A few days early, but thought I'd better write this letter while I have a spare five minutes.
Letter to Malachi - Three Months Old
Oh Baby boy look at how you've grown!! I can not believe three months ago you were still in my belly, about to be born. I feel like time is just flying by and I can not remember what my life was like without you in it.
You are an independent little being. You aren't that keen on being held or sitting on my lap. Which is sad. I remember when you were a squishy newborn and you'd lie on my chest, content to just be. These days you'd much rather lay on your play mat and bash poor Eddie (the Elephant) or swing your fists at Pup-squeak. You have started to grab on to things now, whether it's my fingers, or a toy. No matter what it is it ends up with slobber all over it. You new play thing is your hands and fingers. Whenever you get the chance you shove your hands in your mouth. I am constantly reminding you to be careful. You never listen to your Mumma and are always gagging as you attempt to put four fingers in your mouth, or even both fists at once.
You are such a delight. You have certainly found your voice and are more than happy to have conversations with us, even if it's 3 o'clock in the morning. When we stop paying attention to you you just talk louder or start your little 'look at me Mummy and Daddy' cough. You are a big flirt. It doesn't matter if it's a little girl baby or a Mumma you get your flirt on and charm them with your voice. You've also found a new love. Looking at yourself in the mirror. You love it when we stop in front of the mirror so you can smile and giggle at yourself.
You still love bath times with Mummy or Daddy. You love kicking and splashing about. I think you take after your Daddy and just love the water. You hold on to the bath support with your left hand (always the left) as you get pampered. You love having your hair washed and will happily lay there with your mouth open as we scrub your head.
You're still not too keen on tummy time. You are lasting for longer periods of time before you start to cry. You've managed to roll from your back to your side a few times, where you've just stopped, looked around, and decided it would be a good time to stick your fists in your mouth. You haven't quite mastered going from back to tummy or tummy to back, but I'm sure it won't be long before your rolling about and causing mischief.
You are so long and chubby now. You have nearly outgrown your bassinet and your 000 clothes! We are in the process of putting you in your big boy cot for day sleeps and when we get back from our QLD holidays you'll be in your cot at night. You are sleeping for longer periods during the night, which I'm so thankful for. You are still a boobies man and you are so efficient at feeding now. Gone are the half hour feeds, replaced by a quick 5 or 10 minute feed. We must be doing something right though. You've gone from a 3.4kg newborn to a 6.8kg 3 month old chubba bubba.
I am just so in love with you. You continue to amaze me each and everyday. Everyday is different and exciting. I can't believe you're here. My firstborn. My gorgeous little son.
Happy three month birthday Malachi.
Love your Mumma
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
All is Well
Boobie ultrasound went well. They couldn't find anything nasty which is great. So happy. The guy doing it didn't say a word in the beginning so of course I was freaking out! Doesn't explain the massive pulling I get from under my arm. Maybe I'm just super sensitive and can feel the milk let down or something?? Who knows! The guy also asked if I'd like a biopsy done if it looked normal. Yeah Buddy, shove a big needle in my boob for the hell of it. Of course I declined!!
Also had mother's group Tuesday morning which went well. Sucks being somewhere at 930am though!! Around 75% of the Mum's there had an emergency C Sections!!! Crazy!!! All the bub's were super cute and around the same age which is good. One lady even had twins. Of course my little man just snobbed all the babies. I put him down on the rug on the floor and another Mumma put her daughter right next to Malachi. He just ignored her and continued on with sucking his fist.
I am going out tomorrow night (sans baby) to see Melissa Ohden speak. Melissa is the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion at approximately six months gestation. If you want to hear more about Melissa's story, this is the youtube video.
Also had mother's group Tuesday morning which went well. Sucks being somewhere at 930am though!! Around 75% of the Mum's there had an emergency C Sections!!! Crazy!!! All the bub's were super cute and around the same age which is good. One lady even had twins. Of course my little man just snobbed all the babies. I put him down on the rug on the floor and another Mumma put her daughter right next to Malachi. He just ignored her and continued on with sucking his fist.
I am going out tomorrow night (sans baby) to see Melissa Ohden speak. Melissa is the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion at approximately six months gestation. If you want to hear more about Melissa's story, this is the youtube video.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
A story of survival
I was sexually abused when I was eight and for various reasons I have been thinking about this a lot lately and thought it was about time I got it written down. So feel free to have a read, or not. I really just wanted to get it down to assess how I really feel all these years later.
When I was eight we moved from the country back into a city. My mum and Dad divorced when I was 3 so my sisters (one is 17 months younger than me, one is seven years younger and obviously has a different Dad) and I grew up with just Mum. I remember moving into this house and I have no idea why but Mum’s brother D moved in with his girlfriend and dogs. I have no idea how the abuse started. I just remember bits and pieces of it. I have no idea if what I remember is all that happened or if there’s more. I used to do gymnastics, perhaps that’s how it started, him showing an interest in what I was doing? Maybe I was missing Dad and he D was a male role model. Maybe I wished it was Dad showing an interest in me instead of pissing off and marrying Mum’s best friend and having oodles of kids with her and having not much to do with my sister and I.
I remember D touching me in the lounge room one day. He had the light in a bedroom on so that he could see the silhouette of people if they started coming down the hall way from the kitchen to the lounge room (funny that I can remember that detail). I remember him and I being in a shed at the house and him touching me. I remember my Mum asking where I was and what I was doing. He made me say we were looking for washers and bolts together in the shed. I remember one day I told him to stop. He said it was my fault what happened and if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me and my sisters would get hurt. He actually touched my sister T (the one who is 17months younger than me) when Mum let her stay at his house one weekend. T was brave and actually spoke up not long after it happened. I remember Mum asking me whether he had touched me as well. I asked what would happen if he did and she said he’d probably go to jail. Of course at that age I didn’t know that’s what he deserved so I said no.
He moved interstate at some stage and I remember every time the phone would ring I was petrified it was him calling to tell Mum what happened and somehow I would get in trouble. I remember when the phone would ring and I realised it was him on the phone I would hide under my bed until the phone call was over, praying that he wouldn’t say anything and that I wouldn’t get into trouble. Silly, I know, but of course at that time I absolutely believed it was my fault and I would be the one getting in trouble.
I have no idea why it all hit me at 16. Perhaps it was because I started seeing my husband at that time and trying to be close and intimate with him brought up all these thoughts and feelings? I started suffering from depression and anxiety at this time and started seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist (and later a sexual assault counsellor). I actually told Hubby before my family and he was so supportive and caring about the whole thing and has 100% supported me in cutting my family from my life and pressing charges.
When I told Mum and the extended family I was actually living with Mum’s sister S at the time. After I told everyone I spoke to D’s daughter, who would have been around seven or eight at the time and she told me he had touched her when they moved interstate. The guilt that I felt crushed my soul. I felt somehow that I had let her down and that maybe if I had of said something earlier it wouldn’t have happened to her or my sister T. At this stage I had no idea that he had abused family members before me and that there was no way in hell he should have been allowed in our home and that Mum shouldn’t have let T stay at his house.
After I told everyone my Grandma (God I hate calling her that) tried to convince me not to press charges. She told me a story about how she was raped when she was a young girl going by train to visit her sister. I already knew at this stage I’d press charges and was so shocked when she tried to talk me out of it by telling me this story. When I did press charges she said ‘he didn’t rape you, it wasn’t that bad’. Yep, crazy people with absolutely no morals I tell you. Also at this time I was pressured by Mum’s sister S to move back in with Mum, so I did. I moved back in with Mum and pressed charges then. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. It wasn’t reliving it that was the bad part it was the self doubt. It had happened years ago and I was worried that what I was thinking didn’t really happen and perhaps I made it all up?
The police officer who I spoke to at the time was fantastic. She was supportive without being over the top. She had me ring D and see if I could get him to confess to what happened. He said he remembered kissing me and that was it (yeah right!) After I pressed charges and told Mum they had taped the conversation between me and D she was mad that I had tricked him into trying to confess. After I pressed charges I don’t think I heard back from anyone in ages. I rang and asked to speak to this police lady only to be told she had left on maternity leave. Then I didn’t hear from anyone in the police force again.
I got a letter from the Brisbane attorney generals? place (can’t really remember where) telling me D would have to sit at a tribunal of psychiatrists and judge first so they could determine if he was mentally fit to stand trial. So every six months he would have to see them. And of course, just before he was due to see them he’d conveniently admit himself to a mental health unit and then a week later he would discharge himself. He did this for probably two or three years. Talk about frustrating. I was so pissed off that no one could see that he was just rorting the system.
I moved interstate when I was 18. I knew that nothing would happen with the charges as he kept checking himself into the psych wards at the convenient times. Then one day I got a call from someone in Brisbane pretty much saying it was a waste of their time to keep pursuing it and that they were going to drop the charges. It was like a kick in the guts, like he’d won and it had all been in vain. I honestly still feel like this at times, but I know that I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had I not done ‘the right thing’ and pressed charges. My sister T pressed charges a few years ago and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t heard anything from the QLD police or the legal system. I honestly wonder why sexual assault and rape victims do press charges when you do get treated like crap. In no way was I kept up to date with anything and only knew that he was going before the psych’s and judge because the family would brag to my Mum that he’d gotten away with it again.
I am so happy in myself that I have nothing to do with them. They are so screwed in the head it’s not funny. I told the police that D had touched his daughter. When the police spoke to her about it her Mum made her say it never happened!!!!! I know his daughter now has nothing to do with him but everyone else in the family does. He has abused Mum, me, my sister T, his daughter and step son, my cousin J. My cousin J still talks to him and allows him to be around her two daughters. In all honesty I have no idea how, not only he can live with himself, but how my Mum’s extended family can as well. I am doing everything in my power to keep Mum’s extended family away from my son and don’t know why they aren’t doing the same for their children.
I thank God every day I had the strength to stand up for myself and let everyone know that sexual abuse is not okay and that I wouldn't sit around and do nothing. If I did that I would be protecting a pedophile and I have serious issues with that.
When I was eight we moved from the country back into a city. My mum and Dad divorced when I was 3 so my sisters (one is 17 months younger than me, one is seven years younger and obviously has a different Dad) and I grew up with just Mum. I remember moving into this house and I have no idea why but Mum’s brother D moved in with his girlfriend and dogs. I have no idea how the abuse started. I just remember bits and pieces of it. I have no idea if what I remember is all that happened or if there’s more. I used to do gymnastics, perhaps that’s how it started, him showing an interest in what I was doing? Maybe I was missing Dad and he D was a male role model. Maybe I wished it was Dad showing an interest in me instead of pissing off and marrying Mum’s best friend and having oodles of kids with her and having not much to do with my sister and I.
I remember D touching me in the lounge room one day. He had the light in a bedroom on so that he could see the silhouette of people if they started coming down the hall way from the kitchen to the lounge room (funny that I can remember that detail). I remember him and I being in a shed at the house and him touching me. I remember my Mum asking where I was and what I was doing. He made me say we were looking for washers and bolts together in the shed. I remember one day I told him to stop. He said it was my fault what happened and if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me and my sisters would get hurt. He actually touched my sister T (the one who is 17months younger than me) when Mum let her stay at his house one weekend. T was brave and actually spoke up not long after it happened. I remember Mum asking me whether he had touched me as well. I asked what would happen if he did and she said he’d probably go to jail. Of course at that age I didn’t know that’s what he deserved so I said no.
He moved interstate at some stage and I remember every time the phone would ring I was petrified it was him calling to tell Mum what happened and somehow I would get in trouble. I remember when the phone would ring and I realised it was him on the phone I would hide under my bed until the phone call was over, praying that he wouldn’t say anything and that I wouldn’t get into trouble. Silly, I know, but of course at that time I absolutely believed it was my fault and I would be the one getting in trouble.
I have no idea why it all hit me at 16. Perhaps it was because I started seeing my husband at that time and trying to be close and intimate with him brought up all these thoughts and feelings? I started suffering from depression and anxiety at this time and started seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist (and later a sexual assault counsellor). I actually told Hubby before my family and he was so supportive and caring about the whole thing and has 100% supported me in cutting my family from my life and pressing charges.
When I told Mum and the extended family I was actually living with Mum’s sister S at the time. After I told everyone I spoke to D’s daughter, who would have been around seven or eight at the time and she told me he had touched her when they moved interstate. The guilt that I felt crushed my soul. I felt somehow that I had let her down and that maybe if I had of said something earlier it wouldn’t have happened to her or my sister T. At this stage I had no idea that he had abused family members before me and that there was no way in hell he should have been allowed in our home and that Mum shouldn’t have let T stay at his house.
After I told everyone my Grandma (God I hate calling her that) tried to convince me not to press charges. She told me a story about how she was raped when she was a young girl going by train to visit her sister. I already knew at this stage I’d press charges and was so shocked when she tried to talk me out of it by telling me this story. When I did press charges she said ‘he didn’t rape you, it wasn’t that bad’. Yep, crazy people with absolutely no morals I tell you. Also at this time I was pressured by Mum’s sister S to move back in with Mum, so I did. I moved back in with Mum and pressed charges then. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. It wasn’t reliving it that was the bad part it was the self doubt. It had happened years ago and I was worried that what I was thinking didn’t really happen and perhaps I made it all up?
The police officer who I spoke to at the time was fantastic. She was supportive without being over the top. She had me ring D and see if I could get him to confess to what happened. He said he remembered kissing me and that was it (yeah right!) After I pressed charges and told Mum they had taped the conversation between me and D she was mad that I had tricked him into trying to confess. After I pressed charges I don’t think I heard back from anyone in ages. I rang and asked to speak to this police lady only to be told she had left on maternity leave. Then I didn’t hear from anyone in the police force again.
I got a letter from the Brisbane attorney generals? place (can’t really remember where) telling me D would have to sit at a tribunal of psychiatrists and judge first so they could determine if he was mentally fit to stand trial. So every six months he would have to see them. And of course, just before he was due to see them he’d conveniently admit himself to a mental health unit and then a week later he would discharge himself. He did this for probably two or three years. Talk about frustrating. I was so pissed off that no one could see that he was just rorting the system.
I moved interstate when I was 18. I knew that nothing would happen with the charges as he kept checking himself into the psych wards at the convenient times. Then one day I got a call from someone in Brisbane pretty much saying it was a waste of their time to keep pursuing it and that they were going to drop the charges. It was like a kick in the guts, like he’d won and it had all been in vain. I honestly still feel like this at times, but I know that I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had I not done ‘the right thing’ and pressed charges. My sister T pressed charges a few years ago and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t heard anything from the QLD police or the legal system. I honestly wonder why sexual assault and rape victims do press charges when you do get treated like crap. In no way was I kept up to date with anything and only knew that he was going before the psych’s and judge because the family would brag to my Mum that he’d gotten away with it again.
I am so happy in myself that I have nothing to do with them. They are so screwed in the head it’s not funny. I told the police that D had touched his daughter. When the police spoke to her about it her Mum made her say it never happened!!!!! I know his daughter now has nothing to do with him but everyone else in the family does. He has abused Mum, me, my sister T, his daughter and step son, my cousin J. My cousin J still talks to him and allows him to be around her two daughters. In all honesty I have no idea how, not only he can live with himself, but how my Mum’s extended family can as well. I am doing everything in my power to keep Mum’s extended family away from my son and don’t know why they aren’t doing the same for their children.
I thank God every day I had the strength to stand up for myself and let everyone know that sexual abuse is not okay and that I wouldn't sit around and do nothing. If I did that I would be protecting a pedophile and I have serious issues with that.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Positive Vibes
Hello lovely followers. I need some positive vibes and thoughts sent my way. Pretty please!? I have a lump in my boob which I assumed since I was breastfeeding was just mastitis. I took two courses of antibiotics and the lump is still there. It hurts like crazy when the little guy feeds off that side and kind of pulls from under my underarm (weird I know). So I'm off Monday to have an ultrasound done and possibly a biopsy if needed. I am so scared and stressed and thinking it might be cancer :-( I am hoping like mad it's just some crazy hormonal thing but my mind keeps thinking the worst.
So pretty pretty please pray for me. Send some loving positive thoughts my way
So pretty pretty please pray for me. Send some loving positive thoughts my way
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