Month: December 2007

We’re all fine, but we took a trip to Casualty at Westmead Children’s Hospital today, as we couldn’t find a medical center that was open, and we thought we’d better get the boy looked at.

At hospital, they told us to clean his umbilical cord stump daily, and to see a doctor if it looked weepy, or started to smell. With all the excitement, we forgot to clean it on friday, and by saturday it didn’t look as good as it had. Today it looked even worse, and had started to smell.

Apparently, it’s all good. We’ve been given saline to clean it, but with his breathing issues, his little body has been concentrating on healing his lungs, rather than healing the belly button. We can expect that his cord will take up to an extra week to drop off than a “normal” baby.

On the upside, we now have a medical records number at Westmead, we know how to get there, and we know we can get the kid to hospital within 15 minutes of noticing something awry. And apparently, they aren’t going to report us to DOCS for child neglect. Yet…

And last night, we got 2 periods of sleep that lasted for 3 hours or more. The kid is gorgeous.

Another night with not much sleep, Inigo likes to sleep for an hour after a night feed, then wake 2-3 times in the next hour, then refuse to sleep for the third hour unless one of us is holding him. We have taken it in turns to do the settling after a feed, so we are both getting some sleep.

This morning, the 7am feed was followed by a bath, so not enough sleep was had before the 11am feed. When he was still awake at 1pm after the 11am feed, Mark and I turned to disco music. The two of us sang him a duet of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”, and he is out like a light.

What a great kid.

And in other news, Ella Grace Hodgkiss arrived last night just after 3am. No other details yet, but Bev & Ted will be here shortly to tell us all about our newest family member, and how her mum is doing.

Inigo is off all machines, and has had two successful feeds. I have been moved again, and am downstairs in the children’s ward, where there are sick people, so Inigo has to stay in the nursery.

I am going to try to get some sleep in preparation for my first night of round the clock feeding, Mark has our boy sleeping on his chest upstairs, and I will be called when he needs me.

Thank you everyone for your well wishes, and words of encouragement. It’s working 🙂

We tried breastfeeding again today, and had a much better experience – not there yet, but better. I also had a chance to talk to the midwife that I saw for most of my ante natal visits, she validated everything I was feeling, and encouraged me to go back to the nursery and touch him as much as I like. It’s been a tough 24 hours, but I look forward to every day getting better from now on. Also spoken to the social worker, who says that I am going better than could be expected for somebody who has so much to deal with.

I have been doing pretty well with expressing, this morning I got 70mls, which everyone seems impressed with. Of course I have no idea about what should and shouldn’t be happening, but I overheard one of the doctors saying today that a c section interferes with normal hormone production, and therefore can delay and reduce milk production. Apparently I am very lucky, and supply is not an issue, only demand 🙂 We’ll get there!

The boy is looking delightful – he has been fed breastmilk through a naso gastric tube, about 2mls every hour, and it seems to have improved his skin tone and colour. It’s an almost imperceptible change, and I may be imagining it, but it does make me feel better that he is able to eat, and I am able to provide for him in some small way. It may not be the way he’s supposed to get it, but it’s the best we can have for now, and I am grateful.

Mum had a meeting at the hospital and has spoken to Inigo’s paediatrician – apparently they are hoping to let us go home on the weekend. That is the first official word on timing I have had, and am trying not to get too excited, but the idea that I might be able to see my son without wires, and being able to cuddle him so soon is almost too much to hope for.

Anna Gibson visited again today, and we had such a lovely chat, I am now feeling fortified and ready to deal with whatever tomorrow may bring for our little family. All good things I hope.

We’ve just spent nearly an hour cuddling our son. He is still on oxygen, but they are so happy with his progress that we were allowed to have a cuddle while he was on a nasal cannula instead of the headbox. No pictures – because he needs skin to skin contact, all the pics are a little pornographic.

Of course, the primary reason for the switch in oxygen source was that they wanted to take another x-ray to measure his progress. We’ll have the results of the x-ray later this afternoon, and since I now have internets in my room, I will be able to blog about it as soon as I hear something.

They have started to feed him expressed breastmilk, starting with 2mls an hour. Soon they will be putting in a naso-gastric tube to assist feeding, and we’ll start to increase the amount that he eats. He is currently getting 15ms and hour of I/V fluids, so he needs to be getting about the same amount in breastmilk. We’ve tried a proper feed, but he didn’t take to it straight away, and he became distressed, which lead to his oxygen saturation dropping. We’ll fight that battle another day, and concentrate on keeping him calm, and happy, and healthy. Then we can fatten him up.

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10:20pm

I’ve just been ejected from the nursery. Inigo had an episode of really odd breathing, which the midwife put down to “overstimulation”. I had just changed him after I noticed him starting to wake up, and was sitting quietly stroking his arm, as I have been all day, every day now. I have never seen him do that before, and it was really frightening, and I am damn sure it wasn’t me that caused it. What a bitch. I can’t go back in there now until morning, and she’s gone, or I might strangle her. No more expressing tonight. Fuck.