2 weeks already!

I can't believe how quickly the time has passed!  Monday was Jakson's two week birthday and Rob's last day of paternity and I'm starting to realise how fast my wee man is going to grow up! 

Jakson is doing very well since all the chaos at the hospital, with only a few small challenges along the way.  The biggest of those challenges has been his weight and making sure he is feeding well.  Unfortunately, the combination of Jakson being born so tiny (2.9 kilos/6 pounds & 6 ounces) and my c-section make it more difficult for him to feed and subsequently gain weight.  In the first few days he lost .3 kilos which caused the midwives to be slightly concerned.  Despite it being normal for newborns to lose weight before they start gaining, Jakson lost a bit too much and was outside the 10% loss they consider normal. 

As a result they've been monitoring his weight every few days and at the last weigh-in J-man had re-gained .2 kilos.  So we are hopeful he's on the way back up to his birth weight.  The midwife is back tomorrow (Wednesday) to weigh him again and if he's back up to (or hopefully beyond) his original 2.9 kilos we will know all is well.  I think the comparison of week 1 vs. week 2 photos shows a slight bit of growth...?

Week 1



Week 2



Getting the hang of feeding has been directly linked to his weight gain but over the last week Jakson has been feeding like a maniac - i call him my little vampire because he just wants to feed all the time.  I think he's doing what is referred to as 'cluster feeding' as he can go for hours upon hours and only take short breaks between feeds.  This often happens in the evenings so from approx 8 pm until midnight I am feeding almost non-stop.  This is obviously good for him in the weight-gaining department and does indicate he's in the midst of a growth spurt but does present some challenges for mummy.  I'm pretty sore these days but doing my best to get through.  Luckily i think both Jakson and I have nearly got the hang of things and I'm hopeful the feeding process will be nothing short of a normal part of the routine within the next week or so.  Let's hope anyway...

Other happenings over the last couple of weeks include my parents finally making the trek to London to visit and meet their first grandchild.  It has taken over two years for them to gather the nerve and make the trip but they are finally here.  Here they are cuddling with Jakson:

We also took Jakson out for his first walk in the pram, which he truly enjoyed.  I however found it challenging as it's the most i've done since the surgery and i pretty much felt every step in my belly and around my incision.  I'm sure the pain will fade over the next few weeks but right now I'm reminded of my c-section pretty much every time i move.  I continue to remind myself that I need to take it easy...which is not easy for me and not much fun, I must admit.  But, here is a shot of the first adventure out in the buggy:

Jakson has also started to develop a little personality.  I know they say babies this young don't smile but i swear this kid has a lovely little happy face!  He of course does the standard newborn smile in his sleep but he also smiles a fair bit when i speak to him and smile at him.  He gets so excited sometimes he just can't contain himself.  It's just precious to see!!  And he's becoming more alert after feedings and for short intervals during the day.  He loves to look around and take in his surroundings, it's so amazing to think what he must be feeling/seeing/experiencing in these first few weeks.  You can see for yourself how much he's developed over the first two weeks, this is my favourite photo so far...i'm sure you'll understand why :)

Welcome to the World!

Jakson Daniel O'Brien was born on Monday, 11 April, 2011 at 10:59 am.  Jakson weighed in at a healthy 6 pounds + 6 ounces (2.9 kilos) and measured 54 cm long.  Needless to say, he is just gorgeous!  He's so petite and quite lean which was a shocker to us as Robert and I are both chunkers.  But we are both over the moon and eager to show him off to the world!!

Aside from the obvious facts around weight and length, I can also confirm he definitely has my nose, Robert's lips and we think Roberts eyes, although only time will tell as the colour develops.  But he certainly has a gorgeous set of eye lashes that indicate he will take after his father in this area.  Here's a couple of shots of our bundle an hour or so after delivery:

It's a shame that the lead up to and actual delivery was such a crazy ride.  It's also one hell of a long story, so here goes my attempt to recall the important facts of what happened.  Then I am going to promptly put most of them out of my mind forever.  Yes, it was that bad.  Here goes:

Is this labour?
I *think* labour started on Friday evening as I started getting somewhat painful yet irregular contractions.  Nothing to call the hospital about but enough to make us think something was happening.  After a fairly sleepless night on Friday we decided to chill out as much as possible on Saturday and see what transpired.  Rob made us a lovely bit of bbq with meats from our organic butcher (which plays a role in this story) and we just chilled out.  Well by about 8 pm it became obvious that I was going into labour after the 'show' appeared and the contractions started to get quite regular.  I also had a fairly upset stomach and thought it was simply nature taking it's course to clear out my system but again, this will play a role in the story later. 

By about 12 am the contractions were quite regular and anywhere from 8-10 minutes apart so we decided to call the hospital and see what we should do.  The hospital recommended we stay at home until the contractions were closer to 4-5 minutes apart and suggested I take some paracetamol with a hot bath to ease the pain.  Well, after spending 4 hours in the bath, at the ripe old hour of 5 am,  the contractions were now about 5 minutes apart and I was in a fair bit of agony so we decided to call the hospital again and tell them we were coming.  Unfortunately, they asked us to give it another hour, until the contractions were closer to 3 minutes apart and then come in.

The Hospital Experience
We are arrived at the hospital at 1030 am on Saturday morning, ready to find out how things were getting on and praying I was more than 1-2 cm dilated.  Well, we should have known with the NHS that there would be a wait and boy was there...we spent 2 hours in the waiting room just contracting and watching other women contract around us - i honestly thought one woman was going to have her baby on the floor of the waiting room as she was in so much agony.  I think it's fair to say this sets the stage for our hospital experience...

Once we were finally taken to a room to be seen I noticed that my contractions were no longer as regular and no longer <5 minutes apart but back to 10-15 minutes.  I also continued to have a bad stomach...as did Rob...which made us realise this was not a sign of labour but a case of food poisoning from the organic butcher meat!!  So, on top of contractions, I was having stomach cramps and regular visits to the loo.  NOT FUN.  After discussing with the midwife we realised that the food poisioning was likely what kick started my labour and now that it was passing the contractions were becoming less intense and less regular.  Ugh.

So after an initial exam, the midwife was able to confirm that after almost 48 hours of contractions i was a mere 1 cm dilated.  I was livid: 1 bloody cm!!?  In addition, my blood pressure had skyrocketed and was the worst it's ever been so of course, the midwife needed to bring in the doctor to discuss how to proceed.

The Induction
After waiting for another 4 hours the doctor finally came to see us.  I think by this point it's fair to say we were pretty annoyed as we'd been sitting in this room, contracting, with no information, nobody telling us what was going on, just waiting...for hours.  After all this waiting the dr. recommended we start a series of induction tactics to get the ball rolling along with a number of medications to get the blood pressure down.  He was concerned that my blood pressure and protein in my urine were sure signs I had pre-eclampsia and there was no way they were letting me go home without having this baby.  His recommendations to induce were the standard; a "stretch and sweep" accompanied by a drip of cintocin to get things going.  They would then check how dilated I was after 4 hours and reevaluate next steps.  Only problem: the labour ward was so busy that they wouldn't do any of these tactics until later in the evening as the risk was too high.  So they recommended Rob and I 'take a walk' and get something to eat.  Sweet.

The induction was formally initiated somewhere between midnight and 2 am with the "stretch and sweep", a term that will forever be ingrained in my mind as the most invasive and brutal medical technique ever experienced, especially when being done by a man (might be a slight exageration but to me, it was horrible).  For those of you who've had one, you know what i'm talking about.  I felt violated and horribly abused after this procedure but unfortunately, before the night was over, I would experience two more of them at increased levels of invasiveness. 

In addition, I had to get the hormone drip set-up (cintocin) which makes for very painful contractions so I also had to get an epidural, which had always been part of my birth plan.  However, the anesthesiologist was a complete numpty and made it very painful.  I've had an epidural in the states when i broke my ankle so I knew what it was supposed to (not) feel like and I have to say, this was a fairly bad experience.

So all in all, after three stretch and sweeps, including two attempts to break my water + a painful epidural and constant baby monitoring they noticed that Jakson's heartbeat was dropping consistently every time they did something to me.  It also started dropping when I stood up or even remained on my back so i spent the next couple of hours propped up on my left side wondering what the hell was gonna happen...enter plan for c-section.

Emergency C-Section
So obviously, all the stress of the stretch and sweeps along with the aggressiveness of the doctors to move things along created a fair bit of distress for baby boo.  Ultimately, a decision was made to do an emergency c-section and get him out as soon as possible.  Thank god b/c as they wheeled me into the operating theatre they noticed the meconium - coming out of me!!  This accelerated the need to get little boo out ASAP and good thing they did - when they removed him he was literally covered in shit, head to toe.  So more emergency procedures to get the meconium out of him, which involved tubes down his nose and throat and lots of checks to make sure he was completely clean of any potential sources of infection.  Luckily, he was ok and was able to come back to recovery with us. 

The Aftermath
After an hour in recovery, I was wheeled to the post-natal ward where I would spend the next 24 hours.  Now all you American's out there will appreciate this as I did not have a private room as you would in the states but instead was placed in a large room with a number of other women and their new bundles, separated by curtains.  Not only was there NO privacy but it was SO loud.  All the babies were crying, most of the women had their large and extended families with them visiting and it was a constant flow of people in/out of the ward.  So while I lay in bed trying to forget what had happened over the past 12 hours and focus on my gorgeous little boo, I had all sorts of commotion going on around me.

I also started to notice that Jakson was very lethargic, not crying much and just not responding.  Well come to find out, all the drugs they were pumping into me to control my blood pressure were having an effect on him: he was drugged up!  Ugh!  So poor Boo spent the first hours of his life in a 'come down' from the drugs.  Poor Boo :(  Thank god he's ok now, aside from a scratch on his head that we think was a result of one of the attempts to break my water.  I wish I could sue those bastards!

My first night in the post-natal ward was pretty scary and surreal and since it was a 'ward' they did not allow Robert to stay with me.  So I was left to fend for myself and Boo alone on our first night and I couldn't even get out of bed!  So every time i wanted to comfort or hold him i had to ring the bell for the nurse to get him out of his cot and hand him over to me.  This stress combined with the level of noise prevented me from getting any sleep as all the crying by the babies was just unbearable.  Even with ear plugs I was unable to tune out the noise from the babies crying all around me.  So you start to notice: Friday NO sleep, Saturday NO sleep, Sunday NO sleep and now Monday...NO SLEEP!!  I was exhausted by the time we went home!

Luckily, the second night was a bit better as i had been on a waiting list for a private room from the very beginning (despite a cost of £250/night) and was able to move to this room for some privacy and Rob could stay with me.  This was much better and allowed us to get into the swing of things with a newborn.  Here is Jakson and I on night two in our private room:

Heading Home
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting and anticipating, we were finally able to take Jakson home on Wednesday, 13th April around noon.  It was a surreal experience and super exciting to load him up into his car seat and make the move from the hospital to home. 

As I've had a c-section I can't do much beyond picking Jakson up so the last few days have been exciting, challenging, frustrating, emotional, fantastic and just completely mental.  Luckily, in the UK they have the community midwives who visit you at home after the birth.  I've had two visits in the last 4 days - and she's back again on Monday.  They've been able to support me in my attempts to breastfeed and also give us a lot of support on all those pesky questions you have as first time parents.  Things like: 'is it normal if he does this' or 'what do you do when...' can easily be answered in the comfort of our own home.  The midwife also removed my stitches today and I can confirm I'm healing well, tho she did have to remind me to eat, rest and not do anything as i've just had major surgery. 

Luckily this is somewhat possible as Rob's family is simply amazing.  I don't know how we would have gotten through the last week without them!  They've done everything from make us meals to clean the flat (thanks, Clare!!!) and bring us pressies (we like pressies).  They've picked up shopping and just made themselves available for any support we need.  This has been such a significant source of help for us, especially after my c-section, I don't know what we would have done without them. 

So now it's time to start focusing on our little boo.  He's truly amazing, we just sit and watch him every day and think how lucky we are.  It has come with it's challenges, as expected, but they were/are all so worth it.  We are still figuring out the sleeping thing, the breastfeeding thing, etc, etc.  And what is so unanticipated is that he's so diddy that none of his clothes fit him!  Such a wee little bah, as Nana Rose would say.

Here are a few pics from the last two, totally mental, days:

I love this photo!  Rob looks gorgeous and Jakson is so tiny!!



After a feed...he pretty much zonks out.  Good sign!

Catching zzzzz's any way we can these days.



A cozy Jakson



Showing off my new little boo.



My beautiful boys!!



This isn't funny anymore!

I'm starting to feel like I'm living the movie ground hog day as each visit to the hospital is eerily similar to the one before.  So long story short: went to the Dr. today, blood pressure was high again, had a slight increase in protein in the urine (up from a trace to +1) and the midwife seemed convinced the Dr. would want to induce me before the weekend was over as again, the BP and the protein in urine are both signs of the pre-E.

The midwife also did an internal exam to see if i was dilated at all and sweep the cervix if possible.  Well, wouldn't you know my cervix is still closed - no dilation at all!  Agh!  So the good news (i guess?) is that the cervix is soft and short which means my body is doing something to prepare but it's not open which is the sure tell that labour is imminent.  So after the midwife left me we waited anxiously for the Dr. to tell us whether we need to come back within 48 hours or get a bit longer.  The verdict: The Dr. is happy for me to have the weekend but i am due back Monday morning for another scan, more monitoring and to schedule a date for induction.  Blah!

The other annoyance in my daily life is that the SPD pains have gotten increasingly worse over the last week or so.  Each step feels like thousands of needles are probing into my groin and there is no relief in sight except for not walking and sitting still.  My lower pelvic/groin area feels like it's literally falling off sometimes and pain is so bad I can hardly walk from our flat to the car without whimpering in agony. 

So the plans for this weekend: sit on my butt and drink a nice castor oil and orange juice concoction.  Another method sworn by many pregnant women (including Rob's cousin, Char) to induce labour while also bringing on diarrhea and lots of stomach cramping.  Sweet, really looking forward to what is supposed to be a beautiful weekend in London.  Blah.

40+2=34

In other words, I'm 40 weeks and 2 days prego today, on my 34th birthday! So here's what 40 weeks and 34 years looks like:

It's been a fairly uneventful birthday, as I expected. We spent the morning at the hospital in the prolonged pregnancy clinic, trying to figure out what to do with me. The good news is that baby boo is very healthy and he has a strong heart beat. We got to see him on a scan but the most i could make out was a femur bone and his spine as he was so scrunched in there it was hard to tell head from toe, literally.

Everything is fine with my blood pressure as well and the pre-E symptoms have stayed at bay so all-in-all things are looking good!  The somewhat bad news is that if boo doesn't arrive by Friday then they will begin the induction process with a membrane sweep.  I'm of mixed emotions about being induced and I go back and forth between wanting it and wanting boo to come on his own.  At this point however I'm so uncomfortable and concerned for his well-being that i'd prefer him to be here more than I'd prefer not to be induced which means one way or another he should be here by early next week.  So it's safe to assume that between today and Friday I'll be doing everything possible to get this baby out naturally.  Extra hot curry (and I hate curry!!), lots of pineapples, bouncing on my maternity ball, etc., etc.

Since I will be forced to eat curry tomorrow (blah), I made sure to enjoy a lovely birthday meal with the O'Brien clan this evening.  We went to a little Sardinian/Italian restaurant down the street from our flat called 'Little Sardegna'.  Rob and I love this little restaurant as it's very authentic, the food is excellent and it reminds us of our trip to Sardinia from a few years back.  Here are a few photos from our lovely meal:

It came...it went...

My due date, that is.  Thankfully it was also 'mothering sunday' in the UK so I was able to spend the day with Clare, Carol, Irene, Nan, Char and the beautiful Sophia to take my mind off what DIDN'T happen.  Unfortunately I was too busy pigging out on my blueberry pancakes to snap a photo of the crew (doh!) but it was a lovely brunch just the same.  This was Robert and my first introduction to Sophia who is just over 3 months now and she was so lovely!  So well behaved and smiley - i can only hope baby boo is as well mannered as that little darling. 

I was also lucky enough to receive a lovely little gift from Robert for what could have been my first mothers day.  It consisted of some lovely flowers (gerber daisies - my fave!!), a boo inspired hand lotion and a nice glittery card.  He is so thoughtful!!

Aside from our mothers day brunch, Rob and I spent the weekend walking all over north London - we shopped along upper street and church street all day Saturday.  We literally walked for what felt like hours - thinking the exercise and walking would do me good to move things along.  But still, nothing.  One of the highlights of our trip was to pick up some seedling plants for our patio garden:

Peas in the window box

Tomatoes and Strawberries

Baby boo is certainly taking his sweet time and everyone thinks he's holding out to come on my birthday - which is tomorrow (5th April).  I however don't think he will make an appearance until later.  I just don't have any signs of pending labour despite doing many of the things they say will induce labour naturally.  I bounce on my exercise ball, I've eaten spicy food, eaten pineapple, etc.  So I guess I just continue waiting...

We are off to another doctor appointment tomorrow to check on the pre-E symptoms and I'll also get another scan of boo to see if all is well on the inside.  I would anticipate if nothing happens by Friday that i will be induced.  Funny that the idea of induction was so unappealing to me initially but the longer this goes on the more I'm warming to the idea.  I'm ready for this little boo to get here!  it's time to move into the next phase!!