8 WEEKS OLD (ALREADY!)

 

I don't know where my little newborn baby has gone! The time has flown by in a blur and tomorrow C will be 8 weeks old. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel 5 hours up the country for some time at my Nana's house arriving home last Sunday which is one of the reasons I've been so quiet. C and I had a fabulous time and just being able to have a break away and a helping hand was amazing! I came away feeling healthier (given I had a nutritious breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared for me and not living on muesli bars and quick fix food it's hardly surprising!) and the break gave my arms a chance to relieve themselves and I'm no longer living in pain, so I'm guessing it may have just been RSI after all (thank goodness!). I must admit though that it's been a bit if a shock to the system to come home and have to manage all on my own again while the HG is at work! I was starting to get used to the extra pair of hands after 7 days away! 

Not much else to report, the days and weeks are flying by and in no time at all my maternity leave will be up and I'll be back at work which I am not looking forward to at all, but I know it's necessary so I'm trying not to dwell on it too much. C now weighs 10lb2oz so is getting chubbier as you can see from the photos above. Starting to get some gummy smiles and coos now and he is so much more alert, can't quite believe how quickly he's growing up!

CHRONIC JOINT ACHES & PAINS (HELP!)

I need to know whether this is just me or if other woman have experienced post-baby aches and pains in their body as I'm starting to go a little crazy! Last week I started waking up with what I thought was carpal tunnel in my hands - I couldn't pick up my coffee mug by the handle to drink my morning coffee, pour the jug or grip the door handle to turn it for awhile after waking up and had numbness and tingling in my finger tips. Upon googling I concluded I must have carpal tunnel but then in the following few days I started to have aching in my left shoulder, arm and elbow which I thought could be from cradling Cohen while feeding him. It then started in my right arm and now it's in my knees. I have no real idea what is going on but I have been googling wildly looking for answers as I am waking in the middle of the night in so much pain I can't go back to sleep and I'm starting to feel like an old lady with arthritis. Upon returning to Google it looks like it could be the relaxin hormone causing the pain post-pregnancy and it could be connected to breastfeeding but I really have no idea. Pain relief is not doing anything to relieve the aching and it's not fun when it hurts to cradle Cohen to feed him his bottle and the whole time I am wishing he would hurry up because my arm hurts so much and I want to be able to put him down. 

Any advice would be so much appreciated and if you have had something similar I would love to know what you did to help it (and to know I'm not the only one!). Could it be an effect of the epidural from my c-section 5 weeks later? I thought maybe RSI but that doesn't explain the knee pain. Luckily I am going away for a week to stay with my Nana (so excited!) and I am hoping the extra help might give my joints a chance to have a break and maybe come right but I'm not holding my breath as the knee pain has thrown another spanner in the works and doesn't make sense that it is from repetitive movement. Can pregnancy trigger the start of things like arthritis?

BLESSED

I have come to the conclusion that I have been blessed with an easy baby (for now anyway!). At 5 weeks old he is already sleeping through the night, usually from about 9pm - 7am and has been doing this for the last 5 nights in a row. I'm so proud of him! He now weighs 4kg and is growing in leaps and bounds, we even got our first real smile yesterday! So precious.

Very happy mummy! 

ONE MONTH OLD TODAY!

Sorry I have been missing for so long, this mummy business is very time consuming! I love it though! As the blog title states, Cohen is one month old today and despite my fears of not knowing what to do with a baby we seem to have survived our first month together in one piece. It is all still a learning experience for the two of us though, sometimes I seem to get it right and other times I'll be awake for hours in the middle of the night wondering where I've gone wrong or what I'm supposed to be doing with this screaming baby! Luckily these nights seem to be few and far between and generally he's a pretty content little man and a great sleeper (once asleep!). I do wonder if I am making some trouble for myself though as at a month old I am still allowing him to fall asleep in my arms (generally he'll fall asleep towards the end of a bottle or just after) and not putting him to bed to self settle himself. Is this going to cause me problems later or is he still too young at this point for it to become a problem? Otherwise we are just learning as we go and sometimes that means crying together! 

BREASTFEEDING UPDATE

Thank you all for your comments, suggestions and support on my last blog post. It has been a real eye opener to read and hear about others who have been through the same thing as I have when it comes to breastfeeding and kudos to those who go through it and persevere! It really isn't easy! After having a visit from a lactation consultant who observed that Cohen has a tendency to be a lazy sucker on the boob and hard to latch, I tried a few times independently (with mixed results) before deciding that breastfeeding isn't for me. What should have been an enjoyable bonding time between my son and I was turning into a time of anxiety (me) and impatience and stress (him) so I have decided to continue exclusively pumping and bottle feeding expressed breast milk to him with the occasional bottle of formula thrown in as a top up (rather than waste precious breast milk if he is still fussy after guzzling down 60-100ml of breast milk, I give him 50ml of formula and that way if he only drinks 10ml or decides he's not hungry after all than I am not wasting the good stuff). This is working really well for me and I only have to express three times a day and not at all during the night in order to get enough to last us through. He has gained 400gms in 9 days so clearly I am doing something right! He is a little piglet and I am finding that I am still bonding brilliantly with him regardless of the fact that I am bottle feeding as opposed to having him on the boob - we are still snuggled together and I talk to him and he is happy and content which is important to me. I know that some people who read this blog may frown on my approach but it's working for me and we're both so much happier.

As for everything else, we are learning the art of swaddling and boy what a difference it has made to his sleep pattern through the night! I initially threw the idea out the window as he would scream having his hands tied down but I have since discovered that he is more than happy once he is swaddled and swaddled up nice and snug so he can't escape and I am now getting 4 hour sleep stretches through the night! Yay! It has also helped to actually get out of the house and go for walks with the buggy and get some fresh air.

So all in all, we are doing brilliantly and I am such a proud mumma! 

And just because I can't help myself, here is another picture of Cohen - he is already starting to look more like a little boy than a baby!

MY NEWEST CHALLENGE

Thank you so much for all your lovely words of congratulations! I just had to post this photo of my baby boy in his knitted woollies that his Great Nana knitted for him - so cute!

As for how things are going on the mummy and daddy front . . . well, we are actually managing pretty darn well except for the fact that I am finding breastfeeding to be such a struggle. I never knew how hard it could be and have discovered since Cohen arrived that it is just another one of those 'silent' topics (just like infertility is) that never seems to be spoken about, yet so many woman experience it. It seems I have jumped from one challenge to another. We have latch issues, even with a shield. Maybe because he is so small or maybe he just doesn't like having to make the effort, who knows. I spent 7 days in hospital already trying to master the art of something that I was always led to believe would come naturally. I could never figure out why people gave up so quickly, no one ever actually came out and said that it's because it's so hard! Master C gets so distressed when he isn't getting instant food (he has no patience whatsoever!) and I end up in tears because I feel like I am failing him. At the moment I am exclusively breast pumping and feeding it to him in bottles and supplementing with formula when I absolutely have to. I know it's not ideal and frowned upon but this is what is working for us at the moment. I have a lactation consultant coming to see me on Monday so hopefully we can make more progress then. Other than that, we are surviving on very little sleep (4 hours total last night!) but we're so in love we have no complaints. He truly is our precious little miracle.

INTRODUCING . . .

I am so proud to introduce to you our dear son Cohen Roy who was born on the 27th June 2011 via c-section arriving at 12.17pm weighing 6lb13oz. 

He is just perfect in every way and I am absolutely loving being a mummy and the HG is such a doting daddy! I can't believe he is actually ours!