Poem 31

 

Sleepy eyes closing

Thinking of tomorrows tasks,

I must remember 

Four lizards, a sheep, a snake, three cats and a few dogs

This week I have been hired to help out with a pair of six month old twins. What the client wants is a nanny, though I was hired as a postpartum doula and it is reminding me of exactly why I am a doula and not a nanny. I don't have the stamina or dexterity that is needed for nannying but I am good at the encouraging, making cups of tea and offering perspective which are essential to postpartum support.

Anyways, the finer points of service industries aside, I was walking the wee charges round the block today in a vain attempt to get them to nap and as I walked past what I think is the only free-standing house in all of Alexandria there was a girl of about eight standing on the footpath.

"I know those babies.....they live in one of the the grey houses (she is right) ......Are you the mum? .....I know the other babysitter too"

"Do you live here?" I asked her "do you like it here?"

"It's like a farm, we have so many pets we have four lizards, a sheep, three cats and a few dogs. We used to have a goat....out there......in the back yard"

Her smaller brother tried to show me his toy monkey but he was standing well back and her confidence overwhelmed proceedings a little.

I'm rather hoping that I might be asked to walk the twins again tomorrow and if I am I think I will take the same route

spending nights in a strangers bedroom

on this night i have a booking to burp, settle and change new twins in a bid to help the mum & dad eke out a few precious minutes of extra sleep. last night i was up late so i know my reserves are not great. an afternoon nap is in order so in the mid afternoon i head to bed. i lay there wide awake and knowing that this might cost me later, i am on the edge of getting up again but i must drift off because soon i wake to the sound of someone walking quickly along the hallway.

soon after i wake again to the sound of a car, it has come up the street and for some reason the driver has decided to accelerate noisily away. and so i lay there a little longer but sleep eludes me and i get up.

my favourite computer is suffering a terrifyingly bad virus so i spend a little while googling for solutions but the problem with "virus solutions" is that quite a few appear to be viruses. having already created this disaster i am reluctant to make it worse so, in defeat, i turn away from it. there will be another day and besides, it is time to get dinner.

cooking, eating and cleaning up are done and the clock is creeping toward my 10pm start time. i watch a little tv and shower to wash away the stickiness of a humid february day. then hugs goodbye.

i crank up the car air conditioning so that i arrive feeling fresh. the drive through quietening streets is easy and soon i am pulling up at the security garage. i forget to press the button with the key symbol and the gate wont open. maybe there is a time delay after failed attempts because it takes me three more tries before the little LED screen invites me to "go in"

my clients have some of their belongings in the parking space so i  pull sharply to one side so i can avoid moving the things. the garage is echo-ey and lonely, i am just locking the car when someone bangs through the heavy door to put rubbish in the garbage room. my tummy rumbles a little and i wish i had stashed a chocolate in my bag.

I reach the top of the stairs and open the door. after the heat of the garage it is a relief to feel the cool night air. i can see my client drawing the curtains as i walk toward their apartment.

i know this family, the grandma greets me with great warmth and says goodnight to the dad, who is just turning in. grandma and i talk about an illness that seems to be passing through the household, the changing routine of the twins and the first brave little excursions of the newly expanded family. we chat about motherhood and travel. i wish i was friends with this lady and remind myself that i am hired help.

after about a half hour i can hear a baby stirring and so my work begins. i catch up with mum while she feeds bub and then i burp and change him. if his brother doesnt wake i might be able to get a little shut eye.

after a little while i hear crying so i creep toward the bedroom door but i realise that it is the sick toddler who is disturbed. his nan will take care of him. the crying stops and starts, with the special tone that only a sick child has.

after a while i wake again. the second twin is awake and the first is stirring. more than an hour passes as i pat tiny backs, change nappies and replace vomit wet clothes. the exquisite softness and sweet smell of the newborns are a fringe benefit of the job and some primal instinct tempts me to kiss fuzzy little heads but i settle for putting my cheek to their heads as they rest on my shoulder.

there are short intervals when i am waiting for a baby to finish feeding, sometimes i fetch a glass of water or re-stock the nappy box but most times i perch uneasily on the edge of another couple's bed, chatting to the mum. the light is dim and the air conditioner seems to be roaring. it is always an oddly intimate experience.

sometime after three am both babies are settled again, i leave at five so i doze some more and then it's time to go. the apartment is in deep silence and i surely wont be needed so i leave a promotional fridge magnet on the kitchen bench and slip out of the door.

the city is just beginning to wake as i drive home in pre-dawn light. when i get there i am not interested in anything but falling asleep. i will be passed out when, in less than an hour my household starts to hum with the new day. 

Wise Women of Birth

Photo from Natural Beginnings, V. Maddock

This weekend I went to a workshop to see what wisdom I could pick up from a room full of doulas and four guest speakers: birth workers with a combined 150 years of experience serving women.
Two of the guests were from Portland, OR and I was grateful for my blogging friend Snow who has educated me enough so that I felt as if I had some idea about their part of the world. (thank you!) One of these midwives recounted to me a little of what it was like to attend a birth in the aftermath of the Mt St Helens eruption which I found interesting.
As evidenced by the picture I was deep in thought for much of the day and although my readers here tend not to be a demographic who are particularly interested in the issues surrounding birth we can never underestimate the value of getting good information to anyone who belongs to humanity so here are the take home messages of the day (as I see it)

• We might do well to think about putting more emphasis on the baby and less on pre-birth pedicures and brazilians.
• We need to stop giving women the message that they need help to birth. Doulas are there to affirm the mother's own ability and bear witness to her process, not to fiddle about with evening primrose oil, rebozos, massage oils or "natural induction methods".
• There is no good evidence for the current trend of placenta encapsulation and  no guarantee that it is not harmful.
• Two enormously helpful things any mother can do which are proven to reduce the risk of pre-term birth are to gain enough weight (15-20kg) and to eat plain yoghurt at least once a week during the pregnancy. This improves gut health and produces a favourable vaginal flora, reducing infection risk to mother and baby.

The day was organised but Denise Love of Women's Health Cambodia and featured the owner of the organisation, Chong Nai Hy. Read about their work here.

Waiting.......

I am on call now for a birth and while i think i am better at uncertainty than the average person, that doesnt mean i have no concerns.
My concerns are mostly manufactured in my own mind: what if i dont hear the phone and they dont call again? what if they have decided at the last minute that they wont call me? what if there is a traffic jam on the way? will i remember everything i need to? will i think on my feet when something unexpected crops up (and it will, it is birth) if it is long, will i be anywhere near useful at the end? what food do we have that i can quickly grab as i head out?
every night when i get into bed i think i am too tired for a birth tonight, every time my son has my car i worry about getting the call, yesterday i worried that i would forget the address.
today i was asked what food i recommend for labour and i worried that i was being either too vague or too prescriptive (i said comfort foods, complex carbs to start and fast energy sources for the end)
i go on call when a pregnancy reaches the 38 week mark and some babies are not born until 43 weeks (rare but possible) it is a long time to be second guessing ones self but this is the life i chose and maybe i will get better with practice?

what i'm thinking about these days

life goes on, the same as always but different: i keep trying to build my profile as a doula and i think i am succeeding in creating an online presence, people do sometimes refer to me with questions about babies and children, but it isn't translating into work.

i've written a couple more blog posts for a parenting magazine, one about vaccination and one about....well, about waiting i suppose. i'm happy to do it and i've had nice feedback and heaven knows i like nice feedback but it doesnt put crowns on teeth, shoes on feet or food on the table.

my husband isnt working at the moment and is contracted not to discuss that situation so i guess i wont, except to say it has all been a bit of an adjustment. we are living on savings and my question is, for a normally conservative person, how much more conservative do i need to get? or do i just go on my normal way and work on the theory of abundance?

i continue to shop at sydney's major fruit & veg market most fridays and i enjoy that; if i was a bit less reserved i would ask some of the stall holders if i could take their photos. each and every one of them is larger than life, my absolute favourite is a guy who wears a hat made from apple cartons, i laugh every time i see it but now that autumn has arrived i wont be seeing it until next summer.

i've managed to lose some weight, not sure  how much because i dont really know what i started at but it is at least 3kg which is great. if weight loss was linear i would be on track to lose 10kg this year but of course, weight loss is not usually linear so we will see what we will see. i have become a lot more aware of what i put in  my mouth and that is a good thing. i'm considering it all to be a win.

the family has expanded by a factor of two rabbits. honey and django are sisters, 9 weeks old, rather adorable, permanently hungry and razor sharp of claw. the name honey is up for review. rabbits are a delight, even when they make ribbons of one's skin.

my visits to the immigration detention centre are at a temporary standstill due to a ham fisted and ill advised attempt to supply contraband. i did know at some level that alcohol was not tolerated in that place but i didnt really think about it. my six week exclusion will end just in time for my birthday. it's all a bit silly considering that my identity was not even verified at the time, it could have been one of my many enemies setting me up. it's all tragically funny or funnily tragic. or something.

i'm having a bad run with my back at the moment, i've probably been to the chiro five times already this year and i have a wicked stiff neck again now. i want a personal chiropractor and i keep suggesting it as a possible career path for my kids but they just roll their eyes and talk of music, science and cake making.

aside from all of that, what i think, feel and experience is all the normal stuff: what will i make for dinner? why are we out of milk? is there fresh bread for tomorrow's sandwiches? why are there four used tea towels in the kitchen? why doesnt anyone but me notice when the bins need emptying? all the big questions, you know.......

i think therefore i am

the relationship between thought and reality, or thought and circumstance has been a recurring theme in my life of late. learning about childbirth has reinforced to me over and over, that the circumstances of a birth, the gory detail of inductions, episiotomies, maternal exhaustion, forceps delivery, ventouse extraction (extraction? really?) and the big childbirth C aesarean, are determined in some part, maybe even in large part, by the thoughts of the birthing woman.

it makes sense really but nobody explains it to the expectant mother. if unexplored and unaddressed, the fears and concerns that a mother has going into her pregnancy, labour and birth will produce an adrenaline "fight or flight" response and the name says it all: fight or flight leaves no room for birth! the fight or flight hormones work contrary to the hormones of labour, in fact they are designed to shut down a labour, saving the life of the mother in a dangerous situation and allowing her to delay the birth for a safer time and place. all of this sounds a little extreme but if you apply the same logic to a wild animal it makes sense and we really aren't so far removed from the animals when basic instinct and survival is involved.

a scared mum leads to delayed and complicated labour and lets face it, what new mother wouldnt be a little afraid? bringing a new life into the world is the biggest responsibility we will ever face and one of the greatest unknowns. all of this is known as the fear-tension-pain response.

(at some level) i think i cant birth, therefore i cant?

moving into the post natal period, women who had the positive emotional support of a doula at their child's birth, felt empowered during the experience and suffered less birth trauma are proven to have less post natal depression, bond to baby better, breastfeed more easily and express greater confidence as mothers.

i think i can mother confidently and competently, therefore i can?

after all of that reflection on birth and mothering i came across a documentary called "what the bleep do we know?" which i cant really begin to explain to you here because i would have to watch it and cogitate on it at least 100 more times to begin to understand but what i will say is that it lives up to the hype as a "revolutionary cinematic blend of dramatic film, documentary, animation and comedy, while serving up a mind-jarring blend of Quantum Physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought."

i love to say i watched a doco on quantum physics, by the way :)

despite my inability to explain it all the film explained and hypothesised a whole lot of things including the fact that our reality is shaped by our thoughts and not in a vague hippy or self help kind of way but genuinely and scientifically: the way we experience the world around us is determined by the way we think. we influence the people around us by our thoughts, we create health or illness by our thoughts, we create or happiness, successes and emotional strengths or weaknesses through our thoughts.

quantum physics teach us that there is no reality without a mind to interpret that reality. that's not philosophical rhetoric, it's science and when we accept that our mind is essential to the very existence of something we call reality then naturally our thoughts create our realities.

every single aspect of our lives: health, luck, career, relationships, joy and pain are all inextricably bound to our thoughts and if that wasnt enough we see that God is explained as well! the existence and functioning of God is explained by quantum physics and if you dont believe there is a God, wont believe it, cant believe it or struggle with it in any way this film puts it all into some kind of rational order. or maybe my mind did that because thats the reality i created but it was a product of my mind together with outside factors and is therefore real.

some time ago i had this brief exchange on facebook and i want to quote it. i found it amazing at the time and now even more so: two of us, in the intellectual, philosophical, largely Godless wasteland that is facebook, inadvertently stumbled around the edge of the truths powering the universe.


Larry:
"Mr. Shermer delves into the neuroscience of "the believing brain" where he cites research suggesting that people with high levels of the feel-good neurochemical dopamine "are more likely to find significance in coincidences and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none." When we come across information that confirms what we already believe, we get a rewarding jolt of dopamine. "
"Shermer doesn't take religious faith seriously except as an object for debunking—God is simply the human explanation for pattern-making and agency on an epic scale. "

Mr Shermer.....just maybe the dopamine is actually God's way of telling us that we're on the right track.......‎"

Kylie:

"God is simply the human explanation for pattern-making and agency on an epic scale." and isnt epic scaled pattern making and agency pretty much a synonym for God? "

it's ok if you think i'm grandly delusional, just watch the film and whether you agree with me about the God thing or not you wont regret the 108 minutes.

burns, boats and babies

this past week was unexpectedly and unwantedly interesting when the other half was extensively burned in a work accident. i spent a few hours in sydney's specialist burns hospital, a few hours driving back and forth to said hospital and am now doing a crash course on burn care. as burns go it was not so bad, partial thickness is what they call it and he didnt need hospitalisation but he has lost most of the skin off one side of his back/shoulder and there are all the practical and emotional challenges that always go with injury: how to be a good patient or a sensitive nurse, how to shower around it, how to dress the wound and how to dress the patient and how to sleep.........

in other news, we went for a lunch cruise on the harbour today, in honour of the mother-in-law visiting and while the lunch was pretty average, sydney never fails to captivate me.

i came home to an email from my doula teacher offering a possible opportunity to attend a birth, as required by the course. i compete for that opportunity with a couple of others and i dont know how it will be decided but i'm sure the right opportunity will come at the right time and it's good to feel that i'm a teeny bit closer to doula-dom. in a coincidental twist the hospital where the baby will be born is the one hubby was treated at before his referral to the burns specialist, i haven't been there in twenty years and now it pops up twice in a week.

so many things in life seem to be circular, dont they?

still immersed

yep! i'm still up to my ears in doula stuff. i have read and talked so much about childbirth that i am overloaded and everyone around me is too but i dont think i will be letting up any time soon (sorry) i am almost finished the first part of my course which means i soon have to cough up some dollars for the second part.

it's enormously exciting and terrifying in a good way and i fear i will become more and more ostracised by my hippy mentality which was always there but is encouraged every day by my increasing awareness of just how amazingly perfect nature's design is (and i know nature makes mistakes and i am not advocating irresponsibilty, just a greater faith in the scheme of things)

the whole doula thing sits nicely with my unashamed and total romanticism as well as with my no beating round the bush-ness. talking of beating round the bush....surely that could be twisted into some kind of birth related witticism?

if you would prefer not to talk to me about doula-ing, childbirth or other weird hippy stuff i'll be pleased to join you in some other conversation. just dont imagine i can initiate it!

A mother to the mother

I have been effectively unemployed for quite a while now. I did a day or two's work back in about late november, i think but nothing for a while before that and nothing since. I took some time to be gentle with myself and be a more attentive mother and generally recover from the trauma of a couple of years as worse than persona non grata. I have applied for a few jobs, even been to a couple of interviews but i havent had much success and if i was completely honest i couldn't get excited about any of the jobs i applied for but this week i had a revelation. i think it was truly a revelation, too because my inspiration to look into becoming a doula* seemed to come directly from something outside myself.

For whatever reason i googled "doula", i read, i thought, maybe more importantly i felt and it felt right. I told my chiropractor of my idea and her excitement was spontaneous and encouraging. emboldened to continue i asked her whether she could recommend a trainer or point me in the right general direction and she did! she gave me the name of a woman who would surely know which doula trainers were best, i phoned the woman and she actually has her own doula training program which i wasted no time in signing up for.

and so, by a miracle of inspiration and circumstance i find myself on the brink of a new career, at once petrified and thrilled beyond belief.

it's a funny thing, i always say things can turn in a day but i didnt imagine that i would, in the space of a day or two, go from being in an employment wilderness to prospectively being employed to help people through the miraculous rite of passage that is birth.

*the word doula comes from the greek and refers to a female servant. the modern incarnation of the doula is as a source of support, information and advocacy during pregnancy, labour and birth, sometimes with the addition of post natal care and advice.

curmudgeonly

this week the dishwasher got broken. i can take a good guess about who did it in a fit of temper but guessing isnt helping....
this dishwasher is annoyingly off the market and there are no parts so when the broken bit means that the other bit fails under the extra load i wont have a dishwasher. and i am the only person who cares and tonight i got told to take care of it ......
if anyone has motive to take care of the damned thing that would be me!

a good friend told me not to catastrophise (this is a new subject, in case you are interested) only i am not the one catastrophising, someone else is doing that, only my friend cant direct any frustration at the source so i get the lecture. i wont hold it against him but i will hold it against the drama queen who caused it

would someone, anyone, please, please, take the garbage out without being asked and preferably before there is as much overflowing as there is in the actual bag?

and if folks are going to ask my opinion would they be polite enough to wait for and think about my answer? if you dont care then dont pretend. i hate the fakery and i dont want to waste energy thinking about how to present an answer you dont respect

the next person to recommend i get a brazilian, no matter how sincere and well meaning that recommendation is, will be risking a brisk whack (mob style) you might like the idea of getting down on all fours and exposing yourself to a stranger for the purposes of applying hot wax and tearing your hair out but it isnt my idea of a turn on

i think i'm done for the moment.............

mother's day in the workplace

todays "career" supplement in the newspaper had a mother's day feature about how to do the whole work life balance thing if you're a mother of teenagers. the premise of the article was that a woman is likely to be parenting teens at the peak of her career, senior management roles were mentioned more than once.
the whole thing made me see red. what, senior managers are the only ones who need to strike a balance? is that because the rest of us aren't committed to the job? or because our families don't count? or because the balance is easier when you have less responsibilty at work?
i am the lowest form of life in my job, i'd be lower than the cleaner if i wasn't also the cleaner and the work life balance still isn't a picnic:

• i'm edgy about the kids calling because mobile phones are frowned on
• if i told them to call reception my business would not be my own
• if there is an emergency it better be on monday (when i'm home) because if i miss any time i wont be paid for it, there is no paid family leave for the likes of me
• a senior manager makes the rules, they can organise their diary any way they wish, if i disappear for a bathroom break someone will ask where i went
• i earn less than a senior manager so i can't so easily pay for services to make my life easier and the balance more achievable
• if i take too much family time i'm regarded as uninterested
• and i cant make up for it by working from home

gah! the reason folks want more money (as one might earn in a senior position) is because it makes life easier. when they write an article about the difficulty of holding a senior position and being a mum am i supposed to take it seriously????

and the after thought: it's a very good thing that somebody is recognising that teens and tweens still need their mums (and dads), so often it is assumed that it's only the littlies who have specific needs for care

the foodie tour of chipping norton part one

last week i told you about a perfect raisin toast and latte breakfast and you seemed to like it so i got this idea that i would introduce you to the eating options in my industrial paradise. unfortunately part one of this little project was derailed a bit by the fact that i forgot to get a picture of the actual shop but i do have the most important bit: the food
yesterday i stopped by the bakery for a finger bun. these finger buns are possibly the most perfect i have ever eaten, delciously soft, always fresh, with a sprinkling of sultanas and the icing on the cake: that fantastically generous, soft pink frosting with lots of chewy coconut
even with two pictures i couldnt quite capture the perfect delicate pinkness of that frosting so you will just have to take my word for it. you would have noticed that i washed it down with some cascade ginger beer. in the bright sun i could actually see the floaty bits in it! floaty bits are a good sign, they tell me there are actual, real, organic bits in there (not chemical free organic but came out of the ground, fair dinkum ginger organic)

and this is the table where i sat to eat this mini feast. once upon a time i would have taken it back to the flourescent lights and, well, chatter of the lunchroom but these days i'm making a new habit, sitting in the sun, watching the people, maybe even taking the opportunity to make small talk with some unsuspecting stranger who wants to share the table. last week i chatted with a truck driver as i munched into my chicken, mustard, lettuce and avocado sandwich

i wonder what might be next?

thanks #10

as i sit to consider what i can be grateful for today those beautifully tender boys and irresistably joyous girls from yesterdays post are fighting around me. i just got the boys to settle to a level where i might be able to keep my sanity and the girls started up. aaaargh !!!!

the area where i work is a suburb dominated by light industry, not too pretty or inspiring and the factory i work in is a brick box dumped on a concrete carpark. the inside is possibly even worse, there are no windows, the walls are steel panels, the floors plain hospital style lino. it is necessarily sterile, sterile, sterile. and dismally so.

today i decided not to take my lunch break in the kitchen , which is almost as bad as the factory, and instead went up to the local sandwich shop. i picked a chicken, lettuce and avocado sandwich, enjoyed the lovely friendly attitude of the proprietors and wandered outside to the aluminium picnic table.

there was a cool breeze and the gum tree cast a relaxing dappled shade. there was a jacaranda in full bloom just across the road and for half an hour i sat in what was at once the ugliest and most beautiful oasis i could ever imagine. and i was thankful.

In The Lunchroom

Today at work we had a birthday morning tea. Usually the manufacturing team (that's me) eat at 10.30am and admin at some later time but for birthdays we combine.

The manufacturing team is made up of Mr QC, Production manager (my hubby), me (kylie) and cool young guy (who, incidentally, has the same nose as our very own Peter)
Cool young guy always has his very neat nose in a book, hubby has his nose in a newspaper (the drive section first, anything else if he's desperate) Mr QC eats a whole lot of fruit and I often have porridge. I often have a bit of a conversation with Mr QC and sometimes manage to drag CYG (cool young guy) into it but for the most part it is very, very quiet.

Today, however, we had all the admin folk as well and they are rather more chatty. We asked CYG if he has a girlfriend (no), someone asked Mr QC (a divorcee) if he would marry again, ("I'll tell you when it happens") and does his son have a girl? (a couple, his Dad thinks), Mrs Secretary described the driving habits of her mother-in-law, we chatted about the best places to buy sausage rolls and meat pies and whinged briefly about the dismal state of the weather. Armani (a chemist) usually manages to mention sex at least once but I think he failed today.

And on it goes.....

Mr QC later asked me why the married people want to condemn everyone to their own miserable fate, I told him that I'm a diehard romantic and to wash his mouth out, we decided that CYG has plenty of time to get involved with women, then went on to talk about the origins of Black Friday (it's coming up). That led to the Crusades and religion, most specifically the difference between the Orthdox churches and Catholicism.

How's that for a list? religion, sexual politics, food and the weather, nosy questions and undying cynicism.

What's your lunchtime chat?