"So sorry...", being sick, breastfeeding, kamikaze bird

(these babies don't match the stories)

What a week! Two more lovely births...One was a primip who had days of prodromal labor, premature rupture of membranes...had to transfer to the District Hospital for IV antibiotics, but great, fast birth once she got going. Immediately after her birth (as in 12 minutes after the baby was out)--was called to another one--an hour a way--back at the Centre. Someone was contracting every three minutes, with a history of precipitous delivery. After racing back to Tuatapere, after being with her almost the entire night, no cervical change past 4 cm, contractions were frequent, but not long lasting. Doomed I say, Doomed...because when she was reading a magazine, while in the tub---I KNEW she was not in labor. Finally sent her home at 0330--this was not active labor. Contractions stopped shortly after she got home.  They then started back up several hours later--and when she came back about 24 hours after being sent home--she proceeded to birth within the hour.

We had a wonderful four hour breastfeeding workshop taught by the esteemed Mary Grant, Midwife, Nurse and Lactation Expert. It was spectacular!!!  I am so happy we were able to host this event.


By the end of the workshop, my stomach just did not feel right. The kids walked over to the Centre from school, I took them home to feed the "sweeties" (lambs), raced back to the office to do a antenatal visit, by the end of that visit I knew something was not quite right.

Went home planning to collapse in bed...when three very somber girls met me at the door. Quickly the story started, "I am sorry, I did not mean to..." (Oh heavens, not the computer I thought) "I don't know how it happened..." WHAT???!!!!  Somehow Mia broke of the front door key inside the lock.  Gracious.  Clearly they had tried with no success: gum, my now tattered tweezers and some other metal devices.  Oh woe, I IMAGINED how much it would cost to get the locksmith out from the city.

(movie night)

Stymied, I laid on the couch as the chills and the pain finally took over. As my own internal army was mounting an immune response to the culprit, which I suspected was food poisoning, I just wished for merciful evacuation whichever end, ASAP.  I moaned and groaned on the sofa as my Florence Nightingales brought me sprite and toast.  I half-heartedly oversaw homework, supper preparations and bedtime routine. I rallied at some point and took the whole lock off the door, and got the barrel out. I even figured out how to lock the door with a screwdriver.  At least I could sleep in relative peace without worry of some imagined intruder.  [Yes, I admit to watching too many scary movies over the course of my lifetime.]  I was sick through the night.   In the wee hours of the morning I heard a great thud--half asleep it sounded like a Moa birth trying to enter through the window.  I then forgot about it until...

Right as rain in the AM, and good thing too--as I ended up driving more than 300 kms to see all my postnatal and antenatal homevisit patients. I also took the lock barrel into the locksmith who could fix it for a fraction of what he would have charged for a home visit repair!  When I got back home I even figured out how to put the lock back together...and then I saw it, my kamikaze friend who had been laying on the hot pavement all day long--slowly cooking into the driveway. EEEEEEWWWWWWW!
I had to peel him off the cement. Bleech.  Bagged him up and he was a normal-sized bird by the way--off he went into the wheelie bin (garbage can).

We are now joyfully anticipating the arrival of my sister Kelley tomorrow. Meili has been at a friend's farm learning how to de-tail, as in some process of removing with lots of bloody, ooey-gooey, the tails of baby lambs.

Trying to end this post on a happier note--with some photos that do not do our beautiful Spring Flowering shrubs any justice. Shown is part of our front yard.   Of course sharing the sweeties too--so you can see how much they have grown.