Munchies and Munchkins

Food and travel

You are here: Home / Archives for stress

Testing Times

· by · Leave a Comment

Everything’s not always rosy.

Having just returned from a family break to a fantastic festival with a hundred smiling photos of us all you would be forgiven for thinking all is happy and well with my world.

For the most part it is I guess when you look at the big picture. We are all in reasonably good health, we have a home, a loving family and food on the table every day. But all is certainly not rosy. We seem to have totally lost all semblance of any bedtime routine with both girls of late and it means we never get an evening to ourselves anymore.

Actually never.

Each evening is tiring and stressful and I dread it.

Izzy is pushing boundaries every day. She knows what buttons to push and is not afraid to push them.

Add to this I think my anxiety levels are rising again and nearly 9 months on I’m still having birth trauma issues. Some days are just not fun.

In fact some days are awful.

At least once a day for the past week I have been on the verge of tears for one reason or another. Sometime it’s just tiredness. Sometimes it’s because my darling toddler has told me she doesn’t love me anymore..just Daddy. Sometimes it’s because Chloe is so incredibly frustrated that she can’t do everything she wants to yet and so instead just whines and whines.

I want to carry on breastfeeding, I want to stop breastfeeding. I love the closeness, the feeling of giving Chloe the very best I can but I need the freedom to be able to leave the house for more than an hour or two to clear my head. I don’t know what to do.

I worry so much. About how I will cope when I return to work. How I can possibly fit my job around my family and home life. I can’t work full time anymore as how will I get to know my children the way I want to and be there for them when I am only home for two of their wakeful hours each day. If I work part time how will we afford to bring them up the way we want to. Arrggh. All day questions, stress.. Over tired ..over active mind.

I need to bake. Baking soothes my soul.

Making a list..checking it twice.

· by · 1 Comment

This may sound crazy to you.. it does even to me actually. I’ve pretty much completed my Christmas shopping. I am so disorganised normally that I generally still feel panicky on Christmas Eve but this year I knew that with a relatively small newborn ish baby at that time I needed to be prepared. Baby 2 is due on Nov 15th..so if I go overdue ( which currently seems VERY unlikely) she could be just a few weeks old on Christmas day.

So I began planning..and shopping a few months back. I have a LOT of people to buy for. Aside from my little family ( OH, Iz and new baby) I have a lot of siblings and their partners..12 nieces and nephews, my OH’s family and extended family and friends. Arrrrggh.

I decided to make things easier on myself.

For 8 of my nieces and nephews I have bought cinema vouchers. They take up a teeny amount of space in my Christmas chest and I know they can all go together one day and have a fun day out.

For the younger remaining ones I have small gifts which I’ve picked up on sale and the older one I have some cool smellies.

For inlaws and extended family I’ve stocked up at the local Bookers on booze and picked up special food items at Food festivals earlier in the year. I had every intention of making hampers again but I can’t see it happening.

Iz gets a lot of presents from extended family so I’m taking advantage of the fact that she is too young to nag for a big present and giving her lots of little things such a sticker books and fun crafty things to keep her occupied when I’m feeding baby 2. I also had lots of cool things from Britmums goodie bags which I’ve hoarded way. We do plan to buy her a bike/trike in the January sales.

Baby 2 has some snuggly toy items and that’s about it.

Friends and my older siblings will have wine/chocs and be grateful for it.

My younger siblings have some cool fat face stuff which I got on sale..agessss ago and the older ones have some fab cocktail mixes etc which I bought when reduced a while back.

My OH has yet to choose his gift so he will either have money or things I can buy online. Simple.

I’ve even started stocking up on Christmas snacks and chocs.. Unfortunately unlike the wine I can eat these now so the stock is depleting but Asda/Morrisons will always be around.

Have you done all your shopping?

Dear Bump

· by · 3 Comments

It’s been 161 days since I found out about you. 158 days since I told your Daddy on his birthday that our family was growing. 161 days of loving you, being scared of losing you and looking forward to meeting you. Approximately 25 hospital visits, 8 scans .. And counting. Numerous blood test and urine samples. Scary consultant meetings X2, hours spent in waiting rooms ..A LOT..Speculum tests-too many. Vigorous kicks and punches to my belly from your growing limbs..100’s, kisses to my growing belly from your proud sister – 10000. Cheerios placed in my belly button to feed the baby..7.

I spend so much time laying on a hospital bed listening to your precious heartbeat and you swimming about that I feel like I know you already. You hate the monitor on my stomach and protest wildly, the same goes for scans – you definitely make the hospital staff earn their wages.

20130813-095224.jpg

Like your sister you already have a better wardrobe than I do. Mostly because you are having all of her hand me downs but you already own 3 pairs of Vans..how cool are you?

I want you to stay in my stomach, safe and warm for at least another 80 days – I want you to be strong and healthy when you are born and that is the safest time. 80 days seems like an unmanageable, amount of time right now but you are worth every second. That much I know.

I want to thank you for being such a little fighter. Taking everything my pregnancy has thrown at you and saying Pah I can handle that. You are such a big part of our family and we can’t wait to meet you.

I’m blue da ba de da ba da

· by · 5 Comments

I’m not sure if its because I didn’t sleep last night or whether my body is just feeling exhausted but I feel blue. Although there have been loads of little and large issues some of which I’ve blogged about and well others I haven’t with this pregnancy I’ve managed mostly to keep a positive spin on things.

Today was only something minor – I have developed a ear and throat infection so I’m on antibiotics. AGAIN. Nothing major right but it must have been the icing on the cake as I suddenly feel miserable. Last night I didn’t really sleep at all, not just due to the heat which has kept most of the country awake for days but because my throat was so swollen ..by the time 9am came I felt broken. Flu type symptoms in my arms, legs and head with a massively sore throat, nausea and a niggly pain starting in my ear. If I wasn’t pregnant I would have dosed up on cold/flu meds and relaxed until I felt better but when pregnant you are extremely limited as to what you can take to relieve the pain so I give in and visited my GP. Lucky I did as the infection is pretty bad and my doc said it would have become a lot worse. At the same time we have thought Izzy had hayfever all weekend when it turns out today that she has a chest infection so she is also on meds. I should point out she is dealing with it a lot better than I am.

My body just feels useless right now. Deep down I know it’s not – I’m growing a baby after all 😉 but it feels that way. Every week seems to bring a new issue and although I know the baby is ok I worry, after all if I feel this way how does she feel? I hate that I am now on my third lot of antibiotics in as many weeks although I know they are essential especially the ones to fight the Strep B but all this medicine in my body when I am carrying my precious baby seems wrong.

I worry constantly about how rubbish I feel. What if this continues? How will I cope with labour or a newborn?

When I think clearly I know that I will be fine, the baby will hopefully be fine and this is all just worry but it’s very hard to shake out of this mood today. I think I’ve felt more stressed in this pregnancy that I have in most of adult life. During my last pregnancy my mum battled breast cancer and I coped with that better than I am currently coping with less serious matters.

Added to all of the above is the effect on Izzy and my OH. I feel guilty most days about not doing enough with Izzy – when I have an ounce of energy I try to spend it on her or we do things like cuddling and watching films. My OH has been incredibly supportive when I know a lot of this has been hard on him too and I worry about the strain it puts on him.

It feels like forever until our next scan at 28 weeks when we hope to see our heathy,happy girl bouncing about in my belly.

How can I get out of this silly mood and stop feeling sorry for myself? I know there are many people worse off than me and I am lucky in a million ways but right now I need a boost.

This was a bit of a thought spillage so apologies if it makes little or no sense.

Thanks for reading.x