Everyone needs to have Hope

So, you all know I was due to have a baby.

Well, I did, 

Hope Kathryn Hayllar arrived at 17:12pm on Friday 12th April 2013, weighing a tiny 6lb 2oz (or 2.78kg) and is amazing. 

I will post more about her induced arrival in a couple of days, there is something I need to get off my chest first.

Although my pregnancy started off fairly easy with far less sickness and general 'feeling crapness' than the other 2, as it progressed I felt worse and worse. There was the permanent backache that I was discharged from physio for as the physio could do 'nothing else'. I ended up taking cocodamol & tramadol to try and control it (unsuccessfully) and sleeping for no more than 4 to 5 hours a night as the pain would wake me up.
I also had a chest infection at about 30 weeks which led to me coughing so much I would be sick. During the last few weeks, some days, I was bringing up breakfast, lunch & dinner and was feeling so run down it was unbelievable.
Then the piece de resistance. At my 35 week midwife appointment I had glucose & protein in my urine. There had been some traces of glucose in my urine before but this seemed to send my midwife into a panic. Off the back of this appointment she booked me an extra scan to check the size of the baby, despite the fact that I was measuring fine for my dates & an appointment with a consultant.

The scan was lovely. Its always nice to have an excuse to look at your baby. At 35 weeks the baby was guestimated to weigh 5lb, so based on the common assumption that foetus' put on about 1/2lb a week I thought I would be having a baby smaller than my previous 2 (Isaac was 8lb & Imogen was 8lb 7oz). The consultant appointment was another matter all together.

WARNING THIS MAY NOW BECOME RANTY, I DO NOT APOLOGISE FOR THIS, I NEED TO HAVE A RANT!!!

Before I rant, I would like to say this.

If you miss, or turn up late to an NHS appointment you know that there will be consequences. I think that it is disgusting that in this day and age you can book in for your appointment and not be told that the clinic is running 60 minutes late and when you finally get in to see your consultant you are offered no apology for the clinic running late. Not even a polite 'Sorry you were kept waiting.'

So, I drove to East Surrey Hospital for my consultant appointment, which was at 10.30. I arrived about 10.15. The midwife took my blood pressure & sent me off to produce a urine sample and then I waited. Now with the lower back pain I had been having, sitting for a long period of time was really quite painful, but you can't walk around a waiting room too much as their isn't much space for that kind of thing.

I was finally called in to see the registrar at 11.40. So 70 minutes after my appointment time. She told me to sit down, I quite politely said that I would prefer to stand as after so long sitting in the waiting room my back was really quite sore and I needed to be able to mobilize and stretch. At that point she could have apologised for the wait that I had had. No, not this women. Instead she launched into an attack about how she would be unable to examine me if I refused to sit down. I said that I wasn't refusing to sit down, I was uncomfortable sitting down and would be able to lie on the bed to be examined. She told me to get up there then. She offered me no help to lie down or after she had finished examining me to sit back up again.
She then asked me if I had doing my BM pricks. I had no idea what she was talking about and told her this and also told her that I didn't know why I was at this clinic. At this point I'll admit I was quite upset, I was hormonal (& pregnant) but also genuinely confused as to why I was at this clinic and why she hadn't looked at the blood test results that I had had 3 goes to try and get (a whole other story there) and I ended up crying and asking her why was I here and what was she talking about, again. She kept repeating that I needed to be doing BM pricks (still no explanation) and why wasn't I. 
Then I lost it - I told her (again) I had no idea what she was talking about, that I did not appreciate being kept waiting with no apology, that her attitude towards me was quite appalling and (very rude I know) why was I 'only' seeing a registrar rather than a consultant. At this point she went and got the consultant.
I tried to calm down while she was out of the room, but all the pent up fear that this panic had generated was hard to ignore. I have a history of depression & although I tend not to google health symptoms I am a member of mumsnet and spend too much time reading pregnancy and childbirth threads and had panicked my self that I might have a problem with my fluid levels or something else. 
When the consultant came into the room she was not a people person. She called me a silly girl (!) and told me that if I had seen her at the start of my pregnancy rather than the consultant who had signed me off as low risk I would have been deemed high risk due to all my history. I was furious. The women had not even spoken to me and was now making me feel even worse, like I was putting my unborn baby at risk. I told her that I did not appreciate this kind of panic at such a late stage in my pregnancy and that I still did not know why I was here, I told her that I thought it was unacceptable to talk to me like that, to not apologise for keeping me waiting for so long. I also told her that I would have appreciated someone actually looking at my blood results and telling me what I was doing here. 
finally, I got an explanation. There seemed to be some assumption that the glucose in my urine demonstrated that I had gestational diabetes. However this was not backed up by my blood results, from my Glucose Tolerance Test at 28 weeks or the BM prick test they did next or the scan that I had had on Tuesday (& I now know what a BM prick is). But they wanted me to see the diabetes nurse & consultant again.


So, we had Easter, mine involved 2 false labour scares and an Easter Egg hunt with an Easter Bunny and a Butterfly at Standen, a gorgeous National Trust property near East Grinstead.

So, the diabetes nurse. 

Well, she was 30 minutes late, but apologised as she had been called to deal with an emergency. Not a problem, SHE APOLOGISED. Then she had a look at my results. Shock Horror, she thought that it was all a bit of an over reaction. All my blood results were normal, the glucose in my urine was not a concern as it might be that that is the way that my body processes it. There was no reason for me to see her again and she wished me all the best with my pregnancy.

And then back to the consultant ( I was now almost 38 weeks). She was not happy with the diabetes nurse. I had to relate to her (the consultant) that there was nothing showing in my bloods that concerned the diabetes nurse and she was of the opinion that the glucose in my urine was how my body processed it. Again the consultant took her anger out on me. She said that it was not the nurses remit to be telling me that there was nothing to be concerned about and she should have been getting me to monitor my blood sugar (this is what a BM prick is all about) for a week to see if there were any indicators. At this point again I was unhappy. How was I supposed to know that this was what the consultant had expected? I am not a mind reader, and I told her that and maybe she needed to work on her communication with her colleagues (I really can be quite rude when upset and being blamed for things I have no understanding of or control over). She then told me that due to her not knowing whether I had gestational diabetes or not I would need to be induced at 38 weeks.
That turned out to be Thursday, so I had a date and knew that I would be meeting my baby soon.

This has turned out to be longer than I anticipated so I shall let you know about baby Hope's lengthy arrival in a new post very soon.

6 weeks to go

This post will contain irrational ranting and is probably best not read by anyone thinking of becoming pregnant for the first time.

Now that that is out of the way I can tell you a couple of things. 

Pregnancy and me do not get along. 

This time last year I had taken my last dose of capecitabine and my follow up appointment was about 6 weeks away. That was scary. I knew that they had removed all of my tumour and a large amount of lymph nodes around my bowel. I knew that the tests had confirmed that the cancer hadn't spread. I knew that the 6 months of hell I had been through in the form of chemotherapy were over and were only preventative rather than curative (?). But I was still scared. You can't help it. You're only human and however hard you try to focus on the positive the negative always creeps in.

In the same vein this pregnancy has been like this for me. I have seen the healthy baby twice on scans and, although scans are not infallible, know that there is very little likely to be wrong with this baby. I know that going into hospital to have a baby is very different to being refused an ambulance, having to wait 4 hours for an out of hours doctor who diagnoses appendicitis and calls you an ambulance to take you to hospital in the middle of the night. This doesn't stop me being terrified of the prospect of having to go into hospital again.

Childbirth represents a loss of control. You cannot predict when you are going to go into labour. I have had one child born at 40 weeks and 6 days and one born at 38 weeks and 6 days. This one could turn up at 36 weeks or 42 weeks. You genuinely live in the dark. When you have two other children to consider along with school and pre school runs this creates a dilemma. Add into that mix that your husband is starting a new job at the same time and you can see why there is a loss of control here.

For me at the moment though the main concern is getting through the next six weeks. Ever since I pee'd on a stick and it was positive I have had back ache. I have seen the physiotherapist, although to be frank she was very hands off and gave me a couple of stretches to do, which I could have worked out myself, advised me to sit on hard backed chairs and gave me a couple of massages. When I asked for some advice as to whether I would be better seeing a chiropractor or an osteopath she said she wasn't allowed to recommend either. 

The level of pain I was experiencing was getting so bad that paracetamol didn't cut the mustard any more so I dragged myself back to the GP and got a prescription for co codamol. I have now reached the stage where this is not even effective. 
I have just re read the dosage instructions. 

Take 2 tablets every 4-6 hours. Do not take more than 8 tablets in 24 hours.

I was coping on 2 tablets every 5 hours, but this meant that the pain relief was wearing off before I took more tablets and so had to wait for the next dose to kick in which involves spending at least an hour in pain. I cannot wait 6 hours between doses and need to take them every 4, but this means that I cannot sleep due to the pain. I am fighting a loosing battle. 

This has now culminated in me being awake since about 2am, as I took my last dose of tablets at 10pm. I finally succumbed to take more at 6am thinking foolishly I could try and get through to midday before I took some more. I probably got about 20 minutes more sleep before I was joined in bed by Isaac & Imogen. 

So I am writing off today. I may watch the Australian Grand Prix highlights later as I turned it off to let the children watch cbeebies while I dozed. I will also be making a GP appointment to discuss the pain management situation.

Sunday Crafting

Sorry, things have been quiet on the crafting front here at Knitting Novice HQ recently.

This pregnancy seems to have really taken it out of me. 

Well before Christmas I started a Flower Fairies Cross Stitch. Its a tiny little thing, but I have not had any motivation to pick that up, so it is sitting neglected in a box. This was spurred on by the fact that I had a look at all the Flower Fairies Cross Stitch kits I had (9 or 10 I think) and thinking actually it would be really nice to get them all done so I could sew them into some sort of wall hanging.

You may remember my joy when I learnt to crochet. However that joy has been short lived. All I can seem to manage is flowers and things I can complete in one sitting. Anything that involves counting rows, decreasing or increasing is a massive fail. I have tried and tried and tried. I follow so many bloggers & twitterers that love crochet and rave about how easy and quick it is, and I know this must be true as I have managed to do flowers and Imogens huge Granny Square for her cushion. But to actually make something else - a toy or even a heart seems to be beyond me. I have you tubed, I have ravelry'd, I have followed tutorials for Attic 24 and Mollie Makes and have decided that I will stick to flowers.

So you can see why I have become quite lethargic and mojo less. 

But the last couple of weeks have given me a kick. I was sitting looking at the storage pouffe full of wool and the shelf full of knitting books and realised that at some point in the next 8 - 12 weeks I am going to have a new little life to clothe and care for. I know that when that happens my 'me time' will be severely curtailed and so I need to spend some time using up some of the wool I have. Added to that both of the other 2 have had hand knitted cardigans, hats, blankets and toys from mummy & grandma when they were born. I realised I needed to kick myself (not really obviously) and get knitting. 

I am currently knitting a lovely stripy diamond pattern blanket for bump, have taken 3 books out of the library which have some lovely ideas for using up some of my stash. I have also found the socks I made when we went away at October half term and the hat & mittens I knitted for Imogen after she was born and I was bored stupid in hospital.

And so my knitting mojo has returned. I will stick with crocheting flowers and the occasional ball and granny square and accept that I am far more skilled at intarsia, socks, knitting in the round and generally using 2 pointy sticks than I ever will be at using 1

Are we really responsible for the death of the British High Street?

Today I took delivery of this denim jacket from Next.co.uk.

Nothing wrong with that you might say, it's quite a nice jacket. 

I have to say I love it, it fits really nicely, I can do a button up over my pregnant boobs, and will probably be able to do the rest of the buttons up in a few months once this bump has gone. 

However, this morning I saw this report on the BBC Breakfast News and started to wonder whether there might be other reasons that the British high street is dying.

If you don't know me here are some of my vital statistics:

Height 6' (1.8m)
Inside Leg 35' (longer than standard long length trousers which is normally 33')
Everything else in proportion to being 6' tall.

I have accepted that I will never be able to buy something off the rack and always check out stores to see if they have a tall range. This didn't used to be a problem. New Look, Dorothy Perkins, Top Shop, Next et al all used to stock at least some of their Tall ranges in store. This meant that I could go into a store, browse, try stuff on and then purchase it there and then. Therefore I was contributing to the British High Street. 

Then, gradually, the Tall ranges disappeared. I can't comment on Top Shop as I haven't been able to shop there for a few years. But first Dorothy Perkins made their Tall range online only, shortly afterwards New Look & Next followed suit. 

And it isn't just these retailers a lot of stores do Long or even Extra Long length, but you have to order it online. 

As a tall person I had come to terms with the fact that according to most retailers TALL & PREGNANT were mutually exclusive terms. I got very cross when I was pregnant with Isaac that the only 2 pairs of maternity trousers that I could get to fit me well were both 2nd hand Long Tall Sally from Ebay (at that time Long Tall Sally had stopped doing maternity wear). I did manage to pick up 2 pairs of combat trousers from H&M's Mama range which are still going strong on pregnancy number 3, but whenever I looked at Maternity Clothes they were all designed for people under 5'10" or so. 

I don't know what the answer to this is. Obviously shops cannot stock everything in every store. But, there is a very large New Look & Next in Crawley, neither of which stock a tall range anymore and so I am forced to purchase things online which apparently is contributing to the death of the British High Street

Disappointment - a message to Lance Armstrong

I don't tend to hero worship people or have idols but the news today that Lance Armstrong has lied and doped has really hit me hard. 

I read his book in 2011 when I was about to start chemotherapy and I couldn't put it down. I remember being in tears at bits of the book and being really inspired by what he had been through and went on to do. I have since re read it several times and it has had the same effect and when I have been really down it has really inspired me.

Today when I woke and heard the news that Lance Armstrong had admitted doping and lying I was hurt. 

Yes, I think that is the right word. I was hurt. 

• Hurt that a person who has inspired probably millions of people with his books and his Live Strong Charity, has lied repeatedly, in print about the same thing over and over again.
• Hurt that he constantly denied it again and again, knowing that he had doped.
• Hurt by some of his comments in his interview that it was all about levelling the playing field.

I am also cross with myself for feeling like this. I have never met this man, surely what he chose to do with his personal and professional life is none of my business. But he had made money from selling his books and the ideal that cancer does not have to mean you are substandard.

Well, Lance Armstrong, some news for you. Cancer does not make you substandard. You do not need to dope and lie to prove to people that cancer does not change you.

Cancer does change you. It makes you stronger. It makes you live life to the absolute maximum. It does not mean you need to prove yourself repeatedly. You have done that by suffering through chemotherapy or radiotherapy or transplants or surgery or any of the other treatments that are available and given to millions of people on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

If it was possible I would send my copy of your book back to you and demand a refund. As it is when I can find it, I will probably donate it to charity as it is a complete work of fiction & not a very good one at that.

Happy New Year

Wow, didn't realise it had been so long since I last posted. So Happy New Year and all that that entails. 
But anyway, growing a baby and recruiting for the preschool kind of got in the way. I have spent a lot of time with Google and it is not as all encompassing as it is supposed to be. 

Lets ignore the preschool thing & talk about the baby.

This time last year (January 2012) I had had 5 maybe 6 sessions of chemo and was feeling quite positive about the fact that it was coming to an end. I was also still feeling slightly like crap and dealing with some of the milder side effects.
Now (January 2013) I have 15 weeks (give or take) until I welcome baby Hayllar number 3. 

Since the moment I was diagnosed I have dreamt about this moment (well actually, since I am amazingly rubbish at being pregnant, the moment that the baby arrives). The moment that I can kick Cancers arse and prove that just because I have had cancer doesn't mean that you can't move on with your life and have new experiences. 

I have been doing a lot of comparing this pregnancy with my other two. I have to say that this has been the easiest in terms of sickness & nausea. When I was pregnant with Isaac I vomited A LOT. There were incidences in petrol stations, on Christmas Day and at almost every other opportunity. I threw up almost every day from the moment I got a positive pregnancy test to the morning after I gave birth. 
When I was pregnant with Imogen the vomiting started with the positive pregnancy test and there were first thing in the morning incidences, but there were also after I had dropped Isaac at the childminders by the side of the road incidents, in the loos at work throughout the day incidents. It did kind of tale off after about 30 weeks, but I still felt pretty rubbish. I can remember my last day at work, before I started maternity leave vomiting because a customers perfume was to strong. 
This time (baby number 3) maybe my sickness/nausea threshold is much higher as I have only been sick about 6 or 8 times. I have felt nauseous and am still suffering from the dreaded heartburn, but have actually thrown up very little. I can't tell you why - maybe my body is more receptive to being pregnant. Maybe the combination of antidepressants that I took through my first and second pregnancies contributed to the nausea. Or maybe having suffered the never ending nausea of chemo and oxaliplatin my body has decided there are definitely worse things to vomit over.

So there you go, If you suffer from terrible morning sickness during pregnancy, have cancer, then chemo & suddenly things won't be so bad anymore. 

What else can I do?

So you know a little bit about my volunteering experience as a Guide Leader, Rainbow Leader and all the passion I have for that. 

But that's only a few hours a week, so with only 2 children, and 22 weeks minimum to go until number 3 arrives I need a bit more of a challenge.

In July 2011 when I was taken into hospital & told that I had cancer one of my major worries (which in hindsight was rather silly) was that I wouldn't see Isaac start or graduate from preschool (I hadn't even thought about real school).

The preschool were fantastic in supporting Isaac and I through that horrible time of chemotherapy & numerous appointments so I knew I wanted to give something back.

Our preschool is not local government funded, it is not centrally funded, It is funded by the  generosity of the parents and the tireless efforts of the volunteer committee to raise awareness and money.

So, in April once I knew I was cancer free, I spoke to the staff and offered my services. September & the new term arrived and I was being introduced to all the new parents as the chair of the preschool committee. 

I am in a slightly strange position in that Imogen is not due to attend the preschool until April 2013 (3/4 weeks before bump is due to make an arrival, well timed Ruth!!) so I am not interacting and meeting the parents everyday and am not an ever present force. But I am passionate about the preschool & raising as much money as I can for the benefit not just of my children, but all the children who will go on to attend the preschool in the future. 

Something that has been taking up a lot of my time recently is recruitment. The manager of the preschool has recently decided that the role is not what they want and has asked for the opportunity to step down. As a committee we agreed and so I have been thrown into a whole new world of recruitment.

I do have some experience in this matter. I have dealt with staff & staffing issues before. You can't manage a bank, even a tiny branch like I did, without having to recruit staff & interview them.

But this was a whole new kettle of fish. I have, in the last 6 weeks,

• Written a job advertisement 
• Negotiated with the local paper a reduced rate for placing the advertisement
• Placed an advertisement with the job centre
• Written a candidate specification & job description
• Read, reread & analysed CV's
• Written interview questions
• Sworn at google a lot!!!

Alongside this I have still been 'mummy' on call 24/7, I have still been running my Rainbow unit, and juggling the multitude of hospital, Dr, Midwife and other appointments that go with being pregnant, being in remission from cancer and having 2 children who have both had chicken pox.

Now I am coming to the conclusion of this process, I am about to start the interview process. I could not have got here without the insight of the committee & a certain person with a lot of experience in this matter. So thank you.

Yes, its hard work & it doesn't always fit in around family life. I was hoping to get lots of the work done in the evenings. Unfortunately a lot of the companies that I have had to deal with do not work evenings. This has led to some stress on my part as I tried to negotiate a toddler, school run and numerous phone calls.

Do I think I have taken on too much? No absolutely not. Not only am I giving back to the community, but I am gaining transferable skills that when I come to resume my job hunt & enter the world of work I can say I haven't just stayed at home. Look at what I have done!!