11 Days Old

Our little man James, is 11 days old today!

It has been quite the emotional time as Master James was unable to come home with us last Thursday, due to his size.  He is in fantastic care in the Special Care Nursery being monitored 24 hours a day, until he can feed from me independently with no ‘top up’ drip feeds.

To be honest, it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do – leaving with Nick and Poppy without our little man.  I was holding it all together until Poppy looked up at me and asked so innocently:  “James’ coming too Mummy?”.

I stepped out of the hospital into Argyle Street (not exactly an epicentre) but I was overwhelmed with urban stimulation.  I felt like I had stepped out into Times Square in New York.  I had been shrouded in a hospital bubble for the past 6 days and it was incredibly confronting – not to mention the hormones zig-zagging around my body.  I sobbed into Nick’s shoulder and dragged myself away from our pint-sized man in the Nursery.

No sooner had I got home – I was back with him, and for the past 7 days I have been with him every day.  I miss Poppy and feel guilty I am not with her and Nick and when I am home, I miss James and feel guilty I am not with him!  Arrgghh – the Mother’s Guilt!

We are progressing well – he is feeding ok from me and gaining weight.  He is now a whopping 2140 gms (over his birth weight of 2030 gms) yet some days I feel as though we take two steps forward and the next day a step back.  I am desperately tired from feeding and expressing relentlessly, but you do what you have to don’t you?  This little beauty – the Medela Electric Symphony Breast Pump has become my new best friend:

My day-to-day language has also changed from Tourism Training terminology to birth weights, weight gain, amount of milk expressed, breast shields and the amount of poo in one tiny Huggies® nappy!  I am also bombarded with such fantastic (yet at times conflicting) advise from all the mid-wives – dummies/no dummies; bottles/no bottles; breast shields/no breast shields!  As a result there have been quite a few tears shed during times of tiredness and frustration.

My rock throughout all of this, is my beautiful husband Nick, who is such a champion.  He has been dropping me off and picking me up (as I can’t drive after my C-section), looking after Poppy, feeding us and basically holding it all together.  We have  also had such great support from our friends and family, which it is very humbling.

I am incredibly thankful we have a healthy little man, who just needs fattening up.  I hope one day when I complain about how much he is eating, I will look back at this time and have a little chuckle.  He he xx.