Karen's Journey

Hi all

Firstly a BIG thank you to you ALL for your wonderful supportive comments and emails! They mean so much to me and it wasn't till I re-read my post a wee while later that I realised how "down" it sounded. But for me to have written all of that it must have been how I was feeling at the time and its always better to get things off your chest rather than bottle them up and if you can't do that in our own journal then where can you do it?

After doing lots of thinking and contemplating, I am almost definitely going to stop this blog and perhaps start a brand new fresh one that will be about us as a family with the occasional weight issue popping up every now and then. I have taken in what a few of you have said in regards to cutting myself some slack in regards to worrying about my weight just yet - yes Rachel is only 3mths old but I guess I read other blogs and see others who have had babes in the last few months and see them right back on track straight away and it makes me feel like a loser in that regards SOOOOO I have to stop doing that and let me be me and concentrate on Rachel and returning to work and getting into a routine that works for us all as a family and then once that is in place I will look at my weight and what I can do about it. I have managed to maintain for the last 12 weeks since Rachel's birth so as long I can continue to do that and not pile on the weight in the mean time then I will be just fine. I am really enjoying reading Kate's blog at the moment - so much of it is making sense to me and hitting home so am going to try to get a Geneen Roth book or two out of the library )as I can't afford to buy them just yet) and do some serious reading while on the train each morning and afternoon.

"Anonymous" has said:
"You can't live on painkillers. That's no example to set to your daughter. You need to look after yourself!
First paycheck make sure you book a massage ok.

If you really don't want to have baby in care have you explored the option of selling your property and making a priority of staying home for longer? Really not trying to be unhelpful here but you don't sound terribly happy and it's a shame. Your baby is only a baby once and your happiness is IMPORTANT!"

And I would like to answer her (or his) points - I know I can't live on Painkillers but Rachel is only 3 mths old at the moment and I certainly don't intend on taking painkillers daily for ever! So at this stage it certainly isn't setting her a bad example at all. And if it makes me more relaxed and less stressed then that's gotta be good for her :) And one massage certainly isn't going to make my pain go away which is why I said either REGULAR massages or Osteo treatment.

As for the option of selling our home, yes we have looked at that but we also see the point of having our home as a security and future for Rachel in the long run. But by selling, we would then have rent to pay and for us to get a "decent" 3brm house with a fully fenced section in a nice area we would be paying about the same in rent as to what we are currently paying in mortgage payments but thanks for the suggestions anyway :)

Anyway, enough of that for now... I will keep you posted SHOULD I decide to set up a new blog - might do some playing around for now :)

Hasn't the weather in Wgtn been fantastic of late? It reached 33 degrees in Upper Hutt yesterday! No wonder I was so bloody hot! :) And today it is apparently sitting about the 28 degree mark so all doors and windows are open, the fans are going (in the lounge and in Rachels room)... and its still hot!

Rachel is definitely like her mum in the fact that she doesn't cope with the heat too well... she had a huge sleep yesterday afternoon and when she woke she was soaking in sweat so had about 45 mins of laying on the floor totally naked and she loved that! She just adores being naked! And then about 6pm as it was getting cooler and she was starting to get a bit grizzly, I got the pram out, threw on some sneakers and put Rachel in the pram and off we went for a 40 min walk! It was fantastic as it was cooler but I still worked up a sweat and Rachel slept most of it which meant she woke all happy and was more than happy to lay in her bouncer while Steph and I had dinner before bathing her etc... The only problem we are tending to have at the moment is Rachel being fussy with her bottle as she just doesn't like Steph feeding her at all which makes things quite stressful in our place at times in the evenings as I am wanting a break, Steph is wanting to feed Rachel and she just screams the house down. We are hoping that once she is in day care and has a couple of different people feeding her (she has one main caregiver and a backup caregiver) that she might loosen up a bit and let her Daddy feed her (fingers crossed).

Anyway, this has turned into a novel rather than a quick post... and I should be doing other things rather than sitting online while Rachel is sleeping but before I go here a couple of photos of her taken recently and yes our big girl is now sleeping in her cot and has taken to it really well!!!









Right, she is waking now... so best I get moving... catch ya all later and thanks again for all your support!