Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Judgemental?

One of the truly gutting things about life is when you get a home visit from a health professional, the baby was screaming with colic the night before and you chose to look after yourself and your family (i.e. cuddle the screaming one and sleep when he does) over cleaning the house from top to bottom to put on a good show.  Today, we had the nursery nurse around to weigh River- she had the bad taste to show up 20 minutes early, at which point he was in the sling and I was trying to fix the hoover.  The carpet hadn't been hoovered since Friday morning due to people spending all weekend puking on it, and it showed. Oh, and the washing up from my outstanding (I really should have taken a picture) pineapple upside down cake is outstanding too, as I ran out of space in the dishwasher. Please note the screaming baby, and I haven't yet mastered dishwasher-loading whilst baby-wearing.
So we get the whole discussion about whether we have any support round here- for fucks sake. If we had family support in Swindon, would we have moved here to look after my father in law? Well, would we? We have a disabled elderly gentleman, his two brothers- one of whom is having treatment for cancer and one of whom has an ailing wife, and Steve's mums family, who we haven't heard ANYTHING from since we moved here. So what am I meant to do?

Answers on a postcard please. The suggestions so far include talking to a family support worker, and putting my beautiful, securely attached very close to mummy daughter in a playgroup. WHY? Because I think spending time with my children is more important than getting the washing-up done????? I have accepted the offer of a referral to HomeStart, so I can get some housework done sometimes, but that's as far as it goes.
Grrr. This stinks.

2 comments:

Kitty Mommy said...

O.M.G. I have steam coming out of my ears just reading this. I can't even imagine having experienced it. I just want to shake the nurse. Housework is so much a lower priority than a new mama taking care of her baby, her bigger kids, and herself!

Helen said...

Yep- I know that. I'm blessed that having survived postnatal depression once, and having a baby that took a lot of work to get him here, I know just how blessed I am. That said, I have been better about housework the last couple of days anyhow...