10 foodie things that make me happy

I love food.

Love it!

So when I saw this on Saffy's blog, I decided I had to post :)

And I'm doing mine the same as she did - focussing on food.

1. Pasta

The quickest meal in the world. My sister even says I can do anything with pasta. And now even the babies eat pasta. Win-win :)

My favourite go-to comfort food is anything creamy but a good tomato and chilli pasta will also do nicely, especially when it's cold.

2. Tomatoes

Don't tomatoes just make your heart sing? Oh I LOVE tomatoes in ANY food.

3. Garlic

Oh, garlic, my friend in the fight against flu during winter. But also, mmm, garlic, tomatoes, pasta.......

4. Cottage cheese

Is there anything better than wholewheat toast with cottage cheese and a cup of tomato soup? One of my favourite lunches and a firm winter favourite. I also add cottage cheese to my creamy pastas to make the cheese part a bit healthier...

5. Bread

I love any bread. Garlic bread, focaccia, my standard day-to-day bread, wholewheat low GI, italian bread, etc.

Have I told you my bread story?

Once when I was at pre-school (I think I was 4) the teacher said, "brown bread isn't healthy" and when I got home I announced that I no longer eat white bread. They had to go out and buy brown bread for me and because I'm such a stubborn person (wonder where Kendra gets that?), I refused to eat brown bread ever again. When I moved out to go to university at 17, they started eating white bread again.

That kind of nonsense won't be happening in my house :)

6. Avocado

Avocado is one of those things like cottage cheese. Love it on wholewheat toast with lots of pepper and a bit of salt.

I wrote before how the children are not crazy about avo (clearly they're crazy!) but my friend Nat told me to mix it with banana (still haven't done so!).

7. Spare ribs

Love spare ribs, well... sparingly. Not because of the taste but because I need to be in the mood to get my hands dirty. And this goes without saying, I need to be with people I don't mind seeing me with sauce all over my mouth.

8. Apples

I love, love, love apples. But only Granny Smith ones. I have an apple with me 95% of the time (my pastor used to tease me that where you see a bottle of water and an apple, you'd find me - true)

Any dessert with apple is a sure winner - apple crumble, apple pie, apple and cinnamon muffins, apple danishes............

9. Chicken lentil curry

My favourite food ever. Seriously. I love it. My mother makes my favourite one and it's always the one dish I request when we go home or if she comes to visit. And then I stash the leftovers so no-one else can get at it. LOL


10. Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate

Boring it may be, but still my favourite chocolate. I don't know if it's because I grew up on Cadbury's (the factory in SA is in PE)?

I never quite twigged but the same chocolate tastes different around the world and I'm proud to announce that ours is the best!

What I don't eat!

Guess what? I don't eat sushi! Apparently that's weird but it is what it is.

I also don't eat peas or liquorice. Or raw onion. Or green peppers.

What don't you eat that other people find weird?

P.S. This is my post for Steadymom

Gratitude and happiness

On Saturday at the infertility support group (D says it should be called fertility so as to focus on where we want to be - true!), someone asked during the group sharing session how I coped with those early newborn days without going bonkers and needing anti-depressants.

That's my paraphrase of her question.

At the time I said I didn't know but also D was great, etc.

Later I thought of a better answer.

Through everything I am always aware that I am very blessed.

Firstly to live in South Africa where childcare, night nannies and cleaning ladies are so affordable.

I am WELL aware that if we lived in a number of other countries we'd NEVER be able to afford IVF.

And then we probably wouldn't be able to afford a cleaning lady let alone a nanny.

There's a twin mommy who works at my company who can't even afford a cleaning lady let alone a nanny. Her mom looks after her girls. I am amazed she can still function as she's single!

I've written before that I don't know how some of you ladies do it - I honestly don't. I would be insane without my nanny.

And then secondly, my kids are healthy.

Even though they were 8 weeks early, there are no sight, hearing or other problems.

I always think about M's baby and how she has brain problems - I was telling my "friend with the twins" how the brain thing is becoming more apparent now...especially since mine are so alert, inquisitive and sassy... though I have not stopped praying for her.

I am blessed.

I'm not the world's most grateful person - definitely not - but maybe because of that and because I know the link between being grateful and happy, it's important for me to constantly check in and think about all the things I'm grateful for.

When I read this kind of post, I always want to know HOW.

So this is how I do it - I literally give myself a talking-to and remind myself of the good things in my life - a God that cares about the little things in my life, an involved and very hands-on husband, two precious babies, a wonderful, wonderful boss, a job that I'm good at even though I often get antsy pants, money to live comfortably in a country where the majority of people live in poverty and a fantastic climate.

When I really feel blah (not often but I have my days) there's at least something on that list to cheer me up and sometimes God also gives me a BEAUTIFUL grey sky and I'm happy again.

Are you a naturally grateful about your life? What are your tricks to feeling happy when you're having a blah day?

P.S. If you're on anti-depressants, have at it. I have no problems with AD's. This is what works for me.

P.P.S. This is my 30-min post for Steadymom's challenge

Goosebumps

Last Thursday I had a really weird feeling all morning.

A feeling like someone might try and break into our house and do something to V or the kids.

I phoned home twice, both times to explain to V exactly where the panic buttons were (somehow we'd never covered that part before) in the case of any emergency so that the armed response company would pitch.

Fortunately, Nanny V is very patient with me :)

(By the way, this is standard fare for Johannesburg - everyone is security-conscious and we all pay a company a fee every month - ours is currently R385/ $53)

Anyway, the feeling didn't really go, but eventually one has to relinquish control so I prayed and that was it.

Nothing happened and I totally forgot about it.

Then on Sunday I sent a text to my friend, Natalie, asking about baby D and how was she doing otherwise?

Well, I had the biggest shock EVER when I read the return message.

They were fine BUT people had broken into their house on Thursday morning, taken everything - car, TV, jewellery, etc - and locked the maid in the bathroom.

It was HER that I was supposed to pray for.

Natalie and baby D had just gone for a walk when this whole thing went down and I'm so thankful for that because who knows what might have happened. As I said to her, she's looking particularly gorgeous these days :)

I am convinced that she and baby D are safe because God was looking out for them.

When I shared the story of Thursday with her, she said she had goosebumps.

Yes, it's inconvenient and a whole lot of insurance schlep but they are SAFE!

Praise God!

In a not-so-strange twist, when I bled at 26 weeks, I was freaking out, big time. Suddenly the next day I had Total Peace about the babies. Well, Natalie visited me that day while I was on (my version of) bed rest and told me that her cell group had prayed for me the previous evening that I'd have peace. I was SO touched!

I love stuff like this!

P.S. This is my post for Steadymom's challenge

The easiest check-up yet

She is now done. So off she goes.

Last Wednesday D and I took the kids for their 9-month check-up.

We didn't realise how much they'd grown until we got there and the receptionists are all, "they are SO BIG", etc, etc.

I realised that it had been 3 months since the last doctor's visit.

The last time each of us had a baby in our arms because I can't stand the schlep of lugging a pram around for a few minutes - much easier to just grab a baby.

Also, much more fun to hold a warm, sweet-smelling baby. Even though they wriggle.

This time, D held Connor and I let Kendra loose so she crawled up and down the reception area. She was so fascinated with her reflection in the very clean floor tiles (much cleaner than my own kitchen, then again, it's a hospital).

We always do Kendra first (ladies first...) and once she'd been assessed, I let her loose again to crawl around to her heart's content. She loved it and it was great to be able to concentrate on Connor's assessment without a screaming, wriggly girl in my arms.

Apparently Dr S's office is full of interesting things to look at like door stoppers!

I really only had two things on my list - what a difference to my usual pages of notes (and I'm not even joking - aren't I fun?) - the food strike and why is K waking before 12?

We ran into my friend M at church this weekend. She told us that her daughter (who is 6 hours older than my two) had to have an MRI and when they had to sedate her, something weird happened with her lungs so the procedure was cancelled until they figure out what's going on.

I am so blessed to have healthy children.

Anyway, the point of all that? I said to D afterwards that Dr S must be thinking about me, "there are people with REAL issues and you're talking to me about a FOOD STRIKE?" as M also sees Dr S.

The very kind Dr S kept a straight face about the food strike and basically said that they go through all that and just to keep trying things. No great shakes.

About Kendra? "It's not that bad, is it?" about her waking before 12 at night.

And... actually it's not.

I again reminded him that ALL MY FRIENDS' KIDS are sleeping through and he said straight out, "people lie" and to stop concerning myself with all that.

About milestones and the things I'm actually NOT concerned about (strangely), C is a bit behind on his actual age which is not a problem as they were two months' prem.

K is ahead and will definitely be walking before a year.

He did tell us about some exercises to do with Connor to encourage him to start crawling - I think we did them one day and then Connor started the rocking. I don't know if it worked because his personality is such that when he's ready, he just DOES.

Next appointment is at 1 year. 1 YEAR! Goodness, that's scary.

Here are the stats:

Kendra

Weight...............................6.6 kg (still 80% of where she should be based on her birth weight)
Height................................70 cm (50th percentile for correct age!!!)
Head circumference....43.7 cm (also 50th percentile for correct age!!!)

What does that mean?

Kendra is very light but she's right where she should be on everything else. No surprise since the only time she's still is when she's eating or asleep. I wish I had her energy.

Connor

Weight...............................9.3 kg (50th percentile for correct age*)
Height................................74 cm (75th percentile for correct age)
Head circumference....43.7 cm (also 75th percentile for correct age)

*hmmm, getting a little bit tired of people saying, "but he's so big!". He is PERFECT for his actual age!

Connor is tall and has a head full of brains :)

P.S. This is my post for the 30-minute challenge

My success as a mother

Since I wrote that post on redefining my success, I've been thinking a lot around my role as a mother.

What does it mean (to me) to be a successful mother?

I've always, ALWAYS, even in the good old days when I thought the journey to children would be quick and painless (ha!), thought that I'd be a good mother.

I had visions of my four children - yes, four - playing together, eating together, going to school, etc, etc.

Then, as I aged, the vision went to three kids, and then two. And finally, when I accepted my infertility, I really just wanted ONE child, any child.

And now I have two :)

Anyway, despite the diminishing vision of a large family, I don't think I ever let go of the romance of parenthood. You know, similar to the twin romance thing I've spoken about before.

I think it's because I've been really good at everything I've ever set my mind to in life (well, except SPORT! Have no co-ordination with ball sports whatsoever!) and naturally, I thought I'd be a good mother too.

And then the reality of parenthood set in...

1. First the babies came early despite me having a really good pregnancy.
2. Then there was the NICU stay.
3. And then there was Kendra. D reminded me of those days the other day just when I was getting misty-eyed about that newborn stage. My word! I honestly don't know HOW we survived. It was by the grace of God (Kendra's second name is Grace, by the way).
4. Her eternal screaming .... and formula issues.... remember she hardly ate a thing for 8 weeks, from the time she came out of hospital until 1 October (otherwise known as The Day We Put Kendra on Novalac AC).
5. And through it all, the sleep issues. Which, I now find out, are really not that bad (but that's a topic for another post).
   

I really had a hard time lining up my expectations with reality. The hard work of twins has almost been a breeze by comparison.

I think it's because of a number of things:

• people don't tell you the truth (also another post!)
• there's a secrecy if you're battling emotionally (I've found that people have no problems talking about the physical work)
• infertiles are supposed to love everything about parenting (after all, you waited so long and paid such a lot of money to get the babies).

I know I felt TONS better when I started talking about the parts that are terrible about this mothering thing. Yes, I felt guilty in the beginning but I soon realised that most people feel the same things but just don't talk about it.

I honestly thought that I was the only one with baby problems because all over Facebook, real life and the blogosphere, I'd hear/ read things like, "oh motherhood is SO wonderful, I love being a mommy, etc, etc" all of which made me feel worse and worse.

Surely I can't be the worse mother in the world???

At one of our infertility group meetings, one brave girl shared that she was on anti-depressants.... turns out 90% of the people there were in the same boat but too scared to say so.

This secrecy thing is killing us!

So, sleeping through the night.

Since the severe sleep deprivation of the early days, my goal and dream has to have the babies sleeping through the night.

And I realised something the other day - the reason I'm so hung up about sleep is not about the babies - it's about ME.

I can't get them to sleep through so I feel like a bad mother and that means I'm a failure.

Which is just crazy. But it's what I've been thinking, deep down.

Because when I looked at my success pages, I saw nothing about sleep - instead my goal is to have healthy, happy, thriving babies.

They certainly are all that and more.

So when my natural tendency to stress about the sleep starts taking over, these days I'm chanting, "my success as a mother is not dependent on my babies sleeping through the night."

And you know what? I feel FREEDOM!

P.S. No pics as this is my 30-minute post for Steadymom

The "twins"

I ran a ministry at our church for seven years where we helped members to find their unique God-given passion and gifts.

I considered it a real honour and privilege to go through that process with people and have them say things like "so that's why I'm like that; I never understood it before but it all makes sense now".

Loved it! There's very little that puts me on a natural high like helping people find their gifts and passions.

Maybe it stems from there but wherever it comes from, I am passionate about people knowing that they are unique and special just as they are.

That they don't have to be one bit different or try and change one facet of their personality to fit in.

So then I have twins and I find people just lump them together. Which, as you can now understand, drives me a whole lot crazy.

Of course they also compare them - aside from the rather obvious size issues, they're both working on different skills all the time so yes, K crawled first but C had the first tooth. K rolled first but C sleeps better. And so on.

It's nothing personal; it's obviously my issue rather than anyone else's.

It does help that I have boy/ girl twins. I imagine it would be worse with two girls or two boys because then they'd really be compared with one another.

I don't even call them "the twins" - when I phone the doctor for an appointment, I say "it's M, Kendra and Connor's mother". Sometimes I have to explain that they're twins (date of birth issues) and I reluctantly admit it :)

I want them to have their individual identities and know that they're each special to God and to us.

They each have special gifts, talents and very different and unique personalities.

They just happened to be born at the same time.

Now here's something else too - I obviously get this question a lot.

"How are the twins?"

And I honestly don't know what to say so I say..

"The babies are fine" or "Kendra and Connor are growing nicely". Something that differentiates them but also a very general answer.

Because I find most people don't want to know how they're REALLY doing. And as you know by now, I'm very literal.

So if you ask me how I'm doing I'll tell you I'm having the DAY FROM HELL or that I seriously am in love with those grey skies outside :)

And it's the same if I ask someone how they're doing. I really do want to know otherwise I wouldn't ask.

The truth is the babies are growing and developing so quickly every day but who's really interested in the detail, except people going through the same stuff?

Over to you!

What do you say when people ask after you, your husband or your child(ren)? Do you say, "oh, the twins are fine", do you give a detailed answer, or somewhere in between?


P.S. This is my post for Steadymom's 30-minute blog challenge.

P.P.S. My friend, C's twin girls are one year old today. At that time I was 12 weeks pregnant and we then had to start telling the families.

Our new feeding schedule

I've been waiting for the babies to turn 6 months so that I could get more rigid with the schedule.

Some of you are thinking, why 6 months?

I don't have a good answer, only that I'm a wuss and felt sorry for them having Military Mama for their mother.

So we've been going about a week now and here's their new * schedule:

6 am - morning bottle with vitamins (do your babies take vitamins?)

8 am - breakfast - cereal

10 am - bottle - we offer 200 ml (ever since that night when he was starving) and he takes anything from 150 ml

12 pm - lunch - fruit and yoghurt

2 pm - bottle

4 pm - veggies

6 pm - milk

That's the plan anyway and if he's awake, great. If he's sleeping, we don't EVER wake a sleeping baby and wait for him to wake first.

I'm so glad I asked the paed about their sleep times because now I don't stress if they only sleep 3 hours.

For Kendra, it's the exact same story except she goes every 3 hours between feeds and doesn't get lunch yet, only cereal and veggies. And she has a bottle of 140 ml except for her 6pm bottle when I do 175 ml as she seems to like to drink a lot before bed. Of course, she also doesn't take her entire bottle all of the time.

I got the * schedule from Sleep Sense. You'll be happy to know I finally finished Baby Sense and Sleep Sense.

(their old schedule was totally on demand - we'd feed them with milk every 3 hours and put the solids in anywhere we could find a gap)

I can't seem to find any correlation between the amount of milk they drink and the length of time they sleep. Some days they seem to have very little and yet only wake once or twice and other times they have the same amount and wake more. Very confusing so I've stopped worrying about it. I could obsess more and do spreadsheets and stuff but I'm holding myself back on purpose.

Or is this only true for my babies?

Now, for the 6-month pics.





When all these shenanigans happen while I'm trying to get a good 6-month photo, I give up and take one where the subjects actually sit still.

P.S. When I got these stuffed animals I cried because they were bigger than the babies!

P.P.S. This is my post for the 30-minute SteadyMom blog challenge

My other name is Pollyanna

My default setting is optimist.

Over the years, life and people have taken off a bit of the shine so now, while I'm more of a realist, I still veer to the optimist end of the scale.

My friend, Natalie, often calls me Pollyanna because Lord knows, through this "getting to baby" journey, I've had a number of challenges come my way. And the only way I know how to cope is to look for the positive in every situation.

What's that saying, you have to laugh otherwise you'll cry?

Well, I'm in the "focus on the positive" camp.

We had our infertility support group Christmas party on 3 Dec and one of the ladies shared so beautifully.

She said that while these last 5 years for her and her hubby have been terrible in terms of longing for and working towards baby, she actually does appreciate that they had time to travel and do things that only couples can do. (She'll be having her baby in January)

I'm not as eloquent but that was the gist of the message.

I started thinking how true that was.

And I remembered how just a few nights prior to that night, in the wee hours of the morning while feeding Connor, I decided to focus on the positive part of my children not sleeping as well as everyone else's kids.

I get to spend MORE quality time with them.

We get to have MORE kisses and cuddles.

Total, focussed, one-on-one baby time which really is precious.

Of course I said this when it was my turn to share and everybody laughed :)


Then I found a few posts where others were also looking on the bright side...

Saffy will be able to drink wine because she won't be breastfeeding by Christmas

Leah says her little girl, BB, eats like a little bird. A really good way of saying she doesn't feed very well (exactly like Kendra was and now she's eating beautifully so there's hope!). If you click that link you'll see an absolutely GORGEOUS quilt - I'm drooling....


So tell me, what's your default setting? Optimist, realist or pessimist?


P.S. Today a year ago, I was peeing on my second stick. Of course the second pink line didn't reassure me one bit because I knew that it could very well be another chemical pregnancy.

P.P.S. This is my post for Steadymom's 30-minute blog challenge. Post time 20 mins start to finish because no photos!

So, the 4-month check-up

They were 4 months on Sat 7th and we had our check-up the day before. I'm funny like that; I like the dates very close together.

Imagine how happy I'll be at their next appointment in January when I can make their 6-month appointment on the actual day!

It's the small things in life, isn't it? :)

Anyway, my paed has a little girl (16 months) and we were told at the appt she's 17 weeks pregnant with number 2 (also a girl). Incidentally, the babies were 17 weeks that week too so it's a nice way for me to keep track of her pregnancy.

So she works from 10am to 1pm - don't you love that? - and we always take the first appointment of the day. I just don't see the point of waiting with twins.... when one of them screams!

With all due respect to Kendra, she's stopped the excessive screaming. Looks like the paed was right - she grew out of it. She still has a Very Healthy pair of lungs but these days they're used for a real reason like hunger or tiredness.

Moving along.

D comes with me because he LOVES these appointments. It's actually quite funny - days before he starts adding questions to my list in anticipation of the appointment.

It also helps that we really really really love our paed.

Starting with Connor



He weighed 6,2 kg and is 63 cm tall - a very big boy. If we adjust his age, he's on 73rd percentile for weight and 93rd for height. But if we consider him an actual 4-month-old baby, then he's on the 50-something percentiles for height and weight. (I stopped listening to the details when I heard how well he's doing because I was just BEAMING - it's like I'm doing the growing :))

We didn't have lots of questions about Connor - only the usual suspects - yip, eating and sleeping.

She told us (as you all did) that the babies are doing JUST FINE and that it is rare for babies to sleep through at 4 months, especially since these are actually 2 months. She feels it's good that they're sleeping longer stretches (K 6 hours and then 3 - 4 hours and C 5 hours and 4 hours) at night. And to just relax about it as much as you can relax when you just want to sleep.........

Also he will eat when he's hungry - looking at him he's clearly not starving :)

One thing I liked is she said babies can eat from 120 - 150 ml per kilogram of body weight, so not to stress if the boy doesn't have his full 900 ml a day.

He was also constipated so we discussed some solutions but in the deep recesses of my mind, I'd remembered a sugar water trick she mentioned AGES ago and just that morning I gave him 25 ml and lo and behold, when we got back home we were rewarded with a poo! Well done!

But the best news of all - he was pronounced ready for cereal, one tablespoon every night! She warned me that he will drink even less milk.


Now onto Kendra.



Kendra weighed 4,2 kg and is 57 cm tall. If we consider her an actual 4-month-old baby, then she's on the 3rd percentile for weight.

Which we know since she is tiny and light as a feather. I call her my little baby doll.

The paed is not at all concerned about her because she's not vomiting, no diarrhoea, is eating nicely now and is perfect in every other way. I'm small, D's tall and thin and in fact, Kendra is just like him. She said K probably has a really high metabolism because I took The Notebook with us to prove how much she's been eating.

Funny thing is on the Monday before the appt it's like Kendra suddenly realised that we have a Doctor's Appt on Friday so she started chowing down in earnest :) Over 600ml for many days since then and she's even done some 700 ml days (she's supposed to have 630ml).

We also spoke to her because K fell off the couch - oh, didn't I mention that? :) - and we didn't take her in to get checked. We monitored her really close for the next 24 hours but she was exactly the same as she usually is so I didn't feel the need. She cried but then calmed down when I held her, the same as when she wakes up to be fed, etc, etc.

I said that I didn't want to be one of those mothers who is at the doctor's rooms every day for the silliest things. She said that was fine because the couch was low and she fell on blankets, etc.

Right! Time is up as this is my 30-minute post for the blog challenge.

Back to work - part 2

Because of my infertility and the long, LONG road it took to actually get pregnant and stay pregnant and then take home LIVE babies (Dr G always told me “our goal is a live, take-home baby” which is so true, not just getting pregnant), I initially thought I’d want nothing more than to stay at home and gaze into their adorable little faces.

My husband who knows me SOOOOOOOOO well said to me around the 6th or 7th month that he didn’t think my basic personality would change just because we were having babies or because of the infertility.

(My basic personality is a highly-driven, go-getter type one, always achieving, etc.)

Since I was high on the preggy hormones I said I really didn’t know what I wanted to do but "we’ll have to see".

Then my fabulous boss (ML, don’t show him that post!) told me once after a meeting that our Big Boss wanted to know if I was coming back to work after the babies were born.

I told him I had no choice because we need the money. Right.

I thought I should be honest with him about my feelings (since he’s so great and all) so I said that I’d been thinking of going half day once they were here and he said he had no problem with that as I probably would still be as productive!

It’s probably true since I do talk a lot of nonsense during work times. I am that person in the team who is all about the team lunches, going for coffees, checking up on the sick people, asking after the family, etc. But only after the work is done!!!! Am highly task-structured.

I did tell him that I just wasn’t sure how this whole baby thing would work out and would he please just go with the flow because isn’t that how my whole baby journey has been?!

Of course he laughed and said yes.


So the babies came home, reality set in and even now that they’re cute as buttons, I realised that my husband is right – my personality has NOT changed.

I still want to work. I still NEED to work.

I still want to interact with clients.

I work for an insurance company as a Relationship and Operations Manager in a business development team.

This position is absolutely perfect for my ESTJ-ness. Perfect.

About 40 – 50% of the time I deal with people – clients, internal people, team members on different projects, and the rest of the time I faff around. Only joking! I get the deals that we sign up implemented in the company so the things can start making us money.

There are lots of departments I deal with, hundreds of tasks and I’m great at co-ordinating all those details and getting things done by bossing people about. In a nice way, of course, but I don’t stand nonsense, because I’m harder on me by FAR than I am on other people.

I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I will be a better mother to them if I get out of the house on a daily basis so I can miss them and look forward to coming back home.

Does that sound weird?

The half day thing (5 hours a day) would be great as I’d be stimulated, nicely stressed, interacting with people, etc. and still have time to play with babies, cook, and have time with D.

Only thing is because they’re so expensive, we can’t afford the half day salary. I checked and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the amount!!!

So I’m thinking of a 6 hour a day scenario… if my company even does that sort of thing. Otherwise will have to work full day (am not prepared to be stressed about money) and try and split up the day – 6 hours in office, 1,5 – 2 at night when babies are asleep.


Will have to make a meeting with my boss and the big boss to discuss all these things sometime this month.

Lots more to say but again, time is up as this is my 30-minute post for the blog challenge.

Back to work - part 1

I have about six weeks before I go back to work...and already I've been off since 7 July (16 weeks today).

In South Africa, an employee is entitled to at least four consecutive months’ maternity leave BUT the company doesn't have to pay you a cent. However, if you're a South African citizen, you can claim something like 45% of your salary from UIF. This amount is capped at about R12 000 or thereabouts.

I'm fuzzy on the % as this doesn't apply to me.

At my company, we get paid 100% of salary for the four months, as long as we've been working there for 13 months by the time you go off on maternity leave.

You with me so far?

So the twins.

I am quite bolshy so I asked them if I get double maternity leave since I'm having twins (!). Hey, it was worth a try. Of course, they said no.

In the beginning of the pregnancy, I was just talking nonsense as I usually do :) but actually I had a point in there somewhere because I hadn't realised how high-risk the pregnancy was.

I had the two bleeding incidents, the doctor told me to work half days from 28 weeks and of course, my waters broke very suddenly at 32 weeks.

I was reluctant to start working half days and going on early maternity leave because I didn't want the before-babies leave to eat into these precious 4 months, or 87 days as my company calls it on our e-leave system.

Saffy told me that in New Zealand, they get 12 months unpaid. 12 months!!!! And if they need to go off work from 28 weeks due to health reasons, it doesn't cut into the 12-month entitlement. How cool is that?

I wish we had that extra maternity sick leave too – maybe I could have kept them in longer if I’d stopped work properly at 28 weeks? I could feel at 30 weeks that I was DONE and really should have started proper maternity leave then but as I said if you take your leave early, you simply cut short your time with the baby(ies)/. It’s terrible.

Anyway, I have a fabulous boss. Seriously fabulous.

This pic was taken at my work baby shower and that's my boss in the middle, laughing with a mouth full of food :)

Other than my husband and then my friends from the infertility support group, he has been my biggest supporter through this whole crazy journey.

He knew every single thing about the whole IVF process. We have the kind of relationship where I could say to him "don't ask me anything; I'll tell you when I'm ready" and I would. This is when I was a bit teary at my desk....

So when I mentioned to other female colleagues that the doctor said I have to take things even easier, he overheard and immediately said, "well, from tomorrow, you'll be working half days".

Just like that; no fighting.

My plan was to take my 87 days (!) and then add on my 18 days annual leave and also take a few days' unpaid leave up until the end of Dec and go back in January.

But when the twins came early, the plan got messed up (the first of many plans!). I obviously took off the first four hospital days as maternity leave. But then after that I told him I'd work from home while they were in NICU and he was fine with that.

So now I have to technically go back on 18 December because we decided that it's just not worth taking half the month as unpaid and losing thousands of rands seeing as the babies are so expensive.

My boss then said to me, "well come in on the 18th, show your face (n.b.) and sort out your emails and so on, and then work from home the rest of the month"

Is he not a winner boss?

As I said, fabulous!!!


By the way, there's never been any question in my mind of going back to work or not...but I will have to save all that thinking for another post as this is my contribution for the 30-minute blog challenge and 25 minutes are up!

P.S. The babies are 16 weeks today. Now getting very cute :)

Me time, also known as escaping the madness

The first time I went to gym post-pregnancy was when the babies were 7 weeks old.

I remember getting in my car, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt, instead feeling like I finally got to escape the madness.

It was wonderful!

Not so much the exercise but the freedom of being by myself without having babies, bags, bottles, blankets, etc. all attached to me.

I had a thought at the time: I know I should feel guilty because I've waited so long for these two, but I actually don't.

So the me time has been wonderful and since then I've made good use of having a day nanny and I escape the madness every 2 - 3 days.

Back to this morning.

I love, love, LOVE grey, overcast skies.

Like this one...

Is there anything better than driving along in no traffic listening to love songs while gazing at those grey skies?

Seriously - it's like a bit of heaven!

So even though I didn't feel like going to gym after nearly a month of being away (I have some valid, but flimsy, excuses: my knees are buggered and I've had a cold), I knew I had to because...

1. D reminded me that I still have to get in my 4 sessions this month to keep my special membership rate.
2. I'm 0.8 kg away from my pre-pregnancy weight! Amazing because it doesn't look like it. I've decided that it all shifts around so I probably have thinner ankles or something :) because my bum, thighs and belly weigh a lot more than 0.8 (1.76 pounds).
3. I was seriously annoyed and needed stress relief. (a) Night nanny woke us at 5.20 this morning (she actually works til 7am) announcing that she needed to leave to get to her new full-time job. We'd discussed this last week and I told her we need her til 7 otherwise we need to get someone else. (b) When I checked The Notebook, I saw Kendra had had tiny feeds of 25ml and 40 ml during the night because no-one except D and me has the patience to make her finish her 75ml feed. (c) The (newly sterilised) bottles were all standing open on the kitchen counter top. What is the use of sterilising bottles if you leave them open for all the germs?!!!

I did a stretch and tone class and actually, my knees seem to be better. Not totally healed but a million times better than before. So things are looking up.

Of course I felt calm and stress-free afterwards too.

Now here's the thing:

On Sunday my MIL announced that she was coming over. So I said to D that I'd be going shopping (I love walking the shopping centre all alone!) which he agreed would be good for me.

My MIL arrived, I spent about 30 minutes here doing some chit-chat and then I said I'm off to the shops.

What for? she says. All judgemental.

Because I have things to do, I said. (I really only had one thing to do)

I could not believe the tone.... and had to bite my tongue for the good of the family dynamic...but I gave D a look :)

So what is it with people?

Do they think mothers have to be all martyr-ish and stay at home all the time???

(this is my contribution for the 30-minute blog challenge and I made it!!!)

P.S. A year ago today I found out I was pregnant with my chemical pregnancy from IVF1