My first born

Well I am about to go to sleep knowing that when I wake I am going to be feeling very old. 

Why is this you ask? No I’m not turning 50 or 40 or even 30 for that matter but come 1:12am I will offically be the mother of a 10 year old. And yes that makes me feel a little bit old. 

  
But old isn’t the only thing I will feel. I will feel WISE, PROUD, HAPPY, SAD and many other emotions. 

WISE because I have learnt so much these last 10 years about my son, myself, life, being a parent. And the things I have learnt in those 4 areas alone is amazing. 

PROUD because my son is a beautiful human. He is kind, caring, loving and cute to boot. He’s a kid yes and I’m his mum and he’s not amazing 100% of the time but he is constantly reaffirming how proud I am and how lucky I am he is my son. His good well outweighs his not so good. (The most recent example of this is him doing an Auslan course to help him better communicate with his deaf sister.)

HAPPY for every second of the last 10 years where I have helped him become the person he is. 

SAD because the time has gone so fast. 

I love this little guy more then I could every possibly hope to explain in this post. My heart is full and warm because I was blessed to bring him into this world, be his mother and his friend. Tomorrow is a day of celebration and I can’t wait 🙂

Our first photo together xoxo

  

1 week

well it’s been a week almost to the minute since I got to hold my baby girl after surgery. 

I won’t say it’s been an easy week – there have been tears and sleepless nights but today we have certainly turned a corner. 

I’m proud of my little girl. She’s so strong and brave and to me a little hero. We hit an emotional road block when it come to the small shaved patch of her hair but that was easy to fix with me getting a matching hair cut. 

  
Miss A is now eager to get the rest of her CI I think concisering she has been making herself one out of play dough. (Although it goes on the other side due to there being some level of pain) 

  
Although I am feeling very relieved after surgery knowing everything went well I am still left with this strange feeling. I’m still scared. Scared of what it’s going to look like once the “baindaid” comes off. Freaking out about switch on. But all this aside I’ve remained brave for my princess. Now all I can do is patiently wait. 

Embarrassment times two.

When you go to the hospital for your daughters surgery the last thing you plan on doing us embarrassing the crap out of yourself twice.

The first time came about 20 minutes after I was called into recovery to be with my little girl. She was laying there still groggy and not actually awake and as I kept kissing her cheek I noticed a lot of blood around her left ear. I checked I my head I even triple checked and yep that was her left ear and that was blood. So mid panic attack I started ranting with my breath held and my chest crumbling. “Did they operate on the wrong ear?” Omg the poor nurse just looked at me… “That’s her left ear and that’s blood. They were meant to operate on the right ear”. The poor nurse just sat there rapidly flicking through my daughters notes not knowing what to say. By this stage I couldn’t talk. And it was then one of the ENTs came over and could see the tension so again I started ranting. I swear she wanted to laugh at me for being so irrational but she assured me everything was okay and showed me her left ear was fine. Needless to say I was very apologetic. 
The second embarrassing thing was the following day. We had to go to get an X-ray. I decided to walk my daughter down and stretch my legs. Although no sooner we got to X-ray I was on the ground. Apparently I had sort of forgotten to eat with worrying about my daughter and as a result had a mix of low BP and blood sugar. My daughters poor nurse had to wheel us both back to the ward and then spend the next hour doing my OBs every 20 minutes and sat there why I drank OJ and ate something. 

Nothing like embarrassing the crap out of yourself to lighten the mood after your child’s surgery. 

😂😂😂

Waiting.

Waiting was HORRIBLE and that’s putting it nicely. 

The first 1.5 hours went slow but the 2 following that went even slower. I sat there and watched doctors come out and talk to families and patients get wheeled off to wards. 

Every time the doors would swing open I would break my neck to see if it was my daughters surgeon but time and time again it wasn’t. 

I sat there and used every tissue I had and then began to use my sleeve… I felt completely empty and I just wanted to hold her in my arms and know she was okay. 

When her surgeon finally came out I could have hugged him. He told me she was okay. Explain things to me and told me I could see her very soon. My heart hurt a little less. My much needed cuddle was close. 

From there I sat and started at the doors waiting for her recovery nurse to call her name and when she did I ran through those doors with tears running down my face and although seeing her there all bandaged up I felt whole again. 

I held her. I kissed her and I whispered I LOVE YOU in her ear and she squeezed my finger in reply. Her eyes were closed but she knew I was there. She knew I loved her and I was there no matter what. 

Surgery #2

I had hoped that surgery would be easier the second time around but I was WRONG!!!!

Yesterday was one of the biggest days of my life. I was up at 5am having a panic attack – hesitating – wondering – doubting my decision. But I decided that after everything I went through to make the decision I best stick to it. And I made some promises to myself not for me but for my darling girl. 

So we were out of the house by 930am and waiting in the ward by 10am. We were told surgery wasn’t until 1pm which I knew was going to be a mission in itself but once 1pm came around we got the news that things had been pushed back to 3pm. So my poor princess was starving and hadn’t eaten since 7pm the night before. She handled it like a champ though. 

3pm came around and off we went. Into a gown and go go go. But the wait wasn’t over yet. At about 330pm Abbis amazing surgeon came to talk to me, reassured me and cracked a few jokes but it was still another half an hour before it was time for her to go under. 

I was proud of myself I had kept my promises- I kept strong. I kept brave and I smiled through the pain. But as soon as they said “Okay she’s asleep” I fell apart, the tears started rolling and I didn’t want to let go of her but that wasn’t the way this was going to work. So I put her down I kissed her twice and I fell apart some more. 

It was then I realised that was the easy part because I had at least 3hours of waiting ahead of me………

Being a mum is hard.

Miss A is having surgery today. Grommets, adenoids and tonsils. And I am freaking out just to put it lightly. 

We had to be at the hospital by 7:30am – I then had to answer the same questions to at least 4 people and then just after 9am I’ve given her a Kiss, whispered I love you in her ear and left her in the hands of her ENT. 

She didn’t wake up on the way to the hospital or during any of the pre-op stuff. So that’s hard for me know she doesn’t even know we are here. She is expecting to wake up in her bed just like she always does but today that’s not the case. Today she is going to wake up confused and sore. I can only hope a mothers love can ease some of that. 

I was reassured when her ENT come bouncing into the room prior to her being put under to talk me through the surgery once again. Then he left and it was real and scary and as they put the gas mask over her face and her body began to react and stiffen. It was then I was told one more kiss and I would need to leave. It was then I couldn’t hold it in anymore and I felt tears running down my face. 

So I’ll now sit in the waiting area for the next hour or so until they call me into recovery. Pretending I’m a big brave girl and thinking positive thoughts. 

  

Anxiety

I woke this morning in panic and struggling to breathe. Since Miss A’s diagnoses I’ve struggled with Anexity 😔. I hate that it has such control of me but I feel helpless in knowing how to beat it. 

With only a vague memory of the dream that awoken me from my sleep.  I try to gather my thoughts as I focus on my breathing. Although I don’t know the specifics I know it was about Miss A’s pending surgeries and it wasn’t a positive dream. 

This was my realisation, my “wake up” call. I have a mere 4 days until it’s going to happen and until now I’ve not really allowed myself to much time to process and think about what’s going on. I have been able to keep myself busy in the hope I wouldn’t freak out but apparently that reality was unavoidable 😥

Originally the 25th of June was going to be “D” Day. The date in which I would have had to finally make up my mind as to whether we would be going ahead with the Cochlear Implant but due to other factors our ENT postponed the CI and replaced that surgery with another. 

Prior to that day I had played out the situation where I either said no or postponed CI surgery and in my mind there was relief and a weight that was lifted although in the reality of it happening this was not the case – I had a split second of relief followed by a wave of panic (just like the way I felt this morning when I woke.). It appeared that it was inevitable that my baby girl all of 3 years old was going to have surgery. It was no longer the “When” question lingering in my mind but the “Which one first” I had no control. I had choices but I didn’t like them. So no wonder I just tried to push all thoughts of what was happening aside 😢 

And that brings me back to why I awoke the way I did this morning. My subconscious knew I needed to get my head around this before Thursday – Obviously there was no way I could actually avoid dealing with this. My head doesn’t work that way and it never will. 

Yes I’ve now admitted I am scared. I’m actually terrified and my fear is consuming but I know I have to try and block it out and stay strong and being strong has nothing to do with me. It’s about Miss A. She needs to feel safe because the last thing I want is for her to take on my fear. I have to stay positive and remind myself everything will be okay. My fear is normal – a natural response but I can’t allow it to consume me. 

(I’ll keep reminding myself of this until one day it’s my default mode.)

  

Wow. I could cry.

I just had to share this message & picture one of my beautiful friend sent me tonight. 

I honestly think everyday I must seem like a mess to the outside world. I’m always doing a million things and often feel as though I’m not doing any of them “right” but hey maybe just maybe I’m not as big a mess as I think I am. Who knows. 

Anyways a huge thank you to my friend “Z” you made me smile and I could possibly cry. 

The stuff you do for you kids you amaze me. Your life ain’t easy but you never make that impact what you have to do day in and day out 

 

Auslan Coffee & Chat

This morning I attended my first Auslan coffee and chat with Miss A. I was grateful that several other students were in attendance as well as Miss A’s speech/sign therapist. 

To start it was nerve racking being around so many Deaf people with their beautiful and fluent language – I felt as thought I was signing everything wrong and my nerves made my finger spelling quicker then normal (I think)  in hope that if I made a mistake no one would catch it. 

But my nerves slowly dissipated and I really enjoyed it. It gave me a chance to do some practise Inbetween  weekends for my course. As well as practicing myself I was able to watch others signing and make sure I can recognise the signs and better understand the structure of the language. It is so beautiful to watch. I watched a young hearing man clarify to his girlfriend what he was signing as his “cold” looked some what like “bath” I smiled. This was a safe environment, it was okay to make mistakes – mistakes are part of the learning process.  
Miss A was quite a lot of the time, taking everything in. I wish I knew what she was thinking. She signed to tell a few people her name. Beginning with her hands under the table (obviously nervous herself) then by the end signing as she always would. 

It was amazing & I am very much looking forward to going again next month 🙂 

Language

This post gave me goosebumps because it is true people often open their mouth before then fully think through what they are about to say.

There are always going to be times like this – When someone says something insensitive and makes your blood boil. But what makes you better then them is the way you handle it and sometimes (from experience) I know its harder to keep yourself in check then others.
It is just a matter of staying strong.