I HAVE MOVED!

Blog, that is, not house. I have a new name, new look and new URL. I imported my existing posts from this blog but there are a few new ones and I still have some in draft form to finish and post when I get a chance. It's all a work in progress but baby permitting I will try to catch up soon.

Please come on over, and bring cake!
http://areluctantmummy.blogspot.com/

I don't want to jinx it but...

the little man slept through the night all night, as in from early evening until morning, 7pm until 6am, as in 11 hours!! I'm sure it was just a fluke and may not happen again for months but, wow!

The first time he slept for a long stretch through the night we woke up in the morning and Hubby said, "It's morning. Did he actually sleep through?" in disbelief. We wondered if he had actually been crying half the night and we were so exhausted we just slept through it all! That's exactly how we felt again this morning.

A full night's sleep comes with a price though. My boobs were so painful and leaky this morning!

The start of something good or too good to be true?

For the last two nights Baby slept through, from around 2am until 7am. We hope this is the start of things to come and isn't just a fluke. It would be great to get some decent sleep again. Fingers crossed!

Baby blues

A few days after my son was born I was hit by the baby blues. Inexplicable tears and sadness are really not helped by sleepless nights! And a couple of days ago I burst into tears just looking at my little boy for no reason other than he is so sweet and cute and perfect and I love him more than I could ever imagine loving anything, and I can't believe he's mine. What a basket case! Anyone know how long this madness is going to last?

Things about childbirth that weren't as expected

Like most women I have heard things about pregnancy/childbirth/babies most of my adult life, but it really is something that you have to experience firsthand to understand. I had certain expectations or an understanding of some things that turned out to be not at all what I expected.

Contractions - Didn't feel like I'd expected. Somehow I thought it would be a pulsing or, well, contracting sensation but mine just felt like plain old pain! I knew they started off as similar to period cramps and get more intense but I was surprised at the feeling of very low and very intense period pain.

Waters breaking - I had been told for many people it is just a trickle or a small gush but you have time to rush off to the bathroom. Not in my case. My waters broke spectacularly and I am thankful it happened in the early morning at home and not while I was out in public. If I had been out at lunch or something, people's feet would have got wet! Also, it didn't stop leaking until the baby was delivered. I had a little gush of fluid with each contraction throughout my labour, I really don't know where it was all coming from. It was pretty tiresome.

Breastfeeding - Somehow you would think it would be the most natural thing in the world but I was surprised at how tough nursing is. I had been warned by friends who had difficulty so I wasn't completely unprepared but it was still a surprise when it was such a learning curve for both me and baby. My nipples are taking a real battering but I keep telling myself it's worth it.

Signs of labour - You're told in late pregnancy what the signs of labour are and what to expect but you really can't know until you actually experience it. But it's true what they say, you will know when it happens. I had quite a few times when I would go, is this it, is this the start of labour? Like, feeling a little wet down there and wondering if it was my waters, but when my waters actually did break there was absolutely no mistaking it. Feeling cramps and wondering if it was a contraction, but when the real contractions start there is no doubt that's what they are. You get the picture.

Delivery - The one thing I really did not know about having a baby was how close it is to having a pooh!! I spent all that time doing pelvic floor exercises thinking it was all about trying to control my lady bits, I did not expect labour to be so much about feeling like I needed to do a huge pooh! And then being told to push into my bottom as if I am doing exactly that. Nor was I prepared for just how uncomfortable that pressure feels when the baby is descending and how much you can feel it despite the epidural. In fact, I asked the midwife to unhook me from the monitor so I could go to the bathroom and she refused, telling me I didn't need to go, it was the baby I could feel and that's a good sign. I totally didn't believe her and was almost in tears thinking I would soil myself. Grim! And I can't even begin to tell you how traumatic it is needing to go number two ever since, I think I am going to push out a baby!

I'm sure there will be many unexpected things about raising a baby too. I'll keep you posted!

The birth story

As promised, this is my birth story. I'm still a little traumatised by the memory of it but at the risk of sounding cliche, it is all worth it when I hold my gorgeous baby boy.

As I'd mentioned, I started to get mild contractions on my due date (Tuesday) which started to get more frequent and uncomfortable through the day and I thought that was the start of things but they subsided into the evening, which was annoying and disappointing. I had some moderate and irregular contractions and other early signs over the next day or so but I was getting really impatient for things to progress. Then Thursday morning and afternoon I had some spotting which then increased and became darker in the evening so I called the hospital and they told me it was probably a show but to come in and check it just in case. We were there all Thursday evening and they confirmed it was a show and sent me home. We got home around 1.00am and my contractions started around 2.30 and got really painful and really frequent very fast. I had a terrible sleepless night being woken by them every few minutes, some of them were much more intense than others. I called the hospital at 6.00am and they said to take Paracetamol (Tylenol), get some rest and eat something for the energy, then call again in two hours. Let me tell you, Paracetamol is worse than useless for contractions! I don't think I was even in bed for more than 15 minutes before I sat up and shouted "Paracetamol is SHIT!!! It doesn't do ANYTHING!". Rest was futile and I never got around to eating anything because my waters broke dramatically at around 7.30 and we called and went straight into hospital. Because I was Group B Strep positive I had to go straight in as soon as my waters broke to get the IV antibiotics started because of the increased risk of infection. At 9.00am I was 4cm dilated but they found meconium in my waters so had to put baby on continuous monitoring which I hated because it meant with that and the IV I had to pretty much be strapped down to the bed. It wasn't the active labour I had hoped for and I found it really uncomfortable being confined to bed like that for hours. It was a long labour, I was progressing but not as fast as we'd like and it looked like the baby was getting distressed. His heartbeat was dropping off after contractions and there was talk of doing an emergency c-section but they did a fetal scalp sample and decided we could continue with labour. The pain was intense, some of the contractions were so much harder than others. The midwife said that happens with meconium in the fluids, it can give some contractions more of an edge. I started off with entonox which made me really drunk/high but after a while didn't take enough of the pain away so I asked for an epidural. After waiting a while for it I got it but it didn't work! At that point I was giving up hope but they redid it and the second one worked a treat. By then I wanted to have the anaesthetist's baby I was so happy!! I had hoped to avoid having an epidural but the way things worked out it felt really necessary because not only was the Entonox no longer effective for some of the more intense contractions, but I was so exhausted by then from a tortured sleepless night and low on energy from an empty stomach (I had last eaten the previous evening but had thrown my guts up since) that I simply wouldn't have had the energy to push if I hadn't had the epidural and managed to sleep for a while once the pain was gone. I finally ended up having an assisted delivery with ventouse, which wasn't exactly the birth I'd wanted but wasn't as bad as I'd expected. The actual pushing stage was quick as we had to deliver urgently by that point. It turned out the cord was wrapped around the baby which was what was causing him distress. Luckily it wasn't around his neck but he was wearing it like a sash and it was pulling him back as he was descending which is why he was showing distress during/after contractions.

Hubby was just amazing, I don't know how I would have done it without him. I know he was worried about being abused and yelled at, that's what people kept telling him would happen, but I didn't lose it with him at all. I don't think I had the energy! I was grateful he was there and he was totally supportive and helpful in all the right ways. What I found invaluable was having him there to encourage me during the pushing. I was so tired and finding it really difficult and it also felt like I was busting blood vessels pushing hard but nothing was happening because I couldn't really feel anything. What encouraged and spurred me on when I was tiring and wanting to give up was him telling me I was doing great and he could see the baby's head. (Of course I didn't believe what the doctors and midwife were telling me!)

Our darling son was born at 9.20pm, very healthy despite his ordeal and mine, so we were thrilled. He was 7.5 lbs and 20.5 inches long. They were pleased that both of us were doing well, even though my body was a battlefield, and let us come home the next day.

We are typical first time parents, gazing adoringly at him all the time and marvelling at how wonderful and perfect he is. He has been keeping us up at night and we are both completely exhausted but it's all totally worth it, he is just amazing.

Two weeks old

The baby celebrated his two week birthday today by losing his cord stump. He is now the proud owner of a brand new belly button!