Hello there from the land of little sleep and milky everything. 😉 What a whirlwind the last 8 days have been!
But first, massive congratulations to blueeyedviking and BirthdayKake. Well done mamas. That's just so lovely to read. Hope you and yours (incl dads!) are all recovering well.
There were some Qs further back in the thread, in answer to those - DD (aww look I wrote DD for the first time 😭) was born at 38+5 and weighed 3.23kg. Didn't go into labour, c-section was to get her out asap because I'd developed some complications that could distress the baby and she was also transverse. Because of the c-section I had to have a couple of rounds of steroid injections before she was delivered to help her lungs mature (definitely go arm not backside, take it from me!). That was a bit of an emotional choice as steroids can have consequences of brain development but in the end it wasn't really a choice and she seems ok and aced all her checks so far. Lost quite a bit of blood in the c-section, a scary amount, but no transfusion. That's probably the thing that's still having the greatest impact on me in terms of tiredness etc. However of course overall it's such a wonderful time and I can't stop staring at her. She's amazing. ❤️
Some more random ftm thoughts on coming home:
• better to let go of the idea of normal life for a bit- when we got home I wanted to sit in my usual chair and drink tea but the chair wasn't comfortable any more, the baby was crying, the tea made me throw up... and I inexplicably got really upset by it all. I think because after 3 days in hospital I'd built this whole going home thing up a bit too much. It's a new normal, not the old normal;
• buy tissues and educate DH about baby blues - it's just a bugger, I cry at everything, even the baby looking up at me when she's feeding or songs on the radio, it's a bit unhinged, like being happy-drunk all the time;
• the night sweats, omg that is something else - I wake up drenched most times (sleep is mostly in 3 hour segments) and there's nothing you can do about that, and then you can also sometimes get the shivers after - we've put die those Tenna incontinence sheets to try and absorb and I have a stack of fresh t-shirts out to change quickly in the dark, hate it.
The cutest things so far have been playing some white noise to the baby and watching her stop mid-cry and really listen, watching the baby try and study our faces and seeing her turn her head towards our voice when she's waking up in the cot. I know, I know, fully paid up first time parents who think their baby is a genius. It's lovely though.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend. I will pop back in a bit.