Britmums Live

I am delighted to be going to Britmums Live this year and am very excited to be both co presenting a workshop on Blogging from the Heart and also reading "Jimmy Savile is Dead".

Here is a bit about me:

Name: Kylie Hodges

Blog: Not Even A Bag of Sugar

Twitter ID: @kykaree

Height:162 cm (5 foot 3 ish in old money)

Hair: Shoulder length mousey brown

Eyes:Brown with a hazel tinge

Is this your first blogging conference? 

No would you beleive its my 5th!

Are you attending both days?

Yes Friday is my chill out and meet people and see the sponsors day, Saturday is my speaking day.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?

Sharing my experiences, reading my keynote speech and have the biggest cuddle with Jennie I can muster.

What are you wearing?

Not a clue see my tips at the end of this!

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?

For me Britmums isn't about blogging, its just about community. I feel happy with what I've achieved in blogging and its had to take a back seat to life this year. Perhaps I will have renewed vigour after Britmums, or perhaps it will be the end of my blogging journey, I don't know.

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows

I had never been to England before I decided to move here. I arrived with a suitcase and fell in love with the place straight away and have never looked back.

My tips for Britmums Live

• Dress for comfort. It's a long day, particularly on the Saturday. Don't worry too much about fashion, there will always be someone more dressed up than you and less dressed up.
• Leave your laptop at home. I took a laptop to Cybermummy and never used it. By all means take a tablet (I don't have one) or your fancy phone, but honestly you will be so busy you may not use it.
• Don't underestimate the pen and paper, I take copious notes and still find this the easiest.
• Smile, relax and enjoy. Everyone is feeling nervous and a little apprehensive.
• Make friends. I feel really shy in crowds so if I seem aloof I'm not being rude, just being me, and snap me out of it.
• Don't feel you have to attend everything. Playing hooky from a session and visiting the sponsors whilst everyone else is in session is a great way to get around and discover who is there and what they have to offer.   

Father's Day

Being a dad isn't easy. When your child is born sick or prematurely its a whole new ballgame. In many neonatal units there aren't structured opportunities for dads to take part in the day to day routine of the unit. Many dads have to go back to work immediately after the baby is born, saving their paternity leave for when the baby is discharged. Units are usually located within maternity services, so traditionally babycare is done around the mother.

My husband was amazing when Joseph was born. He was by my side as they removed Joseph by c-section, he went to the treatment room to see him, and popped down to neonatal. It touches my heart that my husband saw him before I did, that he was there for him when I could not be.

In our unit we set the tone for Corey's involvement, I did morning cares, he did the evening when he finished work. Until we started having kangaroo care at around 4-5 weeks I didn't attend in the evening, to give Corey a chance to get to know Joseph without me around.

Once we were allowed kangaroo care, I fought to ensure Corey could do that too, although as can be seen from the picture above, I think its more gorilla care than kangaroo.

Corey always called Joseph his little action man, and believed in him from day one. He always talked about the future, at times when I was too scared to. The video of our first cuddle has Corey saying "he's going to be a strapping lad", and he was right. He had nothing but belief that everything would be fine, and he was right, even though at times I found his attitude difficult, he was right. 

At Bliss we work to help units involve families especially dads, in their baby's life whilst on the unit, ready for life at home.

If you are a dad, or know a great one, and want to volunteer for Bliss in the Greater Manchester area, please contact me.

Feeding the 5000 - Manchester

Manchester Feeding the 5000 - Piccadilly Gardens Manchester

12 noon - 4pm on Saturday 15th June 2013

This Saturday Manchester Friends of the Earth will be feeding the 5000 with a free, hot nutritious lunch with food that would otherwise be wasted. Bendy carrots, potatoes with too many eyes, a misshapen tomato, supermarkets won't sell these perfectly edible items, and they end up being ploughed back into the ground or thrown out.

Households waste around 20% of the food they buy. I know I have worked hard to reduce waste but even now I still get it wrong and overbuy at times, especially with my huge change in working hours and Joseph being in full time nursery sometimes I get it wrong and end up throwing food on to my compost heap.

Feeding the 5000 is an international campaign, that is designed to raise awareness of food waste and to encourage us all to make a difference to the amount of food that is thrown away needlessly. 

At the event on Saturday there will be cooking demonstrations, practical solutions to reducing waste at home and a chance to meet new people and talk about important issues.

My office is near the Manchester Friends of the Earth crew, and I've been impressed by their dedication and passion and encourage you all to come down and visit on Saturday, have a free lunch and learn about food waste, and perhaps get involved in the deeper issues, and help us all to reduce food waste.

Dear Joseph

Last week Mrboosmum at Premmeditations wrote a stunning letter, urging herself to let go of the guilt of premature birth. I have written posts in a similar vein myself. She has created a linky and rather than link an old post I thought I would write something new. But then on reflection I felt that I actually had no guilt anymore. Ok I got pre eclampsia and Joseph was born at 27 weeks, but I know now that it wasn't my fault.

Then this morning it happened. I am wearing a white top with green polka dots, its quite close fitting. Joseph looked at me glowing with happiness "oh mummy there is a baby in your tummy I am going to be a big brother". Bang. There it is. That old familiar feeling, guilt. This is all my fault.

Dear Joseph

When daddy and I decided to have a baby, we decided to have a family. You would be our first baby then there would be another. And maybe even another after that. We dearly wanted a family, and neither of us pictured a scenario where we would have an only child. We both grew up the eldest with a younger sister, and that's what we wanted for you too, well maybe not a sister, it may have been a brother, afterall you can never have too many cars, Avengers and Power Rangers!

When you were born, mummy and daddy had never known such joy in their lives. But, and it's a big but, we had never known such fear either. The doctors told mummy she could have died, and that we could have lost the baby. 

A lot of babies go straight  home when they are born, or are born at home, but you had to stay in hospital for 3 very long months, and for the first 4 weeks you were very poorly. It was a frightening time for mummy and daddy, and you were so brave and strong.

When you were 7 weeks old I had to go and see the chief consultant and head midwife and we had a very honest and frank discussion about future babies. They both felt, in their professional opinion, it would be wiser to not go again. To not have another baby. To not give you a sibling.

Preeclampsia is two things. It's evil and its also unpredictable. I may not get it again, but in all likelihood I will. You are a very special loved little boy and I would never want to put you through any pain if I could avoid it, and having another baby is dangerous.

Sometimes I feel very guilty that you will grow up an only child and resent not having siblings. As you grow you will have friends, deep friendships that will last your whole life through. You will have lots of amazing experiences and know deep love.

I am letting go. I am letting go of the guilt and the sadness.

Joseph there is no baby in my tummy, its just cake.

Love you always

Mummy

A Little Round Up

It's been a busy time for me lately. I passed my 3 month probation at Bliss and I'm commencing recruitment activity for our volunteer roles in Manchester and also East Lancashire. If you are interested in getting involved, the time commitment is two to three hours a week and you could really make a difference to a baby in special care. Contact me to find out more.

Joseph is doing well in nursery, and has got into our primary school of choice. There are beginning to be little whispers that he may be on the autistic spectrum, which comes as no great surprise, but its just watch and wait for now. He is doing so well and I am really proud of him. The premmie game continues in my head, this time 4 years ago he was just finishing week one in HDU, he has come a long way since then.

I am attending Britmums in two weeks time. I am speaking on a panel with some gorgeous blogging friends, and then reading Jimmy Savile is Dead. I am really excited about doing this, and feel that its something I really need to do, even though its scary. Following this I am having a photo shoot done, partly for my own journey but also as part of Kate's Naked Mums initative. It's not about gratuity or sex or anything like that, its reclaiming my body for me, and being proud of it and that its carried me thus far.

Finally I wanted to tell you about two blogs you should be reading. The first is Premmeditations: Reflections on Premmie Parenting. It's a truly stunningly written blog, and I love it very much. Please follow and support it. My own blogging is sporadic as I am so busy at present and Premmeditations is a very thought provoking read on premmie issues.

The second blog is written by a dear friend of mine Kimberley. Ruby + Lottie has stunning photography, beautiful writing and stories of HOPE Helping Others and Promoting Education, mainly around Hypermesis but also other conditions of pregnancy.

The yarn bomb is still ticking a long too and I will update about that next time!

Me at 15

You are 15 and a half. You are finishing high school. You are overjoyed to be leaving that place, a place where you have been teased, tormented and picked on.

A place where you have been beaten, had your work sabotaged, your lunch stolen, your bag bombed with paint. A place where you've been isolated and excluded, jeered and bullied. Every single damn day.

A place where your teachers didn't have a clue about your past, about how unbelievably tough things had been for you. A place where you never felt safe.

A place where you met true friends, people you can turn to now. Fellow introverted quiet geeky types happy to play cards, or read journals about social justice, or discuss the latest current affairs programme.

A place where you completely and utterly failed at anything remotely sporting like. But tried hard. Every single time.

A place where your mind flourished and you developed your sense of humour which becomes your tin hat, getting you through life.

You leave thinking you are ugly. That any beauty you possess is merely a reflection of the inside.

You look at this photo over 20 years later and it will take your breath away.

You were beautiful.

They were wrong. You weren't fat or ugly.

You are beautiful.

100 Orange Roses

I am working on a big project for August, a yarn bomb with a Garden theme to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. You can find details here.

As most of you will know in 2012 I went through a tough time, deciding to "come out" as an adult victim of child sexual abuse. Deciding to go public was incredibly hard, and I struggled with this decision. One person became my confidante and my strength, Daniel. My husband finds it hard to deal with the detail, and I have had a residual fear of men, so having a man I can trust implicitly as well as my husband has been pretty key to my ongoing recovery.

Daniel happens to have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I found him on Twitter because of his condition, I was interested to see what the guys with Duchenne were doing in regards to social media, and I am nosey!

One of the first things I recall Daniel saying about his condition is that he expected to live to 100. DMD is a life limiting condition, I won't go into the statistics as they make for grim reading, but suffice to say no one has ever lived to 100 with this condition. But who am I to question? Daniel lives his life with quiet positivity and determination, so why not? Daniel is currently 38 years old.

I never expected to become close friends with Daniel, visiting him several times, my family has met him and his mum, and we've become a team.

I rarely think about Daniel's condition. When I visit we chat, watch tv together, play on our computers together, and play with Joseph. DMD doesn't loom in our discussions. Yes, he is in a power chair, and uses a ventilator, but after a few minutes with him, you don't notice all that stuff.

But I do know two things. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy needs a cure. And that men with Duchenne need a future. It can't all be about a cure. As a society we are woefuly inadequate at giving these men futures. Not just a life, but a meaningful life, employment, relationships, opportunities to thrive. Just living is not enough.

I am doing this yarn bomb as my gift to Daniel, to show him I do care, not just about him but about every boy (and the rare girl) diagnosed with Duchenne, and to leave a legacy.

When I was discussing the yarn bomb with the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign we talked about a symbolic number.... the number of people diagnosed, or death rates or some other number.

But no, in the spirit of Sadako and the Thousand paper cranes, the only number that makes sense to me is 100. 100 orange roses.

The yarn bomb entrance will be a feast of orange with the roses the central feature, and then moving into other colours and themes as you walk along.

If you would like to make something for my yarn bomb, I would be thrilled, and there will be other opportunities to help too. If you would like to blog or promote it in some way, let me know, and I am happy to link back to you.