The Musings of Miranda Dione, aged 6 months

Miranda has learnt to type!

 

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Isn't she a clever girl?! 

This does of course make doing anything on the computer - chatting on Facebook, my accounts, even my thesis, very, very difficult. Miri is not stupid. She can see that Mummy and Daddy spend a lot of time playing with computers or phones, and so they must be interesting for her as well. She wants to join in with everything I do!

In some ways, this is a useful development. We have finally got the Afternoon Tease cafe open and so Miranda accompanies me to work every day and STARES at people in the cafe. Her Granny knitted her a soft tea pot and some coffee cups and cakes and things, so she really can copy what I do, or shriek instructions at me from her high chair. She is instantly fascinated every time a new person comes into the coffee shop, and most of the time, she seems quite content in there which is fantastic. She is so good! And everyone admires her which makes me so proud.

The other major development that has taken place in her 6th month has been her sudden love affair with FOOD. Real food. Mummy-Milk is no longer enough. She is growing fast (achingly heavy to carry, nowadays!) and needs more than I can give her which unfortunately means I am constantly knackered and dehydrated - not great when starting a new business as well! We have been blending up what Carl and I have for dinner in the evenings, so Miri's tried pureed spag bol, rice n beans, roast dinner, mash and peas, lasagne and so on. I only sell sandwiches in the cafe, and I can't blend sandwiches, so I've been buying jars of baby food for there. She's on "stage 2" jars already - the stuff with lumps in and can get through 3/4 of a jar a day, plus a home made meal in the evening, and at least five milk feeds too. I am not sure if this is a growth spurt again or just what happens at six months. Still, she is easy to feed. Again, if she can see us eating, then she wants to, and so far she has eaten and enjoyed everything we've given her - with the exception of scrambled egg. I suppose it must be the texture she objects to, given that she eats boiled egg quite happily. But I can't see her ever being a fussy eater, and that can only be a good thing!

It is so hard for me to believe she is 6 months old already though. It has gone so quick. I don't want her to grow up too fast, I love her just the way she is: beautiful, bright, happy, alert, curious and adventurous. I am so, so proud of her!

Family

Cute Little Things on the Line!

Miranda is 10 weeks old now! Unbelievable. She is now sleeping through the night, (almost!), has full control of her neck, has grown out of all her newborn clothes and best of all, she has started smiling, gurgling and giggling! She is soooo beautiful and I love it when she starts talking to me in Miri-speak. She is also capable of registering her disgust when necessary:

"We are not amused."

I haven't updated this blog for a while because everything has been completely hectic for the past few weeks. We dared to Go Out without her once; it was our eleventh anniversary and we left Miri in the capable hands of Auntie Jo and Uncle Graeme. I armed them with the Miranda Dictionary (see below) and they did a great job - and I resisted the urge to ring them every five minutes to check on her! Mum asked the other day if all my friends are going to be Honorary Aunts and Uncles. I still have Honourary Auntie Cathy - Mum's best friend, so I see no reason why not. Sadly Miranda will have no aunts or uncles on my side of the family, although Mum and one other friend with a good memory have commented on the fact that Miri, on occasion, looks a little bit like Uncle Rohan. Something about the gumpy grin, and her expression sometimes. I don't know if mine are genuine memories of how Rohan looked, or whether my imagination and wishful thinking are filling in the gaps... Despite my sad lack of siblings now though,  I have a lot of wonderful friends who I hope will be around to see her grow up. I've been Auntie Bel to little Ione since she was born so I'll return the favour!

At five weeks old, I had to take Miri to the photographers to get her passport photo done. Yep, even tiny babies are now expected to have their own passports, complete with straight-on-white-background-eyes-open-head-shot-photograph. It's hard enough getting the photo right in the first place, but I pity the customs people who have to tell the difference between month-old babies. Even more stupidly, she'll have this passport until she is five years old. She doesn't look the same a month later, let alone four years later....

Anyway, Miri has to have a passport so we can go to South Africa to show her off to her only real aunt, Carl's sister, and her paternal grandad in Johannesburg. Carl has a neice who also has two children and one more on the way - these are the nearest Miranda has to cousins. So even more reason to appoint friends as adopted family - my friends are people she will actually see regularly! Even so, I am really looking forward to Miri's first adventure abroad, seeing the in-laws again, and meeting my latest great-nephew!

Speaking of cousins though, my second cousin is most definitely Uncle Ol. He has a very very distant blood-relationship to Miri, but no matter how tentative the connection, he seems to absolutely adore her. It's really sweet, and this makes me smile a lot. I love my baby being admired! :) Ol came up last week under guise of helping me out with our Doctor Coffee stall - but really just to see Miranda, obviously. Miri is a fantastic advert for the business; so many people come up to see the cute baby and we waved coffee under their nose appropriately.

"I said I wanted a skinny three-shot caramelatte you fool!"

She is sitting on Granny's knee in that photo. The (grand-)parents came up for a few days last week as well, complaining that they hadn't seen Miranda in over a month! Could well be because they live 200 miles away.... Anyway, it was good to see them and of course they spoiled Miri rotten. It was difficult to prize her away from them; Dad must have taken hundreds of photos, Mum wouldn't let me push the pushchair at all the entire time they were up, and they even moaned when she was asleep! If it wasn't for the fact they couldn't feed her, I don't think we would have got her back at all, she would have been kidnapped and taken to the Welsh wilderness forever more.

Saltburn pier- one of the rare occasions I was allowed to hold my own daughter

 It does concern me that I am morphing in to my Mother, as the above photo demonstrates. Miranda's future will probably be decided pear-shaped! Having my parents around is reassuring in a strange way. Being Their Daughter makes me feel more like Me - I am used to that role. Being Miranda's Mummy is still a very new and unnerving concept. I've got to be All Growed Up, responsible, an Adult. I don't feel like it sometimes. It is all so scary still. I am so careful of Miranda, I just want to protect her from everything and I honestly couldn't bear it if anything hurt her! It's entirely irrational I know, but I just feel completely over-protective of her and at the same time, completely incapable and unprepared.

However, it is comforting that she seems to be such a happy little soul. The grins and the beginnings of little giggles make my heart melt. It is not just me and Carl now, we've gone from being a couple to being a family, and I think we're doing pretty well at it so far!

Our beautiful, happy little girl

She's arrived!!!!

Miranda Dione, born 13/06 at 12.14pm, 7lb 2oz....

She finally arrived! And a week early!

She has seriously massive feet (like me) with really long toes, and also loads of dark hair and although everbody says this about their babies, we are convinced she is the cutest most beautiful little girl in the world!!

My labour was absolutely nightmarish though - it is not true, you do not instantly forget the pain. TWENTY EIGHT AND THREE QUARTER HOURS!!! My waters broke around 8am on Saturday 12th, and I started having contractions almost immediately. We went in to hospital, but after checking me over, they sent me home saying come back in a few hours when I was in stage 2 of labour - ie: 3-4cm dilated. By half past 4 the contractions were so painful I couldn't cope any more, so we headed back to the hospital, but I still wasn't dilated. The midwife wasn't actually very simpathetic and told me I shouldn't really have any pain relief until I was more dilated. So I got in a bath at the hospital - hot water really helped the contractions so I sat in that bath for three hours!!! I refused to get out until she'd give me some drugs!! Fortunately by 7pm I was 3cm dilated, I got set up in the labour room, and given gas and air, and a TENS machine. I didn't really get the point of them - it's a little thing that gives you mild eletric shocks in your back. You turn it on when you have a contraction, and whereas it doesn't actually stop it hurting, it does distract you. After a while I forgot I was wearing it, but then noticed as soon as I took it off!

I was only 4cm dilated by 9pm, and worse still, baby's heartrate was really really high, sometimes going over 200bmp. Doctors were worried that she was stressed, and gave me a saline drip to rehydrate me, in case that was what was stressing out Baby. It didn't seem to help, however, and they ended up having to take blood samples from the baby's head to check on her. That was absolutely excrutiating from my point of view, especially because I was so nervous and tired anyway. Fortunately all the tests came back fine.

INCREDIBLE PAIN continued all night - I eventually got on Remifentanil - the new morphine based drug which you self-administer, dosing yourself when you need it. It was absolutely WONDERFUL. Didn't actually stop you feeling pain but does stop you caring about it. I got absolutely sky high, thoroughly amused the midwife by talking utter rubbish, insisting on Carl playing Rammstein songs to me on his phone and dancing in the bed, I even started seeing things - including Nelson Mandela on a bicycle... blooming weird  but there you go. However, my labour was still not progressing very fast, and by the small hours of the morning, I was just too tired to continue, and the morphine made me throw up everywhere!!

I decided to have an epidural just so I could sleep through the contractions. They set it all up and took my beloved remifentanil away. But - the damned epidural didn't work!!! it was ridiculous, I dunno what happened, but they had to refit it and give me a second dose - in the mean time, I had about 45 minutes of contractions every 3 minutes, with no pain relief at all other than gas and air. I SCREAMED THE PLACE DOWN. Carl was completely freaked out, though I didn't do the stereotypical swearing at and blaming him for everything; as far as I remember, it was along the lines of "MAKE IT STTOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!!". I honestly felt like someone was trying to saw me in half. Eventually, however, the second epidural kicked in, and I calmed down and managed to get a bit of rest.
By 10am, I was still only 7cm dilated, baby was still stressed with a high heart rate, and a consultant was called in. She said she would give me another two hours, and if I STILL wasn't fully dilated by then, they would give me a C section. I could have cried!! I sooooo didn't want a c-section, especially after suffering all that labour already. Fortunately the midwives were brilliant - like a pair of cheerleaders!! I started to get some feeling back as the epidural began to wear off, and they started encouraging me to push. By 11.15, I was 9cm dilated, and so determined, I screamed and screamed and screamed, and managed to get her out, on my own with no caesarian, no 'assistance' (ie: forceps etc) and no more drugs by 12.14!!! I did tear though, and had to have an episiotomy. I now have stitches in a place no-one should EVER have to have stitches!!!

I was soooooooo proud of myself and Carl (who had been with me the entire time) was absolutely over the moon and nearly cried. He cut the cord, and we finally got to hold our beautful little daughter. I cannot describe those emotions, it was just mindblowing. She's perfectly healthy, bright and alert, and we are all completely blissed out now!!! You don't forget the pain, you just realise it's all worth it...