The Archers #SATTC*

My husband loves the Archers, its an incredibly long running radio drama on BBC Radio 4. 60 years! It's set in the country in Ambridge, a fictional village somewhere. I don't really understand it myself, having only heard snatches when held captive in the car, or washing up on a Sunday morning.

This week the Archers had a dramatic story line, someone fell off a roof and died, and another character, Helen, pregnant with her IVF baby, got rushed to hospital. She had swollen ankles, a headache, was seeing spots. Helen had developed pre eclampsia. What is concerning is that Helen is 7 months along in her pregnancy and had never heard of pre eclampsia. The baby has to be delivered 6 weeks early.

In the UK we are screened from the outset for pre eclampsia. At each appointment it is explained what the signs are, and what to look for. In this episode its a locum midwife who diagnoses her, and sends Helen straight to hospital, completely ruining a family party! Social suicide in Ambridge!

Her delivery was so quick! Whisked into theatre, and the little boy was whipped out and taken to the special care baby unit, and her family all go back home and crack open the champagne. Helen gets to go straight to the special care baby unit, no bed rest, what about the risk of Eclampsia post delivery? I guess you can't really do magnesium sulphate infusions, and 15 minute monitoring on radio, but the little boy, Henry didn't even get his steroids.

If I could have a Helen delivery, I'd have another baby, develop pre eclampsia at a party, go to hospital, have the baby delivered, and half an hour later, sit in special care holding my recently delivered baby born at 34 weeks! Grandad could even hold said baby on the day of delivery!

I think its great that the BBC has had this story line, but is it really too much to ask that integrity be preserved in these story lines. And don't even get me started on Eastenders ridiculous story line around Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Auntie Beeb we do expect better. We dutifully pay our tv licence, and we expect honesty, integrity and compassion for those of us who have really lived these stories.


*SATTC - Twitter tagline for Shocking Ambridge to the Core

Oh Fame at Last

The lovely Wendy/Savvymum has given me an award! Wendy blogs here about her special family, and she has been a great support to me.

So here are the Rules! I hate rules! But hey ho!

The “Rules”:
1. Thank and link back to who gave you the award- Wendy you for the award xxx
2. Share 7 things about yourself

1. I always wanted to be a lawyer but got turned off when I was on work experience at the tender age of 15 at Wong, McDermott and White. It was not very LA Law

2. I first fell pregnant at 25 but didn't have a baby in my arms until I turned 36!


3. I moved to England 9 years ago, and I love it here, I prefer it to Australia

4. I love cricket! I've been to loads of live games, and adore it, and secretly hope Joseph becomes a cricketer.

5. I enjoy crafts, especially sewing and painting, and used to make loads of my own gifts. Then I had a baby.

6. I did a month's work as a missionary in Fiji when I was 20, working with street kids in Suva and long to go back.

7. I am known amongst my friends for my baking, especially cupcakes, and came second in a baking competition at work. The person who won really deserved it though, her cake was amazing!

3. Pass it along to blogs you’ve recently discovered and enjoy:

My first is The Mummy Life - varied and interesting, and lots of great pics of her gorgeous little man

My second is Northern Mum - as well as an interesting and thought provoking mum she is an encouraging mummy blogger who is always kind and supportive




My third is the very cool Mammy Woo - who is a very honest blogger, a bit like having a chat with a girlfriend after a few too many, well, Woo Woos!

And finally, mum to Esther and William a fellow premmie mum, she has twins, and her blog is an inspiration.

4. Leave your recipients a note, telling them about the award

Finally......

10 Questions

1. Why did you create this blog?

At the beginning, it was part of my therapy for post traumatic stress disorder, but now its a lot broader than that, I blog because I enjoy it! I also think its helpful for others to know what its like to be the mum of a premature baby.

2. What kind of blog do you follow?

I like parenting blogs, especially parenting in difficult situations, and funny blogs. I also like cooking blogs.

3. Favorite Makeup Brand

Benefit. I love it, its light, its fun, the packaging is cool, a little goes a long way and its just cool. Also expensive. Ah well.

4. Favorite Clothing Brand

Evans as I am currently cuddly, however, normally I like Per Una at Marks and Spencer when I'm not so cuddly!

5. Your Indispensable Makeup Product

Benefit's Get Even base, its great!

6. Your Favourite Color

It used to be purple or pink, but now I think its green!

7. Your Favourite Perfume

I love Jo Malone, especially the Nectarine Blossom and Honey, it reminds me of my grandma's garden

8. Your Favourite Film

Probably In The Name of the Father, I still get goosebumps when I think of it. And I love Daniel Day Lewis.

9. What country would you like to visit and why?

I am very lucky and have been to lots of great countries, but I would really love to travel through Indonesia. I think it would be a fascinating country.

10. Are you a Cat or Dog person?

I am a frustrated Dog person, I have a cat, Atticus who I adore, but I love dogs, and enjoy being around them

Blue Balloon Release

Many of you read my post celebrating the short life of Nathan, who sadly died a week before Christmas. His funeral will be held on Thursday and many of us would dearly love to attend but are unable to.

If you would like to celebrate Nathan's short life, please join me in releasing a blue balloon in support of his grieving family. We will be releasing the balloons at 10 am, but of course if you are busy, you could release your balloon at any time.

Creatures of Habit

Today's Blog Dare topic sits well with something I wanted to blog about anyway. Lets start with the Blog Dare!

The Morning Routine

If I don't do/have this in the morning, it offsets my entire day! 

When you have a baby, everyone becomes an expert, everyone has their own things that worked for them, and because they worked for them, well they will automatically work for you! "You should be led by your baby" or "You should have a strict routine, its up to you to set what your baby will do and when". "Oh have you read Gina?" "Oh no, you must read and use the Baby Whisperer it saved my life"

When you've had a baby who has lived in a hospital for any length of time, they come out with a routine firmly entrenched. Which, in some ways, is a good thing, but not always. What works in a ward with lots of staff and babies does not necessarily work at home. I think of myself as a "go with the flow" type person, I planned to breast feed on demand, to relax and enjoy my baby. I knew I could read whatever books I liked, but that didn't mean my baby had read the book.

Well unfortunately for me, I got a "seargant major baby" who very much determined what I did and when! It took many months of "negotiating" to get into a place where we were both happy and working as a team. Even now, Joseph's basic routine is very much set. Breakfast upon waking, Lunch at 1 and Dinner at 6. This can possibly be flexible by up to half an hour, any more than that and my little man starts getting very twitchy. Someone asked me once "do you do Gina?" and rather begrudgingly replied "I've never read it, but I think my baby might have".

Which brings me to my morning routine. In my previous life, nothing happened until I had a shower. Now unfortunately, we have a bath. We have chronic "low flow" problem. Said bath takes 15 minutes to run. No way! So bathing is at the end of the day not at the beginning. I get up, get the boy child, change his nappy and then turn the computer on.

Nothing happens until I have checked Facebook and Twitter and my parenting forum. I make Joseph's breakfast, and feed him, then I have my coffee and my own breakfast. I find if I have breakfast at the exact same time as him, he tries to pinch it! Underfed little thing.

So for me, my morning essential is to check my social networking. Its kinda sad, but sort of understandable, as part of my life is still lead in Australian time, so I like to check out what's been happening there, and make sure there's nothing from my mum or my sister that needs my attention.

Everything else is a moveable feast, I can do without my coffee, or my toast (and once I've been grocery shopping my breakfast is going to become a lot more substantial and healthier in line with my New Year's Resolutions)

Bucket List

Oh this is really hard, I've never really thought about a "what do I want to do before I kick the bucket" list, because I always worry I might work really hard on a list and then get run over by a bus or something! I'll be extra careful tomorrow!

1. Visit Antarctica
2. Visit Uluru (Ayre's Rock - not climb in though)
3. Swim between Greek islands
4. Plant an awesome garden
5. Foster/adopt a child/children
6. Write a book about premature babies
7. Own a house outright
8. Watch test cricket in Sri Lanka, West Indies and India
9. Learn to drive
10. Return to university
11. Write a cookbook
12. Cook a Gordon Ramsay meal - 3 courses
13. Complete a professional cookery course
14. Eat in a Michellin starred restaurant
15. Work in a foreign country as a volunteer for at least a month
16. Paint a mural
17. Learn to tile
18. Ride the Indian Pacific
19. Ride the Ghan
20. Ride the Trans Siberian railway
21. Travel the bits of Sicily I missed
22. Travel the bits of Sri Lnaka I missed
23. Live in a part of Australia I haven't tried
24. Visit Darwin
25. Run/walk/waddle a half marathon
26. Reach my ideal weight
27. Learn Italian
28. Learn some sort of dancing
29. Go camping. properly!
30. Fly a kite with Joseph
31. Teach Joseph to swim
32. Visit a castle
33. Go to Hadrian's wall
34. Scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef
35. Raft the Franklin River
36. Walk the Overland Trail
37. Go backpacking across Europe
38. Make Joseph a memory quilt
39. Make a family scrapbook
40. Cook How to be a  Domestic Goddess cover to cover
41. Read 100 works of classic literature
42. Write to my 3 culinary heros, Nigella Lawson, Stephanie Alexander and Marcus Wareing
43. Visit Gallipoli on Anzac Day
44. March at Manchester's Gay Pride
45. Celebrate New Year's Eve in London
46. Visit Buckingham Palace
47. Take Joseph to Legoland
48. Attend a Richmond AFL match
49. Adopt a retired greyhound
50. Raise chickens
51. Grow a veggie garden
52. Bake my own bread regularly
53. Visit Israel
54. Read the Koran
55. Play the violin again and this time learn folk fiddling
56. Draw Joseph's portrait
57. Learn watercolour painting
58. Stop biting my fingernails
59. Have a makeover
60. Learn photography
61. Own something other than a simple camera
62. Run for local council
63. Be on the board for a charity
64. Read the Diary of Anne Frank with Joseph
65. Visit Anne Frank's House
66. Sail a yacht with my husband
67. Wear a designer dress
68. Collect enough Pandora charms to fill my bracelet
69. Be my own boss
70. Make craft items to sell
71. See U2 live
72. Visit Tamworth NSW
73. Visit Nashville
74. Be an extra in a movie or a tv show
75. Attend a residential cooking class in Tuscany
76. Return to Suva, Fiji and see what has happened since my visit in 1992
77. Sleep in a yurt
78. Sleep in a gypsy caravan
79. Teach baby signing
80. Become a proficient cake decorator
81. Make personalised cushions for Kate, Emma, Max and Izzy (Joseph's besties from hospital)
82. Raise £1000 for Bliss
83. Volunteer for Reprieve
84. Visit Japan
85. Learn to make sushi
86. Work in a restaurant even just for a day
87. Learn to cycle
88. Watch 10 Academy Award winning films and blog about them
89. Keep my blog or a version thereof for at least 5 years
90. Organise a suprise 50th birthday party for my darling husband
91. Celebrate our silver wedding anniversary
92. Knit a jumper
93. Own a ragdoll cat
94. Become a community leader and make our estate a nicer place to be
95. Start a charity to help parents with babies in NICU/PICU
96. Redecorate my living room and kitchen
97. Watch a football match at Wembley
98. Make my own sloe gin
99. Learn to make my own cheese
100. Visit Darwin
101. Visit the Brett Whitely gallery in Sydney

Bloggy Moms Blog Dare Day 2

The 2011 To - Do List

What would you like to accomplish this year?  What are the places you would like to visit in 2011?  What do you hope to check off your bucket list in 2011?

This is today's bloggy dare post, which I really need to give more thought to! I don't have a to do list, I don't have a bucket list! In fact, I had to look up on google what a Bucket List was! 100 things to do before I kick the bucket. I can't think of 10, I just kinda live and let it happen, so perhaps I should work on a Bucket List today and report back tonight!

As for accomplishments for 2011 I am not sure. Lets have a think about this one.

I would like to find a source of income, preferably from home, if not, going back to work. I love being home with Joseph but I think it would be good for us if I could start generating an income, and have some time away from Joseph. 

I'd like to read more, as I mentioned in my resolutions, so perhaps reading 25 books I've always meant to but never got around to! I think one book every fortnight is realistic for me at the moment.

I'd like to lose weight, so perhaps aiming to lose 20 kg would be a good start. I have a lot more than that to lose, about 60 kg, but there is no way I could lose that in a year. I mean physically I could, as its only just over 2lb a week, but I know my body, and there's no way I could do it healthily.

As for places to visit, we're going to Melbourne and Tasmania in February/March and then a summer holiday in September but we haven't decided where yet. I'm not sure where else we'll get to this year, but perhaps I need to think about this more.

I think with this post I really need to revisit my goal setting techniques and report back, I think my whole aim was to have a baby leading up to this point, and now I have my baby, I've lost my direction!

The Blog Dare

I've recently joined Bloggy Moms and they running a dare, giving a topic to post on each day. I love blogging but sometimes I find it hard to think of things day after day, and then sometimes end up going days or weeks without blogging anything.

This is today's dare.

What is your resolution for 2011?  Do you often make a resolution and not keep it?  What is the longest you have kept a New Years resolution?  What is your most often chosen New Years resolution?  What do you think about New Years resolutions?

I blogged about New Year's resolutions yesterday so won't repeat them here. But the other questions are interesting.

I don't often make New Year's Resolutions, as I feel that they often end up being the source of disappointment, I do however, like to set goals.

One year, 2005, I set my usual resolution "to lose weight" and managed to lose 5 stone. Unfortunately it found me again. I stuck to my resolution steadfastly for 2 years, it was too much. This is my most common one. I really do need to lose weight, the problem is, I have loads to lose, and it gets me down, and then I eat, and then I think "oh why bother". But I really do have to change my mindset and get down to it. She says, whilst looking at a tin of Quality Street. Ho hum.

At least I know better now what I need to do. Last time I was too devoted, I worked too hard, and got burnt out. I need to focus more on exercise, and on good healthy food. I don't eat a bad diet on the whole. I know what I need to do, and that's eat a bigger, more nutritious breakfast, eat more filling fruit and vegetables, and cut out sugary drinks and chocolate. It won't be that bigger deal, the big thing is I need to exercise more. I need to walk more, take Joseph for nice long walks, perhaps start swimming of an evening a couple of times a week for some "me time". 

I think goal setting is important, but all year round. The goal you set in a champagne haze on December 31st whilst listening to the Hootenanny might not be relevant come July. I think its important to review goals regularly, to adjust them, or create new ones. I think resolutions can be our best friend, or our worst enemy. If you make it and forget about it, and get to November and realise you haven't lost weight/given up smoking/saved £10 a week, you can get depressed and it may put you off from goals setting.

This year, I intend to be more mindful of my goals. Last year my only resolution was to get over my post traumatic stress disorder and enjoy life again, I feel this year I can be a little more ambitious!

So Happy New Year all, and I hope this year you can resolve to stick to your resolutions!