Archive for February, 2008

2 weeks in…


26 Feb

Nathan’s first book reading at 3 days old

The first two weeks have been tough. I spent 3 days in hospital, leaving Wednesday afternoon. I was so emotional on the way home, feeling very overwhelmed with everything that had happened in the previous days with the quick birth and the stitches. While in hospital Nathan had had his hearing test done which he passed, I had had the catheter removed (which I had because of the spinal) on Tuesday morning and that made me feel like a new woman really, the IV antibiotics had also finished on Tuesday morning and I was put onto tablets afterwards, I was visited by the Home Midwifery Service people to talk about their service which I desperately wanted to use but didn’t know if I’d be able to get out of hospital early enough to be eligible for it but thankfully I was, I was visited twice by a physiotherapist who talked to me about fibre and bowel movements, and I was worried about Nathan because I was struggling to feed him and my nipples were getting pretty sore and sorry for themselves and he didn’t have enough wet nappies for their liking. The paediatrician saw Nathan just before we left the hospital and he checked out ok, even though he had a little jaundice, and a doctor also came to see me about the antibiotics I’d have to take after I got home. I also went to a couple of the classes that the hospital had running. One was how to bath your baby, and the other was about the first few weeks.

The home midwifery service was fabulous!! A midwife came to the flat on Thursday, Friday and the following Monday, with a phone call on the Sunday to see how we were going. It was so nice to feel that there was still support from the hospital even though I was at home. Andrew and I had lots of questions to ask, all of which were answered.

My stitches have needed maintenance, my feet swelled into balloons every day for the first week and a half after Nathan’s birth, and I have to take additional fibre containing a mild laxative to keep those stools soft.  I have me 6 week post natal check-up booked for mid April, and an appointment at the 3rd degree tear clinic around the same time.

Breastfeeding was particularly painful for the first week and a half. My nipples were blistered and cracked and it was dreadfully painful when Nathan latched on. Thankfully that has all settled down now and it is quite a painless process now. I think Nathan now has the hang of it and is feeding better too, though we have had several unsettled days where he has wanted to feed almost constantly throughout the day.

My parents arrived just after we got home from hospital and stayed until the following Tuesday. It had taken them 2 days to drive up. Andrew’s parents flew up on Saturday morning and went home the following Monday afternoon. So we had quite a full flat for a few days! We tried to have a couple of outtings, but found it is really difficult to leave the flat with a newborn. It took us 2 days just to get to Bunnings which is directly across the road from our residential complex. We also managed a few walks along the beach at Coogee.

Tuesday last week we had an appointment at the Early Childhood Centre at which we answered loads of questions and Nathan was weighed. He was 4.47 kg at birth, 4.16 kg when he left hospital on day 3, unchanged 2 days later when weighed by the midwife, and 4.2 kg when weighed at the Early Childhood Centre.

Thursday last week Andrew and I went to Mumsense, a group for parents and babies up to 4 months of age. It is run by the hospital, and they have talks some weeks and just general discussion other weeks. I think I am going to enjoy going each week.

Nathan has been a pretty placid baby for most of the time. He generally sleeps 4 hours at night between feeds (that last approximately 1 hour each), though he doesn’t sleep much during the day yet. Most of the time he thinks his throat has been cut and screams for food if I’m not fast enough when he first starts complaining. It takes around 30 seconds to go from “I’m hungry mum” grizzle to “GIVE ME FOOD NOW” screaming. I think he likes his baths, he doesn’t seem to like slings (I wish he would change his mind on that) and likes to be held. He also loves to position himself so that his head is wedged under your chin!

Being a mum is nice, but certainly can be tiring and frustrating. I never knew how hard it is to get out of the house with a baby!! I love Nathan to bits though, and certainly wouldn’t give him back, even if I could.

Lost and Found


25 Feb

Andrew and I have been together now for just over 3 years, in fact it’s now 3 years and 1 month.  During that time he has given me numerous gifts, ranging from flowers and little trinkets to much more substantial items.  The first gift he gave me (not counting flowers) was a little diamond necklace.  I dropped him off at the airport when he was flying down to Melbourne for a week, and when I said goodbye to him he told me that he’d left me something in the glove box of the car.  When I got back to the car (which is a story in itself, since I lost the car in the carpark and spent a long time wandering around trying to find it) I found a small box containing the necklace.  I’ve worn that necklace ever since, only taking it off when it was necessary.

When I was at the hospital two weeks ago, I was told to take off all my jewelry (just my watch and necklace) before going into surgery.  I took off my necklace, and then had to find somewhere to put it.  I think I gave it to the midwife and she put it in my handbag for me.  I had done up the clasp so that the diamond pendant didn’t get lost.   When I saw Andrew after surgery, he got the watch and necklace out of my bag and gave them to me.  But the diamond was missing!  I must have dropped it before doing up the clasp.  I was absolutely devistated that I had been so careless and had lost it.   Andrew asked me if I wanted him to go back to the Birth Suite to see if it was there, but I had little hope since it could have easily been caught up in the sheets of the bed, and I’d changed beds numerous times since being in the Birth Suite.  So I couldn’t believe it when he arrived back with the diamond wrapped up in a bit of paper.  Someone had found it and put it on a notice board.

It’s only a small thing, but my watch, engagement/wedding ring and diamond pendant are all precious to me because they were given to me with love at different times in our relationship, and they remind me of related events.   I’d hate to permanently lose any of them.

Nathan Alexander


22 Feb

Nathan, a few hours old, and I

…was born at 5:43 am on Monday February 11. Here is his birth story.

Andrew and I went to the Chinese New Year parade on Sunday morning, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant (BBQ King) and then went home for the rest of the afternoon. About 4:30 pm I suddenly felt a bit nauseas and had to go to the toilet numerous times. I noticed a little blood and decided to ring the Birth Centre to ask if it sounded like a show, because it wasn’t what I had expected it to look like. The midwife said that it might be but wasn’t sure, and told me to ring back if the bleeding got worse.

Around 9 pm I started feeling pains low down in my pelvic area, and decided to go to bed because I was really tired and my legs were cramping from standing so long at the parade. I couldn’t sleep, though, because of the pains, so I timed them and found they were 3 minutes apart and lasting for about 20 seconds. I wasn’t sure if they were contractions, as I had expected to feel my uterus tightening like with the Braxton Hicks contractions, so at 11:20 I rang the Birth Centre again for the midwife’s advice. The pains weren’t unbearable and I could easily talk through them. I was told it was pre-labour, to take 2 panadol and get some sleep since I would probably go into labour the next day. I took her advice, and slept fitfully.

At 2:50 am I woke because the pains were worse. I got up and went to the bathroom, not sure if I needed the toilet or not. I decided that these must be contractions because I had to breathe through them. They were still 2.5 to 3 minutes apart and lasting around 1 minute each. At 3:20 am I rang the Birth Centre and was asked what sort of pain relief I was using. I said I was just breathing through the contractions, and so was told to have a bath or shower or use heat pads and stay at home as long as I could.

I woke Andrew and asked him to run a bath for me. I sat in the bath for around half an hour, but didn’t really find it terribly comfortable sitting in the bath. I felt like I was going to throw up, so asked Andrew to grab a bucket and he held it for me as I threw up several times. That has to be love, holding a bucket for me to be sick into! After that I felt the need to get out of the bath. I desperately wanted to lie down, but I only got one leg onto the bed before I realised that there was no way I could lie down. So I went back to the bathroom and gripped the sink hard during each contraction. At 4:50 am I realised I felt like I was pushing, and told Andrew to ring the Birth Centre. We were told to come to the hospital, so Andrew packed the bags into the car and helped me to get dressed. When I got to the car I realised that there was absolutely no way I could sit down, so I knelt on the back seat and hugged the back headrest and wished we lived closer to the hospital (it’s only around a 10 minute drive from where we live). I was terribly grateful for the advice from Julie at the antenatal classes who suggested kneeling on the back seat was the most comfortable way to get to hospital (and that no police would book anyone for not wearing a seat belt in such a situation), because I don’t know if I would have thought of it otherwise!

We arrived at hospital at 5:15 am. Andrew parked the car right outside and helped me up to the Birth Centre. The midwife showed us into a labour room and asked me to take off my pants so she could check how things were going. As I did I realised that I had made a puddle on the floor, and the midwife said that there was some merconium in the water. She then checked and was surprised to see the head…she said she thought that I’d only be about 4 cm dilated!! So she let me kneel on the floor and lean over the end of the bed and she coached me in when to push. It was hard work and I felt the burning sensation of trying to push the head out. The midwife said she thought we’d have a baby by 6 am, and I asked what the time was and I think she said it was 5:30. I pushed when she told me to push, and finally the head came out. I was told to push again, and I did and the baby was born. Andrew told me I only had 6 contractions after I got to the Birth Centre.

The baby was put on the floor between my knees, and I looked down and was surprised to see a baby. I remember my first words were “it’s a baby!” Don’t ask me what else it would have been! And then I saw his penis and the next words that came out of my mouth were “it’s a boy!!”. We had been expecting a girl simply because most of the people who work in Andrew’s industry have daughters, and some research done a few years ago indicated that people who work with radio waves are statistically more likely to have girls.

I was helped to lie down on a bean bag and the baby boy was placed on my chest where he stayed for about the next hour. Then the midwife told me that I would have to go to the Birth Suite to get stitched up. She said that his head hadn’t done much damage, but both his shoulders came out at once and caused what was probably a third degree tear. So I was taken next door to the Birth Suite, my legs placed in stirrups and a doctor had a good look at the damage. He confirmed it was a third degree tear and said I’d have to go to surgery to be stitched up, and I’d have to have a spinal. I cried when I was told that. To think I’d been through the birth with no pain relief, only to require a spinal to get stitched up! So he said he’d try to stitch me up at the Birth Suite, but even with local anaesthetic it was too painful. I was asked to suck on the nitrous oxide gas to help me relax, but that didn’t work and finally they decided that I had to go to surgery.

The anaesthetist had trouble getting the spinal in, but finally managed. Unfortunately it didn’t numb me as high up as it should have, and so some parts of the stitching procedure were still quite painful. People kept asking me how big my baby was, but I had no idea at that stage. Apparently it was a bad tear with lots of side-tears, or Y tears. Finally it was all over and I was allowed into recovery.

I was desperate to see Andrew and our son, and it seemed I was in recovery for ages but it was probably less than half an hour. I was taken to the post natal ward, and about 5 minutes later Andrew and Nathan arrived, and Nathan spent the rest of the day sleeping on me. Andrew told me that he had been weighed (4.47 kg), washed and given the vitamin K injection. Andrew had finally managed to move the car to the car park and pick up his cameras, so we have photos of his first wash, but none of the birth!

In the end, the birth wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be, and I found it to be quite a positive experience. I would have preferred to labour at the hospital a bit longer, because I didn’t know what was going on when I was at home, and kept thinking I had hours to go yet and it would get a lot worse. How wrong I was. I did have a feeling of wishing I was near someone who could tell me what stage I was up to. And being stitched up was definitely worse than the actual birth.

Music by moonlight


09 Feb

40 weeks 2 days

Free concerts are held at Homebush Bay every Friday night in February. It’s a great evening, sitting on a grassed area and we take food to share. We decided not to go last week because the weather forecast was for storms and rain, which is a shame because I would have liked to see Cate Cebrano and her Jazz Band. Last night was music from Broadway and the West End.

Being a fan of musicals, I was looking forward to going. Again the weather didn’t look too good, but we went anyway. We had hoped to meet a couple of friends there, but it seems they were scared off by the weather again.There was a small orchestra playing the music, and two singers (one male and one female), four dancers and 3 backing singers.

They sang songs from Hair, Man of La Mancha, Fiddler on the Roof, Jeckyl and Hyde, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Chess, Grease, and Hairspray….just to name those I can think of off the top of my head. Many of my favourite songs from musicals were sung, so I had a fantastic time.

 They also sang an encore, Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lots of people were doing the movements that go with that song, and towards the end I got a huge kick from Bugalugs which caused me to jump. I never get kicked so much that I jump, and the kick was at quite an appropriate time in the song! It sent both Andrew and I into a laughing fit. This baby has a musical ear already! 😀

40 weeks


05 Feb

 Belly at 40 weeks

It doesn’t feel like much has happened in the last week, baby wise. I’ve been getting a little nausea in the mornings, but it’s not bad and it disappears pretty quickly. We’ve been getting lots of calls from friends and family, asking if the baby’s here yet…..nooooo, trust us, we would have let you know if it was!! hehe. I don’t mind at all, it’s nice that they ask.

At the Birth Centre appointment this morning everything was fine. My blood pressure was 120/74, fundal height hasn’t changed since last week, and the baby’s heartbeat was fine. The midwife told me that if I make it to my appointment next week they’ll talk about induction and make a plan, but I’m going to see if this negotiation thing that the lady from the antenatal classes talked about will work. I’ve no desire to be induced, and unless there is some medical reason that either baby or I would be better off with it, I think I’d rather wait it out. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, though.

Info from Birth.com.au:

You are now 40 weeks pregnant. Your baby is due and cooked to perfection! However, only 5% of babies are born on their actual due date. Most babies are born during the week after the day estimated. Birth weights vary greatly. In Australia, newborns weigh on average 3,300 grams (7lb 41/2oz), but this can range from 2,800grams to 4,500grams (6lb 3oz to 9lb 15oz). An average length is 50 cms (20 inches), however this can range from 46 to 56 cms (18 to 22 inches). Your baby’s head circumference is also measured at birth and can range from 33 to 37 cms. If your baby is born around this time congratulations! If your baby has not arrived as yet – try and be patient and remember that the normal length of a pregnancy is regarded as any time from 37 to 42 weeks.

Inducing labour: If labour does not start before your pregnancy is 10 to 14 days overdue, most caregivers will recommend inducing the labour by artificially stimulating contractions, rather than waiting for them to begin on their own.

Wondering if labour will ever start. It is very common to feel like your labour will never begin. As each day passes, it can feel like an eternity. However, in the whole context of a nine-month pregnancy and your baby’s lifetime, these few days are really not that many, are they? Feeling disappointed, upset or impatient can be compounded by others making comments like “Haven’t you had your baby yet?” Often the phone starts ringing from well-meaning friends and family, adding to the stress of getting into labour and feeling pressured to perform. You may wish to stay close to home now and perhaps place a message on your answering machine saying, “We have not had our baby yet, but we will let you know when he/she arrives.”

Identity theft revisited


01 Feb

I had a slight panic attack this morning when I opened a letter from the bank and saw that someone had tried to change my telephone banking password yet again.  On closer reading of the letter it seems that the person wasn’t able to do anything, they were not provided with telephone access to my accounts and were unable to reset my banking password.  I rang the bank to make sure that everything was ok, and I was told that the person was told they’d have to go and identify themselves at the bank before the bank could do anything more for them.  I’m so relieved that this time the person was unable to do anything, and I’m assuming that they don’t have enough documentation to be able to claim that they’re me at the bank.  Our letterbox was found open and unlocked a few days ago too, so it seems that someone is still trying to steal our mail.  I’m just glad that the mail redirection to our PO box is working now.

Aerobed


01 Feb

Our visitors used to sleep on our sofa bed in the loungeroom. We had a couple of problems with this: 1) neither Andrew or I really liked the sofas, we were constantly adjusting the cushions to make them comfortable, and 2) when people used the sofa bed it meant that the loungeroom was a bedroom, and I was wondering how we’d manage to have visitors in our flat once baby arrives….particularly in the middle of the night if the lounge/kitchen area was a sleeping area for others. We were spoilt at our wedding and received a number of cash gifts, and so we decided to buy a nicer lounge suite with the money. We are very happy with the leather lounge that we got, but there is no sofa bed. So our solution was to purchase an Aerobed that would fit into the baby’s room. It’s probably easier to move the baby elsewhere when there are visitors than to have visitors sleeping in the lounge!

The Aerobed is an inflatable bed with an inbuilt pump. The bed we got rises to 2 feet off the ground, so that it’s like a real bed. We thought that would be easier for our parents to use than one that is little more than an air mattress on the floor. The bed pumps up in around 3 minutes and is really quite comfortable. Yes, it’s a bit squishy in the baby’s room with little space on either side to walk, but hopefully it will be acceptable to our guests. We recently had Aurelie and Nico stay 3 nights on it, and they said it was good.

Oh, as you can see from the photo above, the wardrobe has now been finished as well!  Andrew complained about the amount of inconvenience in getting it to this stage (something like 9 installation dates set, 4 when work was actually done, we had to do a lot of running around to make sure we would be home all of those times and rearrange the room each time they were supposed to come, and the job was finished 2 months late), and got us out of paying the final 10%!!

Cork’s Corner

My little corner of the internet