Meeting Maddy!

Today I met Maddy (Lateforaveryimportantpregnancy)!! I was so happy and even though it was just for a short time it was brilliant. She was in Dublin for a short visit and so happened that she was staying in a hotel on my side of town and so even if very last minute I could pop over to say hello!

Anyway, like when I met Valery, Rain and BestWhenUsedBy it felt like meeting old friends. She is lovely as I was expecting, and so beautiful too! I hope she will be back blogging as I miss her.

Another trip to Italy, Martina and CBT update

We are just back from Italy, Oliver and I. Again wonderful time and two school reunions! Some of us have aged better than others but the fun and the ease of chatting with old friends was special.

We came back early this morning, and we found Martina comfortably walking! Baby girl is growing fast, no doubt. She is definitely also teething (again) and she is quite uncomfortable (and I have yet not bought the amber necklace). Mike was saying she wakes at night at least once, but we'll see how it goes now that I'm back.

You might remember a couple of posts ago, I mentioned a physical symptom which I was managing well with no panic. That lasted about 10 days. The no panic state I mean. Then, I started going emotionally downhill. Thankfully I had an appointment booked with Louise (the psychotherapist) and I was crying and making awful movies in my head. The usual ones you know, I don't even want to write them here. She was great, mostly made me talk through the movies, asked why I had not gone to the doctor instead of torturing myself (I don't know, I think I am fighting the urge of going to the doctor when I kind of know I'm blowing things out of proportion), she said that is silly, to just go. I was feeling also very defeated, I thought I was doing so well and then I wasn't at all. She told me this process is like a game of snakes and ladders, you can fall back, but never to the original place. It was a perfect comparison actually, I knew I had the tools to work with this, she said I have to learn to make good movies (if I can't help but making movies). So I went for an executive health check the following week. I was very proud of myself because I managed not to be in a panic mode at all, in fact I was quite relaxed and managed to tell myself that in fact all would have been well. It was all good, thankfully. At my last therapy session last week, I realised I was truly learning to make "good movies" like she said. She also said that her job is to make herself eventually redundant and we are getting there. I am optimistic I am learning to STOPP, to see what triggers the anxiety, and to redirect my mind, like you would do with a child. I am glad I started this process.

Term is over in college and I don't have any other trip till Boston in July (cyberfriends, I have one night in Boston before the conference begins, on the 5th of July, would love to meet anyone who is in the neighbourhood) so will work on catching my breath really and get back to things that were not so urgent but still need to be done now.

I'll leave you with a couple of pics of Bologna for you to enjoy!

Not so good first birthday

We went away for Easter, rented a cottage in the west of Ireland, absolutely fabulous and we were blessed with sunny and balmy days! Children had a blast, we had a very friendly horse in the filed attached to our back yard, and the farmland we were on had cows and calves and not a car or another house that could be seen for miles all around.

Mike took part in an adventure race which consisted in 16km cycling, 13 km run and 16 more km cycling all up and down a hill. It was tough but he did very well (considering he barely had any training!) and we met up with friends which was lovely.

Martina took her first steps on Easter Sunday, she was so excited! Definitely knew she had done something special and really wanted to keep trying!

But then on sunday night she started feeling not so well, very clingy, felt warm (but I had not brought a thermometer, so not sure how warm she was) we gave her paracetamol and she ended up sleeping in our bed as the only way she was happy was attached to me. 

We drove back on monday and she got sick in the car, we were stuck in traffic, it took ages to get home and by then we knew she caught some sort of a bug and her temperature spiked close to 40 C. Not good. Tuesday during the day she was ok, no temp but not in great form, coughing and sneezing and rapid breathing, off her food etc. As the evening came, so did the temperature and we were back up to 39.8 and sort of hovering around 39 even with ibuprofen. I took this pic a few minutes before midnight on tuesday thinking this is not going to be a very happy birthday for the little girl.

A trip to the doctor on wednesday confirmed it is a viral infection, we got the prescription for an antibiotic in case she doesn't get better within a couple of days, but chest sounded clear and nothing major was seen in her throat and ears. We attempted a mini party with a cake in the evening but it wasn't really worth it as she didn't eat at all. 

By that time Oliver started complaining that his tummy wasn't feeling so good and that he was cold. So he came down too with high temp and cough etc. 

Today Martina is a better, no temp all day and even now that we put her to bed she was in the normal range, but last night we had a couple more spikes near 40 C which scared me quite a bit. 

So hopefully with the weekend the children will be back to good form and we are doing our best not to catch it too!

The silence

I am still here and still reading you all. I am not sure if I have anything interesting to say any more, I think recording a new tooth, a first step or another flu may be relevant to me and perhaps the grandparents but I can see how this is of very little interest to the blogging community, so I'm not posting as much.

Anyhow, I am just back from a trip to Madrid, it was for work, but I brought Oliver with me and my parent met me there so it was lovely for all of us. I find it is really important for me to carve quality time with Oliver. he loves it of course and so do I. His vocabulary in both languages is excellent, we can have lovely conversations which can go off on a tangent at any moment. I love his curiosity and candidness.

Selfie in the breakfast room of the hotel which was really

a fab gluten free bakery!

He is having a "good boy" stint, so we don't have to deal with many tantrums thankfully and  travelling with him on my own is absolutely no problem. Hopefully this will last!

And as of me, I am well, therapy had helped a lot, I will go again next week, and possibly every two weeks. I have another physical symptom, not sure what it is, maybe my stomach/bowel and (most of the time) I don't panic. I will have it checked out if it continues, but I am amazingly just thinking it may be a bit of gastritis. Hopefully anyway!

Martina did very well at home with Mike but we are very happy to be all together again. Tomorrow we are going to an event organised by our fertility clinic, they are celebrating their 17th year in business and are having a get together with all the children and families who are going. As we have been so open about our journey, I'm really looking forward to it and curious to see if there's anyone else there I know!

Martina is 11 month old, Oliver is back to tantrums, and we are back from Italy

We had ten days in Italy, it was lovely as usual. We had lots to celebrate, our wedding anniversary (seven years!), my parents anniversary (forty!) and my niece first birthday.
But I have a couple of things to get off my chest, you are warned!

Oliver somewhat regressed to bold behaviour, really pushing buttons with us (you know...mocking us, saying "no!" to anything you tell him to do etc) travelling with him this time was an absolute pain... we had to drag him across the airports, he was shouting as if he was being skinned, we had to find a chair (or his suitcase) to give him timeout a few times. Awful. While in Italy, he took my bamboo stylus for the iPad, broke it and threw it in the bin without us realising anything at all,  only saw it was gone from my iPad. He was so so good for a long time and we are back to this behaviour...it's very very tiring...hopefully it'll pass soon.

My niece's father started getting under my skin too. He is ridiculously anxious about the child (I know I'm anxious, but he beats me hands down), everything is a huge deal (a bit of a teary eye, a sneeze, a little cry...) and he started giving out to Oliver if he thought he was misbehaving. This practice of educating other people's children is really annoying, specially when I'm there too. Just to give you an example; this child must be alone when she eats or, they say, won't touch food. So Oliver had to leave the kitchen (at my parents') and the door had to be closed.
He was also obviously reared with rude language on every day agenda for normal conversation and he would be quite freely talking in that way even when the children are around, oblivious to the fact that that is very rude. Thankfully he left for Paris and we had a few days without the drama.

And now for the nice bits.
I met my junior high school friends after 26 years...I was actually a bit nervous, we have not kept in touch so I was not sure what to expect. Also, our paths are very different which sometimes can make things awkward. But it was a fabulous evening! Lots of fun and laughter, we have now created a whatsapp group and we chat every day! We will meet again in May hopefully, I am so happy I reconnected! In May will also meet my senior high school friends...hopefully it'll be another pleasant event.

Martina is 11 month today which means we have a birthday to celebrate in a month! I don't think we'll do a party or anything, just probably a cake for the four of us. She is doing really well, her sleep has improved so so much I feel like I'm breathing again. She can still wake of course, but sure Oliver can do it too, it is very manageable. So I'm planning to go to the conference I went to two years ago in Boston, and it's no longer an impossible dream! I'm very happy!! Will look this week for flights, I will not be able to stay much longer than the conference and this is unfortunately not in the city but in a quite isolated campus, but do let me know if you are in that neighbourhood from the 6th to the 11th of July!!

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

I waited a bit to write about this as I wanted to have a couple of sessions done.

I like it a lot, Louise (the psychotherapist) is great, highly qualified and I feel our sessions have been really fruitful. She asks always very focussed questions and there is very little rambling which I appreciate a lot. The first session was pretty much an assessment and of course very quickly she was able to see what was going on with me. She literally said "Do you see what you are doing? You are catastrophising, you are making movies, and you have to learn to STOPP." And STOPP is actually an acronym for which now I have little stickers and cards dotted in various places.

I had some assignments to do, mostly observing, thinking about triggers of my anxiety ecc. She thinks that all this is linked to me being a perfectionist and of course a perfectionist must have everything under control and you cannot control the future, you cannot control what you don't know and there will always be things you don't know. On top of this of course there is the fact that I have a certain medical knowledge which is the final killer. I know a good bit but only enough to worry myself sick rather than reassuring me. She said with my way of being and my training as a scientist, I am a thinker, I need to research, it would be impossible for me not to think, not to make movies, so I have to change what I'm thinking, challenge my catastrophic views (which I want to point out are nearly exclusively self directed, I am the go to person for everyone I know who wants reassurance) with other thoughts, and if I really have to make movies, then they have to be good ones.

So today was my second session, I was all ready to try an work on all things health related that I blow out of proportion and she shifted the gear completely and started focussing on work, for which I have absolutely no anxiety, I feel fairly confident and appreciated. However a schema is a schema in all aspects of your life and we had an initial chat which I thought was nearly part of the greetings but then she suddenly said "I can see you are very practical, this is good, the way you can rationalise and be very matter of fact, we have to use this in your reset process". And so we went on describing how I probably make lists and plans, and there is always a new plan a new item to be added to the list. This is true for work too, the list of things to do is never over, I am efficient, I do get through items quickly I do not procrastinate much (only things I that don't need to be done so urgently) - though apparently perfectionists may feel very overwhelmed by tasks that they never feel ready to do them -  I get very frustrated when I have to deal with colleagues that are last minute types, never get things done and I can't do anything about it. She asked me how Mike would describe living with me. I had to think about it. I think he likes the fact I have things under control (90% of things that concern our family I have them planned) but surely I thinks I am a real pain when I constantly remind him about that 10% that is under his control and he's not doing it the way I would do it. I certainly keep my anxiety very much hidden and in check, I know he just simply does not understand and cannot help and when I feel so bad that I share is never a good conversation for me.
In work, while I have high standards, I have learnt to say things to people (students mostly) in a way that is always constructive rather than destructive, I think my students love I correct their assignments/papers/posters/abstracts almost in real time. I have great feedback from the students (undergrads and post grad) on my teaching and it's a self feeding thing, I love that they appreciate my efforts and I want to do even better the next time. I have to learn that maybe this is already good enough, I don't have to do more, work more, teach more, I can enjoy life, the children, the house, the holidays, because it's ok not to correct 215 home assignments in one week, nobody expects that (specially when that is not the only thing I have to do). I have to work on balance. It's not going to be an easy fix, this is the way I'm wired, since I was small I was brought up not wanting to disappoint when it came to performance (I did write a post a while back on this) and if someone does a job, I do expect it to be done as planned (specially if I'm paying for it!), but I have to work on lowering my expectation of about 25%. I'm really not too sure how to do it, but will try.

10 month old update

Oh man, we were sick with the flu complicated by a strep throat infection. Both Mike and I are on antibiotics, that didn't make for a fun week let me tell you! But now we are all well, the children escaped it somehow so at least it's just us having to recover.
My periods seems to have settled on a 21-23 days in length which is a real pain, mostly for the pool. Thankfully this time it coincided with being sick so I would not have been able to go swimming anyway. I will start again tomorrow.

Martina is 10 months old today, she has been teething non stop since her first tooth not even a month ago, she has 4 through and a 5th one nearly there, the poor chicken can't get a bit of a break, but at least then they'll be out and we can move on.

Both herself and Oliver went for their developmental check 10 days ago, and all is well. She is crawling at speed now, with a straight leg in front of her (quite funny to watch) and gives the impression she is going to stand up an walk instead. I'd say it wont be long.
We finally moved her into her room on friday, two days shy of ten month as our room-mate, but what can I tell you, she is still waking once at least, it was just unthinkable to do it when she was up 3/4 times a night. She seems to love her room and for us it's nearly strange not to have to tip toe when we go to bed.

Oliver is my big boy, I have started changing a bit my way of relating to him (I was a bit short fused for a while and threats were my way of getting him to to things), we spend much more quality time together, including going to the pool just the two of us at weekends and it is really helping building trust and recognising boundaries. I am proud of myself and really really proud of him too.

I am also doing well, still haven't started with the new therapist (very difficult to match her schedule with mine and she is very busy), I'll see her in just over a week, very curious about it. The chiropractor has given me a new life for sure, I am so so happy, now I'm going to see him every 10 days or so and then it'll be once a month for maintenance. I'm stil keeping a diary for headaches and general feelings, it really helps to notice how long I now go without a headache. Long may it last!