the crest of a wave

I've had a few feelings of euphoria over the last two weeks, and when people ask me if I've had a good day I realise that I really have. Suddenly the pieces of my new life seem to be falling into place and I feel like I can balance again. Apparently it is quite common for this to happen when your baby is around 3 months, but I don't mind being common in this particular case.

For one thing, the feeding seems to have finally got easier, as everybody told me it would when baby blue was 3 weeks old (I didn't really believe them). Soreness is now rare, and I've managed to feed in various situations now - sitting cross legged on the floor, sitting in a folding chair, in a cafe, whereas before, I had to be either lying down or propped up by multiple pillows. This makes such a huge difference to my day, as I no longer dread each feed, I can enjoy the time spent with baby blue, and I don't dread going out of the house for longer than two hours.

Also making a huge difference to my state of mind is the improvement in baby blue's sleeping patterns. We've started over the last 2 weeks to try gently getting him into a routine, and it seems to be working relatively well. He now goes to bed at 7, meaning the evenings are free for grown up time, although he tends to wake and cry once or twice. I feed him before I go to bed, again at around half ten, and he now goes right through to 5 or 6am before needing another feed!! This is another thing that seemed totally impossible 6 weeks ago. It's amazing how much rosier the world looks when your sleep comes in 6-7 hour chunks rather than 2 hour ones!

Then there are the changes in baby blue which are happening every day. It's now possible to play with him, as he will grab a rattle, smile and laugh when I pull faces or sing songs, and have a conversation with me consisting solely of vowel sounds. Somehow the fact that I'm encouraging his development makes my day feel so much more productive than when I got to teatime and had only managed to keep him alive, fed and clean and maybe checked my emails and put a load of washing on. He can also entertain himself much better, meaning I might actually have time to hang the washing out as well as putting it in the machine!

I have discovered that getting out somewhere every day, even if it's just a walk to the Co-op, keeps me sane, and I am blessed with knowing several other new mums, so I'm rarely short of someone to have coffee or lunch with. I've been going to a breastfeeding support group, which has really helped me, and I've also started postnatal Pilates and baby massage classes, which are good fun, and have helped me make a few new friends. Today I even went to a special baby-friendly showing at the Hyde Park Cinema in Leeds. It was a little difficult to hear the movie at times! The moment when a gunshot went off in the film also caused a little bit of commotion among the babies present. But it was really great to be at the cinema again.

I'm sure within the next few weeks there will be more testing times, when baby blue starts teething, or starts waking again as he gets more hungry, when he starts rolling over and I have to start watching him like a hawk... But it's good to know that actually, I love this time, I love being a full time mum just now, and I've come through so many of the difficult things. I know if there are more difficult times, I'll be able to come through them as well, with help from God, mr me and my friends and family.

doctor/woman/mother

I've taken a long time to get around to this post, and I'm still not quite sure what to say. Everything sounds like such a cliche. On 29th November 2008 I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy after 53 hours of contractions and 17 hours of established labour. I didn't realise just how exhausting, painful and draining it would be. Classically though, as soon as I heard his cry and knew he was OK, everything else was forgotten in the wonder of meeting our surprisingly clean, deliciously warm baby boy with his huge dark blue eyes. I think I shall here call him baby blue, as that's one of my many nicknames for him. He has changed our lives forever, of course, as babies do. We are both head over heels in love with him and can spend hours just watching his face. He can get me up four times in the night (as he did last night), leaving me totally exhausted and grumpy in the morning, but one big smile as I get him dressed melts my heart completely.

Some things have been (and still are) so hard, including the slow torture of sleep deprivation, both me and baby blue getting the hang of breastfeeding, getting used to the changes in my body, the sheer insane wash of emotions that swept over me in the first couple of weeks... I found the huge shift in my identity and thought processes a bit of a shock, as I got accustomed to being a life support machine and being tied so closely to this tiny dependent demanding little person. At the moment being a doctor seems so far away, and even remembering to be a woman requires a little focus and time to myself. Mostly I'm just a new mum - worrying about doing everything just right, fighting to get myself enough rest and down time, overcome by this new love, and convinced that this little boy is the most perfect in the world. I am desperate to just have a bit more predictability to my life, and to be able to leave him for a few hours, and simultaneously aware that I should savour every second of this time, which will never come again. So forgive me if I don't post very often, but I'll try to keep you a little bit updated. But mostly I'll be wrapped up in my son for a while...

After two years of work...

The garden when we bought the house in 2006...


And today, after much work by myself and help from friends and family. I think it's not too bad for a girl who never lived in a house with a garden before!

When I was 26...

I was going to try to do this each year for my birthday. Oh well, I missed that slightly, but may as well fill you in on all the things I did for the first time last year...

...rode my first horse.

...resuscitated a newborn baby for the first time

...took my first trip to America.

...had my first ultrasound scan

...attended a 90th birthday party for the first time.

...had my first day at the races.

...took my first membership exams.

...danced with a soldier for the first time.

...bought my first proper makeup that cost more than £5 per item. In Bloomingdales!

...had my first midwife appointment.

...sanded a floor.

...had my first bout of sciatica.

...took my first yellow cab.

...bought my first tube of eye cream.

...went off chocolate!! (briefly)

...conceived our first child!

More New York pictures

falling in love with a skyline

So I think I've recovered enough from jet-lag, post-holiday stupor and complete inability to choose between which photos to post, to tell you a little bit about my trip to New York. I fell for Manhattan completely. I have the symptoms I used to get with a new infatuation with somebody - everything reminds me of them, a song, a movie, an image. Except that being New York, everything actually does remind me of it, because it is everywhere in movies, songs and imagery. The thing I loved most about it was the way you could be just walking along the street, watching your footing or looking in a shop window, when suddenly you'd look up and see this breathtaking skyline. From every angle and in every light it would look different, but it was beautiful in a way I hadn't really thought a city could be.


I travelled with a friend, C, who I've known the last 5 years at church. She shares with me a slightly irreverent sense of humour (important to have in church friends), and an ability to get excited about simple things. Like pancakes for breakfast, yellow cabs, rude joggers, cool pyjamas, seeing a spot from a film, every time we saw the Empire State Building, getting our makeup done at Bloomingdales, posing for stupid photos, getting dressed up... The list could go on. We were over-excited about everything, and kept making a new plan to fit everything into our days.

We shopped til we almost literally dropped in Macy's, Bloomies, Tiffanys, Victorias Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, and cool little vintage and boutique-y type shops. We went out to see Les Miserables on Broadway, to 55 Bar in the Village, where we listened to live jazz and pretended we were cool, we saw a bit of the Halloween Parade, and a bit of the marathon going past. We saw a lot of the obvious sights - the Empire State, the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station, the Rockefeller Centre, the Brooklyn Bridge and a few of the less obvious ones, like the original Winnie-the-Pooh, the reading room at the New York Public Library, the Strawberry Fields garden for John Lennon, and the Guggenheim.

Some of the most memorable moments were just from seeing people living their normal lives, like stumbling across a kid's ice hockey game, overhearing couples arguing or walkers swearing at joggers in an uninhibited New York way, chatting to taxi drivers, watching a wheelchair athlete repair his bent wheel in the middle of the marathon or watching a family take a photo shoot of their kid on the Alice in Wonderland statue in the park.







I can't wait to go back and see the things we didn't manage to do. I'd like to go with mr me and see things in a different way. It was lovely to have a girly holiday, and shop without feeling guilty and annoying, and watch Breakfast at Tiffany's and When Harry met Sally as research, and get unreasonably excited about everything. But it's always wonderful to come home.

Pale and Interesting

As someone born with naturally fair and easily burnt skin, I have always tried to be careful not to burn (except for a brief and foolish teenage flirtation with sunbathing). When my dad, who is originally from Ireland, and has the same skin type as me, was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of skin cancer (thankfully at an early stage), three and a half years ago, I became even more careful, and tried to stay out of the sun and protect myself properly.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last week. Her father-in-law has recently been diagnosed with the same type of cancer, melanoma, but unfortunately his had already spread. Her mother in law told her to, "promise me you'll celebrate your fair skin, and give up on trying to have a tan." These words struck me, and made me think of the strange change in Western attitudes towards skin shade that happened some time during the last century. I have achieved a state of being comfortable in my own skin, at least the colour of it, in recent years, but I remember being bitterly humiliated as a teenager, when people would call me "milk-bottle legs".

According to Wikipedia, the trend for tanning in the 20th century was originally started by Coco Chanel in the South of France in the 1920s, when she accidentally tanned. Prior to this, having fair, pale skin was a sign of beauty and status, because it meant you were rich enough that you didn't have to do manual labour. After this, having a tan became a sign of beauty and status, because it meant you were rich enough to afford expensive holidays abroad. Interestingly, melanoma is the only cancer where rates are higher in social class I than social class V. In many cultures today, particularly in India, fair is still considered beautiful and skin lightening creams sell like fake tan does in England.

Anyway, I thought for the sake of my friend, and anyone else still struggling to come to terms with pale skin, I would create a small celebration of beautiful pale complexions. And these women are not just beautiful, they are interesting. They have something to say for themselves.

"I prefer a man who leaves and gives expensive jewels." Satine, Moulin Rouge














"Perhaps I didn't always love him as well as I do now. But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable." Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice






"I will cleave to you Dunadan, and turn from the twilight. But there lies the land of my people and the long home of my kin." Arwen, Lord of the Rings






Don't tan! Wear sunscreen!

my day out

I am currently enjoying (or when not ranting about the Inland Revenue, I'm enjoying) two weeks off, which are built into my rota after nights. Last week I went straight down to London following my night shift, to see a friend who needed some moral support the night before a professional exam, for various reasons. Also stayed with some other friends, and then spend a couple of days with my Grandpa in Hertfordshire. In the midst of all this visiting, I ended up with a daytime on my own in the capital, with no-one to see and nothing to do except enjoy myself. I enjoyed wandering around anonymously - I have a special weakness for that feeling of freedom that comes when nobody in the world knows exactly where you are and what you are doing. I had that feeling quite a lot during my year in halls, but not really much before or since. Of course I wouldn't like it if it happened all the time...

I was staying near the British Museum, so went to take a look at all the art and statues we have pinched from around the world. I was one day too early for the Terracota Army, but I've never seen the rest of the museum, so I spent a happy morning looking at mummies, sarcophagi, Greek gods and venetian clocks. I ate lunch at an outside table in a cafe in Russell Square Gardens, enjoying the sunlight scattered through the trees, and trying to look glamourous and sophisticated. Then I spent the afternoon at Camden Market being tempted by hand-painted masquerade type masks, Pashminas from Kashmir and Japanese T-shirts. In the end I resisted and just bought a vintage T shirt for mr me, and a lovely cup of chai rooibos tea for me. It was a good day. Sometimes it's good to be a tourist; sometimes it's good to be alone.

Why I love living here

a rest in the wild country

Mr me and I have returned today from a week in Northumberland with his family - ie his mum and dad, sister and sister's boyfriend. Fortunately I get on very well with the Me's (as they could be called), so except for a nasty cold at the beginning of the week, when I wasn't much company, we had a fun time together. Generally I am very relaxed with them and there's not much I feel I can't say in front of them.

Feel relaxed and chilled out now, but tired, as it seems to have been a surprisingly active week. There were leisure facilities on site, so we swam, trampolined and played tennis, as well as walking, playing beach cricket and horse-riding. All a bit drastic for me! But the peace of the setting and the general desertedness of the county have made me relaxed anyway.


We pottered around castles, wandered among rhodedendrons, marvelled at the steam rising like mist from the nearly empty beach, drank Lindesfarne mead and ate fish and chips by the sea. The horse-riding was very exciting too, as I've never done that before.



One of the best pleasures for me was the bookshop mr me took me to this morning before we came back. It is called Barter Books, it's in Alnwick and it occupies the whole of a redundant Victorian railway station. Apparently it's one of the largest second-hand bookshops in Europe. It has a minature train that travels around the top of the bookcases. It has loads of beautiful old books, folios and early editions. It has tea, coffee and chocolate for 25p a cup and lots of places to sit and enjoy it. I could have spent a week there quite happily. I bought - two tiny old volumes - 2 parts of translations of the story of the Holy Grail from the Morte d'Arthur ( I recently re-read "The Once and Future King", so I'm interested), Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer, Life isn't all ha ha hee hee by Meera Syal, A Passage to India by E M Forster and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. All for less than £20! I have that rich luxurious feeling I always have when I have several new books lined up.

Easter

Feel a bit short of ideas and inspiration at the moment so can't quite think what to write. Thought would jot down a few random thoughts that occurred to me over Easter. Easter can be a funny holiday sometimes because I feel it's the most important celebration in the Christian calendar, but sometimes it passes by and I hardly seem to notice it, especially if I'm working. Because our church doesn't own its own building and there are a lot of young people in the congregation who tend to go home for the Easter break, there are not normally any extra services at our church for Good Friday or anything. Due to much messing around of my rota at work by HR department, I was at some stages during the week supposed to be working on the Saturday, so we decided to go back to Liverpool (where both our parents live) for the Sunday and Monday, and stuck to the decision even when I wasn't working at the weekend any more.

...On Good Friday I watched a programme on BBC called "Who do you say I am?" which was a meditation and a telling of the Passion story based around works of modern art using the image of the cross by Christian and non-Christian artists. I thought it was a refreshingly good piece of religious programming - not so preachy that it was only watchable by Christians, not deliberately critical for the sake of having a new and controversial approach, but open and asking questions. I found parts of it very moving...

...Decided to go to the local Anglican church for the 2pm service on Good Friday as well with a friend who lives locally and it was refreshing to be in a different church tradition than my own for a while - more meditative and symbolic than what I'm used to perhaps. Not many people there really, but the vicar was very sweet and made a special effort to speak to us...

...Also enjoyed Easter Sunday morning at the church my parents-in-law attend - they had us all write down what Easter Sunday meant to us on little pieces of paper, and stick it to the wall at the front, after listening to a passage being read from Matthew 28:1-10 The thing that struck me most at the time was the phrase "Suddenly Jesus met them." Became newly aware that the Resurrection meant that not only could they meet Jesus again, but that anyone can meet Him, ever since then, if they want to. It is why I can still know Him today. I know this is pretty obvious, but it just reminded me in a new way, OK?...

...I fasted alcohol for Lent, because although I hardly ever drink more than 2 glasses of wine at a sitting, I feel I sometimes use it if I'm particularly stressed and wanting to let go of any worries from the day's events. I don't think that's very healthy. I can see why lots of doctors become alcoholics. So I think it was a success giving it up. At the beginning I thought I would be desperate to have some on Easter Sunday, but as it turns out, I wasn't all that fussed. My first glass of wine did turn my head quite dizzy though...

Hearing the voice of God

Here is a quote from "Psyciatric Interviewing and Assessment" (Rob Poole and Robert Higgo, Cambridge 2006) about pseudohallucinations.

"there is a heterogenous group of experiences that is very similar to hallucinations. They are almost invariably associated with underlying severe emotional distress. The only major exception is a small group of individuals in the general population, neither evidently mentally disordered nor distressed, who have a strong religious faith and who hear the voice of God in their everyday lives. We recognise that they may be right about the origin of the experience, but we prefer to believe that it is due to some other, as yet poorly understood psychological process."

I first ran up against this issue in medical school - the issue that may cause other doctors to think I have an "as yet poorly understood psychological process," and normal people to think I am a bit loopy - the fact that I believe that I hear God speak to me. A hallucination is defined as a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus. However, beliefs or perceptions which can be accounted for by the patient's religious or cultural background are not considered true delusions or hallucinations. Also, for it to be a true hallucination, you must be convinced that what you can see or hear is real, and perceptible to anyone close by. We had some examples to work through in small groups to force home these points, and had to say whether they represent hallucinations or not, eg "you are walking home alone late at night, and you are feeling anxious about being followed. you see a shadow in the trees and become convinced it is a person" - that kind of thing. (not a true hallucination by the way) One of the examples was "you have a friend who is devoutly religious. He tells you that he talks to God and God talks back to him." The group started to debate it, but I said "no - that's normal." They knew I was a Christian, so looked at me weirdly and left it at that. A Muslim girl in the group said that this would not be normal for a Muslim, as God spoke only to the prophet, not to other people. (Not sure whether this is the mainstream Muslim view or not, by the way.) Came away from this session feeling slightly uneasy, as I normally do when people think I'm mad.

Now I have never heard God speak with an audible voice that I can hear with my ears. I know of people who have, but for me it's a lot harder to explain than that. It kind of comes like the internal monologue that most of us have all the time. I think I may have this inner voice more than most, because whenever mr me asks me what I am thinking about I can tell him the 2 worries, one random wondering thought and the plan for the curtains in the back bedroom that were chasing each other around my head. When I ask him what he was thinking about, he normally says "dunno - football I think." Anyway...when God speaks, the internal monologue suddenly seems to turn into a conversation - i.e. an answer comes back at you different and faster than what you would have thought for yourself. That is my experience sometimes. I can normally tell it's God by what He says - it is in line with the Bible and what I know about His character, it's frequently something uncomfortable or out of left field, but when I try to follow it or pray into it or whatever action is required, I get a peace about it, which is again difficult to explain.

It's not always like that, and particularly if I am praying for guidance about a specific thing and waiting for God to talk to me like that I can become very confused between my own thoughts and His voice. Sometimes God speaks through reading the Bible - I can be reading and suddenly something jumps out of the page at me and applys itself to my life - I think a lot of Christians have that experience. Sometimes God speaks more through feelings and emotions - normally to let me feel His love or a sense of peace at leaving things in His hands. This happens mostly when I'm worshipping and open to Him. Sometimes God speaks through circumstances in my life, and I know some of the times when I've been closest to Him have been when I'm going through a really hard time and having to depend on Him completely. I'm not one of these Christians who prays about what colour socks to put on in the morning etc - I believe God gave me a brain to decide that kind of thing with, and sometimes I think even the bigger decisions can be taken with some common sense, a background of what kind of things God wants for you and a willingness to hear Him if you're going the wrong way. I think sometimes the decisions which are most significant to us (eg which job should I take?) can be different to the ones which are significant to God (eg He might want us to forgive somebody because otherwise we will do something which hurts them or us and will somehow affect the rest of our lives.)

So anyway - this is my confession. I hear God talking to me. Do you think I'm mentally unwell, or subject to a poorly understood psychological process? (feel free to say so) If you're a Christian, do you hear God's voice and if so how?



"The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." John 10:3-4

Middle aged Saturday

I am now officially old. Here is how I have spent my Saturday. I got up when mr me left to play football, spent the morning going food shopping, taking my bottles to the recycling bin and doing the washing. Then I had lunch while reading the paper. I spent the afternoon setting up my new compost bin and filling it with alternate layers of rotting apples from the bottom of the garden (where they fell from the tree in autumn) and paper from the shredder and then generally tidying up the garden. Then I got in and sat down with a cup of tea and a crossword, then called my parents, then got the washing in and had a conversation over the garden fence with my next-door neighbour about the weather, his chest and the garden. I have no plans for Saturday night except that maybe the bathroom needs cleaning!

I am maybe not quite as sad as this sounds. I did have plans last night (meal out with mr me for belated Valentine's day) and do have plans tomorrow night (friend's birthday), but I do feel a bit old and boring nowadays because owing your own house just seems to swallow your weekends, whether it's doing the garden, DIY or just trying to vaguely get on top of the housework. People keep telling me I should get a cleaner, and maybe they are right, but it just seems so appallingly middle class. However, the real proof that I am getting old is that I quite enjoyed the day- just pottering round on my own getting things sorted. I do like being out in the garden. I should just stop fighting it and give in to being middle aged.

(My garden, but taken in the autumn before I'd done much to it.)

rhinovirus

Well, I had a horrible cold over the weekend. Was feeling quite proud of myself for making it though the winter so far without one, especially considering I have been working in general practice, with a minimum of 3 people per day trying to persuade me that they need antibiotics for their cold. Came down with it suddenly and badly though, spending the first half of the weekend in agony with sinus pain and unable to sleep, and the second half sounding like Nina Simone, but not in a good way. Recovered rapidly just in time for work Monday - doh!

Felt guilty about being ill because this was the weekend we hired a floor sander to create a lovely wooden floor in our back bedroom, and meant that mr me (as he shall henceforth be known) ended up doing all the work. He thought the machine was too heavy for me anyway really, so I sat around helplessly mopping my nose and stuffing decongestants down my throat while he manfully pushed power tools around in his safety googles and ear protection. Didn't quite manage to get the edges done though, so some hands and knees work with some sandpaper and a block may be in order. (by me - I'm not going to make him do that, seeing as the whole affair was my idea).

Had also booked to go and see Sleeping Beauty by the St Petersburg ballet at the Alhambra in Bradford with my sister, and couldn't really cancel having paid for tickets, so I went, and probably deeply annoyed the people next to me with my explosive nose-blowing. Enjoyed the ballet, but was probably a bit more detatched than I would normally have been.

Left work today - took in some cakes and fruit to say thank you and presents for my trainer. Everybody was very nice saying goodbye to me and I deeply enjoyed throwing away large quantities of useless memos and drug company promotions, but was sad to leave. and found the whole thing a bit tiring. So there is an update on my not-very-exciting life.

Temporary Escape

Enjoyed a deeply relaxing long weekend away with friends this weekend just gone, and return to Leeds feeling very refreshed. There were four of us girls who know each other from first year of uni, me, Mad Medea and two other medics. Husbands of all four were also present. As Mad Medea kindly arranged the date, location and all the catering, the rest of us only had to turn up and have fun. A bit strange to realise how much we have all grown up since first year as we chatted about DIY, organic food, marriage etc. Was great to see all of them, especially MM and husband, as they most unfairly moved to Gloucestershire last year and I haven't really seen them properly since their wedding. Craziness of life and recent house-buying has meant I haven't really kept up very well with the others in Leeds either though.

The other 2 doctor/women are my good friends from my year at university, one is now an SHO in Obs and Gynae, and the other is in general practice as part of her FY2 year. Both are struggling with the nightmare that is Modernising Medical Careers. For those not familiar with medicalspeak this is the system that means that despite both having settled lives and owning houses in Leeds, they now have to apply to the whole of Yorkshire (a pretty wide area) for their choice of training scheme, and then either to another county for the same speciality or to a whole different choice of career in Yorkshire as their second and third options. For my friend in O+G, the fact that she is currently employed at the same hospital for the same consultants as she would be for the job she wants cannot be taken into account, she will only get that job if she's better on paper than the other candidates who want it, despite the fact that the department know her and know she would do a good job. This is the kind of uncertainty that is ruling the lives of most junior doctors in the country right now. I am one of the lucky ones because I'm already on the GP training scheme, which will take me through until I am a qualified GP, provided I pass my exams.

We also all discussed our struggles with the responsibility that medicine can be, something I know I have been finding stressful lately as I get further on and make more decisions for myself. When something goes wrong and a patient dies it seems impossible to avoid torturing yourself with the "what if.." questions. What if I'd just checked that? What if I'd just done this? Would it have made any difference? Hindsight makes it hard to see whether what you did at the time was reasonable.

Enough of the doom and gloom anyway! We all relaxed and enjoyed ourselves and temporarily put worries on hold. It was a beautiful place that we stayed - a large converted barn near Ashbourne, called Billy's Bothy. Quite luxurious, with a wood burning stove, under floor heating and romantic cottage-like bedrooms with en suite. I begged for myself and Husband to have the en suite with a bath, as we have only got a shower room in our house at the moment, and greatly enjoyed wallowing in hot water for protracted periods of time. We shamelessly over-ate delicious food, drank wine, went for wintry walks, fed the crazy chickens and played games and watched movies in the evenings. Yesterday morning we all left, but myself and Husband went for another short walk in Dovedale on our way home, which was really beautiful. Amazing how much more relaxed I tend to feel when I've actually been away than when I just spend the weekend at home. Feels much longer, and gives the feeling of temporary escape from everyday life.