lnr | One week old! (Reply)

So, baby Matthew is one week old today. Time has definitely flown by!

I was in early labour from about 7:30pm on Monday night, so on Tuesday Mike took the day off work, and mum and dad arranged a few days off and drove down to be with us. I went into the Rosie initially for some monitoring in the delivery unit at 7pm on Tuesday evening, since I'd got worried about not feeling the baby move (it turns out I could still feel him, but since he was moving during the contractions I wasn't realising that's what it was) and then into the birth centre at about 9:30pm. After some time with the midwives basically leaving us to get on with it, where the pool helped with the contractions but the paracetamol and codeine didn't do anything at all, I was finally considered to be in "established" labour about 2am. I had a dose of pethidine at 4am which with gas and air during the contractions helped keep me going until the next morning, sleeping a little between contractions and generally not paying much attention to what was going on - though they came and checked my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat at fairly regular intervals. My waters broke at about 8:45am apparently, and Matthew was born just 35 minutes later at 9:20am!

We called Mike's parents from the hospital for a brief chat, and invited Mum and Dad to come in at some point during the morning to meet baby Matthew and to bring in the post-labour bag with clothes for me and baby. (Rather complicated by one mobile running out of credit and the other being unable to get any signal). It was lovely to see them, but when it became clear it would be a while before we were released we sent them home again to wait for us, and let us get a bit of rest. It was late afternoon before Matthew and I had our post-natal checks - and there was one thing they wanted to check with the paediatrician before they sent us home. Having a bit of a busy day it meant we spent a long afternoon and evening mostly waiting around - and after a shift change they decided they *didn't* need to come and see him in person after all, and we finally made it home around 10:30pm. Since then Matthew is doing really well according to the midwives, and although I've had to pop to the GP for some antibiotics for a touch of mastitis I'm doing pretty well too - and it's definitely clearing up!

Mum and dad stayed to look after us until the weekend, and we had a really nice relaxed few days. It's really strange getting used to trying not to overdo it though, and reminding myself to let other people do things instead of doing them myself! We all enjoyed getting to know our little boy though and there were lots of cuddles for everyone. It's definitely sad that we don't live closer, but having had Skype conversations using Dad's iPad with Em and with Steph/family we shall definitely have to make a point of setting ourselves up to be able to keep in touch that way so Matthew gets to know the rest of the family better. Mike and I had the house to ourselves on Monday which was novel, though perhaps appreciated less then it might otherwise have been if Matthew were a little more inclined to sleep during the night, rather than during the day. He has a tendency to feed non-stop overnight for a long while, which is a bit wearing, but we're pretty sure he'll start to adapt before long, and we'll just have to get better at taking naps during the day. Mike's parents have now come to visit for a few days, though they're staying in a B&B. Granny Gina in particular is utterly delighted with he new grandson - and so is Evan though in a rather calmer way. Joanna popped in today to drop off a card too, which was nice. We had a first little outing in the pram today - to the shops and back to buy a rather late lunch from the Deli. All bundled up in a rather-too-large sleep suit :) Tomorrow Mike and Evan are going to go and register the birth so he can be all official before Evan and Gina head home, and Emily's hoping to visit on Friday on her way North from Somerset (a bit of a detour!) - then I think we'll be ready for more local visitors to pop in during the day later in the weekend or next week.

In the meantime we just need to get a bit more sleep :)

Here's some photos, click through for bigger: