vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Where are you and where are you going?
vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

Big news, DW is expecting, she is due in the Summer. We're botj thrilled, if not a bit surprised she conceived so soon after starting to try for a baby. Whilst great news, in all likelihood this means that retirement might get knocked back another 6-12 months! :twisted: We now have a sense of urgency to get all the DIY jobs done around the house, as I imagine there will be a lot less time for big projects next year.

To do before baby arrives:
- Save a tonne of money. Even though DW earns more than I do, luckily low expenses means we won't sweat DW going on maternity leave for 12 months. Savings rate will take a huge hit though for the last few months when her take home drops precipitously. I might finally need to seriously devote time into increasing my income/changing career.
- DW needs a new car before her lease runs up, I think we'll be buying a used car this time. If it were up to me, we wouldn't have one at all, but a good compromise is no more leases, ever. Don't worry, I'll continue riding my bike though, still hate driving ;)
- Repair boxing in/dry-wall in en-suite and terrible tiling repairs made by previous homeowner, fix the broken shower (I suspect a broken thermostatic valve). Restore tiles by re-grouting and paint with tile paint, or re-tile room entirely. Haven't yet decided on that course of action.

Boxing ripped out to fix a leaking pipe prior to our purchase, we used this damage to negotiate a better deal on the house rather than pay more and have them do a half-arsed repair before sale.
Image

- Decorate and repair shoddy wall plastering, there were some large holes in walls that were hidden behind furniture when we bought the house, in both the soon to be nursey room and guest room.
- Construct foldaway workbench in garage (for DIY projects/bike repairs).
- Discard/sell accumulated junk in guest room. Build shelving to accommodate my growing book collection.

ducknalddon
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by ducknalddon »

vexed87 wrote:
Fri Nov 24, 2017 5:33 am
Big news, DW is expecting, she is due in the Summer.
Congratulations.

cmonkey
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by cmonkey »

Awesome congrats on having a baby on the way! Looking forward to updates. :)

What happened to the pink toilet?!

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jennypenny
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by jennypenny »

Congratulations Vexed!

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

Thanks guys :D
cmonkey wrote:
Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:01 am
What happened to the pink toilet?!
We painted the walls a lovely (modern looking) light grey with the left over paint from our foyer/hallway. Haven't yet gotten around to spray painting that damned toilet seat though. :lol:

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

Quick update, DW is 26 weeks on now (or thereabouts, I forget!). She's really showing now so gets a seat given up on the bus/train, plus attention from all and sundry. She's doing remarkably well given her existing health condition. We are both excited and nervous in equal amounts... :lol:

We have been busy nesting, for DW that means furniture and baby clothes shopping with her mum, for me it means hard labour, painting and flat pack assembly. We have been very fortunate, our baby is already being spoiled by friends and family, we are being gifted lots of new and used clothing and associated baby paraphernalia. We haven't yet spent a penny. Decorating has been on the slow burn, but it's getting done, both the baby's room and our guest room has been painted and furnished, that leaves the bathrooms to do. The ensuite bathroom hasn't been renovated yet as we had planned. We had a couple of plumbers over for quotes but decided we would rather have a bit more cash stashed away for when the baby arrives and DW isn't earning.

We are back down to being a one car family, which is good news because I have put on a little weight over the winter, which I attribute to not commuting as much by bike as I would like. We had a couple of bad snow storms which has compounded the problem. I also recently injured my back/neck which kept me out of the saddle for an extra 3 weeks whilst I healed up, I'm much better now thankfully. I'm dying to get back out on the bike and increase my mileage now spring is here, I just need some time to set aside! I recently committed to a 170 mile two day cycle trip with a few friends from work. We're cycling coast to coast from Morecambe to Bridlington (click for details) in May, a couple of months before the baby is due. I need to start some additional endurance training, I'm confident I'll be fit enough from my commuting alone, but it would be nice to be comfortable on the trip, rather than battling through adversity.
Image

Savings have taken a hit lately, I'm not sure why I have been spending so much, or what I have to show for it. Our oven exploded and needed to be replaced. I sold my old and bought a new bike frame a couple of months ago, I think having a frame ever so slightly too small for me contributed to the injury I mentioned. As a result, I spent a few hundred pounds kitting out a new steel frame with components, namely a much lighter tubeless wheelset and a front rack for the upcoming mini-tour. It's a one off, I shall not be buying any more bike related purchases for some time now, hopefully several years! :twisted: ;)

chenda
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by chenda »

Good luck!! Looks fun :))

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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by jacob »

Literally exploded?

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

Thanks Chenda. Back on the bike today and it feels good having the wind in my face again :D.

@Jacob, well, no fire and wreckage, but lots of smoke and a loud bang was reported by DW, followed by lots of confusion about where it had come from and what had blown the circuit breaker. DW had left the oven on by mistake after cooking. Juding by the smoke, I think the heating element burnt out and took down the PCB too. Considering the state the previous residents had left the oven in, it wasn't economical nor desirable to repair, there was no telling how old it was + years of accumulated grime convinced us we needed an oven where you could actually see through the glass screen (no amount of elbow grease and baking soda would do the job) :lol:.

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

I have some happy news, our baby girl was born a few weeks ago. She is 8 weeks early which is termed medically as being very premature. Fortunately she had a good birth weight, 4lbs 5oz is on the larger side of a 32 week gestation. Other than being ridiculously tiny, she is in great health, two weeks on she has developed a strong suckle reflex, she breathes unaided and regulates her own temperature. She is now also able to feed naturally without a nasogastric tube (<34 week preterm babies lack the suckle-breath reflex). At the start, the pediatricians prepared us to expect a lengthy hospital stay and possibly some dark/difficult days as often early babies have complications and set backs. The rule of thumb is premature babies can be expected to stay in hospital as long as and right up to their due date, although DD has thrived and appears to have escaped the worst complications of being premature, but it's too soon to tell about long term health impacts. She might possibly come home in a matter of days, smashing our expectations and leaving within 3 weeks of birth. That's not to say it hasn't been a hard few weeks, very emotional for both DW and I, which is hard for a rational type to admit! :ugeek:

Fortunately, we mostly had the nursery ready, I've just got the cot to assemble now, although babies tend to stay with their mother in the early days anyway, so no rush with that. I'm back at work after using up statutory paternity leave, but I'll take another couple of weeks of holiday pay to ease DW and DD into their new lives. The law recently changed in the UK, and now father's are able to share maternity leave entitlement with their partners, as DW earns a bigger wage, she will return to work after 8-10 months, and I will take the remainder of the year on statutory paternity pay. Savings will be slammed in the meantime, but money troubles melt away when you realise how basic a baby human's needs are, short of the modest material requirements to furnish a baby's room and clothe them, they just need you. I know a lot here have made the choice not to reproduce, but I can honestly say, there's no pleasure quite like holding your own baby in your arms. I wouldn't have believed it myself, having been nonplussed by babies belonging to relatives and others acquaintances. No doubt this is the result of an evolutionary adaptation leading to the release of oxytocin and similar neurotransmitters when cradling our offspring results in our fuzzy feelings leading us to love, protect and provide for our offspring. In any case, after or wild ride we are likely sticking with the single child family, I can just about cope with a sub-replacement level of reproduction on a planet reaching ecological limits to growth without experiencing too much cognitive dissonance. :lol:

In other news, in between nappy changes and tube feeds I have been immersing myself in the far reaching philosophy of neo-primitivism & anarchist societies. I mention it here because of the overlapping sentiments of simple living, freedom loving, and limits to growth crowd we have here on the ERE forum. I find myself being intrigued and to a certain extent, having my own biases confirmed by John Zerzan's arguments and critiques of tech and modern civilisation. It's a complex arena of thought, and highly controversial ideology for the most part, but to me it makes perfect sense and slots nicely into my existing mental models of society remarkably well. Whilst making an excellent case for the root causes of mass society's ills by looking all the way back to the origins of civilisation, there's little in the way of concrete actions and plans in his writing on how make things better. Yet there are insinuations that in order to avert these ills, we need to move away from domination and subjugation of people and nature. Domestication of nature ultimately manifests itself as a class-based society, plagued with alienation, injustice and rampant greed and self-interest. Any society that manages to deconstruct those social arrangements are doomed to have them resurface down the road if they don't look back to their origins, and instead choose to regulate them away. If it's the extreme division of labour which leads us to a technologically advanced but ignorant society with the technological ability to wipe out our own species, not to mention vast swathes of other innocent animals, fauna and their diverse ecologies, then even after a die-off, we might revert to our bad habits once [if] those ecological systems recover so long as we continue our patterns of domination and domestication.

Of course, it doesn't surprise me there are no proposed solutions outside of the ideal of reversion to hunter-gathering tribes. Zerzan, like us is totally dependent on this supposedly civilised yet destructive industrial system. In any case, there's a good argument that anarchists shouldn't demand authoritative plans of action anyway, if the direct opposite to the tyranny of globalism and mass society is a collection of diverse decentralised societies, then there should be no rule book on how to establish those responses to a failed system, rather they would develop organically in response to their local needs and challenges. I'm quite happy with the loose tenants and a sort of mission of implementing a new localism, it makes sense then that no distant thought-leaders should become our messiahs in this context.

At the root of it all is man's anthropocentrism, our supposed separation with nature, an obsession with domesticating and dominating nature for our material well being, when in actual fact, the unintended consequences of these behaviours has brought about our own undoing. Neoprimitivism, and it's aim of uncivilisation suggests that we should reconnect with a new spirituality and oneness with nature. This leaves me wondering how to weave this and the philosophy into my own life and values considering the ultimate ideal of returning to hunter-gatherer way of life is impossible for 7.5 billion, we might have to settle for horticulturism in the short/medium term, at least until the die-off has run its course. I have accepted it's essentially impossible to escape modern industrial culture and the technologies that have it on life-support so long as I choose to live in a city, I will never escape it's grip until the capitalist-free market collapses, and my family will remain vulnerable to the fallout of collapse, but I must mitigate it the best I can by continuing the project of uncivilisation. Not much can be achieved in a single day, as Zersan suggests, it's a life long project, and hopefully I can pass a meaningful legacy and world view on to my new baby girl that will better equip her to the face the failing society that she will have to endure.

chenda
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by chenda »

Awwww congratulations! Hope you can bring her home soon :)) x

Interesting to hear about uncivilisation, I have some thoughts which I'll try and post about in a few days.

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jennypenny
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by jennypenny »

Congrats!!

I'm sorry you had to go through that but I'm sure she'll be ok. My niece was born a little earlier than your daughter and she's 5 now and she's ok. There were some occasional issues but most kids have them regardless. The hardest thing will be having the monitor go off all the time, usually for no reason. (lots of kids, including one of mine, have to use those monitors and they can be quite stress-inducing)

Try not to let all your time get wrapped up in medical stuff, and remember to take pictures and do everything you would if she wasn't born prematurely. It's easy to spend too much time on medical stuff and/or talk about her 'condition' when you talk to people instead of normal stuff like the first smile, etc. Same when talking to your wife. Don't let it dominate conversations. Focus on the fun baby stuff. :)

cmonkey
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by cmonkey »

Congratulations vexed!!! I'm so happy she's doing well! I hope some pics are coming down the road. :D

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

Thank guys!

@chenda, I'll eagerly await it :D
@jp, fortunately she's off all machines now, just like any regular pooping/eating baby! :twisted: I could definitely be mindful of talking more about her and not the situation, good tip!
@cmonkey, here she is, plus our first cuddle:

Image

Image

cmonkey
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by cmonkey »

Awww! She looks like she is doing well, I wouldn't even be able to tell someone she was premature based on those photos.

saving-10-years
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by saving-10-years »

Congrats, she looks lovely and will be grown out of that baby gro in no time.

Do you belong to any NCT groups or such? We made some long term friends in these groups and its lovely to see your baby grow up with others. When you only have one its easy to over-think/over-fear so some peer group comparisons will reassure you and other parents will give you tips. Definite ERE tip is checking out NCT sales.

vexed87
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by vexed87 »

@cmonkey, one of the nurses brought a full term sized doll for us to compare. There's a huge difference! But yes, too all intents and purposes their proportions are similar at DDs gestation, term babies just have way more body fat.

DD just needs to stabilise her weight at this point and she can come home, it should be any day now!

@s10y, thanks! We did join a group, ironically DW went into labour during the breathing exercises! What do you mean by NCT sales? We missed the last 3 group sessions because she was so early!

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jennypenny
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by jennypenny »

So cute! (both of you :) )

Sorry for the lecture, but it's a trap that I see some parents fall into (understandably).

saving-10-years
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by saving-10-years »

NCT = Natural Childbirth Trust. They raise a lot of their funds by selling for commission new and newly new babies/children's items. Link shows you how to find one near you https://nct.org.uk/branches/events/nearly-new-sales You can also sell the things that junior did not get to wear there too.

Expect a scrum* but also the most organised and specific nearly new sale you have ever seen. There can be anything from climbing frames and big equipment items like stairgates to the cutest unworn baby items. Just think some babies arrive in a size too large for newborn or get bought things like snow suits in sizes which just miss the size they are when there happens to be snow. Also lots of toys (very useful if your child develops a passion for something obscure/unfashionable), often items are very high quality with emphasis on educational/unusual items.

Our local NCT used to offer a 'bumps and babes' group too, so you may find that its worth joining this. They put us in contact with a baby massage class offered by the local health care provider, so perhaps ask your health visitor can also provide ideas (she may not appear in your lives until baby comes home though). Babies are magnets for people to come and talk to you. Its not hard to spot other new baby parents. They may well be the ones supermarket shopping in the middle of the night with a baby strapped to them. You start keeping strange hours if yours does not sleep, you might as well use them. (The best advice is of course to get your baby sleeping through the night if possible).

* Most NCT sales seem to offer pre-opening shopping for volunteers. I never did that but noticed those who did preloading entire carloads of goodies before the event even started.

cmonkey
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Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!

Post by cmonkey »

So it's been a while. Wondering how that baby is doing. :)

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