My Menopause Support

I woke up today feeling really rough after a heavy day of bleeding yesterday. I don't think I have ever had a period like it, and I must say it shocked me. The gushing reminded me of the post childbirth bleeds when my little newborns suckled at the breast for the first few feeds, but without the pain of the uterus contracting.
This morning I was left feeling slightly hungover, although I hadn't been drinking, very tired and struggled even to put one foot in front of the other to walk the children to school. I was dizzy and had the beginnings of a headache.

I don't normally post about my own issues on my Facebook page but today I felt as if I needed to grab as much support as I could, so I asked for advice about the foods that I could eat to boost my blood levels back up. I have been prone to anaemia in the past and had to give up being a blood donor after 14 pints, on advice from my doctor. So, I recognised the signs and decided that diet could be the answer.

Well, the support came and thanks to all of you for responding. A duvet day would have been ideal, Mama Pack, but not practical today. I have that planned for this evening, though. I was advised to have eggs and orange juice for lunch. Eggs because of the iron content and orange juice as the vitamin C aids the absorption of the iron. It was also suggested that I use some oil so I fried the eggs in a little olive oil. And to avoid coffee!

Then on to the smoothie. Thanks for the recipe, Emma!

Emma's smoothie -
one frozen banana (ok, so mine isn't frozen!)
half a cucumber
five pitted dates
a couple of handfuls of spinach
half a mug of water




Method
Blend to death and then drink.














It looked like green slime but it was sweet, crisp and fresh.

It was delicious!







I have been experiencing some menopausal symptoms over the last year or so. Mainly my body temperature seems to be a couple of degrees higher than normal. I tend to go out in a t-shirt and then look at other people wearing coats, usually I am the one in the thickest, warmest coat so I found that quite strange.

I haven't really had any mood swings or emotional problems, although my family may say otherwise!

Also, I am waiting for the results of a blood test to determine whether I am actually going through the menopause. Until they come back I am assuming that I am in the early stages.

As Jennifer recommended, I will have some steak for tea and some broccoli, spinach and cabbage.

Laura from Educate Business has put me in touch with Jacky from Your Exchange Network so I will be looking through her menopause website for more information.

Luckily, I have plenty of cloth menstrual pads and menstrual cups from my website, Feminine Wear so, I'm ok for supplies!



Finally. I treated myself to some flowers..... because I'm worth it :-)

Where to find out more information about menstrual cups

There is so much information out there, where do you start? This is just a very quick blog post to point you in the right direction.

If you are interested in reviews of individual cups then check out Melissa's blog - Melissa is a goldmine of information and has reviewed and photographed most cups on the market. She has also produced You Tube videos and comparison photos, comparing one cup beside another. Melissa's stiffness chart compares how soft each brand is.

Obsi has also reviewed many different cups on her blog - Obsi is also an expert in cloth pads and has a website selling her own cloth pads as well as a lot of information rich websites. Obsi has also compared the squishiness of cups. For a whole load of cloth pad information her website, Ecomenses is the place to go.

LiveJournal is another place where I hang out quite a lot. There are tabs along the right hand side so you can filter the information, depending on what you need to know. If you can't find your answer then you can always post your question on there.

If you speak French then the Easycup forum is another little gem of information. If you are willing to use an online translator or friend then I would recommend having a look at Easycup.

These websites are only the tip of the iceburg as there is so much information out there. Sometimes, it's just knowing where to look.

If you can't find an answer to your question on any of those forums or websites then please contact us and we can suggest other websites. We also have a facebook page and Flickr site which may help.

Happy researching!

Plastic Bottles

Yesterday you all read about the not so fun experience at the tip. There was an issue with the plastic bottles and they were expecting me to put them in with the household waste. I had an "altercation" with 3 of the workers about it and ended up bringing home the bottles!
As I drove home I could feel myself shaking with anger and frustration. Anyone who knows me knows that I very rarely get angry. But to be angry enough to shake shocked me.
I decided to turn my anger into something positive so after I finished posting yesterday's blog I went outside to create.

I'm not the most creative person in the world, but decided to put the bottles to good use. I remember a friend sharing a blog post about a water wall for children - http://progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/2011/02/planning-new-water-wall-for-water-play.html
So with my pile of plastic bottles I set about creating something for them to play with.

All of the photos are here on my Flickr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/feminine-wear/sets/72157627099064442/ I couldn't find a suitable piece of wood or available wall or fence so I used a clothes airer and a paddling pool. The top row are bottles that the children can fill up with water and tip to empty the water into the pool. The lower set of bottles have holes pierced in them so that the children can watch the water spray out as they fill them up. Do you think my 4 year old and 2 year old will enjoy playing with this water airer??

Then I used 3 bottles to make skittles. My 2 year old loves playing skittles so he will have fun knocking them down.

Then as I was thinking up ideas I remembered something I had seen a long time ago about milk bottle planters. My strawberry plants haven't been doing too well where I planted them. I don't think they get enough sun under the tree and the woodlice seem to keep eating them! So, 6 strawberry plants were replanted into milk bottles and hung on the wall. I had another spare bottle left so I planted some mint in that one.

I hope you like the photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/feminine-wear/sets/72157627099064442/ created off the back of my rage!!

I'm not angry any more, just happy :-)

Put them in number 6

Southampton refuse collectors have been on strike now for quite some time, around 6-7 weeks.

I fully support the strike - they be told they have to have their wages cut or lose their jobs? So, to help them I have been taking my refuse to the local tip, when the bin gets too full. The tip happens to be right near to Basepoint Business Centre, where Feminine Wear is based. So, it isn't going out of my way.

Some Southampton residents have had an emergency refuse collection by agency staff. This hasn't happened in my street and it's obvious to see why when I look out of my window. The street is clean, there are no black bags or overflowing bins, no rats marching up and down looking for scraps. Why? Because we don't like a messy street and care about our environment so we have all been doing the tip runs, by the look of it.

Today my recycling bin was getting quite full so I sorted it into black bags of cardboard, cans, plastic bottles and paper. I headed off to the tip, also taking a load of garden waste and some large pieces of cardboard.
The queue for the tip was horrendous but I finally made it in. I couldn't see anywhere for my plastic bottles so I asked someone and he said "put them in number 6." I walked towards bin number 6 and it was full of black sacks of household waste, with a sign above it saying "household waste." I explained again that I had recycable plastic bottles, emphasis on the recyclable. He just said again "put them in number 6." He actually tutted at me in annoyance, which, I'm afraid made me start to feel angry. Add that to the fact that he was walking away from me made me follow him. I said "excuse me, these are recyclable plastic bottles, I can't put them in with the household waste, they are to be recycled." He tried to take the bag from me and I said "I'm not putting them in there, I'd rather take them back home with me!"

I put them back in my car and picked up a bag of tin cans. I walked towards the skips and he was just staring at me, like I had committed a sin by not doing as I was told. I asked a different member of staff where to put the tins and I put them in the metal recycling skip. I then asked the 2nd man where to put plastic bottles and told him what the other one had said, who was still giving me the evils. He then said "put them in bin number 6!"

Well, then I became very angry. I started shouting at him and said "how can you expect me to put recyclable plastic bottles into a skip full of household waste?" He said that the household waste number 6 skip was going to be recycled and household waste number 7 skip was due for the landfill. I looked at both skips and they were identical. I said "it is full of black sacks, how are you going to sort through that and pull out all of the recyclable items?"

Man number one was still looking at me and started coming over, and I could see a 3rd one approaching. People using the tip stopped to watch me ranting at 3 men about putting my plastic bottles in a clearly inappropriate bin!! I was furious. I asked him again to explain why I was being told to do it and how they were going to sort the household waste from the recyclable waste.
His final response before I walked away "we don't have a plastic bottle recycling bin, everyone just puts them there!"

Needless to say my plastic bottles came home with me!

I have been photographing some of the rubbish that I have seen and you can see them here - http://http//www.flickr.com/photos/feminine-wear/sets/72157627099064442/

Fiona's Birth Story

I have 4 children. This is my birth story for my 3rd child, Fiona. She is 4 years old.

I call her our miracle baby as she was born after me being given a 10% chance of falling pregnant. After the first 2 children were born, I was sterilised. I had the sterilisation reversed when I was 40 years old.

A year before Fiona was born I had a miscarriage; it was a very difficult time. Myself and my partner were struggling to cope. With that 10% we thought we had lost our only chance and assumed we were about to lose another one.
So, we looked into hiring an Independent Midwife to help us through it, and we really wanted a homebirth. So, Eleanor May-Johnson entered our lives. This is her website http://www.hampshirehomebirths.co.uk
She helped us to come to terms with the miscarriage and as time passed we accepted that this baby could actually be born. Eleanor was fantastic and instantly became a very dear friend. I am feeling very emotional as I write this, it's hard to believe that 4 years have gone by.

Because my first 2 babies were born early I advised that this one could be different. But, I always had a feeling she would be early. When the head engaged at about 32 weeks I knew. And I was starting to feel very uncomfortable from about that time.

If I had gone with the NHS I would not have been allowed a homebirth before 37 weeks. Eleanor said she would attempt a homebirth from 36 weeks, depending on how we were coping. That comforted me as my first baby was 4 weeks early and my second was 10 days early.

Labour started on the Sunday afternoon. I had been having Braxton Hicks on and off and these were no different. But I decided to go and have a lie down at 2pm and had a contraction. I fell asleep and was woken up by another one. I happened to notice that the clock next to me said 2.20pm. I dozed again to be woken up at 2.40pm. Uh oh, 3 at 20 minutes apart! I stayed awake and just watched the clock. I had another at exactly 3pm. I rang Eleanor who calmed me down, assured me that I had 4 weeks to go and to carry on as normal. "Text me if you need me" she said.

So, I carried on as planned and we visited family. We were actually out walking the dog at about 11pm and the pains were becoming more intense and were around every 10 minutes. I didn't tell Eleanor because I was worried about waking her up and assumed they were nothing. Part of me had also decided that I couldn't text her until after midnight, because then I would be officially 36 weeks so she wouldn't send me to hospital :-)

We were driving back home and it was 10 past midnight. I text Eleanor and she said to go home and try and get some sleep but call her if I needed her. I showered and tidied up and went to bed at 2am. I slept until the morning but was aware that I was contracting in my sleep. My partner wanted to go to work but I was nervous so I asked him to stay home. I rang Eleanor in the morning and she came to see me, around 10am. She asked me lots of questions and said that I could be in labour. She didn't want to give me an internal examination to see if I was dilating in case that stimulated labour, if I wasn't in actual labour, especially as I still had 4 weeks to go.

She left. As she left she said "have you got everything you need for the baby?" clothes, blankets, etc. Plastic sheeting for the birth. I said "NO!!" She said "I suggest you go shopping, then"

So, we headed up to Sainsbury's, 5 minutes from home. I remember just throwing stuff randomly into the trolley and leaning over it in agony on a regular basis. We heading for the till and I said "stop, let me just have this quick contraction first" Ouchy that hurt. We quickly paid and left. We wanted to head for B&Q but went home instead. I needed the loo. My partner wanted to go back out but I said "I am not going anywhere" as a wave of deep contractions made my eyes water. I rang Eleanor and talked her through what happening. She said "Would you like me to come now?" I hesitated as I didn't want to drag her out for no reason. During that mini hesitation my baby told me to say "yes." She said "we're on our way."

Eleanor arrived 20 minutes later with Sharon Eccles, the back up midwife. She is lovely, too, and we met during my pregnancy. It was about 1.30pm.

By the time they arrived I was having contractions every 2 or 3 minutes and they were getting quite intense. I can't remember if I actually made them a cup of tea or if I just tried to. I know I walked around a lot to help with the pain and walked up and down the stairs. That seemed to help, keep moving, and keep upright. And do things to take my mind off what was happening.

There was a lot of activity upstairs and lots of running up and down stairs by the midwives and my partner as they set things up. The gas and air, resuscitation equipment, etc. As we didn't make it to B&Q we didn't have the plastic sheeting. So, we had to make do with a roll of bubble wrap!! It was 6 foot long and it was unrolled along the bed and on the floor.

I sat on the downstairs toilet and had a show, the mucus discharge down below. Sharon called me and asked if I was ok and I told her. She said it was best for me to come upstairs now. She said if I left it any longer I wouldn't be able to get up there!

I walked upstairs with no problems and squatted on the floor, leaning on the bed. The bubble wrap had been covered with towels but you could still hear the popping sound. It would have been funny if I wasn't in so much pain! I was offered gas and air and had a few puffs of it but it was too late by then for it to have any real effect. I didn't really need it, my body was coping well with the pain and I wasn't panicking. I felt safe.

In our birth plan we wanted my partner to deliver his own child, if possible. He said he had delivered sheep before so this would be no different! Eleanor handed him a pair of gloves to put on but they were too small. He struggled. I struggled. I could feel the baby coming and told him to just get them on! He forced his hands into the gloves, just in time to catch his baby. His daughter.

I remember it being very hot but being told to put the heating on as the baby would need to be kept warm. I was sweating as I was so hot and Sharon gave me her hair band as she could see my hair sticking to my face.
My partner saw that she was a girl first and he cut the cord.

After I had passed the placenta naturally I sat up on the bed on bubble wrap and held our daughter to my breast. She had a hot water bottle as well as having the heating on!

Very soon after that both of the grandmothers arrived with McDonald's and we all tucked in, while I made some phone calls. Fiona's elder brother came home early from work and met her when she was an hour old.

Fiona was born at 36 weeks weighing 5lb 10oz. I was 41 and a half.

We defied all odds to have Fiona and have since had 2 more miscarriages and another baby, Bradley was born when 2 weeks before my 44th birthday.

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