NotSheep

Not such a busy day today, thank goodness!

There was an early start for Scratchy, who went off to register the kids at their September programmes, not entirely successfully. Kindergym (for Jack) was full by the time he got to the front of the queue - which is very annoying, as it’s the only thing Jack would have been doing. I’m hoping someone drops out; I’ll keep nagging the leisure centre receptionists so they think of us if someone does

I caught up on paperwork and paid some bills while Scratchy took the boys - all of them - yes, I was actually in the house on my own - well, unless you count two dogs, two cats and a couple of dozen fish - to a kit-car exhibition in town. Boy-stuff, y’know? Later George and Freddy and I spent some time playing Cheat - a game they discovered on Neopets, though we played with actual real cards today. Freddy says he has the perfect tactic: he never cheats. Funny how he never won - might have been something to do with him saying, “Go ahead, accuse me of cheating, go on…” every time he put down cards Barney mostly read, Jack mostly talked. Later in the afternoon two of the girls on the street came calling for Freddy and George so they went out to play for a while - and they went out again after dinner, when one of the local boys came knocking.

I meant to blog before about two conversations I had while waiting at the leisure centre on Thursday evening. The first was with a woman who had two small children, and who’d had c-sections with both of them. She told me the story of how she ended up with her first c-section - which was, almost certainly, caused by the cascade of intervention which started with induction because she was a week overdue *sigh*. I never really know what to say when I hear stories like this - people are so often convinced that the doctors saved them and their babies when the truth is often that it was what the doctors did that caused the problems in the first place. She was told by someone who was supposedly both a friend and a midwife (though I’d argue she wasn’t much good in either role) that her pelvis wouldn’t be wide enough to give birth, but since she never went into labour (even after repeated attempts at induction), how could anyone know?! Grrr…

The second was with a woman who told me that she found being a parent very difficult. She went back to work when her daughter was four weeks old, and had worked full-time ever since. She said her daughter was very demanding, constantly wanting her attention in the evenings, and that she thought some women were cut out for being mothers and she wasn’t. If she had to do it again, she said, she wouldn’t have children. I find this sad - not that she would choose not to have children, but that she does have a child and clearly struggles - though at least she’s trying, unlike the woman who was making excuses for her own selfishness in the *spit* Daily Mail last week. The worst thing about the conversation, though, was possibly that she was saying all this in front of her ten-year-old daughter

I’d a further conversation about birthy stuff this evening, with a (relatively) local woman who’s just gone past 42 weeks gestation. She’s been getting lots of pressure from the hospital and is feeling at her most vulnerable, as most of us do at the end of pregnancy. I hope she felt our chat on the phone this evening was some help to her anyway.