Monday 31st of May 1999
Today is a Bank Holiday, but your dad is working at Ladbrokes. He hates it so much that he is leaving in two weeks, to work at the University in the Finance Dpt., for the summer. After that he will be going back to university Full-time. Anyway, while he was working we spent the day at home. We woke up at 10. I put you in your cot (you don’t sleep there, but you like playing there in the mornings for a little while) went downstairs, had a coffee. I fed you at 11 (banana porridge). You had a massive poo and I washed your bum in the sink (as I always do when you fill your nappy). We played for a while. You like eating your cardboard books: “At the Seaside” and “Busy Days in The Garden” very much. And if you drop them or can’t reach them you start crying. It’s quite amusing. I must admit that sometimes I take them away, just to hear you cry and then give them back, which makes you stop instantly. It’s like an on/off switch.
We then went out for a little while so I could go to the bank and the shop. When we came back I rocked you for a bit on your “Rolls-Royce”, and you went to sleep. I rushed to the kitchen to make myself something to eat. I had Spinach soup with noodles and ham (I love it!). After I finished eating you were still asleep, so I switched the computer on to finish installing more software.
The scanner I bought a couple of weeks ago was playing up yesterday, so I ended up re-formatting the whole of drive C (just for fun, and to keep the system nice and clean) yesterday afternoon. In the meantime your dad was upstairs fiddling with his motherboard… Since he bought his computer 2 years ago, it has never worked properly, and now his hobby is to try to get the stupid machine to work. He has tried everything, changing memory, power supply… In the process he is becoming an expert on hardware, which is a good thing.
Anyway, back to today, you woke up after an hour’s sleep, at around 1pm, and we sat in front of the computer while I finished installing things. You were wriggling and complaining, so I decided to record your little noises for a while.
Your grandma was supposed to come around early in the afternoon to see you but she only showed up at 4 o’clock, by then I was annoyed with her (she keeps showing up 2 hours later than expected). I gave you an apple rusk dissolved in water (do you think I’m going into too much detail here? Probably, but that’s me for you). Your grandma took you for a walk in Highbury Fields, while I was left to wrestle with the scanner, which was playing up again. I fixed it (this time all I had to do was switch the computer off) and scanned a few photos of me and your dad (from when we were young, around 18) for you to look at one day. One thing that worries me, keeping all this data saved for years and years… You two came back an hour later, and you were asleep, as always. All we have to do is take you out and you fall asleep.
Your grandma played with you for a while after you woke up and then your father arrived from work. The four of us talked for another while, your granny went home, I went on the Internet for ½ an hour while R. played with you. You had dinner at 7:30, then bottle. While I was rocking you, your dad microwaved last night’s dinner (Rogan Josh & rice). We ate, you watched me eat and moaned a bit. Then you slept. I came to computer again, to type this. After about ½ an hour you woke up crying (It was then 21:00). R. was determined to make you sleep giving you the bottle and rocking you. I just wanted to put you on my breast, and this is where you are now. After your dad gave you the bottle (you were having a good cry) and rocked you, you fell asleep for 5 minutes. Your dad went upstairs and you woke up crying. So… I had to resort to breast, which is a bad habit, but it’s the only way I get to do anything.
Back to your birth saga: We got transferred to Cerns ward, where all the other mums who had babies too stay afterwards. R. had to leave at 8pm (so did everyone else), so before he left he sorted out a telephone card for me; we were just in a state of shock (happy shock, but nevertheless very scary). I could barely move my legs because of the epidural. You were next to my bed on a hospital cot. We phoned a few people, including R.’s mum who was coming to London the next day with Warren, and also Mark who was coming too. R. went home, to make everything ready for your arrival (whatever was left to be done) and the family & friends arrival.
I just had another sleepless night! After I had a delicious dinner (I was soooooo hungry and now my stomach could expand a lot more), I tried getting up and wobble around for a while. You were asleep, peacefully. I looked at you, phoned more friends… Then finally I tried to sleep. I got about ½ hour and then it started. Babies crying everywhere! Then you started crying… I was trying to pick you up from the cot but I had no strength. As I was struggling to get up (they really should let the fathers stay for the first night, but that’s the NHS for you), two nurses appeared from nowhere and opened the curtains. They asked if I was all right. I said I guess I was, but I couldn’t even pick you up. One of the nurses handed you to me and I tried to give you my breast for the first time.
You were very upset by then and you didn’t want it. The same nurse (Irish woman), picked you up again, trying to calm you down, to no avail. She then (she was talking all the time but I couldn’t hear a word because of the crying), opened your mouth really wide, and, faster than a bullet, shoved your mouth around my breast! And then: you stopped crying. It was so sweet to see you there, content again. The nurse showed me to stroke your temple to encourage sucking and left us alone. I spent the whole night with you in my arms, and you didn’t cry again. I slept on and off, other babies kept waking me up, and me worrying about crushing you also kept me up.
It was daytime again and I got up to have the first wee-wee without a catheter since I was first given the epidural. I could walk again, but I was very sore. I had this massive needle stuck on my hand (I needed glucose during labour, as I hadn’t eaten for a while before) which was hurting a lot, especially when I moved my hand. So I had to go after a nurse to have it removed (they seemed to have forgotten about the needle, it should have been taken out the night before). R. showed up at 10, fuming, because they nearly didn’t let him, as people could only come in after 2pm. He couldn’t stay long, and the nurses said I couldn’t leave yet, as the paediatrician hadn’t seen you (I just wanted to leave, I hate hospitals).
R. left and said he would be back later with Shah (who had a car) to pick us up at 2pm. I had breakfast, took a photo of you. My nipples were already getting sore from breastfeeding. According to the nurses it was because you didn’t latch on properly. I just thought it was that way, I thought sore nipples were part of the process. Maira had them, so I thought everyone else did… I spent the whole morning trying to get discharged. By 1pm I was ready to leave, the doctor had seen you and you were ok, I was ok, I just needed a nurse to let me go.
As the shifts had changed, the previous nurse who was about to discharge me conveniently forgot to tell the new nurse I wanted to leave. So when R. & Shah came back, and nothing was happening, I had to run around looking for the head nurse. After about an hour I was finally discharged. The nurse advised me to stay another night, but after the night before there was no way I was going to stay. And we had guests back home!
R. & Shah dropped me home, R. went to Euston to pick up his mum, brother and Mark. When everyone came back we were asleep, in bed. I was so exhausted I wasn’t thinking straight anymore, so I just collapsed. R. took you upstairs and I had a blissful two hour sleep! When I woke up I was ready to see everyone. My mum was here too, and Francis and Tony. We had pizzas to celebrate. On our first night at home, you slept next to me in the same bed. And that’s how it’s been ever since. The one good thing about it is that, apart from a couple of nights, you never really woke up crying in the middle of the night; we never had to get up in the middle of the night. And the exhaustion that comes with having a newborn only lasted for a few days. Because you were feeding pretty much all the time for the first 4 weeks, I just had you with me, on my breast all the time too.
For the first ten days I was in pain, as my nipples tried to heal. They got pretty bad at one point, I almost had a bad infection on one of the nips. But the midwives that came to visit gave some tips on healing them and by the end of the second week we were plain sailing. I had managed to breastfeed you (I really didn’t believe I was going to be able to!).