Merry Christmas one and all!

Love from Santa Baby :)

Yes, I know it's cruel to dress your children up when they have no say in the matter, but in my defence I will add the following:

1) I did not buy the hat; it was a gift from Sam's sister.

2) She looks good in red. So there!

2008 Resolutions

What was yours? Have you done it?
Comments please!

Mine was to do three triathlons, and yes, mission accomplished, I'm very proud to say. :) Now, what to do in 2009?

Mucking around with black and white

She's sleeping on my tummy here. Check out the scar...

Hi Daddy!

Nearly smiling...
... there it is!
Being a supermodel is hard work.

Blowing my own trumpet

I made a really yummy beef salad for tea on Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday I whipped up a little craft project.

It's a kind of instant portable highchair, for when you are out and about. If folds up into a small pouch and fits nicely in the baby bag. Charlotte is a bit wee for it at the moment but it pays to think ahead :) Thanks to the fabric being free (thanks Ma!), I just saved myself about 35 bucks.

Here's the Aussie version. How did I do?

For the three people I know without facebook!

Here's some more Charlotte-y goodness to keep you happy :)

Tummy time.
Not great with the holding the head up business, but getting better every day.



Look at Moi. I is a supermodel!



Raspberries to you too!

She's actually breastfeeding here, but Sam was being discreet with the camera.



Yum eskimos! (Thanks to Chrissy for the Photoshopping)

Done.

I've done it. I just entered the Scorching triathlon, which is on December 7.

A few numbers: That's 20 days from now, it's a 500m/10km/5km course, and Charlotte will be 10 1/2 weeks by then.

What have I done???

Not about Charlotte

I told you I could talk about something else!

I played two games of netball last night and lived to tell the tale. Not as fit as I used to be, but still better than I thought. At least I could still catch and throw.

Next goal: Triathlon on December 7. This is the third one in my New Year resolution to complete three tri's this year. Wish me luck!

Charlotte Update

Yes, my life DOES revolve around her at the moment. I promise to blog about the rest of my life sans baby at some stage, when I figure out what those bits are!

Random shots from the last week or so:

Charlotte's first walk around the Neonates ward. Cordless!

Shortly afterwards she had her first bath.

First photo taken when we came home, under her snazzy bassinet quilt, lovingly made my Sam's Mum (*). Stuffed creatures courtesy of Sam's sister. Her friend makes them. Weird but cool. :)

(*) Charlotte will call her 'Dinny'. Apparently Thomas, the eldest grandkid, couldn't say 'C's or 'G's when he was small. I think it's a corruption of Granny. We call Coke 'doke' for the same reason. Interesting that he could say the K but not the C...

Home

is where the BABY is!

********

Stayed three nights in a Mother's room at Welly hospital, being woken 3-4 hourly to feed. I slept the rest of the time mostly, as did Charlotte.

We came home yesterday afternoon to a clean and tidy house, and dinner provided. Thanks Ma and Sam!

Other than during Family Nap Time (tm), which is from 1 till 3pm, we would love to see anyone who wants to pop in for a visit. Be aware you have to make your own coffee as I am under orders to rest as much as possible. Nah - I'm just lazy actually :)

I am also planning to visit UHC on Wednesday morning, so don't come then.

It's good to be home. :)

The Verdict

Charlotte comes home...

When the feeding line comes out of her foot.

Which will happen when she is on full feeds.

Which will happen when she gets the hang of breastfeeding.

Which is harder than it seems.


And the lactation consultant is on leave this week. Typical.

Finding out today

I'm about to head into town for the 9am feed. There is a meeting today at 10-11ish between all the doctors and some of the nurses to decide what happens with certain babies today; Charlotte being one of them.

Basically, when she is up to full feeds (bottle or breast - whatever) she and I move to Hutt Hospital for a day or two, then home. YAY!!!

Unfortunately, time scale for that ranges from "five more days" (overheard from a doctor) to "by the end of the week" (from the boss nurse of Neonates - to me personally).

We shall see.

Who needs a cot...

... when you have Daddy?

Charlotte took 30ml yesterday and kept it down :)

Getting there slowly

Charlotte has now graduated from an incubator to a plastic cot. She still has a tube in her foot for top-up feeds, but the oral-gastric tube came out today. It wasn't supposed to come out till Monday, but it was starting to come out and Charlotte was having trouble getting a seal on the bottle with the tube in the way.

Today she had 30ml in a bottle, but only managed half of it before she got tired of sucking and fell asleep. She's still not quite got the hang of sucking for an extended period of time, poor wee mite.

We may start breastfeeding on Monday, if she can manage this sucking business anyway.

First Cuddles!

Charlotte is now a week old. She is off the ventilator and off the morphine. The chest drain is gone, and the dressing comes off the surgery site soon. The only tubes attached are the tube down her throat (for feeding and keeping the oesophagus open) and a canula in her foot (for nutrient feeds in addition to milk).


Today I got to cuddle her and I held her while the nurse gave her 5ml of breast milk through the tube (see photo). This is the first milk she has ever had in her tummy, as my attempts at feeding on her first day actually went into her lungs. Apparently reflux is a common problem with repairs such as Charlotte's, but she kept it all down.





Much as I hate pacifiers/dummies, Charlotte has one to suck on when feeding so that she associates sucking with a full tummy. This should help the transition to breastfeeding in about 4 days when the tube comes out. The hospital has lent us an electric pump for expressing at home, which is great because the hand operated one just doesn't cut it for 5-6 milking sessions a day, especially at 3am!


I am getting through a lot of reading right now. Like one book every 2 days. I fear I will never have so much free time ever again, so I'm making the most of it!

Update

Today Charlotte was given the last dose of the paralysing drug so now she can move around and open her eyes. She is still on morphine which means she is still sleeping a lot, so she hasn't really opened her eyes for more than a few seconds today.

One side effect of not moving for 5 days is that she has retained a lot of fluid and so her face is all puffy, especially round her eyes and mouth. She has big juju lips, which looks kinda funny. This should clear up in a day or so.

She also had the chest drain and the cannula in her foot removed. That was where the drugs were injected, so no need for it now.

Tomorrow she comes off the ventilator. Then I might get a CUDDLE! Haven't had one since last Thursday, so I'm looking forward to it a great deal. And she'll be able to cry. It will be a very welcome sound. At least for the first few minutes.

Video of Charlotte

Video courtesy of Damon here

Thanks D.

Charlotte

Sam brought the laptop in for me at the hospital so I can compose a blog post for him to put up when he gets home. What can I say? I am completely overwhelmed by everything at this stage.

After a magical first 20 or so hours with what we all thought was a perfect little baby we are now faced with weeks of time with wee Charlotte in the Neonatal unit at Wellington Hospital, with all kinds of tubes and needles poking into her. We’d all like our children to be special in some way, but this is not quite what we had in mind.

If you haven’t quite caught up on the happenings, here’s a bit of a timeline from the last few days:

Tues night
Got home from the movies about 9pm and went to bed. At 9:30 I rolled over, my waters broke and I gushed all over the place. Luckily I had taken Carol’s advice about putting a shower curtain under the top sheet and sleeping on a towel! The midwife said contractions could start any time in the next 24 hours and not to stay awake waiting for them so I got Sam to help change the sheets and got back in bed with a bunch of towels. Contractions started about twenty minutes later. Just like me to be efficient. I got up and emailed some work for my classes in between the next sets of contractions, then called the midwife at about 11pm who suggested I take a bath to ease the pain and call her when the contractions were 3 min apart and stayed that way for an hour. Which they pretty much were already. Got in the bath anyway, and grit my teeth to the pain for a bit longer. I eventually got to the stage where conversation consisted of one unintelligible grunt at a time between contractions, and we decided to head to the hospital. Good thing we did, as just after we arrived I had the urge to push. The midwife arrived just as I was getting up on the bed, and after about 40 minutes helped us to deliver a beautiful dark haired angel just after 12:45 am Wednesday 24 September. We decided to name her Charlotte Alexandra, although she was actually nameless till about lunchtime on Wednesday.

Wednesday
Kirsten and my cousin Nicole were both coming to watch the birth (both being nurses and not wanting to miss an opportunity like that), but the baby was too fast, and they both came into the delivery suite to be greeted by me holding a wee baby, apologising that they missed it. They didn’t seem to mind. They both got to have a good look at the placenta and talked medical stuff with the midwife for a while, which may have been some consolation.

We called Mum, and Sam’s folks, and Carol, who were all delighted to be woken at such a reasonable hour. Colin and Anne even came straight down to the hospital to have their first cuddle at 1am! Anne checked the ears for Hall family sticky-outed-ness and pronounced them ok. Charlotte and I got cleaned up and into our own room, and people went home as I drifted off to sleep about 3am. I kept waking all night as Charlotte’s breathing was very rattly. Apparently since she came out so fast she didn’t get the fluid squeezed out of her lungs properly. We had been assured this would clear up after about 12-24 hours, so I wasn’t too concerned.

From about 7am, we started getting text messages and phone calls and visitors, which didn’t stop till about 1pm. Good thing the ward has a compulsory no visitors period, or I never would have got any rest! The onslaught continued in the afternoon till Sam went home around 9pm.

Later that night, one of the nurses suggested that a doctor have a listen to Charlotte’s lungs as she was still very rattly, and not very interested in feeding. She carried Charlotte away and said she would come back and fill me in later. It was around 10pm, so I lay back down for a sleep while I waited. The doctor came back and asked me to go see her in the Special Care unit at the end of the hallway. When I got there she explained that Charlotte’s trachea and oesophagus were still connected, when they should have separated before she was born. This meant that most of the milk she was getting was going into her lungs, and not making it to her stomach. We were going to have to transfer her to Wellington where surgery could be performed to correct this.

The ambulance came to transfer Charlotte, and my Mum came in to take me as well. Wellington hospital had no bed available for me, so technically I had to discharge myself in order to be allowed to go with her. Not that I was really in a fit state to be moving, but I didn’t want to stay behind while she went without me. I ended up spending about 4 hours napping in a chair in the Wellington Neonatal unit while they settled Charlotte in and organised an x-ray. At about 4am I finally made it back to the Hutt to my own bed and a sleeping husband.

Thursday
Sam and I made our way into Wellington at 9:30am, just in time to see Charlotte being prepped for surgery. We met the surgeon and I bawled through most of his explanations of how it would go. Sam took most of it in though. I think I was still in a bit of post birth shock; there was still no bed for me and I was in a lot of pain having to walk all over the hospital from Neonates to Surgery and back again. After a bit of a meltdown in the Neonates waiting room, a nice lady mentioned the Ronald McDonald room in the childrens’ ward, where there was a quiet family space and a separate bedroom. Bliss! I finally got the liedown I needed and slept through the surgery time.

I was also worried about my milk; everyone was doing everything for C, but I couldn’t make my milk come and there was nobody to show me. I was quite distraught at this stage, but eventually someone contacted the lactation consultant who got me a pump and set me up for action. Charlotte came through the surgery just fine and by 4pm I had a bed in the Gynaecology ward. I didn’t care where it was; I just needed to sleep again. This crying business was very tiring.

Friday
By this stage, things are beginning to become a little more clear. Charlotte’s repair was tricky as there was quite a gap between the two ends of the oesophagus that needed to be connected. This means that she needs to be sedated and immobilised for five days to enable healing to take place. So no cuddles or holds till at least then. Not easy. We are allowed to hold her hand and stroke her head but that’s about it.

I feel a bit like a milking cow, hooking up to a sucky machine every 3-4 hours, but am pleased that things are happening there. My milk is being frozen until she gets woken up and is off the ventilator. Even then she’ll get it through a tube in her nose for a while until her oesophagus heals completely and I can feed her properly.

I hope to come home on Saturday or Sunday, as I am almost all healed up and much more mobile. There will be a fair bit of commuting to Welly for some time though until Charlotte is well enough to bring home.

Thanks to everyone who has visited/texted/called/commented/prayed etc. It’s gonna be a long road, but at least we have a map.

This is a video from Wellington Cathedral. Not great production values, but at about 3:50 they talk about the crosses that my Dad used to make. Cool, he's famous.


Angels from http://vimeo.com/user551273?pg=embed&sec=1687282 on Vimeo.

Counting Down

I haven't been blogging much recently, mostly because everything I think or say or do at the moment is BABY BABY BABY and that gets a little boring if you're not the one having the baby.

Having said that, I am now talking about the baby again. 5 weeks to go!! OMG!

I have 3 1/2 weeks left of school now. And with Senior exams that means ten lessons or so left with Year 12/13 classes, and 14 or so lessons with my year 9s. I have so much to do and not a lot of time to do it! I just hope the baby isn't early, so I can get everything done in time.

*******

We had to euthanase (or euthanise... whatever) Poppy (our dark brown rat) on the weekend. She had these abscesses all over her lymph glands, and it was going to cost well over $250 to fix, with a chance that it wouldn't be fixable - $250 that we just don't have. The other option was only $30. No brainer really. She is buried next to Wee Man, under the lemon tree. Lily (the grey one) is wandering around in her cage looking all folorn and lonely. Poor mite.

*******

I have two, count 'em, TWO baby showers being organised for me. My work one is this Saturday, and a friends and family one is on Saturday 13th. Big yay to my work mates and my sister for organising them!

Consider yourself invited to the second one if I haven't asked you already. It's from 2 till 5pm at our place, and you need to bring a baby photo of yourself. Boys are welcome too - I gather the menfolk are going to escape to a pub somewhere.

dream

I had a strange dream on Sunday night.

I was on the West Coast, at the Punakaiki rocks, and I was jumping off into the water, which was a river rather than the sea. The current kept pushing me back up onto the top of the rocks, from where I would jump in again and again. There were signs everywhere warning that swimming was prohibited or dangerous or something, but I kept doing it, as there was nobody around to stop me anyway. At one stage the current carried me to the other side of the river, and I could stand in the shallows. I was able to swim back across, and against the current to end up in a calm pool on the upstream side. Not sure how it was calm if it was on the upstream side, but I guess that's the cool thing about dreams - they don't have to make sense.

Anyone care to analyse this?

On another note, who else has that dream where your teeth fall out? You spit out one or two, then they all start to crumble, and you're left with a handful of bits of teeth and blood and stuff. I haven't had that one for a while, but it recurs every now and then. I gather it's to do with money, but not sure.