Birth plan - a response to Mia Freedman

When I was pregnant with my first child I tried to do all the right things. I got a spot in the public Birth Centre and discussed my preference for a water birth with my midwife. I also attended the birth preparation classe (although I did leave one class before the subject of medical pain relief was discussed, because I'm scared of needles and figured that wouldn't change anytime soon). Besides, I told myself, labour only goes for a few hours, how bad could it be?

My midwife gave me a video of a water birth to watch to prepare for my own, but I felt uncomfortable with the intimacy of it all and never watched it. Instead I guzzled parenting books and focused on the long term - the task of parenting the baby I would be birthing.

It was early in the morning and 11 days past my due date when labour finally started. I was so over being pregnant and so ready to hold my baby that I greeted the pain warmly. I told my partner that my contractions had begun and we started to record them so we'd know when they were regular enough to justify going into the Birth Centre. Hours passed.

It was another 12 before we went into the Centre (arriving at 8pm) and 14 more before my beautiful baby girl was born. The pain and utter exhaustion shocked me. By 2am I'd been moved 'upstairs' (into the hospital) to have an epidural and collapsed into a grateful sleep. (My fear of needles quickly became irrelevant. I would have let them chop off my leg if they'd promised it would help).

When it was time for me to push they dialed back the epidural enough so that I could squat on the bed, but I couldn't feel my contractions and so timing the pushes was tricky. After two hours an obstetrician came in to check and told me that the baby's head was starting to swell. She was posterior and firmly wedged in my narrow pelvis. He recommended an emergency c-section or high forceps delivery. I chose the latter.

It took an hour for him to stitch my third degree tear, but I honestly didn't care as I was holding the most beautiful being in the world and high on the adrenaline of meeting her.

In the weeks that followed the pain did start to matter. It made it impossible for me to lift my newborn baby. Walking was also a challenge. Even sitting hurt. Worse still Lily had awful reflux and would bring up most of her feed in great gushes of breast milk, or scream in pain for hours when silent reflux came instead.

We were finally referred to a cranio-osteopath who found a deep indentation on her skull where the forceps had squashed her little head. It was pressing on the area of the brain responsible for assisting the body to digest fat and partly responsible for her reflux. After two treatments the projectile vomiting stopped.

My memories of the labour were raw for a long time, but I told myself there wasn't a lot I could have done differently. I told myself that posterior back pain and the length of the labour were not something I could have prepared for and I felt better.

That all changed when I fell pregnant again. Suddenly thinking that there was nothing I could have done made me feel powerless and worried. I didn't want to go through that again - particularly not the aftermath. Labour may only last a day, but the first few weeks of a baby's life are too precious to be dedicated to surgical recovery and pain.

The first thing that I did was to admit that actually I had totally failed to prepare for my first labour. I'd read almost nothing about it. I'd decided against medical pain relief (despite constant well-meaning advice from others to order it immediately) but had failed to inform myself about alternative coping methods. I'd basically stuck my head in the sand and hoped that it would just go away.

Then I started reading. The best resource that I found were Ina May Gaskin's books on birthing. The stories of other women's labours gave me inspiration for how I wanted mine to go. They also made me realise that I wanted more support. My partner had been amazing the first time around, but there were things that I didn't want to ask of him and others that he didn't know how to do. So we hired a doula who knew how to guide me through the birth process and could show me a whole range a ways to cope with my contractions and fear.

My experience of birthing Charlie was completely different to my experience of birthing Lily. Sure, some of that was due to the fact that he was my second, but far more significant was the fact that I had a plan. It wasn't a rigid script that had to be followed. It was a story that played out in my mind and carried me through the process.

With Lily's birth I was a passive agent in the process. I didn't prepare and came out the other end sore and bruised. It was like joining a marathon and forgetting to do any training beforehand. You can imagine how hard that marathon would be to run and how much you'd hurt the next day.

With Charlie's birth I decided to train first. I attended prenatal yoga and I trained my brain to relax into my contractions. I also gathered a support team around me. As a result the experience of the birth was genuinely exhilarating and, yes, empowering, and I carried that feeling of strength and joy into mothering my children.

I'm dismayed that anyone would describe me as a Birthzilla for planning to have a positive birth experience. I'm also flabbergasted that they could imply that it would have been better for my children if I had kept my head in the sand and handed over all agency to the hospital system. This kind of rhetoric is unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.

Why do so many people think that women lose the right to control their bodies when they fall pregnant? Anti-choice activists are the worst offenders to my mind, but those who seek to control what pregnant women do with their bodies or how they birth their babies are buying into the same dangerous logic.

Making a plan for how you would like to birth your baby should not be controversial. To say that exercising choice over your body is a first world indulgence is highly problematic. It's even more galling when it's written by a highly privileged woman who is well-placed to expect the system to treat her with dignity and respect. That is not the luxury of all women in our country.

Introducing Charlie

Charlie arrived into the world on Saturday 2 October at 11:45am. He was born in the bath into the waiting arms of his mama after what I'd have to describe as a pretty good labour.

Warning: Long Post
(Feel free to just look at the photos)

Prelabour contractions had started the weekend before, but were not strong enough to demand my attention until Thursday night. I went to bed hoping for action during the night, but woke up a little disappointed. After breakfast we all went for a walk to the park and I walked around on uneven surfaces to try to get things moving, but by 9am it was clear that Charlie was planning to take his time and so I told P to go to work.

After P had gone, my Dad came over to look after Lily and they went out to the city to do some shopping. I busied myself in the kitchen baking focaccia and mixing a birthday cake for Charlie (the carrot, coconut & macadamia nut cake from Vegan with a Vengeance), stopping every now and then to manage the contradictions which were starting to get stronger.

Dad and Lily returned from town and we all had lunch together of fresh focaccia and salad. I put the cake in the oven, hoping...

After lunch I sat out in the sunshine that afternoon watching Lil play with Dad. Around 3pm we sat down to have cake for afternoon tea and my contradictions became intense enough to require most of my attention, but were still around 10 minutes apart.

Dad and Lil sat down to watch some Playschool in the late afternoon and I had a nap. I also called P to ask him to bring home some spicy Indian food for dinner (from Blu Ginger).

Dad headed off around 4:30pm and I gave Lily some early dinner. She was unfazed when I had to turn my attention to my contractions, which helped to make then seem less important.

At around 5:30pm P came home with dinner. I added lime pickle to the curries and every time I had a really spicy mouthful my contractions would intensify. This seemed like a good thing.

P got Lily ready for bed and (most unusually) I did the dishes in order to have something to focus on.

I snuggled Lily to sleep (like I do every night) and breathed through the contractions in bed and then sat on the couch with P while he rubbed my back. By 8pm I was having to stand and lean on the arm of the couch to deal with my contractions, which had become pretty strong (but were still only 10 minutes apart). P started to get up with me and rub my lower back through each contraction, which really helped. Then he thought of pressing on my hips, which was even better as it was starting to feel like my pelvic bone was being forced open (which, of course, it was).

By 9:00pm I decided to text my doula, Vickie, and my Mum to give them some warning and to allow them to get an early night (just in case). The contractions continued to come only 10 minutes apart though and so at 9:30pm I thought that I had better try to get some sleep.

I took two panadeine forte and lay down in bed while P continued to rub my back. When the contractions came I rolled over on to a pillow, circling my hips and breathing through the pain. Within half an hour I could feel the codeine in my system. I started to feel slightly nauseous and heavy and worried for a moment that I had only made things worse, but then I drifted off to sleep. P went to sleep in Lily's bed (as he has for the last few months).

I woke up around 2:30am. The pain killers were starting to wear off and I had to concentrate again to get through each contraction. They were still 10 minutes apart and I decided to stay in bed and to try to sleep between each wave. This worked until around 3:30am when I was working too hard to sleep at all, but talked myself into staying in bed to get a bit more rest.

I managed to stay in bed until 5am when the contractions were just too strong to handle lying down. I got up and made myself a bowl of cereal. While I was eating it I wrote a shopping list for the farmers markets. For some strange reason I thought that P might still have the chance to go and buy our fruit and veg for the week...

It was still and peaceful in the early morning light and I felt quite calm despite the growing intensity of each contraction. I worked through a few of them by leaning over the kitchen table, but decided to move into the loungeroom in order to use the Swiss Ball instead and rest my legs a little. I knelt in front of the ball and used it to help me rotate my hips through each contraction. In between each wave I rested my head on it and tried to sleep a little in order to preserve my energy. I was surprised to find myself drifted off every now and then.

At 6am I sent my Mum a text message to ask her and her partner, A, to come over to look after Lily so that I could monopolise P's attention. By 7am, when P woke up, I hadn't heard back from Mum and so I asked P to call her. She had just looked at her phone and was getting ready to come over.

Lily got up around then and we all sat down in the kitchen for breakfast. I left the room for my next contraction, but had to lean on the kitchen table again for the following one. Lil wanted to know why I was leaning on the table and, after the contraction had peaked, I explained that my back hurt and that leaning on the table helped me to feel better. She decided that her back was sore too and to join me. Laughing at her made everything feel a lot less intense.

Mum and A came over while we were finishing breakfast. I had a contraction just as A walked in the door and wasn't able to greet her, which felt odd, but she just walked passed quietly and went to entertain Lily in her bedroom.

I stayed in the kitchen with P who was now free to rub my back and hips through each contraction, which helped so much. I was starting to find it hard not to vocalise loudly and was a little disappointed when Lil decided not to go to the Farmers Markets with Mum and A.

We gave A our market shopping list and Mum stayed behind to look after Lil. I moved back into the lounge room in order to lean over the Swiss Ball again. At one point Lil came in and wanted to know why I was leaning on the Swiss Ball. I explained that it helped my back and she informed me that her back was still quite sore and that she'd like to use it. Once again laughing at her calmed me right down, but I was glad that she didn't keep the ball for very long.

By 8:30am my contractions were getting really strong and Mum started talking to Lily about going over to her place for a play. I also asked P to call Vickie to ask her to come over, but then got all indecisive while he was on the phone and ended up saying we'd call her back. (I'm not sure why, in retrospect. I have a horrible feeling that I was trying not to be a burden!) But it wasn't long before I asked P to call her back to ask her to come over.

A returned with the market shopping just before 9am and Mum and Lil were able to head off. As soon as they were out of the house I started to vocalise loudly through each contraction and found that it helped so much. I was amused to realise that I sounded just like an elephant at one point after years of failing to make a good elephant noise for Lil.

Vickie arrived around 9:20am while I was having a contraction. They were coming on very strongly now and she remarked that labour seemed to be pretty established. Within a few contractions I started to sob as I became overwhelmed by the pain. (I know now that I was transitioning, but had no idea at the time). At that point Vickie suggested that we think about heading into the birth centre pretty quickly. Looking back at my (long, painful posterior) labour with Lil I realised that I'd gone in too soon last time and I was determined not to make that mistake again and told Vickie my concerns. She reassured me that it wasn't too soon this time around and so I agreed to head in.

Vickie called Gill, my midwife, who said that she would go into the birth centre and start running the bath. P started to get the car ready, while Vickie stayed with me and massaged my back through each contraction, while encouraging me to vocalise and breathe deeply.

Last time the car ride had been horrific, as I anxiously watched each turn from the front seat and waited fearfully for each contraction to hit me. This time I knelt backwards on the back seat with my head resting on a pillow. I also kept my eyes closed and was able to move and breathe through each contraction. It was a much better trip as a result.

We arrived at the birth centre at 10:30am. I sat down on the couch and Vickie dimmed the lights and started to burn some essential oils. I was amazed by how good the scent of the oils made me feel. When the next contraction hit I knelt on a mat on the floor and leaned over a bean bag. Gill suggested that I move into the bath.

Again I was determined not to get into the bath 'too soon' as I had done during my labour with Lily and expressed my concerns, but Gill reassured me that this was a good time to get in. P put on his board shorts and sat on the edge of the bath while I knelt on a foam pad, leaning forward over his knees. This enabled me to move through each contraction and to lie forward and rest in between. Vickie turned off the lights and put on a couple of tea lights instead. She also put on some calm music and brought in the oil burner. It was incredible what a different this made to the atmosphere in the room and to my capacity to deal with the pain.

Not long after getting in the water my contractions seemed to slow down a little and I was a bit concerned until Vickie mentioned to P that things had slowed down because Charlie's head was molding. I had been thinking that I might be going into second stage, but didn't want to get my hopes up and decided to keep thinking that I should pace myself to keep going until dinner time. Gill and Vickie left us alone in the bathroom and I started to feel all emotional, telling P how much I loved him over and over.

Not long after I started to feel strong pressure during my contractions and could feel myself starting to push. Vickie came in and suggested that I focus my energy down through my vocalisations. As I controlled my screams into grunts I could feel my pushes start to become more effective. I didn't experience this part of labour with Lily (as I'd had an epidural by this point) and as the intense pressure built up in my pelvis I decided that this was probably a good thing. I have heard that some women prefer the second stage of labour, but I found it unbelievably painful.

I could feel Charlie moving through the birth canal and it wasn't all that long before his head was pushing out. Gill was using a mirror and torch to see what was happening and I felt like saying "his head's about to come out," but I continued to be paranoid about getting my hopes up and so I kept quiet (well, about that, I was doing plenty of grunting and screaming during contractions).

Soon I could feel Charlie's head pushing through. It stung like mad and felt totally wrong, but I also started to feel excited that we were about to meet our baby boy. After his head had come out there was a brief pause and then I pushed the rest of him out with the next contraction. Gill told me to reach down and pick him up and so I did, amazed that I could 'catch' my own baby. As I pulled him out of the water I noticed that his cord was wrapped around his neck and told Gill who gently took it off. I held our gorgeous little boy to my chest and he began to scream. At least we knew that he was breathing!


It was 11:45am, only 75 minutes after we'd arrived at the birth centre.

We asked Vickie to call Mum so that she could bring Lily in to meet her little brother. Apparently she had to be told that Charlie had actually been born before she could be convinced to leave the fun at Grandma's house. She hadn't been there very long.

Gill pulled a mat into the bathroom and piled some pillows up against the bath and then P helped me up with Charlie still in my arms so that I could birth the placenta on the mat. I'd decided not to have the injection of Syntocinon and was glad that it only took 15 minutes, and a couple more contractions, for this to be over.

From there I took Charlie to the bed and soon after he was having his first breastfeed. Lily arrived shortly after and came in to meet her little brother. It was love at first sight.

Limbo land

These past few weeks have been intense ones for political tragics like myself. I have been obsessed with the statistics and details of our newly formed hung parliament and the negotiations (and ultimate) decisions of the Independents as to who to support to form a new government. Part of my obsession was grounded in my genuine fear of living under the reality of an Abbott government - albeit a rather hamstrung one, considering the make-up of both the House of Reps and the Senate (with the Greens set to hold the balance of power come July 2011). However, my obsession was also fueled by the fact that I found the whole process inherently fascinating.

Now, of course, we have a new government (and thank goodness it is a Gillard-led minority government - I have a hopeful feeling that I am going to like her far more in governing-mode than I did in campaigning-mode) and it is time to move on with life. But given that I am now over 38 weeks pregnant this is no simple matter. Life in these last weeks of pregnancy kind of resembles life under a shifting minority government - you really have no idea from one day to the next what will happen. Even worse, unlike the situation we just went through as a nation, no one else is really interested in endlessly speculating about what might happen when and there is even less concrete information available on which to base such speculations.

And so I am just trying to patiently exist in limbo land, knowing each day may be my last day of pregnancy; my last day without a newborn baby to attend to. I'm not very good at being pregnant (to put it mildly) and so I am partly yearning for each day to be the last. I would love to rid myself of this cumbersome pregnant body and I am so so very keen to meet and snuggle Charlie. But, well, I still have a few things to do before the birth and I am not crazy enough (this time around) to think that I'll have the slightest capacity to attend to them once Mr Charlie has made his appearance. So, I guess I'd better get back to writing this bloody book chapter and to finalising my pile of Christmas presents (yes, that is really on my List).

I hope that you are all keeping well and that you're enjoying our "New Paradigm." It looks like we'll all have to avoid even glancing at The Australian for the duration lest we want to lose our collective sanity to the Great Unhinging.

The vessel

When I was a child my mother was heavily involved in the anti-nuclear campaign that was very strong within the Australian Peace Movement at the time (the 1980s). One story from those years that has always stuck with me was the experiences of another woman in the movement who decided to try to form a strategic alliance with the pro-life (ie anti-abortion) movement.

A number of people in the anti-nuclear movement had expressed concern that perhaps these people were not the best allies, but this woman believed that, given the overwhelming threat to human life and the very survival of the planet posed by the nuclear arms race, it was worth making bridges wherever you could. I can understand where she was coming from.

Anyway, what do you think happened when this woman approached several pro-life groups about joining the anti-nuclear campaign?

They weren't interested. Not remotely.

The woman in question was understandably surprised. These people put themselves out as being so overwhelmingly concerned with the sanctity of human life that they were campaigning (often violently) for the state to force women to carry to term unwanted (and in some cases dangerous) pregnancies. It was understandable that this woman would think that these same people would be natural allies in the anti-nuclear movement. How many more lives are threatened by nuclear weapons (particularly when you place yourself back in the 1980s into the context of the Cold War)?

Through the course of her conversations with these people it dawned on this woman (who was really very well intentioned, but perhaps a little naive) that the people in the pro-life movement (particularly the central organisers) were far less concerned about the sanctity of human life than they were about controlling women's bodies. It was control rather than life that was at the core of their cause.

It strikes me that this overwhelming concern with controlling women's bodies is an incredibly pervasive one and one that underlies so very many issues that crop up for women in public policy debates. This is particularly so when those women are 'mothers', but it also applies very strongly to the bodies of young women. Look at the politics of female beauty, the politics of female sexuality, the blaming of rape victims (for placing their female bodies in vulnerable situations), and the politics of breastfeeding, just to name a handful.

Over the weekend I attended a baby shower and several of us pregnant women chose to have a bit of champagne while toasting the woman in question. It naturally led to a discussion of the issue of drinking while pregnant. We discussed the complete lack of evidence for the claims that tiny amounts of alcohol cause harm to the unborn child (thanks Blue Milk for the link), and how frustrating it is that despite this fact so many people feel entitled to police the behaviour of pregnant women in relation to their consumption of not only alcohol but also any foods that might in some way pose a risk (soft cheese, fatty foods, caffeine, etc).

This conversation (and others that I have had like it over the last few weeks - everyone in my life is pregnant right now for some reason!) was still in my mind when I saw an ABC news report yesterday entitled, "Mums-to-be ignoring booze rules." The article cites the shocking fact that,

The results reveal that 90 per cent of respondents think alcohol should be avoided while pregnant, however a third of all women surveyed admitted to consuming at least one drink while pregnant or breastfeeding.

One drink while pregnant or breastfeeding! Call in the police.

Then I made the mistake of reading the comments... The litany of mother-blame and the blatant entitlement to control women's bodies that is expressed in those comments is disturbing, but oh so very familiar. Honestly, by the time I'd finished reading through it all I felt too exhausted to blog about it. I am so over this.

But here I am anyway. Maybe someone will read this and bite their tongue next time they want to tell a pregnant woman that she shouldn't put something in her month. Guess what? It's her body! It is not a baby vessel that is collectively owned by society. And, guess what else? She is a grown adult that is perfectly capable of making informed decisions about what she does with her body.

Yes, there are issues when you stray further down the continuum into substance abuse etc and this does create real tensions between the rights of unborn children and their mothers. However, until the over-all focus of this debate is free from the overriding agenda of controlling women's bodies I don't think that we can have a sensible conversation about those more extreme (and frankly very rare) instances.

Quick catch up

Argh, where is the time going? I can't keep up with life at the moment. But I did want to just stop by and post a quick catch up - a little list of the most significant things going on for us right now.

• I'm pregnant. Yep, odd declaration for a bullet point I know, but life's been a bit like that at the moment.

• I am flying to the US on Sunday to attend a conference on the Right to Water... without Lily. Ahhh! I am a little sad about this and anxious about how it will go, but I think she'll be fine. She's gotten so big recently.

• The following Thursday P and Lily are flying to the US to meet up with me and then we are all flying to Mexico! Yay!

• We'll be in Mexico for three weeks and plan to do lots of beachy stuff and a bit of cultural stuff too - like visiting some Mayan ruins etc... Most significant of all (as far as Lily is concerned), we are also planning to swim with dolphins.

• I am massively behind schedule with my PhD due to 3 months of severe nausea and vomiting. Yes, I was lucky enough to get hyperemesis gravidarum (severe morning sickness) and it wasn't very conducive to thesis writing...

• I am a little bit stressed right now...

I hope that you are all going really well and plan to be back some time soon with some more interesting stuff and maybe some photos of faraway places.

A milestone

Today I did up the top button on a pair of my pre-pregnancy pants.

Admittedly they were slightly baggy beforehand, but still it was exciting.


OH! And Lily just spent the last 10 minutes staring into my eyes and smiling - that basically eclipsed the pants thing.

Still no 3rd Pea

Just thought that I would let you know in case anyone is as impatient as all the people that have been calling and emailing to ask us whether or not we have had our baby yet.

We do, of course, intend to tell people once it has actually happened. Still, I guess they think it is worth checking just in case.

To be fair, P. had to promise to stop calling me to ask if I was in labour yet and I keep asking the little person in my tummy when they are going to come out - so I guess we are all guilty of being a little impatient.

It could still be another week and a half though...

In the meantime, here is my Mum with my brother just after I was born. Don't you think that she looks like she is about 12 years old?


Freaky.

AARGH

I am impatient.

Yesterday I scrubbed all of our walls and cupboard doors clean, read every feed in my bloglines account, reorganised our computer and paper files, stewed peaches, cleaned the desk, cooked lunch (scrambled tofu and olive bread), ate lunch while refreshing bloglines several times in case there were any new posts, created new boxes for storing our wrapping paper, cards & ribbon, had a swim, washed my hair (rare event), made some final edits to a chapter of my thesis and emailed it to my supervisor, ate dinner (yummy chili made by P), had Braxton-Hicks contractions, had a walk to see if they would increase, gave up, went to bed.

Why can't they just give me a date rather than this whole approximate 'some time in the next two weeks' thing? If I knew when it was going to happen, I could plan my time accordingly and be less impatient.

One more thing: what on earth am I going to do with myself today? (Leaving the house doesn't feature highly on my wish list, BTW - I am over waddling slowly in public and talking to people about how big I am or when I am due).

If only we hadn't already cleaned out all of the cupboards...

Missing, last seen 7 days ago

I appear to have lost my ankles. I was waiting for this to happen earlier, but when it didn't I got used to the idea that I would get to keep them.

The good news is that I can still see my feet and do up my own shoes...

38 weeks

I came down with a head cold last Sunday morning. I actually thought that it might be tonsillitis at first - because my throat was so sore and my body ached so much - but my throat duly cleared on Tuesday and my sinuses filled up and started to throb. Joy!

The midwife told me on Wednesday that I won't go into labour while I am sick. While I am fairly keen for this pregnancy to end and unbelievably impatient to meet our little one, this seemed like good news to me. I am not sure where I would find the energy to give birth while feeling sick.

Now it is Friday. I can't believe that the week has passed so quickly. Paul took the Monday off to care for me, which was so sweet. I basically slept the whole day, which was very romantic of me considering that it was our wedding anniversary, but he took my dopiness very well. On Tuesday we went out to dinner at Rubicon to celebrate. They only have two meals that they can do vegan, but they were both very yummy and we had a lovely night out.

Other than that I can't really account for the rest of my week. It has largely been a blur of sleep, wiping my dripping nose and indulging in my new obsession with Flixr (you can see some of our photos by clinking on the images in the sidebar).

Anyway, the cold does seem to be clearing and we are planning on a fairly busy day tomorrow - farmers markets, catching up with friends, an 'end of summer' party, a birthday dinner AND finally purchasing my new sewing machine! Oh, and I am still planning to have an afternoon nap.

I hope that everyone has a lovely weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope that you are all having a lovely Valentine's Day.

In a moment of intense 'cheesiness' I decided to bake (coconut) cupcakes for P. and take them to him at work. (He works only one block from our apartment).



I also treated myself this morning.


I had an appointment with my midwife at some nearby local shops and decided to drop into my favourite secondhand bookshop afterwards. Unfortunately, it was closed and so I decided to get myself a hot chocolate at Tilleys (Tilley's Devine Cafe to give it its full name) while I sat there and flicked through interior design magazines.

I love Tilleys. It is a strangely comforting place that has featured throughout all of my life.

When I was very little, I used to fall asleep under the table at Tilleys while my Mum caught up with friends. Back then it was a tiny place - just a few tables and a small bar. It was also a women's bar (men could come in only if they were accompanied by a woman), so it always felt safe and comfortable.

As I grew up so did Tilleys. It started to take over the shops around it - the butcher was one of the first to go (obviously a good trade in my book) - adding more tables, then a stage, and then finally a full size kitchen.

In High School, I used to go into Tilleys after school for a hot chocolate when I wanted to feel grown up and have a really good chat with my best friend. On my 18th birthday, I met a group of my friends at Tilleys for my first legal drink (I think it was around 3:30 in the afternoon, which is a bit of a worry, but I felt that there were many places to make my way through that particular evening). Throughout university, Tilleys was the ideal place to study. You could spread out your books on the big tables and hole up there for the day without ever being bothered - except by friends who might stop through during the day for a short coffee break. It was also the location of our regular Saturday brunches - again the big tables being the perfect size to spread out the weekend paper and spend a good few hours lingering over coffee, beans and toast.

When I moved to Sydney, Tilleys was one of the first things that I really missed. I couldn't find anywhere similar - no other cafe seemed as tolerant of customers settling in for hours on end without buying anything more than a coffee or a juice. The absence of somewhere comfortable and homely seemed to represent everything that I found so hard about Sydney in the first 6 months that I was there. Everyone seemed to be permanently in a rush and I felt as though there was nowhere that I could just sit and catch my breath.

This morning there was a large group of women sitting up the back with their babies. All the little ones looked around the same age and so I guessed that it was probably a 'mother's group'. Looking down at my massive belly I realised that Tilleys may well play host to yet another milestone in my life.

I couldn't think of a better place.

Please no

While this Mexican baby looks perfectly lovely (the one at the back), I would really rather than mine was not quite so big.



6.6kgs! Aaarrgghh, that would hurt.

34 weeks

P. and I spent the weekend at Bodalla (on the NSW South Coast) with a group of 18 friends. It was a lovely weekend filled with yummy food, conversation, good company and a ridiculous carnivale themed Saturday night complete with costumes and a dance competition.

For the curious: P. did end up dancing. It was very entertaining.

P. also took a picture of me and the little one (still in my tummy) on the beach and I thought I would share it with you so you can see just how massive I am becoming.

Sushi and parenting classes

P and I have our first 'parenting' class this evening. We were supposed to start last year, but had to postpone the classes because neither of us were in Canberra. Today's class is about 'normal' labour (we get to hear about complications next week - yay!).

Since I am incapable of going for more than a few hours without food, I thought that I would pack a snack. I also thought that I would go overboard simply to keep having fun with making creative 'lunch boxes'.

And so I present you with brown rice sushi, baby tomatoes, mango & a gingerbread person:


I hope that you all have a lovely evening.

A woman's work...

For quite a while now I have been struggling with the implications of my pregnancy – wondering what it will mean (and already does mean) for my identity, for my future choices, for my body and for my relationships. Now a number of posts, particularly a few recent ones from Ampersand Duck and Pavlov’s Cat (and also a post and comments thread over at Crazybrave), have prompted me to post about these issues.

I have to admit to having been shocked to the core by the impact of pregnancy on my body. I never understood that feeling ‘fatigued’ would involve falling daily into a deep black pit of exhaustion, or that the addition of the word ‘morning’ to sickness was such a cruel joke. Despite years of experience with (admittedly fairly mild) PMS, I also had no real understanding of the power of hormones to influence my outlook. Instead of the pure joy that I had anticipated, I felt sick with worry and doubts about the pregnancy; about my capacity to be a mother; to endure the loss of sleep; to successfully breastfeed; and to keep our child safe – none of which were assisted by feeling as though we couldn’t share the news with anyone except our closest family members. My brain was taken over by thoughts of how to deal with every possible problem and with my evident lack of capacity to cope as well as I had expected. My self-confidence plummeted as I realised that I was not glowing with prenatal health, but rather was a wreck who needed to sleep all day and could only stomach vegemite saladas.

Fortunately, the second and third trimesters have been a lot easier on my body – my blood pressure is stupidly low and so I get faint very easily, but my energy levels are much better and my appetite has returned. I also feel a lot clearer and happier about the pregnancy. The first ultrasound and the first little kicks did fill me with the excitement that I had expected earlier, and suddenly everything did feel OK again.

However, I am still trying to come to terms with the inevitable impacts of this choice on my life. My PhD is just starting to really come together, and I will have to set it aside and will never again have the freedom to come back to it with my full undivided attention. Future career decisions and relocations will also have an added dimension that I do not resent, but am aware of nonetheless.

The real issue for me, however, is identity. For all the real gains that we have made as women over the past decades, there is nothing like motherhood to bring the full force of society’s sexism down upon you. Issues that I have been able to side-step previously, will become harder to avoid and I don’t feel like having the battles that this may provoke. I am not interested in being defined solely as a ‘mother’, regardless of how much I know that I will love my child and cherish our relationship. No man is ever threatened with being reduced to the single identity of ‘father’. Their personal qualities, career ambitions, and autonomous hopes and dreams are rarely taken away from them just because they chose to breed.

I want to make it clear that I do not see this as a failure of feminism – as I know that this has been the belief of some. Instead, I see this of an indication of how far we have to go. The role of mother is still naturalised in a way that thoroughly devalues it – most particularly by those who claim to be upholding traditional family values. Because breeding is defined as a natural act (which it is, but bare with me here), women are expected to blossom in pregnancy, or to at least be stoic when they don’t. Their sacrifices – physical, emotional, career – are also continually undervalued. Men who take time off work to care for their young children are glorified as heroes, while women are placed in a no-win situation where we will be criticised by some for returning too early and by others for neglecting our careers for too long.

This is not the result of feminism – this is the continued impact of a patriarchal culture that remains fundamentally unchanged at its core. Workplaces are still built around the idea that there is a good women at home taking care of the household. Childcare is expensive and waiting lists are long. Maternity leave is not provided for most Australian workers, and part-time work is difficult to secure. Despite all the rhetoric of family values and the (ridiculous) urgings from the government that we breed, no real effort has been made to actually make our society one that is supportive of women’s choices – abortion is vilified, while the choice to have a child receives a 'baby bonus' and then nothing.

I say all this as a truly lucky person. I have a scholarship that provides paid maternity leave, a wonderfully supportive husband and extended family, and the freedom to go back part-time and to work from home – and, above all, I happen to love children and to genuinely want to be a mother. All of these things have made my decision easier, and yet I still struggle with the implications for my life. How it would feel to be facing a future without some of those supports is something that I find very difficult to even contemplate.

Hormones ahoy

I think that I might be going just a little crazy.

As you may know, I am currently in Manila doing some fieldwork for my PhD. I have been running around interviewing tons of people from NGOs, government, private business, the World Bank, urban poor communities, etc... and trying to gather information on the impact of the privatisation of Metro Manila's water supply on the right to water. The research has been really interesting - if also extremely exhausting and challenging, and would normally be dominating my thoughts.

However, last night I could not sleep because my brain was busy listing activities for children's birthday parties, decorating our non-existent nursery (Loobylu may be responsible for this), planning fun vegan lunchboxes for our unborn child (VeganLunchbox is just about to come out in print - so at least this has a basis), and planning a menu for a Christmas party that I would like to host for friends before family madness begins...

I can only put this down to pregnancy hormones, but it certainly feels very odd.

Fortunately, today is my last day of interviews so I won't have to run around like a mad thing after it is over. First, I have a meeting with the team leader of the water team from the Freedom from Debt Coalition, then I am meeting the NGO liaison from Manila Water to go on a tour of an urban poor community that they work with. Should be very interesting... I must try not to think about baking gingerbread.

You win some, you lose some...

In order to solve my maternity wear woes, I took Tigtog's advice and got straight online to purchase myself a Pregnancy Survival Kit. I found Belly Basics and was delighted to discover the Kits were on sale for just $45. Bargain!

Since I love a good bargain, and wanted to avoid having to shop ever again, I decided to buy two different kits: The three-quarter length kit with bootleg pants in Pistachio and Black, and the Short-sleeve kit in Charcoal (unfortunately with legging, but what can you do?). I also called them up and told them that I was going overseas next week and asked if they could speed up the shipping. They promised to do so.

True to their word, the kits arrived this morning. I was so shocked that I almost turned the delivery guy away. Anyway, I also got quite excited and ripped open the package in the lift on the way back upstairs. This was my first ever Internet purchase.



I opened the three-quarter kit first. It was great. The bootleg pants were actually flattering. The long skirt did my butt no favours, but it was very wearable, and the pistachio top with 3/4 sleeves was actually quite nice. I was over the moon, and then I opened the second kit.

I knew that I was in trouble straight away when I saw the t-shirt, but I decided to try on the other pieces first. The short skirt fit, which started to make me feel better, but then I tried on the dress. Tent would have been a better description. Determined to make this a success, I decided to try on the t-shirt. First, I put on the leggings underneath and let's just acknowledge that these are never flattering and that charcoal only makes the situation worse. But, you know, some things are even worse than charcoal leggings...


All I can say is that I think that this package may have been mislabeled. Oh, and I guess I will be heading down to the post office this afternoon.

Maternity clothing

Before I became pregnant, my wardrobe was looking a little worse for wear. Most of my t-shirts were quite old and had shrunken so much that they were getting a little short for dignity. Others were also looking a little faded and tatty, while my pants were not in much better shape. This bad starting point has now been made worse by my slightly expanded mid-section. I am having some difficulty in buttoning up my pants and my tops are starting to look even less flattering than they did before.

Since we leave for South Africa in less than 2 weeks, and I will be gone for 7 weeks in total, I realised today that I really needed to buy some new clothes. Unfortunately, despite P's valiant support, my first attempt was not particularly successful.

We started at Pumpkin Patch, which has a small selection of maternity wear up the back. A few of their tops were quite nice, but they only had them in a medium, large or extra-large, so I gave up on that. I did, however, find a skirt that looked quite nice, was reasonably priced, and came in a small. Bingo, I thought, and carried it off to the change room full of hope. I put it on and it immediately fell to the ground. It was massive on me and not just around the waist, much to my disappointment.

So we proceeded to a maternity wear shop just a few stores away. A lot of the stuff was frighteningly ugly, but I found another skirt that looked quite nice. Then I looked at the price tag: $160. WTF? Why would I spend $160 on a skirt that I am buying for the next 6 months of my life only? It certainly was not that nice. In the same shop, I also found a couple of tops, but once again they were absolutely massive and looked ridiculous on me. I was starting to realise that small people are not supposed to get pregnant.

Somewhat discouraged, but feeling more determined we moved on to some non-maternity shops. Jacqui-E had some nice looking skirts that even came in a size 6, but none of them had elasticised waists and so they weren't going to work. Their tops were also too short (or just plain ugly) and so we moved on.

I decided to be brave and try Sportsgirl and Portmans, but let's just say that it was a mistake on all levels. Now I was despondent. I was convinced that I was going to have to spend the next 6 months in a moo-moo, when P suggested that we try DJs. We strolled in and straight into the Witchery section, where I struck gold. Well, I found two tops that actually fit me and which had plenty of length and stretch to grow with my tummy.

Of course, I still need a pair of pants and a skirt or something to take away, but I am certainly feeling a lot better about the situation now. All up though, I had no idea that it was going to be so hard.

Image from here, but I messed with it a little.