Still tired, but over the moon about having Jessica with us (and that she was a week early considering her birth weight…). Feel really privileged to have had the birth that I wanted. Was really hoping not to have to use anything stronger than gas & air for pain relief and dreading having to go into theatre due to some complication or other, but ended up having a “nice, straightforward, natural birth” (to quote the delivery midwife). In spite of seeing loads of different midwives due to shift work (and NHS understaffing…?), the 24-hour professional and caring support I had in hospital helped boost my confidence about caring for our little ‘un.
One of our very first activities at home yesterday was a family snooze. I only got about 3 hours sleep in total during mine and Jessica’s stay in hospital, so I certainly needed it… The rest of the day Ian and I mainly spent getting our heads around being three instead of two, stopping to look at each other and Jessica every so often and just thinking “Wow…!” (Have forgotten to say that she has light brown hair and deep blue eyes – though this might of course change with time.) Our first night at home went well, with our little girl waking up maybe every 2-3 hours for a bit of a moan or smacking her lips and one of us getting up to check if she needed anything – no big dramas.
Today, Jessica received a nice, big parcel with balloon, teddy and choccies (Mum will be very happy to assist her consuming the latter…!) from Auntie Wendy and Uncle Tom, and some lovely cards from friends and family. In the afternoon, Dad and Jessica “jiggled about” to some Red Hot Chilli Peppers (need to influence her taste in music early!).
My midwife also came over for a check-up today around lunch-time, which gave us the opportunity to run a list of questions by him and get some general reassurance that we were doing things okay. Ian had noticed this morning that Jessica was slightly jaundiced, but in the third day of life this is apparently “text book” and nothing to worry about – she just needs a bit of UV light (though not direct sunlight, of course) and a bit of time to get into the feeding. Also, the midwife advised me that I now need 1000 more calories a day (!) whilst breastfeeding, which actually feels like it’ll be a bit of a challenge at the moment…
Our lives have really changed, in ways that we’re yet not able to comprehend… For now, we’re just taking one thing at the time – it seems impossible to do anything else.