Here's a glimpse of the numbers work I'm doing with Zudie. He has to work really hard to make sense of abstracts, so up to now it's been a lot of groundwork with connecting the abstract numbers, written and spoken, with concrete amounts. Montessori is great for this and we've been working with Montessori materials since he was very little but even more since we gave up on his special school a couple of years ago. We used the spindle boxes first, wooden spindles have a lovely feel to them and very nice to handle. The spindle box has 10 compartments where the spindles go, not 1-10 but 0-9. The empty zero compartment is a nice visual of what zero means and by now Zudie has a very good grasp of that. The number rods Lots of real-life counting of stuff and adding on or taking away whenever the opportunity arose of course, that's ongoing for all home-edders.
We worked on bead material a lot over the last couple of years, sometimes with Zudie on his own and sometimes with his brother; making the bead triangle, laying out the bird's eye view of numbers with bead amounts beside them, 1 down to 9, 10-90, 100-900, 1000-9000 in columns from right to left (the way the numbers would be written, units at the far right). This is laying down lots of foundations, for example Zoodie knows that 5 ten bars make 50, although he wouldn't necessarily respond correctly if I ask him randomly “what's five tens?”. That will come later insha'Allah. Since he is able to recognise numbers into the hundreds I decided to extend the bird's eye view activity into a partitioning exercise, eg get him to lay out all the numbers in their columns, with or without the corresponding bead amounts and showing him a card with a 2 or 3 digit number – say 24. He has to make the number 24 by taking the appropriate cards from the columns – 20 and 4 and place them on a tray, place the corresponding bead amounts underneath, and then put the two numbers together so it looks just like the written number 24 (so the 4 goes on top of the zero of the 20). Zudie was able to do this activity and even 3 digit numbers, so that is something I'm hoping to build on in the future. It seems a bit advanced in comparison to his arithmetical skills (see below) but then again an uneven skills profile is common enough in LD children and his older brother hates doing very basic sums but manages more complicated stuff like fractions with relative ease. We worked on the teens (seguin) boards as well, wooden boards with 9 number 10s painted on, and a slot where single digits can be slipped in to cover the zero so as to make 11, 12, 13 etc up to 19. It's a nice partitioing exercise showing how the numbers 11-19 are made up with one 10 and a number of units.
Early in the term I was doing “one more, one less” with Zudie, thinking it was a fairly simple concept to work with. I had tried this before the summer but he obviously wasn't ready then so I thought I'd try again. It was a bit hit and miss, although funny enough when we do it in real-life situations he seems to understand okay (like demanding another sweet when he's been given one less than his brother, or understanding “one more time”. Although it seems so straightforward as a maths lesson it obviously isn't for him After demonstrating the concept with concrete amounts like counters, or buttons, or toys or whatever – here's three counters on the table, if I put one more how many will that be? Four (giving child lots of opportunities to answer of course). When he seemed to “get that”, giving the answer fairly consistently although with some puzzling exceptions (4 pens, if I put one more how many? “7”) - I maybe a little optimistically attempted to introduce the concept of “one less” which didn't go over quite as well and so I abandoned it when I saw frustration setting in a bit.
So what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks is early addition. It's something I've attempted previously but not had a lot of success with, until now. Clearly the lesson for me – again – is that when the child is ready they will fly but there's no point pushing them off the branch until then.
We started off by adding counters – here's 2 counters, and here's another 2 – if we add them together how many counters will there be? Remembering to vary the language – you take these 3 counters, I've got 2 counters here, how many counters is that altogether? - 4 counters, plus 2 counters, equals......and all the time demonstrating very visually and concretely with the counters, pointing to them, putting them together. Then, “how many counters have you got? I've got x amount, can you count how many it makes altogether?”
You really have to demonstrate the basic concept you're trying to get across hundreds of times in lots of different ways. That's the nature of many learning disabilities and especially those where abstract concepts are difficult to grasp – this applies whether teaching numeracy or language skills. Sometimes the child can only take 5 minutes of this, that's fine, there might be another 5 minutes later on when he'll be amenable. When you home educate you learn to spot the teachable moments and make the most of them.
Anyway we've been doing this for a couple of weeks, me and Zudie, and he's really getting the hang of it. He's even using the terminology plus and equals. I got some really nice addition books, flip books of lots of sums – 2 numbers to five, 2 numbers to 10, and 3 numbers to 10 all in one nice neat and colourful folder type book. And another wipe-clean book with sums that you do, filling in all the numbers of the operation and then pulling a tab to see the correct answer. So what with that and all the brightly coloured counters, balls and chess pieces we've been using he hasn't shown any signs of boredom although it's not his favourite activity either.
I think next we'll use the Montessori bead material to do the adding, using the addition strips for him to write on. I also have an iPad app using visuals of the bead material for addition which would be good for extending the activity to something a bit more abstract. Ultimately the aim is for Zoodie to be able to do the sum in his head, or even using his fingers, when it's written simply (eg) 4 + 2 =
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Things haven't gone smoothly for Zeno this week at school. Following the success of flexi-schooling last year, when he made a lot of progress in most subects despite only going to school part-time, Zeno was supposed to be trying a slightly more extended timetable this term - three full days and one half day as opposed to one full day and three half days last year. He's coped okay so far although he refused to go in on a couple of days and was genuinely sick one day too.
Now that he's a teenager his body clock has changed a bit, and he's more of a night owl. Getting him up at 7am-ish is an ordeal for both of us, although it seems to be getting easier (I hope those aren't famous last words). Monday is his day off so his week at school began on Tuesday, and it should have been a positive day as he had a history lesson (the only one of the week) and the topic was the first world war, one of his passionate interests.
Unfortunately he got into an argument with the history teacher about the fact that he uses a pen, not a pencil, which means his mistakes can't be just rubbed out with an eraser and presents a conundrum when he has written his answers in the wrong boxes. When he told me about this exchange, just hearing about the fact that he was writing sentences made my heart give a little leap, he hates doing handwriting and it's a source of worry to me how he would manage to compose and write long answers - never mind essays - in his future exams. So it sounded like progress to me. But the history teacher told him he should be using a pencil and brooked no arguments, although to be fair the one argument he doesn't seem to have thought of bringing forward was the plain fact that he uses a pen on the advice of the Occupational Therapist and has special permission never to use a pencil even in art, the noise and the feel of it makes him crazy. So the lesson was derailed and it had a knock-on effect on the rest of his day at school. His daily report page from school simply stated that he had been disruptive and argumentative during the lesson which is very annoying. Thank God Zein is a bit more communicative now, a couple of years ago I wouldn't even have got his side of the story without extensive questioning and forensic analysis of his answers.
So that was Tuesday. On the Wednesday there was a theatre trip in the afternoon. Zeno was initially enthusiastic but on the actual morning of the show he said he didn't want to go and took a bit of persuading. They were due back at school quite late, after 6pm, so the school bus couldn't bring them home and they had to be collected from school. So I was sitting in the school lobby waiting for them to arrive back, chatting pleasantly with another mum, when the door swung open and a familiar voice shouted "good riddance to all you horrible lot, I never want to go anywhere with you again" and my heart sank. At first it wasn't clear who he was angry at, as he walked past me shouting "if you're thinking of asking for my forgiveness you can forget it!" but the angry rejoinder "actually you owe me a big apology" came from one of his teachers who was following close behind.
I got her version of the story there and then - at the end of the performance, as they were leaving the theatre, Zeno had apparently delved in some rubbish and picked up some chocolate and eaten it. When she told him off about it he became verbally aggressive and continued in that vein throughout the journey home on the tube. The teacher misinterpreted my "is that it?" as being my response to Zeno's overreaction but it was the teacher's overreaction that dismayed me. That was even before I had Zeno's version, which was slightly different in that it involved the same teacher's discarded box of chocolates which still had one unwrapped sweet in the box and which he thought he would have, as a reward perhaps for picking up her rubbish from under the seat in front of hers and taking it to the bin. She shouted at him, unfairly he thought, and that kind of thing always puts him out of sorts. And once Zeno is out of sorts he stays out of sorts for at least a few hours, and unless you handle him with care he will express himself loudly and at length no matter where you are with words aimed to shock and wound. One of the things he told me he had said was his wish that the teacher would somehow find herself on the train tracks just before the train arrived. Of course I told him - this was on the bus home - that that was a terrible thing to say and it accounted for the poor woman's agitation when she had been speaking to me.
I sent an email to the head saying I was disappointed that relatively minor things were escalating to the point where Zeno was still seething several hours after getting home, and he replied that he agreed.
Zeno stayed home on Thursday but on Friday he set off in the school bus in the morning with instructions to apologise the the teacher for upsetting her with the horrible things he had said. And when he came home I checked that he had done so (knowing that he wouldn't do so unless he saw the reason why), and was glad to hear that the teacher had also apologised for shouting, so it turned into a positive lesson for Zeno in resolving conflict. I was also relieved to hear that his threat to advise her to take an anger management course hadn't been carried out, and that he'd given up his idea to propose a motion at the next school council meeting to have her sacked.
Now that he's a teenager his body clock has changed a bit, and he's more of a night owl. Getting him up at 7am-ish is an ordeal for both of us, although it seems to be getting easier (I hope those aren't famous last words). Monday is his day off so his week at school began on Tuesday, and it should have been a positive day as he had a history lesson (the only one of the week) and the topic was the first world war, one of his passionate interests.
Unfortunately he got into an argument with the history teacher about the fact that he uses a pen, not a pencil, which means his mistakes can't be just rubbed out with an eraser and presents a conundrum when he has written his answers in the wrong boxes. When he told me about this exchange, just hearing about the fact that he was writing sentences made my heart give a little leap, he hates doing handwriting and it's a source of worry to me how he would manage to compose and write long answers - never mind essays - in his future exams. So it sounded like progress to me. But the history teacher told him he should be using a pencil and brooked no arguments, although to be fair the one argument he doesn't seem to have thought of bringing forward was the plain fact that he uses a pen on the advice of the Occupational Therapist and has special permission never to use a pencil even in art, the noise and the feel of it makes him crazy. So the lesson was derailed and it had a knock-on effect on the rest of his day at school. His daily report page from school simply stated that he had been disruptive and argumentative during the lesson which is very annoying. Thank God Zein is a bit more communicative now, a couple of years ago I wouldn't even have got his side of the story without extensive questioning and forensic analysis of his answers.
So that was Tuesday. On the Wednesday there was a theatre trip in the afternoon. Zeno was initially enthusiastic but on the actual morning of the show he said he didn't want to go and took a bit of persuading. They were due back at school quite late, after 6pm, so the school bus couldn't bring them home and they had to be collected from school. So I was sitting in the school lobby waiting for them to arrive back, chatting pleasantly with another mum, when the door swung open and a familiar voice shouted "good riddance to all you horrible lot, I never want to go anywhere with you again" and my heart sank. At first it wasn't clear who he was angry at, as he walked past me shouting "if you're thinking of asking for my forgiveness you can forget it!" but the angry rejoinder "actually you owe me a big apology" came from one of his teachers who was following close behind.
I got her version of the story there and then - at the end of the performance, as they were leaving the theatre, Zeno had apparently delved in some rubbish and picked up some chocolate and eaten it. When she told him off about it he became verbally aggressive and continued in that vein throughout the journey home on the tube. The teacher misinterpreted my "is that it?" as being my response to Zeno's overreaction but it was the teacher's overreaction that dismayed me. That was even before I had Zeno's version, which was slightly different in that it involved the same teacher's discarded box of chocolates which still had one unwrapped sweet in the box and which he thought he would have, as a reward perhaps for picking up her rubbish from under the seat in front of hers and taking it to the bin. She shouted at him, unfairly he thought, and that kind of thing always puts him out of sorts. And once Zeno is out of sorts he stays out of sorts for at least a few hours, and unless you handle him with care he will express himself loudly and at length no matter where you are with words aimed to shock and wound. One of the things he told me he had said was his wish that the teacher would somehow find herself on the train tracks just before the train arrived. Of course I told him - this was on the bus home - that that was a terrible thing to say and it accounted for the poor woman's agitation when she had been speaking to me.
I sent an email to the head saying I was disappointed that relatively minor things were escalating to the point where Zeno was still seething several hours after getting home, and he replied that he agreed.
Zeno stayed home on Thursday but on Friday he set off in the school bus in the morning with instructions to apologise the the teacher for upsetting her with the horrible things he had said. And when he came home I checked that he had done so (knowing that he wouldn't do so unless he saw the reason why), and was glad to hear that the teacher had also apologised for shouting, so it turned into a positive lesson for Zeno in resolving conflict. I was also relieved to hear that his threat to advise her to take an anger management course hadn't been carried out, and that he'd given up his idea to propose a motion at the next school council meeting to have her sacked.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
So, yesterday I had a consultation with an Osteopath about Zeno with a view to him having a course of treatment of cranial osteopathy. It was offered through my sister who works at the therapy centre, as far as I can gather they offer a sort of pro-bono service to relatives of their employees which is pretty amazing, given the commitment of time involved.
The consultant was very impressive, hugely knowledgeable about labour and birth and also about behavioural issues in children. He apparently has a wide experience of treating children and is prepared to take the treatment sessions entirely at Zein's pace and said we should look at doing some treatment over a period of a year, and that he isn't promising any kind of cure or anything like that but really thinks he can help Zeno feel better, feel more grounded and calmer. I am kind of in awe of someone who gives their time and professional skills for free like that when they are also very busy with paying clients. It's really wonderful and I already appreciate it, without even knowing for sure whether it will be beneficial or not.
The consultation involved discussing my son's present difficulties and his pregnancy and birth history. The Osteo referred to the birth as traumatic which was a bit upsetting but I think he had a point. It's not that it didn't occur to me before but having it confirmed by a professional makes it harder to push out of your mind. I've been thinking and remembering the whole birth experience and I'm not sure how exactly accurate all the details are but I've tried to write it all down here.
I was 31 years old when Zeno was born, and he is my eldest child. He was due on 8th February but that day came and went without any signs of imminent labour. In fact at the last ante-natal appointment before the due date the midwife commented that the baby's head was still floating high above the cervix and not 'engaged' into it which is the usual indicator of readiness for birth. He was also in the occito-posterior position, or back-to-back which is a more descriptive name for it. For the head to be in the optimum position for travelling down the birth canal, the baby's front should be towards its mother and its back along the outside of the bump, but Zeno was the other way around. Oh yes, and he was a big baby, they kept telling me with a frown and a purse of the lips, but exactly how big - 8 & a half pounds? 9? 10? - they couldn't say.
On 14th February, which was a Sunday, the first sign that things might be starting to happen was that my (substantial) bump changed shape and looked to me - from above - the shape of a missile or zeppilin. Later on I started getting contractions, they were very weak to start with and gradually got stronger but unfortunately they were very erratic - they would get quite close together - 3 or 4 minutes - and then tail off and I wouldn't get another one for an hour. I knew from all the pregnancy magazines and birth stories I'd read that there was no point contacting the midwife at this stage, but was still hopeful that things might speed up overnight or next day. I didn't lose a whole night's sleep but I didn't sleep well either and got woken up by the contractions a few times.
As far as I remember Monday was a similar story, contractions coming and going of varying length and intensity, sometimes quite close together sometimes miles apart. It was exciting and scary when I timed the contrations to find they were getting from 5 minutes to 4 minutes to 3 minutes apart, but then I wouldn't have a contraction for half an hour or more and would get disheartened. And so another broken night passed.
On the Tuesday I had had enough, the contractions were getting more painful, were sometimes close enough together to at least justify being checked over by a midwife, so I took myself off to hospital. They hooked me up to a machine and declared me 'not in established labour'. They wanted to send me home but after I tearfully described my previous two nights of sleep broken by contractions they said they would keep an eye on me for a few hours. They gave me pethidine and put me in a room by myself to try and get some sleep, I was drowsy but still feeling the contractions. After about half an hour a midwife came and said she'd been timing my groans (!) and the contractions seemed quite regular and about 3-5 minutes apart so she hooked me up to a machine again and somehow the contractions tailed off to little or nothing yet again.
I was sent home as it was decided that established labour was still some way off. There is a sort of impatience about midwives when women are in the very early stages of labour and having what feel like quite painful contractions but which of course are nothing compared with the full-blown contractions of the late stages of labour. I think it was particularly annoying in my case because they weren't taking into account how confused and anxious I was about the stopping and starting of the contractions. Anyway I felt patronised and dismissed. I would almost say humiliated.
Tuesday night I got less sleep than the previous two nights, I think due as much to anxiety as the still erratic contractions, wildly varying in timing and intensity but as far as I remember not really getting that close together at all. Wednesday was the same story during the day, but at night the contractions got really strong, I got no sleep at all as I tried to 'walk through' the contractions but was frequently brought to my knees, literally, where I would occasionally doze off at the tail end of a contraction with my head on a chair. I was still timing the contractions and happy that things were speeding up, but they seemed to be stuck at 2-5 minutes apart with an occasional longer gap, and not getting to consistently 2-3 minutes apart which I knew would be ideal and show some kind of serious progression of labour. By morning I decided I was going into hospital and not coming out till I had the baby. It was Thursday by now.
In hospital I was examined and the contractions were monitored for a while, I was asked about pain relief and I said I'd had enough of the pain and wanted an epidural. The anaesthetist was busy but would be with me at some stage, I was told, no rush. The midwife stayed with me and asked me if I wanted gas and air, which she proceeded to demonstrate. I had a contraction, or maybe a couple, and used the gas and air and found it a wonderful relief from the pain. I sat down on the low chair beside the bed and started to fill in the form while the midwife chatted about procedure. Suddenly I felt another contraction coming and stood up and leaned over the bed (my memory of this is very vivid even though it was 13 years ago). I breathed in the gas and air. The midwife paused in her chat and waited for the contraction to pass, we both waited, me breathing and grimacing and taking some more gas and air.....and we waited....she came over and put her hand on my bump, frowning......and still the contraction went on, I was starting to panic a bit because this was something new, something strange and something I had never read about, a contraction going on for more than 2 minutes.....getting to 3 minutes...the gas and air was no longer working even though I was sucking on that mask as if my life depended on it, and suddenly the midwife, who was 6 months pregnant herself, dashed out of the room and ran down the corridor. I need hardly say this did nothing to soothe my panic but she returned really quickly with a man in surgical clothes who turned out to be the anaesthetist, and an assistant I think. The contraction had subsided at last, and I asked the midwife dazedly (all that gas and air!) "what's happening?" to which the anaesthetist, a horrible loud jolly person, said "YOU'RE HAVING A BABY DARLING" with heavy sarcasm. And then he started barking instructions at me which were something like "get on the bed - push your spine out as far as you can - press your chin down on your chest - HARD! - and whatever you do "DON'T MOVE". I understood he was trying to find the spot for the needle to go into my spine, dangerous if it went in the wrong place, so I tried very hard indeed not to move and prayed that a contraction wouldn't start. This was when my o/h arrived, at the point of maximum chaos and panic. Ten minutes later I was sitting up in bed, pain-free for the first time in 4 days, just with a strange sensation of cold liquid flowing along my spine.
Nothing much happened after that, the contractions were shown on a printout from the machine I was hooked up to, and proved to be just as erratic as before. My o/h passed the time getting high on the gas and air. I was examined periodically but labour wasn't progressing and I think they were concerned.
Eventually I think they thought the printouts were showing possible signs of distress in the baby and I was given a consent form to sign for a c/section. They gave me an oxygen mask "for the baby" they said and then added hastily "nothing to worry about, it's just in case". I was wheeled into theatre and prepped and my o/h changed into surgical gown and mask and they put a green curtain between me and my bump. What I remember most vividly is the light, incredibly bright and hot, shining down on my unseen middle. 'Dad' took a peep over the curtain but decided to stay on my side of it. There was a surprising amount of rummaging and tugging to get the baby out but out he came eventually, strangely quiet, and was immediately taken over to some kind of resuss table to be thoroughly checked over - I think seconds count in these cases. But, alhamdulillah, all was fine and he was wrapped and laid down beside me, and 'Dad' held him and whispered the call to prayer in his ear, the athaan for the funeral prayer at the end of his life, a reminder that this life is just a brief moment in our overall existence. Baby weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces, or 4.2 kilos.
Me and baby were wheeled to the ward, silent and dark now at about 4.45am. I wished the o/h didn't have to go, or at least could have stayed for a bit longer, but he was ushered out pretty sharpish. I fell asleep quickly even though I didn't think I could possibly sleep, and was woken at about 7am by the nurses drawing back everyone's curtains and calling out cheerfully (imagine how annoying that is to a person half dead from exhaustion). It was the high dependency ward at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, still relatively new in 1999 and state of the art. There were only 4 beds on the ward and we had 2 nurses all to ourselves to hand us our babies and advise about nappy changing. I didn't appreciate at the time what luxury that was, not until I had the unfortunate experience of giving birth in St. Mary's Paddington.
Zeno latched on beautifully but his blood sugar was low. He was feeding a lot but apparently not getting much benefit from it. The midwife checked my supply by squeezing my nipple and the milk shot halfway across the room. I was too tired to be outraged. Another midwife came on duty, she made me feel uncomfortable without knowing why exactly. Visitors came and went. Zeno's blood sugar was being monitored and it was decided to try and feed him formula, with a little cup, in an effort to try and raise it. It didn't seem to make much difference so they decided he needed to be fed gastro-intestinally, with tubes through his nose direct to his stomach. I had to feed him at intervals through the tube, drip drip drip, I can't remember if it was my milk or formula. The strange midwife took personal offence at me for something I said or did, it was downright weird and unprofessional and unnerved me and made me think of Beverly Allit. I was so glad when she went off duty and another midwife came on, took one look at the feeding tube and said let's get this sorted and get this off him. I think she let me feed him normally as well as through the tube - I wonder if I'm remembering that right? I was pathetically grateful for a sensible and professional person to take charge of us. He was off the tube feeding within 24 hours and progressing normally, he fed through the night almost and I still wasn't getting any sleep. I was put onto a different ward as I could now walk unassisted to the toilet and was off the drip. I asked the nurses at the station outside to take him and let me get some sleep but they refused, they said they could give him a bottle if I wanted? yes, yes, take him and give him a bottle. I closed my eyes and went unconscious immediately but they woke me about 20 minutes later putting him back in his cot, wide awake and grizzling.
At some stage my mother-in-law came to visit us, she had the hump for some reason, she looked my baby over and said nothing much. Isn't he big, I said, but she refuted that with stories of her babies born with fat hanging over their wrists.. She advised me, through my o/h, to sit cross legged in order to feed. I tried to explain that I had an abdominal wound and it wasn't possible but apparently she took offence at my rejection of her advice. I got annoyed because o/h also didn't seem to understand why I couldn't sit up on the bed cross-legged.
I was in hospital for 3 nights, didn't sleep much while I was there, so by the time I came out on the Monday I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of hours I had slept in the previous week. At home I took to the double bed and baby fed through the night without disturbing me much, and 'dad' put pillows all around the bed in case baby managed to roll out and at regular intervals came into the room and stood over us fretting and wringing his hands, which he called 'looking after you and the baby all through the night', when I asked him next day to look after the baby for a while and let me sleep on my own.
Zeno continued to feed through the night for the next 2-3 years and demanded constant attention during most of the day, as his daytime sleep consisted of 'power naps' of 10-20 minutes three or four times a day. So it took me years to catch up on my sleep. But of course, as most mothers would say - they're worth it, All the sleepless nights, exhaustion and worry are worth it, many times over.
The Osteo listened to the main features of this birth story - of course it wasn't as long as this! and explained that such a long labour isn't good for the baby, due to the head pressing down on the cervix continually and not getting anywhere, and also due to the amount of adreniline in the baby's body for an extended period of time. The three plates of the skull will often overlap as the baby attempts to engage with the cervix and a prolonged period of this might cause problems. that's about as much as I understood from the Osteo's advice. I'm hoping to learn more in the coming sessions and I'm really hoping that Zeno will enjoy the experience and benefit from it, insha'Allah; he has already agreed to come along and meet the Osteo and see what cranial osteopathy is all about.
The consultant was very impressive, hugely knowledgeable about labour and birth and also about behavioural issues in children. He apparently has a wide experience of treating children and is prepared to take the treatment sessions entirely at Zein's pace and said we should look at doing some treatment over a period of a year, and that he isn't promising any kind of cure or anything like that but really thinks he can help Zeno feel better, feel more grounded and calmer. I am kind of in awe of someone who gives their time and professional skills for free like that when they are also very busy with paying clients. It's really wonderful and I already appreciate it, without even knowing for sure whether it will be beneficial or not.
The consultation involved discussing my son's present difficulties and his pregnancy and birth history. The Osteo referred to the birth as traumatic which was a bit upsetting but I think he had a point. It's not that it didn't occur to me before but having it confirmed by a professional makes it harder to push out of your mind. I've been thinking and remembering the whole birth experience and I'm not sure how exactly accurate all the details are but I've tried to write it all down here.
I was 31 years old when Zeno was born, and he is my eldest child. He was due on 8th February but that day came and went without any signs of imminent labour. In fact at the last ante-natal appointment before the due date the midwife commented that the baby's head was still floating high above the cervix and not 'engaged' into it which is the usual indicator of readiness for birth. He was also in the occito-posterior position, or back-to-back which is a more descriptive name for it. For the head to be in the optimum position for travelling down the birth canal, the baby's front should be towards its mother and its back along the outside of the bump, but Zeno was the other way around. Oh yes, and he was a big baby, they kept telling me with a frown and a purse of the lips, but exactly how big - 8 & a half pounds? 9? 10? - they couldn't say.
On 14th February, which was a Sunday, the first sign that things might be starting to happen was that my (substantial) bump changed shape and looked to me - from above - the shape of a missile or zeppilin. Later on I started getting contractions, they were very weak to start with and gradually got stronger but unfortunately they were very erratic - they would get quite close together - 3 or 4 minutes - and then tail off and I wouldn't get another one for an hour. I knew from all the pregnancy magazines and birth stories I'd read that there was no point contacting the midwife at this stage, but was still hopeful that things might speed up overnight or next day. I didn't lose a whole night's sleep but I didn't sleep well either and got woken up by the contractions a few times.
As far as I remember Monday was a similar story, contractions coming and going of varying length and intensity, sometimes quite close together sometimes miles apart. It was exciting and scary when I timed the contrations to find they were getting from 5 minutes to 4 minutes to 3 minutes apart, but then I wouldn't have a contraction for half an hour or more and would get disheartened. And so another broken night passed.
On the Tuesday I had had enough, the contractions were getting more painful, were sometimes close enough together to at least justify being checked over by a midwife, so I took myself off to hospital. They hooked me up to a machine and declared me 'not in established labour'. They wanted to send me home but after I tearfully described my previous two nights of sleep broken by contractions they said they would keep an eye on me for a few hours. They gave me pethidine and put me in a room by myself to try and get some sleep, I was drowsy but still feeling the contractions. After about half an hour a midwife came and said she'd been timing my groans (!) and the contractions seemed quite regular and about 3-5 minutes apart so she hooked me up to a machine again and somehow the contractions tailed off to little or nothing yet again.
I was sent home as it was decided that established labour was still some way off. There is a sort of impatience about midwives when women are in the very early stages of labour and having what feel like quite painful contractions but which of course are nothing compared with the full-blown contractions of the late stages of labour. I think it was particularly annoying in my case because they weren't taking into account how confused and anxious I was about the stopping and starting of the contractions. Anyway I felt patronised and dismissed. I would almost say humiliated.
Tuesday night I got less sleep than the previous two nights, I think due as much to anxiety as the still erratic contractions, wildly varying in timing and intensity but as far as I remember not really getting that close together at all. Wednesday was the same story during the day, but at night the contractions got really strong, I got no sleep at all as I tried to 'walk through' the contractions but was frequently brought to my knees, literally, where I would occasionally doze off at the tail end of a contraction with my head on a chair. I was still timing the contractions and happy that things were speeding up, but they seemed to be stuck at 2-5 minutes apart with an occasional longer gap, and not getting to consistently 2-3 minutes apart which I knew would be ideal and show some kind of serious progression of labour. By morning I decided I was going into hospital and not coming out till I had the baby. It was Thursday by now.
In hospital I was examined and the contractions were monitored for a while, I was asked about pain relief and I said I'd had enough of the pain and wanted an epidural. The anaesthetist was busy but would be with me at some stage, I was told, no rush. The midwife stayed with me and asked me if I wanted gas and air, which she proceeded to demonstrate. I had a contraction, or maybe a couple, and used the gas and air and found it a wonderful relief from the pain. I sat down on the low chair beside the bed and started to fill in the form while the midwife chatted about procedure. Suddenly I felt another contraction coming and stood up and leaned over the bed (my memory of this is very vivid even though it was 13 years ago). I breathed in the gas and air. The midwife paused in her chat and waited for the contraction to pass, we both waited, me breathing and grimacing and taking some more gas and air.....and we waited....she came over and put her hand on my bump, frowning......and still the contraction went on, I was starting to panic a bit because this was something new, something strange and something I had never read about, a contraction going on for more than 2 minutes.....getting to 3 minutes...the gas and air was no longer working even though I was sucking on that mask as if my life depended on it, and suddenly the midwife, who was 6 months pregnant herself, dashed out of the room and ran down the corridor. I need hardly say this did nothing to soothe my panic but she returned really quickly with a man in surgical clothes who turned out to be the anaesthetist, and an assistant I think. The contraction had subsided at last, and I asked the midwife dazedly (all that gas and air!) "what's happening?" to which the anaesthetist, a horrible loud jolly person, said "YOU'RE HAVING A BABY DARLING" with heavy sarcasm. And then he started barking instructions at me which were something like "get on the bed - push your spine out as far as you can - press your chin down on your chest - HARD! - and whatever you do "DON'T MOVE". I understood he was trying to find the spot for the needle to go into my spine, dangerous if it went in the wrong place, so I tried very hard indeed not to move and prayed that a contraction wouldn't start. This was when my o/h arrived, at the point of maximum chaos and panic. Ten minutes later I was sitting up in bed, pain-free for the first time in 4 days, just with a strange sensation of cold liquid flowing along my spine.
Nothing much happened after that, the contractions were shown on a printout from the machine I was hooked up to, and proved to be just as erratic as before. My o/h passed the time getting high on the gas and air. I was examined periodically but labour wasn't progressing and I think they were concerned.
Eventually I think they thought the printouts were showing possible signs of distress in the baby and I was given a consent form to sign for a c/section. They gave me an oxygen mask "for the baby" they said and then added hastily "nothing to worry about, it's just in case". I was wheeled into theatre and prepped and my o/h changed into surgical gown and mask and they put a green curtain between me and my bump. What I remember most vividly is the light, incredibly bright and hot, shining down on my unseen middle. 'Dad' took a peep over the curtain but decided to stay on my side of it. There was a surprising amount of rummaging and tugging to get the baby out but out he came eventually, strangely quiet, and was immediately taken over to some kind of resuss table to be thoroughly checked over - I think seconds count in these cases. But, alhamdulillah, all was fine and he was wrapped and laid down beside me, and 'Dad' held him and whispered the call to prayer in his ear, the athaan for the funeral prayer at the end of his life, a reminder that this life is just a brief moment in our overall existence. Baby weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces, or 4.2 kilos.
Me and baby were wheeled to the ward, silent and dark now at about 4.45am. I wished the o/h didn't have to go, or at least could have stayed for a bit longer, but he was ushered out pretty sharpish. I fell asleep quickly even though I didn't think I could possibly sleep, and was woken at about 7am by the nurses drawing back everyone's curtains and calling out cheerfully (imagine how annoying that is to a person half dead from exhaustion). It was the high dependency ward at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, still relatively new in 1999 and state of the art. There were only 4 beds on the ward and we had 2 nurses all to ourselves to hand us our babies and advise about nappy changing. I didn't appreciate at the time what luxury that was, not until I had the unfortunate experience of giving birth in St. Mary's Paddington.
Zeno latched on beautifully but his blood sugar was low. He was feeding a lot but apparently not getting much benefit from it. The midwife checked my supply by squeezing my nipple and the milk shot halfway across the room. I was too tired to be outraged. Another midwife came on duty, she made me feel uncomfortable without knowing why exactly. Visitors came and went. Zeno's blood sugar was being monitored and it was decided to try and feed him formula, with a little cup, in an effort to try and raise it. It didn't seem to make much difference so they decided he needed to be fed gastro-intestinally, with tubes through his nose direct to his stomach. I had to feed him at intervals through the tube, drip drip drip, I can't remember if it was my milk or formula. The strange midwife took personal offence at me for something I said or did, it was downright weird and unprofessional and unnerved me and made me think of Beverly Allit. I was so glad when she went off duty and another midwife came on, took one look at the feeding tube and said let's get this sorted and get this off him. I think she let me feed him normally as well as through the tube - I wonder if I'm remembering that right? I was pathetically grateful for a sensible and professional person to take charge of us. He was off the tube feeding within 24 hours and progressing normally, he fed through the night almost and I still wasn't getting any sleep. I was put onto a different ward as I could now walk unassisted to the toilet and was off the drip. I asked the nurses at the station outside to take him and let me get some sleep but they refused, they said they could give him a bottle if I wanted? yes, yes, take him and give him a bottle. I closed my eyes and went unconscious immediately but they woke me about 20 minutes later putting him back in his cot, wide awake and grizzling.
At some stage my mother-in-law came to visit us, she had the hump for some reason, she looked my baby over and said nothing much. Isn't he big, I said, but she refuted that with stories of her babies born with fat hanging over their wrists.. She advised me, through my o/h, to sit cross legged in order to feed. I tried to explain that I had an abdominal wound and it wasn't possible but apparently she took offence at my rejection of her advice. I got annoyed because o/h also didn't seem to understand why I couldn't sit up on the bed cross-legged.
I was in hospital for 3 nights, didn't sleep much while I was there, so by the time I came out on the Monday I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of hours I had slept in the previous week. At home I took to the double bed and baby fed through the night without disturbing me much, and 'dad' put pillows all around the bed in case baby managed to roll out and at regular intervals came into the room and stood over us fretting and wringing his hands, which he called 'looking after you and the baby all through the night', when I asked him next day to look after the baby for a while and let me sleep on my own.
Zeno continued to feed through the night for the next 2-3 years and demanded constant attention during most of the day, as his daytime sleep consisted of 'power naps' of 10-20 minutes three or four times a day. So it took me years to catch up on my sleep. But of course, as most mothers would say - they're worth it, All the sleepless nights, exhaustion and worry are worth it, many times over.
The Osteo listened to the main features of this birth story - of course it wasn't as long as this! and explained that such a long labour isn't good for the baby, due to the head pressing down on the cervix continually and not getting anywhere, and also due to the amount of adreniline in the baby's body for an extended period of time. The three plates of the skull will often overlap as the baby attempts to engage with the cervix and a prolonged period of this might cause problems. that's about as much as I understood from the Osteo's advice. I'm hoping to learn more in the coming sessions and I'm really hoping that Zeno will enjoy the experience and benefit from it, insha'Allah; he has already agreed to come along and meet the Osteo and see what cranial osteopathy is all about.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Kickboxing Sundays
Sundays is now kickboxing day. No surprise that Boudie loves it and is progressing well in class. Unfortunately the other two can't cope with class protocol just yet so we have to shell out for private lessons for them, after Boudie's Sunday morning class.
Zeno has got a couple of difficulties which he is managing fantastically - one is the fact that no hoods are allowed in the dojo, the other is just the whole martial arts discipline of the dojo. The sensai is being very understanding, he gave Zeno a headguard to wear in place of the hood which Zeno accepted quite easily; he continues to wear the jacket for the first part of the lesson but after building up a sweat it comes off, and so does the headguard which is quite surprising to me after all the brouhaha at school about insisting on keeping the hood up (sometimes pulled down over his face as well). I can see that Zeno does feel very uncomfortable and self-conscious at the beginning of the lesson as there are usually a lot of people around, some of them have just finished a class and are leaving, but some will stay and another private lesson will go on in the other half of the dojo, and of course there will be other sensais around. But he is very motivated to do kickboxing, and seems to get sufficiently into it so that he is able to forget to be self-conscious. Zeno's not all that physical or sporty usually, apart from rollerblading in the park. The sensai is really working him hard and trying to build up his fitness levels, and we'll be working on that during the rest of the week too, as well as trying to improve his diet. Not easy as he has a very limited range of fruit and veg that he will tolerate (no cooked veg at all) and he craves carbohydrates and sugary fruit juices. He likes his meat though, as long as it's dry and not saucy........he's got a lot of potential as he seems to have inherited his father's physique, if he decided to take up a sport I think he could do very well.
Zoudie loves kickboxing but only in the house, he refuses even to do the private lessons with his brothers, I did try to explain to the sensai that he needed to just sit and observe for the first few weeks and eventually he might feel comfortable enough to join in, but he kept trying to include Zoudie - in a nice way, just getting him to 'give me five' and asking him to punch the pads ten times just from where he was sitting on the sidelines, but Zoudie didn't like it. He cooperates because he doesn't want to cause a fuss which to him would make things worse, but he doesn't like it and gives me grief afterwards, all the way home and for hours afterwards. And then when Sunday approaches - say from Friday - he starts perseverating about not wanting to go to kickboxing, crying and begging, and it's just like school all over again. So far (it's only been 3 Sundays) we have been ignoring him and telling him we've got to go there, no choice, and he doesn't have to do any kickboxing, but he says "I don't like that man talking to me". Today Zeno was talking in the lesson about how he was so hot and tired his brain had become a black hole, or something like that - and I said to his Dad "Zeno just can't stop the yakkety-yak" and Zoudie said "yes and the man too can't stop yakkety-yak". I need to try and persevere and carry on bringing him but it's quite draining and so much easier to just say "okay don't come stay at home with Baba".
I'm so tempted to have a go myself, it looks like great fun and ages since I did anything physical.
Zeno has got a couple of difficulties which he is managing fantastically - one is the fact that no hoods are allowed in the dojo, the other is just the whole martial arts discipline of the dojo. The sensai is being very understanding, he gave Zeno a headguard to wear in place of the hood which Zeno accepted quite easily; he continues to wear the jacket for the first part of the lesson but after building up a sweat it comes off, and so does the headguard which is quite surprising to me after all the brouhaha at school about insisting on keeping the hood up (sometimes pulled down over his face as well). I can see that Zeno does feel very uncomfortable and self-conscious at the beginning of the lesson as there are usually a lot of people around, some of them have just finished a class and are leaving, but some will stay and another private lesson will go on in the other half of the dojo, and of course there will be other sensais around. But he is very motivated to do kickboxing, and seems to get sufficiently into it so that he is able to forget to be self-conscious. Zeno's not all that physical or sporty usually, apart from rollerblading in the park. The sensai is really working him hard and trying to build up his fitness levels, and we'll be working on that during the rest of the week too, as well as trying to improve his diet. Not easy as he has a very limited range of fruit and veg that he will tolerate (no cooked veg at all) and he craves carbohydrates and sugary fruit juices. He likes his meat though, as long as it's dry and not saucy........he's got a lot of potential as he seems to have inherited his father's physique, if he decided to take up a sport I think he could do very well.
Zoudie loves kickboxing but only in the house, he refuses even to do the private lessons with his brothers, I did try to explain to the sensai that he needed to just sit and observe for the first few weeks and eventually he might feel comfortable enough to join in, but he kept trying to include Zoudie - in a nice way, just getting him to 'give me five' and asking him to punch the pads ten times just from where he was sitting on the sidelines, but Zoudie didn't like it. He cooperates because he doesn't want to cause a fuss which to him would make things worse, but he doesn't like it and gives me grief afterwards, all the way home and for hours afterwards. And then when Sunday approaches - say from Friday - he starts perseverating about not wanting to go to kickboxing, crying and begging, and it's just like school all over again. So far (it's only been 3 Sundays) we have been ignoring him and telling him we've got to go there, no choice, and he doesn't have to do any kickboxing, but he says "I don't like that man talking to me". Today Zeno was talking in the lesson about how he was so hot and tired his brain had become a black hole, or something like that - and I said to his Dad "Zeno just can't stop the yakkety-yak" and Zoudie said "yes and the man too can't stop yakkety-yak". I need to try and persevere and carry on bringing him but it's quite draining and so much easier to just say "okay don't come stay at home with Baba".
I'm so tempted to have a go myself, it looks like great fun and ages since I did anything physical.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Grump in the Lift
Today got into the lift with Zeno, going to school for the afternoon lessons. The lift stopped on its way down, at the fourth floor and before the door opened he muttered (very loud mutter) "Jerks!". I barely had time to rebuke and warn him before the doors opened fully and our neighbors from the lower floor got in. They are a lovely elderly couple, very pleasant. Zeno's response to their greeting was to turn his back on them and say angrily "TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS LIFT!". I tried to smooth things over by saying he was feeling a bit claustrophobic. "No school today?" the man asked, and I said we were going in for afternoon lessons. "I take it he doesn't want to go?" the man smiled, as his wife nudged him and said "shush, shush, don't". "It's okay he doesn't mind too much" I said but Zeno immediately contradicted me by saying in his angry voice "I DO MIND!!! I DO!!"
I shouldn't feel upset or embarrassed but I do. I think it's more of a dread that they (or whoever) might judge Zeno for appearing to be rude and uncaring. One of the reasons we try to teach our children good manners is so that they will be liked and accepted by others. As a naive young mother I had thought that all I had to do was model good manners and then remind my children a few (hundred) times. I used to think that children were rude and selfish and so on because that's how their families treated them. They didn't have the benefit of a good example, was all. Oh how we do judge!
Anyhow, Zeno got a lecture as we sat on the bus. There are 6 billion people on the planet and if everyone is grumpy to everyone else all the time it makes life so unpleasant. I (I said) like to have a positive experience every time I come into contact with others, whether it is my family, the neighbors, the shopkeeper etc. I am polite and friendly to people and when people are polite and friendly back it makes me feel good. If people are grumpy and rude to me, it makes me feel upset. Life is more pleasant if only we can be nice to each other.......and so on (and on!). It didn't seem to make any impact on Zeno, sadly. He just gave that low growl that Marge Simpson taught him (bad habits are easier to pick up, it seems). The final, the ultimate argument in favour of making more effort to be pleasant to people and not grumpy, is of course that it pleases God, and the other kind of behaviour doesn't. We've spoken before (okay, I've spoken before) about how this life is short, although it doesn't feel like it when you're 12. We are alive for eternity. This life on earth is only the blink of eye, less than the blink of an eye, compared to eternity. This is a very good reason for being patient and forbearing about whatever befalls us during our lifetime on this earth. Being patient, not rising to angry feelings, accepting whatever we cannot change - this is what makes us successful in the context of eternity. People who are greedy and selfish often become powerful and "successful" in this life. But success in this life is no guarantee of success in the next life - which is infinitely longer than the present one. The only way to guarantee eternal happiness, rather than eternal sorrow, is to seek to please God in all our actions. Pleasing God means being patient and kind to people, not being selfish and rude. Forgiving people when they upset you or do you wrong, just as you hope God will forgive you. True, it's not easy. But, it can be worked on. With a little practice, we can get better at all of the actions that please God. Even if we fail sometimes, He will reward us for the efforts we make, and when we ask for His forgiveness it is freely given.
Insha'Allah I will keep telling Zeno and one day it might bear fruit.......
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