Moo - a brief history

Well it's been a while. Nearly 8 months in actual fact since I posted anything of note, after Amelie (let's give her her real name!) was born, and it's not through not wanting to have posted anything, it's just... well, as any new parent will tell you, your time is not your own any longer!

I guess a brief potted history is in order initially.

After a hell of a labour, Moo (as she is known) came along, and 2 days later, thanks to the miraculous recovering powers of Mum (no longer MTB) family was home.

From day 1 at home, it appeared that Moo was colicky, or at least that was what the health visitor said, and tey had us trying all manner of remedy, changing formula, colocynthis granules, Infacol, all with no success. In fact, at 3 weeks' old, Moo cried solid for 20 hours, pausing only for 10 minute naps once every 3 hours. It was tragic to see and all doctors would do was say "Oh well, she'll grow out of it in 6 months!"

Jeez, whilst not ever advocating it, you can see how some mothers snap and shake their babies. How Darling Wife and Mum managed is beyond me. I had work as a respite but she didn't, and eventually, through her persistence, she convinced the health visitors that Moo had more than colic.

At 6 weeks old, Moo was prescribed Nutramigen, a balanced, hypo-allergenic formula that is completely lactose free. Within 2 days, she was a different baby. She stopped crying, she would sleep better, for the first time she appeared happy. It was magi, tinged only with annoyance at the fact that DW&M and Moo had to suffer so badly for 6 weeks first. I know that Nutramigen retails for about £13 a tin, so there is a budget to consider, but at some stage surely the taxes I have paid should count for something.

Since then, Moo has thrived. In August she was Christened in my home town, which was a very proud day, and she goes from strength to strength. When she was born, she was holding her head up, looking around. This thread has followed, with her developing at a great rate. I know I am biased, but at her 8 week assessment the doctor was impressed that her step reflex was gone and she was bearing weight, and at her 6 month assessment, she passed the criteria for her 8 month assessment!

She currently has 5 teeth, plus a molar coming through, and she is bearing up well to the teething process. A spate of gastroenteritis in November lasted 4 weeks, and culminated in projectile vomit, the wildest, dirtiest nappies ever (poo in armpits - lovely), but since then, she seems to be doing grand.

She scoots about in her baby walker now, loves toast for breakfast and loves looking in the mirror. When you hold her hands, she runs across the room, and adores bath time with her frog and the ducks. She babbles lots, said hello the other day (though hasn't said it again), and has lots of vowel sounds.

When I put her scoops of Nutramigen into her bottle, she counts them in (She has a cool counting system - every number sounds like "ah" - easy to master yet spookily she never gets a number wrong).

And when I come home from work, she beams when I walk up the path.

So all in all it's not a bad start at all. It's weird looking at all her newborn clothes and trying to get your head around the fact that they were too big for her to start with.

I will try and regularly update this blog now I have got back into it and have a wee bit of time to invest in it.

Return of dad to be...

I'm back, after 7 months of the most amazing life changing experiences...

stay tuned for an update soon - in the meantime, Moo is fine, mum is fine, and I am off to bed

Finally!!

Right, this is going to be short and to the point, as I am knackered (though not as knackered as Fantastic New Mum, now to be referred to as FNM). These next bullet points are what she went through...

• Admitted to hospital, 2pm, Friday.
• Given 2 pessaries to induce dilation. Slept from 1am to 3am on Saturday (early) morning. Unable to sleep beyond that, no contractions and ward for induction totally packed out.
• Saturday thereafter consisted of wandering about and waiting in vain for a space in Induction Ward. Getting stressed and 2cm dilated.
• Finally taken through to Induction ward at 1am, Sunday morning, given drip to induce contractions.
• Waters manually broken, merconium present.
• Contractions regular and painful, gas'n'air after 4 hours, morphine after 5 1/2
• 5cm dilated, contractions stop for about an hour - no reason seen, then they restart.
• Baby's heartbeat dips during contraction, slow to recover at times, but oxygen levels in Baby's blood ok.
• Still 5cm, contractions intense, quick and unrelenting. Remember when FNM last slept... drifting into unconsciousness between contractions.
• 10am, still 5cm, still hard contractions, FNM now exhausted and delerious. Baby's heartbeat still dropping on contractions and clinical staff concerned due to this and points as above.
• 10.30am, decision made to deliver by C Section as FNM is physically wrecked and showing no progress through contractions.
• 11am, through to theatre for FNM, I am led to locker room to put on scrubs and await an escort to theatre. This was the lonliest 30 minutes of my life. Ever. Myself and the boss upstairs had a one to one. I think he knew where I was coming from.
• 11.30am - through to theatre and FNM is anaesthetised and more compus mentis.
• 11.41am - a cry heralds the arrival of a purple, small, irate and angry looking cone-headed little sprite who is utterly perfect. With a good set of lungs.
• 11.50am. I get to hold the afore-described purple sprite who seems to like the sound of my voice. She tried to open her eyes in the theatre, but it's too bright so she screws them shut on every attempt. I look at the pinkening little sprite, as does FNM. We both still concur - she IS perfect.

FNM is stitched up and transfered to a recovery room along with now-pink Sprite. Sprite is confirmed to staff as being Millie. Millie still likes the sound of my voice. :)

We're a day on now, but I need my bed. So I'll do the rest later. In the meantime...

Millie, you have been evicted. Time to leave the Big Mamma house. Please do not swear!

Well, the thrawn wee mite has had her way, and we're booked in for MTB's induction tomorrow. Junior wriggles, squirms, kicks and generally attacks her mum's insides, but her time is now up and her eviction notice is soon to be served.

Here's hoping that it all goes to plan!

Will update soon.

It's like Christmas day without Santa!

Time has been marching on a-pace here, an today is D-Day - we are officially at our due date, with no sign whatsoever of Millie wanting to make an appearance. Her head's about 2-3/5s engaged and she's kicking around quite merrily, but she is just so damned happy where she is, I don't think she wants to change the staus quo.

It's been a while since I posted, due to work, trying to get the house/finances etc sorted, so here's a potted history of the last few weeks.

Millie was breach, but turned of her own volition around week 33. We have had numerous midwife appointments since, which have been box ticking, back covering exercises by the NHS in the main.

Mum To Be has had all her ante-natal classes - 3 of them. Not for mums to be in 2008 the breathing exercises of yesteryear, with dads invited along.

Nope, 3 classes, all seemingly sponsored by Unicef who want all mention of bottle feeding to be eradicated in favour of ovezealous pushing of breastfeeding. It's a mum's choice, and it's wrong to make someone el like a pariah for wanting to bottle feed.

We know of kids who are always ill with the sniffles who were breastfed, yet we have 3 nieces who were all bottle fed and are the hardiest critters about. So back off Unicef.

Rant over.

Mum to be has also embarked on a course of antibiotics, due to a horrid, deepseated chest infection and cough. Not a good thing to have in the run up to labour!

We've also got a new car that's more child friendly, and the baby seat has been installed by my own fair hands! And all bags are packed and ready to go. It's now down to Millie.

Latest scan picture

It's not as clear as some of the others, but this is Milly as of today, 26th March 2008.

A turn up for the books

Well, that's the 33 week scan done, and you'll never believe it, Milly has only gone and got herself head down, feet up and ready for action!

It's totally unexpected - we were preparing ourselves for an inevitable C-Section, which MTB was somewhat dismayed at, but we had both become resigned to. Milly seems to be a headstrong little so-and-so, so the one thing we didn't expect was for her to have gone and turned.

This is after our Labout Ward guided tour last night, and the dullest most uninspiring video about pain relief. Playing the video to mum's in labour would work - it would send them to sleep. Ironically we sat through last night thinking that none of it was of any consequence to us because of our daughter's unwillingness to play ball. I'm now scratching my head trying to remember ony of the salient points.

More scan pics to go on once I have scanned them.