It was bound to happen.
The amazing emotions and hormones of Days 1 + 2 over, and with the arrival of the mothers milk following the happy colostrum haze, there came a few tears and the "This is impossible..." cries. The (in)famous day 3 baby blues.
Every mum worth their estrogen has gotta get 'em.
Which werent exactly helped by Vampira, the wicked witch of the night nurse rounds. Actually, she wasnt that bad... After telling Pandora off for having a screaming baby in the wee small hours, and again for letting the baby wizz everywhere while being changed, she said she'd do the next nappy. Which is indeed the nicest possible thing anyone can do for a sleep deprived new-mum...
Nice... and somewhat funny when she changed him on the bed, with Little Mike screaming the partitions down and doing wee-wee all over the blankets.
By day 4 though, Mistress P was her old self and looking every inch the beautiful new and ever-capable yummy mum. You'd have thought she'd been doing it all for years. (Some may say, having put up with AB, she had.)
On the Little Mike front, the lad has made the turnaround and is now putting on mass, with a latest 24 hour gain of 30 grams. Ok, so thats about the weight of an HB pencil, but hey, it was his second day of weight gain in a row and proof positive of the amazing job he and Mistress P are doing on the breastfeeding front.
In fact now that the true mothers milk is coming down, Mike has been gorging himself silly on the stuff - to the point of subsequently and regularly falling into a drunken stupor. Quite literally (see pic above left). Most times he falls asleep with a mouthful of boob (classy lad), and has to be reminded by way of poking (or chin rubbing) of his contractual obligations under the "stop mum getting rocks in the knockers" clause of his Australian Workplace Agreement (signed voluntarily of course).
On the statistics front, we finally worked out how to read the relevant parts of "the blue book" - his maternal health care guide. And it reveals that he is around the 75th percentile for weight, as well as for height. Hows that for well proportioned... and above ordinary? (For those in need of a memory jog - a percentile is simply a ranking out of 100. As he is 75th percentile, it means he is taller and heavier than 75% of the newborn population. But it doesnt necessarily mean he is 25% taller or heavier than the average...)
Healthwise the lil tacker has been getting better and better, with good blood test results, healthy skin, more lively manner and little outward sign of the earlier infection. However all the required prodding, probing and puncturing has left him with an aversion to being naked ("Argh... they can get at my pink bits!").
This wasnt helped by his IV failing, and hence needing to be swapped into the opposite arm. Not only did he scream blue murder, but he eventaully needed a big wig pediatrician to be specially summond to get the damn thing into a new vein. All up it took over an hour. I hope the nurses OH&S rules required the use of earplugs - we're talking sustained jet engine/Motorhead concert noise levels here.
On the upside though, at least Lil Mike can now suck on his favourite right fist again without the attached dripline blue plastic thingy punching him (or Aunty Mish - pic left) in the eye. Its the simple things in life you know...
So there we have it. A healthy, happy mum and bub combination set, with only a completed course of anti-biotics between them and returning to their humble abode in the Baghdad-end-of-Hampton.
Cross fingys. Print this post
No comments:
Post a Comment