Day: October 23, 2004

when jasper was in the NICU, he would wriggle around and pull tubes out of his body. this practise, although encouraging to his parents, was dangerous and painful for the little man. the nurses curtailed his disturbing hobby by taking a nappy pin and clipping jasper’s bandaged arms to the sheets below.

fast forward a few months, and jasper has developed a similar, similarly disturbing practise. unlike his thumb sucking sisters (pictured left: Sela), jj is a soother man. he is definitely the high maintenance baby these days, and when i put them down for naps, his sisters pop thumbs in (usually carys [2nd pic] moans for a bit and needs a bit of reassurance, while sela just needs you to stand over her crib and admire her) and are carried away to the land of nod. a huge round of applause to the girls for accomplishing this slumbering feat, because the background music is JASPER screaming with fear.

wahhh i am so scared i will never find my soother again, wahhhh the nights are darker and the cot is bigger without my soother….wahhhh this sootherless existence i am facing is devastating….

of course, the soother was in his mouth and the little rotter removed it with his hand. several times.

we have tried giving him cuddly toys to hold on to, but his meaty sweaty/drooly hands keep gravitating to his beloved soother.

although as hen friends will attest, i am a scheduling kind of mummy and have no trouble letting babies cry it out, when i head back into his room, he is waving the soother about while lamenting its loss.

10 minutes is a long time to listen to a baby cry. if one of the girls cry i usually laugh (sela, grandstanding) or sympathise and jiggle (carys). but with jasper, this is his own fault. i can’t help him, he doesn’t like my help. he is causing this own pain! now i know how my parents felt when i kept dating unsuitable boys during my early 20’s.

i have found myself wondering how difficult it would be to pin him down again. except these days, if jasper got it into his bald crinkled head that there was a cream cheese filling in the pin, he would bite through it.

in practise, this only lasts for 10 minutes or so until his hands get so heavy he can’t force his tired self to move them. but that is 10 minutes!!!! 10 minutes where everyone is quiet…except for him.

i finally stopped dating unsuitable boys when i met magnificent charles.

i hope it doesn’t take jasper until his late 20’s to keep his soother in his mouth.

today we talk about tertia.

she is almost a celebrity, and i might write about her in my tatler column one of these days. show her in that diaphanous dreamy dress shot that could almost substitute for a head shot and caption it…

tertia
could hurt-ya
good vocab
not in rehab
great with child
she’s pretty wild
and never mild
a cool tekkie
how weird is that
even 25 weeks enciente
is not fat
many “c’s” is she:
compassionate, clever,
creative,
boring? never.
a wonderful friend
ithaka’s road will soon bend

and that wouldn’t even touch on her wonderfulness that is HER. getting a bit naff, must stop.

i first heard of tertia when i was occasionally posting on ivfconnections. i remember she posted the day she learned she was pregnant with the quads. instead of being miserable, she said. “typical tertia!”, like it was to be expected that she would have several negatives and then have four that would stick. that was a tertia thing to do.

when she posted about the loss of sweet luke, and her fight to keep ben safe within her, her fear and hopes were palatable. then ben was born, and all too soon, he died. and her honesty and agony were searing.

she has helped so many women fighting with IF learn that they are not alone with their anger and frustration. she has dared us to see the funny side of daily jabbing and the nameless/faceless people who get us pregnant (or not).

she is magnificent, she is strong, her fragility enhances her porcelain strength. funny, frank, loving and level. she is tertia, and my life is better with her in it. i am sure yours is too.

tertia, love, i am still praying daily for you all. dewla too. and now lauren and her sweet babes. would love an update.