Questions from a soon-to-be new mum

During probably the last trimester of pregnancy I found myself wondering how we’re going to look after our baby.  We know next to nothing about looking after a baby!  I had lots of questions bouncing around in my head, but haven’t been very sure of where to look for answers.  

Maybe you’ve been there and find some of these questions familiar.  Or maybe you have also wondered these things as you are preparing for a baby.  Here are some of the questions I’ve had and how they have been answered, I hope someone finds them helpful. 

Who teaches you to change a nappy?
The antenatal class was where we learnt how to change a nappy.  It was on a doll though, which I’m sure is much easier than on a real baby.  The midwife teaching the class told us that we would be taught how to do this again once our baby had been born.

How does a swaddle work?
Swaddles help the baby to feel cosy by tucking their limbs in against their body.  This is a familiar feeling for the baby, because they were pretty tight while in the womb, and it can help relax them.  Two techniques for this were taught at the antenatal class (and we were also reassured that we’d be taught again once the baby arrived). 

When should a baby use a dummy/soother?
It’s recommended that you don’t use a dummy in the first six weeks of life.  If you want to breastfeed your baby (and this is the best-for-baby, best-for-mum, best-for-the-bank account option) then you don’t want to confuse the baby.  Both mum and baby have to learn how to breastfeed, and the baby feeding helps to increase the mother’s supply of milk.  If the baby is sucking on something else then the mother’s body is not being encouraged to produce milk, and the baby gets confused about how to suck for milk. 

Should the baby sleep in my room or a different room?
This comes down to preference really.  Apparently when I was born I spent one week in my parents room before I was kicked out for being too noisy.  I may have got my own room before I got my own name!  Some mums I’ve spoken to have said that they like the reassurance of having the baby in their room, particularly in a cot or bassinet next to the bed where they don’t even have to get out of bed to check how the baby is going.

Edit: Actually, I was wrong.  The recommendation is to sleep the baby in the parents’ room for at least the first six months, even up to 12 months.  This lowers the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).  Recommendations were different when I was a baby of course, but now midwives are adamant that the baby should sleep in our room.

Do I need a post-partum girdle, and where can I buy one?
A post-partum girdle is like a wrap support for your stomach, to help hold everything together after the baby is out and everything’s floppy!  My GP told me that I would only need one if my abdominal muscles have significantly separated.  If this happens then the hospital will loan me a girdle to use, to help the muscles come back together again.  Usually, the abdominal muscles will come back together on their own by about 6 weeks.  Despite this, I’ve wondering about using one anyway, just to help things along. 

What forms (if any) do I need to bring to the hospital for after the baby is born?
As far as I’m aware, in Australia we don’t need to bring anything of this sort of thing. Of course you would bring your pregnancy record card and some form of identification like a drivers licence, but I think that’s it.  I’ll update this if we discover the answer is something different. I think once the baby is born the hospital gives you a bunch of forms!  One of these in particular (I think it's the orange one?) is what needs to be shown to Centrelink if you are hoping to get monetary support from the government for your baby. 
If there are forms we need to bring, I can always send J home to get them after the baby is born!

I’m sure there’s more questions I’ve had along the way but these are the ones that I remembered to write down.  I hope other new mums might find this helpful. 

The Second Room

The second room in our house began as our study.  I spent my first year of college trying to not get distracted from homework in that room.  In our second and third years of college the second room was mostly used for storage and playing computer games.  When friends or family came to stay with us, they would sleep on a foam mattress on the floor in this room, wedged between the storage wardrobe and the hastily cleaned desk.  

To prepare the room for the baby we moved the giant desk out, shifted the bookshelf, constructed the cot and hung a few things.  The desk is now in the communal studies and J will use it there.  We left the desktop computer in our second room, in the corner on top of a set of desk drawers.  Not sure how often this will get used, not at all while it still doesn't work!

I’m a little bit bummed that I didn't take any ‘before’ photos of our second room.  It really was a mess!  We did a lot of throwing out and reorganising to make space for the baby.  But here are the ‘after’ photos (or at least the corner of it that is the nursery).



This is the first view you get of the room, from the doorway.  We were given the cot for free from friends who have graduated from college and used to live in our college community.  We also got the drawers and change table for free from a friend of a friend. 



A friend crocheted the baby bunting as a gift and I love the grey chevron cot sheet, which was also a baby shower gift.  Sitting in the corner of the cot is Rachelle the Rabbit, which I knitted from a kit that my mum found and gave to me for Christmas.  It’s so rare to find something that has my name spelt correctly, so this was a very exciting find.  I’m glad I was able to finish knitting sewing her together before the baby arrived. 



This mobile was made by a lovely friend of mine as a baby shower gift.  I love it.  We hung it from the ceiling using two stick-on hooks in opposite directions which has worked well.  The drawing of the daffodils on the left was a gift from my sister, and the frame on the right has the fingerprints of everyone who came to celebrate at my baby showers (two colours for two cities).  My sister drew the umbrella in that picture. 

Unfortunately, this frame has since fallen off the wall.  Becuase we rent we can’t put holes in the wall, so I use sticky hooks or ‘velcro’ hangers (I don’t know what else to call them, but it’s not exactly velcro, they are the 3M Command brand, and they and wonderful for this sort of thing!).  Actually not so wonderful in this case.  As you can see the wall is a bit textured, which may have meant the hook didn’t stick so well.  The hook also said it could hold up to 2.2kg and the frame was 2kg.  I’m hoping that going up a size will mean I can re-hang this frame. 

Well there it is.  The baby won’t sleep in here until they’re a bit bigger, but we needed the space set up for changing nappies and storing the baby’s clothes.  A big thank you to everyone who has given us gifts to help prepare for baby’s arrival.  On Monday I’ll be 37 weeks pregnant (full-term) and we’re so excited to meet our little baby. 

Living in a fishbowl

We don’t often think about our curtains and blinds.  The way they let in or block out light as we desire.  Sometimes we might get frustrated when they don’t work as effectively as we think they should, or when we have to clean them (I’ve never tried washing curtains but venetian blinds are a pain to dust).  But I think we often just take them for granted.  All windows have them.  Except when they don’t. 

There are some significant renovations going on in our block of units.  Basically the whole front of 11 of the units needed to be replaced.  The wooden frames would be replaced with metal.  That meant the whole front had to come off. 

Here’s what it looked like for one of the units (friends of ours recently moved out of this unit). 

Here’s our house with the whole front gone.  We put up plastic painting sheets as makeshift walls to keep the dust off our furniture. 

Unfortunately the workmen had to pull the edge of it down so that they could get in.  They put the new frame on the same day but the insides weren’t finished until several days later.  So we lived in our blind-less, compacted living space with our plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling until the inside could be finished.  I felt like I was living in a fishbowl. 

Thankfully our friends who were away on holidays and had lent us their car had also generously lent us their house and bed if we needed it.  So we took refuge in their house most of the time.  We decided to sleep in our own bed, despite having no blinds, knowing that if the sun didn’t wake us, the workmen starting at 7:30 would. 

 

We’re still waiting for the blinds to go back up, but when we got back from our week away the inside panelling was finished and even the door was painted.  I stuck some newspaper to the window following some of the other units so that we would have a little bit of privacy.  Here’s hoping the blinds will go up soon so we can spread our furniture out again!

Goodbye Claude

Last week, we were driving home from our anniversary dinner.  I was driving because J doesn’t like to drive when he’s had some alcohol.  Part of the drive home involved a long left-turning lane, at an intersection, with a stop sign at the end.  J reminded me of the stop sign so I pressed on the brake.  And then we were jolted forward. 

The car behind us had hit us.  Perhaps he wasn’t expecting me to stop, maybe I did stop too suddenly.  He was following too close behind and maybe he was looking for oncoming traffic like I was, instead of looking at the car in front of him.

I’ve never been in a car accident so I had no idea what to do.  I'm so glad J was with me. The man in the car behind me got out and apologised, and asked me to pull over on the road we were intending to turn onto.  We exchanged details about insurance and license and then went our separate ways.  

After taking the car to the insurance-approved smash repairer it turns out that our car wasn’t worth the money it would cost to fix it.  Or to put it another way, the cost to fix it was more than the car was insured for.  So that means it has been written off, not deemed worth driving anymore.  

Our car was a Peugeot.  J bought it as his first car when he started full-time work.  Since it was French he wanted to name it with a French name and "Claude" was chosen.  We prayed over the car, that it would be used for ministry and its seats shared with friends.  It got us between state capital cities a number of times.  I learnt how to drive a manual in that car.  We’ve used it to help a stranded stranger and to car-pool colleagues.  

We handed Claude in on Wednesday.  It was only fitting that we also had a bit of a wake.  J wanted to buy a croissant or baguette in memoriam, but we couldn’t find any in the bakery we walked into.  So we settled for a crème brûlée and a macaroon.  We ate them at home in Claude’s now empty car space.  

But despite the sadness over losing our car, there are a number of things we are thankful for.  Firstly, we’re glad that this happened during the holidays while the college car-pool isn’t operating.  We’re thankful that it was only a small crash (we were stationary and it was only a small bump) and we weren’t injured.  We’re also thankful for the friends who have let us borrow their car while they are away on holidays.  Another friend has offered us his dad’s old car to use until the registration runs out.  We'll be looking to buy a new car but we’re thankful that we don’t have to rush about it.  

Farewell Claude.  We have many happy memories with you. 

When I didn’t want to pray

Last week at college we had week of prayer to pray for the mission teams that we would all participate in the following week.  This meant that we prayed more than usual in our morning chapel times and chaplaincy groups, usually in small groups rather than being lead from the front.  

At some point in the week I suddenly felt exhausted from praying.  I didn't want to pray anymore, I was tired of praying and it had tired me out.  

I was shy of admitting this here.  After all, I'm a Bible college student, I've chosen to study my faith full time, shouldn't I love praying?  Shouldn't I be good at it by now?  I shouldn't be feeling like I don't want to do it.  

But in case there is even just one other person out there who feels the same way as me sometimes, I thought I should share this.  And I want to be honest here not just about the good things, but the struggles too.  

I know I can come up with a number of reasons to explain away why I was tired of praying.  I'm an introvert and praying in groups for 20-30 minutes each day with people I don't necessarily know well, if at all, is emotionally taxing.  I'm also shy about talking in groups so often praying out loud is a push out of my comfort zone.  Then there's the fact that you have to reword and add-lib on the fly because simply reading out the prayer point doesn't quite feel like I'm praying sincerely (even though that's a totally legitimate way to pray, particularly with the detailed points).  

But honestly, I don't want to let myself get away with excuses for my attitude to prayer.  Prayer has often been hard for me, in groups and alone.  I know that I'm not alone in this.  Pray is hard, that's the truth.  It's hard to keep at it, to keep trying, because it feels so weird.  There's nothing else that we do like it.  And often we wonder what's wrong when we pray because we don't feel any different, as if feelings are the gauge of God hearing us.  

But my thought that day last week shocked me.  Because while I don't expect that I will always love praying, and I certainly don't expect to be good at it without a lot of hard work, I shouldn't let that stop me from persisting.  And I shouldn't want to opt out from doing it.  Prayer is our lifeline to God.  It is our expression of our utter dependence on him for everything, and a product of our relationship with him.  How can we have a relationship with God if we never speak to him (prayer) and if we never listen to him (reading the Bible)?  

It was my sinfulness that said I was tired of prayer.  And I know I'm not disgusted enough with my sin, but the shock at my sin was good.  I was glad it shocked me because it showed me that God is changing me, little by little, working in my heart to make it like his and to despise my sin and love his righteousness. 

We visited a mosque today as part of our mission, to learn more about Islam and what Muslim's believe.  I've often been impressed with the amount of praying that pious Muslims do (at least five times a day according to the rules of their faith).  But I shouldn't need rules about when to pray to get me to pray.  Paul says to pray continuously! (1 Thess 5:17).  I know that God has made it possible for me to approach him in prayer without any need for special words or special actions.  Jesus has interceded for me before the Father and made me clean.  Praise be to God.  I need to remember this and keep trusting in God for everything, knowing how much of a privilege it is to come to him in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

(“What a Friend we have in Jesus”, lyrics Joseph Scriven)

A wedding, nostalgia and seven years

I’m recounting my weekend in the wrong order, now I want to write about what I did on Saturday.

This weekend I flew back home to be at the wedding of a dear friend from school.  We became friends in year eight when we discovered a mutual love for the Lord of the Rings.  Throughout high school our social groups changed but we always remained friends.  Even when we hadn't seen each other for two and a half years (because it took me almost that long to work out how to catch up with people when you live so far away) when we caught up these last summer holidays we seemed to pick up where we left off.  

But this post isn't an ode to our friendship.  

The wedding was at our high school chapel.  Oh the nostalgia!  It was weird being back at school and seeing the places that I sat, where I made friends, where I learned.  Some things had changed about the place, but it was mostly the same.  But it wasn't just the view that tugged on my heart memory.  The school is Roman Catholic so as we went through the wedding mass I remembered particular phrases that I once heard every week.  And though I'm not Catholic and I don't agree with everything in the Catholic liturgy I enjoyed my remembrance of the phrases and the places I could confidently add my amen.  

There were some other school friends at the wedding too.  I found myself a bit shy to begin with.  Some of them I haven't seen in seven years!  I don't think I'm a very good conversationalist so I wondered how things would go at the reception.  Thankfully the conversations were pretty free-flowing.  It was really lovely catching up with some of the people I used to hang out with every day.  We didn't exactly catch up on the last seven years, but definitely the last few.  Many of us expressed surprise at how much time had passed.  We'd finished degrees, some of us have moved interstate, someone has bought a house, someone is in the navy, I've been married for two and a half years!  

And yet, I was also surprised at how most of us basically hadn't changed.  Yes we're older (and maybe wiser?) but our basic personalities have stayed the same.  I started nodding to myself: yes, I remember your sense of humour, and I remember your interest in that.  And I'm not sure how much this is a comfort or a concern, because it means that I basically haven't changed.  I wondered if my friends thought that?  

Because I feel like I have changed.  I've learned so much in the last seven years.  I like to think that I've become less shy, nervous and reserved.  That’s because now I'm more confident in God's love for me and my worth as a person.  I hope I've become more compassionate and caring, because I've understood better the compassion that Jesus showed.  

But maybe change is a slower process than I think.  Maybe learning these things doesn't change my personality but the way that I express it.  I pray that in the last seven years I've become more of the person that God wants me to be, but I know that seven years isn't really a long time and there will always be more ways I can be like Jesus.  And I pray that next time I meet my friends they will see Jesus a little bit more.