Future Parenting Worries

“You think you’re worried now, just wait until baby arrives!”: you have no idea how many times I have heard this in the last seven months. As though I don’t already spend my nights wondering what sort of parent I’ll be or what sort of child I’ll be raising. Some of my concerns are probably quite mild “what will I do if baby gets nappy rash?!” or “what if pottermore places baby in Gryffindor?!” – you just never know! However, in the name of being open about more serious parenting concerns, I’ve decided to write down my five biggest worries for the years ahead:

 

1. Asthma: What if baby has asthma? The condition appears to run in my family, a very strong percentage of us have breathing issues. My concern over baby’s lungs is one of the reasons why we’re looking so seriously into breastfeeding (alongside Mr Robinson’s eczema). If this becomes a reality, then at least I’ll be in a good position to spot the symptoms and manage the treatment. However, by the time I was nine, my own asthma was terribly out of control and I spent a lot of time either unwell or in hospital. In my teenage years, my school attendance averaged 60%, and I’m aware that my own academic success was mostly down to luck.
2. Autism: What if baby has autism? This might sound like something that is quite rare, or that I’m being paranoid in some way by worrying about this already. That is, until I say that my sister has Asperger’s Syndrome and Mr Robinson’s sister has very severe autism. As a couple, we have very different experiences due to the varying natures of the Autistic Spectrum, but it was something that made us reluctant to even begin trying for a child. It will, most likely, plague our experience until we see for ourselves that baby is meeting various milestones successfully. To be clear: autism isn’t some sort of terrible condition, our child would still have a great life, but I won’t downplay the difficulties we would face as parents in this position.
3. Anxiety: What if baby develops anxiety or, worse, is impacted by MY anxiety? Like asthma, anxiety is another condition that plagues my family. I’m very aware that many of my Mum’s issues with anxiety have been passed on to my sister and I. For the last few months, I’ve wondered how I’ll manage my anxiety in a way that reduces the impact on my child. It’s something I’ll be researching and getting advice on as we progress through this journey.
4. Dentist: How can I make sure my child doesn’t become scared of the dentist? I have a real fear of the dentist even though I can remember quite good experiences in my early childhood. Mr Robinson is terrified of the dentist, I’m not sure he’s even currently registered with one. I’d like our little one to have a healthy relationship with dental and medical care so that they will never feel scared of approaching these services in the future if they need to. I suppose in the long run being scared of the dentist is so common that I shouldn’t worry over it but it does play on my mind!
5. Bullying: What if my child is a bully or is being bullied? Both myself and Mr Robinson have been on the receiving end of bullying and it’s a genuine concern in our household. Having experienced very vividly what bullying can do to people and the lack of support offered in schools, I don’t quite know how I’ll be able to approach this with our own child. However, I worry even more about our child being the one that does the bullying. I remember a lot of the children that were the most callous and sneaky, were children who had no issues at home, came from loving and stable backgrounds, yet lacked empathy, sympathy, and kindness. I’m hoping we’ll be able to overcome this with early life lessons on being a decent human being!!

Asthma, Epidurals and Risks

I’ve put off writing this post because I’m still unsure of my feelings – then I remembered that this is exactly why my blog is entitled ‘mulling it over’. Right now, I’m still mulling this over. This week we met with the anaesthetist consultant at the hospital to discuss my birth, my options, and my risk factors. I may have already mentioned in other posts that my pregnancy is high risk: firstly, due to my asthma and secondly due to an increased BMI. I’ve known since conception that we were going to be a high-risk pregnancy but in all honesty, I have never been equipped with what that really means.

 

When I first fell pregnant, I researched like a crazy person into different birthing techniques. In my mind, the biggest factor was my anxiety – how could I keep calm enough to stay in control? I discovered hypnobirthing and investigated this quite seriously. Calm, controlled, considered. These are the words I want associated with my birthing experience and so my overall plan was to use hypnobirthing to guide me through an active birth. Antenatal classes only further convinced me that this was the best route: the calmer I am, the more likely my labour will progress appropriately, and the more I move around and get into better birthing positions, the less likely I will require intervention.

 

Yet I’ve never been so naïve as to think that births don’t sometimes get tricky. My birth plan was full of flexibility: I wasn’t anti-pain relief and I knew there was a chance I’d need to reconsider. Perhaps I simply wouldn’t cope well!

 

Fast forward to my appointment with the consultant. I’d brought my Mum along (she’s been great, she comes to most appointments) and didn’t think twice about sending Mr Robinson off to work – I didn’t think I was going to be given any bad news. The consultant was a lovely man, he was very informative, and he warmly welcomed us into the consultation room. There were questions about my asthma, whether I’d have previous experience of anaesthetics, what my experience is with pain relief, and then an unexpected examination of my spine.

 

Then he said it: “my recommendation would be to have an early epidural when you’re around 3cm dilated”. My heart literally dropped through my stomach as my Mum went on to tell the consultant that I’d hoped an epidural would be the last resort. It turns out the location required in my spine is ‘tricky’ to access and that most importantly the aim is to avoid me needing a general anaesthetic. My lungs wouldn’t cope well with being knocked out in an emergency.

 

The biggest problem is time. Speed. In an emergency situation, intervention needs to happen quickly, and my situation means that an emergency could potentially go from bad to worse quite quickly. One in ten epidurals will fail: of those 10% that fail, it tends to be because the woman has a high BMI. I’m potentially that 10%. If they have to rush me into a c-section and they can’t access the right part of the spine fast enough or the epidural fails, they would have to knock me out.

 

The solution, in the eyes of my consultant is this: get an epidural in early while there is no rush or emergency, it can then be tested to ensure it is working properly and if it’s not then steps can be taken to correct it long before any emergency happens. This would avoid my need for a general anaesthetic. The downside? It’s far more likely to CAUSE an intervention. You can’t move around to progress labour, you can’t really feel yourself pushing, and you can’t get into the best birthing positions.

 

I’m not a gambler, I don’t like taking risks at the best of times but in this situation neither option is risk free. Potentially my labour could go fine on its own and require no intervention, or it could go wrong and I may need some help. Do I put in the epidural to minimise the possible risks of needing emergency intervention but significantly increase my chance of needing intervention OR do I leave it out and deal with an emergency situation if or when it happens?

 

I don’t know if anyone else has experience of this, or if they have any words of wisdom, but for now I’m confused – and severely disappointed.

The Wardrobe

Mr Robinson and I have been together for nearly eight years and it’s safe to say that DIY is not our strong point. Before now, our only endeavour into the world of flat-packed furniture was a bookshelf: this descended into several arguments and was frustrating for all involved. This week we were faced with a new challenge in the form of a flat-packed wardrobe, kindly bought by my in-laws, for Baby Robinson.

 

It’s very much the truth to say -and I strongly doubt he’ll mind me saying it- that Mr Robinson is NOT a ‘manly man’. He doesn’t own a tool kit, he doesn’t have fabulous upper arm strength, and he does NOT enjoy DIY projects. That’s not to say he doesn’t have many positive attributes, it’s just that building things is never going to be something that features prominently on his CV. I’ll admit, this was something I was worried about when we ordered the wardrobe….

 

I was quite excited about the whole thing, I’d been waiting weeks to get a wardrobe for the baby, so I could begin nesting. Much to Mr Robinson’s dismay, I booked the early delivery slot and the lovely people at Argos knocked the door at 7.06am (on a Saturday – there was definite death glares from my husband).

 

The boxes were opened, the various pieces were assembled across the floor, we had acquired screwdrivers and a hammer, we had even checked everything against the booklet of instructions! It was all very positive until my desire to do things ‘my way’ kicked in. I’m honest enough to say that it wasn’t simply my nesting urge that was the problem: I have this issue whenever I watch someone struggling with a task that I, personally, would not find all that difficult. I don’t find building furniture a complicated process nor do I struggle with the strength to screw in nails, hammer things together etc.

 

In that moment I had a choice: I could either focus on how I wanted things to be done and likely find myself struggling to build a wardrobe by myself at 30 weeks pregnant OR I could try and support Mr Robinson in doing things his way. I’m slightly ashamed at how difficult a decision that was for me. In the end, I did end up having to do a considerable amount of work with the screwdriver and I did wake up from a nap to discover that virtually no progress to the wardrobe had been made. However, we got to the end of the build without any arguments and have a solid, new, wardrobe to show for it.

 

Nesting has finally begun, and Mr Robinson is entirely pleased with his own manly abilities. I’m just happy that I no longer have fifteen bags of baby clothes laid around the house.

Side note: we didn’t find Narnia.

 

Last Week

It’s been a very busy period for us and that can be stressful for anyone! Add in Easter, appointments that are pregnancy related, and moving to a new house and it all becomes a bit of a mess. Normally Easter isn’t a ‘big deal’ in our family because religion isn’t a key feature of our lives. I’m thoroughly Humanist in my views while other family members are religious to varying degrees. This year, however, my Mum decided that new traditions need to be made so that we can make loving memories when baby arrives. In this vain, we all had to decorate an egg for the first family Easter egg decorating competition [we won’t go into too much detail over the threat of not being fed dinner if you came without an egg].

 

Competition is probably not something my family does well. We each have a competitive streak that is mixed in with such large levels of empathy that we struggle not to feel bad that someone else had to lose. Everyone put in a lot of effort with their egg, but nobody really felt that their egg was the winner. I painstakingly created the aliens from Toy Story – do you know how hard it is to paint an egg without the paint just running off?! While Mr Robinson went for Harry, Ron and Hermione and labelled his ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Eggzkaban’. It was a tough competition, but Mr Robinson defeated the likes of Egg Sheeran to claim the Egg Decorating Cup [an Easter theme mug my Mum had found in the supermarket…].

It was a real high for our family to get through a day without someone crying or screaming. Unfortunately, happiness was short lived in the form of the Glucose Tolerance Test: a horrible little test used to determine whether you have Gestational Diabetes in your pregnancy. Obviously, GD can bring with it some complications for the baby so as a dutiful soon-to-be-Mother, I pushed down my anxiety and went along. I’m not going to give a full retelling of my experience because a) I’m pretty sure it isn’t the ‘normal’ experience based on how all the other women coped and b) I don’t want to scare anyone who still has to go through it. I will say that no food, slight dehydration and low blood pressure does NOT make it easy for veins to be found. The good new is we don’t have GD and I’m more than a little bit pleased about that.

 

The bad news is that the whole experience left me quite physically drained for the rest of last week: not ideal if you have to move home. Our new place is lovely: on initial inspection it came across as being ‘small’ but in terms of space it’s bigger in nearly every way. The ceilings are lower which is deceiving, and the kitchen is a definite downgrade, but the living spaces are far better. Most importantly, we now have garden space!!! My requirement for moving was to be closer to family, but Mr Robinson was quite keen for a garden to be acquired and I’m quite pleased that he pushed for that. I can now look out the window in our new place and envision our children playing in the snow or having water fights – that’s a long time away but it’s a nice fantasy.

 

There’s still plenty of unpacking to happen, some furniture to be built, places to be found for items that had previously been put into cupboards for ‘when we get our proper house’. I’ll soon to be up to my eyeballs in baby clothes and filling up photo frames but for now, I’m relaxing. We’re firmly in the third trimester and carrying heavy bags is NOT my job!

What’s in a name?

Since announcing our pregnancy there have been two key things people are desperate to know: do we know the gender and have we picked a name? The answer is yes and yes. That doesn’t mean we necessarily want to shout this from the roof top. Since finding out our babies gender we have only told family, a few select friends, and then people who have specifically asked us. When it comes to names, we’ve kept our final choice mostly to ourselves (the exception being those who were privy to earlier discussions regarding our shortlist – though we’ve not confirmed anything to anyone!).

 

Why aren’t we sharing all this information on every social media platform we are part of? Privacy. Never in my life have I felt such a strong urge for personal space and, I repeat, privacy. There are a group of people that seem to believe that a pregnancy is public property: it’s not unnatural, we see animals that are intensely curious when a new baby arrives, but it’s not for me.

 

I’ve been told it’s a part of nesting: this strangely protective urge towards a human that isn’t even born yet. Some have expressed frustration at my ‘secrecy’ as though my desire for privacy is a personal slight against their trustworthiness. This isn’t the case but there are plenty of reasons why our baby’s name won’t be disclosed until we make our big announcement.

 

1. In our early days of excitement, we drafted a list of names we liked. We had a firm favourite, it wasn’t a common name but it wasn’t outlandish. It wasn’t in the realms of ‘River’, or ‘Rocket’, or ‘Bear’, or ‘Florencia’. When we shared our choice, it went down like a lead balloon: people initially said it was nice, then backtracked later and said they hated it. Perhaps we should have stuck to our guns but we wanted people to be as excited as we were. We’ve had similar issues with many other names we’ve tossed into the playing field and so now we’re keeping our choice to ourselves.

 

2. My husband keeps changing his mind. We had five names on the short list: we picked one and then three days later he decided he preferred a different name on the list. This kept happening until we ran out of names. With no new suggestions from my better half, we’ve had to go back through the list.

 

3. We want to see what baby looks like! I often wonder how people decide that they’re going to call a baby Neil or Derek or Mary. We’ve got a name but it might not fit our baby on the day: it would be a bit embarrassing to have to tell everyone we’ve changed the name at the last minute.

 

 

4. I don’t want someone to steal the name. If you think this isn’t a thing then I strongly urge you to spend five minutes on an online Mum Forum. If you want to see a group of women turn into feral cats – that is where you’ll find it.

Career Breaks

It was never my intention to be pregnant while unemployed: in the grand Master Plan, it wasn’t really meant to go this way. Nevertheless, while it’s nobody’s business, this baby is very much planned. In the Master Plan I was going to finish my teaching degree, begin my probation year and tentatively try for a baby that would arrive that Summer. I’d have saved, we would have been entitled to some Maternity Allowance and when I felt ready to go back to work I could take supply jobs until I found my permanent post. It didn’t go like that…

 

My whole plan went out the window for a number of reasons and some of them I still find difficult to come to terms with. For one, I finished my course without my teaching qualification: I was supposed to go back to resit that final placement when my mental health decided otherwise. That whole experience -trying to achieve something I’d worked my butt off to achieve and then not getting there- was quite damaging and I’m still working through that. The career plan went on hold, but my life plan didn’t. We’ve not got the job, but we do have the baby arriving in the Summer.

 

What does that mean for us? Well, for the very first time, I’m the unemployed person in our duo. For the first time, I ticked the ‘homemaker’ box on a form – I never thought I’d do that. I’ve worked part-time jobs from the age of 17 while I studied at college and then at University for my undergraduate. In that time, Jamie went through periods of unemployment and they were tough, but we managed. I’ve never been financially dependent as an adult, so this new phase of our relationship has taken some adjusting to.

 

Had all gone well, I’d have finished my repeat teaching placement in the September. Instead, I decided to take some time to work on me and get my anxiety under control alongside a vitamin deficiency that my Doctor felt was making my mental health worse. If I’m being honest, we never thought we’d be quick to conceive: we had both said we would give it until Christmas and if nothing happened, I’d get a new job and we’d put the baby plans on hold for a little while. Little did we know that we’d be blessed on our first try.

 

Since then lots of people have asked what the plan is: will you go back to teaching? Will you go back to work soon or will you stay at home for a while? What will you do for childcare? Will you go full time or part-time? Will you use your degree in the job you’re looking for? What job are you hoping to get?

 

To some of these questions my answer is quite literally: I don’t know. The Master Plan has failed and, in all honesty, I don’t think teaching is the right path for me right now. Maybe when I’m older and a bit wiser but for now it’s not worked out. That’s difficult news to share with people who obviously want the best for me and don’t want to see my work ‘wasted’ but it’s a very personal, very difficult choice to make. For now the plan is to bring a new human into this world and spend the first year learning to be a parent. It’s a fresh challenge – and I’ve heard the pay is pretty rubbish – but this is our new priority. We’ll come up with a new Master Plan later.