unfashionable confessions

- i like microwave lasagne more than real lasagne

- i'm too cheap to buy actual tupperware, though i would have a roomful if i were rich.

- i think it's okay to cheat at school. adults do it at work after all, all the time, in much dirtier and unfair ways. i just don't have the moral sense that tells me it's wrong. ditto stealing from rich people/corporations.

- for many years, if i could stalk my ex boyfriend with full video camera etc, i would have.

- i get enraged at people who throw good things away instead of giving them to op-shops or other people.
i consider it the height of arrogance of the wealthy, both against people who have less, and against the earth (given the environmental cost of manufacturing an object). i would physically hit them if i could.

- same with people who don't share my beliefs simply because they haven't bothered thinking about them, especially where it has an impact on someone else - ie parenting choices, environmental issues.
i judge them harshly, and i think they should suffer some immediate personal penalty rather than letting their children/environment bear it down the track.

- i go mad at bad spelling or lazy grammar. i literally begin to lose my mind.

- i LOVE watching Wife Swap. DH gets so irritated by having to have reality TV on at home, but i think it's just the most profound and fascinating bit of social research, eg differing values of life, marriage, male/female roles, etc..

- i don't usually like movies, but also can happily spend hours watching crap tv. in fact sometimes i feel it's all i would do with my life, if allowed to.

- also, i too often find social interactions difficult, tiring, scary/painful.

- i only wear bonds hipster brief panties because any pair i pick out of a drawerful is going to fit exactly the same way on me, no surprises.

- i only wear panties if i think there's a good chance someone might see up my skirt. much more often that not i'm just pantyless.

- i find i generally only like to have sex when i'm actually fertile, eg around ovulation before we had the baby, and not at all when pg or with a young baby, and gradually more now that baby's 10mo..

- i wish DH would go and sleep in a room of his own, so that i can cosleep in a big bed and stay up late reading without feeling bad.

- i've always longed for the hobby farm / artist commune life - fields, trees, dogs, sheep and spinning, cows and cheesemaking, herb and fruit garden, semi-commercial kitchen making preserves etc to sell, pottery studio...
but, i discovered i don't like to do pottery, actual gardening tasks, dog training or animal husbandry. i'm lazy with things i don't love to do..
though i do love cooking, knitting, and having a garden.
and somehow we found ourselves living in total ticky-tacky suburbia, 550sqm house plot and 20sq house. we're here to stay now, so i don't know how to balance the dream with the reality..

- i have tendencies to overshop. it's not the buying that thrills me, it's the having.. hoarding things makes me feel safe and rich and full, but thinking about our credit card debt and lack of space makes me ill. appalling.

- i used to be obsessed with beautiful shoes, and have a truckload. beautiful handmade designer sparkley high heeled shoes. but, i find them too painful to wear; if i do i spend half the night barefoot. i spend 99% of my time wearing the same pair of battered blackened sneakers.

- i was a bit of a cutter when i was younger.

- i think Tolkein is the greatest genius who ever lived and that unis should offer the study of middle earth as they do the actual earth.

- i often feel very self-conscious being asian in a predominantly caucasian community. especially as there seems to be no other crunchy asians around..
perhaps it's just a fact of having different races with significant differences in appearance. but i often feel that life and social interactions would be easier if i weren't of a different race.
bearing in mind though, that this comes from being naturally shy/introverted, and being raised as a UK expat in Singapore despite being Singaporean by heritage to begin with, and then moving to Australia in the midst of my teens, so i've always felt like a foreigner out of place.

- i've always had this big empty space inside of me which i've tried to fill with the wrong things.. but having the baby has really filled it. i wonder if this is a bad thing or may lead to unhealthy parenting... but for now, i'm happier than i ever dreamed of being.

- i am a bit obsessed with cloth nappies, even if they do catch poo, they do it better than sposies, which is the whole point right? i think it's a natural obsession which builds on how we feel about tactile beauty plus our affection for how cute our babies are.

- i secretly don't enjoy babywearing alot of the time, ie when it's been over an hour and we're still shopping and i'm aching and i want to try on dresses/clothes. if i've also got lots of shopping to carry, i want to cry, and i would spend $1500 on a pram if they could guarantee that dandan would stay in it happily.

although i do love being able to kiss his head so often. and he looks super cute from that angle, his big eyes looking around all the time. and i do like the contact. i just wish he didn't weigh so much.

- if i were rich, i would hire a nanny to play with dandan nearby so that i could do things for myself. or fetch me drinks and massage my feet when i'm holding dandan. OH GOD i wish i were rich. if i could, i would be massaged all day every day for the rest of my life.

- if DH let me, i would say "fuck" around my child, and let him say it too. i think the only thing wrong with swearing is that your schoolteachers and employers aren't happy with it.

- i was raised by my dad to be a power-career woman; probably as a result, i've never had a proper non-casual job, and am at the start of my 2nd uni degree. i have a huge fear of failure and having to prove myself, and suspect that as a result have hidden in academia and now motherhood. so i feel like a bit of a failure for not having worked properly. although i'm loving motherhood more than i imagine it's ever possible to love a career, and i wouldn't miss this for the world..

- and probably the most appalling confession ever - i'm actually a christian! although i hate almost everything about the actual christian culture.
but despite fighting it my whole life, i finally accept that i do believe in a redemptive and loving God (with male AND female qualities).

NB: previously posted elsewhere

arrival of daniel kaien - a surprising freebirth

we're still abit shellshocked here, but very happy and pleased to welcome baby daniel earthside, freebirthed and caught in our toilet by a very surprised and bewildered mama, after only 2 hours of "is this diarrhoea or labor?) =)..

at exactly 38 weeks, i had an antenatal appointment with my midwife, then walked around the shops with some difficulty for 2 hours, came home, feeling very sulky and emotional cos i was hungry but didn't feel like eating.. lay on the couch all teary until andrew made me some steak.

at 11.30pm, i started feeling abdominal cramping quite badly, and ran off to begin 2 hours of sitting on the toilet in agony. i thought it was a dodgy batch of custard giving me diarrhoea, plus there weren't any usual start-of-labour signs (no mucous plug or show, no waters), so andrew just went to bed while i tried to get comfy but repeatedly ran to the toilet.

the pressure remained and got seriously agonising, and at about 1am i started to believe that this was labour pains, but much much more intense that i had expected or prepared for - about 3mins of unbearable pressure, with a minute of only a measure of relief in between.
i kept thinking, while i was clutching the back of the toilet (sitting back to front), how unprepared i was for any of this pain, how i was wrong to think i could do this natural birth thing, and wondering how early a hospital would do an epidural.

i finally woke andrew at 1.45am, shaking in pain and telling him to call the hospital and arrange an epidural. of course he kept asking if i was sure and how this wasn't what i had wanted, but i just couldn't handle it anymore. (after all, i thought this was only prelabor, and a foretaste of 18 hours of this and more.. Of course, afterward i find out this all was full labor/transition already).

then, while he was on the phone, i staggered-ran to the toilet, and found myself pushing from an indescribable level of pressure..
something exploded out from me and slammed into the water.. later i realise it was my waters breaking and being expelled with so much force it hit the water like a solid object. then as i kept pushing, it felt like / i thought i was pooing a huge solid round poo or that i was herniating an organ.. but i had to push anyway, despite having no idea what it was or what was happening to my body.
i reached back to feel my bum (which was where i thought it was coming out), and when i touched his fuzzy head i realised right away what it was. there was no way i would consider holding back though, with how strong the pushing pressure was, even if i was worried it would blow my cervix open, i had no choice or desire to do anything but push with all my might, crying out loudly.
i just kept pushing, while remembering to guard and support my perineum with my hand. and as his body slithered out into my hands in the toilet bowl (but above the water), all in one go, i called out to andrew.**

so there's me, sitting on the toilet, holding a slippery baby, and him standing there, both of us stunned and bewildered and unable to say anything but "oh my god".
finally i tell andrew to call an ambulance, while holding him face down along my arm, noting that he's a deep pink, and tickling his chest to note that he's breathing and muttering.
then i get off the toilet, kneel on the floor holding him, while andrew throws towels around us. i tell him to call the midwives, and i have confused conversations with them asking what i should do now. in the meantime, the placenta slides out with a bit of a blood gush. but the ambos arrive, and as the midwives gave me no clear direction (both having been woken from sleep), i go off with them to get baby checked out.*

(our first pic, taken by ambo with my phone cam)

we spend the morning in hospy just waiting for the shops to open to buy a carseat before we can leave (well, we didn't think we'd need it before =)), with grandparents visiting, us catching a few naps, and baby and me being subject to lots of routine things by a mix of lovely and not-so midwives, and a verry typical doctor (rolleyes). but we get away unharmed and mostly undisturbed.

he's wonderful.. so far he's slept the whole time, through multiple family visits and lots of noise. feeding's been easy, and he only wakes at night for feeds every 4 hours, so we've gotten plenty of rest. his face looks like a little grape... he's lovely =)
and this birth was nothing like what i had expected or prepared for (18 hours of prelabor, transition; home birth with water pool, 2 midwives, doula, all the little accessories - birth ball, water injections, aromatherapy, relaxation cds, heat packs, etc etc..)
but i feel incredibly fortunate to have had a birth like this. intense and fast, and so unusual.
and i can see how an empowered birth helps you feel like an empowered mum and caregiver..
andrew has said a few times already that he has a new admiration for me =)

and a big bonus - no tears! just the slightest graze inside. i felt no soreness anywhere even immediately after (except my uterus contracting back to size). intact and feeling incredible =)

**i did look as he slid into my hands.. i remember him being upside down and facing backward

*we called the ambos and the midwives at the same time, just to get someone here right away to check him out.
the mws were both bleary and sleepy eyed at the time, and we went back and forth with them trying to decide if they should come.. i just kept saying "i can't think what should happen now, can you decide?", but because she couldn't decide at the time, and the ambos had arrived, we just went off with them..

i just wasn't in a clear-thinking enough place to make a decision then, and i didn't see any huge problems with having him checked out in hospy, as long as he was with us the whole time

-----------------------
1 feb 08
i'd just been discussing birth again with a friend from babs recently, and were saying how basically every homebirther's birth story has been one of beauty and power and joyful overcoming, whereas almost every hospy mainstream birth story we hear has been dark and dreadful and "best that it's over now".

i'm still amused at how my logical mind just checked out during my birth, despite all my readings and knowledge preparation (the repeated "am i in labour? i don't know?!" on a loop),
but i still believe that the removal of birthing fear (from hearing home birth stories ad nauseam, talking, reading, meditating) was a huge factor in my having an easy and ecstatic birth..

2 feb 08
a whole year later!
it's been a full-on year, but i guess that's par for the course. i've recently finally gotten a breather after a massive full-on period as my mum's stepped in to take dandan for a few hours each day. life is starting to regain normalcy and structure - my marriage is starting to repair, i'm building friendships again, i'm putting the house back in order...

i've had a whale of a time. i've oscillated, sometimes daily, usually fortnightly, between being elatedly overwhelmingly in love with him, to glimpsing hell, losing my mind, and feeling something inside bend to almost snap. par for the course for motherhood i'm told =)

and now babyhood proper, is over, and we have a toddler... i feel a great ache that the baby is no longer, and i spend alot of time looking at photos of his weeness.. my arms remember the cradling. when he sleeps, he looks most like that baby, so i kiss him on the lips alot then.
but the toddler is delightful.. it's amazing seeing that he understands and interacts person to person, watching him explore the house and everything in it..
though i guess i'm also relieved that the hardest babyhood parts are past, that we're on the other side..
it's all so mixed =)

NB: previously posted elsewhere

Marketing of Artificial Baby Milk in Aus - a clear summary on how to report breaches

WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL CODE ?
A page that explains the code, how it was developed, what weight it holds: http://www.ibfan.org/english/issue/code01.html

How breastfeeding is undermined:
http://www.ibfan.org/english/issue/bfundermined01.html
Explains the ways in which formula marketing endangers breastfeeding success.

Monitoring the baby feeding industry.
http://www.ibfan.org/english/codewatch/monitor01.html
Gives guidelines for monitoring and reporting breeches of the code

A brief guide to spotting a violation.
http://www.ibfan.org/english/codewatch/monitor02.html

APMAIF (Advisory Panel on the Marketing in Australia of Infant Formula):
Annual Reports cataloguing complaints they receive: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/content/health-pubhlth-strateg-foodpolicy-apmaif.htm

A copy of a complaint form put together by the ABA can be downloaded at http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/advocacy/maif-incident-report-form-06.pdf

Guidelines for lodging breeches from APMAIF: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/content/health-pubhlth-publicat-document-brfeed-complaints.htm

NB: previously posted elsewhere by someone else