A tiny bit more sleep

Jack and I slept from 9:30 to 1:40 last night, and then from 2:15 to 4:48.. That's more than 6 hours (!!) and then no more (i.e. I've been up since before 5), although he's sleeping in the sling right now, providing a sound track of snores and snuffles and bleats..

that seems like the most sleep I've got since he was born 4 weeks and 3 days ago.. Hooray! Although I only want to take tentative pleasure in this, as it could all change, I remind myself that he is too young for routine.. at least he's off his feeding frenzy, I really worried that I could not manage that anymore - every 2 hours for something like 10 days..

I'm still really nervous to leave him with anyone for more than 2 hours, twice I've run back from an outing (once with friends, once a 15-minute swim at Montebello) only to find him happily sleeping.. I don't worry about him so much as the person who has to hold him squalling and yelling away. It's hard to sleep in the day when someone else has him, I am still hyper alert and every sound sounds like a fussy baby.

Sometimes when tired/overwhelmed, I feel so remote and detached from him, and then I see him and my breasts fill with milk, or he cries and it turns some little stress button in me, and I realize I am connected to him in this incredibly intimate way..

Luckily, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, he is beautiful, so it is always possible, usually easy to overcome feelings of frustration/stress/ desperation to comfort him, look after him.. Not that I have too many of those but I did have those two desperate mornings where I thought I could not cope and was full of anger.

It's all so odd, sometimes i cannot believe i am a mother, such a profound change, and yet I'm still me, plus this little person.

Firsts

First time lying awake in a basinette without crying - week 4 under Grandma's care
first time using soother - week 4
first trip away- to Montebello - week 4
first time comforted from a full squall -week 5
first feeding frenzy -8-10 days of near-constant feeding - week 2
first time settled by lullabies - week 5
first time settled by mother - week 1 or 2 (previously always settled by Granny or Martin)
first time sat in bouncy chair so that I could eat a hurried lunch - week 5
First smile at dad -week 4
First brown chicken korma poo - 1 week
First time in bar -week 5 on his birthday
(First time forced to leave bar by bad behaviour- 10 minutes later)
First dinner party - week 1 at J&D's house

Sleep?

He is one month old today.. and I am tired, he is finally starting to go for 3 hour stretches between feeding in the day (after a 10-day long feeding frenzy where he was nursing every 2 hours... He gained 14 ounces in 8 days but very much at my expense!) but he is not sleeping much at night.. 2 hours, then 30-40 minute stretches. I keep waking up, not certain whether I even put him down between feedings, totally exhausted. The last two mornings his grandparents took him in bed with them and I got an extra essential hour.

for two days I felt truly desperate and hate-full at 5 a.m., while the world slumbered round, but I am now managing my mood better - just tired and not talkative, but no longer depressed/teary/angry..

Martin is going to help me on the weekend, normally he sleeps elsewhere as he has to work, and he is in any case very tired - he, not having the training of being a former insomniac like me, is exhausted just by having broken sleep, I think he is almost as tired after getting 8 hours, with 2 or 3 brief wakings, as I am by the same 8 hours, with 4 up feeding the boy.. We are going to try to see if Jack sleeps better with Martin, and no me (breasts) around.. worth a try. Fortunately he is a lovely boy so he gets away with it, but this is frustrating. I keep reminding myself we have done one month already, and things are getting more normal.

Baby Jack is 3 weeks old (well actually 4 by the time I'd edited this)

Wow... time flies when you're constantly breastfeeding.. so much to say, some highlights

Birth: The midwife came at 10 a.m. on Day 15 of my 'late pregnancy' and broke my water with something that looked remarkable like a crochet hook.. immediate uncomfortable peeing-my-pants feeling since the baby's head was blocking the passage, little gushes of water kept coming out..

She left saying it might not work, and I was scheduled to be induced the next day.. Martin and I went for a walk and I immediately started having contractions- almost every 3 minutes, by the time we got back to the house - a very long 15 minute return walk from Dow's Lake- they were coming every 2 to 3 minutes and Martin called the midwife. She came around 1:00, I was 5 cm dilated (I'd been almost 4 when she broke my waters), and it was decided to go to hospital.

I was feeling pretty rough -all the describing say to go to hospital when your contractions are 5 minutes apart - but I guess my labour was really accelerated. At the hospital met by midwives at the door who took me up in a wheelchair while Martin went to park, and then to the delivery room where I promptly threw up, and felt a bit better. Then into the tub, after seemingly endless period where it filled up with water, I go 5 minutes break then back to the crazy contractions and incredible pain in my back.. (For some reason I just didn't believe 95% of people who described the pain, choosing to go with my sister and another friend who said it wasn't so bad.. so I was slightly shocked at the pain) At this point I asked for gas, still aware that my midwife was not so into epidurals, so I guess somewhat able to manage the pain, not out of control.

Back onto the bed, where I started inhaling gas which I think took the edge off the pain- I was deeply concentrating and kind of out it, didn't even really notice when they put a machine on me to monitor the baby (apparently I was bleeding a bit, due to what turned out to be an extra lobe on my placenta) .. Poor Martin was all worried about the baby, but I was just Be-ing, responding/reacting to the pain..

I pushed for about 1.5 hours, kind of a relief as you are doing something - trying to expel the baby- and you get little rests in between. They asked me to feel his head - which was apparently on the brink of appearing the entire 1.5 hours- and I did and said 'gross' - it was covered with lubricant, natural and artificial.. After that I was no longer asked to touch! At one point they put a labour chair on the hospital bed, but I had visions of falling off it, so just was on hands and knees grabbing it, after a while they replaced the chair with an exercise ball, and it was in this position- on knees with arms over ball, bum in the air, that Jack was born.

After all that waiting/straining/enduring/pushing it seemed incredibly fast, Martin was teary and I was sort of shocked- in this split second you become a parent. He was put on my chest and proceeded to scream (good because they were worried that he was so late he might be sick from swallowing meconium - baby's first poo - in utero). It took me a while to get the emotion of it all, but it did come- mostly in sudden unexpected tears over the next few days.

We hung out in the labour room for a while, refused the all-clear to go home- I didn't want to walk to the car, let alone figure out the car seat etc - and went to our private room where we called family and friends and hung out with the spud.

It was good we stayed in the hospital b/c the night nurse took Jack at one point - I hadn't even realized he was upset - and when she came back she said he'd thrown up mucus and blood (inhaled during the delivery) I was so glad I hadn't seen that.. let alone had it happen in the middle of night at home, I would have freaked..

Anyhow, the next day at midday, with my mother assisting, in a bliding snow flurry, we drove Jack home and the next chapter of our life began..