Night and day? What are they?

Little Miss Faye (or Missy as her father has taken to calling her... hmm) is strapped to my chest in her trusty Baby Bjorn. She is fast asleep and has been since about 6.30 this morning. Her wakeful times are, conveniently, 10pm until about 11.30pm - frantic boob searching, sucks for two milli seconds, then screams - with a repeat at about 5am. In between she feeds beautifully once or twice and goes straight back to sleep.

Theories please? I wonder if a good old dose of formula at 10pm might do the trick. She behaves as though the milk just isn't coming quick enough which is easily possible having been drained all day!

Hence, I am a little tired. But not too tired. O is at nursery today (praise be) so I had a lie in and can sleep this afternoon if the need arises. My other slight concern is that F aye hasn't spent a single hour in her moses basket between 10pm and the morning! She's been in with me the whole time. Am I creating a rod for my own back? Is she too young for this to be an issue? 'Whatever works!' I hear you cry and you're probably right. But don't say 'I told you so' if, aged 10, Faye still insists on sleeping with us! I would like our bed to return to me and N alone at some point.

By the way, I made it to two playgroups last week. Admittedly my sis was with me which made it very easy, but it was so good to be doing something normal. And so many mums came and cooed at Faye and told me how great I was looking!

I must go and rescue some chicken from the oven for O's weekly meals... it's complicated this mothering lark.

I am still here...

Serious lack of blog action due to inability to sit in chair for any length of time! We are bearing up, but I have to admit to being surprised at how uncomfortable it's all been following my longed-for natural birth. Let's face it, there's nothing natural about something the size of a baby's head passing out of such a small exit!

The adrenalin rush of having a new baby also dropped away and I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed by how I'm going to cope when N goes back to work... I've got my sister coming and then my Mum so I'll be fine for the next couple of weeks. Then the fun will really start...

Faye is yelling for boobie juice so I'd better go! More soon...

Why oh why...?

...does everything have to hurt quite so much?! To add insult to injury I now have boobs that Jordan would be proud of. I suspect things may get worse before they get better! Feeding little miss is like some form of torture...

Roll on a week from now! But she is still gorgeous and I still feel miles better than I did at this point last time round... small mercies!

Another couple of pics...

SERIOUSLY out of date blog alert!!

Faye Kathryn was born on Tuesday 7th Feb at 6.35am. She weighed in at a healthy but civilized 7 lb 8oz and is - as you can see - absolutely gorgeous. We are so thrilled to have a little girl and equally thrilled at the manner of her arrival - no interventions! Hurrah and thank heaven.



Things kicked off on Monday night - waters went at half midnight and we called the doula over. By the time she arrived, I was finding the contractions pretty intense and really felt as though we should get to the hospital... no time for massage, oils, breathing exercises etc etc!

As I was huffing and puffing in the back of the car, we arrived at the entrance to the hospital we normally used. And yes, it was closed! Thankfully Anne the doula knew the route so we got there without too much stress. We were admitted into a tiny delivery room - with the dreaded monitoring machine lurking in the corner - and left on our own! Lots happening that night I think. Contractions were coming pretty thick and fast, but I had no idea how dilated I was which was a bit scary.

The midwife checked me a bit later and pronounced the wonderful news that I was fully dilated and ready to go! The serious business of pushing began. By God it was hard - full respect to all of you who've done this before. I had no idea what was involved and how much it would hurt! But it was the most wonderful experience ever at the same time - seeing Faye's head emerge was awesome. She was delivered onto me all slimey and gorgeous whilst the delightful 'third stage' was completed. I then had 40 minutes of vaginal embroidery which was hideous. The midwife was very proud of her handiwork though which I suppose amounts to good news.

I am so tired and happy and sore and relieved. All a big muddle of emotions. It will be great when I can walk around without the urge to clutch my undercarriage and when Faye decides it would be more sociable to sleep all night and eat all day rather than the other way round. But all in all we're over the moon! And we got that elusive VBAC...

More photos...

We saw the midwife this afternoon and baby is not as badly positioned as I feared... Baby's back is at the front but on the right hand side, so not 'OP' (completely back-to-back). This has set my mind at rest although I'm sure there's still plenty of time for it to change again! I also had various cramps yesterday evening which got N all excited but needless to say, nothing happened!

Baby's head isn't engaged yet - just floating about in the pelvic brim apparently! I hope the midwife knows her stuff... She seems to think the head needs to drop before anything will happen and that the cramps yesterday could have been from the uterus getting irritated by baby trying to get it's head in the right place. The uterus isn't hte only one getting irritated!

I cannot wait for this all to start now. It's about time all the unknowns of going into labour became known. More soon I hope!

Posteriors

Not of the 'doesn't he have a lovely posterior' kind but the dreaded 'posterior position prior to labour' kind.

I am now officially obsessed with the position of baby. I am being advised to crawl around the house, lean forward at every available opportunity and lie exclusively on my left side (despite the fact that my left hip now feels as though it's been well and truly crushed). The letters 'OP' in my antenatal book last Friday are filling me with horror and I'm convinced I'm going to have the world's most painful back labour.

The upshot of all this is that I am boring myself, let alone you lot, with this whole pregnancy business. With two days to go until the due date, you would have thought I might have reached some kind of reconciliatory Zen-like state. Far from it. The closer it gets, the more scared I seem to be.

Our lovely doula is being very positive about it all and hell, it's not exactly the end of the world what position the baby's in. At least its head is down! But despite knowing all this, my mind goes into an automatic pilot of worry-dom.

We had our last antenatal class this morning and the usual 'Good lucks' did the rounds. The girls do seem like a nice bunch and we've arranged a coffee shop liaison next Thursday for those of us still up the duff. The inevitable 'Hopefully we won't see you next week' comments did the rounds and it brought back all the memories of meetings in Urban Coffee, discussions about queue jumping and going overdue!

Seeing the midwife tomorrow, so I'll bore you with another post about position then...

Calm vibes needed please!!