Being Momma G: Day 46

Did I mention I always have nightmares after being verbally attacked by the idiot mother of Mina? I had a doozy last night.

I dreamed that I was sitting in a beautician's chair, getting a facial which was fairly normal. Then the beautician saw I had a pimple on my chest and said "Oh, we'll have to do something about that". She picked up a pair of compasses and stabbed the pointy end into the pimple, which made the pimple bleed. Not content with the initial stab, the beautician then swirled and stirred the sharp implement around in my chest, saying "We really need to get to that whitehead and get it out", and the harder and faster she swirled and stirred the pointy bit, the more blood came pouring out. I was shocked to see how much blood was pouring down my chest to my belly, and made a noise, to which the beautician said "You might want a tissue" and gave me 1 tissue to mop up the flood of blood. I woke up just as I realised there was no way I could mop up all the blood with one tissue.

Hmmm ... anyone want to interpret that dream for me?

Sean woke at 11pm for a feed last night, just as we were both thinking of heading to bed. It was decided that I should feed Sean in bed, as we were all quite tired, so we laid down and Sean managed 20 minutes on the left breast before he fell asleep. As he was still feeling unwell, we kept him in bed with us, which meant I didn't get a lot of sleep as I was constantly aware that Sean was right next to me, and I didn't want to roll over on top of him and squash our little man.

Sean woke again at 4.45am and had a "dream feed" - he fed in his sleep - so I was able to doze again after he was finished. Poor little man - he did bring up some of the milk, but wasn't too unsettled after the feed.

At some point early this morning, it finally dawned on me today that Sean's reflux may be worse at the moment due to the antibiotics I was taking to clear up my tooth infection. So not only was I a flaky mess of emotions, I was also feeding my son pharmaceuticals that was making him sick. What a great mother I am.

Today was a busy day, with lots of planned appointments, so the last thing we needed was Mina's mother causing more problems for us. And that's exactly what she did. We received more phone calls, with her abusing Jonathan for "letting me do his dirty work for him" yesterday when Jonathan put her on speaker phone so both of us could try to have a conversation with her. The idiot (to be known as the Evil Witch from here on in) continued her line of attack and repeated her baseless accusations: that I was emotionally blackmailing Mina, that we were being unreasonable to expect Mina to return to the normal routine of sleeping over 2 nights every 2nd weekend, that we didn't have Mina's best interest at heart, that we didn't care about Mina's happiness, that Jonathan was shirking his paternal responsibilities and was trying to wriggle out of paying the full amount of child support as dictated by the Child Support Agency.

Between stupid phone calls from the Evil Witch, Jonathan got in contact with the family law solicitor that we'd engaged in October last year and made an appointment to see him. The earliest available appointment was for Tuesday next week, so we confirmed a time and hoped that the solicitor will be able to help us with immediate effect during the meeting.

We had an appointment to see Dr Siva for Sean's 6 week jabs at 10am, so we tried to time a feed with the visit, so that Sean would be relatively happy by the time Dr Siva was ready to see us, and not scream the surgery down like he has in the past. Sean was very brave for his jabs - I think I winced more than he did when Dr Siva gave him his 2 needles.

As usual, Dr Siva was very thorough with her examination. She asked me lots of questions about my health and wellbeing too, which was so lovely of her. Our visit lasted almost an hour, and by the time we were finished, we had to rush off to St Leonards to see Dr Baber for my 6 week postnatal check up.

Dr Baber was very happy with my progress, and apologised for the confusion surrounding the dressing on my C section scar and how long it should have stayed on for. Both Jonathan and I were under the impression that the dressing was to stay on until it fell off, but after 3 weeks, the dressing was still very much stuck to my skin. By this time, parts of the scar had gotten infected and when I did finally peel off the dressing, there was a fairly sizeable abscess in one area, with another 3 forming along the scar. I ended up having to take a course of antibiotics to treat the infection, which I was not happy about. Aside from this, all was well and I had one final weigh in on the scales. 63kg. I haven't been 63kg in over 15 years!

There being no concerns or worries, Dr Baber wished us well and sent us on our way. We hope to see him again in the near future, if and when we are blessed with another baby.

We hurried home after this, as Sean was getting restless and wanted to feed again. We got home just after midday, and Sean had a good feed while Jonathan got himself some lunch. When Sean was done, I found myself some lunch and scoffed it down, as we were running a little behind schedule and it looked like we would be late for Mothers Group.

Which we were. We were the last to arrive, at 2.10pm, but bless them, the ladies waited for us to arrive. Almost as soon as we arrived, Sean started crying and cried the whole way through the information session. I think Sean is determined to show off his crying prowess to everyone at every session - he's been unsettled every time! Today's group discussion was about how we were feeling now that we were mothers, and how our babies had affected our relationships with our partners, family and friends. I wasn't able to participate in any of the discussions as Sean protested against sleep during the whole discussion. Sean was so bad that at one point, the mother-in-law of one of the ladies came over to me and offered to nurse Sean so I could at least listen to the group, but I couldn't inflict the little man's large set of lungs on her, so I thanked her profusely for her offer and soldiered on.

Again, the same group of ladies stayed behind and chatted. I am looking forward to continuing the friendships with Rachel, Candy, Janet and Suzie after the regular group sessions are finished.

We arrived home just after 4.30pm, and the little guy had a few cuddles with Jonathan before falling asleep. I took the opportunity to have a chat with Jonathan about the latest stupidness that has been bestowed upon us.

As much as it was a harsh thing to say, and I did hated myself a little for bringing it up, I made a suggestion to Jonathan that we cut our losses with Mina. To that end, I suggested that we cave in to the Evil Witch's demands and pay her the extra child support so Mina doesn't have to sleep over any more. The extra amount totals to $1,000 per year, which I was more than happy to pay out of my own pocket, if it meant that the Evil Witch would get off our backs and stop harassing us. I also said to Jonathan that he has a family - Jonathan and me and Sean - we are a family - we are the Hills - we love and appreciate Daddy, so let's focus on this family. I was surprised to hear Jonathan's response.

Jonathan said he had thought about that too - he even went so far as to say that he has secretly wished Mina's mother and her partner would get married and move away, so that we would only see Mina during school holidays and thereby substantially decreasing our contact with the Evil Witch. Life would be a lot easier if we didn't have to deal with such stupidness all the time. Jonathan said that if it wasn't for Mina, he would have nothing to do with the Evil Witch, and sometimes he wished he can wash his hands of her.

I normally don't wish harm on anyone, but I sometimes wish Mina's mother would actually harm herself when she spins out of control during another one of what I call her "psychotic episodes", enough so that we would gain full custody of Mina and stop having to deal with the stupidness that happens about a dozen times a year.

This latest attack has again left me completely frightened of that Evil Witch and shaking in my boots, with both rage and fear. Every time she contacts us, I shake. I have never recovered from the time she harassed me for a week (about a year ago), wanting to know why I didn't want to be friends with her. Every time she rings Jonathan, even when she's lucid and not insane like she is currently, I shake and shudder. My hands shake so much I can't grip or hold anything, my heart rate goes up and my heart literally pounds in my chest and it takes me about 5 minutes to settle down afterwards. This latest attack has been more personal than the others in the past, and today, I am genuinely fearful of her, to the point that I have considered applying for an Apprehended Violence Order against her, legally stopping her from approaching me or Sean or our house. She doesn't play nice nor fair; hasn't in the past and is likely to never play nice nor fair in the future, and unfortunately, an AVO is the sort of length I may have to go to to protect me and mine.

Incidentally, I have tried being friends with her - in the early days, we involved her in our outings with Mina and drove her places, all at our expense. I even bought her birthday presents, Christmas presents and Mother's Day gifts. But every time she did something stupid, like she's doing now, I lost a bit of respect for her. The beginning of the end was when she called 6 times during my birthday dinner 2 years ago, twice on my phone and 4 times on Jonathan's. Thinking it must have been an emergency, Jonathan finally took the call. Want to hazard a guess as why she so urgently needed to get in contact with us? She had lost her ride to Mina's Christmas concert, being held 10 days later. Yes, she had 10 whole days to find another way of getting to the concert. A year ago, after she harassed me for a week, calling me up to 4 times a day to ask why I didn't want to be friends with her, I lost all respect for her, and she completely destroy any chance of me ever wanting to be friends with her when, after I told her that I had far too much on my plate to she then got her partner to call Jonathan and accuse Jonathan of being an incompetent father.

I know I should just ignore her and be the bigger person, take a deep breath and walk away with my dignity intact. But when she attacks my darling man, and when she takes aim at me, it's hard for me to hold back. I engage in battle mode, which makes things worse for me, because that hypocritical selfish egocentric inconsiderate nasty piece of work will never listen to reason and talks over the top of everyone and everything, because she thinks she's always right and has the right to order people around and demand the unreasonable. Whilst I get upset and sit with my stomach in knots and my heart pounding in my ears for days and days on end, she is feeling all better because she's unloaded her poison on to us. Jonathan has had 10 years of practice and has learned to not react to the twat, but I've only had 3 years, so I can only hope that I will one day be able to brush off the poison just like Jonathan does.

In the meantime, Jonathan and I are Team Hill, and we will stand united and strong and face the adversities as they arise.

Sean was a good boy and allowed Daddy and Mummy time to talk, and only woke up for a feed just before 8pm. After the feed, I cooked dinner while Jonathan settled the little man, and even though he fought sleep for a little bit, he still went down and stayed down for a couple of hours.

After such a long day of appointments and being forced to ride that horrible emotional roller coaster, we are both exhausted. I was thinking about going to bed, but Sean has just woken up and wants a final feed for today. I better go and tend to my prince.