What we have played with this week- April 29

On Monday it was my daughter’s first birthday. So we have a nearly 4 year old and a 1 year old in the house. She isn’t really a baby any more, more like a toddler. The amount she is pulling herself up and using furniture/toys/is to walk along with then she will properly be toddling about very shortly I am sure. My son also went back to school after the Easter holidays.

This week’s play has mostly been about the new toys. For both of them. I bought toys for my daughter that I thought my son would probably like too. And they have pretty much all proven to be a hit with both of them.

Fisher-Price Bright Beats Build a Beat stacker

There are two “modes” available with this toy. The first, and easiest, is for music and lights to come on whenever the base is pressed. This happens if it is used with the stackers or just pressed without them. This is how my daughter is playing with it at the moment. She loves it. She’s always really liked music so it’s right up her alley. The second mode is a little harder. As each stacker (the blurb calls them a “boogie”) is placed on the stack and the base is pressed then the music builds. It’s a fun toy that my daughter loves. Music, lights and things to stack/knock over, what more could a 1 year old want? Build a Beat stacker

Wobbel board

Oh we do love this Wobbel board.

As a second child C already has access to a lot of toys, and in trying to think of toys she would enjoy for more than 5 minutes and wouldn’t just take up space in our playroom I wanted to get some more open ended play toys that would last, and that both children would enjoy. I thought she would like a rocking horse as I had tried her on one at a shop. But they take up a lot of space so decided against it. Instead I got this- she can sit on it and rock (like she is doing in the video), she can try standing on it (it does a great job of working on core muscles apparently, even for adults, but I haven’t braved standing on it yet myself!), she can use it as a ramp-so far the Octonauts have been dropped on it a few times. We have turned it upside down and used it for both children as a bridge. It can be used as a tunnel, a hiding place and probably about a thousand more things that we haven’t tried yet. We got our from Babipur

Melissa and Doug Tea Set

After having a boy and spending hours and hours and hours playing trains I am going to try to encourage my daughter to do things like play tea parties every now and then at least. My son loved the play kitchen we got him, still does to be honest, so I was delighted that she got this play tea set for her birthday. It’s great. It’s a wooden tea set with everything you would expect together with some fruit tea bags and a couple of biscuits. We spent a happy 15 or 20 minutes pretending to make tea and drink from the cups- ok so it was the tea pot in C’s case, but still…. you can find more information about the tea set Here

Today my daughter ate chalk

We baby proofed our house when my son was about 6 months old. He is nearly 4. So I thought we had adequately prepared the house for another baby.

Then my daughter came along and she manages to find every single thing we have not pretty much nailed down. She is also much more of a climber than my son ever was and manages to reach heights I didn’t think would be an issue!

The other thing she does still is put everything in her mouth-I am sure our son had stopped that by now. She throws food off her high chair tray only to try and eat it off the floor later. If you turn your back for even a second, she has found something to put in her mouth. Thankfully it is usually random bits of paper but this morning while I was drawing on his blackboard with my son she managed to get hold of a bit of chalk and put it in her mouth!

Birth story-Induction of Labour At Birmingham Women’s Hospital Part IV

Now it starts getting silly.

This blog post covers days 5 and 6 of my stay at Birmingham Women’s Hospital waiting to give birth because the induction process was started.

Basically my baby did not want to come out yet. She was not ready. My position on the waiting list to go to the delivery suite for my waters to be broken continued to Yoyo up and down. I was not a priority because I wasn’t in active labour, my baby was healthy, I was healthy, my baby was happy. I, however, was not and was getting more and more frustrated and irritated and upset as the days went on.

I understood that there were women on the ward who’s babies needed to be born as a priority. And I was glad that my baby was healthy and I didn’t need to be rushed off. However, I had not asked to be induced. My consultant had said I needed to be induced to get the baby out because of the risk of stillbirth because I was over 40. She was supposed to be born before my due date on the Monday (8 days after I was admitted, you would have thought there had been plenty of time!)

I slightly felt like I was on Big Brother- day 5 on the BWH induction ward…. yet more women came and went in the beds around me. I could tell the ones who would be in and out within a few hours- the young overdue ones tended not to hang around too long.

My son came in to visit every day and we made stupid little videos for him while wandering up and down the corridors at night time for Grandma to play for him before bed. On day 5 we took him to the big hospital to wander around as we had exhausted the cafes of the Women’s. On day 6 he came up to the ward with me and my mum while my husband went back home to do some work. The woman in the bed next to mine sent her partner around to my bed to ask us to keep the noise down because she hadn’t slept well. I was reading my 2 year old a story. We were a little quieter- we hadn’t been that noisy and it was the middle of the day. So she asked a member of staff to come around and tell us to be quiet. I did not react well, I had been there for 6 days and had maybe an hour or so with my boy each day and may have shouted a bit about being asked to be quiet and that he was a 2 year old having a story read to him. My outburst had a very positive effect, though and I got moved to the bay across the corridor to a much larger space with a window-natural light! It was amazing!

That night a woman was brought in to the bed next to me who was not coping with the pain- let’s call her Actual Labour woman. A bit later on another woman came in and took the bed opposite me- let’s call her Braxton Hicks woman. Now I am not an eavesdropper, but in a bay where the 4 women there are separated by nothing more than curtains it is very hard not to hear everything that goes on in the room. Braxton Hicks woman arrived with her partner and her mother. Her mother immediately took up residence in the chair and neither moved nor spoke for the rest of the time there. (They we’re still there in the morning!) She just stared into the middle of the room, and seemed to be watching whenever I left to go to the bathroom, which was unsurprisingly fairly often as a heavily pregnant woman!

Braxton Hicks woman was examined when she came in and was told that she was probably experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions as she was only something like 30 weeks pregnant. That was a good thing because the baby would be very premature if it arrived now. Braxton Hicks woman kept asking when she would deliver her baby and when she could have an epidural because she was in so much pain. She was examined several times over the course of the night and each time was told she was not having anything other than Braxton Hicks contractions.

Braxton Hicks woman was moaning in pain though. Constantly. And the intensity of her moans strangely matched Actual Labour woman’s. Only Braxton Hicks woman’s didn’t die down between “contractions” at all. Her moans were constant. Meanwhile her mother sat and stared. I closed my curtains.

Braxton Hicks woman started pacing the room, very slowly. Right next to my curtain- she came to stand by my window. Fair enough you would think, except that the window went all across the one end of the room and she had the corresponding window bed so had more than enough space in her own area to pace up and down by the window. But she preferred to loiter, moaning with her “contractions” right by the edge of my curtain.

Actual Labour woman was having a really tough time. She vomited at least twice and was clearly in a lot of pain. She went down to the delivery suite at about 11pm (this must have been the 5 millionth woman to move from induction ward to delivery suite that week) and suddenly Braxton Hicks woman’s contractions stopped. She was very quiet for a while. Another woman moved into her space (yep, she also went down to the delivery suite before me!) but although she was also clearly in labour, she wasn’t suffering like Actual Labour woman had been. In fact her vocalisations during contractions were quite quiet. However, her partner (who seemed a bit useless, though not as awful as the man child who refused to bother coming in to bring anything for partner after her waters broke in the middle of town and so was just wrapped in a towel, I heard all sorts of things that week!) fell asleep very quickly after arriving and started snoring. Braxton Hicks woman’s “contractions” then matched his snoring. With the intensity and volume of them rising and falling with his snores. She kept pacing backwards and forwards by my curtain and her mother sat and stared. I kind of wished I had been in the other bay again, and was very glad that the midwives came in and out a lot that night.

Exploring new corridors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital

Birth Story- Induction of Labour at Birmingham Women’s Hospital Part III

This blog post will cover days 3 and 4 of my stay at the Women’s Hospital as they were, really rather similar.

I was examined at 11am on day 3, having had contractions during the day on day 2 but those contractions stopping late evening, and I was still 3cm dilated. From here on in things largely remained the same every day.

I woke up at 6am after either a good night where I had been able to sleep a bit, or a dreadful night where lots of alarms went off, or women in labour were not coping with their pain, some in the room I was in, some across the corridor. Sometimes there were women vomiting in the curtain next to my bed, or over the way. I had a sweep most days, they did nothing but were unpleasant. I was monitored on the CTG machine twice a day.

It got so that the lovely, lovely people who brought the hot drinks around knew what I would have at what time of day. They would come around to ask if we wanted a drink and say to me “are you still here?” We walked the corridors up and down, up and down. We went to the bottom floor restaurant, we went to the cafe. I tried to nap. We read. My husband tried to do some work. On the Thursday we walked over to the main hospital and it felt like a mini break! There were a few more corridors to walk along and a WHSmiths to look around.

My mother brought my son in to visit and we just sat in the restaurant, giving him a big cuddle. It was wonderful to see him and I had missed him so much and by the looks of things he had missed us too.

My position on the list kept changing. At one point I got up to number 2 on the list, so felt sure I would be going down that night. By the morning I was back down to number 4.

I ended up crying pretty much every day when the midwives and doctors told me there wasn’t anything more they could do. They were right earlier in the week saying that by day 3 women started to get frustrated and teary. I certainly did. The midwives were fantastic. They listened and empathized with me, but ultimately couldn’t do an awful lot more than they were doing. I was healthy, my baby was healthy. I was not overdue. I felt so frustrated that I didn’t need to be there. To add insult to injury, if I had been aged under 40 I could have gone home to wait and see if the pessary worked, but because of my age and for that reason alone, I could not. I was wasting a bed that another woman who really needed it could have used. Of course, when there, the worry that I would be doing the wrong thing for my baby by insisting I go home was very real and stopped me from just telling them I was going home.

A succession of women moved into the bed opposite me or next to me. The one day the woman next to me was given her pessary and within an hour of starting to dilate had given birth to her baby. It was all very unexpected and dramatic. By the end of day 4 there had been 8 women in the bed opposite me. I felt like Rachel in that episode of friends where she goes into labour. (1 min 21 into this clip)

Birth story- Induction of Labour Part II

A year ago today I woke up at 6 am on the induction ward at Birmingham Women’s Hospital. I had been having mild contractions all night after having a propess pessary administered twice. The day before I had been told that if I was 3cm dilated or more then I would be put on the list to have my waters broken. That had to be done on the delivery suite because if active labour didn’t start shortly afterwards then I would need to go on a hormone drip to get labour moving.

When I was examined I was 3cm dilated, hurrah, and so was placed on the list to go to the delivery suite. I was having contractions for most of the day. The intensified a bit and at one point were happening every 2-3 minutes, but they were quite short in duration. They started to slow down, though, and by the evening had stopped completely.

Conscious of the couple the day before who had said they had been there for 3 days, and not wanting to have to stay that long I asked the midwives where I was on the list to go to the delivery suite. I was 3rd. I asked quite a lot of questions including:

• Could I go down in the middle of the night- yes I could and I would just have to go to the delivery suite with my belongings
• Should my husband stay overnight? – no, they didn’t know how long it would take for a bed to be available for me on the delivery suite, but not to worry, they would call him if I moved and he would meet me there.
• How long, at most, would it be before I could move to the delivery suite? – it was unusual, but not unheard of for women to stay 2-3 days. Generally they didn’t like women to stay any longer than 3 days as they became cross and teary.

I told them I had had contractions all day, and although I was put on the CTG monitor twice that day I wasn’t examined at all. I was told that if I was 4cm dilated (I think it was 4cm, I can’t remember, may have been 5) I would be moved downstairs pretty much straight away and they would find a bed for me. I think I mentioned my older son, that he was only 2 and had only been away from us for 1 night before now. It was his last week of his school holidays and his last week being an only child. As I was having contractions, and had expected them to continue, I arranged not to see my son that day. I didn’t want to worry him with mummy being in pain, maybe not being able to hide it from him.

My husband is self employed and so he spent the days with me. Thank goodness. I so looked forward to him arriving after 8am. We spent the day wandering the Hallway. There were only really two to wander up and down. We went to the cafeteria and found the restaurant on the bottom floor. We got to know the routine on the induction ward. Whenever I left the ward I told them where I was going in case my spot came up. It was a dull day, but I was on the list and by the end of the day was 3rd on the list. The couple who were 3rd on the list the night before went down to the Delivery Suite in the afternoon, so I still thought it wouldn’t be long before it was my turn.

That night I managed to go to sleep a little earlier, but it was still a very disturbed night with all the comings and goings on the ward. I read, I watched TV on my phone – the WiFi was good thankfully. It would happen soon. So it thought.

What we have played with this week-April 15

I didn’t manage to do one of these posts last week so this post covers the last 2 weeks.

It has been the Easter Holidays from school so both my 11 month old (very soon to be 1 year old) and 3 year old (quite soon to be 4 and I will be very happy to see the back of 3 as it has had more than it’s fair share of challenging moments!) have both been at home. My 3 year old did spend a couple of nights at his Grandma’s house, but otherwise we have mainly been stuck in the house as it has been such rubbish weather.

We had been going through quite a nice phase with the 2 children where my daughter was happy to go in the playpen and play with whatever was in there for a while and my son happily pottered about doing drawing or puzzles. I thought that the hellish months where my son had a lot of upsets and cried over what seem to be small things were largely behind us. My daughter was more mobile and was happy to just rummage in a drawer and see what she could find to pull out of it. They were getting along well and with my daughter’s newfound bit of independence, my son could get a look in and a cuddle every now and then.

Then over half term my mum took him to Sealife Centre and he watched an Octonauts episode there. Now, he was obsessed with Octonauts about a year earlier but that obsessions was replaced by dinosaurs. He even went to school as Captain Barnacles for World Book Day last year.

Thankfully instead of sending the toys we had got him to a charity shop, as I do quite regularly with things he has grown out of and which I don’t think my daughter will enjoy when she gets to a similar age, I had put them all in our loft. So we got them down from the loft and he has been utterly obsessed with them and the Octonauts ever since!

My daughter is learning to stand and walk. And she wants to be into everything. Now. She is so very squirmy and active and all over the place. So we are going through a phase with her where we can’t be too far from her as she falls over a lot and she also keeps heading towards things she can’t play with- like the potty! She manages to find whatever is unsuitable for her to touch even when you are sure you have cleared everything out of the way. If I had £1 for every time in the last month I have said to her “what is that in your mouth?”, well a Lottery jackpot winner would probably be quite jealous. So my son has had to wait more for attention again and this has resulted in quite a bit of sibling rivalry, jealousy and fighting. My daughter’s favourite thing to do is whatever her brother is doing. So they have fought over his Octonauts toys for almost the whole of the last 2 weeks. So what we have played with this week has pretty much entirely been these:

And when I have finally distracted her from the Octonauts toys (no mean feat I tell you) my son comes over and starts playing with whatever she is playing with!

My husband is off work next week as we have a 3 week Easter holiday and we are away for 2 days- I will be very happy to get out of the house for a few days! In the meantime I am reading this to help get over the daytimes (I so thought sibling rivalry would not kick in for about another year, how wrong I was!)

Birth story-induction of labour at Birmingham Women’s Hospital Part I

A year ago today was Easter Monday. I was 39 weeks pregnant and, because I was over 40 and a geriatric mother, my Consultant has strongly advised that I should have an induction so that baby was born before my due date (24 April). I had had the fear of god put in me when told that it was because of the risk of stillbirth. My profession before I had my son did teach me that I should have asked more questions. Asked them to explain exactly how much the risk increased in women over 40 who have had an otherwise uneventful, healthy pregnancy. But this was my baby and I just didn’t want to take the risk. Besides, as I told friends and family, there was something nice about having a date when my baby would be born. I wouldn’t be waiting around for a couple more weeks like I did with my eldest.

So, on the Monday, as arranged, I called the induction ward at Birmingham Women’s Hospital to ask when I should come in. I had called a couple of times that day, and at about 6 they said they had a bed for me and I should make my way in. My son, who had one more week of his school Easter holiday left, had gone to my mother’s house to stay and I was excited that I would soon meet my little girl.

On arrival they explained the induction procedure, which I had read in the leaflets I had been given at the antenatal clinic – a propess pessary would be given to me after I had been examined. If labour had not started I would be given a further pessary about 6 hours later, and if that didn’t work then they would consult with the doctors on duty who may agree that I could have a third pessary. Alternatively if and when I was over 3cm dilated I would be placed on the waiting list to go down to the labour ward for my waters to be broken and possibly, if breaking my waters didn’t kick start active labour, I would be placed on a hormone drip.

Before the pessary was placed I had one of many sweeps, never a pleasant experience. I had had a sweep the week before as advised, with the community Midwife, and had discussed the induction plan with them. They said it was good that I would be contacting the induction ward rather than the induction suite in the birth centre itself (the ward was one floor above the birth centre) as it was much more of a “home from home” environment.

I overheard the woman in the bed next to mine say that she had been in hospital since Saturday night waiting to go down to the delivery suite and I remember thinking that I hoped I was not there quite so long (spoiler: I was). They were 3rd on the list to go to delivery suite that night. They were called to go to delivery suite at around 2 pm the following day (Tuesday). My husband, who had come in with me at 7pm went home at around 9pm to get some rest in case he got called in the night to come in. I settled in for the night and got my book out, registered for the free WiFi and watched a couple of programmes on my phone. I was there in time for the last cup of tea to be brought at about 10.30/11 and the observations round at about the same time.

Each time I had the pessary administered both before and after it, I was placed on the CTG machine to monitor the baby’s heart rate and make sure she was doing ok. The machine is very loud, and in a bay of an induction ward with 4 women in, each of whom need to be monitored at varying intervals, the CTG machines are in use very regularly. You can also hear the machines when they are being used in the bay across the corridor. Buzzers are pressed quite regularly throughout the ward and of course, as it is an induction ward women go into labour there quite frequently. Women react differently to the medications and to labour itself. Some are quite noisy straight away. Some really are not.Some vomit (which is never pleasant to hear), and sometimes a woman or a baby gets distressed and has to be moved quickly to the delivery suite. That can be quite scary to hear. Sometimes the woman is upset and worried, and you feel for the woman whilst also feeling apprehensive that it could happen to you. New women come in as soon as one has gone down to the delivery suite and they are settled in, the process explained, the CTG monitor goes on. Sometimes they are very chatty, even in the early hours of the morning when people are trying to sleep. My bed was next to the corridor and I could hear most of what happened in the bay across the corridor as well as in my bay. It is a very noisy place. It is not conducive to getting a good night’s sleep. And the following day begins at medication and observation rounds at 6am which includes CTG monitoring for everyone. Thankfully cups of tea are also brought around at about the same time.

It took a long time to get to sleep that first night. Nerves, excitement, the atmosphere of the ward, being in an unfamiliar place combined with the noise stopped me from getting to sleep until well after midnight. I was woken up for CTG monitoring, then a further propess being administered at approximately 2.30am. There was a further half hour CTG monitoring to check how the baby reacted to the pessary, and this did kick start some contractions, very mild contractions, overnight. I was still excited and still thought I would meet my baby very soon.

To be continued….

I have been thinking a lot recently about my pregnancies, especially the last one, because my daughter’s first birthday is in just over a week. This time last year I was hugely pregnant. Just huge to be honest.

I loved being pregnant. There are some things about it I do not miss- heartburn, having to go to the loo every 20 minutes, everything being uncomfortable by the last few weeks. Generally, though, I loved it. If I were younger I could so see me saying I wanted another child in a few years’ time, but as I was 39 when I had my first baby and 42 when I had my second I really will not be doing this again.

I was very lucky with both my pregnancies that I didn’t have any issues. I had a lot of heartburn, which wasn’t pleasant, but no morning sickness with either. With my first I felt absolutely no movement whatsoever until way after the 20 week scan, but felt those first fluttery bubbles much earlier on in the second pregnancy. I loved feeling the babies move around inside me. R had hiccups a lot; C did not, but she was extremely active- one scan I was asked to go and sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes to let her calm down so the scan could proceed properly. R was generally more relaxed. It was always so odd, but brilliant, watching and feeling their whole body turn over. I never saw either of their limbs protruding, and I had hoped I would. I didn’t have cravings either, other than a slight preference for salty food. I slept better than I ever do, which I put down to the lack of any caffeine, and I had a lot more dreams. I rarely remember a dream, but when pregnant I dreamt all the time.

I was a little worried throughout both pregnancies as I had a miscarriage before getting pregnant with my son. I don’t think I properly relaxed about the pregnancy until fairly late with either of them. And I had a scare with some bleeding with both. I don’t think my former job as a clinical negligence solicitor helped much with that. I remember thinking that once they were out it would be ok. I would know they were safe.

As I was over 40 for my second pregnancy I was closely monitored. In addition I had had a 3/4th degree tear when giving birth to my son, another cause for being monitored a lot. I had to go to the hospital every month to the antenatal clinic because of my age, and I had a couple of specialist appointments for a scan to see how my pelvic floor muscles were coping with the second pregnancy as well as seeing the Consultant and a specialist midwife about my tear. Every appointment took at least 1/2 a day mainly sitting and waiting in the waiting room. It was uncomfortable and dull. But the upside was that I got to see my daughter on the scans every month. With my son I had the 12 week and 20 week scans and then that was it until he was born. It was reassuring to see her and see her moving and her heart beating and to know that as she was being monitored every month any concerns would be picked up. Thankfully for us there were none.

Due to my age, and only due to my age, My Consultant advised that I be admitted for induction of labour at 39 weeks so that the baby was born by my due date. So arrangements were made for me to go in for induction on 17 April, the Easter Monday. The baby was not born for a week.

International Sibling Day

Apparently today is International Sibling Day. There is a day for everything isn’t there?!

I have a younger sister who is nearly 7 years younger than me and I adored her. I had so longed for a brother or, especially, a sister that I was utterly delighted when she arrived. I loved helping to take care of her and play with her. She was my baby as much as mum and dad’s as far as I was concerned. Happily we are still close now although with us both having busy lives and living in different cities we don’t see a lot of each other at the moment.

My son never got to the longing for a sibling stage as his sister was born just before he was 3. They do get along remarkably well all things considered, but it is not without its challenges having 2 small people in your house!

• He just does not get as much attention from us, just for him, as he used to and that has been a very hard thing for him to learn.
• C is into every little thing he does. She is learning very quickly- today she mastered going down a step in our house -because she watches her older brother and wants to do everything he does.
• C wants to do everything he does, when he does it. I thought I had at least a year before sibling rivalry kicked in, but I am already deep in the thick of it with the pair of them. R picks up a toy, C is there wanting to play with the same thing within seconds. I have managed to distract her with a different toy for a few minutes and R is there wanting that toy right now! It is utterly exhausting! And quite amusing at the same time.
• You get amazingly beautiful moments when they are playing happily near each other, or they are looking after each other that just melt your heart!

All in all, it is a wonderful experience. Happy International Sibling Day.

Digging in the mud- an Easter themed sensory activity

This was such a fun activity to do on a wet bank holiday.

Over the summer I saw on Pinterest a sensory activity to do with dinosaur obsessed children-setting up edible mud and playing with the dinosaurs in the mud, burying them and digging them up. My son had loved this activity and made me bury the dinosaurs several times over. Then a couple of weeks ago I was in the supermarket and saw a packet of sweetie carrots and it got me thinking about this mud digging activity. So I got a packet of Malteaster Bunnies and also found some Jelly Babies Chicks.

To make the “mud” I used an entire packet of cornflower, 2 table spoons of cocoa and about 6 tablespoons of water. I mixed them together in a plastic tub and then added the bunnies, chicks and carrots and hid them in the mud. The mud mixture actually had a realistic, gloopy texture. A bit like quicksand. So the sweets sank right into the mud, and it took a bit of work to dig them out.

Both children really liked this activity. My son, who has never been keen on getting his hands dirty (there was never any finger painting with him when he was tiny) used tools like tweezers, a teaspoon and a scooper to get the sweets out, and only right at the end, after a lot of encouragement and me getting my hands in there, he used his hands. He loved digging the sweets out and he then loved sinking all of the tools he had used and trying to find them. It kept him busy for a good half hour, which is good for an activity like this.

My daughter, on the other hand, loved getting her hand right in there, and she shoved quite a lot in her mouth, which I didn’t mind as it was taste safe. She actually had a go at crawling into the mud herself! I did stop her playing after about 15 mins as I didn’t want her to eat too much of the cornflower and cocoa mixture and make herself sick. She would have carried on for ages.

This activity also gave me a really good chance to try out our new Tuff Tray that we got the other day. It was so good at containing he mess and took only a few minutes to clean up, where it would have taken ages to do before. I highly recommend one if you like messy play activities with your children, but don’t like the mess!