ANZAC DAY 25/04/2012

An officer and his Daughters all ready for the ANZAC Day dawn service.

 Munchkin was so proud that Daddy let her wear Great Grandma's medals this year.

how much to tell?

Tomorrow is ANZAC day. and whilst telling Munchkin what we will be doing tomorrow ( getting up whilst its dark and going to a dawn remembrance service ( Hubby is letting her wear her great Grandma's medals this year) followed by a hot shotgun breakfast(no whisky for her though) her favourite word kept popping up  'Why?'

me: " To remember all the soldiers that didn't come home from war"
Munchkin: " Daddy's job is air force is daddy a soldier?"
me: 'yes'
Munchkin: "daddy comes home every day"
me: "yes he does"
Munchkin: " does daddy do war?"
me: "Sometimes yes, but not right now"
Munchkin: " oh," ( pause) "Can i help you do the mummy jobs"

Where do I go from here? how much should i tell her about Anzac Day and its meaning to our Military family? Do i really want her to understand its significance? because if so how will she feel before her Daddy goes on future Deployments?

A world without sleep

at least that is my little world at the moment. Cookie used to be OK at sleeping she would wake briefly twice a night to feed and that was it. since 6 mths things have changed ( i blame teething) she now wakes every hour sometimes cries for up to 6 hrs a night. Munchkin who sleeps in the room right next to Cookie finds this incredibly stressful and often vomits after 2 hrs of Cookies night time screams. Hubby has taken to sleeping downstairs in the play room ( the only room with a door that can shut thanks to modern open plan housing) . Which leaves me upstairs with a screaming baby and a nearly 4 yr old vomiting with stress.  I put cookie to bed awake after dinner bath boobie stories and lullabies. she falls asleep quickly 5 to 10 minutes of grizzles.  but by an hour and a half later she is awake seeking the ultimate comfort of boobie. which she doesn't get between 10pm and 6 am and the screaming starts.
she is 8 months and way old enough to night wean and on a good solid dinner ( meat and 3 veg) as well. we have been controlled crying her for 6 weeks now and while it has worked in the day time i am at my whits end as to what to do at night I need more than 2 hrs sleep a night. I have tried sleeping her in bed with me she still won't sleep unless she is attached to boobie. i have tried staying in the room with her while she falls asleep calmly.  but then as soon as she stirs and I'm not there  she is screaming. so now i do my bedtime routine tuck her in and kiss her head before leaving the room to let her self settle. which as i said before works well in the daytime but not at night.
Has anyone got any suggestions for a good nights sleep. because the girls in this house are very sleep deprived.

6 mths and update

Sorry for my lack of blogging lately it is partly because i have been thinking about what to do with the blog and whether i still need this space. When i first started this blog i was desperate for a place to air feeling associated with my angel babies as very few of my IRL friends understood and the ones that did were probably sick of hearing about how depressed i was. and i needed the support i found in the adoption loss infertility ( ALI) community.
now that cookie is here and while my angel babies hold a special place in my heart and i am defiantly not "over it" it no longer consumes me to the point where i think i can't breathe.
But i still need this space i have met some wonderful bloggers in the ALI community and while for some of them reading of my successful pregnancy with cookie will be too much to bear in their own journeys with loss/infertility. For others it might give them hope of the light in the end of the tunnel.
So i have decided to keep this blog and blog for the same reason i always have... for me. And for this blog to be about what it has always been about .. Life the highs and lows.

So here is an update of life in my little corner of the globe:-

 Hubby was home on uni holidays for most of February, so we took  the opportunity for me to go back to work for a month and boost our savings account. but i can tell you doing 3 shifts a week with a 5 month old baby who because I was away kept waking up at night for cuddles ( not complaining about Cookie wanting cuddles just the lack of sleep) was not fun i am still tired and i haven't done a shift for a week and a half.
I am really glad that Hubby's final year of his electrical engineering will be pretty busy and i will be doing very little ( if any) work from now on. I don't want to miss too much of Cookies first year they just grow too fast and i spent too much time of Munchkin's first year wishing it away and wanting her to grow up. This time i just want to enjoy cookie's baby year.

Munchkin has started preschool  this year and is more grown up every day. she is still a fiery ( stubborn) personality but i am reading 'how to calm a challenging child' and it is helping a lot.
She will be four soon and we are having a puppy party for her. I am making a puppy dog cake, the party guests will make themselves some puppy ears to wear and we will eat hot dogs and puppy bone shaped cheesy pastries.  Any other suggestions for puppy themed food would be greatly appreciated especially if they are a little bit healthy and not packed with sugar.

Cookie is 6 months now and can drag her belly across the floor commando style as my friend put it " as fast as a little cockroach" and like a little cockroach she is into everything. We have just this week started her on some pureed potato as the baby rice cereal gave her blood in her poo after a week. and we are 4 days in to her trial of solids and so far so good i am hopeing that this weekend i will be making her pureed apple as well.
here is a recent photo of my girls who clearly love each other very much

still here

hi, to all my readers i am still here and cookie has recovered from her tummy bug at new years although it seems she is sensitive to baby rice cereal so we are delaying her solids for a while.  and see how she goes on pureed veges a bit later. she is still a little chubster. almost 7 kgs and only 5 months. Munchkin didn't reach 8kgs till she was 8 and a bit months.
I have started back at work and while i miss my girls while away it feels good to be a financial member of the family again.  love to all.

A pause in our Holiday

We have been away on chrissy holidays since the 20th of december and it has been lovely.
New years day brought us an unexpected experience. Cookie got Sick and Fast. she woke up with runny poo on new years day and by that night was running a really high fever and pooing little bits of blood and refusing to feed. She had to spend 3 nights in hospital and receive some fluids and IV antibiotics. She is on the mend now and we are spending a few mpre days at my father in laws to let her recooperate before cutting our holiday short and going home. I hope she never scares her mummy like that again. Seeing my normally smiley and energetic baby so listless and hot is not something i want to repeat ever.  So now i am paranoid about her getting sick again and not letting anyone but hubby and i hold her. The drs suspect she might have picked up salmonella which is the bug responsible for most cases of food poisoning. WE had been to the beach with the family on new years eve and had prawns for dinner. Cookie could have sucked on someone's prawny finger before they washed their hands. I am looking forward to going home.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and hopeing Santa can make your Christmas wish come true. ( I was approx 3 weeks pregnant last Christmas) Sending everyone a bit of Christmas magic. Take care.

A little reminder that we are a defence family

I have written before about how much I am enjoying having Hubby on home soil whist we are at our current posting location, and how it is so nice to feel like a normal civilian family.
recently i was dealt a small reality check and the biggest shock was that it was not from Hubby or his work but from Munchkins 3 yr old preschool.
This last year Munchkin has been attending a 3yr old preschool program called 'playschool' and her Playschool is specifically for defence kids and is located on a large military base here. It is a fantastic program and all the kids seem to understand each other. at any one time about 25% of the kids have a parent away on deployment. the teachers do a great job of incorporating defence things into the school. eg all of the kids have a 'school posting passport' to fill in as they get posted around the country of all the schools they attend whilst their Dad (or mum) is in the services.
But this one thing they had to do brought home to all us 'military mums' the more negative aspects of defence life. The school had a LOCK DOWN exercise. A practise run should there ever be a bomb threat or terrorist threat etc is what we were told. All the kids had to go to the centre of the school room, all doors and windows were locked and the curtains were drawn. The kids had to sit quietly for 30mins ( I'm still not sure how they managed it) before the 'all clear' was given and school could resume as normal. Munchkins version of events was that there was 'an emergency at school and they got read lots of stories today' she was totally unfazed by it but it showed me that being a 'RAF BRAT' ( a term for kids of parents in the Royal Air Force) Is going to impact more areas of her life than just having   her Daddy away on deployment sometimes.

mindfullness

One of the people i saw to help manage my anxiety when i was pregnant with cookie said i should try to practice mindfullness, live in the now and be thankfull. I never managed it while i was pregnant. The thoughts of ' my body is not a safe place for a baby' and 'this is not a fetus its my baby, doesn't anyone get what i could loose here' were very consuming. But maybe the time to start practising mindfullness is now when the waters are calm so that it can become a habit by the time the waters get rought again for whatever reason.
So what am I thankfull for right now:-
   Sleepless nights
Munchkin being jealous of Cookie ( she will probably never get how lucky she is to have a sister)
Munchkins obsession with sticking dinosour and dragon stickers all over her face and mine too for that matter. and then going to get pizza with daddy for dinner ( stickers still all over her face) She will get self consious soon enough but for now i love that she doesn't give too hoots how she looks when she leaves the house.
picking strawberries ( they always taste better picked from your own strawberry patch especially good if they are offered as a present from ur 3 yr old)
Thats probably enought for one day i need to leave something to be thankfull for tomorrow.

Armistice Day

Today is remembrance Day, today in 1918  world war 1 ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" with the German signing of the Armistice. Today we observe a minute silence to remember the Fallen. And today as every year I pray that my husband will never be one of them. We should never forget that our freedom comes at  a price.

update

Life here is running relatively smoothly. Cookie is a delightful baby. who loves a good nights sleep (must take after her mummy). Munchkin has recently become jealous of Cookie and is having many more tantrums the moment my attention is diverted. be it a telephone call, or feeding and settling Cookie. she used to have time out in her room for bad behaviour but we have a 2 story house and i nearly fell down the stairs the other day whilst lugging her kicking, screaming, biting body up the stairs.  So we now have a naughty spot which is actually an old fold up car window shade it folds up small enough to fit in my nappy bag and when i pop it out its big enough for her to sit on. This way her time out can happen in the same spot as her tantrum. it is also good as i can give her a time out if she is misbehaving at the shops or someone Else's house.
We celebrated Hubby's 30th birthday last week munchkin and i made a London cheesecake ( it was really yummy) although not to munchkins taste which Hubby didn't mind at all. he gobbled up her piece in a flash. The weather is starting to warm up here which is great i can't wait to get to the beach this summer. I just need to shift the last 5 kgs of pregnancy weight they are being stubborn.

6wk post birth check results

I received a call from my dr to discuss my 6 wk post birth check results. and it turns out my Vit D  levels are quite low which surprised me as i am in Australia and spend a lot of time outside with munchkin who is addicted to climbing trees and playing in her paddling pool. I was looking on Dr google for implications for low vit D and it is not just for our bones it apparently helps our immune system function correctly and has a role in male and female fertility especially in females with poly cystic ovaries. and  here is the cruncher it has a link to first trimester miscarriages as well. my fertility dr as far as i know didn't test for low vit D.
my blood is boiling to think that a simple vitamin supplement that you can get over the counter could have potentially prevented my miscarriages.

Pregnancy and infant loss rememberance day

Yeasterday October 15th was pregnancy and infant loss rememberance day.
So yesterday I thought a lot about little Sparticus( our first angel), Peanut ( our second angel), and David (our third little angel) These three little souls have a very special place in my heart. I am a mummy to 5 and it will always feel that way. sending hugs and prayers to all those mums out there who have more children than the ammount of feet on the floor.

Christening

We have had a lovely weekend here, Cookie was Christened and our house has been full of family and friends, which i just love, one of the more negative aspects of the military lifestyle is living away from family. So having almost everyone here has been great. Cookie was christened in the same gown that i was christened in and Munchkin as well. i just changed the ribbon in the dress Munchkin had pink and i found some dusky purple for Cookie.

 The Christening Cake had to be altered from what i originally wanted to do (I ran out of time and the girls face was exceptionally hard and i wasn't happy with the result) but i am happy with the result. I made the cake topper from sugar paste.

 Cookie is still a good baby most of the time although like most mums of tiny babies I'm still very tired.

So glad someone said it.

While watching the morning show today whilst waiting for Cookie to fall asleep the story was on new mums who wished they had a baby of the opposite sex and were having trouble bonding with their 'unwanted' baby. And just as i was starting to feel my blood boil with thoughts of how can they be so ungrateful to  feel that about a healthy baby. ( yes during the early days of my pregnancy with cookie i briefly wished she was a boy, as my last miscarriage was a boy. But i wouldn't swap her for the world now, she is HERE and HEALTHY) Sami Lukas who was a guest on the show piped up eyes full of tears and said exactly what i was thinking. i had forgotten about her journey with IF. I am so glad she had the courage to speak up and remind everyone watching that every birth is a miracle and that the ability to have a child easily is not something shared by all.

Welcome September IcomLeaveWe

Welcome to all those here from IcomLeaveWE, I am currently a stay at home mum to two little girls, Munchkin and Cookie. I suffered 3 miscarriages between them, and i still miss my angel babies terribly.
Here is a link to my treatment summary for Recurrent Pregnanct Loss that brought Cookie here.
If you are still looking for answers I truly hope you find them and soon. Right now I am enjoying the newborn days and having my Husband on Home soil ( he is in the airforce). it is nice to feel like a normal family for a bit no TTC stress and no defence stress. I look forward to reading your blogs as well. baby dust to all xxoo

We are fine

This post is primarily for those who know me IRL. There is a wear house chemical fire in a nearby suburb to where we live. The smoke is potentially hazardous and we have been told to stay inside. So apart from being stuck in the house with a 3 yr old who wants to play in the sand pit we are fine. I just hope they can put the fire out soon.
love to all.

Life with Cookie

(Note: To all those still struggling with TTC/ Loss, this blog will be now focused on parenting after loss and life in general. If you need to stop reading for a while I completely understand and i look forward to seeing you again soon. Sending baby dust to all xxoo)

The first two weeks with Cookie have been great She is a real snuggle bug and her favourite place to sleep is in someones arms. She is a champion feeder and didn't loose any weight in her birth week. The cardigan i knitted isn't going to fit for long.
 My guilty mummy secret is that I am co sleeping her as she hates her little bassinet. I also think i wouldn't be able to sleep without her close to me I love that i can just kiss her head to see if she is too hot or too cold, and i love that instead of crying she just makes funny noises and starts to look around for my nipple when she is hungry. I co slept with Munchkin  for 3 months as well. Cookie only wakes twice at night for a feed when she is in our bed. In the day she naps in the pram surrounded by noise. she likes to know where we are.
Recovery from birth for me this time has been a lot easier. I haven't been ravaged by hormonal crying like i did after munchkin was born. and we are getting more sleep this time round. Although i have never been so happy to be tired in my life.
I don't think i will ever understand why my Angels had to go or why Cookie is here today. all i know is that all of my babies have a special place in my heart.
Munchkin loves her little sister and i am not allowed to change a nappy or give her a bath without Munchkins help I hope this trend continues.
People have already been asking when number 3 will be coming and right now i can't answer that question. In an ideal world the answer would be soon. But we all know that the world is not ideal.
 and right now i have the lovely warm weight of a sleeping newborn in my arms and i feel blessed. and i am going to enjoy this feeling for a while before i even think about wanting to go through TTC again.

Cookie's Birth Story

On Sunday 21st August i woke up at 05:00 with what i thought was pre labour contractions they were really irregular only 20 secs long and i could walk through them easily. So i paced the corridor in my house to see if they would strengthen. at 09:00hrs they did and by 11:15 a friend was picking up Munchkin and Hubby and i had a light lunch before heading to the Hospital we arrived at about 12:30 and i was 4 cms dilated. I was using Gas and a hot shower for pain relief and doing well. by 2pm i was having the urge to push so I had to get out of the shower and after a check i was told i was fully dilated and to follow my body. I pushed for 10 mins and the midwife said She would be here in another 15mins. But the i started vomiting and by contractions slowed so they put up some syntocin which increased my pain (A LOT) and i started getting pain in my pelvic  and pubic bone it felt as though with each contraction someone was sawing my pubic bone with a hacksaw. the midwives were telling me to push through it but i couldn't. I tried squatting, birthing stool, birthing ball, on all fours. by 5pm i was going out of my mind with pain. i had hubby and a midwife putting counter pressure on my hips which helped a tad but i still couldn't get her out. So at 5:40 they did a nerve block and pulled her out with the suction cap on her head. I only sustained a 1st degree tare that didn't require suturing.
 She is worth all of it but had i known how intense this labour would be i would have asked for an epidural when i was 4 cms.
Hubby brought Munchkin in and we had Pizza  dinner whilst i was still on the labour and delivery suite.
I only stayed in for 24hrs post delivery and up until tonight Cookie has been the model baby but tonight she is unsettled and hasn't slept a wink i am currently wearing her in a harness so hubby can get some sleep upstairs, we will swap soon.

Cookie is Cooked!!!!!

Cookie is here born 21/08/2011 at 5:40 pm weighing 3.67kg our beautiful little girl named K*A*T*E*L*Y*N. I am so pleased she is here Munchkin says "My baby" all the time. its very cute.
We are both well and home already.