I am growing by the day

Jack says: Hello fans! Jack Fischler here. Had my weigh-in at the Maternal Health Centre today and have put on a massive 780g in the last two weeks. Almost double the average weight gain for my age group. The nice nurse lady gave me a gold star for being such a good eater. I have also grown by 4cm. No wonder those newborn clothes don’t fit me any more.

Grandma says when I’m hungry I sound like a pig snuffling for truffles. I don’t know exactly what that is but I’m sure it’s a good thing. Sometimes I eat so much I’m sick. I did the coolest projectile vomit the other night – all over the duvet, sheets and the feet of my babygro. Mum was seriously impressed and even changed my outfit to celebrate the occasion.

Although I have to say that since then I seem to be sucking on a dummy more often than a nipple. Mum called me a ratbag and Dad said that wasn’t a nice thing to call a baby. But Dad speaks with a funny accent and I don’t think he knows what a ratbag is.

Keelie says: Jack is still entertaining us and remains (on the whole) a placid little fellow. We are starting to get smiles which are amazing! He makes many strange noises and faces. At night he sleeps in with mum and me and keeps us amused with his varied range of sighs, snorts, grunts, and farts.

It still takes so long to get anything done at the moment. The most stressful aspects of baby rearing (for me) are currently as follows:

1) Getting me and Jack out of the house to be somewhere at a set time. Today it took approximately two and a half hours to make it to the Maternal Health Centre for 11.30. This is with the assistance of my mum who did the dishes, made breakfast, hung up the washing and kept an eye on Jack while I had a shower and got dressed. Jackie please don't leave!

2) Getting the washing done. In my mind there is a mountain of washing and if I don’t keep on top of it it will engulf me and I will drown in a sea of burp rags, bunny rugs and dirty baby clothes. Rainy days are a nightmare as we have no tumble dryer and our already crowded apartment resembles a Chinese laundry.

3) Working out whether ‘waaaaa’ means ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I think I’m hungry but actually I might just need a nap’. If I get this wrong, it tends to result in vomit which is not helpful in my fight against the washing tsunami.

4) Waking up to find Jack has wet his suit and the bed sheet. After a brief struggle with my tired conscious (he’ll be fine – it’s only a bit damp) I get up, change everything and eye the washing mountain with increasing trepidation.

5) Changing Jack's nappy often enough to keep him poo-free but not so often that it (a) wakes him up, and (b) uses 24 nappies a day. Because that's pretty much how often poo comes out of him.

My mind is so full of baby things that it feels like there is no room to think about anything else. If I try and edge in a conversation on some other topic then something of prime importance will fall out the other side. Like remembering to get the washing in before it rains. Even a conversation about what day and time to go and see Batman at the cinema causes me stress.

I am assured that the magical six week mark is when it all falls into place. Less poo, toughened nipples, longer sleeps, an ability to identify your baby's different cries and the emergence of a routine which enables some level of planning in your day. More washing though I suspect.

This is also the target for resuming sexual activity - provided of course that your doctor gives you the all clear at your check-up. I have read reports of women returning home with a slightly amended version of the doctor's verdict: 'Hmm, the doctor says it will take a bit longer before sex is back on the menu. Yeah terrible news! He says maybe even as long as a year*...I know, I'm disappointed too. Honestly I am.'

*Time added on is proportional to the level of maternal tiredness.

More photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=138186&l=694bf&id=855875421

Grandma comes to town!

Jack is three weeks and one day old. Feels like he's been here for much longer.

Grandma Jackie arrived on Wednesday. After a brief but frustrating delay getting the luggage off the tarmac and a few tears in front of immigration:

Immi: What are you going to be doing here for 17 days?
Jackie: Meeting my grandson for the first time.
Immi: Oh how lovely!
Jackie: Yes...and I haven't seen my daughter since..(starting to lose it)..sob..sob..Christmas...

In view of the Qantas incident which happened two days later on the same plane and flight it could have been much worse. For those of you who don't know, an explosion tore a hole in the luggage hold of the plane. The pilot was forced to drop the plane by 20,000 feet as not all the gas masks were working and managed to land the plane in Manilla. If they had been further from land they would probably have crashed. Everyone survived but the luggage is being held as part of the investigation.

Mum brought my noooo Bugaboo stroller from England in a suitcase. Two days later and she could have ended up in Manilla with my new Bugaboo stroller being held as evidence. Either that or it might have ended up in a Philippino village (if you don't know what a Bugaboo is - like, where have you been??!).

Anyway she made it and is looking after us all. Apparently whatever you eat whilst breast-feeding, an hour later the baby gets a taste of that food. Which is how babies develop their palate. Jack is developing a very English palate having had a roast lamb milkshake tonight and an English fry-up milkshake this morning.

We are starting to get the hang of things here. For now, Jack's main hobbies remain mostly limited to sleeping and eating. He does also quite enjoy staring at faces and crying in his new stroller.

It is also very tiring. If you breastfeed and a feed takes up to an hour, and you feed 8 times a day, that's a full time job already! Any sleep you have is broken into 2-4 hour chunks. Combine that with nappy changes, picking out cute outfits, mopping up sick and getting him off to sleep. In between are brief windows for keeping on top of a mountain of dirty washing, taking a shower, eating and of course checking facebook and writing a blog. Well it doesn't leave much 'me' time.

Luckily he is just cute enough to ensure his ongoing participation in our family. It is amazing that a 3 week old can have such high entertainment value due to a incredibly wide range of facial expressions, strange sounds and just being generally adorable.

Thanks to our new babysitter Alexis and I went for our first post-birth dinner date yesterday. It was great! It didn't feel at all weird to leave the baby - quite the opposite. But I guess there's a big difference when you leave your baby with family. We hired an industrial breast pump so we could express a feed for him and escape for longer. There's nothing like having a baby attached to one nipple and pump to the other to make you feel more like a human cow. We came home to find Jack asleep on Grandma. Apparently she had spent most of the night unsuccessfully trying to get him to sleep in his bassinet. He would sleep for about ten minutes then wake up and realise he had yet again been palmed off and start crying. In the end she gave up and let him snuggle on her chest.

Too tired to write more.

More Jack piccys on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3565656&l=0bdd9&id=855875421

A day in the life of Jack Fischler - aged 14 and a half (days)

I wake up at about 9.30 and the warm, milky one that usually sleeps beside me is gone. I can hear her trying to make tea and toast really quickly in the kitchen and that reminds me that I’m ravenous so I let out a loud wail to make sure she knows I’m ready for breakfast too.

She comes back minus her breakfast and gives me kisses but right now I’m not interested. I only have one thing on my mind. It takes us a few goes but eventually I get what I want. Breakfast is served. Yum. I don’t know why but she always says ‘reeeeady…GO!’ when she tries to shove as much nipple in my mouth as possible.

A nice lady called Kate comes over and makes some fresh toast. I know this because I can feel warm crumbs dropping on my head as I eat.

Sometimes I like to have another sleep after breakfast but this morning I feel a bit lively so I’ll have a kick about on my mat and maybe a bit of a grizzle. I know the milky one is waiting for me to go to sleep because she keeps wrapping me up really tightly and rubbing my back. I believe she wants a shower but I think there’s better things we could be doing. Like elevenses.



Kate rubs my tummy in a very satisfying fashion while the milky one disappears. Feeling a bit hungry again…

I’m having trouble sleeping so she puts me in the baby carrier and takes me to the post office to pick up a parcel from Lizzie and Stu. It’s so snug and cosy that I soon drift off. I wake up in the bassinet which is very confusing. Not happy! And I’m desperately hungry again. The milky one comes to get me and after a few minutes we settle down for a nice feed. Then she takes me to bed and lets me fall asleep on her chest which is pretty much my favourite place to sleep.

When I wake up I’m bloody starving so we have dinner. It’s been a long day so before long I’m off in the land of nod again sleeping my way through the best part of the evening. I think I heard the warm, non-milky one come home – we’ll catch up later. I know he likes to stay up late and chat.

Peace!

Ten days old

I decided to attempt a blog to keep friends and family up-to-date with Jack's news. It's hard finding the time to email everyone individually so this is the next best thing I reckon. We'll see how it goes!

It's been a complete roller coaster since Jack arrived. The birth was incredibly intense - a most amazing experience. Although I did pretty much everything the way I wanted to I did feel like I let myself down in the last hour because I was begging the midwife to find another way to get him out. I felt like he was turning me inside out and instead of trying to go with the contractions I fought them all. Which ultimately made it harder for me and more stressful for Jack. He cried for a good ten minutes after I finally ejected the little so-and-so and I think it was because it was taking such a long time for him to get through the birth canal. But then he settled down and spent some quiet time staring at me and Alexis. It was mind-blowing. And all accompanied by a cocktail of hormones designed to make you fall in love with the strange little being that has been bumping around in my stomach for the past few months.

With a bit of hindsight and having spoken to other women about their birth experience I now feel quite lucky. Minimum intervention and a pretty happy baby. So far anyway!

The first night in hospital wasn't a great nights sleep. They say newborns sleep like a log the first night but Jack has obviously not read that page of the baby manual. I was sharing a room and awoke to hear a baby coughing and choking and I thought to myself 'why doesn't that woman help her baby?'. When the sleep fog cleared a little I realised it was Jack choking on a bit of mucous. Oops. A mother just knows her baby's cries.

Alex arrived in the morning to a picture of maternal bliss - me asleep and Jack asleep beside me in my arms. On closer inspection he enquired 'what happened? you look really tired...'

Since then, all I've managed to do is hang on for the ride. I am veering between two extremes: tears because I want someone to take him away and tears because I feel such a depth of love for him it knocks me sideways.



Jack is ten days old today. He has been asleep most of today which is unfortunate as we went to breastfeeding school and he only fed twice while we were there. Hopefully he learns by osmosis.

Breastfeeding, as it turns out, is not as easy as it looks. My very sore nipples recoil in fear every time Jack snuffles for a feed. On the plus side I can get milk to squirt out of my nipples - a neat party trick (not that we go to many parties). AND just thinking about breastfeeding, or in this case, writing about breastfeeding makes them start leaking - amazing! Today at school this other lady's baby started to wail for a feed and hey presto! breasts are a leakin!

He is still asleep now at 18.01. I have to keep checking he's breathing. I am afraid for tonight. Can a baby sleep all day and all night?? I hope he keeps to his usual pattern of feed-sleep-feed-sleep-feed-sleep-feed. That way I can get 8 hours of sleep albeit in increments of 2-4 hours.

I put a few more pics on facebook today:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=132628&l=9b92d&id=855875421