It's taken me a while to post this as life's been chaotic and sleep-deprived! I feel a common bond with all new mothers, who must spend most of their time feeling like they could carry a large shopping load home in the bags under their eyes... However, as I said in a status message on another site, I never knew exhaustion could be so fulfilling.
Cian and I had a rocky start on the feeding front. I've been extremely keen to exclusively breastfeed the little mite since I knew I was pregnant, and an advocate of breastfeeding since well before that. That doesn't mean I would look down upon any mother who makes an informed choice to formula feed - simply that I believe that this is one of the best things I can personally do to give Cian the healthiest and happiest start in life.
So...this rocky start. When babies are exclusively nursed, they lose some weight in the first few days as they're receiving only colostrum (a pretty impressive cocktail of antibodies and other active ingredients) in small amounts. It takes anything up to 5 days for the 'real' milk to come in, at which point the baby will start to gain weight if all's going well. Perhaps due to the somewhat trying birth I had, my milk took its time arriving and by the time I left hospital my little sweetheart had lost about 9.8% of his birth weight - at 10% the hospital would have kept us in to make sure everything was going well. Even though this sort of loss isn't so unusual, I was frantic - my instinct to make Cian feel less hungry, more comforted and generally happier was physically painful. His second night out was dreadful - he was hungry but could smell milk on me, and was getting frustrated and angry - neither of us got very much sleep that night in hospital. So I embarked, with the advice of the hospital midwives, on a rather gruelling schedule to ensure he got as much as possible in the days before my milk arrived. It went like this:
8pm: express (go on, sing the Madonna song "Express Yourself"...I did)
9.30: feed Cian, then feed him the supplementary colostrum I'd expressed
11pm: express (sing it, girls!)
12.30am: feed Cian, then feed....OK, you get the general gist here, right?
90 minute schedule, pretty much constantly for about 36 hours. As you can probably imagine, this was exhausting. I set alarms to wake me up, and thankfully Matt was extremely supportive and woke to bring me drinks and offer positive encouragement at the times I really felt I couldn't go on doing this. I was sore, shattered, worried and overwhelmed, frankly...but also determined to get through it.
After about 2 days at home, my milk finally came in! Cian started making the happiest noises, sleeping in a satisfied stupor after his meals, and intermittently looking extremely surprised (imagine HUGE blue baby eyes and a shocked expression) as he'd get a veritable mouthful of the good stuff. I was told that so long as he'd regained his birthweight by 2 weeks old, he should be absolutely fine. So I waited with bated breath for the health visitor to visit at 14 days...
She weighed him, and looked surprised. I worried that he'd gained scant weight or (please no) even lost more. Then she smiled and said "well you've obviously got this nursing thing nailed - he's 8lb 7-and-a-half oz now!". I could have cried - all that hard work and exhaustion, all that worry that I wasn't providing what Cian needed...and he's thriving!
So that was my first drama. It may not seem a huge thing to anyone else, but it was important to me that I could provide his 'life support' on the outside, having done so for 9 months whilst carrying him. He's now a demanding little milk monster, but at least he's got a full tum. In fact, he's such an addict that my new nickname for him is (fanfare please...)
"Oggyrops Milkychops".
Oggyrops was my mother's old word for someone with a big appetite. *grin* And Milkychops because...well, he's usually got milk all around his chops (his mouth). And he seems happy that way. Exhibit A, Your Honour:
Otherwise, life's been profoundly changed, as I always knew it would. It's exhausting, and amazing, and gruelling, and wonderful, and anxiety-provoking, overwhelming, fascinating and exciting. So many conflicting emotions all at once. The worst time is early evening when Cian's fractious and feeding constantly, and the best time tends to be morning (hence my posting this now) or mid-afternoon when he seems quite contented. Sometimes he cries because he needs something specific - a nappy change, some milk, relief from trapped wind - and at other times he just wants to be held, all close and cuddled, where he can hear my heart. Talking of which, he LOVES his sling, as it does all of the above. He tends to fall asleep as soon as he's in it, which means that we've already been shopping a couple of times together.
Matt's mum is arriving today from Bedfordshire, and she's SO excited about meeting her first grandchild. I hope she won't pay too much attention to his normal common newborn irks - baby acne and milia (they'll clear within a couple of months) and gummy tear ducts (ditto, anytime in the first year) and think he's as utterly beautiful as I do. She's promised to help out and give me some time to rest, but I still feel stressed and like I should be tidying our (very untidy) flat before she gets here. I get on very well with her, but still get this anxiety that she'll take one look at the mess and think I'm an utter slattern!
We did notice, to our chagrin, that in a certain light, when being burped and lolling his little head forward, he looks a bit like one of the Slitheen from Doctor Who. But a very cute, small, toothless, sweet, cuddly version of said alien, and hopefully one without the dastardly plans towards humanity. On reflection, we should probably stop referring to him as 'our little Slitheen' before he develops the skills to know what we're talking about.
Finally...Cian is now an Official Scottish Baby! We took him to be registered yesterday and we now have all the relevant documentation. I'm quite disappointed that they didn't stamp him with a small thistle or tartan design, but I guess we can't have everything.
And that's it. The news for now. Will post more if and when I get time off from the dairy business.
