4+1 Weeks Postpartum

Sooooooo the last four weeks have been interesting!

Somehow I have managed to keep the baby alive and she has just about near killed me. It has been such a relentless slog but all in all everything has been going really well.

I have always wanted to breastfeed and right from the moment she came into the world, she latched on to my boob and we haven't looked back. During the first few days my nipples scabbed over and it could be very painful at times, but once the scabs peeled off it quickly became painless and even pleasant. She had this habit of sucking them raw and just when I thought I couldn't take it any more, she'd do this flicking thing with her tongue that tickles in a very pleasant way. I think it was by about day 10 that it no longer hurt.

The thing that really surprised me is how I disregarded the guidelines and still have done very well with it. The one piece of advice I was given that was very helpful was to keep her back aligned with her head but the rest of it just seemed to over complicate things. All that stuff about the perfect latch and bringing the baby to boob was just a source of stress. I simply didn't have the arm strength to hold her, the pillows are a faff and my boobs are too big to not to have to heave them up towards her. I think it all boils down to your supply and resolve being sufficient and baby having the ability and being given the opportunity to figure it out in its own time.

I did intend on expressing and bottle feeding but that hasn't happened because I'm enjoying breastfeeding so much, even if it does have its drawbacks. Feeds every 1-3 hours 24/7 being the main issue I face for obvious reasons.

I have never experienced tiredness like this before and the biggest battle is with myself - willing my eyes to stay open, my mind to stay clear and my body to keep moving when all every shred of my being is screaming to collapse into a heap.

An average amount of sleep for me is 2-6 hours within any 24 hour period. That is broken sleep too and sometimes I don't even know if I've been asleep or not. All I know is that baby is stirring - again.

I sometimes manage an additional 2 hour nap during the day but I find it very hard to sleep unless I'm in complete silence and darkness. Needless to say after 29 days of exhaustion, the shine does start to tarnish on the perfect little family. James is starting to get on my nerves and even the baby has provoked a frustrated sigh out of me.

James started out very well. He made all my meals, went shopping, fetched all my things at a whim, washed all the clothes and kept the house fairly clean. He also gets 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. 

Then he started asking to go on the PC and going out with his mates mountain biking and suddenly spending 1 hour in the kitchen per day, 2 hours shopping with a Starbucks break, maybe 30 mins cleaning, 30 mins sorting out the washing and passing me the remote when I dropped it didn't seem like much compared to my 24 hour slog with the baby.

I'm still trying to figure out how to divvy up the hours better but he seems to be using the breastfeeding as a get out of jail free card because only I can feed her and "she'll want it soon". If she ever cries he thinks it's boobie time and passes her to me and it mostly is but not all the time, and those times he should be taking her. It's getting to the point now where she just wants me for comfort because he's never been there for her when she's upset.

James is super defensive though. I have tried bringing it up with him and he is just adamant that he's doing loads and I'm not arguing that point... It's just not much compared to me. It's as if he interprets any suggestion of improvement as a critisism of his ability of being a good daddy.

He is a very good daddy though. The situation isn't his intention, he is very willing and able, but we've jointly created a bit of issue of me being the baby's sole provider of food and comfort.

I even do 95% of the nappy changes!

Actually though, the nappy changing is one of my favourite interactions with her. She's awake, alert and partially naked and I get to play and talk to her while checking that everything is clean and healthy.

She also gets to show a bit of her personality, which no surprise is that of a little sod. She loves nothing more than messing a fresh nappy, normally before it's even fastened! That results in poo being shot at me and urine making a beeline for her clothing. My record so far is five dirty nappies during one change!

Her poo was actually quite pleasant. It looked and smelled like liquid custard. I say was, because since she hit 3 weeks old it's turned orange and smells like rotten fish.

Since that time she has also gone from a very content baby to a little madam in the evenings. She's had some awful screaming fits recently and they are only just starting to fade and I think that hard winding and tummy massage has created most of the improvement.

At first they were shocking but once you realise that she isn't dying and it's just noise, I'm not bothered by it at all. All that bothers me is the timing of it, normally meal times and chill out time. Or sleep time! Oh, and of course her not being able to communicate what she's crying about.

I've been surprised at how quickly other women dealing with the same sort of issues have gone and grabbed a prescription medication. I feel very much in the minority for letting her suffer through it. It's as if crying is an illness. Actually being awake at all seems to be an illness too as I saw a lady chatting about their baby sleeping for several hours after a "carton" of (I assume) formula milk on facebook. All the other women were jumping at it.

I think it's all the fussing is just part of her development though as her digestive system matures and starts to produce acid, cultivate bacteria and create more gases.

As for her development, she is obviously very advanced. Seriously though, I'm amazed at some of the things she can do. She can hold her head up for several seconds and even sat up for a second or two just today. She can army crawl from my groin right up to my shoulder and when she gets to the top she rolls down my arm - it's crazy. In the last couple of days she has started focussing her eyes on objects too.

I think she's a bit lacking with her hands though. She can grip but she doesn't often. You know how some babies you can't get near to without them clamping a vice like grip around your finger, well she doesn't do that. I think it's probably my fault for keeping her in mitts all the time. The thing is that she is a scratcher and she enjoys clawing her own face. Even after I trim her nails, she leaves angry red marks everywhere.

Furthermore, she likes to suck. I ended up with a sucker. Her first choice being her fist and I don't want a thumb sucker. In spite of myself I've offered her my own finger and even a dummy but only for a few moments until she goes from hysterical to dozy. I haven't let her go to sleep sucking. I'm so scared of her always needing something to suck on. It's bad for her teeth, it's bad for her speech and rightly or wrongly it looks like lazy parenting.

She is growing very well though. Born at 7lb 15oz, dropping to 7lb 5oz on day 3, being 8lb on day 10 and then by day 17 being 8lb 9oz!

Other things to note is that a rotting belly button stump smells worse than you ever imagine and bf babies are very spotty.

As for parenting in general, it's fantastic. The sense of satisfaction and achievement from your child simply liking you is phenomenal. I've only just gone out with her for the first time yesterday and I've got a couple of other trips planned this week. It's a bit nerve wracking but the desire to escape the house far outweighs the fear sooner or later.

Be wary of how quickly they change and grow though. Every day I wake and hardly recognise her.

Regarding my physical state and recovery from pregnancy and labour, my stitches fell out about a week ago and I just stopped bleeding yesterday. So much for 9 months of no periods... You certainly make up for it! 

I dropped 1 and a half stone since labour with another stone to lose and I've gone up two dress sizes from my pre pregnancy size *sigh*. No diets allowed for a breastfeeding mummy though.

My round tummy finally seems to be starting to deflate which is something I guess.

You'll be happy to know I'm also covered in stretchmarks. I've been chatting to some facebook pregnancy buddies and it seems some of us got them during or after labour. I think that I got mine during. It sounds crazy but she was really high right until the induction and there are no stretchmarks there and then during labour she would have suddenly dropped and I think she shredded me as she went. They're all over my lower gut and even amongst my pubic hair and they are huge and purple.

I haven't dared to look at my vagina yet but from washing it I can tell it feels very different. Where my vaginal entrance is, there was some skin that kind of stretched across a bit of it near my perrineum. Well, that's all completely gone and what used to feel like a hidden entrance now feels very much exposed and... larger.

I think that's about it.

I'm not sure how often I'm going to update my blog, maybe every month. I'm just not sure what I'd write about until I start my next treatment as I don't really like the idea of exposing specific information about my child to strangers as it seems to diminish how precious those moments are.

Sorry no labour story yet, i have a draft going but to be honest it seems more and more unimportant to recall it as time goes on. I'll get it done.

She's Here! - 4 Days Postpartum

Firstly a humongous apology for the lack of update, I hate it when that happens but I'm sure some of you will understand while the rest of you are either extremely lucky or unlucky not to be able to.

Trust when I say that this is literally the first time I've had my iPad out since Sunday night.

Secondly, a massive thank you to everyone that has shown a genuine interest in how it all turned out for me, James and our baby girl - which leads me to proudly introduce:

Edith Elizabeth born 27th January at 18:30 weighing 7lb 15oz!

She's a perfect little lady, knows what she wants so is very content as long as she gets it which is an easy request :)

The labour was the worst experience of my entire life and a million times worse than I ever imagined possible, but I'll do a proper labour and birth story for that.

I ended up in theatre and was in hospital for two nights, one of them being in the high dependancy unit, but rather me than Edith.

We came home in a bad way on Weds and have been physically and emotionally suffering since because of the labour, the early hours of today being literally the first that I've slept since 6am Monday morning (except 5 hours staggered about) which explains me finally getting ahold of my iPad just now.

Anyway, going to go. My arse is sore sitting like this and I have a baby girl in my arms who desparately requires her mummy to kiss her face while she sleeps.

40+7 Weeks Pregnant

Well, technically I'm actually 40+10 days pregnant according to the Nhs. I disagree with that gestation, but at the end of the day that is how I'd compare to the rest of the population who would all have their gestation based upon their 12 week dating scan too.

They don't count in weeks after 40, you get to 40 weeks and then they count the days beyond that which is why I'm "+10" as in I'm 10 days overdue.

This week has been a hard one. Not gruelling hard, but emotionally challenging. Everyone likes to think that their lives will pan out a certain way in the absence of reason to assume otherwise and yet without any hint of the reason why, my baby has decided to refuse to make an appearance and doesn't seem to have any intention of making an appearance anytime soon.

Unfortunately that then forces you to start looking for reasons and, while I do skim over the prospect that maybe she is just happy in my belly with my dedication to supplementation, eating well and having consistently perfect vital stats, it is hard not to dwell on the possibility that maybe there is an unforeseen problem. The main two possibilities that I focus on is that my pelvis is crap and she can't settle into it nor escape from it or that she is wrapped in the umbilical cord and left dangling.

So, I've been mostly fretting and stressing.

Now that I'm at the end of the week and only 38 hours away from my induction I'm finally feeling a bit more reflective and even grateful to an extent.

You do try to appreciate what you have but sometimes you can lose yourself in preparations and worries, especially when you don't know when or how it will all come to its conclusion.

Now that I know how and when it will happen, I am able to take advantage of savouring the final moments. I can memorise how she feels, how she moves, how I look. She's quite wiggly today and while James is sitting there with the rugby on, I'm watching her and interacting with her and talking to her. We've discussed how mangled she feels and how she needs to be brave on Monday and how I hope she has blue eyes.

I've convinced myself she is her father in every which way so the eye colour is the only thing that might identify us as mother and daughter in photos and things. I'm under no delusion though. Her resemblance to me is going to start and finish at her stubby legs which I'm sure she'll be very grateful for... Not.

I wish I had something more special planned for tomorrow as it will be our very last day as a couple but I don't know what might even be a good idea. Where will we be banned from once we have a baby?

Symptom wise I'm exactly the same as I was. A bit moody sometimes and I'm more blocked up in the toilet department, but besides that I'm just the same. 

There is a god in the weight department. I was so close to the next stone range last week and I was extremely nervous jumping on the scales this week but thank fuck I haven't put any on! Yessssssss!

Another Uneventful Day - 40+6

Honestly, I thought something might have happened yesterday because of my back and bladder pain but it didn't. When I woke up feeling amazingly well rested it was both welcome and disappointing.

There was a slight incident during the night because I had a pillow between my knees and at some ungodly hour I woke to find that my knee had been twisted and it was absolute agony. The pain didn't linger for too long once I got it moving though and I slept deeply either side of the interruption.

I woke up with not a hint of a ache anywhere and I felt reinvigorated. Briefly.

I think i lasted until lunchtime before a dark mood befell me and I was on the lookout for an argument. Fortunately I didn't get one, but James did escape only by the skin of his teeth. All of his sighing and moping is going to get him maimed sooner or later at this rate. Mark my words.

Baby has been very very quiet all day so that hasn't helped my mood either. I made the mistake of looking into a stillbirth section on a forum just to see if there was any giveaway sign that baby was ok or not and right at the top of the section was a post from someone who had lost their baby at 41 weeks pregnant. The joys. I've been fighting the urge to tell James about it all day because I want to share how I've kept myself occupied but ultimately it'd just be cruel. I wish I hadn't read it so why would I expose him to it.

She's only just perked up now that I'm balancing my iPad on her. She just can't resist. I've tried buzzing her with a neck massager, cold drinks, sugar, James talking to her,  a bath, etc. All her usual wiggle moments and I just got a limp squirm at best so if the iPad hadn't have worked I would have been off to the hospital, seriously.

I've done my birth plan, so it's all printed off a few times and stapled and put into wallets. I even went to the trouble of putting some baby themed glitter stickers all over the wallets to try and lighten the harsh tone of my expectations. I think I tend to imply severe consequences of failing without even trying to. "I would like access to a birth pool (OR ELSE...)". "Delay cord clamping for 5 minutes (OR ELSE...)". Etc.

Umm, what else have I done today? Watched some box sets, eaten ice cream... Oh I had a sweep off James! A proper one, not a willy one.

He declared that it was much better today and he could definitely get his finger in and wiggle it around easily and he could even feel her... Head! That freaked him out. He said it was really hard and much narrower than he expected which resulted in some googling but what can we do anyway. He was so proud of himself that he even made it sound like he wasn't so confident of he previous efforts anymore. 

I knew he wouldn't be doing it right!

I actually wonder if I had some proper cramps afterwards. Before my aches were pretty constant but then today I've been ache free all day, except for twice where I got a sharp stab in my right kidney a couple of times. Completely pain free again now. Fingers crossed it picks up again.

We're starting to realise that it not just wanting baby out that is consuming us, but avoiding the induction too. We only have two days to go into labour or it'll be medical induction first thing Monday morning.

My Last Aqua Fit and Some Symptoms? - 40+5

Apparently I'm mental for still attending aquafit at 40+5 but I still think it's the highlight of my week, even if it doesn't seem to make a damnedest bit of difference.

This morning I was actually tempted to stay in bed as I've been so very sleepy recently but I had some symptoms that I thought were pretty good.

When I woke, I noticed that my bladder region ached a bit like I had a UTI but it could also be a possible period crampy type ache. It felt tight and heavy. It could also have been gut cramps as I've been very windy so I went to the loo to check things out but all I got was a bit of poop and a bit of mucus. The mucus was less green snot today and more egg white cervical mucus.

As I stood up though, the bladder ache was still there and I also realised that my lower back was aching too. Not waves of cramps though, just a dull persistent awareness.

So, these symptoms kind of spurred me on to attend my Aqua Fit just in case baby just needed some vigorous downward gravitational tugging.

Everyone commented on how pregnant I was. Some stated that I looked very big, some that I looked very low and some just expressing their sympathy at how I still hadn't had my baby.

By the time the class was over, I felt more exhausted than usual and my lower aches had all but gone.

I've felt very drained all day but i feel that the general heaviness down below has returned, but not as distinguished. My lower back is now actually very sore but again it's not in waves.

I do feel more injured than menstrual now. I'm wondering if bouncing on my ball with my legs spread unnaturally wide has done me a mischief rather than any of it being a symptom of labour. Just my luck.

Actually it does feel a little bit like ovary twinges on both sides but maybe it's my over stretched pelvis groaning.

Baby has still been active all day so if anything is going on she isn't for sharing.

The only other thing of note is that I've been peeing more than I have recently.

Today Has Been Shit Too - 22/01/14

Oh bog off.

I'm not even trying to be happy anymore, this is bullshit.

I was chatting to yoga friend yesterday and asking her about her discharge, as you do. Yes, I'm actually this delightful in real life too.

So she was saying that there is nothing much going on in the discharge department, in fact nothing going on at all, and she might get around to some time bouncing on her ball.

Imagine my reaction to a text I got this morning informing me that she was at hospital and was 3-4cm dilated and baby was on her way. She gave birth by lunchtime.

Something that I consider one of my biggest flaws is that I don't cry when really I should. I do cry but mostly when I've exhausted all other expressions of emotion. When I'm angry I'll scream and shout until I eventually cry. When I'm having the time of my life I'll laugh and cheer until I enventually cry. 

When I'm actually sad and devastated and totally crushed and crying is the only really appropriate response, I can't cry. That is what I should have been doing this morning, having a good old selfish bawl but instead I sat there in a daze until I reach the point where I couldn't feel any emotion at all and that is where I remain. Devoid of emotion.

I softened slightly when she sent me a photo of her baby, she's such a cute baby and I'm really happy for yoga friend, but for me it's caused me a great deal of pain.

Rationalise how you want to but that is how I feel. I feel deeply hurt that she was due after me, not bothered at all about how or when it happened, and yet here I am with a much longed for child sitting in my belly when she could be a healthy 5 week old by now!

Yes, she could happily be a 5 week old child ffs but instead she's still a vulnerable foetus. As close as physically possible but out of my reach if she needs me, if she needs help. It just doesn't make any sense.

I've had lots more mucus today but I just feel rediculous for even noticing. It's just a big joke. It doesn't mean a bloody thing!

And to top it off I've had more "Any news?" communications. Oh they all empathise with me being late, but not enough to fuck off when I need them to.

Then I've got my brother who is on standby for when I go into labour so he can look after the dogs and I've been so touched by his enthusiasm. Well tonight I joke he might not get to spend his girlfriend's day off with her if I go into labour and then I shoot down his suggestion of bringing her with him and he is seriously disappointed. I can tell in his voice. Why the fuck would I want his girlfriend (who has been a bit of a dick recently) being present for my baby's homecoming while I'm making a point of keeping my nearest and dearest at arms length?!

Anyway, so it's been a shit day... Besides the mucus *sigh*

Oh actually, I've felt a bit hot flushy today too and now as I lie here I'm wondering I've got low down cramps on my back.

I've been curious to know if labour is like a period but a baby comes out too because I'm wondering if I've been feeling a little pre-menstrual.

Ah well. Hopefully tomorrow will be better! God bloody aqua fit tomorrow, I was expecting last weeks to be my last...

Hard Poo, Mucus and Anxious James - 21/01/14

I was definitely set on being in a better mood today. It was absolutely going to be warm and fuzzy day.

That is until I realised that James is in a horrendously foul mood.

It turns out that he has had enough of waiting and is going to sulk and fume until she is here. Men! *cough*

The thing is that it is a very irritating family trait for the men in his family to make a bad situation a million times worse by developing an irrational impatience anxiety which they then start burdening everyone around them with. Then by the time things finally start to happen, everyone is emotionally exhausted and feeling very negative about what is to come because they have been exposed to someone thoroughly exploring every which way that things could go horribly wrong for several days.

It's nonsense! I get happy and he gets manic depressive and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my last days trying to turn his frown upside down.

The solution?

I threaten him with me becoming as pissy as he is being and peace is restored.

Well, he's still moping a little but I'm not hearing all about it.

Since yesterday I've been having a few bum stabs which I initially hoped would be the start of something. I recognised them as feeling very similar to constipation pains but I'd been loose for a couple of days so surely not that.

As it happens, it was though and I spent a little time bearing down to excavate my bowels and coal like stools weren't my only reward!

I wiped to find my biggest chuck of green snotty mucus yet! It was about 1cm by 3cm and I ran downstairs to show James who I think I heard fighting back his gag reflex as I poked it to show just how dense and wobbly it was. Even then, he started chanting "come on baby" like some football yob so he was at least a little grateful for the news.

Rather cringingly he announced that he'd seen something that looked very similar stuck to the side of the toilet earlier. If it was revenge he was seeking, mission successful, because that's really gross and I have no idea how it got there and as I type I'm wondering if he cleaned it up because I bet he didn't!

Urgh, he didn't! Men!!! Although he says it was inside the toilet bowl which is some relief. I need to go and have a look.

Oh, he says that he thought I'd want to see it. Very thoughtful. He might want to tell me about it though...

It was a chunk about 5mm by 5mm so still worth seeing I guess.