Sleeping Like A Baby...

...is a very inaccurate metaphor.
Baby's do not sleep soundly. Nor do they sleep quietly, nor for long periods at a time.
In fact, new borns are really, freaking noisy sleepers. They sound like asthmatic hedgehogs dreaming of running, or snuffling, or possibly eating and drowning. Yes, at the same time.

Not only do they not sleep quietly, but they don't sleep for long. Maybe 4 hours in a stretch if you are lucky, and naughtily disobeying your midwifes strict instructions to feed them every 3 hours.

Looking after a baby is best summed up in one word.

Relentless.

For the first week of this ones life we were locked in a hospital where kind midwives would take her away in the middle of the night if my thoughts of "please can we give her back now," were becoming too obvious on my face. I didn't know who she was. I felt cheated out of that magical moment where your heart breaks when you first lay eyes on your baby. I kept waiting for it to happen.

For the second week, we were at home. Hubby and I putting in a valiant 'one night on one night off' team effort. Ourselves subsisting on meals made by friends, eaten in turns while the other comforted/fed/changed her. Stoically taking it in turns to have melt downs and question through exhausted tears our wisdom in taking this step, and our ability to actually keep ourselves alive, let alone one so dependant.

This week was week three. My motto has become "keep it together", played on repeat across the hours, which are now measured in feeds and sleeps and nappy changes. Hubby is now back at work, and we three have survived the first real week of the rest of our lives.

Our initial chance to bond with our daughter may have been interrupted by hospital incubators, IV lines and feeding tubes, but each day at home, I am getting to know her a little more. Each day I give her a few more kisses. Each day she feels a little bit more like she's my own, and a little less like a stranger. Each day we are keeping it together a little stronger, and becoming more of a family. Post natal depression hasn't got the best of me yet, and I intend to keep it that way.

Coming, Ready Or Not

Last weekend, just 3 hours before my pregnancy app alerted me to the fact that I had made it to 37 weeks, my waters broke.

Little baby A was born 25 hours later at 4.44am after a prolonged labour, the details of which I wont go in to on here. I have written it down though. If you want to read that, let me know and I will send you a link. Rest assured, I have a new found love of epidurals, and managed to avoid a C section by one contraction. It was the single most overwhelming experience of my life so far.

She was taken to NICU just a few hours after being born, which was super hard, nothing really prepares you for the sight of your baby in an incubator all connected to tubes, drips and breathing apparatus. My heart broke, and that was the first meltdown.

She was in there for two days, having antibiotics to help sort her breathing out. Once she was finally out, I was told we could go home tomorrow, this was after night three where I had a complete meltdown at eleven at night, basically begging the midwives to let me go home right then and there. They tried valiantly to convince me that leaving right then was not a good idea. It was too dark, it wouldn't be good for the baby, my husband was at home asleep. But nothing would help me. I was sharing a room, which I hate, the curtained off section I was in had no sunlight or view of any kind, the other lady's baby wouldn't settle, so regardless of how well baby A was sleeping, I was not. The midwives told me that there was no reason we couldn't go home tomorrow. Baby was doing much better, all her bloods looked good, and the talk was that I would be going home tomorrow. With this stuck firmly in my mind, I nodded acquiescence to have them take Baby away for a few hours so I could attempt to sleep (not that she was the one keeping me up).

At five in the morning, I was woken gently by another midwife, "Jess," she asked, "Did Baby have a bump behind her ear earlier? Where the forcep mark is?"
I felt my anxiety rising instantly as I shook my head, "No, it wasn't swollen, it was fine."
"Ok," She sat down next to me.
"It looks like the forcep graze may have become infected and the baby doctors want to put her on a three day course of antibiotics." She was watching me very intently.
I felt like I was being sucked into a black hole. "So I can't go home?"
she shook her head. "No, she will need to be monitored here."

I was silent, but my breathing was erratic as I tried to fight back the next onslaught of tears and anxiety.
"What can we do to make it easier for you to be here?" She asked quietly.
I shook my head, I couldn't think beyond having to stay here, I couldn't see anything that would make it better.
"What if we were to find you your own room?"
I looked at her, "Is that possible?" It seemed impossible.
"We've been talking about it, and we are going to see what we can make happen."

This past week has been a blur of nights becoming days becoming nights again. I did get my own room in the hospital finally, and as soon as I did, my panic attacks diminished, my milk started to come in, and my overwhelming need to keep some form of control in a 2x3 meter space disappeared.

We are finally home now. It is making a huge difference. Slowly things are starting to become a bit of a routine, but the lack of sleep, and getting breastfeeding going is an endless, ongoing exercise in endurance.
Lets see what next week brings, although I don't know when that will be. I have no idea what day it is anymore. I'm not sure why I care about that. As though it somehow makes a difference.

In the meantime, Baby and I will continue to get to know eachother. I love it when she makes eye contact and holds your gaze. I love that she settles on me so easily and that I can calm her when others cannot. I've always been slightly afraid of babies, and now suddenly here is one that actually calms down on me, rather than crying even louder.

Leaving Work - four weeks till due

I am now officially 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Which according to midwives and doctors (but not hypnobirthers) means that in 4 days, Baby will be 'full term'. Which means that she will no longer be considered premature if born now.

That seems crazy.
What's crazier is that there is an actual being which looks like a new born baby (or as Eric inTrue Blood would say "A tiny human") kicking up a storm in my belly. It's hard to imagine at times, as the shapes created by, and the intensity of the kicking/punching/rolling, is sometimes a little terrifying. I have been woken up by them a couple of times, it feels like she's trying to kick her way out of my stomach and burrow into the mattress. I have been assured this is probably not the case.

My maternity leave started this week, the weekend and last day of work was a bit of a weird mind trip. I love my work. I can't imagine not working. I have had my own income since I was 11. I have always worked and since leaving home have never been dependant on anyone. I feel that it wouldn't be so bad if I knew when I was going back. But the nature of my contract is that I won't be going back. My position wont be filled by someone on a fixed term maternity leave contract, whereby I can come back to it without any issue in a year. If I want to go back, I will have to hope there is an opening and apply for it along with everyone else.

Being part of a generation wherein women are expected to work, to have a career, to study, be smart and earn money, in an economy where one income is rarely enough to support a family, the new life just around the corner for me is a very scary and somewhat counterintuitive prospect. Give up everything I've studied and worked for, give up my income, halt my career path for an unspecified period of time, to stay home, look after a baby, keep the house, rely on my husband's income and.......and what?

There have been moments I have wondered if it wouldn't be a lot easier if gender roles were still a lot more specific. If we (girls) weren't expected to be everything, and do everything to be 'equal', if we could be considered successful and smart regardless of whether we were stay at home mums or career girls. I remember my Mum saying frequently that stay at home mums work harder than anyone else and she wished they could get paid. Before she had us kids, she was a career girl and good at it, I think that the change to being a Mum was probably a shock for her too. But she never really said it. She didn't get a job again until I was well into my teens. But then she stopped as quickly as she started, I think Dad didn't like the thought that he wasn't earning enough. Dad bought in the money, Mum looked after the house. I never questioned it.

I think of the early childhood memories I want to create for my daughter. How I don't want to put her in day care right away. How I don't want to have more children right away, because I want her to be the kid in the family for a decent amount of time, not the helper. That I want her to feel safe and loved by her family. How I desperately want to do right by her and how the closer she gets to arriving, the more I'm suddenly willing to sacrifice to make sure that she has the best possible life I can give her.

Then I remember how much I love my job, and I am at square one on the cognitive dissonance board once again.

It's only been three days on maternity leave, and I already have lost track of what day it is. I seem to be texting my midwife with questions at least twice a day with questions which I could probably google answers for, but would rather not freak myself out.

"Baby isn't moving as crazily as normal, should I be worried?" 

"Maybe, if you are worried, you could come in for a scan,  but then you'll be on the doctors radar, and if they get overly cautious they could try to induce you. See how it goes tonight."

"Is this increase in *insert bodily fluid here* normal, or am I going into labour?"

 "Is there blood? No? Then you are not in labour."

"I've got really painful period type cramps..."

"See above message" 

"My Husband has gastro, if I catch it will it hurt the baby?" 

"No, Baby will be fine. You'll be pretty miserable though."

Going to find the Dettol now. Husband sleeping in spare room. Hand sanitiser everywhere!
Yes, poor dear Husband has gotten sick. Which sucks for both of us. He feels rubbish, I feel rubbish for not feeling more enthusiastic about looking after him.
NB My midwife is actually really cool. Not like the above semi fictional replies might indicate.

Nesting has taken control of my psyche in a way I never anticipated!
Remember those drawers I started to paint? Here's what they look like now.

AMAZING!

Of course, after this success, my redecorating instincts could see no limits, and I proceeded to spend an afternoon recovering our boring dining chairs.

The dreary before chairs 

The amazing after chairs! Woot!

More time was spent establishing a hanging vege garden on the patio. Making four batches of muffins for the freezer. Making prepared slow cooker meals for the freezer. Washing all the baby clothes. Doing an epic clothing 'purge'. Trying to get rid of as much crap as possible from all random areas of the house.

By Monday I was tired, so I stopped.

Then Husband got sick.

Then it rained and hailed a bit.

Now I don't know what day it is anymore!

Probably isn't helpful that I haven't changed the calendars...

But I'm too scared to, because then it really WILL be September. 

I'm not mentally ready for this yet!