary. The plans are the result of extensive study and lobbying by the NCT, Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

If enough uproar over "normal" occurs then we could easily see the medical profession being beaten into including epidural births in their "normal" statistics and once again face the weakening of a useful term.

I'm a strong advocate of "Normalising Childbirth". I don't think that the attitude in our society that childbirth is a life-threatening medical procedure is healthy or the best attitude to throw at most women. I think we need to reclaim childbirth as a normal, natural function of our bodies and limit the intervention rate (currently around 50%). We need to reinstate trust in women's bodies to carry out this function.

It's not just about birth, it's part of a package attitude towards women and their capabilities.

A sleeping nation

Philip Pullman (of His Dark Materials fame) wrote an opinion piece in the Times on Friday 27th February. Rather strangely that piece now appears to have vanished from the Times website, but a number of other website have quoted pieces of his comment on the internet to preserve it. A friend of mine managed to find a website with the full, unedited piece originally published in the Times.

Lest it be lost yet again, Here is the full text of Philip's article:

Philip Pullman

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are
You’re mistaken about yourself
We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless
We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you
And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity
Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them
So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are
And we do not want to hear you arguing about it
So hold your tongue and forget about protesting
What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws
So we shall put ourselves out of your reach
We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition
You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them
You do not need to hold us to account
You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?
Who do you think you are?
What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth
Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours
We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on
We do not want to hear you talking about innocence
Innocent means guilty of things not yet done
We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence
You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt
We do not want to hear you talking about justice
Justice is whatever we want to do to you
And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night
We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you
We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people
We can see you have abandoned modesty
Some of our friends have seen to that
They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible
In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide
We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural
We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are
And when our friends want to have words with one of you
We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need
It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law
It is for us to know what your offence is
Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards
Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms
Freedom is too hard for you
We shall decide what freedom is
Sleep, you vermin
Sleep, you scum.

Philip Pullman will deliver a keynote speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London tomorrow

Let the pregnant lady rant

I consider myself to have been very lucky in my pregnancy. We conceived very quickly, the first month of trying; I had no real morning sickness to speak of; I've had no problems with any of my routine tests; I've had no piles or constipation; very few stretch marks, and those I have I really don't mind; and I've gained very little weight. My only two physical complaints are lack of sleep since about 20 weeks; and fainting.

The sleep deprivation is exhausting and frustrating. But I'm living with it and only really complain to my loving husband who is always there when I'm tossing and turning.

The fainting... now that is scary. Each time it had happened I was lucky to be sat down and have warning that it was happening. I would get nauseas, then dizzy with an extreme thirst, followed by a dulling of the senses, primarily echoing hearing, like being under water. Then everything would go black for a few seconds and the world began to come back into focus. I would find myself sweating and shaking but otherwise fine within 30 seconds.

On each occasion I have had someone with me, although on the second occasion it was two Virgin Media engineers who were installing our cable TV and broadband! I felt it begin and quickly phoned my mum, asking her to get over quickly, which she did, shortly after I had blanked while sat at the dining table, the engineers oblivious. Although alarming each time it happened, I had mentioned it to my midwife and GP, had my blood pressure checked and that was fine, I showed no signs of anaemia in my blood tests at 28 weeks and was advised that it probably just a normal feature of pregnancy for me.

After it had happened four times I felt almost expert in it and it didn't worry me much before or after the fact, but that didn't stop it being frightening while it actually happened though.

The fifth time, the most recent, it was a bit different. The normal "rules" didn't apply. I had been stood queueing in the post office for about twenty minutes and despite the snow on the ground outside I had a sudden hot flush. I'd heard my pregnant friends laughing about their hot flushes and when offered a seat I declined it, saying I was fine. Andy and I then drove up to the Co-Op a mile up the road to pick up cat food and as we got out of the car I even expressed the fact that I felt very thirsty, but didn't think anything of it.

We dashed through the busy supermarket to pick up the food and I decided I had to have chocolate, so we went in search of it. While trying to choose between Co-Op own or Divine I suddenly felt the usual signs, nausea and dizziness and I reached for Andy and told him I needed to sit down. But we were in the middle of the shop, with no handy stool or staff member nearby and as I took a step to go in search of a seat I dropped to the floor. Andy had hold of me, so was able to guide me down and I wasn't harmed.

My senses returned and I was slightly surprised at being on the floor, Andy was rubbing my back and telling me to breathe. I was very frightened. I had never collapsed like that before, having always already been seated and I felt I was going to cry. I just wanted to get back to the car. People were looking, but no one came forward to show concern and I felt hurt at that.

Andy got me to my feet and reluctantly gave me the car key and let me go on my own while he paid. I was fine in moments, but still shaken by the experience.

When we got home I posted the events for my "bump buddies" to read, I got a fairly typical response: concern and well wishes. Apart from one poster, who instead chose to joke that she would faint at co-op prices too.

This joke stung me on two levels, firstly the utter lack of concern for my feelings; this experience was frightening and not something I consider to be a laughing matter; but also on a less personal level. A slight on one of my favourite shops, one of very, very few in the country deserving of respect.

So here begins my rant.

I can't honestly lay blame at the door of the average British consumer. Although some do turn a blind eye to things, most are blissfully ignorant and in a way I envy them. They don't look too closely at what they are buying, don't think too much about where their purchases come from and look mainly for the best bargain. And I don't blame them. We live in expensive and uncertain times, although the current financial crisis is a new development and most people already had firm shopping habits that have barely changed in the last six months.

No, I lay the blame at the door of the supermarkets and big brands for perpetuating the myth that food is cheap.

Every consumer has a budget and there is a supermarket in this country to suit every budget. People shop where they feel they can afford to and for the vast majority of people in the UK this means Tesco or ASDA. In these stores the average consumer shows firm brand loyalty, buying the same products week in, week out, the cheapest option, or the most well-known option. People blindly pick up a jar of Nescafe, a bottle Coca-Cola and their 2-for-1 supermarket own brand offers.

Consumers go on in the assumtion that this is what their shopping costs and they don't like it when prices increase and they really don't like it when faced with an alternative store that charges more. "It's a rip off!", "How do they justify those prices?!", "I'll stick with what I know, thanks."

They don't realise the real cost of luxuries and even the basics.

For as long as Andy and I have lived, and shopped together (about 8 years) we have always only bought fair trade varieties of certain products; coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate and bananas and whenever we see a major store selling a fair trade cotten garment we buy one, to show our support for their effort to introduce the concept to the British public. To us, these prices are normal, not high, they are realistic. I don't begrudge paying £1 for a big bar of chocolate when I know that no one is being exploited for my indulgence. Some products are luxuries, despite how commonplace they are in this part of the world. Products grown and shipped in from far flung places so that we can have them all year around; and sadly, most consumers don't realise that the prices they are used to paying come at the very great expense of the people who produce the goods, just so we can have our fix.

It isn't just luxuries though. The price of bread has doubled in the last ten years because there is a massive international wheat shortage. The price of rice has similarly sky rocketted in recent years also because of shortages. Bottled water comes at a high premium thanks to the exploitation of the sources by the big corporations. And we don't have to look to the majority world (Asia, South America and Africa) for exploitation of the producers by the supermarkets. We have a failing agricultural industry in this country, that is heavily subsidised in order to prop it up, because of the stupidly low prices that farmers are forced to sell at in order to compete.

The British meat and vegetables people buy, comfortable in the knowledge that they are eating the right things and within their budget too (!) are crippling a valuable industry here at home. If only the supermarkets would pay a fair price for these products and pass that cost, in part, on to the consumer so that everyone has realistic expectations of the cost of their groceries.

The rather disturbing truth is that the big supermarkets can actually afford to eat the real cost of these products, without passing a single penny on to the consumer. £1 in £7 pounds spent in the UK is spent in Tesco. The global financial crisis does not seem to have dented their record profits.

ASDA is owned by American giant Walmart. By shopping there you save £££, while the staff are afraid to take a single sick day or make the smallest whisper about the fact that they do not have a union without fear of dismissal. Never mind the conditions that the manufacturing of George clothing imposes upon the Chinese factory workers, many of whom are little children.

I can't claim to be a saint. We shop at Sainsbury's, a company that scored a mere 3.5 out of 20 on Ethiscore, compared to the highest scoring supermarket, Waitrose, who still only managed 8/20. We try, but aren't totally cruelty free in our house. I know our toothpaste is tested on animals; this is in part because of my extreme fussiness in the taste of toothpaste! But also as a compromise, the alternative is to mail order a cruelty free product. What would that do to our carbon footprint?! But we boycott the worst offenders; Unilever, Glaxo Smith Klyne and Johnson & Johnson, all of whom not only test on animals but also have appalling human rights violations to their names.

I won't even start on the activities of Nestle or Coca-Cola. My main rant on this ocassion is aimed at the irresponsibility of the supermarkets in misleading consumers as to the real cost of their shopping. Fair trade options across more product lines, such as meat and vegetables would be a good start, although at present this can't change as the governing bodies, FLO-CERT and FLO International will not certify anything produced in the EU on the rather misplaced assumtion that EU producers always get a fair price for their goods. But the supermarkets don't have to wait for this to change, there is nothing to stop them paying their suppliers a fair price anyway.

The truth is that the more people who buy these products, the more everyone benefits; producers, stores and consumers. The more the real cost of things is accepted, the better off we all are.