I have tried on a number of occasions to set lots of objectives for the new year, and generally speaking failed, or taken two years to complete them!

However, I am going to set some resolutions anyway.

1. Read a book a month (trying to read more non-fiction)

2. Give £5 to charity every month. I actually started this in November, donating to Movember, and then to NaNoWriMo in December.

3. Finish a first draft of my novel

4. Spend more quality time with the wife and kid.

5. Get to my goal size… (this is the hardest, chocolate addiction is a hard one to break)

What are your New Years resolutions?

The post New Years Resolutions appeared first on Sacha Black.

This is quite possibly the most exciting personal post I have written in a while. The posts about my life and memoirs seem to be getting rarer, but this blog was created originally as a memoir, so I refuse to let go of that side completely, no matter how much it’s evolved, so sorry to all the folk out there who signed up to read all about writing, this ones a memoir.

A long time ago, I was told I probably wouldn’t be able to have children. It’s a long story, but it ended up in me falling pregnant rather quickly and a hasty retreat by the fertility clinic.

Thankfully we managed to get pregnant, and nine extremely long months later, and 3.5 days of excruciating labour, baby Black was born. The best year of my life followed, and a difficult decision about sperm.

The wife and I thus far haven’t really wanted another child. Not for any other reason than, we need to pay off the cost of the first baby, and buy a house to make sure we can provide for him first before having another one.

We have spent a long time discussing whether having another one would suit us, and our family. We bickered a lot to start with, but I guess that’s normal for most couples. As time has gone on we have continued to learn lots of parenting lessons and are continually growing together on our journey.

Deciding whether to save sperm for another child has been a topic of much contention. It’s difficult trying to predict what we might or might not want to do in a few years time.

Of course, even if we didn’t save sperm we could have another child using another donor, but if the option is there to use the same donor, we are both in agreement that we would prefer to use them.

So we came to a cross road… To save or not to save? It’s an extremely costly affair saving sperm. To save enough for three attempts it’s a whopping £1000 for three years, and another £300 every three years to continue to have it stored.

BUT, we decided to save some, just in case. I am not saying we will have any more kids, as at the minute neither of us can see it happening, however, we are trying to protect our options, ensure that we aren’t taking our choices away and making a decision about how we will feel in 5 or 6 years time.

So there we have it… Very exciting news, the Black’s have a bank… a bank of sperm! (can’t help but giggle like a child about this!) But SHHHHH! It’s a secret!

The post Spermy, Spermy, Sperms! appeared first on Sacha Black.

Like the TV advert, the wife and I decided to set up an email account for our newborn  son to open on his 18th birthday. We will spend the next 18 years sending letters, photos and videos to him in secret, so that his life with us is chronicled. I thought you may like to read my first entry.

My Dearest A,

You are currently my little sleeping beauty upstairs in your crib. I am hoping you are reading this on or around your 18th birthday, as we have now given you the password and account details for this account.

I want you to know, wherever you are, wherever we are, I am immensely proud of whoever you have become. I love you with all my heart, you are my world.

‘The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.’ Jane Austen.

 

You’re 11 and a half weeks old, just shy of 3 months old. I look at you now and wonder how you came to be. It feels like you have been here my entire life, and yet, for just a moment, and already I love you with such immensity that it takes over my entire being.

I am still at home on maternity leave with you at the moment and will be for a few more weeks. I savour every moment of time I spend with you, because I will be at work soon and then every moment I spend away from you will be a moment wasted.

The best parts of my day are when you smile at me, or when I get to watch you learn something new. Your making lots of noises these days, and beginning to form a real laugh, and I can’t help but giggle every time you do; your learning to sit – although you scream in protest every time we practice, you much prefer standing up. You love your door bouncer and finally your starting to learn to roll over.

I am talking to my 18 year old son… I will be 44 by the time your 18. Oh my god, that seems like a life time away, I can’t imagine what I will be like at 44, or who I will be, let alone who you will be.

What do I hope for you? Firstly and most importantly I hope you are happy. I hope you have had a wealth of experiences, good, bad, naughty and ugly! I hope you are safe and well. I hope you have studied hard, and played harder, I hope you have loved and lost and loved again and I hope you have travelled.

Every parent wants their child to be a doctor, lawyer, pilot or some other well paid career. But I just hope that you have found something that will make you happy for the duration of your career, I don’t care if your a ballerina, a seamstress, a chef or a boxer. As long as you work hard you will be the best you can be, but enjoy whatever you choose to do in life, because life is too short to be unhappy…. but secretly I do hope you have chosen to go to university! I met your mumma at university and I am sure I speak for her too when I tell you how much fun we had at university, even during the all nighters trying to finish assignments.

I hope you enjoy the next 18 years of emails! It might take a day or two to get through!

Happy Birthday baby boy, I love you always and forever, mummy. xxx

The post A Letter To My 18 Year Old Son appeared first on Sacha Black.

The wife has always had a penchant for Disney. I on the other hand barely watched them as a child, preferring to have my head stuck firmly in the pages of dusty old books. Disney came up in conversation again recently – having pushed a small human out – and the fact she wanted to have a large collection of disney films ready for the boy to watch. Sky had a few on demand over Christmas, so we sat down and stuck The Little Mermaid (TLM) on.

I sat, aghast for the entire film. How has disney been able to produce films that are quite simply an abomination. People – and by people I refer to the murky world of ‘parents’ – seem to rave about disney and how good their films are…. Good?

Good – sure, if you count a hideously antifeminist, despicably amoral story that has nothing even remotely like the ethics or values I want my son to grow up with.

I hate to be a mermaid basher so I will start with a positive. Race equality – TLM is a great story about how love is equal across any race, Mermaid loves a human, different races, love conquers all blah, blah, blah, Great – this is a moral I can not only live with, but as a lesbian, actively promote and encourage. I want my child to know they can love whoever they want, no matter their race, creed, gender or otherwise.

The Film:

Issue 1: Ariel falls in love with the prince. – So wrong. She spontaneously falls in love with someone she has never spoken to and mostly just perved on, in a fairly stalkerish way from afar.

Would you encourage your kid to do this? I doubt it. I can already see the injunctions and restraining orders being slapped all over him, because a stupid film told him real love happens by stalking someone for two days. Ok, I am being facetious but you see my point. I would also like to point out I am not suggesting that I don’t believe in love at first sight. More that you need to have a reality check in real life, even if you do fall for someone instantly.
Issue 2: Ariel wants to change herself to be with him.

I hate to go all feminist ranty on you. Actually, I don’t hate it, I love a good feminist rant. In fact, any sort of rant. I digress – BUT don’t we have enough antifeminist-bullshit pressure to conform to the ultra skinny, rib protruding, size of a seven year old, bulimic-anorexic, vomit inducing ‘celebrity look’ society the media loves, without having it force-fed subconsciously to our infants. UGH. No woman…. Actually no man either, should ever have to change themselves to be with someone. Is it just me? Or do we spend hours of our lives giving advice to our perpetually confused friends on their relationships, and why it’s not ok for them to allow their partner to nag them into suppression?

Issue 3: The prince starts to fall for Ariel but then deserts her instantly for a disguised Ursula over something so shallow as her voice! He decides to marry Ursula immediately having spent all of no time getting to know her…

Where do I even start with this. It is not ok to teach my child that they can desert a woman (or man) based solely on a characteristic. Thats akin to suggesting it’s ok to leave their partner if they get fat, or a scar, or a disability. I mean SERIOUSLY. And then to marry the other woman because of that same characteristic, after what 2.5 milliseconds of time spent with said woman… sure thats an outstanding idea. I am positive all parents would approve of their kids doing this.

Issue 4: Instead of Ariel taking her pride and moving on she pandas to the prince and chases after him. 

This makes me want to claw my face off in frustration and resort to excessive amounts of alcohol. How low must her self confidence be to chase after a guy who only likes her because of her voice and will desert her as quickly as he met her for another woman simply because she lost that characteristic.

Issue 5: After all that the prince goes back to Ariel dumping Ursula and THEN kills Ursula just for good measure.

Now I just feel awkward. No one wants to date a psychopath, and lets be honest, the prince is looking more and more like a psychopath; with emotions unnecessarily fickle, and an assumption that it’s ok to off your ex…

Despite the fact I am resolute in knowing TLM is morally wrong, it’s not like theres anything better on the market. I think I may have to go investigate the other films!

The post The Abomination That is Disney! appeared first on Sacha Black.

Understandably I have been a bit slack at blogging because…. Baby Black was born on 30th November 2013.

My labour… WHAT can I say….It was pretty traumatic due to the length of the labour but in the end everything was fine.

I laboured from Thursday morning 28th (my due date!!) right through to Saturday night when he was born so a very long time!!

So, I started some sporadic contractions on the 27th, but officially starting continuous contractions in the early hours of the morning on the 28th. I went to hospital at midnight on the 29th (night of the 28th but morning of the 29th), and despite having what the midwife said were strong contractions 2minutes apart I was actually only  1cm dilated. Considering I had been contracting ALL fricking day I was devastated!

So I was sent home with paracetamol and codeine. I continued to contract through the night every 4 minutes, by 3:30pm on the 29th I was so exhausted and in so much pain that I couldn’t take it any more, so we went back to hospital despite the contractions only being 7-8 minutes apart.  When I got to hospital I was STILL only 2 cm dilated, so they gave me a sweep and suggested that I should have a single shot of morphine so that I could at least sleep through for a few hours. So I took it as I had been awake for 36 hours and had had contractions the previous night (27th) so had barely slept that night either. I sort of slept – if you count waking up every 4 minutes to record a contraction!!

At some point in the middle of the night on the 29th (morning of the 30th) they discovered I was 4cm dilated and officially in active labour, however I was in a LOT of pain, which is when they discovered that he was back to back…. explaining why it was taking so long for me to dilate as at this point id been contracting for two straight days with just that shot of morphine and some paracetamol!! (the other reason the labour took so long is that he was really big – but i will explain that later)

My waters broke at some point between 2 and 4am on the morning of the 30th I forget when exactly, but that is when the real pain began it was excruciating I mean really like nothing I’d ever felt. I threw up a full litre of liquid I was in so much pain, so I was given gas an air (a hilarious couple of hours that my wife can regale humorous stories about me demanding to buy the gas and air and waving the tube around and shaking my bump!) I managed to get in the pool (where I wanted my birth) for all of about 10 minutes.

They discovered my cervix was swollen and I had halted dilation at 4cm and wasn’t getting any further. I then asked for an epidural because after 48 hours and then being told he was back to back and not dilating any more I gave up (sad to say) but I literally didn’t have anything left and I was in agony. As it happened they would of given me one anyway because as soon as they put it in they also hooked me up to a  syntocinon drip because my waters had broken they couldn’t allow my dilation to stop. Due to the exhaustion however all my veins collapsed in my hands and they had to get an anaesthetist to canula me… think i ended up with 5 failed canulars in total!

My active labour stage was 20 hours…. so I continued to contract from when the epi was put in at 6 or 7am until 9pm that night when he was born. But I was a bit rubbish at pressing the epidural button so I still had a lot of movement in my legs, and knew when I was contracting.

Unfortunately at this point I began to spike a fever due to some unknown infection or other, so they started IV antibiotics but not in time for them all to get through to the baby, so we ended up having to stay in hospital for a week. Baby A also then got jaundice so was under a lamp for the best part of a day.

So the actual birth… I had stopped pressing the epidural button about an hour before I started to push because I wanted to still at least feel part of the need to push. Which I am happy to say I could – I was telling the midwife when I felt like I wanted to push and I was always right –

It took 55 minutes of pushing and thankfully despite a ridiculously long labour I did it, by myself, no assistance needed (except an epidural!) which I am sad that I had to use, but it was necessary anyway in the end.

The midwife said she was very impressed and couldn’t believe I was hiding such a whopper of a baby in there!!

He was born at 20:49 on the 30th November weighing 9lb1oz

My body is totally massacred though, I have some muscle separation but considering his size its not really a surprise!! So I have been referred to a physio in Jan, amazingly because I didn’t panic the Midwife was able to control my delivery and I only had a minor tear 4 stitches – 2 inside 2 out. But I had several grazes and part of my labia ripped/tore off and it wasn’t spotted until I examined myself several days later so it had healed unfortunately – so I feel a bit wounded over that. I am layered in stretch mark scars too. But the worst body torture which could of ended up with me in hospital was a retained placenta. I kept telling the midwives that something was wrong down below, and I was examined twice, but they couldn’t see anything wrong. Well a few days later I started to develop what can only be described as a tongue dangling out of my vagina – I was incredibly concerned that they had failed to stitch a piece of vaginal wall back in or something. The day after leaving hospital a midwife is meant to visit you  – It got to 4pm and I started to think that no one was coming, so I phoned the hospital and doctors surgery and they sent the on call midwife…

Now this was actually my community midwife much to my horror – She is incredibly attractive, and I remember saying to the wife how mortified I would be if she ever had to examine me!

Well anyway after a hilarious few minutes trying to find said tongue – which had disappeared she grabbed the end and asked me to cough and much to my horror I felt a long warm sensation – I thought I had urinated on her! – I hadn’t!! She pulled out half of baby A’s membrane one of the largest pieces she has seen- she told me that if I hadn’t been on antibiotics it would have rotted – and she’s not sure why it didn’t rot anyway as it was a week post birth, not only that she’s not sure why I didn’t haemorrhage or get septicaemia (something my aunt got when she had a retained placenta). Anyway – she got it out and I wasn’t infected thank god. But I am so glad I stuck to my guns and kept asking people to examine me.

Baby A has taken to breast feeding like a dream we are both smitten and he’s perfect – but then we would be biased!!

Theres a lot more I can update from our week in hospital and the first three weeks of his life but enough for now

The post Baby Black has been born! appeared first on Sacha Black.

We went to our first of two antenatal classes the other night, and boy did it start awkwardly!

We rocked up fashionably late – by total accident – we both despise being late, and the wife had been sent home from work as she was in excruciating pain from her bad back still from the car accident – Anyway – she slept most of the day away after swallowing a load of painkillers the doc had given her. After an epic three hour snooze and with barely 30 minutes to get to class I finally plucked up enough courage to wake her from what can only be described as some kind of zombie death sleep! I really didn’t think I would be able to wake her!

We rocked up – slightly late – with EVERYONE gawping at us, as we were CLEARLY the only gays in the village! and we awkwardly sat in the last two remaining seats, right in front of the strangest tutor I have ever witnessed.

This tutor – paler than a vampire, with an accent that was so confused she must have lived in every country in the world.

During the course she brandished an alarming wooden plank that depicted the dilation of the cervix which she then proceeded to push a babies head through the 10cm circle… to which all the women began to cringe slightly and I tried not to whimper and sob in utter despair!

I was a bit disappointed in the class to be honest – I only found out one new piece of information about some vitamin K that the doctors give babies straight after birth. The wife was like… “what do you expect your a geek….” she has a point!

Anyway – What this class taught me, is that I absolutely, love my wife, and wouldn’t be without her.

The tutor split the class into ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ – so my poor wife made the awkward journey over to sit in the ‘boys’ circle to discuss how they were going to support their wives.

WELL….. having been surrounded by women for so long – I had completely forgotten how utterly useless men can be.

Suggestions they came up with included – making sure you had the take out number because they deliver to the maternity unit – clearly thinking about their stomachs.

When I suggested that they should pack the hospital bag because they would be rooting around it as we were going to be in no state to look for shit one of the men turned round and said

“thats the womens job” – DICK HEAD.

This made me cross so I verbally dropped him on his arse and everyone giggled.

Anyway – this continued, and all the good suggestions that they had come up with I would look over to my wife and mouth “did you say that?” and she would give me that cute little smirk she does and nod….

Sigh, swoon, so proud. bloody love my wife!! <3

The post Antenatal reasons why I love my wife! appeared first on Sacha Black.

I had my 16 week midwife appointment last week. It was wicked, I got to hear the heartbeat – and in fact I recorded it on my phone, and I am hoping that this works:

Hopefully that is an audio player that will play the heart beat! If so – enjoy

The appointment went swimmingly – all apart from the horrendous fact that – my midwife’s HOT… like really hot! I am going to be so so embarrassed when she comes to check on us the day after the babies born and she has to show me the ins and outs of breast feeding! or worst… has to check I’m ‘healing’ I am going to die!! lol. It really is going to be one of those “awkward moments when…”

Of course the wife found this all hilarious -and is now going book leave just to come to the next appointment so she can judge my taste!! haha.

The post Baby Beat appeared first on Sacha Black.