Three weeks and many firsts

Today Baby Beatrice has been with us for three weeks and already I can't imagine our lives without her! It has been enjoyable, hard work, fun, tiring, sweet and even better than I imagined before. We have had many first over the last weeks. To name a few:

The realisation that I am a mother
After years of waiting. Finally. It fills me with immense gratitude. The night we spent in hospital I wore a wrist band. It said Beatrice's mother. Me. Wow. The first couple of weeks, every card mentioning how long we had to wait for her, every comment how welcome she was or simply the thought that she is finally here, made me cry. So many happy tears!

Laughing so much
It is great seeing Jonny with our daughter. They are so sweet together. And they make me laugh. I can't remember laughing so much for a long time. I hear Jonny talking to her, starting his sentences with "don't tell mummy" and then whispering the rest to her. They are my two favourite people in the whole wide world. I love our unit of three.

Going out for a walk- Daddy, daddy cool
Despite my good intentions of carrying Beatrice around in a sling until she could walk, we purchased a pram two weeks ago. The main reason I gave in is because we need something for her to sleep in when we move to Syria. Until her bed arrives in the air freight, she can sleep in the Bugaboo. That is one very expensive travel bed, I know. :-) So to make good use of it, we took her out for a walk when the weather was still nice. Owning a Bugaboo is a bit like having a motor bike. Or a dog. You acknowledge other owners and greet each other. It is funny.

Being asked about the state of my nipples
I have never had so many questions about my nipples. They are fine, thanks. Breast feeding is well established by now and I thoroughly enjoy it. I love the intimacy of feeling Beatrice's little body against mine. I love the fact that my body is feeding her, making her grow. And she is in a rush to grow, she's hungry all the time. As for me, I hope she does not grow up too fast!

Watching a film at night
One night the first week, we watched In Bruges. We only had to pause it about twenty times. :-) We subsequently realised that going to bed earlier was a better idea. It seems that all the hours sleep you get in before midnight count double. It is the only film we watched so far.

The first night without Jonny
Jonny left for Syria last Sunday. Beatrice probably felt I was upset, since she wouldn't settle all day. We knew before hand that the day would come and yet, when it really happens, it is tough. We miss him loads. We are so lucky to have granddad and grandma around, so the Corcutt girls are not alone. Lots of arms for Beatrice to sleep in. In fact, I doubt that she will sleep in her bed once grandma is gone too (granddad left today).

Going out for a drink
Yesterday Jonny's parents and I went to our local bar for a pre-dinner drink (it is alcohol free beer in case you wonder!). The bar is called Wicked Wines. Jonny's dad suggested they rename the place and give it a more baby friendly name: Wicked Whines. :-) This was not inspired by Baby Beatrice, who just slept whilst we were enjoying our drinks, jazz music and all.

Baby massage course
Yesterday Baby Beatrice and I went to our first baby massage lesson. She was on her best behaviour and looked at the other babies in a state of shock, clearly not understanding why they were crying so much. She did not seem to mind the massage. Probably because Jonny told her that big people pay good money for getting a massage!

And also: projectile vomiting (impressive!), sleepless nights, smiling (okay, I know people say it is just twitching, but I like to believe that she is practising her proper social smile. And boy, is it going to be pretty!), tummy cramps, meeting all her big cousins, me eating eggs and soldiers again, fitting into pre-pregnancy clothes (but still feeling a lot more comfortable in track suit bottoms) and eating my dinner over our daughter. Weird. I have not started sniffing her bottoms yet though, I always found that kind of weird too, watching other parents do that. Do you reckon you have to do that as a parent?

Our world in pictures: bathing time

Happy Birthday Beatrice!

Baby Beatrice is one week old today! And blimey has that week flown by... and she's changing so quickly. She already regained her birth weight a couple of days ago and is quickly piling on the grammes, so much so that the maternity nurse commented that Flo must be lactating cream rather than milk!

Already she is aware of her environment and focusing on people's faces when they pop by to visit. She's practising her smile quite regularly (she's going to be a bit of a charmer I think) and apart from last night, her feeding routine has been perfect, at about every three hours and even managing to go four or five hours through the night already!

There has been one disappointment though. Last week I made an agreement with her that she'd only do number ones when it's my turn to change her nappy. However, today she broke our agreement with a carrot soup of a poo! She seemed to find it amusing though...

The Beatrice birth story

Flo woke me at 3 am on Wednesday 6th August, having already spent an hour enduring the start of her contractions. We knew that baby Beatrice was on her way.

At around 6 am the contractions were lasting about one minute with three to four between each one; it was time to call the hospital! They instructed us to come to the maternity ward where they'd be waiting for us, but we took our time as we both had a shower and sat and had breakfast together before loading the car with the bags that Flo had packed weeks in advance.

We arrived at the hospital just after 8 am and got settled into our delivery room. After being introduced to the midwife and nurse, it was time for Flo to get examined; we were a little disappointed that she was only 3.5 cm dilated, but otherwise everything looked fine. We were given a choice of either returning home or staying at the hospital, but neither of us contemplated returning home for a second...

It was a tough morning for Flo. The contractions gradually became stronger and by 10 am I'd hooked her up to the TENS machine. I think we were both a little sceptical of this device, but it proved to certainly take the edge off the contractions. However, they were still obviously painful and the lack of sleep was not helping Flo's pain tolerance. So when we discovered around midday that dilation was still at only 5 cm and that the rate of dilation was currently only 0.5 cm/hour and at this rate Flo would only be fully dilated by evening, we elected to have an epidural in hope that it would enable Flo to rest a couple of hours before the final push.

By 4 pm Flo was fully dilated and the registrar broke her waters. However, her contractions slowed right down and by 5 pm she was administered some oxytocin to encourage the contractions that are necessary for delivery. Her epidural rate was also halved, since Flo needed to be able to feel when the contractions were coming.

Just before 6 pm Flo was ready to push. There had been a shift change in the gynaecology ward and the new registrar was excellent! She took her time to explain and show to Flo what was required and Flo did extremely well listening and responding to the directions from the registrar and the nurse. The delivery was really quick, especially for a first born, taking only twenty minutes.

I felt really privileged seeing our daughter enter into the world. It's not a pretty sight, but it is nonetheless remarkable and I admit to a a few tears rolling down my cheek once I saw her little face. It's an experience that I hope to never forget and one that I'll always cherish.

One of things that we'd requested from the midwife is that the baby be placed on Flo's chest and left to "baby crawl". The nurse later told Flo that they were very touched by our delivery and that it somehow felt special and perhaps this is why they felt confident and relaxed enough to let little baby Beatrice lie on Flo's chest for more than hour before they took her to be weighed and measured. During that time, we watched our little daughter develop her feeding instinct and trying to move towards Flo's breast. We both think that this experience has helped Beatrice tremendously in her feeding as she has since had no troubles latching on and breast feeding.

At 6:15 pm on Wednesday 6th August 2008, we became the proud parents of Beatrice Dorothy Corcutt, weighing in at 3.57 kg and 53 cm in length. She is a beautiful, healthy girl and we're both very much in love with her!

Forty-one weeks...

...and along comes Beatrice Dorothy.

Another visit to the midwife

The midwife asked me this afternoon what I was still doing there. I thought that was a rhetorical question.

She gave me a membrane sweep. While internally examining me, she "sweeped" a finger around the neck of my womb. This is as unpleasant as it sounds.... The aim is to separate the membranes around the baby from the cervix. This releases hormones called prostaglandins, which may kick-start labour.

Or it may not. None of the other very good suggestions have kick-started anything so far. So we wait and keep you all waiting too! :-)

40w2d and still pregnant

Today I went out for lunch with two girls I met at our pregnancy class. At 38,39 and 40 weeks pregnant we turned out to be a bit of an attraction walking down the street.

Over lunch we discussed the methods of bringing on labour. The basics, like eating fresh pineapple, drinking raspberry leaf tea, having sex or eating hot curries. One of the girl's friends had four cups of raspberry leaf tea and went into labour the same night. Exclamation mark! The friend was convinced this did the trick.

We were not so sure. Actually, we all agreed that by lack of randomised trials with raspberry leaf tea, you might as well have three cups of Earl Grey tea or one cup of Yak tea if you happen to live in Mongolia the day you go into labour. Babies tend to come when they are good and ready.

On an another note, according to this article, more babies are born during the week than during the weekend, with a statistically high number of children being born on Tuesdays. The lower staff levels of hospital maternity wards in hospitals and maternity centres had an effect on the timing of births.

There was me thinking how smart it is of babies to wait for when there is more medical staff around (and a bit of 'oh no, will I have to wait until after the weekend?'). Where of course the simple (and slightly boring) explanation is that most medical procedures are scheduled on... right... Tuesdays.

Any guesses what day this baby will get here?