Saturday 19 January 2013

New Year ~ New Beginings.

Hello!! Long time no post! It is no suprise as to why I had a disappearing act. We had our lovley little baby in July. She never turned in the end and stayed breech resulting in a Cesarean section. There is a lack of pregnancy updates post 34 weeks due to how manic life suddenly turned! I was referred to the consultant for an attempt at turning the baby the first attempt was as painful as hell and left me feeling ill from the pain for the rest of the day and she didnt turn. Second attempt 2 days later resulted is much less pain - from a different consultant and a diff approach but again didn't work so we were booked in for Monday morning for our C section. I was disappointed but was fully expecting it. Still feeling bad to this day that I missed out on the chance to have a natural labour and birth. I feel like I have cheated somehow. Don't think it is something I will ever get over really. But I dont feel I did wrong as it could have ended up in an emergency CS or at worse a baby who has lost her life. So the decision was right. Anyone who wants to know more about either procedure I am more than happy to put my views/feelinfs/experiences forward. Just request and i'll put a post up for you. Should at some point do my birth story too. Actually can't really call it a birth - that upsets me too - It was a delivery. Never cried so many tears in my life! 

Moving on she is 6 months old now! And I am very proud that I have breastfed for 6 months!We had a lot of difficulties at first with mega sore nipples, having to use nipple shields, used formula for some suppliment feeds up until around 5-6 weeks old and then moved onto EBF (exclusive breastfeeding), we were also parted from each other at 9 days old over night when I had a hospital stay so this was hard work. I really wanted to make good use of the night free to catch up on sleep but I really needed to express every 3 hours or so to keep up my supply and deal with the engorgement. The hospital were fantastic at providing me with an expressing machine and little bottles to store it in and put the milk in their fridge. 

Jessica was born weighing 5lb 13oz little teeny thing. She now weighs 15.5 at 6 months old so is doing well :) She is a very content happy bubbly little thing and very rarely cries or screams. We settled down at around 7 weeks into a relaxed natural approach to parenting. I spent many times in tears over the whole refusing to sleep in her moses basket situation. Especially when everyone was telling us she should be and to let her scream it wont hurt her etc etc. And this all started when she was around 3-4 weeks old! Obviously this mostly came from the oldies who did it a different way. So worrying myself sick (literally I came out in eczema ...!) I armed myself with books and read up on sleep. I came across attachment parenting a little before Jessica was born and read this first. It was a big eye opener in taking us away from todays you dictative parenting approach and back to nature. This is how they do it in the likes of Africa and in the olden days. So I took to bed with Jessica and we decided to cosleep as nothing else worked. I breastfed her lying down for a few days during the day and slept with her on me. Put loads of pillows by the sides of the bed. Each time we slept together I gained more confidence in the fact that she was going to roll no where as a newborn ... yet lol. Previous to this we were taking in turns to do shift work at holding her asleep on our chests. I would go and take a nap around 8pm and when she woke for a feed Daniel would wake me up and I would feed her and then he would nap for an hour or 2 and then when she was asleep I would wake him and he would take her whilst I slept again. This went on all night and resulted in 2-3 hours each in the very early days to 4-5 a bit later. After we went to bed at 7 weeks we ended up in around 6-7 hours a night. I also took to carrying her in a moby wrap sling. This was fab for day time when I was just sitting in my chair all day and unable to make lunch or even go to the loo without screaming going on. We are not strict attachment parentning. More trying to turn it around to fit it into our lives. Had many reports spoiling her and creating a rod for our own backs. But so far all is well! I have found rather than having a slingy child who doesnt want to be away from us at all she is more independant. She knows that if she cries a real cry she will get attended to straight away so she doesnt have to go to screaming. If she is griping and just grizzley then I will leave her at times so she can learn to self settle and this has worked really well. But if we get tears then she is trying to express her feelings of frustration and needs our help. We have mostly dropped the sling - it gets used around once a week or so now so not as often as before as she is happy to be put down and play and explore whilst I do things. We are still cosleeping but have managed to get her in her basket for day time naps! This happened around 4 months old and thankfully she is still small enough to just fit in it! We have bed guards on the side at night incase she rolls but as yet hasn't learnt how to. Once we have our bed room sorted I will get a cosleeping cot that can go on the side of ours. I really dont want to put her in her own room yet or in a closed cot as we are really enjoying having her in with us. There is nothing more lovely than waking up to a massive smile as soon as you open your eyes and a little gurgling voice. I would like to progress to getting her in her own sleep area though and a king sized bed so that daddy can come back in with us. Anyway I could natter all day and bore you all to death but I won't! The next blog update will be non child orientated for variety! Hope you are all well. And happy new year! A chance for new beginnings and new adventures :-D X

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