For crying out loud!

This is a direct quote from an email from Sandy's new employers dated October 8th

Packing materials and boxes can be included in your removal quote. You don’t need to get approval for the quote before agreeing to it, but the University will refund the lower of the two quotes you have obtained.

This is a direct quote from an email drom Sandy's new employers dated today (October 15th)

Please also note that you do not need to get approval for the removal quote before agreeing to it, you must ensure that when you submit your claim that you include both quotes and that you can show that you elected to use the provider of the cheaper quote.

My good husband informs me it is "sorted" now but given that we had not gone with the cheaper people (because the university took so long to send the contract that the cheaper people were fully booked) we were more than a little concerned that we had gone ahead (as per the first email) and booked a removal company! Do they think for a moment about the fact they are dealing with real actual peopel through any of this?

Time for some positivity

I have, what I like to call a "marmite psychiatrist" in that some people love him and others hate him but no-one ever feels ambivalent about him!! He has quite a tough attitude, he won't take any nonsense and can smell a patient "playing" him from a mile away, I, however, very much fall into the love him category.

My psychiatrist (Who I shall call Dr S) and I have been seeing each other for about 10 years which is longer than I have been with my husband, in fact I remember discussing the wisdom in entering into a romantic relationship with Dr S, he has had a huge bearing on my whole adult life and has in no small part contributed to my recovery and I will be forever grateful to him.

With the impending move on the cards I had sent him an email asking for an appointment to discuss what might happen about my psychiatric care for when I move, do I need to move into specialist services down there, or will all my care be done by primary care? Will he make a direct referral or shall we leave it up to whoever my GP ends up being when I move, that kind of thing. He has just been on holiday, however, and so I thought I would pop in to see his secretary today as I happened to be in the vicinity, and make sure she asked him to do it with some degree of urgency because I move at the end of the month. He happened to be in his secretary's office when I got there and said he had a bit of time so why didn't I come straight through.

To be honest, I was slightly blown away by the generosity of a consultant psychiatrist who was willing to see a patient who wasn't especially ill at that moment in time but as we chatted I was struck by how kind he is. Dr S reminded me that in Britain we have a NATIONAL health service and so he told me he wouldn't forget he had ever known me just because I moved, that he was willing to enter into dialogue with anyone I might be referred to or to talk to my new GP to talk through my care, the things he has learned about me in the decade he has been treating me and to talk about the treatment he would be recommending I receive had I stayed in Aberdeen and that he would like to see that continue once I move to Englandshire!

he also informed me that there were only a couple of hundred miles involved and so if I wanted he would be happy to arrange an appointment with me if it was really needed and would be helpful and even for me to continue to have access to him and his team as an in-patient if that was necessary and I asked for it, as he knows I would only do that if it were truly necessary in my opinion, he has always trusted my opinion when it comes to my own mental health. I have always maintained a sense of rationalness about what would make good treatment even when I have lost all insight because of my illness, it is good to know he will trust me even from a distance to be sensible in my access to his team! (I don't envisage needing to be in hospital at all, let alone the familiarity of one that will be 10 hours away, but I feel really good to know it is there!).

I was offered another appointment to see him before I leave so we can discuss with slightly more forethought the options open to us, but I found his offers to be wonderful and unexpected but marvelous.

Another thing happened today which has been one of the reasons I have had such a good working relationship with him. He is very good at telling how things *actually* are and not just been blown away by the obvious and getting caught up int he unimportant things. Today I am incredibly anxious and it is visible, my fingers are tapping, my legs are shaking and I am generally unsettled, I look like I am in a right state, but he could tell that it wasn't really a major concern for me, that talking about the future was more important than the immediate and that in fact, I wasn't quite as bad as I looked, that I have learned to live with quite a high level of anxiety and so I would be just fine the way I was.

I actually worry about what my life will be like without the input of Dr S, he has been amazing to me and has been a source of constant support that I have always struggled to imagine losing. Even though we thinking about discharge before little Allsort came along, I always knew that if I needed him he was only a referral away, obviously that will change, he might be saying he can be there for me but things will need to be falling apart a lot more to have access to *him* rather than other psychiatric services.

Thank you Dr S for all you have and continue to do for me!

Mental!!

I have been away from twitter and facebook for far too long! When I went to Barcelona I wanted hubby to take a proper break and so I made a deal with him that I would not check facebook or twitter (it sometimes annoys him I am on so much) if he promised not to check ANY of his emails (no work, no research, no charity stuff, not even checking up on the festival we both work at) for the time we were away. He agreed and so I took a break from the cyber world. Then on our return I was both tired and quite engrossed in a book Through the Tunnel which is written by someone I know, a fascinating read about his recovery as a Christian from long term mental health problems which felt more than a little relevant to my situation.

Anyway, this week I am at Imagine Scotland which is a Christian festival for young people here in Scotland. The astute amongst you might be thinking, hang on Jay, your not young, but I work on team here, I have for the last 3 years and I love doing it! I am on the "information team" and the best way I can describe this is we are the team that deals with all onsite admin, any last minute bookings or day passes are our responsibility as well as making ourselves available to all the speakers and directors to help them with anything they need. A fun aspect of being on the info team is that all the delegates expect you to be able to replace everything they have lost, from their event wristband to their favourite trainers in an instant! They also expect you to know the location of everything from their Bible and jumpers to the speaker who is only coming on Thursday despite the fact that today is Wednesday. I spend much of my time apologising for not knowing things it would be unreasonable to expect a mere human to know anyway!

That said, I love Imagine, I love it every year and I wouldn't be without it featuring in my year, I need to work out what I will do next year as I am not sure how I will do my job with a 7 month old with me but I don't really want to do anything else!! The days are long, we start at about 8.30 in the morning and can usually get home for a quick sleep a little after midnight before doing it all again the next day for 5 days running!! Being pregnant and being here is proving an extra tiring experience and I am trying to pace myself (while not neglecting my other 2 jobs!)

I can get the Internet here but for some reason Facebook and twitter are blocked, I am kind of getting withdrawl symptoms now, I need my fix!

There is someone else here, an exhibitor from Alpha Scotland (I tired to find their website but I can't find it :-( ) who I have been chatty with the last couple of years (it is always the same crowd that do the exhibits) and she is exactly 2 weeks more pregnant than me, so we have been having lots of great girly pregnancy chat, I quite like it and love having someone "new" to talk to about all the stuff my friends are bored of but I still want to chat about. She has an amazing bump on her, I hope mine looks that nice in as little as two weeks! She is properly feeling kicks too, I am very excited for that stage (although I have had some wierd feelings I have been wondering about the source of...)

I'm not sure what else to share, but I reckon this was my way of getting my twitter withdrawl under control!

today was scan day!!

Today was the 12 week scan :-) I was very excited, although if I'm honest, nervous too, these are the scans where they start to pick up problems and in the back of my head were concerns about discovering something was up and anyone who follows me on twitter probably knows that I was afraid there would be no baby at all, what if I couldn't read a pregnancy test?!!

We had planned to be there a bit early because we didn't know where we were going and it was just as well we did, the scanning department was incredibly easy to find, but I had forgotten my pregnancy record/notes and only remembered when I saw someone clutching theirs on the way in, so I sent hubby home to get them, I was so pleased we only live a few minutes away from the maternity hospital!! It didn't cause any problems though, they took one person in before me to make sure hubby made it in time, and we needed that but he was there in plenty of time for us to go second!

We went through, I obviously knew roughly what was going to happen but I didn't know exactly, the darkened room was slightly intimidating but I was just so pleased to be there! They do not prepare you enough on just how cold that gel is going to be!! It was freezing! We got stuck right in and saw the baby, I was so pleased to find one in there (and only one, twins run in hubby's family!) and we are told it has the right number of everything! We saw the heart beating (well I had to sit my glasses at a very weird angle on my face to be able to see the screen!) and got some lovely pictures.

I am so thankful to God for this blessing, it has been such a long time coming in my life and so, without further ado, here is Allsort, my baby!

Psycho Mum?

So I am very reluctant to become that woman who appears at her doctors surgery every 5 minutes because the baby hiccuped in a different way to normal or because I needed to wee 5 times last night instead of 4 (or whatever) and yet I find myself in a bit of a predicament.

In and of myself I feel okay, knackered, but I figure that comes from being only just at the end of 1st trimester and going to the toilet twice a night every night for the last 12 weeks (as well as working two jobs and trying to maintain a house when your husabdn does NO housework, but that is another rant!) but pretty much alright.

However, several people have told me over the last few weeks I look pale, many of these people know I am pregnant and so you wonder if they just want to say "yes you do look different" and yesterday and today someone has asked me if I am "alright" with a slightly concerned look on their face, this person in particular has no real reason to ask me, she is not a friend, although we know each other to see, I don't even know her name!

And so now I find myself thinking I should get down the doctors and check I am okay, it is possible my iron is out or something. I want to take care of this baby and I want to make sure it (and I) is as healthy as possible, but I am prone to being a bit of a hypopchondriac and therefore, when it comes to health can very much make a mountain out of a mole hill!

So, to the doctors, or not?

Today I will be mainly panicking!

On Thursday or Friday (depending on whether you believe my midwife or my GP) I will be entering my second trimester, this is obviously an amazing achievement and I am very excited. On Friday I am having my first scan which will be awesome, I am really excited to get to see my little Allsort on the screen and hear the heartbeat a bit, I know it will be hugely emotional (and I know I don't realise just how emotional though!!)

The point of this post though is more about how much I am panicking just now! Not so much about being a parent and not even about being pregnant and although I do occasionally give thought to the labour at the moment I am calm that it will work out in the end, especially once I have a few antenatal classes under my belt.

No, I am panicking about MUCH more mundane things than that. I keep thinking about all the things I need to get, all the things I need to do and all the things I need to change. I need to get a cot and a moses basket and a changing table (well that is a want, not a need). I need to work out what kind of sling I want to use. I need to work out what kind of nappies I am going to use. My bathroom is no place for a child, I need a cupboard to put all those "tasty" things that are lying around and so that I can get into the bath well enough to bath a baby even before the child can grab for things. I need a buggy, I need a car seat, do I want a travel system or separate things? I've been offered a second stage car seat from a friend, do I want to take that yet or what? My new car has the ISO fix system, does that mean I can't use "normal" car seats?

When do I have the conversation with the grandparents about what they are all going to be called? When do I have the conversation with hubby about the ridiculous busy schedule he keeps that just won't cut it any more? Do I need to tell my alcoholic mother that I won't leave her alone with the baby or do we just make sure that doesn't happen?

Even more pressing, I can't afford maternity clothes right now and yet I very much have the beginnings of a bump, how am I going to cope with that?

I know in my heart of hearts that all this stuff will work out all right, I know that it will because people have been having children for a very long time but this last week I have been starting to get in a bit of a state over all this and the impending nature of second trimester makes it all the worse!!