I'm His girl :-)

I wanted to use this photo of Mine and Elora's hands in this post because it reminds me in such a visual way of how my big God is holding my hand, cause I am his little girl!

Over the last week I have been on such a roller coaster. After I finally opened up in my last post about how much I was struggling so many people reached out to me and I felt incredibly supported. Several people from church brought meals to help make my days easier and I had lots of people checking up on me!

I am doing much better, no thanks to the medical profession. I had 3 trips to the doctor that achieved nothing. The first time he gave me a referral to a psychiatrist and when I asked about a mental health care plan so that it would be able to be bulk billed he said they already bulk bill, but when I called to make an appointment they said they only bulk bill with a health care plan. So I went back to the same medical centre at night when I could leave the kids with Brett, but a different doctor was on and he said I would have to come back and see the other doctor since he was the one I first spoke to, I left so frustrated and upset that I came home and cried and cried. I had made the effort to go and get some help and no-one knew what to do!!! I then went with my mum to her doctor and he wanted to put me on tablets but couldn't cause I was breastfeeding, so he gave me what he thought was a mental health plan to go see someone, but it turned out to be the wrong paperwork and at that point I was ready to just give up!

I decided that if I wasn't going to be able to get any real help to sort through any underlying issues that I would have to at least go on tablets before I totally lost the plot and so I made a heart wrenching decision to stop breastfeeding. The final straw was a night of constant feeds with hardly any sleep, followed by a day of almost non-stop crying (from me not the children) when I rang my mother to come over cause I just wanted to run out the door and get away from here and just leave all the kids behind. She bought formula that day but it was still a couple of feeds later before I could bring myself to use it, then after 2 bottle feeds Elora slept the longest she's ever gone at night and I got 6 hours sleep in a row. I woke up with hope that this was the right decision for my sanity, so I didn't take my motilium tablet that day and started weaning Elora. She wasn't really impressed at first and I had to buy expensive bottles that are like the breast for it to work well. I was still breastfeeding every 3rd feed or so for the first couple of days until the motilium wore off from my system and my supply dropped and after 4 days it was all bottles.

As it turned out this is exactly what I needed to do. After a couple of days without the motilium I started feeling different, it wasn't just that I was getting a little more sleep or that the prospect of bottle feeding made me feel less 'trapped' to be able to do things child free if I needed to, something was different in my head. I wondered if it might be the tablets so I did some research on the hormone prolactin which is what motilium increases to increase milk supply, and I discovered that too much of it can produce mood swings, depression and anxiety. I have had bad reactions to medications in the past that messed with my hormones, such as the pill and also clomid when we were struggling to get pregnant, but I was so desperate to be able to successfully breastfeed for the first time that I never stopped to think about how messing with my hormones would affect me.

So after a few days drug free the world starting to seem less overwhelming to me and the dark cloud in my head wasn't as bad. I then had some prayer ministry which brought up some other things going on inside me and God did some great healing there. That was 4 nights ago and guess what... I haven't cried since, that is a huge achievement!!! I've had busy, stressful, exhausting days that would've made me meltdown before and I've been ok. I feel like I found the sunshine after the rain and it's amazing how awesome and exciting and wonderful the world looks when a dark cloud has been lifted from the view. Now I am able to hold onto the pictures God showed me of him holding me and just resting in Him when I feel overwhelmed, I know I don't have to achieve anything for him to love me, He just loves me because I'm His girl, just like I love my little girls just because they're mine. I knew that in my head before, but there was another constant voice telling me what a failure I was and it was paralysing and now it's gone.

I feel alive on the inside for the first time in months and it's great!! I am so thankful for amazing love and support from family and friends and I am so thankful that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and knows exactly what I need!!!!! :-)

Crash and Burn.....

I used to be a strong, competent person capable of multi tasking, thriving on organising things, involved in ministries and pretty much always on hand to help people in one form or another..... and then I had baby number 3 and it all came crashing down.

I thought I was just tired (I am very much that too), I thought it was normal to feel so overwhelmed with 3 kids and that once I got through the first few weeks it would all get better, but it didn't, in fact it got worse!

I find myself in a very fragile place and I hate it!! I am crying over silly things all the time, I am anxious to the point of physically shaking over simple everyday things like getting dinner cooked or going to the shops to buy milk. I am swinging between not wanting to leave the house at all, to wanting to get out of the house and be anywhere else but here cause the walls feel like a prison. I have moments when I want to leave everyone in the house to talk amongst themselves and just go somewhere alone and be free cause I can't deal with it all anymore, I have moments where both girls are crying and I just wanna sit on the floor and join in crying with them.

I have organised camps, fundraisers, fetes.... but at the moment I am ridiculously stressed trying to organise a simple baby dedication. I am struggling to even be myself any more. People who know me know I love to talk, well I haven't been blogging cause I haven't been able to find any words for the jumble in my head and at our Bible study group the other night Brett spoke more than me, that is saying something cause my hubby is a man of few words!!!

My mum and little sister have both said recently they thought I might have postnatal depression and I ignored their insight because my idea of postnatal depression was a suicidal person who doesn't wanna be with their baby and either cries all day or stares blanky at the walls and I'm not like that , I even have some fairly happy moments most days so I just thought I could "suck it up" and I'd be ok. But after having another anxiety attack over something silly I checked into it on the beyond blue website. I scored a 17 on the scale of questions for postnatal depression, it says see a Dr if you score over 10. So it seems there is a reason for me falling apart at the seams at the moment. Now I need to get some help and learn to be kinder to myself. I keep thinking I'm a failure for not being stronger, that it's because I'm weak and useless that I can't cope, but I know that's not true in my rational moments.

I just wish I could recognise myself cause I don't know who this fragile, emotional person is, she is a far cry from the perfectionistic high achiever I used to be, or maybe she is the result of being that for too long, time will tell I guess......

Quick pics :-)

I have so mnay things going on in my head these days and would love to blog about them but alas time constantly defeats me. I have come to accept that this is a season of very little blogging for me, but that's quite ok as I spend time with my cherubs. Elora is growing so quickly and is now smiling and a lot more alert and Bethany is getting much better with her too. We're enjoying school holidays at the moment, it's nice to have Jaden home for a little while, i've missed him since i'm used to hvaing him home every day and he's been a really big help lately, especially as i've been having some health issues. Anyway hope to write more soon, for now here are some family snaps :-)

lessons expanded

ok so what lessons am I learning????

...... to listen to God's voice in everything. It's a whole new journey in not self discipline but divine discipline. I want to lose weight but struggle with food, so God has encouraged me to listen to Him, "is this good for my body, do I need this", I have been really challenged that our finances belong to God and to follow His direction before spending money, we've always been quite generous with our money and with gifts, but I sense God calling us deeper into the gift of giving and he needs our finances in order if we are going to be able to do that. To stop and seek God before eating and spending may sound simple but for me it's been huge and is very much a journey that I'm not always getting right.

I am also learning to follow God's promptings. There have been a couple of times lately I've had a nagging feeling to call someone or talk to someone about something and have realised later it was God wanting to use me to bless that person and if I don't pay attention then I miss out on a chance to bless someone!! Part of this lesson is boldness, to not be afraid what people think or of looking foolish, but to be obedient. One such time was stepping out and asking someone that I kept running into for their phone number to keep in touch, I wasn't sure if that would come across as way too forward when I barely knew this person, but after too many 'coincidence' meetings I knew it was a God thing and am looking forward to the friendship developing (yes she gave me her number and we're getting to know each other!).

I'm also learning to embrace life as a mum and to really rely on God during each moment. To be hoonest I am struggling with the juggling act of 3 kids. I feel guilty that none of them get the time from me I'd like to give them because it feels like I just revolve between them all and also the house stuff. I consider it a major achievement at the moment if the clothes get washed and dinner is cooked and for me that takes a lot of 'learning to live in grace' as I have come from the position in the past of being a very big perfectionist and at the moment I am flat out just getting the basics done. I am tired and feeling quite overwhelmed that I rarely get 5 mins to myself and I find myself resenting my husband sometimes because he gets to leave the house without kids and get scheduled meal breaks and I find it really bugs me when I'm feeding Elora during the night while he is snoring beside me, it feels so unfair. And yet this is my calling as a mum and I'm so enjoying being able to breastfeed, even if it means less freedom. God is teaching me to be less selfish and I never realised how painful self sacrifce can be, I wanna learn to be gracious and not try and make a martyr out of myself!!

So that's a snapshot of my current life lessons. I feel this is a real season of letting go of myself and learning to fully immerse in God!!! It has timed in well with starting at a new church as well (we tried a large one for a while but are now at a smaller local version of that big church and we're really enjoying it) where I am also enjoying some very challenging teaching lately and learning to be bold to meet new people. Learning to immerse in God without lots of 'quiet time' is a challenge all in itself, I'm playing worship music, praying while doing daily things, and just being in God's presence in the midst of busyness, plus snatching the quieter times when I can, I am drawing closer to God in a whole new way of needing Him to get through each day!!!

Lessons....

I am learning a lot at the moment!! It seems God has a lot to teach me in this season, about obedience, about stepping out in faith, about self sacrifice. I need to be faithful in the 'small' things He asks of me and learning to do this is a journey..... will blog more when I have time to explain more of what God's been showing me :-)

Life in our house...

Since I started blogging I've never gone this long without posting, but I am finding myself very busy!!! Looking after 2 bubbas keeps my days (and nights) very full, not to mention dealing with the pre-teen attitude of mr almost 11. So how are things going?

Jaden seems to be going well back at school, he is enjoying it and I am grateful for the fact that I don't have to find the energy to do schoolwork with him during the day. He recently did the naplan tests and I am interested to see how he went as I am concerned that his maths has gone downhill since he did the year 3 tests. I am excited too that he actually wrote something in the writing test which is an improvement on last time when he didn't write a single word! Jaden is also very excited to be going on a camp to Canberra next week for 2 nights (he is most looking forward to stopping at Mcdonalds and doing laser zone, I think he may have missed the actual point of the trip LOL).

Elora is going really well. Her weight dropped too much during the first few days as I was struggling with very little milk and being early she was struggling with sucking which also didn't help the milk supply. I am very pleased though that I now have plenty of milk (thanks to some medication which would've been very helpful with my milk supply issues the last 2 times but no-one ever told me about it, my hormones aren't quite right for lactating) and she is growing and gaining weight!! She is still yellow and the peadiatrician sent her for a blood test today but apart from that she is going well and so far is the most settled of the bubbas I've had.

Bethany is struggling a bit. She tries to climb on my lap while I'm feeding Elora and is a lot whingier than is normal for her. I am doing my best to spend as much time as I can with her but it's hard. The first couple of weeks were especially hard. I missed her so much when I was in hospital and she was miserable cause she didn't understand where mummy went. Then when I got home I couldn't pick her up or do very much to start with, my wound got infected and was quite painful but of course a 1 year old doesn't understand any of that and I was very emotional wanting things to get back to normal with my big girl. Things are going a bit better now, although teaching her to be gentle with Elora is proving interesting, the poor bubba has been poked and whacked a few times.

My hubby had 3 weeks off and he has been such an amazing help and support, parenting and running the house has really turned into a team effort. I've also been really blessed with a freezer full of meals from various people which have been a Godsend. We also bought a slow cooker on the weekend to help make things a bit smoother in the afternoons once the frozen meals run out!

So how am I doing? I am tired but actually doing really well. I am coping far better than I expected and am actually doing much better emotionally than I was after Bethany was born. I am busy but very content and I am so excited that I am sucessfully breastfeeding for the first time. I have even managed to go to the shops on my own once for about 2 hours with the girls and I thought it would be weeks before I would be brave enough to do that. So that's life in our house right now :-)

Surprise!!!

This is my little surprise package!! Elora Rachel, born 3.20am on Monday 26th April, 4 weeks early!! She gave us quite a surprise. My other 2 children were both late so I assumed the same this time round, wont be assuming anything anymore, I was caught very unprepared!!

My waters broke in bed late Sunday night. I thought I was wetting myself and got up but it just kept coming and it took a little while to sink in that it was actually my waters breaking cause it was 4 weeks early! We had to get Brett's parents to come and mind the kids because my mother, who we had organised for that job, was up in Lithgow and we couldn't get hold of her.

We got to the hospital and while they were doing a heart trace on the baby the midwife was feeling the baby's position and looking worried. She came back with a doctor and an ultrasound machine and told us the baby was sideways and I would have to have a cesarian. At first I was quite upset, but I just wanted my bubba to be safe, and skipping labour sounded like a good plan LOL. I had an epidural so we saw Elora when she came out and then Brett went with her while they finished operating on me.

She was taken to the neonatal intensive care because of rapid breathing and low blood sugar, but was a very healthy weight of 7 pound 10 ( more than Bethy who was a week late!) and was otherwise great!! She was down there for a couple of days which was really hard, especially in trying to establish breastfeeding, but she finally got the all clear and after a night on the ward with me we were able to come home yesterday.

The kids both adore her, although Bethy has not quite got the hang of what gentle means yet. I am quite sore which is making it hard with Bethy, but thankfully Brett is home for another couple of weeks to help with my big bubba cause I can't pick her up.

Elora is just so beautiful, you forget how tiny newborns are, I could snuggle with her all day. She looks a lot like Brett and so far is very chiiled out like him too. Will post more later, you can just admire my gorgeous bubba for now :-)