Granny At Last!

My grandson made his appearance at 2.06 pm on Friday 29th August after a very long labour. Mother and baby are doing well.

Poor old #1 started labour at 4.30 on Thursday morning and rang me about 6 to let me know. Very kind of her. She called about every 2 hours to keep me informed, but fell asleep around 10.30 after thinking she’d just have a little lie down for a few minutes. She called me about 1.15, after she’d woken up, feeling rather unhappy that the contractions had gone much further apart and weaker.

I went over with some Goldenseal, which is supposed to get labour moving again if it has stalled. #1 was very keen to have him after all this time. So we gradually built up the amount of that until labour got going again properly. She came home for a little while then went to the b/f’s house as they wanted to be together – he wanted very much to be involved and support her through the labour, bless him.

So eventually I went to bed and got some sleep, but not for long! About 1.45 the phone rang. She wanted some help with the pain and had called the hospital. They had no room were going to find a place for her as close as they could. I went over and they were ready to go when I got there, the hopsital had called and diverted her to another local maternity unit. It was actually the hospital where I had 3 of my children, and no further from b/f’s house than the other one anyway.

They were very good and got her straight on the gas and air, discussing what she might like further on (epidural plaese!). There was a very noisy woman a couple of doors down – we thought. Turned out she was at the other end of the corridor! #1 found this very offputting so we turned on the radio, lol. After a while the midwife moved us to another room, as the one we were in had a gigantic bath which #1 didn’t want to use anyway. A big beanbag was brought in for b/f, and an extra chair too. The hose on the gas was longer in there too, so that was good.

It was really just a matter of waiting then. She was about 3cm when we went in. After the shift change the new midwife checked and found her about 5cm. The examination made the contractions a bit stronger and not long after that she wanted her epidural. She was coping really well, though. Of course, the anaesthetist was busy with an emergency caesar. About 9.30 she decided to have pethidine, which slowed the contractions a little but calmed #1 down a lot.

By 11.30 she really was wanting her epidural. The midwife checked again and found she was about 8cm. The anaesthetist was still busy and also there weren’t enough midwives to cover for an epidural. Hopefully she would get one soon, but would she like a bath? It took a while to organise because of course the midwife was dealing with 2 labours on her own, but she went in the bath about 1pm. It did help, but she’d only been there for 5 minutes when she felt she might want to push. I got the midwife who said she would check her. #1 wanted to get out of the bath by then, and as she got out had another contraction and said, “Oh yes, definitely a pushy feeling there.”

The examination showed she was 9 1/2 cm, so she had that horrible time of not being allowed to push even though she wanted to. She was still coping well although she felt she wasn’t. Off her head on drugs, lol, she was demanding her epidural and saying she wouldn’t go any further without it. “I’m not pushing until I get my epidural.” But for a while now she had been falling asleep between contractions because apart from a 2 1/2 hour nap she had been up since 4.30 the previous morning, over 30 hours before.

The contractions never really got too close together, so she was able to have these mini-naps which probably helped anyway. Finally, at about 1.45, the midwife said she could push. (”I’m not going to, I want my epidural first….”) So in the end the actual birth was pretty quick, because his head was born at 2.05 and he was finally out at 2.06. And that was it, all done and dusted!

There was a bit of concern about the amount of blood. You always get some, but this was a fair bit, so the midwife got the doctor to discuss it with. About 400ml she estimated, which is twice as much as normal. Still only about 3/4 of a pint or so, and considering you have and extra 2 pints when you’re pregnant any it was probably not excessive, but of course it’s a question of making sure it stops.

She also had to have some stitches for a largish tear. We all left the room for that, of course, and she fell asleep while that was being done. Baby lay in his cot looking around. He seems to be a pretty quiet thing so far, but very alert. I think he just hasn’t felt hunger yet, lol, so hasn’t had much to cry about.

He’s a big baby, though, for a first, weighing in at 8lb 14oz (4035g for you metric people out there). Very lovely, though. And the best bit is I don’t feel broody at all. Not even the tiniest bit. He’s my grandchild, I don’t want any more, and I don’t want to take over from his mother either. Yes, cuddles will be nice, but handing him back to his rightful place is not a problem at all.

Still haven’t decided what to be called, but as he won’t be talking for quite some time there isn’t really a hurry, is there?

Inbred Pedigree Dogs

 I am totally flabbergasted by last night’s BBC documentary about Pedigree Breeding. I mean, I knew some of this and felt it anyway – breeding a very flat-faced dog, for example, is bound to cause health problems in the eyes and with breathing. I always felt it was wrong to breed dogs that way. But it turns out that even breeds that have it in them to be healthy are being bred in such a way as to cause severe health problems. I did want a Cavalier, but with a 1 in 3 chance of heartbreak I think I will steer clear.

I did want to create a new breed myself. Miniature Border Collies. How cute would that be? But I knew that it would take a long time to get right, and a lot of out-crosses to widen the gene pool enough. After watching this programme, I would not create a new breed, because of the potential for some rabid dog-breeder down the line trying to perfect my vision and creating a whole load of unhealthy, suffering animals in the name of a breed standard I have started.

It’s a difficult argument in terms of the whole brother-sister thing. I mean, yes, it’s wrong in humans. But animals seem to cope with it okay, up to a point. However, if it happens once, every few generations, that is one thing. If it is deliberately done on a regular basis – which seems to be the case with dogs – then it is, of course, going to reduce the gene pool. Some knowledge of genetics is a dangerous thing!

In the very old days, before there was any understanding of genetics, dogs were bred by phenotype. This means you look at a dog and a bitch, and if they both have the look you want you put them together and the puppies will stand a good chance of looking like the parents. Simple. And of course the dogs could be unrelated, because no-one was worried about the genetic aspect, only what they looked like. Then some understanding of genetics came about and breeders went “A-ha!”

Genetics meant that they could take a dog and a bitch and look not only at their phenotype, but at their gene history (pedigree) and see what marvellous specimens were there and now they knew that it was likely that this dog or bitch carried the genes of that historical ancestor, and so they would put them together not just on the basis of their looks, but on the basis of the fact that they both had the same great-grandfather and therefore a proportion of the puppies ought to come out looking like him! I mean, this was obviously something that was done to an extent before, or why keep a pedigree, but it was done purely on phenotype. So not to the same extent.

Unfortunately, although breeders try to breed out “faults”, their idea of faults is somewhat different to what yours or mine might be. A hock that does not follow the ideal line, a poor set of markings – these are the things that they try to get rid of. Health is secondary – after all, we look after these animals, we can afford to care for them. But it isn’t right that they should have them in the first place.

I had a mongrel bitch once, and she was the most healthy dog I have ever owned. I will mate my bitch and have puppies, because I enjoy the experience, selfish I know. But I will not be so selfish as to breed a small gene pool. I will breed crossbreeds and mongrels to my hearts content now, in the knowledge that I am widening the gene pool and creating healthy dogs. And health being my priority, I will see how one litter goes and if my dear doggy doesn’t cope with it she will be spayed and there will be an end to it.

There goes my dream of miniature collies…..but here comes a sense of self-respect I never realised I needed.

In The Next Few Days

I am still not a grandmother. #1 is due on Monday. She is planning to move to my mother’s on Monday. She is home for the weekend. She wants to help decorate her room for her brother. I have to go to work. Hubby is back at work after having a week off. Sometime in the next few days things may happen.

I’d better teach her some breathing exercises.

The Final Furlong

I am really living on my nerves now. It is only 11 days until my grandchild is due to be born and I am like a cat on hot bricks. Partly this is because my daughter is still over in Kent, but she is coming home today so I hope that I will be a bit calmer with her nearby.

Seriously, I feel sick, I feel shaky, I can’t settle to anything. You know what it’s like when you are waiting for something to happen. I remember telling my husband to calm down and not stress out during the last few weeks of my other pregnancies….well now I know how he felt and I apologise on behalf of women everywhere to their partners/husbands. I know exactly how you feel and it’s not fun, is it? And as for calm down – not actually possible, is it?

One of the reasons why I feel like this is that I know she hasn’t read any of the books that the midwife gave her. She hasn’t been to maternity classes. She is relying on the experience of watching me go through 3 pregnancies and my knowledge. So if she has a question she asks me, which is good at least. That she will ask if she wants to know something. And highly flattering that she thinks I am the fount of all knowledge. Well, children always think their mothers know everything, don’t they?

I really hope I calm down when she gets home, I don’t want to be fussing around like a mother hen. But the other thing that is making me nervous is the fact that we haven’t got her moved yet. I want her to be able to sort her new room out to her own satisfaction before the baby comes. She has no idea how sore she’s going to be afterwards. I mean, talk about knackered, she will never have experienced anything like it! I’m sure she thinks she can arrange all that afterwards. We need to talk about it, because if we end up moving everything while she’s in hospital then I want a plan to work to, so everything is where she would want it to be when she gets there.

You see the way my mind is working? It’s just flitting from place to place. Even my thoughts can’t settle. So I’ll stop torturing you with this nonsensical ramble and go and find something else to do….looking at puppies again I expect. It calms me, what can I say? I want a new baby too……….

It’s Not Working!!

Dammit, I have come across an ad for a pomeranian x papillon which is exactly what I’m thinking of to start my planned miniature collie breed, and the owner is merely looking for a new home, not asking anything for this puppy. I am hoping that having told her all about us she will decide our home sounds far too boisterous for her cutie-pie, or that he has already found a new home…..

HELP ME………………..I shouldn’t have emailed, I really shouldn’t, but I find it very hard to pass up an opportunity to obtain exactly what I am looking for for the cost of driving 100 miles. Bugger.

Replacement Urges

I always have this thing where if I lose something I need to replace it. This is in terms of living things, not inanimate objects. But if a pet dies I need to replace it. If I am struggling emotionally I tend to start thinking about small furry animals at those times too. The result of this is two dogs, a cat and three rats.

Now my eldest daughter is leaving home and I am once again feeling the need to obtain a replacement. Of course I can never actually replace my daughter. And it’s not as if I won’t be able to see her again, she’s only going to my parents’ house and I know where they live! But with the imminent grandchild, the autistic son, the hyperactive daughter, I think I probably have quite enough on my plate at the minute and I am trying to bite down hard on this urge in the hope that I will get over it in time.

My husband, who at first said he was putting his foot down and there was no way we could have another animal, reached the eye-rolling stage a couple of weeks ago. He actually said one morning, “I don’t want another animal but I’m sure I’ll love it when we get it.” This is not entirely helpful to someone who is fighting these urges. I was hoping for his unconditional obstinacy to help keep me strong. I really need that lack of support in place right now.

To make matters worse, our neighbours have a new puppy who keeps escaping into our garden. She is absolutely adorable, a little cross of some kind by the looks of it, really friendly and sweet. In the aftermath of our cat being run over and turning out to be absolutely fine, I think my husband went mad. This puppy came over for a visit and he said, “Shall we keep her?” He went on to say it would be really lovely to have another little doggy, a smaller one than the collies, something really cute. I think he’s lost it. He’s supposed to be the one that stands there all stern and says, “No, we are not having another bloody animal.”

So this has left me all confused and anguished, because I really do desperately want to get another small fluffy, I actually wanted a smaller one last time and got a collie because he doesn’t like little dogs, and now he is practically giving his blessing and I keep seeing adverts for just the kind of doggies I would love to have at very reasonable prices. Affordable, anyway. In fact I came across the ideal puppy just this evening and this has prompted me to get all this off my chest. I have to stand firm or I will be off to collect it tomorrow and I really can’t do that, it’s not really right. I mustn’t.

So it’s gone from me being needy and him standing firm with the NO to him going all soppy and me trying really, really hard to stand firm with the NO. The fact that he has come round to the idea is to do with him knowing me so well, understanding me, and loving me very much. But it’s not entirely helpful at the minute and I am going to end up with a new puppy by September if I am not very, very careful. But it beats goldfish and snakes any day, and the children could probably be persuaded that they would prefer a puppy any day…..

No, no, no, no, no……………………………………………..

Two Down, Seven to Go

Thursday evening I was standing in the garden having a cigarette (yes I am an evil smoker – but only in the garden, never the house) when our cat, Buttons, came ambling up the garden. I called him and it was immediately apparent that all was not well. He didn’t look up and come running over. He just carried on plodding, and it looked as though he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. In fact he got as far as the doorstep and collapsed.

Poor Buttons, I have never seen a cat look so bad. His mouth was hanging open and was full of blood. His gums were grey. His eyes were half-closed and the pupils as large as I have ever seen – this in beaming sunlight. His chest gurgled as he breathed. I got a towel to wrap him in and gave him a quick check over. It looked as if he had a broken jaw and sounded like possibly broken ribs with a punctured lung. He had also soiled himself and stank to high heaven, which didn’t help. I have never seen an animal look that way and survive. I thought he would be dead within the hour, from shock at least, and who knows what injuries.

Of course the vets had closed just 5 minutes before. I called the emergency number – no reply. I left a message on the mobile answerphone, figuring they were out on another urgent call. I got no response and tried calling other emergency vets, but they are all on contract and wouldn’t help. I thought my cat needed to be put to sleep and no-one would help!

By bed-time Buttons did seem a little better. He had made his way upstairs (slowly, in several short steps with long rests between). His gums were a little more pink but his breathing was terrible. I went to bed fully expecting to find a dead cat in the morning. I didn’t sleep terribly well, of course, and was up at 6.30.

Buttons was alive! Still looking and sounding terrible, but essentially alive. This meant taking him to the vet as soon as they opened. As his insurance had lapsed, we might still be faced with a difficult decision. I called the vet as soon as they opened and they asked me to bring him straight in. They are about a quarter of a mile down the road, so that didn’t take long at all, and we were shown straight in.

I told the vet what had happened. “That’s odd,” she said, “I was on duty last night and neither phone rang once.” Well, anyway, she examined Buttons, whose jaw had apparently gone back into position – it’s possible it was just the struggle for breath that made it look broken! No broken bones anywhere. A broken tooth, a nasty cut all the way across his tongue (only superficial, but sore) and decreased breath sounds on the right side. He would need an x-ray to see if he had ruptured his diaphragm.

Having to ask about cost was awful, but she said it would be about £150. If it was bruising then he would be fine in a few days. A ruptured diaphragm, well possibly a different story but there was no way of knowing without an x-ray. £150 to find out is not really too high a price to pay to stop your cat suffering. And at least we had the money at the minute.

Waiting for news is always horrible. Everyone was a little snappy. Finally, at 1.30, the phone rang. Buttons had contusions on his left lung (bruising, basically), and a small pneumothorax on the right. This is air in the space between the lung and the ribs, and stops the lung from inflating fully. He would be fine in a few days.

Having already been lucky to survive one car accident, Buttons has now had a second nasty RTA with only bruises to show for it! Now that is the power of 9 lives in action. He’s home now and doing well. I have put in the forms for the insurance so that next time we don’t even have to think about it.

And there will be a next time!

Sooooo Not a Good Idea

#1 has decided to go away for a few days to see her, well, ex-stepfather is the best I can come up with. I don’t mind her going to see him, he’s not a bad bloke, I just couldn’t actually live with him. The thing I’m not so happy about is that it’s all the way in Gravesend and we’re in Surrey and she is almost 38 weeks pregnant now so the baby could be along at any time really. If she goes into labour while he’s at work (another AA patrol like my hubby), it could take him hours to get back to her, and then it’s an hour back here and another half an hour to the hospital. That’s if the traffic is good.

So she might end up having the baby in a hopsital in Kent.

Or in the back of a Porche on the M25.

I am only her mother, though, not her keeper. Everything will probably be fine. First babies are often late (although she herself was born 10 days early). Even if she does go into labour it’s likely to be fairly long, unless she turns out to be one of these women that’s in labour for about half an hour. If that’s the case, even if she was here she wouldn’t make it to hospital; I am trying to be calm about this. Rational.

But it’s not easy. I’m like a cat on hot bricks right now and it’ll get worse. And my husband was talking about going away camping next week when he’s on holiday. 10 days before the baby’s due. Talk about laugh!

Summer Holiday Fun

Well here we are, summer holidays underway and OMG!!! Somehow the kids are still alive but I really don’t know how. I have been so busy trying not to bang their heads together that I have hardly been near the PC. Well, that and my son has been on it almost constantly.

The very first day of the holidays I got the backdated tax credits and decided to take my eldest shopping for all those last-minute baby things she hasn’t got yet. Of course I had to take all of the children, so we traipsed around town with the promise of a visit to Hobbycraft if they were good. So they were good. We went to Hobbycraft and bought origami paper for #2 and paint-by-numbers for #3. Happy children. But…..

But…..

But then we had to go to Mothercare and Argos, next to each other on a shopping estate some distance away. #2 and #3 didn’t want to come in. I went into Mothercare with #1 and #4. We got some bits in there. We went to put them in the car. I checked on the others. I had parked in the shade and left the windows down so they wouldn’t die or anything. I asked them if everything was okay and it all seemed fine so I popped over the road to Argos with #1 and #4 still in tow. We looked in the book and ordered our stuff quickly. #4 dashed out of the doors and had to be caught by a nice man before she ran straight under the wheels of a large car. This was mildly embarrassing, but I was hot on her heels at the time. Anyway, we had taken about 5 minutes to do this, and then had to wait about 5 minutes for our goods – you know how Argos works, with the book and everything….anyway.

I was literally collecting the stuff when my name was called out. I looked around and a middle-aged woman came rushing over. “Your children are rather disturbed in the car,” she said. “There is another lady staying with them. They said you were in Argos and told me your name.” I don’t know if she was disapproving or not, I was so embarrassed. I did say, “Oh, they’re probably fighting.” and managed to thank her before I rushed off.

I got to the car and there was indeed another lady standing by. All was quiet apart from some subdued sobbing from the back seat. As soon as I appeared on the scene the shouting began again, with both of the children wanting to fill me in on their version of events first. The woman explained that there had been screams and things being thrown out of the windows, which had prompted her and the first woman to see what was happening. I thanked lady number 2 and told the children to shut up as I was not interested in what they had been up to. I was very unhappy with their behaviour and the fact that they had dragged all these other people into it, and I did NOT want to hear another word about it. It took 10 minutes for them to fully get the message, but in the end peace was restored.

 So that’s it. I can’t leave them alone together for 10 minutes EVER. World war 3 will surely break out if I do. Today I was out with them again and ended up having to make them walk one on either side of me so they couldn’t fight.

Roll on September…this is going to be a LOOOOONG holiday.

Tax Credits

 I called the tax credits. The guy I was talking to seemed a little unhelpful at first. I was explaining that I now get DLA and he said it wasn’t relevant as it is not counted as income for tax credits purposes. I said wasn’t there an extra allowance or something on the tax credits? He said yes, for a disabled child. Did I have a disabled child? I explained that I was told we had to be getting DLA to get this extra Tax Credit component. He said they are unrelated.

 So he asked me how long my child had been disabled, and I told him he was born like it. He was incredulous. How long have you been getting tax credits? Why didn’t you put this down on the original claim form. I said we didn’t know and he had only just been diagnosed recently. Next question – how long has your son been disabled? As in when was he diagnosed? That’s easy, quick check of the calendar, 23rd April. That was when the consultant told me the diagnosis was Autistic Spectrum Disorder, so that is the date from which he is officially ‘disabled’.

Oh my God I have a disabled child!

Anyway, the now very nice man (who obviously realised I was a poor hopeless idiot with no understanding of the way in which tax credits work) explained that there was a disabled child allowance of £48.84 a week, which I was now entitled to, which would be backdated to the 23rd of April as that is when my son was diagnosed. Not related to the DLA after all. 12 or 13 weeks of back payment to come. Worth £586-634. Less 25% because we are still repaying an overpayment from 3 years ago when my husband had an extraordinary year because the AA was taken over by new people and they threw bonuses at the staff. If we’d waited until April we wouldn’t have owed them a thing because Good Old Gordon changed the increase of earnings limit from £2500 to £25000. But I realised we would be over the £2500 in the October and called them up…..well, I had to get a job and everything.

Mind you, that worked out for the best really, because it is a great job and it has served me well. Hopefully I have served them well too. But we probably couldn’t have managed without it over the last year. So never mind that wee matter of having to repay all that money. If we were less honest, or were foreign, we wouldn’t have had to pay a penny (foreigners being allowed to get away with over-payments on the basis that they may not have understood the forms – I am an intelligent woman who speaks English as a first language and I don’t understand the Tax Credits system. Isn’t it racist to say that only foreigners don’t understand it…?) but everything happens for a reason, so I’ll have to let them off.

Anyway, the point is, if you have a child with any form of disability (even if acknowledging the fact that it isa disability is the hardest thing for you) and your earnings are such that you are in the Tax Credits system, you can qualify for up to and extra £48.84 a week and it doesn’t seem to be related to whether you qualify for DLA. Anyway, you can call and ask, it doesn’t cost a lot and it could be worth a good income boost if you are at the lower end of the scale. In our position it is worth the full amount (less the aforesaid repayments for the overpayment, but that’ll be all done soon), but of course it is reduced at the same rate as the rest. Worth asking, anyway.