Y Lloeren

Finally! The house is ours. We can't actually get to it due to the cold, white stuff but it is ours.

Backlogged and Bottlenecked

It's been three months since my last post. I've been posting a little on Ravelry, mostly in the usual places, BID and LSG but even my BID posting has declined. I owe several PMs/emails to people too. I have been posting a bit on Plurk too but very sporadically. Some of this is because much of my PC time is when I've also got Eluned on the boob and it gets hard to type anything of any length. Some of it is also due to my terrible memory. I will read something and think 'I must reply to that later when my hands are free' and then I promptly forget about it. I think the memory issues are due to both maternal amnesia and the depression.

Ah, the depression. It's not any better. I've changed treatments but the new one doesn't seem to help much. It also gave me awful insomnia for the first few weeks of taking it until I switched to taking it in the evening. No more insomnia but I still struggle to wake up before 11.30 ish. I don't think things are going to improve much until I stop breastfeeding and start taking Effexor again. The current plan is for Eluned to be weaned at around 12-13 months. She's 8 months now so not too much longer although it will take a while to get up to the right dosage.

Eluned is progressing well. She's finally doubled her birth weight and has moved up to a new curve again on the weight chart. She now has two teeth, the first came through last week and the second over the last couple of days. It looks like she's going to crawl soon, she wriggles well on her tummy. The other two didn't really crawl but went straight to standing about now and then walking by 11 months so this will be a new experience for us.

We are due to complete the house purchase on the 21st and there's been a lot to do to get the mortgage sorted and renovation quotes arranged. We'll do a lot ourselves but there's also a lot that we won't be able to do. One of the things will be having a new septic tank, pump and sand filter installed. The loft will also be converted into a studio space for me. The first job though will be the worst. Rob will be using the few days before Christmas to apply a woodworm treatment as there is an active infestation of both vrillettes and capricornes. We have to give our landlord three months notice but can't do that until next weeks so we hope to do as much as possible before we move in at the start of March.

Recently, I have found that my head has been overflowing with ideas but I have been unable to actually do anything about those ideas. That's where the title for this post comes in. The more ideas I've had in the backlog, the tighter the bottleneck has become and the less I've been able to achieve. I realised that I hadn't done any dyeing in over a year. I hadn't used my drumcarder in over a year either. I recently bought a Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom but have only done one small project on it (a scarf for Rhianwen). So yesterday, I took some handpainted Wensleydale top that hadn't come out right and carded it into three fluffy batts that look great. I also did some spinning, creating a thicker single than usual so that I was able to finish the singles and ply them. It just needs a good soak to finish it now. While I haven't opened the floodgates yet - with so much going on with the renovation and move, I daren't - but it's had the effect of venting a pressure valve and my head feels a little calmer. I need to keep this up if I'm going to make it through the next few months.

I don't know when I'll post next so I'll finish off by saying:

Nadolig Llawen! Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas!

(or other winter festival as appropriate, of course)

We're Buying a House!

As usual, life has been difficult (mainly due to my depression) and hectic and I've not been up to posting lately. One of the reasons that life has been hectic is that we have been househunting. We saw 10 houses in all and narrowed our choice down to 2 - we went back to both of those houses and then had to make a difficult decision. The runner-up house was lovely and sat on over 3000 sq metres of land. It also had a several outbuildings and even a small second house that needs complete renovation. I would have been able to keep a few sheep and/or alpacas there easily. But it only had three bedrooms (all downstairs, the attic needed converting) and the kitchen was very small so there wasn't really enough room to live there while doing the work needed to make enough space for our needs. Plus the work needed would have pushed our budget to the limit.

So we went for this house. It has four bedrooms, a kitchen that is large enough to be a kitchen/diner, a good sized garden, a loft that can be converted to a craft studio for me and several outbuildings. It's in quite a large hamlet in the countryside. It's actually a little closer to where Rob works, a bit further away from Mum but not that much. Rhianwen will have to change schools but Meleri will stay where she is and possibly live with Mum during the week as it's her final year in collège and she sits her Brévet this year. She's hoping to get into a lycée that specialises in art and music so needs to focus.

Today, we signed the Compromis De Vente and handed over a deposit cheque. We have seven days as a cooling off period and after that if we back out for any reason other than not getting our mortgage then we lose the deposit. Also if the seller backs out then we get our deposit back plus they have to pay us 10% of the selling price. Things operate very differently here to the UK as you can see. Another significant difference is that the buyer pays all the fees except for the diagnostiques - these are reports done on things like lead paint, energy efficiency, the septic tank and termites. We opted not to go through an estate agency but directly to the notaire to find houses so there are no agency fees to be paid. The notaire does all the legal work for both parties which simplifies things.

The fees are around 8% of the selling price so a lot more than in the UK but the market is very different here as well. All of the houses we looked at were empty, several had been on the market for years. One we know has been on the market ever since my Mum came to here to live as we've commented on it many times. All but two of the houses had been lived in my elderly people who had either died or could no longer live independently. In the case of the house we're buying, it belongs to a lady who will be 97 in a few months (and appears very healthy, all things considered).

We're obviously very excited by all this and can't wait to get started on all the work that is required. To start with we'll be converting the attic and putting in a fitted kitchen. The whole house needs redecorating as well. The plan is to make it as light and airy as possible so that means covering up all those beams that have been varnished a horrible dark brown. I don't think that it's feasible to get them back to a natural colour so I think lots of white paint will be the answer.

In the meantime, I have a lot to do here now that the girls are back in school (hooray) and the house looks like a disaster area. Plus there's all that packing.

Hello?

It's been a while. I'm typing this on the Apple iTouch that Rob got me for my birthday. I've got through at least 3 cheap MP3 players now and we decided that I deserved something a bit more reliable. Plus the prices had finally dropped enough to make it within our reach.

Eluned is doing well and is still being breastfed. Thankfully we haven't had a repeat of the problems that I had with Rhianwen.

More soon.

Say Hello to...

Eluned Brianne Avril

Born at 2.40 pm, Thursday April 9th 2009 weighing 3.52 kg, measuring 50cm at 37 weeks and 2 days gestation.

On March 6th I went to see my GP as I’d had a weird chest pain all day - I’d had a cold for a couple of days and thought it was something to do with that - he sent me to Urgences (ER) at the local hospital as he was concerned it was either a pulmonary embolism or pneumonia. I had a variety of tests at the hospital and they decided to admit me to do further tests. As a precaution they sent me to maternity for some monitoring - that’s when they found out that I was also having mild but regular contractions - at that point I was 32+3 weeks.

I stayed in Maternity overnight but was moved to the cardiac unit for a couple of days - all the time I was had a variety of drips and was on strict bedrest - couldn’t even get up to go to the loo. The chest pain went away and all the tests were fine so I was moved back to Maternity as the contractions were continuing. I then spent another week in Maternity while they monitored my newly diagnosed GD, kept me on a strictly sugar free diet and tried to stop the contractions - I was at least allowed to go to the loo and take a shower but otherwise was on bedrest. After 10 days in hospital, they decided that I needed to be transferred to a different hospital as they didn’t have a neo-natal unit there and were concerned not only by the contractions but also the GD and the fact that I was taking anti-depressants which could lead to issues for the baby after delivery.

I ended up spending the next four weeks or so at the next hospital, they moved me to insulin injections which did improve my blood sugar results (which at one point were being checked every two hours!), the contractions continued and we started to lower the dosage of anti-depressants ready for the birth. At 36 weeks plus a few days, they stopped the medication which was meant to be reducing/preventing contractions with the aim of labour progressing naturally at around 37 weeks. I was also allowed to start moving around little more. An ultrasound at 36+4 weeks estimated the baby’s weight to be 3.6 kg and an induction was planned for 37+2 weeks. I’ve always been against inductions but at that point I’d had enough. The contractions didn’t seem to progress so the induction went ahead. I only need the gel - a pessary which was inserted for a couple of hours at about 8 am- to get things going. The first stage took some time but once I got to 5-6cm dilated everything got very intense - I used gas and air only for pain relief - and to everyone’s surprise Eluned was born about 20 mins later and needed just one push!

Her initial Apgars were fine but after a while it became obvious that she was very sleepy still and she was taken to the Neo-Natal unit.

When she arrived at the Neo-Natal Unit (Thursday pm) she was put into a warmer and put on a glucose drip as she was too sleep to feed. Her oxygen saturation kept dipping below 90% the first night so she had a little bit of oxygen then but she improved very quickly. I was able to cuddle her every now and then and I also put her face on my breast for contact. After 36 hours or so in the warmer she was taken off the drip and moved to a crib where she was still monitored (Saturday AM). She was fed by bottle although I found that she wouldn’t bottle feed for me- she just fell asleep. She started to nuzzle at the boob more and started to actually feed. I’d been trying to pump regularly back in my room but hadn’t had much success - I’d pump for 20 mins on each side and get only a couple of drops of colostrum. Sunday morning she fed really well and the paediatrician decided that she could come back to Maternity with me as it would be much more practical - her oxygen saturation was right up to 98-100% by that time also.

On the Monday morning, I was told that we could leave, pending a check by the paediatrician. When she was checked everything was fine except she’d lost more weight - 100g so I was told that we’d have to stay another day. Tuesday morning, she had again lost weight - 40g - but we were allowed to leave but she had to be reweighed in 48hrs (there is a service here called the PMI, they work a bit like health visitors in the UK).

Tuesday night and Wednesday, she fed a lot, sometimes with only 30-45 minutes between feeds. On Thursday, the lady from the PMI came and weighed her. She did warn us that her scales tended to weigh a little on the heavy side and that the difference between that weighing and the next would give a better indication of weight gain/loss. Once she was weighed though, it became obvious that even allowing for the scales weighing a little heavy, Eluned had gained at least 100g! I was so relieved! She’s being weighed again on Monday but I think that she’ll be fine. (The every 48 hrs thing is just not possible as the PMI don’t work weekends.)

On Names:
Eluned and Brianne are both Welsh (eh-LIN-ed bree-AN), Eluned is more traditional while Brianne is more modern in its usage as a name. Eluned is the 'just for her' name while Brianne is to honour my Dad, Brian, who died a few years ago. Avril was a last minute addition. French for April, it's also my grandmother's first name (although she's never used it and has been known as Peggy all her life). We'd been expecting a May baby so it hadn't seemed appropriate. The change in circumstances meant that we were able to add it.

Sisters, there were never such devoted sisters...

Meleri and Rhianwen are both absolutely enchanted with their new sister. The hard part is keeping Rhianwen from picking her up to cuddle! She get's regular assisted cuddles but obviously is too young for anything more.

Looking back at Rhianwen's baby photos, she looks almost identical at the same age, here's a photo of Rhainwen as a newborn for comparison: