Hi all

Just popping in to say hi as its been awhile since I did a written post. Still plodding on day by day - some days are great and others are not so great and pretty emotional. But its a matter of keeping on keeping on...

Work is pretty full on at the moment which means the days are flying by and the weeks sure are flying by pretty damn quickly! But of course the weekends fly by even quicker!

Rachel is growing so much and I suppose the biggest thing is that we can not get over how stubborn she can be at times! I have no idea where she gets that from *shrugs my shoulders and smiles the most innocent grin I can find* LOL In all seriousness though both Steph and I can be stubborn at times so poor Rachel has no show really! LOL

She is really enjoying sitting up these days but mainly at home as day care don't like to "encourage" them to sit up until they are ready to i.e. when they can get themselves into and out of the sitting position! And as for rolling - she is loving that too and rolls from one side of the room to the other side quite easily now (as long as she is in the mood).

Here is a photo that I took of her sitting up last weekend (on my phone hence the poor quality)


Anyway, I am gonna head to bed - yeap I know its only 8.40pm but I'm tired, grumpy and emotional so bed is the best place for me right now... catch ya all later. Have a great week everyone.

Photo Post

Hi ya

All going well in our place at the moment (touch wood) - Rachel seems to be going regularly (yay) and nice soft movements too! Still gotta keep up the lactulose syrup and the drops for another few days and then go down to once a day for another few days before being able to stop them... but once she misses a day of going we give her a dose of the lactulose to keep things moving. She is loving her pureed prunes though (as am I)! She is having them twice a week before her veggies - I just have to remember to do them the night before so they are ready for her to have when I get home.

Her cough seems to be more or less gone... just the occasional cough now which is great. She has been going down for the night about 6.45pm as she has been so tired and I was hoping that she would still sleep through till her "normal" time of between 6 and 6.30am but no such luck as yet. We have had 4.30am and 5.0am wake up calls so far! So I have had a couple of long days lately - I am not getting her up then but I don't go back to sleep as I lay there listening to her chatting away!

Ohhhhhhhhhh I must share our latest news! Over Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Rachel achieved two milestones. The first one was on Tuesday evening when she rolled over by herself for the first time! Yay! But the sad thing is that both mummy and daddy missed it! As I was dicing the chicken for dinner and Steph was busy running a bath for her. I walked into the lounge to turn the TV on for the news and walked past her and then stopped, looked at her and was trying to work out what was different! Took me a couple of moments to work out what it was! LOL And there she was looking up at me with the biggest smile on her face! Then on Wednesday morning, when I was dropping her at Daycare, I had a couple of mins to spare before leaving her and I had been holding her and sat her down on the floor with Carson (one of the boys there) and she sat there by herself unaided for approx 30-40 secs!!! Woohoo!!! She had the biggest smile on her face when she was sitting there... well that was until she face planted it into the toy that her and Carson had been playing with and Carson just gave her this look as if to say "What the ...." so I sat her up again and she fell back down again and then all she wanted was a cuddle with Tish who is one of the most lovely carers I know! :)

Then tonight while she was laying on the floor she rolled multiple times over and over... so cute to watch!

Last night I was at the Drs for my smear and to get a new script and had an awesome chat with her about things that have been happening and how I am feeling and how things have been going for me! She has given me some brochures about Post Natal Depression which is what I had started to wonder myself. So am gonna do some reading and then probably contact one of the support groups and perhaps go to a meeting if there is a local one at a suitable time. I have been treated for depression a few years back so I know the signs etc.... Last time I was put on Prozac and then slowly weaned myself off it after a couple of months.

Anyway, that's whats been happening for me lately along with a few other bits and pieces... am plodding on day by day - some times its easy and other days its real tough! Right time to get moving - washing to hang out and bottles to prepare for tomorrow.

Oh have taken some great photos of Rachel so will try to find time over the weekend to download them and once I do that I will share them with you all.

Hi ya

Just thought I would do a quick update on Rachel before heading to bed as I am totally shattered today after a late and rough night last night.

Warning - some details of this post could be a bit graphic for some...

I ended up taking Rachel back to the Drs on Friday afternoon and after the Dr was able to physically see Rachel trying to push the motion out and finally agreed with me that there was no way that Rachel was going to be able to push this out by herself... so gave her an enema (liquid up her bottom) which was to soften the motion and then would make it easier for Rachel to push it out. Dr also gave me 2 to use on her over the weekend. Anyway, Saturday morning I gave her the 2nd enema (definitely easier said than done) and she had also had another dose of the laxative but my lunch time still no luck and the pain she was in was getting worse! So I rung our Drs (who are open on the weekends for patients) and was able to get an appt at 3pm and luckily my Dr was the one on duty too!

So back to the Drs at 3pm and the Dr was shocked that not only had the laxative not worked but nor had the 2 enemas! So the next hour was filled with Rachel's crying and screaming as the Dr "manually" dug everything out that was in her bottom! Definitely not the easiest thing for anyone in the room let alone our beautiful Rachel! But boy a lot sure came out of such a small person!!! And it was ROCK HARD!! My poor girl!!!

A rough night last night as it is still hurting Rachel to push it out but at least its coming out and fairly reguarly now! But she also has gotten her cough back that she had a week or two back! It had more or less gone a few days ago until last night.. not sure if it was perhaps from all the crying she did yesterday but it has been quite bad today! :(

Another enema this morning to keep things moving, so hopefully that will be the end of things going up her bottom for a LONG time! But the Dr did say that should we see Rachel straining at all (and that the motion is too big to push out) that we are supposed to go straight back down there!

So for the time being, Rachel is on the laxative syrup twice a day, coloxyl drops in her milk 3 times a day, prunes for dinner approx twice a week so fingers crossed all of that keeps things soft, moving and regular for my princess!

Went out to dinner last night with ladies from Antenatal and it was lovely! We had so many laughs and are planning to do it once a month and go to a different restaraunt each time!

So it's been a full on weekend but a very tiring one... so it's almost 9pm so I am off to bed now. Hope you all have a fantastic week xx

Hi all

Am still around Lyn - just been a busy wee bee... and unfortunately Rachel has not been in the best of health :( She has recovered from her cough/cold and sore ears but is now severely constipated! Today is day 7 since her last bowel motion. We have tried every "trick" in the book and ended up at the Dr's yesterday afternoon as it was really starting to get painful for her at times. Dr suggested boiled/pureed prunes and rather than giving her the juice - to actually give her the prunes themselves (pureed of course). And then if they didn't work in 24hrs to get the prescription for lactlose filled and give her a dose of that. So did the prunes for her and she adored them and demolished them very quickly!!! No luck over night... and so this morning I gave her some more prunes before day care and warned them that it could happen today... but when I rung them at 1.30pm today I got told - nope still no luck and she was really starting to cry when pushing. So I left work, picked her up and gave her the lactose syrup - its a very strong syrup so she is only on 1ml once a day (the Dr is confident it will only take 1 dose to work) Almost 5hrs later - still no movement so we really do have our fingers crossed that something will happen tonight. I am not prepared to let her go all weekend without anything happening so if no luck by lunchtime tomorrow I will be calling the Dr and chatting to her about the next step we can take which trust me is not a pleasant step!

When you see the pain in her eyes and on her face when she is trying to push it out - it is so heartbreaking and when you hear the heartbreaking sobbing/screaming in the middle of night - you just want to start crying yourself! Anyway, thats whats been happening in our house at the moment - so that's definitely our number one priority at the moment.

But apart from all of that - things are cruising along. Still doing really well with the water intake - between 1.5 - 2.5 litres a day during the week - just gotta work on the weekend intake. Food - well still not always the best of choices - some days its great and other days - well not so great! I had my first official weigh in on Tuesday with the Healthy Eating Club at work - not a good start - over the first two weeks - I recorded a gain of 800gms! And without making excuses - TOM had just arrived the day before and with that came a HUGE chocolate spurge!!! So mainly my fault - but like we all say - onwards and downwards on these scales! I have enjoyed my lunches this week - have been going 1/2's with a friend of mine to buy healthy sandwich fillings and keeping them in the fridge at work and then making our sandwiches each day.

I did manage to set up a blog just for Rachel but it is for family (and a few close friends) who live out of town around NZ and the world so that they can see her grow up. Its going to be mainly photos with the occasional paragraph thrown in. Got one wee problem and that is the comments facility - the settings are exactly the same as my one but for some reason her blog just won't allow comments! Got me totally puzzled but am still working on it when I have the time!

Anyway, better get moving, bottles etc to make up. Got a nice weekend planned with a catch up with some girlfriends on Saturday afternoon - some of whom haven't met Rachel yet so hopefully she will be up to that visit otherwise she might be staying home with Daddy. Then on Saturday night, our whole antenatal group are going out for dinner - no babies and no daddies! Just the mummies - a good chance for a catch up and a Mothers Day celebration for us celebrating our first mothers day.

Hope you are all doing well - talk soon xx

Hi ya

Just thought that while I was sitting here cruising the net that I would do a quick update to say hi :)

It's been a full on few days with Rachel not being very well. It all started in the early hours of Thursday morning when Rachel woke coughing real badly and sobbing uncontrollably... the previous two nights when she had done this, a bit of pamol and lots of cuddles have settled her down but not this particular night. As I could see things weren't getting any better, I made the decision to take her to the After Hours down in Lower Hutt so at 3.30am I am throwing trackpants and shoes on and wrapping Rachel up and driving down to Lower Hutt (in the pouring rain). The Dr saw her, and although there is nothing they can do for the cough, he discovered that Rachel also had swollen eardrums (and something else to do with the ears too) so they gave her a dose of antibiotics then and there (since I couldn't get the prescription filled until the chemists opened later) and then it was back home to bed. I fell back into bed just before 5am and as I had already decided that I would keep her home from daycare, I was hoping that the night time adventure would have tired her out and that she would sleep in... but no such luck - sure enough at 5.45am she was wide awake and chatting away to herself!

So Thursday was spent at home with her after an early morning trip to the chemist to get the prescription filled. It was nice to spend the day with Rachel and she was pretty happy overall when she was awake. So Friday, she went back to daycare and was really happy when up but spent the day catnapping for 30min periods which seems to be happening more frequently during the week at day care.

She tried the catnapping on us this morning but I wasn't going to let her do that, so when she woke and started grizzling, I just left her and sure enough, she fell asleep for another hour. So will organise a chat with her care giver and see what they can do to help her sleep for longer. I realise that they can't leave her to cry or anything like that as she is in the sleep room with other children who are sleeping. And once Rachel sees us (or the care giver) she immediately thinks its time to get up!

So all up we are having a quiet weekend this weekend to give her a chance to keep warm and let her ears get better. Though, we do want to go to Mitre 10 (and maybe Bunnings too) at some stage (so probably tomorrow) to do some heater shopping for the lounge. They both have had some good ones (wall mounted ones) advertised in their catalouges so we are keen to check them out.

We have also been busy discussing our Christmas plans for this year - yeah yeah I know it's still a way away... but really it is only 7mths to go! And as we both like the idea of heading down to Christchurch for a week or so, we are keeping an eye on when the ferry bookings open which according to the Interislander newsletter is about a month away.

We have also been keeping an eye on www.grabaseat.co.nz which is an Air NZ site with daily great rates for limited periods. There was a great fare yesterday of Auckland to Invercargill (so basically one end of NZ to the other) for $160 return!!! Now that was one amazing fare and it sold out in less than 2 hrs! So we check that each day and see what bargins are there as we may look at taking a weekend away sometime soon if we can get the right fare to one of our destinations that we would like to go to.

Anyway, I am off to bed - how sad am I - heading to bed at 9.15pm on a Saturday night! LOL Hope you are all having a good weekend. Catch ya later xx

Hi all

Wow almost another week has gone by... time sure does fly by when one is so busy or having fun (oh I wish)!

Was unable to make my first weigh in since joining the healthy eating club at work due to major work committments today. We had already "lost" almost 2 hours at a big departmental meeting that had compulsory attendance (our department is being restructured) and as today is the day we run the payroll we had HEAPS to do and little time to do it in! I weighed myself at home and I was the same as last week... so not the best of starts but better than gaining!

Water intake has been excellent - between 2 & 3 litres of water a day during the week. Just gotta work on the weekends now... but getting there slowly. Eating - well definitely not the best but better than it has been so like we all have said - one step at a time and baby steps they will be for me! The fact that the two males in our team have very sweet tooths does not help matter at times - yes I know I have to learn to be able to say no but at times when things are so busy and stressful it is easier said than done! Haven't got far with Helena's book due to time and lack of energy to read but I really want to get into it and learn so much more about the this way of eating as what I have read (and learnt from Helena) so far makes so much sense to me! :) Exercise - 2x15min walks each day which we all know is better than nothing at all but I do have to work on that. I do try to get at least one long walk in at the weekends with either a friend or just me and Rachel :)

Speaking of Rachel - she is 6mths old tomorrow! Wow where have the last 6mths gone??? She has even rolled twice now by pulling herself on her activity gym so thats quite exciting in our house :) She is loving her solids now - has 1/2 jar (or the equalivant if she is having home mixed veggies) each night. And has 1/3 jar of fruit each morning! At times, she is refusing her morning bottle, but it is more than happy to take it once she is at day care so is obviously not hungry first thing in the morning. It used to stress me out and we would both end up tears but now I just leave it knowing that she will take it when she is ready. Oh I am still always offering her the bottle first so its not that she is full from solids. She has another cold but is very happy during the day - it only seems to be at night that it disturbs her with a bit of coughing.

Anyway, its now 9.40pm and I gotta get my lunch ready for tomorrow.... catch ya all later :)