Chaos

It’s seven after seven on a cold spring morning.  Can’t sleep any more too restless.  I’ve had a really chaotic few days.  First off I’ve been working night shift at a telemarketing place – this job sucks in it’s own right, as well as trying to look for jobs out of town.  My son has been sick for the past week, he’s had a cough and running nose – so has Krzysziek, but he has ‘Man Flu’.  I also this week have 2 assignments from my other job as a mystery shopper, one of which I thought I screwed up (screwed up = no pay).  Somewhere in there was my birthday, yeh another year onto of what was already happening.  On the afternoon of my birthday we drove down to see some family and stayed over night with some friends in Waipukurau.  Since yesterday we were driving down to Wellington (with Stefan in tow).

Driving with a 16 month old is an experience in itself.  We had to stop several times and he seemed to have a routine (behave/sleep/be happy prior to every city/town/township as soon as we pass it he screams for the next 10-15 km), we brought an annoying toy on our travels to try keep him amused.  It worked for about 30km.

Why would we put ourselves through this crap you may ask?  We had to drive to Wellington to the Polish embassy to renew Krzysziek’s passport.  They’d recently put in a new system and he also happened to be the first one that they put through (yay for being guinea pig).  The whole process took nearly 2 hours as there were issues with the computer that was verifying Krzysziek’s identity wasn’t doing what it was meant to.  We did get the pleasure of having some really really nice tea and faworki (a light pastry twist dusted in icing sugar).  Stefan loved them too and proceeded to make a mess with icing sugar all over the table in the  Consul’s office.   Both the Ambassador and the Consul were smitten with Stefan, especially when he found a colourful map of Poland with regional coat of arms for several ares at the bottom and started pointing at them and babbling away.  The Ambassador gave us a book for Stefan about the Polish children that came here after WW2.

I must admit that the trip back was a bit easier for Stefan, except he wanted to stop for a cuddle.  So today is mostly a day of recovery and catching up on chores that we didn’t do over the past couple of days.  This includes shopping, bill paying, study, housework, preparation for mystery shopping assignment and work on saturday night. Roll on Sunday!

Finally an update…

Yeh I know I’ve been pretty slack at updating this but as most of you that have kids know it is damn hard to get a moment to yourself to do anything yet alone sitting at a PC writing a blog.

Just an update though, Stefan is nearly 1 year old now.  He is walking and chatting away in a language that we can barely understand, he knows what he’s on about.  There are a few obvious words like mama, daddad etc.  He eats really well and has  10 teeth in all (they hurt when you feel them full force).

I’ve started to send him to daycare for 9 hours a week as soon I will be doing a course for 20 hours a week so the 9 hours is just to get him used to being away from Krzys and I.  He’s getting on really well with his carer and her children, he likes to chase around after them.

On the job front for those that heard/didn’t hear Krzys was meant to be going away to the airforce but that fell through due to “burecratic bullshit” (in my own words).  So he’s back at Caltex (Helltex) slaving away to take care of me and stefan.  He’s still looking hard for any other job.  We went cold calling yesterday and I dredge the job ads every few days for him.  He’s wanting to do a course in computer programming but it’s pretty hard to find one that is distance learning (so he can study from home) and he can get a student loan for.

As for my career, I’m about to embark on a course in tourism.  This involves me going up to Auckland for the first day (18th May) so I will be driving up on the 17th with Corinna (my sister) who is also doing the course.  I’m a bit worried as it will be my first time away from Stefan over night.  The course is distance learning with 2 days of workshops in Auckland.  So 99% is done at home, hense why Stefan is going to daycare for 20 hours a week as of the 18th of May.  The course will last until February 2010 or sooner if I work faster.  So right now I’m poised and ready to go.

Grandparents

I’ve been thinking for a while about how Stefan doesn’t have grandparents (both Krzysztof’s and my parents have passed), he does however have 2 great grandmothers but they are both in Poland.  As you know it’s been impossible (mainly financially) for Krzys and I to go back to see them.  I would love for Stefan to meet at least one of them before they get too old.

This is where you can help.  Recently Krzysztof filmed advertisements for Napier, part of the reward is the chance to win a trip for 2 people from his home country to come to NZ.  If his youtube video gets the most hits then he wins the prize.

Help my son meet his great grandmother, watch the video, pass the link on.  :)

Sleep when the baby sleeps

Whoever devised this as the best advice for new parents has never had to take care of a baby from birth onwards without a break.  Or they didn’t eat, shower or shit and had people doing the washing, cooking, shopping, cleaning, baby bathing and changing as well as the other everyday things like checking the mailbox.

This is the reason why I haven’t posted anything for a while and yes this post has been brewing in my head for while so it might be more of a whine (pun inteaded) than what it was orginally meant to be.

Although Krzyz has been great at trying to keep the house tidy while I’ve been looking after Stefan and trying to get more than 2-4 hours sleep in one go, it’s still really messy and theres always something that needs doing.  It also doesn’t help that we’ve had my sister here for the past few weeks, and although she has been quite helpful more people means more mess.

Don’t get me wrong I’m no clean freak! but when my kitchen floor is starting to turn black in areas then I know a mop is well over due.

Stefan has started almost sleeping through the night (he’s about 3.5 months old now).  I say almost cause he still wakes up either around 12 or around 3am.  When Krzyz is working nights though he always wakes up just before or right when daddy gets home.  I’m planning to work harder to get him into a set routine.  (I hate routine but I’m desperate for some real regular sleep)

To see some pics of our little alarm clock (Stefan) check our the album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/bl4ckriven/Stefan

Mum’s group

Yeh I know I’ve been pretty slack at my updates lately but those that have kids will understand.  For those that don’t it’s kinda hard to describe.  Basically everything you want to do something you get interuptted this includes sleeping, eating and using the bathroom.

However today is my first outing with Stefan with just me and Stefan in the car! We’ve walked to the store before with the pushchair but now we’re going to a coffee group for mums and babys.  It’s my antenatal class who are now my postnatal group.  It’s at a cafe which will prove to be interesting.  Stefan unfortunately is due to wake for a feed, so I’ve grabbed a bottle and hope I don’t have to use it!

Here Safe and Sound

Stefan Marcin Wójcik made his appearance into the world at 12.20am Friday 2nd of May. Born by emergency c-section, weighing 7.4lb, see my lovely graphic post of my birth story for more details (comming soon).

The final countdown

Well the day of the induction approaches. I go in tomorrow morning at 7.30am (which in hospital time means 8-9.30am by the time they get things started). Not sure how long things will take. I could be waiting for 2 days to go into labour or the baby might be born before lunchtime.

After the birth however I will be in the hospital for at least 2 days. Those of you who we have phone numbers for will likely receive a call or sms message with all the details (time of birth, gender, weight, name etc). When Krzys does take some time to come home for a bit then he might post on here but don’t expect a proper update till I get home.

Warning the bitch bites!

As some of you may know, I’m now pretty limited on what I can do during my labour. Gone is my ambition to have a nice natural water birth in a birthing pool where my baby is gently delivered into the warm water then brought you into my arms while I sit and bond with him/her. Since I’m now being subjected to being institutionalised like so many women before me, I’m still writing a birth plan and I’m going to get my support people (my LMC has been downgraded to support person thanks to the hospital) to enforce my wishes as much as possible.

One such wish, wish just dawned on me this morning, is to have NO male medical staff present at the birth. This solves more than one issue I was having. Issue #1 was a particular doctor there that made me feel uncomfortable just happens to be male. Issue #2 Episiotomy – performed by a male, who doesn’t have the part concerned,this will likely end up causing me pain for many years to come. A female on the other hand will less likely do this out of procedure and is more likely to try other methods first.

Yes you may call me a cynical bitch if you will but at least I’m going to a calm and happy cynical bitch.

Please take a number and get in line…

Well we have a date. 7am next wednesday morning I need to go into maternity for my induction.  I went to my clinic appointment today. It turns out that all these lovely exercises that I’ve done, all this mental preparation is going to be useless. I’m going to be hooked up to an insulin pump (which I was expecting) which will limit my movement. As well as when I get induced I will need constant montioring, which means laying on my back with the montioring device strapped to my stomach.

Krzys has been trying to fight this for me as it is my preferance to move about but it looks like I’m screwed. I’m fully expecting the entire works: Enema, shave, episiotomy, epidural, forceps. It seems that’s how they work in hospitals. I’ve written a birth plan and it’s very flexible, but I believe now that it was a waste of time doing it.

My midwife, Jo, who still has issues contacting me seems to have taken a back seat in all this. She’s worried about getting into trouble with the hospital. I spoke to the head doctor about her being there but apparently because an induction can take 48 hours or more it’s “Too much work for an independant midwife”. “There are lots of wonderful midwives that work at the hospital”, of course most of which I don’t know very well.

Just as things go well…

Went to my scan today. Everything is looking great, the baby’s got quite a bit bigger in the past 2 weeks. My diabetes specialist is happy with my sugar levels even saying that my insulin amounts might even need to be decreased soon.

The registar that I saw for the obstrectic clinic was a little bit more vague, like what’s going to be happening (i.e are they or aren’t they going to be inducing me at 38 weeks?) but still was ok with my blood pressure etc today.

I wish I could say everything went as easily today but unfortunately not. I rang my LMC (Lead Maternity Carer) again today to find out why she hadn’t called me yet, and I wanted to find out when I have an appointment next etc and who’s in charge of my treatment now, her or the hospital team. I find out that she’s on leave till further notice.  Leave until further notice? does that mean she’s sick? does that mean that she’s made some horrible mistake with someone’s baby? It’s got my mind spinning I know I shouldn’t think too much into it but I can’t help it!

Which of course now has me stressed out to no end! What happens if I go into labour at 3am tomorrow morning? Who do I contact? Not the hospital, cause they want you to call your LMC first! What do I do? I have no LMC, no one that if something doesn’t feel quite right that I can call.