Elijah's newborn photos!

Paul came round with Elijah's newborn photos this evening, yay! I am so tired out and haven't got time to write anything but I wanted to post them here straight away, and I'll try to write an update soon. For more about the photo session, go to the previous entry which I posted last night. :)

These are my photos, but taken by Paul, and I think they are copyrighted to him, so please don't copy these photos without my permission (Nicola, permission granted! ;) ). Thanks!

Here's my sweet little manny! I love him sooooo!

Photo session (8 days old) and poo!

Whoops. Somehow a week has passed since I last updated! :S That's a LONG time in Newborn Land! Elijah is sleeping next to me but he is likely to wake at any moment for a feed, so I may only have seconds to try and cram a whole week of news in before he wakes!

Elijah had his photos taken at 8 days old, on Monday this past week. It went really well! Our friend Paul from church is a keen photographer - he doesn't earn a living from it but he does "professional" shoots. He has never done newborn photography before and wanted to bless us with some photos, and have some fun - he led me to believe he needed to build up a portfolio, but it turns out he pretty much just thought it would be a fun new experience and that we would like to have special photos of our tiny manny! How lovely! :)

He picked Elijah and I up at 9ish in the morning and we knew it would take all morning to do, going at Elijah's pace and seeing how we got on. Elijah HATED his first experience in a car seat, poor baby! He screamed frantically until we got to a road with speed bumps and then he suddenly fell fast asleep practically mid-scream! ;) He stayed asleep for the first half hour we were there, and woke as I was taking his clothes off ready for the first photo. So I fed him and he went to sleep, and since he was already a nakey baby, we put him straight into position for a photo right from the breast. The very first thing he did when positioned on the towels was a wee, hehe! Thankfully he was on his tummy so it wasn't a big deal. He did great. Pretty much every time we tried a new pose or brought a prop into the shot, he started squirming and fussing until he was awake and displeased! ;) So I did a lot of breastfeeding over the morning and consequently Elijah did a lot weeing on whatever he was laid on, lol! I was so nervous after a couple of hours that he would poo, because he pretty much doesn't go longer than a few hours between poos - well, he's going a bit longer than that at the moment but at the beginning of the week he was pooing about every 2-3 hours, if not more frequently. Oh how funny, as I typed that he squirmed in his sleep and emitted a squirty sound from his bottom, hehehe! Guess I'll be changing that in a mo! ;)

Anyway, thankfully (amazingly!) he didn't poo at all while we were there, but the momemt I got him out of his car seat when we arrived home, he did a mega blow-out (out of the sides and back of the nappy - his first!). I was so glad he didn't do that during the photo shoot!

Some of the poses were soooo sweet to put him into, because awwww he's so buttery soft and foldable, and being fast asleep at the same time was just adorable to watch. Paul's 16-year-old daughter was helping us, and she would keep saying, "Awwwww!!!" when Elijah was put into a new pose! Ohhh, more squirty sounds from the sleeping boy... :S Hope it won't be a blow-out. Those are no fun to change!

I think we got various photos taken of only 4 or 5 different poses, but it took until about 1.30pm! I was soooo tired suddenly when I sat down to feed him at that point, I felt a bit unwell with it really, all of a sudden. There were more ideas that Paul had for photos, but they had a Jubilee gathering to attend in the afternoon in any case, and we were happy with what we'd got already. Paul has to edit the photos but he works full time. He thought maybe he might be able to get a disc of photos to me this weekend but I know this weekend has a ton of social events that he's running/part of at church, so I am not sure if he'll actually have time.

MORE squirty sounds! Yikes. He's still sleeping but he'll wake when he's finished, I should think. Then I won't have chance to type any more tonight, for sure, so perhaps I'll post this? Mind you I haven't written much yet, so maybe I'll save it and finish it tomorrow or something? Hmmm...

There's a photo that I really hope comes out okay - Paul happened to have a basket with a Union Jack flag pattern all over it, and he wondered about using it to put Elijah in, since it was the Queen's Jubilee weekend (I'm one who LOVES all things royal and the Jubilee, by the way!), and I loved the idea!! So we got a photo of him in there. I hope it comes out well! Can't wait to see what he's captured, and post them online!

Yet more squirty sounds. This is shaping up to be a blow-out nappy for sure.

So Paul drove us home, and Elijah didn't fall asleep this time, he was just mightily cross with the journey and the indignity of being squished into a car seat! ;) When I lifted his car seat out of Paul's car and he drove off, one of the neighbours was coming out to her car. She looked kind of shocked, and said, "Another one?! How many's that now?!" I don't think she knew I was even pregnant so I can understand her reaction! ;) I said, "Six..." and she said, "Aw my gawd!" and came over to look at him in his car seat (crying angrily!). She asked if we were just trying to get a girl, and I said no, just a baby, and that I loved having babies (this is now my default answer, as I'm getting used to saying it a lot now!).

Okay, he's awake, so I'll have to finish this another time!

Well, the poo stayed contained, but he made up for it by weeing in his own face while I changed his nappy, lol! Poor baby!

After we got home, I was so tired and hungry, and it was after 2pm! I grabbed a few things to eat from the kitchen and took them upstairs with Elijah. I ate while I breastfed my Very Fed-Up Baby (he did not enjoy the travelling aspect!) and then he was exhausted, so we went to bed. I think I was asleep with him by 2.30pm, and the boys and Neil were out at Box Hill all day with Uncle Ian, so it was a quiet house. I kept waking up to feed Elijah when he stirred, and sometimes checked the time, but I still felt soooo tired! I ended up waking up properly when the phone rang next to me, and it was Neil saying he knew it was a bit late, but they were about to set off for home, so it would be near 8pm when they got back. I thought, "What?!?!" and was amazed to see that it was after 7pm already when I looked at the clock! I guess the morning had been more than I was quite ready for, and it really tired me out. I had some pain in my left breast that day too, and the day before, and I ended up with a fever and much worse pain when I woke the next morning, so maybe that's partly why I'd needed to sleep like that when we got home?

Anyway I will have to write about the "almost mastitis" episode another time, because it's late, Elijah is fussing and I need to go to bed! I'll post this for now and try again tomorrow - Elijah is two weeks old tomorrow!!! I cannot believe how fast it's going!

Six days old :)

Elijah is 6 days old today. Yesterday he had his heel prick test and did great. I was glad to hold and feed him while they did it, rather than hand him over for the whole thing like with some of my other babies. He was a brave boy! :) They also weighed him again, even though it was only 48 hours after they'd come to weigh him when he was 3 days old. She said that she might as well, while she was here! He weighed 6lbs 7oz!!! That's pretty good considering he was 6lbs 1oz 48 hours earlier!

My milk is well in, leaking and hurting like crazy when it lets down, so he is getting per-lenty when he feeds. And he feeds pretty much all the time, and has cat-naps in between, so I'm not toooo surprised that he's gaining weight well now! :) See now, I'm writing about my milk and even though he's fast asleep, I'm leaking milk all over my top, lol! I am so happy to have milk flowing again! I love lactating! :)

Benjamin nursed at bedtime last night! He had said he didn't like the taste, and it was for The Lijah (this is how he pronounces Elijah's name, soooo sweet!) and not him anymore, bless his heart! He seemed a bit sad but was happy with a cuddle instead. The next night I asked if he wanted milky but he said he didn't like it and it was for The Lijah now. Last night I asked him again, since he was watching me breastfeed Samuel at bedtime, and he just nodded yes, as though he'd never decided not to the previous two nights! He didn't nurse for long, but he seemed happy enough. He said he liked my special new milky, so who knows! Arthur did pretty much the same thing when he was 3 (Benjamin is 4 months younger with his 2nd younger sibling than Arthur was, due to slightly smaller age gaps the last few babies) - didn't like the new milky (very upset though!), and then went back to it as though nothing had happened after a few days, and continued until I weaned him at age 4! So perhaps Benjamin will now carry on as normal? I'm happy if he does, but I don't mind if he weans. He has breastfed for 2 years and 10 months, which is wonderful for him, and my goal for all my children is at least 2 years for the very best I can give them, so I am happy with what we've achieved! :)

Okay Elijah is now snuffling and squeaking and wriggling about, so I am going to feed him! I'll try to add more later.

I took some photos of Elijah at 4 days old, like I said last entry, and didn't get chance to post them before, so here they are now :) He was having some calm alert time and I put him across my lap for a few minutes so I could take some photos. You can't see it in the first picture but I took this one as a personal happy memory shot - my long-awaited view of my 'parkly toad (love that Benjamin-ism!) beyond my sweet new baby, here at last! :D

He saw me, and then the camera :)

So weeny on my lap!

Thank you afresh to Meg for sending this sweet teeny little outfit when Nathan was born! It's one of my favourites but all the babies since Nathan have been too big to wear it, until now :)

Elijah is so funny when he's calm and alert. He has such a look of... I don't know, a cross between amazed, perplexed and aghast, lol! ;) His little mouth sort of sits open - it has the same semi-circle shape (straight bottom lip) as newborn Nathey. When it's closed, his top gum often sits over his bottom lip, again just like Nathan - none of the others have this. Heather says that if you draw an imaginary line across his face just below the bridge of his nose, everything above it is Benjamin, and everything below it is Nathan, and I think that's a pretty accurate observation. He most definitely has Benji's brows! He currently has dark murky eyes, and so far only the two boys with some brown to their eyes have started off like that, so I'm excited to see what they settle as! Arthur's are brown, and Benjamin's are grey but now have a ring of true brown around the pupil, about half the thickness of his iris.

Here are a couple more pics of Elijah at 4 days old, with the look I referred to earlier! ;)

He's sooooo still and calm and quiet when he's like this. He just blinks occasionally and moves his eyes, and occasionally his tongue, hehe! Sweet little fast baby-breathing, and no other sounds. Love him!! He has the usual dark hair that they've all had as newborns, but less than some of his brothers. The unique thing about Elijah's newborn hair is that he has a sort of slightly nappy fuzz on top - definitely the least amount of hair there that any of them have had - but the usual inch-or-so long hair on the back and sides, lol! Sweet little pea! He reminds me of a little old man with his hair and his lack of chub!

I love to take photos of him sleeping. He is starting to sleep longer stretches between feeds, even 2-3 hours now on occasion. He almost always sleeps on my front or attached to me in some way, which I have the luxury of doing with him while I'm on my "babymoon", resting up mostly in bed. If I put him down, I tend to put him on his side (he startles awake quickly on his back, although less so if I put something at his feet with his legs bent up at the knee - he really likes the comfort of the fetal position still. Anyway I lay him curled up on his side and put a little rolled up baby blanket behind his back. If I lay him down, he wakes within 5 minutes or so, but I am trying to do so at least a couple of times a day and using that time to do stretches and stuff (GENTLE stretches!) because I am getting some tight sore muscles, especially in my shoulders and back, and it helps to stand up and walk and stretch them out as often as possible. I have had the most horrible sinus (maybe?) headache for 2 days that has hurt like crazy in every bone of my face, and the base of my skull at the back. Even my teeth hurt, which makes me wonder if I'm grinding my teeth in my sleep or something? Anyway, paracetamol hasn't touched it (I don't find it a very effective drug for me anyway) and it has been so sore that I have not known what to DO with myself. Last night I decided that I would just try to stay asleep as long as it lasted, to escape it. Every hour or two I woke with Elijah to feed him and it was still there, so when morning came I just carried on "night feed" style, just breastfeeding him lying side-by-side and going back to sleep - he was very accommodating, thankfully! He's not old enough yet to want or need to be "up for the day" at any point! :) When I woke with him at 10.45am, I was relieved to find my headache much better! Still there, but totally manageable, yay! So I got up, andd thankfully it hasn't worsened all day. I've had allergies since Elijah was born, so my sinuses are annoyed.

I'm sure there are some random things that I've been meaning to say but forgot... Oh! The GP came round to do Elijah's newborn check the day after he was born, and she did his head circumference which was 34cm :) That's 13.4 inches, and the weeniest little head I've delivered yet! My last two babies had 38cm (15 inch!!) heads!!!

I gave Elijah his first bath 2 days ago, this time by getting in the bath myself and taking him with me! :) Ahhh it was a lovely blissful bonding experience until he started to fuss a bit. I put him straight to the breast and was just smiling in pure contentment while he nursed in the warm water, when the inevitable happened. Yeah, he pooed. And when I say he pooed, I mean he POOED. Yellow squirty seedy breastmilk poo, one whole nappyful. Then it stopped and I sat frozen, looking at it all swirling around me in the water. I was still sat frozen when he did round two. Oh yes.

So we got out and I washed out the bath and ran a second one! ;) It was okay in the end! Funny story though, one I'll remember fondly for sure! :)

Today I took a few photos of my little treasure sleeping, so I will post them here and then I must go to bed, as it's now really late!

He is sleeping on my chest as I type this, and now I am going to put him down and brush my teeth, and go to bed with him snuggled against my tummy. These days are such bliss and such a fleeting privilege! I am cherishing every second, praising God continually for His goodness, and praying (already, lol!) for more precious little ones to hold and love and cherish. :)