Matching clothes

Daddy bot, Mummy bot and Baby bot

A few weeks back, I accidentally managed to dress Orna and I in co-ordinating outfits. We both had green t-shirts and blue trousers. We went out and about like this, I only noticed when I got home and had a bit of a worry people would think I did it on purpose. One of the "problems" with buying clothes for someone else is that you're naturally going to buy stuff you like, and normally you buy clothes for yourself that you like too after all! Two of my big "likes" are dinosaurs and robots. Unfortunately I can't get away with dinosaur and robot clothes for myself, but now fortunately I have an outlet for it! Before she was born, on a shopping trip to mothercare I noticed a bunch of robot socks in their sale reduced to £1. I immediately bought them, and when I got home announced I was a bit sad that they didn't make robot socks for adults as I'd love them. Pairing up washing later that day, I realised I do, in fact, own two pairs of socks with robots on.

Lazy Friday

This morning, I'd planned for us to go to the Coventry NCT Bumps and Babies group, but it turned out we were far too lazy. It's in the arse end of the city, and starts at 9:30 - an ungodly hour (considering we'd need to set off at 8:30 to get there in time. Every other week we go to the on in Rugby, which has about the same amount of travelling time, but sensibly starts at 1pm, much better.

As it turned out, we had a lie in and it was awesome. Orn got in to bed with me when Daddy left for work, had half a bottle and zonked out until 9:30. I woke up about 8:30 and thought I really should move and express, but in the end I was too tired to sit up until later, and didn't manage until 10. Oops. Orn has had quite a sleepy day today (until now!), she had a couple of nice long naps and I got two loads of laundry done. I did mean to change the bed, but didn't find time for that.

I've also been nappy shopping today...I bought the pink owls and a second purple turtles, and a couple of Bum Genius v4 (but shhh, I've only told Daddy about the pink owls). I really like the Freestyles I have, and some people swear by the pocket ones so I thought I'd ive them a go, and finally I traded in some Tesco vouchers and bought a funky Totsbots one. I did think we had enough nappies; current stash is 10 Little Lambs bamboo size 1 (and 10 size 2 for the future), 2 Totsbots easyfit V2, 2 next generation close parent pop-ins (purple turtles and blue turtles), a dream-dri close parent pop-in, an original close parent pop-in, 3 itti bitti tuttos and 3 cheap ebay pockets. Now I'm doing full time I'm finding at the end of 2 days we start to get a bit short, without a drier the little lambs can take 2 days to be fully dry.

Now, with Orna dozing and a fridge full of milk in waiting we're having a sneaky bottle of wine. A nice end to the week!

Crazy Hippy Club

Or not, as it turned out. A couple of days ago (Monday, I think) I was having a search online for a local nappy library. I don't really know why, I think I have enough nappies and I know what I like, but when she's bigger and sleeps through I will need to try out some other options for night nappies. But I digress; I happened upon Coventry & Warwickshire Attached Parents, who meet weekly in a library in one of the posher bits of town. Attachment parenting is something I've had a bit of a read up on, and although in its full form it seems a bit OTT, I think it's far more the style of parent that I want to be than something like Gina Ford.

Dr Sears appears to have been the person that coined the term (thought might not be, I'll admit I've not read that much), and there's something about the principals of it on Wikipedia. I didn't prepare for pregnancy, it's a bit hard to do that when you didn't really get to the trying stage, but we certainly prepared for birth and, as much as you can when you have no idea what is coming, for parenting. I'd like to think we're doing all the nurtring, respond with love and so on. I'll fully admit to being frustrated when there's a session of crying for no apparant reason (dry, right temp, fed, cuddled) but we still plod on trying to comfort and sort her out - she's a baby, it's not her fault. Luckily, we've ended up with a little person who is almost always happy, in some ways though that makes inconsolable crying harder - we're still learning how to deal with it at 9 weeks, and because it's out of character the need to stop it is enormous and the stress when you can't is a bit much.

I've gone off the point again, anyway, I decided I'd go along to the group. As I explained to one of the Mums later, I'd been worried they were going to be breastfeeding teenagers and wearing hemp dresses hand dyed with woad. They weren't, it was all OK, they were normal. They listened to the nightmare I'm having with breastfeeding, joined in with horror when I recounted our hospital experience and the NG tube threat - something others seem to have seen as "normal", and didn't think I was nuts with my insistance to make sure I could express milk for every feed and stay away from formula. They think co-sleeping is normal (we don't do it full time, but if she's upset and won't settle I don't hesitate in popping her in the big bed (if it were a proper big bed there'd be no reason not to do it full time!)), and best of all, none of their babies had pierced ears - a big improvement on the last local baby group I went to!

Mini Hippy Milestone

Not a mini hippo, sadly, but those fellas are cute.

We've had our first 24 hours in cloth nappies! I've been using them during the day at home for 4 or 5 weeks now, and started using them on trips longer than an hour last Friday, but had so far avoided them overnight. Daddy does the night changes while I express, and whapping on a disposable is much quicker. I also wasn't too confident in how well they'd last so had been putting it off. I'd recently bought some eco disposables to make myself feel a bit better about still using them, but they seemed to give her terrible nappy rash. It'd go down during the day, then flare up overnight. She only sleeps 5 hours max without a change, so I didn't think that was the problem. I thought if we try a few nights in cloth it might help clear it up. I got the "cabbage" assembled before bed, so all Daddy had to do was take the old one off, wipe, and put the new one on, ta-da. We do need to get a wet bag for upstairs, as a damp nappy in a sandwich bag isn't a great look, and would be a bit icky if there was poo.

The mattress for her cotbed arrived to, along with a changing mat for upstairs (we've been using the one that came free in the Advantage Club changing bag), some dinosaur babygros (yay!), mobile, bedding, and some Olive and Henri clothes. The cot comes next week (and will FILL our bedroom), but as she's nearly head to foot filling the moses basket it was time to get one. I'm not looking forward to moving her in to it, having her in the basket by my head is so handy as if she grumbles I can just scoop her out and have her in bed next to me - I'll have to actually get out of bed in future and get cold feet.

I failed to go to the breastfeeding group this morning, I had planned to go and update on her tounge tie, but she was fast asleep until 9:15 (we need to get the bus around 9:50), so I didn't like to wake her and get her ready. Ah well, next week!

9 weeks old

And my god has it flown. She's changed so much in such a short time and is just so much bigger and stronger. She smiles all the time, and makes such funny little sounds.

Current worries are flat head, as much as the internet says this is normal I'm slightly freaked out and have now been insisting on ridiculous amounts of "tummy time". Unfortuntely today it appeared to be "cheesing" time too, so we're on t-shirt number 2. I'm now convincing myself that she doesn't turn her head to look left enough (she generally sleeps looking to the right) and this is the reason for it. When we were back in hospital, a doctor commented on her lovely shaped head, I thought that was odd at the time but have since seen some funny-headed babies that need to settle back down after their squeezing out squashedness! At the breastfeeding group I went to a couple of weeks back, a lady there had Cranial Osteopathy done on her baby boy as he could only look in one direction. I'm highly skeptical over that sort of thing; sentences like "Osteopaths work to restore the structure and function of the body to a state of balance and harmony, so helping the whole person." make me think my, what a load of crap. Some people swear by it, but I find it hard to put faith in something that doesn't make obvious scientific sense. However, I'm now paranoid - can she only turn her head one way? Will something I think is b******s help? Has becoming a mother driven me insane? 
 

First Jabs

Today it was time for Orna's first vaccinations. The day started quite well, she had a long sleep we went to bed around 11:30, and we woke her for a feed at 6am (and yet again, I realised I can't go that long without expressing or I might explode! I did get a phenomenal 310 ml out), then she dropped back off. She had another little feed around 8am after Daddy left for work, then we slept until 9. Our appointment was at 10:15, and by the time I'd expressed again, got her ready (in a lovely turqouise baby gro), changed her nappy from the enormous poo (I suspect this was a delaying tactic to try and miss her appointment) it was 5 past, so we got our scampering legs on and legged it to the doctors. The (slightly snotty - what is it with NHS receptionists?!) receptionist said she'd check if the nurse would still see us, and she did. As soon as we got into the room, I lifted her out of the carrycot and sat her on my knee and she threw up on herself. Orn isn't normally a sicky baby, so again I think a distraction tactic! Spare babygro on (red with white spots, no way near as pretty as the turqouise number), she had the jabs. Her surprised face when the needle went in was adorable, the crying face when she realised what was happening wasn't, I did feel like a mean Mummy. She settled on the walk home, but about an hour later we had half an hour of inconsolable crying (cuddles, food and changing all didn't work!) until she took a bottle and then had a sleep.

She's definitely been in a funny mood all day, mostly her normal self but with sudden mood swings (smiley and happy, then a loud whinge, then back to smiley happy). At least she's not got a temperature yet, so we've avoided doping her up with calpol. I love the taste of the stuff, so an open bottle in the house is dangerous (does drinking calpol count as an addiction to prescription painkillers? It is available on prescription after all. How many bottles a day would get me put in the Priory?). Also, her size 2 little lambs bamboo nappies arrived - they look huge compared to the size 1s, it's hard to believe she's halfway to being the recommended weight for them! When the delivery man knocked on the door, I could hear him talking to someone. I opened the door and the little ginger and white cat that seems to want to come and live here shot in. I picked her(?) up and popped her back out, telling her she doesn't live here (though I'd quite like to steal her...).

Later in the day, Mummy ended up causing a "Daddy accident" with her nappy (this is where you don't check that the inner isn't poking above the PUL layer, and wee wicks up the clothes), so we had our 3rd change of clothes (a record!).

I also discovered there is a local "attached parenting" group, and am debating whether to go. I'm not sure if what we're doing really counts as attachment parenting - we are "baby led", not forcing her into a routine (beyond waking her if she goes more than 6 hours without a feed, a hangover from her weightloss means I'm a bit scared of leaving her "hungry"). I'm doing various slightly hippy things, cloth nappying, "babywearing" (though I hate that term) and I intend to baby-led wean. I've bought her quite a lot of organic clothes (something I don't do for myself!) and avoid using chemicals on her as much as possible. We'll see what Thursday brings...

Orna's First Swim

Today we got to do one of the things I've been looking forward through almost from the moment I found out I was pregnant. Go swimming! We decided to go to Pingles Leisure Centre in Nuneaton, as they have a proper baby pool (and also, because the name is rather amusing...). I ordered a wetsuit over a month ago, and after the first one being eaten in the post it finally arrived midweek. The swimming costume is one of the most garish things I've ever seen, but there was a fairly limited choice of colours. She didn't seem to mind much though. As the sun was shining, we had a little go in the outdoor pool, and after getting a bit chilly finished off in the jacuzzi. She seemed to enjoy it, lasting a whole half hour before starting to get a little bit whingy because she was hungry.

Before we went I did wonder how on earth a swim nappy worked and managed to keep wee out of the pool - I had looked at buying a re-usable swim nappy but thought that with the costume and wetsuit it was just another thing that would be grown out of really quickly, and also, how would it keep wee in? Turns out they are just poo stoppers (thankfully this was not put to the test), almost makes you wonder why they tell people not to wee in the pool...


It was also the first time I used shampoo on her, I'd been a bit dubious about smothering her in unnecessary chemicals but the week before bought some Nature Babycare ECO stuff. It seems nice, her hair is lovely and fluffy now! I wonder what firsts tomorrow will bring?

Orna's First Castle

Today we had glorious sunshine! We thought we'd pop out to Kenilworth Castle, there was an event on with re-enactors and so on so something different to see. Orn wasn't very impressed with a battle re-enactment (or possibly was very impressed) and whined until I held her up to see what all the noise was about. She was massively unimpressed with being sat on a horse's saddle - check out this sad face!

After that, we went on her first trip to Waitrose, much more her kind of place than our normal supermarket trips. Now she's in cloth nappies during the day, I thought I should get some eco-disposables for nights, and fortunately they had money off! I do have a 54 pack of size 3 huggies I bought hoping she'd go straight from size 1s to size 2s, but since the 2s still look enormous on her I can't see them being used any time soon.

We later had a Daddy Accident (failure to tuck all the nappy inside the waterproof outer leading to wicking), which led to her getting to wear the adorable skeleton outfit which was the first bit of clothing I bought for her. I naïvely got 0-3, thinking that would fit a newborn baby, turns out it's huge, especially for a tiddler.

Books are finally interesting!

I've got a few books for her, some came free from Bookstart, one from the Bounty website and another she got as a present. I've been holding off ordering more because a) until she likes them they're clutter - I read her the paper instead and she looks appalled and b) my Dad still has all my "baby books" in the attic and I don't want to double up. Today I was showing her one of the black and white shapes books and she just started to stare at it, a few pages even got smiles!

In other news, I made an Oreo cheesecake. Damn it's good.

Officially a person!

First Bath!

I've been a bit afraid of bathing her, not in case I drop her and drown her, but she has had such dry skin I didn't want to make it any worse. I'm sure she'll look back at this video in horror - how embarassing - but I think it's adorable.

Are they supposed to be this strong?

You can't really tell from the photo, but she's pushing up and properly supporting herself!

Poorly-eye baby (and Flail gets a name)

Since she was born she has had a goopy eye. It had been getting steadily worse, and the hospital took a swab before discharging her. By 9pmish last night there was full on oozy green ick, and it looked so red and swollen. She was distraught and wouldn't stop crying, I was distraught and wouldn't stop crying so off we went to the walk in clinic and got the last appointment of the day. At the clinic you fill in a form with name, so there she is, Orna Alice. The screening nurse pronounced it Or-neigh, and I was a bit afraid to correct her in case we were the ones saying it wrong. Unsurprisingly, given the sticky green nature of the eye she has an infection, and has to have drops for 5 days. By the time we got out, the chemist at the clinic had closed, so we asked where the nearest 24 hour one was, and were told "just up the road". Cue Mike trying the door of two chemists "just" up the road with all their lights on but locked doors, then at the very end of the very long road we find one that is actually open.

She seems a lot happier now with the eye drops, and how cute are her monkey shoes?

An Orn is Born

(I'm cheating slightly, writing this nearly 2 months after it happened).

Orna burst screaming into the world at 3:55 am (ish - it was an analogue clock). Things had all been a bit dramatic just before, but I'll start at the beginning.

On the 11th, at around 9:30 pm I was chatting to a couple of "hamster" friends, and mentioned I'd been getting the odd irregular niggles. I assumed these were Braxton-Hicks, as I'd had nothing before and they really weren't that bad. I went to bed around midnight, and about 1 am I realised that they were really getting quite sore, and went to the loo to discover the (terrifying) bloody show. It was finally happening, but I didn't really believe it as I was so sure the baby was holding on until induction. Over the next day I spent as much time as possible bouncing away on my birthing ball, and a fair bit of time lying whining on the floor about how much it hurt. At 6ish, I phoned the hospital to say it hurt, contractions were about 5 mins apart and lasting about a minute. They told me to phone back at 3 mins apart and a minute and a half. It just got more painful, to the level where some of them had me in tears, so I made Mike phone in the hope that they'd take pity on a poor bloke and tell us to come in. They seemed reluctant, but we went anyway.
Got to the hospital around 8 pm, and sat in the waiting room for 3 hours. 3 HOURS! There were lots of incredibly annoying screaming women (this seemed to be the way to be seen quicker). Eventually I was taken to a triage room and hooked up to a foetal heartbeat monitor. After 15 mins or so they examined and said I wasn't in labour (then what the bloody hell was all the pain about?), and that I should go home and come back in the morning to be induced. I whined a bit more, pointed out the drops the heart rate monitor had picked up and they offered me some pethidine for the pain. At our NCT antenatal classes, we'd been told pethedine was a bit like being as drunk as you could imagine. I didn't fancy from what I'd read it as it did travel through the placenta and affect the baby, and after 6 months of vomiting wasn't keen on throwing up more, but I was in so much pain I went for it. It was rubbish - the room span a bit when I got up to go to the loo, and I managed 30 mins of sleep but woke up in just as much pain. After this, my timings start to get a bit confused. I kept getting up to go to the loo, and was put back on the monitor after a while and the heart rate drops were still there. At some point I annouced to Mike that I thought I'd wet the bed (classy!), the monitor kept freaking me out as the baby moved and the heart rate vanished. Somehow it got to 3 am, and I was starting to get very apologetic about how much I was whining and crying, but was quite insistant that the midwife have a look and see how things were going. She did have a look, and then suddenly it was all systems go (8 cm), I was handed the gas and air, she went to find another midwife, the heart rate drops were taken seriously and a doctor appeared. She went in with a crochet hook (I assume there is some medical name for this) to break my waters and speed things up to find that they'd vanished (so I hadn't wet myself) almost without a trace. I now think that part of the tiny bump was having nearly no amniotic fluid! They then put a heart rate monitoring clip on the baby's head (and stuck it to my leg with a sticky pad that wouldn't wash off for a fortight, despite my best efforts), and started telling me to move onto my side and so on to help settle the baby's heart beat - a much trickier operation than you would expect when you're in agony (bye bye nice mobile birth I'd hoped for!). I also wasn't at all in the mood for any of the nice labour massage we'd been shown at antenatal classes, I'd have been happy if no one ever touched me again.

 Once I got onto my side, I pointed out that it felt rather a lot like I needed to push, again they seemed a bit surprised, had a peek and yes, it was time. Lots more flapping about the heart rate, a rush to grab stirrups and I was ungraciously helped into them and told to start pushing. Definitely an odd experience, like having the biggest poo you can imagine. It really felt like there was no chance that a baby was going to come out, and I heard the awful words "I think we need to cut" from the doctor, and the midwife saying no, and the next thing I knew there was an anesthetic injection and a snip. Out pops the head (complete with cord around the neck), then a paediatrician hovering at the door waiting to take her away (in the triage rooms, there are no resus facilities!), one more big push and fllrrrpppp, out comes the body like an octopus and a wail goes up. Cord quickly snipped, baby looked fine and was handed to me. No big surprise, she turns out to be a girl who looks rather surprised. An undignified hour follows, with stitches, the question "Do you normally bleed this much when cut?", baby weighed (2940g), dressed and popped into a cot, a bath is run for me then we're left to get on with it. Weird.

It's all gone a bit John Hurt!

Flail baby is wriggly...

 

Bump shot!

Or "lack of bump" shot. Still, boobs have grown though!

 

Snow glorious snow!

Last frolick in the snow...turns out you should not try and make snow angels at 37 weeks pregnant, it is tricky to get up again.

Car Seat!

It's getting quite real...we have something to bring the baby home in!

 

Anomoly scan

Booting itself in the head!

The mega scary one...at least it was in the morning! I managed to drink a litre of liquid beforehand, more than I've drunk in a few days. When we got in there were two people there, a doctor training to do scans. She did all the basic measurements first for practise, then the sonographer took over and did it properly. Baby is measuring a weekish behind, skinny little belly and small head with great big long kangaroo legs, and is still incredibly active. Before the heart measurements could be done it crawled to a corner and folded up, refusing to move so I had to go out for a wee to drop it back down. Everything seems OK though, which is great. I went in to work afterwards and broke the news, everyone seemed pretty shocked. Mostly that I'd managed to hide it for so long!

 

12 week scan

Although everything was OK a fortnight ago, for some reason it was terrifying again. I've been throwing up, so the "full bladder" instruction was interesting. When we got there and "checked in" they asked if we wanted a photo, I said yes and nearly keeled over when they told me it'd be £10. While handing it over I managed the inappropriate question "Do you get your money back if it's not OK?". The lady looked at me like I was nuts, but said yes and handed over a counter.

In we went again, cold jelly on belly but this time there really was a baby, with wiggly arms and wiggly legs! It bounced around an awful lot, which seemed to make the sonographer extra grumpy (she didn't seem thrilled that I wasn't a size 6 waif). She turned the screen so I couldn't see which was a bit of a bummer, but Mike watched it escaping her and refusing to lie and let her measure the nuchal fold, so I've been offerend the quad test instead.


Morph is now "Flail Baby", and measured 12 weeks, up from 11+2!