The House Fairy

So yesterday I got one of my Flylady Emails and it recommended showing your kids some website to inspire them to join you in cleaning the house. I didn’t realize when I clicked it quite what it was all about. (Probably should have done my homework, huh?)

Well, we watched ONE video on that site and Emily was sold: hook, line, and sinker. She was immediately inspired and ran up to her room and thoroughly organized and cleaned her room. It was amazing! She kept going on and on about the house fairy coming to visit and leaving surprises for her because she cleaned her room.

Woops.

You have to understand, we don’t even do the Santa Clause thing. I couldn’t stand the idea of lying to my kids about Santa Clause. I don’t fault those who do it, but I just couldn’t. So without even meaning to, now my kid seems to believe in the house fairy. My only hesitation in dispelling this myth is that she is cleaning her room really well! And so willingly and happily! I’ve never seen her so excited about cleaning and organizing. This morning she lugged the vacuum cleaner up the stairs all by herself just so she could vacuum her room. (!?!?) (Remember, she’s five!)

Every time she has asked me about it, I have neither confirmed or denied the existence of such a fairy. I have not lied to her. At least not directly. She even asked if fairies exist and I told her point blank “NO!” Then she still said, “Well I still believe that the house fairy DOES exist!”

It probably doesn't help that Steven left chewing gum in their room as a surprise treat for when they woke up. I did not put him up to that…

I have continued to make sure she knows that I do not believe in the house fairy and that I am not telling her to believe in the house fairy. I’ve also tried to make it clear that there is always the possibility that Daddy or I may have left that surprise last night while she was asleep…

I have a suspicion that deep down, she knows that this house fairy does not truly exist, but she is having fun pretending to believe in her.

However, I will enjoy her super enthusiasm about cleaning her room while it lasts. And I figure it won’t last long!

Living with RCE

This is random and out-of-nowhere, but it’s been fresh on my mind recently so figured I’d talk about it a bit.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a condition called Recurrent Corneal Erosion. Basically it means that the epithelial layer of my eye (the “skin” so to speak) has pealed away from my eye, thus causing blurred vision, irritation, oh- and pain. Lots of pain. This first happened a few months after Claire was born… in the summer of 2006.

It started gradually. I would wake up in the mornings and feel like something was in my right eye for several hours. It was extremely irritating. I would look and look in the mirror and find nothing in my eye. I asked Steven to look and he could find nothing. I thought I was going crazy. Then mid day to afternoon it would get better and less irritating and I’d forget about it. Until the next morning when it started all over again.

Then one morning I awoke to searing pain in my eye. Something was definitely wrong. I couldn’t handle it anymore. We went to an eye doctor and she immediately told me that it was RCE and prescribed various eye drops and pain medication. I started on her prescribed routine, but it didn’t really help. I kept waking up to pain and not able to function well through the day. So I went back and she did a very minor eye surgery by removing the epithelium from my eye. She used numbing eye drops first so though it was uncomfortable (and disturbing!) it was relatively painless. But after those numbing drops wore off, I kind of wanted to die.

After that procedure the idea was that my epithelial layer would grow back attached again and I’d be all better. Well… it was a nice idea anyway. But it didn’t happen as I had the same issues after the layer grew back. It grew back unattached. I was getting frustrated. I had night drops, morning drops, and a therapeutic contact to hold my epithelium in place and I was afraid to take the contact out (and I mostly just left it in- so I could be somewhat pain free), but the contact isn’t a good long term solution.

Finally we went to see an eye doctor at Emory in Atlanta and he explained RCE to me in a much more understandable way so I knew better how to handle it. That was very helpful. He made it simple.

So how do I handle it? Well, at first- to best aid in healing, I used a high sodium ointment and drop which is what helps the epithelium to adhere back down to the eye. I used it faithfully at night and in the morning. It stung like all get out, but was better than the alternative. This seemed affective.

I read (when I was first going through all this) about people that dealt with it and that most people have to be very careful when they open their eyes in the morning and I thought “I’ll never be able to remember that! What a pain!” But somehow it very quickly became second nature. I guess I learned my lesson?

To this day, one of the first thoughts on my mind every day is Recurrent Corneal Erosion because I am reminded of it every morning as I wake up. I can still feel it there before I even open my eyes. I no longer need the drops as often, but when I wake up, my eyes stay closed and then partially closed for several minutes before I can safely open them all the way. Sometimes I even run down the hall to a crying child with my eyes closed. I brush my teeth with my eyes closed. I’ve had to bump around a few times, but I know better than to open them too fast! It is strange, but I have gotten quite used to it. Sometimes I still feel the sting of RCE in the morning, but since my visit to the Eye doctor in Atlanta, I haven’t had any more urgent problems requiring anymore visits. I use the ointment/drops when I feel another episode coming on more strongly and other than that, remembering not to open my eyes in the morning seems to have done the trick.

My main advice to anyone with RCE:

• Get the high concentrated salt drops and ointment and use them faithfully until your RCE is under control and then always keep them on hand for future flare-ups.
• Do not sleep with any sort of fan on or air blowing on you. This dries out the eyes and badly aggravates RCE.
• Be VERY careful when you open your eyes in the morning. This can make the difference between going about your life normally or having a hugely painful reoccurrence requiring doctors visits and pain medication.

So there you have it- my experience with RCE. Fascinating, no? ;)

ICAN

As most of you know, I am co-leader of our local ICAN chapter. Since starting this chapter, I have had SO much fun planning meetings, thinking up discussion topics, answering our emails and facebook inquiries, and helping moms seeking VBACs make important decisions about providers and birth location.

Our first meeting was a huge success. There were THREE Certified Professional Midwives in attendance (that’s 3 out of 5 in this area!) and several wonderful and experienced doulas! We also had three moms interested specifically in VBAC, but also in more information about local providers and homebirth. It was such a fabulous meeting and we covered a LOT of information. Having the midwives there was so helpful as they are so knowledgeable and having doulas there was helpful because they know the local providers, hospitals, and birth climate in general since they’ve worked with many moms and a variety of providers and locations. We talked a lot about local stats such as Chattanooga’s over 80% induction rate and higher than average cesarean rate. (SAD but unfortunately true.) We discussed various providers and their pros and cons and which providers will section no matter what once they know you are attempting a VBAC. (There are some like that around here. Sick, huh?) And providers who do intervene too much (like forced episiotomy/pitocin/IV etc), but are also generally good about not being scared off by VBAC clients. We also discussed home VBACs since all three midwives present attend those with great success and impeccable stats (much better than our local hospital stats!).

I think ICAN could be incredibly helpful to any mom or mom-to-be regardless of whether or not she has ever had a cesarean. Coming to meetings and being informed about the local providers, birth climate, birth practices, midwives, doulas, and homebirth would be useful for anyone! I wish more moms would come before their first disaster birth that ended unnecessarily in cesarean so that all that could be avoided to begin with. *sigh* But that’s also why ICAN got started!

Anyway, I am enjoying it immensely and feel that we are providing a very valuable service to families here in Chattanooga! At our first meeting, the moms expressed that they are very interested in all the birth options available but that many husbands/dads are very wary of birth alternatives such as doulas, midwives, waterbirth, and especially the homebirth option. These dads are (understandably) scared of the unknown and worried about their wives and babies. These moms felt their husbands needed to have their eyes opened a bit and have opportunity to hear more, specifically from other dads. They thought it would be more influential coming from other dad’s who’ve done homebirth rather than just their wives. This gave us a great idea for a meeting!

So for our next ICAN meeting, we have several experienced homebirth dads (including Steven of course!) committed to speak about what they’ve learned about birth and how they came around to fully supporting homebirth and how things went for them. I think this meeting has such huge potential to impact these fathers-to-be in a wonderful way. I think dad-to-dad talks and questions should be more available to men in general. I’ve also already had three other homebirth dads volunteer to be there to share information and answer questions! This is going to be amazing! I just hope we have a good turnout of the families who were interested in this sort of meeting to begin with!

Other meeting ideas: Cesarean Healing, a screening of birth movies (such as Business of Being Born, Pregnant in America, or Orgasmic Birth), Home VBAC, Hospital VBAC… and lots more! We have lots of ideas lined up already!