Cooking - Turmeric Tofu with Cherry Tomato Quinua Pilaf from 'Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, by Sophie Dahl. (Daughter hated it, had weetbix)
(I think that Imogen will regret not having eaten this dish as I will tell her when she is older that Sophie is the granddaughter of the man who I am sure will be one of her fave authors, Roald. I will also tell her that Sophie is my secret bff, unbeknownst to her due to the unfortunate fact that we have never met, although I imagine Imogen probably won't care about the second bit.)
Piano - After having missed my lesson last week due to Miss Imogen's illness I was very keen this week and turned up fifteen minutes early. Unfortunately I didn't have my mobile charged and missed the reminder call that it is school holidays this week. I went home again. And yes, that does mean that I am the only adult in the hall lined up waiting for my turn to enter the piano room for my half hour lesson. And no, I don't care that I am three quarters larger than the six and eight year olds who are already playing Debussy and Tchaikovsky or that I plonk away studiously while they bend and sway with emotion. Although I do have an unspoken enmity with one little fellow of Chinese descent who despises me and knocks loudly on the door when four o clock comes around. I am practising and have the right hand down, I'm struggling a little with the left.
Salsa - I received a circular newsletter from Picante dance advertising special workshops and bootcamps in Ladies Styling, Salsa, Rueda and other forms of dance. I wrote back with eager interest and booked in for Ladies Styling, a Salsa Workshop and listed my interest as being a performer for the Rueda in response to their callout. Unfortunately the workshops are happening on a day when I have had to schedule rehearsals for the staged reading of a new play by Ron Elisha that I am staging on the 27th July.
Baby - I realise I haven't commented on this, as I said I may not on my first weeks post. However, I should let you know that we are planning to stop birth control in five weeks when we are on holiday to visit the husband's family in Britain.
The Play and The Baby - For Those Who Want To Know More
The Play
I mentioned to you in my self introduction that I am a theatre practitioner. I completed my MA in theatre performance that I was completing part time, in 2007. After that I got pregnant and had a difficult pregnancy, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and after many ups and downs passed away in 2009, and I was being a new mum. Obviously I let a few things go and dedicating myself to working in an industry that is tough and callous and that often requires you to work for free to 'develop' a project prior to getting funding/a space/ a cast ect didn't seem right.
However, I have recently been in contact with a man called Ron Elisha who you will see if you google him, is an award winning playwright. I am not. I am no one. I once won a potted tree when I was 11 for drawing a bird. Fortunately Ron has allowed me to experiment with one of his works by presenting it as a staged reading in an upstairs room of a pub called the 'Toxteth'.
I was very excited about all this up until last week when we had our fourth rehearsal. It was the worst thing I have ever seen. The delightful and enthusiastic cast had not remembered a single direction I had given them, didn't demonstrate any staging knowledge and stood at the back of the stage staring directly at each other and incoherently mumbling their lines. I felt sick. Later that evening I got home to an email from Ron informing me that he would like to invite the movers and shakers from the alternative theatre programs at The Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Griffin. I felt sick. 'Absolutely Ron', I emailed back.
I knew I had to get my act together.
I've called extra rehearsals, done heaps of work on the text, explained, re itereated, demonstrated and danced out my requirements. 'Um, I've got other stuff that actually takes priority over this', responded one of my overly stretched actors.
great.
I will keep you posted.
The Baby
As I told you, I had a difficult pregnancy. I had what is called Pubic Symphisitis. It is when the hormone relaxin makes itself known in your body in all the wrong spots. Relaxin is for doing just that, relaxing your pelvis so that it can separate and allow the baby to pass through it. Unfortunately it doesn't hang around only the pelvic area, it is in all your joints, such as your knees, wrists etc and it doesn't turn up just for the birth, it comes along in increasing amounts over the course of the pregnancy.
I pulled my ligament playing chasey around a drama room - a class I took before the baby came and I 'lost my life' as my friends warned me I would. It happened because I had Relaxin present, I would not normally have injured myself from this small run, the pain in my left groin region was intense and got stronger and stronger and spread to my back to the point where I couldn't work as a relief teacher any more - too much standing/stairs/carrying and where I had to lie in the bath for two hours, which is how long it took for the pain to go, just to be able to cope with standing up to make the dinner for the husband when he came in.
I guess it's natural then, that I have been feeling some trepidation about being pregnant again. Being sick last week reminded me how difficult being sick is. It was more difficult being sick with a toddler than it was before too of course. It made me realise how hard this pregnancy could possibly be.
I have been feeling genuine fear and panic over the last week. All the pain of the pregnancy and birth, all the inner panic in my concern and grief for my mother, all the memories of the exhaustion and clumsy efforts that are felt in the first few weeks of motherhood all piled on top of my head and jumped up and down like a heavy ballerina.
I had coffee with my pregnant girlfriend and was reminded of the journey of pregnancy. The tests to see if the baby has down syndrome, the tests to see if the heart and lungs work, if there are legs and arms, the wait to see if you can hold the baby until it is 'viable', the wait to see if it can survive the birth. So much risk and joy and trepidation.
I elected not to have private health insurance, which in Australia is not a dangerous or silly thing to do, but it does mean that I can't elect to have a cesarean section rather than give birth by pushing. I had a posterior birth and nothing we could do would turn her around. That means that the baby is facing a way that rather than the head neatly going down the birth canal the skull pushes ineffectually on your back - for hour after agonising hour.
'I can't do this again, I can't do this again', I sobbed into my husbands shoulder.
'Hey, hey....this isn't you', he said. 'You're tired. I'll be here to help you remember'
I'm getting resigned to it now having explored the option of paying for private care directly from my pocket. $5000 without the bed fees taken into account. I guess I'm pushing.
'You can't pick up the baby for weeks if you have a ceasar', my husband reminds me, 'you have pain but after the birth, not during. You have a toddler you have to look after remember, you can't afford to be out of action'.
I think sadly of the heamorhoids I've had in varying degrees for the last two years.
'I guess', I say.
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