Shelter

You have probably gathered that Family Beans haven't moved house yet. If you've been following the saga, we accepted an offer on our flat back in March, when I was just 12 weeks pregnant. In April we had our offer on a family house in Kent accepted, and the aim was for both the sale and purchase to be completed by the end of June. Sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it? And having bought two properties and sold one before, I had every hope things would progress smoothly.

Well, suffice to say that didn't exactly happen and now here we are in October - about to start all over again. Our buyer pulled out of buying our flat a couple of weeks ago, just days before we were set to exchange and complete contracts. The buyer has been incredibly slow and unreliable, so earlier in the process the Boy and I fully anticipated problems. But when we had got to the point where we had all spent money - our buyer spending over £1k on a very detailed survey of our flat! - we were optimistic the transaction would be closed off successfully.

I was bitterly disappointed that the process collapsed. I've recently had some bad news about my Mum's health and I was very keen to be near her in Kent - I was hoping time with Lucy would be a happy distraction for her at this difficult time. We also did all our antenatal (NCT classes) in Kent and I have become very close to a couple of the girls, and was muchly looking forward to seeing more of them. It is so helpful to know other new Mums when you are just starting out as a parent. We were also both ready to move from our little flat which is bursting at the seams now with baby paraphernalia (as well as everything else we had!) and move to a proper little family house with a garden. The Boy and I had both fantasised about Lucy's first Christmas being in our first family gaff.

Having the carpet pulled from beneath us has been quite a bitter blow and it took us a moment or two to pick ourselves up. The thought of starting again and having to work viewings etc around little Lucy felt somewhat overwhelming and we needed to pause and recollect ourselves. And that we did. We've now had estate agents around, instructed one to sell the property, and we are starting again from this week. Deep breath!

The good news is that the flat has rocketed in value even since March, with the redevelopment of the area. We can now how to sell for at least £20k more than the price we agreed back then - so, I suppose every cloud has a silver lining and all that... and while we would rather not be in this position we will make the best of it. We've lost the house we were going to purchase, and we've decided now to just rent in the area we were moving to at least to begin with. We're both loathe to get stuck in a chain again, and this way as soon as we have a buyer secured we can up sticks and move. Renting means we can spend some time getting to know the area better and making sure we move to the right place. Wish us luck!

Our light

A few more pics of my beautiful baby xx

 

Mummydom

Lucy will be six weeks old on Thursday - as everyone warned me the time is flying by so quickly already. Every day she is changing. Physically she's grown 12cm in length since she was born (!) and in the last three weeks she's put on about 2lbs in weight. I can feel the difference when I pick her up! Her head is bigger and she is much stronger - she can turn her head from side to side and instead of snuggling into my chest like she did when she was a newborn, she pushes herself up on her arms to look around and take in her surroundings. Trust a baby of mine to be a big nosey beak! Lucy is much more alert and she's starting to show real signs of independence - enjoying time on her gym play mat, sitting in her swing, and also quiet time chilling in her Moses basket when she's had enough stimulation from Mum and Dad.

So, I've been a Mum for nearly six weeks. Blimey it's hard work! Everyone tells you that it is, but nothing can really prepare you for what it is like to have a tiny person dependent on you for their basic needs 24/7. In some ways it's the most challenging thing I've ever done - but the rewards are indeed as huge as you imagine. And as hard as it is, it is still a lot easier than doing the job I was doing before little Miss arrived! Hearing Lucy grunt or squeak from her Moses basket when she is sleeping (no one tells you how noisy babies are when they are asleep!) is enough to make my heart burst, and when she frowns at me with her big blue eyes a little piece of me melts. I can't even describe what it is like when she smiles at me...

I've felt a whole range of emotions over the last month or so in my new role as a Mum. Many I expected, but  some aspects have definitely caught me by surprise. I certainly didn't imagine that I would have times when I would feel woefully inadequate and not good enough. I'm getting used to Lucy now, but at the beginning when I couldn't read what her cries meant and I didn't know how to soothe her, my confidence took a pretty big hit and there were times when I felt quite useless. I've actually been rather hard on myself - I'm used to being a success at everything I turned my hand to, and I admit to wanting to be the best Mum ever from the offset, when of course it is going to take time for us to learn how to be a family and get to know each other. I'm starting to feel now that I'm good enough - not flawless, but who is?! - and that I'm doing a good job... but that has taken some time and is only really kicking in now.

I also carried - and still do - quite a lot of anxiety. In the first few days I didn't sleep well at all, but kept looking at Lucy in her crib to make sure she was ok, and that she was breathing and so on. My paranoia that something would be wrong with her - I guess guided by my previous losses and the slightly unorthodox time I went through having her - was quite intense to begin with. I won't tell you just how many times I've put my hand on her chest when she's sleeping or my finger on the back of her neck to check her temperature - but it feels like rather a lot! I do worry that she is ok and that she is content - much more so than the Boy does. He has been very chilled out and seems to have taken our new addition in his stride. For me, as well as opening the door to a world of excitement and happiness (there are sooooo many experiences I can't wait to share with Lucy, so many things to teach her and moments to enjoy) another door has opened too - one where I worry for her health, her welfare and her happiness... I'm hopeful this will subside a little as time passes. It's already a lot less than it was a few weeks ago.

But I am also very proud of myself and how I am coping with Lucy. We have far more good and happy days than stressful ones. I've taken her on the train to Kent twice by myself and every day when the Boy is at work I take her out somewhere - anything from a walk round the block, to a local Mums group, to coffee or lunch with friends. Most days I manage to have a shower, clean my teeth, get dressed, pop some mascara on and feel a bit like the Beans of old - and these are all mini achievements that I couldn't imagine happening back at the end of September, there was one day the Boy and I didn't even eat anything until 4pm at the beginning! But it's starting to come together and I am confident that things will continue to go from strength to strength for us.

I also love seeing the Boy in his role as a Dad. He is so gentle, patient and loving with Lucy and I can see a special bond between them both really developing. Whereas I can get anxious and flustered when things don't go especially well, the Boy is calm and grounded, and is a welcome presence. He's every bit as good a Dad as he is a husband, and a best friend. I am very, very blessed indeed.

Passion versus Perfection

As I’ve gotten older I’ve decided that being a passionate person is far better than being a perfectionist.  

 Once you accept the fact that you're not perfect, then you develop some confidence.  ~Rosalynn Carter

In my working environment perfection matters…and in the industry I work in it is a given that there are no margin for errors.  My job on the other hand is an unusual job within the industry and in the line of work that I do passion matters.   Recently I’ve been confronted with a couple of situations where a work product may have been perfect and the outcome was good, but if the task had been completed with passion the outcome would have been stupendous.  

Thank you U.S. Wildflower.com for this beautiful photo of the passion flower - my favorite!

A few years back someone in observing me and my hobbies commented that I was a bit obsessive.  I confess that since my forties, I haven’t just gardened, I started a garden club.  I didn’t just take a ballet class, I took ballet 3 days a week, helped with a pre-school ballet class and performed in 2 recitals (odd for a woman in her 40s I know but it was fun)!  Oh there are lots more examples of my passions but In 2003 I was very lucky when our managing partner asked me to take a role with our firm leading volunteerism. Volunteering is something that I’ve always been passionate about and I’m often one of those people that just can’t watch the news and hear of catastrophic disasters without organizing a drive or an effort to support those affected.   In raising my family I made sure each of my children served as a volunteer in some way.  I’m recalling the time my daughter was excited to help with a Habitat build until she got there and realized that we were on the insulation team and it was 96 degrees that day.   All I can say is that my passion for helping others and really making a difference in my community, locally and beyond must have been obvious in the workplace as I was singled out to take on an incredible role which has changed my life in so many ways. 

As the person who organizes volunteer efforts I can tell you that passion makes a difference.  Recently we had one person passionately wanting to assist victims of human trafficking and I was able to connect him with several very meaningful opportunities. Over the course of a year he represented several clients who’d been through some horrific experiences.  This person assisted each client with an intense passion and through these experiences has since moved into an international position because of his passion for assisting victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. 

One of our volunteers loves children, even going so far as to go back to school to get a degree in early childhood education.  She serves in a number of volunteer roles working with children and last summer ultimately performed one of the most selfless acts I’ve heard of in years by actually crossing the U.S. Mexico border in an area known for conflict in an effort to help some children in distress. She ultimately won a national award for her extraordinary efforts.

As a passionate person, I’m inspired by other passionate people.

Here’s what I’ve learned.  It isn’t that perfectionist aren’t passionate people but I’ve observed that when a person pursues an issue with a passion, perfection will follow.  Passion brings with it energy, creativity, problem-tunities and often some amazing results.

As I age I’m prepared to begin to sag, droop, and potentially lose things but the one thing that I hope I can hold on to is my passion.

Dreams and a WD Media Player

It's our dreams, doctor, that carry us on. They separate us from the beasts. I wouldn't want to go on living if I thought it was all just eating, and sleeping, and taking my clothes off, I mean putting them on.                                                                                 - Veta Louise Simmons, Harvey (1950)

 

Isn’t that a great quote from Harvey?   I love movies and by saying this I don’t mean I enjoy movies, I mean I really love them.  I keep movie passes on hand all the time so that I’ve got tickets when I need them.   We subscribe to Netflix though the selection of films to stream could be better in my opinion.  BUT I have something that I think is amazing and I’ve really been wanting to tell you about it for a while.  Well, let me tell you a story.

Over the years I started buying DVDs – all my favorites Avanti, Valley of the Dolls, Wife vs. Secretary, Random Harvest, While You Were Sleeping, That Girl, Little Women (the one with Liz Taylor and June Allison) and the list goes and as the collection grew I catalogued the films in alpha order (of course a former librarian would catalogue a library, right?).  But the dvd collection took up a lot of space. 

 Over the years when I would volunteer with the ASO Decorator Show House there would always be a media center with an amazing online media library but I’d seen the price tag on those systems which were well beyond my reach.  One day last spring I mentioned to my son that I dreamed of owning one of these systems and guess what he surprised me with for Mother’s Day?  A digital media center!   He found one by Western Digital (which was not too expensive), bought it and has since spent a lot of time converting and loading the dvds onto my media center.  It is amazing!   I now have all of my favorite movies loaded in alpha order online and the system is connected to my tv!!!  With the click of a remote control I can enjoy all of my favorite films.

 The best thing about this product is that it was not expensive.  My son would tell you that the biggest challenge is the time it takes to get everything loaded on the player but it has made me one happy movie viewer. 

I thought Veta’s quote was perfect, a dream.  My dream and my sweet son, brought me a media center and I’m one happy movie watcher.

Gorgeous girl

This is very self-indulgent, but here are a couple of my favourite pics of Lucy from the last week. She is sooooo cute! (Although you wouldn't believe the man size farts I can hear coming from her Moses Basket as I write this... how she doesn't wake herself up with the vibrations I really don't know...!).

Pathetic postnatal care

It's not often in life I find myself so incensed or upset about something that I follow through with making a complaint. I might grizzle and moan to friends about less than satisfactory customer service, or let my the Boy know when I'm disappointed with the way something has turned out, but that is usually where I draw the line and let go of an issue and move on. I don't like to hold on to negative experiences - I used to do a lot of that in the past and it didn't agree with me. Now I find it better to spend some time processing why something has upset me and then think about how I can learn from that or do things differently, let go, and move on to the next thing life has to offer.

However, the experience I endured in the postnatal ward at St Thomas's Hospital was so bad, that for the first time in a number of years I was riled enough to formally complain. The letter below went to the hospital last week and outlines my concerns - I won't repeat them now as the letter sets it all out clearly enough, but suffice to say the experience was pretty horrific and really set me back in my first few days of looking after Lucy. But I was lucky enough to come home to a wonderful husband, a loving family (which included a midwife) and a great circle of friends, and now it all feels like quite a distant memory. However, I'm aware not every woman is lucky enough to have such a great bunch of people and so much love behind her, so I felt I owed it to people less fortunate than me to raise the points I have done formally. I've heard from the hospital that an investigation is being conducted... I will let you know of any outcomes.

Patient information team

St Thomas' Hospital
Knowledge and information centre (KIC)
ground floor, North Wing
Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7EH

To whom it may concern

It is with regret that I am writing to complain about the treatment I received during my recent stay in the postnatal ward at St Thomas’s Hospital from 20-22 September 2012.

I had my first baby, a daughter Lucy, by planned c-section on 20 September 2012 as she was transverse with the cord presenting. Prior to the operation I was in the antenatal ward for a fortnight, and the level of care I received there and during the operation was of a very high standard. I felt safe and respected even when it was evident the staff were incredibly busy, and I was optimistic this would continue when I moved to the postnatal ward.

However, my experience rapidly deteriorated once there and I was appalled by the level of care I received on the postnatal ward. My main concerns were:

·      -   Not being given a clean hospital gown to wear until two days after my operation, despite asking, so I was lying in a blood-soaked gown for 36 hours.

·     -    Midwives being too busy to change my blood-soaked pads on the bed, so having to lie in them for much longer than was dignified. When asking a midwife for help, I was told to do it myself, but I couldn’t see the area and it was too early for me to move about as I had only just had the operation.

·     -    A doctor saying how important it was that my catheter was removed the day after surgery so I could get up and be mobile – but I spent hours asking midwives to remove it and they didn’t until 36 hours after surgery when I was literally sobbing for it to be taken out. They were also too busy to empty it, so it was full to bursting at the side of my bed which left me feeling very unrespected.

·      -   Buzzing for assistance in lifting my daughter from her cot to me so I could nurse her and offer skin-to-skin contact, but having to wait for a long time for someone to assist me – I eventually gave up and did it myself even though it put undue strain on my caesarean wound and was painful to do so.

·      -   Conflicting advice from midwives about how to nurse my newborn – one insisted I continually nurse her for four hours straight, while another said I should only be doing half an hour at a time. No one told me the same thing.

·       -  Midwives not introducing themselves at the beginning of shifts so I had no idea who was supposed to be supporting me, and no one coming onto the ward for hours at a time to check patients were ok.

·       -  Having to buzz midwives to insist on them giving me my blood-thinning injections and pain relief – this was never offered to me proactively, I always had to remind them when I needed the medication which is a lot of responsibility for someone recovering from major abdominal surgery.

·       - Only seeing a doctor once after my caesearean – a midwife looked at my scar quickly before I was discharged but that was the only aftercare I received.

·       -  Being made to feel like an inconvenience – whenever I asked for help I was told midwives were too busy. -I asked if the breastfeeding counsellor could come to see me I was told “do you really want to make her walk in here and see you when she’s so busy”, and when I asked for advice when my baby was distressed the midwife glaring at me and saying “babies cry, deal with it”.

·       -  Hearing other women on the postnatal ward crying about the similar neglect they were receiving.

·      -   Midwives not assisting me with my wound hygiene when I got out of bed. My husband had to remove the dressing with me instead, which I do not find a satisfactory level of care.

·       -  Having to wait until day 4 before receiving a visit from a community midwife in my home.

The 48 hours I was on the postnatal ward were intolerable and spoiled my first few days with my beautiful daughter. Thankfully I have returned to a loving family home with a supportive and nurturing husband, family and friends, and community midwives have since been excellent, so I am bonding well with my daughter and enjoying every moment with her.

However, when I think back to my time in St Thomas’s after the birth it had a massive psychological effect on me and it still reduces me to tears. I don’t think I would be doing so well if I didn’t have such a strong support network so I feel I must complain in case other women have such a negative experience but are not as fortunate as me in their support network. I totally lost my confidence on the postnatal ward, and felt undervalued and like an inconvenience at all times. The only midwife who treated me like a human being was an agency midwife called Christiana. I am grateful to her.

I would like to know by return what steps you are going to put in place to ensure women receive far better treatment on the postnatal ward and make sure this level of neglect does not happen again. I am aware my negative experience was not unique just from talking to other women on my ward.

Please advise what steps you will take to ensure all new mums receive a basic level of care and have their dignity protected in response to each of the points I raise above.

After having a baby a woman can be very vulnerable and I believe the current standard of service offered by St Thomas’s postnatally is well below acceptable and I am prepared to talk to the media about the hugely disappointing level of care I received.

I look forward to your swift response.

Regards

Julie Cannon, You Will Be Missed

I'm extremely saddened to learn that Julie Cannon, a wonderful Georgia author has passed away.   You may remember me posting about a writing class that I took at the Margaret Mitchell House last year.   Julie was the teacher of this very special class.   Our small group, which started with a group of twelve, dwindled to a group of six women, plus Julie.   I think each of us in the class realized that our group was special and part of the reason was because of Julie.  She encouraged each of us to write "just 100 words a day" and to build time to write into our day.   Julie celebrated being southern - 'mater sandwiches and all, and it was wonderful to listen to how she would write about all of her day-to-day southern experiences which would eventually end up, in one form or another, in one of her books. 

 

 Here is a link to Julie's books in case you want to enjoy some southern stories.  Julie, you will truly be missed.

Edith Head, Stacy London & A Dressing Room

I am by no means a fashionista and most of my life I’ve had a terrible time dressing for special occasions and having the right thing to wear when I need it.   In trying to build a wardrobe I’ve always tried to buy classic pieces that might work well together but when the time comes to get dressed I never seem to have the vision for an outfit that works.   Some mornings even when I try to think through what to wear to work the night before somehow when I get dressed the look appears more “patchwork” than pulled together. 

Over the summer someone listed Edith Head’s book on their blog and I’m so glad they did (I can’t remember the blogger or I would write them a thank you note).  The book caught my eye because the illustrations were so cute so I bought the book and I have to say not only did I enjoy the book, I was inspired to do something with my wardrobe.

Over Labor Day weekend I felt a little like I was going off to college as I tried on outfits, sorted, threw things out and moved items from closet to closet.  In fact, my bedroom was a bit upside down but it was fun getting a fall wardrobe organized. 

Shortly after cleaning and organizing my closet I read that Stacy London was coming to town so I bought a ticket and this week I went to her lecture.  She was so inspiring.   As a woman in her mid-fifties with many working years ahead of me and a workforce that just keeps getting younger (and cuter!) Stacy’s message was great for me to hear.  The bottom line - be authentic and get comfortable with where you are and with the body shape that you have instead of beating yourself up because of what you wish you were.  While she was quite witty with her presentation her message was passionate and honest and she addressed many questions that were no laughing matter.  I really appreciated hearing about her personal struggles (weight gain, scarring and more) and why she wrote her latest book. 

There were two messages that served as my personal takeaways – “yes, and….” And this question - why is it that as women age, instead of striving for cuteness, just accept being elegant? There is nothing more beautiful than a woman who ages gracefully. Even if you don’t buy her book you might enjoy reading this NPR interview.

I’m still reading The Truth About Style  and I know that I will continue to work on my wardrobe but now I feel like I need to work on my closet and I would like a dressing room.   I hope my friend Heather doesn’t mind if I share her recent closet/dressing room renovation.   It is beautiful (and so is she)!!!  Heather knocked out a wall in her walk-in closet so that it opened up into a spare bedroom and voila!   She now has a dressing room!!!!