A year ago ...

I was just over 40 weeks pregnant. Chet was due on 28th September. On the evening of the 29th September I had a hind water leak which is where there is some leaking of fluid from above the baby but the waters don't actually break. It can be a problem due to the risk of infection. I thought my waters had broken and rang the Birth Centre around midnight. They told me to go to sleep and to call in the morning and let them know if there had been any progress. No progress in the morning so I went to the birth centre and then had to have a CTP scan to check that Chet (or Mr Leapy as he was known then) was ok. Then followed several days of daily trips to the hospital to check on my progress (none) and Mr Leapy's happiness or otherwise (he was fine).

After several days of this we were all pretty sick of it so the decision was made to book an induction. We were offered the Thursday or the Saturday so we took the Saturday in the hope that labour would start by itself. No such luck of course so the cascade of intervention followed from having my waters broken manually, to oxytocin drip, gas, epidural and finally, caesarean. Yowser. Still, I am glad I had those few days to get my head around the fact I was going to be induced and to prepare for the possible intervention that may follow. I think in some ways I was sad for a while regarding the birth as I had hoped for an intervention free birth but now, nearly a year down the track I feel OK about it. I know it is a cliché but I do after all have a happy and healthy baby. And the birth is only a few hours (15 in my case) in the scheme of things.

And, tonight, for the first time, I put my nearly 1 year old to bed without wrapping him. Yeah I know, you are supposed to stop wrapping at some point (I think around 6 months). I started trying to stop and have spent months wrapping only one arm - mainly for my benefit because when I don't wrap he grabs my hair and ears with the unwrapped hand. But, young Chetwin had really been resisting the wrapping in the last few days so I decided that tonight was the night for the wrap to go. And touch wood, it seems to be ok, although I did have to put up with some ear tugging. Hopefully he will sleep better - it would be nice to have a night of him sleeping the whole night - we have had 3 of those so far, and yes I am counting.

Growing up ...

My little baby is becoming more and more like a little boy. The nearly 12 months of babyhood have flown by and now I have an energetic little man who crawls around at great speed and shrieks with excitement or boredom. Here he is in a Hoodoo Gurus t-shirt bought for him by the K-man, playing with his tambourine. We'll make a musician out of him yet!

Just a minute - August

Been a bit slack with the blogging of late - no excuse really when I consider how often some blogs are updated. Still, we were away for nearly two weeks in August and I go back to work in a month and I think I have been panicking a bit about that. And I had a cold all last week so doing anything aside from that basics was a bit difficult. Anyway, just a minute for August:

Travelling... to Tasmania and Melbourne - we got to Hobart, Port Arthur, Swansea, Launceston and experienced truly horrendous wind in Melbourne - telegraph pole flattening wind ... we enjoyed being away but we were all pretty pleased to be home as well.

Watching... Chet crawl around the coffee table laughing with excitement. He is just so pleased to be on the move. While we were away his crawling really developed from the commando style he favoured to the more traditional hands and knees crawl. The change seemed to happen almost overnight.

Reading... Holding the Man, Buddhism for Mothers, Lonely Planet Tasmania, Naked Motherhood: Shattering Illusions and Sharing Truths.

Thinking... about returning to work, the past year, the next year.

Eating... a fab lunch at Rockpool Bar and Grill with the K-man, sans Chet. A very pleasant Friday afternoon drinking wine, eating well and relaxing in style.

Buying... fabric, baby clothes from charity shops, 1st birthday presents.

Wanna play? Head on over to August Street.