I went to a GUM clinic, smuggled condoms out like contraband and I weigh WHAT NOW?!

To anyone who followed an earlier post about my postnatal dealings will know that to get the contraception of my choice I had to venture to a GUM clinic. Because apparently that’s a thing now, rather than in the confines of a GP office.

I’ve never felt so seedy in my life, surrounded by people all younger than me and much more…how shall I word this…rough around the edges. Much more exciting lives they lead I would imagine. And then there’s me, a 25 year old mother of two in my jeans and hoodie clutching a bottle of water for dear life looking about as Plain-Jane as you get.

It’s not an experience I want to repeat again in a hurry. There’s something about being weighed in a corridor (yes! A fucking corridor with people walking through, only to discover I currently weigh more than a baby Beluga Whale) and being then led to the toilets in the middle of the waiting room by a very loud nurse to be told to wee in a pot that just doesn’t scream “one of Hans finer moments”.

See the actual insertion of the implant wasn’t terribly horrific, a little painful but much less so than childbirth. It stings now the anaesthetic has worn off though.

The most horrific thing came after. I didn’t take a bag to my appointment, just my phone and the bottle of water. So imagine my absolute shame walking through the waiting room, up and out through the rest of the hospital and back to my car past dozens of people carrying my little “goody bag” that they send you away with tucked into my jacket in a half-arsed attempt to hide them like a 16 year old girl. As if that isn’t enough then the shame made me thirsty; so taking a quick swig of my water I drop the packet on the floor in the corridor at the feet of a small collective of pensioners walking the opposite way. Shit. Why does this always happen to me?

Up and out, back to my car, rush home and eat my feelings. Oh that’s how I weigh that much then…

Just after V the next day…

An open letter to my children; from your Mother who often needs to remember she’s no longer a child herself…

Sophia:

You made me, Spud. I am who I am because of you. You taught me the true meaning of unconditional love, you’re the absolute best and worst of me and I’m sorry I didn’t believe I was ready for you. You test me every single day in ways I never knew I could be tested, you have a big attitude in your tiny frame with so much spirit and one day I hope you use it to take over the world (and help Minnie Mouse defeat that spider king on Christmas night or whatever made up story you re-enact over and over next).

Raising you is an emotional rollercoaster I never want to get off; you have the ability to frustrate me to my limits and within an inch of wanting to walk away with your sass before reverting back to my adorable sweet girl who couldn’t tell me she loves me enough.

I’m terrified of your teenage years and what lies ahead, because I genuinely believe you are a psychopath. What kind of person doesn’t catch a yawn anyway? Weirdo.

Theodore:

Theodore. My Teddy. My boy. Your letter is shorter because, well, we’ve only just met. You’ve not done much yet.

But in your short life you’ve managed to flip my whole world all over again – before I had you I didn’t believe I could ever love anyone as much as I love your sister, my heart was full see. Then I locked eyes on you, somewhat in shock from your quick entrance and the rest just in pure disbelief you were here. And in that instant my heart doubled in size to accommodate you. In these 10 weeks you’ve reminded me the best and worst things about having a newborn, and you’ve been so amazing I’m actually considering a 3rd somewhere down the line. My heart breaks a little every time you reach a milestone because it means you’re growing, and this time around I know far too well how fast these days go by.

We’re half way through, I’m slowly dying and there’s still another 3 weeks left.

Looking back on my childhood the summer holidays were amazing. Ice creams, parks, beaches, annual Gullivers Kingdom trip…just fun everywhere. Even for the first part of my adult life they were still a lovely time of year – no traffic going to work, no traffic coming home and the weather was as nice as typical British summer gets.

Then I had kids.

I don't feel that way anymore. I fucking hate the summer holidays.
Everywhere I take Sophia I'm surrounded by something I don't think I could actually hate any more if I tried… other people's children (bar a few). And they're everywhere. The softplay I once used as a sanctuary now overgrown with children far too old to be there. Children who push my meek little toddler over or just completely overwhelm her.
Parks packed unless you go obscenely early.
The swimming baths even operating a second wristband strategy for the toddler pool – having to wait in the bigger, colder pool til someone leaves the splash pool is not easy with a little baby and a toddler itching for the slide.
I dare not even attempt a Pizza Hut buffet.
And it's for 6 whole weeks! So what do I even do for 6 weeks? We get cabin fever after staying home a few days let alone weeks. There's only so much playing in the garden and table arts and crafts in the world. Apparently it's bad form to just stick them in front of the tv all day too. So every day is "what the hell are we doing today?"
I'm out of ideas already, and without playgroup to tire her out she's sleeping less at night.

And I have to do this shit over and over again. Every. Single. Year. For another decade.

Send help. My eye bags are growing back.

What are you doing for contraception Mrs Lunn? Ah yes it’s called “having kids already” and it’s 100% effective.

That's the fateful question at today's 6-8 week checkup before Teddy had his jabs.
What am I doing for contraception? Well truthfully nothing, but that is because this is the appointment I was expected to wait until to get on something; so a bit of a backwards question from him really. Teddy has something called Laryngomalacia, a minor birth defect which essentially means he's got floppy vocal chords according to the doctor; and as much as I've noticed he's growing out of it already, it can have him making loud grunting noises for sometimes hours on end – which is offputting to say the least (when there's even time with 2 kids under 3).
But okay Mr Doctor I'll humour you and answer you properly. "I was hoping to speak to you about that today…I'd like the implant please."

You see contraception is a minefield, everything has side effects that affect everyone differently, no two forms are the same and yet they all have an equal end result. Breastfeeding limits what you can have even further and because I don't fancy taking that risk of using exclusive breastfeeding as a form of birth control I'm stuck between a final few to choose between.

So I settled on the implant. Safe while breastfeeding, don't have to remember to take anything and can just forget about it all for a few years. Possible weight gain but much less than if I got pregnant, that I am sure of.
So when you finally settle on something you hit even more hurdles when you discover the doctors doesn't even offer it as a service. "Our doctors don't do the implant here so you'll have to go to the family planning clinic at London Road Community Hospital." Okay I say and off I go, I get home later and *quick google*…I'm sorry what? You want me to go WHERE?! Thats the GUM clinic! Isn't the GUM clinic for folk waiting for their chlamydia tests? For folk who live a life far floozier than I do and I don't want to be seen there! Jazzy name you gave that place to fool me Mr Doctor.

So what do I want less, another baby or someone to think I'm smutty?

I think I'd prefer people to think I'm smutty. Off to the GUM clinic I go then…

Wonky boobs, control pants and “Hey, where did that breast pad come from?”

Now don’t take this post the wrong way – I’m all for the “Mama Confidence” thing – I absolutely adore what my body has achieved and what it can do with regards to creating, growing, birthing and feeding my children. But we don’t all feel that way all the time. I left the hospital feeling like Wonder Woman, but it’s the weeks that follow when I look and think “oh that belly is still here then”. When you’re pregnant you see your body change every day, it morphs slowly and if you’re anything like me the sight of your growing belly fills you with a sense of pride and desire to show it to the world. I think pregnant is when I feel most confident in my body. 

Then I give birth and I’m left with what I can only describe as looking like I’ve been hit by a car and absolutely nothing like my former self. My clothes don’t fit, my boobs are two different sizes and I’m covered in a layer of “insulation” which sounds much nicer than fat. Anything that does fit is about as useful to me as a third nipple (which coincidentally I also own but that’s another story) because I can’t breastfeed in it. 

Which brings me to my next point – nursing clothes. Google them, you’ll find that they are all “maternity/nursing” and have bump room. Why do I need bump room? it’s the bump I’m now trying to find a relatively discreet way of feeding. What I need is boob and arse room, on account of that layer of insulation. The two nursing dresses I own are so stuck to me I look like linked sausages, which is exactly what I wanted when a photo of me wearing one has been posted by Mumii – the mums entertainment website – on their Instagram while I was testing pushchairs for the Best Baby & Toddler Gear Awards. 

Not forgetting nursing bras man…fucking hell. If I’m going to spend £40 on an over the shoulder boulder holder with clips for releasing the milky beasts I want them to look fucking fantastic doing so. But they don’t. 

I need one with industrial support that I don’t actually think exists because truth be told my boobs are different sizes – Lefty is a little anorexic compared to Righty. 

One of the joys of breastfeeding is leaking – I mean give me a couple hours not feeding and I would totally win the giant teddy in the watergun game at a fun fair. So breastpads were invented. No one invented ones that stayed in place though did they. Anywhere except my bra is where they tend to rock up. Most recently I found one in the shower stuck under Lefty, literally right under there. And the worst part was I’d washed under there already and totally not noticed til it had absorbed so much water my boob lifted up. I blame fatigue.

God only knows how long it had been there, possibly since after my shower the day before. Maybe longer. 

So from now on I own 2 pairs of control pants and always check twice for breast pads. 

No-ones been killed, but I do need to gloss the bathroom…Again!

It can only mean one thing…I’ve died my hair again. Knew there was a reason I only do this once every year or so. Because my hair is approximately 300 feet long I need multiple boxes of dye and some quick juggling practice beforehand making sure it’s all mixed at the same time so it develops evenly.

Gone and effing David Dickinsoned myself

I also quite clearly need Kim and Aggie on standby because it ended up everywhere. In my mothers house there’s multiple stains from over the years across that bathroom. HAIR DYE – not what you were thinking, minds out the gutter please.

One of many…

The thing is with my weird hair and hair dye is that it always ends up different to what the box predicts (yes even looking at the blonde, light and dark predictions on the side) so whenever I buy dye I’m sort of playing Russian roulette with the colour chart a bit. Usually it’s a nice surprise when I’ve dried it to what I end up with, but not this occasion. Not at all. See all that dye all over my bathroom and my landing carpet (comes out I’ve learned it’s cool), that belonged in my hair. And because it wasn’t there I had patches of my old colour left behind. I had completely missed spots all over my hair!

I had the colouring of a fucking Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the shower resembled the scene from Psycho and then the children required my attention. Fuckety fuck.

 

 

Okay, plan. No, panic! No. Plan. Definitely Plan… I can fix this. No I can’t. David can. Maybe? He’s my best shot on a Saturday evening. Good job I bought an extra box of dye. We’ll patch it up pretending its like going over roots… like the instructions say – 10 minutes roots (patches) then 20 rest of dye to blend. Great!

We get the Sophia to bed and wait for Teddy to fall asleep and get to work. David covers the patches and we wait the 10 mins and he chucks the rest of the dye over my hair. I glance at the instructions – shit. It was supposed to be 20 minutes THEN 10. How did I not read that right?! I mean I shouldn’t really be surprised, my track record isn’t exactly exemplary when it comes to dying my hair. As mentioned above I had a tendency to get dye everywhere. Well it’s not just the bathroom that gets it…my skin gets covered too; and once I even managed to dye a contact lens red.

In case you haven’t noticed we do this nearly naked…wouldn’t want dye to get on our clothes right?

So 3 boxes of hair dye, 4 towels and some time later I have red hair. Kind of. I still have some uneven patches where some hasn’t taken much and others taken too well (thanks to my top notch instruction reading) and I’m not entirely sure I love it but it’s done. I figure once I require the roots doing I’ll go straight in with the 3 boxes of dye and do the root touch up properly next time and hope for the best. I say “I”…Davids doing it.

I can’t be trusted.