I still mean to catch up with my Lydia updates!
I haven't forgotten about my blog!
I don't have time to continue with photos and such of my gorgeous girlie tonight, but because it has been SO long (and because it's been on my mind to update, tonight), I wanted to update briefly.
We moved house and relocated at the end of August. We have been here a whole month in two days, and we are starting to properly settle in now. There are still boxes everywhere, and so much still to be done in the house, even though it was in perfect condition when we arrived! I cleaned a toilet in this house for the first time yesterday. Yup, it has been hectic, and there are not enough hours in the day for anything!
Also I have had set-backs, which are frustrating me. I injured my back doing, well, nothing! :/ Lying on my tummy, propped up on my elbows to view my laptop, as that was the only place for the near-useless temporary internet signal, before our proper phone and internet was set up. Apparently my lower back thought that was a really BAD idea. I found a local chiropractor and see him every Saturday at the moment, because I have a TON of stuff going on with my back and neck, as it turns out! The back injury was the worst back pain I have ever had since my back labour with Arthur. Seriously. It kept me awake at night and made me feel queasy and faint and tearful all day. The boys had to take instructions from me about getting breakfast in the mornings, UNTIL lovely Nicola (who I happen to have moved near to!) came and watched ALL my children with two of hers, and I went to have my back seen to.
Then I got mastitis the next week. I had mastitis twice since Lydia turned 8 months old (before this bout), which came as a huge surprise to me because I've never suffered with it before, with the exception of one occasion when Elijah was a week old. I had antibiotics prescribed but ended up clearing the blocked duct myself and then the fluey horrible feelings went away so I didn't take the antibiotics after all. I'm keeping them just in case though! So, mastitis, round 3. This cleared again in 2 or 3 days thanks to Lydia coming down with the cold the boys caught at our first visit to a local church - she breastfed all night long every 15 mins! I was so tired, but at least it helped the mastitis issue! I guess I overcompensated with nursing more from the affected side (like you're supposed to) because a few days later I had mastitis in the other breast. :( It was worse than the first side, and got much more red and swollen and painful, and it took 4 days to clear instead of my "usual" 2-3.
We started homeschooling 2 weeks ago, and I only seem to get 2 days in before I'm unwell and have to stop for a couple of days! Then I'm up and at 'em again for two more days, and BAM, something else hits me. Like Monday evening (after ONE day of school this week) when I felt nauseated like CRAZY all night (couldn't sleep for it) with stomach pain, ugh. I struggled through Tuesday with Neil at work, not really eating, but not feeling any better. Finally Wednesday I felt better, but so weak and exhausted. We have managed to do some school since then, but I'm back to feeling like I did earlier in the year, utterly spent and exhausted, with all my classic symptoms that I'd had back then - AWFUL jaw joint pain (constant and distracting - it hurts to talk and smile so much sometimes that I try not to do much of either. :( ), IBS and gastritis off my previous scale, shaky, heavy muscles, muscle twitches, etc. And major anxiety. I wonder if it's ALL anxiety, as I started to wonder before...? I can't even remember what I did to make it better in the end - it lasted (ebbed and flowed a bit) for MONTHS and months. I have been a bit slack on taking my adrenal support supplements, so I am back on those this week, properly. Otherwise I just don't know what to do. Just plug on, I suppose. I'm trying not to give the symptoms much attention, but it's so hard when they're so... THERE.
Anyway. Alongside all these shenanigans, and the humongous upheaval of moving/relocating, my children continue to grow up!
Arthur is going to be 10 - TEN!!!! Double figures!!!! - in a matter of about 6 weeks. I know I've been blogging here for longer than his existence, but still, it seems kind of poignant that the child I began this blog for, will be a whole decade old soon. It is so very surreal to me! It feels like no time at all, in some ways. I have nearly reached my little personal goal that sits in the back of my mind, of breastfeeding without a break for a decade!! :) It started sitting there when I only had toddler-Arthur and baby-Matthew! It seemed pretty unlikely at the time, just wishful thinking - and look now! :D
Matthew is 8, Nathan is 6 and a half. Benjamin is 5, and has just started school this month! Unbelievable! Samuel is 3 and a half - he will be 4 in December, and tiny 'Lijah is 2 years and 4 months old already. He is just starting to outgrow size 12-18 month clothes and size 4.5 shoes, and talks in full and detailed sentences, with fine motor skills that none of my 2 year olds before him have possessed. Love that tiny little man!
Lydia, meanwhile, is proceeding at a crazy pace towards her first birthday! She is 11 months old, and less than 4 weeks away from her birthday now.
I was realising tonight that in my whole childbearing season, alllll these babies, I have never had an 11 month old (Matthew was 11 months and a few days old though) without being pregnant again, until now.
No, I am not pregnant. It's REALLY strange! I am mostly feeling neutral about it. The weirdest thing to me is my periods. Some of my friends have recently pointed out that I'm not charting, and it's because there is nothing to chart! I had 3 periods, pretty quickly after Lydia was born. I am annoyed with myself because I forgot to chart the last two (I think, two?), and any of the fertile signs like EWCM beforehand, etc. But yeah, normal cycles resumed (as always). Then came this "unwellness" in January or so, and my periods stopped. Now it's nearly October, and I still haven't had a period. Nada. I haven't had any fertile signs. I have had one or two episodes of EWCM, for a day or two at a time, but not for a month or two. I have had low pelvic discomfort and crampiness, but honestly I have almost forgotten what period or ovulation pain feels like, it's been so long! And I have also had low back pain or IBS so I could be confusing things.
Anyway, so I'm not pregnant, and I don't see that happening for a while in any case, because, well, I am not having periods or ovulating. I feel almost.... it's almost a scary feeling, to actually spell it out like that! I don't know why. It's inevitable eventually anyway, and I feel perfectly accepting of that, but I am not sure what to make of this, at this time. Is this it? I know lots of women don't have cycles or ovulation for a year or more after giving birth, but that's not me, is it? That's nowhere near my norm, and why would I suddenly change after 7 babies? Unless it's NOT to do with just random breastfeeding-related stuff. I mean, I DID have three cycles, and then they abruptly stopped, so I think the postnatal breastfeeding hormone stuff doesn't apply to me.
Maybe it's health-related? That is definitely a good possibility, with how stressed I've been and how physically I've been exhibiting it. I do have an anxiety disorder, and it seems to be going FULL BLAST this year, for the first time in my life, I think. I have lost more weight than I normally do, as well. I'm now 8 stone 4lbs, which is the lightest I've been since before Arthur was born. I was lighter before having any children, but I've never gone back down this low between babies. I am not actually all that thrilled about losing so much weight. I would rather be a bit heavier as I don't think it helps me to be too light, energy-wise.
The other thing that occurs to me, is that it's much, much more simple than that. All these years I have been saying that we allow God to choose our family size, and the timing of the babies He chooses to bless us with. He opens and closes my womb as He sees fit, and one day He will definitely close it for good - that's just the next season in life. But maybe right now, God is just being gracious to us? It might seem "out of my norm", and not the usual thing, and like I can't explain it, but actually, God knows. God just KNOWS. It would make sense to me that a gracious God who KNOWS me and KNOWS all the ups and downs of life this year, would close my womb for a time to give us a break from bearing babies.
I am not crazy broody like I expected I would be. I think it's because I am overwhelmed with life right now - the very reason that maybe God has shown me grace by closing my womb. But underneath everything going on, and the exhaustion and anxiety, and how scary it would be to think of coping physically with another pregnancy and newborn season, I really would LOVE to have another baby. I am not sure if I will now. I will be 39 in February. I'm not a young mummy any more. I know I'm still "just" in my 30s, but on the other hand, I know women who have already started menopause by this age, and my own mother (and hers) were perimenopausal between 40 and 42 (and full on menopausal at 42). It doesn't mean *I* will be, I know that too. I will wait to see how GOD writes MY story. But I know it's a possibility, and even if it's not now, I know the years ahead of me are dwindling and few. It makes me feel sad, but not raw, if you know what I mean. Just wistful, and thankful, and ohhh, if only I had time for ONE more! That sort of feeling. :) I know everything has its season - it's God's design, and I trust Him.
So, that's where I am right now. Wondering. Maybe Lydia is my last baby? Neil thinks so. He always says that after each baby though, since Matthew, lol! ;) There IS a sense of change, of moving-on, that has come with moving house. I have birthed 5 babies and brought home the other two, in our previous house, where we lived for 13 years (I was so sad to leave!!!). Now, here we are. In a beautiful house, big enough for us at LAST! :) But have we left behind those years of bearing children? Is this a new season, along with a new location and new home? Maybe not, but the feeling leaves me wondering....
And along with the above feeling, there's another "wondering". The fact that my heart's desire was for a daughter alllllll these years. And when I was six years old my sole desire for my life was to have six children, one for each year of my age. :) So, God has blessed me with six children. After Elijah, I wondered if maybe that would be all my children, because I had had six. I knew that God knew I longed for a daughter, but I was SO blessed with six children, all boys being neither here nor there! So that didn't matter. :) THEN God blessed me with my baby girl! He is wonderful and I love Him! :) But was it a P.S. at the end? I feel greedy enjoying birthing babies so very much, and longing for more, even though I know it's a God-given enjoyment and He *intends* us to love it and long for more of His blessings...
So much pondering, and I've been wanting to use this blog to do it for SO long - months and months, but I just had so much catching up to do here first, and never got around to it. So now I'm making time. Now maybe the babies have stopped coming?
My heart says I would dearly love a sister for Lydia. I would LOVE to have another baby girl. I would love to use the precious girly clothes that I'm reluctantly folding into boxes and putting away as Lydia outgrows them - to use them on one child only feels SO FEW after the wearings-until-they-fall-apart of the clothes for my little boys! ;) It feels like not enough wear! I so want to use them again on another daughter. Silly little things, like how much I would love to say phrases like, "My girls" (see how that makes a glow like warm mahogany shine through my whole being as I think it!), and "my sons and daughters" (HOW blessed?!?!!!), and "Your sisters" (to the boys), etc. I would love all of my boys to be able to say that they have brothers and sisters. I have always wished, as a child, that I was blessed enough to say "my brothers and sisters" like some of the children in books I read. Ultimately, I would love to have 3 daughters so that ALL my children can say they have brothers and sisters, ha! ;) And more daughters = more best friends for mama! :) My mummy is my best friend (aside from Neil), and I would love that kind of bond with my own daughter(s).
On the other hand, I would also love to have another baby boy - that is to say, I would not be disappointed if I had a baby boy instead of a baby girl. I think I would be disappointed that Lydia didn't have a sister (I SO want that for her!), but I wouldn't be disappointed with my precious boy baby! :) If Lydia had been a boy, I think we would have called him Daniel, because although we were thinking of Toby, I wasn't settled with it in the end, and was already preferring Daniel before we found out she was a girl. I liked the flow with the other boys' names, and it's another letter we haven't used yet, which I'm liking! :)
So yes, I would love another baby. I wonder... I wonder... Will it ever happen? I can't know, and I have no power over anything - it's all out of my hands. No periods, no fertility, no knowing if or when it will come back. I just have to wait, and leave it in God's hands, which is the very best place for it to be.
I know I should catch up on Lydia's earlier photos first, but I can't right now, and I can't resist finishing this update with a few photos! :) So, here we all are last month, literally before we drove away from our old (WAY too small!) house. And here are all my babies on the lawn in our new back garden. :) These are all taken with the mobile phone, so not great quality, but never mind! :)
And finally, two photos of my precious baby girly, about a week or so ago. Her hair continues to grow, and these photos were taken because I was so amazed that all of her hair now fits into a pony tail on the back of her head! She is so girly in her voice and some of her mannerisms - I still delight in noticing all these things! :) She is walking a lot now - my earliest walker at 10 months old! She now sets off walking more often than she sets off crawling (just this week), and can take 12 or more steps at a time, though she usually falls after a handful of steps still. She is into opening cupboards, emptying shelves, eating anything she finds on the floor, and climbing. She likes getting onto see-saws and tricycles and trying to make them go, and she practices climbing in and out and in and out and in and out of the house via the French doors when they are open for the boys to play in the garden. I love her soooooooooo!
Back soon, hopefully! Thanks so much for all the messages and love since I last updated! xxxx