For those people who don't know what First Time Parents Group is, let me briefly explain. Prior to the days of political-correctness, it was referred to as Mothers Group. It's a weekly catch-up of approximately 90 minutes, facilitated by a maternal health worker, with other first-time parents (usually 10-15 people) and held at your zoned-local maternal and child health centre. It usually runs for a designated number of weeks (approximately 7 weeks) with set topics for discussion each week. It's an informal group where the facilitator opens-up discussion for the group to chat about their week and the set topic such as sleep, taking care of yourself, etc. Once the formal meetings cease, many parents continue the weekly catch-ups in cafes or parks, to maintain the support-network and friendships developed.
When I had Cooper, everyone said to me "oh wait until you join Mothers Group, you'll love it" but I was kinda sceptical about it for the following reasons:
- I absolutely hate sitting in training sessions, lectures, tutorials, or meetings when they are "dumbed-down" explanations of blindingly-obvious things or when the meeting is constantly being interrupted by people asking stupid questions that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed, etc. I think the saying "doesn't suffer fools gladly" was invented for me!
- I'm not very good at faking friendship with people that I don't 'click' with. If we are completely incompatible personalities then why bother faking a friendship just because we have been lumped-into the same workplace, sports team or parents group? Faked friendships are so unsatisfying and a waste of time.
- I often find groups of women to be bitchy or fake. I have absolutely no interest in this and therefore certain types of women tend to not like me much.
So yes, I had my doubts as to whether I was going to love these meetings.
Luckily for me, I turned out to be wrong. Mothers Group is awesome! It's so good to be able to meet up with a group of people who are in the exact same situation as me. We share horror stories, tips, ideas, experiences... and we feel so much better knowing that everyone else out there is experiencing similar things with their babies. Not everyone in the group is someone that I want to be lifelong friends with, but everyone is nice and friendly and it doesn't matter that we have nothing else in common because we have the one most important thing in common... we're new mummies!
Having moved to Melbourne from the country, and not having many friends with children in Melbourne, it's really nice to meet people who are on the same page as you when you want to talk about baby poo, sleep or how you cannot find the time to cook dinner. As much as I love my workmates and friends without children, they just don't quite understand the same way my mothers group friends do. I'm actually pretty lucky to have my sister-in-law only a 5 minute drive away and she is home with her baby also. She's been an amazing support to me but it's still nice to meet people outside of family as well.
So yes, soon-to-be mothers, when someone suggests Mothers Group and you think "meh, not for me", give it a go. You might surprise yourself. I've even found a walking-buddy in one of the mums, since she lives a few blocks away. Who would have thought I'd actually make friends at this thing?!
So about 6 weeks ago, I realised that Cooper's bowel moments weren't exactly normal. They were explosive, smelly, watery and had mucus in them. He was also always bloated and would scream for hours. I am the queen of "Doctor Google" so after searching every website possible, I had narrowed the options down to one of two things; he was either lactose-intolerant or he had a cow's milk allergy. I decided that considering he was only breastfed and I was barely consuming any dairy, that we would go with lactose-intolerant to begin with. So I bought some lactose-free formula and starting alternating his feeds between breast milk and the formula. The change was incredible. Gone was the screaming, uncomfortable baby I had lived with for weeks and a happy smiley baby was in his place. His poo became nice and healthy looking (still smelly but in a normal way!) and everything seemed to be going well.
Then two weeks ago, someone told me that I could get the lactose-free formula on prescription if he was medically diagnosed as lactose-intolerant and therefore cutting the cost of each tin of formula from $24 to $7. So off to the doctor we go. Now in order to do a lactose-intolerance test, I had to reintroduce lactose into his diet. So onto normal formula we went. Oh my god. He screamed. He pooed the most disgusting green sludge I have ever seen. He was miserable. And here I am, with a "feces sample collector" (aka poo jar), scooping up this vile sludge to refrigerate (yes, that's right... poo in my fridge) until I could drop it into the doctor's clinic.
So today we go back to the doctor for our results. "Hmmm" she says, "results inconclusive due to compromised sample". Uhhh WHAT?! All that was for nothing? It appears that the sample was meant to be FROZEN immediately after collection, which the doctor didn't know and therefore didn't tell me. For f**k's sake... maybe they would like to come and live with Cooper for 3 days whilst I redo the test? I'll go sit in a nice quiet lab and test poo and they can come and deal with a poor hysterical baby in utter agony? No? Ok so I guess it's up to me to do it all again.
Anyway, the doctor said she was going to look into other testing methods first. So I'm awaiting her call to see if there is a light at the end of the tunnel rather than a replay of the three worst days I've ever had to put my little man through. Fingers crossed...
"So many lessons learned... I should write them all down for you so that you can learn from my mistakes before you have a baby" - Me
"Hehe. Sounds like a plan. Better idea - start a blog" - Friend
And so it began. I'm not the first to start a blog about motherhood. I actually read a blog by another first time mother who writes about her experiences. But considering the suggestion from my friend, I figured that maybe the world could do with another blog.
Cooper was born on 2nd February 2012. If only I had started this blog 3 months ago... so many experiences... It's all a bit of a haze now but I will try my best to remember some key experiences from the past 12 weeks. The best way to summarise the experiences over the past 12 weeks is to share some Facebook statuses from those weeks...
12 Feb 2012 - Apparently afternoon sleep is overrated.. just ask Cooper, he's taking a stand against conformity by spending all afternoon pretending to settle, only to start screaming 15 mins after he's gone down.
20 Feb 2012 - Mummy & Cooper's first outing without Daddy.. Off to the supermarket we went.. No baby trolleys.. So here I am, pushing a pram with one hand, carrying a shopping basket in the other, looking completely uncoordinated and feeling it too.. I think that was a failed experiment!
26 Feb 2012 - If only it were safe, legal & acceptable to drug your baby to sleep.. Last night's sleep deprivation was torture.
28 Feb 2012 - Dear Cooper, I can't survive on 3 hours sleep a night... please, please, please go down for a nap. Love Mummy.
8 Mar 2012 - Is it bad that I haven't been dressed before 9am since having Cooper?
13 Mar 2012 - Cheap nappies are bullshit!
21 Mar 2012 - Is there any sweeter sound than my son snoring?
29 Mar 2012 - Dear Mum, Am I in the car? No. Am I in the pram being walked continuously? No. Am I in your arms? No. Then I'm not taking a nap. Love, Cooper.
10 Apr 2012 - 8:30pm - 5am... Dare I dream that this is Cooper's new routine?
22 Apr 2012 - My vocal cords sure got a workout this afternoon, Cooper made me sing to him all the way home for 90 minutes.. If mummy stopped singing, Cooper would start screaming!
24 Apr 2012 - Hey Cooper, remember those days when you napped in your cot for at least 1.5 hours?... that was awesome, I miss those days, let's do it again sometime!
26 Apr 2012 - Next week I am going to... stop watching all the unaired episodes of my fave tv shows online, stop eating unhealthy lunches, start forcing myself to do even just a little exercise every day, begin a cleaning routine, persist with making Cooper nap... but today?... today I might just eat this magnum, put my feet up, let Cooper snuggle in my arms and watch another episode of Revenge!
2 May 2012 - Sitting in my car in my driveway, not daring to move in case I wake Cooper.
So that pretty much sums things up and brings us up to today. Stay tuned...
