Dreading Christmas

I have to be completely honest - I was dreading Christmas this year.

What I wasn't looking forward to was receiving gifts for myself, my partner or our little one that I would have to find a place in our home for.

But I was feeling really guilty about coming across as ungrateful - gifts show you that someone cares enough about you to spend their time and money on you and I didn't want it to appear I didn't appreciate this because I know how much it hurts to be on the receiving end.

As I've only just started on my journey into living a minimalist life not too many people know that we are doing a reassessment of our belongings and trying to live this way. Knowing this I understood that I couldn't expect people to not get us gifts that I would then have to find a place for. I also know that unless you are trying to follow the same minimalist principles it can be hard to understand how stressful it is trying to find homes for gifts, especially if you don't necessarily love them.

I knew I needed to be grateful for all gifts that we were to receive for Christmas, and for my birthday 5 days later. I am thankful that living so far away from most of our family members means a lot of them just send Christmas cards with cash or gift cards - these are the gifts I really love. I throw away Christmas and Birthday cards that I don't feel an attachment too (thank you Kon Mari!) so I end up with nothing to store until we decide what to spend the cash or gift card on. This post is a great read if you are feeling similar to me about how to handle gifts as a minimalist.

This post about what to buy the minimalist in your life is very useful and I wish I had found it earlier. I wish people didn't dismiss you when you said you truly don't want anything for a gift but I do understand. I also wish it wasn't rude to ask for a gift card instead of a physical gift. I would love to tell people not to get me a gift in the first place but if they insist then to ask me what I may like or need and listen to me.

I got lucky this year and basically got consumable items (lollies, chocolates etc.) and cash. I was even happier to receive these types of gifts because I didn't have to worry about getting rid of a gift if it didn't bring me joy or fit in our home. I hope that my enthusiasm towards these gifts gets through to the gift-giver but I understand if it doesn't.

We did get some things for our little one that didn't excite us too much. I know how this sounds but I hope you will understand - if not I can't change your mind and won't waste my precious time trying to do so. I want our little one's gifts to be fun, educational and if possible, multi-functional and some gifts are just novelty items. I have to choose items very carefully knowing where I can store them. I also feel some toys are over-priced or over-hyped and he may only play with them for a matter of weeks - I then have to store it away until our next bub. To me, this is a waste of money, time and causes me stress.

IMAGE SOURCE

In the future I will be asking for gift cards to my favourite stores or for e-books/movies etc. or experience gifts. 

I want to make memories from things we do as a family and not by attaching memories to material items.

xx Emily

Our Birth Story - Part 3 Recovery and Our First Week

See Part One Here
and Part Two Here

Sunday 24th September - Tuesday 26th September

The day after bubs was born is still a bit blurry for me because I was still so groggy. An obstetrician visited me and I remember her telling the nurses and myself that we needed to figure out why I was so groggy because they didn't want to have me on oxygen for too long. As I was managing my pain relatively well post surgery they weaned me off of the Endone to see if that would help. It was thought that the Endone may have been too much for my body and I was 'so relaxed' my body didn't think it needed to breathe deeply enough to get enough oxygen.

By Monday the oxygen tube was removed and it was concluded they were right about the Endone being a bit too much for my body to handle. I woke up a lot more and actually remember more from Sunday afternoon onward.

We were having a lot of latching issues with breastfeeding so a lactation consultant came to visit me. She told me I'd need to use a nipple shield to feed because my nipples were too flat for bubs to latch properly - I hadn't thought I had flat nipples but when I realised how much needed to be in bubs mouth for a proper feed and latch I agreed with them 100%. I ended up seeing another lactation consultant before we were discharged who changed the size of nipple shield I was given the previous day to allow for more nipple to be drawn in. On discharge day my nipples were bleeding so bad I almost had to beg for 20ml of formula to feed baby before we could get home.

On Monday the Obstetrician advised me that although I only lost about 700ml of blood, an amount they were not concerned about, my iron and transferrin levels had dropped. I opted to receive an iron infusion because I know how long it takes my body to absorb iron from tablets and I wanted to give myself a little bit of a head start.

The day we were discharged became extremely frustrating. We were told discharge time is around 9.30am - 10.30am yet we didn't leave the hospital until 3.30pm. We were getting frustrated mainly because we felt like we were sitting around waiting for enough staff just to discharge us and if they were so busy why wouldn't they want my bed ASAP?! As soon as we got home I made bubs a formula bottle to give my nipples a rest and he gobbled it all up.

Stats

Labour from breaking of waters - 39 hours

Active labour (from time of 4 contractions within 10 mins) - 9.5 hours

Bubs details

Sebastian L C

49cm long

3786g | 8lb 5oz

blue eyes, blonde hair

10 fingers & 10 toes & perfect in every way!

Once we were home I pushed myself just a little too much and had to remind myself that a cesarean section is major abdominal surgery and I really needed to rest and relax and not go food shopping the day we got home from hospital. 

We had a home visit from our local Maternal Child Health Nurse the day after we got home and the two days after that was the nurses from the hospital to remove my stitch and check over Seb. 

In between the two nurse visits we had to make a trip to the emergency department at the Royal Womens Hospital as I had developed a fever around 41C degrees and a few days later I was advised there was an infection in my bladder and from my cervical swab so I was on antibiotics again (also on them in hospital from c-section). 

I had a third lactation consultant appointment as I still felt we were having issues with feeding but while this lovely lady was confident I was making enough milk I felt like I spent every spare minute with either Seb or a pump on my chest while in tears from pain and frustration. We decided to change to formula and from 2 weeks Seb has been fully formula fed. I was warned to express for several days, several times a day to avoid mastitis but after 2 days of not having breast fed (and not expressing because I completely forgot about it) I wasn't even leaking milk anymore. I still feel upset about this decision but I felt it was the only way we could move forward and I'm happy that I really did give it my best shot.

xx Emily