Amaiterai's first month (and a bit!)

Blogging and babies don't mix!
Yesterday Amaiterai was 5 weeks old, he's thriving and has already gained 6 cm in length and over 1.6kg in weight. The month since he arrived has gone by in an eventful blur of sleep-deprivation!





We said goodbye to April a few days after the birth, having learned a thing or two about sourdough and lilikois (passion fruit). Inspired by April, I've gone off on a fermented food frenzy, making sourdough burger buns, sourdough rice crackers and sourdough potato pancakes to name a few, I've also had a go at my first batch of kim chee and a very passable ginger beer! Probiotics are us!

Naturally we celebrated St.David's day (March 1st for all you non-welshies) as well as Wales' victory in the six nations rugby, with a blistering win over England in Cardiff.

We've had a film crew visit us to film our extremely talented trilingual girls, for an educational programme about multilingualism, to be broadcast here in Tahiti.

 

 The grandparents spent the best part of Amaiterai's first month with us, babysitting their hearts out, before a return to chilly Wales a week ago, they left in the snow and two months later returned to snow!

We're enjoying hot and sunny weather, though there is a little coolness to the mornings, heralding the arrival of our autumn! In the meantime there's work to be done in the garden - Amaiterai is not the only thing growing round here, look at these fabulous irises that have just started flowering here in th garden.

The jasmine, ylang-ylang and honeysuckle are also putting on a impressive olfactory experience at the moment. The most exciting new acquisition is cacao, Viriamu's friend in Tahiti he sent him some pods, so now I have Roald Dahlish dreams of creating my own chocolate delights! Talking of chocolate we're running up to the easter hols and our first busy period at the guesthouse with our new recruit! Hold on for a bumpy ride....

Homecoming

Yesterday we arrived back in Rurutu in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, with squalls which lasted most of the evening and through the night. It was definitely a wintry reminder that we're back in the Australs, compared to the sticky humidity of Tahiti. I'm glad to be back, and ready for the onslaught of guests. My daughter Heimana Hafwen was born on the 12th of July at 19h46, three weeks 'early', just like her sister. But I suspect that's where the similarities end, she's clearly quite a different little character - she's an unbelievably mellow little creature, not to say she doesn't have a good pair of lungs on her, she just prefers to keep quiet or kind of grunts her disapproval rather than full on screaming....
She loves to sit quietly squinting around at her surroundings, just taking it all in, quite a different temperament from her bossy big sister, who was always very ready to make her presence heard!

Here are some pictures from the hospital of Heimana and family.....
The birth ended up happening a bit sooner than 'expected', Viriamu didn't even make it in time. He had decided to stay on in Rurutu for the horse races on july 14th. I had also been hoping to make it over to Moorea for the 13th to see the midwives, obviously Heimana had other plans!
Second time 'round it was a very different experience, partly because I had half of my very well-meaning but noisy clan hanging around the hospital room for most of the day that I was admitted - funnily enough I didn't manage to get labor properly going until they had left (6 hours later!), but from then on it took me less than two hours to get dilated and deliver, talk about speed! Well, they had threatened to induce me if I didn't give birth within 24 hours of my waters breaking, so I had the incentive! But I also had some good advice from 'Birthing from Within' (I recommend it strongly as a great resource for pregnant couples) and unshakable confidence in my own body's ability to perform - which it did. Heimana was born just before 8pm on a sunday evening, just like her sister, weighing about 3kg and at 37 weeks, just like Matotea!

Second time around

Being pregnant again is fun, but very different from the first time around. Quite simply because it's not my first time around - so there's none of the anxiety or fear of the unknown, I know that I can make it through childbirth and that I'll be a 'good enough' parent, we've pretty much winged it with Matotea, and I think she's turning out OK. It's hard to describe, I'm not quite jaded, but I know all the disruption and change that a new baby brings, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm ready for it, but I know more of what to expect. That said, it's not as if I'm the seasoned mother - not like my mother-in-law who successfully delivered eight babies in a little over eight years and seems to have been happy to do that! I frankly don't know how she managed, physically I know it's possible, but emotionally I don't think I'd be able to cope, I already struggle with the changes that one baby brings - I feel like I should devote my time to her, but then I already feel that I don't have enough time for me, so part of me wonders what it will be like with a second! This probably sounds selfish, and well it probably is, but I don't think I'm alone in feeling this.

I don't suppose that any two pregnancies feel exactly the same and this time it is a little different. I'm a couple of years older and over thirty now, I have a two year-old girl who needs my love and assurance and a considerable amount of chasing around the place, at the same time as being pregnant. This time there's no time for the yoga and meditation that I enjoyed the first time around. Another alarming difference is the rate at which my stomach has grown, I know that the second is supposed to go out quickly, and it certainly has, but at five months I already feel like I did with Matotea at around seven! This one is also a real wriggler, from around 12 weeks I have been able to feel some movement, now I'm getting a constant nudging and kicking. The baby was so lively that the doctor was having trouble doing his morpho exam at my last checkup, we still don't know if it's a boy or a girl, the cord was in the way and well there was just too much fidgeting to make much out. Viriamu has his heart set on a boy, I don't mind, as long as it's healthy and happy, but I also have a feeling that it's a boy, they're supposed to be more active and they also often show more than girls......but I guess we'll have to wait and see to be sure....

Now I just have to wait until early July, when I get to be 'medically evacuated' to Tahiti, to await labor - I'm not really looking forward to all the disruption that will involve and I also know that the hospital system in Tahiti won't allow me to give birth in the way that I would choose. It was a shock to me when I first discovered how medical birth is, pregnancy is a pathology here in French Polynesia - the doctor that visits Rurutu every two months has been unable to find anything wrong with the baby, despite all his efforts. He has a really awful bed-side presence, making me feel like a piece of meat, I don't doubt that he sees many hundreds of pregnant ladies every year, but there's room for some compassion, the idea of sharing something as intimate as a birth with him or any of the other doctors I have seen in Tahiti makes me recoil. With Matotea I chose the most liberal ob-gyn that I could find, but even then the idea of giving birth in any position other than stirrups was out of the question. I happened to give birth on a sunday night and had to wait to deliver the baby until the doctor showed up (he looked none too happy to be called out on a sunday evening - and I for one was also less than amused to have to wait for him, after all there were no complications and in the end I was the one doing the work here). I was also less than happy that they took Matotea away from me for her first health check within minutes of birth, maybe they do not understand the stress that this causes a new mother, there really is no reason why they could not do this in the delivery room in my presence. I was told by the midwife not to make noise during the delivery, as I was frightening the other mothers and my choice not to use pain medication was questioned several times. Despite this I did feel like this last birth went as well as it could, but it was despite the health care system and not thanks to it, I was constantly having to defend my right to give birth the way I wanted. Fortunately I have a friend who is a doula, and having her present was valuable in reminding me that wanting to give birth as naturally as possible wasn't something completely crazy. At the moment I'm enjoying reading Birthing from Within and Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, two wonderfully inspiring books for the pregnant woman and I'm feeling truly empowered, I hope that I will be more able to defend my rights this time. If I get my way, and if there are no contraindications, I will try to give birth in Moorea, the maternity ward there is overseen by a wonderful team of midwives and I know that, given my options, this is by far the best choice for me. Home birth is practically impossible here (even if I lived in Tahiti) there are no independent midwives here that could do this , though of course it would be my preference.