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Happy New Y'EAR'

So the new year has already been busy for us. There's nothing like a little bit of trauma and drama to keep us on our toes. Sol had been complaining of earache for quite some time. I had taken her to the doctor at least twice and one of those times came away with antibiotic drops and a referral for a hearing test. We haven't had the hearing test appointment through yet, but that is not really relevant. The doctor had looked into her ears both times and had said there was nothing wrong. Sol had become increasingly distressed especially when low range noises were near her. Strange sounds like someone chewing or making a kissing noise, she would get really upset and expressing how much pain they cause her. I decided the other day to look in her ears with the otoscope and what I saw surprised me. I could see at least two spherical things in one ear alone and the other had something in it too. I couldn't understand how he doctor had missed this, surely it would have been obvious to her as it was still me. Long story short we ended up seeing an on call ENT doctor at the hospital in the city. He had a look in and also was amazed at the contents of Sol's ears. He suctioned out several pieces of grit. I recognise those from the coarse sand of Lloret, we visited there back in September! The grit was in her ears all that time, no wonder she's sore. A couple days have passed now and Sol is still in pain despite the doctor saying her ears were clear, looks like another trip to ENT is on the cards early in the week.

 

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Gargoyles Going Conkers At The Cathedral

This pretty much nailed it for being the best day of the week. We travelled to a city called Armagh with three of the children, it is the oldest city in Ireland and it is home to two cathedrals and a whole bunch of gargoyles. We had looked on the Internet and learned that there was modern day gargoyles hidden all over the city. They are made from bronze and each one poses in a different manner, some hidden and some more obvious than others. The children had fun trying to figure out where the gargoyles were hidden, needless to say we didn't find so many.

There are two cathedrals in Armagh, one is the Roman Catholic cathedral and the other is Church of Ireland. We visited St Patrick's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), we will visit the other one next time we go. It was breathtakingly beautiful, every inch of that building was hugely detailed. The walls floor to ceiling were made from mosaiced tiles and there were a lot of stained glass windows and detailed carved statues. I feel a picture paints 100 words in this case

 

 

 

"Hello, anyone in there?"

 

I am so thankful the weather was good to us, we a managed to stay dry the whole day which for Northern Ireland is a bit of a novelty. Our little feet are tired tonight as I reckon we walked around 5 miles over the course of the afternoon. Needless to say the children will all sleep well tonight (I hope).

 

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Laundry Waits For No Man

I realise that spend a good portion of my day caring for my family, and quite rightly so . A large proportion of that caring time is consumed by laundry as it is for any other mother. I had a little chuckle when I saw this graphic. How many of you is this true for? I am lucky though because last year we invested in a supersize washing machine and tumble dryer and it definitely made life a lot easier for me.

 

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Sol's New Look

Sol has been so excited this past week. She just couldn't contain herself over getting her new glasses. She said they are GEEK glasses and now is asking me how geeks act and look.

Of course I told her geeks are always reading and doing their lessons.

 

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Remembering

My dear friend Margarita gave me this necklace in memory of our lost twins, James and Victoria. I am so very thankful to have such a good friend. <3

 

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Looks Like Life Goes on

This is a really difficult entry for me to write. On the 5th August we announced to friends and family that we were pregnant. We hadn't told anyone we were trying to conceive because of the fact that I'm now 43 and we didn't think we could get pregnant let alone so quickly. It only took us about three months which I guess is pretty good considering we had been using birth control for eight years. I always felt after our youngest was born that I needed just one more child, always felt one was missing. Maybe my biological clock was ticking, maybe it was the fact that having our fourth child was pretty much as a near perfect experience as it could be.

Anyway, so we got pregnant and excitedly awaited our first scan in the middle of August. The talk from the instant we knew about the pregnancy was twins. People thought I was crazy when I spoke about the babies, expect one friend who teased me endlessly about the fact that there could be twins. The joke turned into reality at our first scan. There was indeed two babies! However from the outset it was obvious that one twin was a little smaller and a little slower than the other. We saw clearly twin A, she was brilliant from the start. Twin B showed signs of life, but despite that there was a shadow of doubt. A second scan reassured us a little that twin B was still there but again he was still measuring small and slow.

When we were due to go for our third scan on the 9th September I was nervous. Something was upsetting me but I didn't know what, assumed it was just the fear of losing the small twin. Nothing prepared us for both twins being dead. It took the wind from our sails seeing both babies motionless on the screen, our dreams crumbled right before us. The buzz, the excitement that us and our children shared just gone in an instant. My life as it were would never be the same.

So 'they' the hospital advised us to wait a week and see if the twins would be miscarried without assistance. I knew they wouldn't but had to go through the motions anyway to keep everyone happy. A week on, yet another scan showed no change and no signs of the twins coming away, they wanted to stay in my belly, with their mummy, forever. It was so difficult, there was me with my pregnant round tummy containing two dead babies.

The following morning, now eight days on, I was given misoprostal or cytotec as it's commonly known. I took four of those darn pills and went home to miscarry. Hours later I took to my bed with incredable pains, after giving birth naturally four times I could describe these pains as being harder than labour. A short while later I started bleeding. Miscarriage sucks let me tell you. The bleeding didn't stop, and the pain got worse as time ticked by. A while later the bathroom floor was covered in red and I was getting weak. My husband called the hospital, next thing I knew I was in an ambulance with sirens and flashing lights and my blood pressure dropping to an unsafe level. They worked for five hours to stop the bleeding, I was pretty much just laying there staring into space ... horrible. They had a theatre ready for surgery, I had panic that I was going to be left unable to have more children, it scared me. The surgeon came down to see me in resus and decided I was too ill to move, as I was bleeding profusely, and she ended up removing the babies there and then without anaesthesia. That moment, the pain, it will never leave me.

Now, I am sad, every day I cry. My husband and I are going to try again for another baby, we had set out to have a child. Getting pregnant again will not replace my twins but it will out us on the path to feeling joy again, can you understand that?

 

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Kearney Village

 

Day out at Kearney Village, Co Down.

Kearney village is as pretty as ever, and probably our favourite place to go. If you ask about what is there, well there is nothing, that is the charm of the village.

A couple weeks ago we were having a heatwave, perfect for going down the coast. Of course the day we picked was overcast and heavy mist was down due to the heat. Anyway, we didn't let the weather put us off after all it rains 95% of the time in our country so the mist was a piece of cake.

As the day wore on the mist lifted and it turned out pretty good. The kids paddled about in the water catching shrimps and crabs. We also decided to also to try take the dog of the lead properly for the first time. She did good and walked along the coast with us, filling us with confidence for the time she can be trusted to be off the lead at home.

 

 

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Turbine Views

There's a wind turbine near us, it's located in some woodland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nothing In Sight

I'm really sad. Sol's surgery the first week looked great. Sol's eye healed well and she looked fabulous. On day eight I looked at her and her left eye had drifted outward. Then a while later it happened agin, and again. Her vision tests indicate that her sight is considerably worse than before the surgery and she has a certain amount of double vision. Gutted, to say the least. Unfortunately there's not much you can do, it takes a month before you can see the final results and its only been two weeks.

 

Please keep Sol in your thoughts.

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Amazing

The weather this past few days has been glorious. The photos that follow are from the village where I live, I might be biased but I feel I am very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

 

 

 

 

Sol found a caterpillar down by the beach, she brought it home and called it wriggly.

Seb and Sol made a tent, complete with camping stove.

Movie mania came to town. Gillian Anderson and Ben Kingsley are in a movie and its being filmed near where I live. They turned the street with period houses into a run down road with an upturned car and stuff laying around.

This is the make up trailers.

 

Sol got up to mischief one night when she was supposed to be going to bed.

 

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Made It In One Piece

Well, it's over. The surgery for Sol that is. All those years, all that worrying and it feels like strange that its finally done. Sol did great, she's a little trooper. We arrived at 8 am and she was anaesthetised by 9am. The surgery lasted 90 minutes and it took Sol another hour to come round. There wasn't a single tear, no complaining, the medical staff all commented on how she's been the best behaved child they have operated on in a long time. :D

 

Her eye looks surprisingly good, the white is red and sore looking but there isn't the bruising that I was expecting. To be honest I am not sure what I expected, whatever it just went really smoothly. The orthoptic person said they are very happy with the results.

 

At the weekend, prior to Sol's surgery we took a little trip into Bangor to the marina, and along to the splash park. Hardly weather for splashing but the children had fun all the same. It was nice to do something fun before Sol was in hospital, not knowing how long Sol would be laid up for instigated it too.

 

 

Oh, and totally off topic ...

my apple trees have gorgeous blossoms right now.

 

 

 

 

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Waves And Eyes On Me

Today was busy! Mags had an English exam to go sit in the city. We had to leave around 7:30am in order to beat the morning rush. I had been wondering the last few days what I would do with the other children while we hung around waiting for the exam to be over. There wasn't enough time to drive home then go back up again, and there's only so much time you can kill with three youngsters in tow. I decided to take them swimming. The pool I chose for them had a wave machine and it's a lot of fun. We spent 90 minutes in the water, I swear we were all wrinkly when we got out. This was the first time they had experienced the wave machine and the children are now all very eager to go back again as soon as possible.

 

Apart from the fun stuff I've been having a few thoughtful moments this week. Sol has surgery next week to straighten her eyes. It's been a long road. Sol has been left with a blind spot in the centre of her left eye and some other difficulties with her vision. So I was thinking, wondering if I was doing the right thing by permitting this surgery to go ahead. What if it goes wrong? What if her eyes turn out wards after the surgery, and that is one of the main risks that has meant it's taken so long to make the decisions to operate. All this while I am a member of a forum which discusses such issues. The adults who had surgery often need further surgery, this scares me. But the biggest emotional tug of all are those who never had surgery, those people whose parents either didn't push for it, or couldn't afford it, or were simply too frightened like me ... those people are the ones who have the regrets. I can't imagine spending years hiding your eyes by dipping your head low or wearing your hair across your face - I do not want that for my daughter.

And as if someone spoke to me while I was having these thoughts I came across these photos of my little girl, these photos are the deal breaker for me. We have to try, at least give it our best shot. What do you think?

 

 

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