SPOTLIGHT on nhklh !!! « Back to Group Discussions

[travelmumma]

Nhklh, your up Mumma!!

Did you want to give us a brief run down of who you and family are first?

(as far as answering Qs go, quoting the Q or having the Q as part of your answer might be best)

Go for it mummas

Can't wait to get to know you all!!!
Xxxooo

[nhklh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by travelmumma 
Did you want to give us a brief run down of who you and family are first?

 

Hi!

I'm 35 and I live in Australia.  My parter is 39 and we've been together for 10 years.  She has multiple sclerosis which has gotten worse over the years, and these days I am officially her carer.

We have an 8yr old son (DP carried) via a known donor.  He is super cool and so much fun, and is very into Minecraft at the moment.  We have a 3yr old son eventually conceived by me via IVF (FET) and a different donor (original donor didn't feel comfortable donating via the clinic) who is just completely hilarious.  He's very excited about his upcoming birthday and keeps talking about a spiderman suit and a lolly snake cake.  He weaned in January, aged 3y5m.  Both babies were c/section for breech (hospital policy).  We are radical unschoolers and have loads of fun :)

This baby is the result of a "last hurrah" FET - we had 2 embryos left from DS2's cycle.  One didn't survive the thaw, and this is the other one.  Whatever happens, I'm relieved to have TTC over and done with for good.  

I'm planning a HBAC with an awesome birthworker who is very confident in supporting normal breech birth - she's considered The Best in HB circles here, and her breech attitude and experience is really important to me given my chance of a breech again.

In 2006 I was dx'd with severe endometriosis and a unicornuate uterus (with 1 ovary, 1 tube, 1 kidney) during a laparoscopy to try to figure out why I wasn't pg after trying for a couple of years (I started trying before DS1 was born).  I had another lap for the endo, but I found that breastfeeding seemed to help keep it at bay.  I was very very very lucky to have no pg complications resulting from my UU - IC, PTL and IUGR are the big risks, and some studies show only a 50% chance of a UU pg ending in a live baby.  Since I dodged those complications last time I am confident that I am not at increased risk this time, and that planning a HB is my best chance for a normal birth, especially if I have another breech (only chance, in that case).  

So far this pg has been a vastly different experience to the last one, in a very good way.

[Mamabeakley]

What is out-of-school education like in Australia (as far as how society at large views it)?  DH & I grew up home/unschooled in the US and we are un/homeschoolers, but I don't know much about what it's like culturally in other countries.

[travelmumma]

what do your LOs call you and your partner?

[GreenTeaGinger61]

Favorites: Food? Color? Music?

[sunseeker]

Wow - what are the odds of having two mamas with uterine anomalies on this board!? (I'm the mama with the bicornuate uterus). It's so awesome that your UU did not cause any complications. How does having one kidney/tube/ovary affect you, if at all? Did you try anything to flip your breech baby around - if so, what?

[esp831]

Have you told your boys that you are expecting?  Are they excited?  Do you have family near by?

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by Mamabeakley 

What is out-of-school education like in Australia (as far as how society at large views it)?  DH & I grew up home/unschooled in the US and we are un/homeschoolers, but I don't know much about what it's like culturally in other countries.

People generally have a lot of misconceptions.  The biggest ones being that the kids are isolated, doing schoolwork with me at the helm all day long.  Couldn't be further from the truth!

It's legal in Australia and requirements vary from state to state.  Where I live there's a legal requirement for children to attend or be exempt from school once they turn 6.  We didn't register until DS1 turned 7.5 though, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not.  I still don't *want* to, but it works better for us to have all our ducks in a row, just in case.  So, what that means is that I had to enrol DS1 in a school, then seek an exemption for the purposes of home ed, from the appropriate dept.  That entails filling out a form and an in-home interview each year.  Not a big deal, but annoying!

I do find that as unschoolers we are very different to the homeschoolers around here.  Luckily we regularly see the 3 other unschooling families that live here!

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by travelmumma 

what do your LOs call you and your partner?

I am Mummy, DP is Mama.  For a while there DS1 liked calling us both by our first names.

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaGinger61 

Favorites: Food? Color? Music?

At the moment food is not terribly appealing in general, so probably Vegemite on toast lol.

Colour, hmmm probably pink and blue.  Maybe purple.

I'm not a music person really, which is unfortunate as DP loves music and likes to have it on all the time.  I find it annoying.

[nosreves]

have you and your partner encountered any homophobia since having your children? (and if so, how did you address it with them?)

what, if anything, do you tell them about their donors?

do you have any feelings about the sex this time?

[darkblue0729]

What is your favorite season?  And what is your favorite hobby?

[travelmumma]

:) What are you doing birth and prenatal testing wise?

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by sunseeker 

Wow - what are the odds of having two mamas with uterine anomalies on this board!? (I'm the mama with the bicornuate uterus). It's so awesome that your UU did not cause any complications. How does having one kidney/tube/ovary affect you, if at all? Did you try anything to flip your breech baby around - if so, what?

Pretty low odds I'd say :)

I agree, very awesome and lucky indeed.

Having one kidney just means that if I'm ever in a car accident or injured playing contact sports or something, that I would need care providers to know that, rather than assume that one damaged kidney was not a huge deal.  And I can't be a live kidney donor ;)  Plus my kidney is a little bigger than usual in order to compensate for the missing one.  Only one ureter too, of course.

The one ovary/tube doesn't really mean anything other than that ovary has to work twice as hard.  I also took a higher stims dose during IVF than my RE would have usually given someone my age in order to get a decent number of eggs (I got 12).

I tried some "optimal foetal positioning" stuff for about 10 weeks but he just didn't budge.  

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by esp831 

Have you told your boys that you are expecting?  Are they excited?  Do you have family near by?

Yes, they knew everything prior to the FET.  They're not really very interested aside from DS1 wanting a sister.

My family (2 divorced parents, 2 sisters, much younger half-siblings) are all about an hour's drive away.  We very rarely see them, and don't really have much to do with them, they're really not interested in me/my kids.  MIL is about 15 mins drive away and she drops in for a brief visit every week or two.  We really don't see family in general, which is ok by us.  They all kinda suck ;)

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by nosreves 

have you and your partner encountered any homophobia since having your children? (and if so, how did you address it with them?)

what, if anything, do you tell them about their donors?

do you have any feelings about the sex this time?

No, but I suspect that may have been different if they were in school?  We regularly spend time with families of all different make-ups, so my kids don't have any particular picture of what a family "should" look like, which is nice.

We've always talked about their donors, and DS1 has met his a few times, though we've not seen him and his husband recently.  We've also met his daughters, though DS1 hasn't.  I need to write a letter to DS2 and the baby's donor via the clinic, in the hopes of gaining some kind of contact with him.  We have basic info of course, but it would be nice to have some contact.

Legally there are issues.  DP is DS1's only legal parent, and I am DS2's only legal parent.  Due to recent legislation changes we can have DS2's birth certificate amended to show DP as his parent, but we cannot do this with DS1's because his conception does not fit the stupid criteria because it was home insemination and we'd been living together for less than 3 years at that point.  We won't be changing DS2's until/unless we can change DS1's.  We can both go on the baby's birth certificate from the start, so all the children will have different birth certificates - I refuse to have one child as the odd one out.

Each year when DS1's school exemption letter comes it is addressed only to DP - they requested a copy of his birth certificate to prove that there was no father whose consent they needed for the exemption.  I found this incredibly offensive, I know they don't request every child's birth certificate - who is to say that both parents on their form are their legal parents?  

I don't have any feelings about the sex, I didn't last time either, but I fully expected DS1 to be a boy, and he was.  DP thinks this is a girl, but then she's thought that about all of them ;)  DS1 wants it to be a girl, DS2 says "probably a boy baby".  According to a couple of psychics over the last decade, it should be a girl.

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by darkblue0729 

What is your favorite season?  And what is your favorite hobby?

I like Autumn and Spring because it's generally not too hot or too cold.

I like sewing but my machines have been packed away for ages - I do want to get them out and sew a small quilt for the baby.  I really ought to get started on that!

[nhklh]

Originally Posted by travelmumma 

:) What are you doing birth and prenatal testing wise?

Planning a HBAC with the most awesome woman-centered birthworker ever :)

Not planning any prenatal testing unless a situation arises where more information would be very useful.

[kateadelle]

What is the best piece of parenting advice you ever got? What do you wish you knew before you became a parent? What is completely different about being a parent than you thought it would be?

[kel]

In what area of Australia do you live?  Is it your favorite part of the country?  Have you always lived there?  If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  xox