He’s gone from this…

to this…

As you know, the lead up to the labour and birth was quite protraced and was, to be frank, bloody annoying! The day after I was due I had an internal which revelead that nothing was happening. Nada. Ziltch. Zero.

I cried.

After weeks of false starts, long nights of contractions going nowhere I was sure that my body had, at least, been preparing for labour. No. I couldn’t believe it! We booked an induction for the following Friday knowing that Mum had to fly home on Thurs night for a meeting on Fri morning but could come back straight after the meeting. We hoped that if I were to be induced Friday morning the labour would be long enough that she’d get there for the main event. Actually, we hoped that bubs would arrive well before the following Friday.


When Sunday rolled around I woke up and cried. I just couldn’t believe I was still pregnant. Looking back I realise how silly that was but at the time I just desperately wanted to have bubs while Mum was still around to enjoy some of that time with him/her and hey, I just desperately wanted to have bubs!

The following Monday, now a week overdue I had another appointment with my OB and said that I didn’t really want another internal as I was going to be too upset if there was still nothing happening. I thought it would be better just to wait and see what happened. He was very kind but really said that as he had planned just to break my waters on Friday he needed to know where things stood because if I wasn’t at all dilated I would have to come in for the gel on the Thurs night. I trust my OB and so we had another internal. There was some movement, not heaps but something. This time I didn’t cry.

When we realised that this baby wasn’t coming any time soon Mum spoke to her boss about her plans to fly back straight after her Friday meeting and her boss (wonderfully!) told her not to be ridiculous but to skip the meeting all together.  I quickly rang my OB to see if we could make the induction Thursday (which had been his initial suggestion) and even though he already had two scheduled for that day he said he’d do it. (Some weeks earlier he’d joked that if I cried he would induce me…seems he was true to his word!)


From that point on I was in early labour with contractions coming semi-regularly through the day and night. By Wednesday night they were getting more regular and by Wednesday night 7pm they were 10mins apart. They stayed this way until I went to bed at middnight, easing off slightly until I got up at 4am. Once up they were 5 mins apart and regular and by 5am they were quite painful.  Officially my labour started at 5am and lasted 8hours. Unofficially is another story! By the time I got to the hospital, (we were booked for an induction at 7am – talk about cutting it close!) I was already completely exhausted.

Just back from the maternal health visit and Bear has gained 900G in the past two weeks!! He now weighs 5.3kg which is approximately what Bliss weighed at THREE MONTHS!! I’m thinking all the washing I’ve been doing of next size (3-6 month & 00!) clothing has been well worthwhile :)

I’m going to try to get some good near-nudey snaps later whic really show how long he is and will post for you to see.




Just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my gorgeous boy & have some great 4 weeks stories to share soon too )


xx

the best of the first three weeks…there are three things.

The first is the birth, meeting Bear for the first time and having my mum there with us this time too was incredibly special.

Bliss meeting bear for the first time was heartbreakingly gorgeous. She ran into the room, jumped up on the bed barely noticing me and leaned straight into the cot to say “hello baby”. After announcing that she wanted a cuddle and getting ‘snuggled’ up with him she looked at him and said “I love you baby”. Gorgeous!

So much time has been spent getting feeding right, getting feeding done & running interference with the doting older sister so the time to sit and gaze has been limited. Any moment I get to snuggle with Bear myself has been magic. The feel of his chest rising and falling against mine takes my breath away every day. xx

Oh, a fourth thing! Two weeks after Bear arrived I was driving along with Bliss who started to tell me about all the people who love her “Mummy loves me, Daddy loves me, Baby Bear loves me, Baby Evie (her doll) loves me” etc… She was so happy and proud, and it made me so proud to think that she felt so secure in how loved she is and not at all jealous of her new brother.

the most challenging (worst)

Not having the time to just gaze has made me a bit sad at times but since realising it I’ve been making an extra effort and have been enjoying more snuggle time of my own!

One night I found myself flying solo in the evening and Bear was crying and really unsettled and the girl was crying for a cuddle (after being in bed & supposedly asleep for about an hour or so) I gave her a quick cuddle but then had to leave her to settled Bear, it was the first moment of having to let her be the older kid who can cope and attend to the needs of the baby who couldn’t and I felt so sad…she, of course, was fine – I told her I would come back to cuddle her once Bear was settled and by the time I did she was already asleep…didn’t help the motherguilt but was actually a good thing!

Managing, or rather helping Bliss manager her enthusiasm. We’ve had a few doosies, which I will save for another post, but getting her enthusiam challenged in ways that aren’t exhausting and totally time consuming took (and is a WIP) quite a bit of energy and patience. Not a bad problem to have though!

Some interesting milestones
- Bear is packing on the pounds and looks HUGE! Well actually he still looks like a gorgeous little baby, but just not a gorgeous little 3 week old baby!
- He’s already bearing some weight and pushing himself up when you put his legs on a hard surface.

Tomorrow he will be four weeks old, so this post is a little retrospective. He’ll be weighed again – at his two week check he had gained almost 500g since week one, I am going to be very interested to see what tomorrow brings. My guess is something around the 5kg mark which Miss Bliss didn’t reach until she was 2 MONTHS old! Such a boy! :)

After I wrote my last post I remembered that when Bliss was born I wrote weekly updates about how things had gone. I’m going to do the same now, and think it might be interesting to compare where I was at back then and what things look like now, a couple of years down the track and with two children!

The first three weeks with Bliss were spent with HH at home. The first three weeks with Bear and Bliss included a few days in hospital, two weeks with HH at home, three days by myself (sort of) and then a trip up to Sydney with HH and the kids. It’s fair to say its looked VERY different.

Bear is proving to be a TOTALLY different child to Bliss and not just because he’s got the boy bits! He’s much more chilled – Bliss was a relaxed baby but always straining to see what was next, she didn’t like to be snuggled and she was a good but distracted feeder, getting increasingly distracted as she got older. Bear is a total snuggle pot, a focused and hearty feeder but possibly also a really sleepy feeder which means he feeds a bit more than Bliss did. He’s also more a Mummy’s boy than Bliss was Mummy’s girl – where Bliss was happy to be passed around endlessly, Bear is happy to be passed around but only to a point after which he just wants his Mummy. She had a much more robust scream than his quite inoffensive cry – neither of them were/are big criers. By this point Bliss was only waking at about 4-5am for a feed whereas Bear wakes at 3am and then again around 5.30/6am which is a bit harder esp as I can’t go back to sleep after the second feed. HH has given me a few nights break while we’re away in Sydney giving Bear expressed feeds through the night so I’ve been able to recharge. AWESOME!

So it’s been interesting and fun and wonderful and very, very tiring!

I’m doing much better at asking for, and accepting help. With Bliss I felt like I needed to do it all on my own, no complaints and no tears – I thought that because I’d always longed to be a mother that I should be able to cope with everything and love every single minute no matter what. This time I like to think I know better. I know that I won’t ask for help when I need it so I accept help, in advance, from those who offer it and that’s been great…and timely!

It’s been a very different learning curve, this time focusing on balancing the demands of two children rather than learning about a newborn. I’ve been eased in too and HH has once again stepped up to the plate and been an amazing support and help as well as virtually running a Daddy-Daycare for Bliss during the two weeks he was home.
So far, so good…or at least that’s how I feel today :)

It’s been a bit busy round our place these past few weeks so I haven’t been able to blog. These are some of the things I’ve been thinking…

- Man! I had a lot of time on my hands before I had a newborn even though I felt like I had hardly any.
- Newborns are gorgeous!
- Boys are so different from girls!
- Miss Bliss has been amazing at loving, welcoming & accepting her little brother. There has no been one moment of jealousy – oh actually, there has been a LOT of jealousy if someone else has been holding Bear rather than her – she just loves him sooooo much!
- Newborns are a lot easier than toddlers.
- Between his first and second weeks he gain over 500g! Last Thursday he weight 4.4kg – who wants to place a guess on what he will weigh this Thursday?!
- Bear has the most gorgeous smile! We didn’t get to see Bliss smile til she was 5 weeks old. This little man has been smiling since we were in hospital with him! (check out the photo with Great-Grandma below for a look)

And these are some pics of the past week. Can you believe this little guy is only 3 weeks old in these photos. He is growing soooo fast!

Before I get to the birth story there are few things I wanted to note for next time….

- Try and negotiate as much time with HH in the hospital with me & bubs including having him stay the night rather than going home but mostly time for just us during the day.
- Take the hotel and get the rest – it’s hard to rest properly in the hospital.
- Get the family to come down after I am home rather than while I am still in hospital – that way we get more time with them, I get more rest in hospital & it also helps with missing them esp if Mum has been around for a couple of weeks and left after I come home.
- DON’T TRY TO BREASTFEED DISCREETLY esp while still in hospital. It just causes nipple damage which leads to nipple thrush – learn from the last two experiences and ask people politely to go and have a chat in the waiting room while I breastfeed because the only way to get the latch right in the early days is to get your boobs out!
- Remember that epidural’s are my friend and have their place – I don’t need to be a “hero” with labour, I still get to feel it all just not so intensely.
- From the beginning tell people a general date ie mid month rather than specific and make that date, and my own expectations of bubs arrival about 10 days after the official due date for the sake of my mental and emotional wellbeing!