Olympic Bureaucracy May 28, 2008

We held our Olympic swimming trials back in March sometime. The night the team was announced, they all signed contracts stating that they would not bring their or the swim team’s reputation into disrepute. That very night, one of the swimmers on the team, Nick Darcy, was accused of putting a former swimmer in hospital. At first I thought he’d just broke the guy’s nose or something. Turns out the guy spent a month in hospital and came out being fed through a straw. He has plates in his jaw that he’ll always have.

The President of the Australian Olympic Committee made the decision to cut him from the team, and Nick appealed that decision. Today the Court of Arbitration of Sport (who knew there was such a thing?), ruled that the AOC was justified in kicking him off the team, but found that the decision was made solely by the president, when it should have been made by the entire committee. So now, they have thrown it back to the entire committee to make the decision.

Are you flippin’ kidding me?

It’s almost June, the Olympics start in August…don’t you think whoever is in line to take his place deserves a bit better treatment than this back and forth red-tape bullshit? He (allegedly) put a guy in hospital and he had to be fed through a straw. He didn’t slap this guy in the face, he clean clocked him. He doesn’t deserve to represent his country at the Olympics. Whats more, the case is still pending and he’s not allowed to have any contact with fellow team mates who may or may not have been witnesses the night of the (alleged) assault. I think it’s a no-brainer, and I’m assuming that the AOC will come to the same decision the President did.

And while I’m talking about bureaucracies, you should see some of the footage from our parliament meetings. It is a free for all, and they all act like a bunch of children. Lately the big fight is over the price of petrol. The opposition claims it would do all these things to reduce the price of petrol that the Rudd government refuses to even entertain. We’re talking huge yelling matches over a matter of 3-5 cents per liter. The fact of the matter is the price of petrol is going to keep going up and there’s very little our prime minister can do to control it. Sure, he can cut certain taxes associated with fuel costs, but as long as the price of oil per barrel continues to sky-rocket, so will the price of petrol. How about we put that 3 cents aside and move on to the really important issues at hand?

Birthing Class #3 May 28, 2008

Last night was our 3rd birthing class. The first hour was spent listening to a physiotherapist who was telling us stuff we’d already heard or stuff we should have been told about 30 weeks ago. Then, the class was interrupted by our midwife who had with her a former classmate…and her baby son! She’d gone into labour Monday and had given birth to her baby boy 5 weeks early.

We then went to the maternity ward and saw where we’ll spend 2-4 days recovering. As she was telling us the meal times, a husband walked through with a KFC bag and into a room. Smelled much better than hospital food!! From there we moved downstairs to the birthing suites. I already had a headache from listening to the physio, and the classroom is always warm to me (but I’ve been feeling hot non-stop for the last couple of months) so I was starting to feel unwell. We were all crammed into a birthing suite, and everyone kept asking questions, and I was getting hotter and hotter, and started to feel ill. I had to leave the room, and I think the midwife was worried she had a fainter on her hands.

All that aside, last night would have been a good time to go into labour. There were several birthing suites available and a couple of doctors sitting around twiddling their thumbs. A story came out a couple of weeks ago that a woman in labour went to the hospital and there were no beds available, so she was put on a mattress on the floor of a storage room. Just in case that happens to me, I made sure to check out the storage rooms as well. They seemed quite spacious and I guess would suffice if necessary. On the way out, another woman and I agreed that the media could have blown it out of proportion. The husband said they asked for a pillow and it took 40 minutes to get it. I’m guessing when you’re in labour in a storage closet that 5 minutes could feel like 40. Or maybe 5 minutes just doesn’t get as much community uproar? The newspaper said the hospital is equipped to handle 2,000 births a year, but is on track for 3,600 this fiscal year.  As tempting as it was to ask which storage closet the woman laboured in, we all kept our mouths shut.

NHL Stanley Cup Finals Game 2 May 27, 2008

As Timmy pointed out in his comment to my previous post, game 2 was as easy as game 1! Another shut-out for the Wings and Osgood, and the Penguins are now down 0-2 in the series. But they’re going home to Mellon Arena for games 3 and 4 and I’m certain they will turn this ship around. I’d personally love to see a series sweep of 4 shut-outs, but that might be getting a bit greedy and unrealistic. I have a really hard time believing a team stacked with that much youth and talent could go an entire series without winning a game. Or without scoring a goal! We’ll see what happens in game 3 on Wednesday.

This morning the doctor pretty much confirmed what I already suspected, that I’ll just have to suffer through the pain. She said most likely its because of everything being squashed together and the way that he is positioned. Hopefully in a week or 2 he’ll drop, I’ll be able to breathe better and the rib pain will subside a little. She did say that there still appears to be plenty of room for him to grow. Great. And she said that the mother’s birth weight is the best indicator of how big your baby will be, well, I was 8 lb. 6 or something!! Every time I hear his heartbeat it blows my mind that there’s a little living human being in my tummy whose heart is pounding away so quickly. I know the next 5 weeks are going to just drag by!!

Baby Showers and NHL Playoffs May 26, 2008

Yesterday my mum and sister threw a baby shower for me ‘n little Nicklas. It was a nice afternoon with 14 guests, lots of food, and lots of birthing stories. I probably could have done without some of the details – like the fact that 3 of them were puking during labour, or the number of stitches needed after the fact.

I haven’t had much time lately to freak out about the birth. Last Tuesday night in birthing class it started to get to me, and I’m sure tomorrow night during the tour of the maternity ward and birthing suites it will get to me again. But this past week the pain in my left ribs has gotten so bad its all but taken my mind off giving birth. Yesterday afternoon I was lying in bed because I was just exhausted, and I couldn’t even get comfortable enough to take a nap. I ended up going downstairs and getting comfy in the recliner and falling asleep there. The pain is a sharp, stabbing pain that usually happens when I am lying on my side and go to roll over. I have a dr appointment tomorrow, I’ll have to ask about it then. I’ve also felt at times lately that my heart could race right out of my chest. Its getting harder to take deep breaths. I think all of this is because of my insides getting squashed by my ever-expanding uterus, but jeez. It is really uncomfortable. I’m not a fan of being pregnant.

We got a lot of cute little outfits for Nicklas yesterday, and a friend from the States sent some cute little jump suits. Today I am going to start putting together the hospital bag and get to figure out all his little hospital outfits. I still can’t believe we’re going to be parents so soon.

So yesterday while I was at my baby shower, Mike was home listening to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, in which his Detroit Red Wings are facing the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Wings won 4-0, but I wouldn’t expect the rest of the series to be so easy. The Penguins are young, talented, and have very little playoff experience, let alone finals experience. I’m sure nerves played a large part in yesterday’s loss, but I expect they’ll find a way to overcome that for game 2. If Detroit wins the Cup this year, Nicklas Lidstrom (who our son is named after) will be the first European born Captain to win the cup. Isn’t that amazing?

Paid Maternity Leave Uproar May 21, 2008

The country is up in arms. Our new government has just put forward its budget proposal and it includes cuts in child care subsidy and means testing for the baby bonus. There are other controversial items in the budget, but for now I’m most concerned about this maternity leave issue. I’m not 100% sure if there is anything in it about maternity leave, I think that is still open to recommendations.

So the PM’s “key advisor on women’s issues” has concocted this absurd proposal for 12 months paid maternity leave and 6 weeks paternity leave. Stay at home mothers would still receive the $5,000 baby bonus – a lump sum paid to parents after the birth of a child.

Let’s look at some different scenarios should this plan be implemented. Example one – I work full time at a private company and discover I’m pregnant. By law, this company has to pay me minimum wage for 52 weeks and hold my position open for me. They most likely won’t want to pay someone to come in and do my job for 12 months because then they’re paying for the same position twice. So they have to figure out how to operate with one less employee for a whole year. But at the end of that 12 months, I decide I really like being a stay at home mum, I think I’m going to quit my job. What part of any of that is fair to the company?  Why should they have to pay for me to have a child?

Example two – I apply for a job and it comes down to me, a 29 year old married female with a child, and a 29 year old male married with a child. We both have the same qualifications and would both be perfect for the position. Who do you think is going to get it? The applicant they have to pay 6 weeks paternity leave to, should his wife become pregnant with baby 2, or the applicant they have to pay 52 weeks maternity leave to, should SHE become pregnant? Don’t tell me they wouldn’t come up with some inane, LEGAL, reason for hiring the male applicant.

The means testing for the baby bonus states that families making more than $150,000 a year will NOT receive the baby bonus. We don’t make more than $150,000 a year, so it doesn’t upset me that much. I’d like to think if we did make $150,000 a year, we wouldn’t need $5,000 from the government. But does this suggest the poverty line is $150,000? If you make $150,000 a year, are you wealthy? The cost of living in major cities across Australia is not cheap. Families who earn over $110,000 a year are no longer eligible for subsidized child care. So instead of encouraging women to go back to the work force and contribute to the economy, they will be forced with making the decision to work and make enough to cover childcare, or to stay at home and take money from the government.

Perhaps there is no middle ground on this issue. Perhaps there is no happy medium that will appease stay at home moms, working mothers, tax payers with no children, take payers who have already raised their children and private employers. I understand the government is trying to make it easier for lower income families, but should upper income families be punished for having good jobs? Will forcing one parent to stay home because the cost of childcare is too high create more middle and lower-class families and put more of a strain on tax payers? There are just too many facets of this particular social issue that it is difficult to know what is right and fair, and what is ignorant and irresponsible.

6 Weeks To Go May 17, 2008

I can’t believe that in approximately 6 weeks I’m going to be a mother. A mom. A mommy. There’ll be this tiny human being in the world who will be counting on me to feed, change, bath and comfort him. I had been getting really nervous and scared about the whole birthing thing. I mean lets face it, its messy, painful, and just not very pretty. But someone put things in perspective for me by telling me, “The easiest part about being a parent is the birth, trust me.” I guess in a sense parenting is like a marriage…the wedding (birth) is a HUGE event, but it’s what you do every day after that that really counts.

Yesterday morning, lying in bed, I realized there’s a real chance this little guy could arrive on 06/07/08 (in Australia, the day comes before the month). While the thought of being a week overdue is not really appealing, I might be able to withstand it if I thought his birthdate would be 06/07/08…it’s much cooler than all those people who got married on 07/07/07. Wasn’t one of Fergie’s daughters born on 08/08/88? I digress.

If I am completely honest, I’m not enjoying being pregnant. The back pain, sciatica pain, huge belly, uncomfortableness, weird pains now and then, the indigestion…I’m definitely not going to be in a hurry to think about baby #2. But from what I’ve heard, you forget about all that. Until you fall pregnant again! Then the memories of how awful it was to be pregnant come flooding back. We’ll see how we go, I guess. Right now, I have to focus on this baby, and start thinking about packing a hospital bag. Technically, he could get here at any time, and I might as well be as ready as possible.

We had our first birthing class Tuesday night and they showed a DVD of a woman giving birth. I don’t know how old the video was, but surely they could have found a more recent one. They showed the head coming out of the woman’s vijayjay. Boy I did NOT need to see that! Other than that, I don’t think we really learned anything we didn’t already know. We have 4 more weeks of classes, and one woman is due in 2 more weeks! I don’t think she’s going to make it to the last lesson! In a couple of weeks we get the tour of the maternity ward/birthing suites, which might make me feel a bit better about the whole thing. Most of the fear is just of the unknown. I can’t imagine how it must have been to give birth 30 or 50 or more years ago, when people didn’t talk about things like this, they just did them, and without pain management or really any knowledge of what exactly was happening to their bodies. When you really think about it, and you see diagrams and read the nature of it all, it truly is the most wonderful miracle. Now, If I could just keep reminding myself of that, maybe I will make it through this ordeal that is childbirth.

Adoption May 13, 2008

Adoption has always been in the back of my mind, but when I brought it up to my husband years ago, he had no interest in it. I know several men like this. I think there’s some perceived machoism about having your “own” children I guess, I’m not sure. But depending on what this birthing experience is like, adoption could become a very real desire in the future. So I just saw a commercial for foster care in the state of Queensland and went to the website that was advertised. I started to look up adoption information, just out of curiosity, and it turns out that one of the eligibility requirements is that at least 1 of the partner has to be infertile. I don’t understand. If you’re fertile you HAVE to have your own? You can adopt from one of the 14 intercountry programs if you’re fertile, but to adopt from China your body mass index can’t be more than 40. Its unbelievable how many restrictions there are to be an adoptive parent. Some I can understand, some just seem like they’re trying to make it impossible.

Fears and Vulnerability May 7, 2008

Some of what I’m about to reveal here may lead you to believe that I’m certifiably crazy. I wasn’t even sure if I should actually put some of it in writing, you know, be careful what you send out to the universe and what-not. But this is something I struggle with, and it is debilitating.

Of all the emotions I’ve ever felt, the worst of them has to be fear. And I’m not talking There’s-A-Spider-On-The-Wall fear, I’m talking paralyzing, I-Can’t-Move-Right-Now fear. Which I guess for people with arachnophobia could be the same thing. But for me, flying, heights, and being home alone are gripping fears. My husband is on a plane on his way to Sydney for work right now, and when he left this morning I almost cried. My fear of flying apparently extends to fear of loved ones flying.

The taxi came to pick him up at 4:30 this morning, and all of a sudden every noise seemed magnified. Add to that that all I could think about was him going to the airport to get on a plane…there was no way I was going back to sleep. They’re supposed to land in 4 minutes, when he calls me to let me know he’s there, I’ll be able to get on with the day.

I am not really sure where this fear of flying comes from, but it’s a lot more than just thinking “Mike’s on a plane, I hope he’s ok.” My imagination is out of control, to the point where I’m watching Sunrise and the thought of them interrupting a segment for breaking news of a plane crash runs through my mind. Yesterday I made myself so upset, wondering what I’d do if I lost him, that I thought I was going to throw up. I even went as far as to think about how he’d feel, knowing the plane was crashing. This kind of thinking can not be normal. I just checked VB’s website and saw that the flight has arrived in Sydney. Now I just have to worry about his return flight tomorrow. I tried to tell myself that there was more chance of his taxi crashing than his plane, that just made me worry about the taxi ride to the airport. You know when you’re waiting for a flight and they ask for volunteers to bump to the next flight because they’re overbooked? Do you know what goes through my mind at that point? It’s not, “Sweet! I’ll do it, free flight anywhere!” It’s, “Which plane am I supposed to be on or not be on…what if I change flights and that one crashes, or what if I don’t and THIS plane crashes?” And to raise this to the next level, I’m not sure this is something I want help with or want to get over. What if as soon as I’m not scared of it, something happens?

People who say you can get over your fears by confronting them head-on, must know something I don’t. We took no less than 6 flights within a 1 month span when we moved to Australia, and I thought that might help me get over my fear of flying. But it hasn’t.

The fear of being home alone started when Mike and I moved into our house in Atlanta. Mike drove up to Detroit to get his boat and 30 minutes after he left to head up there, I was already hearing things and freaking myself out. He ended up being gone 4 days or so, because his truck broke down. Each night I slept with a baseball bat beside my bed, lights on throughout the house, and a dining room chair with pots and pans on it planted firmly in front of the front door. The weird thing is, I was fine during the day, it was when it got dark that I turned into a paranoid nut.

Before I met Mike I had my own apartment and was fine on my own. Is this what being co-dependent is? I don’t know how I’m going to get to sleep tonight.

Big Moves May 5, 2008

I’ve made three big moves in my life. The first one was when I was 18 and I moved from Australia to Jacksonville, Florida, to attend JU as a member of the women’s golf team. At the time I thought it was the next step in my big golf career, I didn’t realize it was going to be 4 years of getting a degree, making new friends, and slowly moving away from the game of golf all together.

The next move came 5 months after I graduated from JU. I had interned with the AJGA and in a roundabout sort of way, through that internship, got a job in Atlanta. So just as I was about to give up and move back to Australia, I packed up and moved to Atlanta instead. I spent the next 7 years there, before my husband and I moved back to Australia. I think I expected it to be the hardest move yet, but was unprepared for just how hard it would be. I have family and friends here, but most of the time I feel like I’ve made another move to a place where I know no one.

I would say it took a good couple of years to really settle in to Atlanta. I guess I should give it that long here before I make any rash decisions about moving again.

Pinching Myself May 2, 2008

I am still having a difficult time actually believing we moved to Australia, and we’re having a baby. I remember conversations about moving, and I remember saying I didn’t want us to be one of those couples who always talk about what they’re going to do but never do it. I guess the more we talked about it the more we glorified it, and while it is “good” to be here, my feelings about being here have been all over the place. I don’t know if its pregnancy hormones or if I’m still just trying to figure out my place here, but without a permanent job, I don’t have a routine, and it feels like all I’m doing is sitting around waiting for bub. Maybe once he gets here I’ll start to settle into a routine and will feel like I have a purpose…starting the toughest job I’ve ever had.

The weather over the last week has been absolutely gorgeous – cool in the mornings but warming up as the sun gets higher in the clear blue sky. I’m just trying to relax and watch as much garbage TV and take as many naps as possible over the next 8 weeks. My life is never going to be the same again once he gets here.

We have been watching season 2 of How I Met Your Mother and an episode we watched last night was about Christmas in New York and it showed it snowing, and people rugged up drinking hot chocolate…it made me miss the US. I love winter Christmases! I love Thanks Giving! I feel much more homesick for the US than I ever felt for Australia. Thankfully, Mike likes it here and is happy. But I think we could live anywhere in the world and he’d be happy, knowing that in 8 weeks he’s going to be a dad. I am pretty sure I have the best husband in the world. I wonder how hard it would be to alternate life between the US and Australia, maybe moving every couple of years.