Hospital Tales

Time for another round of tedious titillating tales from the bogan extraordinaire! This week we are telling our hospital tales.

I must admit I am extremely fortunate in that I have never been in hospital for any serious life threatening reason. Unless you count the time 15 years ago when I was admitted into hospital for suspected appendicitis which actually turned out to be the wrong diagnosis. In fact, what I had was ovarian hyer-stimulation or some such thing (I forget what the technical term is) - a nasty and potentially dangerous side effect from the fertility drugs I was taking at the time.

There is nothing quite like being wheeled into surgery looking and feeling like utter crap only to have your High School nemesis suddenly appear as one of the theatre staff beaming at you in the same utterly patronising way you remember from years gone by.

"You've lost all your hair!" she exclaimed as if I was bald instead of just having short hair. Luckily they knocked me out with the anaesthetic shortly after that and ended the pain of that reunion as well as the ovarian pain.

Other than that incident I've only been in hospital for day procedures to have wisdom teeth extracted and to investigate my fertility issues during my 20's. Can you believe I ever had fertility issues? Yeah, I can't either! I've also had a tubal ligation a few years ago so I don't have to think about contraception anymore. In spite of this, I STILL worry that I may fall pregnant. Everything about pregnancy has been completely bizarre for me so I worry that I would be that one in a billion bizzarro person who couldn't fall pregnant for love nor money while I was still young and in my 20's even with fertility drugs but might fall pregnant now in my 40's despite having had a tubal ligation. I'm not paranoid AT ALL.

My only other trips to hospital were when I had my babies. The worst of them was when I had a still-birth experience in 2007. I've never really written about it because it's hard to find the words to describe something like that.  The birth had to be induced and I was awake for it and felt all the pain of a normal birth. When I changed my mind after declining the pethidene shot for several hours, the midwife, who was obviously due to finish her shift, got all huffy and slammed the door when she went out to get it. I know nurses and midwives are over worked and underpaid but I imagine that if it was a contest as to who was having the worst day that day I would have won. A bit of empathy, please. The only consolation was seeing the baby and being able to say goodbye to him.

Another memorable hospital experience was when Micky Blue Eyes was diagnosed with Cancer. He had to have a blood transfusion immediately as he was severely anaemic and losing blood. He was joking around and saying that maybe he should become a vampire and drink it because it would be quicker! Meanwhile, I had to leave my squeamishness at the door and get over myself very quickly. Then the surgeon came in to describe what he was going to do and it all sounded rather gruesome  It seemed that he was going to slice the bejesus out of him. Long story but we ended up changing surgeons and he had a specialist colo-rectal surgeon and I'm SO GLAD we did. Nine years later he's still here to tell the tale.

Me and Mr 5 when he was brand new.

Fortunately, after the still birth in 2007 I was pregnant again the following year. I had decided to change obstetricians because I was slightly uncomfortable with my former female obstetrician's rather blunt and straight forward beside manner. She was no Nina Proudman. Although that's possibly a good thing when you think about it. Isn't Nina just a little too neurotic to be a obstetrician? And doesn't she have rather too many complicated daydreams about her love life when she's supposed to be delivering babies? But this post isn't supposed to be about Offspring. Oops. Back to my point...

When the day rolled around and it was decided that I had to have an emergency c-section due to my alarmingly high blood pressure my obstetrician was away and the back up one was also away that day - so who did I end up with? You guessed it. Ms Blunt who expertly cut me open and delivered my baby (now Mr 5), tiny but breathing. That was all I was concerned with. Then, with her usual bluntness she cornered me, which wasn't very difficult considering I was completely numb from the waist down from the epidural thingy. I certainly wasn't going anywhere.

"How many more babies are you going to have? she barked.

"None," I replied "this is it."

"GOOD!" was her emphatic response "You were just lucky this time."

Thanks for the information, love.

I have to admit I did feel lucky. And I still do every day when I look at my boys.

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I Must Confess. 

                                                    What are your hospital tales?

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About A Boy, Or Boys, Actually

The other day I went to pick up Mr 4 from kindy, Mr 11 and 8 trailing behind me. Both had 'graduated' from the same kindy, replete with caps and gowns. Can you believe it? Five year olds 'graduating'? Anyway, as we filed back out the door, the rather talkative lady who runs the day care exclaimed over how much the boys had grown, adding "Are you going to have any more, Vanessa?"

"No," I replied quickly "I'm too old."

She scoffed at this, then declared "But, you have to have a girl!"

Seriously? Is someone coming to arrest me if I don't? Is there a law saying we all have to have at least one child of each gender? Did I miss that memo?

Not that I mean anything against girls. Especially since I used to be one. I'm just bemused by the insistence in society that if your children are all male, you must have a girl. It's not the first time people have insisted this to me. In addition, I often get pitying looks and veiled comments that seem to imply I've been given a dodgy deal having three healthy, gorgeous boys.

Does the opposite happen to parents of only girls?

In a conversation with another Mum at Playgroup, who has one daughter, she confessed that she really wasn't keen to have any more children. The she suggested that I must have kept going for three to get that elusive girl. Not true. After five long years of infertility, I never thought twice about the gender of my children. I was just so grateful to be able have healthy children.

I was convinced I was having a girl, second time around, when I was pregnant with Mr 8.  This was due to a whole load of bollocks I was told by a couple of psychics.  They both predicted that I would have a boy and then a girl by age 32 or 33.

As I was 33 at the time, while pregnant, I believed it.  Well, of course they are going to say this. If someone is pregnant it is certainly going to be one or the other.  At least that way they have a 50% chance of getting some predictions (lies) right!

If psychics are going to make up this stuff, couldn’t they at least be more inventive and make up something really astonishing or super exciting such as 'you are going to give birth to a genius who will discover the cure for cancer.'

Anyway, because I was so convinced I was having a girl, I thought I would find out the sex.  Another boy! Another miracle for me.  We thought we might not have any children at one stage. Oh yeah, I already mentioned that. 

I truly didn’t have any disappointed, let down feeling. 

Even though Micky Blue Eyes goes around telling people that we thought we’d have a third to try for a girl,  such a thought honestly did not enter my mind.  I knew by this time that we only made boys for whatever reason. When I had a late miscarraige at 19 weeks with our third baby, another boy, I was devastated. It wasn't as if I didn't care just because it was boy. So,when we were lucky enough to have a fourth boy, again, I was delighted.

I like being a mother of boys. Yes, there are things that go with it that are tedious.  As much as I don’t have patience for many boy type things. Lego, Star Wars, Spider Man, Lego, Harry Potter, Lego, Lego and more bloody Lego.

Taken by Mr8: some of his favourite things.

 

Seriously, that stuff is the Cancer of toys. It seems to multiply and spread to the most inconvenient places. Just when you think you have beaten it or contained it one place, there it is again. Everywhere. In the bath tub, backyard, kitchen, and your bed. Right under your backside, naturally, when you heave your weary bones in at midnight, absolutely knackered. 

Plus, we haven't exactly had the most illustrious track record with the stuff, as it has necessitated two trips to the hospital thus far. Once, when Mr 8, then Mr 5, helpfully shoved a tiny piece up his nostril. Another, when Mr 4, then Mr 3, was suspected of swallowing a piece. X-rays confirmed that it was, in fact, a false alarm, thankfully. 

However, I suspect I would have even less tolerance for many ‘girly’ things. Particularly craft. I’m just not that into it. There, I said it. All that glitter, pipe cleaners, felt paper, beads and fiddly crap.

Plus, I don’t really do pink and frilly. Pink makes me puke, generally. No doubt if I'd had a girl or girls I would have crossed over to the pink side and went crazy buying pretty things. Therefore having boys has helped us to save money. (I'm conveniently ignoring the fact that we are flat broke bogans.) I do tend to assume that being boys, when they grow up they will go their own way, while a daughter would stay closer to their parents. However, I probably believe this because I'm still a Mummy's girl (and a Daddy's girl) at 42. Not every female is. Ahem.

As a mother of boys, I also made the decision to call their dangly bits by the correct term. A penis is a penis, the same as an arm is an arm, right? This mortified my mother who had told my brother growing up that it was a ‘Charlie’.  Apparently the look on his face the first time he was introduced to somebody named Charlie was priceless.

We definitely won't be having a daughter. We're done. I had a tubal ligation a few years ago. Therefore the relief I feel every month, getting a period is slightly ridiculous. It's just that after everything about pregnancy being slightly bizarre for me, I fear it could still happen. I tried for years, in my 20's when supposedly women are more fertile. At the time even fertility treatments did not work. With my first pregnancy I didn't even know it was happening until it was all over bar the shouting, as they say. Then, I became pregnant easily twice when I was over 35. Weird. I worry I could be that random strange person who could fall pregnant in my 40's, after having a tubal ligation. I don't want that to happen, even if I could be guaranteed to have a girl. My family is complete.

I feel blessed to have my boys and I hope I can bring them up to be decent men. Even if we are something resembling bogans, at least we are nice bogans. Or noice ones, as the case may be. Also, undoubtedly one of the best things about having boys, apart from all the cuddles, is that Micky Blue Eyes loves taking them out to soccer games and occasionally camping. Which gives me that much coveted quiet time. It’s a win/win  situation for us. 

And one day, I hope, they will eventually lose the fascination with Lego.

Do you have boys? If so, all I really want to know is how to you deal with the Lego?

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Bumps To Baby Part Two

This week's Lounge topic is adult temper tantrums, so I am linking this old post about the time I slapped my own mother. I know. Shameful. I blame hormones. Ahem.

It seems like the years of trying to have a baby are now the Wilderness Years or the Forgotten Years. I'm trying hard to remember them and I seem to have blocked quite a bit of it out. Weird.

After receiving the devastating news that IVF was our only chance of a baby, we put off making a decision for a while.  I wasn't sure if I could face another Linda Blair/Exorcist experience.

I remember having some rather irrational thoughts.  I thought Micky Blue Eyes should leave me and find someone else.  After all, the problem was with my plumbing, not his. 

Then, a friend of Mick's suggested we visit a naturopath.  This had worked out well for them and they were currently expecting after having seen her for a few months.  I was horrified and indignant. How dare these people come along with their hippy drippy new age theories that were not going to work for me. The professor dude had said IVF was my only chance. However, Mick was keen on the idea, so, I reluctantly agreed.

Next thing you know we were both swallowing some hideous herbal concotions, taking vitamins and eating healthy.  I was charting my temperatures to predict ovulation.  All to no avail.  We trotted backwards and forwards to the naturopath and persisted for a good year. Nothing. 

At this point, she informed us.  "I'm sorry, it should have worked by now. You might have to do IVF."  Gee, thanks.

Proving how desperate we were by this stage, however, we decided to try another hippy drippy  alternative treatment. We went to a Reflexologist. And no, I can't explain what they are, or do, even though I've been to one. There seemed to be a lot of tapping involved. The woman tapped away while Mick I gave each other pointed looks. We never went back.

Around this time, I started to read as much info on this pesky PCOS thing as I could find.  The thing that seemed to come up a lot in all the literature was that exercising was of extreme importance in managing the condition.

So I gritted my teeth and started to exercise.  I kept on exercising, even though I thought I might explode and die from the effort.  I did aerobics like a possessed woman. I sweated buckets. It sucked. Still, I woke up the next day and did it again.  Then a funny thing happened.  I started to like it. I hardly ever missed a day. 

I had a body like Denise Austin. Well not really, but I
did used to have hair like that...

Then, an even funnier thing happened.  The girl who'd been absolutely hopeless at anything sporty or physical, and was a total unco-ordinated klutz suddenly found herself becoming *gasp* an Exercise Addict. I LOVED it.  I knew all the annoying things Denise Austin would say on the tapes before she said them, I was so familiar with them.

"If you rest you rust!"

"If you don't move it, you lose it!"

Oh, and apparently I was always 'doing great!' and a 'champion' though I'm not sure how she knew that.

Not surprisingly, with all this exercising and eating healthy stuff, I dropped a few kilos.  Funny about that. Eat less. Move more. Lose weight. Hmm, not exactly rocket science. I'll never understand  why mother nature or whomever couldn't work it out so lazing about eating cakies could have the same effect. Hmph.

I also went back to doing some casual library work and secured a 12 month position with a law firm in the city. If I was never going to have a baby, I may as well work, I reasoned.

My 30th birthday rolled around. I went out and celebrated with friends, where I whined about not being able to have a baby with other friends in a similar circumstance. Not a particularly classy thing to do, when you are already, in fact, well and truly, up the duff. But, I swear to God. I seriously had NO IDEA. 

A month or two later, still firmly in the grip of Exercise Addiction, I attended a friend's hen's night. I wondered why my clothes were becoming too tight. And why I felt extremely ill after only a few drinks.

Additionally, all the energy I was now used to having from my Exercise Addiction seemed to have deserted me and I found it a herculean task to simply put one foot in front of the other. My boobs were permanently sore and my periods had disappeared.

All common symptoms of PCOS according to all the info on it I'd been reading.  It couldn't be anything else.  I'd tried for years to become pregnant. Even fertility drugs didn't work and the professor dude said IVF was my only chance.

So, when my poor mother had the audicity to gently suggest that perhaps I might be pregnant, I turned into a shrieking, shouty, insane woman, who slapped her own mother in the face (sorry Mum)  and sunk onto the floor in a sobbing heap.

Upon hearing this, Micky Blue Eyes had had quite enough of my moodiness. I suspect I was rather unpleasant to live with really. (Sorry, Micky) He made me go with Mum to the doctor's the very next day.

At the doctors surgery, he had me lie on the bed and examined me. My belly suddenly looked ridiculously huge compared to the rest of me, when I lay down.

 "It looks like you're pregnant," he told me. It was like he was saying: "It looks like an alien has invaded your body and presently will burst out of your torso, like Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN" for all the sense it made to me. No way, I wasn't pregnant. "But  you better have an ultra sound to make sure."

A few hours later I went in for an ultra-sound. The examiner squirted the gel on my suddenly ridiculously huge belly and started prodding me and saying nonsensical things in her Asian accent. I thought it sounded something like 'oh yes, there's the head, and the arms..." What?! It really was an alien?!

  "I'm pregnant??!!" I finally managed to gasp. The woman looked completely startled. "Yes, yes! Pregnant, 26 weeks! You didn't know?"

All I could do was laugh and cry hysterically at the same time, while the Asian lady kept repeating "26 week! And didn't know! Ha ha ha ha!" I'd like to think she was laughing with me, but I suspect she wasn't. She also mentioned the baby was a boy without asking if I wanted to know, which was slightly inconsiderate.

Still laughing and crying, hysterically, I finally went out and told my ecstatic Mum she was becoming a Granny again in only a few months! Then, I rang Mick.

"Hello Dad," I said, when he answered.
"No, no it's Mick, " he said "you haven't rang  your father."
"I know!" I replied.

We all went out for dinner that night to celebrate. It felt better than winning lotto.  Well, I've never actually won lotto, so if that could be arranged so I can tell for sure, I probably wouldn't mind.

Lotus flower: pretty, but not helpful during Child birth

3 months or so later our son (now Master 11) was born, but I won't describe the birth. If I did, I would end up sounding like one of those awful hippy drippy new agers who just use the power of positive thinking while imagining their uterus opening up like a lotus flower. Ugh. Hate them. After all, epidurals were invented for a reason, right?

But I never had one. Or any pain relief, for that matter. Yep, that's right. I was TERRIFIED of child birth and I aced it. After a 3 month pregnancy. You can hate me if you want. Okay, I'm shutting up now.

Hang on. One more thing. Obviously I have 3 boys now. All conceived naturally. So, the Professor dude was wrong. That, or I just finally figured out what caused it...

Right, I'm off to dig out those Denise Austin tapes to see if I can become addicted to exercise again, instead of cakies.  After all, if  you rest you rust.

Linking up with The Lounge which is being hosted this week by Robomum.

What was your worst adult temper tantrum?

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Bumps To Baby Part One

A word of warning. This blog post could be a tad tedious until you get to the twist at the end. Which most of you already know anyway. So, I apologise for boring you.  Then again, it is what I do best.  Boring people, that is. It's a gift I have. The ability to be a crashing, heaving bore.  We shouldn't waste our gifts, presumably, so here goes. Brace yourself.

There came a time after Micky Blue Eyes and I were married for a year or so, when I fervently desired to become Up The Duffian.  This was in spite of an overwhelming, irrational fear of childbirth.  Actually, let me re-think that. It's not entirely irrational to be afraid of growing another human being inside you, then having to push said human being out your,..erm, va jay jay.  That shit hurts. Like hell.  The idea of that kind of, sort of, um... actually totally FREAKED ME OUT.

Professor type dude

So, consequently it was somehow rather ironic when it seemed as if it wasn't going to happen after all.  My girly bits were not co-operating and doing what they were supposed to. Apparently this was due to some pesky thing called PCOS or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

This led to me having to see some Professor type fertility dude,  and being jabbed with drugs.  Not the fun kind that might make you happy, the crappy kind that make you moody, bloated and basically like you have a permanent case of feral PMS.  It may have been worth it had it worked. It didn't. I was pumped full of drugs and still not in the pudding club.

By this time we were several years into trying and beginning to become extremely despondent and disillusioned with the whole bumps to baby  thing.  We decided to take a break from the treatment.

Then, one Saturday shortly thereafter, we were having a lazy day at home. I started experiencing stomach pains. Figuring it must be something I ate, I put up with it.  The pain intensified and before long I was doubled over agony.  The pain was excruciating, I had never experienced anything like it.

Then came the projectile vomiting. I was Linda Blair in the Exorcist, only scarier.   I was only able to lay there while pain gripped my insides with brutal ferocity, in between bouts of hideous, projectile vomiting.

Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  I was scarier. Eeeek!

"I can take you to the hospital." Mick would say.
"Noooo!" I wailed idiotically and writhed in agony. Unbelievably, I survived the night. I was certain I was going to die.  I visited the nearby medical centre, where they told me I just had a gastro bug and sent me home.  Where I proceeded to remain in agony for another two days, before my Mum took me to her doctor who ordered me straight to hospital.  They suspected my appendix were in trouble and never connected it to the fertility drugs

Emergency surgery revealed I has a massive blood filled cyst. The surgeon seemed quite shocked saying he'd never seen anything like it. This (the agony/projectile vomiting/blood filled cyst thing) was actually a wonderful side effect to the fertility drugs called Ovarian Hyperstimulation.  I didn't learn until later that this condition is also potentially fatal. So I hadn't been exxaggerating to think I might die.

 To cut a long story short I went back to the Professor dude only to discover I now had endometriosis as well as PCOS and in his professional opinion I would never be able to have a baby without IVF. 

"It's your only chance." he informed us, expressionless. Micky Blue Eyes and I sat there dumbfounded.  No doubt he had to deliver the same news to equally dumbfounded, distraught couples every day, so it was nothing new for the Professor dude. It was a punch in the guts for us though.

My only chance of a baby was through IVF which involved me taking drugs which would more than likely cause this potentially fatal Hyperstimulation thing again.  I would have to consider risking my own life for the sake of creating a new one. Heavy stuff.  Devastating actually. 

We really believed it was never meant to happen.  But, as you probably know, it did. With a surprising twist...

Stay tuned for the details.

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