May 2008 - we just couldn't wait!

[thefortbuilder]

for everyone who's popped already and congratulations to us all!

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/may/08/health.comment
Isn't the article I read but I feel I'm getting closer for mf......

lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,1609514,00.html
FOUND IT! Probably not a great deal of help,especially so late after you posted, but I knew I read something...its only taken me ages to find it, and not found it the same way I found it last time.....
SO proud I found it (small things, remember I'm still sleep deprived and sick!)

Sorry, only just realised how long the article (linked above) is, so this is the mastitis bit.

'This turned out to apply to us too. Inch doubted that my wife actually had infectious mastitis or had needed antibiotics for it and easily proved her point. A few days after my wife had started taking the antibiotics, the problem had developed in the right as well as the left breast. Since infectious mastitis is a bacterial problem, and since the germs should have been killed by the antibiotics, Inch pointed out that such a transfer could not have happened if it was a bacterial pathology. Rather, the inflamed breast was due to back pressure within the ductal system of the breast, she said. Ineffective milk removal was not keeping pace with milk production so the milk could no longer be contained within the ductal system. It was forced into the connective tissue of the breast, where it gets treated as a foreign protein, with subsequent inflammation and pain.

All of which proved to be of more than academic interest to us. While we returned to the Thursday clinic for a booster course in attaching to the breast, from the first moment my wife did it properly, the pain was much less. From that very night our son was free of colic and within a week, the "mastitis" was disappearing. '
thanks for putting up with me!

Hi all,
We had our little baby, Aoife Grace, on 11th May. She was 7 days overdue and weighed 8lb1oz.
She was weighed 2 days ago and is already 9ll4oz, so is a right little porker!

Hope you don't mind if I off load a bit of my birth story.
I went in for a sweep on the Friday and after a few hour had a show and started having regular contractions about 10pm. So there I was bouncing away on the yoga ball watching Jonathon Ross!

I got a couple of hours sleep between contractions that night. The labour ward advised a hot bath and only to come in when the pain was unbearable! So all day Saturday I walked, bounced and breathed through contractions.

About 12 midnight on Saturday I could bear no more so we rang the hospital. Again they advised hot baths and to time contractions. They were 3mins apart so we went in about 2am.

They nearly sent me home but when they assessed me they said I was 6cms dilated! They said I was very self contained but I didn't want to scream until I had to!

To cut a long story short..contractions got more painful as the morning and day progressed but unfortunately labour wasn't progressing quickly. I had gas and air for most of the day but that was all. I really didn't feel I needed anything else.

About 4 in the afternoon, I finally got to the pushing stage. After every push I thought the baby would be born but this went on for over an hour and a half!
So they said that I had to have a caesarean. I was devasted and releived in equal measure.

She was born at 6.41pm...all of us were exhausted. My poor DH was amazing. Unfortunately, Aoife had to be taken to SCBU. I was distraught that I couldn't see her and spent the next 2hrs bawling my eyes out!! DH was able to go to SCBU and took loads of photos.

I held onto the camera all night! I got to see her about 10 the next day. I couldn't believe she was mine! I got her back with me at lunch time which was wonderful! We were moved to private ward and stayed in for four days.

Aoife is wonderful and we are just delighted with her..although she does seem to be having a feeding frenzy today (early growth spurt?).

Sorry to bore you all senseless with my ramblings but I do feel the need to get it off my chest.
Hopefully you and your babies are well and special prayers to baby Jamie.

xx

Hello everyone

Can't write much as I'm off to bed soon, but just wanted to announce the birth of our second lovely son, Edward!

He was born on May 19th, weighing 7lb 14oz. It was a Hypnobirthing so was completely unmedicated. I used the tub for the first 5 or so hours, which was lovely and chilled, and it was all going brilliantly until I started having urges to push and the OB hadn't arrived so the midwives tried to hold my legs together to stop him coming out . Am I imagining it or is that something you're advised not to do in that situation?

Anyway, that sort of ruined the whole relaxed thing and the rest of the birth was very unrelaxed and painful, but so worth it when I look at my beautiful boy .

Congrats wolvernina !! and well done on the whole hypnobirthing thing....

Congrats londonirish !! I was wondering where you had got to, wasn't it your sister who had twins a while ago?? How are they doing? And also, please excuse my ignorance, esp as I have Irish heritage, but how do you pronounce Aoife?

YCBS as I said before, I too felt very vulnerable and exactly how you are feeling with your DS, i.e. people holding them etc. I think it's very normal with new mummies. It will pass, I promise. Don't worry about feeling like it, just go with it and it will pass. We went to a friend's wedding when DD1 was 6 weeks old and before we realised what we had done allowed a member of the catering staff to take her for a walk around the grounds in her pram so that we could eat our dinner in peace (she was crying). She was obviously fine, but after a few mins we just looked at each other and said "shit!! what have we just done??!! we don't even know this woman?!!".

mumofk so glad to hear you are on the mend and thanks for the reassuring words re my stress levels. (and also the hope that crying will get less after 6 weeks.....[please God emotion].

Had another difficult day today.( Last night was great, DH on night shift, fed DD at 8pm then put her to bed, she didn't wake til 2:30am!!)
Today I feel v tired and low. DD2 has been demanding feeding every 1-2 hrs, I know it's probably her growth spurt but good grief it's draining!! She is also pooing for England, and has spent most of the day crying/screaming. Thank the Lord DH is at home. DD1 is also trying my patience. Bless her, I think she is just bored, cos we don't actually do much all day. She got sent to bed earlier for being naughty though!!

On the bright side, Denny and her brood are in the area so popping in tomorrow and we are going for pub lunch (the whole families, not just the two of us!!!).

Sorry to be negative again. Promise to post when I've had a really good day!! I've decided to go and stay with my parents (100 miles away) next weekend when DH is on nights. A cop out, I know, but so what, I get bored and lonely, and it will be a nice change of scenery for me and DD1.

I hope Jamie is doing OK too.....special prayers to all of you, God knows we all need it at the moment!!!

LM74 xxx

Hi all

wolverina - congratulations! and well done for managaing with no pain relief, that must take some doing!

londonirish - congratulations to you too! Sorry to hear you were separated from Aoife initially but glad you are all home safe & sound.

mumofk - glad you are feeling better after being ill.

Thanks for all the prayers for Jamie, he is improving and doing well. They are 70% sure it's meningitis but for various reasons probably won't be able to 100% confirm whether it is that or another type of infection. Luckily he doesn't seem severely affected & because they caught it early we are hoping it won't affect his long term development but only time will tell.

Still got another week of antibiotics til he can come home, it feels like forever, we are visiting him as much as we can but I'm finding it hard being apart from him, I never expected all this to happen.

Am going to put a couple of pics on my profile.

Congrats Indigo, Wolverina and londonirish on your new arrivals.

Indigo: Sorry to hear about your Jamie not being well, sending you lots of hugs and prayers. It is the hardest thing leaving your little one in hospital when you are at home, but hopefully won't be long till you are reunited with your precious gift. (I can remember nearly 8 years ago leaving my DD in SCBU for 3 weeks)

LM - hope you enjoy your time away next week with your parents, I can completely understand wanting company at night whilst DH is at work.

I am dreading wednesday as DH is back to work, so I then have to sort out my 3. At least DD goes to school and is picked up from home, so only have to cope with 2 kids for most of the day. Except till 9am when I need to get DD ready for school, DS2 will probably need a feed and scream all morning. Not looking forward to it at all.

YCBS- completely understand your PFB, you do get used to other people holding baby etc.

Pina: let me know what docs say, I also want to drive already. DS2- 2 weeks tomorrow.

just a quick note, Jasmine now has my lurgy, been snotty since Wed and getting more and more sick. Took her to emergency dr yesterday, complete waste of space! I had hoped to be reassured ( i used to hate my own gp for trying to reassureme pre-kids, I only went to him when I'd researched and wanted a specific script, but now I WANT that reassurance!) so any ideas for helping cough and cold symptoms in a 4 week old please share.....(also thread in health but can't think very well).
I just want a magic wand to make us all better! DD1 is also poorly, but thats not as scary now we have DD2 poor DD1!

hi all

sorry haven't been posting much, i hate one handed typing! will try later if i manage to get ds2 to go to sleep

very quick congrats to the new arrivals. so sorry to hear about those still in scbu, thinking of you, must be so hard.

mumofk have posted on your other thread. hugs.

more from me later i hope, love a x

Wahey back again!

Note use of capital letters!!! I have my sandwich too (the only lesson I think I learned from DS1's babyhood: when they go to sleep, first eat something, then do whatever else...)

I have been reading the thread regularly but as I say I find one-handed typing such a pain for anything other than short posts. DP has been on pat leave for the last 2 weeks too, so I feel a bit anti-social coming up here to log on!

Very well done to londonirish, wolverina and indigoblue.

Everything is going well here. DS2 is (bf)feeding for England and starting to sleep quite well too [touching wood emoticon] - 2-3 hour stretches, and seems to be more wakeful during the day than the night now - fingers crossed he is starting to figure out that Mummy isn't very entertaining at 3am! He seems to struggle with his digestion quite a lot - bouts of intense straining and not much happening - I think he's probably still getting used to all those odd sensations in his guts! He poos fine when he relaxes (don't we all). He is a little star and I'm still head over heels

The main struggle for me (and it's only a little one compared to what others are going through, I know) is giving enough attention to DS1. While DP's been off on pat leave and I've been feeling so knackered it's been easier to let DP do things with DS1 and leave me to figure the baby out. DS2 is still having trouble latching on properly sometimes, so I don't feel like it's the right time to start expressing/ introducing bottles yet, so feeding is still really up to me. But I miss my time with DS1 . He's such a lovely boy, and such good fun, and I've so enjoyed spending time with him over the last year or two (once I got over my paranoid parent stage - the first year!!!) I knew the baby would be a spanner in the works whatever happened, and realistically DS1 is coping brilliantly with this major change in his home life, but I feel very frustrated and sad about the way my role has changed. I know it's not for ever, and I know I'll figure out ways of doing stuff with both of them, but... I just miss my little boy

I'm going to try and get to a 'sling meet' tomorrow to see if they can help me with my ring sling - I think if I could bung DS2 in there (and maybe even feed him?) I'd feel 'freed up' to do more with DS1.

LM74-Aoife is pronounced "eefa". My sister hdid have a baby a wee while sgo who is now thriving. I think mumblesmummy's sister had twins.

mumofk-sounds tough for you at the moment. Hopefully you and yours get better soon.

Indigoblue-glad you are getting the best treatment possible for baby Jamie. Catching the infection early is such a good sign. My nephew contracted meningitis a year ago, aged 1. It too was spotted early and yesterday he received the all clear in his check up. xx

indigoblue My friend's little girl had meningitis diagnosed when she was only weeks old, they caught it early, she is now nearly two and is fine. Fingers crossed Jamie will continue to respond to treatment and thrive.

mitchell81 Loads of luck to you for when your DH goes back to work, I know how daunting it is. Thinking of you.

pina thanks for the DD1/DD2 comments. I feel the same, telling DD1 not to do whatever to DD2 etc etc.

mumofk sorry to hear Jas is ill, I think Pina's idea of putting her in bathroom to'steam' her sounds good.

asicsgirl I am feel exactly the same way as you do about your DS1 with my DD1. She is just two, and so much fun and I love spending time with her. I am really 'missing' her too. I crave doing her bath and putting her to bed, which I do sometimes but DH often wants to do it if he hasn't seen her cos he's been at work, or I may be feeding DD2 so unable to do it. I also feel that DH is the 'fun' one, whereas I can't take her swimming etc at the moment. I'm sure it won't last long, but I do know exactly how you feel.

I've had a good day. Denny and co came for lunch, which was lovely. I had a good catch up with me old chum Denny. Poor DD2 decided to projectile vomit the minute they walked thru the door, and Denny got a bit covered in it!!! (that's what good friends we are, we don't even mind each others children vomitting on us !!!!).

Feel more relaxed today. DD2 not been too bad. (incidentally, Denny thinks DD2 might have a bit of colic....think I was in denial).

What PANTS weather!!!!!!

LM74 xxx

thanks LM74 and pina for your thoughts... DS2 is currently asleep again so I'm going to try and put DS1 to bed - tho' he's being a right monkey today so it may take a while...

LM74 LOL at kids vomiting on other people. Our friends brought their DD round a while ago - one of DS1's friends from nursery - and she threw up everywhere. As they were leaving her Dad said to me, 'Well, thanks for having us, and feel free to bring DS1 round to vomit at our house whenever you like'.

must go, have a good evening everyone x x x

Evening all
I wish I'd come back on here days ago, reading through all your posts has made me feel a lot more normal. DP left on Thursday morning for China (for 8 weeks) and since then the babymoon has kinda been over, Finn has gone from hardly crying at all to crying so much and wanting to feed all the time. It's so hard being the only one to pick him up when he's wailing and then he smells milk and wants to feed and cries more... I am feeding on demand but more than every hour and a half-two hours isn't really possible. Feel a bit overwhelmed by it all, it was so fab sharing everything with DP and now doing it all myself feels so much harder. I feel I can't really tell DP how tough I'm finding it when I know that all he wants is to be here with the two of us. I'm missing him so much which just makes everything seem worse. No major problems though, I should be more grateful! Also very impressed at all of you coping with toddlers too!

Congratulations Indigo, Wolverina and londonirish on your new arrivals. Lovely names all of you.

Indigo - sending lots of hugs and positive thoughts to you, I can't imagine what you're going through, well done for keeping strong. I hope he's home very soon.

Wolverina - I can't believe they held your legs together, I was told that can really damage the baby's head so thank goodness all is well!

mumofk hope you all get over your nasty bugs soon.

Thanks for making me feel more sane, great to know I'm not the only one having a trying time (though obviously wish easy days for us all!)

Hi Guys

DD and I checking in. DD was born 21 May, 8lb 3 oz, very quick labour, bit of gas and a 1st degree tear. She is my 3rd child, but how fast I have forgotten some of the does and don'ts. DH cooked a spaghetti carbonara from scratch for the family last night and the onions in the sauce seem to have given DD terrible wind. We had a horrible night last night and DD, DH and I are all knackered today. It has ruined the bit of a routine we were starting to fall into as DD has slept so much today that she will need to feed through the night I guess. I am vowing to live on vegemite sandwhiches and biscuits and bananas to avoid a repeat. Ohhh the joys of newborn land.

I can sympathise with those whose DH's work away (Baiyu and YCBS). For DS1 my DH was working in Madrid and was only home (in germany) for the weekends - I put up with it for nearly 18mths and I never let him forget it. Looking back I don't know how I managed and I certainly had a bit of PND as a result. I hope you have supportive friends, family and communities to get you through.

hey everyone and congrats all new additions - sorry my brain is shot and i cna't remember who i have congratulated or not so far!

about driving - i don't think your insurers will insure you before 6 week sign off i ncase you need to do emerg stop.

also indigo - am thinking of you re jamie xxx i can't remember the whole story but has he been home yet? if not (and i know i'm being a bit matter of fact about it but both ds's have been in scbu's for first few weeks of life so i do know how tough it is to be separated from them), and if they think there is any way he can come home at end of antibiotics, start pushing now to stay over - most hospitals have some rooms that are available to stay in (ronald macdonald rooms they are sometimes called because they are donated by guess who...) - if he hasn't been home they will not let you take him home till you have ahd at least one night rooming in with him, and if he has been home already you can stamp your feet and tell them how terrible it is that you are not being encouraged to breastfeed exclusively because they are not allowing you to stay near your baby at night. if you have to, tell them you will report them unless they have a blardy good reason for not letting you have a room. i know it's really tough to be snotty when you are worried aobut your lo, but sometimes creating a scene really does work in that situation - it did for us - we were told samuel would be in epsom for another 4 weeks at least after he was 8 days old, we kicked up such a fuss we managed to get him transferred back to our own hospital the next day, and he was home 2 days later because they allowed us to bf (hadn't been encouraged to do in epsom in case it tired him out) on demand and stay over to establish bf'ing through the night.

anyway, not much else to report - dh being much better since i went to docs and the builders are getting there - minor setbacks but we are coming towards the end of it now yay!!!

keep your chins up ladies it does get easier! and remember they have growth spurts around weeks 3, 7 and 9 i am told. also samuel is going through a bit of a wailing phase unless he is held and because i have to do things with ds1 he just has to deal with it sometimes. it's tough but he will be fine.

xxx

baiyu and YCBS I have sooooooooo much sympathy for you being without your DP's, esp you baiyu, it must be very tough. Please come on MN as much as you can or want and hopefully we can support you 'virtually'!! Not the same as having a practical pair of hands to actually take them off your hands, but it might help. Do you have any friends or family nearby? How come your DP is in China for 8 weeks? When he is back, will he be back for good?? You poor thing, I really do feel for you. Don't feel bad about talking to him about how you feel, it's better than bottling it up. You can always back it up with telling him how sorry you are to have to tell him how you feel and that you appreciate how hard it is for him being so far away etc etc.
I felt bad enough last week when I kept texting DH when DD2 wouldn't settle and he was on night shift. I know it's very hard but these early weeks feel like an eternity right now, esp when they don't stop crying, but believe me, having had DD1, before long you'll be thinking how it didn't feel like that long afterall....IYSWIM??!

I managed to take my two to mass this morning (weekday mass only 25 mins, so easier to cope with them both). DD2 managed to do a big poo in the 2 min car journey from home to church, and it all leaked onto her clothes. I was not going to be defeated so I just changed her (in the boot of the car!!) and carried on.....It was fine. I had DD1 in buggy and DD2 in sling. Slightly embarassed as the priest came to my seat to give me communion, something usually only the really old dears and invalids get....!!! I would have managed the walk up to the alter, but he just did it before I had chance to say otherwise !!!!!!

Got my favourite dinner tonight....butternutsquash....yummy!!!

One quick question, how long do people use cotton wool and water for instead of wipes, I can't remember when I went to wipes with DD1.

LM74

cheers pina. I posted a thread on it, got mixed responses, but 6 weeks rough 'guideline'.